Luxon and Willis on 'responsible' 2026 Budget | Herald NOW

Well, good afternoon everybody. We have done what we said. We said we would deliver a responsible budget, a budget that was appropriate for the times that we are in, but also incredibly encouraging to see a 2.7% growth rate averaged over the four years. Really encouraging to see 220,000 new jobs are being created. And importantly, the way that people get ahead is when wages are growing faster than inflation. But with that, we're happy to take your questions for the.

Well, this is a budget that's about making sure we do the right thing for New Zealanders going forward. And that's what we are about, is securing New Zealand's future. It's a budget that continues to fix the basics and build the future, but making sure that New Zealand is on the right pathway. The single worst thing that can happen to New Zealanders given the experience we've had after the previous Labor government is for us to have reckless spending, wasteful spending, driving up inflation, driving up interest rates, slowing the economy down, and people losing their jobs. We have been working in the exact reverse. And that's why it's so important we fix the books. It's so important that we, in order to lower debt, lower tax, lower interest rates, that we actually have a responsible budget in this way. And I think New Zealanders understand that and they really appreciate what we're doing.

Let's remember we've got a track record of delivery. We delivered $1.6 billion a year of annualized baseline savings in our first budget. We got it done. This is a government that is committed to getting more value out of every taxpayer dollar and we have created time so that the public service has time to plan for it so that these can be gradual changes well prepared for. So we will deliver those savings and I'd note that if the Labour party suddenly had a road to Damascus experience and doesn't think it's achievable, they should look back at Grant Robertson's announcements in 2023 before that general election in which he committed to our very significant baseline savings program. I don't recall the PSA having any rallies about it though.

Well, it's a contingency that we've baked into our operational expenditure, exactly as Nicola explained in her speech. And it's very deliberate because we don't ultimately know what the duration of the conflict will be. But we are very clear from day one to set up our lens, which is to say we have to be financially responsible because the worst thing is actually if we lose formation on spending and inflation and we get back into interest rates and low growth and people losing jobs as we saw post-COVID. We're not doing that again. We have to keep an eye on the medium and the long term with our books and our finances. But on the other hand, we actually are saying and that'll be the lens by which we look at that spending of that cash that's been put aside: is it timely? Is it targeted? Is it actually people that will need it? Is it temporary support for those that will desperately need it? So, we'll continue to look at opportunities as needed. But I would also note it's been encouraging to see conversations happening between the parties in the region. We really encourage them all to get to a resolution. And equally, I think there's been a little bit of relief when people have come off the last four weeks where we've seen diesel even come down 50 cents from its highs. I know it's very difficult. I know it's still very tough. We've tried to say to everyone from day one, we are not in a financial position to alleviate the pressures for everybody, but we will be responsible economic managers. So when we pass this crisis, we can pop back up on our foils again. I think the key message out of this budget, I think a lot of people will be surprised, is that our plan has just been delayed. It hasn't been derailed by this conflict. And that's because we've managed to minimize the impact on inflation and growth as best we possibly can.

Well, I'm just saying to you that we've started here with the credential levy. It's important. But I'm saying it's quite digestible for the four Aussie banks to manage this. Well, I just don't remember Chris Hipkins even attempting to do anything in bowel screening while he had six years in government. You know what I said at that time is we want to get to where Australia is. We are working our way through that, making sure that we build the capability to do that. A lot of that's about making sure we've got the staffing, the resources. As you know, we're rolling out the in-home screening kit so we can make better use and more efficient use of our colonoscopies and staff associated with that. So, I'm proud of the fact that we're on a pathway to getting to where the Australians are. But we got to start and you got to start on the journey and that's what we are doing and we've done it in 2-year increments and when we digest the 56 then we'll keep going. And so that's what you're seeing here. We've been clear that we are open to a range of funding and financing mechanisms for the roads of national significance including public private partnerships, new approaches to funding them. That remains the case. The key point for us is that you have to do that in a sequenced way. They have to be projects whose business cases stack up that are ready to deliver. This year's budget we focused that W cut expressway extension because it's consented. The route is designated. The properties have been purchased. Its business case stacks up beautifully. It's ready to go.

Oh, I'm not talking about private conversations I have with leaders, but you know, there's a number of countries that have had a different set of responses to the fuel crisis than what we have. There are some that have followed some of the same logic that we've applied as well. But I'm just saying, there is just relay.

Yeah, there is. Yeah, I think you know that actually just throwing cash around and dealing with the short-term gain as I've been saying from the get-go versus the long-term pain associated with that as they start to face up to their fiscals, it's incredibly challenging. We went through that being, you know, handling COVID so poorly economically, the fact that we had such a big hangover, it took us so long after having sprayed all the cash around and caused so much long-term pain and damage to the New Zealand economy. That's the mistake that we are not repeating here, and we make no bones about that. Oh, there will be some countries, yeah, when I talk to their leaders, they think they've got some real challenges because the more that we can offer up the option of a three-day stay for moms, that's a fantastic thing to be doing.

That day after you have had your baby and you're in hospital and you're getting the care of others, what you don't want to be worried about is when am I getting booted out. So we think at a minimum you should know you've got three days there where no one's going to nudge you along, where if you want to be there you can be there getting the support of our wonderful nurses, midwives, and doctors, because that period in a woman's life and in a baby's life is so important and being well supported in those first few days actually sets women up for more success in those really challenging early days of parenthood.

Well, again, what you've seen under this government is I think a very proud record on housing. You're seeing housing affordability improve. You're not seeing a 30% growth in house prices in a single year like we saw under Labor. And you're seeing more steady, moderate house price growth. It's a good thing. You're seeing a record number of first home buyers come into the marketplace. I think it's about 29% of all purchases. So, we want to see steady, consistent, moderate house price growth, but we don't want to see up 30% one year, down 17% the next year, which has been the boom bust nature of New Zealand. And that has been because of very poor planning laws where we actually haven't opened up supply to be able to build houses. Go down to Christchurch and look at the situation in Christchurch which post the earthquake, opening up a whole set of new suburbs whether it's Pegasus or Swann or Prebbleton, has been very positive where you can get good quality housing at fair, better prices, steady moderate growth, and people have more disposable income to do other things with. I'd look at the actions that we've taken on rents. Rents were going up $180 a week under Labor; they're stable if not falling under us. The thing I found incredible was when we left government and when we came back to government, people on the social housing wait list had gone up four times. Four times. And we've already taken, I think, 7,000, 8,000 people off the social housing wait list and brought that back down. And we've taken people out of emergency housing, put them into homes, and we've got support for our homeless folk as well as you've seen in the last 6 months. So, I'd put our record up against housing against a Labour Greens record any day of the week and they should, what they did was disgraceful. I think it's quite outrageous if I'm honest. Jump on our website from 2023. Jump on the Labor website at this time in 2026. You would be crucifying me if I had as little policy as what the Labour Party has. What have we had? We've had a flimsy capital gains tax with some three free doctor's visits, which no one knows how that all hangs together. Who got a future fund sort of bumper sticker piece of paper that actually doesn't have any detail to it based off a treaty or based off that Kiwis just don't care apparently about the detail. But it's woeful. I mean, it is woeful. That's why I say they're the laziest, most unsuccessful opposition I've seen because they have no policy ideas. They have nothing to contribute to the debate. That's the point of an opposition. Go back and look at what National was doing in 2022 and 2023. We had a chalk full of ideas about what we're doing. Then look at what we did from day one. We implemented that program in government. So, I don't really, the Labour Party is not someone I spend a lot of time thinking about because they don't bring anything that adds. All they do is cop and criticize and sing duck songs.

Yeah. Chris Hipkins is the man without a plan. Labour have mastered the art of describing the country's problems, but they cannot offer solutions, and we've presented a budget. If they had alternative ideas, this is the day for them to talk about them. The reason they're not talking about them is they don't have any. And actually at this time what New Zealanders need and expect is political leadership that has a clear plan, that is focused on delivering it, that can see what one step leads to the other and that we can make progress. And our government has demonstrated progress, has a clear plan, is on target, and so this would be a very risky time to change to frankly a rabble by the time you count the Greens and the party Marty who don't have any idea what they want to do. Well, actually the Greens do want to tax people more and borrow more and frankly have no vision for the future of this.