May 10, 2026 • 10 mins
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon joined Mike Hosking in studio to discuss two major policy changes announced last week - abolishing fees free study, and raising the age of superannuation.
Luxon said that although the changes may not be 'politically popular' they are important, and other party's aren't brave enough to agree.
"I think they're being quite dishonest in terms of not facing up to the challenge that we've got and I think just chucking it down the road to the kids and grandkids isn't the right way," he said.
"So, I get it's not politically popular, but actually we should have a bigger conversation and a debate about it."
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Prime Minister is with us, a very good morning
to you.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good morning Mike. Just for the great You've got a
fan in Freddy.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It's great you.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Just for the listeners. Mike's invited an eleven year old
and for the who's a big fan of Hosking to
shadow him for the day. So we're signing Freddy up.
I think he'd be in the next ten years or so.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And unfortunately what the Prime Minister has done is trying
to convince for you that I'm some sort of weirdo.
And anyway, it wasn't as bad. I must tell you.
We put on what was the breakfast we put on.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
For all listen as I come into the show, I'm
never even off at a glass of water. I come
in this morning and there's very healthy fruit and very
posh yogurts and exactly all sorts of things for Freddy.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But that's how we roll. The boss wanted McDonald to mcflurry's,
we had and you went healthy on them. We had
to tell them to pull his head and right, let's
deal with some business. Most of all the fees free
is Does this irk you that it's out?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
No? Not really, Look, it was going to be a
pre budget announcement. The backstory here is that you know,
we've moved New Zealand first to quite a good place.
I mean, it was part of the Coalition agreement to
move it to last year fees free, and actually they've
you know, all credit to them, they've actually seen that
it's a huge monumental policy failure and a huge waste
of tax payer money. And whether it was under Labor
(01:14):
as a first year fees free or under the Coalition
as a last year fees free, the bottom line is
it hasn't delivered on any of its objectives. Hasn't driven
more kids into tertiary education, hasn't put kids from poorer
backgrounds into education, and certainly hasn't supported lifelong learning. So,
to be honest, Mike Better, we're not in the business
of untargeted subsidies. We already underwrite eighty percent of university education,
(01:35):
one of the highest in the world. And so let's
knock it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
On the head. Criticism that, as much as you want
to criticize year one next year is on me famously
from justinto ad and you didn't fix it in the
sense you put it at the back end, which at
least made more sense in year one, but still didn't work.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, still didn't work. And I think you know that
it was important to New Zealand first they actually sort
of believed in the policy. And as I said, you know,
some credit to them because it end of the day,
they saw what we could see and we talked about
it for some time, and I think we've got to
a good place.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Okay, where does the money go then as well?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Some of it will go into trades training. Actually we're
finding we're getting hugely oversubscribed in high school and what's
called the trades academies. We can probably double the number
of places that are available there. And the second thing
is something called the Youth Guarantee, which is actually for
young kids with actually low or poor qualification, not no
or low qualifications to get into vocational pathways at polytechs.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
What's the difference of giving it on Not that I'm
against this, but what's the point of giving a trainee
mechanic an apprenticeship with government money versus giving an engineer
or a doctor? Yeah, well actually money at university.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, the youth guarantees actually for kids that actually haven't
got great qualifications, have either got no qualifications or very
poor qualifications coming out of high school. But the trades
side of it is a part of the program that
we know is actually we would love to get more
money into if we could. And it's actually quite interesting.
You know, if you get out and see some of
the high schools. You know, these kids are signed up
at the beginning of the year. They might actually be
(02:58):
building two or three state houses for the government. But
they also get very connected to the building industry within
their own local town as well. So a lot of
those kids are then, you know, the feedstock for apprenticeships
and local reaches.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
All the money being used without giving budget secrets away. Ye,
do you tell whatever you're taking out of university you're
putting into trades dollar for dollar, will reveal all of
that in the budget means you're saving some. So you
take one hundred out and you'll save some. We'll be
saving someone, okay, fair enough to retirement, yep. What's your
assessment of the political risk given key for example, wouldn't
want to touch it. What's your assessment of the political
(03:34):
risk of telling people vote for me because I'm going
to make it harder for you to retire and get money.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, well, I think the bigger question is what's the
problem we're trying to solve. And when you look at it,
we've gone from seven workers to one retiree. I think
very shortly in the next few years, I think we're
at four to one today, will be at two to
one very quickly, very big proportion of government spending going
forward with an aging population, I think it gets up
to you at sort of eighteen percent now. I think
it gets up to twenty five set pretty quickly, and
(04:01):
particularly in the next few years, it really starts to
accelerate on us. So the problem is the system is
essentially kind of become unworkable and unaffordable, and it just
means that that's money we don't put into health and education,
or we end up loading up our kids with a
hell of a lot of debt. So if you take
a step back, you've actually got to say three things.
One is how do you I think one of the
things we're really quite hot on, and you've seen the
(04:22):
National Party policy from November last year. We've started some
of it in government, but we've got to step up
the contributions to match Australia twelve percent by twenty thirty two.
The second thing. I think there is a genuine question
about age. You know, if our peer countries like Canada,
the UK and Australia found a way through it, surely
we can do it in a very sensible, graduated lots
of signaling of time to deal with it. But that is,
(04:44):
you know, people are living four years longer than they
were in two thousand and five now, so and I
think the other bit was I've seen your conversations around
means testing. I think you've got to be quite careful
with that because people need certainty going forward and you
know you could see future governments changing thresholds the words.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's still an entitlement.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You either get it or yeah, I think so, because
otherwise you get rearranging of affairs.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Can you say it safely this election, given that New
Zealand first don't want to bar it. But therefore it's
not a bottom line, I take it's not a bottom
line for years it well.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I mean we have to get into a negotiation on it.
We couldn't get it across the line in the last
coalition because we've gone to.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The campaign on the safely knowing it's never gotten the
light of not well.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
But I think it's actually kind of important. I mean
the way either we're got to talk about issues out there.
You know, it's like driving the car looking at the
front windscreen and seeing some bumps along the way. We've
got to either deal with that and consciously choose to
deal with it, or it just comes upon us and
then we've got a different set of problems. So yeah,
I get it. Labor and New Zealand first don't really
have political will for it. I think they've been quite
dishonest in terms of not facing up to the challenge
(05:41):
that we've got, and I think just chucking it down
the road to the kids and grandkids isn't the right way.
So I get it's not politically popular, but actually we
should have a bigger conversation and a debate about it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Okay, gold visa once again, it's getting a lot of attention.
So yes, is money coming? In last week's story appeared
to be there's a lot of people who've been given
the clearance to be the recipient of the money from
these people who've got the fire or ten million dollars.
But you guys are running champagne evenings and cannapayers and
all that sort of stuff. And you're going here's where
(06:11):
you can go, and you're running out the same programs
every time. The criticism increasingly is, well, what about my
program that has been cleared but isn't getting the sort
of headline material that you're running out. Are you limiting
the money to certain good old fashioned things you'd like
to see the money parked in, and could you be
doing a better job.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I think we're actually becoming victims of our own success,
if I'm honest about it. You know, we've raised almost
four billion dollars in just over twelve months from about
five hundred and eighty individuals. It is really powerful that
is working very well. Like I was down in christ Church,
there's this professor and this PhD student have started a
company called x Ethos. They recycling critical minerals and particularly
turning things into in this case zinc to investors. I
(06:50):
think one from Brazil the other from the Netherlands came
through the program and actually put money into the startup.
So it's really helping the startup community big time, which
means they can either invest in capital to scale up
the business or find a new market or do stuff
like that. But I think we've got such we're going
to have to look at maybe broadening out the asset
classes because there's actually so much money coming into some
of those sectors of types of assets like startup investments
(07:13):
and funds, that we probably need to think about that
a bit more as well.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Did you follow Farrer and the UK over the weekend
at all or not? Yeah? Yeah? Do you think because
we haven't seen it here to the same extent, do
you think that's just a lot of grumpy people who
wanted to send a message in a by election or
a council election. All the world is changing and that
change may well come here.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Look, I think there are some big shifts. You know,
you've gone through a pandemic that people are pretty frustrated about.
They're dealing with inflation which they haven't seen for thirty
something years, and they've also got technological disruption coming. And
then you've got the rise of social media as well,
in the sense of Trevor might go down to the
pub and have a winch to his mates at the pub.
But now if Trevor gets on board with his keyboard
and finds ten thousand people that have a similar sort
(07:56):
of view. So there are some fundamental shifts and global politics,
and whether I talk to leaders in other countries, they're
all wrestling with the same grumpy chin of population dynamics.
I think in both those cases there's also a very strong,
you know, illegal, unsupported immigration policies, and that has been
very aggravating, understandably so to people here in New Zealand.
(08:19):
That has not been our experience. We have actually tightened
our settings in the last two years. We've moved from
seventy percent low skilled to seventy percent high skilled. We've
gone from one hundred and thirty thousand net migration to
twenty five thousand net migration. So, you know, I appreciate
there are some that want to play politics with immigration,
but it's just a very different story here, and I
think that's because we've made it linked to infrastructure and
(08:40):
economic growth.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
All right, where'd you get your six million from?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Oh party donations? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, look, I know you're unless you want to tell
you've got your own section. No, No, I'm sorted, I
get it.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, I don't go there. It's such a tall poppy knocker.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Sorry, like where'd you get your sex? Media?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Look, it's actually really encouraging. There's a lot of people
out there actually support our values of our party, and
a lot of people are going to say, oh, it's
just wealthy donors as it was in twenty twenty three.
It's actually a lot of small donations when you look
at the numbers.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Because they're good numbers, competed well, competing.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Here's a lot of support out there for what we're doing. Actually,
despite some of the media narrative times, Freddy's changed his
mind has Heredy wants what's me prime minister? Won't want
to be prime minister? Does he want to ask it
on here or just through me?
Speaker 1 (09:28):
All right? But what's your favorite subject at school? Is
his question.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
My favorite subject, Freddie, was history, because I actually think
and I loved it and I loved it. And my
first book I got into was at the Cockobay Primary School.
I go down to the library and I read about
this guy called Winston Churchill and I got the Osborn
Guide to World War II, and I studied all the
missiles on different sides, and I just loved military history
and history in general.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So that's my favorite. Nice to see you. What are
you announcing anything exciting this afternoon?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
You know, in this government we are very, very busy
in Mike and we are now seeing something different every
single day. Just to take this country forward, to realize
it's great potential.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
There we go. Nice to see primary of likes on
thirteen two.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
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, a very good morning
to you.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good morning Mike. Just for the great You've got a
fan in Freddy.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It's great you.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Just for the listeners. Mike's invited an eleven year old
and for the who's a big fan of Hosking to
shadow him for the day. So we're signing Freddy up.
I think he'd be in the next ten years or so.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And unfortunately what the Prime Minister has done is trying
to convince for you that I'm some sort of weirdo.
And anyway, it wasn't as bad. I must tell you.
We put on what was the breakfast we put on.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
For all listen as I come into the show, I'm
never even off at a glass of water. I come
in this morning and there's very healthy fruit and very
posh yogurts and exactly all sorts of things for Freddy.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But that's how we roll. The boss wanted McDonald to mcflurry's,
we had and you went healthy on them. We had
to tell them to pull his head and right, let's
deal with some business. Most of all the fees free
is Does this irk you that it's out?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
No? Not really, Look, it was going to be a
pre budget announcement. The backstory here is that you know,
we've moved New Zealand first to quite a good place.
I mean, it was part of the Coalition agreement to
move it to last year fees free, and actually they've
you know, all credit to them, they've actually seen that
it's a huge monumental policy failure and a huge waste
of tax payer money. And whether it was under Labor
(01:14):
as a first year fees free or under the Coalition
as a last year fees free, the bottom line is
it hasn't delivered on any of its objectives. Hasn't driven
more kids into tertiary education, hasn't put kids from poorer
backgrounds into education, and certainly hasn't supported lifelong learning. So,
to be honest, Mike Better, we're not in the business
of untargeted subsidies. We already underwrite eighty percent of university education,
(01:35):
one of the highest in the world. And so let's
knock it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
On the head. Criticism that, as much as you want
to criticize year one next year is on me famously
from justinto ad and you didn't fix it in the
sense you put it at the back end, which at
least made more sense in year one, but still didn't work.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, still didn't work. And I think you know that
it was important to New Zealand first they actually sort
of believed in the policy. And as I said, you know,
some credit to them because it end of the day,
they saw what we could see and we talked about
it for some time, and I think we've got to
a good place.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Okay, where does the money go then as well?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Some of it will go into trades training. Actually we're
finding we're getting hugely oversubscribed in high school and what's
called the trades academies. We can probably double the number
of places that are available there. And the second thing
is something called the Youth Guarantee, which is actually for
young kids with actually low or poor qualification, not no
or low qualifications to get into vocational pathways at polytechs.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
What's the difference of giving it on Not that I'm
against this, but what's the point of giving a trainee
mechanic an apprenticeship with government money versus giving an engineer
or a doctor? Yeah, well actually money at university.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, the youth guarantees actually for kids that actually haven't
got great qualifications, have either got no qualifications or very
poor qualifications coming out of high school. But the trades
side of it is a part of the program that
we know is actually we would love to get more
money into if we could. And it's actually quite interesting.
You know, if you get out and see some of
the high schools. You know, these kids are signed up
at the beginning of the year. They might actually be
(02:58):
building two or three state houses for the government. But
they also get very connected to the building industry within
their own local town as well. So a lot of
those kids are then, you know, the feedstock for apprenticeships
and local reaches.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
All the money being used without giving budget secrets away. Ye,
do you tell whatever you're taking out of university you're
putting into trades dollar for dollar, will reveal all of
that in the budget means you're saving some. So you
take one hundred out and you'll save some. We'll be
saving someone, okay, fair enough to retirement, yep. What's your
assessment of the political risk given key for example, wouldn't
want to touch it. What's your assessment of the political
(03:34):
risk of telling people vote for me because I'm going
to make it harder for you to retire and get money.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, well, I think the bigger question is what's the
problem we're trying to solve. And when you look at it,
we've gone from seven workers to one retiree. I think
very shortly in the next few years, I think we're
at four to one today, will be at two to
one very quickly, very big proportion of government spending going
forward with an aging population, I think it gets up
to you at sort of eighteen percent now. I think
it gets up to twenty five set pretty quickly, and
(04:01):
particularly in the next few years, it really starts to
accelerate on us. So the problem is the system is
essentially kind of become unworkable and unaffordable, and it just
means that that's money we don't put into health and education,
or we end up loading up our kids with a
hell of a lot of debt. So if you take
a step back, you've actually got to say three things.
One is how do you I think one of the
things we're really quite hot on, and you've seen the
(04:22):
National Party policy from November last year. We've started some
of it in government, but we've got to step up
the contributions to match Australia twelve percent by twenty thirty two.
The second thing. I think there is a genuine question
about age. You know, if our peer countries like Canada,
the UK and Australia found a way through it, surely
we can do it in a very sensible, graduated lots
of signaling of time to deal with it. But that is,
(04:44):
you know, people are living four years longer than they
were in two thousand and five now, so and I
think the other bit was I've seen your conversations around
means testing. I think you've got to be quite careful
with that because people need certainty going forward and you
know you could see future governments changing thresholds the words.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's still an entitlement.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You either get it or yeah, I think so, because
otherwise you get rearranging of affairs.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Can you say it safely this election, given that New
Zealand first don't want to bar it. But therefore it's
not a bottom line, I take it's not a bottom
line for years it well.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I mean we have to get into a negotiation on it.
We couldn't get it across the line in the last
coalition because we've gone to.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The campaign on the safely knowing it's never gotten the
light of not well.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
But I think it's actually kind of important. I mean
the way either we're got to talk about issues out there.
You know, it's like driving the car looking at the
front windscreen and seeing some bumps along the way. We've
got to either deal with that and consciously choose to
deal with it, or it just comes upon us and
then we've got a different set of problems. So yeah,
I get it. Labor and New Zealand first don't really
have political will for it. I think they've been quite
dishonest in terms of not facing up to the challenge
(05:41):
that we've got, and I think just chucking it down
the road to the kids and grandkids isn't the right way.
So I get it's not politically popular, but actually we
should have a bigger conversation and a debate about it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Okay, gold visa once again, it's getting a lot of attention.
So yes, is money coming? In last week's story appeared
to be there's a lot of people who've been given
the clearance to be the recipient of the money from
these people who've got the fire or ten million dollars.
But you guys are running champagne evenings and cannapayers and
all that sort of stuff. And you're going here's where
(06:11):
you can go, and you're running out the same programs
every time. The criticism increasingly is, well, what about my
program that has been cleared but isn't getting the sort
of headline material that you're running out. Are you limiting
the money to certain good old fashioned things you'd like
to see the money parked in, and could you be
doing a better job.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I think we're actually becoming victims of our own success,
if I'm honest about it. You know, we've raised almost
four billion dollars in just over twelve months from about
five hundred and eighty individuals. It is really powerful that
is working very well. Like I was down in christ Church,
there's this professor and this PhD student have started a
company called x Ethos. They recycling critical minerals and particularly
turning things into in this case zinc to investors. I
(06:50):
think one from Brazil the other from the Netherlands came
through the program and actually put money into the startup.
So it's really helping the startup community big time, which
means they can either invest in capital to scale up
the business or find a new market or do stuff
like that. But I think we've got such we're going
to have to look at maybe broadening out the asset
classes because there's actually so much money coming into some
of those sectors of types of assets like startup investments
(07:13):
and funds, that we probably need to think about that
a bit more as well.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Did you follow Farrer and the UK over the weekend
at all or not? Yeah? Yeah? Do you think because
we haven't seen it here to the same extent, do
you think that's just a lot of grumpy people who
wanted to send a message in a by election or
a council election. All the world is changing and that
change may well come here.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Look, I think there are some big shifts. You know,
you've gone through a pandemic that people are pretty frustrated about.
They're dealing with inflation which they haven't seen for thirty
something years, and they've also got technological disruption coming. And
then you've got the rise of social media as well,
in the sense of Trevor might go down to the
pub and have a winch to his mates at the pub.
But now if Trevor gets on board with his keyboard
and finds ten thousand people that have a similar sort
(07:56):
of view. So there are some fundamental shifts and global politics,
and whether I talk to leaders in other countries, they're
all wrestling with the same grumpy chin of population dynamics.
I think in both those cases there's also a very strong,
you know, illegal, unsupported immigration policies, and that has been
very aggravating, understandably so to people here in New Zealand.
(08:19):
That has not been our experience. We have actually tightened
our settings in the last two years. We've moved from
seventy percent low skilled to seventy percent high skilled. We've
gone from one hundred and thirty thousand net migration to
twenty five thousand net migration. So, you know, I appreciate
there are some that want to play politics with immigration,
but it's just a very different story here, and I
think that's because we've made it linked to infrastructure and
(08:40):
economic growth.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
All right, where'd you get your six million from?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Oh party donations? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, look, I know you're unless you want to tell
you've got your own section. No, No, I'm sorted, I
get it.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, I don't go there. It's such a tall poppy knocker.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Sorry, like where'd you get your sex? Media?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Look, it's actually really encouraging. There's a lot of people
out there actually support our values of our party, and
a lot of people are going to say, oh, it's
just wealthy donors as it was in twenty twenty three.
It's actually a lot of small donations when you look
at the numbers.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Because they're good numbers, competed well, competing.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Here's a lot of support out there for what we're doing. Actually,
despite some of the media narrative times, Freddy's changed his
mind has Heredy wants what's me prime minister? Won't want
to be prime minister? Does he want to ask it
on here or just through me?
Speaker 1 (09:28):
All right? But what's your favorite subject at school? Is
his question.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
My favorite subject, Freddie, was history, because I actually think
and I loved it and I loved it. And my
first book I got into was at the Cockobay Primary School.
I go down to the library and I read about
this guy called Winston Churchill and I got the Osborn
Guide to World War II, and I studied all the
missiles on different sides, and I just loved military history
and history in general.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So that's my favorite. Nice to see you. What are
you announcing anything exciting this afternoon?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
You know, in this government we are very, very busy
in Mike and we are now seeing something different every
single day. Just to take this country forward, to realize
it's great potential.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
There we go. Nice to see primary of likes on
thirteen two.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
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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Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.