John Raine: Better Times 2027 – Vision or Hallucination?

Imagine for a few minutes that it is late 2027 and things have miraculously taken a turn for the better. Here goes…………

Economic and social progress was sufficient in its first term for the Christopher Luxon-led coalition government to be re-elected in 2026. The Act Party, still pressing for a nationwide constitutional discussion, secured 16% of the vote and were needed at the table, which with National’s 37%, and NZ First retained in the team at 7%, gave the Coalition a strong mandate. Labour suffered even more than expected at the polls through the extreme policy demands of its expected Green and Te Pati Māori partners around taxes, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agendas, and policies beneficial to Māori but not to other New Zealanders.

Responding to Act’s strong polling and their key Treaty Principles election issue, Prime Minister Luxon finally announced in January 2027 that he would lead a constitutional discussion and work towards a nationally unified approach to how in the future the Treaty of Waitangi will be respected in New Zealand society. So far, good progress, with some moderate Māori leaders keen to work with a government committed to better socio-economic outcomes for Māori in a country where all have equal rights under the law. Some of the loopholes left by earlier governments are now closed. The Government has reined in judicial overreach and strictly limited the powers of the Waitangi Tribunal to finalise remaining settlements to iwi with a strict deadline now in place. The economic necessity of doing this has become clear and is supported by ~80% of New Zealanders.

Further growth in New Zealand’s international debt in 2025 pushed the Government to adopt much more aggressive cost management early in 2026, taking a leaf out of President Javier Milei’s playbook for Argentina, with a laser focus on international debt reduction and a ruthless attack on bloated public service costs and other government funded organisational inefficiency. The Government is selling down lazy assets and reinvesting in critical infrastructure in health, education, and transport.

The gradual moderation of the 2025 Trump tariffs and return of some sanity to international trade, coupled with new trade agreements in India, Europe and South America, have placed New Zealand’s economy in a much-improved position for the next several years. Further, with more flexible planning regulations, the Government’s stimulus of the home building sector, and ongoing stabilisation of house prices, investors have been redirecting capital to the productive sector, which is showing increased momentum. GDP increased by 4.3% in 2026 and is headed for 5.1% growth in 2027. Emigration of skilled workers to Australia has now fallen for four successive quarters.

As at late 2027, public service employment numbers are back from around 65,000 to a 2017 level of 48,000 with further reductions continuing. As a quid pro quo for increased per capita student funding from government, universities have reduced the ratio of non-academic (administrative) staff to academic staff from a world leading 1.5:1 back to a lean and efficient 0.8 to 1. Outcry from employee unions has been strident with protest hikois in Wellington and Auckland, but to date no loss in service delivery from affected government departments or the university sector has been reported.

Local government councils have now refocused on core services such as roads, rubbish collections, water supply and drainage. A massive clampdown on wasteful systems and projects has eliminated the excessive safetyism of the scandalous roadworks orange cone industry.

The nationwide greenwashing food scraps collection system was terminated after a cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the Taxpayers’ Union identified that this “service” used more energy than was reclaimed by processing the food scraps, and that it caused more environmental damage through raw materials use and emissions than it saved. Households who are able to are now strongly encouraged to use subsidised composting bins provided by Councils. Council rates increases have been held at 2% for each of the last two years.

All public services in New Zealand have removed DEI criteria from employment and service delivery policy. Service delivery is now delivered on a needs-only basis, focused on socio-economic criteria and away from race and forced equity considerations. With excellence now restored as the primary criterion for employment, job applicants are motivated to get well qualified. This in turn has reinforced students’ demands that universities remove from degree courses any compulsory ideological indoctrination material that was displacing essential content.

With declining international teaching and research rankings, and falling international student enrolments, University Vice Chancellors have acknowledged that their institutions must revert to being absolutely politically neutral, while fostering open inquiry and debate from all perspectives on all subjects, and with academic freedom protected, within their academic communities. Strong support for enrolment and success of under-represented minorities continues, but the Universities declared early 2026 that being Te Tiriti-led is incompatible with their wider mission as part of the international community of scholars. Universities will encourage staff and students to understand aspects of Te Ao Māori, but, for example, tikanga, rangatiratanga, and kawanatanga are longer mandated as guiding forces within the universities.

The country’s research funding system has returned to an excellence and relevance driven model with a strong hard science focus, and projects around traditional knowledge or belief systems normally funded only within social sciences and humanities funding channels. Government should still aim for New Zealand to match the OECD research funding average of 2.7% of GDP within 10 years, although in 2025 it withdrew its commitment to reach 2% of GDP. Research funding is nonetheless growing and has been more tightly targeted towards productive outcomes. The impact of this, together with much enhanced foreign investment rules, is giving greater momentum to New Zealand’s now burgeoning high tech industry and early-stage venture sectors. This has been further helped by the increasing number of KiwiSaver investment funds placing a fraction of their assets in early-stage companies.

For the Schools, the successful work of the curriculum review Ministerial advisory groups 2024-2025 has led to state schools’ education curricula being completely reset towards knowledge-based content free of any critical social justice agendas, identity politics and specific Treaty-related content other than anything that is historically factual. Charter schools continue to thrive.

While our judiciary didn’t rush to align with the UK Supreme Court (April 2025) decision in announcing that legally there are only two sexes, the New Zealand First private member’s Bill to define the meaning of a “man” or a “woman” in law was lucky in the ballot and was passed late 2025. Following pressure from parents and New Zealand’s increasing international isolation on the issue of gender self-identification, the Government announced around the same time that it was adopting recommendations of the 2024 UK Cass Report on Gender Identity Services and the dangers of puberty blockers for children, and was ending the approval of their use in New Zealand. It is interesting to observe that following the wave of young people transitioning in the early 2020’s, this moment of madness appears to be passing, possibly helped by the restoration of a more conservative sex education programme in our schools.

The Government withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord early 2027, citing several latest science reports that indicate that we are not facing a climate crisis. While scientists are still debating this subject, there is an increasing view that human activity is responsible for no more than around one-third of global warming over the past 150 years and most climate change is driven by solar activity and planetary movements. Carbon dioxide (CO2), necessary for life on earth, at ~430 ppm is currently still near a historical low level (plant life would benefit from higher CO2 levels), and modelling shows that even if doubled will not result of itself in more than a further 0.5 – 1.0°C atmospheric warming because of its logarithmically reducing greenhouse gas effect at higher concentrations.

The Government has now dropped the Net Zero 2050 goal as being scientifically unjustified and economically disastrous but is committed to sound energy and environmental policy. It is continuing prudently, particularly as there is widespread scientific agreement about medium-term gradual global warming, regardless of any human contribution, as the Earth emerges from a normal little ice age. The public are now heavily encouraged through tax incentives to incorporate enhanced home insulation, heat pumps, off-peak storage heating, and to purchase lightweight, small vehicles for city use to minimise energy use and emissions. Government is funding further research into habitability of some coastal areas affected by possible sea level rises, and into any effects on farming and forestry from modest average long-term temperature increases.

Government support for domestic and large farm solar power installations continues, and Meridian Energy and Mercury Energy have further expanded their wind power capacity. Notwithstanding this, the Government has recognised that wind and solar renewable energy cannot not solve long term base load requirements. They have therefore commenced site studies for small nuclear power installations and in parallel have moved to ensure New Zealand’s oil and gas supplies with the planned new refinery at Marsden Point and continued offshore exploration.

Finally, New Zealand now has two politically differentiated mainstream media channels with the major private investment early 2026 to grow The Platform into a more substantial news and current affairs channel. The public now have access to news across the spectrum from left to right, and to factual news content still avoided by TVNZ and RNZ, who still appear to be driven by the thinking of their time under the late and unlamented Public Interest Journalism Fund. Other private media like Reality Check Radio are also flourishing, and recent polls show that the majority of New Zealanders now obtain their news from a variety of sources and feel far better informed.

John Raine is an Emeritus Professor of Engineering and has formerly held positions as Pro Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation) at AUT, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Albany and International) at Massey University, and Pro Vice Chancellor (Enterprise and International) at University of Canterbury. He has had a long-term involvement in NZ’s innovation system and chaired the Government’s Powering Innovation Review in 2011.