'She'll be right' won't cut it: major new book challenges New Zealand ahead of election

New Zealand’s traditional “she’ll be right” optimism is no longer adequate to the challenges facing the country, according to a major new book launched today ahead of this year’s general election.

Facing Up to Our Future: Challenges and Choices for New Zealand, edited by Emeritus Professor Peter Davis, brings together 21 of the country's leading thinkers. They share an argument: Many of New Zealand's biggest challenges - climate change, demographics, fiscal pressures, the cost of living, environmental decline, infrastructure backlogs, the housing crisis, and the state of the Crown-Māori relationship - are decades-long problems which no single government can solve alone.

Patron of The Helen Clark Foundation, the Rt Hon Helen Clark, says the book puts serious long-term policy issues in front of New Zealanders as they consider their choices this election year.

“Volatility is the new normal globally. New Zealand must navigate through that while also managing its internal challenges. Yet there are ways through. This book sets out for debate a range of ways of addressing the challenges before us. What is clear is that action should not be counterproductive or just deferred,” Helen Clark says.

The book examines the cost-of-living, health, and housing pressures which now sit at the centre of political debate. Home ownership has fallen, with the steepest declines for younger generations, Māori, and Pasifika. One in every five New Zealanders is going without food at times, and almost one in five households has cut back on essentials to pay a power bill. These challenges represent structural failures, the contributors argue, not just cyclical pressures to be ridden out.

With recent disruptions to global oil supplies in sharp focus, former Climate Change Commission Chair Rod Carr writes that New Zealand’s dependence on fossil fuels is driven by politics, not technology. He says the country can no longer afford to delay its transition to renewable energy: “Procrastination increases the likelihood of supply shortages, price instability, and costly climate impacts.”

The book proposes a series of reforms to tackle these structural problems and embed long-term thinking in New Zealand's political system, including:

1. A cross-party Housing Accord with binding objectives, urban intensification, stronger tenant protections, and movement toward tax neutrality. (Davis).
2. An independent fiscal watchdog to produce long-term projections, test the sustainability of policy, and put fiscal trade-offs in front of voters (Nolan)
3. Give the Commerce Commission power to act independently, require key information, and intervene to improve entry and competitiveness in key markets (Duffy)

• Broaden the tax base: contributory funding for superannuation and primary healthcare, plus a uniform rate on capital income, separate from labour income (Davis).

1. A Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations to give long-term interests an institutional voice (Boston).
2. Binding environmental limits to replace voluntary rules, and incentives for environmental improvement (Severinsen).
3. Lobbying regulation and OIA reform to halt New Zealand's slide on the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (Yasbek).
4. A levy on commercial revenue streams such as digital advertising to raise money for public-interest journalism (Thompson)
5. Infrastructure reform to ensure multi-party agreement on long-term infrastructure vision (Mercier)
6. Simplify the welfare system: higher core benefits and fewer supplementary payments (Maloney)
7. A renewed long-term commitment to principled multilateralism and the rules-based international system, including sustained Pacific climate leadership (Cassels).

The book also puts a spotlight on race relations. The Crown-Māori relationship is examined by Chris Finlayson KC, former Attorney General who negotiated Treaty settlements during the tenure of the Key/English government. In his chapter ‘Friends, we are better than this’, Finlayson writes that a “careful and generous” approach is now needed in this area. Māori political commentator and academic Morgan Godfery makes a case for the Treaty relationship as power-sharing across Crown, Māori, capital, and labour.

Jemaima Tiatia-Siau and Seiuli Angel Timali Tiatia-Siau argue that Pacific futures are a national rather than a niche issue. “Pacific youth represent the demographic future of Aotearoa. Their youthfulness is a strength – but only if supported and resourced.”

Clark says the book sets out to raise ways of addressing challenges which are not susceptible to short term fixes. “Enduring solutions require collaboration, compromise, consensus-building, and commitment which extend over electoral cycles. That should be the starting point for the kind of evidence-based, long-term policymaking New Zealand needs.”

‘Facing Up to Our Future: Challenges and Choices for New Zealand’ is published by Dunmore Publishing and is available for pre-order from 21 June at helenclark.foundation