{"id":578189,"date":"2026-08-23T21:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T21:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/578189\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T21:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T21:32:09","slug":"national-leader-christopher-luxon-says-he-has-no-regrets-about-bed-tax-u-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/578189\/","title":{"rendered":"National leader Christopher Luxon says he has no regrets about bed tax U-turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luxon and finance spokesperson Nicola Willis announced yesterday their party\u2019s promise of \u201cno new taxes\u201d would be upheld in any coalition agreement – which meant scrapping both the bed tax and bank tax.<\/p>\n

Luxon\u2019s U-turn on a bank tax and bed tax came at his official Botany electorate campaign launch, where the party pledged it would allow no new taxes if re-elected.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago the Prime Minister had raised the possibility of an accommodation levy<\/a>, which had been previously discussed with Auckland Council, while noting Willis had also spoken about possible changes to bank tax settings.<\/p>\n

But he said yesterday that a bed tax would hurt \u201ceveryday Kiwis who are just going away for a weekend in Auckland or Queenstown\u201d, while Willis said the party had been unable to find a way to raise taxes on banks without increasing costs to Kiwis.<\/p>\n

Luxon also said it was highly unlikely National would enforce next year\u2019s legislated fuel excise tax increase.<\/p>\n

The bed tax backdown has disappointed mayors in tourism hotspots<\/a>, who had previously pushed for a nationwide accommodation levy to help fund public infrastructure in key tourist destinations.<\/p>\n

The levy was backed by mayors from Auckland, Rotorua, Ruapehu, Wellington, Marlborough, Christchurch, Timaru and Queenstown, among others.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Nicola Willis is refusing to rule out increases to ACC levies if the party returns to Government after the election.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Herald NOW\u2019s Ryan Bridge Today, Willis said she would not rule out such an increase but National strived to keep the levy low, pointing out there was a formula to assess the increase in the levy.<\/p>\n

The party has pledged to add no new taxes if re-elected, but Willis said they had been \u201cvery open\u201d that the petrol levy would be increased in future. <\/p>\n

Congestion charges were also not ruled out but would be up to councils.<\/p>\n

Labour finance spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds said her party would keep the ACC levy cap if the books were still manageable.<\/p>\n

Edmonds told Ryan Bridge TODAY that Labour would also not go ahead with the 12c petrol price increase planned by the Government for January next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luxon and finance spokesperson Nicola Willis announced yesterday their party\u2019s promise of \u201cno new taxes\u201d would be upheld…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1443,62925,74,48378,16426,40570,4187,68195,9881,6871,692,5838,13489,96885,16427,172936,3556,111,43,139,7805,69,193,15141,49211,29946,312,16085,7496,10097,44869,100545],"class_list":["post-578189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-about","tag-accommodation","tag-after","tag-bed","tag-christopher","tag-considering","tag-cost","tag-destinations","tag-facing","tag-has","tag-he","tag-help","tag-leader","tag-levy","tag-luxon","tag-mechanisms","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-nz","tag-other","tag-pressures","tag-regrets","tag-ruling","tag-says","tag-supported","tag-tax","tag-tourism","tag-uturn","tag-widely"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}