When National came to power in the , Richardson had enough support within the party to be made Minister of Finance, a role Bolger would rather have given to Bill Birch. Many people believed that the National Party would adopt more cautious, conservative policies than the radical Labour government. On coming to office, however, the new Government was confronted with a much worse fiscal and economic position than the out-going Government had disclosed. In particular, the state-owned Bank of New Zealand required a multimillion-dollar recapitalization. The forecast budget surplus was quickly revised, upon National coming into office, to a large budget deficit. In response, the new government announced significant cuts to social welfare benefits, and reneged on National's 1990 election promise to remove the tax surcharge on superannuation (and even increased the rate of the surcharge from 20 to 25 per