election 2023

The Government's plan to slash the public sector is having an adverse impact on Wellington's property market.

According to ANZ's latest property report, Wellington's housing market is lagging behind the rest of the country as people brace for job losses.

ANZ economist Andre Castaing says housing markets all over the nation are expected to go sideways within the next year.

"The housing market in Wellington- we would characterise that as having the potential to be a touch slower. However across the country, there's a range of things impacting house prices."

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Congratulations to the new coalition Government, which was sworn in today by Governor General Dame Cindy Kiro.

And as our new Prime Minister says- they're ready to get stuck in.

But things are already getting better. Some say it's just because of the vibe. But don't discount plain good luck and timing.

The so-called hermit kingdom is over. As we heard a week ago, nearly a quarter of a million people chose to emigrate to New Zealand in the past year.

Today we learn tourism is up- and spending in the year to September hit $30 billion dollars.

That's up $6.6 billion on the previous year - and pretty much back to pre-Covid levels.

This while the international spend is still recovering.

As Nicola Willis finally gets her warrant to fool with the economy, the economy appears to be turning a corner.

In today's paper is a report that economists believe the Reserve Bank will not be raising interest rates anytime soon. It also reports that markets are predicting a rate cut as early as May and as many as 3 cuts through 2024. Which is great news for first-home buyers.

With all this good news, there's still one thing that bugs me about this Government and that's the disconnect that you feel when a tax cut has to be funded by a tax rise.

You'll remember that was the problem I had during the election where the tax cut for the squeezed middle was funded by a wealth tax on rich foreigners buying houses. For a Government averse to taxes, it seemed off brand.

The new version came up after the Government's surprise axing of the smokefree programme, and I say surprise because no one can find mention of it in any pre-election manifesto but axed it has been on New Zealand First and ACT's insistence.

Yesterday on Newshub Nation, Nicola Willis said extra revenue from more widespread cigarette sales would help fund tax cuts in lieu of the now-scrapped foreign buyers tax.

This was a loose thing to say prompting accusations that long-term public health had been sacrificed for a short-term cash-grab.

Which is a bad way to start a term.

It's not rocket science. If you cut a tax you cut expenditure. You don't tax a fall guy to make it work. That's inequitable.

Jack Tame asked Nicola Willis if she accepted more people would die because of cancelling the #Smokefree policy.

Willis says- "I have not seen advice or analysis of that so I am not prepared to answer that question".

FFS, this is what we can expect in the next three years.

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So, still no Government.

It's not a biggie. Remember, they only started talking after the specials were counted so it's only been a fortnight. But then again, why did they only start talking after the specials were counted? But still not a biggie. 

Meanwhile, all those getting stuck into Winston are not using their knowledge of history or politics. 

He doesn't have to be in Government. He can say no easily and then bring the Government down whenever he wants. Yes, he's the tail and National's the dog but the dog needs Winston's tail far more than Winston needs the dog. 

And when it comes to the difficulties of the negotiation, many seem to forget that Winston is an old-fashioned anti-globalist who hates immigration and the stress it puts on our infrastructure. 

They seem not to remember that it was Winston's idea to slap a foreign buyers ban in our property market. And he was part of the team that did in 2017. 

But letting foreign buyers back in is at the centre of National's tax plan. 

So they're asking New Zealand First to do an absolute U-turn in terms of policy and principles. That's a big ask. It was always going to be. It was evident weeks before the election. And Luxon has already hinted that the foreign buyers ban may stay. That's a big U-turn too. 

If there's something to criticise National for, it's dropping their 2 ticks blue campaign and letting Winston in. They have much in common but the differences are big stones in the path of coalition. 

Meanwhile, while the cat's away Wayne Brown comes out to play. National's policy of dropping the Auckland fuel tax is leading the mayor to ways to raise money to build the roads. All of a sudden congestion tax is on the fast track. 

It's proof that there is no such thing as a free tax cut. National wants to drop the tax to give Aucklanders more money in the back pocket, but as Wayne Brown points out that comes at the expense of roads. So what do you want more? Roads or tax cuts. Tax cuts or congestion taxes. 

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Tonight on The Huddle, Trish Sherson from Sherson Willis PR and former Labour chief of staff Mike Munro joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day- and more!

Chris Luxon has warned coalition negotiations will be extended for another week- and claimed it seems unlikely he'll make it to APEC. Is this a bad look for the National Party, or does this process need more time?

MBIE is planning to cut jobs and budgets in the coming months- is this a good idea?

ANZ brought in a net profit of over $2.2 billion in the year ending September. Is this a bad look in a cost of living crisis? 

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Certain policies could be sticking points in holding up negotiations between National, Act and New Zealand First.  

National will need both parties to make a government after they lost two seats following special votes.  

Newstalk ZB Political Editor Jason Walls says it's hard to figure out how much progress was made over the weekend.  

He told Kate Hawkesby while there seems to be agreement on infrastructure issues, race relations policy could be causing tension. 

“Christopher Luxon – he hasn’t ruled out, say for example, the Treaty referendum, but it sounds like he very, very, very much doesn’t want that to be a thing because of how divisive he envisions that being.” 

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Economists are wracking their brains over how negotiations are set to shape the incoming Government's economic polices.

ANZ's latest economic outlook examined the fiscal outlook for the incoming National-led Government, and noted that the addition of ACT and NZ First could lead to more significant changes.

Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen says National will face potential roadblocks in introducing tax cuts and a foreign buyers tax, as those have divided all three parties.

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Lobbying efforts are already underway to prevent the incoming Government from implementing a new tax on commercial and industrial building owners.

National campaigned on removing the ability of commercial and industrial building owners to deduct depreciation as an expense when paying tax.

This extra tax would bring in an extra $2 billion over four years and help cover National's proposed tax cuts.

NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny says this is one of the easiest methods National can use to generate extra tax revenue, as less voters are affected by it.

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The economy was a significant talking point this election- and remains one of the biggest issues the incoming Government is expected to sort out.

The special votes have been counted, meaning National and ACT will need NZ First to form a Government after National lost two seats.

Infometrics Principal Economist Brad Olsen says the three parties have a shared goal to bring down public spending, but there are other areas they disagree on.

"Something like the likes of the age of superannuation is an area where there's a lot more division on. Both National and ACT want to raise the age of eligibility, NZ First wants to keep it where it is."

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The special votes are in and officially point to a National-ACT-NZ First coalition.

They all ran on a similar election promise of turning the country around, including how they pledged to save the economy. 

But what could this all mean for businesses?

Business commentator Rod Oram joined Andrew Dickens.

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The future shape of our next government all comes out today.  

While the preliminary votes for the election were all counted up, the results of the around 570 thousand left over special votes will be released at two this afternoon.  

It will likely decide whether National and ACT will need New Zealand First to get into power.  

Political Editor Jason Walls told Tim Dower that the majority of special votes do tend to favour the left. 

He says people like John Key and Chris Bishop both expect to see National lose at least one seat today. 

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The incoming National-led Government will soon have to make headway on their plans for the economy.

The sector has already reported increased confidence, with data from Auckland's Business Chamber showing confidence levels are up 11 percentage points from before the election.

NZ Herald business editor at large Liam Dann says the incoming Government will want to begin by clearing up the short-term economic issues.

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So tomorrow we finally —after such a ridiculously long wait— get the final vote count.

Specials will be done, duplicates checked, ballots finalized, we will know where we’re at, and more importantly, what form the new government might take.

The fact we’ve had three weeks in limbo is completely ludicrous and at least the incoming PM has acknowledged that and claims he’ll do something about changing it. Which as far as I understand involves changing the law and the way the electoral commission operates, and I hope they do that.

The electoral commission did not cover itself in glory: botching some people’s booth experiences by not having enough forms, closing early or opening late, not getting easy vote packs out in good enough time for early voting, and generally operating like it’s 1953. Even Luxon said that three weeks is too long, that they should be working 24/7 to count votes. He also reckons they should do a daily release of votes counted and take over local government elections so they’re up to speed a year before general elections. The main thing is he wants the vote counting sped up, so let’s hope he makes that happen.

As for the new government and how that looks... he seems confident they’re on track for a swift and seamless transition with good faith and goodwill from all parties. Actually, someone —who will remain nameless— in this newsroom had a bet that a new coalition government would be announced and formed all set to go Friday arvo. That overly ambitious idea was smacked down by Luxon himself who said that there’ll be no government announced Friday arvo.

Good news – they’re closer to an actual government than they were a week ago. Bad news – not so close that it’ll be wrapped up by tomorrow afternoon. Luxon said they still have issues they’re working through and things to be agreed on, but they’ve been working diligently in good faith for a strong stable government, and he says progress is being made.

So how long?

Luxon says no timeframe exactly – but there are good intentions not to draw it out. Maybe next week? Who knows. Even Winston though, claims it’ll be quick. Can we trust anything Winston says?

Having said that, you have to hand it to them all, not a peep out of them. No one’s broken ranks, no one’s leaked, no one’s spilled the beans. Luxon has to be congratulated for consolidating everyone together in a way that seems clean and tight. Winston hasn’t been playing it out in public, Seymour has kept his cool, it all seems, so far, tickety boo.

If they can keep it that way, they’ll manage to prove all the naysayers wrong. Every person who said it would implode and that it'd be a cluster and they’d all be at war with each other... so far, so good. None of that.

The true test is if Luxon can keep it that way – if he can, he’ll be seen as a genius. I mean who’d want to wrangle Winston and David Seymour on a daily basis? Not me. Best case scenario, they don’t need Winston, and NZ First can just stay out of the fray altogether. Worst case, he’s in and he goes nuts wreaking havoc and making it all about himself and the whole thing implodes. That would be disastrous not just for Luxon, but also for our country.

So fingers crossed tomorrow goes their way and it’s a clean two party Nats/ACT deal and they can get on with some governing. If not, get out the popcorn. 

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Tonight on The Huddle, current affairs commentator Josie Pagani and Kiwiblog founder and Curia pollster David Farrar joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day- and more!

The Rugby World Cup has finally come to an end- with South Africa narrowly beating out New Zealand to take home the title. What did we think of the result? Was this a fair victory? Have TMOs gone too far?

Online grocery startup Supie has gone into voluntary administration after two years of operation. Are we sad to see this development? Does the supermarket duopoly need competition- or regulation? 

Winston Peters has spoken out and given his first post-election interview. He won't give much away, but expressed interest in getting negotiations wrapped up quickly. What's his goal here?

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This is my first ZB shift since the election brought in our new Government-to-be.

And I must say it’s been the most fantastic fortnight, until we lost the Rugby World Cup final due to first half sloppiness and a trigger-happy TMO.

But we had our chances. We can’t complain. You have to play to the rules.

But really, it’s been 2 weeks of calm and confidence and a feeling of recovery and renewal after the election

Business Confidence went from a number in the 20s to a number in the 50s overnight.

Inflation came in in the 5s, despite most expectations being half a percent higher.

Credit agencies said we’re in ok shape and didn’t make our borrowing more expensive.

New Zealand came in 4th in a global tax competitiveness survey.

The real estate section in the paper suddenly doubled in size. Real estate agents starting calling telling me to invest now, because the property market is about to explode.

I even felt that crime has stopped. Just like that. Until I checked and saw there has been a ram raid. In Waihi Beach at 3.40am. 4 perps captured by police. Suddenly the cops are tough on crime.

And suddenly I realised what had changed- nothing.

What was different was no chorus of wet and whingy commentators and politicians telling anyone who was listening that this country was wrecked.

You know the mantra:

“The second to last economy in the world. Heading towards Venezuela. A crime rate to rival the most lawless areas of the world. The last bastion of communist dictatorship in the western world. Our children’s children’s children will be paying for this Government’s 6 years in charge”

It is such a relief not to hear the doomsayers yelling with their megaphones into a dark and depressing echo chamber, every day. Trying to convince us that only they know the answers and New Zealanders wouldn’t know success if it slapped us in the face and said congratulations.

I’ve always said that the country was not doing nearly as well as Labour thought it was, but it’s also not nearly as bad as National would like to have you believe.

We’ve been talked out of our mojo.

It reminds you to always be wary of politicians and their slogans. They don’t seek a legacy. Just your vote so they’ve got a job for 3 years.

So enjoy the respite from criticism of this country, because it won’t last. As soon as the specials are counted we’ll back to the race to the bottom.

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One prospective Cabinet minister appears to have learned from his predecessor's mistakes.

Senior National MP Chris Bishop has sold his shares in Kiwi Income Property and plans to sell off his further shares in Paysauce Ltd, Telstra and Parrotdog.

Former National MP Steven Joyce disagrees that ministers should have to sell their shares once they get into office.

"You keep lifting the bar higher and higher in terms of what people can't do while they're a politician- which makes it less attractive for people. In principle- the Cabinet manual makes it clear people can do things in their private capacity."

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Peter Dunne is someone I really respect because he’s emerged from a life inside politics to remain an engaged and informed observer on the outside. 

He makes a lot of sense, which is why I love having him on this show. He recently gave an interview where he talked about the fact we shouldn’t have to wait this long for election results.

I agree.  

I’m sure most of us do. I mean we voted for a system like MMP which is not that clear cut so that parts on us, but surely the mechanism for counting special votes can be sped up. As it stands, special votes have to be sent back to their electorates. That’s your first hold up. Secondly they’re counted manually. They’re also taking all this time to scrutinize the roll, check for any duplication of votes, recount votes... and bear in mind there are around 567 thousand special votes apparently this year.  

But Peter Dunne says we need to speed it up.  

He said, “the votes need to be transmitted back to the electorates, they should be counted much more quickly and then those results declared within days.” So days, not weeks, and I agree.  

Could they do it? An overhaul of how the electoral commission operates would be needed, and I actually think that’s not a bad thing. I mean on the face of it, the electoral commission seems an antiquated cumbersome old system. Too much paperwork, easy vote cards and voting packs having to be sent out to every letterbox, which were in many cases too slow to get out anyway, and as it turns out you don’t even really need them. A wacky rule around when a candidate dies in terms of adding a seat to create a potential overhang and having to go through a costly by election. Crazy.  

But all of this dilly dallying and waiting three weeks means we wait almost a month after voting to get a government formed. All that time of limbo and nothing happening. All that time of a new government ready to get going and sink their teeth in and make some changes but can’t until it knows what shape it’s taking, and crucially, who’s in it.  

It actually puts us all back if you think about it. If you factor in that three quarters of the country wanted a change of direction, then that’s three quarters of us stuck going nowhere. Which means the country is going nowhere.  

I guess the alternatives would have to be soundly tested though – I mean automatic vote counting machines like in the US could be considered dodgy by some, so however the system changed it would have to get buy in. But surely not sending votes back to their electorates would be one easy fix to speed things up. That seems OTT.  

Because it’s not just getting on with it to appease our curiosity as to what formation the next government will take – ie, with or without Winston, but also what decisions need to be made, what changes are coming. Whether the new government has time to enact much before Christmas. Can they get a new mini budget up? Can they get going on their first 100 days list? Can they push through the reforms they want to push through?  

Starting a new government about 8 weeks out from Christmas doesn’t leave much time to kick into gear, and as far as I can gather, we’re all pretty keen for change to kick into gear, sooner rather than later. 

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The election result looks to have lit a fire under the property market.

Real estate agents in Wellington say business has picked up since the 'blue wave' crashed through.

National and ACT have both promised to phase in interest deductibility for landlords and make it easier for banks to lend money.

City Sales sales manager Scott Dunn says people saw a change of Government coming.

He says Auckland's market picked up about three weeks ago.

"Our change happened about two or three weeks ago, we've had to double our auction offerings from the demand. From here until the end of the year, it's very, very busy."

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‘Jacinda was prepared to sell her grandmother”.. read the headline yesterday.  

A statement made by Ron Mark when interviewed about how coalition negotiations have gone in the past with NZ First. Unfortunately, he went on to say in the article that not only was she ready to sell her grandmother, but she did.  

Ouch.  

What an indictment on an already unpopular leader. But it should serve as a warning to Luxon and co as they head into the rocky, murky waters, that is the negotiation of coalition deals. Hopefully they don’t feel they need to sell the grandparents.  

Two other things to bear in mind: one, Winston’s’ a wily old dog, and two, Luxon is new to this politics game. I hope he’s flanked by enough political savvy to keep him from trying to flog the family jewels, but then again, he may not even need Winston. All the talk of the specials leaning left I don’t buy this time round. Remember, a lot of those specials are overseas voters – the very ones who got locked out, pinged in MIQ, missed funerals for loved ones, or scarpered overseas post the lockdowns, in disgust with where our country was going. The brain drainers... how do you reckon they’re voting?  

Yes, the specials tend to lean left – as they have in the past, but this time round is different. This time who's to say they won’t go the way the rest of the votes have gone, a punishment for Labour? The Greens of course always pick up all the student votes, and they may pick up those disgruntled Labour voters who can’t bring themselves to vote for National – but we wait, we watch, we hope for the best.  

And when I say the best, I genuinely believe a two-party government beats a three-party one, purely because there are less moving parts. I said this before the election and I still believe it. And no, it’s not because I hate Winston, as some texters have accused me, I just don’t believe he adds value. He has pet projects he obsesses with: racing, provincial growth fund, superannuitants, but outside of that he seems to not really care. He's a lot of noise and grandstanding, not a lot of action. Although super gold card holders will disagree, they probably think he's the messiah. I’m just not sure NZ First voters this time will get what they wanted or hoped for, out of their vote for him – especially if he’s not even in government.  

So a tricky time of negotiations ahead and I’m not sure how over it we all are in terms of being happy not to hear about any politics for 3 weeks while they sort it out, or desperate to be across every aspect as they go. I mean when Luxon says we’re not negotiating it through the media, that’s fair enough and I believe that’s his wish. But what if ACT or NZ First – if they’re involved, think differently? You’d like to think that with so much rhetoric around the grownups being back in charge, that they would actually all act like grownups, but we’ll see.  

The temptation to use the media will loom large for anyone feeling disgruntled, but it will be a particular irony if that’s Winston given he’s so adept at shunning them and talking them down all the time. But you just know that if anyone's going to loop them in, leak, and play a negotiating game including them, it will be him. Oh the irony. 
So a long three weeks ahead? Or we just don’t care? Let me know what you think. 

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Well what a weekend.  

From the nail biter of a fantastic AB’s game, which, for the record, I was never in any doubt of. For those of you who were still listening to our election night coverage at midnight Saturday night you would have heard me say I picked the AB’s to win – so you know, never in any doubt from me, just saying. Just so happy for Fozzie to be honest. I feel like he deserved that.  

Likewise I thought the Nats deserved to win Saturday night like they did. You can’t take away from Luxon what he was up against... from a shambolic leaking party at the start, to some in house scandals, to an unsympathetic media, to constant grilling about how unliked and unpopular he was, to a gruelling and nasty campaign against him from Labour and their Union mates at the CTU. 

He had it all thrown at him, and he just kept going. Slow and steady wins the race. On reflection, personally, if we made one mistake it was getting sucked in by the polls, we started to believe them. I did anyway. I think questions need to be asked now about how pollsters are conducting these in this post-landline age. They seemed ropey at the beginning, but then as they stacked up and up and up – and we sure weren’t short of polls— they seemed to all be telling a similar story.  

Turns out, they were wrong. Worst culprits were obviously Newshub, where an excited Jenna Lynch breathlessly announced just a couple of days out from election day that ‘the Nats had crashed’.  

It really got to the point of crazy at the end there. Maybe we all just went nuts because it was such a long campaign, we were all delirious by then. But I don’t think we as voters were well served by the so called non-biased press gallery reporting, and by sideshows like whether Chris Luxon believed in dinosaurs.  

I think what the wipe out for Labour very clearly points to is a rejection of Jacinda – particularly in Auckland where National did so well. I mean Chloe won the electorate seat of Auckland Central, but Auckland had a massive blue wave. And I actually put Chloe’s win down to name recognition and just being a face of Auckland for so long. Mahesh came dangerously close there and I think he'll be a force to be reckoned with next time – he just needs more time and more name recognition.  

But Hipkins got a hospital pass from Jacinda of the very worst kind, I felt bad for him in the end. Voters rejected lockdowns and her sneering treatment of them and the fact her very own Mt Albert electorate is so close to flipping blue for the first time in history, speaks volumes about how toxic the Jacinda brand had become. International coverage leapt on it, one headline calling it a ‘devastating verdict on Jacinda Ardern as New Zealand votes out Labour party in 'bloodbath'.  

CNN said: "New Zealand shifts right as voters punish ruling party". And I do think it was the party getting punished —and Jacinda— more so than Chris Hipkins himself.  

So look it’s all on for Luxon now. After an exhausting campaign it now seems the nitty gritty of the hard work really starts for him: how he cobbles together his government, who gets what, does he need Winston after specials are counted or not, and how the heck does he make it all work.  

All I can say at this point is thank god the All Blacks won, thank goodness the election campaign is over, now all we need is for the sun to keep shining. 

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Well this is the last time I talk to you before Saturday... although we’ll all be here Saturday night. Mike, me, Heather, and Barry, if you want to tune into ZB’s election coverage or watch it live streamed on the ZB or Herald websites, we’ll be here. Depending on how it goes if you look closely on the livestream you may see me tearing my hair out.  

Honestly, I’ll be glad to see the back of it. It’s been too long, too divisive, too feisty, too nasty. I think that’s all been a turn off for voters and it may go towards explaining the current apathy. If the polls don’t pick up Saturday, then I think that says something about how this whole campaign —from every side— has been run. The sniping, accusations and insults has been gross. The misinformation that’s been allowed to run unchecked, fuelled by media, has been a disappointment.

Christopher Luxon said on this station yesterday when Kerre asked him what’s true and what isn’t given all these attack ads that he was grateful to be given the opportunity to clarify that, given no journalist had asked him that yet. Can you believe that? All the disinformation out there and not one journalist stopping to ask if it’s even true. Luxon says he’s confused as to why the media waste time asking random inane questions like, ’do you believe in dinosaurs?’ which then becomes a feature on the 6 o’clock news over and above policy that will impact the daily lives of New Zealanders.  

Labour has a high-powered machine of negative publicity blitzing National these last couple of days, making claims that simply are not true. Attacks is all they have, but the sad thing is how many people may fall for it without checking for themselves or reading the policy. How many believe the attacks and think National will cut their winter energy payments? (Not true) Or sack teachers (not true), add interest to student loans (not true), drop University fees free (not true), the list is endless. Luxon says they’ve tried to counter all this misinformation, but if the media won’t cover it, how do they get cut through?  

But the key thing we as voters need to start doing I think, alongside understanding MMP better, is think more big picture.  

We’re so in the weeds now and into the micro, that we’re not pulling back and looking at the bigger picture. A change of government is one thing, but it’s not enough – that government needs to be able to act decisively to elicit wholesale change to turn around the direction of this country. If it can’t do that, if it's encumbered by in fighting, hobbled by the handbrake that is Winston and his petty demands, or him siphoning off money for side shows like the provincial growth fund, then they achieve nothing. They’re ineffective, and we don’t get the change we need.  

And then come 2026, they’re potentially out. The country lurches left again – probably with a new iteration of a fresh version of a Jacinda, and with a greater push to move further left, back to all the things Hipkins shelved like a wealth tax and a capital gains tax.  

We don’t want to waste 3 years on a circus act. We need proper government that can be bold decisive and effective, and if there are too many pieces in that puzzle, then it won’t be real impactful change.  

Anyway we’ll know, hopefully tomorrow night just how messy or otherwise it’s looking. And if you haven't voted already just remember, your most important vote is your party vote. 

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