Kia ora koutou katoa

Greetings fellow members of this great National Party. How good is it to be in Government?

To be delivering on the commitments we made to New Zealanders, to be rebuilding this economy of ours, to be turning this country around?

How good is it to have 49 National Party Members of Parliament? Working so hard to represent electorates from Northland to Southland and just about everywhere in between, and to have so many of them delivering for New Zealand as Ministers in our Government?

How good is it to have a National Party Prime Minister? Here’s to the Right Honourable Chris Luxon. We acknowledge you our Prime Minister: and we thank you, for your boundless energy, optimism and drive. For delivering the strong, decisive leadership our country needs.

My fellow members, these good things have been made possible by all of you.

I acknowledge our exceptional Party President, Sylvia Wood. Our Board. Our outstanding Ministers. Our stunning Members of Parliament – including 20 who entered Parliament in 2024 for the first time. Each of you new MPs, please stand up.

In my view, this is the most talented cohort of new MPs that has ever entered our Parliament. And let’s acknowledge every brave candidate who stood for election and gathered the Party Votes that decide elections. Our electorate chairs and committee members. Our Young Nats. Our Super Blues. Our Chinese Group. Our Indo Nats. Our Korean Group. Our Pinoys. Our rural nats. Our Bluegreens.

I acknowledge every National Party member and supporter who made our 2023 election victory possible.

Your ideas. Your leaflet deliveries. Your feedback. Your fundraising events. Your hoarding construction. Your sign-waving. Your encouragement. Your values and your belief.

Together we went out and won the election!

New Zealanders voted for us for many reasons, but if you ask me the number one reason they voted for National was this: they wanted a Government that would rebuild our damaged economy and put an end to the cost of living crisis.

A year ago at our Party Conference in Wellington I set out our plans for doing just that.

In our first seven months in Government we’ve turned that plan into action.

This week, for the first time in 14 years, New Zealanders got tax relief.

We promised you that a National Government would let Kiwi workers keep more of what they earn and we have delivered.

We promised you we’d fund tax relief responsibly and we delivered: fully-funding every dollar of tax relief through savings, new revenue measures and reprioritisation.

We’ve delivered for 3.5 million Kiwis who are now able to keep more of what they earn.

We’ve delivered for working people, with an average income household better off by around $102 per fortnight

We’ve delivered for full-time minimum wage workers, who instead of paying 30 cents of tax in the dollar for extra hours worked will now pay 17.5 cents in that dollar.

And we’ve delivered for families with children, who on top of their tax reduction will get back a Family Boost payment of up to $150 per fortnight to help pay their early childhood education fees.

That’s not all.

We’ve removed a host of other unfair taxes introduced by the Labour Government.

No more ute tax. It’s gone.

No more Auckland Regional Fuel Tax. It’s gone too.

No more Agriculture in the Emissions Trading Scheme. We’ve taken it out.

And we’ve put a stop to the war on landlords, bringing the brightline test back to two years and treating the interest costs of rental properties the same way as for every other business.

National has proven we are the Party of lower taxes.

Labour had six years to lower tax and they never never did.

In opposition, they have voted against every measure of tax relief we’ve introduced.

They simply cannot bring themselves to support relief for hardworking taxpayers.

It’s shocking really: despite serving up a cost of living crisis that’s punished working people, every Labour MP voted against giving New Zealanders the cost of living relief they so clearly need.

Well, here in the National Party we stand with working people, we trust them with their own wages and we back them to get ahead: This is the Party of the worker.

My fellow members, our Party has restored discipline to Government spending.

We’ve acted swiftly to root-out waste, reduce bureaucracy and move resources from the back-office to the front line. National Party Ministers have taken extremely seriously their obligation to be good custodians of public money. Every Minister has gone line-by-line through their Department’s budget to find savings. It’s been a huge effort.

In the May Budget their efforts resulted in more than 240 individual saving initiatives. Taken together, our reprioritisation, revenue and savings initiatives will save New Zealand $23 billion over the next four years. That’s right, $23 billion, around $5.9 billion every year.

That effort has paid-off. It’s freed up funding for tax relief, and for priority frontline services too.

With discipline and care we’ve been able to invest in the things that really matter.

Like funds for new and repaired classrooms. Structured literacy teaching for our kids. Expanding Gumboot Friday. Multi-year funding to support out health service to achieve shorter waiting times, in the emergency room and for elective surgery. Funding up to 26 new cancer drugs and many other new treatments to be prioritised by Pharmac, benefitting around 175,000 people. 500 extra frontline police, with new community beat teams already on the ground in our biggest cities. Hundreds of new corrections officers, so those who do the worst crime also do the time. Boosting infrastructure investment: to build new roads, and invest in new trains and buses to connect our communities and our regions, to support social housing to be delivered by community-based providers, flood protection schemes and yes, repairing those pot-holes.

On our watch there may be fewer people wearing lanyards on Lambton Quay, but there are going to be a lot more people wearing high-vis and hard-hats.

Let me assure you, the Budget savings effort was not a one-off exercise. The National Party is on a perpetual mission to drive better value from public spending.

We have to. The last Government left the country with a mountain of extra debt and left almost nothing to show for it.

Over its time in office, Labour more than doubled New Zealand’s net debt as a proportion of the economy, from less than 20 per cent of GDP to more than 40 per cent.

In dollar terms, that is a whopping $120 billion of additional debt. To put it in perspective, that’s around $24,000 in extra public debt for every single New Zealander. That is the mess that we are cleaning up.

I want to take this opportunity to thank every National Party Minister doing their bit to get the Government books back in order and drive better bang for your buck.

Ministerial colleagues, please stand up, let’s give them a round of applause for bringing back respect for taxpayer dollars.

This team of Ministers is working hard every day to drive better results from public services, putting dollars where they can make the biggest difference and driving accountability for results.

The Prime Minister has set clear targets, and we’re holding ourselves accountable for delivering progress against them.

We know, also, that along with spending wisely, our most important task is to drive growth in this economy so New Zealanders can have better paying jobs, better funding for public services and more choices.

National’s plan for rebuilding the economy is about repairing the damage left by Labour and setting this economy up for sustained growth.

We know that too many New Zealanders are doing it tough right now. A sustained cost of living crisis has slowed down workers and businesses alike. It’s our job to fix it. The good news is that the data tells us we’re moving in the right direction. We’re starting to get the cost of living under control.

Inflation is coming down. This time a year ago it was an eye-watering 6 per cent, today it’s 3.3 per cent, on track to come back under 3 per cent this year. Annual food prices have seen the smallest increase in more than five years.

Up just 0.2 per cent in the past 12 months. The price of fruit and vegetables has come down by 11.4 per cent over that time. With lower inflation rates will come lower interest rates.

The market is already moving. In the last month all the major banks have made reductions to their home loan rates – some twice.

These are the green shoots of economic recovery. There is so much more work to do. National’s plan for reviving growth in this economy is about encouraging investment, job-creation and growth.

Our vision is for a New Zealand with policies that better reflect the make-it-happen attitudes of our people, with less red tape and more common-sense.

Setting our kids up for success with an education system that does that basics brilliantly. Reading, writing, maths. A welfare system that encourages people into work. A justice system that prioritises community safety.

Kiwis know the world doesn’t owe any of us a living. We must work for it. But Government needs to lighten the load of regulations and bureaucracy that get in the way.

National is up for the bold change and imaginative solutions that are needed to grow this economy faster.

We are driving policy changes designed to make it easier for people to build things, to grow things, to invest in things, to hire people, to innovate and to grow.

New Zealand needs policies that reward aspiration, big ideas and hard work. Policies that welcome new investment, new ideas and better ways of doing things. Policies that raise-up the tall poppies among us, that reward aspiration and that celebrate success.

Letting employers take a chance on people by expanding 90-day trials for new workers. Repealing Labour’s FPA law that threatened workplaces with cumbersome centralised wage bargaining. Allowing lending to flow by fixing up the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. Making it cheaper and faster to build a house by streamlining building regulations. Backing major projects to happen faster with fast-track one-stop-shop consenting. Welcoming the cash needed to grow industry by modernising the Overseas Investment Act.

National’s policy agenda is about making New Zealand an easier place to do business. It’s also about making this a more competitive place for big business.

National MPs are backing a parliamentary banking inquiry because we think every Kiwi, whether urban or rural, deserves competitive banking services.

How can this be a productive growing economy if farmers and enterprising businesses struggle to get lending? Why should Kiwis tolerate weak competition between the major banks?

We say that New Zealanders deserve access to the best banking technology, fair prices and a range of banking choices.

The recent Commerce Commission study into New Zealand’s banking sector makes it crystal clear: Disruptive forces are needed to drive change.

No more cosy oligopoly. Instead we need more mavericks. Open banking technology. More transparent choices for customers.

For example, I would like to see KiwiBank grow. I would like it to become a disruptive competitor that takes on the big Australian-owned banks.

It can’t do that without extra capital. And I am interested in exploring where that capital might come from. Lots of Kiwisaver funds, New Zealand investment funds and New Zealanders themselves are looking for homegrown places to put their money and invest in New Zealand’s future. And we have to strengthen banking competition.

So let’s have a look at what’s possible. It’s time to explore all the options.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my fellow National Party members. We come together with shared values and shared hoped for what our country can be. This, the greatest place on earth.

We must not join the doomsayers who seek to talk down the prospects for our economy. Our country has everything going for it: abundant natural resources, secure borders, strong institutions, smart people, renewable energy generation, great industries and tremendous prospects.

Yes, we’ve come through several very hard years. And now we finally have a Government that’s making the changes needed to unlock our tremendous potential.

The green shoots of change are already showing. There is more to do.

Together, let’s make it happen!

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