“ACT’s stop-work notices are already ensuring significant savings to the taxpayer in the Government’s mini-budget. With HYEFU revealing the absolute state Labour left the economy in, there’ll need to be more savings where that came from,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“Despite mass inward migration, Labour has managed to leave New Zealand with a shrinking economy for Christmas.

“PREFU showed that Labour had no plan for paying off debt and no plan for turning things around, which is one of the main reasons voters overwhelmingly rejected them. HYEFU shows that things are worse than anyone could have imagined. The 2027 return to surplus has gone from $2.1 billion to a mere $140 million.

“Today’s mini-budget provides some much needed relief for taxpayers, setting out $7.5 billion of initial savings with more to come.

“ACT’s coalition pledge to stop work on Let’s Get Wellington Moving, Income Insurance, Industry Transformation Plans and Lake Onslow Pumped Hydro saves $753m. That’s real change. Brooke van Velden’s excellent work scrapping Fair Pay Agreements saves another $65 million.

“Other ACT commitments such as ditching Labour’s RMA reforms and repealing the ute tax save a combined $352 million.

“Grant Robertson managed to increase spending by 30 per cent - that’s after accounting for population growth and inflation, but somehow managed to get worse results from nearly every public service in the process.

“With this government getting the economy back under control, we can continue to work on upholding the coalition commitment to consider the concepts of ACT’s income tax policy as a pathway to delivering tax relief.

“ACT’s coalition agreement focuses on rebuilding the economy and improving productivity. We’ve already seen the Reserve Bank return to a single focus on price stability, we’re committed to improving productivity by reducing red tape and regulation, we’ve scrapped Fair Pay Agreements and we’re delivering savings in the public sector by reducing the number of bureaucrats working on programmes that have zero or negative impacts on New Zealander’s day to day lives, and setting expenditure reduction targets for each agency.”

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