Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the plans helped focus the public service. Photo / Anna Heath
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the plans helped focus the public service. Photo / Anna Heath
The Government has ditched the quarterly action plans that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said helped focus the public service.
The plans previously included commitments to “take decisions” on certain policies, “pass legislation”, or “raise the energy” New Zealand took to international engagements.
However, the plans have now beenshelved. Almost two-thirds of the way through the first quarter of 2026, no action plan has been released.
The Prime Minister’s Office is said to be looking at a “broader plan for the remainder of the year”. It’s expected to be released “in due course”.
The quarterly plans released near the start of each quarter typically had around 30 to 40 actions the Government intended to complete in the three-month periods. Many of the actions were simply to “take Cabinet decisions” or “pass legislation” that was already close to passing through the legislative process.
A Herald analysis of the first quarterly plan from April 2024 found more than half of the 36 items on it were easy ticks or just mere formalities. For example, there were commitments to deliver a Budget and then to legislate for tax relief that would be announced in that Budget.
That plan included: “Raise the energy New Zealand brings to key relationships through international engagements, focusing on our traditional partners, the Pacific and South East and South Asia.”
In announcing that first plan, Luxon said having a “a clear plan with specific actions and timeframes for delivery creates momentum and drives focus”.
The Government's action plans normally had around 30 to 40 items. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Some of the actions in the plan released midway through 2025 were just next steps on policies that were included in previous plans.
For example, the Government promised to “progress legislation to make stalking an illegal and jailable offence” that quarter. The fourth-quarter plan in 2024 had a line about how the Government would “introduce legislation to address stalking”.
“I don’t have this sort of dashboard crap that I see other people perform on and a 50-point plan, or a 100-point plan, or a quarter-year plan,” he said.
He later said he was referring to dashboards from the previous Labour Government, but wouldn’t given his opinion on the quarterly actions produced by his Government.
Luxon at the time said his Government was trying to “turn New Zealand around”.
“When you’re doing a turnaround, you’ve got to be very, very focused on what you’re gonna do, what you must do versus the nice to do and we need to focus the public service and we need to focus the new coalition Government.”
He said he was “proud of the way they work because they actually focus our public service and they focus the Government”.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins on Monday said the quarterly plans had become “an exercise in managerialism rather than actually setting the direction for the country”.
“We have got to focus on making sure we have a long-term plan for New Zealand. That is something this Government doesn’t have. You are not going to turn the country around in quarterly increments.”
Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald’s Chief Political Reporter, based in the Press Gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.
