Another Poll highlights how Budget has hurt National

Exclusive: National loses control of cost of living to Labour in new survey

The Government’s Budget is doing little to reassure voters National can manage the cost of living with a new poll showing more people back Labour to bring down prices.

The latest Ipsos NZ issues monitor survey, conducted immediately after this year’s Budget and obtained exclusively by the Herald, found National had lost New Zealanders’ confidence in managing inflation/the cost of living with voters instead trusting Labour more to handle what was considered the primary issue in the country.

Overall, Labour was considered more capable in handling 11 of the top 20 issues Kiwis were grappling with, including health, housing, education, transport, immigration and unemployment.

National trumped Labour in only three: the economy, crime and defence/foreign affairs.

The Green Party was considered the authority on climate change and environmental pollution while Te Pāti Māori was the only other party to feature, believed to be the most capable on issues facing Māori.

Matthew Hooton pointed out before the 2023 Election that the National Party had become so intellectually vacant that they had lost any actual political philosophy and into this void Corporate Interests replaced ideology with donor interest deregulation talking points.

Implementing their policy platform simply meant passing law that only benefited their interests at the cost of the wider economy.

Labour is good for Capitalism.

National is good for Capitalists.

The Free Market Mantra of the NZ Initiative is a mask for those corporate interests...

MacCulloch highlights the oversized influence of The New Zealand Initiative

MacCulloch’s ire frequently targets the New Zealand Initiative, a think tank he repeatedly labels as the “National Party’s Adviser / Think Tank” and a lobbying group for corporate monopolies.

He highlights the connections:

• • Finance Minister Willis was a Director of the NZ Initiative.
  • The Prime Minister’s Chief Economic Adviser, Matt Burgess, was a Senior Economist at the Initiative and previously advised Bill English. Chris Luxon, as CEO of Air New Zealand, also used to attend Initiative meetings.
  • The Initiative’s board includes figures like Scott Perkins (Non-Executive Director of Woolworths), Chris Quinn (Chief Executive of Foodstuffs North Island), and Barbara Chapman (former Chair of a Big Bank).
  • The Chair of the NZ Initiative, Roger Partridge, is also the former Chair of Bell Gully, where Willis’ father was a partner.

MacCulloch accuses the Initiative of being “Pro-Monopoly, Anti-Consumer.” He cites their support for the Foodstuffs North and South Island supermarket merger, their push for lower bank capital requirements (which he argues would shift risk to taxpayers), and their opposition to requiring internet giants to pay for local news content (Google is a member of the Initiative).

He argues that the National Party hasn’t done the necessary work on economic policy, which means that the NZ Initiative can step in with some ready-made answers, which the Government essentially adopts as its policy. In this sense, MacCulloch accuses the Initiative of being a cypher for what the oligopolies want implemented by the Coalition Government.

The big banks, electricity companies, supermarkets, property developers, and petrol companies tell the NZ Initiative what policies would suit their businesses the best, and this is passed onto the Beehive, which loyally seems to implement them. According to MacCulloch, this has resulted in the Coalition Government becoming pro-monopoly.

This type of influence, together with donations and corporate lobbying, means that New Zealand’s political parties have been brought off. MacCulloch says such politicians should be forced to declare these connections: “It’d be good for them to be required to wear their gang patches announcing to Kiwis who and what they truly represent, rather than hiding in shadows.”

MacCulloch’s broader critique of the incompetence of Corporate NZ

Perhaps the most under-explored aspect of MacCulloch’s critique is his consistent condemnation of corporate New Zealand’s underperformance. He argues that the real drag on New Zealand’s productivity isn’t just government bureaucracy, but the incompetence of private sector leadership.

Business is too focused on getting either special legislative deals from the government of the day, or else corporate subsidies from the taxpayer. According to MacCulloch, the last Government’s Covid Wage Subsidy Scheme was a giant transfer of $18bn to some of the wealthiest businesses in the country, most of whom didn’t need it.

…this all means that when National pass policy, the venal nature of that pay off can not be hidden.

This Government took $12billion from pay parity workers and gave $6billion of it to the bosses.

They literally took from the poor and gave to the rich.

The brazen nature of that is enormous politically and voters who voted in post-Covid bitterness against Labour are recoiling at the extremism of the Rights policy agenda.

Todays GDP growth rating is driven not by extra production, but by currency fluctuations between America and NZ in our primary goods sector.

This Government is hoping to distract voters with culture war bait so they won’t notice their austerity budgets and privatisation agenda don’t spook the voters.

 

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