Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB political editor unpacks Prime Minister Chris Luxon's State of the Nation address

The Prime Minister isn't concerned opening up to more mining could harm New Zealand's reputation.

More mining and drilling is on the cards under a new Government focus on economic growth, outlined today.

Chris Luxon explained we need critical minerals to build more roads and he wants quarries closer to where those roads are being built.

Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls says Luxon's committed to the development of more EVs and solar panels - and those resources need to come from somewhere. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Wall's good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Oh, good afternoon, Andrew, how are you good.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Christopher Lexin's done the State of the Nation speech. He's
upset the Greens. He says, we say no too much.
There's a new agency. Any surprises though in his speech nothing.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Too spectacularly surprising. I mean, as I alluded to yesterday,
one of the focuses on his speech was about more
mining in New Zealand and lux instead, it needs to
play a bigger role in the economy. In terms of specifics,
he didn't really get into that level of nitty gritty,
but he did say that it was easy to say
what you want when you have a sovereign wealth fund
like Norway or much higher incomes like Australia, but it's

(00:36):
much harder to say you want the oil and mining
that pays for it. And then he went on to
talk about regions like Taranaki in the West Coast. There
is big economic opportunities there with high incomes and support
for local businesses and family and he wants to see
more mining in New Zealand and more bolstering of that sector.
He also Andrew was talking about how it was quite

(00:57):
helpful for the environmental side in terms of more mining
being critical for the climate transition. He talked about evs,
solar panels and data centers that are needed to make
clean energy and he said that they quote aren't made
out of thin air. Of course, the Greens weren't particularly
happy about that. Chloe Schwarburck took him with a number

(01:19):
of things in his speech and said that there's no
future in turning our country into a chop shop and
selling critical assets for parts. And meanwhile, the Labor Party
who had its caucus retreat today as well, it's been
a week for retreats around the country. Chris Hipgins was
showing not a lot of optimism for the speech either. However,

(01:40):
he wasn't really getting into any of Labour's new playbook
of policies, saying only that announcements would be made in
the coming months.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Okay, we're talking to Tom McClay about the state of
the Nation's speech and the new agency just after five
right now tomorrow big day. But David Semo was not going.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
He's not and this isn't a particular surprise because the
Semore's never gone to Ratna. It's just not really his
in his wheelhouse of things, that he likes to do,
and he'll be as I understand that the only political
leader not there in terms of representing their party. What
some would say, you know, Ratna is the start of
the political year, which is a phrase that I always hate,

(02:17):
but you know, in other years it's been true. Not
this year. I think we've had a summer's worth of
political developments happening since Sunday, all in the space of
a week. Seymour, as I said, has never gone to
Ratina and is certainly not starting this year. He would
have got somewhat of a frosty welcome, to say the least.
I mean, not that he would have really cared about that.
I think it's very deliberate that he's done acts or

(02:40):
he's doing act State of the Nation on the same day.
It means that he gets to speak in front of
a friendly crowd who want to hear from him, rather
than one that frankly doesn't. He will get to lay
out his reasons for why he thinks the Treaties Principals
Bill should go ahead in front of essentially a home
crowd ahead of this submissions starting next week. In terms

(03:00):
of what he's expected to say, well as I understand it.
He's going to lay out the case for even more
cuts the government spending. Meanwhile, Luxon will be done in
Ratna and he will face the heat from those in
attendance because of the treaty's principal bill. But I think
he's going to do what he's done every other time
that he's spoken at a Ratana or White Tangi, which
is focusing on the tangible and quantifiable results for Marty

(03:23):
he's always talked about. Instead of just talking about lifting
mary achievement, he's actually focused on turning it around in
some of the key areas, such as the shocking stats
in health and education, which I think is the right approach.
I mean, if you actually get to start turning around
some of these statistics, you don't really have much of
an argument that he's not really working and helping for Marty,

(03:43):
but he actually needs to do it and these statistics
needs to turn around or else he's going to be
facing heat from all sides.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yes, but if he ends up targeting people with skin color,
then there's going to be heat from his coalition partners
as well. So you know he's going to have to
ride or walk on a very thin type rope.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yes, and he always has. It's kind of the rod
that he's made himself for this coalition government.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
That's right, that's right. Can I say I don't understand that?
To know, I've always thought it was a bit of
an achronism. It's been around for a while, it's a
long time, but so close to White tonguey Day it
kind of sort of diffuses the message. But it's a
lovely church and I've been to that church and it
really is quite an architectural marvel. Thanks for your time, Jason.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
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