November 2, 2025 • 9 mins
Chris Luxon reckons Donald Trump will take up his offer, of a round of golf in New Zealand.
The Prime Minister's back in the country, after attending the ASEAN and APEC summits in Malaysia and South Korea last week.
He met the US President, extending the opportunity for Trump to play a round with former PM Sir John Key.
Luxon told Mike Hosking that Trump knows a lot about New Zealand's golf scene.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Prime Minister's back in the country. Good to see you,
(00:02):
Good to see you too much. It seemed to go,
what do you make of Nolan Tahru.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh, look, I mean I don't actually understand what's actually
happened there. I mean, it's good that it's altately been resolved,
and it was good to see the silver Furn's come
back in that series. But unless that they lost twelve
to eleven, I think that extra time. But yeah, I
honestly haven't been able to work out what's what's actually It.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Doesn't bother you that we spend millions of dollars on
a sport that seems dysfunctional.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, I mean I think it's about well, I don't
think it is. I think it's a really important sport.
I think as well, it's an important sport.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
She's not well run.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, I mean that's that's that's up for them to
sort their act out with their employment disputes.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Okay, it seems to have gone well. I mean, you
didn't sign anything per se, but we got upgraded. You
met the right people. You didn't make a dick of
yourself the planet the.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh what are such a low bar?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
You?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Said?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Michael the plane. The plane didn't break down, it seemed
to It seemed to go okay.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I think it was a great success. We transacted some
business with Malaysia, which is I'd be on there on
a state visit. We upgraded our relationship with the US
Young countries. We're only seven countries that have that level
of standard, which just means more investment, more exports. APEX
was good to see where seventy percent of our exports
go to those twenty one economies that are represented there.
And then we had some very good sort of bilateral
(01:14):
engagements with leaders, and we upgraded the relationship with Korea
as well, which is one of the top ten economies
in the world. So all of that's just designed to
create opportunity for New Zealand businesses. That's all all I
can do is create the conditions for growth and then
it's up to businesses to come forward and go smash it.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It was a smart thing to do to invite Trump
to play golf. Do you think it's possible he may
well one day do that.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah? I reckon it could be. Yeah. I mean he
knew a lot about the golf assets that are here
in New Zealand. You know, the golf courses. He had
heard about them. You know, they generally are in the
top ten fifteen in the world. And if he's going
to come down to Australia and New Zealand and this
part of the world, then you know we should certainly welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
The problem with your recommendation, Tart was it's a links course, yes,
and he likes to nicely manicured PGA type corps.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We can find something. There's enough good, good courses here.
But yeah, that was good. That was a good meeting
because he had very formal meetings with China and Korea,
and then he met with us just informally on me personally,
which was great. So it was very good.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, the China announcement this morning, the Chinese tourists say
no longer need to do all the paper the way
they used to if they come through Australia. Would you
have liked to have done more because unless they do
come through Australia, they've still got the same problems.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well. No, Actually, back in June when I did the visit,
we did a few things. One as we got rid
of a whole bunch of complexity and actually cost that
they have around getting all their applications translated and certified
and all those sorts of things. I think we're now
processing Chinese visas in less than a four or four
or five days from memory. The second thing we did
is we said, look, if you're transitting through New Zealand,
you know that's we can have a lot more flexibility there,
(02:49):
which has been great because there is new services that
are coming on stream between China and South America through Auckland,
which is really good. And the third thing is recognizing
that a vast number of a large proportion of the
on his visits actually due to Australia in his Zealand
and one trip. And if the Australians are actually saying, look,
you're good with a work travel or visit a visa,
then actually, why would we want to reduplicate all of
(03:09):
that work. It's good enough for us to so feel
free to come over to his zeland for three months. Okay,
we also have that five year multiple inches visa in
an out as well.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I don't know how up on this you were, but
there's a lot of pushback last week on the education curriculum,
and there was some concern particularly because of all curriculum
got put out four years one to ten and a
lot of teachers, educators, unionists, et cetera. I can't work
it out whether they just complain for the sake of
complaining because they don't like change, or they've got a
genuine point. They seem to be indicating that some of
(03:38):
the expectation around some of the things that kids will
learn at a certain age is too complicated, it's too difficult.
So are they dumbing us down well or have you
missed the boat here?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I feel very strongly about this might there's nothing more
important for our future success in the next twenty years
and getting our kids educated. There is a stack of
high paying jobs out there in the world and we
need them to come to His Zealand. And what's been
had as actually our standards have been slipping versus lots
of other countries. We actually had over half our kids
not at school regularly. We have half not where they
need to be at on reading, eighty percent not where
(04:09):
they need to be add on maths when they get
into high school. And I don't remember the Union's actually
going after Chrissiepkins when he was Education minister for six
years and saying hey, listen, we've got a dumbing down
on the standards. Actually we're actually underachieving and not doing
this service by our kids. I'm not having kiwe kids
lose to kids in Singapore, Ireland, Canada, New South Wales wherever.
And so we are strengthening the curriculum from year one
(04:30):
to ten because that's the single biggest thing that we
can do to set ourselves up for future. So you know,
the unions, there's a consult consultation period. Be constructive, don't
be political, get in behind. But where were you when
the last six years calling out the poor performance police?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Do we have trouble in the police? A bunch of
people are now being investigated post them as swimming thing
and now we've got falsified breath tests. Is there something
going on in the police that you're concerned about?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
No, no, no, I think you know that there are
obviously are issues that are going through the office have
their own investigations. The police is a large organization, but
it's very well led by the commissioner. He does a
really good job and he's very happy to be very
upfront and confront those issues when and where they do
a pair and that's a good thing all.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right, standard and pores so that water done well is
going to be more expensive than the labor alternative. Part
of their reason is that, of course the debt mechanism
you've set up for councils to borrow could lead counsels
into some real debt trouble if it all goes wrong.
The water entity is the one that ends up and
the problem. But the bill goes back to the councils.
Any regrets on that, No, no, it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
No, look, I mean Labor's meant one point two billion
dollars on three waters and it went nowhere. We went
to the credit agency's s and p as he'd give
us some financial structures that actually give the balance sheet
separation and so that those entities can actually borrow long
term debt over long run assets and separate them out
from councils. And I think we've got to a very
very good place.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
But that's what is and P you're saying is, and
P're saying, well, yes, you've separated it down. But the
council goes in up to their eyeballs and debt they
borrow more. Then the water entergy runs into trouble. Suddenly
the council's bankrupt.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, but the whole point is, you know, councils should
be financed to a certain level of debt borrowing that
they can do as councils. But when you actually have
water enteries that have assets at are thirty, fifty, seventy
years long, the problem was that councils were funding those
assets out of short term money. And what they can
now do is like you can get a mortgage for
a house that you payoff over thirty years, it's the
same thing here as well. So no, I'm really comfortable
(06:26):
with that. I think actually it's the right solution, which
is you've got real assets that you can go borrow
against over the long term. You can borrow it at
a higher proportion than you could if you were just
a council, and all of that just means that you
then have the councils freed up to actually with the
cash that they've got to make sure they're doing the
right thing. So now I'm very.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Supportive for when we're covering the hospital bed announcement this morning,
this prefab thing. I mean, it's like school schools and
hospitals are now prefabs. It's sort of got that corner
of a car park, bit crappy, not what we want
third world vibe about it, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Well, we've got to do long term investment in the
hospital infrastructure. I think there's I remember Mike looking at
this twelve hundred buildings in hospitals infrastructure and he's on
the average age is forty seven years or something. So
in the intervening period and the short term, what can
you do? And I think some men has been very pragmatic, saying,
let's put in one hundred and forty new beds in
five different places next year. The thing that's interesting is
(07:15):
we used to spend a bunch of We spend a
bunch of money on classrooms. Right. It turned out when
we got to power, we discovered that it's like one
point two million dollars for a classroom and only twenty
percent were sanitized. We standardized them, and we lower the
cost of phalf you do twice as many classrooms for
the same price. Now labels say to us, oh, you're
not spending enough on class Well, no, actual, we're just
being smarter about doing it, and we're doing twice as
many as you were doing. Speaking of which, so that
(07:36):
thinking across healthcare, across if you think about military bases,
if you think about corrections, I think there's a real
opportunity there.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Okay, speaking of which, I'm reading over the weekend, the
Transmission gully. Over the summer period, we'll have thirty two
million dollars spent on it, fixing it up. It's a
brand new road, and thirty two million dollars needs to
be spent fixing up a brand new road. What's the
matter with us?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I'm not aware of what the specific issue they're trying
to fix is, but well, they didn't build it properly.
Well that may well be the case, but I think
the reality is that we have been in a situation
New Zealand. I think we had sixty three thousand potholes
across this country and it's because we weren't doing renewals
and maintenance and so you know, once you build a
road network, you do need to make sure it maintains.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It's amazing year, but if it's twenty years old, sure,
this is about three minutes old. Yeah. I don't know
why I asked the questions. It's not your fault, you
didn't build it. But all I'm saying is you do
have a program of roads national signeficancey and you've been
spending billions and we're going to spend many more millions
to just no, we need to build.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Them once and do it right from the beginning, and
you know, build them for one hundred and ten k
so they're actually built and certified for that properly and
all those sorts of things which hasn't happened here all.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Nice to see Good to see you too. You've got
any questions for Nolanterra anymore? Do youn't want to know
anything more than just.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
When are we going to start beating Australians. That's all
I care about.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Nice to see you, Christopher Lux. For more from the
Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks. It'd be
from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
The Prime Minister's back in the country. Good to see you,
(00:02):
Good to see you too much. It seemed to go,
what do you make of Nolan Tahru.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh, look, I mean I don't actually understand what's actually
happened there. I mean, it's good that it's altately been resolved,
and it was good to see the silver Furn's come
back in that series. But unless that they lost twelve
to eleven, I think that extra time. But yeah, I
honestly haven't been able to work out what's what's actually It.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Doesn't bother you that we spend millions of dollars on
a sport that seems dysfunctional.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, I mean I think it's about well, I don't
think it is. I think it's a really important sport.
I think as well, it's an important sport.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
She's not well run.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, I mean that's that's that's up for them to
sort their act out with their employment disputes.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Okay, it seems to have gone well. I mean, you
didn't sign anything per se, but we got upgraded. You
met the right people. You didn't make a dick of
yourself the planet the.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh what are such a low bar?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
You?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Said?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Michael the plane. The plane didn't break down, it seemed
to It seemed to go okay.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I think it was a great success. We transacted some
business with Malaysia, which is I'd be on there on
a state visit. We upgraded our relationship with the US
Young countries. We're only seven countries that have that level
of standard, which just means more investment, more exports. APEX
was good to see where seventy percent of our exports
go to those twenty one economies that are represented there.
And then we had some very good sort of bilateral
(01:14):
engagements with leaders, and we upgraded the relationship with Korea
as well, which is one of the top ten economies
in the world. So all of that's just designed to
create opportunity for New Zealand businesses. That's all all I
can do is create the conditions for growth and then
it's up to businesses to come forward and go smash it.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It was a smart thing to do to invite Trump
to play golf. Do you think it's possible he may
well one day do that.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah? I reckon it could be. Yeah. I mean he
knew a lot about the golf assets that are here
in New Zealand. You know, the golf courses. He had
heard about them. You know, they generally are in the
top ten fifteen in the world. And if he's going
to come down to Australia and New Zealand and this
part of the world, then you know we should certainly welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
The problem with your recommendation, Tart was it's a links course, yes,
and he likes to nicely manicured PGA type corps.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We can find something. There's enough good, good courses here.
But yeah, that was good. That was a good meeting
because he had very formal meetings with China and Korea,
and then he met with us just informally on me personally,
which was great. So it was very good.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, the China announcement this morning, the Chinese tourists say
no longer need to do all the paper the way
they used to if they come through Australia. Would you
have liked to have done more because unless they do
come through Australia, they've still got the same problems.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well. No, Actually, back in June when I did the visit,
we did a few things. One as we got rid
of a whole bunch of complexity and actually cost that
they have around getting all their applications translated and certified
and all those sorts of things. I think we're now
processing Chinese visas in less than a four or four
or five days from memory. The second thing we did
is we said, look, if you're transitting through New Zealand,
you know that's we can have a lot more flexibility there,
(02:49):
which has been great because there is new services that
are coming on stream between China and South America through Auckland,
which is really good. And the third thing is recognizing
that a vast number of a large proportion of the
on his visits actually due to Australia in his Zealand
and one trip. And if the Australians are actually saying, look,
you're good with a work travel or visit a visa,
then actually, why would we want to reduplicate all of
(03:09):
that work. It's good enough for us to so feel
free to come over to his zeland for three months. Okay,
we also have that five year multiple inches visa in
an out as well.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I don't know how up on this you were, but
there's a lot of pushback last week on the education curriculum,
and there was some concern particularly because of all curriculum
got put out four years one to ten and a
lot of teachers, educators, unionists, et cetera. I can't work
it out whether they just complain for the sake of
complaining because they don't like change, or they've got a
genuine point. They seem to be indicating that some of
(03:38):
the expectation around some of the things that kids will
learn at a certain age is too complicated, it's too difficult.
So are they dumbing us down well or have you
missed the boat here?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I feel very strongly about this might there's nothing more
important for our future success in the next twenty years
and getting our kids educated. There is a stack of
high paying jobs out there in the world and we
need them to come to His Zealand. And what's been
had as actually our standards have been slipping versus lots
of other countries. We actually had over half our kids
not at school regularly. We have half not where they
need to be at on reading, eighty percent not where
(04:09):
they need to be add on maths when they get
into high school. And I don't remember the Union's actually
going after Chrissiepkins when he was Education minister for six
years and saying hey, listen, we've got a dumbing down
on the standards. Actually we're actually underachieving and not doing
this service by our kids. I'm not having kiwe kids
lose to kids in Singapore, Ireland, Canada, New South Wales wherever.
And so we are strengthening the curriculum from year one
(04:30):
to ten because that's the single biggest thing that we
can do to set ourselves up for future. So you know,
the unions, there's a consult consultation period. Be constructive, don't
be political, get in behind. But where were you when
the last six years calling out the poor performance police?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Do we have trouble in the police? A bunch of
people are now being investigated post them as swimming thing
and now we've got falsified breath tests. Is there something
going on in the police that you're concerned about?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
No, no, no, I think you know that there are
obviously are issues that are going through the office have
their own investigations. The police is a large organization, but
it's very well led by the commissioner. He does a
really good job and he's very happy to be very
upfront and confront those issues when and where they do
a pair and that's a good thing all.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right, standard and pores so that water done well is
going to be more expensive than the labor alternative. Part
of their reason is that, of course the debt mechanism
you've set up for councils to borrow could lead counsels
into some real debt trouble if it all goes wrong.
The water entity is the one that ends up and
the problem. But the bill goes back to the councils.
Any regrets on that, No, no, it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
No, look, I mean Labor's meant one point two billion
dollars on three waters and it went nowhere. We went
to the credit agency's s and p as he'd give
us some financial structures that actually give the balance sheet
separation and so that those entities can actually borrow long
term debt over long run assets and separate them out
from councils. And I think we've got to a very
very good place.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
But that's what is and P you're saying is, and
P're saying, well, yes, you've separated it down. But the
council goes in up to their eyeballs and debt they
borrow more. Then the water entergy runs into trouble. Suddenly
the council's bankrupt.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, but the whole point is, you know, councils should
be financed to a certain level of debt borrowing that
they can do as councils. But when you actually have
water enteries that have assets at are thirty, fifty, seventy
years long, the problem was that councils were funding those
assets out of short term money. And what they can
now do is like you can get a mortgage for
a house that you payoff over thirty years, it's the
same thing here as well. So no, I'm really comfortable
(06:26):
with that. I think actually it's the right solution, which
is you've got real assets that you can go borrow
against over the long term. You can borrow it at
a higher proportion than you could if you were just
a council, and all of that just means that you
then have the councils freed up to actually with the
cash that they've got to make sure they're doing the
right thing. So now I'm very.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Supportive for when we're covering the hospital bed announcement this morning,
this prefab thing. I mean, it's like school schools and
hospitals are now prefabs. It's sort of got that corner
of a car park, bit crappy, not what we want
third world vibe about it, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Well, we've got to do long term investment in the
hospital infrastructure. I think there's I remember Mike looking at
this twelve hundred buildings in hospitals infrastructure and he's on
the average age is forty seven years or something. So
in the intervening period and the short term, what can
you do? And I think some men has been very pragmatic, saying,
let's put in one hundred and forty new beds in
five different places next year. The thing that's interesting is
(07:15):
we used to spend a bunch of We spend a
bunch of money on classrooms. Right. It turned out when
we got to power, we discovered that it's like one
point two million dollars for a classroom and only twenty
percent were sanitized. We standardized them, and we lower the
cost of phalf you do twice as many classrooms for
the same price. Now labels say to us, oh, you're
not spending enough on class Well, no, actual, we're just
being smarter about doing it, and we're doing twice as
many as you were doing. Speaking of which, so that
(07:36):
thinking across healthcare, across if you think about military bases,
if you think about corrections, I think there's a real
opportunity there.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Okay, speaking of which, I'm reading over the weekend, the
Transmission gully. Over the summer period, we'll have thirty two
million dollars spent on it, fixing it up. It's a
brand new road, and thirty two million dollars needs to
be spent fixing up a brand new road. What's the
matter with us?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I'm not aware of what the specific issue they're trying
to fix is, but well, they didn't build it properly.
Well that may well be the case, but I think
the reality is that we have been in a situation
New Zealand. I think we had sixty three thousand potholes
across this country and it's because we weren't doing renewals
and maintenance and so you know, once you build a
road network, you do need to make sure it maintains.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It's amazing year, but if it's twenty years old, sure,
this is about three minutes old. Yeah. I don't know
why I asked the questions. It's not your fault, you
didn't build it. But all I'm saying is you do
have a program of roads national signeficancey and you've been
spending billions and we're going to spend many more millions
to just no, we need to build.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Them once and do it right from the beginning, and
you know, build them for one hundred and ten k
so they're actually built and certified for that properly and
all those sorts of things which hasn't happened here all.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Nice to see Good to see you too. You've got
any questions for Nolanterra anymore? Do youn't want to know
anything more than just.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
When are we going to start beating Australians. That's all
I care about.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Nice to see you, Christopher Lux. For more from the
Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks. It'd be
from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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