The ACT Party want to require government policies be viewed through a "productivity lens".
In an announcement this morning, the party said "government currently emphasises identity, the Treaty, and the climate", and called for a specific goal to be set for New Zealand to be among the OECD's 10 fastest-growing economies.
The party also pledged to "introduce a range of productivity-boosting policies to boost productivity growth".
Both Labour and ACT's potential coalition partner National came in for criticism in the announcement.
"Labour and National governments have neglected productivity to the point where former communist countries are now wealthier than us," ACT leader David Seymour said. "Only ACT is serious about putting productivity at the centre of everything government does.
"Today, both parties are basically offering to carry on in the same direction. The only difference is that you might get different handouts from the same dwindling stock," Seymour added.
"New Zealand workers have been less productive than workers in other developed countries for half a century – that's why we can afford fewer life-saving pharmaceuticals, and have substandard housing and poorer healthcare.
"Low productivity is quite literally a matter of life and death."
Seymour repeated the party's election slogan calling for "real change".
"Jacinda Ardern's Labour promised to put kindness, the climate, the Treaty, and child poverty at the centre of everything. But all of that requires higher productivity to pay for them," he said. "National promises better management of the same bad policies, unwilling to reverse Labour's trajectory or face up to decades of decline."
The full policy document includes pledges to:
- Cut taxes to boost productivity, paid for by "reductions in wasteful back office spending",
- remove barriers to building houses and infrastructure, which the party said "hold back economic growth",
- reduce barriers to overseas investment in Kiwi businesses,
- pause minimum wage increases to "make it easier to find a job", alongside bringing back 90-day trials,
- adjust infrastructure funding mechanisms "to boost growth",
- revisit "all old and new regulations to make sure they stack up",
- and "cut the red tape holding back primary industries".
The party compares New Zealand to Ireland, and calls for Aotearoa to follow their lead.
"The case of Ireland shows that when a government takes productivity seriously, and enacts policies to boost productivity, wages and living standards rise," Seymour said.
"Ireland has opened itself up to overseas investment so businesses and workers can be more productive, got its infrastructure financing and funding tools right, and taken education performance seriously."
The ACT leader also called for New Zealand to have performance targets similar to those in Singapore.
"Years of woeful productivity growth under governments of both colours leave us barely clinging on to first world status," he said.
"For example, Cabinet papers require Ministers to ask whether policies will have Treaty, gender, climate or other implications.
"Instead, ACT will ask how policies impact productivity and economic growth."
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