n this opinion, Andy Loader examines New Zealand election promises, the cost of living, resource policy, Treaty and co-governance debates, and the records of successive governments. He questions whether political commitments are grounded in complete evidence and whether voters can hold parties accountable for delivery.
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It doesn’t take a genius to work out that in the current economic climate there are many people who are hurting financially and otherwise.
Given that we are now just a few weeks from the general election and candidates are starting to campaign in earnest we see the lolly scramble begin.
It is a known fact that many voters in a general election will vote according to what they believe will give them the best deal personally or financially.
This then sets the scene for candidates to put out their campaign manifestos which set out what they are going to do if they get elected to parliament and try to influence the voters to support them at the election.
The pre-election promises made by candidates/political parties will cover many different issues and the current topics that seen to be at the top of the list according to media reports are;
History based on recent elections shows that candidates will include a combination of all three things mentioned in the heading, (Facts – Lies – Incompetence) along with others.
I am sure that many readers of this article will immediately focus on the mention of lies and will either condemn or agree with me.
I am also sure there are thousands of people out in our community that will be outraged or at horrified that I mentioned political parties/candidates and lies in the same article.
History including recent history of election promises and the failure to act on those promises support my contention that we are often lied to at election time.
I believe that there are some parties/candidates that are so focused on winning elections that they make promises which they have either not researched adequately or know they will never be in a position to actually have to implement those promises but which they believe will make their candidacy attractive enough to convince the voters to elect them.
So people can yell all they want about not calling it lies but in my opinion if a party/candidate makes a pre-election promise and then never actions that promise (or is unable to give a reasonable explanation of why they were unable to take action on those promises), then they have lied to the voters.
When it comes to elections and as I call it the “lolly scramble” parties/candidates will use facts to justify their promises for relief/assistance in whatever form they are making it, but more often than not they will only use the facts that make their promise look either possible or like a good result for the voters.
This is not telling lies but at the same time it is often leaving out context which could make the voters take a second look and possibly change their minds. That is why we should all look carefully at what is being promised instead of just taking promises at face value on the basis that they will give us some personal benefit.
Facts don’t lie they are just a record of something that has been proved but when we don’t have all the facts around a given situation then the context built around those facts we are given can be radically different from the reality of the situation when all of the known facts are put together and presented as a whole.
Then of course we see those pre-election promises made which are so far removed from reality that there can only be a large dose of incompetence mixed into the thinking behind them.
Let’s take a look at some examples of how governments and their ministers can mislead the voters by their promises and/or actions.
In New Zealand, the most trusted professions according to the Ipsos Global Trustworthiness Index are doctors, followed by teachers and scientists.
Politicians, ad executives, and government ministers are generally considered the least trustworthy.
When Jacinda Ardern was elected to the office of Prime Minister in 2017, she promised that her Labour government would be the most open and transparent New Zealand has seen.
Ardern said the start of the Parliamentary term was a "new beginning" and in her first formal speech to Parliament she pledged: “This government will foster a more open and democratic society. It will strengthen transparency around official information.”
But even with her pledge to strengthen transparency and foster a more open and democratic society, her government employed a large number of communications specialists and under their watch maintained an iron grip on the control of information disseminated to the public.
It actually became much harder to get information from her government as people had to deal with an army of communication specialists whose job seemed to consist entirely of putting the governments spin onto anything that was released to try to ensure the government looked good.
Ardern’s Labour government basically shut down the coal mining industry in New Zealand (supposedly to eliminate the use of fossil fuelled energy) and then sat and watched as we have imported millions of tonnes of dirty coal from Indonesia, so that we could keep the lights on without saying a word.
I cannot think of a major policy from her election promises which have not been a failure. She told us they would make houses more affordable; yet costs rose so high that first home owners could not even hope to buy let alone actually be able to “afford” to buy a home.
They promised to build 100,000 Kiwi-build homes, but actually only succeeded in sacking the Minister after his department failed spectacularly.
Meanwhile, over $1 billion was spent on emergency housing, and the waiting list for a State house has escalated from 5,000 in 2017 to over 27,000 in 2023.
They promised Auckland would get a light rail system from the city centre to the airport and failed to lay even a single centimetre of track.
Another claimed justification for making these race based decisions to elevate Maori to a ruling class is NZ’s obligations after the signing of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Labour government commissioned a report which Ardern claimed was about developing a strategy to fulfil our obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She stated that the report titled “He Puapua” was an advisory document but this was at best a disingenuous statement as parts of that document had already been enacted and as such it was in effect the beginning of the division of our country based on race (Apartheid any way you look at it).
Part of that He Puapua report defined the pathway to achieve Maori sovereignty by 2040 and the implementation of parts of that report which were done in secret without any public referendum or mandate other than their victory in the 2020 election would not stand up to public scrutiny.
This report was kept secret even from her coalition partner (New Zealand First) before the 2020 election and was eventually only released after a full copy was leaked to news media outlets and published. This being another example of Labour’s most open and transparent government at work!
A classic example of their incompetence was the decision to build a cycle bridge over the Auckland harbour; a $685 million bridge, and then when they finally conceded how stupid the decision had been and cancelled it, they carried on paying to complete plans for the bridge to tune of approximately $50 million.
In January 2023 Jacinda Ardern resigned and Chris Hipkins took over the position as Prime Minister of the Labour government.
I remember last year watching the Labour leader Mr Hipkins deliver a speech to the house, in which he was promoting his party’s intention to deal with the Maori party in any negotiations post the next election should he be required to do so to make a majority to govern.
In his speech which started with him giving an introduction in Te Reo, he mentioned many statistics regarding privilege, and related them to Maori specifically. Most of his comments were aimed at making him look as if he and his party were sincere in their views about Maori being disadvantaged not privileged.
He quoted statistics about: life expectancy; likelihood of dying from cancer; higher rates of childhood hospitalisation; Treaty requirements of partnership; Non Maori having nothing to fear from Maori getting ahead in NZ and when Maori thrive we all thrive.
Whilst these statistics may have all been true, I am sure that Mr Hipkins knows there is much more that needs to be included if they are going to be used to promote the theory that Maori need to be given special privileges to get ahead.
In fact it has been well documented by the World Health Organisation that the social determinants of health have an important influence on health inequities - the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries. In countries at all levels of income, health and illness follow a social gradient: the lower the socioeconomic position, the worse the health.
I am sure that if Mr Hipkins had taken the time to do, even just a cursory study of the facts around his claims he would have found that the majority of them relate directly to the issue of personal choices by those that make up the numbers of his complaints about privileges or the lack of such.
But of course that wouldn’t look anywhere as convincing as using selective quotations of the facts that support intended claims. No lies just a clear use of selected facts to cover the real truth behind those facts.
So he may have been wanting to get back into power and prepared to sell out the voters of NZ with his talk of a menagerie of Muppets making up a coalition government post-election, but this just proves the reason why most NZ’s feel that politicians are one of the most untrustworthy of professions.
Green Party unveiled mining policy ahead of 2026 general election and as part of that policy stated that they will revoke any consents or permits issued under the current coalition Government’s new fast-track legislation for coal mining, hard-rock gold mining and seabed mining.
The Government’s bill covers mining as well as infrastructure, quarrying, housing, renewable energy and farming projects.
How can they possibly reconcile that position with the true facts as we know them today?
If we want to carry on living in the current world with all of the technological benefits that man has developed then we need to have a constant supply of the resources needed to maintain that developed technology.
Resources such as coal, gold, rock and minerals that are required for that maintenance and without which we would not be able to continue our current existence.
Take coal for example. The previous government decided to import coal from Indonesia rather than support mining the resource in NZ. The reason that they allowed or supported the importation of coal is that they realised they needed coal for power generation or they would face blackouts from power shortages.
In effect this policy does nothing for either NZ or the international environment as all it does is export the environmental issues from NZ to Indonesia and raise the costs of energy production in NZ.
The true facts are that NZ still burns coal to ensure a safe and reliable power supply in all weathers and the mining of coal still occurs to ensure that can happen. In actual fact it is quite possible that the mining of that coal will be carried out under environmental conditions that are worse than what would be required under NZ’s Resource Management Legislation.
We still require the usage of tonnes of gold to develop and maintain technology and equipment in both the medical and communication industries aside from any other uses.
In any developed society as we know it today the first thing that is required to maintain or expand development of the infrastructure, is a constant supply of rock resource, but there is also requirements for other minerals such as iron, aluminium, copper etc.
The previous Labour government banned further exploration for oil and natural gas yet we still require the supply of petroleum products to enable society to survive as we know it today.
These decisions such as that by the Labour government and the proposal from the lunatic Green Party are nothing more than absolutely dishonest virtual signalling, as they well know that we will still need to use these type of resources if we are to carry on living in a society such as we have today.
This dishonesty is compounded when you take into account that they know this is true and that they also know that in many cases the mining of those resources is carried out under conditions which are much worse for both the local environment in which they are mined and the safety of the people doing that mining (including in many cases child slave labour).
New Zealand is currently in a dire financial position with regard to our debt levels and rising costs of living yet we have great wealth locked up in natural resources which are required for use in everyday items we use such as telephones, electricity, transport etc.
Why should we not use our own resources and save on overseas debt as well as supply the demand for those resources from offshore, and make a significant inroad into our current account deficit.
This type of anti-mining proposal from the lunatic Green Party never really seems to be required to include the whole truth.
One of the simple facts of the issue is in relation to the physical effects of mining, where it is easily seen that less than one percent of our total land area has been affected by mining in any shape or form and over 70 percent of our land area has been altered/affected by human habitation in some form.
It should also be said that there are places where mining has actually improved the land as a result of mining operations and rehabilitation of the mined out areas such as on the West Coast of the South Island. There are many areas where there has been mining carried out on land which had very little value which as a result of the rehabilitation from mining has now become highly valued productive farmland.
Good mining activities can increase national income, reduce pollution, decrease land slope, improve topsoil thickness, decrease soil density, increase infiltration-percolation, and reduce soil erosion.
Mining uses less than 0.05% of New Zealand's land area, and sites of former mines are now used for other purposes such as agriculture and tourism.
So how has the current coalition government performed since taking over at the 2023 election.
Nationals Leader, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told the nation in his state of the nation speech that National is concentrating on fixing the basics and building the future.
My question for him is simply what part of the basics has he supposedly fixed and when are we likely to see the results of his building of our future.
His party promotes itself as building a society based on following our democratic principles and equal citizenship and equal opportunity yet so far we have not seen any evidence of this in the decision making by this National party led coalition government.
Stopping the tribal takeover is what National, ACT and New Zealand First promised to do when they agreed to prioritise “Ending race-based policies” in their Coalition Agreement.
Prior to the 2023 election the current Coalition Government parties promised to reverse race-based laws and practices.
As we approach the end of their term in office, the big question being asked is whether enough has been done to derail the tribal juggernaut. Democracy is under threat from the claim of ‘partnership’ between the Crown and Iwi who signed the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi document.
The Prime Minister’s job is to protect our system of democracy & equality and to ensure that any threats to either are promptly and firmly opposed by, if necessary legislation, and by publicly speaking out against them.”
Given all of the above when we look at his claims of fixing the basics and building the future we don’t find much in the way of encouraging news to report.
In 2025, salary increases in New Zealand averaged between 2.6% and 2.9% compared to a 2.4% increase in the cost of living for the average household, with some lower-expenditure households facing up to 4% higher costs, according to Stats NZ
In relation to the increases in average salaries over the last few years it can be seen from the large increases in the costs of living over the same period, that the average household has effectively seen a large reduction in their disposable incomes.
This to me certainly doesn’t look like fixing the basics and whilst the coalition government have made some economic decisions that will benefit the economy in the long term, they are so far into the future that while they may be seen as building the future, they rely on many other variables to even come into force, and even if they do we will not see any return on these decisions for many years to come.
The costs of living are the thing most households are worried about. While inflation may have dropped slightly and interest rates stabilised, the cost of living is still hurting. Food, rent, insurance, rates, and electricity prices are still very high in relation to their incomes and many families are struggling just to keep the roof over their head and keep food on the table.
When it comes to the pre-election promises to end race-based laws and practices the Coalition has failed dismally.
Instead of being eliminated, Labour’s He Puapua programme to replace democracy with tribal rule remains embedded within the country’s legislative and regulatory framework.
In light of National’s claims around building a society based on following our democratic principles, equal citizenship, equal opportunity and despite the clear mandate against racial division and co-governance that was delivered to the Coalition at the election, not only are activist Treaty principle clauses continuing to shape policy advice and decision-making, but official references to the original Treaty of Waitangi are being replaced with “Te Tiriti” – a radicalised version that embodies He Puapua through Treaty partnerships and co-governance.
The consequences can be seen in the Courts, where legislation is increasingly interpreted by activist Judges through the lens of Maori custom or tikanga in ways that exceed Parliament’s intent and undermine the Rule of Law.
Much of the government bureaucracy (both central and local) has demonstrated support for co-governance and outright resistance to any change, that without decisive action to remove divisive race-based provisions from law and practice - and to reassert the primacy of Parliament - the drift towards tribal governance will continue. This represents an enormous threat to New Zealand democracy.
Co-governance was arguably the most polarising of all the policies stealthily adopted by Labour after its landslide victory in 2020. After the 2020 election the Labour government was forced to release the “He Puapua” report which was kept hidden until being leaked to the news media after the election was over.
Although the labour government denied it was going to implement the report’s recommendations, much of them had been enacted in some form or other before the Labour government suffered their ignominious defeat at the 2023 election.
The Labour Government passed much legislation through Parliament with the assumption that all people are not free and equal; that some are more equal than others not based on the matters before them, not based on any particular expertise they may have, but simply based on their ethnic background.
The fact of the matter was that by going down this pathway they started saying that, actually, some citizens are better qualified based on their demographic characteristics to address a matter than others and as a result we found our country was being divided on the basis of ethnic background; A place where some citizens were denied equal political rights on this basis of ethnic background.
Yet even with this knowledge and the mandate that they were given at the 2023 election, based on their promises to remove race-based laws and practices, we have seen Prime Minister Luxon state that the issues of race are not serious and that he is in favour of co-governance.
The National, Act, NZ First coalition government under Luxon’s leadership has ignored their responsibility to their voting supporters at the time of the last election, by not carrying out their election promises to remove race-based laws and practices.
Whilst they did repeal the Three Waters legislation and remove the Maori Health Authority, given the failure to actually address the underlying issue of race based legislation these changes are nothing more than tokenism as the circumstances that allowed these things to happen have just been swept under the rug not dealt with!
When analysing the progress that’s been made, what becomes obvious is that the Coalition has delivered on some legislative change, but its record is very much weaker on the issues and promises that matter most to everyday life: lifting real incomes, easing cost-of-living pressures, and turning around outcomes in health and education.
There can be no mature discussion about our future as a country until everybody accepts that the Treaty provided for the government to have final authority, with all citizens - no matter their ancestry - having equal rights.
We must stop being afraid to say it. Having a system of racial discrimination where equality in government has been replaced by a person’s ethnicity is not just wrong, it is corrosive. A separatist political model based on racial ancestry belongs in 19th-century Apartheid South Africa, not 21st-century New Zealand.
It must be stated that one extremely improved outcome from the coalition government has come about from the Minister of Education’s changes to the education and training legislation, which are already showing a very much improved level of results from the focus on the core numeracy and literacy skills.
The Coalition can claim they have made progress on improving the national economy given that the GDP figures are now showing signs of improvement, but this has not had any effect on improving the actual economic situation for households.
In December, Hipkins told his party’s conference: “Every promise that I put my name to at the next election will be a promise I know we can deliver on.” Yet one of his first major promises of the election campaign was for Labour to magic up 4.5 million extra GP appointments each year through “smarter digital tools and more efficient systems”.
The plan to offer three free GP visits annually for all New Zealanders would be financed by a 28 per cent capital gains tax on commercial and residential investment properties that wouldn’t come into operation until mid-2027 and is not retrospective.
Hipkins seems unaware of the irony of a Labour leader banking on the prices of already overvalued homes rising substantially to fund a surge in taxpayer-funded GP visits — including for the wealthy — that will undoubtedly overwhelm primary healthcare.
A Hipkins-led government will have to raise taxes (or borrow a lot more money) given his commitment to reinstate the pay equity programme abandoned by the Coalition government. The extra $12 billion in government expenditure will have to come from somewhere.
To gauge his position on Maori nationalism generally, it is worth noting Hipkins has said iwi didn’t cede sovereignty to the Crown in 1840 and has argued “there is nothing undemocratic about co-governance”.
According to statements made by Peeni Henare during the Tamaki Makaurau by-election in 2023— Hipkins has promised to reinstate the Māori Health Authority and resurrect the compulsory schools Aotearoa Histories curriculum, introduced during his five-year tenure as Education minister.
Henare also said Labour would provide $1 billion for Māori initiatives — as Ardern’s administration did in 2021.
The Greens have promised a suite of new wealth, inheritance and income taxes to raise some $88 billion in additional tax over four years. And while Te Pati Maori hasn’t indicated exactly how much extra revenue it would extract, it is dedicated to a wealth tax, higher company tax rate and a foreign companies tax.
Te Pati Maori candidate in September’s Tamaki Makaurau by-election, Oriini Kaipara, made a series of extravagant pledges and among them she said that she wanted “co-governance right across the board at a local, regional and national level”.
The National party of today seems to believe in what are so-called 'progressive' policies that would once have been seen as left-wing policies.
These policies cover issues such as ideas about ethnicity that promote mythical ideologies and racial division of our nation; Issues that will destroy the idea of equality, one person, one vote; Issues about ethnicity that require unequal treatment based on an erroneous interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi.
National was elected in 2023 with a mandate for change; Voters wanted race based legislation and practices removed; they wanted the bureaucracy to be changed back to a non-partisan secular viewpoint.
People feel let down; they voted for change and have only got more of the same, have seen the implementation of many of the very ideas that they voted to reject.
I don’t agree with everything that the minor coalition parties support, but at least they seem to be prepared to say no; to refuse to automatically accept claimed ideology and to believe that our historic national identity matters.
With the upcoming election we need to hold the politicians accountable for their promises prior to the last election and retain our working democracy where all citizens - no matter their ancestry - have equal rights; one person one vote!
Source
Andy Loader, The Lolly Scramble – Facts, Lies or Incompetence, author-supplied manuscript.