Post-Cabinet Press Conference: Monday, 20 July 2026

Well, kia ora, good afternoon, everyone. I hope you've all had a good recess and are feeling refreshed and ready for another sitting block. Because of flight delays, we've got a bit of a constrained schedule today, so I do have a hard time finish just after 4 pm.

Can I just start by acknowledging Ryan Fox's incredible achievement today? Ryan Fox has just become the fourth Kiwi to win one of golf's major opens and championships. I've got to say, the mental toughness, the composure, the grit that he showed throughout that final round was absolutely outstanding, and to step up and birdie that final hole to win by a single shot I think was just simply remarkable. And so it's going to be very special to see the Claret Jug back here on New Zealand soil for the first time since Bob Charles lifted it back in 1963 and that's a wonderful piece of sporting history that Ryan has now written his own chapter about. So congratulations, Ryan, and all of New Zealand is right behind you and incredibly proud of you.

As you can see, I’m joined by our excellent RMA Reform Minister, Chris Bishop. This afternoon, the Environment Committee has reported back on the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill. These bills will replace the Resource Management Act with a planning system that lets New Zealand get on and—with producing and with building and getting things done.

Building modern and resilient, reliable infrastructure that can withstand an increasingly volatile world is all part of our plan to build a better and more secure future for New Zealand. For too long, the RMA has made it too slow, too expensive, and too difficult to produce the food and fibre, to build the homes, the roads, the infrastructure, and the renewable projects that New Zealand desperately needs, and that's why we're tackling it. That's why we're fixing it.

Over the past six months, the Environment Committee has carefully considered submissions on the two replacement bills from across New Zealand. The Government has welcomed the committee's recommendations, and the bills will now proceed to a second reading with changes that improve their workability. Shortly, I'll pass over to Chris to talk through those key changes in a little more detail. But replacing the RMA is one of our Government's most important economic reforms because if we do want more houses, we want better infrastructure and more affordable energy, we need a planning system that enables us to make that happen.

It's a key part of our wider plan to make it easier, to make it faster, and more affordable just to get on with building infrastructure in this great country, and among other things, we've introduced fast track, and there are now 26 projects underway because of that change, with another 55 going through the fast-track process. We've also made smaller, but I think very important, changes like allowing more use of overseas building products, speeding up inspections, improving liability rules, and of course, making earthquake-prone building rules and the system more practical.

National will campaign on further changes in the space, including the policy announced by Chris Penk last week to make it even easier to build shops and offices and other commercial buildings by removing unnecessary delays and costs in the building consent system. National has a long-term plan for New Zealand's future to ultimately create jobs and opportunities and to make life more affordable for our people.

Tomorrow, as you know, the latest inflation data will be out, and that will now fully reflect the impact of the crisis in the Middle East. That impact won't be a surprise. We knew when the crisis began that there would be a hit on growth and also inflation, and despite a recent drop-off, petrol prices to remain higher than before the crisis. More economists are therefore picking inflation to rise to around 4 percent tomorrow before falling back below 3 percent in the year ahead.

As a Government, as I've said consistently, it's our job to control what we can control, and for us, that means keeping Government spending down to ease the pressure on inflation and interest rates. That's why we didn't attempt to ease the pressure of higher fuel prices for every New Zealander and instead chose to deliver support to those affected in a temporary, timely, and targeted way. And by spending carefully, we get to keep our debt down, take some pressure off inflation, and afford to keep taxes low for families and business, supporting New Zealand's long-term economic prospects. And with that, I'll now pass over to Chris to talk through some of the detail of the report back.

Thank you, Prime Minister. As has been stated, replacing the RMA is one of the Government's biggest economic reforms. It's too slow, too expensive, and too unpredictable. So the bills that are before the House will provide for a more consistent national framework. They'll reduce unnecessary consenting requirements, improve certainty, and make it easier to get projects underway.

It's been a long haul over the last three years, or almost three years. We did fast track initially, which is working extremely well. More projects coming through almost every week. A downtown car park in Auckland's received draft approval. A range of other projects. We made a whole series of changes to national direction over the first two years, sensible things like changes to papakāinga housing rules, for example, changes across the infrastructure space, the renewable energy space.

But the big kahuna has always been the full scale of the RMA with a new regime, which is the Natural Environment Bill and the Planning Bill, and the reason why it's so significant is primarily about prosperity and about economic growth. The independent analysis projects the new system will increase New Zealand's GDP by an additional 0.56 percent every year by 2050. It's worth over $3 billion to New Zealand annually. That is more jobs, more growth, and it's higher wages for Kiwis around the country. In short, it means greater prosperity, and tackling our planning challenge and environmental management challenge is, I would argue, the number one thing we can do to improve New Zealand's prosperity.

We'll reduce administration and compliance costs. We think we can take around 45 percent of consent and permit applications out of the system altogether. That is between 15,000 and 22,000 applications removed from the system entirely.

The Environment Committee has heard from people around the country over the last six or so months and has recommended a whole series of changes to the bills. The architecture, the basic architecture of the bills, remains in place: the funnel concept that we talked about at the back end of last year in the banquet hall, the narrowing of the system as you move down through between spatial plans, land use plans, and environment plans. So the basic concepts of the bills remain in place and are very important.

But some of the changes that I'll just briefly highlight are stronger recognition of food and fibre production and enjoyment of land up there in the goals of the legislation. More workable environmental limits, providing greater certainty for farmers and growers and infrastructure providers. There are tighter safeguards around natural resource levies, which has been a subject of some debate. We've retained the first in, first served resource allocation mechanism.

And there's a longer transition period to support councils and practitioners implementing the new system. We did have some feedback from councils that it was all a lot of work and a lot of stuff coming at them, which is true but it's very important for the country's future, but we have allowed a slightly longer transition period.

We've also agreed to replace the transfer of existing and initiated Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements with a more targeted system of iwi participation agreements. And, as I indicated a couple of weeks ago, we are considering options still around Plan Change 1, which is the big Waikato plan change, which has been underway now since 2014 or 2015, depending on how you measure it, and 10 years on, still haven't managed to land it. And of course it will be coming into effect at the same time as the underlying system is changing, so we are giving some thought to that as a Cabinet and a Government about exactly what we do there.

We are on track to pass the bills by the time the House rises. I expect the second reading of the bills will be in a couple of weeks or so, and then the Committee of the Whole House a couple of weeks after that. There will be further amendments that the Government intends to make by way of amendment paper, which we will release in advance of the Committee of the Whole, obviously. And then third reading in September at some point, subject to the Leader of the House's schedule, and then we will have a whole new regime that prioritises property rights, growth and development, supports investment, protects the environment, and of course helps build a stronger economy.

Okay, everybody, why don’t we take questions around resource management and then we’ll go to other issues of the day.

Minister, at first reading you were able to overrule the environmental limits for significant infrastructure, so I’m thinking maybe a dam, a new hydroelectric dam, something like that. That’s been changed so now you can overrule for publicly beneficial projects. What kind of projects are you talking about there? Are you essentially putting fast track into the new system there?

No, it's more a recognition, I think, that greater flexibility was required, not just around infrastructure. So a couple of areas where you may—the Minister may wish to do that: one would be aquaculture, where there are quite, you know, potentially significant adverse effects from aquaculture, and the other is in relation to commercial vegetable growing, for example. So we are really keen to make sure that commercial vegetable growing, which not only feeds New Zealand but also helps feed the rest of the world as well, is given real primacy in the system. And so the feedback was we just needed a bit more flexibility.

That's not just about significant infrastructure. I think people can kind of understand the idea of wind farms or transmission pylons or roads or rail or whatever. I mean there's a whole range of different infrastructure providers. Ports would be another example. It's not just about that. It’s just greater flexibility around the ability to deviate from limits.

Would you envision being able to do that for a factory that provided 1,000 jobs for a town?

I mean I don't want to go through every specific example because it will—every example will depend on the context and depend on the exact plan that's there. It's not so much about a Minister approving a particular factory. It's about allowing standards to be set that deviate from the national standard through central Government.

OK, we'll go to Jo. Hang on, we'll take turns, team.

Based on the criticism that we've already heard from Labour and the Greens, it doesn't look as though they're going to be keen to support this. What sort of certainty can you actually give to New Zealanders around this legislation where we've had a constant create something, chuck it out, start it again, create something, chuck it out, start it again?

Well, it's a really easy way to make sure the system gets locked in place, and that's for everyone to go out and party vote National at the election. We've worked quite hard with Labour and the Greens to try and achieve some common ground, and I mean that genuinely. I've had, I don't know, probably half a dozen meetings, both informal and formal—probably actually more that if you count the informal meetings—between myself and the Labour and the Greens spokespeople on this, and the meetings have been good-natured and they've been in good faith.

I've got respect for both Rachel Brooking and Julie Anne and Lan Pham so they've been amiable meetings, but they just have a fundamentally different view about a range of things. And we, you know, looked at ways to try and meet in the middle but ultimately what we're trying to achieve here is good public policy. And it probably would have been possible to kind of find a bunch of things which everyone could kind of compromise on and create a bit of a muddle. I'm not about creating muddle, I'm about creating good law that serves New Zealand and is in the national interest, and that's what we're doing.

[Inaudible] that certainty, that’s not actually something that you can give other than potentially three years, is it?

Well, ultimately I'm not going to speak for other parties and what they'll campaign on. What I can speak for and what the Prime Minister can speak to is the Government, the three-way coalition that is implementing this legislation.

Just back to Henry's question, does that now effectively mean that you're creating more of like a cost-benefit analysis test on things, rather than having an environmental limit?

Yes. If you look—I mean, there's a couple of things there. If you look at some of the changes that the committee's made around limits more generally, both the ability for central Government to allow the deviation from limits but also the ability for—also the requirement for councils, when setting regional limits, to take into account cost-benefit. Yes, that is a key theme coming through.

And that was some of the feedback that came through from the select committee is that the setting of limits is—on one level it's a scientific exercise, obviously, and you've got to be grounded in the science and the data and the evidence, and that's obviously true. But the science and the data also has to be weighed against what the impact of setting those limits might be on, you know, society and the economy that we live in. And so we think those are important things to play into the weighing up exercise, both by Ministers and by councils.

And on the time frame of passing the legislation, the committee says itself that it's extensive amendments to the bill, if you look through it. How are you actually going to push that through a Committee of the Whole House in the time before the election?

Well, it's a good Government priority for us to do it.

Number one priority in the next nine weeks.

We will sit—

Do you do 100 percent commit to passing that?

Yes, we will sit until the bills are passed. And yeah, they're chunky pieces of legislation, but the select committee has made a series of changes, which the House will be asked to vote on. And then there are some amendment papers. I've been deliberately keen on limiting the number of amendment papers that the Government drops on the floor of the House, for reasons that yourself have adverted to. So there will be some amendment papers but we're trying to keep those as limited as possible.

But reform takes time. It's taken us two and a half years to get to this point. It'll be three years, largely, by the time we're done. But if you look back over the three years, by the time we get to September or October, we'll have delivered a whole new replacement for the RMA. We'll have done fast track in that time. We will have done the biggest changes to national direction that the RMA has ever seen, much of which will port across into the new system. So I think, look back over three years, it's a pretty good record of achievement.

And I'd just say, when you take a step back and say, what makes a country fundamentally wealthier, one of the five things you have to deal with is remove the bureaucracy and the red tape. And there's nothing bigger than this RMA. It is the single biggest thing that has been hamstrung in New Zealand holding us back, and it has to be dealt with. So there's no bigger priority for the Government in the legislative time that we've got. It'll take as long as it takes, and we'll get it done.

Sorry, guys, I'll close out one last question with Jenna, then we're going to come to Māni and then we'll come back to you, Henry.

Have you acted in good faith with the removal of the iwi participation agreements from being carried over to the next part of the legislation?

Yeah, I mean, if you go back in the history, these were a creation of Nick Smith back in 2015 and, you know, they didn't—they weren't—I mean, there was eight of them when we came in and so they were really—they weren't utilised at all, right. If you look at them, on average, less than one per year was being negotiated, and there's been a massive surge of interest in them. And we've just decided that the cleanest thing to do is just basically put in place these iwi participation agreements, which are a new thing which will be—assuming the Parliament agrees to the amendments, will be a new thing in the law.

And the reason to have them is essentially to give effect to Treaty settlements that the Crown has entered into in good faith since the mid-1990s, where there are a range of mechanisms for iwi and mana whenua to participate in statutory processes both through the RMA and will be in the new planning and environmental system. So it's about actually streamlining and simplifying what that looks like in practice and, you know, we think it's a good step forward.

So just in regards to the Mana Whakahono ā Rohe, which I'm assuming is the same thing, when you talk about streamlining or making them more targeted, what does that actually look like? Can just you elaborate a bit more on kind of the purpose or what that means?

Yeah, so for example, one of the key bits of the new system is at the spatial planning level, which is when councils and regions are stepping back and going, “OK. Over the next 30 to 50 years, where are we going to grow? Where are we not going to grow? Where are the infrastructure corridors? Where are the housing areas? Where are the areas that are subject to natural hazards, for example?” That doesn't really exist in the status quo and it's going to become a new feature and a big part of the new system.

As part of that, I think most Kiwis would say, you know what, as part of that kind of overall spatial planning exercise for a region, where are our sites of significance for the local iwi? Where are the areas where—the old pā sites, for example? Where are the burial grounds of kuia and kaumātua? Where are the areas that have special significance? And it's not for me to speak to that but I think most Kiwis would say, you know what, the system should protect that stuff, and we should do it up—high up in the system. And so the iwi participation agreements, for example, will be a way to essentially put the process around how that will work. So it may be regular meetings, for example. It may be—there'll be a range of different ways and we haven't yet written the regulations around that, but those are the things I'm talking about.

So you're not swayed by Federated Farmers' letter to you on this matter at all?

Well, Federated Farmers want us—wanted us to get rid of Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements, which we've done. But I think most Kiwis, including Federated Farmers, would accept that, you know, iwi aren't going anywhere, they are part and parcel of New Zealand life, and the Crown has, for 30 years, signed a succession of legally binding agreements—

That need to be honoured.

—with iwi that we intend to honour. And the system that we are building honours those agreements. It's actually part of both coalition agreements that Treaty settlements will be honoured, and make sure that we do it in a streamlined and effective way so that everybody can get on and do new things in the system. And to be honest, iwi are some of the biggest users of fast track for the reason that they are as frustrated as anybody else by the strictures of the RMA.

OK, we'll go to Benedict and then we'll come to Henry.

I'm just wondering if we could move on to another issue. I'm just wondering if you'd see the Green Party's energy announcement today and what you made of it.

No, I don't pay a lot of attention to Green Party policy.

One of their ideas—well, I think all political parties are kind of on the same page now—is bringing in that balcony solar or plug-in solar. I think the Government's working on trying to legalise it. They're calling for it to be legal. So is Labour. Do you know when that will be delivered?

Well, I mean, we've had our National Party election policy around rooftop solar and the ratepayer assistance scheme, as we've talked about, and our Electrify New Zealand strategy and plan. I appreciate the other parties have come out subsequent to that announcement and said there's big parts of it that they would agree and support. Obviously, we've got nine weeks to go with our legislative agenda on the other side of an election. We look forward to getting lots of good bipartisan support to get that done. It'll be great.

Sorry, just back on RMA reform. Three years ago, your predecessor, not as RMA Reform Minister but as Environment Minister, stood up here and said that he had a series of bills that were going to change the RMA. He didn't get you guys on side and then a few months later you won the election, you got rid of it, and you put the RMA back to where it was. The RMA, when it was originally passed 30 years ago, was passed across two Governments and did get bipartisan support. It then lasted for 30 years. Love it or hate it, it lasted. What's stopping your entire legacy in this area, which you've worked really hard on, being tossed away if you can’t get them on board?

Well, I mean, I can't speak for other political parties. It's over to them. In relation to David Parker, who I've got a lot of respect for, he called me into his office and said, “Here are these bills,” and we said, “Oh, that's interesting. Thank you for that, 800 pages.” And he said, “Yeah, the first reading's on Thursday,” and the meeting was on Tuesday and that was the first time we'd ever seen it. So that's not hardly good faith. I've engaged in a different process and, as I say, I've worked quite hard with Rachel and Lan and Julie Anne. I don't claim to speak for them but, as I say, we have kept them in the loop and discussed many things the whole way through.

But as I say, we could meet in the middle and fudge our way through, but it would not be good law. They just have fundamental disagreements on a range of different things, and that's fine. They are entitled to their views. We live in a democracy. I would hope that they would see much of the good in the reforms, and I suspect if you ask them, they will tell you that there are a lot of things they agree with. Standardised zones, for example. Greater certainty of national direction. Some of the things around housing I think they would agree with.

We are going to put into law for the first time in New Zealand a goal of competitive urban land markets and abundant development opportunities as a goal of the system. It's never been part of New Zealand law. Again, I can't speak for them but I suspect they will agree with that. So let's wait and see. Let's wait and see.

Are you saying that the core architecture was essentially unamenable? Because obviously they've put up a lot of problems with things like regulatory relief and probably you tearing up these iwi agreements, which are somewhat more tangential to the main architecture of the bill. But do you think they're so against the main architecture that there was just no meeting in the middle there?

Well, I don't want to speak for them but what they've publicly indicated through their select committee feedback is they don't like regulatory relief, and that's a core bottom line for us to introduce greater tension in the system around the idea of private property. So one of the core aims of the Government is to make sure that councils that impose heritage or significant natural area overlays, for example, that deprive people of the use of their land— above a certain threshold, it's not a holus-bolus, just whatever local government decides to do. But above a threshold, if it deprives you of the use of your land and you can monetise that, there should be some tension in the system. Now they don't agree with that. Again, fine. That hasn't been part of New Zealand law, but that's my point. We are deliberately changing the system. There's a range of other things they don't agree with either.

OK, we'll go here and then to Thomas, and then we'll come back here.

On the Government's bailout of Golden Bay Cement, how much was that decision informed by the experience of Marsden Point however many years ago, when they transitioned to an import-only terminal? Was that a factor into the thinking at all when the Government provided that $60 million subsidy?

Look, I mean, we weren't here when that decision was made but, I mean, I think we've been pretty straight up in saying, look, the shift in global geopolitics means that the reliance on globally efficient supply chains and a full importation model for what is now our only source of cement manufacture in the country, which actually provides 60 percent of the cement that does the houses, the roads, the builds, the hospitals, and schools and stuff that we need to get done—this is just us being brutally pragmatic to say, hey, listen, we are not prepared to lose cement-making capability here in this country because we need to build national security and national resilience, and we can't rely on those global supply chains, as evidenced by our experience through the pandemic, as evidenced through our experience recently through the Middle East as well. So, you know, that's what's driven the decision.

I think we've got to a very pragmatic and sensible solution, which is, yes, the $60 billion is contingent upon—$60 million, sorry, yeah. $60 million is contingent upon Fletcher spending $150 million and upgrading their facility and being here until 2040, giving us 15 years of certainty that we've got that capability in this country. That's what we really want to make sure we maintain because I just think any right-minded New Zealander saying we're losing the ability to make cement, we're 100 percent reliant on importation and we've got a lot of infrastructure to build out as one of the big drivers of making the country wealthy, doesn't make sense.

But you can take that same argument, though, and apply it to what we saw last week, Juken proposing to close two mills. That’s 200 jobs up in Northland going to be lost. They would say we're losing that manufacturing capability in New Zealand. I mean, what would you say to those people last week, who the Government indicated, “Look, we're not going to be stepping in—"

Well, this is a pretty exceptional, core national security capability to produce concrete and cement and so that's, for us, why it's an exception. That's why we've structured it in the way that we have, that there's clawbacks if the investment doesn't come from Golden Bay Cement, but we expect that to happen. We've done an open book to really understand what the financials are, and the work we've done with Deloitte. And I know it's an exception, but it's an intervention that's very necessary because we're not prepared to lose that capacity or that capability to make cement here in New Zealand.

Critics of this decision or the critics of the situation have focused on the fact that cement manufacturing is in the ETS and they have a significant ETS liability. Is there anything that the Government is thinking about doing, or that the National Party is thinking about doing, with relation to the way that the ETS can sometimes work against our national self-resilience?

We're leaving the ETS, as you know. There's no change around the ETS settings with respect to this decision. It is genuinely coming from a national resilience, national security in a globally uncertain place where we can't rely on global supply chains, decision. And you've heard us talk very strongly about the fact that in that volatile world, our opportunity is to build out a stronger homeland, and one of the things you don't do is trade away a core capability when it's the only place, the only place that we've got in the whole country that can deliver that.

I also had a regulatory relief question. Chris Bishop, can you just explain the wording that the committee has recommended switching out for the regulatory relief from not needing to be granted on a like-for-like to equivalent basis or something. Can you just explain the difference between those two things? They look kind of similar.

Not off the top of my head. I'll have to come back to you on that.

Guys, we don’t—

There'll be a technical reason for that.

So guys, we'll just take three quick questions. I've got visitors waiting, so, yes.

What did you make of Shane Jones' comments over the weekend, saying, “"The next time you go to an ethno-nationalist rally to receive a foreign leader, take off your knee pads”?

Oh, look, I thought they were pretty crass and unprofessional. You'd have to ask him what it's actually about. I think, actually, when we're actually presenting New Zealand on the global stage, it's important that we do a really good job of that, you know, as politicians and leaders.

I think the thing I'd also say is that, you know, it’s a bit hypocritical, frankly. I know New Zealand First is a bit bent out of shape about the Indian FTA, but, you know, their colleague Mark Patterson, the Associate Minister of Agriculture, has been up in India recently advocating for selling New Zealand's strong wool into the second-biggest textile market because post the Indian FTA we're going to have zero percent tariffs on wool.

So, you know, I think—you know, I get the fact that they're against the FTA. I think if you go talk to a lot of the New Zealand First caucus, you might find that they're not so much against it. And I think they're on the wrong side of history. So, yeah, it's up to him to be responsible for his language and his comments. That's something you should ask him. But from my point of view, you know, maybe—they spend a bit of time attacking us over the weekend, I observed, so maybe they're just softening up their supporters for going with Labour. You never know.

What did Golden Bay Cement actually ask for? Was it the $60 million, or did they ask for more?

I can’t—I don't have the detail with me. But all I'm saying to you is that we've structured a deal, which I think is quite commercial and quite pragmatic, to say, we'll invest $60 million dollars to maintain that capacity here in New Zealand.

Why did you go for the grant over than a loan?

We looked at different options and we felt this was the best way for us to deal with this.

In terms of making that supply chain assessment, can you just explain in layman’s terms how the Indo-Pacific Framework for Prosperity supply chain agreement factored—

Yeah, I saw that in the PR too and I'm not quite sure what that all meant. All I'd just say is take a step back. We ain't going to lose a cement capacity, manufacturing capacity in New Zealand. It's as simple as that for me. And so we went through the analysis, we put Deloitte in to get open books to understand exactly what the—the size of the prize was needed and the support that was needed. We made it linked to, you know, them making a $150 million investment. They've got to keep workforce. They've got to keep the facility here to 2040. It gives 15 years of certainty. Future Governments can deal with it down the road. But for us right here, right now, being brutally pragmatic, we're not going to lose cement-making manufacturing capacity in New Zealand.

You’re not sure why that was included in the PR?

I don't know what it—sorry, it just—I read that myself and I can't tell you off the top of my head what that actually is. For me, the bigger question is, frankly, rather than getting hung up on the semantics of a PR, I'd focus on the capacity being maintained here in New Zealand. All right.

On the Oceans of Peace Alliance, was that discussed in Cabinet today?

No, but again, we've spoken as a Cabinet, you know, a couple of weeks ago or a week ago about it, when it was announced, and, you know, as we've said before, last week, we're actually reaching out to the Australians and to the Fijians wanting to commence discussions.

Have we spoken to Australia and Fiji about it yet?

We’ve signalled to them that we want to progress discussions, we've got Cabinet approval to progress discussions. Obviously we'll do that in due course, that'll come back to Cabinet, and then there's a normal treaty process should we advance it from there.

OK, last question. Sorry, Jo, we've had some. Has anyone else got anyone else?

We’ve got some more for Chris Bishop.

Sean, you haven’t said a word today. You've been very quiet. Are you OK?

Yeah, I'm good.

Are you all right? OK.

Do you have a view on non-citizens voting in New Zealand elections?

Oh, look, it's just not something I have considered or thought through at this point in time. I appreciate there's lots of—we may well—we can talk about that as we get closer to an election and we might have a policy on it, we may not. I'm focused on making sure we get New Zealanders—

So you're aware of it and you're thinking about it?

No, no, no, we—it's not on our agenda. We're very much focused on making sure we grow this economy, get the economy growing, get life more affordable for people and make the choice pretty clear.

You’re not worried, therefore, about non-New Zealand citizens voting in New Zealand elections?

It's just something that we haven't had a conversation about as a National Party team at all.

[Inaudible] preference for the options that Auckland Council will be looking at tomorrow re housing density?

No, it's over to them. We've kicked it to Auckland. As you know, we're not talking about maps anymore. Mapgate's over.

Well done.

Mapgate's done. Done and dusted.

That’s good. All right team, thank you so much for today. We'll see you through the course of the week. Take care.

[Inaudible] to scrap the First Home Buyer grants and build 1,500 homes? You’ve built 270.

Yeah.

Where are the rest of them?

Well, they're coming. I mean, the funding didn't start—

A bit like KiwiBuild, isn’t it?

Hang on a minute. I'm not going to let that one lie. The funding—the funding didn't start until 1 July 2025. There is, I'm told, hundreds of homes in the next couple of quarters. The funding from Budget 2024 started from 1 July 2025. We put a bunch more money in Budget 2025 as well. Those homes are being delivered. There's a pipeline. We're actually doing more than we budgeted for. So, from memory, we're budgeting to do, between Budgets 2024 and 2025, 2,150 homes as opposed to 2,050 because we've got really good procurement and value for money as part of that. Part of the reason for that is the financing interventions we made through backing of the Community Housing Funding Authority. So the houses are being built literally as we speak and are coming.

Those 1,500 were supposed to be built by July next year. They're still going to be built by July next year?

Yes, 96 percent of the homes will be delivered by mid-2026, July next year. From memory, there's a couple of homes which will slip into September 2027. But 96— from memory—percent of the homes will be delivered by that point. And we're also on track to hit our target of 3,000 net new social homes between November 2023 and November 2026.

The Wildlife Act approvals, is that—what's going to be in the bill now, is that the same as what you put in before it went to select committee?

No. So I would have to come back to you and double check on that. The intention is to simplify and streamline the wildlife approvals as part of the—because they're fundamentally about the same concepts as many of the issues that the National Environment Bill deals with, so we’ve—I'll have to come back to you on the exact detail as to what the committee's done there but the intention is to synthesise that into the process a bit. Yeah.

What do you think of what Shane Jones said?

I've got to go, guys. I'm not allowed—I’m not allowed to stand here.