Opinion: Who did you vote for? How much do you earn? What do you spend at the supermarket? Do you have KiwiSaver? We ask all the nosey questions in our State of the Nation series – this week, facing the questions is a 52-year-old business owner from a North Island town.
What do you do? I run a wholesale nursery. So we grow plants for the retail markets – Bunnings, Mitre 10 and the like.
How many people live in your household? Currently two, myself and my son.
What’s your annual income before tax? Around $250,000.
Which ethnicity do you identify with? This one of the things that actually got to me around some of the previous articles I've read [in this series]. I consider myself a New Zealander. And I really don't like this whole race thing that's starting to be prevalent in New Zealand. For me, I'm just a New Zealander.
Who did you vote for last Saturday? I gave my candidate vote to National. And I gave my party vote to ACT.
Was that a strategic decision, or did you just like your local candidate? No, it wasn't strategic at all. I genuinely like both parties. I consider myself centrist and I think both parties are playing a role in New Zealand's politics. I guess it was almost more about splitting my loyalty a little bit, and I do like the National candidate for my electorate.
For me, David Seymour speaks common sense on a lot of fronts, particularly around the race issue, the division thing, which I'm starting to see more and more of.
How did you feel about the outcome of the election, even though it’s still unresolved? I think it's an interesting result. I believe that, as all the leaders are saying, New Zealand has spoken, and I think that it's fairly clear that there's dissatisfaction with the two main parties. I'm hoping that this is going to be a bit of a wake-up call for both of them.
What's your impression of the leader of the current caretaker government, Christopher Luxon? Uninspiring.
Have you traditionally voted on the right? Well look, I guess it's really simple. I am a business owner, so I do tend to vote for the parties that are looking to help businesses. Running a business is not easy. Some of the parties seem to think businesses are just these huge piles of cash sitting out there to be mined and it's really not that. I've been in business now for 30 years, but it's still challenging, especially in the last two to three years.
So I vote selfishly, I suppose, for a party that's going to help me run my business and make it successful so that I can continue employing the 50 people I do.
But equally, I'm still very much about society, about New Zealanders. I'm about centrist policies that do help those that have more difficulty helping themselves.
Do you believe that Michael Laws should be allowed to be in government? I would say no, I wouldn't stand for that behaviour from any of my staff. So if I was leading that party I wouldn’t stand for it either.
Do you feel secure in your business? I do now, but if you asked me that question 12 months ago, I would have said no.
The product that we grow is very much a discretionary item. Consumers are only going to spend on an ornamental plant when they've got a bit of spare cash. So we've had a very, very tough last two years. But I believe our industry is really starting to come out of that now, even though the cost of living is still up there, there appears to be a bit more disposable income out there, and we've had a pretty good season.
Do you use AI in your work? Yes. Just to speed up certain tasks, if I have to write long email to a customer, I'll write it and then I'll let AI tweak it and tidy it up.
Probably the only thing its really changed is with staffing issues; instead of going to an employment lawyer – let's say there's going to be a written warning – we’ll actually use AI to draft that.
When it comes to the AI data centres being proposed or planned around New Zealand, do you think they're an opportunity to grasp, or should we press pause?
The way I see it, AI centres are going to be put in somewhere. If we don't have them, they'll go somewhere else and we'll miss out. But equally, there's obviously some risks involved, particularly around power usage. If we get a dry winter, which is quite possible next winter with the El Nino effect, what’s a host of AI centres going to do to our power draw? Or do they have a plan around it?
Have you been affected by climate change in any way? Yeah, I guess. For me, it's the extreme storms you get these days. You don't just get little rainfall, 88mm will come down in about six hours.
That certainly impacts our drainage and water storage capacity on the nursery.
And those environmental concerns didn’t make you look more closely at the Green Party or the Opportunity Party? You know what I would really like? I would really like a green party that's actually green. I personally think the actual Green Party is more about their hard left politics than about being green. I think we need a party out there that’s just about the environment, and I'm sure it would get a lot of party vote, and that could go with either bloc that got in and just pull the levers that it can around climate.
Has the price of petrol affected you? Oh phenomenally so, it's been unbelievable. Because plants are a specialist thing to deliver – we can't backload our anything. So it's been literally $100,000 extra on fuel costs this year, it’s crazy.
How much do you spend on supermarket shopping every week? That hurts. So there's only two of us, and it’s anywhere between $350 and $500.
We don’t have a Pak’n’Save here, so I drive 20km to [the nearest city] to go to Pak'n’Save, or if I’m going to be there I’ll incorporate a supermarket visit. It’s not like I’m a low earner, but it’s still a lot of money. I can’t remember it ever being so bad.
Do you have KiwiSaver? No I don’t, and that’s because I'm self-employed. It makes no sense for me when I've got debt against the business to be putting money into a KiwiSaver account for myself. I’d be better off to be paying that debt down.
Do you have a plan for your retirement? I'm hoping the business and the land it’s on are still going to have some value, and that will be my retirement plan. What I'm very concerned about is [Labour's proposed] capital gains tax and what that would to do to my retirement plan.
Obviously, if the incumbents get back in, I won’t be too concerned for the next three years, but if the Greens get in, I'm really concerned about what that might look like. Opportunity as well, for that matter. I'm just unclear in the detail of how [Labour would] roll out their Capital Gains tax. Are they going to value my property from what I paid back in 2004?
[According to Labour’s stated Capital Gains tax policy, applicable properties would be valued on July 1, 2027 and only profit made after that date would be taxed at 28%. The tax would apply to commercial and residential buildings, and would exclude businesses, farms, horticultural land, orchards, and family homes, with the raised revenue supposedly ring-fenced to fund free healthcare initiatives.]
'I love my local MP but loathe his party, so I'm splitting my vote down the middle'
Opinion: Our latest State of the Nation interview proves that warmth, visibility and listening skills go a long way in politics, with one North Island voter supporting her MP, despite deeply disliking his party.
Sat, Sep 26
Finally, what would you like to see more of in New Zealand? Hospitals. I think New Zealand's health system is subpar. I was in Tasmania – not in a massive centre or anything – and I fell off my mountain bike and hurt myself really badly. I went to hospital in an ambulance and the service there is just unbelievable. No waiting rooms, no wait lists, straight into triage and into a room. In New Zealand, you go to the emergency admission at a hospital and you could be there for eight to 10 hours.
This interview has been condensed. The opinions expressed do not reflect those of TVNZ.
SHARE ME