Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on Prime Minister Luxon unveiling his Q3 to-do list

A promise the Government's focusing on delivery this quarter, as it gives itself a shorter list.
 
The Prime Minister has released his Q3 action plan - laying out goals of repealing the oil and gas ban, banning prisoner voting, as well as passing changes to the RMA and looking into supermarket competition.

This plan has 28 key points,10 less than the last one.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan unpacks the list further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now though. Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editor.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Hey Thomas here, good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Okay, so we've got the Q three to do list.
Are you thrilled?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Look, look, it's fair to say that quarterly action plans
are probably not my cup of tea and perhaps not
the audience for them. But look, there's some decent, decent
stuff on this and to be fair that the Prime
Minister there are only only two two actions of the
last plan that he didn't take off completely. Some big
things as well, repealing the ban on offshore all in

(00:31):
gas exploration. That was a pretty big, pretty big thing
that the last government did that this government wants to repeal. There's,
of course, the supermarket competition issues that the government has
promised to address. So it says it will amount to
the next steps to improve supermarket competition. Well, it's said
a good I guess we'll judge. We'll judge the merits
at that point by how how they can robust and

(00:54):
effective those supermarket competition measures are.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Okay, the who that he hasn't managed to do from
Q two take cabinet decisions on capital market sectings settings
to improve barriers to listing, reduced cost firms blah blah blah,
enable greater investment of private assets from keep saber provartists.
They're doing that, and they haven't published the AI strategy.
They're doing that. We could probably give them a pass
on that can't.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
We Yes, I don't think. I don't think the world
is going to stop turning just because those two muses
are a week at least, I think I I think
I'll give them an a a for giving them.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
The queue In the Q three, Is there anything that
surprises you because a lot of the stuff is stuff
that has been pre announced. For example, as you say
the oil and Bass, the oil and Gas Exploration Band,
we already knew that was going to be repealed. The
decisions about tightening the benefit eligibility for eighteen and nineteen
year olds, already knew that kind of stuff was going
to happen. Anything surprising.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
I haven't gone through all of them that they were now,
just as afternoons, I haven't got through all of them
to took off stuff that stuff that is new that
there hasn't been signaled. One thing they might have signaled
this and if they have done, I apologize for not
reading it. That they're planning to establish a major Events
fund to attract a one off major events fund to
attract large events in New Zealand. Obviously that is going

(02:10):
to send probably David Seymour into space a little bit
because it's really not his kind of cup of tea.
But I mentioned National New Zealand first. Quite keen on it.
Just a pot of money. It sounds like to attract
big events and contents to New Zealand. That's quite interesting.
I hadn't heard about that before. It doesn't mean they
hadn't announced it before, but I hadn't seen it.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, I'll take that. Okay. Land Corp. What are they
going to do?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Thank well? I think I think they're going to be sold.
And the is the issue as a landcorp is at
which trades has pame you. It's the government's farming sy
It actually doesn't own a lot of the land that
it's farms from other government lands. They the chief executive
pay has been pretty generous in the last a little while.

(02:53):
It increased dramatically while their profits haved over the last
three years. Simeon Brown, the State Owned Enterprises Minister, got
some advice from True officials about all of their state
and enterprises. Basically, it found that there was no relationship
between the ncity performance and the chief executive pay. Now,
obviously that's not great in and of itself, but the
backdrop to this is the jungle drums are beating for

(03:15):
the twenty twenty six selection to have national running on
some policy of privatization, and this information which we got
in just a generic LAA request to Treasury, it does
suggest that the government is building a case for the
fact that these entities are underperforming and it would be
better to introduce some private sector energy.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Thomas, good to talk to you. Thank you so much,
appreciate it. Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editi

Speaker 2 (03:39):
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