Economy & the Cost of Living

Easing the cost of living

• Cut wasteful spending to bring down inflation and give the Reserve Bank the confidence to lower interest rates.

• Delivered tax cuts so you can keep more of what you earn.

• Restored the Reserve Bank’s focus on tackling inflation. 

• Repealed the Ute Tax.

• Repealed the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax. 

• Reduced hikes to the Fire and Emergency levy. 

• Tightened sanctions on people who can work but choose not to look for a job – so taxpayers aren’t funding anyone to sit at home.

• Eased restrictions to accessing credit under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. 

• Phased back in interest deductibility. 

• Kept agriculture out of the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Cutting red tape and promoting growth

• Replacing the Resource Management Act with a system based on property rights to make it cheaper to build new housing, infrastructure, supermarkets, factories, and more. 

• Extensive labour market reforms to make it easier and less risky to hire new staff, or offer promotions to existing staff including: 

  • Restored the option of 90-day trials for all businesses. 

  • Repealed “Fair Pay” Agreements

  • Unveiled a new contracting gateway test to provide certainty to workers and businesses.

  • Improving the Holidays Act

  • Improving Health and Safety Law

  • Simplifying the personal grievance process

• Made it easier for property owners to rent out their houses.

  • Restoring interest deductibility.

  • Introduced tenancy legislation to enable Pet Bonds.

  • Restored 90-day 'no cause' terminations.

  • Restored tenants’ and landlords’ notice periods to 21 and 42 days.

• Introduced legislation to improve access to building products available overseas.

• Delivering regulatory relief for consumers and businesses dealing with costly and time consuming AML rules. 

• Delivered regulatory relief for earthquake-prone buildings. 

• Reversed blanket speed limit reductions and enabled faster speed limits on our safest roads.

• Established the Ministry for Regulation to cut red tape to make doing business simpler and remove unnecessary costs for New Zealanders.

• Established a Red Tape Tipline so Kiwis can report the most pressing regulatory issues to be fixed.

• Commenced regulatory reviews to reduce compliance costs across multiple sectors.

  • Hairdressing and barbering

  • Agriculture and horticulture products

  • Telecommunications

  • Early childhood education

• Progressing the Regulatory Standards Bill to provide more transparency and accountability for bad law makers, raising the political price for those who want to make laws that increase costs on your family or business.

• Introduced a member's bill to liberalise Easter Trading.

• Making it easier for overseas investors to invest in New Zealand so more businesses are able to grow, pay staff more, and hire additional people.

• Introduced the Investment Boost allowing 20% of new capital purchases to be expensed immediately. 

• Introduced legislation to reverse the oil and gas ban and promote the use of Crown minerals.