ACT has given this campaign its only costed answer to the question business owners keep asking: who will actually rein in government spending? Launching the manifesto in Auckland on the first day of advance voting, David Seymour promised $22 billion in ‘wasteful’ spending cuts over four years and declared that ‘every other political party, even National, wants to spend more of your money.’ The party says government debt would be $12.4 billion lower by 2031 than forecast.
The plan is serious. The real test is how much of it survives contact with National.
The numbers stack up on paper
Credit where it is due. ACT’s fiscal plan is detailed enough to argue with. By 2030/31 it projects an OBEGAL surplus of $13.6 billion against $8.9 billion under current settings, with net core Crown debt excluding the Super Fund reaching $217 billion by June 2031, roughly $12 billion under Treasury’s forecast. Annual operating allowances drop from $2.4 billion to $2 billion.
The heavy lifting comes from transfers. Lifting the pension age to 67 by 2035, three months a year, saves $1.891 billion annually by 2031. Total transfer savings reach $2.579 billion by 2030/31, including $589 million from scrapping the government’s KiwiSaver contribution in exchange for a tax break on earnings, and $286 million from tighter control of disability benefits.
Notably, ACT is not promising broad income tax cuts. It hints at a targeted cut costing $264 million in 2028. That is fiscal discipline, not a sugar hit, and it deserves recognition.
For employers, the sharpest line is a three-year freeze on the adult minimum wage, with a training wage of 60% of the adult rate for under-20s in their first year of work.
Racing a train already leaving the station
The framing of ACT as the lone voice of restraint needs some context. Treasury’s pre-election update already forecasts the OBEGALx deficit narrowing from $8.7 billion, or 1.9% of GDP, in 2025/26 to an $11.7 billion surplus by 2030/31. The year-end accounts show the operating balance swinging to a $1.110 billion surplus from a $4.4 billion deficit, with net core Crown debt at 40.9% of GDP. And Budget 2026 already targets core Crown expenses towards 30% of GDP and an OBEGALx surplus by 2028/29.
So ACT is proposing to go further and faster on a path the government is already walking. Its OBEGALx surplus in 2030/31 is $16.4 billion against $11.7 billion. That gap of about $4.7 billion is meaningful, but it is acceleration, not rescue.
Where Seymour has a genuine point
The stronger part of ACT’s case is structural. Seymour argues spending is $18 billion higher than 2017 per-capita levels would justify, even after adjusting for population and labour costs, and that the health budget has almost doubled in seven years while only 10% goes on medicines and GPs. Treasury itself flags ageing-driven health costs as the central long-term fiscal risk. No other party is engaging with that problem as directly, and the super age change is the one lever that genuinely bends the long-run curve.
Six weeks was enough to fold on migration
Here is the warning sign. The manifesto quietly ditches ACT’s September pledge to scrap the Permanent Resident Visa and impose retroactive presence rules. Seymour said migrant communities found it ‘disrespectful and exclusionary’ and that ACT could ‘listen and… change’.
Listening is fine. But if a flagship policy lasts six weeks, it is fair to ask how the disability cuts, already under cross-party fire as ‘shovel money upwards, starve everyone else’, or a minimum wage freeze opposed by unions, will fare through months of coalition bargaining and select committees.
Plan for the deal, not the manifesto
Seymour has been explicit that this is ACT’s opening position for negotiations with a partner running a far gentler fiscal track. Expect the $22 billion to be diluted, with the super age shift and KiwiSaver changes most vulnerable to being phased, softened or parked for review.
For business owners, the practical advice is simple. Do not reset wage budgets, KiwiSaver settings or hiring plans on ACT’s numbers yet. Watch instead for which items survive into a coalition agreement, because that document, not the manifesto, will tell you whether New Zealand finally gets a government willing to make spending restraint stick. ACT has set the benchmark. The election will decide how far short of it the next government lands.
Sources
- RNZ: ACT publishes manifesto with $22b in cuts, ditches migration promise (2026-10-26)
- Stuff: ACT promises $12.4b less debt by 2031 in election manifesto (2026-10-26)
- interest.co.nz: ACT 2026 Fiscal Plan (2026-10-26)
- The Post: ACT’s fiscal plan aims to rack up bigger surpluses with sweeping cuts, hints at ‘targeted’ tax cut policy (2026-10-10)
- The Post: Parties confront long-term fiscal pressures as Treasury sounds alarm (2026-10-12)
- Treasury: Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update 2026 (2026-09-29)
- Treasury: Fiscal Strategy Report – Budget 2026 (2026-05-28)
- RNZ: ‘Shovel money upwards, starve everyone else’ – ACT under fire over proposed disability benefits cuts (2026-10-11)
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