Post-Cabinet Press Conference: Monday, 17 February 2025

Righto. Well, look, kia ora, good afternoon, everyone. It is good today to be joined by, I think, our sartorially sharp Minister, Tama Potaka.

Yesterday you would have seen that Louise Upston and I launched a campaign targeted at bringing more Australian tourists to New Zealand. And tourism is an absolutely crucial part of this Government's focus on accelerating economic growth and it supports nearly 200,000 jobs. Yesterday's announcement is part of our tourism boost, funded from our international visitor levy, but crucially it is joined by a campaign of significant investment from the private sector, offering enticing deals to our friends across the ditch. And we are on the right track. While we have a way to go to get back to pre-COVID levels, international visitor numbers to December showed a 12 percent increase compared to 2023. Australia led the increase of arrivals with 10 percent more, or 127,000 more visitors year on year, and overall we had 357,000 more visitors, leading to a total of 3.3 million tourists to New Zealand.

Now, further to yesterday's announcement, today we are announcing another boost to tourism from the international visitor levy, this time on the unique experience visitors have on our conservation land. New Zealand's breathtaking beauty is sought after by our visitors from all over the world and we must protect the integrity of that experience while also conserving the pristine environment. When tourists get off the ferry from Rangitoto and they head over to the Viaduct, or they head into Twizel after experiencing the grandeur of Aoraki Mount Cook, they will be spending their money at local businesses, helping everyday Kiwis. And that is all part of the growth that we're looking for to get this country pumping again. So, with that, I'm pleased to pass over to Tama, who will take us through a little bit more of the $30 million investment he wants to announce today.

Ka pai, and thank you, Prime Minister. Kia ora tatou. Aotearoa New Zealand is home to some of the most majestic and iconic landscapes and seascapes in the world. Around 50 percent of visitors cite nature as their primary reason for travelling and about 50 percent of international tourists visit a national park, and we want more people to enjoy and protect nature for future generations, for the tamariki and mokopuna.

That's why today we're announcing $30 million from the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy to fund more than a dozen projects strengthening biodiversity and sustainable tourism. The Government is committed to growing tourism and the key role it holds in growing our economy. To manage pressures at New Zealand's most popular visitor sites, the Government is investing $11 million, including: upgrades to huts, car parks and facilities, so visitors can continue to experience the amazing Aoraki Mount Cook and Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands in the Hauraki Gulf; important improvements to over 100 cable structures including suspension and swing bridges to strengthen visitor safety; and investment in the beautiful Goat Island Te Hāwere-a-Maki to upgrade beach access, car parking, and reflect the area's significant cultural heritage.

These investments will help deliver a top-notch manuhiri or visitor experience at some of our most popular natural heritage sites. Some will complement the Hauraki Gulf Bill that will deliver the highest-ever level of environmental protection for this precious place when it passes later this year. This will include mahi at New Zealand's first marine reserve, Goat Island, which will be 50 years old next year, nearly as old as me. It's among the 10 most visited natural heritage areas, with over 350,000 visitors per year, and has real potential for improved visitor experiences. The tautoko and support announced today will also bring greater economic growth into the surrounding areas. Think about the coffee shops in Leigh or the Matakana Village Pub, for example. Tourism brings money into these areas and creates jobs and lifts outcomes.

We're also investing $19 million to protect biodiversity by reducing the spread of predators and invasive plant species—weeds. Investments include: stopping the spread of wallabies in places like the Rotorua Lakes and Canterbury, and managing deer and goat populations in national parks and popular visitor areas to allow nature to thrive; stopping and removing wilding pines from our iconic landscapes, including the Mackenzie Country; and targeted predator control to protect native species, especially the critically endangered southern dotterel birds in Rakiura National Park down in Stewart Island. By expanding predator control, we're improving the protection of critically endangered species in national parks and growing the number of iconic birds for visitors to enjoy.

Well, thank you, Tama. Look, it was also pleasing to see last week that the Government's books are tracking broadly as expected. Some indicators are in slightly better shape than forecast at the HYEFU. Treasury's interim financial statements show a $400 million improvement in the Government's headline operating balance indicator compared to what was forecast. Net core Crown debt is $700 million lower than forecast. And alongside the ongoing fiscal repair work that's needed and prudent spending, we continue to work relentlessly on growing the economy.

Last week we launched, as you know, the Government's Going for Growth progress report, which lays out the work already underway, as well as the work planned to grow New Zealand's economy. And we acknowledge that things are still incredibly tight for Kiwi families wrestling with the cost of living, but we are seeing progress in a range of broad economic indicators showing us that better times lie ahead.

We see that business and consumer confidence is rising. Average mortgage rates now have fallen for two months in a row. Wages have risen faster than inflation for five months in a row, supporting a recovery in household incomes. And recent data from Business New Zealand is also showing growth in manufacturing activity resuming for the first time in nearly two years, and growth in services resuming for the first time in 10 months. And at the same time, our primary sector is experiencing a period of robust growth, driving a 17 percent lift in exports to close out the year in December. But we are not there quite yet, but there is a clear path opening to recovery and importantly to growth, and we will be doing all we can throughout 2025 to make sure this is the year that our country's economic fortunes are turned around, and by doing so, helping many Kiwis become better off.

Before I close up, this week in Parliament we'll be progressing the Sentencing Reform Amendment Bill, which will deliver on our commitment to cap sentencing discounts, respond to serious retail crime and prevent repeat discounts for youth and remorse. Wednesday will be the first Members' Day of the year.

And with that, Tama and I are happy to take your questions. Can I go to Tom first? I owe it to you after last week, mate. I felt bad about it. Sorry.

Well, look, I just say I thought the Destiny Church protesters crossed the line. That's not the Kiwi way, when you're intimidating public officials and public facilities. That's not the way that we expect things to be in this country. We expect people to have free speech, we expect them to protest peacefully but also respectfully, and we certainly value the diversity that exists here in New Zealand. I know some of those matters are before the Police and they're looking into some of that but I'll leave that for them.

Well, I think there's a broader question at play which, you know, we've said that we would look at in due course around the register and, you know, charities and their charitable status, and therefore their tax treatment as a consequence, and it will form part of that broader piece of work.

Yeah. I think some of you might recall last Friday we announced the Māori Tourism Report and the absolutely fantastic contribution that Māori tourism is adding to the country: nearly 15,000 jobs and $1.2 billion of productive GDP. And many people flock to New Zealand not only because of nature but our culture, not just Māori culture but Kiwi culture. So those stories in places like the Hauraki Gulf, I think are very meaningful and add value.

I think there's variability across some of the tourism businesses, but what we do know is that Māori tourism is a massive contributor to the success of tourism in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Well, again, we're not—what we're saying very clearly is we've got stewardship land, which is land to be classified. It is of variable environmental value.

Yeah. Some of it will be of high environmental value, others less so, and in a world where we actually need to be able to grow this country, we're open to looking at what we can do on that sort of land. But, obviously, stewardship land needs to be classified, first and foremost.

Well, I'd just say to you there are very few countries in the world that have 35 percent of their land's mass tied up in a conservation estate. We are protecting national parks. We're protecting schedule 4 land. What we're talking about here is doing some activity on stewardship land that is of low—of low environmental value, and that's entirely appropriate in order to get the benefit economically for those people in those communities.

Well, there's lots of—there's partnership with airlines and also with the accommodation sector, who have got deals about to flood as they go into the shoulder season around autumn.

No, it's basically—the Government's put in about $500,000, as you know, to have a very bespoke, targeted campaign to get Australians here over the shoulder season. We've partnered with private organisations, whether it be accommodation sector or airlines. They also are making big investment, private investment, to make sure they can make a much more attractive proposition, and we're going together to that market, pushing the case for why Australians should come here.

It's $500,000 of an advertising promotion campaign, and then the operators—the people that fly them here, the airlines, or the people that accommodate them here at hotels— they are also contributing with marketing funds of their own, promoting their own deals on the back of that overall campaign. It's quite common that we go to market offshore as Tourism New Zealand, essentially, doing the marketing campaign with the airlines or with hotels or with other operators beside them. The exciting thing there is that actually it's about an $18—every dollar we spend, we get about $18 back. We hope to make about $12.5 million of extra spending that wouldn't have happened as a function of that campaign, by working together in that way.

No, it's going purely into a marketing campaign to Australians to make them aware of New Zealand and get it up their list of priorities of where they might take their next holiday. But in conjunction and in partnership, at the same time, the private sector here in New Zealand that's involved in the tourism sector is also putting together their own deals.

No, they're—look—decisions for individuals to make in their employment with the Ministry of Health or with Health New Zealand. I don't think it's any secret though, you know, that this is a Government that's spending $30 billion, almost, on healthcare every year. In addition, has pumped in an extra $17 billion dollars. It has a massive bureaucracy that's getting in the way of actually delivering improved outcomes, whether it be in emergency care, emergency wait times, as you just identified, whether it be first elective surgeries, first specialist appointments, immunisation rates for under twos, faster cancer treatments.

So we're in a position, as I've said very clearly—we've put lots of money in. There's more money going into the healthcare system than there has ever been in the history of New Zealand, period, and we expect that money to go through a high-performing organisation and come through the other side and deliver better results. And that's why we want—we want much better—we want a better Health New Zealand, a high performing Health New Zealand, so it gets through the bureaucracy and the money actually gets to the patient and the customer.

No. All CEOs across the public service are told to do better. We're constructively dissatisfied. We want them constantly working towards the goals that we've set ourselves out. But you asked me about the employment arrangements. That's up for individuals to make their own decisions about.

But we are being really clear with the system. We have put a lot of money in and we expect results out of that system. And what we do not expect to have is more—is bureaucracy getting in the way of that money not getting through to where it needs to get to, which is when—

Well, what I'm saying is the system's not delivering and it's letting down our doctors. It's letting down our nurses. It's letting down our patients.

Right, well, they're not—they're not there now.

Again, we'll talk about those changes in due course. I'm not going to get into that today.

I'd just say to you we're not going to get into that conversation today. That hasn't been a focus of my conversation.

Yeah, sure. I understand the Australian model and I know that well, but what I'm saying is with respect to the public service, what we expect is efficiency, delivery, a fixation and a focus—as you heard in Judith Collins' remarks to the public sector CEOs—about thinking about the New Zealand public as customers and how they are best served, and how they make it easier for them.

I'm not going to discuss the Public Service Act until we're ready to discuss it, otherwise everything's hypothetical.

There's a lot of changes we want to make around making sure we get better public service delivery and making sure that, you know, we update the Act to reflect that. We'll do that in due course.

No, no, no, just if you study—if you like politics and you like Australian politics, you know what John Howard did when he made those changes back in the day. That's not on my agenda. That's not what I've been talking about. What I'm talking about is making sure that we can get better delivery out of our public service. You know, we need to make sure that it is efficient, it is effective, it is delivering for New Zealanders and it is focused on their customer, which is New Zealanders, and delivering, so that when we—when they interact with our Government, it should be seamless. We should be having CEOs thinking about the customer experience and what it feels like dealing with the Government as a result. We should be thinking about how they optimise and manage their resources and build their capabilities of their staff within. I want to be able to identify the next brand of 250 really smart, emerging young leaders that we already have in our public service and make sure that we're developing them in the right way would be a good starting point. Those are the sorts of things that I'm in conversation with the new Public Service Commissioner about.

Well, look, I mean, both Ministers work incredibly well together. One is very fixated on attendance, the other is very fixated on improving academic performance. The rules are very clear. The Minister is the one that grants teacher-only days that are taken outside of term time. They have to be granted by the Minister. That is, in this case, Erica Stanford. But as you heard David Seymour today say on the radio, they're on the same page, so I'm not worried about that at all.

No, they are working incredibly well together. When you think about the work that David Seymour's done around lifting school attendance by about five to six points year on year, that's a really good outcome. Go look at the programme that he's put together around school attendance, the stepped approach, and how he planned to roll that through. That's been really good. And then I'd say look at the work that Erica has been doing around, actually, maths and literacy in particular. And those are the three things we're focused on. Get our kids to school— and I'd just say to every parent watching, you've got a responsibility to make sure you get your kids to school. It is not someone else's responsibility, it is your responsibility to do exactly that. And we're working really hard to make sure that we can do better than half of our kids being ready to go where they need to be on reading and going to high school. And we want to do better than just having 80 percent of our kids not where they need to be at on mathematics. So those two Ministers are very—I'm very clear with both of them about what I'm expecting them to deliver in education. There's lots of other things to do in education, but that's the core.

Very constructive. You know, we've been—we're different personalities, as I've said to you guys from the very beginning, in an MMP, three-party coalition Government. We'll say and express things in lots of different ways. We'll have our moments where we talk very directly with each other about points of difference. That's OK. That's how it should be. And we're very constructive and very focused.

Well, we have them set up regularly over every sitting period. I do them one-on-one with each of the different leaders in different ways and, you know, as I said, we had one last week.

Reprioritisation.

No. It's just about saying that any organisation is not in a perfect state and so if you have a set of money going into an organisation, it's quite right to say, "Is that the best way to deliver that outcome?" In this case, eradication of wallabies. We felt very strongly, of all the choices that we had available, that that programme could be—those funds could be reprioritised and used in a much better and smarter way.

But the ongoing work around pest eradication continues, and there's lots of ways in which that's delivered.

Yeah, well, when you're talking about car parks for really high, under-pressure experiences—tourism experiences—that we want to make sure are of a really high quality and good value, and offering good value to our international visitor, that's a really good example.

No, it's an ongoing schedule of work.

No, no, we're—just an ongoing schedule of work. But what we're making sure is that as we use some of this money to power up tourism right now, we're saying, righto, we can have targeted marketing campaigns into the Australians last week. We can augment that with actually making sure the DOC estates, in terms of biodiversity but also in terms of the hard infrastructure, are getting some investment as well in places where we want better-quality huts. We need better car parks. We need better support around some of our key assets. That work will continue.

You'll see more of that announced very, very shortly. But again, we have—

When you've got a doubling of retail crime and it's over $1.2 billion worth of damage to the New Zealand economy, having a small group of well-established, big retailers, and that group coming with some proposals—

I'm just—can you hear me out?

Yes, and so when you've got actually a different group proposing from the front line actually what they think could be working, whether it be facial recognition cameras, whether it be a whole bunch of different things that we think we can do in that space—those findings have come through to the Minister. The Minister's looking at that. We'll have more to say about that very shortly. But I think we're going to get some very good things out of that group that we think we can augment and make sure that we actually add to our enforcement and our position around cutting down on retail crime.

Well, again, you know, we haven't seen the agreement. I've seen those remarks as well. What I would say is that we need to see the agreements that have been made and the documents that have been signed, and then we'll digest that and we'll have a conversation with the Cook Islands on the next steps. But as I've said before, the Cook Islands people, we have great affinity with them. There's 100,000 of them here in New Zealand. They really value being part of New Zealand. We don't want to have—you know, we have differences here. We'll work our way through those differences.

Well, until we see the documents and we digest them ourselves—and then we'll have a conversation with the Cooks.

We will see them as soon as we possibly can. He's just arrived back, in fairness, back to his Parliament. But we want to see those documents. We'll go through them and then we'll have a conversation with the Cook Islands directly.

Again, we'll—he's only just come back and we'll see the documents.

We'll see the documents and then we'll digest them properly, and then we'll have a proper conversation.

No. I just know that we've obviously completed our pilot review. There'll be some re-offending, I'm sure, but the bottom line is—and there were some real positives coming out of that report. There were also some areas for us to work on. In particular, you know, I think the transition from the residential facilities back into community life is—some work for us to do there, but there was a lot of very good things in the actual residential component as well.

I'm not going to get into individual cases. It would be inappropriate for me to say that for privacy reasons.

No, it's about—

It's about respecting people's privacy, Benedict. That's what it's about. But all I'm saying is we put together a pilot programme, we got a lot of good feedback on some aspects of it. There will be areas to improve on it, particularly as we shape for the piece of legislation that we've got coming through the House. And importantly, we're not going to give up on these kids. We're going to keep trying. Then we're going to give them—they get a choice about what happens to that, after that, and as to how they choose to live their life, but these are some of New Zealand's most persistent, serious young offenders and criminals, and we're going to give them a shot and an opportunity to turn their lives around.

I don't know the detail of individual cases and it would be inappropriate for me to do so. That's what I'm saying to you. I'm saying, we said we'd do a review of the pilot. It is a pilot for that reason. What can we learn from it? What works well? What doesn't work well? I'm sure there's lots for us to digest as we improve the programme going forward.

I'm not going into individual cases, as I said.

No, but I'm not—I'm not going to discuss that. It's not fair on those young people.

Not fair on those young people. But what I can say to you is we are going to keep trying, because these are serious, persistent young offenders, and we know if we don't make a powerful target intervention by trying to do something different and we just let them carry on with the way their lives are going, we're not changing the trajectory of those lives. That's a real shame. It's up to each—it's up to—ultimately, every individual gets to choose how they live their life. That's up to them to make that decision. But these young people, for the first time in many times, have had outstanding mentors. They've had psychologists around them. They've had social workers around them. They've had lots of opportunity. And some have responded very well. I appreciate some won't, but that's just how it goes.

Yeah, and what we'll do is—you know, and we'll be looking at it compared to current youth justice facilities and how that works. One of the positives that came out of the pilot review—I remember, you know, as I flicked through—was saying that, you know, there wasn't actually any child-on-child violence, which is a very common factor within the youth justice facility. So something we did right there, something we did—

No, I'm talking in the macro. I'm not going to talk specifics around individuals that may—

Yeah, and I'm saying to you I'm not talking about individuals and their personal circumstances for privacy reasons. I'm talking about things in the aggregate, to say to you—

—that there were things that we did really well, that were actually good learnings, you know, when we compare to how we normally run youth justice facilities. And on the other hand, there'll be things that we can improve and we'll continue to keep working at it.

Sorry?

Well, we're going to continue to work at it. But I'm not going to talk to you about individual cases where people have reoffended.

We've just received a pilot review, a high-level review, as we said we would do. We're digesting that. We'll make sure that we look at what we can improve. There are things that we know already about having longer-length residential facility time, which would actually be more useful. We know there's more work, I think, for us to do on the integration back into the community and making sure that we get that set up in the right way. So there's going to be constant improvement but what we're not going to do is give up, and we're not going to actually give up on these young people because they deserve a shot.

Well, they may well. I'm just saying as Prime Minister it's inappropriate for me to talk about individuals' circumstances that may impinge on their privacy. It was a small cohort of kids and I want to make sure that they are protected. I'm being very upfront and saying there'll be things in the review that we got right and things that we can do better on. But, you know, there's a lot that we got right, which I'm really pleased about, and there'll be some things that we can improve on too. Tom.

Yeah, look, I mean, net migration this last year was, I think, 47,000. Last year in 2023, under the last administration, it was 43,000. You know, what we have to do is the work that we have, which is that we have to make sure we rebuild this economy and lower the cost of living for New Zealanders. You know, people living in this country want to know, "If I work hard, I can get ahead". They need to know that they're actually safe if they're out there in their communities and their businesses and their homes, and that's about restoring law and order, as we've said. They need to know that their kid going to a New Zealand school is going to be competitive with the same kid sitting in a Singaporean or Australian or a Canadian school.

They need to know that actually their parents can access quality, timely healthcare when they need it, and themselves as well. So that's why that's the mantra. Our responsibility is to build the proposition of the country so that people actually choose to stay here because they can see a future for themselves and for their grandkids, and that's what we wake up each day trying to do.

Well, it's very much linked, you know. Net migration is very much linked to what's going on in our broader economic cycle and also what's going on in our broader infrastructure planning and delivery as well, and as I've always said, immigration, economics and infrastructure have to actually be coordinated in order to deliver. If you don't do that, you lose the social licence for immigration in general amongst the population. And I think we've done that balance pretty well over a number of years in New Zealand and we'll continue to do so, but—so there's no set number. It's essentially just saying we've got to work hard to make sure that New Zealanders can see that there's a future for them and their kids and their grandkids here. And, you know, we understand, you know, it's—Australia is a wealthier country, you know, 30 to 40 percent wealthier than New Zealand on a per-person level. And as a result, our job is to make New Zealand a much more compelling place and to grow our economy so that people think if they work hard they can do well here.

(Māori content).

Yeah, well, we also have work to look at what we can do to accelerate the Chinese sector. I’ve briefed and met with Ministers Upston and also Stanford last week and actually asked them to come back with a piece of work very quickly on what we can do to accelerate Chinese tourists here as well. It’s about an “and”, not an “or”. But, you know, as I said in the spirit of just getting things moving—and we’ll make decisions. As soon as we make a decision, we’re going to try and roll it out quickly and we’ll keep rolling into it.

No, it’s just actually understanding—you know, the Chinese visitor is running at about 60 percent of what they were pre-COVID. The total tourism market’s running at about 86 percent. I think Australians are at 88 percent. And so we know the proposition is easier for us to turn on in Australia and actually be able to get people across the ditch quickly and easier. We probably have to restore and rebuild some relationships that we might have lost, I suspect, through the COVID period and the lockdown period. You know, there’s a lot of wholesaler relationships that actually end up making those visits sort of come together and work. And so that’s why I’ve asked both Ministers Upson and Stanford to work together to come back to me very shortly with a package of what we can do to accelerate Chinese tourism as well.

Everything’s on the table.

Well, everything’s on the table. But again, in fairness, the way we work in our Government is, you know, we had a—we had a meeting in my office about what we’re going to do and a clear brief, and they’ll go away and they’ll come back in and then we’ll pick it up from there.

No, no. As you’ve—I mean the issue here is, as we’ve said: look, you know, we’ve got a good relationship with the Cook Islands and with the Cook Island people. That’s great. But we have a genuine difference here because under free association, under our constitutional arrangements, we have clear—there’s rights and responsibilities and we have a responsibility around defence, foreign affairs and security. And when we have those kind of conversations, we expect them to be very transparent about what is going on.

So, you know, a passport proposal, for example, for a state—you know, for a country that’s not a state as such by virtue of its constitutional piece where it’s actually Cook Islanders are citizens of New Zealand, if you want to go down that pathway, well, then the bigger question is: does the Cook Islands want full separation from New Zealand and therefore not to be New Zealand citizens? That’s where that conversation leads to. You can’t just decide you’re going to go off and have a passport because that is not, you know, consistent with the constitutional arrangement of that country. So that’s why you saw us talk about that issue.

And the same here. The issue is: look, you know, we’ve been encouraging the Cook Islands to—and we’ve been very supportive even in the time of our Government. But what we expect is transparency and upfrontness about what’s going on and what’s being proposed, because we do have obligations around defence and security that we need to make sure are well managed.

Because they’re criminals. Because they’re criminals. They cause a quarter of our violent crime in this country.

Yeah.

Well, let’s be clear: criminal gangs, one quarter of one percent of the population driving one fifth to one quarter of all violent crime in this country—serious issue. Organised crime, criminal gangs—big issue. That’s what we’ve sorted out with our gang patch legislation that’s—and a whole bunch of other powers that the police now have to take on, dismantle, and to shut down the gangs.

Well, what I’ve said to you is that it’s not the Kiwi way. It’s unacceptable, the fact that they have intimidated someone in a public place, and there is a police investigation ongoing right now.

Well, because there’s a police investigation running about a particular incident but what I’m talking about—and I think you know the difference between organised crime gangs—

—that create misery, pain and suffering for New Zealanders up and down this country, that cause a huge amount of our violent crime problem that we have in this country. We have zero tolerance for that—

—and we’re smashing them and we’re going to take them down.

Well, what we’ve heard about is it’s the nature of those agreements, which we don’t know anything about, and that’s what we want to be really clear about. We want maximum transparency between two good friends, and particularly a country—what’s called a realm country—that actually has a constitutional arrangement with New Zealand under 2001. You would have seen Helen Clark’s remarks saying, yes, we’re on the right course here. You know, that is the arrangement under the 2001 joint declaration that we have.

Our genuine issue is that we don’t—you know, we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We actually haven’t seen what has been signed and so in fairness, we’re just highlighting we have a difference. It’s OK. We have differences with many countries that we are friends with. But we need to be able to work our way through these issues and until we see those agreements—and then we can respond and digest them, and then importantly have a conversation with Mark Brown on the Cook Islands. That’s our next step.

I’m not aware of that. That’s a question you need to ask the Foreign Minister.

Well, look, again, I’m not going to go into the individual circumstances of this case. I understand the Associate Minister is now looking at that, and obviously Immigration New Zealand officials make a lot of those early decisions, as has been the case here. Yeah, and I really can’t—in fairness, I need the Associate Minister to be able to review it and to make his own decision.

Yes.

The tourism sector is at 88 percent of what it was six years ago, so, to be honest—

Yeah, Jo, just to be clear, though, if you’re running—if you’re a tourism person in a tourism business and your income is only 88 percent of what it was six years ago, in spite of high inflation and a whole bunch of other pressures that you’ve got on your feet, I can tell you the tourism sector—and we have many of them with us on Sunday—are actually very, very united on: let’s get our numbers back to 100 percent as a minimum, as a starting point.

Separately, the ongoing issue around infrastructure. By the time we have a 30-year infrastructure plan, the NIFFCo company architecture that we’ve set up in place, the city and the regional deals, plus Invest New Zealand and a Government that wants to actually do a much better job on master planning infrastructure versus the chaotic, ad hoc way it’s been managed in the past—and particularly around mixed-use infrastructure, where we know we’ve got tourism pressure points, that architecture is something that hasn’t existed. And that will help us as we go forward.

But for right here, right now, it’s pretty tough to go out to the tourism sector when they have other countries that have bounced back to 110, 120 percent of pre-COVID levels and New Zealand’s a laggard, sitting there at 88 percent, when it has a great tourism proposition.

In the short term, we have capacity in our system by virtue of only being at 85 to 88 percent of where we were previously. So in the short term, there isn’t a pressure point. I get the point about the social licence of tourism, the importance of mixed-use infrastructure, all of those thoughts. But if you just think about what we’re doing, say, in the Queenstown region with a massive roading package going into Queenstown, which we’ve already pre-announced as part of the $33 billion going into the transport plan, that’s a—we know we’ve got infrastructure investment work to do. But again, going back to an intellectual conversation at a point when we haven’t even got New Zealand back to where we were six years ago is pretty pathetic and pretty hopeless. So we’ve got to do that job first, and then we’ll worry about the other, more interesting issues later.

Well, you know the National Party view and you know there’s been a historical New Zealand First view, but I think there’s a very good compromise and a good way through that. And our conversations are ongoing and as soon as we have something to say about it, we will. We’ll talk to that with you.

Well, I’m just saying to you we—you know we had a position going to the election. New Zealand First had a different position. We—in a coalition agreement we came to, we couldn’t progress that. Having said that, there’s ongoing conversations, sensible conversations, taking place to say: look, we know we’ve got to power-up investment. You know, to be honest, foreign buyers and housing is a piece of it. It’s not the major piece—there’s lots of other big pieces to it that make and send capital to come to this country—and that’s why we’ve got the Investor Summit, that’s why we’ve got Invest New Zealand, that’s why we’ve created the National Infrastructure Funding and Financing Company, so that we’ve got the mechanisms to actually get in place a lot of—get that capital connected to those opportunities. Of course, housing is a part of it. But, as we’ve said before, ongoing conversations and as soon as we have something we’ll talk about it.

Yeah, not going to get into it now. That’s all hypothetical. When we’re ready to tell you, we’ll tell you. All right.

What we’ve got is we’ve got all parties in the coalition very fixated on making sure we get more investment into New Zealand, more capital into New Zealand, and we’ve got good, positive conversations happening between the parties on different policies around that.

We have broad conversations, including that component part around housing. But we also have other bits, as we’ve alluded to before, around other aspects that make investment easier to be done here in New Zealand as well. It’s a piece of it. It’s not the only thing that’s going on or the only conversation going on. And so we’ve got good conversations, positive conversations. We’re all aligned on wanting to get more investment into New Zealand and we’ll work our way through it and make sure we get to a good place, ultimately.

Again, not getting into it. When we have stuff to announce, as you’ve seen over the course of this last few weeks, we announce it as quickly as we possibly can, and when we do, we’ll have some more to say.

Again, what we have is a good positive conversation going on, but we also have it on a number of other areas beyond just houses as well.

Yes, I understand they’ll have something to say about that very, very shortly.

No, it’s been important to me that they actually follow a good process. And particularly when we’ve had a shift of a new Public Service Commissioner coming on board, it’s really important that the findings are well understood because what I’m actually interested in is—whatever the findings are—what are we going to do differently as a consequence of that and how will that new Public Service Commissioner get that embedded into the public service, anything that needs to change? So I know it’s been delayed and I appreciate your patience with us, but I’d sooner get it right than fast. And in this case, I know it’s very imminent and short. OK, thanks so much. Last question.

I’m 100 percent behind everyone taking an interest in attending Taranaki in the next couple of weeks, and I’m very supportive of the Waikato groups, particularly Te Pai. Kia ora.

And can I just say what a great win from the Crusaders, because I won’t sit on the fence like Tama on supporting who I support, and I support the Crusaders and didn’t they do well against the Hurricanes? And I just say, in the spirit of our slogan for Australia, everyone must go, and with that we must leave you. Thank you so much.

Kia ora, ka kite.