The ACT Party says it will freeze the adult minimum wage for three years and establish a lower training wage for workers under the age of 20 if re-elected to government.
Leader David Seymour announced the party’s small business policy on Tuesday, saying it was committed to “going further to cut costs” placed on businesses.
“For too long, New Zealand politics has been trapped in zero-sum thinking,” Seymour said. “When a business succeeds, someone else must have lost. When a company makes a profit, politicians look for a way to tax it, regulate it, break it up, or cut it down.”
Under ACT’s policy, the adult minimum wage will be frozen for three years, while a training wage would be set at 60% of the adult minimum wage for workers under 20 and available for their first 12 months with any employer.
In its policy document, ACT said a three-year freeze on the minimum wage would “give productivity and market wages time to catch up, while giving businesses certainty over one of their largest costs”.
“Wages can sustainably rise when workers become more productive and businesses can afford to pay more. But New Zealand’s productivity performance has been weak while Governments have continued increasing the cost of employing people regardless,” the party said.
Currently, the minimum wage is $23.95 per hour, up from $20 per hour in 2021.
The minimum wage rose 20 cents per hour in 2022, $1.50 in 2023, 45 cents in 2024, 35 cents in 2025, and 45 cents in 2026.
In setting the training...
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