National
Income tax relief for workers
Investment Boost asset write-off
FamilyBoost childcare rebate
Higher rates rebate for seniors
Cut government consultant spending
Replace the Resource Management Act
Reform freshwater farming rules
Ease winter grazing rules
New international trade deals
Major events and tourism package
Hire more frontline nurses
Fund more medicines via Pharmac
Increase elective surgeries
24/7 digital health consultations
Lower bowel screening age to 58
Extend breast screening to 70-74
New Waikato medical school
Expand nurse practitioner training
New hospitals and scanners
12-month prescriptions
Expand mental health services
Restore Three Strikes sentencing
Ban gang patches in public
New police dispersal powers
Cap sentence discounts at 40%
Reduce youth sentence discounts
More police patrols
Methamphetamine action plan
Cumulative sentencing on bail or parole
One hour daily reading, writing and maths
Ban cellphones in schools
Structured literacy (phonics)
Financial literacy in the curriculum
Replace the NCEA qualification
New Year 1-10 curriculum
Teacher bonding scheme
Build new classrooms
Online parent progress reporting
Expand teacher aide hours
Restrict social media for under-16s
Military-Style Boot Camps for Youth Offenders
Digital driver licences on your phone
Define sexual consent in law as an active 'yes'
Extend paid parental leave from 26 to 30 weeks
Quotes where National politicians rubbish, ridicule or dismiss opponents.
→ Chris Hipkins / Labour Party (Labour)
“economic vandal and arsonist”
During oral questions in Parliament, Luxon called Labour leader Chris Hipkins an 'economic vandal' and 'arsonist' during a debate over energy policy and an LNG import facility. Speaker Gerry Brownlee rebuked Luxon for reverting to 'personal insult', warning that even prime ministers are not beyond being removed from the House.
→ Labour (Sixth Labour Government 2017–2023) (Labour)
“We inherited the biggest recession in 35 years. We inherited a long Covid hangover, and a situation around tariffs, which has caused a huge amount of uncertainty around the world and here in New Zealand as well.”
Luxon made this statement in response to an RNZ-Reid Research poll showing that more voters (37.6%) blamed the coalition for New Zealand's struggling economy than blamed the previous Labour government (30.8%). He was defending his government's record while framing economic difficulties as inherited rather than self-created.
→ Chris Hipkins / Labour Party (Labour)
“Mr Speaker, hasn't it been a shambolic year for the Labour Party, hasn't it? Did he actually rule out the wealth tax? Did he rule out the inheritance tax? Did he rule out the trust tax, did he take that off the table? Could he rule out an income tax raid that sees nurses being worse off under a Labour-Green budget? No, he didn't do that either.”
Luxon opened his Budget 2025 response speech by spending 8.5 minutes attacking the opposition rather than defending his own Budget. He accused Labour of refusing to rule out a series of tax proposals.
→ Labour Party (Labour)
“resorting to lies and misinformation. When you see a letter going out from Carmel Sepuloni saying, we're cutting women's pay, that is not true.”
Luxon accused Labour of lying about National's changes to pay equity laws, which raised the threshold for pay equity claims. Labour characterised the change as cutting women's pay; Luxon called this 'lies and misinformation'.
→ Labour (Sixth Labour Government 2017–2023) (Labour)
“We've inherited a hell of a mess. It's somewhat naive, to be honest with you, to say, we've had six years of economic mismanagement, and in 12 months we're supposed to fix that all?”
Luxon made these remarks in a Q+A interview with Jack Tame, defending his coalition government's economic progress one year into office. He used the inherited-mess framing to request patience while attributing slow growth and delayed surplus projections to Labour's tenure.
→ Chris Hipkins / Labour Party (Labour)
“Chris Hipkins is a desperate individual, right? ... the Labour Party is irrelevant. They can say whatever they want to.”
At Field Days in Feilding, Luxon was responding to Labour criticism of the government's use of urgency to pass legislation. He dismissed both Hipkins personally and the Labour Party as politically irrelevant.
→ Labour (Sixth Labour Government 2017–2023) (Labour)
“Government spending is up 84 per cent since 2017 – and debt has climbed from $5 billion to a staggering projection of well over $100 billion. There was a more than $200 billion gap between the previous government's overall transport promises and the funding it had set aside. Inflation crushed wages, even as Kiwis are left paying more and more tax to fund Labour's wasteful spending.”
Luxon's first State of the Nation speech as Prime Minister, delivered in Waitangi, painted a bleak picture and attributed it squarely to Labour. He also accused Labour of deliberately emptying prisons while violent crime soared, and of tying the economy down with unnecessary regulation. Labour's Chris Hipkins called the $200 billion transport figure 'absolute nonsense', saying transport projects are funded on rolling three-year cycles.
→ Labour Party (Labour)
“This seems to me a classic Labour policy. It is not designed well. It has shades of KiwiBuild. This will put the economy at risk. It's a terrible idea.”
Finance Minister Nicola Willis attacked Labour's proposed capital gains tax, comparing it unfavourably to the widely-criticised KiwiBuild housing programme and arguing it would harm the economy at a vulnerable moment.
→ Green Party / Chloe Swarbrick (Greens)
“You know what Chlöe Swarbrick could do today if she agrees with me? She should call the dogs off and tell those protesters to stop protesting outside politicians' homes. To not do so says that they condone this indecency, this lack of civility, an aggressive turn in New Zealand politics.”
Willis attacked the Greens for not publicly denouncing protesters gathering outside MPs' homes, including Winston Peters' residence. She demanded Swarbrick 'call the dogs off', implying the Greens bore responsibility for the protests.
→ Labour (Sixth Labour Government 2017–2023) (Labour)
“Yes we will stick to the plan. What our plan is about is gradually consolidating a massive structural deficit, left to us by the last government, who spent like drunken sailors.”
Willis made this statement when defending the government's decision to stay on its fiscal consolidation path despite public pressure. She characterised Labour's public spending increases as reckless, attributing the structural deficit to the previous government's spending rather than to external economic shocks or the coalition's own tax cuts. Critics noted that the government's own $14 billion tax cut package had itself pushed the return-to-surplus date back by a year.
→ Labour Party (Labour)
“They want to promise everyone everything, and they will not front up with how they want to pay for it, because the way they want to pay for it is putting new taxes on an economy that is already struggling.”
During a Morning Report political panel discussion, Willis interrupted Labour deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni seven times in 30 seconds with 'How would you pay for it?' before delivering this attack on Labour's credibility on fiscal policy.
→ Labour (Sixth Labour Government 2017–2023) (Labour)
“This year's Budget is the clean-up job New Zealand needs after six years of economic mismanagement. It staggers me that the previous Government funded a bunch of medicines until 30 June this year only. Filling this fiscal hole does not cost $700 million as signalled in publicly available documents last year, but in fact costs $1 billion more than that.”
Finance Minister Willis delivered the Budget 2024 speech and framed the entire document as remediation for Labour's fiscal record. She accused Labour of artificially flattering the books by funding ongoing programmes for only short periods — the so-called 'fiscal cliff' tactic — leaving a hidden Pharmac funding gap she valued at $1.77 billion. Labour's Grant Robertson said the figures were in publicly available Budget documents and called Willis's claims a misrepresentation.
→ Labour (Sixth Labour Government 2017–2023) (Labour)
“I think what they did is they found clever workarounds to make the books look better than they really are. It makes the books look better in future years even though it is highly unlikely ministers genuinely intended to stop funding those programmes.”
Willis accused the outgoing Labour government of deliberately under-budgeting ongoing programmes — including Pharmac, school lunches, and school cybersecurity — to make their fiscal position appear stronger before the 2023 election. Labour's Grant Robertson dismissed this as 'desperation', pointing out the information was publicly available in the Budget documents and challenged Willis to read page 89 of the 154-page document before making the claims.
→ Health workers / NZNO union (Other)
“This is, quite frankly, playing politics with people's lives and it makes me furious. While union members walked back into work and collected a full day's pay, those patients lost the care they desperately needed. I ask them to tell that to the faces of the 13,000 patients, who are having their care cancelled.”
Health Minister Simeon Brown attacked the NZNO nurses' union after it cancelled a strike just 45 minutes before it was due to begin, which meant 85 Canterbury patients could not have their care rebooked. Brown held a press conference to publicly condemn the union's tactics.
→ Labour (Sixth Labour Government 2017–2023) (Labour)
“The issues at Health NZ stem from the previous government's mismanaged health reforms, which resulted in an overly centralised operating model, limited oversight of financial and non-financial performance, and fragmented administrative data systems which were unable to identify risks until it was too late.”
Health Minister Reti made this statement when announcing that Health New Zealand was on track for a $1.4 billion deficit and that the government was replacing its board with a commissioner. He attributed the financial crisis to Labour's 2022 health system restructuring, which created a single national entity (Te Whatu Ora / Health NZ). Labour's Ayesha Verrall responded that the deficit had emerged under the coalition's watch and that 'desperately trying to pedal blame back to the last government is farcical.'
Quotes from other parties targeting National.
→ National-ACT-NZ First coalition government (National)
“After 40 years of trickle-down politics and economics, New Zealanders are not safer, healthier or happier. Are we willing to have a rational, calm discussion about how to genuinely make our communities safer, or will we stay stuck in the knee-jerk shock politics?”
Swarbrick responded to billboards attacking Green MPs over criminal justice policy, using the opportunity to frame the government and its allies as defenders of failed right-wing economics.
→ National-led government (National)
“when you're knowingly making political choices to shred progress on climate action, to increase the amount of climate-changing emissions which will exacerbate climate change-charged weather events which have devastated lives and livelihoods across this country, when you are knowingly making decisions to plunge tens of thousands more kids into poverty - friends don't let friends do that.”
Swarbrick's year-end interview reflecting on 2024, in which she accused the coalition government of deliberately worsening climate outcomes and child poverty for political reasons.
→ National-ACT-NZ First coalition government (National)
“The Government had shown that its focus was squarely on gutting environmental, climate and social gains in order to line the pockets of a few at the top.”
Swarbrick responded to the government's new action plan, which she described as a 'bingo card for environmental destruction and trickle-down economics', accusing ministers of prioritising wealthy interests over public good.
→ Christopher Luxon / National-led government (National)
“He is devoid of ideas; unfocused; and too weak to confront the challenges we face today and set us up for tomorrow.”
Hipkins delivered his State of the Nation speech at the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, attacking PM Luxon's leadership. He also accused Luxon of turning his back on promises by 'allowing ACT and New Zealand First to call the shots.'
→ National-led coalition government (Maori policy) (National)
“We are here after a week in Parliament that, like all other weeks in Parliament under this government, has seen Māori unfairly targeted. Councils are asking the government to butt out and leave them be - but the government, powered by disgraceful right-wing lobby groups and the racist coalition agreement, continue to resist and override both councils and Māori. Enough is enough.”
Hipkins addressed a hui at Auckland City Mission's Home Ground, condemning the government's reversal of Maori ward legislation and broader anti-Maori policy direction, including the reintroduction of boot camps.
→ National-led government / Health Minister Shane Reti (National)
“A misleading, brazen and desperate attempt to pin responsibility for its own decisions on the previous Labour government.”
The coalition government announced plans to replace Health New Zealand's board with a commissioner over a $1.4 billion deficit, with Health Minister Shane Reti blaming Labour's health reforms. Hipkins rejected that framing, arguing the blowout occurred on the government's watch.
→ National-led coalition government (National)
“By narrowing down what can be paid for by the Warmer Kiwi Homes Programme ... means that those homes just won't get insulated. It'll be low-income families that'll miss out as a result of the cuts that have been made. It's a catastrophe for New Zealand as a whole.”
Hipkins attacked Budget 2024 cuts to the Warmer Kiwi Homes scheme and housing programmes, arguing low-income families would bear the brunt of reduced insulation funding.
→ National-led coalition government (National)
“It's a Budget that has taken New Zealand backwards. It's a Budget that is abandoning our commitments around climate change, it's putting more children into poverty, it's cutting a lot of the things that Kiwis rely on like public transport subsidies, school lunch programmes and so on.”
Hipkins responded to Budget 2024 on the day of its announcement, labelling it a broad failure across climate, child poverty, and essential services.
→ National-ACT-NZ First coalition government (National)
“Every day New Zealanders got an insight into what a shambles the Government was, and today's announcement on Budget priorities was another whopper. It shows the level of dysfunction in the coalition Government.”
Hipkins reacted to the coalition's Budget Policy Statement, criticising the government for taking longer than usual to release the statement and failing to specify total spending amounts. He attributed this to the coalition's inability to make its fiscal numbers align.
→ Christopher Luxon / National-led government (National)
“that he's got no balls and may be a drop-nuts in terms of facing the people”
Waititi questioned whether Prime Minister Luxon would attend Waitangi Day celebrations, using crude language to challenge Luxon's willingness to face Māori communities amid tensions over the Treaty Principles Bill.
→ National-ACT-NZ First coalition government (National)
“We have a pākeha government, who will announce a pākeha budget for a pākeha economy. For far too long we've allowed them to assume absolute sovereignty and governance over us, this needs to stop.”
Waititi spoke ahead of nationwide Budget Day hikoi and strike protests, framing the 2024 Budget as structurally excluding Māori and calling on communities to resist the government's agenda.
→ National-ACT-NZ First coalition government (National)
“We have a government that has insulted and upset at least 20 percent of the population... Sadly, the Prime Minister and his government have exactly confirmed our worst fears. We have to kick back and push back.”
Ngarewa-Packer spoke at a protest rally against the newly formed coalition government, accusing it of being intent on 'disbanding, disestablishing and showing a true disconnect with tangata whenua' across New Zealand.