Budget 2025
Key items – Budget 2025
Budget 2025 contains significant investment in our core institutions – courts, the justice system, and the electoral system.
Investing in the court and justice system
A total investment of $245.5 million over 4 years to address pressures in the courts and legal aid, increase judicial capacity and ensure cases can be progressed in a timely way.
This funding will ensure court users receive appropriate support, and the judiciary has sufficient information to proceed with cases through, for example, specialist reports and other court-ordered services.
Funding for the legal aid system will address pressures for this service, which is critical to the effective operation of the courts and for providing access to justice.
Additional funding provided through Budget 2025 will allow the appointment 2 new permanent High Court judges, additional community magistrates and a Chief Community Magistrate to assist with court timeliness.
Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill
An omnibus bill, the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill, contains a number of changes to improve court timeliness by maximising judicial resources. These include:
Amendments to the Senior Courts Act 2016 to:
- allow the appointment of 2 permanent High Court judges.
- address civil proceedings, applications and appeals that are an abuse of court process, and vexatious litigants, by enabling a single senior court judge to strike out such proceedings without holding a hearing, and enabling a person who has had two proceedings struck out within two years to be restrained from continuing or commencing proceedings without the leave of the court, for a 3-year period.
Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 to:
- enable improvements to the management of District Court cases at the pre-trial stage, and
- reduce the workload of the Court of Appeal by allowing first appeals in criminal trials to be referred to the High Court where appropriate.
- Amendments to the Coroners Act 2006 to enable coroners to close inquiries when new information, or a change in circumstances, mean it is no longer appropriate to conduct the inquiry.
These legislative changes will help improve timeliness across the court system.
These changes will reduce duplication and unnecessary churn and deliver efficiencies across the system.
Importantly, these changes will benefit other court users – defendants, victims, witnesses, whānau and bereaved families will get closure more quickly so they can move on with their lives.
They will also reduce stress and costs for people associated with defending meritless litigation.
Strengthening the electoral system
Budget 2025 provides a total of $80.6 million over 4 years to improve and modernise election processes, enrolment, and communications. Of this total figure, $18.7 million for improvements to electoral system performance has been placed in a tagged contingency.
This package will support the successful delivery of the General Election 2026, provide more efficient services for voters, and improve and modernise our election processes.
The investment will increase the Electoral Commission’s use of digital technology and will allow key administrative processes to be automated over time.
It will also help uplift electoral system performance in response to the Office of the Auditor General’s independent review of counting errors in the General Election 2023.
Four year parliamentary term referendum
Budget 2025 provides $25 million for the operational costs of the four-year term of Parliament referendum, should it be required. It is important to note that a decision on whether a referendum will progress is yet to be made.
Legislation to enable a four-year term of Parliament subject to a referendum passed first reading in Parliament in March. The bill is now being considered by the Justice Committee.
Return of Tagged Contingency Funding for Te Ao Mārama programme
This initiative will see $32.1 million of tagged contingency funding for the expansion of Te Ao Mārama programme returned.
This does not affect the implementation of Te Ao Mārama in the 8 existing Mārama sites.
An evaluation of Te Ao Mārama has begun and is due to be completed in 2026.
For full details of all Budget 2025 initiatives, including savings go here.(external link)
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