Do we like Nicola Willis?
Our score: 5 out of 10. Middling: no harm to LGBTQ+ people found, but the women's pay and climate positions are real stains, and little real good turned up.
Willis grew up around politics, and her mother was a member of the press gallery. She worked in management at Fonterra before coming into Parliament in 2018 as a list MP when Steven Joyce retired. She became National's deputy leader in November 2021, after Christopher Luxon took over, and she's now Finance Minister.
The big stoush on her record is pay equity. In May 2025 her government changed the rules, and she said that freed up $12.8 billion over four years, redirected to frontline health and education. She said future settlements will only come where pay gaps are proven to stem from sex-based discrimination. Labour's Chris Hipkins said the money should be lifting women's pay, and the PSA's Fleur Fitzsimons called it the “wage theft Budget”.
On the planet, she has hedged. In December 2025 she said the government would make its “best efforts” on the 2030 emissions target but didn't want to “send cheques for billions of dollars offshore”. The Greens' Chlöe Swarbrick said you “cannot have it both ways” on the Paris commitment without paying for credits. Where you land depends on whether you read that as hard-headed budgeting or walking away from a promise.
On the harm test, we found nothing from her on trans or LGBTQ+ people one way or the other, and honestly that's thin. We couldn't open her voting record, so we can't say how she voted on rainbow issues. She says she's in the political centre and has been pro-choice on abortion and euthanasia. That's her own account and a clean enough start, but the asterisk comes from the women's pay and climate calls above.
Budget 2026, her third, came with a fresh round of criticism. Labour said the planned public service cuts would cost about 9,000 jobs and that there was no dedicated cost-of-living package. Swarbrick said it showed “no hope, no plan, no ambition and no vision for our country”. Te Pāti Māori said it was the least investment in Māori in 15 years. Willis's side would say it's the discipline needed to fix the books.
Her office was also pulled into a row this year. TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman allegedly directed a homophobic slur at a journalist at pre-Budget drinks in Willis's Beehive office in 2025. Sherman said she was responding to “deeply personal and inappropriate remarks” and apologised, then resigned in May 2026. Willis says she was out of the room, came back to hear offensive language and shut the event down. The allegation first appeared on a blog by Ani O'Brien.