National Party cost breakdown

The National Party has announced $1.9 billion in new spending over the next four years. This is equivalent to $936 per household.

Social spending

The bulk of this is family and retirement policy. National's Baby Boost, a $1,500 payment based on 60,000 births a year, is costed at $360 million over four years, taking National's own costings at face value.

A parental leave top-up adds $109.3 million, and extending paid parental leave from 26 to 30 weeks a further $327.4 million.

On KiwiSaver, National would lift the Government's own contribution ($385.2 million), extend KiwiSaver to those on parental leave ($121.9 million), and increase the Crown's KiwiSaver cost as an employer ($282.8 million). All of these figures are taken from National's own costings.

On health, National's only new spending is $70 million over four years to finish the fit-out of Christchurch Hospital with 96 new beds, again using National's own estimate.

Economic development

National's economic development commitments are smaller and mostly transport-related. A new Rolleston intermodal freight hub is costed at $50 million, and a four-lane Queenstown road at $25 million, both taken from National's own figures.

The party has also flagged that Queenstown Gondola solutions could draw on National Land Transport Fund money. Based on a reported $400 million project cost and an assumption that half of that would come from the NLTF, we've costed this at $200 million.

Other commitments

National's Home Energy Fund, providing low-rate loans for solar, is costed at $7 million as a one-off Crown equity investment.

Twenty-three new trade missions over the term are costed at $1.4 million, using the midpoint of the cost of comparable China and Brazil trade delegations.

Note on baseline spending: This total does not include commitments National has said are already provided for in Budget 2026. This covers 100 new classrooms and the redevelopment of 14 schools in the South Island, and the completion of the new police station in Greymouth. As these are treated as baseline spending rather than new commitments, they have not been included in the total above.

(t) policies where we’ve taken parties’ costings at face value. 
(o) uncosted policies that we have had to cost ourselves.
(d) policies where we have disputed parties’ own costings.