OPINION: In the latest in our State of the Nation series, we talk to a Wellington landscaper and parent.
How old are you and where were you born? I'm 52 and I was born in Wellington.
How many people live in your household? Four. Me, my partner and two children.
What is the combined income between you and your partner before tax annually? Probably $200,000.
Do you have any plans to leave New Zealand? No.
Would you say you've felt impacted by the cost-of-living crisis of the last couple of years? Yes. For us, I reckon it's been the last six years that have been pretty bad. If you take into account Covid and all that.
How has it affected you? Well, we're very lucky. We haven't always been double income, but we have been in about the last year, so we haven't felt it so much. Obviously everything's going up. But I see it in my staff – the struggle they have to pay bills.
What about the fuel crisis – have you felt that? Oh, definitely. Overnight it doubled our running costs. We haven't actually put those costs onto [our bills to] our regular clients. We’ve only added the costs a little bit to one-off jobs.
Have you decided who you're going to vote for this year? Yeah, I have. I think I'm going to go with National, even though I don't really like them. But I think – out of all of them – they will stay on this track of trying to reduce some of the spending. That's a big thing for me.
What do you think of Christopher Luxon as leader of the National Party? I think, unfortunately, to be the leader of a party, you have to be a certain persona in the public eye. He hasn't got that, but I think he's a very effective leader. Politics is a fickle game, and it's about personalities, pretty much. That seems to be what the general public look at.
What issue do you think should be top of mind for Kiwis when they vote in November? Well there’s so many bloody things, isn't there? I think just getting our debt down is one of the major things. For me personally, it's education and then health all the way. But yeah, I think we really need to just get ourselves on track as a country again after taking on far too much debt with these nice-to-haves.
Are you a consistent National voter, or more of a swing voter? I never voted or enrolled until I got into my 40s, because I just disliked all of them. As I've gotten older with children and stuff, I suppose I've got more of a social conscience. I have predominantly voted on the right, because to me Labour is not what they were supposed to be, which was for the working class. Now it’s morphed into some woke – though I hate that word – sort of party.
National are the only party that I see thinking about business. There's talk about these big election-pulling things like solar and all this; what about the man on the ground? The self-employed are the drivers of our economy.
You don't feel that climate change is an issue that should be at the political forefront? We've got to be so careful because... the Paris Agreement – we need to get out of that. I mean, we're one of the most sustainable countries in the world, we've got hydro, we've got potential for good solar. Let's invest in those things. Our farmers lead the world in their technology and what they're doing. We don't need to do crazy things, like plant all these bloody trees over farmland and stuff. The government needs to back business.
What’s your view on National's new school curriculum? I love the fact that they're going away from these open-plan classrooms. I think there's still a lot of work that needs to be done, because I think the education system on a whole is failing our kids. You can see it, not just in the stats, but just what I see personally with my kids. So yeah, I think [the Government] is making some good moves in there.
How much confidence do you have in our current health system? Well, look, everyone that I know that has dealings with the health system raves about it. We’ve got amazing nurses and doctors. It's just mismanagement. You can throw as much money at it as you want, it's not going to fix the problem. It’s just total mismanagement – and that's not just the health systems; that's throughout the public sector.
You don’t think the health system lacks resources? No. Look, I've got nothing but respect and admiration for the health workers in there. But I think the management is shocking. You can see that right across the board – in education, everywhere.
So what do you think of the planned cutting of thousands of jobs in the public sector? The public sector has been overinflated, it doesn't take a genius to work that out. I mean, the reality is that there's no money, so we've got to make some cuts. We need basic core services that are must-haves, as opposed to nice-to-haves. And after Covid and the last government that was in, I mean, we're just fighting to get out of that.
I think this government's getting a lot of grief for stuff which is out of their control. They've had a horrendous run since they got in there. If it wasn't for outside influence, as in the oil crisis, we would really be on track.
In your particular industry, how are things going? Well, we're pretty lucky because we've been around for a while and we've got a good core client base, but it's tough out there. I mean, businesses, self-employed people are adaptable, right? They're way more adaptable than government agencies and stuff. But it’s bloody hard out there. I've never known it as hard as it has been in the last six years.
Does AI pose any kind of threat to your business? No, not really. And I've just started embracing that as a tool for business. It's been fantastic.
What's your view on AI data centres? Do you agree with the Green Party’s policy to press pause for a year and assess their impact? Or should we just embrace them? I think they need to embrace them. I feel like the government we've got at the moment, they're not stupid. As long as we put strict conditions on it, I think we'll be fine. You can't stand in the way of progress.
What do you think of National's proposal to raise the eligibility age for superannuation to 67? Dead against it. For myself personally, born and raised in New Zealand, I’ve paid taxes all my life, and I've had a physical job. I would much rather see superannuation at 60, but – obviously, mismanagement again – that’s not an option. I mean, superannuation is there for people like myself who've worked bloody hard. The fact that you get secondary tax on it [if you have another source of income] disgusts me as well. It should be a bonus for the taxes we've paid and what we've contributed to society.
Do you think it should be means tested? No, I don't. This is the problem in this country: we don't give enough to people who have gone out and done well. We seem to want to penalise those people. It's that tall poppy syndrome. It's something that's really holding us back as a country.
What do you think of the government's proposed move-on orders, which enable police to move rough sleepers and beggars out of public places? I think that has been massively misconstrued by the general public because my interpretation of that is they're only moving people on that are being a nuisance.
These people down Courtney Place are bringing an air of unsafety. Not to mention the, you know, defecating everywhere and rubbish and all that sort of stuff. I just don't think that's the place for it. I think that a lot of the lefties (and I hate using that word, because it’s so blurred these days) but I think that side have just built a bit of a hysteria around this policy. But I think they had to do something. I mean, you can't walk into town or around some of the suburbs, without thinking, ‘we've got to do something’.
Do you think that schools should provide lunch for students? Look, I think it's a good idea, but you can't just have one-size-fits-all. It would be nice if there was some sort of pack lunch – I remember the prime minister getting shit for saying about a marmite sandwich and an apple – but I think there could be something done on a lesser degree, where some kids that actually need it can get a sandwich or something. It doesn't have to be flash, just something in their stomach.
Do you think that we should be teaching all New Zealand kids te reo Māori at school? I didn't used to think so, but now I do. I think if they taught it to all kids right through primary school and college, that would be a fantastic idea. A great tool for them to have.
Should we allow more immigrants into New Zealand or fewer? I think that we just need to look carefully at the skill set that these people are bringing in. I've got no problems with helping people. But in the past we've bought lots of people over – some with massive trauma – and then there's no support for them to integrate them into society. We're a tiny country. We've got a shortage of counsellors and psychologists and stuff as it is.
I love having the diversification. Don't get me wrong; I think it's fantastic. But we do need to be a little bit selective.
You said that you didn't like the National Party much, but it sounds like you do quite like it? It's just the idea of being a National voter that I don't like. And that's probably just a hangover from when I was young.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The views expressed do not represent those of TVNZ.
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