Policy whiplash now worries CEOs more than the fuel bill

Business leaders are no longer just watching the polls. They are pricing them. The NZ Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey of around 150 top executives scored election policy uncertainty at 7.62 out of 10, making it the single biggest domestic concern. It beat fuel costs (7.52), cyber attacks (7.22), infrastructure constraints (7.08) and cost of living pressures (7.07).

That ranking matters. Fuel and cyber risk are things a business can hedge, insure or plan around. A tax setting, employment law or consenting regime that might flip after the next coalition deal is much harder to manage. Uncertainty itself has become a line item.

The cost is already showing up

This isn’t a hypothetical post-election problem. Back in September, Spark chief executive Jolie Hodson told BusinessDesk that “election uncertainty has weighed on consumer confidence and businesses’ appetite for investment”, while Meridian Energy chief executive Mike Roan said he hoped the result would give the company confidence to keep investing.

The Mint Tony Alexander Report for October, surveying 288 business leaders, found concern about politics has climbed consistently since the survey began in March 2023. Plant and machinery spending plans remain positive but muted, with retailers particularly hit by pre-election caution. That is the real-world translation of a sentiment score: delayed capex, slower hiring, expansions parked until someone signs a coalition agreement.

Nor is it new. BusinessNZ’s 2025 Business Sentiment Survey found 58% of respondents already cited post-election policy reversals as a top concern in 2025, ahead of customer demand at 52%. Business has been bracing for this for at least two years.

Repeal and replace has a price tag

EMA chief executive John Fraser-Mackenzie put it bluntly, calling for “respite from the continual cycle of repeal and replace” and arguing that stable settings encourage the international investment governments say they want. He urged whoever governs not to reverse RMA reform before its 18-month implementation window is complete.

Westpac NZ chief executive Catherine McGrath went further, telling the Herald that “regulatory chopping and changing” is the biggest drag on growth, that coalition governments “by definition produce compromised policies”, and that New Zealand should protect its “stellar international reputation as a stable economy and safe harbour for capital”. Predictability, in her framing, is a competitive asset, and one the country is currently spending down.

Offshore investors have noticed. Reuters reported a single-term government looks possible for the first time in more than five decades, with Labour signalling it would restore the Reserve Bank’s dual mandate and smaller parties holding real coalition leverage. Reuters also pointed out that the current coalition scrapped major transport projects it inherited. Neither side has clean hands here.

Business wants predictable, not just less

The lazy reading is that CEOs simply want less regulation. The data says something more interesting. In the Deloitte and BusinessNZ election survey, 58.1% said government regulatory changes had increased the cost of doing business over the past three years, against just 13% who reported lower costs. On red tape cuts specifically, 47.1% agreed they had reduced costs while 41.7% disagreed.

What business does agree on is stability. The same survey found 94.7% back a bipartisan 20-30 year approach to infrastructure, 61.8% want no change to personal tax rates and 57.6% oppose corporate tax changes. BusinessNZ chief executive Katherine Rich summed it up: business wants “certainty that tax settings won’t be pulled out from under them”. Near-unanimity is rare in any survey. On cross-party infrastructure planning, business has delivered it.

Backing the agenda, doubting the leader

The survey’s politics section offers a telling split. CEOs gave Christopher Luxon just 2.52 out of 5 for political performance and only 2.27 on whether he would remain leader if the coalition is re-elected. Yet 65% still rated him as having the strongest capacity to drive growth, against 3% for Chris Hipkins.

Read plainly, boardrooms prefer the current growth agenda by a landslide but doubt the political machinery behind it will hold together. That is uncertainty layered on uncertainty.

What happens after 7 November

The frustrating part is that the economic backdrop is improving. McGrath noted economists are forecasting 3% GDP growth next year, driven by agriculture flowing from the regions into the cities. The upturn is there to be captured, provided policy doesn’t lurch.

Whoever forms the next government faces a simple test. Lock in infrastructure plans across party lines, leave tax settings alone long enough for firms to plan, and let reforms bed in before rewriting them. Do that, and the investment currently sitting on the sidelines starts moving. Fail, and New Zealand keeps paying a risk premium that no carbon price, fuel shock or cyber attack could match.

Sources

• NZ Herald: Election policy uncertainty tops NZ CEOs’ concerns (2026-10-21)
• NZ Herald: Westpac NZ CEO Catherine McGrath says policy uncertainty constrains economic growth (2026-10-21)
• NZ Herald: Election 2026: EMA calls for policy certainty after decade of ‘repeal and replace’ (2026-10-21)
• RNZ: Business leaders doubt Christopher Luxon’s political future, survey reveals (2026-10-22)
• BusinessDesk: Getting on with it: CEOs, the election and business as usual (2026-09-01)
• BusinessNZ: Business Sentiment Survey 2025 (2025-09)
• Deloitte/BusinessNZ: 2026 Election Survey (2026-09)
• Mint: Tony Alexander Report October 2026 (2026-10)
• BusinessNZ: Election Survey: Business wants economic growth locked in, tax settings held steady and infrastructure delivered (2026-09-15)