Labour has launched its first key election policy this term, announcing a fund which would invest in New Zealand infrastructure and businesses only.
The party is calling it the first step in its plan to “back New Zealand’s potential”, create “secure, well-paid jobs across the country”, lift productivity and ensure wealth is made and remains in the country.
As well, it has pledged to focus its efforts in its first term on helping businesses grow and succeed: “no endless reviews, no relitigating everything.”
“We’ve heard the lesson of last term: too much, too fast – not enough finished… The next Labour government will be different.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins announced the proposed “New Zealand Future Fund” in Auckland on Monday, which would sit alongside – and be operated by – the New Zealand Super Fund, with the Minister of Finance acting as the sole shareholder.
The party’s highly-anticipated tax policy is expected this month, but Labour said tax would not be the government’s “only source of income”, saying it was time to “build new ways of generating national wealth for the benefit of everyone.”
The policy does not give a sense of the scale of the scheme, saying only that startup funds would come from a small number of Crown assets and an initial funding boost from the government.
“This will provide a steady revenue stream through dividends, an asset base to leverage and the ability to invest for long-term national benefit.”
The dividends from the fund would be ring-fenced and reinvested, and the assets would be protected in law, preventing their sale.
“The Future Fund will have the authority to invest and borrow, but any sale of seeded assets will be prevented in legislation. Other assets will require explicit Ministerial approval before being sold.”
Hipkins said years of underinvestment had left “too many great Kiwi ideas without support, while the wealth we create flows offshore.”
“Labour is backing a future made in New Zealand,” Hipkins said, telling New Zealanders they had a choice, “an economy going backwards because of National’s short-term thinking, or one built by New Zealanders, for New Zealanders.”
The party’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said the Fund was how “we back ourselves as a country”.
“For too long great Kiwi ideas have struggled to get the investment they need. That ends with the Future Fund, which will turn innovation into real businesses and real jobs here at home.”
The party planned to partner with business, iwi, unions and communities to “build the industries of the future” and “keep more wealth in Kiwi hands”.
A document launched alongside the new policy outlined three principles to underpin the Future Fund and the party’s “wider approach”:
- Wealth creation with purpose – directing investment to solving real problems: affordable healthcare, warm homes, higher productivity, and a zero-carbon economy.
- Partnership – working alongside business, unions and communities to shape and create new markets, providing clarity, direction and confidence to invest for the long term.
- Investing in ourselves – mobilising New Zealand’s own savings, skills and innovation to create jobs and opportunity here at home, and investing proactively to nurture new technological and industrial strengths.
