One last lap. One last crack. One last chance to boost your own policies or knock down your opponents. Tonight TVNZ hosts the final leaders’ debate and although over a million New Zealanders have voted and much of the policy debate seems to have stagnated around negative attacks, there are still questions worth asking.
Everyone will have a frustration about questions not asked or properly answered this campaign. Or about issues that have been loss amidst the babble about not disrespecting Samoa, the mysteries pumped hydro and
But with 48 hours to go and a debate to be had, there are still questions worth asking. So here are a few I’ll offer for free.
What would a potential Labour-Greens government look like? Jacinda Ardern has once and for all ruled out a wealth tax while she is Prime Minister. It jars as an oddly arrogant and First Past the Post position to take, but on the plus side it at least tells voters something more about what they are and aren’t voting for. She’s opened the door, so let’s keep the conversation going.. what else do both parties want and what are they ruling out? Is there anything of Labour’s the Greens would veto? What does Ardern think about solar panels on state houses? Marine reserves? Welfare increases? The Greens repeatedly say ‘let’s have an election first’. But, with respect, that’s hugely disrespectful of voters. It’s a long-running bugbear of mine, but one of the great developments we still need to make into a proportional representation mindset, I believe, is to expect more clarity on parties’ negotiating positions. Of course parties want to push their own policies, but let’s accept the reality that MMP means coalitions, so voters have the right to know not just what a party stands for, but what various blocs might trade away in negotiations and what they would prioritise. So if the Greens, can’t get a wealth tax, we should be asking what they can get.
This is a covid election. But we still don’t have a clear idea about dates around arriving foreigners. Labour is willing to let one in ten quarantine places go to workers from overseas filling critical positions. But from when? ACT wants international students let in for the next school year. Would Labour consider that timeframe? When immigration restarts, at what level should it be? Back to pre-Covid record levels?
House prices have risen by another 11 percent in the past year to new record highs. Jacinda Ardern: Having ruled out a capital gains tax and already implemented a foreign buyers ban and upped the brightline test, what specific policies do you have that are designed to slow that growth? And are you still promising to abolish Auckland’s urban boundary as you did in 2017 and never followed through? Judith Collins: Do you stand by your statement earlier in the campaign that you want house prices to call in some regions? Which regions? And now that the Reserve Bank has said this week that “The worst situation we could face right now would be to see house prices fall”, do you retract your comments?
Collins: Paul Goldsmith has said National’s proposed tax cuts will be temporary ‘because that’s what temporary means’, but you have said they could go on beyond the planned 16 months. Who is right?
Ardern: Experts agree that if New Zealand follows your climate change policies we will fail to reach our Paris Agreement targets. So have you given up on those or is there something you’re not telling us? And why are you pushing for 100% renewables when your own advisors have said that would mean a 14% increase in residential power prices? In the midst of a recession and as you are promising certainty, can you give people certainty power prices won’t go up by 14% as the ICCC have projected?
Collins: You’ve said no an increase in the minimum wage next year. So what’s the criteria for the next increase? Are you willing to say no increase in MPs salaries next year as well and apply that same criteria to your pay?
You have both been part of governments that have increased benefits in recent years? When will you do so again, if at all?
We are heading into a generation’s worth of debt. Is it time to increase the age of eligibility for superannuation to help pay that debt back more quickly? Ardern: You’ve asked university students to sacrifice two years of fees-free to help get through this and they will be paying the debt you’re racking up now for years. Why not ask older New Zealanders to make a sacrifice too? Or are they more important than young New Zealanders?
Ardern: You promised action on regional rail in your first term and talked about linking up Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga. When will you do that?
Policy switch… Ardern, would you consider National’s policy of an infrastructure bank? Collins, would you consider Labour’s policy of more school lunches?
Ardern: You promised 100,000 children out of poverty, defined as households earning less than 50% of the median income, by 2020. The data up to 2019 shows by that measure only 12,100 are out of poverty. So what date are your promising now? Given you gave a date in 2017, there’s no reason you can’t give a date now.
Collins: Now Ardern has ruled out a wealth tax, will you rule out ACT’s bottom-line of austerity, including a ten percent cut across the public sector (excluding defence, police and health) and its wish to repeal this term’s gun laws?
There’s a top dozen at least, to be going on with.