But while some have touted the policy\u2019s direction, tackling key issues in the New Zealand economy, an economics professor has labelled it \u201cincoherent\u201d, concerned it is one of many being pumped out by minority parties, targeting small groups of New Zealanders for votes rather than real investment for the median voter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A welcome investment for cash-strapped polytechs<\/p>\n
Tertiary Education Union national secretary Amy Ross said the reinstatement of an $80 million funding cut from polytechnics was a step in the right direction, but the devil would be in the details.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The disestablishment of megapolytechnic Te P\u016bkenga, initiated by the coalition Government,\u00a0led to the tightening of belts for individual polytechnics to become financially viable and remain open as standalone entities, resulting in\u00a0significant job losses and courses being cut across the motu.<\/p>\n
Ross said the sector had lost one in five people since 2022, with the number of tutors and senior tutors dropping 25 percent in three years.<\/p>\n
Polytechnics were integral to regional areas and a closure would mean the loss of a central community hub of education in the local community, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the regions, having local community-based education keeps those communities alive and is a vibrant hub of those communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Opportunity](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-06-24-at-7.16.34-PM.png\")
Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong is optimistic its new economic policy will resonate with Labour and National. Photo: Opportunity social media <\/p>\n
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong said it was best placed to understand the needs of the businesses in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of our policy is focused on the bigger shiny research and science projects but we also recognise that smaller businesses in regions also need support and it\u2019s not always about cutting-edge science.\u201d<\/p>\n
As councils considered amalgamation, polytechnics and economic development agencies could fill the gap \u201cin a hyper local sense\u201d, Wong said.<\/p>\n
Ross said the biggest need was the investment in more staff, more teachers and more support structures for students. She was cautiously optimistic to find out more detail on how the $80m funding would be allocated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Constant underfunding of the sector meant there was little job stability \u2013 both for staff and courses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was talking to a member the other day who said that there are 17 people in her polytech who have been on fixed terms for longer than 10 years, and that is a sign of a sector in crisis where you can\u2019t have permanent employment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Incoherent\u2019 policy \u2013 economics professor\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, Auckland University professor of economics Robert MacCulloch questioned the policy\u2019s sole focus on polytechnics when universities in other tech-driven countries played a key role in innovation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey seem to want to build up these sort of tech clusters, well, in the United Kingdom, that\u2019s built around Cambridge University \u2013 they\u2019ve got a Silicon Valley around Cambridge, driven by the science expertise of Cambridge being one of the world\u2019s top universities in science; there\u2019s a cluster of biotech and things around Oxford; in California around Stanford; there\u2019s none of that there.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Robert-MacCulloch-AEM-128077.jpg\")
Auckland University professor of economics Robert MacCulloch said the Opportunity Party\u2019s new policy was \u2018incoherent\u2019. Photo: University of Auckland<\/p>\n
MacCulloch did not believe scrapping interest rates on student loans would entice Kiwis living overseas, some of whom were earning seven-figure salaries at the likes of\u00a0Google and Microsoft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought overall it\u2019s an incoherent document, they talk about somehow transforming us into a high-tech economy. The tech that we\u2019re using, in terms of say the transformation of artificial intelligence, is entirely being driven overseas. It\u2019s not being driven by anything that is happening here, and Opportunity won\u2019t change that.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacCulloch accused parties of operating like businesses and targeting only a certain group of customers, knowing they had no chance of securing majority support.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Political parties, all polling between 5 and 30 percent, were putting out \u201chundreds of pages of policies, and nearly none of them will be implemented\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the game is, \u2018Look, provided 20 percent of the country are on board with our view, that\u2019s all we care about, because you know, then we\u2019ll be in Parliament and we\u2019ll be very influential\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Strong policy\u2019 but no way to fund it\u00a0<\/p>\n
Max Rashbrooke, senior research fel\u00adlow at Victoria University of Wel\u00adling\u00adton\u2019s school of gov\u00adern\u00adment, said the policy focused on big problems in Aotearoa\u2019s economy, and he supported lifting investment in research and development.<\/p>\n
Opportunity has pledged to re-commit to the previous Labour government\u2019s target \u2013 scrapped by the coalition \u2013 to spend 2 percent of GDP on research and development within the next decade, but with a long-term objective to reach 3 percent by 2050.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, Rashbrooke questioned the way in which the policy would be funded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wong said the $1.33 billion price tag associated with the economic policy would be paid for by its tax policy, which was calculated to result in a surplus of $4b.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rashbrooke questioned whether the party could secure support\u00a0for a universal basic income \u2013 a key part of its tax policy \u2013\u00a0given it was \u201cextraordinarily expensive\u201d and required an \u201cextraordinarily large amount of tax\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Max-Rashbrooke.jpeg\")
Max Rashbrooke, senior research fel\u00adlow at Victoria University of Wel\u00adling\u00adton\u2019s school of gov\u00adern\u00adment, said the policy targeted key economic issues in Aotearoa but questioned the way in which it would be funded. Photo: Hagen Hopkins\/Max Rashbrooke\u2019s website<\/p>\n
A blanket sum of $20,000 would go to every New Zealander, regardless of their income level \u2013 which he deemed unnecessary for the country\u2019s millionaires and insufficient to make the country\u2019s poorest any better off.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was also unsure how the party proposed to pay for huge amounts of investment needed across health, education, social housing and conservation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Opportunity hopeful for political support\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wong was hopeful \u2013 though perhaps optimistic \u2013 the new policy would strike a chord with both Labour and National.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want higher growth, higher productivity, which means better wages and better jobs and better living standards for New Zealanders, and so Labour and National should see that as a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wong, having spent nearly a decade in London herself, saw value in New Zealanders venturing overseas and gaining experience and skills \u2013 provided they returned to our shores and contributed to the economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s becoming harder and harder to attract them back when our economy is not doing so well so anything that we can do to incentivise that is a good thing,\u201d Wong said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trade-off of writing off that interest we think will more than pay itself back in skills and experience of people coming home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wiping off up to three years of interest incurred on New Zealanders\u2019 student loan debt while overseas was estimated to cost $95m.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Separately, the party would restore funding to core sciences and ensure future contestable research funds included the humanities and social sciences, as well as funding early- and mid-career researchers at a cost of $400m.<\/p>\n
It will also allow claiming back as a tax credit up to 25 percent of the cost of rolling out high-tech solutions, like AI and digital platforms, new plant and machinery and networked or autonomous equipment at a cost of $600m.<\/p>\n
If a tax reset wasn\u2019t on the cards with a potential coalition partner, its economic policy would be the priority, Wong said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important that we invest to grow in New Zealand, we can\u2019t just rely on continuing to cut services and budgets and expect that we will have the kind of growth that will turbocharge the economy for the next few decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do need to prioritise some investments, and we think that these are really important for New Zealand to set ourselves up for success.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reinstating funding for polytechnics would support not just \u201cbigger, shiny research and science projects\u201d but also economic development…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[84,112585,273,111,43,7439,139,69,135,147],"class_list":["post-513173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-education","tag-election-2026","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newsroom-pro","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513173","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=513173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}