That change of language was formally shown in Labour’s fiscal plan on Sunday, with the document saying it is now the party’s “objective” to have spending and revenue “below” 33%.
When the Herald sought on Sunday afternoon to check this language against what Labour had in its fiscal strategy, a webpage that previously hosted the strategy came up instead with an error page.
The Herald queried this with Labour and was told the page was being updated to include the new fiscal plan.
The party said the language of the fiscal objective had been made “clearer” as it was being reported as “a target rather than a ceiling”.
Shortly after the Herald’s questions, the fiscal strategy page went back online. However, as of deadline, it didn’t include the fiscal plan and it continued to say Labour wanted spending and revenue “maintained at around 33%”.
Labour announced its fiscal plan on Sunday. Photo / Audrey Young
National finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis told the Herald “these are not serious people”.
“Just a few weeks ago, they were upfront and admitted that they were targeting increased spending and tax at 33%,” she said.
“Now they’ve taken a different course and are saying, well, let’s just hide that. That wasn’t a very popular thing to say. Let’s just pretend our spending promises don’t have price tags. This beggars belief.”
The reason this matters is that there is a significant difference between spending and revenue being at the 33% level and having it even slightly smaller. A change of just one percentage point can be a difference of billions of dollars.
Labour’s fiscal plan shows it intends for expenses to be slightly higher than what the Government was forecasting in its pre-election economic and fiscal update (Prefu), released last week.
For example, in 2031, the last year of the forecasts, Labour is forecasting expenses of 30.4% of GDP, compared with the 29.8% forecast by the Government.
In dollar terms, that means Labour expects expenses that year to be about $177 billion, about $3b higher than what the Government is.
If expenses were pushed to 33% that year, which Labour isn’t planning, expenses would be $192b.
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.