Well, kia ora, good afternoon, everyone. With me today is our great Education Minister, Erica Stanford, who is joining me to make a pre-Budget announcement that is a substantial investment in our children’s futures because the education of our children, frankly, is at the centre of all of our hopes and dreams for the economic future of our country. This Government’s relentless ambition to grow the economy is not achievable without making education of our children a total priority. Investment in our children is an investment in the economic prosperity of our country, and I’m very proud that a lot has changed in our education agenda in the past year, because at last our kids are reaping the benefits of our plan to teach the basics brilliantly.
We’ve already brought in one hour of maths and reading and writing. We’ve got no excuses, no exceptions. We have removed the distraction of cell phones in classes. Our structured literacy programme means our kids are now taught to read the way that we were, effectively with phonics, and parents can now look at exactly what their child learning through the Parent Portal that Erica launched a few weeks ago.
This Government has achieved all of that in just under a year and a half and because we had to. We are facing and were facing a total failure of our children through an education system that was not delivering anything except shocking achievement levels. It was failing our children and we were not going to allow that to continue. In August last year you may remember we announced we were fast-tracking a new maths curriculum, one that had a record of success in schools across the OECD, including Australia and Singapore. The Make It Count programme upped the standard of those who wanted to teach the subject and we made a $20 million investment in professional development to go with that.
Today I’m proud to announce that Budget 2025 invests nearly $100 million so that every child needing help with mathematics gets the early intervention and targeted support that they need to succeed, and with that I’ll hand over to Erica to talk a little bit more about the announcement.
Great. Thank you, Prime Minister. As you will have heard, in August last year, after some concerning maths results, we launched the Make It Count action plan to transform maths education and to raise achievement in New Zealand. The plan was part of our roadmap to making sure that 80 percent of our Year 8 students are at curriculum by 2030.
Low maths achievement in this country, it wasn’t a secret, and in 2021, you may remember the New Zealand Principals Federation said that alarm bells should be ringing when it came to maths achievement and more direction should be given on what schools are teaching and the best ways to teach it. That same year, the Royal Society for Maths report recommended an hour a day of maths. They recommended evidence-informed professional development for our teachers, access to high quality, curriculum-aligned resources, and a revised curriculum outlining exactly what should be taught each year.
And in response to this, we have already introduced a clear and detailed year-by-year, knowledge-rich, internationally comparable maths curriculum which is being taught in our classrooms from years 0 all the way through to 8 in maths today. Our year 9 to 13 draft has been completed. In January we delivered to schools approximately 830,000 maths books and resources for students and guides for teachers. Around 980 schools and over 15,000 teachers have received evidence-informed maths professional development to support the new curriculum and the teaching of structured maths. 3,000 students have already been involved in a year 7 and 8 maths trial to accelerate their learning, with four-times-a-week tutoring and online supports to accelerate their learning. As you can see, we are a Government of action— all of that in a year and a half—and we believe in getting targeted supports to our students early so that they are set up for success.
So, for that reason, I’m very proud to announce phase 2 of the action plan to take maths achievement in New Zealand to the next level. Through Budget 2025 we’re investing $100 million to ensure help with maths is available across all stages of primary and intermediate schooling, so that children are getting the early intervention and the targeted support that they need to succeed, an approach that we’re already delivering in writing and reading through structured literacy. We’ve heard from the sector for years that this sort of intervention is required for maths, so from next year, we’ll be introducing a maths check in the students’ first two years of schooling. Very similar to the phonics check for literacy, the maths check will identify students with additional needs so that we can put targeted supports in place right at the start of a child’s learning journey. For the first time, we will be getting consistent, quality, nationwide data to drive investment decisions to ensure we’re investing into raising achievement.
I’m also announcing that $56 million will fund the equivalent of 143 new full-time maths intervention teachers to provide—targeted, small-group maths intervention teachers to provide students with the help that they need so that they can achieve at curriculum level. This is again very, very similar and equivalent to what we’ve rolled out for structured literacy.
This year also we piloted a tutoring intervention for the 3,000 children at intermediate school who have not been able to benefit from six years of the structured maths at primary school. An intervention at intermediate was vital to ensuring those young people were experiencing success at high school, and early indications from the trial show that it’s been hugely successful at raising achievement in a very short period of time.
So today I’m announcing that $40 million of our $100 million investment in maths will roll out this pilot to fund targeted, small-group maths tutoring and online tutoring tools for up to 34,000 year 7 and 8 students who are behind in their maths each year from term 1, 2026. This initiative ensures that students get the foundational numeracy they need to be confident in NCEA and life beyond school. All of these initiatives will also be introduced in te reo Māori for students learning in a bilingual unit or at kura kaupapa, so that students learning in te reo Māori have the same access to resources and that raising achievement and support as everyone else. This comprehensive investment across primary and intermediate will see more students getting the support they need when they need it.
Our work programme is, as you know, defined by pace, clarity and outcomes and we’re delivering exactly what we said we would: more support to students and teachers in the classroom to raise achievement. My message to parents is that we are laser focused on ensuring that your children are getting the support they need to make sure that they are confident mathematicians, and when they stumble we will intervene early to make sure that they are confident in their abilities. My message to teachers and principals is: thank you for your feedback and suggestions on the extra support you need in the classroom. We have listened and we are delivering. This system-wide boost in mathematics education is a game-changer and will raise achievement in our schools across the country. Back to you, Prime Minister.
Thank you, Erica, and thank you for your passion for what we’re doing, which is teaching our kids the basics brilliantly.
Before we go to questions, I’ll just run through my movements for the week. I’ll be in Wellington today, Tuesday and Wednesday, in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne on Thursday, and in Auckland on Friday. In the House this week, on Tuesday we’ll be finalising—finishing up the annual review debates, on Wednesday we’ll be wrapping up the committee stage of the Social Security Amendment Bill, and on Thursday we’ll be having extended hours in the morning to do the first reading of the Ngāti Hāua Claims Settlement Bill, and the remaining stages of the Ngā Hāpū o Ranginui Claims Settlement Bill. With that, we’re happy to take your questions.
Yeah, look, I mean, I have to say on this pay equity issue, I’ve got two issues. One is there has been a huge amount of scaremongering and disingenuous presentation of what this—amendments to the Bill have actually been about. I’ve seen Labour Party emails out saying that we’re actually cutting pay for women. There’s nothing further from the truth. Equal pay remains, no change. Pay parity remains, no change. Collective bargaining remains, no change. Settlements that have already happened under pay equity, no change. So I want people to be clear about that because what we’re talking about is pay equity in particular.
The second thing I would say is that I think it’s been incredibly disappointing to see gender-based abuse over the course of the weekend. I saw, again, a Labour Party promotion of a Minister being portrayed as a Nazi. I saw a senior media journalist talk about the C-word and associate that with a Minister. That is utterly unacceptable to me. We in this place often talk about, and I’m often asked questions about, gendered abuse and what’s going on in Parliament for our female MPs. We have that conversation. The same people that raised those issues ultimately end up continuing to prosecute the gendered abuse that we’re seeing. So I think, all—by all means, tackle the issue. Debate the content and the substance of pay equity. But what I think we saw over the weekend was completely, utterly out of line.
Look, I’m aware of the resignation. I’m not actually going to go into that given the ongoing police investigation that is in place, as you would expect, and I’ve got no further comment to say about that right now.
Yeah, I think you’ll understand it’s an employment matter. I am aware of the circumstances and of his resignation, and I think that’s appropriate. But again, I’m going to let the police investigation continue and close out before we have further comment on it.
Mark Mitchell said that the process was underway for you considering whether to recommend to the Governor-General that Jevon McSkimming be removed. Did you simply move too slowly on this?
Again, I’m just not going to go into the details of it because there is this ongoing investigation. I know that’s a frustrating answer and I appreciate that it will be, but given that there’s an ongoing investigation, I’m not going to comment further on it.
Those comments you just made there about it being an employment matter, can I just confirm that the new developments, the new investigations that are going on that prompted what would have been asking him to resign, is a criminal investigation? Or are you talking about an employment/HR type issue?
Well, again, I’m just saying there are—there’s, you know, there’s actually a couple of investigations going on. I need to let the police run those down, as you would expect me to do, in fairness, and then I’ll have more to say about it at some future point.
—which is what you’re saying you were talking to the Governor-General about— sorry, Mark Mitchell was. Can you just confirm that both of those criminal investigations—or categorise them for us?
I’m not going to go into that detail because there are ongoing investigations. I know that’s not the answer you want to get from me but at this stage, what I’m—what I’m saying to you very clearly is that I’m not going to comment on that, because—
Yeah, sorry, I’m just—I’m just not going to. The reality is I’m aware of the resignation, aware of the circumstances around it. Mark has put out a pretty good press release that we can say as much as we can say at this point in time. As I said, ongoing investigation. Nothing further to say.
Oh, look, I mean, you know, Act’s supportive of a deeper look into the subject and that’s a good thing. As I said from day one when I stood with Catherine Wedd about this Bill and said I had interest in making it a Government Bill, we’ve moved over the last few days, given the support that we’ve seen across the country for this work, to now put it into the Government work stream. Erica will lead that work, given her success around the mobile phone ban and also the conversation she has regularly with parents and teachers, and given the fact that it’s multi-agency advice that’s going to be needed. And then she’ll come back to Cabinet, we’ll have a conversation in Cabinet and work out how we take it forward from there.
Well, I think so. But I mean, the point is he can disagree with it. But I think it’s a positive step that they’re up for a bigger conversation about it.
As I said from day one, look, as I—as I stood with, you know, Catherine in front of you guys, was to say, look, I actually have massive interest in looking and exploring whether this can be a Government Bill. We’ve got a workstream up and running. We’re going to look at the different jurisdictions. We’re going to look at the detail of the Bill. We’ll put that together, we’ll take it back to Cabinet, we’ll make a decision.
What happens now? Do you continue working with the Act Party to placate their concerns, or do you reach across the political aisle and work with the likes of Green and Labour to try and get it across the line?
Yeah, look, I’d just—I’d just back up a little bit. What we’re saying is: look, this is an issue for parents. Get it? We’ve had massive reaction since Catherine launched her Member’s Bill. As I said on day one of that Bill being launched, I wanted to explore it as a Government Bill. We’ve now got a work plan and a workstream up and running. Erica has been appointed to lead that work, given its multidisciplinary nature of that work. She’ll look at all the different jurisdictions, at what we can put together in our own Bill. We’d look to bring that to Cabinet. We’ll have a further discussion there. I don’t want to get ahead of Cabinet conversations. But we’re also obviously open to talking to other political parties too because it’s not a political issue, right? Who—which parents, you know, of these kids that voted for which party is irrelevant. This is a New Zealand issue.
We also saw over the weekend Act trigger the ‘agree to disagree’ clause which is in their coalition agreement. How would you characterise your relationship with the Act Party now, especially given that David Seymour is soon to take over as Deputy Prime Minister?
Yeah, look, I mean, as I’ve said from day one, we’re in a multi-party coalition, just like I see in Western Europe. You know, go to the Netherlands, go to Germany, go look at how MMP works up there. You’ve often got four-party coalitions, more.
No, no. No, no. No, no, hear me out. I know you want to get to the drama but the point is, very clearly, we are very aligned around the vast majority of things. But it’s quite OK. You know, I wanted to make sure that we enhance public safety with any firearms legislation. I’ve said that consistently to you when you’ve asked me questions about it in the past. A Cabinet paper came forward for discussion at Cabinet, a Cabinet decision was made, Act, you know, disagreed with that, you know, position and as a result, we invoked agree to disagree. It’s a—it’s not—it’s not emotional. It’s just purely mechanistic in terms of how we actually manage any differences. That’s a big issue for them and we have a different view as a Cabinet around that issue, so enabling them space to be able to actually differentiate in the way that they have, that’s fine.
No, not at all. As I’ve said to you through the whole of every time you’ve asked me questions on firearms, you know, we want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to enhance public safety. Our view, our Cabinet’s view, is that the firearms registry has been a positive move. When we look at the impact of strawman sales getting through to illegal criminals, illegal guns getting through to criminals, that’s a good example of it working well. There’s just a difference of opinion here, and in a coalition Government made up of three parties, invoking an agree to disagree is quite OK. We’ve done it several times already with both New Zealand First and with Act.
Well, I signalled it pretty strongly when I was standing with Catherine Wedd last week, when we talked about her Member’s Bill. And that was the point I said that I wanted to have a Government—you know, explore a Government Bill, and that’s what we’re doing.
Look, they’re people that I’ve known for a long period of time. We’ve spoken about this issue. It’s something personally, as I said on the weekend, I’ve been very passionate about. For me, I came into this topic and this issue before I came to politics, reading Jonathan Haidt’s book from 2018, The Coddling of the American Mind, and then I also actually got to meet Jonathan Haidt when he came out to New Zealand in 2019. So it’s something I’ve always had quite a lot of passion about. I know Erica has the same position.
I know—yes, I do. Yeah, I do. And the point is that they’ve done some really good work as parents and concerned—and parenting experts, and as you—if you were at that event yesterday where you heard the accounts of the young person and the medical professionals that are involved in this issue, it’s pretty sobering stuff. And so that—the point is I’m proud of that association because I think it’s a good example where there’s desire coming from the community. There’s also, you know, a Government that wants to do something in this space and explore doing [Inaudible].
Well, it’s a group of concerned parents and parenting experts and business leaders that actually want to do something about it. And as I’ve said to you many times before, I believe there are three big actors in our society: Government, business, community. They all actually do different things, they are complementary, and when they work together on our challenges and our opportunities, that’s a good thing.
You weren’t trying to reach out to potentially suburban mums who may be interested in the social media work but may be [Inaudible] by that pay [Inaudible]?
Jamie, that’s a pretty cynical view of the world, my friend, pretty cynical. I’d just say to you we know that this is a big issue for parents. If you go out talking to parents and teachers and principals as we do every single week, this has been something they have been raising with us for a long period of time, and it’s a topic of conversation amongst parents, particularly with pre-teens, and actually I’m very proud of the fact that we’re going to do everything that we can and we’re going to try. We know that implementation is challenging, we know there’s lots of challenges associated with that, but man, we owe it to our kids to at least try.
Prime Minister, why did you announce a Member’s Bill before you announced that it was going to be a part of a body of Government work? Why choose to announce a Member’s Bill beforehand, without exploring those options and then making it public?
Because, actually, the Member’s—there was a real appetite within parts of the National Party caucus to look at that. Catherine actually did that work, getting our whole caucus on board with that legislation.
Sure, but now we’ve got a foundation with a Member’s Bill that’s in the biscuit tin. It’ll continue to sit there and if it gets pulled, great, and we’ll deal with that. But equally, I’ve always said—and I’ve spoken about this issue publicly before. It’s one that’s really personally very important to me. I think that gives us a good standing, you know, leaping-off point for Erica to go off, do the full jurisdiction review, see how we bring legislation together for Cabinet.
Did you receive criticism that it wasn’t part of the Government body of work? Was that the feedback that you received when you introduced the Member’s Bill?
No, actually the overwhelming feedback’s been just parents are really pleased that the Government’s looking at this issue. This is not political, as I said to you. This is about our own kids. We have a physical world where we have huge restrictions on them, but we have no restrictions on them in a virtual world.
Well, we’ve introduced—we’ve put a Member’s Bill together as a National Party, It’s a conversation we had as a National Party, and I appreciate it as Prime Minister. Now what I’ve said is I want to pick that up, potentially, and explore it as a Government Bill. We’ve got a wee bit of work to do before we can actually, you know, get that back in front of our Cabinet. That’s the work that will commence now.
I think that we owe it to the public to go and look at what’s happening around the rest of the world. There are a lot of countries who are attempting this, who have done it. I’ve already spoken to world-leading legislative experts who have helped design laws in other places, and I think there are real opportunities for us to go around the world and look at what has worked and put together something that is best practice, because actually we have—we’re in a bit of a position where we can be a fast follower and learn from what other people have experienced, and so I think we’re in a really good spot to be able to do that.
No, I’d just say to you what we’ve had is a Member’s Bill where we actually worked this up as a conversation within our National Party caucus over probably 12 months or so, right? We discussed it in quite a lot of detail. We’ve all bought into the fact that we want to do something in this space. The difficult part is the implementation piece. As I said yesterday, we had a lot of people saying, you know, the gang patch will be difficult to implement. The actual mobile phone ban will be difficult to implement. You know, this his has got a level of degree of, you know, complexity to it that we’ll have to work our way through it.
And so all I said from day one was I’m wanting to explore it as a Government bill. Yesterday I formalised that by pointing and tasking Erica to lead that work and that workstream across multiple agencies, to get us to a place where we can take a Bill to Cabinet. The big picture here is that actually our parents, our principals, our teachers want us to do something about it. We have restrictions, as I keep saying, in the physical world but not in the virtual world, and we owe it to our kids to at least try, at least try to do something, and that’s what we’re going to do.
Prime Minister, the review into the Waitangi Tribunal, the report is to come back to Ministers in September. What will be the process following that? Do you expect it to then go to Cabinet, where there will be legislation to be written to be presented back to Parliament? What is going to happen with that review?
Yeah, look, there’ll be engagement in the middle of the year, quite rightly, as you identified, advice will come back to the Minister in September and then there’ll be legislative proposals to Cabinet before the end of the year, with introduction of legislation, I suspect, early next year. That’s our timing plan at this point.
The question on the Waitangi Tribunal, irrespective of where you sit and what your views are around that, commentators on all sides would acknowledge that in a post-Treaty settlement world, it’s quite right that we actually look to define what the role of the Waitangi Tribunal is or isn’t, and in a post-Treaty settlement world going forward, exactly what its role should be. So that’s a legitimate question that I think, as I’ve said from the beginning, is something we want to look at.
Yeah, essentially. I think the timing plan will look something like engagement middle of the year, advice back to the Minister at the end of September, options before Cabinet at the end of the year, and introduction into the House early next year.
Minister Stanford, just on your maths announcement today, I’ve got a few questions. Will schools get a say in how much of that—the money that they’re coming in, in terms of intervention and how that funding is spent, will schools get that say?
It will be very similar to structured literacy. So we’ve said with structured literacy supports that the money is for—it’ll go in as a staffing component and it will be for a small-group intervention, literacy specialist teacher. It will be the same for maths: a small-group, maths—structured maths intervention teacher, given as a staffing entitlement to schools in need. So they will need to use it in that way.
How is this programme being funded? You’re obviously going through a re-prioritisation programme at the moment. Can you reveal what you’ve stopped doing to enable you to do this?
Just on the social media ban, either of you can answer this but Youthline has come out and opposed this because that’s the number one method in which people contact them with issues saying, “Hey, I need help”, via Instagram or Facebook or other different mediums. So Youthline are opposed to this. Have you talked to them and do you understand their point of view?
Look, they will be one of the—if that’s OK—will be one of the groups that we speak to, of course, and there are always going to be pros and cons. But we see the overwhelming body of evidence is that our children are being harmed—
—and those social media companies do not give a damn about our kids—you can see that because they don’t even let their own kids on those platforms—and they are commercialising the data of our kids and exploiting them, and that needs to stop because it’s causing immense harm.
Oh, I’m sure it does but, you know, all the research would suggest that if you think about brain development of pre-teens and up to 16, actually giving our kids a beat of time before they actually engage with social media wouldn’t be a bad thing. And so, you know, there’s the evidence around cyberbullying, the evidence around exposure to inappropriate content, the evidence around social addiction, which is what parents, teachers, and kids themselves tell us is what they’re wrestling with. That’s what we want to try and solve for.
They are disappointed in the redress, saying that they really wanted to hear about the independent rōpū, and they also are saying some of the criticism that it’s just more of the same with a little bit more pūtea.
Well, actually the investment is more than three quarters of a billion dollars, the single largest investment into redress in this country’s history. It is significant. Look, and we did take note of what the Royal Commission had said in moving the redress scheme to a place that is more of a system, you know, one application, one person that you deal with, one common payment framework, and increasing the amount of claims that we can get through. It’s not to say that in the future, after 2027, when there’s a review, that we don’t make a change to move it further towards an independent entity. But for now, we had to prioritise something that we could do now, today, for survivors that gives them certainty and clarity, and make sure that we get those top-up payments and that equitable payment out to them because it’s something we heard loud and clear from them.
I would say this is the single largest investment into the redress scheme, $774 million, not only into the redress scheme. Let’s not forget that a big proportion of that is also into making sure we’re strengthening the care agencies so that we are stopping young people going into care, and if they are in care, they have a much better service. And so there is a huge amount to this. We have already had people who have rung up and applied for their top-up payments. For all of the people that are—and I know they’re disappointed and we always knew that they would be because we can never take away the pain. But for all of those people, there are a lot of people who are also going on, logging in, applying for their top-ups, being paid, and receiving their redress.
Prime Minister, why do people have to wait until the Budget to find out how much money is being cut from the pay equity settlement contingency? Why can’t you release that information now that the law has passed?
You make the choice about what is Budget-sensitive and what isn’t. You’ve announced a Budget-sensitive figure in this post-Cabinet press conference today. You could equally disclose the amount of money that you’re saving from pay equity [Inaudible].
Yeah, surely. Yeah, but the impact of these costs are Budget-sensitive. What we have said, as you heard us say last week, is that, you know, we are support—you know, we are totally committed to pay equity. We’ve put money aside to deal with pay equity claims in the future because, sadly, there will be claims that need to be paid out. We continue to uphold the claims that have already been progressed and obviously settled.
We do think the costs, as we look at the forecast, will be less than what was previously planned, and that will be revealed in the Budget.
What do you say to people though who feel anxious, I guess, knowing that their wages will not go up as much as they’d been expecting, but they have to wait another 10 or so days to find out just how much money they’ll be short by?
No, I disagree with that assessment. I think that’s what I’m talking about with respect to being a little bit disingenuous and some scaremongering going on. You know, what we’re talking about here is pay equity. We are making sure that after having had a 2017 piece of legislation which was actually pretty clear, we saw a Labour Government take three years and make it pretty complex and challenged and as a result, you know, there are legitimate questions that we want to tighten up on. That’s what we’re doing here.
But the only way that you can save money for the Government is by ensuring that those wage claims, those pay claims, are not as high as they were previously. You accept that?
Well, what I’ve said to you is that we are tightening up some of the criteria to make sure that pay equity is not seen as a backdoor to bargaining but is actually focused on sex-based discrimination.
Well, that’s—we basically—we have said to you last week that we suspect that the cost associated with any pay equity claims will be less than what was previously forecast. I’ve said that to you publicly last week. But the reason—
Why can’t you give that information, why can’t you give that figure to the people who are affected by it? They know that their pay equity claims are not going to be as generous as before, but you’re not allowing them to see how much less generous than before.
Well, what I’d say to you: it will be revealed at the Budget when we’re looking at the totality of our fiscal situation. But I do want to be really clear, we’ve said, you know, said we’ve got to get a hierarchy of comparators in place. That’s what the 2017 legislation had in place. When we see librarians being compared to fisheries officers, admin workers to civil engineers, that says to us that actually that’s a pretty loose comparator set. Those jobs are not equivalent or the same. We want to be able to think about how we do that in a very thoughtful kind of way, with a hierarchy of comparators. When we see 90 different occupations coming into one claim, that’s very broad. They’re legitimate questions to improve the system to give it more clarity.
What is your message to those people out there—hundreds of thousands of people—who are caught up by this legislation which has passed and they know that in 10 days’ time they’ll find out how much money you’ve saved from this, but they don’t have the right to know that now, despite the fact that it’s their wages that is delivering your savings? But they don’t know the figure by which they are—
But even, Thomas, even in this conversation you’re mixing up concepts around equal pay, pay parity. We’re talking about pay equity here, not bargaining, right. And so, you know, we’ll—that—they—all of those things continue.
I’d just say I’ve foreshadowed to you, I said we’re tightening up the criteria so that we’ve got more clarity, more certainty, and pay equity with the amendments that we pass, and what I’m saying to you is the cost associated with that is lower than what has previously been projected. That will be revealed in the Budget.
Just a clarification and then a new topic, if I may. Erica, in terms of the work that has been done, that you’re doing around social media, David Seymour had indicated last week there was a letter from one of the Act MPs to the Education Select Committee about wanting to have an inquiry. Is it possible that those two things would both happen, or does the work that you do now mean that that inquiry wouldn’t be voted on by the Education Select Committee or wouldn’t be necessary?
Look, it’s something that I actually haven’t considered but I’m going to be putting together a ministerial advisory group of experts from around the world, including Australia and the EU, and here in New Zealand as well, and we will be getting some of the best brains together to help inform this policy, and I expect that will be the vehicle that helps us put in place the Cabinet paper.
Prime Minister, can I just ask, on the announcement on Friday around state care abuse, during your apology in November you very specifically said, quote, “I want to assure you it is our intention to have a new single redress system operating next year.” The decision was made by Cabinet not to do that and a lot of people feel let down by that. What do you say to those people who feel let down?
Well, look, I mean, we did actually consider setting up an entirely new system. You know, the reality is it’s incredibly time-consuming, it’s expensive, it’s disruptive. What we decided to do, given people have been waiting an awful amount of time to be able to get any redress out of the system, we decided that we would work to improve the current system. You know, we’re doing that by making sure we lift the case management from 1,350 a year up to 2,150 a year. I appreciate there will be survivors that will be disappointed with that, but our assessment was they’ve been waiting a long time and by the time we go through a time-consuming process to set up a new redress system, that just didn’t feel very fair. And I appreciate there’ll be a different view on that, but we think we can make the investments to actually improve that investment.
No, we considered the option really closely and we made a decision that actually that would be more time-consuming, take a long time to get in place, and may or may not necessarily be that much better than anything else that we—you know, by working to improve the current system. We chose to improve the current system so that people who have been waiting a long time can actually get the settlements and the redress they deserve.
You now have a situation where you’ve got survivors who are saying that they are having to go to the system that is responsible for their abuse to ask for redress because there is no new interventive system. Can you appreciate how difficult that must be for those survivors?
Yeah, I can, and I can also appreciate that for those that have waited a long time for the design of a whole new redress system, which we evaluated—that was our starting position. We looked at that really closely. But we made the determination that actually we think we can improve the current system and actually do a better job of streamlining it, actually staff it up, and make sure that we get that case management, that individualised service that treats people with dignity and respect. We think we’re better to keep powering through that work and improve the system dramatically, rather than try and invent a whole new system.
No, I’ve had a variety of different feedback because you remember— you know that the people who you hear from other people who are unhappy, but actually there are a whole lot of people—and I don’t have the figure to hand but I can get it to you, the figures of people who have already rung, who have already put their—a claim in for their top-up, who are engaging with the system. And there will always be people who are unhappy and we always acknowledge that.
But what I want to say is that when people come forward, it will feel—we want it to feel like a single system. This will be working together as a system. There will be a common payment framework. You will not have to go to multiple agencies. It will be one case officer, one payment framework, one entry. It will feel like a single entity. And it’s also not to say that we—after ‘27, when we have our review, that we don’t, you know, take a step further from where we are going into something more independent. But this is what we can do now to give clarity and certainty and surety to those people that they can get their redress in a timely way, with the respect that they deserve.
Prime Minister, when you say fisheries officers and librarian shouldn’t be compared, do you think fisheries officers have it harder than librarians and deserve to be paid more than them?
No, no, just to be really clear, we’re talking about pay equity, because I think people are deliberately or unconsciously mixing up concepts, right? So what pay equity is about is looking at predominantly female workforces and ascribing a value of similar work or work of a similar value from into another sector, and those comparisons, where you have an admin worker being compared to a civil engineer, or a librarian being compared to a fisheries officer, are they really the like-minded comparators that they should be? And so all we’re doing is what we had proposed in the 2017 legislation as a hierarchy of comparators to help guide that to make sure that we’re getting more relevant comparators in place.
Oh, Mark, you’re such a nice guy. That was just mean. I’ve never seen that side of him before. It breaks my heart. I mean, just like—you know, jeepers.
Prime Minister, can I ask, will you and your Ministers be accepting the pay rise on July 1 or, given the fiscal environment, would you put a freeze on those pay rises?
Again, as we’ve talked about this before, our pay—you don’t want MPs, Ministers, prime Ministers involved in pay-setting. That’s done by an independent remuneration review and we’ll leave it at that.
No, sorry, I understand that that’s not decided by you, the pay rise is not set by you. But during the COVID era, given the economic environment, Jacinda Ardern made a decision to put a pay freeze on herself, her Ministers and top-earning public servants. I wondered whether that was something you’ve considered.
Yes, look, I understand there’s been, you know, different interventions at different times over the last 25 years, frankly. What we’re doing is we’ll follow the advice of the Independent Remuneration Authority and we leave it with them to actually deal with that issue.
Again, I leave those issues to the Independent Review Authority. That’s the right place for it to sit. You see in other countries where politicians get involved in their remuneration. That is not something that we want to see here in New Zealand and as a result, we leave it with those authorities.
Thank you. [Inaudible]. I appreciate that, Prime Minister. Just circling all the way back to Jevon McSkimming, I know obviously you don’t want to go into the details of the allegations but I’m wondering, can you at least provide us when you were personally informed—you know, are we talking in the last week, last month, etc—of these new allegations?
Yeah, Tom, I’m really sorry, I’m going to disappoint you. I’ve got nothing further to say, given that ongoing police investigation, apart from I’m aware of the resignation, I’m aware of the circumstances, but I’m not going to go into that while there’s an active police investigation ongoing. No, I’m not going to touch it. Thank you very much. All right, guys, have a good week.