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For a café, the 2026 election is unusually relevant to four separate pressures: labour costs, energy and food costs, weak customer demand, and security/crime. I’ve focused on National, Labour, the Greens, ACT and New Zealand First, which currently have the clearest published policies touching those issues.

One useful starting point is the industry’s own assessment: the Restaurant Association says hospitality has more than 20,000 businesses and 146,000 jobs, but operators are dealing with tight margins, compliance costs, workforce problems and town-centre safety. Its six priorities are simpler regulation, workforce access, productivity support, visitor spending and safer hospitality precincts. Restaurant Association Election Manifesto | Restaurant Association

National

Approach: lower business costs principally through deregulation, energy supply, tax restraint and tougher law-and-order settings.

• Hospitality regulation: National's Government has already completed a Hospitality Sector Review. It found duplicated information requirements, slow approvals, expensive licensing, disproportionate food-safety requirements and planning/building costs. The Government says it will implement recommendations to reduce those costs. Hospitality industry served regulatory relief | National Party
• Energy: National is backing more renewable generation, gas/LNG as dry-year backup, and electricity-market reforms. It says its LNG plan could reduce dry-year risk and potentially save households and businesses up to $800m a year. Securing Affordable Energy: LNG to keep the lights on and protect jobs | Beehive.govt.nz It has also introduced an 80%-guaranteed loan scheme to help businesses move away from gas, with up to $1.2b of bank lending available. Loans to help businesses transition away from gas | Beehive.govt.nz
• Business investment: National's existing Investment Boost lets firms immediately deduct 20% of the cost of new assets in addition to normal depreciation. Treasury and Inland Revenue modelled a long-run increase in GDP of 1%, wages of 1.5% and capital stock of 1.6%, although those are economy-wide modelled effects rather than a forecast for individual cafés. Investment Boost: Tax Incentive to Lift Growth | Beehive.govt.nz
• Security: its 2026 policies include tougher sentencing and a dedicated Auckland Transport Police team. 2026 Election Policy | National Party

Evidence/caveat: There is fairly direct evidence for the problem National is addressing: the Government's electricity-market review found inadequate dry-year backup and declining gas supply were contributing to high prices. Government response to the independent electricity market performance review | Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment But the benefit of LNG to an individual café remains a forecast, not an observed saving. And MBIE says electricity-network costs are currently pushing bills up, so generation policy isn't the only determinant of your power bill. MBIE opens consultation on ways to improve efficiency of our electricity networks | Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment

Labour

Approach: targeted small-business tax/compliance relief plus measures intended to put more money into consumers' pockets and increase economic activity.

Labour's Small Business Action Plan is particularly specific for a café:

• raise the immediate low-value asset write-off from $1,000 to $10,000 for businesses with revenue below $10m, from July 2027;
• require large companies to pay small suppliers' invoices within 15 days for invoices below $25,000;
• raise the compulsory GST-registration threshold from $60,000 to $80,000 from July 2028;
• introduce a formal "small-business test" for new regulations. Labour's Small Business Action Plan

For your circumstances, the asset write-off is probably the most directly relevant: Labour explicitly gives replacing a café oven as an example. Labour's Small Business Action Plan

Labour also proposes $20-a-week public-transport fare caps, expanded apprenticeship support and a programme of school, hospital and housing repairs intended to create work for local businesses. Labour's 2026 Election Policies It would prohibit excessive pricing by companies with substantial market power in essentials such as food and electricity, while explicitly excluding small businesses such as cafés. Release: Labour will make price gouging illegal

Evidence/caveat: There is good economic logic behind allowing faster depreciation/write-offs: the current Government's Investment Boost has Treasury/IRD modelling showing increased investment and GDP. Investment Boost: Tax Incentive to Lift Growth | Beehive.govt.nz But Labour's proposed $10,000 threshold is a different instrument, so that evidence shouldn't be read as proof that its particular proposal will produce the same magnitude of effect.

The demand-side case is also plausible but uncertain. Treasury's latest forecast says household spending remains subdued and that stronger household incomes and confidence are expected to support recovery later in 2026. Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update 2026 | The Treasury New Zealand That supports policies aimed at disposable income and employment, but it doesn't establish how much extra café spending a particular policy would generate.

One important potential cost for a small employer: Labour proposes employer KiwiSaver contributions rising to 6% by 2032. Labour's 2026 Election Policies

ACT

Approach: reduce employment and compliance costs and make it easier for small businesses to hire and invest.

ACT's 2026 small-business package proposes:

• freezing the adult minimum wage for three years;
• a training wage at 60% of the adult minimum wage for under-20s in their first year;
• easier negotiated employment exits;
• a shorter period for pursuing personal grievances;
• less employer administration of union fees;
• better tax treatment of software and digital investment. ACT New Zealand

For a labour-intensive café, the minimum-wage proposal is potentially the most consequential. The current adult minimum wage is $23.95 an hour. Minimum wage reviews | Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment

ACT also advocates tougher responses to repeat burglary, including a three-year minimum prison term without parole after three burglary convictions. ACT New Zealand

Evidence/caveat: There is genuine evidence behind ACT's argument that minimum wages can affect employers, particularly in exposed sectors. MBIE's review says international evidence generally finds relatively small negative employment effects, while noting that New Zealand's minimum wage is high by international standards. Review of MBIE’s Minimum Wage model MBIE's 2025 review specifically identified hospitality and retail among the sectors most affected by wage increases. Minimum Wage Review 2025

That doesn't prove that freezing wages would create more café jobs: it establishes a plausible employer-cost mechanism. The trade-off is that lower wage growth can also reduce employees' spending power—which matters when your problem is weak customer demand.

On crime, there's strong evidence that burglary and retail crime impose real costs: Police estimates retail crime costs retailers about $2.6 billion annually. Retail crime and ram raids | New Zealand Police But evidence that substantially longer sentences specifically reduce café burglaries is much less straightforward.

Green Party

Approach: attack energy costs and local economic weakness through public investment, competition/community ownership, stronger incomes and town-centre intervention, alongside prevention-focused crime policy.

The Greens propose Kiwipower, a publicly owned electricity entity, plus $200m for community energy projects, zero-interest clean-energy loans and much greater use of solar. Power for all of us - Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand They argue that the existing electricity market is too concentrated and that public/community ownership can bring bills down.

For small businesses, their 2026 manifesto explicitly identifies small/local enterprise as a priority. More specifically, the Greens' September policy would allow commercial rent reviews to reduce rents when market rents fall, and allow councils to auction leases on shops that have been empty for more than a year. Green Party announce plan for city centre vibrancy - Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand

On crime, the Greens favour prevention, rehabilitation and addressing underlying causes rather than a primarily punitive approach. Manifesto 2026 - Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand

Evidence/caveat: The case for tackling electricity-market concentration isn't invented: the Electricity Authority and Commerce Commission have themselves been implementing measures to increase competition, noting that the four large gentailers own more than 95% of flexible generation. Electricity Authority moves to level the power playing field | Commerce Commission

What's less certain is whether public ownership itself would produce cheaper electricity than the current market. That's a much bigger policy change than the competition measures already being implemented, and I would treat the Greens' projected savings as a policy claim rather than an established result.

The rent proposal directly targets a problem that could matter greatly to a café, but there isn't yet strong New Zealand evidence quantifying how much such a rule would reduce café occupancy costs.

New Zealand First

Approach: stronger intervention in electricity and food markets, lower SME taxation, tighter law-and-order policy and more restrictive immigration.

NZ First proposes:

• splitting the major electricity generators from retailers;
• preventing generators from withholding supply to influence prices;
• long-term fixed-price contracts for new generation;
• a national energy strategy;
• paying household solar generators the same price for exported power as the retail price. "Power to the People" - Winston Peters - State of the Nation 2026 - New Zealand First
• a 20% company tax rate for SMEs with turnover below $30m, versus the current 28%; NZ First estimates an initial fiscal cost of about $1b a year. NZFirst to Campaign on 20% Tax Rate for SMEs - New Zealand First
• further policing/crime measures and stronger consequences for retail crime. Making New Zealand and New Zealanders Safer - New Zealand First

It also supports the Government's $1.2b gas-transition loan programme. Budget 2026: Common sense wins for NZ First - New Zealand First

Evidence/caveat: There is substantial evidence that electricity-market competition is an issue—the regulator's own reforms are aimed at the dominance of the large gentailers. Electricity Authority moves to level the power playing field | Commerce Commission That supports the problem diagnosis, although it doesn't establish that breaking up the companies would produce lower café bills.

For the proposed SME tax cut, the underlying economic literature is supportive of lower corporate taxation encouraging investment, but the particularly large claimed feedback—where extra economic activity eventually makes up the roughly $1b annual initial revenue loss—is a forecast, not evidence of an outcome already demonstrated in New Zealand. NZ First itself cites OECD work in making this case. NZFirst to Campaign on 20% Tax Rate for SMEs - New Zealand First

What the evidence says about your four problems

Your problem	Policies aimed directly at it	What the evidence tells us
Food/input costs	Labour/NZ First competition measures; Labour price-gouging policy; Greens' anti-concentration approach	Supermarket concentration is well documented, but savings flowing from supermarkets to cafés are less certain.
Power costs	National's energy/security programme; Greens' Kiwipower; NZ First restructuring; Labour's SolarSaver	Energy-market problems are independently documented; the precise savings from each proposed solution remain uncertain. Government response to the independent electricity market performance review | Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
Labour costs	ACT wage freeze/training wage; Labour investment and training support; Greens' stronger worker protections	Evidence suggests minimum-wage effects on employment are generally modest, but hospitality is among the more exposed sectors. Minimum Wage Review 2025
Customers spending less	Labour's employment/income and cost-of-living measures; Greens' income/support policies; National's tax restraint; NZ First tax cuts	Treasury confirms domestic demand has been weak. The harder question is which policy would translate into café spending rather than saving/debt repayment. Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update 2026 | The Treasury New Zealand
Break-in/security	National/ACT/NZ First: tougher enforcement and sentencing; Greens: prevention/rehabilitation	Crime imposes substantial business costs, and repeat victimisation is real. But the causal evidence for any particular sentencing policy is much weaker than the evidence that the problem exists. Retail crime and ram raids | New Zealand Police
Red tape	National/ACT deregulation; Labour small-business test and paperwork reforms	This is one area where hospitality-specific evidence is unusually strong: the Government's review found multiple concrete compliance problems. Hospitality industry served regulatory relief | National Party

One particularly important distinction

For your decision, I'd separate "does the policy address a real problem?" from "has the proposed solution been shown to work?"

There is strong evidence for several of the problems you're experiencing: hospitality margins and regulatory burdens are documented by the industry; electricity-market weaknesses are documented by regulators; domestic demand has been subdued according to Treasury; and business crime imposes substantial costs. Restaurant Association Election Manifesto | Restaurant Association

The evidence becomes considerably more conditional when asking whether a particular intervention—LNG, public ownership of electricity, a minimum-wage freeze, a company-tax cut, tougher sentences, or price-gouging legislation—will produce the promised improvement for a small café.

Also bear in mind that New Zealand uses MMP. The eventual policy environment can therefore depend on coalition/support agreements rather than simply whichever party has the most votes. That is particularly relevant because National, ACT and NZ First are currently governing together, while Labour, the Greens and others have different combinations of policies. Watching Brief - July 2026

If you want to make this genuinely useful for your own café, the next step would be to turn the policies into a café-specific comparison: e.g. a 5-person café with a particular annual turnover, electricity bill, wage bill and rent, showing which proposals could affect each cost line and which are unlikely to make much difference.