Ryan Bridge: Cut spending, don't levy

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge · Feb 10, 2026 · 1m · transcript

Labour's getting flak, especially in Auckland, for their capital gains tax.

Rightly so.

But National's approach, as is usually the case with centre-right parties, is user-pays.

It's a way to get revenue without appearing to tax-grab your starving constituents.

Yesterday it was whacking a new tax on our power bills in order to make them cheaper - we hope.

Last week they scrapped the full driver licence test but then NZTA came out and said they may need increase fees for the first test and other bits to make up costs.

We'll pay tolls to get the roads we want. We're about to get hit with…