The Taxpayers’ Union and the Finance Minister’s ‘fudge’

Thursday, 11 December 2025

Minister of Finance Nicola Willis is in the Taxpayers’ Union’s sights as it launches a new campaign accusing her of “fudging” economic management.

Tory Relf is the head of communications at the Taxpayers’ Union.

OPINION: When a government starts convincing itself that wishful thinking is a fiscal strategy, taxpayers should brace for impact. Today, the Taxpayers’ Union has launched “Nicola’s Fudge” – our tongue-in-cheek campaign to both point out Nicola Willis’s various “fiscal fudges” and back up the Treasury in sounding the alarm that the country urgently needs a reality check.

Nicola Willis with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who the Taxpayers’ Union accuses of not living up to his rhetoric on economic management.

The Government says it is restoring discipline to the books. Confident claims of savings programmes, tightened belts and difficult but necessary decisions lead the news. Yet when you dig into the numbers, the picture is anything but disciplined. There is a pattern of sugar-coating, shifting costs into the future, and presenting fiscal mirages as economic progress. In other words: fudge.

Our confectionery-themed campaign may be playful, but the underlying issues are not. In a speech to party faithful in the Hutt last month, the Prime Minister criticised the previous Government’s “sugar-rush” economics. He rightly pointed out that temporary boosts and creative accounting can mask long-term decay. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: this Government has reached for the same lolly jar.

Former minister of finance Grant Robertson has been a popular target for critics of the last Labour government, but the Taxpayers’ Union argues that Nicola Willis is continuing his approach to the economy.

Despite being elected on a promise to cut government spending, since taking office, government spending hasn’t fallen, it’s grown. Not just in nominal terms, but in both real terms and as a proportion of the economy.

In fact, Nicola Willis is spending more than Grant Roberton had planned in Budget 2023. New Zealanders voted for fiscal repair, not further erosion of discipline. Instead of trimming the bloated bureaucracy inherited from Labour, the Government has barely grazed it.

Despite bold talk of cutting back-office roles, the actual reduction since Labour left office is just 1%. One. Meanwhile, we still have 33% more bureaucrats than when Labour first took power. Only in the mind of a committed PSA spin doctor is that “austerity”.

But perhaps the most troubling fudge is the handling of debt. Treasury has been warning that our borrowing trajectory is worsening, not improving. Nicola Willis hasn’t reduced the structural deficit at all.

The Government continues to lean heavily on our kids’ and grandkids’ credit card, racking up an eye-watering $75 million in new borrowing every single day. Depending on how you measure it, Nicola Willis is borrowing at least as much per day than when Grant Roberston left office. That adds up to more than $142,000 owed on behalf of every Kiwi household. No amount of sweet talk can disguise that kind of fiscal drift.

Nicola Willis fronting the media in September after the release of statistics showing New Zealand’s poor GDP performance.

The Government’s much-touted “surplus by 2029” relies on an accounting construction called OBEGALx – complete with optimistic assumptions and conveniently shelved liabilities (international climate obligations, anyone?).

It may look tidier on paper and National Party talking points, but it doesn’t reflect the actual economic reality the Crown face. We cannot fudge our way to prosperity, and we certainly can’t fudge our way out of debt.

All of this comes at a time when real GDP per capita (the measure of how much the average New Zealander is producing) has fallen by more than $3110 since 2023. That drop represents the cold hard truth: we are getting poorer. Pretending otherwise won’t change the trajectory.

To illustrate these uncomfortable truths, Nicola’s Fudge launches today with six flavours, each highlighting a different piece of fiscal spin: the fictional surplus, the swollen bureaucracy, the spiralling debt, the myth of austerity, the collapsing GDP per capita, and the troubling signals coming from international bond markets. These are not abstract concerns. When markets start blinking red, taxpayers eventually pick up the tab.

Some of our friends in Parliament may accuse us of being unfair or unhelpful. But our role – supported by our 200,000-plus subscribed supporters – is to speak truth to power, even when it clashes with the Government’s preferred narrative. We have criticised governments of all stripes when they stray from fiscal responsibility, and we will continue to do.

The irony is that the Government is paying the political cost of perceived austerity without delivering any of the actual economic benefits of a disciplined fiscal reset. New Zealanders are feeling squeezed, yet the state keeps growing, borrowing climbs, and the anvil of a bloated state sector remains the major drag on the economy. That is not sustainable.

A country addicted to fudge eventually gets sick. If we want real growth, real discipline and real prosperity for future generations, we must stop indulging in the illusion that the books can be balanced with clever branding and deferred decisions. The sooner the Government confronts the fiscal facts, the sooner New Zealand can get back on track.

Until then, we’ll keep calling out the fudge, one flavour at a time.

The Taxpayers’ Union has a website about its campaign, www.NicolasFudge.nz