\u201cNew Zealand First was built on this idea of New Zealand identity. Retaining New Zealand institutions and organisations with New Zealand ownership, and keeping that money within New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, buying back a bank, that was sold in the 90s, from the Aussies of all people is probably going to appeal to those people who are concerned that the New Zealand identity is being diluted.<\/p>\n
\u201cPutting that aside, you then probably get to the practical realities of the policy, of how New Zealand First or the Government\u2019s going to afford buying back this bank.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of figures being thrown around in terms of how much it would cost, but it\u2019s certainly well up there in the billions. So how are they gonna pay for that?<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand First has suggested that it could be self-financing, that you\u2019d take out some debt to pay for it, but that the earnings of BNZ would eventually accumulate and let you pay off that debt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are other funds that they could look at to invest in the bank. There are a lot of questions around the reality of that policy, and Christopher Luxon, National, the Act Party, have all pretty much dismissed it outright,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
NZ First leader Winston Peters and National leader Christopher Luxon after signing their coalition agreement at Parliament in November 2023. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the latest Talbot-Mills Research poll<\/a>, conducted May 1-10, shows Peters is only three points behind Luxon in the preferred PM rankings, rating 17% vs 20%.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there is quite a clear contrast between him and National leader Christopher Luxon,\u201d Ensor said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have Winston Peters, who has been around a long time. As he says, he has got a lot of experience, versus a first-term Prime Minister who\u2019s only been in Parliament since 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the issues that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has had with his communication very much contrast with the authority, the deliberateness of Winston Peters, and I guess the confidence that he puts out there to people.<\/p>\n \u201cAdditionally, as we\u2019ve seen internationally, there are global concerns about some culture issues. New Zealand First has been on top of that all the way through this Parliament.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re obviously taking advantage of that … the likes of immigration. Again, how far that actually gets them on election day, we\u2019ll wait and see.<\/p>\n \u201cThis focus on immigration might be working at the moment, but whereas we\u2019ve seen from various polls, the cost of living remains New Zealanders\u2019 top focus, and so that is very much where the election is gonna be won or lost,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Listen to the full episode<\/a> to hear more about:<\/p>\n NZ First\u2019s momentum and strategy Campaign dynamicsInternational parallelsImmigration<\/p>\n The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime\/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.<\/p>\n You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This, he said, would birth the \u201cKiwiSaver Generation\u201d \u2013 where no New Zealander entered adulthood without a savings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7127,12067,6794,1863,1643,15316,5098,1738,9341,134102,14768,1888,71,1668,209,221,185,6964,1446,111,43,139,69,28630,10269,313,223,61,15142,80],"class_list":["post-433049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-age","tag-aimed","tag-baby","tag-back","tag-bank","tag-birth","tag-buying","tag-campaign","tag-compulsory","tag-courting","tag-every","tag-first","tag-from","tag-front","tag-group","tag-how","tag-is","tag-kiwisaver","tag-making","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-page","tag-policies","tag-super","tag-the","tag-to","tag-unveiled","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}