National is committed to building the infrastructure and transport system New Zealand needs to ensure our ongoing economic prosperity is secured

The Labour Party is continuing its full-frontal attack on regional New Zealand with its announcement today that farming would join the Emissions Trading Scheme

Labour will set a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and take the necessary steps to achieve it.

Ardern’s first call will be to the Greens post-election.

The Green Party will make electricity more affordable with winter energy payments for more than 500,000 lower-income households

Labour’s union shill Chris Hipkins bullies small schools.

We’re not going to tonight’s TVNZ debate.

Debates are so establishment anyway.

We are prepared to go into Opposition rather than join a Government with NZ First (but we will be at tonight’s debate).

Last night’s One News Colmar Brunton poll.

One News Colmar Brunton: Labour 43.0% (nc)National 39.0% (-2.0%) Green 5.0% (nc) NZ First 9.0% (+1.0%) Maori 2.0% (+1.0%) ACT 0.1% (NC) Opportunities 1.9% (+0.9%).

Translated to seats: Labour 53, National 48, NZ First 11, Green 6, ACT 1, Maori 2, Total 121.

Listener Bauer: Labour 37% National 34% NZ First 7% Greens 6% “Don’t know” 10%.

Newsroom SSI: Labour 45% National 30% NZ First 11% Greens 6% TOP 2% Māori Party 2% Act 1%. The #MotherOfAllPolls to match the #MotherOfAllScandals?

As at 9am 5 September: Nats: $7.62b Lab: $22.82b NZFirst:  $25.97b  Greens: $9.94b  Maori: $12.17b  ACT: $-2.43b  TOP: $10.69b  (all figures limited to costs within next Parliamentary term). Full details here.

The Herald reports:

Microsoft, Datacom – and the Auckland Theatre Company – have signed up as partners for New Zealand’s newest charter school.

The new City Senior School for 300 students near Auckland’s Victoria Park will share space with a “Launching Pad” for new business start-ups that will work with students on joint projects.

It is one of four new partnership schools announced today by Education Under-Secretary and Act Party leader David Seymour. The others are in Gisborne, Christchurch and Mangere, where an existing charter school run by Labour candidate Willie Jackson’s wife Tania Rangiheuea will open a new high school.

However all four schools will not open until 2019 and could be torpedoed if Labour wins this month’s election. Labour education spokesman Chris Hipkins said Labour would not go ahead with opening any new charter schools.

 

“The Government should not be entering into new charter school announcements when they know full well that it is a heated and contentious debate during the election campaign,” he said.

City Senior School Ltd and its parent Launching Pad Charitable Trust have been set up by Hobsonville Point Secondary School deputy principal Claire Amos and Brett O’Riley, who was until recently head of the Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development agency (Ateed).

O’Riley’s wife Robyne Walker is also a director.

It is the first charter school to be approved under new criteria allowing schools to specialise in science, technology, engineering, arts and maths (STEAM) subjects. All 15 other charter schools set up or announced to date have been approved under the initial criteria requiring them to serve Maori, Pacific and low-income students.

The school will take students only in Years 11 to 13, starting with 100 Year 11 students in 2019 and adding Year 12 in 2020 and Year 13 in 2021.

Amos said students would work on projects with established technology companies and new start-ups.

That sounds great. What a pity that Labour doesn’t want innovative schools like this.

The Herald reports:

Former National and Act Party leader Don Brash says Winston Peters is the best chance of “ending National’s race-based policies”.

Brash is a spokesman for a lobby group, Hobson’s Pledge Trust, that wants to end what it calls “Maori separatism” by abolishing the Maori seats and remove all references in law and policy to Treaty “partnership” and “principles”.

With just weeks until the election he has written an article for Elocal magazine, titled, “Use your vote to end National’s race-based policies”. …

On New Zealand First, Brash tells readers it is the party that has consistently called for a “colour-blind” state, and Peters this year announced policy to hold a binding referendum on whether the Maori seats should continue.

He questions whether Peters can be trusted, given he didn’t use his bargaining power to move New Zealand to a “colour-blind society” in 1996 or 2005.

“Nobody knows for certain how Mr Peters will use his bargaining power … [but] on balance, I think NZ First is the best chance we’ve got of moving New Zealand to a society where ancestry is absolutely irrelevant to our legal rights,” Brash wrote.

So Don is saying that Winston has never ever acted on his rhetoric before but he thinks this time he might. Wow. Sort of desperate.

He told the Herald that comment did not amount to a specific endorsement.

“We mention the fact that both Act and New Zealand First are saying things that are consistent with what Hobson’s Pledge has been arguing for.”

Brash said he was aware that under the Electoral Act his group could not specifically tell New Zealanders to vote for a party or candidate, without their approval.

Actually they can, they just can’t spend money on advertisements saying it.

The Herald reports:

A National Party candidate says she’s had enough of being bullied for using disabled car parks – from people who don’t realise she is entitled to park there.

Critics have even taken to dobbing in Katrina Bungard to National Party leader Bill English when they see her sign-written car bearing her name and photo parked in disabled parks.

Bungard, who lost a leg to cancer at age 11, holds a disabled parking permit and is entitled to use the parks.

The National candidate for Manurewa says she’s been regularly reprimanded since her car was sign written with her face and National Party logo in May this year. But she has a clearly visible disability permit displayed in her windscreen as she is an amputee.

 “I feel a bit bullied,” she said.

The Howick Local Board member had her left leg amputated above the knee when she was 11 because of bone cancer, and uses an artificial limb.

Those people who have tried to get Bungard in trouble should be deeply embarrassed. You should always check for a permit before making a judgement.

The latest One News poll is at Curia. It shows Labour leading National by 4%.

The time and size weighted average of the public polls (in the sidebar) has it closer with National on 51 seats, Labour 50 seats, NZ First 10 and Greens 7.

On the poll average National would get 11 List MPs (down to Jian Yang), Labour 23 List MPs (down to Anna Lorck), NZ First 9 List MPs (down to Mahesh Bindra) and Greens 7 List MPs (down to Chloe Swarbrick).

Adopted NZ First’s ‘Forestry Service’ policy (which Labour got rid of in the 80s).

Ardern committed to keeping company tax at 28%.

Ardern under attack by Prebble and disability advocacy group. Clark Gayford (partner) and Jeremy Corbyn (comrade) came to her defence.

Plans announced for pay equity: onus on employers who will have to be more transparent.

Shaw says he hopes to bring party above the 5% in tomorrow’s minor parties’ debate.

Joyce copped more flack on RNZ about Labour budget – unable to name anyone who supports $11.76b figure.

Announced new $57m mental health facility for Christchurch hospital.

Pleeeease, Your Honour!

Candidate under investigation for offering virtual credits in exchange for votes nothing but a ‘smear campaign’.

One News Colmar Brunton out at 6pm.

NZ Herald: Capital gains tax: 35% agree; 26% oppose; 32 neutral; 8% ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

As at 9am 5 September: Nats: $7.62b Lab: $22.82b NZFirst:  $25.97b  Greens: $9.94b  Maori: $12.17b  (excludes WeChat credits)  ACT: $-2.43b  TOP: $10.69b  (all figures limited to costs within next Parliamentary term).

Alan Duff writes:

When a politician says he represents the poor, he is not telling the truth. He means his role is to extract as much money from government as he possibly can to keep the poor’s vote.

Yep. And they use a measure of poverty that guarantees there are always people in poverty meaning you always need to tax and spend more.

This type of politician has taken the easy route, by creating the image of a heroic Robin Hood figure. Far easier to create a public profile with thunderous speeches against government, not forgetting rich exploiters of the poor, than it is to face the other way: towards the people he claims to so care about.

If he truly cared he’d start with the poor first. Not in getting them subsidised state housing, higher welfare benefits, a swathe more entitlements. But in persuading a change of outlook, their diet reassessed since it is killing them, teaching restraint in all areas, from food to social interactions.

If government are to be engaged, then ask for teachers of household budgeting. Harangue the wealthy Maori tribal trusts for money to pay qualified people to teach financial literacy.

 

Ah, but not our hero, he’s not having his daily morning ride into main street on his big black horse spoiled. Government – and rich fat cats – you are heartless racists. There. Done. Another thousand vote ticks.

Sounds like a few politicians we are seeing at the moment.

Radio NZ reports:

Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern has ruled out introducing any tax which would hit either the family home or the land it sits on, saying that’s “completely off the table”.

It’s not that simple.

What if the family home sits on farm land?

What if the family home is a lifestyle block?

Labour’s former CGT policy would have applied to rural land, which a family home is on.

It is not as simple as saying a land tax would not apply to land a family home sits on.

She’s now gone further, saying she’d instruct the working group to stay away from any policies which would affect the home or the land on which it is built.

“My message will be very clear to them – do not bring me any recommendation that includes the family home or the land that a family home sits on.”

Ms Ardern said the tax working group could still consider the possibility of a land tax, but not one which would hit the land underneath a family’s house.

Which means a land tax would be useless and apply mainly to rural land. Another great whack at the productive sector.

A land tax is actually a good idea, so long as it applies to all land, and was used to reduce income taxes. But Labour keep making up policy on the hoof.

Earlier today, Ms Ardern said Labour’s target was not the family home.

But when pressed by reporters, she suggested that guarantee only covered the building itself and not the land.

“Yes, that’s the complication of those various iterations,” she said.

“That’s why I’m saying to the tax working group – ‘I want the family home to be off the table, please work through the options that remain available to address home ownership and to address affordability and to make sure our taxation system is fair’.”

Ms Ardern was then asked again if she was leaving open the possibility of taxing the land on which the home sat.

“I’m saying that I don’t want there to be taxation applying to a family home,” she said. “The rest is for the working group to work through.”

Clear as mud.

The Herald reports:

Whangarei District Councillor Jayne Golightly has resigned after learning she was not a New Zealand citizen.

The resignation, less than a year into her tenure, will mean a by-election in the Denby ward she represented, but Golightly said she has since applied for NZ citizenship and, if it’s through in time, she will contest the by-election.

She should be ashamed she is costing ratepayers what could be $100,000 in a by-election.

Golightly said Election Services told her on Friday she was not a citizen.

 “It had been brought to their attention that I was not a NZ citizen. To say I was shocked and devastated is an understatement,” Golightly said.

“After looking into it, it was confirmed that I was not. Today I resigned from my position as councillor.”

She said she emigrated from the United Kingdom with her parents when she was just 18 months old and although she travels on a UK passport, she believed she was a NZ citizen

So she was not born here, she doesn’t have a NZ passport, her parents only became citizens when she was an adult and she has never applied for citizenship herself. Why would you possibly think you are a citizen?

This is another reason we should only allow citizens to vote. Then people would have a reason to become citizens, and you would know early on if you were not a citizen as you couldn’t vote.

“I want to apologise wholeheartedly to our district, to voters, and the people of Denby who choose me to represent them as a WDC councillor;” Golightly said.

Why did the Council not check she was a citizen when she stood? Surely this is a basic check.

Stuff reports:

National pledges to increase elective surgeries to 200,000 a year over the next four years.

On Tuesday, Bill English and Health spokesman Jonathan Coleman said the plan was aimed at ensuring access to life-changing operations like hip replacements for thousands more New Zealanders.

When National came into power there were 118,000 elective surgeries each year, increasing by 1400 a year, Coleman said.

Under National the number of elective surgeries carried out by district health boards (DHBs) had increased by 56,000 to 174,000 surgeries every year. That number was to reach 178,000 this year.

This latest policy would see National increase the number of elective surgeries an average of 5500 a year over the next four years, meaning there will be 200,000 elective surgeries a year by 2022.

The increase in elective surgeries has been substantial and far in excess of population growth.

In Labour’s last seven years they increased elective surgery by just 10% which was a 0.8% increase adjusted for population. So basically no increase at all.

In National’s first seven years they increased elective surgeries by 34% which is a 23% increase adjusted for population.

Labour are good at promising how much money they’ll spend but note they almost never commit to what matters – improved outcomes or even outputs.

Hamish Rutherford reports:

Does Labour have an $11.7 billion hole in its fiscal plan?

No. Practically everyone outside of the National Party agrees on that.

So is Steven Joyce completely wrong?

Possibly not. Joyce’s argument since Monday has been an “either/or” one. Either Labour has a massive black hole, or it is proposing “zero Budgets” in its second and third year in government.

Although the media naturally focused on Joyce’s claim of a huge hole based around an error – the National Party’s press release made the claim in its headline – from the start he said that it was possible that Labour had not made the mistake.

Note the part I bolded about how Joyce said from the start that there may not be a mistake or hole.

However he said the alternative was Labour had left itself with such little room for new Government spending that it was in a “completely untenable” position.

Yep they have pre-allocated almost all the contingency spending meaning they have almost none left over.

How much room does Labour have to play with?

While it has already made a series of announcements, including major initiatives in health, education and extra police to name a few, there is little of the everyday increases.

Labour’s fiscal plan gives it roughly $900 million each year in its first three years, beyond what it has already announced.

But describing it as $900m a year is somewhat misleading, because operating allowances, by and large, only go up.

If Labour was to spend the $900m in the first year (which its fiscal plan implies it will), it would have nothing left for years two and three. Hence Joyce’s claims of “zero Budgets”.

And consider Labour have opposed every aspect of fiscal restraint National has done.

Labour could have presented its operating allowance a different way. If it spent less than $900m in year one, it would have a little more left in years two and three.

Using a very basic analysis, Labour could give itself $450m increases in operating allowances, each year.

National points out that in the past two years, its operating allowance increases outside of education and health expenditure have been more than twice this much.

This is why the Taxpayers Union has praised Labour’s fiscal plan. If you believe their fiscal plan they will run a tighter fiscal ship than National. Whether that is credible is up to voters – do you believe their rhetoric of the last nine years and their voting record against every piece of spending restraint there has been – or do you believe what they are now saying?

From today, the Taxpayers’ Union will be publishing a daily ‘campaign countdown’, outlining all the latest new from the parties, who is getting cut through, and all the latest spending promises for our Bribe-o-meter.

Joyce digging in on his comments on Labour’s budget blunder.English in Invercargill announced $72 million to help beneficiaries get off drugs and into work. 

English in Invercargill announced $72 million to help beneficiaries get off drugs and into work. 

Labour hitting hard on Joyce’s critique of their alternative budget. Phil Twyford came out firing: “it is the desperation of a government clinging to survival, evidenced by policy on-the-hoof, dodgy maths and dirty politics”.

First difficult day for Ardern, starting off by being compared to Donald Trump by the Wall Street Journal for her party’s stance on immigration. Comments on abortion have also come under fire from a disability advocacy group, as being discriminatory. 

Greens say National’s benefit plan “punitive” and will force more into poverty.

No word yet on (overdue) alternative budget.

Announcement in Wellington tomorrow about plans to tighten the gender pay gap.

Peters has continued his hand-shaking tour of the regions. Promised to apologise to Australia for the actions of former New Zealand governments if he gets into power (in response to Ardern’s debate comments that she would retaliate if Australia cuts Kiwis from tertiary education). 

Teacher’s unions are the reason for teacher’s poor salaries.

Claim English and Joyce have been misleading NZ on the country’s economic performance, saying NZ has been merely treading water. 

Criticism of Joyce’s comments on Labour’s alternative budget. Joyce only partially right: seems he over cooked the egg and instead of Labour getting the blame for their accounting error and policy/website changes, it’s all on his face.

One News Colmar Brunton tomorrow. TOP need 3% to win a ticket to Friday’s leaders’ debate.

ACT Party is the biggest mover in the weekly update of the Bribe-O-Meter (its education/teachers pay policy costed at $3 billion over the next parliamentary term). ACT’s total still negative though – more cuts than promised spending.

Nats: $7.62b Lab: $22.82b Greens: $9.94b NZ First: $25.97b Maori: $12.17b ACT: $-2.43b TOP: $10.69b (all figures limited to costs within next Parliamentary term).

National has announced:

• $72 million over four years for beneficiaries aged under 25
• Guaranteeing work experience or training for those who have been on a jobseekers benefit for six months or longer, and financial management training to help them develop financial responsibility
• Providing rehabilitation services if drug use is identified as a barrier to employment
• Ensuring all young people under 25 who are on a job seekers benefit receive intensive one-on-one case management to get a job.
• Job seekers without children who refuse work experience or training or recreational drug rehabilitation will lose 50 per cent of their benefit entitlement after four weeks of not meeting their obligations

90% of young people on a jobseekers benefit get off it within six months. But the 10% who do not stay on for an average of 10 years. So this is aimed at the tough 10%.

NewstalkZB reports:

Gareth Morgan is set to go to the High Court to try to get The Opportunities Party into a TVNZ debate on Friday night after the network said it was not polling high enough to warrant a place.

A spokesman for TOP would not comment, but the party is expected to lodge an application for judicial review on Wednesday of TVNZ’s decision to exclude it from the debate between the minor party leaders on Friday night.

It is likely to seek an urgent interim decision to get it into the debate.

1News’ political editor Corin Dann said on the programme tonight that it was longstanding policy not to include parties that were outside Parliament in election debates unless they had reached three per cent in at least one of the most recent 1News Colmar Brunton polls. TOP had not reached that threshold.

It is not the first time a minor party has taken such action – and precedent is on TOP’s side.

It will be interesting to see how the court rules. TOP is polling higher than the Maori and ACT parties but they do hold electorate seats.

Stuff reports:

A protester who rubbed rat poison on Nelson MP Nick Smith’s clothes says she was making a “symbolic statement” against the Brook Valley poison drop.

Rose Renton confronted the Environment Minister near the Nelson Market on Saturday but denies shoving him or touching his face.

According to Smith the incident “became quite frightening when it escalated from verbal abuse and throwing rat poison at myself and volunteers to physical shoving and rubbing rat poison over my face and clothes”.

A 47-second video that emerged on Tuesday shows Renton and her husband wiping rat poison on Nick Smith’s jacket lapels.

Smith says the video only covers part of the incident and does not include when the poison was allegedly being thrown.

Renton should be ashamed of what she did, but she is proud of it. There should be zero tolerance for what she did.

Renton lives in the Brook Valley, but says she is not part of the Brook Valley Community Group, which has opposed the drop. She said she only wanted to make “a stand against the environment Mr Smith has poisoned”.

“He is the Minister of our Environment, he did not attend The Brook poisoning unlike half our police force so my husband and I went to him,” Renton said.

What a nasty person.

Incidentally the  Brook Waimarama Sanctuary is supported by almost every environmental group there is, and the decision to make it predator-free with poison is one made by them locally. Its not actually a decision Nick Smith makes either as Minister or MP.

Radio NZ reports:

Mr Joyce yesterday claimed Labour had mistakenly not accounted for rolling out operational allowances year on year.

Labour said the figures were robust and the claim was a cynical attempt to distract voters.

Mr Joyce insisted today that outside of laying down its spending on health and education, Labour had left no allocation for increased spending in any other area of government.

“Either they’ve mucked up the allowances and it’s an $11.7 billion hole, or they’ve just ignored the expenditure they’d have to make over the next four years – which is also an $11.7 billion hole.”

Now they quote a number of people saying there is no hole when it comes to the allowances such as:

The New Zealand Initiative – a libertarian think tank – said National appeared to have made a basic accounting error in its criticism.

Research fellow Sam Warburton said it looked like Mr Joyce had zeroed in on one line in Labour’s plan and ignored 16 other lines.

“When you take one part of the equation and don’t include the other part … you’re going to get the wrong answer.

“It’s not my position to say whether it’s a good or bad budget, but [the numbers] add up, they balance, and in that sense, they are sound.”

So the numbers add up. But are they in any sense realistic?

ANZ chief economist Cameron Bagrie also suggested Mr Joyce went too far in saying there was a “hole” and said that term was “too strong”.

I agree.

But he did say it would be a challenge for Labour to govern within its budget.

“They just haven’t left themselves any money in the kitty for the 2019 and 2020 budget.

“There is some leeway … quite a big uplift in health and education spending, but if you look beyond that – law and order, core government services – the working assumption is they are not going to get anything.”

So yes if you assume that a Labour Government would not announce any new spending in 2019 and 2020, then the numbers add up. But what most in the media are missing is that is a ridiculous, almost insane, assumption. Of course they will need money for the out years – that is what the operating allowances are for. And Labour have basically allocated them all already.

So calling it a “hole” was too strong but that doesn’t mean the fiscal plan is realistic or achievable.

Stuff reports:

The Wall Street Journal has compared Labour leader Jacinda Ardern to US President Donald Trump for her stance on immigration.

In a Tweet posted on Tuesday the Wall Street Journal said Ardern was New Zealand’s version of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, except she’s more like Trump when it came to immigration.

“Meet New Zealand’s Justin Trudeau – except she’s more like Trump on immigration,” it said.  

Well Labour’s policy is about as nonsensical as Trump’s with their claims they will cut net immigration by 30,000 to 50,000 a year.

Stuff reports:

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern says abortion should not be in the Crimes Act and she would change the law.

Access to abortion is governed by the Crimes Act 1961 and the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977.

The law has not been changed since 1977, although there have been calls for it to be liberalised. 

During the Newshub debate on Monday night, Ardern said she would change the law if she became Prime Minister.

This is a significant change as traditionally abortion is a conscience issue but Ardern has said she will change the law if elected. This implies all Labour MPs will have to vote for a law change.

I support changing the law. The current law doesn’t reflect what happens and forces women to go through a fiction of claiming danger to their mental health if they don’t have an abortion.

I believe the law should allow abortion on demand. The main issue for me is for how long. My view is that it should be uncontested up until the point the foetus could survive if born.

Abortion is an issue with extremely strong feelings on both sides. It will be a highly polarising law change, which is probably why no Giovernment has tried to change the law since 1977.

Mike Yardley writes:

Have you noticed how Jacinda Ardern’s campaign optics seem to have reached into the American playbook? Just like the Democrats under Hillary Clinton, Ardern draws deep from a fawning coterie of liberal actors and comedians. A celebrified Auckland circle of swooning self-importance.

And Labour’s campaign tactics bare an uncanny resemblance to the dumbed-down simplicity that swept Donald Trump to an improbable victory. Not that they’d ever admit it. It’s all about sloganeering and threadbare policies. “Better healthcare, better schools, better jobs . . .”

An astute observation.

But beyond the aspirational rhetoric, the sizzle and soundbites, the substance is glaringly lacking – just as it was for Trump. Labour has opted to paper over its policy detail dearth, by simply fire-hosing its election platform with $19 billion in new spending.

It’s all very well to splash the cash like drunken sailors, whether it’s on bribing tertiary students or young parents, but undecided voters who wish to make a considered decision deserve a policy programme from Labour that carries depth. Not everyone now has the concentration span of an earwig.

And if you’ve been paying attention, the campaign to date, has increasingly exposed the lack of sausage in Labour’s roll. Are the policy wonks on paid leave? Where is the filling? Labour’s campaign narrative seems to be a case of “spend it, tax it or review it.” And all three categories seem to have been stripped of any granular detail.

Spend it, tax it or review it. What a good summary.

Take the water tax. Most Kiwis are happy for royalties to be slapped on commercial bottled water producers, but the downstream effects of any such imposition on irrigators remains very murky. And of course, Labour has conveniently deferred making any clear decisions until after they’ve held a review.

Yet, at a recent candidates meeting in Temuka, Labour’s Rangitata candidate Jo Luxton indicated that local councils could use water tax revenues to fund their roading projects. So much for this cash cow being deployed on cleaning up our rivers.

But it’s the taxation working group review that is increasingly looking like a calculated sham to mask Labour’s true intentions and deflect the hard questions. 

It is obvious that Labour wants to impose a capital gains tax. They are just refusing to say so, because then they would have to give details of how it would work.

It’s completely unacceptable that a major political party, seeking a mandate to govern, continues to exude such a confused, contradicting and opaque message on taxation. 

Will the CGT apply to your parents home when they die, making it a de facto estate tax?

Ardern should either commit to imposing a capital gains tax in her first term, and outline its scope, or commit to delaying any such imposition until it’s been put to the people at the next election. Kicking for touch via the taxation review not only looks gutless, but is gutless. And shifty.

I actually support a CGT, so long as it is broad based with no exemptions and other taxes are decreased so it is revenue neutral. But Labour is being gutless and shifty by refusing to be honest about its intentions.

Stuff reports:

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern is standing by her pledge that she would resign rather than raise the NZ Super age.

During the second leaders debate on Monday night, Ardern was asked whether she would raise the eligibility age for NZ Superannuation.

She said she wouldn’t, and when pushed, said she would resign before raising the age from 65.

Bad enough Key made this pledge in 2008, but worse for Ardern to make it now as there is absolutely no pressure for her to do so.

National leader Bill English bit back, saying Ardern, who is 37, was letting down her generation, “because they are going to have to pay the bill for that”.

It is head in sand territory.

It wasn’t irresponsible to leave the age of eligibility at 65, despite New Zealand’s growing population, she said.

“It’s irresponsible not to save for it.”

In the past, there was good return on investment on the NZ Superannuation Fund – about 10 per cent, she said.

The Super Fund has a minor impact on affordability of future NZ Super – will eventually cover just 14% of the cost.

Here’s what the age will be in other countries:

• Australia – 67 by 2023
• Belgium – 67 by 2030
• Denmark – 67 by 2022 and then increase by 20% of average life expectancy increase
• France – 67 by 2023
• Germany – 67 by 2023
• Ireland – 68 by 2028
• Netherlands – 67 by 2024 and then increase linked to average life expectancy increase
• Norway – 67
• UK – 68 by 2037
• US – 67 by 2027

The only way superannuation will be affordable at age 65 in the future will be by massive tax increases.

The Herald reports:

National has pledged to introduce new urban planning laws separate from the Resource Management Act – something it says will enable faster development of housing and other infrastructure.

Infrastructure spokesman Steven Joyce said the “fit-for-purpose” legislation would be passed if National was re-elected.

The Government passed RMA reforms in April, but those did not go as far as National wanted after it struggled to get other parties’ support because of controversial environmental changes.

“The RMA’s one-size-fits-all approach has restrained the development of our cities, dragged on their economic performance, and restricted the supply of much-needed housing and infrastructure,” Joyce said.

 “So National will establish a fit-for-purpose planning system that allows our cities to evolve in a way that improves the quality of the local environment, and makes them great places to live and work.”

Removing urban planning from the RMA will make a huge difference. The Productivity Commission and NZ Initiative have both championed as one of the most important things you can do for housing affordability.