ISSUE
Friday, August 15, 2025
Volume 16 . Issue 72
Opposition leader Christopher Luxon is continuing to flag tax cuts and government spending as two of the battleground subjects for the next election.
National is launching a major offensive against the government, promising to reverse every tax increase imposed by this Labour government.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon told Morning Report there were big economic issues that needed to be addressed.
A new Commerce Commission report on the supermarket sector found competition in the industry was not working well for New Zealanders.
The commission recommended that more land be made available for new grocery stores, changes be made to planning laws and the use of restrictive land covenants be banned.
Luxon said he thought the report was on balance heading in the right direction.
"It doesn't get you away from the bigger problem which is that the cost of living crisis and the inflation that we're dealing with is coming from more than just not enough competition in the supermarket sector put it that way."
There were bigger, broader economic issues, he said.
"There's a whole series of reasons. New Zealand's got the second highest inflation in the developed world, just behind the US. We've obviously been spending a tremendous amount of money, we've been relying on low levels of interest rates and frankly we haven't been doing enough to create pro-business microeconomic policy either, we're just relying on government spending and low interest rates."
He said National definitely would have spent money on Covid relief but there was wasteful spending happening.
"I'm not talking about not spending money or making cuts to public services at all but there is some really wasteful spending going on."
Luxon said it was about the quality of spend.
Three Waters, added bureaucrats and the upcoming restructure of healthcare were all areas he described as wasteful spending.
He said National were foreshadowing reversing the taxes Labour implemented and a plan would be presented before the next election.
The government dismissed National's tax cut plan, with Minister of Finance Grant Robertson saying the maths just did not add up, and would result in cuts to health and education.
Opposition leader Christopher Luxon is continuing to flag tax cuts and government spending as two of the battleground subjects for the next election.
National is launching a major offensive against the government, promising to reverse every tax increase imposed by this Labour government.
National...
Opposition leader Christopher Luxon is continuing to flag tax cuts and government spending as two of the battleground subjects for the next election.
National is launching a major offensive against the government, promising to reverse every tax increase imposed by this Labour government.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon told Morning Report there were big economic issues that needed to be addressed.
A new Commerce Commission report on the supermarket sector found competition in the industry was not working well for New Zealanders.
The commission recommended that more land be made available for new grocery stores, changes be made to planning laws and the use of restrictive land covenants be banned.
Luxon said he thought the report was on balance heading in the right direction.
"It doesn't get you away from the bigger problem which is that the cost of living crisis and the inflation that we're dealing with is coming from more than just not enough competition in the supermarket sector put it that way."
There were bigger, broader economic issues, he said.
"There's a whole series of reasons. New Zealand's got the second highest inflation in the developed world, just behind the US. We've obviously been spending a tremendous amount of money, we've been relying on low levels of interest rates and frankly we haven't been doing enough to create pro-business microeconomic policy either, we're just relying on government spending and low interest rates."
He said National definitely would have spent money on Covid relief but there was wasteful spending happening.
"I'm not talking about not spending money or making cuts to public services at all but there is some really wasteful spending going on."
Luxon said it was about the quality of spend.
Three Waters, added bureaucrats and the upcoming restructure of healthcare were all areas he described as wasteful spending.
He said National were foreshadowing reversing the taxes Labour implemented and a plan would be presented before the next election.
The government dismissed National's tax cut plan, with Minister of Finance Grant Robertson saying the maths just did not add up, and would result in cuts to health and education.
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