[jemmyw]

I downvoted you. I live in NZ. I immensely dislike the "x party in power that I don't vote for trashed the country" rhetoric. We wouldn't be in a substantially different position under a right wing government. You overestimate what a govt is actually able to change. Consider covid... the economic effects were going to happen regardless, and left and right governments in similar countries made similar choices. Personally I think the mistake here was not shutting the border 2 weeks earlier when we could have had no internal lockdown and no covid for 18 months, but a right wing govt would never have taken that decision.

In any case, NZ is not trashed. There are major housing related issues but those are 30 year trends because of the policies of both major parties.

I don't like Labour, although I prefer them to National. What do you think National are going to change in power? I'll tell you, they'll abandon not yet implemented policies, make minor tax tweaks and not give public workers a raise. Life will continue the same because no one in politics will try out large changes to actually tackle the problems we face due to fear of pissing off the electorate.

[throwaway2990]

If it makes a difference, both me and my parents and my siblings voted labour. And we all regret it. My friends still in NZ voted labour and regret it. Housing it just 1 issue. There’s co governance issue, three waters, education changes. If labour get voted in again you’re gonna see a lot of businesses leave NZ.

[jemmyw]

co-governance isn't an issue, it's a political hit and media frenzy based on recommendations made in a paper that were never committed to or brought near policy. As far as actual policies on Maori political representation, National by and large support them.

Three waters was a PR disaster for Labour, no doubt about it. But they had some good ideas in there and the rhetoric around it is ridiculous. We could sorely do with revising the water system. I do not understand the "local assets" argument, I don't give a damn if the local council or another state entity provides the water system. Local councils hate it because it's pretty much the only thing most of them actually do.

Education changes: every damn government messes about with the curriculum. I was going to mention it in my previous post but it got too long. National messed about with it, the previous Labour govt messed with it. No political party seems to be able to bear the idea of just leaving it alone for a few years and collecting some evidence.

> If labour get voted in again you’re gonna see a lot of businesses leave NZ

No, they won't. That's a ridiculous statement. Some people will leave NZ over the next few years and a subset of those will take their business with them, and the flavour of govt won't make a difference, we just have a particular economy and that won't change. Neither Labour nor National have the balls to make the necessary investments we could really do with to diversify away from tourism and agriculture to higher value industry like tech, which we're reasonably good at due to having an existing high income population and social systems in place. Labour did one good thing in that space, which was drive Fibre internet across the country.

Labour and National both pander to their bases - well of course they do, they're political parties. I'm sorry that you voted one way and regret it, but I'm puzzled what you expected of Labour, and what you expect of National. Neither of them will solve the housing issue until the majority of voters are renters seeking a better housing situation. One or the other is going to be forced to implement something like three waters (under a different name) eventually. Each of them will fiddle with the education system and people will be unhappy about it.

My advice - vote for TOP or another small party that won't ever get near power. Then you'll never need regret getting it wrong.