Post-Cabinet Press Conference: Monday, 15 September 2025

Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everybody. It’s good to see you all. As you see, I’m here today with our Tourism and Hospitality Minister, Louise Upston, to follow up on the Government’s announcement of yesterday of significant additional support to put New Zealand on the stage for top-quality major events.

Aside from what happened on the field here in Wellington on Saturday night, I’m told the capital city was abuzz over the weekend with lots of Springboks and All Blacks supporters in town for that match. The hospitality, retail and tourism sectors would have felt it all, irrespective of the outcome. It was a similar result in Eden Park the week before and that’s the benefit of major events. We’ve seen it with big concerts in Auckland, 14 shows in three years generating $33 million for the local economy, and we also know that lots of Kiwis will go to Australia for concerts and shows, and I’d rather New Zealand fans were spending their discretionary income here in New Zealand than Australia. Better still, I’d rather Australians were spending their money in New Zealand for special events.

So the point of our new package is that we’ll be able to compete with states like Queensland to host A-list events. Those will attract visitors who will spend in hospitality, retail, and our tourism sectors, increasing jobs and opportunities and incomes for Kiwis. Economic growth is the aim of the policy, and the aim of this Government.

As I’ve been saying, there’s a bit of a two-speed recovery going on, with many of the provinces showing a real sense of optimism and benefiting from strong dairy prices and resurgent tourism, but in Auckland and Wellington things are a bit slower and the impact of lower interest rates are taking a while to ripple through. When people hunker down, hospitality, retail and tourism sectors all feel it.

I’m confident that in the months ahead, the country will experience an increase in growth and with it an increase in confidence. Rising exports, having inflation under control, lower interest rates, regulatory relief, and infrastructure investment will support economic growth and jobs. The Government is happy to give economic growth a push where we can and that’s what the major events package is all about. Following the announcement yesterday, I saw the head of Eden Park say he’d be on the phone to promoters yesterday afternoon to get things going immediately.

As you’ve seen with this Government, our job is to clear the obstacles so that people and businesses can get on and create opportunities. Where there continues to be obstacles to major events, we’ll look at what we can do, just as we have in other sectors like resource management, supermarkets or construction. Let me hand over to Louise to share a little bit more detail about the announcement today.

Thank you, Prime Minister. I first want to acknowledge the tourism and hospitality sector for the fantastic reaction to yesterday’s announcement. It’s an exciting opportunity and one which I’m excited to help drive so this really important sector can thrive and grow.

In terms of next steps, I intend to have more to say in the near future about the first funding opportunities through the package. Obviously, major events and international acts have captured a lot of attention over the last 24 hours, but there are also exciting times ahead for tourism. Our first announcements in the coming weeks are likely to focus on boosts for cycle trails, important economic drivers in many parts of regional New Zealand. Other announcements will follow before the end of the year.

In Auckland, as the Prime Minister has said, we’re aware that the sector has faced challenges in terms of securing acts for their venues. Today, Minister Bishop and I are outlining the Government’s position on boosting Eden Park’s status as a major events venue and starting an investigation into changing local rules which could be holding it back.

Eden Park, with a seating capacity of about 50,000 seats, is New Zealand’s largest major event stadium. Concerts and major sporting events held there inject millions of dollars into the Auckland economy from locals and visitors alike. But current planning rules could be holding Eden Park back from doing even more. Last summer, Auckland’s economy received a boost of nearly $33 million from several big concerts. We want to see more events like this, but we need them to make—we need to make sure our planning rules are fit for purpose to support them.

In the case of Eden Park, we’ve heard that there are local rules and constraints that could be restricting its ability to host events. For example, the park is allowed no more than 12 concerts per year, which can only take place on certain days of the week, which can only have a maximum duration of five hours and have to be finished by 11 pm on weekdays.

There can be no more than four concerts in a four-week period.

Sporting events face many barriers as well. The stadium is currently not allowed to host more than 25 night-time sporting events per year. They can only be between 7.30 and 9.30 pm on weekdays, except for cricket, which can go until 10 pm. Sporting events can’t take place on Sunday evenings, and despite the stadium’s huge capacity, conferences can’t have more than 2,000 people.

So we’re announcing that Mr Bishop will lead an—Minister Bishop will lead an investigation into whether these rules around events at Eden Park are negatively impacting economic growth, with the potential to make direct changes to these rules if it is found that they are. This investigation will be conducted under the new regulation-making power in the Resource Management Act recently passed into law through the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill.

Of course there will be steps and safeguards associated with this investigation. The Minister must investigate the impacts of the provisions and whether specified statutory criteria are met, and produce a publicly available report. He would then report to Cabinet with the findings for a final decision on any changes to the Auckland Unitary Plan. Further details will be announced in the coming weeks.

More broadly, we are genuinely excited about the opportunities ahead for New Zealand, for Auckland and for Eden Park, and we look forward to sharing these opportunities and the best of the Kiwi experience with the world. Back to you, Prime Minister.

Well, thanks, Louise. I was reflecting yesterday and thinking that the proposition on infrastructure emerging in Auckland is pretty exciting. You know, we’re going to have an upgraded airport, a new cruise terminal, CRL, stronger transport links, certainly the International Community Conventions Centre and Eden Park hopefully with more flexibility to be able to do more events. The fact that we’re spending more flexibly and a more competitive spend, actually going out there hustling, hunting for these events and attractions to bring to New Zealand, is really important, and then this work today to look at any process issues or settings that we can change in order to remove barriers or impediments to securing those events is actually very important.

Look, why don’t we take questions first and foremost around major events and then we’ll get to other general issues of the day. Sorry, Craig?

Well, there will be a range of views, I imagine, amongst the resident community. You know, I think, you know, I’ve observed people who are also very happy to have those events that live in that area as well. So, you know, there’ll be a range of views. But, look, what we’re doing here is under the new legislation, the new RMA Act, the Minister has powers to commence an investigation. That will lead to a report. That then is consulted on with the—with the public and also with Council, and then Cabinet makes a decision.

Well, I’m sure Helen Clark has views on lots of—many different things, as we see, but the bottom line is we are up for making sure we get economic growth. And let’s just remember, you know, Auckland’s a city of 2 million people in New Zealand, Eden Park is a major, 50,000-capacity events centre, essentially, and I don’t want New Zealanders missing out on events and activity and economic growth that other states of Australia may get and we don’t want them getting that.

Well, they’re not predetermined. It’s a question of—we’ve had, you know, as Louise read out there, some things that look like, you know, things that are impediments. We don’t want to be in a situation where we’re making—for example, if you want to bring a rugby league event to Eden Park to play back into the NRL in Australia, you’re going to have to be able to kick that game off at 9.30 at night in order to make 7.30 TV rights. You know, those are the sorts of things that—and we don’t want to miss out on an opportunity that would actually bring Australians to New Zealand to watch rugby league if there was an opportunity to do something like that.

So, you know, the process and why we gave the Minister powers under the new Resource Management Act is to actually officially launch what’s called an investigation, generate a report, have consultation with the Council and with the public, but then it comes to Cabinet and Cabinet makes that decision. And that’s because it’s in the interests of New Zealand economically, you know, either our national or regional interest to advance economic growth and that’s a good thing.

No, in fairness, Auckland Council has expanded, as I said at the time, you know, from six concerts, I think, a year up to 12 concerts a year. What we’ve done is we’ve done a major rethink ourselves to say, look, 15 years of an approach on major events has proved not to be as competitive as it needs to be. That’s why we benchmarked our spending and our $70 million package against what we see in Queensland.

But equally, also with the new RMA Act coming through, there are particular powers for the Minister that he needs to exercise with caution and obviously appropriately to say, look, if there are regulatory settings being generated by, you know, local government that actually are getting in the way of us securing economic activity and growth, those are things that we are up for making sure that we make it as easy as possible. It’s no different from our approach to what you’ve seen in supermarkets and the work that Nicola led around making sure that we’ve done everything we possibly can to make it as easy as possible, and that having hunted for an event internationally, having made the case for why it should come to New Zealand, then to lose it because we’ve got, you know, some local rule that actually stops that from happening—that’s not really what we want to see.

So, you know, Chris will launch the investigation. We’ll get a good report out of all of that. We’ll get a good engagement with the Council. But, you know, as I said, the Council’s—you know, Wayne Brown’s done his part by doubling the amount of, you know, concerts initially. If we think there’s more to do, we’ll have those conversations with them too.

Look, there’ll need to be some but, you know, there is real inconsistency. I mean, Louise read out a laundry list of things that you just sort of sit there and go, “OK, well, if I’m trying to win an event off—out of somewhere in the world and get them—get them turned on to New Zealand first and foremost, get them to understand the proposition that’s here, why it’s great that they bring it to this country rather than some other country, to have something like that get in the way of—” What’s the definition of a “night-time event”, which varies by sunset, as I understand it, in the local rules. You know, all of those sorts of things are just like—they’re things that we’ve done to ourselves that we’ve just got to make sure they’re common sense, that there’s some flexibility there, and that they’re things that don’t preclude us from securing world-class events here in New Zealand.

We have an International Convention Centre that’s opening. We’re going to have an Eden Park with 50,000-seat capacity. We’ve got money going into it like we haven’t had before. We’ve got a team that’s going to be really on the balls of their feet, out there hunting and hustling for activities and events to bring to the country, and we don’t want to lose it over poor process and poor regulatory settings.

Look, the reality is what we’re doing with this event attraction is trying to get a wide range of events. One of the big frustrations that I’ve heard from Eden Park is not just about concerts but about festivals, about other shows, about kind of unusual expos that they could potentially hold there. If you look at conferences, to have a restriction of 2,000 people is ridiculous when we have the capacity to host more, and when the NZICC opens they will be absolutely going for conferences and conventions in the 3,000 sort of mark. Often they’ll want to have an offsite event, and it would be a bit unusual to then not be able to use Eden Park. We want to maximise the flexibility that we have at Eden Park so it’s for concerts, it’s for sporting events, it’s for expos, festivals, shows, all sorts of things, to ensure that we’re bringing more visitors and more economic activity to Auckland and across the country.

Well, the events that I listed yesterday, $33 million worth of economic impact into Auckland, so absolutely. If you think back to last concert you went to, think about how busy the bars and restaurants—the accommodation’s often booked out. People are shopping. They’re away for a weekend on holiday. All of those things are direct economic impact locally and that’s what we want to maximise.

Well, the whole purpose of the announcements yesterday in terms of Events Boost would be to ensure that there are a wider range of events that could qualify for support, and that’s exactly what it’s about. It’s about making sure that we don’t have really tight rules about what can be accepted and what can’t. It might be a gallery exhibition, it could be a sporting event, could be a cultural event, and we know what a massive impact they have in the towns and cities that host them.

Yeah, look, the first thing I’d say is under the new Resource Management Act we passed just, I think, last month, that does give the Minister powers and Cabinet ultimately decision-making ability to determine what those settings, what those rules will be. That’s why, you know, we formally launched what is—there’s very formal language—an investigation. The report is generated. There is a consultation conversation, obviously, with Auckland Council in this case, and residents and the public. But ultimately it gives us powers to say if this is an event that’s in the regional—you know, it’s going to advance regional economic growth and opportunity, it’s going to advance national economic growth and opportunity, those are things that we’ve got to say yes to, as I keep saying too.

But I think your point’s a fairly good one, which is that if you now just take a step back and start to look at the infrastructure emerging across New Zealand, you know, you’re going to have—you know, Louise and I had the great privilege of touring the New Zealand International Convention Centre yesterday. That is a truly world-class event that will attract, you know, corporates, that will attract small businesses in New Zealand that can hold events there. It’ll be, you know, a massive auditorium. You know, there’s everything we need there to be able to go out into the world and say, “We have world-class infrastructure that we—you want—we want you to bring you and your people and your teams to experience”.

But between the new stadium emerging in Christchurch and the convention centre down there, which has been going incredibly well, you know, Christchurch has got a great proposition as well, and across the country, I think, you know. And we want to make sure Eden Park—yes, 50,000-seat capacity. We want to make sure that’s as available as possible.

Yeah, we do have powers under the new Resource Management Act because, as I said at the beginning of the year, we are going to say yes to things in this country, not no. And I’m not sitting here as Prime Minister of New Zealand letting opportunities go by while states of Australia take them because we’re not the best dressed and ready to go. We have the infrastructure, we have—now—competitive spending, and I expect the process and the settings to be as commonsense and as sensible as possible so that we don’t lose events having—you know, it’s a bit like, you know, going fishing: you’ve got to put bait on the hook, you’ve then got to get the fish on the hook and you’ve got to land it in the boat. And I don’t want to lose it somewhere between being on the hook and not in the boat.

Sorry, we’re still talking major events. We’ll move to general—can I come back to that issue? I just want to close out major events before we move on to topics. Sorry.

It hasn’t been a conversation that we’ve had at Cabinet. I mean, our real focus has been making sure that we retool, reset major events and our approach to major events, as we’ve just announced. That’s not something we’ve had a chance to consider or think through at this point of time.

Well, we’re a Government that’s open to having conversations and listening and understanding what we can or can’t do as a result of that. But I’d just say initially, we already have a facility there that’s not being utilised today, as it currently stands, and given some of the stuff that we’ve seen, I think it’s appropriate that we launch that investigation to look into it.

Well, if we’re going to override local rules, it’s really important that we have a good process around that, and that’s what the new legislation enabled that we passed last month or so and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We want to follow good process and if we’re going to override local rules, I think it’s important we do that.

Well, we’re going to listen. We’re going to—we’re going to engage in that consultation for sure. But what I’m saying is we’ve given—we have powers under the Act to make that decision, ultimately. I think we’ve been working very constructively with Auckland Council and with the Mayor.

You know, there’ll be a range of views within the residents, I’m sure. There are some residents that love having the events close by and all the activity that goes with that. There’s lots of residents that have businesses in the area, in the vicinity. Think Kingsland and all the pubs that are there, all the other eateries and restaurants and all the other stuff that’s going on. So there’ll be a range of views, no doubt about it, but at the end of the day we are going to say yes or no to stuff and we’re going to get things moving. And so you need a hard decision and ultimately we can make that, as Cabinet, after considering that consultation.

And can I just add, as someone who used to live very close to Eden Park, it is one of the most exciting places to live, and when you move into that area you know there are sports events and lots of things happening at Eden Park. It’s part of the attraction. So I know very personally the impact and it’s fantastic. It’s great.

OK, so we’re ready to move on? Let’s go to other events, yeah.

Yeah, look, I mean, what I was saying is that I think there’s—as I said last Monday when events were unfolding, there’s some very reasonable questions that I think need answers. And you have your views about those and I’ve read a lot of what some of you have written over the course of the last week, and I think they’re quite fair and reasonable.

So what I’m saying and what I’ve asked for advice on last Friday is, you know, I would like to see—I expect there will be an inquiry and, again, what form that’s taking and getting the terms of reference for that absolutely right will be really important, but to look at the actions of Government agencies—you know, think Oranga Tamariki, think police—and actually see over the last four years and actually have an inquiry around that. Again, we’re taking advice on that and we’ll have more to say about that, you know, when we do.

Yeah. So there’s a number of, you know, investigations, as I said, that were happening, you know, as I talked about last Monday, inevitably that happen. The coronial inquiry, as you said. Very narrow terms of scope in terms of what it’s looking at. Similarly with the IPCA investigations as well.

What I’m talking about is I think there are genuinely, you know, questions that, you know, some of you have posed and others have posed in the public to say, look, there is a justification and an expectation that we should have an inquiry of some sort. Exactly what the definition of that, what the scope of that, what the terms of reference of that are, I can’t talk to that today. I want to take proper advice on it. I want to make sure we get it right because I think there are genuine questions about the actions of the agencies over the last four years. I’m not presupposing or predetermining an outcome but I’m just saying there are legitimately good questions that should be—you know, we should get some answers to.

It’s not something I’ve been briefed on. Could I ask that you direct your questions to Simon Watts, who’s the Local Government Minister from this country?

My responsibility is to make sure my Local Government Minister is well aware of it and if you want to direct questions to him, feel free. It’s not something I’m aware of.

I’ve just told you. Not something I’m aware of and the best person to answer would be the Local Government Minister.

No, I wasn’t. No, I’m not. Hang on, guys, we’ll just go to Jamie and then we’ll go to Laura and then we’ll come back to Zane.

I don’t talk about what we discuss in Cabinet, as you know, but Minister Peters has outlined a process to you last week which we are working our way through. It’s a complex decision. It’s something we’re going to do cautiously, we’re going to do with proper, deep consideration given the perspectives of views that are reflected in New Zealand society, as you’ve seen over the weekend and you’ve seen all around the world, and so we’re going to do it right.

I think the decision will be communicated, as the Minister has articulated, at the UN Leaders Week and that’s—

—and that’s not—that’s not inappropriate. Many other countries will be doing likewise as well.

Again, the decision will be made. You know, the decision and his articulation of our decision will be made during UN Leaders Week. I don’t have an issue with that. I think that’s not inappropriate.

Well, we’ve got a Cabinet process that we’re working our way through that requires us to deeply consider the issue about recognition. There are strong arguments, as you know, across the world but also within New Zealand as to whether now is the right time. What we—what we—what we know and what we’ve—as we entered this conversation, since 1947 we’ve supported the two-state solution. We are very—and we’ve always said it’s a matter of when, not if, and the question fundamentally: is it now or is it not now? That’s something that we want to consider deeply because there are good arguments on all sides around that issue. So we’re going to work our way through it calmly, consistently, you know, giving it proper consideration, because it’s an important one for us to get right.

Well, we will—we will have a Cabinet position and a Government position on this issue and that’s why we are working our way through it. You know, we’ve foreshadowed to you that we have a process in play and we need to be able to let that run its course.

No, he—we—he will—he will represent the New Zealand position in New York and he will articulate that position with great detail, and that’s what—that’s what will happen in that week. Sorry, team, I’ll just go to Zane.

Well, we have. I mean, we’ve sanctioned extremist settlers, as you’ve seen. We have also sanctioned Ministers in the Netanyahu Government for extremist, unhelpful rhetoric as well, talking about extinguishing the two-state solution, which is the pathway by which we get peace in the region. So, you know, you’ve seen us take action on that. Let’s be clear: New Zealand has very little trade with Israel, has for a long period of time. We’ve had export controls in place, I think, since 2003 or something. So, you know, where we see actions around extremist behaviour from settlers and/or Ministers we’re calling it out consistently, and we’ve been doing that over the course of this—of this conflict.

Irrespective of the issue around state recognition the issue is about the conflict, which is fundamentally—you have Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation. I, as Prime Minister, have deemed the whole of Hamas a terrorist organisation, as you know. What happened on October 7th, with 1,200 innocent civilians and 251 people held hostage, is utterly unacceptable. They need to release those hostages. On the other hand, we’ve also been imploring Israel to make sure there is unfettered humanitarian access, which we haven’t seen, not to continue with military action and making things worse, not better, and calling out for both parties in the region to get round and actually orchestrate a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed and the huge human catastrophe of suffering that is—that is Gaza at the moment. So, you know, that has been our consistent position through the course of this conflict.

I appreciate we have a separate conversation around recognition as to whether it’s now or later, but that is something we will work through in a very consistent sort of manner to do that issue properly. But in the intervening period, we continue to call out both Hamas and also Israel for their actions and hold them both accountable for that.

Well, I’m trying to use as much Māori as I possibly can. As you know, it’s been a bit of a struggle. I had formal lessons later on in life. I haven’t been able to keep those up with this job, but I have good advisors around me who try and encourage me to use words, and I encourage Kiwis to do the same.

Because we have something called Cabinet today, but it sounded like—it sounded like—

Great, and it sounds like great event and celebrating 50 years of Māori Language Week is fantastic, so I’m really supportive.

Yeah, look, I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve prepared, you know, teaching resources, when you think about structured literacy, structured numeracy curriculums in te reo, resources being made freely available. I’m proud of the record investment in Te Matatini, which has been a fantastic event, as Claudette alluded to before, and we encourage New Zealanders to embrace te reo. It’s one of our official languages, it’s a great treasure and give it a go this week.

Sorry, I’ll come back to you, Jamie. Just, sorry—

It may well do, and that’s one of the things that, you know, as part of the advice that I would expect to receive as to how broad should it should it be, could it be, what is the interaction between the Court and maybe the Government agencies. That’s something I’m open for, but in fairness I just want to take—you know, make sure I get good-quality advice around the right way to approach it so that we can actually answer the questions that people have questions around.

Yes, I spoke to Mark Mitchell last week and I asked for the advice on Friday, you know, from the officials as well.

Initially through DPMC, yeah. OK, last two questions, sorry. Laura and then I’ll come back to Jamie.

Because we’re not doing that. We are working our way as a Cabinet on a very serious issue and a topic that needs proper consideration, so we’re not going to do that in— through the media. We’re going to do that with our Cabinet colleagues, actually considering all the perspectives, considering all the views, considering our engagements with others who have made decisions to recognise, not to recognise. That’s all part of a big package of work that we’ve got.

We will make our own independent decision around recognition but it’s—but it’s important that we follow that process really clearly. And so the fact that we have signalled to you that we are in a process—you know, other countries just come out and announce what their decision is, without having foreshadowed that they are going through a process. We are doing that but we need to do that, in fairness, as a Cabinet.

I’d sooner tell you a final decision when Cabinet has made a final decision. That’s when you will know.

We—again, you will know about a final decision and that’s—

There is no final decision made by Cabinet.

No final decision made by Cabinet. When we have one, you’ll be the first to know.

No, I think—but I think we can—we are in a process and in fairness you need to let us go through that process, and it’s important that we have a quality conversation to do that. When we then announce publicly our position will be when we have a final decision and a firm decision from Cabinet being made. I think that’s an entirely reasonable approach and I think, you know, the Minister is actually leading us through that process, I think, incredibly well. Sorry, last question, yeah, sorry.

Because that’s about when the timings will come together for the UN Leaders Week. We’ve committed to making a decision at UN Leaders Week and articulating our decision and our rationale for our position, and that’s when we will do it, at that point in time. OK team, thanks so much. Thanks so much.