While The Front Page is on summer break, we’re taking a look back at some of the biggest news stories and top-rated episodes from the podcast in 2024.
The 2023 general election was a battle between the two Chrises – Labour's Chris Hipkins, and National’s Christopher Luxon.
It was a battle that Luxon ended up winning, thanks to the support of two coalition partners in Act and NZ First.
But it’s a match-up that currently looks set to be repeated next year, with Hipkins sticking around as Labour’s leader – and showing no signs of stepping aside.
That’s likely because the polls between the coalition and Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Māori remain pretty evenly split.
At the end of 2024, we caught up with both leaders a week apart for a wrap of the year.
New episodes return January 13th.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Audio Engineers: Richard Martin
Executive Producer: Ethan Sills
Yoda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a summer special of The Front Page, the Enzid Herald's.
Daily news podcast.
While The Front Page is on summer break, we're taking a look back at some of the biggest news stories and top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four. New episodes will return on January thirteenth. The twenty twenty three general election was a battle between the two Chris's Labour's Chris Hipkins and National's Christopher Luxen. It was a battle that Luckxon ended up winning thanks to the support of two coalition partners in Act and enz First, but it's a matchup that currently looks to be repeated next year, with Hipkins sticking around as Labour's leader and showing no signs of stepping aside.
That's likely because.
The polls between the Coalition and labor the Greens and Tabati Maldi remain pretty evenly split.
At the end of twenty twenty four.
We caught up with both leaders a week apart for a rap of the year. First, we spoke with Chris Hipkins a few days after Labour's annual party conference. First Off Press, We're a year into this new coalition government.
What do you make of it?
Oh, I mean, I think the government's had a pretty bumpy start. Was always going to be challenged for them to pull together three parties with quite different views of the world and sort of certainly some personal animosity amongst the party leaders. You know, Winston Peters and David Seymour's dislike for one another is well known and clearly hasn't debated since the government has been formed. But they've made things worse for New Zealand in the decisions that they've taken. So it's a challenging time economically around the world at the moment, and the government making decisions to massively cut back government spending, cutback infrastructure projects and so on has actually made a tough economic environment even tougher for Kiwi's.
Well, Winston and David haven't ripped each other's heads off in public yet, have they.
They've certainly be you know, if anything, they've both been taking pop shots at the Prime minister instead, and you know, I think that's somewhat new for New Zealand to see the deputy prime Minister from a different party saying that he thinks the Prime Minister is struggling in his job, and to have David Seymour and Christopher Luxen basically criticizing each other in public, I don't think we've seen that before, even an MMP where there's agreed to disagree. I think generally there's still been a respectful relationship between party leaders.
Luckson's leadership has been called into question in recent weeks.
How do you rank him personally?
Like, where do you think he sets compared to other former prime ministers?
I think probably the one and only time you'll find me agreeing with Winston Peters actually is I think he is struggling in the job. I think he's brought border court mindset to running the country, and the country isn't a corporation, and a corporation you can decide to make people redundant and basically then there's someone else's problem, and you can say this group of customers is a group of customers, we're no longer going to chase as a company. You don't get to make those sorts of decisions in running a country. Everybody is your problem, everybody is your customer, everybody is your responsibility. I think he's kind of struggling with that. A little bit, because the process of government doesn't stop just because you've decided that your priorities are elsewhere.
Is he a bad prime minister?
Oh? I mean people for form their own views about that. I think a lot of New Zealanders think he's a bad prime minister, and I think they've got good grounds for that.
You've said Labor needs to regain the public's trust after a historic defeat. How are you going to start.
I think the public want to see us getting back to the basics of what Labour stands for, making sure that we are focused on how we can bring the country back together. I think government's creating a lot of division and they want to know that we have an approach that's going to end that division and bring people back together again. And I think also just demonstrating that we do know we lost. You know that we have reflected on why we lost, and that we change as a result of that. You know, we we're not going to rerun the twenty twenty three election campaign. That's that's a campaign we lost, and so twenty twenty six we need to offer different things and we need to be different.
We're making sure that we've got inflation now within the band first time in three and a half years. You've had three interest rate cuts in twelve months. That's fantastic. You've got rising confidence at annual highs right in the.
Last three years.
Construction especially credibility. We see growth, that's what we've got to go.
We're not seeing growth. We're actually again you can't point to any growth.
Gette naive to be honest with you, to say, look, we had six years of economic mismanagement and in twelve months we're supposed to fix that all.
Or someone I need to say that the previous government had a credibility problem because they pushed the service practice years and government when you're doing e the same thing about twelve months.
When do you think the cutoff period is when a new government can stop blaming an old governments.
For its problems. Do you reckon it's about now?
I think it's totally. I think it's long gone. Actually, I mean they up to their first budget, yep. I guess you get to say, oh, the previous government made all these decisions and you know, we're just having to live with those. But once you get through a budget, you know that's your chances of government to really reset everything and to say, well, okay, that spending decisions that the government's taken are now ours, and I think you know it's well and truly time for them to accept responsibility for the fact that under their watch and as a result of their decisions, the New Zealand economy is getting worse and kew we households are going backwards.
Isn't the economy getting better?
Though? If you've just lost your job and unemployment is forecast to continue to increase, I think you'll find the economy is getting worse. Overall, New Zealand is not where it needs to be. Other economies are rebounding much more healthily than New Zealanders.
So let's get to the weekend.
Labor held its conference in christ Church. Labor will build dened In Hospital, as it was committed to prior to the election in twenty twenty three. Now the project's been dogged by delays. There's been a budget overruns. The cost has now belonged to three billion dollars from an original one point two to one point four in twenty seventeen.
How on earth are you planning on paying for this?
To be fair, there were delays in the beginning, but actually we have made a lot of progress on we did and government make a lot of progress on the Darnedan hospital. So the outpatients building, which is about a third of the new hospital, is almost finished actually and should be opening shortly. That's great news for Dunedin in terms of the main part of the hospital, so you know the part where if you're admitted you stay overnight, that that larger part of the hospital. The current government have made a number of claims about the cost escalation of that that simply don't stack up when closer scrutiny is applied. So they've included in the supposed cost blowout things that were never in the original cost in the first place, like car parking buildings and a new lab which was always envisioned probably to be built by a private sector contracted provider, because that's the way lab services across the country often end up being provided. But it all comes down to choices and trade offs as well. So they found two hundred million dollars to give a tax break to tobacco, They found nearly three billion dollars for tax breaks for landlords, and then overall, I think the tax breaks for other kiwis that they gave out it was about twelve billion dollars in the budget. So it comes down to choices that you make as a government.
Won't the cost climb even more by the time you're in government.
If you win, the.
Cost of these projects never goes down, But the longer you take to do them, the more expensive they become, which is one of the reasons why they should just get on with it and build the hospital. And my experience and I oversaw a lot of school rebuilding projects. You just want to get them done. Every time slow them down for another review. You're just the cash ridge is to those kitching kitchin kitching. You know, all of these reviews are one of the reasons why everything, the costs keep blowing out on everything.
Also, a publicly owned into island ferry connection including some kind of rail transport.
What does that look like, Well.
It means that we've got to have fairies that you can drive trains on and off. And bear in mind too that this is about making sure that we've got the most efficient ferry service for New Zealand. A ferry service that you can't drive trains on and off. Ultimately, then transfers cost back on to freight providers, which then transfers cost back on to customers. An investment in a reliable ferry service is actually an investment in a productive economy. Then did Treasury do this thing called a BCR benefit to cost ratio analysis. The benefit cost ratio, even at the higher price for the inter island ferry was something like four point eight, So for every dollar you spend you get about four point eight dollars back. The cost benefit ratio for the billions of dollars they're going to spend on the road from Auckland to fungad A is about one, so you get one dollar back for every dollar that you spend. So you know, again it's about choices and trade offs. This government a choosing to say, well, roads are everything, and interrland furies and rail connections are not important. Actually they are important because if you want better roads, getting freight off the roads and onto rail's going to be a good way of delivering that.
New Zealand won't be signing up to AUCUST Pillar two under a labor government. We know that Pillar one involves the nuclear powered subs, but Pillar two involves sharing and developing high tech defense technology.
Why this turnaround on aucust Pillar two.
We've always been very skeptical of UCUS. Aucus fundamentally is a nuclear powered submarine pact between those three countries, and we're a nuclear free country.
But that's the pillar one.
We're looking at Pillar two now, that's the technol an ai aspect of it.
Right. The two things are related though, you know, the Pacific is a proudly nuclear free region. Who are in the Pacific countries have made it very clear, and they're very important relationships for New Zealand that they are also opposed to AUCUS. So I think you can't separate those two things completely. In terms of coordinating with those other countries around things like military technology, around things like intelligence sharing, we already have arrangements to do that. So you know, we have a formal alliance, a formal ally relationship with Australia. We have a five country relationship with those three countries, including and then adding Canada into that, which gives us access to a lot of the stuff that's happening around intelligence but also around technology, and we think that we're best to stick with those relationships rather than be involved in a relationship which is proving to be incredibly antagonistic. In it within the.
Region antagonistic to China, though primarily right China.
Actually the Pacific of finding have raised a lot of concerns about nuclear prospect of nuclear ships in the Pacific as well, and so I think we shouldn't be blind to that.
Andrew Little's come out backing the current government's decision to investigate our potential involvement in Pillar two. Here's, of course are former Defense Minister and Intelligence Agencies Minister, and of course a former leader of the Labor Party.
Do you trust his judgment?
I think Andrew Little's got you know, he was a fantastic minister. Doesn't mean we're going to agree on everything. We didn't agree on everything when we're in government, and I'm sure we won't now. And as a former you know, parliamentary and he's free to share his used however he wishes.
And the parties are passed a proposal to take forward work on a capital gains tax and a wealth tax and stop any work on other forms of tax. Does this mean it'll very likely be a part of your twenty twenty six campaign.
Well, I don't comment on the remits that get pasted at conference, but I've said right at the beginning of the year that we needed to do work on tax policy and we needed a different tax policy ahead of the next election, which is what we're working on at the moment. Any remits that get past at party conference helped to inform that policy development process. But we're a long way away at this point from having a finalized approach to tax because you can't just look at tax and isolation. You've also got to look at you know, what are you taxing for, what are the things that you're funding, where's that money going to go, how's it going to be applied, what are the consequences for other taxes, and also, you know, what are the things you're trying to do. Are you trying to you know, I believe we need to incentivize more productive investment in our economy rather than speculative investment.
In twenty twenty three, you ruled out in introducing a wealth tax or CDT if re elected. That was before the last election. Of course, now it's back on the table. Has it got anything to do with labor likely needing the Greens and Tabati Mali in order to form a government next time?
No, not at all. I said before the last elections, as I would say, you know, every election, you should form your policies for the next term of government, and then if you want to change those, then you change them at the next election so that people can vote on them. I said, when I said that we wouldn't implement a wealth tax or a capital gains tax, I was very clear that that was the commitment that I was making for the next term of government. You know, should our position change, that were the time we would change, that would be at the next election.
Last week we spoke to politics professor Bryce Edwards and asked him about how the opposition parties were performing, and he didn't think you guys were doing a great job of holding the government to account.
If you look back on the last year, I think the government has had lots of areas that needed to be more strongly critiqued on, especially things like the Fast Track Act, especially on a lot of the ways that it seems to be governing for vested interests or the wealthy. And I don't think that Labour's done it a good enough job of highlighting some of those.
Yeah, those deficits, what do you make of that?
Well? I disagree. I think if you look on issues that where the government's been divided in the country, like the Treaty Principal spill, you've seen a very united approach from the opposition parties if you look at areas like the health system, for example. I think we've applied real pressure to the government on their issues, on the things that they're trying to do around deregulation of guns. Again, I think we've really kind of stepped up the pace there in terms of the pressure we've applied. But what I've also said, and I think you know New Zealanders have a lot of sympathy for this, is they get sick of politicians criticizing their opponents for doing something that they themselves would do, or opposing something which then they get into government and do exactly the same thing they've opposed. So I've said that we're the government are doing things that we would ourselves do in government. There will be constructive rather than obstructive, and I think actually New Zealanders want to see that from their politicians.
What's something the government's done that you've thought that that's a good job.
Look, it's kind of difficult because there's not a give a lot that I think they've been doing well, but I think some of the there are a few decisions they've taken that might have some early promise. So if I look at the infrastructure space, for example, I agree with the government that we need a much longer term approach to planning infrastructure investment. The short term nature of our thinking around infrastructure in New Zealand is one of the reasons we're in the mess we're in now, and so if they can come up with things that will help the country to achieve that, then I think we can be supportive and we can be constructive.
Yeah, and that certainly makes sense when you're talking billions of dollars for say a couple of ferries, or billions of dollars for a second Auckland bridge, that kind of thing.
Right absolutely. I mean, if you look at Auckland light Rail, you know, we had work underway on Auckland light Rail. It's a big project and I think the time frames that we had previously put out were unrealistic and I've said that, but Auckland is going to need mass rapid transit are given the scale of population growth there. Within the next decade, Auckland could have two million people and you've got to be able to get around, and even with more investment in roads, there's still going to be road congestion. The only way you're going to tackle that is by making sure that you've got good alternative options, which includes public transport. So I think we need a plan around Auckland that says over the next twenty to thirty years, what's the transport infrastructure we need. And so even if the current government came in and said, Okay, we don't think Auckland light rails an immediate priority, why scrap it all together? Why not just continue with the planning, the design, the consenting work so that at a future point we can continue the momentum on it. Even if they said and their priority for construction is going to be new roads, why don't they continue with the planning on the stuff which they might not want to do immediately. I think that is the sort of that's the sort of thinking that we need around infrastructure. So I've said when we come into government next time, and I want that to be after the next selection, that's what I'm aiming for. We're not going to stop everything just because the previous government started it. I think we've got to make sure that we keep the wheels of infrastructure investment moving.
So if we look overseas, gaffes and controversial policies didn't really stop Donald Trump getting re elected last month. Hey, the economy and cost of living remains a top priority for voters here and overseas. Do you think labour has a chance in twenty twenty six even if the economy picks up under.
National I think one of the things that Donald Trump tapped into, and I think it's very important for all Western democracies to think about, is the fact that the economy isn't working as it should for a larger and larger group of people. So if you look at the US, for example, under Biden, their economy was growing, they were creating new jobs, but people weren't feeling that they were actually feeling at a household level like they were going backwards. And I think the same thing is happening here. Is even if say GDP growth numbers improve, and frankly, it'd be hard for them to do otherwise given how bad they've been. But even if they do start to improve, then if people are still feeling like how US whole costs are still going up, our salary and wages aren't going up, and we feel like we're going backwards. I think that's the space where I think we're very rightly frustrated. And I think if you look over the last forty odd years since we embarked on some pretty radical reforms in the nineteen eighties, New Zealand households, a lot of New Zealand households have been going backwards.
And finally, Chris, while we're on Trump, he managed to, of course win re election after a defeat. Are you confident you can do the same in twenty twenty six.
Absolutely. I wouldn't still be here if I didn't think that. You know, we're getting really strong support from New Zealanders. Even you know, when I've been out and about, there's plenty of people who have come up and said, look, we didn't vote for you last time because x Y and Z, but we're open to voting for you next time.
What was x Y and Z?
Oh, it's the things that we just talked about before, you know, cost of living, crime. I think people just wanted to get over COVID. They just wanted to forget about it and move on, and also the fact that they were but it's dissatisfied with the fact that we had taken on so many big reform projects all at once, and they wanted a sense that we were focusing on getting the basics right. So those are all messages that we've heard.
And are you personally committed to lead Labor into the next election? Will you be heading Labor?
I absolutely will be wonderful.
Thanks for joining us, Spress good as gold, happy to talk to you.
Next, we spoke with Prime Minister Christopher Luxen to get his take on twenty twenty four. First off, Prime Minister, how's the year gone?
Well, look, I mean it's been a really tough year for many New Zelanders as we've dealt with sort of some of the economic challenges. But you know, to be Prime Minister is just a huge privilege and an awesome responsibility, and it's also been a very inspiring one in the sense of you you get to see Kiwi through incredible things across this country each and every day. So yeah, I'm proud of the year in terms of I feel like we've formed a good team, We've made some good progress. You know, we're being able to lift you our international relationships, been able to a number of things, and I feel very very optimistic about our future as I go forward from here.
What's been the biggest challenge so far?
I mean everything's challenging when you're Prime minister in the sense of if they were easy decisions, they would be made somewhere else in the system. And so you know, the difficult decisions come onto your desk and they're often complex and a bit more layered than you may initially think or observe from outside. So every day there's something new and different and complex and challenging, and that's you know, personally, that's what I enjoy, is that you're there to solve problems and you're there to make decisions and in the interests of the country and trying to set it up for long term success. And so there's no not one particular thing per se. It's just that you know, every day there's something different and complex to work your way through. You know, how do you get in place the funding that you need to spend money on health and education when you might have a big interest bill at nine billion dollars to pay. You know, it's those sorts of challenges that we can counter each and every day.
You've faced a lot of criticism in recent weeks from across the political divide.
Are you paying attention to any of that first off? Or is that just noise to you?
There is criticism every day in this job, so you're informed of it, but you're not consumed by it. But look, I just say to you, Look, you know, we feel really good. We've great to see that our support, the numbers that I see has actually improved over where we were in the election. You know that means that people used to say the country was hitting in the wrong direction. Now people say the country is hitting in the right direction. They know it's been tough, but they know that we're a government with a plan and we're having to face up some really difficult choices, but we're working our way through it well. So you know, it's pretty good when you think about a government twelve months into it. To be ahead of where we were on election night in public support as fantastic. And I get out of well Inton as quickly as possible, and you meet New Zealanders all up and down this country, and yes it's been challenging for many, but they can see that the interest bills are coming down, their mortgages inflations come down. Crime is starting to turn and come down. They can see that we're trying to drive our education system back to basics, that our kids are set up for success and not behind kids in Singapore or Australia or somewhere else in the world. And we've got some real investment going to healthcare and we've got to make sure it work that hard to get improved outcomes for people. We've got a long way to go, so you know, we've got a lot of work ahead of us. But in twelve months, you know, we're doing a big turnaround job. We're getting you know, and we're getting get in the country moving, which has been good.
Wouldn't an economically literate government have worked this out of it sooner?
Jack?
Jack, Jack, I just say to you, it tells everyone about your economic I just say, hang on, I haven't even asked a question.
What I'm saying to you is it is challenging times when New Zealand, I'd say that I would say to you that, well, I just say to you, we've seen I'll just say to you.
Got more under your tax package. Well to say to you with relatives to the rest of the population. But but what I say to you, Jack, You're saying a lot of things to me, but you're not Actually we actually answered.
So I've heard that you acknowledge that you need to work on your tendency for corporate speak. There's also been some reaction into your use of the phrase what I say to you is, are.
These things that you're going to be working on in twenty twenty five?
Well, I haven't heard about the second one.
But look, what I say to you is, Yeah, what I will.
Say to you is that I am from outside the political system. You know, I'm not a career politician and that's a fantastic thing because right now New Zealand has been in a huge economic mess, one that we haven't seen for decades. And actually, I think my background, my experience coming to politics in the way that I have just four years ago and being Prime Minister and leading a team to actually make sure we sought problems out for people is exactly what New Zealand needs right now. So if I get it the beltwegh and a lot of people who are pundits and commentators and say whatever they want. They've been saying that for four years since I came to politics. Frankly, I'm informed about it, but I'm not consumed by it, because I know why I'm here, because I choose to do this job. I chose to come to politics because I think this is a fantastic country with an awesome future, and I think I've got something to offer.
We had Chris Hopkins on last week and he said.
I think a lot of New Zealanders think he's a bad prime minister, and I think they've got good good grounds for that.
What would you say to that? Was he a good pam?
He was a terrible prime minister. He took the keys to the car, he drove it at tremendous speed, put it into the ditch. We're hauling it out of the ditch, getting it our right way up, and then we're moving it forward. I mean, honestly, he was a terrible prime minister. I mean, how do you increase government spending by eighty four percent? How do you drive inflation to highs? How do you have twelve interest rate rises that for the average New Zealand I meant they had to find seven hundred dollars a fortnite if they were lucky enough to own a house. How do you spend more borrow more, tax more, hire more people and deliver worse outcomes in every dimension. So you know, yeah, look, I mean, so don't take lectures from crecipians with all due respect.
Well, speaking of the economy, how much credit do you think the government deserves for how things have performed this year?
I mean, that is job number one for us as to put financial discipline back into the government. Businesses have had to do that over last few years because of the mismanagement from Chrislipkins team and himself. Families have had to adjust their budgets and decide not to spend money on things for their kids because of the mismanagement from the previous government. You cannot spend, drive inflation, interest rates up, put the economy into recession for the last three years, and drive unemployment up. And that is the legacy and record of CRCIP cans and Labour team. So you know, this government we're fixing those things. We have to go back and relearn some lessons that the country learned thirty five years ago. You've got to have good financial management, just like you do in your family budget, just like you do in your small business. You've got it, then get inflation down for people. It's now within the band under three percent, which is fantastic. Because of that, and because we've been good fiscal plan operators, you end up then lowering your interest rates. That doesn't just happen. It doesn't just miraculously sort of happen. It happens because there's a plan and we're working our way through it. We now have business confidence at a teen year high, we have consumer confidence at a three year high, and so and now we've got to focus on that trans adding into economic growth. And they're obviously making sure that we keep our people in jobs and employment. Unemployment's the last thing, and unemployment sadly affects lower middle income New Zealanders. And so if you care about lower middle income working News Islanders as I do, as my government does, as my party does, that's why you need to manage the economy well, because when you don't and you take it for granted, you end up with the mess that we inherited after six years of a labor experiment that was horribly wrong.
Could they be an opportunity for New Zealand to welcome more public private partnerships with the stipulation of the funds are key.
We based.
I mean, I saw a figure from Ossie and they're seeing something like one hundred and sixty billion dollars a quarter in investments by super funds into infrastructure alone. Imagine just half a percent of that, we'd have a second harbor bridge in Auckland and no time.
Right, Well, you're onto the right thing. We have major challenges on infrastructure. We can't get things built, it takes too long, and also we don't always we don't have the financial capacity to fund it all from within government for the infrastructure that we want to see. So there's two things. You're right. Yes, we could use domestic pools of capital more and will continue to look at that. But the other thing, frankly, Chelsea, is that we also need to make sure that we attract foreign investment to New Zealand. New Zealand is thirty eight out of thirty eight now in terms of being an attractive place for big international superannuation funds all around the world, which is lots of money in those funds looking for a home to invest who are very open to investing in New Zealand but don't because they think it takes too long, it costs too much. And that's why things like our fast tracked legislation have been important. That's why you're setting a thirty year pipeline of infrastructure projects that are actually laid out really clearly, like you see in New South Wales and other parts of the world. All of those things that we're putting in place are other things that we need to do to make sure that we actually move on and she can access pools of capital from overseas automistically to get things built quicker and faster in New Zealand.
Well, what we really need though, is long term plans. Hey, last time you're on the front page, you said more cross party collaborations are needed when it comes to those big infrastructure projects. Is that something that we could see, say next year.
Yeah, I mean we have been. What we've got to do is work on a thirty year pipeline that should be an independent list of infrastructure projects for the country that are the right things for us to be doing at the moment. We get money together, we scrape it all around, we put it together on one project, we work really hard to try and get that project done and everything it takes too long, and everybod there's a cost over because it's been badly managed, partly by the previous government. Think to need in hospital, Think berries. And then what we've got to do is have a longer term pipeline of infrastructure projects and then have our city regional deals and have an agency that actually knows how to get the funding and financing in place for it. And so that's the mechanism we're putting in place. I do agree with you. I think it'd be fantastic to have bipartisan support. And so even just on our new statement around public private partnership, you know, we've reached out to labor, We've got Barbara Edmonds to come on board and actually support that that program as well. So that's a good development. That's a good thing. You know, it shouldn't be as politicized as it is in New Zealand. If you just think about a project like Auckland light rail, which the last government we mismanaged so badly. You know, Montreal started a project similar to that. They started it but later finished it within five years. People are on the on the light rail trains. You know, we spent two hundred and fifteen million dollars on it and we still didn't know where we were. We were putting the tracks if we could even get the tracks down, So I mean we are terrible at it. You know, Cambridge to Party road gets turned on off depending on which government's in place. That is just basics. Building roads is not difficult or complicated. It happens all around the world. So we do have to manage infrastructure a much better way going forward.
This is a damaging piece of legislation. This government, Christopher Luxon, is taking a wrecking ball to the work that has been done by success of governments over the past fifty years since the White Time Tribunal was established. This BILLIP would amount to the dictatorship of the majority this parliament can it has passed racist laws in the past, and Marty are still paying the price and we all are still paying the.
Price when it comes to the Treaty Principals Bill.
I know you're probably sick of talking about it, but do you think voting against the bill at the second reading is good enough? Because it seems like just the mere existence of it has kickstarted a debate that will never end. And I mean Sima will no doubt bring it up again in twenty twenty six.
Well, what I say on that one is that you have to understand that under Hipkins and Adourn and when they went off into things like the Maori Health Authority, when they went off and forced Mark Marty Walls onto local governments from Central Wellington, when they started to talk about co governance and spent one point two billion dollars on three waters projects that didn't even go anywhere. You know, all of that created a huge division and frustration within New Zealand. And unlike Jim Boulger who took New Zealanders on a journey and made the case for treaty settlements, there was no political capital spent or any effort to take New Zealanders with them on that agenda. So going into the last election there was immense frustration, and that frustration sits on both sides of that debate. We just happen to think that that frustration, as legitimate as it may well be, is not being served by a very simplistic Treaty Principles bill that with the stroke of a pinion, overcomes one hundred and eighty four years of debate and discussion. We need to make sure these Landers have equal rights. It's a fundamental and we also need to make sure that the Crown meets its obligations under the treaty and so and that treaty process. We disagree on the issues, but we stay committed and we stayed talking to each other over the last one hundred and eighty four years. We haven't agreed on everything over that period of time, but I think the treaty has made us better. So we should continue to grapple with it. We should continue to wrestle author but we should also take the issues case by case, issue by issue, and that's our approach. And so you know, we dismantled the Malori Health Authority because it just wasn't going in deoliver outcomes. We pushed actually the decision on local wards and local governments should be a local community decision, not mandated out of here, out of Wellington. We have believed that the Marine and Coastal Court decisions were wrong. We're inconsistent with the legislation subsequently been confirmed by the Supreme Court. But you know that's why we're legislating for that. You know, that's why we've pushed three Waters back to local communities and also given them funding and financing mechanisms to make sure they manage those assets. Well, so you know that's the way to deal with it is wrestle with each individual issue that comes up, as we have done for one hundred and eighty four years, rather than have a simplistic bill. And then, most importantly, Chelsea, it's all about outcomes. And frankly, Mary want higher incomes. Mary want better quality housing, Mary want better education and comes with their kids. They want better access to healthcare, and they want to be less victims of crime across New Zealand. So the things that we're focused on of rebuilding the economy, restoring law and order, delivering better health and education the same things that might want. And we've got to deliver outcomes because frankly, six years of labor talk a lot didn't deliver for Mari at all.
When do you think the deadline is when you can stop blaming the previous government?
Do you think it's about now? Do you reckon you're still allowed to do that next year? I mean genuine question.
Well, the reality is that what you were doing a turnaround job here, right, I mean we are six years yeah, yeah, sure, so six years of mismanagement doesn't get sorted in twelve months. But you've got to under When you're doing a turnaround job, you've got to face up to the reality and the starting point. You may want to put your head in the sand and say it's all fine and not confronted, but you actually have to call out that reality and say this is where I'm starting on, this is the motivation or this is the problem that we now need to solve. If you think about it, we have violent crime up thirty three percent. We've gained membership up fifty percent. We have a doubling of retail crime. We have fourfold increase in RAM rates. That's the starting point. That's what we inherited. Do we want to carry on and just let that carry on or do you want to do something about it. We chose to do something about it. As a result, we now have victimizations down three percent. Think we have ram raids down sixty four percent. You and I don't talk about ram raids. That what it needs to do with the media every single day. We have a thirty percent increase of police out on the beat. I said, total crimes down about three percent at this point. Now, we've got a lot longer to go, but we've done things. Gain laws, serious young offenders, sentencing laws, police recruitment efforts. We're doing that, but the actual tasks and the jobs and the actions you need to do in order to get a different set of outcomes.
Thanks for joining US, Prime Minister.
Thanks so much.
Bye.
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I'm Chelsea Daniels.
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