After Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP) and Finance Minister Riikka Purra (Finns) outlined the four-party coalition's legislative agenda in Parliament on Wednesday, opposition party leaders expressed a lack of confidence in the government.
Former PM Sanna Marin's Social Democratic Party (SDP) is the largest opposition bloc, with 43 seats in the 200-member Parliament. Leading its charge against the new cabinet was parliamentary group leader Antti Lindtman, who is seen as the frontrunner to succeed Marin as party chair in September.
"The NCP wants to cut benefits for low-income earners. The government is taking more than 600 euros from an average low-income single-parent family in Helsinki. Hundreds of euros will be deducted from wage-earners who lose their jobs. This doesn't work for us," he said.
According to Lindtman, under the cabinet's plans, low-income earners will face cuts while high-income earners gain tax benefits.
"Is this government the government of a strong and caring Finland? Or does it only care about the strong? In this government programme, the language harkens back to a time when the service people knew their place and understood that they should stay in the kitchen," he said.
Lindtman said that he has not found a single measure in the programme that would distribute the burden of balancing the economy to those in PM Orpo's personal income bracket.
He also attacked Finns Party, saying sarcastically that "the Finnish record for being a turncoat, held by [ex-Finns Party chair] Timo Soini since 2015, pales in comparison to the way Purra's Finns Party has betrayed the Finnish people."
Lindtman, whose party has close ties to the trade union movement, also ripped the government's planned labour market reforms, including plans to make it easier for employers to dismiss workers.
Saarikko: "A Finland that cares for the strong"
Annika Saarikko, whose Centre is the second-largest opposition party, promised to engage in constructive opposition politics.
"We are monitoring the implementation of the government programme with a magnifying glass. You can be absolutely sure of that," she said.
Saarikko said she agrees that the economy needs to be fixed. The Centre accepts that cuts are necessary, but not that at the same time the government feels it's right to favour high earners with tax cuts, she said.
"The title of the government programme is 'a strong and caring Finland'. A more correct name would have been 'a Finland that cares for the strong,'" she asserted.
She also criticised cuts to health and social services and education. Saarikko focused her criticism on the Finns Party, accusing it of giving to the NCP.
Virta: "Inhumane and economically stupid"
The newly elected chair of the third-largest opposition party, the Greens, Sofia Virta, especially criticised the government over its immigration and climate policies, slamming them as "inhumane and economically stupid".
A decision to only care about the strong does not make Finland strong," she argued.
She also took issue with education cuts and wondered about campaign promises that education would not be cut. Virta said that there should have been cuts in business subsidies as well.
The Greens, however, praised some decisions regarding mental health services for young people, increasing the number of police officers, and presenting a new version of the Sámi Parliament law after last year's bid to boost indigenous self-determination rights stalled in a parliamentary committee.
Andersson: "Drastic and brutal"
According to Li Andersson, chair of the Left Alliance, the government programme will make conditions for low-income workers miserable while the rich receive tax subsidies.
"We could have expected the NCP's strong handprint, but not that the cuts to social security would be so drastic and so brutal," Andersson said. Andersson alleged that the government platform will boost inequality and undermine workers' rights.
"This government's policy is not about balancing public finances, but about redistributing income between the rich and the poor," she charged.