There’s a peculiar New Zealand trait of businesspeople getting together and talking politics.
If the government just changes, it’s said, the economy will boom and my business will make more money. Only if taxes are cut, labour laws liberalised or planning laws relaxed, will I then invest.
It’s nothow businesspeople talk when they get together in New York, London or even Sydney. In bigger countries, powerful executives, successful financiers and winning entrepreneurs have often never been in the same room as the head of a government or a finance minister, and have no desire to be.
The only other country I’ve worked in with the same obsession with politics is Mongolia — like New Zealand, a small country, of just 3.5 million people.
There are two reasons the intimacy between politicians and businesspeople is not necessarily to either country’s economic advantage.
First is the risk of corruption. But even when there’s nothing dodgy, it creates perceptions that political donors are buying exponentially more in corporate welfare and regulatory relief than the relatively small sums they pay. In Washington, it costs US$1.3 million ($2.2m) just to buy a nomination as Ambassador to Norway.
Here, there’s always the nagging suspicion that your competitor might be getting special favours for less than six figures.
The second problem is that political and commercial intimacy risks businesspeople taking their eye off the ball.
Those of a leftist or corporatist slant often genuinely believe their business needs some kind of Callaghan Innovation handout, MBIE special favour, industry working group or government-led trade mission.
Some on the right keep waiting for the glorious day when company tax will be slashed, resource-management laws abandoned, fire-at-will legalised and climate-change regulations scrapped.
Either way, it’s to Wellington they are directing their attention and efforts.
Politicians love this dependent mindset because it allows them to try to buy the votes of businesspeople, as they do those of the middle class and poor.
As John Key rightly observed in 2004, Working for Families was designed by Labour to be “communism by stealth”. The goal was changing families’ most important financial relationships away from their employer or union and towards the Beehive.
As Prime Minister, Key decided to keep it.
Twenty years later, incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is using Working for Families to funnel another $25 a week to those with children and earning up to $50,000 a year, with lesser increases for those earning more.
What National calls its 100-Day Plan is about making businesspeople similarly think, as Luxon puts it, that help is on the way from Wellington.
He promises the “plan” will make it easier “to build things, invent things and grow things” and so “rebuild the economy and get our country back on track”.
He’ll be lucky.
First, Luxon’s “plan” is little more than a montage of waffle, PR stunts and special-interest pleadings that National has sellotaped together.
At number nine is a promise to post out “taxpayer’s receipts”.
Number 36 is to “supercharge the rural economy, including replacing one-size-fits-all rules with local decision making”.
Item 60 promises to “double” renewable electricity generation from the current 87 per cent.
Number 70 is a new cyclone and flood ombudsman.
At 88 is a slogan that National will “strengthen New Zealand’s international connections, so that Kiwi businesses have access to markets, skills and capital”.
Number 98 is “$5 million over four years to promote regional events to support tourism outside major tourist destinations”.
In fact, the “plan” will never see the light of day.
We should know on election night that Luxon will be Prime Minister, but not the Government he’ll lead.
With National-Act close to the magic 61 seats and NZ First not entirely safe above 5 per cent, three governments will be possible: National-Act alone; National-Act with NZ First; with the wildcard of National-Green, should the Greens hold their noses to keep Act and NZ First out of power and rub any remaining right-wing edges off team blue.
We won’t have a final result until Friday, November 3.
It might confirm the election-night result as last happened in 1996.
More likely, one or two seats will shift from National to Labour-Green, as in every election since 2005.
Under MMP, National, Act and NZ First have never gained from special votes, losing ground in seven elections out of nine.
Yet only once a final result is confirmed will Luxon, David Seymour and Winston Peters know their relative bargaining strengths, and whether it will be a three-way or two-way deal.
Christopher Luxon (left), Act leader David Seymour and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. The question: will it be a two-way or three-way deal? Photos / NZME
Bad blood means no meaningful negotiations are likely earlier.
Realistically, Luxon will be doing well to negotiate a coalition and policy programme and have his Cabinet sworn in before December. If 1996 repeats, we’ll be waiting until December 18 for the swearing-in.
Only then can officials start work on bringing the new Government’s policies into effect.
Nicola Willis’ hopes of a pre-Christmas Mini-Budget in the best traditions of Roger Douglas on December 17, 1987, and Ruth Richardson on December 19, 1990, seem doomed.
Unless Luxon’s new Government works right through January, any final 100-Day Plan negotiated with Seymour and Peters won’t really get under way until mid-February, after Waitangi Day.
The 100 days wouldn’t be up until May, to be followed immediately by Willis’ first Budget on May 16.
Nevertheless, don’t panic. Since MMP there have been nearly eight months of coalition negotiations and other MMP-related shenanigans, like working out what would happen after Jenny Shipley sacked Peters in 1998, as the Alliance imploded in 2002, and when the 2008 Spencer Trust controversy threatened an early election.
There’s no evidence businesses make less money or the economy does worse overall when we don’t have a government.
Ahead of another period of caretaker government, the best advice for businesspeople is probably to drop the New Zealand and Mongolian habit of worrying about the politicians and adopt the American, British or Australian practice of just getting on with things regardless.
There’s only one certainty this election: the Luxon Government is going to let you down.
Why not aim for a busy, successful and profitable Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, regardless of which group of clowns is running the Wellington circus?
- Matthew Hooton has over 30 years’ experience in political and corporate communications and strategy for clients in Australasia, Asia, Europe and North America, including the National and Act parties and the Mayor of Auckland.
