It takes a special kind of political imagination to brand something as “the future” while simultaneously reviving the economic playbook of the 1970s. Perhaps Chris Hipkins will cling to the nickname “Temu Chris” because at least then no one will be calling him “Red Muldoon.” Surely nothing could be worse for the Labour leader than being “Piggy” in Dirty Dog sunnies.
The Labour Party’s shiny new “Future Fund” is one part patriotic branding exercise, one part bureaucratic nostalgia, and one part wishful thinking. The pitch is basically that politicians and public servants can invest your money better than the market can.
Today, in Auckland, Chris Hipkins and Barbara Edmonds unveiled A Future Made in New Zealand, what the New Zealand Herald calls the party’s first major economic policy ahead of the 2026 election. At the heart of the document is the New Zealand Future Fund; a government-seeded investment vehicle to funnel money into domestic businesses, infrastructure and innovation, with the aim of keeping wealth and ideas in New Zealand.
The most out-of-left…actually maybe out-of-right-field thing in the document is Labour’s uncharacteristic enthusiasm for the name of our country. Usually eager to substitute “New Zealand” for “Aotearoa” at the slightest chance, I suspect this change of heart is directed by what they are seeing in polling data and focus groups.
The New Zealand Future Fund, say Labour, will begin with a $200 million one-off government injection and a “small number of Crown assets,” with dividends from those assets being reinvested and the possibility of borrowing against them. They plan for it to sit alongside the well-regarded New Zealand Super Fund (NZSF) governance model. In other words the “Guardians” model will apply, but its focus will be domestic rather than offshore. Labour insists the seeded assets will remain publicly owned, that the Fund’s capital can’t be sold off without ministerial approval, and that the dividends will be directed into New Zealand investments.
On paper, it sounds plausible enough. In practice, the details are vague and the risks are real. Labour emphasises that the Fund will deliver “lasting national value,” but key questions remain, like which assets, what scale, what sectors will be targeted, and how “social and financial returns” will be balanced. As the Herald put it, “few costings, details of what assets will be included … or projections about how many jobs may be created.”
Not everyone is asking questions though. Labour’s usual allies in the union movement were, predictably, quick to applaud the plan. Among them was longtime Labour member and close friend of Chris Hipkins, former Wellington councillor Fleur Fitzsimons. Now heading up the Public Service Association (PSA), Fitzsimons hailed the policy as:
“exactly the kind of long-term thinking New Zealand desperately needs after the many short-sighted decisions by the current Government.”
She said the new Fund showed that Labour:
“will protect state-owned assets from privatisation and ensure the wealth they generate stays in New Zealand for the benefit of all Kiwis.”
The enthusiasm from the unions underscores just how comfortably the proposal fits Labour’s traditional instincts of big government, active intervention, and the belief that prosperity can be centrally planned if only the right people are in charge.
On the other hand, the reaction from the Government benches was performative exasperation. ACT practically sighed:
“All Labour have planted today is the seeds of another cleanup job for the Government after them, if they ever get to kick off this disaster-in-a-can.”
Pointing to past programmes like the Green Investment Fund as cautionary examples of Labour going in “boots and all”, saying: “It’s now in tatters, letting down customers as well as the investors who are carrying the can for it.”
David Seymour concluded his remarks on Labour’s Future Fund with:
“Next year I’ll be asking New Zealanders to vote ACT to keep Labour’s loopy ideas and anything like theirs out of power.”
Winston Peters came out swinging, but not because he necessarily disliked the policy. Rather he promptly accused Chris Hipkins of being a “try-hard Temu mail-order rip-off” because New Zealand First announced a “New Zealand future fund” back in October last year. Peters declared that Labour’s Future Fund was nothing more than a knock-off of the very idea he’d been pitching for years. If Winston Peters’ “Temu Chris” jab sticks, it’ll be because it captures something that feels instinctively true, the sense that ever since his one year as Prime Minister, Labour seems to keep rummaging through the bargain bin of political ideas chucking some on bonfires and pocketing others.
From New Zealand First’s socials.
There are some similarities between New Zealand First’s $100 billion policy and Labour’s $200 million one. Peters named Singapore as an inspiration for his policy last year and Hipkins did the same today, admiring how “Singapore’s Temasek began modestly in 1974 with S$354 million. Today it is worth more than S$434 billion.” Singapore is commonly referred to as an example by the Prime Minister also and there is some comfort to be taken from the fact that all major parties are looking to our prosperous friends abroad.
Interestingly, several commenters on X were quick to point out that Hipkins could be deliberately cosying up to New Zealand First policies in a bid to find a replacement coalition partner in the wake of Te Pāti Māori’s implosion. It is certainly not out of the realm of possibility for a desperate man who is far from being able to establish a Government without Te Pāti Māori, but Winston Peters has made it very abundantly clear… he will not work with Chris Hipkins.
Speaking at the post-Cabinet press conference this afternoon, Christopher Luxon referred to Labour’s Future Fund announcement as “pictures, buzz words and jargon.” He pointed to the missing details and quipped, “if we had done that, we would have been crucified.”
The sharpest barbs came from the Taxpayers’ Union. Their media release “Back to the Future Fund: Labour’s latest plan to pick winners with your money” warned that the idea was effectively a trip back to the 1970s.
Taxpayers’ Union spokeswoman Tory Relf said:
“If government-backed venture funds worked, North Korea would be Silicon Valley by now.”
She said Labour’s newfound interest in growth was welcome but described the Fund as “a taxpayer-funded investment fund run by politicians and bureaucrats pretending to be venture capitalists.”
The Union’s critique cuts to the heart of the issue, that successful sovereign wealth funds like Norway’s were built on resource surpluses and disciplined fiscal management, not borrowed money and political optimism. Their warning is clear: when governments try to “pick winners,” taxpayers usually end up footing the bill for the losers.
Economist Michael Reddell’s response was concise:
No more appealing than when NZF has touted similar ideas. What NZ doesn’t need is a bigger role for govt in the economy, run by people facing no market disciplines.
Public Relations consultant, former Political Editor of the National Business Review, and the media’s dial-a-palatable-Nat Ben Thomas tweeted:
“Taking revenue from state owned enterprises (and presumably MoM co’s) and investing it in infrastructure & Kiwi business” is one of those elegant sounding ideas that nonetheless costs exactly the same as funding it from the consolidated fund, bc that’s what it is. This is a spending announcement rather than a saving announcement, but that’s been cleverly disguised somewhat by not specifying how much or on what or for what purpose.
Those were some of the political reckons, but what is really at stake?
The Fund’s stated goal, investing in New Zealand’s future, is hard to argue with. Who doesn’t want local ideas to grow into jobs and capital here rather than be bought by Silicon Valley? But the details of the policy are thin, and the contradictions are thick.
For starters, $200 million is symbolic. Meaningful investment typically runs into billions if you’re serious about infrastructure or national-scale industry. Secondly, as our Reserve Bank demonstrated over the past few years, too many mandates make life difficult because they have a tendency to clash. Labour’s Future Fund aims for a dual mandate of financial and social returns. Those often pull in opposite directions. Is this wealth-creation or welfare-creation? Try doing both and you might end up achieving neither. Thirdly, there is political risk in that even with the Guardians in charge, the Minister of Finance is the sole shareholder, leaving space for “national interest” to be creatively interpreted as “electoral interest.”
It is especially important to measure the opportunity cost of this policy since Labour has been so ferociously banging the drum about “cuts”. Every dollar funnelled into this bureaucracy is a dollar not spent fixing roads, hospitals, or schools. If the aim is to attract capital to New Zealand, why not focus on creating a stable, low-tax, pro-enterprise environment rather than another government-managed fund?
This idea is being pitched as new, but it follows Labour’s playbook of expanding Government and relentless paternalism. Labour’s Future Fund is an ambitious concept that risks becoming a monument to good intentions and poor design. Kiwibuild, anyone? KiwiRail? The concept of mobilising domestic capital for national development is credible. The execution looks to be dubious.
While Labour was unveiling its shiny new “Future Fund,” the Government was busy doing what National governments traditionally love to do best; announcing roads. At the post-Cabinet press conference, Christopher Luxon confirmed $12 billion in transport investments, including new “Roads of National Significance” and highway upgrades across the country. Transport Minister Chris Bishop framed the package as a return to “core infrastructure,” promising faster commutes, stronger regional links, and lower costs for businesses moving goods.
National will have been seeking to create a stark contrast between Labour’s announcement and their own, but we must be fair and acknowledge that they were two very different things. Labour wants to build a longterm investment vehicle; a conceptual institutional structure with lofty talk of “social and financial returns.” While National’s government announcement is about building (literal) vehicles a place to (literally) drive. It’s infrastructure you can point to.
Ultimately, both parties are talking about investment; they just mean very different things by it. In the battle for today’s newscycle, National is concrete and immediate, and Labour is speculative and strategic. And it’s much easier for punters to measure the success of a motorway than a metaphor.
Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.
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