Unlike their equally destructive predecessors - the 1980s' Rogernomics Government - this present Government cannot be accused of stabbing New Zealanders in the back. No, this crowd happily stabs us in the front, all the while telling us that it's for our own good. Class warfare is alive and well in NZ, with this variety being from the top down, coupled with a liberal dose of corporate welfare. This is a Government unashamedly for the transnational corporations (TNCs) and the local rich, whilst simultaneously grinding the faces of the poor.

Foreign Banks Get By With A Little Help From Their Friends

You would think that the big Australian banks which dominate the NZ economy are doing well enough without needing any help from the Government. After all, figures for the 2024 fiscal year show that bank profits have reached an all-time high. At the same time, despite lower interest rates, more and more customers of the big four Australian banks (BNZ, ANZ, ASB and Westpac) are overdue in their mortgage repayments.

Foreign banks continue to make obscene profits in New Zealand. RNZ reports the banking sector's profits rose to the record level of $7.22 billion in 2024, up around $18 million from 2023. Meanwhile, the big Australian banks say their overdue home loans rose from $4.4 billion to $4.9 billion in the first half of 2025. While this is a small percentage of these banks' total assets, it means a growing number of households with mortgages are in serious trouble and more than 90 days behind in their payments.

Banks are like casinos - they never lose. As ANZ Chief Executive, Antonia Watson, said in a Stuff interview, banks are not like retailers. When the economy is bad their revenues do not fall. Interest payments continue regardless. One reason bank profits are so high is that they hold a huge amount of their customers' money in interest-free accounts. It is estimated that the banks hold $58 billion in on-call, transaction accounts that pay no interest to the consumer. Having access to their customers' deposits for free is a big reason the banks generate their own excess profits.

Labour has proposed a minimum 1% interest rate on all bank accounts but naturally the banks reject this. In Australia banks are required to tell customers with large amounts in zero-interest accounts when they would be better off transferring their money to other accounts. Even when the courts put pressure on banks, their mates in this Government put their thumb on the scales in their favour.

The Government has introduced a bill that will weaken consumer protection by reducing the awards that suits against the banks can receive. On top of that, the Government wants to make the law retroactive. This could affect the outcome of a class action suit that Kiwi borrowers have filed against the ANZ and ASB for charging excessive fees and interest. John Key's Government brought in the current rules, which require that the banks repay all of the illegal interest and fees they have charged. To change this retrospectively and undermine this outcome of this class action suit is moving the goal posts and against natural justice.

National is not alone in mollycoddling the banks. When they were in power, Labour stonewalled calls to hold a full-scale inquiry into the banking sector. They finally did announce a Commerce Commission study into competition in the banking sector in June 2023, but it was too little, too late. It was just a few months before the October 2023 election that they knew they were going to lose.

"The National Party is being accused of putting the needs of banks before everyday Kiwis after introducing legislation that could mean two big Australian-owned lenders avoid paying millions of dollars in refunds. One customer said the amendment to lending laws would allow the banks to get off 'scot-free' while the Minister in charge said it simply allowed the courts to have more discretion in settling disputes ... The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA) includes a retrospective amendment relating to consequences for historical disclosure breaches by lenders".

"An investigation by the Commerce Commission had found two banks did not disclose the necessary information regarding customer loans. It meant the banks were potentially liable to refund millions of dollars in fees and interest. Lawyer Scott Russell, acting on behalf of those taking the class action, said the omission regarded 'core business' for the banks. 'It's simple stuff. It's disclosure rules that allow ordinary New Zealanders to understand their financial position', Russell said".

"Anthony Simons, a small business owner, was among the 170,000 customers who took legal action against ANZ and ASB banks. 'We're just a hardworking Kiwi family trying to pay off our mortgage, struggling sometimes, and we should just be able to trust our bank that they're going to do the right thing in disclosing the right information', Simons said. But, after four years battling through the courts, the Government (in May 2025) passed the first reading of the legislation which changed the rules — retrospectively".

The Government and the banks tried to downplay the significance of this. "But Russell (lawyer for the class action plaintiffs) said penalties 'are clear under the legislation. All of a sudden, those penalties are being wiped out and replace with something that's not clear which is what is a reasonable penalty'" (1News, 29/5/25).

Take Your Pick From Long List Of Egregious Examples

This is just the most recent example of the Government's egregious assistance to transnational corporations and Big Business in general. I have detailed some of the other ones in previous issues of Watchdog. For example, its links with the tobacco industry ("Smoko! Government In Pocket Of Merchants Of Addiction, Misery, Disease And Death") in issue 167, December 2024.

In 166 (August 2024) I highlighted the Government's promotion of mining ("We're On The Fast Track To Nowhere. The Great Leap Backwards"). And in 165 ("Full Speed Backwards", April 2024) I detailed who the Government had bashed thus far. The first subheading was Big Bash: Workers, Unions, Beneficiaries, Tenants, Māori, The Treaty, The Environment & The Climate"". The list has only got longer since then.

Bashing Low Paid Women Workers

I won't go over all that stuff again, but simply reiterate that it has got progressively worse. A huge new cohort of victims have since been added to the Big Bash - low paid women workers, whose pay equity deals were scrapped, under Parliamentary Urgency, to make the 2025 Budget look better. After all, somebody's got to pay for the all the tax cuts and sweetheart deals with TNCs, and it certainly won't be the rich. And this pro-business, anti-people ideology continues to expand into all sorts of other areas. To give a couple of examples - the naked drive to prioritise the private health system as opposed to spending on the taxpayer-funded public one. And the stripping away of health and safety protections, in total disregard of the lessons of workplace tragedies like the 2010 Pike River mine disaster which killed 29 men.

Downgrading Value Of Human LIfe

That callousness towards human life is most starkly illustrated by the proposal to remove 1800 plus buildings from earthquake strengthening requirements, saying that the regions in question are less risky (they said that about Christchurch too, before the thousands of quakes which started in 2010 caused 185 deaths and massive destruction, costing tens of billions to fix). "The 'uncomfortable reality' is that policy- makers must place a value on human life, Minister says, to decide how much to spend on safety work" (Newsroom, 10/7/25).

Further Weakening Overseas Investment Act

Some of the Government's policies are aimed at directly benefitting foreign investors. In July 2025 Bill Rosenberg and Jane Kelsey circulated an urgent action alert about David Seymour's substantial amendments to the 2005 Overseas Investment Act. "... It has been publicised as speeding up and simplifying the approval process. There has been less publicity about major changes to treatment of forestry land, and water for bottling or other extraction in bulk for human consumption, which will now be treated in the same way as commercial transactions, such as the overseas takeover of a company".

"This means the weakening the existing special forestry test, which already results in forestry land being by far the largest category of land approved for overseas ownership by the authorities. These are now proposed to be subject only to a 'national interest test' and only the Minister can decline such applications. It is weakened - for example, tests of whether individuals controlling the investment are of good character and the 'benefit to NZ' will no longer be mandatory, and other criteria are difficult to judge and subject to Government direction. Conditions that apply to consents, such as replanting, would be left up to regulations".

"Protections on residential and farm land are largely preserved. However, our analysis of the Bill reveals a further major change that removes important protections from 'sensitive land' where it is not residential or farm land including offshore islands, marine and coastal areas, lake beds, conservation land, land subject to a heritage order, historic places, and wahi tapu. This has not been publicised..."

Removing Legal Protections

"Firstly, this type of land and forestry land will no longer have the protection of a 'Benefit to New Zealand test' in section 16A of the Act. The 'benefit test' adds important and more concrete criteria to the national interest test including a requirement that the acquisition by overseas interests must benefit New Zealand or a group of New Zealanders compared to the status quo. The benefits assessed include economic benefits such as jobs and introduction of technology, benefits to the natural environment, enhanced access to the public, and protection of historic heritage".

"Secondly, this type of land will no longer have the mandatory protection of an 'Investor test' in section 18A of the Act. Instead, whether this test is considered will be up to the Overseas Investment Office and the Minister. This test considers whether investors have, for example, been convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment, or whether a company has been fined, or whether investors have been penalised for an offence or illegal act, or have been charged for such offences. It considers whether the person would not be eligible for a visa to New Zealand. In addition, it requires a 'capability test' which considers whether the investor has, for example, been banned from being a director or managing a company, has had to pay a penalty for abusing tax laws, or has outstanding tax of $5 million or more due".

"As examples, a mining company wishing to buy or lease land for exploration or mining which is in native forest on an offshore island or coastal area will no longer have to undergo the Benefit to New Zealand test or investor test. A wealthy investor wanting to buy an offshore island which is currently in forestry or untouched will no longer have to undergo the Benefit to New Zealand test or good character test. The investments undergo the weakened national interest test, but even then, it may be determined by the Minister that any problems can be managed by other legislation and therefore the 'national interest' is satisfied".

"We have not had time to look closely at the removal of water for bottling or extraction, but clearly this is of concern, especially to Māori. Depending on how NZ's free trade agreements are interpreted, these changes may be locked in for land that is not farmland (or fisheries quotas). We are not suggesting that the current Overseas Investment Act is perfect. In particular, there has never been any recognition of te Tiriti or mana whenua. But it has been improved in recent years, and this would be a major backward step".

"They Are Few"

"A major backward step" would most succinctly characterise what this Government has done - and plans to do - in any sector you could care to name. A leg up for the TNCs, Big Business and the rich; a kick in the guts for the poor, with no beg your pardons. This is what class warfare from the top down looks and feels like. Capitalism on steroids. But don't lose hope. This is an old, old story. In times like this it's helpful to turn to poetry for universal truths, namely from Percy Bysshe Shelley's "The Masque Of Anarchy" (1819):

"Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few."

Watchdog - 169 August 2025