The final days of a bruising political year

Monday, 18 December 2023

New Finance Minister Nicola Willis says the previous Labour government deliberately funded programmes for just the short term in order to make budgets look better.

There are only two more sitting days to get through in what has been a brutal political year, as the National-led government swiftly gets to work on its fresh agenda after Labour’s historic election loss.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis will reveal her mini-budget on Wednesday, along with the half-yearly fiscal update, which will be the centrepiece of the week and set the economic course for the coming months. The Treasury will release the documents at 1pm.

Budgets are usually released in May, but Willis said she wants to show New Zealanders the state of the Treasury books and the fiscal challenges her government is facing after winning the election.

It will also take stock of the revenue streams the government has managed to find in order to fund its promised tax cuts, which it hopes will boost economic growth.

National’s coalition partner, NZ First, stopped it from allowing foreign buyers into the market for homes selling at $2 million or more and taxing them – which National said would fund the tax cuts prior to the election.

Chris Luxon, and Winston Peters during the Commission Opening of the 54th Parliament and election of The Speaker of the House.

National is now reversing the smokefree laws, which banned smoking for a generation, sought to lower the nictotine in tobacco products and drastically reduced the retailers which can sell them, in order to fund tax cuts for every income level, as a way to bring in a revenue stream.

Since becoming finance minister, Willis has been seeking to trash Labour and its finance minister Grant Robertson’s legacy on the economy, claiming there are a number of fiscal cliffs and risks which were not made fully apparent when he was in government.

Robertson rebuffed this and pointed to the legislation designed to ensure new governments don’t inherit fiscal surprises – the Public Finance Act 1989 and the Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994 (which was incorporated into the Public Finance Act in 2004).

There will also be three maiden speeches on Tuesday, all from new National MPs – Hamish Campbell, who won Ilam, Suze Redmayne, who won Rangitiki, and Greg Fleming who won Maungakiekie. The maiden speeches are an opportunity for new MPs to explain what they hope to achieve.

The House will consider legislation under urgency to progress the Government’s 100-day plan, including the Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Repeal Bill, the Employment Relations (Extension of 90 Day Trial Periods) Amendment Bill, and the Secondary Legislation Confirmation Bill.

The House will also hold an adjournment debate this week, which will set the sitting calendar for 2024, before the House rises for the Christmas break on Wednesday.

Last week, Parliament repealed the Clean Car Discount, a piece of legislation it called the ‘ute tax’. The law was brought in as a way of encouraging the uptake of lower-emissions vehicles like electrics and hybrids, by reducing their cost by up to $7015 when imported from overseas.

It also repealed the Fair Pay Agreements, a major piece of legislation passed last year, which enabled agreements between workers and employers in an industry or occupation, including over minimum pay, overtime and penalty rates, leave entitlements, and access to training and development opportunities.