Workers First Union

💲"Misery Budget 2026: a crumbling house with a fresh coat of paint" 📉

Our press release:

Today’s Budget 2026 is a "misery Budget", according to Workers First Union, with students, women, public servants, people with disabilities and our natural environment paying for the Government’s election-year desperation just to maintain the status quo.

"This is an austerity Budget from an austerity Government, and it does not meaningfully address any of the challenges ahead of us - it’s just about keeping New Zealand on life support," said Dennis Maga, Workers First General Secretary.

Mr Maga said that cuts to fees-free study and tertiary subsidies, the loss of thousands of public servants’ jobs, rent hikes for social housing tenants, the ongoing denial of pay equity for women, and cuts to transport subsidies for disabled people showed that the Government was making New Zealanders pay for their economic mismanagement and inability to create a fairer tax system.

"Any projected surplus will be built from the misery of those who can’t afford to sacrifice any more during a cost-of-living crisis that this Government fuels and maintains," said Mr Maga.

"They’re like dodgy landlords who add a fresh coat of paint and a second-hand grey carpet onto a mouldy, crumbling house whose foundations are slipping off the edge of a cliff."

"Meanwhile, we’re all paying for MPs to take accommodation supplements for their second houses and funding more military, prisons and roads."

"Additional funding for health and education is not enough, is too late, and comes after years of deliberate underfunding."

Mr Maga said that even new ambulance funding announced by the Government on Friday last week masked an urgent crisis in emergency services and was not a sufficient or serious solution.

Workers First and CICTAR’s new "Emergency!" ambulance report highlighted that fully funding New Zealand’s ambulance services would cost at least $50 million per year at current service levels, and even halving the vast Trans-Tasman pay gap for ambulance officers would cost at least another $69 million per year. Instead, Budget 2026 confirms an extra $8.75 million per year over four years following a rushed pre-announcement that hides the true reality of the problems our emergency services must urgently confront.

"Luxon, Peters, Willis and Seymour lead a government that is hallucinating as badly as the AI tools they intend to replace 9,000 public servants with," said Mr Maga.
"We desperately need the Opposition to now step up and show us that there is a better way, or New Zealand’s downward spiral will accelerate."

Value our Skills - Save the Mills!
This Saturday (23 May), we're hosting a public meeting in Kaitāia about the future of the two JNL mills that are currently for sale and could be closed if no buyer is found.
Come along to hear more, share your views and join the fight to save a crucial part of Kaitāia's economy and 200 skilled wood-working jobs.
We've lost six wood processing facilities in the last two years as a country, and we can't afford to lose more.
Nau mai, haere mai, piki mai, kake mai.
See the Facebook event in the comments for more details.

We're still buzzing from May Day.

This month's stats may show that the coalition Government has been bought with (oops, we mean "donated") over $1 billion* from wealthy donors to fund this election, so far...

But NZ workers are STRONG. We can't be bought and sold. Ask your friends and whānau to enrol and check their enrolment details RIGHT NOW, and let's absolutely smash this election.

*Compared to ~$250 million for opposition parties.
Source: Newsroom "The latest charts and data on Election 2026", 2026-05-01