\u201cIt\u2019s just a very different dynamic on the other side than what you\u2019ve seen on our side,\u201d Luxon said.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday afternoon, National\u2019s deputy and finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis issued a press release calling on Hipkins to \u201ctell New Zealanders how many of the Green Party\u2019s new taxes he is willing to adopt\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cChris Hipkins himself has $18 billion of unfunded promises he has to find the money for. That means more taxes and more borrowing, which is exactly what the Greens are offering,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Elaborating on this at a press conference, Willis said Hipkins had promised to form the next Government before Christmas if elected and, based on current polling, needed the support of the Green Party, Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori and the Opportunity Party.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the Greens polling as high as 16%, higher than at many other elections, they are now around half Labour\u2019s size,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat means that the only way Chris Hipkins gets a deal done by Christmas is making serious concessions to [Greens co-leader] Chl\u00f6e Swarbrick on her spending plans, her new taxes and her demand to be Finance Minister.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicola Willis said concessions will need to be made to the Greens by Labour. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
Labour has repeatedly said the only new tax it would implement if elected to office would be its capital gains tax (CGT) and rejected claims of unfunded policies by National.<\/p>\n
It has issued a fiscal plan, detailing how it plans to balance its spending and revenue commitments, but that has come under some scrutiny for not allocating money <\/a>to fully restoring the previous pay equity scheme, its proposed Future Fund and some other policies. Labour has said that money will come from its unallocated operating allowance headroom.<\/p>\n While current polling does indicate Labour would need the support of the Greens, Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori and Opportunity to govern, it also suggests National would need the help of at least Act and NZ First.<\/p>\n The Herald asked, given National\u2019s call for Labour to front up, whether it would tell New Zealanders what policies of Act\u2019s or NZ First\u2019s it may adopt during potential coalition negotiations.<\/p>\n Luxon said the situation \u201cis quite different\u201d, mentioning the claim of Labour having unfunded promises and asserting that the Greens would get the Finance Minister portfolio, something Hipkins has said won\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n Willis said National, Act and NZ First had a \u201ctrack record of governing together\u201d, with three Budgets delivered that met the Government\u2019s fiscal responsibility rules.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of the Budgets we\u2019ve delivered exceeded the operating allowances that National campaigned on at the last election,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy? Because we have proven ourselves able to lead the three parties with some bottom lines around managing spending and taxes and debt responsibly.\u201d<\/p>\n She said Act and NZ First had been \u201cup for those commitments\u201d.<\/p>\n Labour and the Greens envision different tracks for Government spending, revenue and debt over the forecast four-year period. While Labour\u2019s approach generally follows what is currently projected (it\u2019s slightly higher), the Greens want substantially more spending, revenue and debt.<\/p>\n Luxon said there was \u201calignment\u201d on his side of politics that there wasn\u2019t within the left bloc, although Act has proposed large cuts to return non-frontline spending back to 2017 levels<\/a> (when adjusted for inflation and population) and NZ First has not published a fiscal plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see Shane Jones or Winston Peters demanding to be Finance Minister,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n When asked last week by the Herald whether the latest polling gave her more leverage to become Finance Minister, Swarbrick said: \u201cI\u2019ve been honest in answering the questions about the portfolios that we\u2019re after when it comes to what\u2019s necessary to actually implement the policies that we believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n She said the Greens would \u201cuse all of the privilege and all of the power that New Zealanders provide us to work for them when we get to that negotiating table\u201d.<\/p>\n Hipkins has said Labour\u2019s finance spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds will be his Finance Minister. On Tuesday, when asked about the Greens\u2019 leverage, he said he was focused on winning votes for Labour.<\/p>\n Labour has previously questioned what National will roll over on in order to satisfy Act\u2019s proposed spending cuts.<\/p>\n \u201cNew Zealanders shouldn\u2019t have to wait until after the election to discover what National will cut,\u201d Labour\u2019s campaign chair Kieran McAnulty said.<\/p>\n \u201cChristopher Luxon can\u2019t govern without [Act leader] David Seymour. Luxon might have the title but he\u2019s let his coalition partners run rings around him this term \u2013 he needs to front up and say what\u2019s on the chopping block.\u201d<\/p>\n Act\u2019s proposal exempts the likes of health, education, defence, police and the Ministry for Children from the proposed spending cuts.<\/p>\n \u201cHipkins should know that less spending doesn\u2019t mean less services, because he proved himself that more spending doesn\u2019t mean more services,\u201d Seymour said on Monday.<\/p>\n Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s just a very different dynamic on the other side than what you\u2019ve seen on our side,\u201d Luxon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,1443,4619,25441,3013,5842,3276,7230,315098,124,868,2837,5903,1888,16555,1668,3273,14154,266,23746,13480,702,6721,5812,3556,5971,25900,111,43,139,69,90,10269,6046,5659,1238,53316,61,810,14638,6923,1533,102,14443],"class_list":["post-642497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2246","tag-about","tag-act","tag-adopt","tag-but","tag-calling","tag-chris","tag-coalition","tag-concessions","tag-could","tag-deals","tag-during","tag-election","tag-first","tag-form","tag-front","tag-future","tag-give","tag-government","tag-greens","tag-hipkins","tag-it","tag-labour","tag-make","tag-national","tag-need","tag-negotiations","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-policies","tag-potential","tag-say","tag-serious","tag-suggesting","tag-to","tag-up","tag-wants","tag-what","tag-will","tag-with","tag-wont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642497","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=642497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Chris Hipkins has said Labour will only implement a capital gains tax. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n