BusinessNZ says New Zealand’s economic recovery is gaining real traction – and the country now has a rare opening to put itself on a more competitive international footing for the capital, investment and skilled people every advanced economy is competing for.

Releasing its Election Priorities 2026, Building Tomorrow’s Economy, BusinessNZ has set out the constructive measures it says the next Government should adopt to build on that momentum rather than let it slip away.

They include lower and more competitive tax rates, including corporate taxes, and the indexation of personal income tax thresholds.

BusinessNZ Chief Executive Katherine Rich said New Zealand has every reason to be optimistic about what comes next.

“We are a small country with an extraordinary record of innovation, entrepreneurship and international success, and the numbers back up our optimism. Export earnings surpassing $100 billion for the first time shows what our businesses can do, even in difficult times. Our task now is to build the settings that turn this momentum into a sustained, internationally competitive economy,” Ms Rich said.

Among the reasons for optimism: New Zealand’s economy grew nearly three times faster than Australia’s in the first three months of 2026 – GDP up 0.8 per cent in the March quarter, against Australia’s 0.3 per cent, according to Stats NZ and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

That gave New Zealand a window to compete with its trans-Tasman neighbour, and the rest of the world, if the next Government was prepared to seize it.

BusinessNZ’s election priorities report is drawn from the expertise of BusinessNZ’s economists, policy specialists and the experience of member businesses across the country.

The settings that will grow the economy

BusinessNZ chief economist John Pask said New Zealand is competing in an international market for capital, investment and skilled people – and the question is not whether recovery happens, but what kind of economy it builds.

“Capital is mobile. Highly skilled workers are mobile. Businesses considering where to establish their next operation, factory, data center or research facility have choices – and New Zealand cannot assume those choices will automatically favour us. But the current environment gives us a genuine opportunity to act, and we should grasp it,” Mr Pask said.

BusinessNZ’s growth agenda centers on three levers:

• A more competitive corporate tax rate – New Zealand’s 28 per cent rate sits well above the OECD average of 24.1 per cent. BusinessNZ is calling for a staged reduction, paired with continued reform of the Overseas Investment Act, to improve New Zealand’s ability to attract and retain internationally mobile capital.

• A more competitive R&D rebate – New Zealand’s R&D Tax Incentive, at 15 per cent, is internationally uncompetitive and business R&D spend (0.98 per cent of GDP) trails the OECD average (2 per cent) so significantly that, at current rates of progress, it would take roughly 75 years to close the gap. BusinessNZ wants the RDTI rate lifted to at least 25 per cent, with a higher rate of up to 50 per cent for firms partnering with local researchers.

• An energy strategy that delivers affordable, reliable and sustainable energy – with renewables already supplying 88.5 per cent of electricity generation in 2025, BusinessNZ wants an enduring National Energy Strategy that treats affordability, security and sustainability as a package, backed by clearer rules on natural gas, emerging fuels and long-term energy contracting.

Mr Pask said tax reform on its own will not transform New Zealand’s prospects. “A low-tax economy can still be a high-cost economy if businesses face unnecessary regulatory barriers. The real question for every policy should be: does this make New Zealand a more attractive place to invest, work and create? Together, these measures send an important signal – New Zealand is open for investment, values enterprise, and rewards work and achievement.”

BusinessNZ also wants personal income tax thresholds indexed to inflation or wage growth to end “fiscal drag,” and a systematic review of outdated thresholds – including the $60,000 GST registration threshold, unchanged since 2009 and now well below Australia’s AU$75,000 equivalent.

Staying the course on reform already under way

BusinessNZ says the single biggest risk to the recovery is not a lack of ideas but a lack of follow-through. The organisation is calling for continuity, not reinvention, across a reform programme already delivering results:

• Resource Management Act reform – the current consenting system costs major infrastructure projects an estimated $1.29 billion a year and now takes nearly twice as long as it did five years ago. BusinessNZ wants the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill enacted before this year’s election, with independent analysis showing the new regime could lift GDP by 0.56 per cent a year by 2050 (worth up to $3.1 billion annually), deliver $13.3 billion in savings over 30 years, and remove roughly 45 per cent of current consent requirements – between 15,000 and 22,000 fewer consents on 2023/24 volumes.

• Education reform – BusinessNZ wants the current curriculum and qualifications overhaul, including the replacement of NCEA with new upper-secondary qualifications and the embedding of structured literacy and numeracy, fully resourced and given time to bed in, rather than restarted.

• The Ministry for Regulation – for the first time, the scale of New Zealand’s regulatory system has been mapped, revealing complexity spread across more than 260 regulators. BusinessNZ wants the Ministry and the Regulatory Standards Act 2025 retained, resourced and reviewed on schedule, not unwound.

• Infrastructure – BusinessNZ is calling for a genuinely bipartisan approach to long-term infrastructure planning, with accountability across government agencies for delivering shared priorities, so investment decisions survive a change of government.

• Health and safety reform – current initiatives modernising health and safety regulation and reducing compliance burdens are backed as “positive steps” that should continue.

• Employment law modernisation – including the Employment Leave Act and related changes to minimum wage and holiday entitlement calculations – should proceed to reduce compliance complexity for salaried, incentive-based and variable-hours roles.

The BusinessNZ Election Priorities 2026 report is available at Businessnz.org.nz