Pitched as ending wasteful spending so taxpayers keep more of their own money and core services are properly funded, ACT campaigned on stripping low-value programmes out of the Budget and has used its place in government to push for ongoing cuts.

The Policy: ACT Alternative Budget 2023 — September 2023 →

_Neutrality note: the largest single saving counted toward this goal comes from 2025 changes to the pay-equity regime, which affect predominantly female workforces. The positions below are described as their proponents and critics state them; nothing here is asserted in the tracker's own voice._

What it does:

• ACT's 2023 "End the Waste, Fix the Economy" alternative budget proposed cutting NZ$25.5 billion over four years by trimming "corporate and middle class welfare" and shrinking the public service, including abolishing bodies such as the Climate Change Commission, Callaghan Innovation and the Provincial Growth Fund and returning core Public Service numbers to 2017 levels.
• In government, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said "$5.3 billion operating per annum in savings" was found for Budget 2025 — of which roughly $2.7 billion a year came from changes to the pay-equity regime, about $2.1 billion from 100-plus other initiatives and about $600 million from revenue measures.
• The pay-equity component was delivered by ACT minister Brooke van Velden's Equal Pay Amendment Act, passed under urgency on 7 May 2025, which lifted the "predominantly female" threshold from 60% to 70% over at least 10 years and discontinued 33 live claims; the Beehive release noted existing settlements already cost the Crown about $1.78 billion a year.
• A separate efficiency exercise led by David Seymour found about $115 million a year in public-sector savings, which Seymour said "mostly came through savings in welfare."
• Willis has also cut the annual operating allowance three years running — from $3.5b to $3.2b, then to $1.3b, and for Budget 2026 down to $2.1 billion — and announced a public-service shake-up to save $2.4 billion and cut about 8,700 jobs by mid-2029.

The result: Real, recurring savings have been booked, so the broad goal is partly delivered — but the specific "$2.7 billion a year" headline rests almost entirely on the pay-equity changes rather than on the cross-government efficiency cuts ACT originally pitched. David Seymour, ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister, says the savings have "ACT's fingerprints all over them" and that careful spending is essential to lowering inflation and interest rates. Critics dispute both the method and the fairness: Labour leader Chris Hipkins argues bringing the books to surplus should not come "at the expense of women", Greens co-leader Marama Davidson says the lowest-paid women are being asked to "bear the brunt" of tax cuts, and five unions — the Nurses Organisation, PSA, NZEI, PPTA and the Tertiary Education Union — have filed a High Court challenge arguing the law breaches the Bill of Rights. The pay-equity savings are therefore both the largest single line and the least settled, legally and politically.

The impacts to watch:

• The High Court challenge and a 90,000-plus-signature petition mean a chunk of the counted savings could be reversed or eroded if courts or a future government restore the discontinued claims.
• Willis's public-service target of no more than 55,000 full-time staff by July 2029 tests whether cuts can hit back-office roles without, as Hipkins warns, "reducing frontline services."
• Independent verification is thin: the Treasury books the savings, but no agency has confirmed a clean "$2.7b efficiency" figure separate from the contested pay-equity line, so the claim's durability depends on how those changes hold up.
• Future cuts are getting harder to find — most agencies face a 2% then 5% operating squeeze, raising the question of whether further savings come from efficiency or from service reductions.