Post-Cabinet Press Conference: Monday, 13 October 2025

Well, kia ora, good afternoon, everyone. Today, I’m joined by Education Minister Erica Stanford to share an update on the progress that we’re seeing in schools since we introduced our structured literacy approach earlier in the year. New Zealand has huge potential to do incredibly well in the coming years and that’s why the changes that we’re making in education are absolutely critical, not just for the future of our children but also for the future of our country. People are the engine room of our economy and the better the education they receive, the more opportunity they have to succeed and to do well in life, and that benefits all New Zealanders as we grow and benefit from a workforce that has the knowledge and the skills to innovate and to succeed in the modern world. It unlocks a world of higher-paying jobs that Kiwis can access, which in turn raises our collective living standards.

Education is the catalyst for young people to completely change their lives, as it enables people to move from one set of circumstances to a better set of circumstances. I know this to be true because the education I received in my primary and also in secondary school opened up opportunities to me and the world to me as well. And every single Kiwi, no matter what their circumstances are and where they’re from, should be able to get an education that does exactly the same for them and enables them to pursue their version of the Kiwi dream, whatever that may be for them, because without it, without strong foundations in the basics of reading, writing and maths, how on earth can our young people be expected to reach their potential and access the higher-paying jobs that are out there?

And the truth is that over the past couple of decades we simply haven’t done well enough. Student achievement has been on a steady decline and New Zealand’s results have fallen compared to other countries we like to measure ourselves against. Data from last year showed that just 56% of our year 8 students were at the expected level for reading, and only 35% for writing, and that’s a really sobering reality. And it’s not good enough for Erica or myself and I don’t think any Kiwi watching today would think that that’s good enough either, so teaching the basics brilliantly and turning those results around is one of our Government’s biggest priorities. In fact, it’s one of the most important things that we can do to set New Zealand up for long-term success.

Now, the good news is that both domestic and international evidence is very clear: structured literacy, teaching children to read through sounds and phonics, is the most effective way to give every child the strong reading skills that they need to thrive. Students have now spent three school terms learning under the new approach and the results that we are seeing are incredibly encouraging. And with that I’d like to hand over to Erica to take you through some of those results that we’re seeing. Thank you.

Thank you, Prime Minister. When we came into Government, we said very clearly that we were here to raise achievement and close the equity gap so that more Kiwi kids could experience success at school and then go on to live the life that they want, and we made key decisions based around our six priority areas that are ambitious for our young people.

Education is supposed to be the great equaliser in our country, it’s supposed to be the thing that wraps that cloak of protection around our young people, but as the Prime Minister said, for decades we have seen a decline and an equity gap that has continued to grow. And that’s why when I came into office we moved at pace, because we cannot have another generation of young children who struggle to read, and in May 2024 we took the very bold step that from term one this year, all state schools must teach children to read using the proven structured literacy approach. And this was complemented by our new year-by-year, knowledge-rich English curriculum, which embedded structured literacy at all levels, introduced this year. page 1 of 13

And what this meant was getting back to the basics at year one and two, and teaching children to read using sounds and using phonics to understand how to read words. Now, domestic and international evidence showed that it is the most effective way to teach children to read and equip them with strong reading skills. We followed the science and we gave teachers the support that they needed to roll it out. 33,000 teachers have been trained or are in training. That’s 80% of all year 0 to 8 teachers. 349 equivalent acceleration teachers, literacy acceleration teachers, in over 1,240 schools next year will provide additional support to students who are struggling to read, up from 271 teachers reaching 962 schools this year. We gave schools up to $5,000 a year every year for four years to help buy extra resources on top of the free books that we provide.

And we introduced the phonics checks. These are where new entrants are tested after 20 weeks at school to identify how well they can decode and sound out both real and made-up words. From term one, schools have been uploading their phonics checks data to the ministry, and today I’m proud to announce our action to mandate structured literacy is producing phenomenal results for our littlest learners.

Structured literacy is transforming the way that Kiwi kids are learning to read. In term 1, after 20 weeks of learning, 36% of new entrants were at the expected reading level, and in term 3 that has shot up to 58% of students nationwide. What this data tells us is that the longer a student is at school learning under structured literacy, the better the results and the less help they need. What’s really exciting is in term 3, 43% of students exceeded expectations, which is more than double the amount in term 1.

And when more children are achieving and excelling, there are fewer who need extra help. There has been a massive reduction in the number of students that need targeted support, dropping from 52% to 33% so that’s over a half to a third of students now needing additional support. This is crucial. Evidence shows that the younger children learn to master the basics of reading, the more likely they are to succeed at school.

And it’s clear from these results that structured literacy is working for everyone: all ethnicities, all deciles, all schools. Māori students performing at or above what’s expected has increased from 25% in term 1 to 43% by term 3. Tamariki needing additional support fell from 62% in term 1 to 47% in just two short terms. These results are a significant step in raising Māori achievement and closing that equity gap that I talked about that New Zealand has been grappling with for so long. In high-equity or our low-decile schools, achievement has gone up from 18% in term 1, extraordinarily low, to 35% in term 3, and for our Pasifika students, 27% up to 43%. Let me be really clear: structured literacy is working for all children in all settings in all schools, based on the science of learning and on how the brain learns to read.

This is the very first snapshot of data, and it did everything that we thought it would do. In Opposition, we studied the results of schools who had been out in front doing structured literacy for a number of years, and what they saw is what we are seeing now on a nationwide scale. This is an incredible boost in less than half a year and reflects the brilliant work that teachers are doing on the ground in hundreds of classrooms across New Zealand, implementing a brand new curriculum, and teaching structured literacy. We are turning results around in this country.

And I want to acknowledge while I’m here, and he’s sitting in front of me, Emeritus Professor James Chapman, who has been fighting for decades for this evidence-based approach to learning, to make sure that it is embedded in our schools, and we all owe him a huge debt of gratitude. I know I certainly do. Every student deserves the chance to succeed and to go on in the life that they want, and we’re making sure that every student, regardless of their background, has that chance.

On Wednesday, the Education Review Office will be releasing some independent data and a review, not into our structured literacy approach but also mathematics as well. As a Minister, I page 2 of 13 have a guiding North Star to lift student achievement and to close the equity gap. Every decision I make, every paper I read, every policy I consider, is held up against these aspirations, and today’s results show that we are on track to make that happen. Thank you, Prime Minister.

Well, thank you, Erica. Look, I think what we’ll do is we’ll open it up to questions. Let’s go straight to the announcement and let’s deal with all the announcement questions and then we’ll move to general questions.

Prime Minister, you acknowledge the role of teachers here and yet we’re hearing that teachers have decided to strike. Do you worry that there’s a gap there between the expectation of teachers today and the fact that they don’t feel appreciated?

Well, look, I think our teachers are doing an exceptionally good job. We as a Government are trying to support with more funding going into frontline resources and education in general. Think about the big investment put into learning support. What we’re doing here to actually make sure we’ve got one way, same way, in terms of the way we teach maths and also we teach literacy.

But look, I mean, I think the reality is, if you take a step back, is that, you know, Kiwis are getting a bit sick of the unions going on strike action rather than actually—because it’s putting our kids who have missed out on a lot of school, off school. We’ve got a lot of students about to go into exam mode. We’ve got also a lot of patients, frankly, that are also wanting to get through the wait lists and into, you know, surgeries as well so they can get through the pain and suffering they’ve got.

You know, our only ask is that we just want the unions to come round the table and negotiate. We appreciate we don’t have a bottomless pit of money, we know we’ve got very straitened economic times and we’ve got to deal with that reality, but the answer is not to go into strike action and cause pain and suffering for parents and kids and patients, the answer is actually to get round the table and stick with it and to go through the bargaining process.

On that, Minister, has there been any talks with the Government—sorry, with the Public Service Commissioner over any moves the Government wants to take in regards to the strike action? Are you looking at any—changing the rules, going to forced mediation, or are you just letting the strike happen?

I’ve not been involved in any of those conversations so I can’t—

Is that [Inaudible] is, though?

I’ve not been involved in any of those conversations so I’m not aware of any those conversations or any of the details that may or may not have been talked about. All I know is that we are a Government that is massively committed to education and the tens of millions of dollars that we have invested in professional learning and development for teachers in structured literacy, and improving their confidence and capability in the classroom, is evident in the results that we are seeing today.

Not everything is won through bargaining. We have implemented a new curriculum that is much clearer for teachers to know what to teach. We’ve delivered tens of millions of dollars of PLD. You saw over 30,000 teachers trained, all of the resources, three-quarters of a billion dollars in learning support. We are deeply committed to making sure that teachers have the tools and resources they need to teach on the front line, and these results show that commitment.

You’re deeply committed. They’re still striking, though, despite your deep commitment. page 3 of 13

Well, those conversations will be ongoing, but we—as the Prime Minister has said, we want to be at the table and we want to make sure that those children who are going into exams aren’t going to be missing out on the final few days that they have with their teachers before they sit their exams or sit their mock exams, which they get their derived grades from, that they’re in class with those teachers, and unfortunately we haven’t been able to get to that position but it’s not through lack of trying and good faith on our side.

Is it that noteworthy that kids who are now being taught phonics are doing well when they’re tested on phonics? You might get quite a different result if they were tested on comprehension, for example.

Well, there’s lots of different aspects of structured literacy. It’s not just phonics. This is one part, and it’s the bit that you do right at the very beginning. So you teach that, what’s called orthographic mapping if we’re going to be a bit nerdy about it, which is looking at the letter and understanding it makes a sound and mapping that in your brain. That’s the first thing that you do at school. You do move on in structured literacy to all sorts of other things, you know, punctuation, grammar, syntax, comprehension. That comes later and we will be testing from next year twice a year to measure progress on lots of other things. This is just a very early snapshot that we have this year of the very first thing you do with a little wee, tiny, you know, five-year-old who is just learning to read, finding where their bag goes in the cloak bay and understanding that letters make sounds and mapping those into words.

What are your targets in terms of these results? I mean, at what point would you say it is a good result?

Well, I look at other countries and what they’ve done and, you know, they’re up around 85%. Look, I haven’t really thought about what the upper figure is. I want every single child to be a confident, capable reader. We are doing things slightly different in this country. We are assessing that early reading much earlier than other countries to check that they’re on track because we want to intervene quite quickly if they’re not. Other countries do it in year two. We want to make sure that in year one, we’re able to intervene where we see children who aren’t on track with their reading, through different supports that we have in place. So, we’ll see where we go but I mean, I’d love to be up around 85, 90%.

How many learning support coordinators are actually in schools working at this point?

There’s about 600 at the moment, and that wasn’t—obviously that’s not every school. We’ve got the rest to roll out over the next three years, so we’re doing it in three tranches. We’ve just announced the schools that are going to be getting them for next year.

One of the demands the unions are making is a teacher aide in every classroom in high school. Is that possible? Is that realistic as a goal?

When I was out in the sector, very clearly they were asking me for a learning support coordinator in every single primary school and intermediate. We delivered that. They also asked for more teacher aides and better access to the ongoing resource scheme. We delivered that. There will be 2 million additional hours from 2028 and a huge surge of support in year one, which is what the sector asked for. They said, “Support stops at age five, we want it to carry on through the end of year one”. We delivered that. And it’s a bit galling for the unions to go, “Well, thank you very much for the—” Well, they didn’t actually say that, but, you know. Here’s your $750 million, the biggest investment since 2002, to then turn around and go, “Actually, it’s this other thing that we wanted”. We have listened to the sector and we delivered the things that they wanted and that they asked for, and we did it in the biggest package in a generation. page 4 of 13

Minister, can you explain how this data was measured across various different schools? You talked about how it’s heavily increased from term 1 to term 3, but how did you come to assessing that data?

Well, schools, all schools, have the phonics check and many of their teachers have been trained in it. So they all sit exactly the same little assessment. It’s got the same 40 words. It’s the same at 20 weeks and they do it again at 40 weeks to measure progress over time. So you wouldn’t be expected to get the same number of answers right at your 20 weeks as you would at your 40 weeks, but we expect children to get 80% of the answers right of the words they should have been taught at that time or are expected to know. So, when we got the results in, we did check to make sure that all schools were represented. So we had an almost perfectly representative sample of students in low decile, high decile, mid decile, all ethnicities right across the country.

Some of the criticism around it has been that you’re taking this single line approach and it’s therefore, you know, potentially leaving out some, you know, diverse learners that are learning in different ways. How would you respond to some of that criticism?

All children are doing the phonics check and we made our expectation clear that all children should be put through the phonics check. And when we have heard of schools who are waiting for some children or putting them through later or not putting them through, we have said it is our expectation that all children experience the phonics check at 20 weeks and 40 weeks, so that we can identify if they need additional support through this additional support that we’re surging into schools.

I think when we have 50% of our kids not at the standard we want them to be at as they go into high school, that’s really the burning platform of why we’re coming back to year one to eight to say, like, let’s build back the basics really well. And having one way, same way, where we have a consistent approach that the evidence tells us it works, which is what we’re encouraged by what we’re seeing today, is really important. We have to do something different, right, to get a different set of results, and I think that’s why we’re so committed to structured literacy and structured numeracy.

Can I just ask? Putting the strike part of it aside, I’m interested in your message, I guess, to teachers who, you know, have been a big part of this success, who have obviously worked very hard, gone through that professional learning development programme and are working hard to implement this in their schools, but are also saying that they’re feeling huge pressure at the pace of your change programme, and we’ve also seen principals disengage with your curriculum roadshow that talks about some of this change programme. What’s your message to those teachers that are feeling overwhelmed and burnt out by, you know, the additional pressure on them now?

My message to teachers is that they have done an extraordinary job in the last 18 months picking up a new curriculum, picking up a new teaching method and running with it. I’ve met teachers up and down the country teaching structured literacy who literally did their PLD ten weeks ago and are confidently teaching it in the classrooms. They have done a Herculean job and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude because in the end I didn’t teach a single kid to read. Neither did the Prime Minister. It was all of those teachers on the ground in hundreds of classrooms across the country. And I know that, you know, we’ve been asking a lot of them, but this is why. This is why. Because now only a third of children need additional help, compared to over half before. You know, these results show you why it’s so important. We just could not wait another year and let another whole load of children go through looking at the picture, guessing the word, the old result, you know, the old way of teaching that we know was failing us. And that’s why. But I want to say to teachers they have done an absolutely incredible job and continue to do so because we can see every single term the results are improving. page 5 of 13

Why do you think structured literacy wasn’t introduced earlier?

Well, look, I mean, it has been introduced in many schools and I want to say to those schools thank you for being ahead of everyone else. There are a lot of schools— Kaiapoi North, for example, in Kaiapoi and Christchurch—who went out many years ago and took that leap and did it, and if it wasn’t for them and their results, I wouldn’t have had the confidence that I needed to be able to say, “Actually, we’re going to do this thing that works”. So I owe another huge debt of gratitude to those schools who went out in advance to give us the data we needed to make this leap.

Sorry, just on a sort of related but slightly different topic, new analysis shows about 400 early childhood education centres are at risk of closure in the next year. Obviously that’s sort of David Seymour’s area but given, you know, we want kids to be up to a certain level before they go to primary school, how concerning is that to hear and how might that undermine the work you’re trying to do if we lose these schools, these ECE centres?

Look, you’re right, that is in David Seymour’s area, and you can ask him those questions. And early childhood is extraordinarily important for building good literacy skills because we know that more and more children aren’t getting read to at home, or spoken to. They’re coming into ECE and into school with poor oral language and poor reading skills. And the role of ECE is so vitally important, which is why we have made sure that early numeracy and literacy is being embedded in ECE. So, look, those are something—those are things you’ll need to put to Minister Seymour.

Are you comfortable with the work he’s doing in this area, that he’s doing enough?

Look, it is a really tough area in ECE. The funding mechanism is really complicated and it’s not working, and it’s a huge piece of work that he’s undertaking.

Are you comfortable with his work, ultimately?

Look, of course I am. You know, he’s working as fast as he can in a very, very complicated area in ECE.

These centres are calling for the unspent money in the Family Boost policy to be redirected to them. Would you ever consider that?

That’s something we need to talk to him about. That is his area.

Can I ask about local elections?

Are we all finished on the announcement, team? Anyone else got anything else you want to do? OK, Zane, let’s go.

Thank you. Sorry. Prime Minister, what do you put the low turnout in local elections down to?

Yeah, look, I think there’s two parts to it. One is you’ve got to have candidates that have a compelling vision of what they want to do and get the voters to come out and actually positively affirm and vote for the vision for the city that they are representing. I think the second thing is that, you know, New Zealanders need to register and vote, and if you care about democracy, you know, you actually—it’s a pretty precious thing and you don’t want to take it for granted. You know, we see a number of councils across the country where we’ve seen, I think on average, a 12.7% rate rise. If you care deeply about what’s happening with your rates and the spending that’s going on in your council and what’s happening in your local community, you get out and vote. page 6 of 13

You know, earlier in the year I was up in the south of England, you know, with Kier Starmer and we were looking at what our, you know, our troops jointly training Ukrainian soldiers. You know, they were going back to the front lines within a matter of days after we saw that graduating class of 160 Ukrainians, and they’re fighting for democracy. So it’s not something you take lightly. It’s a real privilege and it’s a real right, but it’s also a responsibility. So I think, you know, there’s—I think there’s a question for voters and also for candidates.

How interested are you in giving power to run elections over to the Electoral Commission? Because there is a big difference here and the elections are a lot more complicated. You have to vote by noon on Saturday, which is different from the general election. Would it make it simpler to just have the same system?

I’ve got a lot of—I’m very open to that. In fact, the Ministers and also Local Government New Zealand, those are conversations that have already started, and I think we do need to look at the actual mechanism by which we run the elections and the involvement of the Electoral Commission and other things. So, Minister Goldsmith with Minister Watts and LGNZ leadership—I was even party to those conversations before the election as well.

You say “exciting candidates”. Is part of the problem there that in some mayoral races, the race didn’t seem very, you know, winnable for one side? You might support Wayne Brown, but why bother going out and voting for him when he’s polling so far ahead of his nearest competitor? Same with Andrew Little. Same with Phil Mauger. Is that part of the problem there, that they’re just not good enough races?

Yeah, look, I just think you get what you deserve, right, and if you’re not prepared to, you know, either back candidates or if you think you’re going to be a good candidate yourself, step into the arena and actually, you know, put your name forward and actually advocate strongly for your community—we want as many good candidates coming into the political system both in central and local government as possible, from as broad and diverse backgrounds as possible. But ultimately I’m just saying to you, you know, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got candidates that have got vision for where they want to take a city. You know, we want empowered local government to get on with it and actually take their cities forward. But we’ve also got responsibilities for voters to show up and actually, you know, positively vote for people.

Can you give some examples of some candidates who didn’t have a vision in their particular area?

No, no, I’m not. I’m just saying, you know, that if you ask me why, you know, you end up with a low voter turnout, it’s contingent upon both candidates and voters to get a different result.

Who are those candidates, though?

I’m not going there.

What are you basing it on, though, if you can’t give examples?

Well, I’m just saying to you in general terms it’s about candidates making it an election that people actually want to come out and vote for, and it’s also about, you know, voters actually filling in and, you know, valuing their democracy and what actually happens and what representation they get in their local community.

Do you have any reflection on the shift around Māori wards around the country?

No, again from our point of view it was just simply a matter of—fantastic for those areas that have wanted to positively affirm that they want to keep their Māori wards, fantastic. page 7 of 13

For those that have decided they don’t want to—our whole thing was it shouldn’t be mandated from Wellington, it should be a decision that’s made by local communities, and that’s what’s happened.

You just said that we need diverse candidates. Do you think that Māori wards help with that call?

Our view has been that’s decisions for local communities. That’s what we’ve always argued, is localism and devolution, and, you know, our issue was about mandating it here from Wellington wasn’t right. Actually letting communities make their own decisions about that is important.

Are you surprised by the results, 25 saying no and 17 saying, “We want to keep them”?

No, no. I think as I’ve moved around the country, there’s always been good support. Ours was a principled decision about it’s a decision for, you know, local communities to make. And if they’ve made a decision to keep it, fantastic. If they’ve made a decision to remove it, that’s their call and their choice as well.

Do you think the politicisation of local body politics has played any part in that poor voter turnout? You know, there’s been some criticism from, you know, yourself and central government about what local government are doing. There’s also been, you know, a lot of political and some dirty politics stuff as well in local government around the country that could potentially turn voters off. Do you think that that’s part of it at all?

Well, I mean, that’s a—I mean, you know, local communities get to choose the people that represent them and, you know, what happens within the context of a local government is up to the people in that community. You know, as Prime Minister and as the leader of central government, you know, I’ve got a different responsibility.

When we—we partner with local government, obviously, very closely. We do that. We’ve got some outstanding mayors up and down this country, some excellent councils doing a great job. But equally, our message has been: hey, listen, when inflation is running at 2.5% and actually the average rates increase is running at 12.5%, we’re asking you to focus on the basics, not to waste money, to treat the money as if it’s your own because it’s ratepayer or taxpayer money and it needs to be treated respectfully. And so, you know, going off and building, you know, light show public toilets here in Wellington is not a good use of money because that’s money that could be used and saved in a different way and deployed for a different reason. So we’re just asking for people to get back to basics and do the basics well.

Where are your thoughts in terms of where those rates caps should be at?

Again, we’re doing that work now. Minister Watts is leading us as a Cabinet through that process. And we haven’t had any discussions about that at this point. It’s on our work plan for this quarter. He’ll have more to say about it through the course of the year, end of year.

Prime Minister, about 74,000 people left New Zealand the year to August. New Zealand citizens. They migrated away. Why do you think that number is so high—it’s a record high—and what are you doing to change that?

Yeah, look, I mean, it’s been a very difficult time for New Zealand. We’ve come through the biggest recession we’ve had in 35 years, we’ve been the Western country in the world with the longest COVID hangover, and we’re a small trading nation that actually gets smacked around with international trading environments. And the context has been for people is that if you’re—if you’re working hard and you can’t get ahead, that’s a reason for why people—over the history of New Zealand, frankly, where we’ve had waves of departures and page 8 of 13 inbound migration and negative net migration as well. You know, people—we’ve got to build back a strong economy for New Zealanders and that’s what we’re so focused on. We keep saying we want to grow the economy, restore law and order, deliver better health and education.

And if you can work in this country and feel if I work hard, I can get ahead, if I’m actually going to be able to be safe in my home, my business and my community, if my kids can get a great education, which they now can, and if I can actually get my parents access to health care and the surgeries that they need, that’s really the proposition that we as a new Government are rebuilding. And if we do our job right, New Zealanders will choose to stay here, as we want them to and as they should.

Prime Minister, last month, you and other Pacific leaders signed off on committing to take action on short-lived pollutants like methane. Do your new targets keep to that commitment?

Yes, absolutely.

OK. Why do you think so?

All—well, what we’ve done is we’ve said, look, New Zealand’s got a rather unique emissions profile. Half of it sits in CO2, as you know, in manufacturing and transportation. The other 50% is in methane with agricultural emissions. We without doubt are the most productive farmers in the world. We’re also the most carbon-efficient farmers in the world, and global greenhouse gas emissions is a global challenge, not just a New Zealand challenge. So when you shut down New Zealand farms and actually move that production to any other country on Earth, you’re actually making global greenhouse gas emissions worse as a result.

So what we’ve said in the campaign as the National Party, and other parties have supported it as well, is to say look, we want to look at the science base. We’ve looked at a whole bunch of inputs and a bunch of advice, come back to a place where we’ve said, “look, we want to see by 2050 a 14 to 24% reduction over 2017 levels on agricultural emissions”. We think that’s quite achievable and quite doable. We’re seeing very good adoption of technology and innovation from our farming sector. It’s been the story of why we are so good from this part of the world is because of our adoption of technology and innovation.

And when we look out, you see huge amounts of innovation through our AgriZero funnel alone, you know, a $400 million investment we’ve made with industry, you know, whether it’s boluses, methane vaccine, more adoption of the breeding programs that we’ve been, you know, that have been running. All of that says to us that we should be in a place where actually working with the producers, where we can deliver, get that methane target clear for our farmers from here on through.

[Inaudible] any correspondence from either Pacific partners or other foreign partners since [Inaudible]?

Not that I’m aware of. I mean, my conversations, as I’ve said to you before, is when you’re a top 10 country in the world out of the 195 that exist, running at 85 to 87% renewable energy, and you want to double the amount of renewable energy, you’re in pretty good shape. And when you’re actually dealing with the most carbon-efficient farmers in the world, period, actually, you’re in pretty good shape for those conversations as well. So we make the right decision for New Zealand.

But no, no. I mean, people—you know, whether I’ve been in the Pacific Islands Forum or whether I’ve been in other international bodies, people have huge respect for what we’ve been doing, and as you’ve seen, you know, we’re on track to deliver net zero 2050. We may even do it a few years early. page 9 of 13

Last week, your Ministers spoke about being open to speeding up some of those changes to protests outside people’s homes. Have there been any discussions of cementing that speed up?

Well, look, as you know, we’ve just had a rule—you know, we’ve got a piece of legislation which has had its first reading, it’s coming out of select committee and we’re due to go back into the House, I think, at the end of the month for a second reading to make, you know, to make protesting outside the houses of public officials, you know, illegal. The reason’s pretty simple. We want people to always feel free to protest. As I’ve said before, you know, I signed up for this game and I’m fair game, but my neighbours didn’t. And as a result, we really want to make sure that—you know, feel free to protest us by all means but, you know, when you’re disturbing neighbours who didn’t sign up for this, that’s not fair.

Do you want that done by the end of the year?

It will be done by the end of the year, yeah.

New Zealand First says that the gene tech bill need some major changes if it’s to support it. Are you open to that?

Well, we’re in a place where, you know, as a coalition Government, we’ve said this is something we’re going to do, so it’s happening. But, you know, we’ve just gone through a select committee process where Minister Reti has to, you know, digest quite a lot of feedback and he will do that. As part of—obviously, parties will have their view. You saw a minority report, I suspect, from New Zealand First. It talked about their issues and their concerns. Likewise, we’ve got other feedback as well. So Minister Reti is working his way through that but I’m very confident we’ll get it passed, and we need to get it passed because if you want to talk about lowering our emissions and improving our productivity on agriculture, that’s one of the ways we do it. If you want to talk about better health outcomes and T-cell research and technologies that are available to us, that’s one of the ways to do it as well.

And, you know, we’re going into this pretty conservatively. You know, there’s probably 40-plus countries that have already got well-established regimes. We’re not first through the door here, we’re pretty slow, and we’re following very much the Australian model, which is pretty conservative. So, yeah, we’ll get it done, but we just need time to digest what is you know, quite a lot of complex and technical feedback, as you would imagine.

Will you get it done with New Zealand First’s votes, though, or will you have to go to Labour?

No, look, as a Government we’ve already committed to saying we’re going—we’re going to pass gene tech legislation. But in fairness, the point of our process is first reading, select committee, approve it, second reading, approve it, third reading, law, you know, and that’s what we want to keep following.

If New Zealand First want to weaken the bill more than you’re comfortable with, though, wouldn’t it be easier to go with Labour if they have similar views to you on this? Or would it be better to keep the coalition together, even if it meant a worse bill?

Oh, look, I’m very confident and very relaxed that we will get this done. I’m not overly concerned or worried about it at all. You know, we’re used to parties having lots of different views. What I think was helpful when we announced this as policy as a National Party, if you remember before the election, we had chief science advisors from both the left and the right of former Governments coming out in support to say, “Look, you know, we’re not in 1999 anymore, we’re in 2025”. Most countries have got this sorted. We’ve been very Johnny-come-lately to the party. We’re doing it in a very conservative way with lots of good checks and page 10 of 13 balances. But the devil’s in the detail and it is really important that Minister Reti has a chance to digest all that feedback. Sorry, Adam.

Sorry, just on Paris, the climate change deal, how much stock can the public really put into the Government’s kind of stated commitment to that deal when we have Act and New Zealand First at the very least seriously questioning the value that we get out of remaining in that deal?

Well, parties may form their own views as they go into an election campaign next year but I’d just say to you in a three-party coalition Government, which is what we—which is what I lead, you know, and speaking from a National Party point of view but certainly from a Government point of view, we’ve made the determination as a Government with the three parties that actually staying in Paris is important to us, that actually—you know, there’s only four countries that are not part of Paris. And the second piece is that, you know, we know that competitive countries and large multinationals—if we don’t meet those obligations, I can tell you we’re going to make Kiwis poorer and we’re going to punish our farmers, and I’m not up for that. I mean, we want to make sure that we are making this country wealthier, not poorer, and coming out of Paris would be one of the fastest ways to do exactly that.

I appreciate that that’s your view and that’s National’s view but, you know, given the fact that Act and New Zealand First have been so vocal in some points of their opposition to it, is it really fair to tell the public that the Government is 100% committed to Paris?

Yeah, that’s the Government position. I appreciate individual parties may be building or thinking about positions around that or around climate change in general as they go to their campaigns. You’re going to see it across the whole of Parliament. All six parties will have a slightly different view and a set of policies that they’ll take to the election. But, you know, our Government, which comprises of three parties in a coalition Government, has determined it is in our very, very best interest to stay in Paris, and that’s what we’re going to do.

If you’re leading a Government again after next year’s election, will this be your position as well, that that’s a non-negotiable for you to stay in Paris?

Yeah, look, I mean, it’s in New Zealand’s interest that we are in Paris. And so I appreciate that’s a hypothetical question about how coalition agreements will come together and what form a coalition may take but, you know, again, we will deal with the results that we get dealt with through MMP and then we’ll form a Government and we’ll move forward on that basis. But, you know, I’m really clear in my head we are going to deliver on our commitments. Net zero 2050 is something we’re very deeply committed to. You’ve seen, you know, different people say maybe we’re going to do it in 2044, maybe we’ll do it quicker. With respect to the separate methane target, I think we’re being very practical about that and actually we’ve got the settings right about that, so that we’re not destroying—making emissions worse and making New Zealanders poorer. And I just think it’s in our interest to do so.

Are you making any announcements on the ETS this week, on Thursday?

Sorry, on the—

On the emissions trading scheme.

Not that I’m aware of, no. Not when I look at the major events we’ve got to announce this week.

It’s education week.

Have you had any update on the potential inquiry into Tom Phillips? page 11 of 13

Yes, I have been taking advice on that and I should be able to talk about that in the next few weeks. It’s just, again, what I’ve been interested in getting advice on is what’s the best form of inquiry to undertake, who would lead it, and ultimately, what are the terms of reference, so they are the three things that we’re just working through now.

Just quickly on Te Pāti Māori, What did you make of what happened in the House on Thursday after Oriini Kaipara’s maiden speech that went on 10 minutes longer than it should have, and the waiata and then the haka that happened?

Yeah, look, I mean, I think most Kiwis know that Te Pāti Māori are activists and they’re just not serious. I have never heard Te Pati Māori come out and talk about what they’re going to do to improve the literacy or numeracy rate of Māori or non-Māori students, for example. They don’t have any policy ideas so a lot of it’s just sheer performative. And again, we come to this place, irrespective of your political party, you actually are here to represent all New Zealanders as a parliamentarian and this is a place that has to have some rules in order for our democracy to function well, and they need to be respected. And so, you know, my view very clearly is that they are not—they are disrespecting the rules of Parliament. Now, those are decisions for the Speaker to make about the consequences of that. But on the other hand, you’ve got Chris Hipkin saying, oh, they’ve got some work to do, but on the other hand he’s desperate to work for them. So if he thinks they’re dysfunctional and disrespectful to Parliament, why doesn’t he just rule them out?

And, you know, I think that’s the sad thing is that, you know, the Māori Party used to be a party with ideas, and we haven’t had a single policy idea to solve the real challenges that we’ve got, which is: how do we get our kids set up for more success so we’re having very different conversations in 20 years’ time and we’re able to access higher-paying jobs? And surely that’s why we come to Parliament and that’s what we’ve got to go to work on together.

Prime Minister, it looks like the Hamas hostages are due to be released in the next few hours. What’s New Zealand’s response to this? I mean, how significant is this update that we’re getting?

Well, I mean, this has been a humanitarian catastrophe, as you well know, and the killing has to stop, and this is the best hope that we’ve had in two years to actually make sure we get to a ceasefire. We want to see the hostages released. We want to see no future role for Hamas in any future government. We want to see Israel backing off and getting back to its positions. We want to see unhindered, unfettered aid into Gaza.

But, you know, I think President Trump and certainly regional partners of Qatar and Egypt and Türkiye need huge recognition here, that they actually have actually leant on Hamas and leant on Israel to get them into this position. So, you know, this is—we’re putting a lot of hope on this and we really want to see it work and so, you know, we just want a ceasefire. We want— we want to see peace in that region, and stability, and this is our best chance at that. And so let’s hope that it gets implemented quickly and well, and then it pushes on to further conversations about how we get enduring, lasting peace in the region.

If that ceasefire deal holds, what will you need to see specifically to go back and potentially reconsider whether New Zealand would officially recognise a Palestinian state?

Yeah, look, I mean, there’s a few things, as we’ve talked about before, and, you know, irrespective of your view on recognition, all countries are united on the fact that we need to see a ceasefire, right? That’s the main event. The other piece is the entree. The main event is actually securing the ceasefire and having the killing stop. For us, you know, we need to make sure hostages are released. We need to make sure that Hamas has no future role in any future Palestinian state. Bit difficult when they are the de facto government of Gaza, or have been. And separately, we’re also supporting the Palestinian Authority in actually expanding their capacity-building as well and so, you know, making sure we’re doing everything we can page 12 of 13 to support them with resources and capability-building and governance, you know, skills as well, so that they are ready to actually be a state that will be well-functioning from day one.

So revisiting that conversation is potentially quite a way off.

Well, we’ve always said it’s when, not if, and we’ll continue to monitor it. But irrespective of what you believe on recognition, you know, the US is a country that hasn’t recognised Palestine and yet it’s been the one that’s actually brought the best peace plan forward, that’s actually—Hamas and Israel are now getting around—you know, are actually getting into a place that is looking more possible and hopeful, which is fantastic.

Was it appropriate for Winston Peters to issue a public ‘please explain’ to Fonterra?

Look, I mean, I just think politicians shouldn’t be telling farmers what to do. They’ve had a gutsful of that after six years of Labour, and frankly this is their livelihood and it’s their enterprises and they get to make those decisions. I have a different view, you know, as someone who ran, you know, worked at a large, fast-moving consumer goods company for 18 years, that I just know the margin structure in a business-to-business and a food service and ingredients business is much more profitable than trying to sell direct to consumers. And when you see, for example, ambient whipping cream being sold to Korean bakers when I’ve been on my tours, and with delegations, you know, that is a really great business and that’s why Fonterra is delivering superior returns to its shareholders. But ultimately it’s the farmers’ decision.

Have you spoken to Mr Peters about that?

No, I don’t need to. He can have a different view, but I’m just giving my view as well.

Does Winston Peters just not get it?

What’s that?

Does Winston Peters just not understand it?

No, no, he’s entitled to a view of what he wants but I’m just saying to you farmers will make that decision, not Winston Peters or not Chris Luxon. We can have our respective reckons and views, that’s fine, but ultimately it’s a decision for farmers and they’re quite capable of making the decision. I back them, I trust them, and they’re the people thankfully that are pulling us out of this recession so we’re very grateful for them. OK, team, thank you so much. Have a good day. Have a good week.