Coalition Government details policies & ministers
National-ACT-NZ First Govt forms; Peters to be Deputy PM for first half of three-year term; Seymour gets second half as Deputy PM; Foreign buyers' tax dropped; Interest deductability removal sped up
TL;DR: PM-Elect Christopher Luxon has announced the formation of a joint National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government with a sharing of the Deputy PM role, the dropping of National’s foreign buyers’ tax plan and a speeding up of the removal of interest deductability for landlords.
Full statements, party agreements and the Ministerial List are attached below, but the key details include:
NZ First Leader Winston Peters will be Foreign Minister inside Cabinet and Deputy PM until May 31, 2025;
ACT Leader David Seymour will be Regulation Minister and Deputy Prime Minister from May 31, 2025;
National Deputy Leader Nicola Willis will be Finance Minister, ACT Deputy Leader Brooke van Velden will be Workplace Relations Minister and NZ First Deputy Leader Shane Jones will be Minister of Regional Development administering a $1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund;
The Cabinet will have 14 National Ministers, three ACT Ministers and three NZ First Ministers, while there will be five ministers from National, two from ACT and one from NZ First;
National will drop its foreign buyers’ tax and it said its “tax package will continue to be funded through a combination of spending reprioritisation and additional revenue measures,” along with “policy changes will help offset the loss of revenue from that change;
National said its fiscal plan “also had buffers which give confidence that tax reduction can still be funded responsibly,”;
National and NZ First will support “ACT’s policy to speed up the rate at which interest deductibility for rental properties is restored,”;
The removal of the first year fees-free for tertiary education, to be replaced by fees-free for the third year of tertiary education;
Dropping National’s plan to extend the retirement age beyond 65;
The creation of a select committee inquiry into banking competition; and,
A new agency accountable to the Regulation Minister to “assess the quality of new and existing regulation,” which will be funded by the disestablishment of the Productivity Commission.
Here are the full documents. I will update through the afternoon with detail from these documents. I welcome comments and detail from subscribers that I have missed above.
Ka kite ano
Bernard
Climate Change and Environment don’t even get ministers in Cabinet. Shows NACTFirst priorities have little to do with planetary resource overshoot, or climate change or the biodiversity crisis. What future do we have?
Disestablishing the productivity commission? I mean, I know the government hasn't listened to a word they've said in years, but still that seems like an outrageous thing to do! Really puts the spotlight on ACT's ridiculous belief that the unregulated market will provide everything we need. Who actually still believes that, in 2023?