You guys. You undecided voters, you floating and wavering voters, the reluctant disinterested voters, and especially you stay at home non-voters. You’re the ones that decide who wins the election on Saturday.
You’d think it might be the people that were really into this politics stuff, they seem to have strong opinions - ones they won’t bloody shut up about. But those people don’t really make any difference as to who wins.
For about a third of voters on the left it’ll be a cold day in hell before they vote for a right wing party. The same of course is true of those on the right. A hardcore on either flank that by tradition or conviction are loyal to their team and would no more change than a football fan might say I’m sick of supporting United, I’m going for City now.
So that leaves you, a third of people in the middle that could go either way. Or just maybe not even bother, especially if the weather is bad.
Don’t worry this isn’t a nag about civic duty and why you should vote. If you’re planning to tick blue, or yellow, you should definitely consider staying at home, it’ll probably be cold out. Do something else.
No, this message is for the ones thinking - yeah that Labour government was good for a bit, but I feel like I need something more. Or those who think there’s no point and will leave that easy voting card in the pile of bills. It’s for those who think a change could be good but you’re just not sure about that Luxon guy.
Maybe before we jump at any special offers, that sound a bit too good to be true, we should check the fine print.
Should you vote for Christopher Luxon?
Let’s start with someone nice and easy - Labour party candidates. If you’re standing for the Labour party you should definitely not vote for Christopher Luxon or the National Party. Not even as a joke.
Well that was a bit obvious, how about public servants? Not you teachers and nurses, we’ll come to you in a bit. I’m talking about people doing all sorts of other essential jobs. Like disaster recovery, cybersecurity, the Serious Fraud Office, or Customs.
If you work for the public sector, or someone you care about does, you should definitely not vote Luxon.
Nicola Willis says they’ll axe about 6,500 people, she’d like to do a lot of them by Christmas. David Seymour says we need to cull 15,000 people doing those jobs.
Neither of them will say which jobs. Either the news is too unpleasant to divulge during an election campaign, or more realistically they haven’t worked out who gets the chop yet.
Not only will a whole lot of critical workers be getting the boot, thousands and thousands of them, but those left behind will receive pay cuts to go with having to pick up all the extra work. Yay!
If that’s not enough, wait there’s more. Now they’ll be asked to spend time producing reports showing that everything is getting better. So that a new Minister, who couldn’t manage their way out a paper bag, can hold up a report and tell the cameras that everything is working. Um, Yay?
If you hate fruit and vegetables, and you don’t want other people paying less tax on them when Labour get rid of the GST, you might want to vote for Luxon, and maybe see a Doctor. Perhaps a heart specialist.
I know it’s not the most exciting policy in the world but if you usually buy a box of fruit and veg for $50 it’ll give you $7.50 left over. Enough for a couple of loaves of bread, or a big box of weetbix (but not from New World as we learned during the great Weetbix shortage of 2023), or even for a prescription. Except of course if you get that GST cut on your healthy food it’ll mean Labour won, and you won’t need to worry about paying for prescriptions. Actual Yay!
But if you vote for Luxon then it’s back to paying for prescriptions, which is worse than it sounds, as my friend Juliet says:
“I have constantly seen people struggling at the chemist counter to choose which medications they can afford to leave with. Welcome to the cost of the cluster prescription! And they are usually picking them up for a family member. It's a humiliation on so many levels that you just can not justify over $5.
To take away someone's ability to pay for the medication for their husband, wife, parents or children at home who desperately needs them to not be in pain, or sick or die should never be marginalized like this.
Myself I have had over 70 prescriptions since February 1st predominantly for pain management. That's how I know the reality of removing this subsidy. Forget cost of living crisis! Bringing back prescription fees creates a COST OF LIFE CRISIS for those who need it the most!”
How about Property Investors? If you’ve got a portfolio of properties which haven’t seen any capital gains since Labour took measures to stop house prices going up 10% every year, you should definitely consider voting for Luxon - he’s your boy.
With his plans to open the housing market back up to overseas buyers. To slash the bright line back to where Key introduced it as a gimmick so he could say he’d done something about the rampant speculation in our housing market. And to re-introduce tax advantages for those with investment properties. House prices are going to absolutely sky rocket!
Even the foreclosures of ex-public servants won’t be enough to keep it under control as Willis, Seymour, and Luxon dance around the fully flaming property market dousing it in petrol.
But what if you don’t own property? Then you definitely should not vote for Luxon.
If you’re looking to buy your first home you can forget it. Whatever you can save for a deposit, while paying exorbitant rents to landlords, won’t even keep pace with where you were, let alone get ahead.
The competition for properties, which will again be a license to print money with policies designed to increase prices, and of course no Capital Gains Tax on the profits made for simply owning a property, will mean first home buyers, who have been increasing as a proportion of home buyers under this government, will have no show.
The Herald might be forced to run even more of their “success” stories about someone in their twenties who now owns five properties, which is all down to hard work. And a few hundred thousand bucks from the bank of Mum and Dad.
Obviously if you’re a renter you should definitely not, under any circumstances, vote for Luxon - are you mad? Despite landlords getting some real cost savings from Luxon, including of course scrapping healthy home initiatives that seek to ensure homes are dry and warm, none of that will be passed on to renters.
When Jack Tame asked Luxon in an interview recently if he’d be passing on the cost reductions for his seven properties to his tenants he looked at Jack as if he was out of his mind. It had, of course, not even occurred to him.
This despite the fact that Chris Bishop was busy telling everyone that rents would go down as a result. To be fair to Bishop he’s told some real whoppers over the years but even he smirked at how ridiculous those claims were - even as he was saying them.
Ok Nick, that’s all very nice, but I can’t pay my bills. I’m on a low income and I need a tax cut.
The current government has raised the minimum wage by nearly $7 an hour in the time they’ve been in power - that’s $556 per fortnight. As we’ll see in a moment National’s tax cuts for most people look pretty unimpressive compared to that!
You can rest assured that if you vote for Luxon future increases to the minimum wage will be few and far between. If they happen at all - ACT wants a complete freeze on them for three years.
Beside which, I don’t know if you’ve been following but those tax cut plans are looking pretty dubious.
The revenue National says they’ll use to pay for them is looking dodgy, to the point that no one except Nicola Willis thinks it’s real. Even Luxon’s starting to look a bit uncomfortable with the claims.
National say they are committed to the tax cuts, but just to be on the safe side they plan to have a mini budget before Christmas to “set out the cuts and new taxes needed to pay for National’s promised tax cuts”. Long after the votes have been counted, of course.
So how much of a tax cut would you be getting? Because what we’ve seen this week is that hardly anyone - almost no one - is actually getting a tax cut as large as the one Luxon and Willis have been selling. Only 3,000 families in the whole country get the amount they’ve been promoting, which is much less than 1% of the population. For an awful lot of Kiwis the tax cut would only be in between $10 and $30 per week.
If the highly disputed revenue doesn’t materialise then whose tax cuts do you think will be sacrificed first? Do you think it’ll be those going to people on higher incomes? Or will it be the pittance going to the people on the lowest incomes? It’s not the first option, is it?
Even if you do get the tax cuts, which promises aside look incredibly shaky, you’ll actually lose far more than you’ll get if you vote for Luxon. I already mentioned the prescription fees, but you can also add things like subsidised public transport and of course no free dentistry as promised by Labour for those under 30.
Those are just the ones they’re advertising. Once negotiations with ACT take place I’d be surprised if we don’t also see the end of the first year of tertiary study being free, and the Winter Energy Payment being cancelled. Not to mention that for those not yet in retirement a vote for Luxon is a vote to take two years off your superannuation entitlement.
Those tax cuts don’t look quite so appealing when you consider all that, do they?
What about those doing it the toughest, those on a benefit, unable to work because of sickness, or on super? There will be people right now who are incredibly stressed about a National government making their lives, where they’re barely getting by, simply impossible.
National’s plan to decouple benefit increases from wages will take two billion dollars out of the pockets of beneficiaries, which will have serious ramifications for issues like child poverty. It’s one of the cruellest things I have ever heard. That people would vote for it, or just stay at home and not make the effort to avoid it, is heartbreaking. If you care about child poverty then you should definitely not vote for Luxon.
Someone you know is going to suffer as a result of the planned austerity from the National government. Not just a little bit where they’re buying a cheaper cut of meat or cutting back on extras. I’m talking about their existence becoming impossible.
There will be people looking at these changes who will be stressed out of their minds as to how they’ll be able to afford the most basic necessities of life. Things shouldn’t be like that. There is plenty in this country to house, feed, and clothe all of our people, and still have plenty left over to reward success.
If you’re a teacher or a nurse you’ve received sizeable pay increases under this government. No doubt not as much as you’d have hoped, but a hell of a lot more than you would’ve received under a Luxon government. If you vote to keep the current government they’ll continue to improve your pay and conditions. If you vote for Luxon that won’t happen.
If you want to live in a country where we move forward as a people, respecting the Treaty of Waitangi and seeking to improve outcomes and representation for Māori to address past and present unequal treatment you should definitely not vote for Luxon. He and Seymour have plans to step back from the precipice of progress and keep on stepping back until about the 1970s, the good old days. Even earlier if Winston’s in the mix.
Māori don’t want to take all the stuff, they just a want a say in this country. It’s the people donating large sums of money to National and ACT that want all the stuff. Why did you think the super rich were sponsoring them? To give you a tax cut?
If you think we should be doing less than we are about climate change you should definitely vote for Luxon. That’s exactly what he wants to do. Cancelling all the initiatives to reduce emissions, blowing the money from the Emissions Trading Scheme on tax cuts, and generally doing as little about it as possible.
On the other hand if you think we should do something in the face of rising temperatures, the increasingly volatile weather, as well as the soon to be rapidly declining conditions for human life on Earth. You should definitely not vote Luxon.
Do you want Winston Peters deciding what happens? Because if Luxon wins that’s what you get. Unfortunately Luxon lacked the political nuts, sorry nous, to rule Winston out when he should have and in so doing let him back in the door, creating this whole mess so that people have no idea what a Luxon government would look like.
Do you want someone that can lead in tough times? An environmental disaster, a pandemic, or an economic crisis? Christopher Luxon is a first term MP and neither of his likely deputies, Willis or Seymour, have any cabinet experience either. To draw on experience Luxon would have to resurrect people like Judith Collins and Gerry Brownlee - is that what you imagine when you think of a brand new government?
Look don’t take my word for it, trust your own instincts. Watch the two leaders speak and listen to your gut. Which leader sounds like he’s being realistic? Who sounds as if he knows the details? Which one sounds like he cares about you and your family? Watch their faces and their body language. Who’s working really hard for you and who’s treating it all as a bit of a game where winning is all that matters?
When I wake up on Sunday morning for that All Blacks game against Ireland I know that I will have done the best that I can to help people who need it most. To elect a government that doesn’t sugarcoat bullshit but tells it how it is. A group of people who are literally in this for you and me.
We might win, we might not. If enough of us vote to do the right thing for the majority of people in this country then we will win. Or you could stay at home because what’s the point? Just like the people of Auckland did in their mayoral election, and end up with another Wayne Brown in charge.
That might sound a bit harsh. I think in his own very weird way old Wayne actually does care about Auckland. But I don’t believe that Christopher Luxon, or Nicola Willis, or David Seymour care about you, or your family, or this country, other than in terms of what they, and their rich donors, can get from it.
Don’t vote Christopher Luxon. Vote not Christopher Luxon. No ticks blue.
These guys can play! Maybe see what that man in the mirror thinks you should do.
You make good points Nick and yes I am already a believer that a centre left Government is the way forward. I am dreading what negative impact a change of Govt will mean for NZ. I think Labour deserves another 3 years.
Although I'm anxiously optimistic that common sense, compassion, fairness and facts ❤️💚🖤 will prevail the prospect of these "Liz Truss" like a*^*holes getting in scares the hell out of me 😬