{"id":644323,"date":"2026-10-29T00:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T00:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/644323\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T00:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T00:58:09","slug":"national-tamaki-candidate-mahesh-muralidhar-praises-some-labour-policies-barbara-edmonds-grateful-for-his-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/644323\/","title":{"rendered":"National T\u0101maki candidate Mahesh Muralidhar praises \u2018some\u2019 Labour policies, Barbara Edmonds \u2018grateful\u2019 for his support"},"content":{"rendered":"

A video obtained by the Herald shows Muralidhar at a candidate event answering a question about what he thought was something good from the other side of the political aisle. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think some of the small, medium-sized business policies that Labour\u2019s put forward is interesting; it\u2019s good because it releases capital much faster to businesses,\u201d he said, comments previously reported by Newsroom.<\/p>\n

Muralidhar told the Herald today: \u201cThe important word in my comments is \u2018some\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately for Kiwi businesses, Labour\u2019s full small business policy amounts to a $6 billion tax grab through the removal of Investment Boost,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen first-hand how Investment Boost is helping Kiwi businesses invest, expand, hire more people and lift wages. Scrapping it, as a Labour Government would, would hit those businesses hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Party has targeted Labour\u2019s small business plan during this election campaign, primarily because it is funded by reworking the Investment Boost scheme the Government introduced last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a huge blow for small business owners,\u201d National\u2019s finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis said after Labour unveiled the policy, revealing it was replacing Investment Boost. <\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s small business policy has several strands<\/a>, including lifting the asset write-off threshold from $1000 to $10,000 for businesses with annual revenue below $10 million from July next year, and requiring big businesses to pay small suppliers within 15 days for invoices of $25,000 or less. <\/p>\n

This is paid for by \u201crefocusing\u201d Investment Boost. The Labour policy costs $1.56 billion over four years \u2013 much less than Investment Boost \u2013 with the asset write-off being the main cost. <\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s Edmonds told the Herald it was a \u201cfantastic thing that a National Party candidate for Tamaki is supporting our small business policy\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI believe it\u2019s a fantastic policy. It does help small businesses access their own cash flow and their capital. So thank you to him for supporting our small business,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s good policy, he should support it, and I\u2019m grateful for it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Labour'sLabour’s Barbara Edmonds welcomed the comments. Photo \/Cameron Pitney<\/p>\n

At the meeting, Muralidhar also said that those on the right of politics often sometimes \u201cdon\u2019t show the heart\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing that I think the left do better sometimes than the right does is show up and perhaps express the right economic thinking but in more compassionate ways,\u201d the National candidate said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the right, we get lost in, hey, this is the right problem, we\u2019re thinking about it right, and we don\u2019t show the heart and that\u2019s something that I definitely think I would like to bring with the National Party.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said he applauded when Labour showed up and marketed itself well.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood on them. We need to do a better job of showing up, listening and making sure that people we help look and feel that we are helping them. That is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding these comments, Muralidhar told the Herald \u201cLabour often acts as though it has a monopoly on empathy. It doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEmpathy is no replacement for good ideas, which is something Labour is sorely lacking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JamesJames Christmas (right) has laid into the National candidate. <\/p>\n

Act\u2019s Christmas told the Herald: \u201cI can honestly say I\u2019ve never been endorsed by a gang member, I\u2019ve never floated a future capital gains tax and I definitely would never suggest the right lacks heart\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs this campaign progresses it\u2019s becoming clear that I\u2019m the only centre-right candidate running to serve the people of T\u0101maki as their Member of Parliament.\u201d <\/p>\n

Christmas is referencing previous remarks of Muralidhar\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The Herald reported in September on criticism of Muralidhar<\/a> for saying he was comfortable with New Zealand\u2019s approach to a capital gains tax \u201cfor now\u201d. He later clarified he supported \u201cno new taxes and absolutely no capital gains tax\u201d. <\/p>\n

The Post this week reported the National candidate as saying he had received support from a gang member. He denied this was a gang endorsement of his campaign. <\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s T\u0101maki candidate, Max Harris, said in a statement he believed support for National and Act had softened. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe T\u0101maki race is tight, and I have spoken to multiple people who are turning away from National and Act in their local vote because they believe that this National-Act-NZ First Government has been cruel and lacks heart, and they want a candidate that will bring hope and heart back to T\u0101maki.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald\u2019s chief political reporter, based in the press gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A video obtained by the Herald shows Muralidhar at a candidate event answering a question about what he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13485,138,19956,13486,2082,38626,293,6721,27699,39223,315777,3556,71084,111,43,139,69,10269,13033,13031,16134,4499,544,1886,6047,41653],"class_list":["post-644323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-barbara","tag-business","tag-candidate","tag-edmonds","tag-for","tag-grateful","tag-his","tag-labour","tag-labours","tag-mahesh","tag-muralidhar","tag-national","tag-nationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-policies","tag-praised","tag-praises","tag-remarks","tag-small","tag-some","tag-support","tag-tmaki","tag-welcoming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644323","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=644323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}