Taxpayers’ Union launch ‘fudge’ campaign against Nicola Willis - and say she is trying to get out of debate
Thursday, 11 December 2025
A right-wing lobby group is accusing Finance Minister Nicola Willis of ‘fudging’ promises to get public spending down - and trying to welch on an offer to debate.
The fracas between Willis and the Taxpayers’ Union reached new heights on Thursday as the lobby group sent out branded fudge to newsrooms around the country, released an opinion piece in The Post, and launched an AI-generated ad of Willis.
As this campaign was foreshadowed earlier this week, Willis challenged the chair of the group - former finance minister Ruth Richardson - to debate her in public, rather than “lurking in the shadows”.
Read more:
It’s happening - Ruth Richardson accepts Nicola Willis debate challenge
The Taxpayers’ Union and the Finance Minister’s ‘fudge’
Richardson accepted the offer to debate, but the Taxpayers’ Union is now accusing Willis of trying to get out of that too - a claim Willis rejects.
Meanwhile the head of one of New Zealand’s largest unions say the entire fight is a “false flag” to make Willis look more moderate than she is.
Fudge a ‘silly stunt’
The fudge has six “flavours”, such as “bureaucrat brittle” or “GDP crumble” - each taking aim at Willis and the Government’s spending.
Richardson said the campaign was about calling out the fiscal elephants in the room.
Where Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had condemned the previous Government’s “sugar-rush economics”, this Government had “reached for the same lolly jar”.
“Government spending has actually increased – both in real terms and as a proportion of the economy – since Grant Robertson left office.”
“Similarly, much mooted ‘savings’ by Nicola Willis have simply shifted spending, not reduced it.”
“The irony of Nicola’s Fudge is that the Government is getting all the political cost of perceived austerity, while none of the economic upsides of actually following through on a proper exercise of fiscal discipline.”
“We know that some of our friends in Parliament will be upset about Nicola’s Fudge. But sweet talk doesn’t fix structural deficits.”
In response Willis said she was not going to comment on silly stunts and wanted a debate on the substantive policy issues.
“The Government is getting the books back in order. Last year, debt as a percentage of GDP remained level for the first time in six years. Spending as a percentage of GDP fell. Our fiscal strategy will return the books to surplus and bend the debt curve down, she said.
Debate date unclear
Willis challenged Richardson to a debate on Tuesday “any time any place”.
Richardson, the chair of the Taxpayers’ Union, undertook ruthless cuts to Government spending in the early 1990s.
“Instead of lurking in the shadows with secretly funded ads in the paper, come and debate me right here in Parliament,” Willis said.
“What I want is a straight up, honest debate to really analyse some of the claims that she and her associates are making, to argue about actually what the impact of some of the things that she is calling for would be on everyday New Zealanders and their families, to test what her tolerance for human misery is.”
Richardson initially turned the opportunity to debate down, saying she wasn’t interested in “pistols at dawn” with Willis.
She later accepted, saying she was keen to debate Willis after the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) next Tuesday.
But now Taxpayers’ Union boss Jordan Williams say Willis has not lived up to her “any time, any place” promise.
“The Finance Minister challenged the Taxpayers’ Union Chair to a debate ‘any time, any place’. Ruth’s made her pick - it’s now for Willis to stick to her commitments,” Williams said.
'Ruth says 'bring it on'. Newstalk ZB are offering to host a live-streamed videoed debate in their Auckland studio next week. Don't fudge this too, Minister.”
A spokesman for Willis said the Minister was not trying to dodge anything, but was keen to sort something out that worked for “all media”.
Union boss says fight is ‘false flag’
Fleur Fitzsimons, national secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi called the whole campaign a “shameless right wing stunt”.
“Promoting this with expensive boxes of fudge is a deliberate false-flag operation to make Willis seem more moderate than she really is.
She said the group would have done more good by donating the cost of the fudge to food banks “where the pain of the Government’s austerity drive is being felt”.
She said Willis “is no moderate” and her decisions had put strain on households and the health system.