Foundations for Aotearoa's future

Election year has encouraged us to look back at the obstacles we’ve faced over the last three years; many of them ongoing, and critical to the future of the country. Persistent inflation, a cost-of-living crisis, unaffordable housing, public health system waiting times, declining literacy and numeracy rates, and an increasing crime rate are just some of the issues driving the agenda for a reprioritisation of government focus.

With election season well and truly upon us, this is an opportunity to consider whether it’s finally time that New Zealand moved to a four-year electoral cycle. It’s a decision that can only be made by a 75% vote in Parliament or by a simple majority in a public referendum, and previously the prevailing opinion among voters has been that we want to keep our politicians on a tight leash. Two referendums have been held on the subject – in 1967 and 1990 – and both were lost by more than two thirds’ majorities.

While tax barely featured during Election 2020, it’s been front of mind and in the headlines continuously in 2023, with political parties actively proposing a plethora of new taxes to fund other tax reductions and spending. A lot of the attention has gone onto policies which have more direct impact on individuals, such as personal tax rate changes, wealth taxes, and removal of GST from food, but the reality is these changes would all have flow on impacts to businesses.

The failure of essential infrastructure in the weather disasters New Zealand has sustained in the last 18 months has put resilience firmly on the agenda for next term – regardless of the election outcome. Finance Minister Grant Robertson, announcing the creation of the National Resilience Plan with an “initial” budget allocation of $6 billion, said it was “unacceptable that basic lifeline services like telecommunications, power and transport links were knocked out for so long” after Cyclone Gabrielle.

Farmers turned out in force for this year’s Election Survey, with nearly half the respondents coming from agriculture, forestry, and fishing. This underscores two factors: the primary sector is hugely important to our economy, and it’s also feeling considerable pressure on a range of fronts, including labour force availability, regulation, the cost of inputs and the need to act on climate mitigation and adaptation.

Labour came into government in 2017 with a substantial workplace reform agenda but unless it wins a third term may leave having achieved very little of lasting value. The jewel in the Crown is the Fair Pay Agreements (FPAs) reform, achieved after Labour was unshackled from New Zealand First and able to govern in its own right. Except that it didn’t manage to get the Bill passed until 1 November 2022, meaning that it is extremely unlikely that any FPA will be completed before the country goes to the polls on 14 October.