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Hi,
Parliament may have packed up for the election, but the spending promises certainly haven’t.
This week our Bribe-O-Meter unearthed another $10 billion of Labour commitments, one little-noticed foreign aid promise turned into a full-blown campaign issue, and Labour’s long-awaited fiscal plan finally landed.
Elsewhere, the Greens have discovered a rather magical way to fund trains, ACT wants to stop taxing KiwiSaver returns, and there are some big questions being asked about transparency and how we run local elections.
Let’s get into it.
Bribe-O-Meter Week 4: Labour finds another $10 billion 💸📊
Week four of the Bribe-O-Meter is in, and this time Labour has been doing most of the heavy lifting.
In just seven days, Labour announced another $10.43 billion of spending commitments - equivalent to $5,034 for every household in the country.
That includes $4.3 billion for social housing, school repairs and hospital maintenance, plus another $583 million for its student loan policy.
But the biggest addition was one Labour did not put a price tag on at all.
Labour has committed to lifting foreign aid spending to 0.7 percent of Gross National Income.
On our numbers, even assuming it takes the full four years to get there, that means another $5.5 billion, or $2,662 per household.
That takes Labour’s specifically announced spending promises to $33.24 billion, or $16,041 per household.
And remember, that is before its separate commitment to lift Core Crown spending to 33 percent of GDP, which takes its overall Bribe-O-Meter total to $50.47 billion, or $24,358 per household.
The other parties were quieter this week, with National’s total remaining at $960 per household, ACT adding just $1 per household, and Te Pāti Māori has now put numbers against three policies totalling $4.3 billion. We still have not added Te Pāti Māori to the main leaderboard because too much of its wider platform remains impossible to cost credibly.
There was one other change worth noting.
We marked Labour down half a star on transparency. Announcing more than $5.5 billion of additional spending without even attempting to quantify it is exactly what the Bribe-O-Meter is there to expose.
And that $5.5 billion foreign aid promise is worth dwelling on, because what happened next is a pretty good demonstration of why we built the Bribe-O-Meter in the first place.
How a one-line Labour promise turned into a $5.5 billion headache 🌏💸
No price tag, no timelines, just one sentence committing taxpayers to a potentially enormous increase in spending.
So our boffins got to work.
Even assuming Labour took the full four-year forecast period to reach its target, we put the extra cost at $5.52 billion, or $2,662 for every household in New Zealand.
We won’t complain about the imitation or the different assumptions putting the cost at $6.5 billion. The whole point of the Bribe-O-Meter is to force these numbers into the election debate. And it worked.
There was just one problem.
The $5.5-billion-plus commitment was nowhere to be found in Labour’s fiscal plan.
Which brings us neatly to the plan itself...
Labour’s fiscal plan finally turns up 📊👀
On Sunday, Labour released its fiscal plan, promising that every election commitment is fully costed and fully funded, the books will be back in surplus by 2028/29, and there is still $10.5 billion of operating headroom left over.
Naturally, we went looking for the workings.
What Labour initially published looked more like a glossy summary than a fiscal plan. Thanks to Bernard Hickey at Interest.co.nz, we got our hands on the fuller PDF, which provides a bit more detail.
And, credit where it’s due, the fuller document provides more detail on Labour’s year-by-year fiscal track and where the money is supposed to come from and go, but it still leaves some rather large questions.
Labour says its plan contains about $25 billion of commitments, funded partly through almost $11 billion of extra revenue from its capital gains tax, scrapping Investment Boost and reversing the heated-tobacco tax changes.
And we already know where at least some of that gap comes from. The $5.5 billion foreign-aid commitment we uncovered above doesn't appear in Labour’s fiscal plan at all.
Then there is pay equity. Labour has allowed $2.5 billion for the immediate $4-an-hour increase for care and support workers, but the wider cost of restoring its pay-equity regime is still uncosted. Labour says its remaining headroom can absorb whatever that eventually costs.
Labour says its numbers have been independently reviewed by accounting firm Hall Chadwick.
But Hall Chadwick got to see something taxpayers haven't: the detailed policy information and assumptions Labour used to calculate its costs.
Given the gaps we've already identified, those workings matter. If they show how Labour can fund its promises, return the books to surplus and reduce debt at the same time, let everyone see them.
If the numbers really stack up, publish the lot.
Labour wasn’t the only party making expensive promises this weekend...
Greens’ rail numbers fail the sniff test 🚆💸
The Greens have spent the weekend promising a big expansion of passenger rail: an overnight Auckland–Wellington service, Christchurch–Dunedin trains, an extension of Te Huia to Tauranga, and more.
All up, the package would cost taxpayers about $1,980 per household.
Now, there is nothing wrong with making the case for more rail if they think the benefits justify the cost. But the Greens also reckon fares would cover the bulk of the operating costs of their new Auckland–Wellington overnight service.
As James pointed out, that claim fails the most basic sniff test.
NZTA says private revenue, including fares, covered just 20.5 percent of public transport operating costs in 2023/24.
In other words, the system was already close to 80 percent subsidised before the Greens’ latest promises.
And then on Sunday, the Greens announced they would make public transport free for children, teenagers, students, apprentices and Community Service Card holders, while capping everyone else’s bus and train fares at $2.
So the pitch is: slash fares, increase subsidies, launch a raft of new train services... and somehow fares will cover most of the running costs.
But not every election announcement this week involved finding new ways to spend money...
ACT takes aim at the KiwiSaver tax trap 💰📈
ACT has come out with a KiwiSaver policy we rather like: stop taxing the investment earnings on KiwiSaver.
At the moment, workers put money into KiwiSaver from their after-tax pay, employers pay tax on their contributions, and then the investment returns are taxed along the way too. ACT wants to remove the Portfolio Investment Entity tax so more of the return stays invested and keeps compounding.
That is a good start.
But as our Policy Analyst Austin pointed out, there is a cleaner way to do the whole thing.
For someone earning $60,000, that would mean another $997.50 going into KiwiSaver each year instead of being paid as PAYE and tax on the employer contribution. On $80,000, it is $1,737. On $100,000, $2,310.
And because that money stays invested for decades, the benefit is not just the tax saved today. It is the compounding on top of it.
With politicians across the spectrum talking about making New Zealanders save more for retirement, it seems a bit odd to keep taxing the savings along the way.
If the goal is bigger KiwiSaver balances, letting more of workers’ own money actually reach their KiwiSaver account is a pretty obvious place to start.
Away from the spending promises, transparency has suddenly become something of an election theme too.
Labour’s transparency two-step 👀
After everything we wrote last week about officials apparently finding ways around the OIA, Labour has now made government transparency part of its election pitch.
Chris Hipkins used a speech on “Trust in Government” to promise an overhaul of the Official Information Act, arguing that a law written for filing cabinets needs updating for the way government works today.
On that, credit where it’s due. We have spent years arguing that the OIA needs more teeth, more proactive disclosure, and fewer opportunities for information to disappear behind bureaucratic excuses.
But Labour has missed one rather large institution: Parliament itself.
If Labour really wants to rebuild trust through transparency, that exemption has to go too.
Then, rather strangely for a week of talking about strengthening democracy and accountability, Labour announced it also wants to abolish the ratepayer roll.
The ratepayer roll allows someone who owns property and pays rates in a council area where they do not live to enrol for one vote in that council’s election. They do not get extra votes in the same council.
Labour calls abolishing it “one person, one vote”.
More scrutiny for Wellington, but less representation for some of the people footing the bill at council level.
Transparency and accountability are good principles, but they need to apply even when they’re inconvenient.
And while we’re talking about who gets a say in local government...
Why are councils still running their own elections? 🗳️🤔
Auckland Council announced last week that it will ditch postal voting and move back to in-person voting booths for the 2028 local elections, after voting irregularities in Papatoetoe were serious enough for a judge to void the result and force a fresh election.
Fair enough. But it raises a bigger question: why are councils running their own elections in the first place?
We already have an Electoral Commission whose entire job is running parliamentary elections and maintaining the electoral rolls. But the Commission does not run local elections - councils appoint their own electoral officers to conduct them.
That means different voting arrangements, different contractors and ratepayers across the country paying for councils to reinvent the same wheel.
If moving back to voting booths gives people greater confidence in local election results, then let's do it. But rather than 78 councils each cooking up their own solution, hand the job to the Electoral Commission and run local elections properly and consistently nationwide.
Next stop: Mt Albert Electorate Debate 🗳️🎤
We’ve clocked up a fair few kilometres this week. Alongside our Waitaki election debate in Oamaru, the Debt Clock has been out on the road too - so a huge thank you to everyone who came out to see us, have a chat, and help spread the word about just how quickly the debt is still piling up.
Now the debate roadshow rolls on.
Anna Lorck and Damien Grant will once again be asking the questions and keeping everyone on their toes.
And this one comes with a bit extra.
We’ll be releasing the latest national Taxpayers’ Union–Curia Poll live on the night, alongside a brand-new Mount Albert electorate poll. So if you’re there, you’ll be among the first to see what voters locally and across the country are telling us.
Tickets are $10 and include a complimentary drink 🥂
Have a great week,
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