Nationals policy isn’t bad , it’s just not targeted for example if my business needed a new machine to boost productivity realistically I would have already done the business case to see if the numbers are going to stack up. Nationals policy won’t change the business case, if it makes sense, the 20% isn’t the difference between viable and non-viable in most cases. Always exceptions of course. It will be interesting to get a the details on what labour is planning

This is pretty difficult to parse with any confidence.

National say their policy will result in a GDP boost of "up to" 0.5% at a cost of $6.6B; which when put into numbers (and being generous) means at ~$250B of GDP * 0.5% * 5 years, means $6.25B returned to the economy. Hard to say how much of that will come back to the crown as taxes etc, but we can make a somewhat educated guess of 25% or $1.63B; on a $6.6B spend.

From above it seems like a terrible policy; but a portion of that growth will "stick" and flow on after the initial period of the scheme winds up. A lot of major assets last well beyond 5 years, especially industrial equipment.

Labour is proposing a more targeted scheme; aimed at small businesses and will cost $1.56B over 4 years; but doesn't really do much to grow the economy. The GST stuff is really just tinkering around the edges; the asset write off moving to $10k is actually awesome. A real positive from Labour is the requirement for big businesses to pay smaller businesses withing 15 days; I know of a lot of big companies (Fontera notably) don't pay for 90 days after invoice....

If I was to make up a better policy from the best bits of both.

• Keep the $10k writeoff threshold from Labout
• Keep the payment requirement from Labour
• Keep the tax incentive to invest in productivity improving assets from National

Improving productivity by investing is good policy; GDP gains stack over time.