First 100 days done for Government, next stop - the Budget

Saturday, 9 March 2024

• The National-led government hit its 100-day mark on Friday, and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says it ticked off all 49 items.

• He is next considering creating quarterly plans.

• Finance Minister Nicola Willis will reveal how the National-led government will pay for its policy programme on May 30 when Treasury releases the Budget.

At the Treasury building, just a stone’s throw from the Beehive in central Wellington, hundreds of public servants would usually be under extreme pressure and working all-hours to finish the May 30 Budget.

It is the product of months’ of work, and where Minister of Finance Nicola Willis will reveal how she will pay for her much-vaunted tax breaks for every income level - projected to cost $14.6 billion over four years.

But instead of working from their offices on the Terrace, 600 Treasury staff are either working from home or from other government agencies, because of the damage from an electrical fire in the base of their building in February. They don’t expect to be back in until early April.

Work is continuing as normal, a Treasury spokeswoman said, but it adds another layer of drama to one of the biggest annual pieces of political theatre.

On May 30, journalists working under a strict embargo will frantically read the dense documents in the Parliament’s Banquet Hall, before Treasury chief executive Caralee McLiesh gives a presentation.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis will arrive, likely coiffed and smiling for the cameras, before speaking to her plans for the economy. The embargo will lift at 2pm, and the Budget will lead news sites and the 6pm news bulletins.

The May 30 Budget will also serve as a near book-end to the National-led government’s second 100-day plan - a mostly symbolic and self-imposed deadline for its work.

Ministers have been busy since being sworn in, while all MPs have been working long hours with the House sitting into the evening under urgency to repeal and undo legislation put in place by the former Labour government.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has promised to run the government more efficiently than Labour did. He has repeatedly said he, and his ministers, will do this by focusing on outcomes, and by having a clear plan.

On Friday, as his government hit its first 100 day mark, Luxon batted away questions about what the coming months would look like, instead wanting to focus on what his government had achieved. After ticking off the 49 items on his 100-day plan, National would be considering its next steps and whether to create a new plan, to be completed quarterly, he said.

“As a new government, a coalition government of three parties working in a completely new and different way, what we have achieved in the first 100 days is something we can be incredibly proud about for all of our team - and it's not just our ministers and our cabinet, and our respective MPs, that have driven it all. It's also the officials that sit behind it, who have actually responded incredibly well, partnered with us incredibly well.”

But having removed laws he said were holding the country back, Luxon will face increasing pressure to show he has the strategic answers to the country’s problems. The next 100-day tranche will cover until June 14.

One of the first major clues for what shape the path ahead will take will come on March 27, when the Treasury releases its budget policy statement - which sets out the government’s priorities for the Budget.

The majority of Willis’ focus has been narrowed onto the Budget, a spokesperson from her office said, and she would not have more to say about policies or projects until then.

Pressure has been building on National after NZ First scuppered its policy to create a new revenue stream by taxing foreign buyers at 15% for homes selling for $2 million or more, forcing it to find another way to pay for tax cuts.

Willis, who is also the minister in charge of the public service, has been pushing ministry chief executives to trim all fat and to create a 7.5% saving. As a result, it is not only dropping projects and initiatives started under the Labour government, but reducing headcount.

This creates a dual pressure for the public service - tasked with bringing new policies to life while also trimming spending and headcount. The public service won’t have a firmer idea of what it can do until the Budget is released too.

While Willis works out how to pay for the government’s policy programme, the coalition partners will be working on thorny and controversial legislation around race relations.

MP Shane Jones will be progressing work on controversial NZ First policies the party claims are a response to the erosion of equal citizenship under the Labour government.

Among these is a plan to amend Waitangi Tribunal legislation to refocus the scope, purpose, and nature of its inquiries back to the original intent of that legislation.

It will also review all legislation (except when it is related to, or substantive to, existing full and final Treaty settlements) that includes 'The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi' and replace all such references with specific words relating to the relevance and application of the Treaty, or repeal the references.

Stuff understands there are about 50 references.

Jones will work with Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith on this work, and Tama Potaka, whose portfolios include Māori Development and Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti, on these policies.

The NZ First-National coalition agreement also promises a select committee inquiry into banking competition, however, this won’t go ahead until the Commerce Commission market study into personal banking is released. The Commission will report back on August 20.

NZ First will also be looking to distribute the $1.2 billion in the Regional Infrastructure Fund.

ACT Party leader David Seymour will be looking to make headway on his plans for better regulation, which are relatively inexpensive.

Former Oranga Tamariki chief executive, Gráinne Moss, will be the first chief executive of the new Ministry of Regulation. It announced her appointment on Thursday.

Cabinet in December agreed to shut down the Productivity Commission, an independent Crown entity charged with providing advice to the Government on improving the country’s productivity, and to redirect its $5.9 million annual budget to set up a regulation ministry. Twenty-two lost their jobs.

Associate Minister for Justice, Nicola McKee will be progressing firearms reforms.

She last week introduced a firearm prohibition order which she said will make it easier for police to take guns off gang members, while also letting people after five years apply to have access to guns again if they can show they no longer pose a risk to public safety.