Kia ora, this is New Zealand Political Party summarised, part one, unbiased.
Couple of notes, this is a baptism by fire, and so I've only put in the parties that are pretty much definitely going to make it into Parliament. And I'm doing an elevator pitch on how I would sell each party. Each party has kind of random things that they're into, like banning fireworks or social media for under 16s, but this is focused entirely on the big picture, overarching vision stuff. If you want to vote on the basis that you hate fireworks, catch pie, that's all good. You don't need this video to help that.
So this is based on where the parties are on what they call the left and right wing spectrum, which I talked about in episode one. But pretty much, the left wing parties believe that our government should have control over the systems that run our world, and the right wing believe that companies should have control over those systems. And this is because right wing people think that the government is inefficient, takes too long, wastes money, whereas companies are going to find the cheapest, fastest way to do things because they're hunting for profit. So there's a spectrum between these ideas being pro-government or pro-companies, and I'm going to start in the middle.
So the National Party and the Labour Party are historically our two big dogs, and we've basically just flip-flopped between them for about 90 years. Labour is kind of pro-government, but not hardcore. National is kind of pro-companies, but not hardcore. So that's why Labour gets called centre-left and National gets called centre-right. People argue and whinge about how left or how right they actually are, but that's the gist. They both get around 30% of the vote each time pretty safely, but to make a government you need at least 50%. So they have no choice but to team up with the smaller parties that are either further left or further right than them.
So because National is centre-right, they basically believe that companies can run things better than the government, but they're not keen to sell all the systems off. They did sell nearly half the power companies and KiwiRail, but when that went titsup, they kind of learnt their lesson and have pulled back a bit, but the idea is still there. National sales pitch is to grow the economy, which basically means to get more money pumping around New Zealand. Some of the things they've done is the India Free Trade Agreement, which makes it easier to do business with India, changing the Resource Management Act, which loosens the environmental protection laws so you can build stuff faster, and loosening the overseas investment laws so that it's easier for foreigners to buy land. They also like the tax system as it is now. They say no new taxes, and they introduced a program called Investment Boost, which was about letting businesses pay less tax for when they buy new equipment for their business. The National Party economy stuff basically relies on the idea that the more profit that businesses make, the more people they'll hire, or the better wages they'll pay, or the more equipment they'll buy, which will make their businesses bigger and get more money pumping around New Zealand. So pro-companies, but not necessarily sell everything off. The main criticism of the National Party is that they cut heaps of money from services for normal New Zealanders and change the laws to make them be more pro-companies or suit businesses better and don't necessarily actually get better wages or more people employed.
Labour is called centre-left, which means they think the government can do a good job at running systems as long as the settings are right. So remember, pro-companies, right-wing people basically say, if you sell all the systems off, companies will find the cheapest, fastest way to do things because they're chasing a profit. Labour says not all of these systems should be chasing a profit. That's things like hospitals, schools, prisons. Labour's sales pitch is that they think growing the economy starts with more normal New Zealanders having more money. Some of the things they've done for this are the pay equity scheme, where they were investigating whether jobs like nurses, taking care of elderly people, looking after kindies, whether those jobs were getting paid fairly. They also want to pay for doctor's visits for everyone and to cap public transport. The Labour Party economy stuff basically relies on the idea that the more money normal working New Zealanders have, the more they'll spend in shops and at businesses, and that's what actually gets businesses pumping. Basically, it's kind of the flip side of National's idea, which came first, the chicken or the egg. Either businesses need to be making bigger profits before they'll pay better wages, or people need to get paid better wages before businesses can make bigger profits. The main criticism of Labour is that they put too much money into services for normal New Zealanders, and not everyone believes that that makes the economy better.
makes the economy better. Swinging back to the pro-company's right-wing side is the ACT Party, who's been a long-term tag team member with National. They basically have the same baseline idea, but are more hardcore about it. They think the government should sell off as many systems as possible. So that means as little taxes as possible, but pay for your own hospital visits, no ACC, get your own insurance, pay directly for your kids' schools, and the government should get its grubby mitts off things like power companies and prisons. One of the things they've done for this are set up schools that are run by companies or organisations called charter schools, which have less government management in them, which have pros and cons. Pros being more flexibility in what and how they teach, cons being that if they start teaching out the gate stuff, there's less protection from the government for those kids in those schools. Another thing they're suggesting is to freeze the minimum wage for 3 years, so no rise in the minimum wage, and to create a lower than minimum wage training wage for people under 20. ACT's slogan is to unlock New Zealand's potential, which they think is currently locked up by environmental protection laws, things like health and safety laws, and the Treaty of Waitangi. And they basically believe if you peel these rules back, hand over power to the companies and leave them to it, they'll work it out. The ACT Party economy stuff basically relies on the idea that the less money you have to pay people and the less laws you have to follow, the bigger profits you'll make, and that's what will get the New Zealand economy pumping. The main criticism of ACT is basically a hungrier version of National, which is that if they got full power, they would cut all of the funding for the services for normal working New Zealanders and sell all the systems off, which means that normal New Zealanders might end up too broke to be able to go to the doctor or send their kids to a good school.
Greens, swinging back to the pro-government left side, is the Green Party. They're further down the line than Labour and believing that if the government has the right settings, then they can do a really good job at running the systems. The Greens are hardcore the government should not be selling their systems off, and that's based on the idea that's the criticism of the ACT Party, that if you sell off things like hospitals, then going to the doctor becomes a profit-making thing. And so unless you're really wealthy, you might end up not being able to afford to go and everyone else gets left outside. The Greens believe that if everybody has like the basics, like good homes, good education, good dental care, good health, then everyone can get a good job, need less sick leave, and kind of do better to get the economy pumping. Some of the things that the Greens want to do is start a supermarket chain, which will be New Zealand government owned, which will be big enough to go toe-to-toe with Woolworths and Foodstuffs, and basically try to force those companies to bring their grocery prices down. And they want to fund free dental care for everyone and to slow down AI taking over decision making. The Greens economy stuff relies on the idea that big companies making big profits doesn't mean anything if working people can't afford to live properly. They believe it's the government's job to make sure that the laws don't prioritise companies over people and leave everyone behind. The main criticism of the Greens is again a Hundi version of Labour's, which is that their vision is basically too expensive. The Greens have Hundi tax system changes that they want to make to fund their vision by taxing wealth more instead of work, which right-wing people say is bad.
New Zealand First is an interesting one. They've worked with Labour before, but they've said that they'll never work with them again, so they've basically locked themselves into the right-wing side. The hard part about this is that a lot of their economy stuff is actually left-wing, meaning they're more pro-government rather than selling things off to companies. Winston Peters actually used to be with the National Party and then ditched them because they were trying to sell off the Wellington Airport. Some of the things they want to do is to buy back BNZ and combine it with Kiwi Bank, so that we have a big, giant New Zealand-owned bank that can go toe-to-toe with the big dogs like ANZ and Westpac. They also want what's called a sovereign wealth fund, which is basically a big pot that invests in New Zealand that's protected from politicians that flip-flop. New Zealand First economy stuff relies on the idea that New Zealand should focus inwards and not let overseas companies dominate. So, for example, New Zealand First hated the India free trade deal that National did. The hard part with New Zealand First is that ACT and National are not on board at all. The ACT party actively wants to peel off our laws to let overseas companies come in. So New Zealand First locking themselves into the right wing kind of undermines their economy stuff. So the main criticism of New Zealand First is that National and ACT only let them do kind of small fringe stuff rather than big economy stuff. They've also been criticised for prioritising companies over people, for example, letting the commercial fishing industry rewrite the fishing laws while telling recreational fishers to basically sit down and shut up. Te Pāti
Te Pāti Māori is also an interesting one. They've only ever worked with National before, so they've got a bit of a right-wing history, but lots of their economy stuff is left-wing. They are pro-tax wealth, not work, like the Green Party. They're pro-New Zealand ownership of infrastructure like energy and stuff, similar to New Zealand First. But the key thing that sets Te Pāti Māori apart is the focus on Māori rights. Māori rights, including property rights, got stomped on after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, which held generations back. Those kind of things have to be rebalanced, and those Māori rights still exist today. For anybody that hasn't heard about this kind of stuff at all, just one example, Sir Peter Nangata, who was the first Māori lawyer, and Sir Peter Buck, who was the first Māori doctor, both came out of a school called Te Aute College, and they left and became incredibly educated and successful. This got Te Aute College investigated by the government, who found that they were teaching Latin, geometry, and algebra successfully. And so after this investigation, the government forced Te Aute College to stop teaching academic subjects on the recommendation that school for Māori men was about teaching them manual labour. So it's these kind of things that had impacts on multiple generations that Te Pāti Māori needs to bring a specific lens to be able to rebalance. So Te Pāti Māori looking to rebalance those kind of things looks like fighting for funding for kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa, Māori Health Authority, Waranga Tamariki system reform, like that kind of stuff, which the other bigger parties don't always have that specific knowledge. The main criticism of Te Pāti Māori is that they're too tunnel vision on Māori rights. They also get similar criticisms to the Greens that a lot of their visions are too expensive, but when it comes to the big like system change kind of economy stuff, Te Pāti Māori doesn't really get enough of the party vote at the moment anyway for their big kind of overarching ideas to be in the pot.
So the last one is the Opportunity Party, who is an interesting one, who's got super popular super fast. Their elevator pitch is that they're centrist, which means that they can work with either the left-wing parties or the right-wing parties. They're very pro what's called research and development, which means putting funding or money into things like developing and researching new technologies and a lot of like future-focused stuff. What makes them kind of left-wing is what's called a universal basic income and their tax policies. So they want to tax land ownership instead of wealth like the Greens and use that to pay everyone a base rate of like 19 grand a year. So that's pretty pro-people. What makes this kind of right-wing is that they think that we could get rid of a lot of different types of benefits with that and make the government smaller and more efficient, which is kind of like ACT party thinking. They also believe that you can make companies do better for people in the environment by incentivizing them rather than forcing them through laws. So they're a combo of still paying people benefits, changing the tax system to try to push people away from sinking money into property ownership, chopping up big companies that are reaming New Zealanders, but they're also keen to let companies run more free than the left-wing parties really are, and basically hope that the companies choose to look after people in the environment. Top is also wanting to cut political donations and basically behind the scenes companies influencing politicians, which is similar to what the Greens want to do. The main criticism of Top is that when it comes down to it, what are their non-negotiables? If they get into Parliament, it'll be a first, and so they know they're not going to get their universal basic income and their tax policy in overnight. They basically want the big parties to commit to researching it. And those are their two big things. And so the question becomes, what's left? What are the absolute must-haves before you'll go with a left-wing government versus a right-wing government? Obviously, every party has other smaller things that they bang on about, but this is what's important to me, the kind of big overarching vision stuff.
So that's New Zealand political parties summarised, part one, unbiased, done and dusted. Part two, full bias, should be up now.
Comments
Post a Comment