Opinion: In the latest in our State of the Nation series, a 66-year-old retired tradesman shares his views on the state of Aotearoa and how he plans to vote on November 7.
How many people live in your household? There’s two of us.
You and a partner? Wife.
Are you still working? No.
And what would be your combined annual income before tax? About $250,000.
So she's working, I take it? No, she doesn’t work.
So the income is mainly from investments? Yeah, we have investments.
Which ethnicity do you identify with? New Zealand Māori, New Zealand Pākehā... I’m a New Zealander.
Have you decided who you'll vote for in the November election? Yes, I have. I’ll vote National in my electorate and the party vote will go to ACT.
What's your thinking behind that decision? I like ACT. David Seymour's got some good ideas and let's say he's for an equal country. I'm for an equal country. I'm sick of all the bullshit that's flying around this place at the moment.
Are you a longtime ACT voter? I did vote for them in the last election. Before that I was probably just National, except I did vote for Winston Peters once.
Are there specific ACT party policies that align with your values? Yeah, I think sorting out the Waitangi tribunal is an important thing to get done. Just because I believe we are all equal here. Growing up in the 60s, we were all pretty much equal in New Zealand, I believe. And slowly, the country's being taken over – it's being hijacked, basically.
When David Seymour talks about New Zealanders being equal, the counter argument is generally the higher incidence among Māori of everything from unemployment to poverty to poor health outcomes. Do you think we really do have equality here? Are those statistics true? What proof have you got?
I'm not racist. I have Māori friends. But how many people are really Māori? Are they more European than Māori? That's what you've got to decide.
Do you think te reo Māori should be taught in primary schools? Well, you could say Chinese should be taught in primary schools as well. Where do you begin and where do you stop? There’s nothing wrong with te reo Māori, as you call it. When I went to school, we learned pieces of it, but we certainly didn't learn the language, and I don’t see any necessity to learn the language fully now, because it is just a micro language. It's not worldwide. It doesn't really help people move on in the world and make their lives better, I don't believe.
What's your impression of Luxon as a leader? I was not that impressed with him over the last three years. But I don’t watch TV. We specifically don’t watch the news – we stopped watching it when Jacinda was on every day giving us a message.
So all I see of Luxon is what I read online and a few things I've watched on YouTube, and he's actually impressed me more in the last four weeks than he has done in the last three years.
He seems to be finding himself a little bit more, getting a little bit more confidence in himself. Let’s face it, he's pretty wet behind the ears. Winston Peters could run rings around him, just like he runs rings around Hipkins, and all those other people.
But the team seem to be getting behind Luxon now, which I feel they weren’t so much before.
What impresses you about David Seymour? I’ve always liked him. I like his political thinking – he thinks the same way I do.
Do you think we should have free lunches in primary schools? No, I don't believe that so much. There were no free lunches when I went to school; parents actually made lunches for their children. There are probably some children who need free lunches, I will not deny that. There are some people that are really hard-out struggling – even people that are working.
We [my wife and I] are very lucky. We have a very good income, but I understand there are people struggling out there.
In saying that, I've been in business all my life, sometimes working seven days a week. My wife also worked and then she packed shelves at a supermarket at night. We did the hard yards, whereas these days, people don't want to work.
I've employed people, and they've come to me and said, ‘I need more money’. And I've said, ‘okay, great, we've got lots of work. You can work the weekend, you can work a Saturday or work late.’
‘Oh no, I don't want to do that, I don't want to wreck my weekend.’
Everybody's looking for a handout these days. They’re entitled.
What do you think of the government's proposal to randomly drug test people on job seeker benefits? I don't see any problem with that. There's drug testing in a lot of businesses these days. Hey, if they're not taking drugs at the time, then it's not a problem.
I don't have too many problems with people smoking a bit of marijuana and that sort of thing. I'm not an anti-drug person, same as I'm not an anti-alcohol person. But I believe that there should be checks and boundaries. Just like you're in trouble if you jump in a car after you’ve had a drink, [it should be] the same for people if they've been on drugs and taking a benefit.
Do you think the current government is doing enough to combat climate change? How good are they at predicting the weather? You can't predict climate change.
New Zealand makes [a fraction] of the world's greenhouse gases – if they are actually a problem.
When I grew up in the 1970s, it was as hot as hell. I don't believe that the tides and temperatures are increasing as much as is reported, or that global climate change is as big as people make it out to be.
What’s your view of the big AI data centres being planned and proposed around the country? I'm a bit worried about AI and what it costs to run, and the energy used. Here we are trying to save energy, and we're lucky at the moment because we have lakes that happen to fill up with rain. But we've only got to have a drought – which it looks like we might have this year, because we're going to have this El Nino thing and a summer of extremely dry weather – and maybe our lakes won't fill up for next winter. All of a sudden, we'll be short of water, and then you stick those those data centres in. I'm more worried about the energy they use than what they're doing [with AI].
So would you agree with the Green party that we should press pause for a year and learn more about AI data centres, before we agree to more of them? I don’t agree with very much that the Greens would say, but I would almost agree with that. Yes, I would. I'm not going to vote for them because they're a bunch of mad people, basically. But I would agree with that. Hey, every party has some great ideas. But it's piecing together which ones are going to make the country work best.
Do you agree with any of the Labour Party's current policies? Oh look, I don't know too much about them. Chippy's got his plans. It seems to me like his whole system is going to work on borrowing more money, handing out more presents and that sort of thing and that's never run with me.
What’s your view on the capital gains tax? I don't believe that would be a good idea. I think we're taxed enough in this country as it is. Maybe the stamp duty that they have Australia, on house transactions, could work. But capital gains tax could stop investment and that sort of thing.
I do own a bit of property. And hey, we pay tax. I've paid my fair share of tax, I believe.
What do you think of the government's move on orders that enable police to move people on who are rough sleeping or begging on the streets? Well, something needs to be done. In my [North Island city] it was really bad with people rough sleeping and peeing in front of people's shops – those business owners are struggling to make money, the last thing they need to be doing is coming to work and cleaning up someone else's mess. You wouldn't want them sleeping outside your place, would you? No. There's the answer to your question.
National have proposed increasing the repayments on student loans for people overseas. What do you think about that idea? I think that should happen, yes, I think these people actually shouldn't be allowed to leave New Zealand without doing something about their student loans.
I did an apprenticeship in a trade. I worked my way through it all. I didn't have a student loan which was lucky. But I worked all the way to pay for my education, kind of. Now, they go overseas and some of them just don't want to pay.
And they're all making good money overseas. I think it would be nice if they could keep doctors in this country for longer before they bugger off to Australia or wherever.
Do you think our immigration laws should they be looser or tighter? Do we need more people or fewer? I'm not sure about that one. Like, it depends who you're bringing in. You know, we do need some immigration because some of the people here won’t work.
Do you agree with National's proposal to raise the retirement age to 67? It probably has to. I probably could consider myself extremely lucky to have got a pension.
Should be means tested? No, I don't think so, because I paid tax my whole life.
So if the outcome on November 7 is a left-wing coalition, how will you feel? We’re screwed, aren't we? Every dollar you buy or borrow today, you're going to be paying off in 20 or 30 years. If we change government, it'll completely just blow out and we'll be in more trouble than you've ever dreamt of.
You can’t buy your way into prosperity. You've got to just do the hard work, I'm afraid. I'm lucky because I've worked really hard, and now I don't have to work. And that's that's what everyone should be trying to achieve. You don't get that any other way.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The views expressed are not those of TVNZ.
SHARE ME