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Nah to yeah nah bro, yeah to nah yeah grow.
Nah to yeah nah bro, yeah to nah yeah grow.

PoliticsJanuary 29, 2025

Just some ideas to help NZ win the growthy-yessy arms race

Nah to yeah nah bro, yeah to nah yeah grow.
Nah to yeah nah bro, yeah to nah yeah grow.

Spitballing for Christopher Luxon’s growalition.

The scene: a recently elected government rubs its eyes at the start of the calendar year and strides out to reset the agenda in a big January address. Our luminous speaker stares out towards the horizon and declares: “We must go further and faster on growth.” 

The message is emphatic: “Kickstarting economic growth is this government’s number one mission.” But that comes with an important exhortation on mindset. Decision makers had “become used to saying no. That must change. We must start saying yes.”

Who is this? Not Christopher Luxon, nor Nicola Willis, but Rachel Reeves, Willis’s counterpart in the fledgling UK Labour government, speaking this week

Does it point to parallel post-pandemic, inflation-and-cost-of-living-crisis-buffered economies straining to get the wheels turning again? Probably. But my focus here is much more shallow: who can win the sloganeering arms race? Where Obama had hopey-changey, New Zealand and Britain are battling to own the growthy-yessy mantra. Here’s how we win.

Luxon is plainly up for the task. The first week back in the seat last week was festooned with invocations of growth and saying yes, culminating in a state of the nation speech that arrived like a giant word cloud pregnant with growth and its sidekick yes. (“Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead.” “The bottom line is we need a lot less no and a lot more yes.”)

Willis adds to her LinkedIn profile “minister for economic growth”. In May she’ll present the “growth budget”. Meanwhile, Luxon’s opening address to parliament was popping at the seams with growthisms. “Core to our plan is unleashing economic growth,” he said. You’re going to hear this a lot in 2025. I know this because he posted a video saying, “You’re going to hear this a lot in 2025.”

“We say a big yes,” said the prime minister. “We say a big yes to New Zealand businesses, big and small – that they thrive and they make a profit and they pay higher wages and they hire more people and they invest in more growth – because that’s what it’s all about: growth. And it’s awesome we’ve got Nicola Willis leading our economic growth plan, because we’ve got a plan to make it happen. And that’s what 2025 will be all about: growth trumps everything.”

Update: Yes

And just when you thought the day might get derailed by conflict among the governing parties on privatisation – after all, Winston Peters did say at parliament yesterday, “I spent my whole career ensuring that our assets stay in our possession,” and David Seymour did scoff at “low-quality debate [from] people talking endlessly about privatisation as if it is some enormous evil” – Luxon unsheathed his pièce de résistance: “I’ve got to say, we are a coalition on this side; they’re a no-alition on that side – that’s what they’re about. They’re all about no. We’re all about yes on this side.”

Luxon’s mic-drop yesterday (sorry, yesterday) proved that he and his team have what it takes to win the growthy-yessy rhetorical war. But more can be done. Play the national anthem: some ideas follow.

To begin: if they’re the no-alition, it stands to reason that Luxon is leading the grow-alition. And while one of the opening policy salvos was throwing open the border to digital nomads, the full potential here is unrealised. We should be embracing digital yesmads and digital growmads. 

This year is all about saying no to yeah nah bro and yeah to nah yeah grow. The month after October will be Yesvember and the one after April shall become Will. 

Ministers will be known as maxisters. The Reserve Bank becomes the Gregarious Bank. MBIE is out, DFNTLY in. Goodbye Business Roundtable, hello Yussiness Roundtable. The emerging talent James Meager will become James Abundant. The tourism strapline: 1000% Pure. 

Canterbury? Can-erbury, more like. Gore becomes Goer, Lower Hutt becomes Upper Hutt and Upper Hutt becomes Upperer Hutt. 

Not even becomes even. Fucken oath is redrafted as fucken growth. And we will abandon the No 8 Wire mentality in favour of a Yes 8 Wire mentality.

OK, I can hear I’m being played off here. At the end of the day, we’re talking about being relentlessly positive for a brighter future. Let’s do this. 

‘If you regularly enjoy The Spinoff, and want it to continue, become a member today.’
Toby Manhire
— Editor-at-large
Keep going!
Artist’s rendition of working from New Zealand.
Artist’s rendition of working from New Zealand.

PoliticsJanuary 29, 2025

The best and worst places to work remotely in New Zealand

Artist’s rendition of working from New Zealand.
Artist’s rendition of working from New Zealand.

New Zealand is opening our clean green arms to digital nomads. Here are some directions around our lovely towns, housing crisis and cafe locations.

Hello digital nomads. Luckily for you, our newly minted e​conomic growth minister Nicola Willis has lifted up her pointer finger, flipped her hand around, and is beckoning you over. “New visa rules will put New Zealand boldly on the map as a welcoming haven for the world’s talent,” she said on Monday. All you visiting IT specialists and influencers are now allowed to work in 100% Pure New Zealand for up to nine months, as long as your money is coming from elsewhere. It’s the same old visitor visa with no extra costs, and for 90 days, you won’t be required to declare yourself as a tax resident here.

Don’t act cool. Allegedly, six people are already keen even before any of the $100,000 marketing campaign has been rolled out. That’s good, because immigration minister Erica Stanford wants you to come “right now” possibly to replace the residents who are leaving at record rates.

We know you’re already browsing flights and mid-term accommodation options, so here’s a handy guide to places you should, and shouldn’t, choose to work. 

OK, you can work here

Timaru

On the eastern coast of the South Island sits a little port city called Timaru. It’s got a lovely beach called Caroline Bay, where you can watch a colony of the world’s smallest penguin –  kororā (little blue penguin). I would not recommend swimming unless you get a thick wetsuit. The sky tends to shroud itself in a mysterious grey fog, and last year 655 people lost their jobs with the closure of the meatworks. At least 20 went to Australia. Sad, but the limited other employment opportunities means that more are likely to clear out, leaving space for visitors who bring their employment with them. 

Hobbiton

Hobbiton
An iconic and welcoming location in Middle Earth. (Image: Shaun Jeffers).

The real-life movie set from Lord of The Rings and the other trilogy we prefer not to mention is out among the pastures waiting for you. Just imagine having Frodo’s pantry as your Zoom background. Everyone in the meeting will get so hungry it will finish early and you can pop off to the gift shop.

Wellington

The capital city needs you. With 9,520 (and counting) public servant jobs cut by the current coalition, plus killer bike lanes, Wellington’s cafes have been emptying out and shuttering. The rental market has slowed down, with one property manager claiming to have seen rents decrease by 20%. Please, save our cafe capital, one hazelnut latte at a time.

Raetihi 

In a North Island valley between two National Parks and only 11km away from ski fields is another zombie population-challenged town. Raetihi boasts the Dinosaur House Museum, complete with replicas and documentaries, but not many jobs. A whole 230 jobs were lost when pulp and paper mills closed down, and many people were packing to leave town last October. I can confirm there are at least two cafes in town so it’s the perfect place to BYO job.

Hokitika

The un-official driftwood capital of the world, Hokitika. (Photo: JLDAUSSY via Wikipedia).

A simply lovely seaside town on the West Coast. This part of the South Island boasts “untamed, natural wilderness, authentic experiences and friendly characters”. Hokitika beach is perfectly positioned to view sunsets, and every January hosts a Driftwood and Sand festival. On the edge of town there’s the Glow Worm Dell, and lakes, walks, gorges, forests, zip lines and historical gold mining sites.

Ōhura

The main street may be bestowed with rusty tin and rotting weatherboards, but be sure not to overlook Ōhura. About 120 people live there but there were twice as many in 1996, the year that Telecom launched its first internet offering AKA when the internet arrived in New Zealand. If you want to experience a quintessential rural town, this could be it. It’s built on swamp land, an iconic colonial choice, and has a bustling cosmopolitan club which may or may not have wifi.

Rotorua

Heaps of motels have recently been kicked off a gravy train, so there’s plenty of places to stay. I’ve been told that you simply get used to the rotten egg smell.

A castle in the Coromandel

Abandoned or amazing? (Photo: Trinity Real Estate).

In December, an abandoned castle hit the slowest property market New Zealand has seen in ages. It’s no ordinary castle, but a dream and collaboration by a world-famous-in-New-Zealand architect and a local painter you’ve probably never heard of. It was never completed, but has a turret and sea views so that’s probably all you need. It seems to be unsold, so suuuuurely the vendor would welcome short-term stays. Make sure you hire a four-wheel drive to get there.

Stay away!

Queenstown

I have to warn you against a favoured location of “high-value” tourists such as yourself. Queenstown, the luxe gateway to adventure sports, vineyards, historic mining towns, The Remarkables and Coronet Peak has no houses left. The lack of supply has pushed rents to unimaginable extremes, and has people camping out long-term in cars and vans, and hotels buying other hotels as accommodation for their staff.

Department of Conservation (DOC) huts

Yes, there are super-cute little huts up and down the entire country you can stay in for a dime. Just one problem, there is a citizen-enforced ban on technology unless its high-tech head torches, vortex camping pots and new versions of waterproof fabric.

Auckland

Here’s the SkyTower, now go away. (Photo: elpinto007 via Wikipedia).

You’re likely to land here and my advice is to just keep moving. We’ve only just managed to pass on the crown for having the highest rent in the country (thanks Bay of Plenty) and we’d quite like to not get it back. When Spain introduced a digital nomad-friendly visa in 2023, its big coastal city Barcelona experienced a “quick and extreme case of gentrification” and rents rose 60% in five years, said Barcelona-dweller Marta Bausells to RNZ’s Morning Report. All you need to do here is have a look at our big syringe and move on, thanks.

Fiordland

Yes, it is beautiful, yes, I know you want to go there, but it’s simply not conducive to work that requires only your hands to move. There is something that the stunning photographs of fiords, waterfalls and mountains don’t show. Something not marked on maps and that tourism operators like to exclude from their sales pitches. Millions of tiny black sandflies that will eat you alive and fly into your eyes. They will find any way to get you, including going through the vents of bathroom extraction fans. Oh, and there’s also alpine parrots that would love to take apart your laptop.

Raglan

It’s an official fact that with digital nomads come more trendy cafes. If this happened in Raglan something would break on the time-space continuum. Enough is enough.

But wait there's more!