Laser Kiwi heads for the Beehive with EV policy in its beak

An electrification charity is crowdfunding to tow a giant laser-eyed kiwi to Parliament before November’s election.

Rewiring Aotearoa has launched Operation Laser Kiwi, a fundraising campaign built around sending chief executive Mike Casey to the Beehive dressed as the laser-firing kiwi that became a cult favourite during New Zealand’s flag referendum a decade ago.

The campaign runs on a fundraising thermometer with four thresholds. At $25,000 Casey drives north in an electric ute wearing the suit, stopping to meet electric entrepreneurs and community groups, and billboards go up around Wellington. At $50,000 the billboards go national and $10,000 of solar panels are donated to low-income homes. At $100,000 there are prime-time television ads and $20,000 of solar.

At $250,000, they build the giant kiwi and tow it to Wellington to deliver Casey’s cherries to every MP.

The serious part

The campaign carries a six-point list of election asks, one aimed directly at EV buyers: the group wants the Government to help more families and businesses into electric vehicles, arguing it improves energy security and lowers the cost of living.

Rewiring is calling 7 November the “electric election”, and its pitch is that New Zealand remains exposed to petrol and diesel price spikes, something this year’s fuel market has demonstrated at length. The other asks cover regulatory reform, better access to finance for electric upgrades, trades training, helping industrial gas users electrify, and making long-term cost comparisons transparent enough for buyers to trust.

Labour confirmed this week that the Clean Car Discount is not returning, and National scrapped it in the first place, so the ask lands with no major party campaigning on purchase incentives of any kind.

Bid on burnouts

The fundraising itself is worth a look for the auction list, which closes on 20 September. Electric Kiwi has donated 10,000kWh of electricity, roughly a year’s supply for an average home with an EV, currently bid to $1,900. A solar-charging Lightfoot scooter sits at $2,530.

Further down the seriousness scale: burnouts in Casey’s converted electric Hilux, known as the Electrolux, a ride on the Whoosh aerial transport test track in Christchurch with chief executive Chris Allington, a session in a wrecking room taking a sledgehammer to old fossil fuel machines, and beers with Casey on the strict condition that only electric chat is permitted. His signed Swanndri is described as the cleanest in the land.

Casey runs Forest Lodge Orchard near Cromwell, generally described as the world’s first fully electric commercial orchard, where 21 electric machines run on on-site solar and the Hilux was converted rather than replaced. He has led Rewiring Aotearoa since 2023.