Luxon wants to see the receipts

National's leader is proposing sending receipts to every taxpayer. His own MPs aren't asking for "receipts" on his ability to win an election just yet but concerns are mounting

Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Tuesday, May 16 by Anna Rawhiti-Connell. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.

In today’s edition: multiple fatalities at Wellington hostel fire; international student numbers bounce back; job losses expected at Auckland Council, but first; the opposition leader makes his pre-Budget pitch

Christopher Luxon has proposed receipts for every tax payer as part of a suite of fiscal discipline measures

Show us the receipts

I’m back after three weeks in Japan. Huge thanks to Catherine for steering the ship and to Toby and Duncan for also stepping in. There is much to admire about Japan (high-functioning rail) but there’s one thing Japan loves that I do not: paper receipts. Receipts were handed over with every single purchase and they had to be taken. Receipts are useful if you need proof of purchase for an exchange or refund and record-keeping on expenses, but physical receipts are becoming increasingly obsolete in New Zealand in an age of digital and electronic retailing. “Receipts” also has a slang connotation - that of proof or evidence. Opposition leader Christopher Luxon launched his own call for literal receipts yesterday as part of a range of pre-budget fiscal disciple announcements. 

Willis says they could done using artificial intelligence 

As Newshub’s Jenna Lynch says, the idea of sending receipts to every taxpayer so they can see how their taxes have been spent, doesn’t seem to be fully formed but Lynch thinks it could be popular. Prime minister Chris Hipkins called them “spin doctor-y type letters” and “a waste of money”. National's finance spokesperson Nicola Willis said she thought AI (artificial intelligence) could probably write them. Newshub asked the most ubiquitous form of AI-powered technology, ChatGPT, to write a receipt for every New Zealand taxpayer and the computer said no, deeming the task impossible. As Luke Malpass writes in The Post this morning (paywalled), the idea originated out of an American think tank, was mooted by the Act party in the 1990s and hasn’t done much to create a culture of taxpayer awareness in Australia. Malpass describes the idea as politically irrelevant. It grabbed headlines and was perhaps designed to do so as a way of making the subject of fiscal discipline more broadly appealing. 

Luxon’s more substantive calls

The retail politics receipts idea has ended up overshadowing the more substantive tenor of Luxon’s speech and the other two proposals: reintroducing performance pay for public sector bosses and more rigorous reporting on the success of government programmes by Treasury. Malpass rates the latter if implemented properly. BusinessDesk’s Dileepa Fonseka (paywalled) has details on Luxon’s call to allow councils to take out debt on longer terms. In a media stand-up after the event, Nicola Willis said getting infrastructure built would need a different approach to financing and, as Fonseka writes, the government is also teasing infrastructure spending and debt limit changes in this Thursday's budget. Luxon was pitching all this to a business audience and as Politik’s Richard Harman writes, made a point of repeatedly mentioning he was not a politician but a former CEO.

Concerns being raised about National’s polling performance 

Despite his business credentials, both Harman and the Herald's Thomas Coughlan (paywalled) are reporting a rumour that’s made its way to the National party caucus that some Auckland business leaders are “gingerly trying to get Willis to step up to the plate. Even after a rocky couple of months for Labour, the latest polling doesn’t show a lot of gain for National and once again, Luxon isn’t making much headway in the preferred Prime Minister rankings, falling 2.4 points to 16.4%, while Chris Hipkins was up 3.8 points to 23.4%. As Coughlan notes, the veracity of the rumour can’t be ascertained but Coughlan also reports on concerns from National party supporters and MPs about why National isn’t doing better in the polls. Rolling Luxon still seems to be viewed as the least desirable action with the party wanting to put the last few chaotic years behind them.

Putting down the poi: the challenge of digitising Kapa Haka

Over the last few years, Kapa Haka groups have had to adapt to using online tools to stay connected. But unlike some other arts, this change wasn't an adequate substitute for in-person practice. "The difficulty with online training is you aren’t able to really experience the person and how the wairua of that person is," says one trainer. Read more about how kaihaka adapted to online training, on The Spinoff now (sponsored)

Multiple fatalities at Wellington hostel fire

Horrific developing news out of Wellington this morning as Fire and Emergency report that a fire at a hostel in Newtown will be a multi-fatality incident. Fire and Emergency were called to the Loafers Lodge hostel just before 12.30am with 20 fire trucks on the scene by 4am. Wellington Fire and Emergency district manager Nick Pyatt told media 52 people have been accounted for from the building, with a number of people still unaccounted for and multiple people will be dead. Pyatt said the roof of the hostel is at risk of collapse and there is asbestos present as an added risk. People in the Wellington CBD are advised to wear a face mask due to the asbestos risk and residents in the area should stay inside with their windows and doors closed due to the smoke plume.

International students return but job losses still loom at Victoria

RNZ’s John Gerritsen has the latest on international student numbers, reporting that foreign students are returning to New Zealand at a faster rate than before the pandemic began, but polytechnics and schools are missing out. India had become the single largest source of foreign students in New Zealand's main competitor nations with combined visa approvals more than doubling since 2019. The value of international education to the economy was $3.7b in 2019. The news will be welcomed by the teritary education sector but it doesn’t look like it will be enough of a boost to stave off job losses at Victoria University of Wellington. As The Post’s Gianina Schwanecke reports (paywalled) Chancellor John Allen said the university could not “avoid change or delay action” and job cuts now appear inevitable.

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Job losses at Auckland Council

As the Herald reports this morning, 400 job losses are expected at Auckland Council as part of as part of the mayor’s cost-cutting budget. That’s in addition to the already announced 150 jobs going at Auckland Transport, 16 at Panuku Development Auckland (the council’s property arm) and an unknown number at the council’s events and economic development agency, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited. The council employs about 7200 staff. Last week it was revealed that the budget hole at Auckland Council had increased from $295m to $375m. The Herald’s Simon Wilson has written his own ten-point plan (paywalled) for a better Auckland council budget while Newsroom’s Matthew Scott looks into where the hypothetical 22.5% rate rise figure being used by Wayne Brown has come from.

Click and collect

• The Act party releases its alternative budget

• Westpac economists pick that the Official Cash Rate (OCR) will peak at 6% (paywalled) and highlight the inflationary risks of the surge in migration numbers

• Christchurch city councillors have come out in support of staff (paywalled) after the mayor told The Press on Monday that council transport staff were “running amok”

• More than 300 households whose properties were badly impacted by flooding earlier this year are still waiting for a temporary home

• Turkey election goes to runoff after Erdoğan takes first-round lead while a blow has been delivered to army-backed rule in Thailand’s election

Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.

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Sporting snippets

• Mt Smart stadium in Auckland gets a new name 

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The current intergenerational transfer of wealth in the US will dwarf any of the past

Relevant to discussions in this country, the New York Times (I’ve used a gift link so you can read) has crunched the numbers on what they describe as “the greatest wealth transfer in history”. Of the $84 trillion projected to be passed down from older Americans to millennial and Gen X heirs through 2045, $16 trillion will be transferred within the next decade. Heirs don’t even need to wait for their elders to die as“giving while living” becomes increasingly popular.