NationBuilder

You might think from recent coverage that the election is in the bag for the Centre Right. Today's poll, however, makes it clear that this is far from the case. October's vote remains on a knife edge.

NEW POLL: Hung Parliament as Māori Party and ACT make gains 📊😳

Exclusively for our supporters like you, here are the results of July's Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll:

National drops 2.4 points on last month to 33.3% while Labour drops 1.8 points to 31.1%. ACT is up 0.5 points to 13.2% while the Greens are down 0.8 points to 8.9%.

The smaller parties are the Māori Party 5.0% (+1.5 points), NZ First on 3.3% (+1.7 points), Democracy NZ on 1.9% (+1 point), New Conservatives on 0.4% (-0.9 points), and TOP on 0.3% (-0.5 points).

Here is how these results would translate to seats in the 120-seat Parliament:

National is down 3 seats on last month to 43 while Labour is down 1 seat to 41. ACT is up 1 seat to 17 while the Greens are unchanged on last month at 12 seats. The Māori Party is up 3 seats on last month to 7.

The combined projected seats for the Centre Right of 60 seats is down 2 on last month while the combined total for the Centre Left is up 2 seats to 60. On these results it would be a hung parliament – meaning neither bloc could command a majority in the House of Representatives.

Just 22.1% (-2.7 points on last month) of New Zealanders think the country is heading in the right direction while 64.5% (+7.1 points) think the country is heading in the wrong direction. This results in a new record low for the net country direction of -42.4% (-9.8 points).

Visit our website for more information and details of how to get access to the full polling report.

Taxpayer Victory! Hipkins rules out wealth and capital gains taxes – but must go further 🎉💸

The Prime Minister today announced that he is ruling out a wealth or capital gains tax despite having asked officials to give the Government advice for consideration of introducing a wealth tax as part of the budget process earlier this year.

The Taxpayers' Union has been calling on the PM to commit to this for some time, but it seems another poll earlier this week that had Labour at its lowest level of support for many years may have bounced him into making this announcement. He understands that such proposals are politically toxic. But these aren't just politically bad, they are economically ruinous too.

No country has ever taxed itself into prosperity. Mr Hipkins shouldn't just be ruling out these two taxes, but ruling out any new taxes while he is Prime Minister – including extending or raising existing taxes. Only by doing this can we look to make New Zealand a high-growth, high productivity country where people want to live, work and invest.

Can we trust Chippie at his word? 😉

A word of caution. We cheered when Jacinda Ardern made a commitment to rule out "any new taxes", but she broke her word – repeatedly – despite the Labour majority. Since the 2020 campaign, we have seen:

Plus, today's poll confirms that any Government Chris Hipkins leads post-election would have to involve the Greens and the Māori Party who both want nothing less than exorbitant tax hikes and new asset taxes.

Just who's to blame for high supermarket prices? 🛒 👀

The Government has established as new 'Grocery Commissioner', which it says will tackle New Zealand’s excessive grocery prices. But while it likes bashing the supermarket companies, the real issues behind paying too make for groceries lies in over-regulation.

The grocery duopoly is propped up by restrictions on both foreign competition and land use. High corporate taxes and the ban on foreign companies owning land make New Zealand an unattractive market for international discount chains to invest in.

And the Government has doubled down with the Grocery Industry Competition Bill’s ridiculous requirement for potential future competitors to supply their competition (i.e. the two big established players) with produce at wholesale prices.

Restrictions under the Resource Management Act (RMA) prevent would-be competitors from setting up shop, resulting in localized monopolies and price gouging. David Parker’s RMA reforms are only going to make this worse.

And all of this is before the Government continues to drive inflation through its reckless overspending. It is little wonder food price inflation of 12.5% is causing families to feel the pain.

Instead of fixing the drivers of high food costs, the Government appears to be trying to shift the blame. Adding more bureaucracy isn’t going to reduce barriers to entry and cut grocery costs.

Taxpayers were made to foot the bill for up to $2 million in census giveaways 🎁

As if the census earlier this year was not disastrous enough with its poor return rate, your humble Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that up to $2 million was budgeted for handing out support vouchers to get non-responding individuals and households to complete the census.

From that $2 million budget, $1 million went to communities nationwide and the other half went to households in Auckland. Across both streams of work, vouchers were given out at up to $100 dollars in value. As of 18 May, the total spend on food and fuel vouchers was $176,090.

Taxpayers' Union Researcher Alex Murphy looks into this issue in more detail in a blogpost and asks whether it is really the right approach to offer those who refuse to fill out their census forms a free meal. The scheme leaves a rather bad taste in the mouth.