A goal is not a strategy

“Cutting the waste to grow the country is desperately needed, but National’s promiseis three years too late. Saving money needs a strategy to achieve it, and a strategy takes courage to implement,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“Reducing spending to 30 per cent of GDP sounds impressive, but Grant Robertson spent only 28 per cent in his first two budgets before he lost all control during COVID. Today the Government is spending 32.6 per cent of GDP, and isn’t forecast to go below 30 this decade.

“Achieving 30 per cent of GDP will take real courage to face down the causes of higher spending. They are rising superannuation and health costs, rising welfare costs, and the size and complexity of Cabinet and Government departments.

“The ACT Party has a proven track record of taking on hard issues to save taxpayers’ money, and more of that courage will be needed in the next Government

“Wherever we’ve been active we have saved the taxpayer. My Budget 2024 saving exercise at MBIE saved $500 million. My 2025 exercise saved $115 million. Brooke van Velden’s changes to Pay Equity saved $12 billion. My retooling of the school lunch program saved $360 million to achieve the same results.

“National wanted to spend $380 on a medical school, we negotiated it down to $80 million. They wanted to spend $250 million on electric car chargers, we got it down to a repayable loan of $60 million. National wanted to pay out $375 million in tax credits for fuel, even if the price went back down. ACT may still save the taxpayer hundreds of millions more with the sensible suggestion that the payments end when fuel prices normalize.

“ACT has killed three new taxes in this term of Government. Without ACT we would be seeing taxes on housing, tourism, and banks that are all ultimately paid by New Zealanders and their businesses. Controlling spending is only half the equation, controlling taxes is the other half.

“Without ACT, the taxpayer would be on the hook for billions more, but even more savings are needed. To make these budget goals real will require ACT at the Cabinet table.

“The next Government must contain healthcare spending by making smarter use of primary care. We cannot have chaos in Emergency Departments while community pharmacies that could ease the load at lower costs go broke; Pharmacy First will be crucial to containing spending.

“Similarly, we must increase the share of healthcare spent on medicines that save money elsewhere. Currently we are a global outlier for spending so little on medicines, but the costs blow out elsewhere.

“Most of the developed world recognises that pension ages must rise when people live longer and have fewer children to pay taxes after them. The New Zealand Government will not balance its books paying universal pensions at 65 while wealthier countries make sensible adjustments.

“Welfare rolls continue to grow while jobs are filled by migrants from countries where people don’t expect any Government to pay them to stay home. The next Government must introduce welfare reform to save money and reduce dependency.

“Despite signing a coalition agreement to reduce departmental spending based on 2017 numbers of civil servants, the Government remains too large and complex for our small economy. ACT’s position of a smaller, more efficient Government with 18 Ministers and 19 departments is essential to achieving efficiency.

“Any Government without ACT would be a higher spending Government. A Government with more ACT will spend less. For voters who really want to cut the waste to grow the economy, a Party Vote for ACT is the only reliable choice.

“For voters who want to balance the budget with no new taxes, a Party Vote for ACT is the only reliable choice. Anything else is a voter for bigger Government, one way or another.”