Post-Cabinet Press Conference: Monday, 12 June 2023

Have you locked in a meeting with Xi Jinping?

I’m not in a position to confirm the details of the programme at this stage, but, as they are firmed up, we’ll share those.

It’s always been a balancing act for Prime Ministers going there, raising human rights issues, and raising grievances. Do you plan to take to a more aggressive or a more fulsome approach when you’re there in China?

I think we’ve prided ourselves, in our relationship with China, of being stable and consistent in our position, and we’ll continue to be so. That means that where we have human rights concerns, we will raise them; where we have concerns around trade or any other foreign-policy issue, we will raise those. So our relationship with China has always been based on setting out clearly our position and, you know, being consistent in our position, and we’ll continue to do that.

Prime Minister, should there be an investigation separate to the internal one going on into Radio New Zealand?

That’s ultimately a matter for Radio New Zealand. Obviously, editorial independence here is very important. As a listener to Radio New Zealand, I am sure that they will be—I hope that they will be—taking it very seriously. As a Minister, I intend to stay well out of it.

Do you see any evidence at the moment that a wider or a parliamentary—there have been calls this morning for a parliamentary inquiry. Do you see any evidence that that is needed at this stage?

I’m not sure that a parliamentary inquiry is the best way to preserve Radio New Zealand’s editorial independence.

While you will be reluctant—are the security service, the GCSB or SAS, keeping a watching brief on that situation, given it involves, perhaps, misinformation from a foreign power?

I certainly have not been advised of that.

How damaging is this to RNZ’s reputation?

Look, that’s really a matter for Radio New Zealand. I don’t want to comment on it.

It’s ultimately a question for them.

Are you satisfied of the handling so far of the controversy, given that Radio New Zealand is publicly funded?

Radio New Zealand is publicly funded, but it’s also editorially independent. That editorial independence is incredibly important. State-funded media is a common feature around the world. State-funded media that answers to the Government of the day, in terms of their editorial decisions, is not independent. That’s not the case for RNZ. RNZ make those decisions independently for a reason.

Has anything come across your desk that suggests that Russia has infiltrated our State broadcaster?

Certainly, nothing has come to me personally. I understand that the Minister of broadcasting has previously received at least one complaint, which he has referred to Radio New Zealand.

Back on the China relationship: has New Zealand ever faced economic coercion from China, or the threat of it?

We have a robust, ongoing dialogue with China, and we’ve always been very clear in our opposition to economic coercion. We believe in a rules-based system. That is what New Zealand has consistently spoken in favour of, and we’ll continue to do that.

When New Zealand signs a statement in Paris, with five other countries, about that position on economic coercion, like you say, is China the main target of a statement like that? Is China seen to be the main actor in using economic coercion?

Any country that seeks to use economic coercion is the target of that statement.

Following on from Minister Mahuta’s visit, will you be asking—if there is a meeting with the Chinese leadership—about their position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in terms of the potential influence of China?

I’m sure it will come up in conversation, and I’ll be reiterating again New Zealand's already stated position that we’re firmly opposed to the war in Ukraine and that we would encourage China to use any influence that it has to try and bring that war—that illegal and unjust war—to an end.

Have there been any communications back, or any diplomatic or ministerial level, after Minister Mahuta’s visit, in terms of any of those big foreign policy issues and any change in position or further discussion?

I mean, I think our relationship with China is always an ongoing work in progress.

We continue to have ongoing conversations, but our position hasn’t changed. And as I’ve indicated, I don’t think our position on a range of issues—whether it be the war in Ukraine, whether it be economic coercion, whether it be human rights, all of these things, our position has been consistent on.

What message will you be taking to Beijing around the threat of foreign interference, and in particular against ethnic communities in New Zealand? The Department of Internal Affairs has been funded, through the Budget this year, for a work programme in that area. What will you be saying, if anything, to Chinese counterparts?

The same that I would say in any international forum, which is: New Zealand is a free and open democracy, and that is something that we really value. We want our citizens to be able to participate freely in the election process, to make their own judgments and their own decisions as they participate in our democratic process, which they’ll get the opportunity to do in just over four months, and that message applies to all other countries. We respect the election process in other countries, and we expect all other countries to do same in New Zealand.

How do you reconcile this trade trip, which sounds like it’s going to have a pretty huge delegation, with the Government’s overall messaging regarding the need to diversify New Zealand’s export partners so that we don’t have all our eggs in one basket? Is there any contradiction there, do you think?

No, not at all. Of course, China is an existing trading partner, and a valuable one to New Zealand, but the work that we have been doing around the EU free-trade agreement, the UK free-trade agreement, and our other trade discussions in a range of different contexts—including, significantly, the CPTPP—are a part of our really concerted effort to diversify our overall export market shares.

Prime Minister, did Cabinet today make a decision about MBIE’s proposal to split the running of Mount Ruapehu?

Cabinet certainly discussed a paper on that. I’m not in a position to make any announcements right now because there is further stakeholder discussion happening this afternoon, but further announcements on that are imminent.

Sure. I’m not as such asking about announcements; I’m more asking about decisions. Did you come to an agreement when Cabinet spoke today?

There were certainly some decisions, and the Minister will announce them once the relevant stakeholders have been informed and discussions have taken place.

So there were discussions, conversations, and decisions, but you can’t tell us what was agreed to or talked about?

Well, no, because, clearly, some of these are commercial and contractual, and so there’s still some remaining bits of that process to go through before announcements are made, but you can expect announcements very shortly—i.e., within the next 24 hours or so.

board?

How can you make a decision on this when you haven’t got iwi and hapū on

Iwi and hapū involvement in this process has been integral to the decisions. It was certainly one of the very important parts of the conversation at Cabinet today.

There was only a meeting with them over the last 24 hours; they’ve been completely shut out of the process. How is that fulsome?

I don’t think they’ve been completely shut out of the process—in fact, I think they’ve been involved in the process from the beginning. That doesn’t mean that everything landed exactly where they might have expected it to, so therefore, you know, as I’ve said, there’s still some i’s dotted and t’s to be crossed before we’re in a position to make public announcements.

What do you say to the parents and teachers of secondary school kids who are now facing three weeks of rolling strikes and upped action?

I’m also frustrated by that. I want to welcome the recent settlement with primary school teachers. The Government’s position is that it is a good offer that is on the table with the secondary school teachers. We’d encourage them, rather than taking strike action, to go back to facilitated bargaining and to do that in good faith.

These kids have been disrupted through COVID; they are now facing two days a week off in critical years. What is the Government actually doing to sort this out? Because we’ve heard the teachers’ side: they are going on strike and have every intention of carrying on. So what is the Government doing to actually resolve this?

Well, the Government has been actively involved in trying to seek a resolution here, and you’ll see evidence of that in the fact that the majority of the country’s teachers, the primary school teachers and intermediate school teachers, have reached a settlement with the Ministry of Education.

So are secondary school teachers being unreasonable? Have they got an offer on the table you think is acceptable for them to offer?

It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to make those kind of judgments, but I do believe the offer that’s on the table is a fair one.

You’re asking them to take a page out of the primary school teachers’ notebooks, essentially?

I’m saying, you know, I think the primary school teachers voted in favour of an offer that the Government sees as a fair offer.

Are their expectations unreasonable?

I’m not going to pass judgment on that. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to do that, in terms of the good-faith requirements of the law.

But it’s getting to a point where it’s really unfair on these kids, so surely there needs to be some leadership on this issue. The teachers aren’t budging; the Government’s not budging—what are you going to do so that kids can actually go to school?

I reject that the Government hasn’t budged. If you look at the agreement that was reached with primary school teachers last week, actually, there was significant movement from Government on that.

So is there still wiggle room, from the Government’s perspective?

As I’ve indicated, I’m not going to bargain through a public forum. They need to get back round the table. There’s facilitated bargaining on offer at the moment; that is the way forward.

On the stalemate, and, again, the impact on these kids, I mean, the Government and the unions, as Jenna said, are both carrying on and, you know, not reaching a position. Is it a stalemate?

No. In facilitated bargaining, you have someone independent who can guide through the process and bring the two parties together. The Government is going into facilitated bargaining, and has been in facilitated bargaining, in good faith, in an open way, as we would expect, and I’d encouraged the secondary school teachers’ union to do the same thing.

But how long can this go on?

table.

As I’ve indicated, you know, the best way to resolve this is around the bargaining

Prime Minister, on National’s announcement today, it says that you’ve treated farmers like villains. What’s your response to that?

I don’t agree with that characterisation. The National Party seem to be treating the climate with contempt. They seem to be saying that they’re committed to net zero by 2050, but they seem to have absolutely no idea how they’re going to deliver on that, and in fact have opposed every single thing that the Government has been doing to help us achieve that goal.

that?

They also said you basically blew up He Waka Eke Noa. What’s your response to

No, we continue to be around the table with the sector leaders through the He Waka Eke Noa partnership, because we do believe that that is the way forward.

So when he says that you guys took He Waka Eke Noa, you blew it up, you shot it to bits, and you killed it, are they wrong?

Yes.

Can I also quote him again for you, as well? Up on that farm in Helensville, he said that New Zealand is a negative, wet, whiny, inward-looking country that’s lost the plot. Would you agree with that?

Sorry, Christopher Luxon said that?

Yep.

Well, I mean, I guess it makes a change that he’s running New Zealand down in New Zealand, as opposed to running the country down when he’s overseas.

And is it insanely stupid that we have not been allowing GE and GM in this country?

It’s a difficult issue. Some time back—you know, within the last month or two— I’ve asked the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor to do a little bit of thinking around this and give me some further advice on it. In terms of issues around gene editing, for example, I think there’s a legitimate discussion for us to have. I don’t think that we should go ploughing into that without carefully considering the implications of it, including the fact that a number of our export industries proudly put “GE-free” on their label and actually make quite a lot of money from that. So I think we have to consider both the economics of it and also the science of it. There is, of course, a spectrum of issues that you grapple with, you know, when you talk about genetic engineering. There’s potentially great benefits to it— including, you know, in the areas of health science—but there’s also massive ethical and moral dilemmas that come out of it as well. So I think we just need to tread carefully, which is why I asked the Chief Science Advisor to produce a bit of advice for me, and she’s in the process of doing that.

What support is being offered to Ōpōtiki in the wake of the gang tensions that are rising there?

Ultimately, it’s a matter for the police to deal with issues around gang tension. I am confident that the police have the resources that they need in order to be able to do that.

Will the Government do anything to avoid the job losses that Victoria University, Otago University, are currently looking at? Is there more money that you can put on the table?

So we’ve put the biggest increase in funding the universities have seen in 20 years into the sector—that kicks in at the beginning of next year and was put in through this year’s Budget—because we acknowledge that times are tough and that universities’ costs, like everybody else’s costs, have been going up. I do want to acknowledge that the universities have been hit by a bit of a double whammy, in that all of the universities— except for, I think, Canterbury—have seen a decline in enrolment. So they’ve got rising costs and a decline in enrolments, which has an impact on their funding. Universities have always had a difficult job to balance those things, and it does mean that their financial position can be bumpy as they go through different cycles of—you know, their financial always looks good when enrolments are steadily increasing; when they go through a downturn in enrolments, they have some difficult financial choices to make.

It sounds like there’s no additional funding that you can put on the table. Like, 200 staff eventually in line to get sacked at Victoria University. That seems quite shortsighted if, as you say, the financial situation’s lumpy; in a few years’ time, they might have all the money in the world and no ability to hire back these 200 staff they’ve let go.

Well, as, I think, some sector representatives themselves have acknowledged, I was on the Victoria University council the last time they went through this particular cycle and where some difficult decisions had to be made. As a student representative, yes, I was outspoken and critical, but I was also supportive of some of the difficult choices that were made during that time—including the choice to discontinue some whole subject areas where enrolments had fallen and therefore the university was subsidising an area that no one wanted to study anymore. These are decisions that are best taken by the institutions, and we have a representative council for the institutions—which includes staff and student representatives and members of the community—so that they can have input into that decision-making process.

Over the weekend, we also saw a proposal from the Green Party to another variation of a wealth tax. If you were in a position to form a Government, after the election, with the Green Party, is this a policy that you would consider?

As I’ve been really clear, we will set out our tax policy well before the election, and I can say that I expect to do that before the campaign period begins. And that will also include with it what are bottom lines for us—so what would we rule out; what are the things that we wouldn’t do? We haven’t released that policy yet, and I’m not going to make it up on the fly or drip-feed it out, but we’ll be very clear. New Zealanders will know exactly where we stand on all of the issues around capital gains tax, wealth tax, income tax, and so on.

Are you worried that by not ruling it in or out now, you open your party up for a lot of attacks from the National Party—that it says that you’re not ruling out a wealth tax?

Well, I noticed that there’s a whole lot of proposals that the ACT Party have released that the National Party—

We’ll get to the National Party. Just—

—that the National Party haven’t ruled out as well.

But you’re in charge of Labour’s policies. So are you not worried that they’re going to use this line that has, in the past, been a little bit effective? They keep running the “coalition of chaos” line, as well. Are you not worried that by not ruling it out now and kicking it down the can for another couple of months, you’re a bit liable to these accusations?

Well, if you talk about “coalition of chaos”, the National Party—that describes the National Party caucus, let alone any other parties that they might work with, given that they don’t seem to agree with each other on very much and they don’t know how they’re going to pay for their own policy commitments.

OK, but I’m specifically asking about the fact that you’re not ruling it out now and you’re waiting for another date to do that. Are you not worried that that’s going to open you up to all sorts of attacks?

As I’ve said, we’ll release our tax policy, the Labour Party tax policy, well before the election.

When you travel to Europe, will you go to Kyiv?

We have looked at the logistics of that and, as I indicated before, I think that’s unlikely, just because of the logistics involved in it.

Are you ruling it out? Have you told the ambassador that?

Those are ongoing diplomatic conversations, but we have indicated that it is unlikely.

Police say, in the past four years there have been almost 14,000 crimes that were hate motivated, including six murders, but, since New Zealand doesn’t have hate crime law, they haven’t been able to charge people with hate crimes. Does that make you want to change the approach to hate crime? The Law Commission’s looking at it but they haven’t started even looking at it yet.

Well, a crime is a crime, so murder is murder regardless of what the motivation for it was. And so the fact that there’s not a specific statute that uses the word “hate crime” does not mean that people aren’t held accountable for those actions.

But do you think it’s important for someone who commits an anti-Semitic assault to be denounced by the justice system as having committed an anti-Semitic assault, not just regular assault?

I certainly think that they should be held accountable for the fact that they committed an assault. The issue around hate speech and hate crime is one that we’ve asked the Law Commission to do more work on. I still think that these things are best approached—given that they have a difficult interface with issues around free speech and so on, that they are best approached in a more dispassionate way than you might get in the four months running up to a general election.

And the Law Commission hasn’t started that work yet because it says it’s waiting for more resource. Is that on the way for them?

The Law Commission, I’m sure, argue always that they would like more resource.

I’m sure those are ongoing conversations between them and the Minister of Justice.

Have there been any developments on your stance on Michael Wood being stood down as transport Minister over the weekend, and do you have any update on the time line of Jan Tinetti’s Privileges Committee report and Mr Wood’s inquiry date?

No update has come to me on the Privileges Committee’s deliberations on the hearing last week, so that’s really a matter for them. In terms of issues around Michael Wood, I said that I would now await the outcome of the investigation that’s being done by the registrar of pecuniary interests. I think it’s important that he has the space to do that independently and robustly, he acts completely impartially, and I will await the outcome of that before making any further decision or judgment.

The registrar’s inquiry looks at the parliamentary side of things. You’re obviously the person in decision-making authority on the Government side of things. The decision not to sell the shares after being told 12 times—I mean, who is investigating that transgression, the Government transgression?

So, as I’ve indicated, I want to wait and see what the registrar says about what should have been declared and what shouldn’t have been declared and so on, because that has a material impact on any future decisions that I might make. And that’s why I’ve stood Michael down as the Minister of Transport, in the interim. But, as to what happens after that, I do want to allow that investigation to take place first.

But it was revealed that he misled the Cabinet Office; he misled, therefore, the Prime Minister’s Office. Isn’t that a serious offence?

It is and he’s been stood down as the Minister of Transport. What I have said is that I will wait and make a decision on what further steps, if any, get taken based on the outcome of this next investigation.

Should a Minister that has a track record of misleading the Prime Minister be a Minister?

As I’ve indicated, I’m not going to make a further judgment on that until the investigation has been completed.

Māori are calling for our Government and King Charles to formally reject the doctrine of discovery. What’s your response to that?

I think the doctrine of discovery is irrelevant in New Zealand. We have the Treaty of Waitangi, which is the constitutional basis for the way we pursue these sorts of discussions. In fact, when the previous Government signed us up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it was specifically mentioned, under the section that was about the doctrine of discovery, that New Zealand’s position is that the doctrine of discovery is not relevant to New Zealand and that the Treaty of Waitangi and the processes that we have around that are what’s relevant to New Zealand. So that continues to be our position.

Could you do something symbolic and make that a more official Government response coming from you?

Well, it already is contained very explicitly in our statement around UNDRIP.

Aucklanders hit by the floods and the cyclone are due to start getting their letters from the council. Are those letters—are they going to deliver them any certainty? There seems to be a bit of confusion in Auckland about what exactly they’re going to be hearing from the council. What’s your understanding?

Yeah, I haven’t been involved directly in the conversations about what Auckland is, you know, releasing this week. The model that we’ve established is one of, sort of, a nationally consistent framework but decisions made locally. And so I know that the relevant Ministers will be working through that with the Auckland Council.

Prime Minister, have you got an update about what—or where—the investigation into Stuart Nash’s conduct is at? It was supposed to have some sort of answer or something last week; it still hasn’t come.

Yeah, I haven’t been briefed on that yet, but I expect to be fairly shortly. I expect within the next week or so that that review will be complete and the results will be known of that.

The week or so—so what’s the hold-up? Why has it been delayed?

Well, ultimately, it’s a matter for the Cabinet Office, but I understand that it is imminent.

Prime Minister, just with Ōpōtiki—the high school there has been closed. Are you concerned about the schools being closed there because of those gang tensions? Is that a worry for you?

Yes, it is a concern for me, and, certainly, my expectation is that the police will be—if that is the case, then my expectation, certainly, that the police will be giving that a matter of priority, but that is, of course, a matter for the commissioner.

As Prime Minister, does that concern you, though, that we live in a country where that happens?

I think gang activity contributes nothing to New Zealand society, and in fact it detracts from it and takes away from it. I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done as a Government to increase the resources to police to crack down on gang offending. We’ve also changed the law to give police more tools in cracking down on gang offending. I don’t think gangs offer anything positive to New Zealand.

Just back on the tax proposals—if you’re not going to rule in or rule out; whatever—do you like the idea of a tax switch? You’ve said before that our tax system is unfair; do you think we need to fundamentally change things?

It’s a nice attempt to get me to start to speculate on what our tax policy may be, and thank you for the invitation, but I’m not going to.

Well, David Parker has spoken quite complimentary of a tax switch. Is that the Government’s position?

Like I said, I’m not going to set out what may or may not be in our tax policy, or what I may or may not like in the tax area, today. Mark.

Officials from the Department of Internal Affairs made 32 changes to the three waters bills that MPs on that select committee had not approved. How concerning is that to you, and do you know if anything has been done about it?

I’m happy to look at that. I haven’t spoken to the Minister concerned about that particular issue.

When is your tax policy coming? Can you give us a rough estimate?

I’ve indicated that we’ll have it out well before the campaign—the official campaign—begins.

Early August?

When we’ve got an announcement to make, you’ll all be the first to know.

Do you think all New Zealand households should have a guaranteed income of— I don’t know—$385 a week to live on?

You’re finding a million different ways to try and get around what I have just said, which is that I’m—

Do you think people need that to live?

I think people should have an income that’s sufficient to live comfortably on, and I also believe that if you work hard, you should be able to get ahead and you should be able to enjoy the benefits from that. But now, if you start to get into, you know, where does the financial threshold for different things lie, that’s going to depend on a range of different circumstances.

Well, the two statements that you’ve just made—do you believe that New Zealand is set up in a way, at the moment, for both of those things to be true: if you work hard, you can get ahead, and everyone should have enough to live on?

There is always room for improvement.

Your tax policy—your decision to put your bottom lines and rule-outs in that policy is new, different to the last year; why have you opted for that kind of strategy?

I don’t think it is that different from the position that we took in 2020, when we were very clear about the things we would or wouldn’t consider in terms of tax beyond the election.

The Prime Minister only ruled out a wealth tax, I think, in the last week of that campaign. What you’re describing sounds like you’re going to have your bottom lines of tax policy in the actual document that you put out very early on in the campaign.

Yeah, I think transparency around tax is a good thing, and that’s certainly something that we will have.

Was that because you got hammered so hard at the last couple of weeks of the last campaign on this wealth-tax issue—you’re looking to pre-empt all of that scrutiny?

I just think that we will be up front about what our tax policy is and what we will and won’t consider after the election.

Do you think it was a wise strategy to dump a big old report on the table that said the wealthy New Zealanders are not paying enough tax, and then not have any kind of policy to tell New Zealanders what you’re going to do about it?

Well, no. I disagree with that. We actually did have a change in the Budget, which was around cracking down on very wealthy people using trusts in order to avoid paying their fair share of tax, and we have done something about that.

And that’s the extent of it?

Like I said, for the rest of our tax policy, you’ll just have to wait a bit longer. OK, thanks, everybody.