Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on Chris Luxon discussing NZ's economic prospects following China visit

The Prime Minister is talking up our economic prospects - in challenging global times.

He's just returned from meeting leaders in China and Europe, as mid-east tensions reached boiling point.

Chris Luxon says we are throwing everything at boosting trade links so we can continue to grow.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan discussed further.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editors with us.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
A Thomas Heather. Good afternoon, So Luxean's back. How's he going?

Speaker 3 (00:05):
Oh? Look, he looks he got back on Friday. He's
looking pretty well rested, so I assume he had a
bit of a sleep this weekend. He was all about
foreign a fair as you'd expect in this post cabinet
press conference, which just wrapped up some comments about his travels.
He's been away for quite a long time for Prime Minister,
a couple of weeks. I mean basically the takeaway obviously
as he went to China, our big trading partner, and

(00:26):
then NATO where he met up with some of our
big security partners, not allies, but partners, and he basically says, look,
you know, we'd like both, and you can have both.
You can have trade and you can have security, and
you can't have one without the other. You need a
secure world in order to have trade. But obviously he's
not keen to wade into the fact that those security

(00:46):
partners are taking a pretty dim view of the actions
of our trading partner China.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Now what do you make of these law and order
changes that have come out?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, they obviously the government's in a bit of a
pickle with its polling, I mean, and some of these
have just are just taking effect over the weekend. So
for example, the applying a cap sorry capping that the
discounts that judges can apply for mitigating factors of up
to forty percent there was announced on the campaign trail

(01:16):
and it was legislated a little while ago. It takes
effect now other stuff as a result of the coalition
agreement with New Zealand. First, so this big crackdown on
coward punches, so you can get up to life imprisonment
now on well, sorry, you will be able to get
life imprisonment. And once the changes go through.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
That is presumably if the person dies, right, correct.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
So that is if it has ruled a homicide. Then
then then if the if the attach leads to death
and it has ruled a homicide, then that that leads
to a maximum penalty of life in prisonment.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Could it be Thomas, Should it be?

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Look, I'll leave that once to the vote.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Because because I mean, just just think about it like this, right,
if you go up to somebody, and if someone goes
up to somebody and stabs them in the gut.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
And they die.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
That's a homicide, isn't it. Definitely yes, yes, because you
understand the effect of a knife in someone's stomach, so
surely if somebody gets If you punch somebody in the
back of the head and they fall on the ground
and die, there equally should be a homicide. Because we've
seen too much of this. We understand the effect of
punching somebody who's not expecting a punch and then falling.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, I mean there was some I mean advocates have
called for this for a long time. We even saw
there was some I believe that either the last parliament
or the parliament before last there was a member's bill
that was introduced to increase the penalties for these coward punches.
So it is very very popular. We haven't actually seen
any of the advice from the officials, but certainly like

(02:47):
in the PM sort of alluded to this in Postcave
today as someone asked about whether or not there should
be an advertising campaign launched to warn people of the
effects of coward punches, and he basically said, well, look,
people know that it's wrong to hit someone, don't do it.
You don't need to avitate that you don't need to
been public money telling people that we're heading people's wrong.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Oh my gosh, because because someone who throws a coward
punk coward punch is obviously going to be tuned into whatever.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Someone would watch a TV and think, you know what
I'm going to I won't hit something with that one.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, might not do that, might just stab them in
the bicep. All right now, mate, you pointed this out
to us. We weren't aware of this, but the family
boost is supposed to Nichola Willis was going to make
some changes to boost the uptake and she was due
to announce it by the end of the month, which
is today.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
Which is today is the announcement. Well, the announcement, so
we asked the Prime Minister about this. This is the
seventy five dollars a week that you get if you
have a child in early childhood education. Only a tiny
number of people were getting the full amount, and actually
not as many people were getting the creators the government
wanted to Nichola Willis. As you say, SITU didn't announce

(03:56):
changes by the end of the month and has not.
But the Prime Minister said and post cabinet press conference
today that the decision has been made, so the cabinets
agreed to something and what that decision is is going
to be announced shortly, very shortly apparently. So I know
you've got Nicola Willison on your show this evening.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
So it's going to be on our show, is it, Thomas?
Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well, last before the end of the month, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
I know she has what's about seven hours, so yes,
so I take up the opportunity, Thomas.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
You've built me up.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
She better not disappointed. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editor. If she doesn't have
anything to announce, you could take it up with him,
because now he's.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Created an expectation, isn't it. For more from Hither Duplessy
Alan Drive, listen live to news talks.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.