Bribe-O-Meter Workings

Every policy in the Bribe-O-Meter falls into one of three buckets. Where a party has done its own costing that looks like it stacks up, we take them at their word. Where a party has announced a policy but not costed it, we've built one ourselves from publicly available data. And if a party's own numbers don't look believable, we publish our own instead.

Most policies fall into the first bucket. This page explains the rest.

Labour

  • Cap public transport fares, disputed. Labour costs this at $260 million. Using New Zealand Transport Agency farebox revenue and usage data, we cost this at the midpoint of $141,705,972 and $182,529,576 a year each year, for a four-year total of $648 million. More detail on these calculations can be found here. 
  • Reverse income related rent and accommodation supplement changes. Labour has booked these changes as a $73.4 million saving over the 2028-31 period, when in fact they are a $73.4 million cost. More information can be found here. NB: the $90m figure in the press release spans the 2027-2031 period.
  • Reinstate the Pay Equity Regime. Labour has pledged to reinstate Pay Equity but they have not provided a costing. We have costed this at $10.97 billion, using Treasury's own projected cost of pay equity. More detail can be found in Budget 2025 Summary of Initiatives on page 80.
  • Forego dividends to Future Fund. Labour has promised to put a number of Crown owned companies into a "Future Fund," with its dividends kept in the Fund to grow its size. They have also indicated an additional $200 million capital injection into the Fund. They have said that they will not release details about the Fund until after the election. We have used the Crown's stake and dividends of Mercury, Meridian, Air NZ and Transpower. We have used dividends from these companies to estimate a $2.78 billion cost.
  • Establish an Office of AI and AI online safety regulator within DIA. Labour has not provided a cost for this policy. We have costed the policy at $29.2 million over four years, using the annual $7.3 million expenditure of NetSafe, an organisation that has similar online safety functions. More information about NetSafe's total expenditure can be found on page 40. 
  • Make price gouging illegal. Labour have not provided a costing. We have assumed the cost will mirror Opportunity's similar plans to strengthen the Commerce Commission, and replicated their costings.
  • Make grocery prices fair. Using the 2025/26 cost of grocery regulation of $7.286m (the last year this was reported separately), we applied an uplift of the same percentage (29.4 percent) as the general Commerce Commission above. p. 37
  • Rainbow healthcare strategy. We adjusted the $4.698 million allocated to gender-affirming primary care and intersex health services in Budget 2022 for inflation. This gives a figure of $5.4 million.
  • Independent FENZ review. We have used this figure on the cost of the 2025 early childhood education funding review.
  • Firefighter ACC reforms. Costed at $26.7 million over four years. This assumes the expanded mental injury test results in new accepted claims equal to 1 percent of FENZ’s roughly 14,900 personnel each year, at an average cost of $44,735.44 per claim.
  • Progressively raising foreign aid towards 0.7 percent of Gross National Income. Labour has committed to 'progressively increase' aid 'towards 0.7% of GNI as fiscal conditions allow', with no rate or date specified. We have assumed a progressive linear rise from 0.27% of GNI (OECD, 2025 preliminary) to 0.7% by year four, applied to gross national income grown at an assumed 4% a year from $405.2bn (Stats NZ, year ended March 2024). Costed at $5.5bn, or $2,662 per household; the ongoing additional cost of raising the rate to 0.7% would be about $2.3bn a year by 2031. 
  • Lobbying register and donation restrictions. Opportunity's 'clean up politics' package is costed at $208 million over four years. Removing their costings for the anti-corruption body which forms part of the package gives a costing for lobbying and donation controls of $48 million over four years. This costing has been applied to Labour's policy.
  • School lunch reforms, disputed. Labour’s fiscal plan funds its return to locally made school lunches at $590.8 million, but only until 2030: $146.2 million in 2027/28, $295.4 million in 2028/29 and $149.2 million in 2029/30, with nothing in 2030/31. We have assumed the funding will continue into 2030/2031 at the 2029/2030 rate. This gives a four-year total of $740 million, or $357 per household.
  • ‘Fair Go’ consumer protection law. Labour has announced a new ‘Fair Go’ law but has not provided a cost. We have costed only the enforcement. In 2024/25, enforcing the Fair Trading Act and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act cost $20.33 million (p. 52). We have assumed that enforcing a Fair Go law would add 10 percent to that, or about $2 million a year, giving $8.1 million over four years. The true cost could be higher if the law creates new functions beyond enforcement.
  • Restore 43 rural school bus routes. Labour has said it will restore the routes National cancelled ‘where possible’, but has not provided a cost or timeframe. We have costed 43 routes at about $64,200 each a year, or $11.0 million over four years from 2027/28. This uses the Ministry of Education’s 2026/27 directly resourced bus rates (a base of $90.91 a day, $3.964 a km and $176 a quarter for admin, excluding GST), an average route of 30.68 km each way (p. 75), and 190 school days. 

National

  • 23 new trade missions. National has not provided a cost. We have costed $1.4 million using the midpoint cost of comparable 2024 trade delegations to China and Brazil. 
  • Queenstown Gondola solutions accessing NLTF funds. National has flagged this could draw on National Land Transport Fund money but they have not costed it. Based on a reported $400 million project cost, we've assumed 50 percent NLTF co-funding and costed this at $200 million.
  • MMP referendum. We have costed this policy on the price of the 2020 cannabis and euthanasia referendum totalling $12.9 million, before inflation-adjusting this figure. More information can be found in the Electoral Commission's 2021 Annual Report on page 22.

Greens

  • Tens of thousands of new public homes. The Greens have not provided a cost. We have costed this policy at $9.4 billion over four years. We have calculated this policy based on the number of houses that can be feasibly built each year. We have used Kainga Ora's Statement of Performance Expectations for 2026/27 on page 30. At an average cost of $720,000 per dwelling, 3264 dwellings each year, yields $2,350 million per annum, or $9.4 billion over four years. 
  • Certified Rental Warrant of Fitness. Built from the Greens' own Budget 2025 document on page 28.
  • EV subsidies. We have costed this policy at $337 million on the assumption of reintroducing the Clean Car Discount scheme under the previous Labour Government. More information can be found in Clean Car Discount scheme financial reports.
  • Free school lunches for all kids in all schools, disputed. The Greens cost this at $1.82 billion in their 2025 Budget document. Applying the same per-kid cost to the full national school kid population puts the real figure at $2.182 billion.
  • Free tertiary education up to first degree. The Greens have not provided a direct cost. We have costed $8 billion over four years, using 257,000 students at an average $8,000 tuition fee.
  • Student loan write-off over time. The Greens have not provided a cost. We have costed $16.222 billion, taken from the Student Loan Scheme's own 2024–25 outstanding balance as a one-off balance sheet impact. More information can be found on Inland Revenue's Annual Report 2024-25 on page 154.
  • Universal student allowance to cover basic needs. The Greens have not provided a figure. Our own estimate is $14.4 billion over four years. This calculation is based on the average per-recipient payment and typical historical participation. Universalising the allowance at the benchmark rate would cost $3.6 billion each year. 
  • Increase funds for Pharmac. The Greens have not provided a direct figure. We have costed $720 million over four years, assuming a 10 percent increase to the 2026/27 Medicines budget. More information about Pharmac's medicine budget can be found in Vote Health in Budget 2026 on page 3.
  • Increase benefits to "liveable rates." The Greens have not provided a figure. We have costed $27.604 billion over four years, using Welfare Advisory Group (WEAG) figures adjusted for inflation. More information can be found in the 2019 WEAG report.
  • Extend ACC to all injuries, disability and illness, regardless of origin, self-costed. No Green figure exists. Costed at $96 billion over four years, based on a 1988 Royal Commission on Social Policy estimate that such an extension would cost roughly four times the existing scheme. No such analysis has taken place since. The four times the existing cost has been carried forward. More information can be found in this report.
  • Work towards writing off MSD debt. The Greens have not provided a figure. We have estimated debt to be at least $1.37 billion across 449,733 people, using figures in MSD's Annual Report 2025. We calculated this by multiplying the average debt of $3,040 across 449,733 people with overpayment debt. 
  • Expand free apprenticeship programmes. The Greens have not provided a cost for this policy. We have costed $200 million over four years, based on an additional 20 percent of Budget 2026's apprenticeship allocation of $250 million. More information can be found in Budget 2026 Summary of Initiatives. 
  • Paid parental leave to 65 weeks. The Greens have not provided a cost for this policy. We have costed $6.6 billion over four years for an additional 39 week entitlement. We have based this on $811 per week for an average of 56,000 parents. 
  • Introduce a price on agricultural emissions. The Greens have not provided a figure. We have costed a figure close to $50 million each year, coming to $200 million over four years. This figure is based on a calculation derived from Horticulture New Zealand, with an operational cost of $48 to $53 million each year. 
  • Expand funding for Jobs for Nature. The Greens have not costed this policy. We have costed $1.25 billion on the assumption of reinstating the previous government's funding. More information can be found in this Official Information Act Request on page 7.
  • Restore the Ministry for the Environment. The Greens have not provided a direct figure for this policy. We have estimated a re-establishment cost of $90 million over four years. Taking an average of Treasury forecasts for MfE appropriations from 2025/26 to 2027/28 gives a yearly departmental output of $150m. Assuming rolling MfE into MCERT led to overhead savings of 10 percent - or $15m per year - unwinding these savings would therefore lead to additional fiscal costs of $15m per year. Add this to an assumed reestablishment cost of $30m, mirroring the MCERT establishment costs, gives a 4-year overall fiscal impact of $90m.
  • Increase funding for the EPA and community environment groups. The Greens have not provided a figure for this policy. We estimate $13.5 million over four years, using a conservative 10 percent uplift of the EPA's 2026/27 budget. More information can be found in Budget 2026 Vote Environment on page 107.
  • Public Service pay increase. The Greens have not provided a figure, despite this being the party's flagship public service commitment. We have costed a pay increase estimate of 10 percent at $15.52 billion over four years, by applying that percentage to the $38.8 billion public sector wage bill. More information can be found here from the Public Service Commission, under Personnel expenditure in Core Crown and Total Crown. 
  • Establish "KiwiMart" by forcing Foodstuffs and Woolworths to divest 120 stores. The Greens have costed this policy at $2.8 billion, with $1.3 billion to acquire the stores and distribution centres, and $1.5 billion to capitalise KiwiMart as an ongoing cost. We have calculated a $4.23 billion cost (adjusted to quarter two 2026 prices) for purchasing 120 divested stores (31% of locations), and additional warehouses, using the cost estimated by a MBIE study in 2022, on page 50. Consulting work done by Northelia, referenced by the Greens, notes that a new entity would have $700 million losses until it breaks-even, at a higher market share. This equals $87.5-140 million each year. We have used the midpoint of $113.75 million to derive an additional cost of $455 million over four years. In total, we have estimated an overall cost of $4.68 billion. 
  • Unoccupied commercial lease auctions. The direct cost to the crown of this policy has been assumed to just be the cost of the proposed tribunal. We took the $17.878 million cost of the tenancy tribunal, and assumed that the commercial tribunal would deal with only one tenth as many cases (at one tenth of the cost). pp. 41 and 66
  • Lobbying register and donation restrictions. Opportunity's 'clean up politics' package is costed at $208 million over four years. Removing their costings for the anti-corruption body which forms part of the package gives a costing for lobbying and donation controls of $48 million over four years. This costing has been applied to the Greens' policy.
  • Protect 30 percent of the Hauraki Gulf by 2030. The Greens have not provided a cost. We have costed this at $52.5 million over four years, scaling up the Department of Conservation’s $10.5 million funding to establish the current protected areas (about 6 percent of the Gulf) five times to reach 30 percent.
  • Regulate AI. The Greens’ AI policy sets five goals but gives no costing. We have costed it the same way as Labour’s Office of AI and online safety regulator, using NetSafe’s $7.3 million a year as a proxy, for $29.2 million over four years. This is our assumption. We would welcome more detail from the Greens.

NZ First

  • Buy back the BNZ, disputed. NZ First costs this "at least $7.5 billion." Using BNZ's net profit to September 2025 of $1.49 billion and National Australia Bank's valuation multiplier of 16.19, plus a 10 percent premium, we've costed it at $26.7 billion. Over three times NZ First's own number.
  • $1,000 KiwiSaver payment at birth. NZ First has not provided any cost. We have costed $240 million by using $1,000 multiplied by an estimated 60,000 births a year.
  • Separate the electricity retail and generation arms. New Zealand First has not provided any figure. We have used the 2011/12 Telecom/Chorus breakup cost as a suitable proxy, adjusted for inflation and doubled for added complexity, totalling $273 million.
  • Referendum on the Māori seats. There is no figure provided by NZ First. We have costed this policy on the price of the 2020 cannabis and euthanasia referendum totalling $12.9 million, before inflation-adjusting this figure. More information can be found in the Electoral Commission's 2021 Annual Report on page 22.
  • Increase KiwiSaver contributions from 3.5% to 8% (Government as employer cost). NZ First has not provided a cost. We have instead costed $6.3 billion over four years. We have calculated this policy based on the public sector's personnel wages found in the Financial Statements 2025. 
  • COVID vaccine inquiry. NZ First has not provided an associated figure with this inquiry. We have instead costed this on the average cost of phase 1 and phase 2 of the Royal Commission into the government's COVID response. More information on the Royal Commission's cost can be found here on page 10.
  • 10-Year welfare stand-down for visa holders. Using MSD OIA data on the number of recipients of each benefit by visa type, we excluded payments made to refugees and calculated the remaining overall cost. Special Needs Grants are recorded separately and were not included in this dataset. To estimate these costs, we used OIA data on 'special need' grants paid to non-citizens in Auckland and multiplied the figure by three to estimate the nationwide total, and added this to the earlier figure.
  • Make New Zealand Healthy. This policy package comprised 15 separate items, which were uncosted. We have broken down this policy as follows:

ACT

  • Baseline Pharmac budget increase. ACT gave a range, but not an exact figure. We've used the midpoint of ACT's own year-by-year numbers to land on $1.925 billion over the next four years. However, they have stated that this $1.925 billion is an increase as a portion of the health budget, meaning the net-cost would be zero. More information can be found in ACT's Pharmac policy document. 
  • Public Service consolidation. ACT’s plan proposes 19 departments and 18 ministers, with chief executives appointed and removed by ministers, but gives no separate cost or saving. It says only that consolidation will support the non-frontline cut, so we have assumed that the savings from this are found within the 'non-frontline cuts' budget line-item.
  • Ban on spiritual practices in the Public Service. ACT has not provided a saving for this policy, and it is not in the fiscal plan. Our earlier estimate, assuming 10 percent participation in practices such as waiata and karakia in the public service, was a saving of $14 million over four years. We have assumed it sits inside ACT’s non-frontline public service cut, so we count no separate amount.
  • Scrap the Zero Carbon Act. ACT has not provided a cost for this policy. The Climate Change Commission’s (CCC) functions would not be needed if the Act is repealed, which we previously costed as a saving of $59.2 million over four years. We have assumed this is part of the environmental savings (excluding the ETS) in ACT’s fiscal plan, so we count nothing separately here. ACT has not confirmed this. More information on the savings can be found in Budget 2026 Vote Environment on page 107.
  • Restore Industrial carbon assistance to 90%/60% rates. ACT has not provided a cost for this policy. We have costed this policy at $65 million over four years. Using current volumes, restoring EITE assistance from 85%/55% back to 90%/60% would add roughly 240,000–370,000 free units a year to industrial allocation, worth an estimated $12–20 million annually at a $50–55 carbon price (we have used the midpoint at $16.25 million each year, or $65 million over four years) — though this is a lower-bound, single-year snapshot: it excludes the compounding cost of freezing the 1% annual phase-down (which would keep widening the gap between ACT’s settings and the status quo each year) and the effect of the “up to 100% in exceptional cases” provision, which isn’t specific enough in the document to cost. More information on the current number of industrial units can be found here. This policy is not in ACT’s fiscal plan. There may be overlap if ACT’s ‘net’ carbon auction revenue is already net of this assistance.
  • One-stop consenting shop. ACT has not provided a cost for this policy, and it is not in the fiscal plan. We have assumed no net cost, on the basis that the new agency recovers its costs from applicants. However, part of the cost may shift from councils to the Crown.
  • Remove the ETS auction floor. Any extra revenue is given out through ACT’s carbon tax refund.

Opportunity Party

  • Make all public transport free. TOP costs this at $150 million a year. Actual NZTA fare revenue data puts the real figure at $324.5 million a year, more than double TOP's own number. More information can be found in State of Public Transport in New Zealand on page 9. 
  • Support growth in the number of te reo teachers. TOP has not provided a cost for this policy. We have costed this policy based on an additional $14.7 million allocated in Budget 2025 for 51,000 existing teachers to build their Te reo Māori knowledge and tikanga skills. More information can be found here. 
  • Reinstate the 2025 smokefree legislation. TOP has not provided an exact figure for reinstating this legislation. We have used Treasury's own calculation, reflecting the tobacco excise revenue Treasury expects to forgo due to this legislation, totalling $1.5 billion. More information can be found in this Official Information Act request from Treasury, dated February 2024.
  • Support offsite builders who take on apprentices. TOP has not provided a figure. We have costed $31.2 million over four years, doubling support of current offsite construction apprentice numbers of 1,300 learners in 2025. More information about the number of learners can be found here, and the figures on the apprenticeship scheme can be found here.
  • Support high-emitting sectors to reduce emissions and adapt. TOP has not provided a cost for this policy. We have costed this policy using the previous government's GIDI fund of $650 million over four years. More information can be found through the Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority. 
  • Citizens' Assembly. TOP has not provided a figure. We have costed this policy from a comparable Scottish assembly, adjusted to NZD. More information can be found in the Citizens' Assembly of Scotland costs and Ministerial Papers.
  • Parliamentary Commissioner for the Citizen Vote. TOP has not provided a figure. We have costed this policy at $1.6 million over four years, using the existing Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's remuneration for a comparable proxy, plus an additional 30 percent for support staff.
  • Establish an Industry Energy Resilience Fund (IERF). TOP has not provided a cost over the next four years, but has stated the fund would be capitalised by a $1 billion green bond raised against a conservative projection of ETS auction revenue. We have costed this policy over the next four years at $407 million, using projected ETS receipts over four years found in BEFU 2026 on page 93. 
  • Refund GST collected on construction to councils. Opportunity has not provided a cost for this policy. We have costed it at $15.9 billion over four years, using Inland Revenue data on the GST collected on construction activity, which comes to about $4.0 billion a year. We have assumed the refund applies to all of it, with no growth over the four years.
  • Reinstate the pay equity regime. Opportunity’s disability position statement gives no figure. We have costed this at $10.97 billion over four years, using Treasury’s projected cost of pay equity, as for Labour. More detail can be found in the Budget 2025 Summary of Initiatives on page 80.

Te Pāti Māori

  • Toi Māori authority at parity with Creative NZ. Te Pāti Māori has not provided a figure. We have costed it using Creative NZ’s 2025/26 budgeted total revenue of $70.8 million a year, $283.1 million over four years.
  • Toi Māori artists income programme. Te Pāti Māori has not provided a wage. We have costed 1,000 artists at a time, working 30 hours a week at the $23.95 adult minimum wage with no on-costs, running all four years, or $149.4 million.

Click here to return to the Bribe-O-Meter.