There's been another assurance from Chris Luxon that he isn't going anywhere.
A Taxpayers' Union Curia poll shows National on just 28.4%, behind Labour on 34.4%. This has sparked speculation about Luxon's future as leader.
On Friday, Luxon says told Newstalk ZB he wasn't considering his position. Today, Luxon told Mike Hosking that hasn't changed at all over the weekend.
He says the only future he's been considering is the future of New Zealand's kids and grandkids, and how the Government to set the country up for better success.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Prime Minister is with us. Good morning to you
morning Mike. Now, did you mustn't have been a lot
of swearing at the TV this weekend?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Was there? No? It was it was all good. What
a way to open the season. They look fat exactly.
Don't you wish you were as popular as they are?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Or do you?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Did you? Did you spend any time Friday or over
the weekend quote unquote considering your position? Absolutely not?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
As I said on Friday, the only future I've been
considering is out of Key week kids and now green kids.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You know, how do we set this country up for
better success? Where did considering your position come from? That
line used on Friday? I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
As I said on Friday, I was in wire wrapper
on Thursday, I was out in Bostony doing a number
of events. On Friday, I was out with the military
on Saturday. I got back in from the events on
Friday and realized all hell had broken loose really and
taken on a life of its own. And that's when
I called here. They're actually just say, look, I don't know.
So I don't know where it came from, because that
hasn't been the case.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The other headline on Friday, was is the pressure mounting?
The pressure is mounting? Is the pressure mounting?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
No, there's pressure in this job every day, but my
job is pretty straightforward. The New Zealand public want means
to make sure we lower the cost of living by
growing the economy. And that's really I don't need Poles
to tell me that. I talk to keys every day
about that and that's the reality of it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Do the media then literally make this stuff up?
Speaker 1 (01:21):
You have to ask them. I mean, I just don't
think as a politician being on about the media and
criticizing the media, that's just a fruitless exercise to nowhere.
And it's a week when I then don't get to
talk about the things that I need to be talking about,
which is actually the economy. And so you have to
ask them that as to why that happened.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Do you think there's a desire to damage the government?
It's not about you per se necessarily, it's trying to
make the government.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
We're having to fix a lot of things, as I've
said to you before, and we know that, and we're
also trying to do some quite big reforms. So when
you do take on stuff like Resource Management Act or
education system or savings and investments. You know, we're taking
on public service at times, a media environment. You know,
unions obviously that won't like what we're doing, and I
(02:07):
get that, and then they push back on that pretty strongly,
as has happened at times.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Okay, you will be the leader of the National Party
and therefore the Prime Minister up until election day of
November seven.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
On heart and on heart absolutely, yep. I've got so
much to do and we've got a great country. It
got so much potential and the reason I came was
we've got to damn well realize it and we're going
to get it done.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
How worried are you about the war and fuel supplies
and prices?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, look, it is concerning. Yeah, like there's no doubt.
It's sort of escalating, and it's sort of it's a
complex situation where we are as there's two things that
we're monitoring incredibly closely. One is any supply chain disruptions,
and that gets you to fuel. We have very good
stocks and country, we will have very good stocks on
the water coming here as well. We actually lifted our
(02:54):
week's cover at the beginning of the year, which was
I felt prudent given where we sit in the world.
And the second thing, as you've identified as just where
we go with oil prices, and roughly every ten dollar
increase in the barrel price is about ten cents at
the pump, so you know it's left it about twenty bucks. Yes,
it got to about one hundred and twenty five, one
hundred and thirty. I think during the Ukraine crisis. It
(03:15):
all ultimately depends how long it runs for. I spoke
to MBZ who's the leader of the UAA, a couple
of nights ago, and you know, again that's their assessment is,
you know, how much more capacity does Iran have ammunitions,
how much will they keep it up for? How much
are they being damaged in terms of missile production, missile launching,
(03:35):
navy obviously by the Americans as well. So you know
that's the issue that people will be watching, is how
long the conflict runs for It depends ultimately on the
economic impacts.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Numbers we've got at the moment of four or five weeks.
It is from hickseyth and Trump four or five weeks.
If it goes four or five weeks, we will not
run out of fuel or have problems getting fuel.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
No we're in really good shape. We have plenty of
weeks cover and we, as I said, we stepped it up.
It was something that I felt quite strongly about, having
come from a former life where someone disturbed our jet
fuel lined a few years back for you New Zealand,
and so having more cover and Shane Jones has done
a great job of getting that job done for us
over the course of this year. So now we're in
good shape. There's it's genuinely you know, and I actually think, Mike,
(04:13):
if you think about all the other one hundred and
ninety five countries in the world, we're actually really well positioned.
And these sorts of issues are happening to every country.
Every country is dealing with this conflict, and it's your
relative competitiveness. And so you know, when you think about
our business in the Indo Pacific region with China, with
Southeast Asia, the growing business we're doing with India, you
know that's we're quite fortunate.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
How long would it have to go before economically you'll
see some inflation, you might see the Reserve Bank having
to move and does.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That worry well, the Reserve Bank will be considering I
suspect yes, the inflationary impacts of any potential long run conflict.
But they'll also be looking at the demand impact as
well and what that could mean for you know, interest
rates as well, and I know that will look at
both sides of that equation. As economists are discussing, I
was reading Limb. Do you read limb over the way occasionally?
I didn't catch this week.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
So whose argument was this could scuttle the economy. If
it scuttles the economy, it scuttles you. I could mount
the argument the exact opposite is true in difficult Well,
in difficult times, people then go to economic credibility, don't
they And they go yes, it's I mean, no one's
going to blame you for the war, are they or
are they? No?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I don't think New Zealand will get blamed for the war.
But it's about how you handle it. And this is
the reason why the things that we've done over the
last two years actually do matter. So getting spending under control,
inflation rates under control, interest rates under control, that has
put us in a much better position dealing with a
crisis like this. It's also a very good reminder to
New Zealander is why you have to repair the fiscals
(05:42):
and the financial books of New Zealand, because inevitably there
will be more crises and more events that we need
to have capacity as a buffer for to deal with
in the future. And that's why you've got to run
this economy well. You've got to get the books in
order and manage it well so that you can prepare
for any future crisis where you need to have some flexibility.
And you know, I think what we've seen after the
spending out of COVID. You know, we had the cupboard
(06:04):
as beer, you know, and we're trying to rebuild that back.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Five As of Friday, foreigners coming in here can buy
a house for five million dollars or more. Is that material?
And do you think it's changed as a result of
the last week or so. As a safe haven at
the bottom of the.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Well, I think it just makes me z Own even
more attractive. You know, we're got strong social democratic institutions,
you've got abundant natural resources, talented people. And if I
just take that actor for vesta visa, I think we've
had five hundred and ninety five applicants bringing in three
and a half billion dollars and ten months and that
money is not just going into spect that of assets
(06:39):
is going into startups where they're creating jobs and opening
up new markets and all that good stuff. So I think
it makes me 's only even more attractive.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The books that came out Friday, I think it was
Friday could have been filled so they can't remember. They're better.
They're better than you thought they were going to be.
Is that cyclical or is that real? No?
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I think I don't want to put too much store
on it because we know there's a lot more to
work through on the funny year. But I think that
the seven month numbers from memory and they are better
than what we were forecasting in December. I think the
obergual deficit was ex deficit was sort of better by
about almost two billion dollars. Our debt was lower, and
our expenses were lower, which is a good thing. So
you know, that's part of that fiscal repair job that
(07:17):
we have to do to load up the cupboards again
so that we can deal with a natural disaster or
a crisis again in the future.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
As far as the war is concerned and getting planes
into that particular part of the world, my reading over
the weekend was the Emirates to back in a full
service capacity. Therefore, do we need planes in that part
of the world or not.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, you're right, that's what our message to New Zealanders is,
if you want to come out, use the commercial services
that are available. Winston and Judith have deployed the two
Hercules into the region that really is designed for New Zealanders.
That will be in some countries where it's very difficult
and quite hard and we might have to get them
out of there to a much safer.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
How many people are we dealing with.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, there's about three thy six hundred rest on safe travel,
but about two hundred and fifty only have expressed an
interest with some assistance.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It's two hunred and fifty the expression interest in getting out.
They expressed any way of getting out all Yeah, I mean,
how many people are going to end up on a Hercules.
We're going to repeat it like last time, seeing them
up for nobody.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
No, But it's just giving us optionality in case we
need it if there's a set of circumstances that changes.
At least we've got our assets on the ground and
ready to go. But you're right, I mean, the vast
majority of these two hundred and fifty people are sitting
in the UAE, and of course now you've got Emirates
and Theityard flying. In fact, the first keywis came home yesterday.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Through two hundred and fifty people have expressed a design
to get out that in total of all the people,
out of all the New Zealanders, this next to no one.
So it's a long story. So all the freak out
last week was a complete nutter waste of time.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Well, I mean again, if you're sitting in places like
Bahrain and Oman, I've watched there'll be some kiwis there
that are more challenged. And say what we're saying with
the UAE where they're able to get commercial flights in
and out, all we're saying is, you know, we may
use our hercules down the road of circumstances opened up
to get to people from an unsafe place to a
safer place, but we won't be bringing them home on
the hurks, where we bring them to hubs where there
(08:57):
are good commercial flights.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Don't go from the social media thing. The report came
back from the Select Committee last week. When are you
going to move on it? Are you going to do it?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And when we're going to introduce legislation before the end
of the year, before the term expires. And the reason
it's pretty simple on this one is parents want us
to take control. It's a bit like the mobile phone bank,
you know, the parents, the principles, the kids were out
of control on it. They wanted a bad guy that
was the government. And it's the same thing here. And
I think there's very good support across the from parents
and I think there'll be good support across the Parliament
(09:27):
ultimately as well for it.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
All right, good to see you, Prime Minister Chris Reluxan.
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 is with us. Good morning to you
morning Mike. Now, did you mustn't have been a lot
of swearing at the TV this weekend?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Was there? No? It was it was all good. What
a way to open the season. They look fat exactly.
Don't you wish you were as popular as they are?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Or do you?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Did you? Did you spend any time Friday or over
the weekend quote unquote considering your position? Absolutely not?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
As I said on Friday, the only future I've been
considering is out of Key week kids and now green kids.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You know, how do we set this country up for
better success? Where did considering your position come from? That
line used on Friday? I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
As I said on Friday, I was in wire wrapper
on Thursday, I was out in Bostony doing a number
of events. On Friday, I was out with the military
on Saturday. I got back in from the events on
Friday and realized all hell had broken loose really and
taken on a life of its own. And that's when
I called here. They're actually just say, look, I don't know.
So I don't know where it came from, because that
hasn't been the case.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The other headline on Friday, was is the pressure mounting?
The pressure is mounting? Is the pressure mounting?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
No, there's pressure in this job every day, but my
job is pretty straightforward. The New Zealand public want means
to make sure we lower the cost of living by
growing the economy. And that's really I don't need Poles
to tell me that. I talk to keys every day
about that and that's the reality of it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Do the media then literally make this stuff up?
Speaker 1 (01:21):
You have to ask them. I mean, I just don't
think as a politician being on about the media and
criticizing the media, that's just a fruitless exercise to nowhere.
And it's a week when I then don't get to
talk about the things that I need to be talking about,
which is actually the economy. And so you have to
ask them that as to why that happened.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Do you think there's a desire to damage the government?
It's not about you per se necessarily, it's trying to
make the government.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
We're having to fix a lot of things, as I've
said to you before, and we know that, and we're
also trying to do some quite big reforms. So when
you do take on stuff like Resource Management Act or
education system or savings and investments. You know, we're taking
on public service at times, a media environment. You know,
unions obviously that won't like what we're doing, and I
(02:07):
get that, and then they push back on that pretty strongly,
as has happened at times.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Okay, you will be the leader of the National Party
and therefore the Prime Minister up until election day of
November seven.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
On heart and on heart absolutely, yep. I've got so
much to do and we've got a great country. It
got so much potential and the reason I came was
we've got to damn well realize it and we're going
to get it done.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
How worried are you about the war and fuel supplies
and prices?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, look, it is concerning. Yeah, like there's no doubt.
It's sort of escalating, and it's sort of it's a
complex situation where we are as there's two things that
we're monitoring incredibly closely. One is any supply chain disruptions,
and that gets you to fuel. We have very good
stocks and country, we will have very good stocks on
the water coming here as well. We actually lifted our
(02:54):
week's cover at the beginning of the year, which was
I felt prudent given where we sit in the world.
And the second thing, as you've identified as just where
we go with oil prices, and roughly every ten dollar
increase in the barrel price is about ten cents at
the pump, so you know it's left it about twenty bucks. Yes,
it got to about one hundred and twenty five, one
hundred and thirty. I think during the Ukraine crisis. It
(03:15):
all ultimately depends how long it runs for. I spoke
to MBZ who's the leader of the UAA, a couple
of nights ago, and you know, again that's their assessment is,
you know, how much more capacity does Iran have ammunitions,
how much will they keep it up for? How much
are they being damaged in terms of missile production, missile launching,
(03:35):
navy obviously by the Americans as well. So you know
that's the issue that people will be watching, is how
long the conflict runs for It depends ultimately on the
economic impacts.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Numbers we've got at the moment of four or five weeks.
It is from hickseyth and Trump four or five weeks.
If it goes four or five weeks, we will not
run out of fuel or have problems getting fuel.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
No we're in really good shape. We have plenty of
weeks cover and we, as I said, we stepped it up.
It was something that I felt quite strongly about, having
come from a former life where someone disturbed our jet
fuel lined a few years back for you New Zealand,
and so having more cover and Shane Jones has done
a great job of getting that job done for us
over the course of this year. So now we're in
good shape. There's it's genuinely you know, and I actually think, Mike,
(04:13):
if you think about all the other one hundred and
ninety five countries in the world, we're actually really well positioned.
And these sorts of issues are happening to every country.
Every country is dealing with this conflict, and it's your
relative competitiveness. And so you know, when you think about
our business in the Indo Pacific region with China, with
Southeast Asia, the growing business we're doing with India, you
know that's we're quite fortunate.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
How long would it have to go before economically you'll
see some inflation, you might see the Reserve Bank having
to move and does.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That worry well, the Reserve Bank will be considering I
suspect yes, the inflationary impacts of any potential long run conflict.
But they'll also be looking at the demand impact as
well and what that could mean for you know, interest
rates as well, and I know that will look at
both sides of that equation. As economists are discussing, I
was reading Limb. Do you read limb over the way occasionally?
I didn't catch this week.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
So whose argument was this could scuttle the economy. If
it scuttles the economy, it scuttles you. I could mount
the argument the exact opposite is true in difficult Well,
in difficult times, people then go to economic credibility, don't
they And they go yes, it's I mean, no one's
going to blame you for the war, are they or
are they? No?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I don't think New Zealand will get blamed for the war.
But it's about how you handle it. And this is
the reason why the things that we've done over the
last two years actually do matter. So getting spending under control,
inflation rates under control, interest rates under control, that has
put us in a much better position dealing with a
crisis like this. It's also a very good reminder to
New Zealander is why you have to repair the fiscals
(05:42):
and the financial books of New Zealand, because inevitably there
will be more crises and more events that we need
to have capacity as a buffer for to deal with
in the future. And that's why you've got to run
this economy well. You've got to get the books in
order and manage it well so that you can prepare
for any future crisis where you need to have some flexibility.
And you know, I think what we've seen after the
spending out of COVID. You know, we had the cupboard
(06:04):
as beer, you know, and we're trying to rebuild that back.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Five As of Friday, foreigners coming in here can buy
a house for five million dollars or more. Is that material?
And do you think it's changed as a result of
the last week or so. As a safe haven at
the bottom of the.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Well, I think it just makes me z Own even
more attractive. You know, we're got strong social democratic institutions,
you've got abundant natural resources, talented people. And if I
just take that actor for vesta visa, I think we've
had five hundred and ninety five applicants bringing in three
and a half billion dollars and ten months and that
money is not just going into spect that of assets
(06:39):
is going into startups where they're creating jobs and opening
up new markets and all that good stuff. So I think
it makes me 's only even more attractive.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The books that came out Friday, I think it was
Friday could have been filled so they can't remember. They're better.
They're better than you thought they were going to be.
Is that cyclical or is that real? No?
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I think I don't want to put too much store
on it because we know there's a lot more to
work through on the funny year. But I think that
the seven month numbers from memory and they are better
than what we were forecasting in December. I think the
obergual deficit was ex deficit was sort of better by
about almost two billion dollars. Our debt was lower, and
our expenses were lower, which is a good thing. So
you know, that's part of that fiscal repair job that
(07:17):
we have to do to load up the cupboards again
so that we can deal with a natural disaster or
a crisis again in the future.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
As far as the war is concerned and getting planes
into that particular part of the world, my reading over
the weekend was the Emirates to back in a full
service capacity. Therefore, do we need planes in that part
of the world or not.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, you're right, that's what our message to New Zealanders is,
if you want to come out, use the commercial services
that are available. Winston and Judith have deployed the two
Hercules into the region that really is designed for New Zealanders.
That will be in some countries where it's very difficult
and quite hard and we might have to get them
out of there to a much safer.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
How many people are we dealing with.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, there's about three thy six hundred rest on safe travel,
but about two hundred and fifty only have expressed an
interest with some assistance.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It's two hunred and fifty the expression interest in getting out.
They expressed any way of getting out all Yeah, I mean,
how many people are going to end up on a Hercules.
We're going to repeat it like last time, seeing them
up for nobody.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
No, But it's just giving us optionality in case we
need it if there's a set of circumstances that changes.
At least we've got our assets on the ground and
ready to go. But you're right, I mean, the vast
majority of these two hundred and fifty people are sitting
in the UAE, and of course now you've got Emirates
and Theityard flying. In fact, the first keywis came home yesterday.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Through two hundred and fifty people have expressed a design
to get out that in total of all the people,
out of all the New Zealanders, this next to no one.
So it's a long story. So all the freak out
last week was a complete nutter waste of time.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Well, I mean again, if you're sitting in places like
Bahrain and Oman, I've watched there'll be some kiwis there
that are more challenged. And say what we're saying with
the UAE where they're able to get commercial flights in
and out, all we're saying is, you know, we may
use our hercules down the road of circumstances opened up
to get to people from an unsafe place to a
safer place, but we won't be bringing them home on
the hurks, where we bring them to hubs where there
(08:57):
are good commercial flights.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Don't go from the social media thing. The report came
back from the Select Committee last week. When are you
going to move on it? Are you going to do it?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And when we're going to introduce legislation before the end
of the year, before the term expires. And the reason
it's pretty simple on this one is parents want us
to take control. It's a bit like the mobile phone bank,
you know, the parents, the principles, the kids were out
of control on it. They wanted a bad guy that
was the government. And it's the same thing here. And
I think there's very good support across the from parents
and I think there'll be good support across the Parliament
(09:27):
ultimately as well for it.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
All right, good to see you, Prime Minister Chris Reluxan.
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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