October 7, 2025 • 9 mins
The Prime Minister ponders a Free Trade Agreement with India - is it nearly a done deal? He also discusses changes to the jobseeker’s benefit and shares what he does to look after his mental health.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The Prime Minister Christopher Luxan joins us now on the country.
Welcome Prime minister, good to be with your hamers.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
How are you going this week?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh yeah, not good. Thank you good, thank you that
Jamie McKay he can stay over in Perth and watch
rugby as long as he likes. I quite like this gig.
It's it's quite good.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, you're doing a great job of it. But let's
not tell he gets he gets a bit up there.
If he's there's people in the mirk, so it's yeah,
that's good for him.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It is good for him. He always tells me, don't
don't go too well, go well, but not too well. Right,
speaking of going quite well but not quite the yet
the India Free Trade Agreement. We spoke to Todd McLay yesterday.
What is the expectation there? I mean he said, we're
three rounds in the fourth round will be a knockout.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah. Look, we've we close out our Queenstown round. I
think we've got another round in India and then yeah,
we'll look to see where we sort of get to
at the all of that. But look, I mean there's
been very good commitment from prominence Timopium, myself and also
trade mister Guiel who's Todd's counterpart, and the four of
us have been pretty turven from the top to actually
try and find way to make this work. So, you know,
(01:01):
I've done a lot of business India over the years,
and you know, they're really tough negotiators. They're really hard
and we also want to be were good negotiators too,
So we've just got to make sure that we get
the best possible deal we can for New Zealant And
so I don't let that process run through to be honest,
home missions to sort of it'll take as long as
it takes. But I think we're making pretty Having said that,
we're making good progress.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Do you have a kind of a timeline on there,
because I might have, you know, upset the boat a
bit on heither duple c Allen yesterday I said maybe
sort of early next year. Is it possibility that this
could be close to dune?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, Well, what we've said is we're going to go
as quickly as we can, but equally we will get
a deal done in our term. That was our commitment
before at the election, and I think we've done a
very good job. Actually, I mean, you've got to remember
that New Zealand's trade with India had gone back with
under labor. They basically said they weren't interested in India
and as a result, the Indians went interested in Arson.
So we had to work really hard to build back
(01:54):
that relationship, to be able to get a visit to
in Dea, to be able to then kick off the
FTA negotiations and the good news, you know, even just
by us focusing on India, ah, our exports India I
think up seventeen percent in the last year, so you know,
it's really you know, there's a lot of opportunity there,
as we know, with a rapidly rising middle class that's
existing there. I mean, you know, I think about four
hundred and thirty million people out of the one point
(02:15):
five billion, it's the most populous country on Earth. In
the middle class, of course, they want great New Zealand
food and beverages from New Zealand. So you know, we've
got to keep making a case very strongly there. So
we're optimistic. We want to get it done this term.
We're going to go as fast as we can.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Excellent dear Idea, who wouldn't be interested in India. The
mind Bob Right Government quarterly Plan, the thirty three things
the government plans to do before the end of the year.
Where are we at with this and what's top of
the list.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, the big one is actually the new RAMA system
going forward from here. So you might remember the RAMA,
I think is the single biggest thing that's been really
holding New Zealand back. You see all the work and
the frustration that you've seen even over the weekend with
regional councils and consueing seeing it's just you know, impacts
you guys in the farming sector, but it's just everything right.
(03:05):
You want to get a road built, you want to
get a wolf extended to aboort, the things that actually
make New Zealand go faster. We have just wrapped this
country up in red and green tape and we're trying.
We've got one of our big five things. We've got
to keep dismantling as much of that as we possibly can.
So the RMA is the biggest thing. Obviously, we stopped
the labor changes when we first came the first few
weeks when we came to power, we've put in place
(03:26):
fast track. We've made a number of what's called RMA
amendments to signal what's happening and to make some dumb
stuff stop. And then as of at the end of
this year, we want to have already introduced our first
reading of the new RMA laws that are going to
be governing New Zealand going forward, and you know, they
need to be much simpler, get rid of the bureaucracy,
and as much of the red tape, respect people's property
(03:49):
rights and enable people to get things done and built.
And so the way it works is that I think
some of the publics that doesn't quite fully understand or
that we have a first We basically have a policy,
which is what we've been working on for the last
year or so about what we want that RMA to
do and how we want it to work and function
and to make it easier to get things done. Then
we put it into legislation and which is where a
(04:10):
lot of lawyers get involved with what's called a bill
that then goes to Parliament for a first reading and
then goes out to the public for up to six
months for consultation and feedback and they try and make
give us input that makes the bill better, and then
it comes back to Parliament for a second reading and
what's called a committee stage and then into a reading
where it becomes then the law of the land. And
we don't need to wait ten years to get this
(04:31):
thing implemented. We just got to get things consented, sorted
and get people moving quickly onto stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Right, okay, job seekers, Now, now there seems to be
a little bit of a discussion here between you and
one or two in the horticultural sector. You believe there
are the screaming out for workers. Is one or two
in their sectors say they aren't. What's your take on that?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Well, it's just interesting. I mean my point is a
bigger one, which is that you know, we cannot have
in twenty years time the same conversations we're having today
that somehow over half our kids don't go to school regularly,
which is the position we inherit it under labor. We've
made some good progress on school attendance, which is good,
and then you just drift off into welfare. And the
(05:15):
worrying thing is that if you go on to a
benefit under the age of twenty five, the forecasts are
you going to spend at least eighteen years on a
benefit over your lifetime. So that is a pretty sobering
statistic when you think about that. And Labour sort of
have a view which is that there's jobs that are
just beneath people and as a result, actually people shouldn't work,
they should be better to go on the benefit. And
(05:36):
the answer is that is not the answer. We need
people connected to work. That is a much better life
than being on welfare. And we actually care about the
people who not materialize their potential. So what we can't
have as an eighteen or a nineteen year old coming
out of school or even the schooling system, and we've
got fifteen thousand of them and then sitting on the
job seek unemployment benefit. The job seekret benefit is set
(05:57):
up so that you are able to work tomorrow within
the new two years. You know, that's the expectation. So
all I'm saying to those young people is sorry, you've
got to get collected to work. You've got to get
need to training or further education so that you will
be ready for a job, to be able to take
on a job. So that's what that's all about. So
all I'm saying is up and down this country, I
go everywhere. You'll go into Kiwi fruit pack houses and
(06:19):
people say, yeah, there's lots of young people that come
and they might start one shift, they don't show up
on time the next day, and then they're not there
for day three. And that's not always the case. But
I'm just saying there is opportunities for people. And if
you're just going to draw a mythical line and say
there's this type of job that's just as below anyone
and no one should be doing, I just don't think
(06:40):
it's fair. I think the problem why we want young
people and workers. You've got to show up on time,
you've got to work, build a work ethic, you've got
to make sure that you are a part of a team.
You learn a lot of a lot of skill, and
you add at your skills that you become valuable. Then
you actually can have a decent career and a decent
job path prospects going forward.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yep, with all of that, just on the school attendance thing.
Prime Minister in the eighties in the early eighties at
Parmerston North Boys High School, if you if you wagged,
you were just about on the front page of the
old Evening Standard. The matter were two stay and you
know it was a bad story.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
You know, frusht Boys. It was the same thing for me.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Partmersteae was Yeah, it's funny. And when did it become optional?
I mean, how on earth we call ourselves the first
world country when fifty five percent of our kids were
not at school ninety percent of the time or more.
And the problem of this, Hamish is that if you
don't go to school ninety percent of a time or more,
by the time you reach age of sixteen, you've lost
one whole year of education. And then we've been trying
(07:41):
to retool our NCAA's that we get back to the
old days of what I had, which was school. See
where I knew I'd got ex percent for maths and
science and English and economics or whatever. And it's the
same thing we're going to be implementing there. So yeah,
we've fortunately, you know, if you look at the last
two years, I think we've lifted it almost I think
eighteen percent note as I saw these day for term two.
And that's good. But you know, we still have you know,
(08:03):
we still have fifty a percent of our kids now
going to school regularly rather than actually, you know, eighty
percent is what it needs to be. So you know,
that's the work that we're just every week. Every we
now publish the data weekly, We have it available. We
talked to the schools, got to putting pressure on parents
to get kids to school. And it's not an optional
thing and it never was that way. It was called
compulsory education for a reason. And it's necessary for our
(08:26):
kids to be able to come into a workforce and
be work ready. You know a number of your people,
you know, farmers out there will be hiring staff sometimes
you know they're reading and the numerous these skills are
pretty poor, and that's not giving him the basic skills
that those people, young people need go forward with.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Absolutely. Finally, and just quickly to wrap up, Prime Minister.
Yesterday we had Todd McClay and we talked about Mental
Health Awareness Week and what he did for his top
two inches to relieve some stress. So I'm jokingly suggesting
he goes down to the dam at the back of
the farm, icy dam, dives and naked. What about you
for the top two inches? What's your in thirty seconds?
What's your sort of release to give yourself a break?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
You crank up post malone. If one trillion album and
you have it real lout and you just have it
pumping through the house. That's what you do. And I
have it on the office, I have it, and I
actually have a speaker system in the shower. I have
had in my kitchen and throughout my house. And no,
that's what gets your fills things up. But look, you
got to stay balanced, right. I mean, when you get stressed,
it's because you're overworking one of your sort of energies.
(09:22):
You've got to have work on stuff that's important. You
have good social relationships, you've got to do some physical exerciety,
you've got to be mentally stimulated. So I think when
you stay balanced on those things that helps. But for me,
it's just crank up the music.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yep, strike the balance. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, thank you
for joining us on the country.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Great Hamish. We'll talk to you next week mate. See
hate you
Well.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The Prime Minister Christopher Luxan joins us now on the country.
Welcome Prime minister, good to be with your hamers.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
How are you going this week?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh yeah, not good. Thank you good, thank you that
Jamie McKay he can stay over in Perth and watch
rugby as long as he likes. I quite like this gig.
It's it's quite good.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yeah, you're doing a great job of it. But let's
not tell he gets he gets a bit up there.
If he's there's people in the mirk, so it's yeah,
that's good for him.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It is good for him. He always tells me, don't
don't go too well, go well, but not too well. Right,
speaking of going quite well but not quite the yet
the India Free Trade Agreement. We spoke to Todd McLay yesterday.
What is the expectation there? I mean he said, we're
three rounds in the fourth round will be a knockout.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah. Look, we've we close out our Queenstown round. I
think we've got another round in India and then yeah,
we'll look to see where we sort of get to
at the all of that. But look, I mean there's
been very good commitment from prominence Timopium, myself and also
trade mister Guiel who's Todd's counterpart, and the four of
us have been pretty turven from the top to actually
try and find way to make this work. So, you know,
(01:01):
I've done a lot of business India over the years,
and you know, they're really tough negotiators. They're really hard
and we also want to be were good negotiators too,
So we've just got to make sure that we get
the best possible deal we can for New Zealant And
so I don't let that process run through to be honest,
home missions to sort of it'll take as long as
it takes. But I think we're making pretty Having said that,
we're making good progress.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Do you have a kind of a timeline on there,
because I might have, you know, upset the boat a
bit on heither duple c Allen yesterday I said maybe
sort of early next year. Is it possibility that this
could be close to dune?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, Well, what we've said is we're going to go
as quickly as we can, but equally we will get
a deal done in our term. That was our commitment
before at the election, and I think we've done a
very good job. Actually, I mean, you've got to remember
that New Zealand's trade with India had gone back with
under labor. They basically said they weren't interested in India
and as a result, the Indians went interested in Arson.
So we had to work really hard to build back
(01:54):
that relationship, to be able to get a visit to
in Dea, to be able to then kick off the
FTA negotiations and the good news, you know, even just
by us focusing on India, ah, our exports India I
think up seventeen percent in the last year, so you know,
it's really you know, there's a lot of opportunity there,
as we know, with a rapidly rising middle class that's
existing there. I mean, you know, I think about four
hundred and thirty million people out of the one point
(02:15):
five billion, it's the most populous country on Earth. In
the middle class, of course, they want great New Zealand
food and beverages from New Zealand. So you know, we've
got to keep making a case very strongly there. So
we're optimistic. We want to get it done this term.
We're going to go as fast as we can.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Excellent dear Idea, who wouldn't be interested in India. The
mind Bob Right Government quarterly Plan, the thirty three things
the government plans to do before the end of the year.
Where are we at with this and what's top of
the list.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, the big one is actually the new RAMA system
going forward from here. So you might remember the RAMA,
I think is the single biggest thing that's been really
holding New Zealand back. You see all the work and
the frustration that you've seen even over the weekend with
regional councils and consueing seeing it's just you know, impacts
you guys in the farming sector, but it's just everything right.
(03:05):
You want to get a road built, you want to
get a wolf extended to aboort, the things that actually
make New Zealand go faster. We have just wrapped this
country up in red and green tape and we're trying.
We've got one of our big five things. We've got
to keep dismantling as much of that as we possibly can.
So the RMA is the biggest thing. Obviously, we stopped
the labor changes when we first came the first few
weeks when we came to power, we've put in place
(03:26):
fast track. We've made a number of what's called RMA
amendments to signal what's happening and to make some dumb
stuff stop. And then as of at the end of
this year, we want to have already introduced our first
reading of the new RMA laws that are going to
be governing New Zealand going forward, and you know, they
need to be much simpler, get rid of the bureaucracy,
and as much of the red tape, respect people's property
(03:49):
rights and enable people to get things done and built.
And so the way it works is that I think
some of the publics that doesn't quite fully understand or
that we have a first We basically have a policy,
which is what we've been working on for the last
year or so about what we want that RMA to
do and how we want it to work and function
and to make it easier to get things done. Then
we put it into legislation and which is where a
(04:10):
lot of lawyers get involved with what's called a bill
that then goes to Parliament for a first reading and
then goes out to the public for up to six
months for consultation and feedback and they try and make
give us input that makes the bill better, and then
it comes back to Parliament for a second reading and
what's called a committee stage and then into a reading
where it becomes then the law of the land. And
we don't need to wait ten years to get this
(04:31):
thing implemented. We just got to get things consented, sorted
and get people moving quickly onto stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Right, okay, job seekers, Now, now there seems to be
a little bit of a discussion here between you and
one or two in the horticultural sector. You believe there
are the screaming out for workers. Is one or two
in their sectors say they aren't. What's your take on that?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Well, it's just interesting. I mean my point is a
bigger one, which is that you know, we cannot have
in twenty years time the same conversations we're having today
that somehow over half our kids don't go to school regularly,
which is the position we inherit it under labor. We've
made some good progress on school attendance, which is good,
and then you just drift off into welfare. And the
(05:15):
worrying thing is that if you go on to a
benefit under the age of twenty five, the forecasts are
you going to spend at least eighteen years on a
benefit over your lifetime. So that is a pretty sobering
statistic when you think about that. And Labour sort of
have a view which is that there's jobs that are
just beneath people and as a result, actually people shouldn't work,
they should be better to go on the benefit. And
(05:36):
the answer is that is not the answer. We need
people connected to work. That is a much better life
than being on welfare. And we actually care about the
people who not materialize their potential. So what we can't
have as an eighteen or a nineteen year old coming
out of school or even the schooling system, and we've
got fifteen thousand of them and then sitting on the
job seek unemployment benefit. The job seekret benefit is set
(05:57):
up so that you are able to work tomorrow within
the new two years. You know, that's the expectation. So
all I'm saying to those young people is sorry, you've
got to get collected to work. You've got to get
need to training or further education so that you will
be ready for a job, to be able to take
on a job. So that's what that's all about. So
all I'm saying is up and down this country, I
go everywhere. You'll go into Kiwi fruit pack houses and
(06:19):
people say, yeah, there's lots of young people that come
and they might start one shift, they don't show up
on time the next day, and then they're not there
for day three. And that's not always the case. But
I'm just saying there is opportunities for people. And if
you're just going to draw a mythical line and say
there's this type of job that's just as below anyone
and no one should be doing, I just don't think
(06:40):
it's fair. I think the problem why we want young
people and workers. You've got to show up on time,
you've got to work, build a work ethic, you've got
to make sure that you are a part of a team.
You learn a lot of a lot of skill, and
you add at your skills that you become valuable. Then
you actually can have a decent career and a decent
job path prospects going forward.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yep, with all of that, just on the school attendance thing.
Prime Minister in the eighties in the early eighties at
Parmerston North Boys High School, if you if you wagged,
you were just about on the front page of the
old Evening Standard. The matter were two stay and you
know it was a bad story.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
You know, frusht Boys. It was the same thing for me.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Partmersteae was Yeah, it's funny. And when did it become optional?
I mean, how on earth we call ourselves the first
world country when fifty five percent of our kids were
not at school ninety percent of the time or more.
And the problem of this, Hamish is that if you
don't go to school ninety percent of a time or more,
by the time you reach age of sixteen, you've lost
one whole year of education. And then we've been trying
(07:41):
to retool our NCAA's that we get back to the
old days of what I had, which was school. See
where I knew I'd got ex percent for maths and
science and English and economics or whatever. And it's the
same thing we're going to be implementing there. So yeah,
we've fortunately, you know, if you look at the last
two years, I think we've lifted it almost I think
eighteen percent note as I saw these day for term two.
And that's good. But you know, we still have you know,
(08:03):
we still have fifty a percent of our kids now
going to school regularly rather than actually, you know, eighty
percent is what it needs to be. So you know,
that's the work that we're just every week. Every we
now publish the data weekly, We have it available. We
talked to the schools, got to putting pressure on parents
to get kids to school. And it's not an optional
thing and it never was that way. It was called
compulsory education for a reason. And it's necessary for our
(08:26):
kids to be able to come into a workforce and
be work ready. You know a number of your people,
you know, farmers out there will be hiring staff sometimes
you know they're reading and the numerous these skills are
pretty poor, and that's not giving him the basic skills
that those people, young people need go forward with.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Absolutely. Finally, and just quickly to wrap up, Prime Minister.
Yesterday we had Todd McClay and we talked about Mental
Health Awareness Week and what he did for his top
two inches to relieve some stress. So I'm jokingly suggesting
he goes down to the dam at the back of
the farm, icy dam, dives and naked. What about you
for the top two inches? What's your in thirty seconds?
What's your sort of release to give yourself a break?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
You crank up post malone. If one trillion album and
you have it real lout and you just have it
pumping through the house. That's what you do. And I
have it on the office, I have it, and I
actually have a speaker system in the shower. I have
had in my kitchen and throughout my house. And no,
that's what gets your fills things up. But look, you
got to stay balanced, right. I mean, when you get stressed,
it's because you're overworking one of your sort of energies.
(09:22):
You've got to have work on stuff that's important. You
have good social relationships, you've got to do some physical exerciety,
you've got to be mentally stimulated. So I think when
you stay balanced on those things that helps. But for me,
it's just crank up the music.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yep, strike the balance. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, thank you
for joining us on the country.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Great Hamish. We'll talk to you next week mate. See
hate you
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