ACT Party leader David Seymour has accused the Green Party of proposing an economically reckless budget that would burden future generations with unsustainable debt and aggressive tax hikes.
Slamming the Greens’ newly released “Green Budget,” Seymour said it was “fiscal fantasyland that made a strong case for teaching financial literacy in schools.”
“The Greens want to blow out national debt to 54 percent of GDP,” Seymour said. “Anyone with a mortgage understands that when you’re deep in debt, you spend so much on interest that you can’t cover the essentials. We’re already burning through nearly $9 billion a year just to service government debt — and now they want to add another $40 billion.”
Seymour warned that the cost of the Greens’ promises would fall on the shoulders of young New Zealanders, “children that aren’t even born yet,” and pointed to tax increases targeting income earners, asset holders, and business owners as further signs the plan is out of touch with economic reality.
“Anyone with the financial sense the Greens lack would simply take their career, their business, and their money overseas,” he said. “This isn’t policy — it’s punishment for success, wrapped in fantasy.”
He dismissed the Greens’ proposal to tax private jets as symbolic theatre, saying it reflected an “eat-the-rich” mentality that offers no serious plan for growing New Zealand’s economy. “They want to divide what we already have, rather than generate more. It all adds up to a poorer, more miserable New Zealand.”
While ACT painted the plan as economically disastrous, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the current model of public funding had failed families and communities, especially in areas like early childhood education and healthcare. Under the party’s plan, ECE fees would be capped at $10 a day initially, with full free early childhood education delivered by 2029.
To pay for the reen’s Budget, the party would include a wealth tax, a private jet tax, end interest deductibility for landlords, restore the 10 year ‘bright-line’ test, double minerals royalties and changes to ACC levies.
The plan would see net debt climb from 45 percent of GDP to above 53 percent by the 2028/29 financial year.
Davidson said too much taxpayer money had gone into subsidising for-profit providers, while families continued to pay exorbitant fees and teachers were underpaid. “This is what ECE can look like when we put our kids first and push aside corporate greed,” she said.
In healthcare, the Greens are proposing to make GP and nurse visits free for all New Zealanders, starting with the areas of highest need.
Davidson argued that successive governments had allowed the primary care system to deteriorate, with thousands of people now unable to afford basic care and hospitals overwhelmed as a result.
She said the plan would create new public clinics, grow the health workforce, and fund mobile health units to reach rural and underserved communities. “Healthcare isn’t a luxury — it’s a human right,” she said. “No one should have to choose between getting help and paying the bills.”
The Budget also includes sweeping commitments to Māori-led solutions, including a revival of the Māori Health Authority, land return policies, kaupapa Māori suicide prevention, and affordable housing built on whenua Māori.
Green MP Hūhana Lyndon said the plan stood in direct opposition to what she called the current Government’s “relentless undoing” of Māori progress. “Te Tiriti o Waitangi isn’t just a document — it’s a promise of protection, of partnership, and of justice. That’s what we’re standing for,” she said.
