Robert MacCulloch and Leonard Hong: National's Plans for Compulsory KiwiSaver

The National Party’s KiwiSaver announcement is one of the most significant shifts in New Zealand politics and economic policy in a generation.

"We are delighted that the Prime Minister has agreed to implement compulsory KiwiSaver if re-elected in this year’s election."

Robert MacCulloch: Press Release - Costing Labour's Transport Plans

PRESS RELEASE

Robert MacCulloch

Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics

University of Auckland

 

11 June 2026

Robert MacCulloch: Fletcher Building

 

Is it the only Private Monopoly in the World that can't make a buck? It is time to break up NZ's most useless company.

Gosh, the CEO of Fletcher Building, Ross Taylor, says today's announcement of a half-year loss of $120 million for the company is "disappointingly" and was "heavily impacted" by the Convention Centre losses. He must be crying all the way to the bank (to quote Las Vegas pianist Liberace). Taylor took home a salary of $6.9 million in 2021, $6.6 million in 2022 (which he stressed was "performance-based" - a "true reflection" of how the company had done) and $3.7 million in 2023. That's a total of $17.2 million these past three years. The company also shook you, the taxpayer, down for $68 million from the wage subsidy that it refused to pay back.

Robert MacCulloch: Aotearoa versus NZ - Are Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions the only way to go?....

.....Even though no-one understands nor uses them?

Our country may be descending into the abyss of Aotearoa versus NZ. Interpreting the Treaty in one's own preferred way has become excruciating tedious - an exhausting road to nowhere. It has become an irrelevant quest anyhow - it doesn't even matter. What matters is how to answer the question, "What is the best constitutional arrangement for this country to serve the interests of Māori and non-Māori in the future?". Sunk Costs are irrelevant.

Robert MacCulloch: Is there an Objective Truth about what happened at Waitangi in 1840?

Leading up to Waitangi Day, commentators are all over the Main Stream Media frantically telling us the "truth" about the events surrounding the Treaty signing in 1840 and what was in the minds of the signatories. Yet for centuries historians, journalists and the courts have declared that getting to the objective truth when trying to discover what happened at a particular event has proved impossible. Here is what my friend, Harvard economist, Rafael Di Tella, has to say about the matter in his article called "Information or Opinion? Media Bias as Product Differentiation":

Robert MacCulluch: Beware National - Living Standards are stagnating. Fix the economy - or else.

Infometrics is forecasting that over the next two years, 2024 and 2025, total GDP will grow at around 2% per annum. Nearly that entire increase is being driven by immigration, which is also running at 2% per annum, meaning the standard of living of locals, as measured by average income of Kiwi households, is predicted to go nowhere over National's term in office. Meanwhile GDP per capita is surging in America. Folks like our Worst Finance Minister Ever, Grant Robertson, and Otago University epidemiologist-turned-economic-expert, Professor Michael Baker, who predicted our "elimination" of the virus would go hand-in-hand with economic success have been proved wrong.

Robert MacCulloch: Don't say that "nothing in this life is free" or you risk being fired from your job, courtesy of our politicized judiciary

Former Wairarapa District Health Board employee, Amanda Turner, may need to pay $20,000 to the NZ Health Authority after unsuccessfully challenging her dismissal in the Employment Court. She was fired in 2021 after “posting anti-vaccine information on Facebook”. The media report (below) that "the court judgement said the posts had caused staff at the aged residential care facility [where she worked] to question whether they should be vaccinated against Covid-19 ... The posts were not considered or balanced discussions but involved memes & strongly worded statements or allegations against individuals & groups”. For example, “Turner attaches a post from the Government’s Unite Against COVID-19 page and writes: “The injection is not “free” the taxpayers of NZ ARE paying for it! I’m glad the word voluntary is used, so we can decline the injection.”

Robert MacCulloch: The Herald Attacks the "Rorting" Rich with no Evidence

The Herald is running the headline, "NZ tax system is fairer than you think despite big earners rorting top rate, rejected report finds". The word "rort" is defined by most dictionaries as being a "fraudulent or dishonest practice". The article cites former Revenue Minister David Parker's IRD report on the taxes paid by the wealthiest Kiwis. It found no evidence whatsoever of fraud or dishonesty. Quite the contrary, the wealthiest Kiwis are dutifully paying the top rate of income tax of 39% and also, like wealthy people in nearly every nation, have significant capital gains on their assets. Those gains are not taxed in NZ. There are good economic reasons not to tax capital capital gains, by the way, since doing so can discourage savings and capital accumulation. So where is the "rort", Granny Herald?

Robert MacCulloch: ACT's Treaty strategy is based on defining "Principles"; Is National's dilution?

Net immigration to NZ presently lies between 2 and 3 per cent of the population per annum, or around 120,000 people annually, not much less than Hamilton's population. NZ First Leader Winston Peters railed against high immigration when he was part of Ardern's coalition. It suited them both, since Labour's core (undelivered) promise was a high wage, high skill economy that did not rely on imported labour. Those days are gone. Immigration has gone back to higher levels than it was even during the height of the Key years.

Robert MacCulloch: If the Coalition Agreement Stands, Wellington Will Cease to Exist as a City and become a Town, maybe a Village.

The Coalition Agreement between National and ACT states as a "principle" of the new government that all decisions will be "based on sound public policy principles, including problem definition, rigorous cost benefit analysis and economic efficiency".

Robert MacCulloch: Ardern's Government misused public money.....

......by instructing the Productivity Commission to pursue its own Social Agenda irrelevant to Productivity

The Head of the Productivity Commission, Ganesh Nana writes, "As the year ends, I reflect on the work of the Commission and am proud of what we have achieved. The completion of the A Fair Chance for All inquiry was significant. We .. made insightful recommendations recognizing the strengths of communities already addressing & successfully alleviating persistent disadvantage" and then he finishes with this, "I am proud of the way the team have responded to the news of our disestablishment – with dignity & professionalism".

Robert MacCulloch: Plummeting Public Trust in the Mainstream Media and Education, as viewed by Greg Conti

Greg Conti, a cool young writer about political trends who works at Princeton University says the following about the Mainstream Media and higher education, comments that seem as relevant to NZ as the US (parallels with the Kiwi case have been inserted by this Blog):

Robert MacCulloch: How the Grinches Stole Christmas: what will happen the next three years?

Grant Robertson, our worst Finance Minister ever, and Chris Hipkins, the former Labour Leader who's desperate to cling onto at least some power, have left NZ with a broken economy. We are experiencing plummeting living standards, as measured by GDP per capita, which the NZ Treasury confirms has been going on for some time and is set to continue. So what will happen the next three years?

Robert MacCulloch: How the NZ Herald Manipulated You Again.....

......this time about how Monetary Policy Works .. all designed to undermine the New Coalition

Let's maintain the Main Stream Media manipulation theme for a few more blogs. Why? Because its real. Yesterday the Herald ran an OpEd by an "expert" on monetary policy. Who is that "expert"? Its a guy called Toby Moore who is described as .. wait for it .. a student. Yes a student is going to lecture us on the theme of "Why the Governments New Reserve Bank Mandate May Lead to Worse Outcomes".

Robert MacCulloch: How the MainStream Media (this time, the NZ Herald) Manipulated You Today

This morning the Herald ran a leading front page headline on its website, with the title "Double Standards: Taxpayer Funds Luxon's Maori Classes". There's no Christmas Cheer & Goodwill to All from the MainStream Media; no honeymoon for the new government. No, it's just meanness and negativity. The story was a take-down of Luxon for, can you believe it, making his best attempts to learn te reo Maori !? It accused him of hypocrisy by enrolling in the classes whilst trying to diminish the language and questioned his integrity because his courses were tax-payer funded.

Robert MacCulloch: TVNZ's Charter says it must be impartial - Its attack on the new govt breaks that Charter.

TVNZ's Charter states that it must "provide independent, comprehensive, impartial & in-depth coverage & analysis of news & current affairs in NZ and throughout the world and of the activities of public and private institutions". After all, it is funded by taxpayers.

Robert MacCulloch: The Hipkins-Robertson Economic Horror Show rolls onwards - NZ's GDP Falls Despite Record Immigration

Today it has been announced that GDP shrank in the last quarter, in spite of record immigration, which means that for Kiwi residents, we are suffering staggering drops in our per capita incomes. Our worst Finance Minister ever, the smug, grinning Cheshire Cat, Grant Robertson, and his negative, bitter colleague, Chris Hipkins, well and truly stuffed the NZ economy.

Robert MacCulloch: Chris Luxon - Australia has announced a plan to half immigration. Where's yours?

Australia's immigration level of around 500,000 people has blown fuses there. That level represents 1.9% of their population. Australia cannot cope with the effects of that kind of increase in its population on its infrastructure, which is way better than ours. Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, the immigration rate of 1.1% has also caused huge turmoil for the Conservative Party.

Robert MacCulloch: The NZ Treasury has Misled the New Government....

....& failed National Cert. of Educ. Achievement Economics

Today the new government has started the process of changing the law so the Reserve Bank's single focus will be on price stability, rather than both price stability and higher employment. Why? Because those advocating for a single mandate emphasize the costs of inflation over time.

Robert MacCulloch: For the record: the CEO's of NZ & John Key's government are to blame for our ailing infrastructure

This blog does try to be non-partisan, in the sense we critique both sides of our politics. On that note, nearly ten years ago when John Key was PM, I lobbied the government to ramp up investments in infrastructure, both new projects - like a second harbour crossing in Auckland - and repairs to existing infrastructure. We argued to Key that those projects could be his "legacy". He never seemed much interested.