The National Party has unveiled a plan to support small businesses by cutting compliance costs.

Announcing the 47-point plan in Auckland on Wednesday morning, spokesperson Cameron Brewer said the plan was focused on practical changes that would give business owners their time back "whether that is helping them through their first hire, resolving employment disputes faster, or letting them update core business information once instead of repeating it across government".

THE PLAN 

1. Introduce a First Employee Support Package with practical first-year guidance and reduced penalties for genuine administrative mistakes.

2. Make repeat seasonal hiring easier with a standard recurring seasonal agreement and shorter renewal process, while retaining the requirement for a genuine seasonal reason.

3. Make apprenticeship record-keeping simpler with consistent digital competency records and electronic sign-off; and

4. Deliver the transition to the new employment leave system with early guidance, worked payroll examples and coordinated implementation support.

5. Review the compulsory GST registration threshold, examining options to reduce compliance and remove barriers to small-business growth.

6. Keep Investment Boost, retaining the immediate 20 per cent deduction for eligible productive assets of any value and businesses of every size.

7. Develop a fast-track process for suitable minor employment disputes, through a simplified Employment Relations Authority pathway, with clear eligibility, proportionate procedures, firm decision timeframes and fair-hearing safeguards.

8. Make better use of mediation to resolve minor disputes early, including requiring mediator recommendations and available binding options to be clearly explained and offered in suitable cases.

9. Require Employment Relations Authority determinations within one month of the investigation meeting or final submissions, and track delays across the full process from filing to decision.

10. Require the Authority to record oral evidence so it can be reused where lawful and fair, reducing unnecessary repetition.

11. Strengthen the Employment Relations Authority's powers to keep cases moving, and deal with unnecessary procedural delays.

12. Review the Employment Relations Authority's enforcement powers, including whether it should be able to enforce more of its own orders without requiring parties to begin avoidable proceedings in another court.

13. Introduce proportionate regulation of paid employment advocates, covering conduct, competence, transparent fees and complaints.

14. Require a minimum level of employee support before new collective bargaining can begin, proposing a threshold of the lesser of 10 employees or 20 per cent of those proposed to be covered, with a minimum of two employees, and consulting on its implementation.

15. Create a clearer early process for resolving disputed employment status under section 6, consistent with the contractor gateway.

16. Prepare and introduce an Employment Relations Consolidation Bill in the next term to simplify the legislative framework; and

17. Rewrite priority health and safety codes and guidance in plain English, with practical examples for small businesses.

18. Build a Tell Government Once service around the NZBN, so core business information can be updated once and shared across participating agencies and councils.

19. Make business renewals simpler and better coordinated by aligning renewal dates where practical and introducing automatic or simplified renewals for suitable low-risk businesses with strong compliance records.

20. Implement the announced alcohol-licensing reforms to simplify applications and renewals, extend suitable renewal periods and reform fees.

21. Allow eligible chartered accountants to administer statutory declarations, making it easier for small businesses to complete official paperwork through a trusted professional they already use.

22. Remove unjustified paper-retention requirements and publish consistent guidance on accepting lawful electronic records and evidence.

23. Modernise remaining licence and vehicle information display rules where accessible digital alternatives preserve consumer and enforcement access.

24. Replace unnecessary compulsory newspaper notices with searchable online publication and appropriate community notification.

25. Remove obsolete fax, telex and paper requirements that impose a real compliance burden; and

26. Publish clearer small-business guidance on fire evacuation requirements, approved schemes and available templates.

27. Build on the Government's prompt-payment reforms by holding agencies to account for low performance, tackling persistent delays and enforcing fair payment terms through procurement supply chains.

28. Complete the industry-led prompt-payment programme and expand eInvoicing with BusinessNZ, accounting providers and business organisations.

29. Keep driving down payment costs by improving fee transparency, monitoring whether regulated savings reach businesses and supporting further evidence-based reductions.

30. Complete the rollout of modern business payments, including regulated open banking and the Reserve Bank's payments modernisation programme.

31. Progress Dan Bidois' motor-vehicle repair information reform to give independent workshops better access to manufacturers' information; and

32. Deliver the Government's expanded AI support for small businesses, including the AI Advisory Pilot.

33. Deliver the replacement planning system with consistent national rules, fewer unnecessary consents and practical support through the transition.

34. Deliver building-consent reforms that enable greater consolidation of consenting functions and more consistent decisions.

35. Cut Project Information Memorandum processing times from 20 to 10 working days as part of the building-system reforms.

36. Deliver proportionate building liability, backed by professional indemnity insurance and home warranties.

37. Require regulators to reuse current, relevant certified engineering and geotechnical reports where they remain fit for purpose.

38. Continue expanding recognition of trusted overseas building products and standards that meet New Zealand's requirements.

39. Deliver capital-market reforms to make it easier for growing businesses to raise equity and debt; and

40. Use Invest New Zealand to connect productive businesses with international investment, skills and commercial partners.

41. Establish the Next 200 programme, providing intensive NZTE support for 200 high-potential small and medium-sized exporters.

42. Create an AI-powered export navigator covering tariffs, rules of origin and market-access requirements, linked to official information and specialist support.

43. Expand paperless trade and digital certification, including pursuing real-time electronic certification with close trading partners.

44. Create a trusted-exporter fast lane through the Secure Exports Scheme, making it easier for eligible smaller firms to participate and reducing duplicated documentation.

45. Remove a further $1 billion in non-tariff barriers by 2030, prioritising restrictions identified with New Zealand exporters.

46. Open more markets for small businesses by helping firms use the India and Gulf agreements, pursuing the next group of priority markets, and expanding digital and services trade arrangements; and

47. Strengthen New Zealand's trade resilience by pursuing essential-supplies agreements that help businesses maintain access to critical goods during disruption.

Asked at the announcement why National is only planning to review the $60,000 compulsory GST threshold, when Labour is proposing to change it by 2028, Finance spokesperson Nicola Willis said that is because it needs to be funded.

The party's 47-point plan for small businesses would all come from within agency baselines.

"You don't always need to spend other people's money to make a difference,” she said.

Pressed about how additional workload for the Employment Relations Authority would be supported, Louise Upston said greater use of mediation should help forestall claims reaching the ERA in the first place.

National’s leader eader Christopher Luxon said a $150,000 project like the former road cone hotline is "quite manageable within baseline, so let's not get too worked up about that".

 

 

 

 

 

 

This story was first published on rnz.co.nz