Two years of fixing what matters: What ACT has achieved for New Zealand

ACT Leader David Seymour is today celebrating two years of ACT fixing what matters in the Coalition Government, but says the job is far from over.

“Even with a small team, ACT has had an outsized impact in changing the direction of New Zealand these past two years,” says Seymour. “Our Ministers have worked ceaselessly to fix what matters in every sector, while advancing ACT voters’ values of equal rights, personal responsibility, and freedom.

“In many areas, the Government has not gone as far as ACT would like, but it has achieved more than it would have without ACT. Needless to say, we’re not slowing down. Many households continue face major challenges, and we need to respect their efforts by making life more affordable, and delivering more effective services for their taxes.

“As I said yesterday, there is a risk an election year will see political leaders take their eye off the ball with reckless campaign promises that risk derailing New Zealand’s recovery. ACT will hold the line. We must stay the course, fix what matters, and keep Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori out of Government.”

Below is a non-exhaustive list of actions taken in just two years of government, either carried out by ACT Ministers or reflecting ACT policy:

Law & Order

• Increased funding for Corrections to lift prison capacity.

• Abolished Labour's prisoner reduction target.

• Oversaw a 16% drop in youth crime.

• Brought about a 20% drop in the District Court criminal backlog

• Defunded Section 27 "cultural reports".

• Strengthened consequences for Kāinga Ora tenants who engage in repeated antisocial behaviour.

• Strengthened Firearms Prohibition Orders.

• Made gang membership an aggravating factor at sentencing.

• Enabled greater use of remote participation by victims in court proceedings.

• Piloted military-style academies for young offenders.

• Restored Three Strikes for the serious repeat violent and sexual offenders.

• Toughened sentences for attacks on sole charge workers or those working in a business connected to their home.

• Given greater weight to the needs of victims at sentencing.

• Introduced tougher measures for serious young offenders.

• Successfully campaigned to overturn race-based prosecution guidelines.

• Advanced a member’s bill to criminalise non-consensual explicit deepfakes.

• Introduced tougher penalties for shoplifters.

• Giving Kāinga Ora more powers to evict unruly tenants.

• Rewritten the Arms Act to prioritise public safety while respecting the rights of law-abiding LFOs.

Economy & the Cost of Living

• Cut wasteful spending to bring down inflation and give the Reserve Bank the confidence to lower interest rates.

• Restored the Reserve Bank’s focus on tackling inflation.

• Repealed the Ute Tax.

• Repealed the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax.

• Repealed/reworked the earthquake regulations which only ACT opposed.

• Tightened sanctions on people who can work but choose not to look for a job.

• Eased restrictions to accessing credit under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act.

• Restored interest deductibility for residential property.

• Restored the option of 90-day trials for all businesses.

• Repealed “Fair Pay” Agreements

• Unveiled a new contracting gateway test to provide certainty to workers and businesses.

• Simplifying Health and Safety Law to reduce compliance costs.

• Changes to the personal grievance process

• Enable Pet Bonds for renters with pets.

• Restored 90-day 'no cause' terminations.

• Advanced a member’s bill to allow mutually agreed settlements for termination of employment.

• Advanced a member’s bill to liberalise Easter trading rules.

• Restored tenants’ and landlords’ notice periods to 21 and 42 days.

• Introduced legislation to improve access to building products available overseas.

• Delivering regulatory relief for consumers and businesses dealing with costly and time-consuming AML rules.

• Reversed blanket speed limit reductions and enabled faster speed limits on our safest roads.

• Established the Ministry for Regulation to cut red tape to make doing business simpler and remove unnecessary costs for New Zealanders.

• Established a Red Tape Tipline so Kiwis can report the most pressing regulatory issues to be fixed.

• Commenced regulatory reviews to reduce compliance costs across multiple sectors.

• Passed the Regulatory Standards Bill to provide more transparency and accountability for bad law makers, raising the political price for those who want to make laws that increase costs on your family or business.

• More than doubled the speed of overseas investment approval decisions, and changing the Overseas Investment Act to make it easier to invest in New Zealand.

• Reversed the oil and gas ban and passed legislation to promote the use of Crown minerals.

• Progressing a supermarket ‘fast-track’ to increase competition.

• Rolled back climate reporting requirements for financial institutions.

Backing Rural New Zealand

• Secured and completed a select committee inquiry into rural banking.

• Ensured methane is measured correctly.

• Slashed methane targets.

• Got rid of He Waka Eke Noa and ensured no emissions tax on farmers.

• Making freshwater farm plans more affordable and practical.

• Kept agriculture out of the Emissions Trading Scheme.

• Scrapping SNAs and bringing in biodiversity credits.

• Cutting red tape around importing agricultural and veterinary products.

• Increased the cap on RSE workers.

• Passing legislation to improve public safety and ease regulatory burdens on firearms clubs and ranges.

Defending Equal Rights & Democracy

• Stood alone for the Treaty Principles Bill.

• Abolished the Māori Health Authority.

• Ended race-based health waitlists.

• Secured a Government directive to deliver public services based on need, not race.

• Removed compulsory Treaty education from schools.

• Restored local referendums on the introduction of Māori wards.

• Repealed section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act to ensure child safety, not race, is at the centre of state care decisions.

• Scrapped diversity quotas for government procurement.

• Removing unelected Ngāi Tahu representatives from Environment Canterbury.

• Reviewing special entrance pathways for medical degrees.

• Successfully campaigned to overturn race-based prosecution guidelines.

• Increased investment in defence to protect New Zealand’s sovereignty and national security.

• Broadened the scope of the Covid inquiry with a second phase including public hearings.

• Halted work on hate speech laws.

• Advanced legislation to protect free speech in universities.

• Initiated a social media inquiry to gather all the evidence on its benefits, harms, and possible solutions that respect parental responsibility rather than a kneejerk ban without proper consideration.

Health

• Delivered Pharmac its largest-ever budget to fund or widen access to 66 medicines.

• Delivered a record funding boost for GPs.

• Enabled 12-month prescriptions from 2026

• Streamlined medicine approval through the ‘Rule of two’ so New Zealanders can benefit from medicines widely available overseas.

• Restored the sale of medicine containing pseudoephedrine.

• Enabled access to weight loss drugs for prescription.

• Enabled access to Melatonin off the shelf.

• Allowed prescription of Psilocybin for cases of depression where other treatments haven’t worked.

• Repealed the Therapeutic Products Act which would have imposed excessive and costly regulations on consumers, businesses and exporters.

• Lowered the bowel cancer screening age and reversed Labour’s change that gave people different access to screening based on race.

• Outlined expectations that Pharmac should have appropriate processes for ensuring that people living with an illness, along with their carers and family, can participate in and provide input into decision-making processes around medicines.

• Removed the ban on medical conferences to improve access to lifesaving medicines, help upskill the health workforce, and deliver an estimated $90 million in economic benefits.

• Allowing charities to run online lotteries such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices to ensure they have the funding they need to operate.

Building & Infrastructure

• Launched a framework for long-term Regional Deals between central and local government to deliver reliable, more affordable infrastructure.

• Launched a refreshed framework for Public Private Partnerships so taxpayers benefit from private-sector commercial discipline.

• Replacing the Resource Management Act with a system based on property rights to make it cheaper to build new housing, infrastructure, supermarkets, factories, and more.

• Created new guidelines for market-led infrastructure proposals to make it easier for people and businesses to contribute innovative ideas for solving New Zealand’s infrastructure problems.

• Reforming the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act to ensure we have the tools to pay for growth.

• Made overseas building products available so the cost of building is lower.

• Cut red tape for garden sheds and small structures near property boundaries.

• Begun public consultation on the 30-year National Infrastructure Plan.

Education

• Restored charter schools, now with the option of state school conversion to provide families with the choice of an education that works for them. Eight charter schools already open, nine more already announced for next year.

• Streamlined early childhood education regulations.

• Delivered an action plan to improve school attendance and started publishing attendance data weekly.

• Taken a firmer stance on prosecutions for parents of students who refuse to send their children to school and won’t engage with support offered to them.

• Improved the school lunch programme to feed more students for less money.

• Passed legislation to uphold freedom of speech in universities.

• Reviewing funding of Early Childhood Education to ensure it is simple, fair, and gets value for money with a commitment that there will be no reduction in overall funding.

• Restored balance to the Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories curriculum.