Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has unveiled his Government’s 100-day plan, as he faces pressure from Labour leader Chris Hipkins to rein in Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters over his false claims about media.
Addressing media this afternoon at his first post-Cabinet press conference, Luxon said it had been a “very busy three days” since being sworn in on Monday.
At Cabinet, Luxon said he had laid out his expectations to “get things done for the New Zealand people”.
He said almost everyone was struggling with the cost of living, adding that today’s Reserve Bank forecast signalled it could get tougher.
The Government was unveiling the 100-day plan today, which included 49 actions (see bottom of article for list).
“It is ambitious, and frankly that is because we are ambitious for New Zealand.”
The plan now incorporates the pledges of NZ First and Act, including a pledge to scrap Labour’s Smokefree policy in a bid to fund tax cuts, and a change in the way the Government interacts with the World Health Organisation.
NZ First forced National to agree to “lodge a reservation against adopting amendments to WHO health regulations to allow the government to consider these against a ‘national interest test’”.
Peters has also extracted an agreement to stop work on He Puapua, the report on implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). He Puapua was written for the Government when Peters was last in office, though he now alleges Labour hid it from him. Work stopped on the report after it was delivered to ministers.
Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson was tasked with implementing the Government’s response to UNDRIP, but he stopped work on that prior to Jacinda Ardern leaving office.
The plan also says National will scrap Labour’s prison population reduction target, something former Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis himself scrapped on the campaign.
Other, more conventional parts of the 100-day plan have survived. National will begin working on a new road-focused GPS on land transport and cancel Labour’s fuel tax hikes, and begin extending the breast cancer screening age to 74.
Luxon told media the three parties had gone through their policies line-by-line to get to the 100-day plan and were determined to get it done.
Luxon said it was “incredibly disappointing” to see the Reserve Bank signal it could need to raise the OCR. He said it was due to “economic vandalism on a scale not seen before” by the previous Labour Government.
To reduce inflation domestically, Luxon said they would set about reducing Government spending.
Luxon said he had met the Reserve Bank Governor yesterday and they were “united” on fighting inflation.
On Peters’ comments about the Public Interest Journalism Fund and false claims media had been bribed, Luxon refused to condemn them. He said that he and National had not agreed with the fund either.
He said Peters’ comments were “not the way I would have expressed it” but that he was “frustrated” by the fund as well.
Luxon said he thought it had led to perceptions of bias “rightly or wrongly”.
He thought Peters’ comments to RNZ and TVNZ around their use of te reo Māori were not directions.
Asked about Hipkins’ comments today that Luxon needed to “rein in” Peters, Luxon said he didn’t listen to Hipkins.
“He’s a desperate man at the moment.”
Luxon disagreed it had been a messy start to his Government and with any assertion that Peters had undermined him.
He said his Government was determined to deliver better outcomes for Māori.
The rhetoric around repealing Labour’s smokefree law was “disingenuous”, Luxon said. All three parties opposed all or at least parts of the legislation.
Luxon said he thought there would have been “unintended consequences” and the Government did not think the laws would work.
Their message was for people to still stop smoking despite accounting for $500 million a year in tax revenue from tobacco sales from repealing the smokefree laws, Luxon said.
Luxon said there was a commitment to reduce smoking rates, but he could not at present commit to the same smoking rates as forecast under the smokefree law.
He said they would work out an achievable goal.
He denied the Government was putting profits before people’s health.
On National minister Chris Bishop’s former role as a lobby for tobacco company Philip Morris, Bishop said any inference that had influenced his position was “just nonsense”.
Bishop said he had nothing to do with the decision to repeal the law.
Luxon said there was “more work to do” around their fiscal plan and interest deductibility.
The Government was still focused on the blanket 6.5 per cent cuts across the public sector.
Luxon said he had confidence in Treasury and the Reserve Bank to get inflation back under control.
Luxon defended the Government’s tax plan saying they had built in a “huge amount of buffer”.
Luxon confirmed Climate Change Minister Simon Watts would travel to COP28 in the United Arab Emirates with Green Party co-leader James Shaw, the former Climate Change Minister.
Bishop, who is Leader of the House, said Parliament would open at 11am on Tuesday and Gerry Brownlee would be nominated by National.
On Thursday would be the first Question Time. There will be 42 maiden speeches in the new Parliament.
During the last two weeks before Christmas, the Government will move urgency for a range of bills, the first being to return the Reserve Bank to a single mandate, fighting inflation.
They also intended to move a bill to repeal Fair Pay Agreements, the RMA reforms, the Clean Car Discount, and introduce and refer to select committee a bill to reintroduce 90-day trials.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson called the 100-day plan a “random, visionless, and harmful grab-bag of policies”.
“Thousands of people are struggling to put food on the table, yet all they are seeing on their televisions and in the papers are a group of politicians messing around with pet projects and petty grievances.
“Plans to abolish the much-needed Māori Health Authority, remove protections for working people, and roll back climate action will be met with enormous opposition inside and outside of Parliament.”
Luxon hosted the first post-Cabinet press conference of the new Government this afternoon, amid a swarm of controversy over the conduct of his deputy.
Luxon had his first Cabinet meeting yesterday, which was mainly a photo opportunity. He said today’s meeting would discuss implementing his 100-day plan for the new Government.
The press conference came as Luxon faced pressure from Hipkins to rein in Peters, who had spent the last three days in a self-described “war” with the media, whom Peters accuses of accepting bribes from the former Government.
Peters has been unable to substantiate his claims but has said the Public Interest Journalism Fund, a Covid-era media support initiative, was in fact a bribe.
Ahead of yesterday’s Cabinet, Peters asked media who were filming the meeting to “tell the public what you had to sign up to to get the money, it’s called transparency”.
Peters was himself part of Cabinet discussions on the media support package and signed off on the first package of $50 million in support. He had left government by the time the $55m package was agreed to.
Hipkins is putting pressure on Luxon to restrain his Deputy Prime Minister following Peters’ latest outbursts.
“The behaviour that we’ve seen from Winston Peters in the last 48 hours is just wrong,” Hipkins said. “Christopher Luxon needs to show that he is actually the Prime Minister and stamp down on that very quickly.
“It is wrong for Winston Peters to be stepping outside the Cabinet manual at the very meeting where they were supposed to be confirming the Cabinet,” Hipkins said.
Peters said the PIJF amounted to bribery of media outlets, an allegation that stems from the PIJF having a goal of supporting the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Applicants to the Public Interest Journalism Fund were asked, when appropriate in producing funded content, to support NZ identity, culture and public interest requirements, including support for the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
However, overriding this in NZME’s funding agreements - a clause specifically requested by the company - is an acknowledgement of the absolute editorial independence of the media entity: “We acknowledge the importance of your editorial discretion as a media entity and confirm nothing in this Agreement will limit or in any way impede or influence the ability of your news reporting functions to report and comment on news stories and current events, including those involving us, as you see fit.”
Rebuild the economy and ease the cost of living
1. Stop work on the Income Insurance Scheme.
2. Stop work on Industry Transformation Plans.
3. Stop work on the Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme.
4. Begin efforts to double renewable energy production, including a NPS on Renewable Electricity Generation.
5. Withdraw central government from Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM).
6. Meet with councils and communities to establish regional requirements for recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle and other recent major flooding events.
7. Make any additional Orders in Council needed to speed up cyclone and flood recovery efforts.
8. Start reducing public sector expenditure, including consultant and contractor expenditure.
9. Introduce legislation to narrow the Reserve Bank’s mandate to price stability.
10. Introduce legislation to remove the Auckland Fuel Tax.
11. Cancel fuel tax hikes.
12. Begin work on a new GPS reflecting the new Roads of National Significance and new public transport priorities.
13. Repeal the Clean Car Discount scheme by December 31, 2023.
14. Stop blanket speed limit reductions and start work on replacing the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2022.
15. Stop central government work on the Auckland Light Rail project.
16. Repeal the Fair Pay Agreement legislation.
17. Introduce legislation to restore 90-day trial periods for all businesses.
18. Start work to improve the quality of regulation.
19. Begin work on a National Infrastructure Agency.
20. Introduce legislation to repeal the Water Services Entities Act 2022.
21. Repeal the Spatial Planning and Natural and Built Environment Act and introduce a fast-track consenting regime.
22. Begin to cease implementation of new Significant Natural Areas and seek advice on operation of the areas.
23. Take policy decisions to amend the Overseas Investment Act 2005 to make it easier for build-to-rent housing to be developed in New Zealand.
24. Begin work to enable more houses to be built, by implementing the Going for Housing Growth policy and making the Medium Density Residential Standards optional for councils.
Restore law and order
25. Abolish the previous government’s prisoner reduction target.
26. Introduce legislation to ban gang patches, stop gang members gathering in public, and stop known gang offenders from communicating with one another.
27. Give police greater powers to search gang members for firearms and make gang membership an aggravating factor at sentencing.
28. Stop taxpayer funding for section 27 cultural reports.
29. Introduce legislation to extend eligibility to offence-based rehabilitation programmes to remand prisoners.
30. Begin work to crack down on serious youth offending.
31. Enable more virtual participation in court proceedings.
32. Begin to repeal and replace Part 6 of the Arms Act 1983 relating to clubs and ranges.
Deliver better public services
33. Stop all work on He Puapua.
34. Improve security for the health workforce in hospital emergency departments.
35. Sign an MoU with Waikato University to progress a third medical school.
36. By December 1, 2023, lodge a reservation against adopting amendments to WHO health regulations to allow the government to consider these against a “national interest test”.
37. Require primary and intermediate schools to teach an hour of reading, writing and maths per day starting in 2024.
38. Ban the use of cellphones in schools.
39. Appoint an Expert Group to redesign the English and maths curricula for primary school students.
40. Begin disestablishing Te Pukenga.
41. Begin work on delivering better public services and strengthening democracy.
42. Set five major targets for health system, including for wait times and cancer treatment.
43. Introduce legislation to disestablish the Māori Health Authority.
44. Take first steps to extend free breast cancer screening to those aged up to 74.
45. Repeal amendments to the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990 and regulations.
46. Allow the sale of cold medication containing pseudoephedrine.
47. Begin work to repeal the Therapeutics Products Act 2023.
48. Establish a priority one category on the social housing waitlist to move families out of emergency housing into permanent homes more quickly.
49. Commission an independent review into Kāinga Ora’s financial situation, procurement, and asset management.
PM Christopher Luxon will meet Xi Jinping in Beijing before attending the Nato summit.