Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says change is coming to stimulate New Zealand’s economy, with an announcement on the foreign buyers ban “so close” and a “total rethink” coming for major events.
Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking this morning, the Prime Minister was asked about the title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/banking-finance/banking-competition-inquiry-conclusions-mps-struggle-to-identify-silver-bullet-solutions/A23N3BMSOVC2VGE5BURAD4HFMQ/">banking competition inquiry, ahead of an announcement today on where the current proposals are at. Luxon said he did not know what the announcement would be.
“I’ve got a sense of what it will be, but I have not seen a full report.”
But Luxon hinted at other moves afoot to help New Zealand’s economic recovery.
He told Hosking he has asked Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston for a “total rethink” of major events.
“I think that is something that is genuinely stimulating economic activity. You need to because it’s a pipeline of activity. You’ve actually got to stuff it with things that may not pay off just this month, but actually will pay off in a year or two ahead as well.
“And you’ve got to signal that. So I’ve asked for a total rethink on major events.”
Luxon said he would look at following a similar model to that of the former Premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett, who hosted a major event every quarter in order to stimulate the economy.
He told Herald NOW’s Ryan Bridge it was too soon to say if he would meet Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown on his early calls to introduce a “bed levy” in Auckland.
He said they have some “massive conferences” coming up in Auckland and the convention centre on stream to kick off the “pipeline of activity”.
Luxon also signalled that an announcement on foreign buyers being able to purchase property in New Zealand was “so close”.
“We’re weeks away”.
On the comments regarding Auckland being a “two-speed economy”, Luxon said they had revealed many projects over the past week that he is sure will provide stimulus.
“We’ve had the $815 million investment in level crossings, 280 extra jobs, we announced yesterday.
“You’ve had the port come through in six months, not five years, in terms of its recovery programme.
“As a government, we’ve got $7 billion worth of projects coming. That’s kicking off a lot of work around construction in Auckland, which is very important here. And so as manufacturing and investment boost is helping us as we’ve seen in numbers in July.”
Luxon is doing his usual Monday morning media round, a day after hitting out at Israel over the famine in Gaza.
The Prime Minister on Sunday said he wanted to see Hamas release hostages and Israel to offer humanitarian agencies’ unfettered access to Gaza “to be able to get in there and provide the food they need to”.
Yesterday, Luxon said “you’ve got 94% of hospitals destroyed or out of action and 90% of Gaza really in rubble”.
Recent developments in the conflict would not cause him to accelerate the Government’s deliberations on whether to formally recognise a Palestinian state, Luxon said.
His comments responded to a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an organisation backed by the United Nations, declaring half a million people – a quarter of the Palestinians in Gaza – were suffering from famine.
The group declared the situation “entirely man-made” owing to Israel’s obstruction of food entering the Gaza Strip.
The report said any further delay to aid getting into Gaza “even by days” would “result in a totally unacceptable escalation of famine-related mortality”.
In response to the report, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the famine was entirely preventable. In remarks reported by the BBC, he said food could not get through to the Palestinian territory “because of systematic obstruction by Israel”.
In a statement reported by the BBC, Israel said the report was an “outright lie” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Israel does not have a policy of starvation, Israel has a policy of preventing starvation.”
Correction and clarification: An earlier version of this story incorrectly quoted Christopher Luxon as saying “90% to 94% of Gaza is absolutely destroyed”. Luxon instead said: “you’ve got 94% of hospitals destroyed or out of action and 90% of Gaza really in rubble”. The response from Israel to the IPC report has also been added to the story.