July 7, 2026 • 9 mins
The Prime Minister discusses Marsden Point fuel security, South Island flood recovery and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic visit. He also rejects calls to phase out synthetic fertiliser and backs televising the Young Farmer of the Year contest.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Prime Minister. Christopher Luxan joins us now Prime Minister.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good afternoon, Good afternoon, hamersh.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
How are you still on the tools this week?
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yeah? I am. I am. In fact, I'm cranking along
hotter than a smoking pistol. I'm, you know, feeling pretty good. Jamie.
You can have another week off if he wants to.
But no, no, thorally enjoying it in the Barossa Valley. Yeah, yeah,
somewhere like that. You know, I don't have a glass
of red or something associated.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Australian chere or something.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Probably the classy man that he is Marsden Points.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You and I are both working hard here.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, well exactly we are. And you you have been
busy up in the Far North yesterday Marsden Point. You
go out there with young Lloyd but and the team
up in that part of the world.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yeah, it was great, Actually it was really good.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I was looking up McCullum as well, and we were
I was actually wanted to go check out Marsden Point.
You know, we've spent twenty two million dollars refurbishing a
fuel tank up there that gives us nine days worth
of extra diesel and honestly Hamers should be so proud.
I mean, like the amount. You know, we gave these
guys a challenge. They went from go to woe within
nine day, went with a nine weeks actually, and we've
(01:01):
actually got nine days worth of extra storage there now,
so the tanks are in great condition. But just the engineers,
the contractors, the team that we had up there was
just incredibly just reminded that this country can do big
things at speed and we want to with some very
talented people making it happen.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, not fantastic. That's good that that is happening up there.
Kai Kura, those sort of opposite end of the scale.
I know that Mark Mitchell is who's a busy man
and I'm reading the Herald today and an even busier
man with a few extra responsibilities of the country. But
he's down there. I mean that's first and foremost. So
let's deal with what matter is really there, the weather there,
(01:37):
which has been yet not great.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, he's a great emergency management minister because you like
the deal I have with Markers that he goes to
the location as quickly and as early as possible, gets
on board with the mayor, so we actually get local government,
central government working to get us Eves and Omaru earlier
in the week, which obviously was hit pretty hard on
lay Tucking, and then he's been he's actually in Blend.
(02:01):
I'm trying to get down to kai Kora, but State
Highway one was closed as he got down there yesterday
and he returned back. But yeah, the images in kai
Korra don't look great. The Meya has done a fantastic job,
I think, you know, in getting things organized, getting the
local civil defense respons in place. But yeah, there's a
couple of bridges that will need replacing to keep that working.
So yeah, so we'll uh, he'll have all he'll get
(02:24):
down there and survey the damage and have more to
say about it this morning, which will beg of ye Uh.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
The primes emoti't have found.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That Hamish is just for the listeners. You know, what's
been good this time? You know, we've run into challenges
in the past where people get a bit gung ho
and decide to drive through floodwater and often carson get
swept away and people lose their lives. And I think
what's actually been good is the downside or the upside
only upside of these sort of events that we've been having.
Is that A we're getting much much better at the response,
(02:53):
you know, we're calling things much earlier. And B people
are getting prepared at home with emergency supplies. And I
think people are stopping, you know, have actually started to
stop and everything and say, actually, don't do anything stupid,
you know, you know, watch.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
What you're doing.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, at one percent prime minister mode. He's visited on
the weekend. I do want to have a little bit
of self indulgence here. I know my uncle David McDowell
was a former ambassador and he's into the u N
and he was actually head of Jim Bold's Prime Minister
department for a while and he had a big connection to
the yeah, to the Indian and that part of the world.
So he'll be very I'll be interested to get his
(03:28):
view on this. But it's it's a it's a big thing,
isn't It's a big occasion.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's a really big occasion.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It's a pretty historification, you'll know, and he'll know as
well that we haven't had a Prime minister from India
in New Zealand for over forty years. And the fact
that he's coming is when he's a busy guy is
just the strength of the relationship I think that we've
built over the last two years. So you know, it's
going to be a good visit. It's going to be
a quick visit. So he'll be arriving on Friday evening
and then sort of here with us all Saturday. We'll
(03:54):
have our formal governments to government sort of conversations in
the morning. Around lunchtime, will be showcasing a lot of
what the business opportunities are, So I'll be showcasing a
lot of the sectors to him across our economy. We've
got some great people involved with that, and we've got
business people on both sides from India and New Zealand
spending the morning together talking about what they can how.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
They can work together.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
He's always had an interest in sports because India wants
to ultimately host an Olympic Games, and so he's quite
interested in how high performance sport approach. So we're going
to showcase a little bit of that to him as well.
And then and then in the evening we have a
massive community event at Spark Arena, which will be fantastic
because we've had a very diverse Indian community here in
New Zealand, and it's just important to celebrate the contribution
they've made to many sectors in including agriculture and farming.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, fantastic. I won't I won't dwell on this too much.
But when you talk about the Olympics in sport and
some of these Indian athletes that are coming through, you know,
we know they can bowl fast, but they've got a
couple of guys who are like javelin throwers and things
who are next level. I mean, you know, if sport
like Olympic sports take off in that country, oh, it'll
be Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well I think I think Hamish they went to Paris.
You bitter than me, but I thought they went to
Paris and I thought they won sort of like five
silvers in a bronze. And when you think about a
country of one and a half billion people, the biggest
country on Earth, I think that's question which is, well, how.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Do you on a per capita basis sort of get
to the top of the table.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Typically in New Zealand, lots of gold medals prepared a
population pretty high, and yet we've got a mess of population,
Yet we haven't got a system that's delivering athletes that
can win gold medals yet.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So yeah, that's and they will.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
As you say, they've got incredible talent there and you've
got such a large population.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Are the incredible feats of athleticism.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
In that country? But how do you organize it? How
do you find spot the talent? How do you develop
that talent? You know, what technology do you use? Those
kinds of things. I think he's quite curious about.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yep, great, I'm not going to play putting the tail
on the donkey with the ICA's that's coming up a
little later on. We'll avoid that. Yeah, but I do.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I think the only thing is that, Yeah, that is
a decision for the Reserve Bank. The thing that I
have the moment is that as the spending in the revenue,
we've had some pretty good results in recent weeks about
economy strengthening, which is and more than people four, which
is good stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, and we need to make more of that, I
think across the general media. I'm going to just make
that claim right here and now. Fertilizer, Why is the
synthetic nitrogen the banning the greens? I mean, it doesn't
feel like there's a whole lot of homework gone under this,
and you know.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, it's not even worth discussing, mate, it's tail utter insanity,
you know, you know, stop banning fertilizer and coloring cows seriously,
you know, you know, I think organic fertilizer is twenty
five percent lower yields and what I see on synthetic fertilizer.
So what are you saying you're going to kill You're
going to knock off a quarter of our income.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
You get to make New Zealand as poor as a result.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Of it, and it ain't happening. So but look, Jeet
underscores the risk of the other side, you know, I
mean seriously, you have Hipkins's Prime Minister, close Warbrockers Finance Minister,
and Madam and Davison is your Environment Minister and Agriculture minister.
Sounds like it that ain't ain't going to be pretty
So so that's why we've got to get out there
and get the job done.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
November.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, now you've been away to you caught up with
the Young Farmer of the FMG Young Farmer, the a
t Riodar and our you winner over the year in
the Naki on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah it was great. I mean, I try and get
down there every year.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Sometimes with travel schedules, I can't, but it was great
to be back down there in your plumoth. Last when
I've gone to I think was Timaru a couple of
years back. And the thing I'd really love to see
is I'd love to see TV.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Ands televised that event.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, like when I grew up as a kid,
you have you know, the city Kid on christ Church,
but you know, it was compulsory viewing to watch a
young Farmer of the Year, and the skills of these
young people is amazing. And that's the point I've always
been making about agriculture, is that doesn't matter. There's so
many different avenues you can get into this in the sector,
in this industry as a young person setting up wanting
to build a career, and so I reckon we should
(07:48):
get a televise and I've sort of trying to push
that point pretty strongly because you look at Country Calendar,
a number one rank show in the country. You look
at Nadia's Farm, you look at Clarkson's Farm, and how
popular those shows are and I just think we'll help
bridgigg in that urban rural divide, which frankly, I don't
think is as strong as people make up to be.
I think I talk agriculture in the cities all the time,
(08:09):
and people have got huge respect for farmers now, which
is great. May not have been the case a while ago,
but they do now, which is great.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
And I could nominate a Chisel jaw Son of the
Mantle too, who could probably be quite good at hosting
it too, But that's another story, Prime Minister. You're going
to catch the got to catch the rugby this weekend,
Martin Riki. I guess Friday, But then you've got a
fairly important visitor as well to fit in.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, I've got I've got a very important visitor.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'll be spending two days with full full on and
but I'll try and catch it at some point. I
thought the France game was great, as I thought the
whole competition last weekend across you know the Wallabies game,
you know Argentina Scotland.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I was Argentine Scotland as it was. Yeah, so I
watched all the highlights of that.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But I mean, I thought it was some pretty high
scoring games and some pretty good rugby and in close games,
which is great.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, I just want.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
One one last thing. I want to ask you about the
extra responsibil around security and intelligence with Mark Mitchell and
how it's sort of framed up as I read it
today that it's your workload, but I would have thought
another set of eyes is quite handy.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Look, I mean we've got Chris Pink, whos learns responsible
for the agencies, which is the SAS.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And the GCSB.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I'm the Minister for Intelligence and Security. That's a big
part of my job. I'm in There is a lot,
but I also want to modernize quite a lot of
our legislation around that. I want to do that in
a bipartisan way, working with other parties, and I want
Mark to support that work as well. And because of
some of the counter terrorism stuff that he gets involved
in through police. It's just a sensible thing to have
(09:38):
between myself leading at Chris Pink leading the agencies, and
Mark supporting, it's a good combination.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Priming us a busy few days ahead. Thank you very
much for joining us on the country.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Pleasure Bate you take care of day. Jeerlia
Prime Minister. Christopher Luxan joins us now Prime Minister.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good afternoon, Good afternoon, hamersh.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
How are you still on the tools this week?
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yeah? I am. I am. In fact, I'm cranking along
hotter than a smoking pistol. I'm, you know, feeling pretty good. Jamie.
You can have another week off if he wants to.
But no, no, thorally enjoying it in the Barossa Valley. Yeah, yeah,
somewhere like that. You know, I don't have a glass
of red or something associated.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Australian chere or something.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Probably the classy man that he is Marsden Points.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You and I are both working hard here.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, well exactly we are. And you you have been
busy up in the Far North yesterday Marsden Point. You
go out there with young Lloyd but and the team
up in that part of the world.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yeah, it was great, Actually it was really good.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I was looking up McCullum as well, and we were
I was actually wanted to go check out Marsden Point.
You know, we've spent twenty two million dollars refurbishing a
fuel tank up there that gives us nine days worth
of extra diesel and honestly Hamers should be so proud.
I mean, like the amount. You know, we gave these
guys a challenge. They went from go to woe within
nine day, went with a nine weeks actually, and we've
(01:01):
actually got nine days worth of extra storage there now,
so the tanks are in great condition. But just the engineers,
the contractors, the team that we had up there was
just incredibly just reminded that this country can do big
things at speed and we want to with some very
talented people making it happen.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, not fantastic. That's good that that is happening up there.
Kai Kura, those sort of opposite end of the scale.
I know that Mark Mitchell is who's a busy man
and I'm reading the Herald today and an even busier
man with a few extra responsibilities of the country. But
he's down there. I mean that's first and foremost. So
let's deal with what matter is really there, the weather there,
(01:37):
which has been yet not great.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, he's a great emergency management minister because you like
the deal I have with Markers that he goes to
the location as quickly and as early as possible, gets
on board with the mayor, so we actually get local government,
central government working to get us Eves and Omaru earlier
in the week, which obviously was hit pretty hard on
lay Tucking, and then he's been he's actually in Blend.
(02:01):
I'm trying to get down to kai Kora, but State
Highway one was closed as he got down there yesterday
and he returned back. But yeah, the images in kai
Korra don't look great. The Meya has done a fantastic job,
I think, you know, in getting things organized, getting the
local civil defense respons in place. But yeah, there's a
couple of bridges that will need replacing to keep that working.
So yeah, so we'll uh, he'll have all he'll get
(02:24):
down there and survey the damage and have more to
say about it this morning, which will beg of ye Uh.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
The primes emoti't have found.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That Hamish is just for the listeners. You know, what's
been good this time? You know, we've run into challenges
in the past where people get a bit gung ho
and decide to drive through floodwater and often carson get
swept away and people lose their lives. And I think
what's actually been good is the downside or the upside
only upside of these sort of events that we've been having.
Is that A we're getting much much better at the response,
(02:53):
you know, we're calling things much earlier. And B people
are getting prepared at home with emergency supplies. And I
think people are stopping, you know, have actually started to
stop and everything and say, actually, don't do anything stupid,
you know, you know, watch.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
What you're doing.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, at one percent prime minister mode. He's visited on
the weekend. I do want to have a little bit
of self indulgence here. I know my uncle David McDowell
was a former ambassador and he's into the u N
and he was actually head of Jim Bold's Prime Minister
department for a while and he had a big connection to
the yeah, to the Indian and that part of the world.
So he'll be very I'll be interested to get his
(03:28):
view on this. But it's it's a it's a big thing,
isn't It's a big occasion.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's a really big occasion.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It's a pretty historification, you'll know, and he'll know as
well that we haven't had a Prime minister from India
in New Zealand for over forty years. And the fact
that he's coming is when he's a busy guy is
just the strength of the relationship I think that we've
built over the last two years. So you know, it's
going to be a good visit. It's going to be
a quick visit. So he'll be arriving on Friday evening
and then sort of here with us all Saturday. We'll
(03:54):
have our formal governments to government sort of conversations in
the morning. Around lunchtime, will be showcasing a lot of
what the business opportunities are, So I'll be showcasing a
lot of the sectors to him across our economy. We've
got some great people involved with that, and we've got
business people on both sides from India and New Zealand
spending the morning together talking about what they can how.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
They can work together.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
He's always had an interest in sports because India wants
to ultimately host an Olympic Games, and so he's quite
interested in how high performance sport approach. So we're going
to showcase a little bit of that to him as well.
And then and then in the evening we have a
massive community event at Spark Arena, which will be fantastic
because we've had a very diverse Indian community here in
New Zealand, and it's just important to celebrate the contribution
they've made to many sectors in including agriculture and farming.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, fantastic. I won't I won't dwell on this too much.
But when you talk about the Olympics in sport and
some of these Indian athletes that are coming through, you know,
we know they can bowl fast, but they've got a
couple of guys who are like javelin throwers and things
who are next level. I mean, you know, if sport
like Olympic sports take off in that country, oh, it'll
be Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well I think I think Hamish they went to Paris.
You bitter than me, but I thought they went to
Paris and I thought they won sort of like five
silvers in a bronze. And when you think about a
country of one and a half billion people, the biggest
country on Earth, I think that's question which is, well, how.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Do you on a per capita basis sort of get
to the top of the table.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Typically in New Zealand, lots of gold medals prepared a
population pretty high, and yet we've got a mess of population,
Yet we haven't got a system that's delivering athletes that
can win gold medals yet.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So yeah, that's and they will.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
As you say, they've got incredible talent there and you've
got such a large population.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Are the incredible feats of athleticism.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
In that country? But how do you organize it? How
do you find spot the talent? How do you develop
that talent? You know, what technology do you use? Those
kinds of things. I think he's quite curious about.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yep, great, I'm not going to play putting the tail
on the donkey with the ICA's that's coming up a
little later on. We'll avoid that. Yeah, but I do.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I think the only thing is that, Yeah, that is
a decision for the Reserve Bank. The thing that I
have the moment is that as the spending in the revenue,
we've had some pretty good results in recent weeks about
economy strengthening, which is and more than people four, which
is good stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, and we need to make more of that, I
think across the general media. I'm going to just make
that claim right here and now. Fertilizer, Why is the
synthetic nitrogen the banning the greens? I mean, it doesn't
feel like there's a whole lot of homework gone under this,
and you know.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, it's not even worth discussing, mate, it's tail utter insanity,
you know, you know, stop banning fertilizer and coloring cows seriously,
you know, you know, I think organic fertilizer is twenty
five percent lower yields and what I see on synthetic fertilizer.
So what are you saying you're going to kill You're
going to knock off a quarter of our income.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
You get to make New Zealand as poor as a result.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Of it, and it ain't happening. So but look, Jeet
underscores the risk of the other side, you know, I
mean seriously, you have Hipkins's Prime Minister, close Warbrockers Finance Minister,
and Madam and Davison is your Environment Minister and Agriculture minister.
Sounds like it that ain't ain't going to be pretty
So so that's why we've got to get out there
and get the job done.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
November.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, now you've been away to you caught up with
the Young Farmer of the FMG Young Farmer, the a
t Riodar and our you winner over the year in
the Naki on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah it was great. I mean, I try and get
down there every year.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Sometimes with travel schedules, I can't, but it was great
to be back down there in your plumoth. Last when
I've gone to I think was Timaru a couple of
years back. And the thing I'd really love to see
is I'd love to see TV.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Ands televised that event.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, like when I grew up as a kid,
you have you know, the city Kid on christ Church,
but you know, it was compulsory viewing to watch a
young Farmer of the Year, and the skills of these
young people is amazing. And that's the point I've always
been making about agriculture, is that doesn't matter. There's so
many different avenues you can get into this in the sector,
in this industry as a young person setting up wanting
to build a career, and so I reckon we should
(07:48):
get a televise and I've sort of trying to push
that point pretty strongly because you look at Country Calendar,
a number one rank show in the country. You look
at Nadia's Farm, you look at Clarkson's Farm, and how
popular those shows are and I just think we'll help
bridgigg in that urban rural divide, which frankly, I don't
think is as strong as people make up to be.
I think I talk agriculture in the cities all the time,
(08:09):
and people have got huge respect for farmers now, which
is great. May not have been the case a while ago,
but they do now, which is great.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
And I could nominate a Chisel jaw Son of the
Mantle too, who could probably be quite good at hosting
it too, But that's another story, Prime Minister. You're going
to catch the got to catch the rugby this weekend,
Martin Riki. I guess Friday, But then you've got a
fairly important visitor as well to fit in.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, I've got I've got a very important visitor.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I'll be spending two days with full full on and
but I'll try and catch it at some point. I
thought the France game was great, as I thought the
whole competition last weekend across you know the Wallabies game,
you know Argentina Scotland.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I was Argentine Scotland as it was. Yeah, so I
watched all the highlights of that.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But I mean, I thought it was some pretty high
scoring games and some pretty good rugby and in close games,
which is great.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, I just want.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
One one last thing. I want to ask you about the
extra responsibil around security and intelligence with Mark Mitchell and
how it's sort of framed up as I read it
today that it's your workload, but I would have thought
another set of eyes is quite handy.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Look, I mean we've got Chris Pink, whos learns responsible
for the agencies, which is the SAS.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And the GCSB.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I'm the Minister for Intelligence and Security. That's a big
part of my job. I'm in There is a lot,
but I also want to modernize quite a lot of
our legislation around that. I want to do that in
a bipartisan way, working with other parties, and I want
Mark to support that work as well. And because of
some of the counter terrorism stuff that he gets involved
in through police. It's just a sensible thing to have
(09:38):
between myself leading at Chris Pink leading the agencies, and
Mark supporting, it's a good combination.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Priming us a busy few days ahead. Thank you very
much for joining us on the country.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Pleasure Bate you take care of day. Jeerlia
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