Finance Minister Nicola Willis during her presentation at the Budget 2025 lock-up. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Newly released documents show Finance Minister Nicola Willis wanted to keep her Budget 2025 lock-up more restricted than she suggested.
A week before this year’s Budget was released on May 22, Willis told the Herald she “directed” the Treasury to let more people into the lock-up, after she received complaints over access being more limited than in previous years.
“I wanted the lock-up to be opened up to more people, because I think that it’s good that they’re there,” Willis told the Herald on May 15.
“I had received feedback from a range of groups, who … explained to me that even though they don’t have market sensitive audiences – which is the normal range of people that are there at the lock-up – they appreciate the opportunity to digest the information and communicate it quickly and effectively to … the people that they represent.
“I recognise that that is a useful thing to do.”
An extra 30 people were added to the lock-up acceptance list, bringing it up to 153.
However, emails between Willis’s office and the Treasury, released under the Official Information Act, show Willis wanted the lock-up to be more restricted in the first place.
She wanted the Treasury to handle Budget 2025 in the same way it managed the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update (Hyefu) and Budget Policy Statement (BPS) lock-up in December 2024. That was despite the Treasury being criticised for restricting access to this event.
On November 4, Willis’ chief press secretary told a Treasury communications adviser that the minister’s office was happy for organisations that had previously attended the lock-up to be invited to the December briefing, “with the exception of Craig Renney, who fabricated a quote at the FSC [Financial Statements of the Government] lock-up”.
Renney – a director at the Council for Trade Unions with political aspirations – maintains the error was a mistake, not a fabrication, as the Herald reported in March.
Nonetheless, Willis’s press secretary went on to tell the Treasury adviser that it would be useful if invitees were told the lock-up was “not intended to provide them with the opportunity to advocate for their point of view with other attendees”.
The next day, the Treasury adviser emailed his colleagues, recommending a clause be added to the lock-up rules to restrict attendees from doing recorded interviews in the lock-up.
This would prevent media from broadcasting opinion and analysis of the financial documents straight after the lock-up, possibly giving the Government/Treasury more control over the way the information was presented in the initial instance.
He also recommended Renney be banned from lock-ups for three years.
The Treasury adviser’s colleagues immediately raised their concerns.
They noted Renney had not actually broken the lock-up rules.
“When Mr Rennie [sic] and the CTU kick up a fuss, we’re unnecessarily risking Treasury’s reputation on an issue that will likely look politically motivated on the part of MoF’s office,” an adviser warned.
She also took issue with the lock-up interview ban, suggesting it would be hard to enforce and would limit the time journalists had to get comment.
As it turned out, the lock-up rules weren’t changed and Renney wasn’t banned for the “fabrication”.
Rather, a decision was made to limit access to journalists and analysts from banks, economic and tax consultancies, accounting firms, professional services, and regulators.
This meant advocacy groups were barred.
Come 2025, preparations were under way for the Budget.
The Treasury’s Budget Governance Group acknowledged the high level of interest in the event. They proposed inviting a broader range of groups than those who attended the Hyefu/BPS lock-up, but leaving Willis to decide who – beyond the media and analysts – to accept.
On April 2, a Treasury communications adviser informed his colleagues Willis preferred taking the exact same approach as was used at Hyefu.
On April 30, another adviser briefed Treasury staff this would see 121 people accepted and 45 declined. Given the Banquet Hall has capacity for 160 people, she said the reduction would be noticeable.
She also said Willis’s office now wanted the final decision for who could and could not attend to sit with the Treasury.
The adviser said Willis’s office indicated the Treasury could reconsider some of the people who fell outside of its acceptance criteria.
She said Willis’s office was aware there would likely be “backlash” by those who had been able to attend lock-ups in the past.
It isn’t clear from the documents who ended up having the final say on attendees.
Nonetheless, on May 12, the Treasury sent out emails accepting/declining May 22 lock-up attendance requests.
The NZ Initiative kicked up a stink publicly for being declined while the Taxpayers’ Union threatened the Treasury with legal action.
By the evening of May 14, the Treasury made concessions, letting in representatives from the likes of the NZ Initiative, the Taxpayers’ Union, Business NZ, the NZ Banking Association, Chartered Accountants Australia NZ, Fonterra, and the NZ Nurses Organisation. The Council of Trade Unions only got its acceptance letter the following morning.
A spokesperson for the Treasury told the Herald, the change was made “in consultation with the Minister of Finance’s office”.
Meanwhile, Willis said, “I spoke to the Treasury secretary and I directed him that I wanted the lock-up to be opened up …
“In terms of Craig Renney, he’s invited to the lock-up and I look forward to seeing him there.”
Jenée Tibshraeny is the Herald‘s Wellington business editor, based in the parliamentary press gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.