WELLINGTON — The ACT Party has unveiled its boldest economic vision to date: a comprehensive strategy to freeze the adult minimum wage for three years while ensuring the profit margins of New Zealand’s wealthiest corporations remain free-range, organic, and entirely untethered from reality.
Party leader David Seymour announced the policy on Tuesday, framing the minimum wage freeze as a necessary intervention to protect New Zealand’s most vulnerable demographic: supermarket duopolies and major shareholders.
“For too long, New Zealand politics has been trapped in zero-sum thinking,” Seymour told a crowd of applauding business owners. “There is this toxic assumption that just because a major corporation has increased its prices by 18%, slashed consumer protections, and reported record-breaking quarterly profits, they should somehow pass a few extra cents on to the people who physically generate their revenue. It is, frankly, Marxist.”
Under the proposed policy, the adult minimum wage will be legally frozen in carbonite, while the prices of rent, petrol, electricity, and basic human sustenance will be encouraged to explore their full, uninhibited market potential.
The Youth ‘Breathing’ Rate
ACT has also pledged to tackle the scourge of young people having disposable income by introducing a new training wage. Workers under 20 will be paid just 60% of the adult minimum wage for their first 12 months.
Seymour explained the biological rationale behind the move.
“The science is very clear: 18-year-olds simply do not require a full human wage. Their bones are still pliable, and they can photosynthesise if left in direct sunlight outside the staffroom,” he said. “Currently, the law forces employers to pay an inexperienced teenager almost the same rate as a fully grown adult who has a mortgage and a lingering sense of existential dread. We need to recognise that young people are essentially a depreciating asset until they turn 21.”
When pressed on whether the 60% rate might make it difficult for youth to survive, ACT confirmed it is looking into a supplementary “Experience-Based Indenture Scheme.” Under this proposed tier, 16-year-olds would be permitted to legally pay their employers $5 an hour for the privilege of being exposed to the fast-paced, dynamic environment of a warehouse loading bay.
Protecting the Sacred Mystery of Profit Margins
While the party is perfectly comfortable aggressively legislating the maximum amount a poor person is allowed to earn, it has firmly drawn the line at interfering with corporate pricing.
According to ACT’s policy document, dictating wages is “sound economic management,” whereas dictating grocery prices or executive bonuses is “a grotesque violation of the natural order.”
“You cannot simply put a freeze on a CEO’s margin,” Seymour said, visibly shaken by the concept. “Profits are a sacred, untameable force of nature. If we stop major corporations from price-gouging consumers during a cost-of-living crisis, where does it end? Today you cap supermarket margins, tomorrow a corporate executive is forced to wait an extra financial quarter to buy a 15-metre yacht for their holiday home in Omaha. Is that the kind of dystopian, anti-business wasteland we want to live in?”
To further ease the burden on large businesses, ACT plans to introduce several new corporate safeguards:
- The Agile Hardship Fund: If a company’s year-on-year net profit growth dips below 25%, their lowest-paid staff will be legally required to wash the regional manager’s car.
- Voluntary Bathroom Deductions: Employees will be able to opt out of their wages entirely in exchange for unrestricted access to the workplace toilet.
- The Anti-Grievance Fast Track: Workers who wish to raise a personal grievance about unsafe working conditions will be seamlessly fired before the conversation finishes, drastically cutting down on bureaucratic red tape.
A Rising Tide
Labour has called the policy “appalling,” noting that everything is getting more expensive and working people will pay the price. ACT dismissed the criticism as emotional hysteria from people who clearly don’t own enough shares in the banking sector.
Seymour closed his press conference by reassuring the public that freezing the income of the poorest workers while allowing corporate profits to balloon indefinitely is simply standard macroeconomic theory.
“Ultimately, we all know that a rising tide lifts all boats,” Seymour said, staring blankly down the barrel of the camera. “And by freezing the minimum wage, we are simply ensuring the people at the bottom hold their breath long enough for the boats to safely float over them.”