The Taxpayers’ Union congratulates the members of the new Parliament and is calling on them to immediately begin delivering on the mandate from voters by slashing spending, cutting red tape, and unwinding the damage of big, inefficient, and high-cost government.

Taxpayers’ Union Head of Campaigns, Callum Purves, said:

“Scrapping Three Waters, restarting resource management reforms and rolling back unaccountable ‘co-governance’ initiatives is not enough. The key focus should be to slash government spending, which has driven inflation and lead to New Zealand’s cost-of-living crisis.

“The cost-of-living crisis has been driven by a cost-of-government crisis. Only Parliament can fix it, and must do so if we are to avoid cripplingly high interest rates or continued high inflation.

“Along with reforming the Public Service to increase transparency and accountability, MPs need to tackle slashing the size of Wellington’s maze of back offices within the first 100 days.

“Mr Luxon was elected on the back of the outgoing government hiring 16,000 extra bureaucrats, and lowering the proportion of front line public sector workers. Those 16,000 should be served their notice – right now – that there is a new sheriff in town, and their time is up.

“Big government has yet again failed. With a 68% increase in Government spending since 2017 and nothing to show for it, it’s time to live within our means and force Wellington to embrace private enterprise, localism, and lean, efficient, accountable government so that the books are balanced and New Zealand can start to catch up with Australia.

“Incoming MPs can consider themselves put on notice by the Taxpayers’ Union – we will continue to staunchly advocate against, and expose, any policies or spending that are counter to taxpayers’ interests or conflict with the mission of Lower Taxes, Less Waste and More Accountability.”

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