Nicola Willis launches early election attack on Labour with ‘hidden bill’ claim
Sunday, 14 June 2026
Finance Minister Nicola Willis is trying to force the Labour Party to confirm and justify its spending plans, producing a National Party document purporting to show billions in revenue shortfall.
In a Sunday afternoon press conference that pressed the starter gun on the informal election campaign, Willis, speaking in her capacity as National’s finance spokesperson, lashed Labour leader Chris Hipkins for speaking out of both side of his mouth, and volunteered to lend Labour transport spokesperson Tangi Utikere a calculator to properly work out the cost of its new public transport policy announced last week.
The document ‒ titled “Labour’s hidden bill” ‒ detailed an alleged $18.2 billion gap the National Party estimated between what it called Labour’s spending “intentions” and its planned increase in revenue.
In response, Labour finance and economy spokesperson Barbara Edmonds was dismissive of Willis, saying the document was “as desperate as it gets”.
Read more:
The battle for rural New Zealand: Is National under pressure?
Labour fare cap: The five public transport trips where travellers would gain the most
“National wouldn’t be attacking Labour’s plans if they weren’t worried about their own,” Edmonds said.
Willis said the estimate was “conservative”, though it included a number of policy areas where Labour has not yet produced specific plans ‒ such as nearly $11b to reinstate the former pay equity regime ‒ and areas where Labour has not committed to spending any money, such as $2.7b to reverse the public sector job cuts and $542 million to reverse changes made to income-related rent subsidies.
Some of the spending intentions were based on broad Labour statements disagreeing with Government policy, not based on proposing its own.
Nevertheless, according to Willis’ assumptions, Labour’s spending intentions added up to $21b across the next four years, while its announced capital gains tax (CGT) collected $2.8b over the same period, to give a net figure of $18.2b.
The spending also included $2.78b to forego dividends of companies in Labour’s proposed new Future Fund, $427m to return to locally made school lunches and $3.29b to give out three free GP visits and make cervical screening free. Labour has not said which state-owned enterprises might be in its Future Fund so Willis selected some of the best performing ones.
Willis said Labour’s announcement last week to introduce public transport fare cap, which would cost $260m over four years, proved the persistence of its “cavalier approach” to the public purse.
Willis said the document included items Labour had campaigned on and “if they’re not going to put their dollars where their mouth is, the time to say that is now”.
Labour has so far been tight-lipped on any promises to reverse Government’s spending decisions, with only two real spending commitments made so far: its health policy to give three free GP visits to New Zealanders and introducing a fare cap of $20 a week for public transport in main centres and $10 everywhere else.
Labour has been critical of the savings made last year from tightening the pay equity regime but has so far refused any promises to fully reinstate it.
Willis used the occasion to question how the party would afford the spend, saying Labour would have to turn to a tax relief reversal, expanding its capital gains tax to target farm listed shares and other business assets or scrapping the investment boost.
Edmonds said Labour would release a fully costed fiscal plan later this year so New Zealanders could see “exactly how its priorities stack up and how they will be paid for”.
“It’s disappointing to see Nicola Willis continue to politicise paying women properly, when she was one of the loudest in support of the Bill passing under Labour, when it was politically convenient.
“Labour has been upfront that we will introduce a simple CGT that nine out of 10 New Zealanders won’t pay.”
The document included other National policies that Labour had criticised but were not costed in, on the assumption Labour “won’t actually put money to their fiery words” to reinstate the third year of Fees Free for university students or restore benefit increases to align with wage growth rather than inflation