NZ Election 2026, Mortgage & Finance Edition: Who's Better Off? | Ep 29

The election special: why this one is all about your back pocket

Daniel: Welcome back, the good people of New Zealand. It's decision time, and you're here with the Blueprint Finance team, the place where everyday Kiwi come to get sound financial advice. I'm here with Rory McSweeney.

Rory: G'day, mate.

Daniel: And a highly requested episode right now: the election special.

Rory: Yeah, mate, it's hot. We've got leaders' debates happening this week, and it's crunch time.

Daniel: Exactly. So you're here with the Temu Ryan Bridge and Jack Tame.

Rory: Mate, we're political commentators in our own right.

Daniel: That's right. We really wanted to do this episode. It's on everyone's lips. It's a highly contested election, really interesting if you're into your politics, super polarising, and relevant to us because, probably more so than ever, it's such a finance-heavy discussion. You watch the leaders' debate and then the kingmakers' debate, and all anyone's talking about is cost of living, can we get taxes down, how can we get more money in your back pocket. Which is sort of our specialty.

Rory: One hundred percent. The overwhelming theme is that Kiwi are feeling a bit of a sting in the back pocket. That's the chatter, the political parties have heard it, and so there's a lot of policy around how to get a little bit of coin back in people's pockets. That's what we're going to be chatting about.

Daniel: Full disclosure: this is not a political podcast, and we're not picking a side. We're doing the fun exercise of looking at all the policies on the table and figuring out who's actually going to be better off.

Rory: We're skipping over some of the big issues, like healthcare and education. We're not mining into that too much. It's about the sort of people we might be dealing with. We've got a couple of cases: a first home buyer, and another couple looking to buy an investment property, and how some of these policies might influence their vote.

Daniel: This one's for the swing voter who's undecided. It's important to note, because there are so many things that go into this that affect your household and are out of your control: social policy, industrial taxes, the direction the country wants to go as an entire economy. But we're just looking at the household. Where are you going to be better off? Who should get your vote if you're a property investor, a first home buyer, if you love your KiwiSaver, all this sort of stuff.

Rory: Mate, let's crack into it then.

Daniel: We've got two case studies, and we've split the episode into separate sections to go through all the party policies and make a few comments on each one. But before we get into it, everyone at home is wondering: what did you think of the leaders' debate and the kingmakers' debate?

Leaders' debate takeaways and the kingmaker question

Rory: It was interesting. I didn't see the kingmakers' debate. I've only seen the two Chrises, and the political commentators at the end of it felt like it was pretty neutral and no one really came out on top. But for mine, Chippy, as he's eloquently known.

Daniel: You're a big Chippy guy, aye?

Rory: He did a good job. He's maybe a bit more experienced in that realm. And who was running it? Jack Tame. He's been trying to get Luxon in for an interview for three years, and he's turned him down, so it was his first time in the spotlight with some pretty pointed questions. Both had good points. With Luxon there were a few things I liked, but in terms of the debate, it was Red.

Daniel: I think so. It's always hard. It's been six years now of a weak New Zealand economy, and it's hard when you're coming off the back of that, especially when you're the National Party and you pride yourself on a strong economy. We still haven't been able to get many signs of recovery in the key areas. A big takeaway is that a lot of New Zealanders' confidence is tied to the housing market. Unemployment's a big one too. But what we've learned over the last seven years is that when people aren't earning equity and moving forward with their net wealth increasing...

Rory: They don't have confidence.

Daniel: There's no consumer confidence. That's what has stuck, I think. National isn't getting the support it usually gets from people who are more financially minded.

Rory: I don't necessarily think National's done a poor job. For the last wee while we've had pretty challenging economic conditions in general. Even if you just go back to COVID, which National loves shoving in Labour's face, that was a global thing. Then you've had wars, and the price at the pump is ruthless. It's just an economically challenging time for a lot of New Zealanders, even though we've got people thriving and there's opportunity here as well. It's going to be interesting to see how the coalitions come together and where New Zealanders land. I think we might be in for a change in government.

Daniel: We'll have to see, aye. It's fun to see the minor parties looking like they're heading for an all-time outcome.

Rory: That's another fascinating thing. The early indication is that the Opportunities Party is in the kingmaker seat, but National has sort of ruled them out. When it comes time for negotiations, if National is sitting at the table and needs the Opportunities Party, do they backtrack?

Daniel: I don't think they could. They've promised no new taxes, and the Opportunities Party has probably got the most left-leaning tax policy of all of them, to be honest. The land tax. They don't have the wealth tax like the Greens do, but the land tax is pretty ruthless. I don't think National could backtrack with that being TOP's leading policy.

Case study one: Jack and Sophie, first home buyers

Daniel: Our first case study, we're going to call them Jack and Sophie. They're a young couple. They live in Auckland, rent, both work full-time, and they've bundled a bit of cash together and are keen to get started on their first home.

Rory: Isn't that beautiful? Clients that we love working with.

Daniel: This is our bread and butter. For context, they've got a combined income of $200,000, savings and KiwiSaver of $100,000, student loans of $25,000 each, no kids at this stage, and they want to buy a house for around $800,000.

Rory: Which is a bloody good start.

Daniel: Good start, mate. So they're sitting on a 10% deposit.

Jack and Sophie under National: the First Home Loan income cap

Rory: So we get into our first policy, and this is an interesting one from National. I'm keen to get your thoughts on it. The First Home Loan income cap and deposits. What are National proposing?

Daniel: Currently there's a First Home Loan scheme backed by Kāinga Ora, government money. Essentially there are reserved funds for folks who earn a joint income under $150,000 and have been contributing to KiwiSaver for three years to buy their first home. A lot of people in the first home buyer space miss out on this because they earn over $150,000. So they either need to save a bigger deposit, or when they do get their first home mortgage they pay a larger low equity premium. There is an element of low equity premium with the First Home Loan product, but it's massively discounted.

A very similar policy has come out with the 5% deposit scheme in Australia, which essentially propped up their property market about 18 months before the big correction they've been having. But this is quite a different market, because we've already had a massive correction. In my opinion it's a pretty safe time for a policy like this, where interest rates are pretty steady and property prices are pretty steady as well.

The idea is that we've had rising rates of first home buyers. Every quarter that comes out, first home buyers have been picking up a bit more market share, which is exactly what you want: a property market that's mostly owner-occupied people getting into their first home and building household equity. So this is doubling down on that. Make it easier for first home buyers to jump in. In my opinion it will make it much easier, but I think it'll heat things up a bit.

Rory: It'll definitely heat things up, aye. You're going to have people who are currently out of the market...

Daniel: That's my guess.

Rory: The floodgates are open.

Daniel: Pretty much. Essentially the income cap is going from $150,000 to $300,000.

Rory: It's great for people wanting to get into the market, but it's probably going to bump prices.

Daniel: It's definitely going to bump prices, because it gives people the confidence to buy, knowing they're not going to be as affected by things like the low equity margin. It's a really good product. We do a lot of it at the moment. But as you can imagine, for a lot of people living in Auckland, a $150,000 income cap rules out a big chunk of households.

Rory: Two people earning $80,000 a year, that's $160,000.

Daniel: Which I'd say is pretty average.

Rory: So this policy is out there for the first home buyer who just isn't quite there because they're above the income cap. National's going to open the floodgates. They want your vote, and they're saying, "This is what you want. We'll get it to you."

Daniel: They're clearly targeting people in their mid-20s to 40s who haven't got their first home yet and want to get ahead.

Jack and Sophie under TOP: land tax and the citizen's income

Daniel: The next one is highly controversial, isn't it?

Rory: Oh mate, it's big-time controversial. We were talking about this yesterday when we were planning the episode. The Opportunities Party is proposing a land tax. As a minor party, it's very unlikely something like this would go ahead in this election. The bill might be presented, things like that. They've led with comments along the lines of, "We actually want house prices to drop 10 to 15%." Which, if you're someone like me...

Daniel: Or me, or anyone who works at this business, or any one of our clients. You don't really want that.

Rory: But if you're that first home buyer, and a policy comes in that drops housing prices by 15% just before you get into the market...

Daniel: How good. Exactly.

Rory: I think this policy shouldn't be looked at in isolation, because one of the other things TOP is proposing is a citizen's income. This is new to New Zealand as a proposal, but it's popular in Europe, some European nations actually use it, and in America it's always talked about in the campaigns as universal basic income, or UBI. Here it's the citizen's income.

Daniel: What does that look like?

Rory: It's $19,400 a year for every New Zealander over 18.

Daniel: That's crazy. And I'd get that and my spouse would get it too.

Rory: One hundred percent, and that's after tax. It's about $373 a week for a single person. That benefit would replace some existing benefits, like Jobseeker.

Daniel: Overridden, sort of thing.

Rory: Overridden. To put it in context with the land tax: in my situation, I worked out we might pay around $12,000 a year under a 1.75% land tax. But my partner and I would each receive $19,400 a year, so it completely offsets it.

Daniel: You're in the green.

Rory: So it's clearly targeting bulk investors, or folks with very expensive owner-occupied properties.

Daniel: Correct. If you think about central Auckland and those sorts of suburbs, there'd be plenty of properties out there with land values of $2 million. At 1.75%, that's about $34,000.

Rory: That tax would offset a lot of your citizen's income. In some ways it's a bit of a redistribution of wealth. It's taking money off the landowners and giving a little bit of the pie to everybody.

Daniel: I'd love to know how that actually works if you're in the green on it.

Rory: I guess they've done the numbers and figured out that, based on the total land value in the country, it would work.

Daniel: I haven't seen the fiscal plan.

Rory: You just have to sort of trust it. A lot of people will be shaking their heads at this, because it's a pretty hefty thing. But I'd say the majority of New Zealanders would be loving that policy.

Daniel: I think so. If you consider that only around 40% of New Zealanders are landowners, then those who don't own land end up in the green. Like you said, even if you own a million-dollar home in Auckland, you're still ending up in the green. For middle New Zealand, it's attractive.

Rory: Imagine being a household with a combined income of $100,000, which is about average, maybe slightly under, for two working people. A policy like this comes in and you get a net increase of almost $40,000. A 40% increase in your household income. That would be a huge relief.

Daniel: So for these first home buyers, on paper, it might actually be a good thing. We don't know, because something like this could have a massive impact on the property market, or it could do nothing because of the offsetting nature. Let's leave it in the maybe pile.

Rory: The idea is that it reduces housing prices, reduces property speculation and the attractiveness of flipping and investment properties. It's another cost to consider, so perhaps less demand on the property market.

Daniel: That is really interesting. Thank you for sharing that, Rory. I'm going to take my teal hat off and put my red hat on. Not my MAGA hat. My Chris Hipkins Labour hat.

Jack and Sophie under Labour: capital gains tax and free GP visits

Daniel: Labour's headlining policy is the capital gains tax. This is probably the one that gets the most noise in our part of the world. The family home is exempt, but if you have an investment property, you're going to start accruing a tax bill on your capital gains above the value at July 2027. And that's going to pay for three free GP visits. So you can go to the GP just for a catch-up.

Rory: It's a real interesting one. My partner's mother, stepdad and sister are all in healthcare, and it's sometimes difficult to get into the GP.

Daniel: The argument against it is, what's that going to do to the healthcare system if all of a sudden people can go for free?

Rory: It's not going to make me go to the GP more. But the idea is that it potentially gets people who can't afford to go to the GP in for preventative care. That may then relieve pressure on the hospital system and major medical treatment. If you can get the early intervention, the dread diseases may be intercepted in a more timely way.

Daniel: There are pros and cons to everything. You can't know for sure what it's actually going to do. Is your family saying it's going to put more strain on the front end, but the hospital end benefits?

Rory: They work in an area where some people find it difficult to afford the doctor. They've discounted patients just to get them in, because they know they need the care and they know prevention matters. So they think it's a good thing. There's a community of people who should be going to the GP who aren't, because of cost. This solves that.

Daniel: If I've got my Labour hat on and I'm thinking about lower-income earners and workers, it makes perfect sense. We want to fund people to get into healthcare. Where can we get the money? Obviously, people who own investment properties, they've got heaps of money. They're making a profit on the investment property, so we're only taxing the profit. Makes perfect sense.

Rory: If you own a few investment properties, or you're planning your retirement and you've just bought an investment property, and now you're looking at losing 28% of the gain, it's not that attractive.

Daniel: The good news for existing holders is that they're valuing the properties based on the 1 July 2027 value, and then it's your capital gains after that point.

Rory: So it's not when you bought the house, it's July 2027's value.

Daniel: They're not going to backdate it. If you've owned a property for 30 years and it's been in the family, you're not going to get stung that way.

Rory: Which is nice. Every other type of income is taxed, so I don't really have a problem with this one.

Daniel: Investors now are going to think, "Do I want to buy these townhouses if I have to top them up to service the mortgages? I've negatively geared my property, I need to top it up, and when I sell in ten years' time I'm paying a capital gains tax." It's another thing to think about in terms of profitability. Is it worth it for certain types of properties?

Rory: On paper, if we're talking about our first home buyers, that should reduce the number of investors.

Daniel: Like any asset, if you reduce the net return, you reduce the number of people with their hands up.

Rory: Demand falls. Lower prices, less competition at the auction.

Daniel: Must be good for our first home buyer.

Jack and Sophie under ACT, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori

Daniel: Now let's talk about the other minor parties: ACT, the Greens, NZ First and Te Pāti Māori. ACT, David Seymour, always likes to talk about cutting red tape. He was front-lining the reform around granny flats and secondary dwellings under 60 square metres. He's trying to get those green-lit so you can build them on your property with no consent, which I think is pretty cool.

Rory: I love it.

Daniel: What's going on with the Greens?

Rory: More public housing, stronger protection for renters, and property investor taxation changes. They want to remove mortgage interest deductibility.

Daniel: As Swarbrick loves to say every time she's on the mic, National gave tax cuts to property investors. No, they didn't. What they actually did was bring back the old ruling of being able to deduct mortgage interest as a business expense. To be honest, Labour came out and said, "We're not going to bring that back, but we're bringing in the CGT."

Rory: I'd actually rather the CGT than not being able to offset your mortgage costs. I think that's ridiculous.

Daniel: It's massively ridiculous. And the cost just got passed on to the tenant. It's not a good outcome for anyone.

Rory: Just tax the gain.

Daniel: Then Te Pāti Māori: more affordable housing again, and more measures against speculation, land banking and vacant property. All of these, on paper, should bring property prices down. We're increasing supply, and we're making it less attractive for investors. Everyone's promoting things that would lead to level or lower house prices.

Rory: One hundred percent. Bar National.

Daniel: Bar National. Their headline is no new taxes.

Rory: We know the ministers all have extensive property portfolios.

Daniel: They always talk about that, aye. "How many properties do you own?" Chris Luxon can't remember.

Rory: That's actually good for our first home buyers, because it means more opportunities to buy.

Daniel: Totally. I don't think any party is voting against land ownership for the family home. Everyone's encouraging that.

Jack and Sophie's student loans: National's 10% rate vs Labour's write-off

Daniel: Let's look at the next element that affects these clients: student loans. This is low-hanging fruit, because at the end of the day it's not a lot of money, but when you get the student loan out it's a hell of a lot of money. My English teacher talked about how it was free for him to go to university in the 1960s. We had to pay full price, and now everyone's getting these cashbacks and deals.

Rory: There are two policies here from the major parties, and it'd be interesting to see which one you think is better. I've got a view. National is proposing to reduce the compulsory repayments from 12% to 10%.

Daniel: To improve your cash flow.

Rory: This couple has a combined $50,000 in student loans. Reduce the minimum from 12% to 10% and that's $58 a week back in their pocket.

Daniel: That's a good outcome. You're going to take longer to pay off your student loan, but there's nothing stopping you paying more. Sixty bucks a week is a good chunk of change.

Rory: It's a night out.

Daniel: No nights out, man. You're saving for your first home.

Rory: Maybe it's a first round.

Daniel: Everyone talks about the avo on toast and the brunch that's stopping you from buying your first home. There's the bloody money right there. That's breakfast, done and dusted.

Rory: Labour's one is different. There are a few rules around it, but essentially they're writing off 10% of existing loan balances.

Daniel: That's if you stay in town.

Rory: There may be a three-year rule, where you have to have been in New Zealand for three years, something like that. And low balances, under $5,000 or $3,000, would just be written off. I'm not a massive fan of this one.

Daniel: No, I don't think so. If you look globally at how governments manage student loan debt, and I'm taking this a bit outside the household here, we've got a bit of a debt problem in New Zealand as a country, and we're proposing to borrow more to write some of that debt off. We've already got a pretty fair crack for students. It's interest-free.

Rory: Nothing's interest-free.

Daniel: It's subsidised anyway. You borrow it, you should pay it back. I like National's one here, where there's real financial relief every week.

Rory: If you owe $30,000 on your student loan and it drops to $27,000 tomorrow, and you're not accruing interest, you're just going to pay it off slightly sooner. You only realise that benefit in five years or whatever, depending on how much you're earning.

Daniel: I agree.

Jack and Sophie's income tax: who is moving the brackets

Daniel: Now this is the big one that people always try to play with. Every party is fidgeting around with the tax brackets and income tax, except for National. Using the current brackets, our friends Jack and Sophie are paying $45,755 in annual income tax, which excludes all the extras like KiwiSaver and student loans.

TOP is the first one I listed, but we've really covered that off. They benefit $740 gross a week as a household, which is just insane.

Rory: Massive.

Daniel: They're proposing simplified brackets of 28%, 34% and 39%.

Rory: So if they buy their house for $800,000, their land tax is going to be $9,800. They come out on top here.

Daniel: The Greens: first $10,000 tax-free. Te Pāti Māori: first $30,000 tax-free.

Rory: That's massive.

Daniel: National: no new taxes. Labour's not changing income tax, they're changing public transport. We've set it up so Sophie catches the train every day, so she'll make a bit of a saving: about $1,300 a year. ACT: no new taxes. NZ First are going to tackle the supermarket giants and the electricity market.

Rory: A lot of them are talking about that, aye. Much of a muchness. I feel like they're all the same party.

Daniel: Copying each other.

Rory: On the income side, every time they address middle New Zealand, every saving they talk about is 50 bucks here, 60 bucks there, which gets eaten up so quickly. We can't really say any of these policies are decisive, because it's so much of a muchness, unless you're going for someone like Te Pāti Māori, who would give them an income break on the first $30,000, or the Opportunities Party. But I think those policies are too polarising for New Zealand right now. The land tax, we're miles away from that. I like it, but I can't see it coming in.

Daniel: Let's get into the fun stuff to get people fired up.

Jack and Sophie's KiwiSaver: compulsory, tax-free or employer-only

Daniel: KiwiSaver. Everyone's got something to say about this, and the consensus is they want people to put more into it.

Rory: Save more. It's a bit controversial, because you're sort of going, "We'll give you a little break here, but we're also going to force you to up your KiwiSaver contribution rate."

Daniel: Not all of them are saying that. ACT's not. But ACT is proposing removing tax from KiwiSaver, and I think that makes sense.

Rory: If you think about the 401(k) in the United States, you get a tax break on the first certain amount that you put in. I think that's really important.

Daniel: Take the handbrake off those compounding returns. Most of the other parties are proposing incremental increases. National wants to make it compulsory. Labour doesn't. They still want room for breaks, but making the employer contributions compulsory is something they're proposing. So even if you're on a savings suspension, your employer has to keep putting in.

Rory: I think that's how it should be, to be honest. That's what Australia does. It's good to see they're all taking KiwiSaver pretty seriously. In the last three years the balances have grown so much, and people are starting to realise that if we're talking about this big debt bubble we're building, and about not being able to pay pensions in the future, this is something to get serious about.

Daniel: People being more self-sufficient. The amount of compounding Kiwi in their early 20s can get, even if their income doesn't change, they're projecting six or seven million bucks in there. It's super exciting. It's cool to see the parties getting fired up about it, because they've all got policies on it.

Rory: If you did end up with a compulsory rate of 10%, it's going to benefit young people. It might hurt a bit, but long term it's going to be so worth it.

Daniel: Putting away 10 cents on the dollar is not going to change your lifestyle. You can make it work.

The first home buyer verdict, and the demand-side catch

Daniel: Is there any particular policy these first home buyers would be fizzed up about?

Rory: For these guys, it's got to be National's 5% deposit.

Daniel: You've always got an agenda, haven't you?

Rory: Look, you're the one wearing a blue shirt to the election podcast, mate.

Daniel: I wore a white shirt to let people know I'm neutral.

Rory: That's my opinion. The Opportunities Party, I'd love to explore that a bit more, this idea of universal basic income. Could it work? With an underutilisation rate of 13%, something like this could solve a lot of problems for a lot of Kiwi doing it tough.

Daniel: I think you're hitting the nail on the head. National's one is pretty attractive for the first home buyer, and in this case they both had student loans, so for working professionals there's a bit of relief there every week.

Rory: Sorry to interrupt, but we've got to remember it's a demand-side policy. Any time you're only playing with demand-side policy, you're likely to just increase the prices. They might get a cheaper mortgage, but they might pay more for the house. Something to be mindful of.

Daniel: If you're in a position now where you're ready, it's potentially great.

Rory: Because housing's a good time to buy now. Then the pressure goes on the market and prices go up. That's great if you've got into the market, but for the next lot coming through, the problem hasn't really been solved.

Daniel: That's right. The capital gains tax might be best for them long term if they're not looking to buy straight away. To be fair, these guys can get a pretty decent mortgage with their $100,000 deposit anyway. The only real difference is that they'd pay a smaller low equity premium through the First Home Loan product.

Rory: It's demand and supply. What happened in Australia is the markets were already so hot in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Then they brought in the 5% deposit scheme, said "we want more first home buyers, fewer investors", and property prices went up even more. Then they bring in a capital gains tax and remove negative gearing, property prices plummet, and you've got all these people in with a 5% deposit and prices have dropped.

Daniel: Negative equity. Just the timing of it, eh?

Rory: Good learning in terms of policy. Demand-side policy, prices go up. It has to.

Case study two: Matt and Sarah, two kids, a mortgage and a rental

Daniel: Let's look at case study number two. This one's Matt and Sarah. We've put the clock forward ten years. We've taken Jack and Sophie and moved them on.

Rory: They've had an amazing ten years. Two kids, house in Auckland, a bit of equity.

Daniel: Now we're cooking. These guys are earning $280,000 combined. Two children under six, so probably a bit of daycare in there and a high-cost lifestyle. Mortgage of $700,000, home equity of $500,000, so that's a $1.2 million home. They've built their joint KiwiSaver up to $150,000. And they own a rental they recently bought for $750,000, fully financed. So they're in a really strong financial position.

Matt and Sarah under NZ First: the $5,000 baby grant

Rory: This is an awesome idea from NZ First that we were talking about yesterday in our planning: a tax-free grant of $5,000. Just for having a kid, you get a five bagger.

Daniel: I'm here for that.

Rory: Winston Peters. He's feeling generous.

Daniel: We talk about this in the office. We've got a few people with young kids, and daycare's bloody expensive. Then when you go to have a second kid...

Rory: It's ridiculous.

Daniel: It gets pretty hectic. I don't know exactly what we pay, but it's over $400 a week for one child. Then you add in another kid.

Rory: Geez. That's why you're licking your lips at the Opportunities Party's citizen's income.

Daniel: One hundred percent. And then you get the 20 hours free when they turn three. Our chat was that it seems weird. Give the money initially.

Rory: Because that's when it's likely one partner won't be working.

Daniel: You may have been battling for a year on one income, and now you get back to work but you've got this other huge expense. I think it's good that NZ First are thinking about young families. This couple with a two-year-old and a five-year-old, the two-year-old could potentially qualify for the $5,000 grant, and if they have a third kid, they obviously qualify. It's about $416 a month, so roughly a week of daycare.

Rory: Does it go along with the 20 hours free, or just front-load it so you get it straight away?

Daniel: Front-loads it, during the first three years of life.

Matt and Sarah under Labour and National: GP visits and the KiwiSaver baby boost

Rory: We've got the three free GP visits, which we talked about. Taking all the kids to the GP. There's going to be lots of sniffles at this age, so that's going to be some savings.

Daniel: Then parental support. National is bringing back the KiwiSaver baby boost for eligible newborns. A bit of money into the KiwiSaver if you have a kid.

Rory: I love that. They're taking KiwiSaver real seriously.

Daniel: Then obviously the Greens and Te Pāti Māori want to invest in affordable housing and social housing, which is positive.

Rory: Those are the basics that'll improve the budget.

Matt and Sarah's income tax, and the Greens' wealth tax

Daniel: Let's move on to income tax. We're going to speed through this, because we know things aren't going to change too much. Both of our customers are underneath the major tax brackets. Matt earns $160,000, so he doesn't hit the top bracket. Then there's the highly controversial Greens wealth tax on net wealth above $10 million. We don't know too many people who'd qualify for that. The idea is that if you're over $10 million net worth, every dollar after that you don't need as much as some others, so you're taxed 2.5%.

Rory: And if you're a couple, it's $20 million. It excludes the family home.

Daniel: You said only a small number of Kiwi would fall into that?

Rory: It was a Google search. Maybe five and a half thousand people.

Daniel: Bit of a strange policy, aye.

Rory: I'd love to see the numbers on how much revenue it would bring in. It's interesting when you put a tax on net worth, because of this idea that people might have to actually sell off assets. But if you've got more than $10 million in assets, you'd have something to sell, surely.

Daniel: It includes all assets, fine art and everything. It seems like an accounting headache.

Rory: It came up in the leaders' debate around the number of billionaires in New Zealand. If you're talking about that level of wealth, that's a substantial new tax on the uber wealthy.

Daniel: It's a big cheque for the Greens. A redistribution of wealth play. I don't hate it, but I think it's got some challenges.

Matt and Sarah's KiwiSaver, and the retirement age

Daniel: Back to KiwiSaver. Every additional point of employee contribution means about $2,800 a year for our clients, because they're on a combined income of $280,000. If you add that on alongside what they're putting in, it's $10,000 to $12,000 extra a year. Based on accessing it at 65, they're looking at almost an additional million dollars between the two of them. It could be more than that. I haven't crunched the exact numbers, but in my head it's a lot more at retirement. I love that.

Rory: They have to do it, because we've spoken about this plenty of times before: the retirement age is going to go up. Labour has said no for now, National's saying yes.

Daniel: It's going to go to 67 soon, and potentially later than that. There's not enough money in the pot to fund retirement forever.

Rory: We'd be borrowing more and more to fund retirement, which I don't think anyone's interested in doing.

Daniel: So we're asking people to have a retirement fund of their own, so that if the government does get to a place where it can't finance it, people are better equipped. Which I think is a good thing.

Rory: You're more in control of your income when you retire. You've got a bigger kitty.

Daniel: You don't have to worry about how much you're going to get, or when, or how you want to invest it.

Matt and Sarah under Labour: capital gains tax on the $750,000 rental

Daniel: Now look at these clients on their property journey. Matt and Sarah just bought a $750,000 investment property. Say Labour gets in. Their headlining policy is a 28% tax on the profit on that investment property when they sell it. Say they bought it for $750,000 last year. Next year it's probably going to be worth $750,000, maybe slightly more. Every dollar after that, they pay 28% tax. If they sold it for $1,050,000, that's a $300,000 profit.

Rory: They're going to pay $84,000. Feels like a lot, aye. It's a stinger.

Daniel: Considering it's not a tax now. But considering they bought this property using their equity, it's still worth it, right?

Rory: Oh no, it's still worth it. It's absolutely still worth it.

Daniel: The other thing to consider is how the capital gains tax affects property prices over the long term, because it's slower growth. Not only are you going to pay a tax, but you're probably not going to get the same capital gain we've received in the past.

Rory: I totally agree. This is just my two cents, but I'd love to see a capital gains tax that's tiered. Maybe it starts at 28%, but after you've owned the property for ten years it goes down, 15 years it goes down again, to reflect the upkeep and maintenance you've invested in the asset. Obviously that's not happening in terms of this proposal. Let's see what happens.

Matt and Sarah under TOP, National, ACT, NZ First and Te Pāti Māori

Rory: The Opportunities Party, obviously you've got the land tax. For these guys it's $7,875 a year, but they're actually going to be way better off due to the citizen's income.

Daniel: You're here loving this citizen's income, eh?

Rory: It would benefit most New Zealanders, so it's a really interesting one. I wonder what it would do to Jobseeker, because it replaces Jobseeker.

Daniel: So you can just perpetually be on the Jobseeker.

Rory: I wonder if it changes the mentality of someone on a benefit. Some people say, "Oh, I'm getting this free money, I don't want to get a job." But what if you still got the free money?

Daniel: You can stack it.

Rory: And still go and work.

Daniel: I personally think unemployment would go up, but that's my opinion. Two people earning this in a household, that's around $750 a week. If you're living in regional New Zealand and renting a property for $400 a week, okay, you don't have much money left, but you know what I mean.

Rory: That's an interesting thought. Maybe unemployment does go up.

Daniel: National and ACT, business as usual. NZ First and Te Pāti Māori have some pretty hectic ideas about capital gains tax. I know they want to bring that in pretty hard, but I don't think they've been as transparent about the policies.

Household costs: groceries, power and a state-owned supermarket

Daniel: The last one is utilities, groceries, power and other household costs. Everybody is keen to crack down on the energy suppliers and the supermarkets. The Greens are going to make their own supermarket, Kiwi Mart, which is something that has happened in other left-leaning governments where there was high cost-of-living inflation. For example, places like Ecuador and other South American countries. Not to great success. I'm not going to say my thoughts on it.

Rory: A state-owned supermarket.

Daniel: They decide what's in the shops, they decide the prices, they decide everything, and fund it with taxpayer money. Interesting idea.

Rory: You'd like to think that in an efficient economy, you're getting the goods as cheap as they can possibly be. But with things going up so much, people have got to the point where there are a lot of question marks and they're thinking someone's surely making a fortune. I don't think that's what's happening. I think things have just got so bloody expensive because of how much it costs to get food here, the cost of fuel, and so on. Hopefully there are some things we can do to get the prices down.

Daniel: Get our own oil source.

Rory: We're going to start drilling, aye?

Final verdict: much of a muchness, and what actually moves your position

Daniel: Final wrap-up. In conclusion, we've gone through all of this and there have only been a couple of polarising policies that look like they'd really make a difference, and I think we can both agree they're pretty far from happening. That's the Opportunities Party's land tax and citizen's income. Everyone's trying to do the right thing by KiwiSaver and pump that up. But I think it's just highlighted the fact that if you're a New Zealand household, the last person I'd be looking to to improve my situation is the government, because it's clear they're all much of a muchness. The number one thing you can do to improve your financial position is earn more income or save some money.

Rory: I think so. New Zealand is challenging at the moment, and we're seeing that now. I just wish in our political system there was a bit more bipartisan agreement on certain things. I don't have the solution or know what it looks like, but I don't like chopping and changing. I don't like infrastructure projects getting canned because a new party got elected and decided not to proceed. There needs to be some kind of common ground on key issues, and we need to stop waste.

Daniel: Waste is actually going to hold us back. We need to be really efficient.

Rory: ACT and Seymour are talking about efficiencies in government, and I think that's really good. If we could unite on a few big issues, I think we'd be more prosperous as a country.

Daniel: The big thing I want to see is the net worth of households getting up there, so we can see families actually being better off and having more wealth. Look over at our neighbours in Australia, they're doing a lot better. Their economy's not very strong at the moment, it's taken a recent hit, but how can we find these ways to make tweaks, make efficiencies, and make every household a little bit better off?

Rory: It's going to be a bloody interesting election. I'm excited, and I hope the best side wins on the day. Cheers, Dan.

Daniel: Thanks, mate.