New Zealand’s Opportunity Party (TOP) could hold the balance of power after the 7 November election. A late-October poll put it on 7.2%, potentially securing nine MPs and entering Parliament for the first time.

For Liberal Democrats, TOP’s significance lies in its radical centrism: combining support for enterprise and growth with substantial reforms to taxation, income security and economic power. Its policies connect two questions too often discussed separately: how do we produce more wealth, and how should we distribute it?

Security and productive investment

TOP’s flagship proposal combines a Citizen’s Income of approximately NZ$19,400 annually for eligible adults with a 1.75% annual tax on residential and commercial land values.

A guaranteed income provides security and contributes to freedom from domination, while land taxation discourages speculation and encourages development. Buildings and improvements are excluded from the tax, preserving incentives to construct and improve homes. For too long, investors in the UK have been encouraged to pursue rising land and property prices because the expected returns exceed those available from investment in businesses, technology, and innovation. Taxing land values would help shift those incentives towards activities that raise productivity and create new wealth.

Together, these policies would use a share of socially created land wealth to finance individual economic security, while encouraging investment towards productive enterprise. Redistribution would therefore help create the conditions for growth, giving people the resources to develop their abilities and businesses stronger incentives to invest.

Competition and economic power

TOP’s support for business comes with a willingness to challenge powerful incumbents. It proposes stronger competition enforcement, including powers for the Commerce Commission to seek court-supervised break-ups of dominant businesses. It also supports increased research and development spending, technology adoption incentives, and business incubators.

These policies belong together. Supporting innovation achieves less if established firms can prevent newcomers from entering markets or reaching customers. In addition, they help to address the problem of rentier capitalism, in which ownership and control allow people to extract income without a corresponding contribution to productive activity. Returns depend increasingly on controlling scarce assets, restricting access or blocking competition. Those who own the bottleneck can prosper while everyone else pays more to pass through it.

The damage caused by this extends beyond unfairness. When extracting income from existing wealth becomes more rewarding than creating new wealth, investment and talent follow those incentives. Businesses devote resources to defending privileged positions, while potential competitors struggle to establish themselves. Consumers face higher prices, innovation suffers and economic power becomes entrenched; in short, ‘crony capitalism’ triumphs.

Liberal Democrats should make this connection forcefully. Supporting enterprise requires confronting concentrations of private power and allowing established businesses to be challenged. That offers a sharper economic message: reward the creation of wealth and challenge the extraction of rents. An economy that rewards control over scarce assets more generously than productive investment undermines both prosperity and opportunity.

TOP’s broader lesson is that centrism can offer a coherent programme of structural reform. Competition opens markets to new ideas; land taxation changes investment incentives; and a Citizen’s Income gives people greater security to navigate economic change. A party committed to both economic dynamism and individual freedom has much appeal.

* Daniel Duggan is a Liberal Democrat Councillor in Gateshead