Defence

New Zealand First is the only party who have committed new Defence spending. However, the total amount is unclear. TO be conservative, we have assumed a 10% increase in current spending levels (or $700m over three years).

Law, Order and Justice

Labour and New Zealand First have both committed to extra police numbers and funding. These are costed at $540m over three years.

ACT has promised to distribute future tobacco tax revenue hikes to Dairy owners for safety reasons. This will cost $513m over the next term.

National will put $62m into cracking down on meth and rehabilitation.

Legislative and Regulatory Reform

New Zealand First has proposed three referenda on the Maori Seats, Smacking, and reducing the number of MPs. This has been costed at $26m (the cost of the flag referendum).

TOP want to introduce an upper house into Parliament. To estimate the cost of operating an upper house we have used the current cost of running parliament as a baseline, which currently costs approximately $160m per year. Assuming some economies of scale and a crossover of operations, we have conservatively apportioned half of this cost, or $80 million per year, as the additional expenditure required to operate an upper house.

Other Central Govt. Administration

Labour’s living wage for public servants policy will cost $84m over three years (although this is a very conservative policy as does not account for an overall increase for all employees to retain current relativity).

The Green’s have proposed a $100m injection to repurpose KiwiBank. As well as a new ‘Policy Costings Unit’ within the Treasury, costing $1.5m per year and $2.5m in election years.

National has agreed in principle to a host of Treaty of Waitangi settlements. Including a $165m redress for Maniapoto, $100m for Whakatohea, $7.2m for The Runanga o Ngati Whatua and $18m for Moriori.