Scrap Net Zero, Cut the Carbon Tax

New Zealand should play its part in reducing emissions. But a country responsible for just 0.17 per cent of global emissions needs a sense of proportion. There is no virtue in making petrol, power and food more expensive here while our major trading partners refuse to carry the same costs.

The Zero Carbon Act locks New Zealand into net zero by 2050, whatever our trading partners do. The Emissions Trading Scheme then adds a carbon cost to almost everything New Zealanders buy. At a carbon price of about $55, it costs an average household an estimated $478 a year.

ACT was the only party to vote against the Zero Carbon Act in 2019. We will repeal it, tie our emissions cap to what our trading partners are doing, remove the artificial auction price floor and return the revenue to New Zealanders. If the carbon price rises, the refund rises too.

A climate policy that closes a factory here so the same product can be made overseas has only exported jobs and emissions. Meanwhile, skewed carbon incentives are swallowing productive farms. ACT will give Kiwi industry and farming a fair go and let cleaner technology compete without needless red tape.

Read the full policy, Scrap Net Zero, Cut the Carbon Tax, here.

ACT will

• Scrap the arbitrary net zero 2050 target and repeal the Zero Carbon Act.

• Tie New Zealand’s emissions cap to a trade-weighted average of our major trading partners.

• Cut the carbon tax by removing the Government’s artificial minimum price for carbon auctions. In 2026, the minimum was $71 while units were trading in the low $50s, contributing to six failed auctions in a row.

• Return 100 per cent of net carbon auction revenue to New Zealanders through a Carbon Tax Refund. If the amount becomes too small for individual refunds, it will fund other tax relief.

• Protect Kiwi jobs where overseas competitors face lower or no carbon prices. Industrial carbon assistance will return to its original 90 and 60 per cent rates, with the automatic phase-down stopped while that disadvantage remains. Assistance of up to 100 per cent will be available in exceptional cases.

• Fix the rules that favour converting productive farmland to permanent carbon forests. Permanent forest owners will remain responsible for pest control and for the cost if stored carbon is later released.

• Cut red tape holding back cheaper, cleaner technology and oppose new climate taxes, including a tax on agricultural emissions.

• Renegotiate New Zealand’s commitment under the Paris Agreement. If a fairer arrangement cannot be reached, New Zealand should be prepared to leave.

In our team’s words:

ACT Leader David Seymour says:

“New Zealand’s climate policy is broken and sending the country broke as a result. A small trading nation can’t ignore climate policy, but overdoing it backfires and puts unnecessary costs on Kiwi businesses and households.

“ACT is the OG No New Taxes party, so we’ll return carbon auction revenue to taxpayers rather than giving politicians another pot of money to spend.”

ACT Climate Change spokesperson Simon Court says:

“If a New Zealand business can produce steel, cement, aluminium or food more efficiently than its overseas competitors, closing that business is an economic own goal and an environmental one too.

“Families are already paying too much at the supermarket and the last thing we should be doing is weakening our ability to grow food by turning productive farms into pine forests.”