Sitting date: 28 January 2025

PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENT

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): I present the Prime Minister's statement.

SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I move, That this House express its confidence in the Government and commend its programme for 2025 as set out in the Prime Minister's statement.

Well, I have to say it is great to be back, because this Government has roared out of the blocks with a massive focus on going for economic growth to make Kiwis better off. We have refreshed our fantastic team to underline growth as the priority, we're setting up a one-stop shop for foreign direct investment to get better infrastructure built much faster, and we've kicked off the biggest reforms in the science sector for 30 years so our world-class research earns much more money for our country and for those who make those groundbreaking discoveries.

This year is all about unleashing our economy, and we have already started by signing a free-trade agreement with the UAE. It was an agreement that was delivered in just four months after talks began—New Zealand's fastest ever trade negotiation. I want to tell you what that means for Kiwis. What it means is that duties on 98.5 percent of exports to the UAE are gone, and that is a fantastic result for businesses all across this great country of ours. I want to say that Todd McClay is out there, on those planes, getting the deals done. That's why I call him "Trade McClay", and I think it's going to be a name that will absolutely stick.

But we are going to be ruthlessly pursuing trade and investment because having more of those opportunities is better for businesses. It means more jobs, it means higher incomes, it means a stronger economy to pay for health and education, and we are making progress. Wages are now growing faster than inflation, and cost pressures like the Auckland regional fuel tax have now been removed from the system. Interest rates are falling—falling—and the Reserve Bank is forecasting that more relief is on the way very, very shortly. We delivered tax relief last year, and that means that Kiwis are keeping more of their money for the first time in 14 long years. So our steps now are to be going for growth to build the long-term prosperity that ensures that our kids see a future here in New Zealand.

I recently spoke about the need to end the culture of saying no when it comes to economic growth, because Kiwis want to build and they want to grow and they want to innovate, and all too often they're actually told no. So let's talk about fast track, because applications for 149 projects from Kaikohe to Stewart Island open next week. Among those projects are some exciting new renewable energy schemes to give us the electricity that we need and that will be affordable and abundant, in there is tens of thousands of houses that are going to give young Kiwis a chance a home, and in there, yes, there are mines and there are quarries so that we create jobs in provincial New Zealand and help the clean transition to take place. And I'm proud to say that there are 49 of those projects that are in the South Island. That's because on this side of the House, we understand how important the South Island is, and that's why we've appointed an awesome new Minister for the South Island in James Meager.

Now, the absolutely tragic thing is that every single member of the Opposition parties voted against those fast-track projects, right? They voted against creating opportunities for Kiwis. Labour—they voted against jobs and housing. The Greens—they voted against wind and solar farms. Te Pāti Māori—they voted against iwi being able to develop their own land. So I've got to say that the members opposite, they remind me of a cat pawing at the ranch slider, yowling away, trying to get in, and then you open the door and they don't move. They refuse to come in. That's what they are—the MPs opposite.

I've got to say, we are a coalition on this side; they're a "no-alition" on that side—that's what they're about. They're all about no; we're all about yes, on this side.

We must develop a mind-set that says yes to things that are going to make Kiwis better off, and you'll know that as part of that, last week I expressed my view on removing the limits around concerts at Eden Park. I think they should be abolished. What was interesting was that the Labour leader Helen Clark—I mean, actually, the former Labour leader—was not happy with me. That just illustrated how we've got a hall monitor mind-set happening within the Labour Party right now, because let's be clear about it: Labour is the party of—

Hon Members: No.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —no. Yep. What did Labour say to tax relief for working New Zealanders? No. What did Labour say about gene technology and backing farmers and climate change and health? They said no. And what did they say about fast track? To every single project, they said no, and now it seems it's actually no to more concerts. It's no to more concerts now. It's no to more customers, it's no to more people in bars and restaurants and in taxis, and it's no to things that are creating a vibrant and growing economy. Every single one of them, they're just not on board with it. So my real challenge to Chris Hipkins is: can you please reject your boss's view and back more concerts for Kiwis?

While we have been back at work for weeks pushing through changes to make Kiwis so much better off, Chris Hipkins is barely out of his jandals. We'd signed a trade deal before he'd even grabbed the work shirt out of the laundry basket. I do want to commend, though, Chris Hipkins for one thing: his resistance to returning to work has showcased that, in fact, anyone—even a Leader of the Opposition—can be a digital nomad.

On digital nomads, can I say what a great announcement from the Government yesterday—a fantastic announcement. A common-sense change that's going to mean we're going to open up for more business and more tourists and more money being spent in our cafes and our restaurants and our shops, and all of that is practical, common-sense, great changes and it is all part of our plan to grow the economy.

But what did we hear? We heard a rather muddled response from the Labour Party, saying, bizarrely, that the bigger economic priority should be letting more public servants work from home. It was quite something. But, actually, I think there's quite a good idea in there, because, bizarrely, looking at Labour saying no to everything, the country's productivity would actually be improved if the members opposite did just stay at home. I'd encourage them to do that.

What I'd say is that when Labour woke from their slumber last week for their caucus retreat, Chris Hipkins told the media—he said this: "Look, it's just been a year of reflection." A reflection tour, just going around talking about and apologising for not delivering KiwiBuild or light rail or, frankly, anything. But I think all this talk about Eden Park concerts has got in his head because he got it a bit mixed up, because people wanted the Eras Tour; what they didn't want was the tour that he was proposing: errors—e-r-r-o-rs. That's not what they wanted.

But there was some very good news for Labour. They've decided to take a new approach. From now on, they're just going to talk about the policies that they can deliver, and we haven't heard a single policy from Labour because they can't deliver anything.

So we need to end the culture of no, we need to end the culture of slow, and we need to be able to also move on increasing speed limits. We need to let Kiwis get to where they need to get to faster so they're much more productive, and what does Labour say to speeding Kiwis up? They say no to speed limits as well—no, no, no. In fact, when Kieran McAnulty was the Minister, he asked the New Zealand Transport Agency to review the speed limits in the Wairarapa, and they came back to him and they said no. Well, I've got to say to Kieran, watch this space, son, because we've got some great Ministers in Chris Bishop in Simeon Brown, and also a great local MP in Mike Butterick, and watch this space because we can do something about speed limits.

But what I'd say is that on this side of the House, we've got some passionate MPs fighting for our folk in the cities, whether it's Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, or Christchurch, representing all those diverse, different communities. We've got MPs in provincial New Zealand, whether it's in Northland, Waikato, the Bay of Islands, the East Coast, Taranaki, Manawatū, the West Coast, Canterbury, Otago, or Southland, and they are saying yes to farming and they are saying yes to trade and they are saying yes to economic growth in 2025 in the regions.

Just over a year ago, this Government was elected with a very clear mandate to change course and to get New Zealand back on track. We inherited a broken economy. We inherited a cost of living crisis. Violent crime was up. Retailers were being smashed by daily ram raids—remember those?—that every single day were going on, and gangs were taking over our towns. The education system was failing way too many children, and the health system was reeling from a restructure that was botched and absolutely failed. We have taken tough decisions, because these are tough times. We are actually making sure that we are backing Kiwis who have a mortgage or a small business and a great idea and are desperate to crack into it. We're going to be saying yes to those people.

Now, the good news is that change is already happening. Actually, when you think about what was achieved in the last year, we had fast track, we had tax relief, we stopped the wasteful spending, we had Resource Management Act (RMA) reform, we had new roads, we had structured literacy and maths, and we had gene tech. We're backing the police with the gang law changes that we've had. We've stopped the ram raids. We're actually restoring consequences for crime—novel idea—very important. We've got record new investment in health, with $17 billion extra going in, and 26 new cancer treatments. We've got an hour a day each of reading, writing, and maths, and we've got reduced emergency housing—something we should be really proud about—after one of the biggest failed policies from the Labour Government. We've got new trade deals. We're backing the farmers. We've got Family Boost. We're making foreign investment easier, and we're keeping councils focused on the basics rather than rates rises. We are just getting started.

Absolutely core to our plan in 2025 is unleashing economic growth, because a growing economy means what? It means higher incomes, it means more jobs, it means that our kids won't look overseas for opportunities but will see that their future sits right here in New Zealand. A growing economy means more money to invest in public services like hospitals or health, and it means that if you work hard and you're prepared to work hard, you can get ahead in this great country of ours. So we say a big yes. We say a big yes to New Zealand businesses, big and small, that they thrive and they make a profit and they pay higher wages and they hire more people and they invest in more growth, because that's what it's all about: growth. It's awesome we've got Nicola Willis leading our economic growth plan, because we've got a plan to make it happen, and that's what 2025 will be all about: growth trumps everything.

In Budget 2024, we delivered a fiscally responsible plan that reigned in the wasteful spending, provided the income tax relief to working New Zealanders, and set up the conditions for future growth. We delivered Family Boost to help those working New Zealanders with their early childcare costs. We froze the fuel tax increases that were planned for three years to give people more relief at the pump, we made progress on breaking the cost of living crisis, and we found a way to deliver $17 billion extra into the healthcare sector, a multi-year boost for health—$17 billion extra. In May, we're going to deliver our second Budget, and I'm telling you it's going to build on those strong foundations and we're going to continue to drive economic growth.

Our Government is making it easier and cheaper, as you'll see in this fantastic Prime Minister's statement, to build infrastructure, housing, and transport projects, and, I've got to tell you, fast track is just the beginning, because the real prize is actually fixing our broken Resource Management Act. So this year, we won't debate and discuss it and have endless hui and discussion, but we're going to fix it and replace it with a system that's fairer, faster, and cheaper. That's why Chris Bishop created the national infrastructure agency to unlock the investment that we're going to need for roads and hospitals and schools and energy projects, and that's actually what we're going to do: make sure we get investor cash flowing through into the projects that we desperately want to power up into this country. We're going to have a 30-year infrastructure plan, and we hope—seriously hope—that the other side actually come on board and make it a truly bipartisan 30-year infrastructure plan.

In housing, our Going for Housing Growth plan is removing barriers—[Interruption] They're enjoying it, aren't they? Aren't they enjoying it? What's funny is when you have six years in power with the last three with an absolute majority, and you do absolutely nothing, you then get buyer's regret on the other side, don't you? You're looking over going, "Jeepers, we could have done some stuff instead of just talking about doing some stuff."

So what I'd say is that we are very determined to get infrastructure built, but we're going to do something about housing, because that was a failure of the Labour Government over six years, as well, wasn't it? We're removing the barriers for development. We're going to allow cities to expand. We're going to boost housing density and we're going to cut the unnecessary red tape that exists, and councils are going to be required to plan for 30 years—30 years of growth—so that we're not constantly playing catch-up, as was proposed by the other side. We're making it more affordable to remove the barriers for overseas construction materials, and we're expanding self-certification for tradies—thank you very much, Minister Penk.

In transport, we are making record investments—record investments—to improve how people move themselves and their goods all around this great country. Over the next three years, we're investing $33 billion into our transport network, which includes 17 roads of national significance—right?—and isn't it phenomenal to see that in 12 months we've already kicked off the Hawke's Bay expressway, which I know Katie Nimon and Catherine Wedd are greatly appreciative of.

But farmers and rural communities are the backbones of our economy and they were treated like villains—absolute villains—under that last Labour Government. Well, they are deeply, deeply valued by us in this Government. We're easing the burdens by introducing practical rules for on-farm water storage, winter grazing, and stock exclusion, halving the emissions trading scheme charges for forest owners, pausing the freshwater farm plants, and we've scrapped that very, very unfair ute tax. That is a long, dim, distant memory.

So we're going to continue to proudly back our farmers and rural communities to earn the extra dollars that actually power up New Zealand and enable us to make a difference as a result. But that means farmers need to receive RMA reform, because we want them spending more time actually milking cows than filling out forms and asking for permission from someone. We want them actually doing the farming, which is what they need to do, not 35 percent of their week tied up in filling out paperwork.

We also know that tourism has a fantastic role to play. What a fantastic industry—an amazing industry, right? Only at 86 percent of pre-COVID levels and we still get wittering from the other side saying, "Oh, we don't want to bring tourists into New Zealand." Yes, we do. We don't have the luxury to turn off growth after three years of recession that Labour created.

The second priority for us, after rebuilding the economy and getting growth into the place and going for growth, is actually restoring law and order. I tell you, Kiwis deserve to feel safe, and they're feeling safer within 12 months of this new Government—absolutely they're feeling it. We've got two big targets: we want 20,000 fewer victims of violent crime, and we want youth offending cut by 15 percent, and we're making some good progress there. We are going to reform sentencing laws to ensure that there are real consequences for crime and to keep those violent offenders off our streets, because for too long they've been allowed to do whatever they want. We are capping those sentencing discounts. We're going to cap them, we're going to tighten the rules on repeat offenders, and we're going to prioritise the victims' interests and reinstate three strikes. So it is going to be more work to do to restore law and order in New Zealand. We're going to progress the Crimes Act amendments to increase penalties for criminals who attack first responders—great idea, fantastic idea—and a new law to address stalking, while reforms will be progressed to speed up jury trials and also to expand remote participation for faster access to justice.

And didn't we do well, taking it to gangs last year? There's more to come, because you can't have one quarter of the population driving 20 percent of the violent crime in this country, and, man, those gang laws and the police's response to it has been absolutely outstanding—and I bet you that deep down those members wish they'd done something on law and order. Apparently, they're going to better focus on law and order and the economy this year, but, goodness knows—we'll see what happens. What I would just say is we also need to work on serious youth offending, and we've got to make sure that serious and persistent offending is actually dealt with. It's actually got to be trending in the right direction, and we want to see 15 percent fewer serious young offenders.

We've got a lot of work ahead of us with respect to health and education, because we actually have amazing doctors and nurses. They do an outstanding job. Just to give you a feel for it, in the last year, 700,000 first specialist appointments happened. There were 200,000 elective surgeries that took place, and today there are 50,000 Kiwis getting in to see their GP. So we have amazing people, but we need to do a much better job, and I know Simeon Brown knows that we need to do a better job too, so they get the care that they actually need. That's why we've put another $17 billion—and I referenced that $17 billion—into health, because this is the Government that cares about the healthcare system and the people that work in it, and we're shifting the focus from the back office to the front line.

What I'd also say is that we care about education because we want kids to get an outstanding start to life in New Zealand. That means they've got to get to school. They've actually got to make sure we teach them to read, and we actually teach them to do some mathematics. All of Erica Stanford's incredible hard work comes to life this year because students and teachers in classrooms up and down New Zealand are getting some amazing resources to kick off the school year. Actually, that's what parents want to know: that their kids are going to get delivery and they're going to have a great future, with more resources, more quality training for our teachers, a brand new national Curriculum—fantastic—grounded in mastering the basics: reading and mathematics. That means more skills, more jobs, more talent, and much more investment ultimately coming into New Zealand.

Let me say that one year ago, I promised that this would be a Government of action, one that takes on the big challenges facing our country and actually delivers. We committed to making some tough choices to rebuild the economy, to restore law and order, and to improve our public services, and a year on, I have to say I am incredibly proud of the progress that we have made. But we know that there is still so much more for us to do to realise all the great potential that sits in this great country of ours. What I'd say is that this is going to be a Government that's going to continue to deliver the change that New Zealand needs, because it's not just enough to get us back to normal. We actually have an opportunity to be so much better and to realise more of the potential that sits in this great country.

I want Kiwi kids to know that New Zealand is where the opportunities are, not the UK or Australia. I want our farmers to know that we back them and that they're deeply valued and they're not villains. I want our Kiwi businesses to know we want them thriving, and I want Kiwi families to know that if you work hard, you can get ahead in the best country on planet Earth. So 2025 will be another massive year for this Government. Our team are going to do everything it takes to unleash economic growth, innovation, and investment, and, with that, we can't wait to get stuck in.

SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.

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