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JUL 27, 2025
Picture the scene. You’re browsing the vast plains of the internet. Like every predator in every Attenborough nature film, there’s an algorithm quietly watching you.
Click click. Click click. Now? Yes now. Up into your screen flashes a seduction. The coffee machine of your dreams.
It’s coming at you from every direction with simple one-touch operation and compact countertop design but really it had you at Café-quality espresso at home.
In just a few moments you've clicked and paid, and some wretch in an Amazon warehouse whose every key stroke and toilet break is counted and held against them is putting a sticker on a box with your name on it.
Do you feel it? That little connection across the globe? The two of you have both helped to pay for the next Bezos wedding. Salud.
After not very many sleeps at all, the box is on your doorstep. You delightedly take to it and haul out the various pieces of polystyrene and cardboard and plastic and put all the bits together as best you can work out from the instructions.
And then you click the switch. Nothing. No light. You push another button. Still no light. You push and hold, and still nothing. Back to the instructions, back to the button. Eventually you work out what you’re supposed to do, only now you’re noticing the button is a bit wobbly. And also did they mention it would be this loud? And shouldn’t the air be frothing the milk in a steady stream rather than fitful explosions? You pour, you sit in your chair, take a sip. It’s coffee, yes. But it’s a bit bloody average, as we like to say around here. You gamely press on anyway for the next few weeks but to be honest you’re kind of relieved when the button stops working altogether.
You wonder to yourself, how many coffees is 300 divided by 6?
I imagine this may be how some voters are feeling right now, having picked Christopher Luxon.
His packaging said, Café-quality espresso at home, but is it time to wake up and smell the Instant?
When you’ve done your dough, you may go back and look at the packaging to see what you missed.
Shall we take a moment to go back and look at his maiden speech?
As visions go it's reasonable enough, if not the most original you've ever heard.
We need to work smarter, not harder, he says.
Well why wouldn't he? That's breathe in breathe out for a CEO.
But how, old mate, how?
We can do this by building and unleashing genuinely world-class export businesses, step-changing education and labour skills, and delivering infrastructure better.
Okay, and how specifically?
By investing in skills, R&D and innovation, by getting more world-class export businesses so we can compete globally, by taking urgent action to harness opportunities in AI and automation.
Also he proposes a complete reset for infrastructure with new vision, funding mechanisms, and better execution. He says this will be nation-building, not just physical assets. Good stuff! I like the sound of nation-building.
Now, one could take the jaded view and say, these are really just management platitudes. But look, if I were setting out what we need to do, I might well start there too.
The problem is, that stuff is just the packaging on the box. What kind of coffee maker do we have inside?
At election time, we can dream of smooth glossy crema and a punchy Italian blend. A year and a half in — or is it twenty? It feels more like twenty — we have a better idea whether it’s a dream or a dog. Let's take stock, shall we?
Investing in skills, R&D and innovation? They cut science funding. Like, constricting the very stuff that fosters innovation.
Getting more world-class export businesses? Still the same narrow base. Still waiting for the magic. Still waiting for anything meaningful that might get things started.
Taking urgent action on AI and automation? Nothing so far unless you count making Judith Collins the Minister for Infinity and Beyond.
Infrastructure reset with new vision and funding? The Cook Strait ferries say hello. Or rather, they don't, because they were cancelled. Roads, and more roads, but precious little else.
They promised nation-building. We got dismantling.
They promised to work smarter. We're all working harder with less.
Cutting here, slashing there, wondering why nothing flows smoothly.
Productivity is down, the economy's in recession, and the light won’t come on.
So now what, old mate?
Can I make some suggestions?
Productivity
When Finland wanted better productivity, they didn't stand there pushing the broken button harder. They bought a proper machine. Made university free. Now they've got engineers and designers coming out their ears, all making things that work.
South Korea went from dirt poor to tech powerhouse not by cutting corners on the coffee grounds, but by pouring money into R&D until their products actually worked.
You want real productivity? Free tertiary education. The productivity gains pay for it. Massive R&D tax credits. Apprenticeship programs that actually pay living wages.
Housing
Build, build, build. Directly. Not by enabling building. Not by incentivisingbuilding. Build them. With government money. Thousands of them. Tax empty houses until someone lives in them. Capital gains tax, because houses should be homes, not poker chips.
Climate Transition
Green New Deal-style infrastructure program. Insulate every home, solar on every school, wind farms onshore and off. Create an abundance of power for 21st century industries. Make public transport free. Carbon tax.
Export Economy
Big sovereign wealth fund for tech startups. Tax holidays for any company doing genuine R&D - not financial engineering, actual research Direct government investment in promising sectors .
Education System
Finland pays teachers like lawyers, trusts them like professionals, gets world-leading results. Double teacher salaries over 5 years. Decent unstinting free school lunches, because hungry kids don't learn. Scrap standardised testing, trust teachers. Finland has no standardised tests, it tops global rankings.
Infrastructure
Create a standalone entity that borrows at government rates for projects that actually pay returns 25-year infrastructure pipeline, locked in by law - politicians can't cancel projects for headlines. Fast rail between Auckland-Hamilton-Tauranga. Ministry of Works. Use it to build those homes.
The money's there if we want to be intelligent about it. Tax capital gains, tax wealth, borrow for infrastructure at government rates. Growing economies generate more tax.
Also:
Universal Basic Income pilot. Pick a city, test it properly.
Drug decriminalisation. Treat health problems as health problems
Voting age to 16. Let the young adults who are going to live longest with the consequences of today’s choices have a say.
None of this is fantasy. Every one of these policies is working somewhere already. Real countries with real economies making real coffee, not the dismal stuff Old Mate’s Coalition of Conservatism and Culture wars is pouring out.
I remain as positive as I can, but mostly I’m hoping the button stops working altogether.
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David Slack
David Slack