Finance Minister Nicola Willis says every minister worked hard to find savings for Budget 2025 to ensure “we don’t have to tax New Zealanders more and indebt our nation more”.
She says the $115 million of savings generated through Act leader David Seymour’s public sector exercise were a “small portion” of those found overall, but noted “every little bit counts”.
The Herald reported on Monday evening that the public sector savings drive Seymour ran as part of the Budget 2025 process led to average annual savings of about $115m.
That contributed to the overall savings found for the Budget of roughly $5.3 billion, an amount made up of an estimated $2.7b from pay equity changes, $2.1b from other savings initiatives and $600m from revenue raising.
Seymour, an Associate Finance Minister, said his savings were “quite a lot of money” and he pointed to significant savings created by the pay equity reforms - led by his Act colleague Brooke van Velden - as an example of the “massive savings” Act had helped find.
“The coalition certainly hasn’t saved as much as Act would save ... however, I know from all the discussions, the taxpayer would be paying more without Act in the coalition,” Seymour told the Herald.
Asked on Tuesday how Act had contributed to savings in Budget 2025, Willis said every minister “worked hard to find savings in this Budget and show fiscal restraint”.
“I am grateful to all of them, from New Zealand First, from Act, and from the National Party,” she said.
“Collectively, we recognise to ensure we don’t have to tax New Zealanders more and indebt our nation more, we do need to get more value for the money we spend on taxpayers’ behalf. That was reflected in the significant savings delivered in this year’s Budget.”
Specifically on Act, Willis said Seymour “did lead a savings exercise which delivered on average $115 million per annum, which is a small portion of the $5.3 billion per annum we were able to deliver in savings”.
“Every little bit counts,” she added.
The Finance Minister made the comments following a visit to Griffins Foods alongside Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Tuesday morning.
Seymour told the Herald yesterday that he believed he had “held up the mirror” to his ministerial colleagues and “showed them where in their portfolios savings could have been made”.
“Having been part of every Budget meeting and got to the outcome we did, I think it’s a good few months’ work by all of us,” he said.
But Act would take a “significantly more aggressive approach” if it was in government alone, Seymour said.
Three of the key areas the party would be interested in tackling are improving government efficiency (Seymour has mooted cutting the number of ministerial portfolios and departments), addressing entitlements like New Zealand Superannuation (he’s in favour of slowly increasing the age) and evaluating what the Government owns (the Act leader’s suggested some degree of privatisation in recent months).
The Government’s core Crown expenses jumped from $87b in 2019, prior to the pandemic, which led to significant increases in spending, rising to $139b last year. When considered as a percentage of New Zealand’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), those expenses rose from 28% in 2019 to 33% in 2024.
Seymour said it would be difficult to get expenses back to the pre-pandemic figures, partly due to higher interest costs, but it was possible to return to about 30% of GDP. Under Treasury’s forecasts, it will reduce to 30.9% in 2029, the end of the current forecast.
In his Budget day speech, Seymour said he was proud of the role Act had played alongside its coalition partners in “questioning spending, finding the savings, and collectively, together, saving billions of dollars”.
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office. In 2025, he was a finalist for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.