Taxpayer Update: $303k climate junket ✈️ | Labour’s ChatGPT subsidy 🤖 | Ferry gravy train ⛴️

August 16, 2026 Jordan Williams

Dear Supporter,

The week that was: National Party psychodrama, while Opportunity stalking horse continues 👀

What a week.

While Wellington has been consumed by the National Party's attempt to blow the arms off its own leader – only for the whole thing to blow up in Chris Penk's face – we've been focused on what actually matters: policy and your money.

Frankly, the Taxpayers' Union couldn't care less who leads the National Party. What matters is what politicians actually do with taxpayers' money – and with a possible Labour/Green/Opportunity/Te Pāti Māori Government now taking shape as the 50/50 alternative, the policy stakes are getting higher by the week.

So while the commentariat obsessed over National's psychodrama, our team has been busy challenging Labour's plan to kneecap Investment Boost while subsidising ChatGPT, debunking claims from taxpayer-funded leftwing wowsers, and exposing another $303,000 taxpayer-funded climate conference junket.

We've also been taking a deep dive into the so-called Opportunity Party.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Opportunity has a real shot at making it into Parliament. And the more we dig into its policy platform, the more it looks like a less angry, better-dressed version of the Green Party.

More on that in the weeks to come... 👀

In the meantime, it was good to see Q&A's Jack Tame finally putting some heat on Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong this morning. The Ardern-style smiling over substance approach shines through, and the interview is well worth a watch.

But enough of the political soap opera. Here's the taxpayer news you may have missed this week.

Labour wants to kneecap investment boost, but subsidise ChatGPT? 🧑‍💻 💰

Labour AI

While most eyes were on National this week, Labour announced what they're calling their Small Business "Action Plan".

It is a masterclass of political spin over economic substance.

Labour want to kneecap Investment Boost (Investment Boost lets businesses deduct 20 percent of the cost of new assets from their taxable income in the year they buy them, rather than having to wait years to claim the deduction through depreciation) but undertake a series of feel-good interventions designed to get headlines – including subsidising ChatGPT.

We backed Investment Boost as it partially did what we've been calling on for years: full expensing for capital. We like it because it's tax relief on the very spending that makes all New Zealanders richer: capital investment.

New Zealand is a low wage economy because our productivity is poor. The very thing needed to fix that is capital investment.

So it's pretty disappointing to see that in its place Chris Hipkins has done little more than slap ‘AI’ on an old-fashioned corporate welfare scheme for American Big Tech and called it "innovation".

The best way to encourage investment isn’t to subsidise ChatGPT – it’s to let businesses keep more of their own money and be incentivised to invest and grow.

EXPOSED: Bureaucrats blow $303,000 jet-setting to Brazil’s Climate Change COP30 junket ✈️

COP junket

This week, our investigations team exposed another bureaucrat junket funded by taxpayers — this time to a climate conference in Brazil.

The irony...

Responses to our Official Information Act requests reveal that 17 officials from three government agencies spent $303,027 attending COP30 in Belém.

And, consistent with Winston Peters' policy of MFAT staff always flying business or first class, you can be assured it was a comfortable journey!

They didn't exactly save money on the hotel either. The accommodation costs averaged $1,310 per person, per night – in a developing country!

Apparently (and we're not making this up) the agencies had "scaled back their spending" compared with the previous year. 👀

Saving the planet, one million air miles at a time...

With COP31 just over 12 weeks away, perhaps it’s time for officials to practise what they preach and put down the passport?

Privatisation made power expensive? Not exactly ⚡️

This week, a new union-backed campaign group, Public Futures Aotearoa, claimed privatisation is to blame for higher power prices.

Except the last time we checked, the Government still owns 51 percent of Genesis, Meridian, and Mercury.

That friend, is the problem.

Last year, Frontier Economics found Crown ownership is actually holding the sector back by making it harder for the companies to raise capital for new generation.

Less investment means less generation. Less generation means less competition. And less competition means higher power prices.

Instead, New Zealand has the worst of all worlds: quasi-private gentailers, all majority owned by the same shareholder.

Rather than ruthless competition, we get a pillow fight!

The Government says it wants cheaper power while happily banking the dividends for Treasury.

As our Senior Researcher Levi Gibbs argued last year in The Post, the Crown is sitting on about $16 billion of electricity company shares. Selling them would reduce debt while allowing the companies to raise more capital and invest in new generation.

The Government also has another problem: it is both owner and regulator.

Asking politicians to regulate the electricity market while owning the biggest players (and relying on their excessive profits) is asking MPs to mark their own homework.

The real problem isn't privatisation. It's that the Government is sitting on both sides of the table.

If we want cheaper electricity, the answer isn't more government ownership. It's more generation, more investment, and more competition.

New Lowe? The consultant gravy train is now a ferry... ⛴️

Ferry consultant

We've said before that taxpayers shouldn't be borrowing $1.7 billion (c.$820 per household) to own and operate the Interislander ferry service where there are commercial competitors that don't require taxpayer subsidies.

And it's appearing more and more like a classic Wellington boondoggle.

You see, while the Government promised to cut back consultant spending Ferry Minister Winston Peters Ferry Holdings Limited never got the memo!

This week The Post revealed the taxpayer-funded Ferry Co has signed taxpayers up for more than $14.6 million spending on external consultants.

Toot toot goes the Wellington gravy train ferry.

Greg Lowe It's also been revealed a $3.4 million contract with the engineering firm Beca was awarded a little close to home.

That's because one of Ferry Holdings' directors, Greg Lowe (pictured), served as Beca's global Chief Executive for more than 11 years.

And he's not just the former boss - ol' mate Greg remains on the Beca payroll! 🧐

And according to Beca's website, Greg's employed to be what Beca call their "strategic adviser" focused on [double checks notes] "emerging growth initiatives". 💰

Only in Wellington is the consultant to the consultant firm a director of the consultant firm's client. 🪎

Ferry Holdings says Lowe declared the conflict and recused himself from discussions and decisions involving Beca (all very well; anything less would see us calling the SFO!).

But it is still a shabby example of Wellington's culture of close mates and attempts to avoid transparency...

Because what makes the story objectionable is that Ferry Holdings refused to reveal what individual contractors were being paid, with taxpayers only getting the numbers after the Ombudsman intervened.

You'd think – given the clear conflict, media and public interest – the other Directors would insist on the transparency.

But apparently not.

The Cook Strait ferry replacement is turning into a very comfortable cruise for consultants...

New POLL: Three-quarters of National voters want no new taxes (period) 💸

National have refused to rule out any new taxes in the 2026 election campaign, instead on the weekend promising "no new taxes for working people".

No new taxes Poll

Our latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia issues poll is clear: it shows 58 percent of voters want National to promise no new taxes, period, compared with just 25 percent opposed.

Within National's own supporter base, that number rises to 76 percent who want a "no new taxes" promise.

Index Poll

And it’s the same story with the inflation tax.

Sixty-five percent of voters support automatically adjusting income tax brackets for inflation, including 74 percent of National voters.

In fact, voters of every party support indexation.

When your pay rises just to keep pace with inflation, you’re no richer. But without indexation, the Government quietly takes a bigger slice in tax.

On Monday, The Post covered the poll and picked up my comments:

"National voters aren’t asking for a tax-policy choose-your-own-adventure. They want a simple promise: no new taxes and no tax hikes. Three quarters of National voters support it, and majorities of Labour, ACT, New Zealand First and Te Pāti Māori voters agree."

“Every qualification weakens National’s ability to criticise Labour’s new taxes. Voters want a simple promise, but the loopholes leave them wondering which taxes National is planning next.”

Taxpayer Talk: Simon Court on the RMA shakedown holding New Zealand hostage 🦎

Taxpayer update Court on RMA

In this week's Taxpayer Talk, Peter Williams is joined by ACT’s infrastructure and resource management spokesman Simon Court.

Simon takes aim at the planning rules he says are stopping New Zealand from building the homes, roads, ports, quarries, power lines, and infrastructure we desperately need.

From eye-watering consent costs to lizard surveys, Simon and Peter get into why the RMA replacement could be one of the biggest reforms of this parliamentary term.

Watch this week's episode here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.