What does the National Party have to offer young NZers?
22 Oct 2026
Now You Know, season two, episode 67
In the first in a series of campaign pitches to young New Zealanders, Tom Rutherford makes the case for voting for the National Party.
The Spinoff reached out to all the parties currently in parliament, or that have hit 5% in polling in 2026, to contribute a 60-second video to make their case to young New Zealand voters. The videos are being released in the order they were received on all The Spinoff’s social channels.
First up is the National Party’s Tom Rutherford, MP for the Bay of Plenty and candidate for the new Mt Maunganui electorate. When asked to clarify the claim that $2,263 in extra tax per household would be required to fund Labour’s “unfunded spending plans”, a National Party spokesperson told The Spinoff, “This figure only costs Labour’s promises and is not dependent on coalition negotiations. Labour’s fiscal plan promises to get net debt down to 20% of GDP. This means they cannot fund the bill with more debt (without breaking that promise) – it must be from new taxes.”
The Labour Party’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds has previously rejected the claim of an $18.2bn shortfall in Labour’s funding, telling RNZ: “[National Party finance spokesperson] Nicola Willis needs to put the calculator down. The bill doesn’t exist and plucking numbers out of thin air won’t fix the economy.”
Made with the support of NZ On Air.
