There is an old saying in politics: governments campaign in poetry but govern in prose.
The trouble is that prose has a nasty habit of colliding with reality.
When the three-party coalition campaigned for office, we were told they would be better economic managers than the previous government. We were promised discipline, certainty, lower inflation, stronger growth and relief from the relentless pressure on household budgets.
Today’s inflation figures tell a very different story.
Annual inflation has climbed to 4.1 percent — the highest level in more than two years. You can spin the numbers. You can point to international markets. You can blame oil prices, wars or weather. Every government eventually discovers that there is always a reason.
But try explaining those reasons to a family deciding whether to fill the car, pay the power bill or buy enough groceries to get through the week.
Statistics don’t sit around the dinner table.
People do.
And right now, an awful lot of New Zealanders are doing it incredibly tough. Many are doing it quietly, without complaint, because that’s what they have always done.
For Māori, the picture is even more confronting.
The Māori unemployment rate now sits at 11.5 percent, compared with the national average of 5.3 percent.
In Auckland, it is 14.1 percent.
In Waikato, 12.3 percent.
For Māori rangatahi, the situation is worse again, with unemployment running at roughly double those already alarming figures.
Think about what that means.
It means thousands of young Māori aren’t simply missing out on jobs. They’re missing out on opportunity, confidence, experience and hope.
We know what prolonged unemployment does. We’ve lived through it before.
Then there is housing.
Māori make up around 17 percent of New Zealand’s population, yet account for somewhere between 31 and 60 percent of those experiencing severe housing deprivation.
Read that again.
Seventeen percent of the population.
Up to sixty percent of the hardship.
That isn’t a coincidence.
That is structural inequality staring us in the face.
Now add wages into the equation.
Annual wage growth has slowed to around 2 percent, among the weakest inflation-adjusted increases anywhere in the OECD.
In plain English, wages are not keeping up with inflation.
They’re certainly not keeping up with the cost of living.
Go to the supermarket.
A standard two-litre bottle of milk now averages more than five dollars.
Power bills continue to rise.
Insurance costs rise.
Rates rise.
Fuel rises.
Almost everything required to simply exist costs more than it did a year ago.
So forgive ordinary New Zealanders if they struggle to share the optimism found in ministerial press releases.
Governments often talk about economic indicators.
Families talk about whether there’s enough money left on Thursday to make it through until payday.
Those are two very different conversations.
Yes, the recently announced free trade agreement with India has potential. It could become one of the most significant economic relationships New Zealand develops over the coming decades.
But decades are the key words.
Trade agreements are long games.
Today’s grocery bill is due today.
Today’s electricity account is due today.
Today’s mortgage payment is due today.
You cannot pay this week’s rent with the promise of future export growth.
Meanwhile, everywhere you look there seems to be another reform creating uncertainty.
Whether it is health, education, infrastructure, local government or environmental law, there is a sense that we are forever restructuring the machinery rather than concentrating on growing the economy that supports it.
Sometimes it feels as though our political debate has become obsessed with recreating a version of New Zealand that no longer exists.
The world has changed.
Our economy has changed.
Our people have changed.
The question is whether our politics has.
I’ve often said that the Māori economy is one of New Zealand’s great success stories.
It remains a green shoot.
Iwi, Māori businesses, land trusts, entrepreneurs and innovators are investing in forestry, agriculture, fisheries, tourism, technology, renewable energy and housing.
The Māori economy is no longer peripheral.
It is central to New Zealand’s future prosperity.
But green shoots still need stable conditions to grow.
They need certainty.
They need long-term planning.
They need governments prepared to work with business, iwi, communities and local government instead of governing in election cycles.
The truth is our economy shouldn’t be about creating winners and losers.
It shouldn’t be about one group succeeding while another falls further behind.
Economic success should lift everyone.
That requires consistency, investment, education, productivity and confidence.
Not endless ideological battles.
Not constant policy reversals.
And certainly not pretending that everything is fine because a spreadsheet says so.
As Māori, we have always paid the price of citizenship.
Our people have served in New Zealand’s wars.
We have contributed to its economy.
We have built businesses, fed communities, protected the environment and strengthened the social fabric of this nation.
When times are hard, Māori often bear the heaviest burden first and the longest burden last.
That is not because we lack resilience.
History proves we have resilience in abundance.
It is because inequality compounds over generations.
Today’s inflation figures should serve as a wake-up call.
Not because governments control every economic shock — they don’t.
But because leadership is measured not by promises made during election campaigns, but by the outcomes delivered afterwards.
The economy isn’t performing for everyone.
Until it does, the job isn’t finished.
And no amount of political spin will convince a family standing in the supermarket aisle that life has become more affordable when they can plainly see it hasn’t.
#Opinion #MatthewTukaki #Economy #Inflation #CostOfLiving #MāoriEconomy #Unemployment #Housing #Whānau #Aotearoa #Election2026 #RadioWaatea #WaateaNews
