I stand here closing out the year, incredibly proud of the work of my team that has delivered in 2024. It certainly has been a mammoth year for Government because we’ve got a mammoth amount of work needed to get New Zealand back on track. And I think New Zealanders should hopefully feel confident that our plan is starting to rebuild the economy, to reduce the cost of living, make all Kiwis safer by restoring law and order, improve the quality of education so that our kids are ready to do what they need to do into their futures, and deliver better healthcare for everyone.
It’s been a good start. With fiscal and monetary policy working together we’ve seen inflation drop to 2.2 percent, creating the conditions for three OCR cuts and much-needed mortgage relief. We delivered tax relief for the first time in 14 years, meaning 83 percent of Kiwis are keeping more of what they earn, while Family Boost childcare payments have already hit the bank accounts of nearly 42,000 families. Police foot patrols are up 30 percent, ram raids are down 60 percent and overall victimisations have dropped 3 percent after years of rising crime. We’re getting back to teaching our kids the basics brilliantly, and Kiwis who are at their most vulnerable are already starting to access 26 new cancer treatments that our $604 million investment delivered.
But as you know, I’ll be the first to tell you we have a lot more to do to get our economic engine humming so it is working for everyone. And we’ve worked with speed, focus and determination all year long to lay the foundations for growth, brick by brick, so that we can start to hit the economic gas pedal and get the country out of the doldrums of stagnation that we’ve inherited. We need to grow because that’s how we get more jobs, that’s how we get higher incomes, and that’s how we have the ability to afford the public services that Kiwis deserve and expect.
As the Government of action and delivery, in each quarter we have outlined clear plans focused on the priorities that we were elected on. In fact, this year we completed 160 actions in our four quarterly plans alone. Technically we’ve got a couple of weeks left in Q4, but today I’m providing an update on our progress and I’m proud to say that when we close out for the year, the Government will have ticked off 42 of the 43 actions in our Q4 plan.
Our fourth quarter had a heavy focus on tackling issues that have been holding New Zealand back from delivering modern, reliable infrastructure, which is so critical in driving the economic growth that we desperately need. We simply need to get things built faster and be it a new road or a bridge that better connects our communities, a development of warm, dry homes for families in need, a solar farm generating renewable energy, or a new public transport project that might end up carrying thousands of Kiwis to work every day, fast track is how we do that.
And that is why this week we are passing legislation to speed up delivery of regional and national projects of significance. We’re sorting out the Resource Management Act and have passed an amendment to ease the regulatory burden hampering our world-class farmers.
We’ve also introduced an RMA amendment to cut through the red and green tape holding back growth in infrastructure, energy, housing and farming sectors, and we’ve introduced legislation to make it easier to build offshore wind farms. And we’ve completed this work alongside a swathe of other actions to further our agenda of restoring law and order and delivering better public services.
It has been a very full-on year and a very full end of year, and I just want to thank my colleagues for the hours that they’ve put in over the past week during urgency. Last week in the House we passed the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill, Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill and the Therapeutic Products Act Repeal Bill. page 1 of 15
Now today I’m joined by our hardworking Minister for Local Government, Simeon Brown, and councils, as you know, have generated headlines throughout the year. Rising rates, in some areas more than others, have drawn the ire of many ratepayers, and just like central government, the spending decisions of local government are under increasing scrutiny. Our consistent position has been that councils should be focused on their core functions, delivering the basics that residents expect of them brilliantly and living within their means, and with that I’ll hand over to Simeon to give you some more information on what role the Government will play in that.
Thank you, Prime Minister. Across the country, ratepayers are facing the fastest increase to their rates demands in more than 20 years. It is clear that rates are out of control. These increases are unacceptable to ratepayers and unacceptable to the Government. This Government was elected to get the high cost of living under control and we are getting on with that job. Inflation is down, mortgage rates are lower, providing relief for homeowners, and the Government has delivered its promise of tax relief. But local Government rate increases remain an issue.
Today, I am pleased to announce that the Government is undertaking reforms to help reduce the pressure on rates and get local Government back on track. Cabinet has agreed to a package of local government reforms to rein in rates increases by focusing councils on delivering core services and essential infrastructure, spending within their means and being subject to greater scrutiny.
The local government reform programme will remove references to the four well-beings from the Local Government Act, restore a purpose of fixing the key issues focusing on—that councils are focused on: fixing pipes, filling potholes, delivering core local services. Benchmarking council performance: the Department of Internal Affairs will publish a yearly report on key financial and delivery outcomes, helping ratepayers hold councils accountable and compare their council with other councils. Modernise outdated rules, including removing requirements for newspaper notices, to drive efficiency and cost savings in local government.
The first benchmarking report on local councils will be released in the middle of 2025 and is expected to include a number of key council performance metrics: rates, so that ratepayers know the amount of rates levied per unit, the change in rates since the previous year and the forecast change in rates over the next 10 years compared with other councils; council debt, including debt per rating unit, percentage change in council debt since the previous year and forecast change over the next 10 years; capital expenditure, including a breakdown by activity class, such as roading and water services; balanced budget, to show whether a council is balancing its budget or borrowing to support expenditure; road conditions, so that ratepayers can compare the state of their local roads with councils across the country.
This report will be released ahead of the next local council election, to give ratepayers and residents clear information about their council’s financial performance prior to going to the polls in October 2025. Legislation will be amended to allow future benchmarking reports to include comparison of other things, including contractor and consultant expenditure and other key performance metrics.
Cabinet will also consider additional measures next year, which will be included in legislation introduced mid-2025 and passed by the end of 2025. These will consider investigating rates pegging, similar to the New South Wales model, reform of codes of conduct, reviewing audit requirements, and the establishment of a written question system to give councillors more access to information to be able to hold their councils and their leadership to account. Once these decisions have been made in the new year, we expect to introduce a bill to Parliament by the middle of 2025. In the meantime, we want to make it clear that our expectations of the local Government are the same that we have of ourselves, which is to get back to the basics and do them brilliantly. Thank you. page 2 of 15
Well, thank you Simeon. Before we just open up for questions, in the House this week we will actually pass the Fast Track Approvals Bill. We’ll also send to select committee a range of bills completing the first readings, including the second phase of RMA reform, the Gene Technology Bill, the Local Government (Water Services) Bill, Offshore Renewable Energy Bill and the Broadcasting (Repeal of Advertising Restrictions) Amendment Bill as well. On Wednesday afternoon—morning, there will be an extended sitting for members’ business, and in the afternoon the House will adjourn for 2025.
Just in closing, can I say to all of you: thank you for being here, week in and week out. It’s been a big year and I just genuinely hope that each and every one of you get a break, and a chance to refresh and recharge with your loved ones, and come back ready for what will be another full-on 2025. And with that, happy to take your questions. Sorry, Jason, do you want to go? Jason, then Jenna.
You talked about investigating rate pegging, I think was what you described it as, in Australia. Can you give us a bit of an explanation as to why it is that you’re just investigating something like that? If you’re looking to bring down rates, why didn’t you just go hard and just do a sort of a rate cap?
Yeah, so we’re doing the work looking at overseas jurisdictions. This one is something we need to carefully work through, in terms of the councils obviously have to work through the Local Government Funding Agency to be able to access financing, and so the measure that we do put in place has to be one that’s carefully considered, and that’s the work that we’re doing. Ultimately, the New South Wales model is a good model in that it sets a price pathway, effectively, for councils that they have to keep within over a 10-year period and puts that downward pressure on rates. So that work’s being done and that’s the next step that Cabinet will be making decisions on in February.
So what’s Cabinet’s thinking around making that decision? What sort of things will you need to see from this investigation or from the councils across the country before you take that step?
Well, effectively, the issue here is what parts of council this should potentially apply to, how it works in terms of the councils over in Australia to make sure that— you know, there are a range of circumstances where they may need to go outside of that. What’s the exceptions process? So there’s a bit of detail we just need to work through. Officials are doing that at this stage. But we’re very clear that this is about—you know, and effectively today’s decisions around removing the four well-beings and putting in place the benchmarking are going to basically provide that in the interim. Some very clear messages to local government.
Well, if you look back over the last 20 years and look at the time when the four well-beings have been in the legislation compared to when they haven’t been, the Department of Internal Affairs has advised that the rates have increased on average 2 percent faster in years when that has when that has been in the legislation, rather than when it hasn’t been. And so effectively what it sends is it widens the scope of what local government should be focused on, around the social, economic, cultural well-beings, environmental well-beings. And effectively it increases the scope of what councils should be focused on, rather than those core basics of fixing the roads, fixing the pipes, delivering local services effectively and efficiently, and it increases the scope and therefore councillors vote to increase what their council is doing, which costs more money for ratepayers. page 3 of 15
Ultimately, if you look back over the last 20 years, that’s exactly what ratepayers have seen. And if you look back when the last National Government removed the four well-beings, it was the same evidence that was presented at that time, which showed that when the four well-beings were put in place by the Helen Clark Government, in the time period following that, we saw rates increase faster than the rate—on average, 2 percent faster than the years preceding that.
Well, if you look—it’s a long period of time now which we’ve had the four well-beings in and the four well-beings out, and so that provides a long period of time to be able to compare the data and actually assess that. And so what we’re effectively saying here is we’re going to remove the four well-beings, say to councils what they should be focused on is those core local services. And actually, you know, we see so many examples up and down the country where councils—you know, the convention centres and the hotels that they look at, and all of these other things that they want to spend money on. But—and they—and you look at the language. They use the four well-beings to justify the decisions that they’re making, and we’re saying that party is over.
So do you think councils will now stop building the likes of convention centres, or restoring town halls or whatever, because of the removal of the four well-beings?
What I think they will do by virtue of removing it is they’ll actually focus on the basics that the ratepayer expects them to deliver on brilliantly. And we’ve seen it across a number of cities where we actually haven’t—you know, they haven’t delivered on the things that they should be doing: fix the pipes, make sure the footpaths are maintained, get rid of the graffiti, do the basics really well, collect the rubbish.
Well, it sends a very clear message to councillors about what they should be focused on and what they shouldn’t be focused on, by changing the purpose of the Act. The purpose of the Act, under the last Government, was widened. We are reducing the scope of what local government should be focused on back to the basics, so that they can stop the wasteful expenditure that we’ve been seeing.
Well, it’s actually changing the law. It’s changing the law as to what the mandate and the—and what local government is meant to be focused on. And the reality is, if you look at all of the—many of the decisions being made and how the four well-beings have been used to justify all sorts of expenditure, we’re removing that from the legislation.
Why haven’t you got to the rates cap policy or rates pegging policy yet? You talked about it earlier in the year to Local Government New Zealand. Why is it not part of this package?
Well, there’s—as I said, there’s two phases. This is the phase one. Phase two will be Cabinet decisions in February. And ultimately, as I said to Jason earlier, there’s some work that we just need to work through in regards to how those decisions will effectively be made, and it will come into one piece of legislation which will include these decisions and those ones in the middle of next year. page 4 of 15
Well, it is—it is—it is a complex issue but what we’re very committed to is having a rates pegging system which says how we want councils to be looking at their expenditure over a long period of time, and keeping downward pressure on those rates.
On the face of it, it seems as if you’re trying to create more transparency here. Is the result you’re looking for, for councils and/or councillors to basically be shown up? Like, when it comes to the next election, is it going to be obvious what councils and/or councillors are doing or not doing that voters can make decisions based on?
Well, it will drive more transparency. A lot of this information—this will be bringing a lot of information together into one place and allowing ratepayers to compare their council directly with other councils. And if you go to many other countries or other states in Australia, that’s what they can do, and they can have that direct comparison which allows them to make decisions about who they vote for at the next local—at the local elections.
But Jo, sorry, we are right, we want to benchmark councils. We want to make it very transparent about their relative financial performance and management, as well as obviously their delivery outcomes. We’ll start with publicly available information in the first half of, you know, this year with the first go. Obviously, with more legislation coming through with the package that we’re talking about, we’d like to expand that even further into some more delivery pieces.
Prime Minister, it may well be though that there are some councils and ratepayers that still want to have some of that ‘nice to have’ stuff, right? So it might be that you end up with some ratepayers saying, “Well, actually I do want the upgrade of the town hall”, “I do want the convention centre”, or whatever, because they don’t align with the direction of travel that the Government is putting down. Do you expect some pushback around that?
Well, I think ultimately people will make their minds—make their—have their say at the election next year. What we’re doing is we’re reducing—reforming the purpose of the Act as to what councils should be focused on. And secondly, we’re going to be—
There will be a limitation in terms of the Act. Secondly, the transparency which will be provided here will give ratepayers much clearer information around the choices that they can make.
Well, the reform that we’re making here is we’re putting the Act back to what it was under the previous National Government. Effectively, we’re removing the four well-being, removing some of the changes that the last Government put in place and reducing the scope. Ultimately, at the same time, what the new—what’s new here is having benchmarking reports so that voters can actually directly compare their council’s performance with another council, and be able to make up their mind as to whether or not their councillors or their mayor are actually performing adequately.
No. All we’re doing is making it very transparent that we are—we’ve been crystal clear this year that in the same way we’ve seen families and small businesses rein in their budgets and focus on what’s important—you’ve seen central government go through that process and we’ll continue to go through that process—we expect councils to do the same.
Some councils are doing a great job. Some councils are doing a terrible job, frankly, and as a consequence we want to be very clear with them about actually what is important and actually to make all those financial—you know, no one really brings the financials together to say: well, how efficiently are they managing their finances? How well are they using their balance sheets? How well are they using their debt profiles that they’ve got? Then equally, what’s happening with respect to service delivery is the other piece that we need to get to.
And I think making that transparent and making it very clear to councils, these are the basics that we expect you to do brilliantly—then that’s up to individual voters and ratepayers to make the decision as: does this council reflect what I want it to do? But by making that information transparent and available, I think that’s a very good thing.
But we have to get our councils focused on doing the basics really well, and at the moment there’s been massive amounts of distraction with pet projects and vanity projects from time to time, in different towns and cities across New Zealand. And we want them to be very, very focused on what the ratepayer expects them to do, which is get the maximum value out of the rates that they’re paying. It’s no different—the same challenge we’re going through in central Government, as you’ve observed in the last 12 months as well.
I’m aware of the reports. I haven’t—I haven’t had a chance to ask specifically about what that’s about. And I’d just say to you it’s an operational matter and a decision for the Police, and reach out.
No. Let’s just go backwards. We need new ferries in place by 2029. We need to make a decision around procurement by the end of March this year. We’ve got a really good option on the table with two rail-compatible ferries, which is the default position. Minister Peters has up until the end of March to see whether he can improve on that offer and improve and get a better solution in place, but then we’re locking and loading and moving forward with those two ferries.
Well, again, we’re working backwards from when the ferries need to be replaced. And if we make the decision on procurement—final decision in March, we’ve got plenty of time and a window to make that decision.
Well, I’m very proud that we’ve had 60,000 families actually, you know, register for Family Boost. I’m proud that we’ve had, I think, 41,000, 42,000 that have actually had money into their bank accounts. And when I talk to parents of ECE kids, who have actually got very high—you know, ECE is very expensive in this country—they were incredibly impressed by how easy it was, actually, to register to actually get the money into their bank account. And I just appreciate you guys talking more about it because the more you talk about it, the more you bring awareness to it and the more we seem to get families registering and getting money into their bank accounts.
Estimates were 100,000, Prime Minister. Your estimates were that 100,000 families would receive it. 60,000 have registered. 40,000 or so have received those payments. Your estimates are quite a bit of a way off.
Well, there’s 100,000 eligible families. They have up to four years to actually get their claims in and processed. What I’d say to you is I’m pretty proud that we’ve had 60,000 register and we’ve had 42,000 get the cash in their bank account. I’d just encourage more people to do exactly that. It’s just a simple matter of going to myIR, registering, and $975 per quarter is what’s up—what’s at play. And I think it’s been great to see people find it a very seamless and very easy process.
The one part of your Q4 action plan that you haven’t hit, on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill—it’s had to go back a little bit to the drawing board with some drafting errors in there—is that a consequence of how rushed the lawmaking is, around using urgency so many times? You had a five-day select committee period on this bill.
No, absolutely not. What this is about is making sure we get it right. And, you know, we want to make sure, particularly the decommissioning of oil and gas fields, that we get that drafted correctly and that we get that really, you know, on point.
Oh, well, we’ve been working on that but we want to make sure we take every opportunity we can. So if that means that we actually delay it into early New Year, that’s fine. So we’re relaxed. I’d sooner to get it right than fast.
If it’s better to get it right than fast, then why did it only have a five-day submission period for select committee? Why did it have to go through under urgency when it was introduced?
Yeah, well, I’ll just say to you that we’re still doing it pretty quickly. All we’re doing is delaying it into early new year to make sure that we get that one piece around the decommissioning of oil and gas fields correct. You know, there’s no doubt about it, we are moving at pace because we have to move at pace. It has been rather insane to import huge amounts of Indonesian coal and not to have domestic gas, and make our greenhouse gas emissions worse and not be able to—and not provide energy security, in a country where we have abundant natural resources. We should not have an energy security problem in New Zealand, but doing a decision like ending oil and gas, and then not thinking through the second-and third-order consequences to actually create the risk that we’ve got within our energy system is unacceptable. So we need to be able to turn on the exploration of domestic gas as best we can, as fast as we possibly can, and we need that as a base load, as you know, while at the same time we also expand the renewable energy projects, including the 22 we’ve got on fast-track legislation.
Are you confident you wouldn’t have got these decommissioning bits right in the first instance, had you given the drafting team longer to actually put this bill together?
I’m very comfortable with the pace we’re moving at, you know. I think we’ve moved through very quickly and I think that’s a good thing. We need to move through fast. All we’ve got is one little piece, a wrinkle that we want to make sure we get that right. The decommissioning of oil and gas fields is kind of important and we just want to make sure that we’ve really got that reflected in the right way in the legislation. So, frankly, to take another— you know, get through Christmas, do it in the New Year, you know, I’m pretty relaxed about that.
Back on the council announcement, forgive me if I’m getting you to repeat yourself but there’s a list of bullet points here. The second one says, “Refocus local government on basics, guiding council decision-making and avoiding duplication of roles”. What are you doing there to refocus local governmental on basics? Is it the four well-beings or is there something else?
No, that’s about removing the four well-beings. I mean, ultimately, what you’ve got is you’ve got councils focusing on trying to do many of the same things that central government are doing, and actually local government should be focused on their core services and central government on theirs.
Well, I think if you talk to Honourable Chris Bishop, he’s very focused around how we can expand community housing, and actually working to support that is a—is a big part of the work that he’s leading. But ultimately, councils across this country should be considering: what are their core services that people pay their rates for and how can they page 8 of 15 deliver those really, exceptionally well without expanding their scope continually, which simply just puts up cost?
Could you just answer the question? Is council housing going to be scrapped under —do you expect councils to scrap their housing initiatives under your plan?
Well, ultimately, councils make those decisions. But we’ve been very clear when it comes to what the—the four well-beings and the focus that we want councils to be focused on, it’s about doing the basics: fixing the roads, fixing the pipes and making sure they do those services really well.
But if councillors are still allowed to decide what is a basic and what isn’t a basic, then what’s the point of this whole process? So you’re taking out the four well-beings to focus councils on the basics. But councils, you’ve just said, are going to decide what those basics are, rendering this whole process—redundant?
No, because ultimately, as I said at the start, if you look at the advice that councillors and mayors get from their officials, the four well-beings is used to justify an extraordinary number of projects and initiatives at the local level, which quite frankly don’t fit within the definition of the Local Government Act that we are amending the Act back to.
Well, I’d say that if your council had a choice about whether to fix roads or build more social houses, they should be focused on fixing roads. Central government and the work that Chris Bishop has underway has a very good plan around social housing, and ultimately that is the role that central Government is focused on.
Well, ultimately that is work that Chris Bishop is leading. He’s the Minister for Housing. He has a very good plan, alongside Honourable Tama Potaka, around social housing. If a council is thinking about its capital budget over the next 10 years and deciding, should they be focused on building more social housing or actually fixing the roads that ratepayers pay for, I would suggest they should be focused on fixing the roads.
There will be councils that have, you know, legacy, you know, assets in social housing or in council housing. That’s fine. They need to be well managed. But what I’d say to you going forward is we’re expecting Government to deliver social housing. That’s their primary responsibility. And again, as Simeon says, when you’ve got limited choices with budgets and page 9 of 15 what you’re going to do with the money and the rates that you’ve been raised, that wouldn’t be the obvious place to go out and expand your position. You’d actually want to make sure that’s a task that central government should take responsibility for and do—make sure we’re doing, you know, stuff about that.
So I’m just being really—you know, we’re just trying to say, yeah, there’ll be history where people have acquired legacy council housing. That’s fine. It’s got to be tidily managed. But going forward, you wouldn’t want to be seeing councils putting huge amounts of extra money into social housing, when the Government is working incredibly hard to make sure we get the state house waitlist down and get social housing and community housing providers with capital to be able to do more investment in a proper way.
Prime Minister, just looking ahead to HYEFU tomorrow, are you expecting to see the Government push out the surplus that is currently pencilled in from the 2027 financial year? Are you expecting to see that pushed out?
Well, what I’d say is that—let’s get HYEFU out tomorrow, rather than me pre-empt it today. But I’d just say that there are incredibly challenging economic conditions, as you are well aware of. We are spending money carefully and that is important and that work will continue next year at pace, and for the rest of the time that we are, frankly, in Government. And also I’d just say to you that I think if we hadn’t made the fiscal adjustments that we have made, you’d have deficits running out a lot longer than what we’ve seen today, under the previous spending track.
So look, you know, let’s get HYEFU. We’ll raise that tomorrow. Nicola will talk to that tomorrow. But all I’d just say is I think all of us in this room would acknowledge we’ve got pretty difficult and challenging economic circumstances and, you know—and forecasting is what forecasting is, and our job is to make sure that we are putting in place the plan. There are some encouraging signs, you know, that our economy is starting to turn the corner. You know, we’ve got a lot more work to do, particularly in the first half of next year.
Again, we’ll go through the HYEFU process tomorrow. Nicola will have more to say about it then. I don’t want to—I don’t want to pre-empt any of that before we get into that.
I’m very proud of the military-style academies. When I’ve been and visited, I’ve seen the social workers, the mentors that are involved in that programme. Yes, as you know, we’re giving young people a choice to say: do you want to turn your life around? Do you want to change it? Here’s some things and a stimulation and some mentoring that can help you do that. Equally, we’ve also got to make sure that our most tough and—toughest and serious, you know, persistent offenders are taken out of the community so they get a chance to rehabilitate and to do something different. Some will choose that, some won’t, but we all get a choice in life and we’re providing them with a choice, and then it’s up to them to decide whether they want to turn their lives and change it.
There’s been a significant amount of opposition to those boot camps and we’ve seen a couple of them or three of them re-offend. Have you ever once reconsidered that plan?
Prime Minister, there’s a significant number of collective agreements in government agencies coming up for renegotiation next year. Are you worried that you’ve been given a bit of a hospital pass with that because there’s probably not very much money—
Given the last 12 months and what we’ve inherited, we know we’ve inherited a hell of a mess so we just work our way through it day by day, week by week.
Well, look, our agencies will be working and bargaining in good faith and, you know, they’ll have clear mandates and they’ll be working their way through with their respective unions.
Look, I’ve had a number of invitations, I haven’t yet made a decision. I think some of you, I’ve articulated before that I’ve always thought, even when I was in Opposition, that it would be good—I’d love to go around the sites where the Treaty was signed, all across New Zealand. I thought that was, you know, really good. I observed Bill English going to Ngāti Whātua, for example, and thought that was a really good example. But I haven’t made a decision at this point.
Not at all, no, but I just honestly believe that—you know, I’ve had a number of iwi invite me to their Waitangi Day celebrations. I think there’s real value in making—I mean I’ve always believed that if you went around—I’d love to go all the sites where it was actually signed, to be honest, over the course of Waitangi Day, and make sure it’s a national day across the whole country. But again, no decisions made, Jenna, so please don’t jump to any conclusions.
Just to follow on from that, if you decided to go around the country somewhere else on 6 February, would you still commit to going on the 5th for the political talks though, in Waitangi?
Again, I haven’t—I haven’t, honestly, got to making a decision about any of the Waitangi time frame and schedule at this point in time. I was just foreshadowing that I’ve had a number of invitations and will make a decision in due course.
As I understand it, I’ve been invited. I don’t know where that question came from, I think it came out of one of you last week and it was based off a previous conversation from August last year.
It’s been confirmed that the two men who indecently assaulted waitstaff at the Wellington restaurant in March were members of the Vietnamese police force. For the last week, the Vietnamese Ambassador in New Zealand has refused to answer questions on that from media. Do you think that’s acceptable?
Well, look, I mean, our expectation is that anyone visiting New Zealand behaves within our laws. The second thing I’d say very clearly is that Police are actually working with page 11 of 15 their Vietnamese counterparts, and it is an operational matter for them to try and see whether there’s a resolution that’s possible.
Again, those are issues for Police to work through with their counterparts, and I can tell you the Police are taking it very seriously. As I said to you last week, there was actually Police, a team from Police, I think, with their Vietnamese authorities in Vietnam last week. So I would sooner they go through the investigation and potentially what resolution is possible with their authority counterparts.
In Bali, Prime Minister, there’s a New Zealander who has maintained his innocence for 10 years. Given the release of the Bali Nine last week, is New Zealand working for his release?
Well, again, what I’d say is that, you know, New Zealand has laws where it’s not possible for someone imprisoned overseas to be, you know, imprisoned here in New Zealand. I know that we don’t have any plans to change that longstanding approach. And New Zealanders, frankly, when they’re travelling overseas, need to be fully compliant with the laws of the countries that they’re in, which is in light of the conversation we just had. So we’re offering consular support to the individual concerned and we’ll continue to do so.
As I said, we’ll offer consular support but I think, you know, New Zealanders travelling overseas need to be—make sure that they’re fully compliant with the laws of the country that they’re travelling with. And, you know, we will—you know, but the short answer is that we don’t have a situation in New Zealand where we can accommodate people in our prisons if they’ve committed crimes from overseas. That’s not how we roll.
The highest-growth councils have the highest levels of debt, generally, because they’re paying for growth. So, from the metrics that you’re gathering for ratepayers, how are ratepayers to judge whether the debt that’s being incurred is being incurred for growth or otherwise?
Because it will be classified based on different activity classes. But also, as I point out, that is one metric. Ultimately, the LGFA has also agreed this year, with the support of the Government, to support councils to be able to borrow more to invest in infrastructure, whether that’s what we’ve done around Local Water Done Well, or around high-growth councils. So look, debt is a metric but it’s about what it’s being spent on, and that’s where that breakdown of what it’s being spent on will be incredibly helpful.
Well, it’s going into whether it’s going to roads or it’s going to water, whether that’s going into, you know, building a—building a nice, big convention centre down the road. That’s the type of breakdown it’s going to include. page 12 of 15
Oh, look, I’ve seen the millions of dollars that Greater Wellington Regional Council like to spend on their bus stops with gardens on top. The list—you know, there’s plenty of examples. I think the Greater Wellington Leadership Group was looking at how they could improve healthy eating habits here in Wellington as well. I mean this is sort of—it becomes—makes a mockery of local councils, when actually they should be focused on fixing the pipes.
I know for many of you, you might feel we’re being a bit tough on the councils, but I’m just saying we’re being very clear. We expect them to do the basics brilliantly and get back to the core job. Fix the water pipes in Wellington would be a good starting point. Make sure the roads and the footpaths are actually sealed properly. Make sure the rubbish gets collected. Get rid of the graffiti and clean the place up.
Jo, you know we are a Government that is focused on outcomes. You know, if that’s the one word of the year that’s probably what it is, along with all my other corporate speak. And I’d just say to you that we’re expecting—
What’s that? But I’d just say to you—but what—but we want to make sure that councils also have a focus on outcomes, right? And I think they’ve lost focus, and they’ve lost page 13 of 15 focus in part, as Simeon has said, around the four well-beings. We saw that here in central government, where that was a huge loss of focus as well. And it’s all lovely, but we’ve got to get back to the basics and choose consciously what is the must-do stuff versus the nice-to-do stuff. We’d all like to do—spend money in lots of different ways, in central government and in local government, but we’re in a turnaround job, and when you’re in a turnaround job you’ve got to confront the brutal facts of the reality, whether you like it or not. And the reality says: do the basics first and then we’ll worry about the other stuff later. Sorry mate, you haven’t asked a question.
Do you have any comment on the Wellington City Council’s plans to stage a vote tomorrow on whether they are going to oppose the Treaty Principles Bill?
Well, I think, you know, there’s central government business and there’s local government business, and many councils should be focused on—maybe voting on how they can fix pipes would be my suggestion to them.
As I said before, I haven’t made any decisions. I’ll announce that shortly. But I just— all I was just foreshadowing is I’ve been invited by a number of iwi to Waitangi Day celebrations. I’ll make a decision—
Yeah, but in that period. I’ll actually—I’ll think that through shortly and we’ll have more to say about it. But I just was also signalling that I was also—have historically said on the record that I would also think it’s great to celebrate Waitangi across New Zealand, not just always in Waitangi, and that would be acceptable too.
Sorry, just on that question, can you just clarify? You said you’ve been invited by a number of iwi to different celebrations around the country. Does that include to Waitangi, to Waitangi grounds?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, but I’ve looked at my January schedule and I know what I’m doing. As I said, we’ll get to announcing what we’re doing for Waitangi but there are a number of options on the table and we’ll announce it in due course. OK, Claire, last question. Sorry?
He’s very good. I mean, he’s excellent. I mean, he’s the hardest—you know, he’s— I call him the James Brown of New Zealand Government. I mean, he’s hard working. He’s doing lots, whether it’s, you know, local government, transport, the work he’s doing as Shadow Leader, Minister for Auckland, Minister for Local Government—I’m just proud of Simeon’s efforts, but I’m also proud of all of—all of my team’s efforts. I think, you know, my job as Prime Minister is to make sure that this is a team sport and I’ve got the right people in the right positions on the right assignments, with maximum clarity and support as they go through those challenges, and so—
Oh, look, I just love being the king of the roads, but we’ve got a lot of work to do as a Government and it’s a privilege to work for the Prime Minister and get things done.
No, no, no, no. No, that hasn’t been a consideration at all. I’m just saying to you I’m being—just being straight up to say, look, I haven’t—I’ve had a number of invitations, haven’t had a conversation to work out where I—what I’m actually going to do. But also, I know historically I’ve said to you that I’m publicly open to actually going to other places other than Waitangi as well, because I think it’s important to celebrate Waitangi Day across the whole of the country. OK.
Very quickly, Simeon, before you leave, what’s the latest on the Crown observer? Have you had any info back? Where are things at with Wellington on that?
Well, I first received my first report just over the weekend. Ultimately, they’re going through their process around the—putting out their annual plan, and the observer’s very much fully engaged in that process.