Christopher Luxon: Prime Minister on the Government's plans for the third quarter, Andrew McKenzie's redundancy payout

The Prime Minister is clarifying a six-figure redundancy payment to the resigning Kainga Ora CEO. 

Christopher Luxon says it was not a decision made by the Government. 

The public housing agency's chief executive Andrew McKenzie says he didn't sign up for an overhaul of Kainga Ora. 

He's in for a payment of $365 thousand. 

Luxon told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking that those arrangements sit with the chair Simon Mouttar, but he calls it an under-performing organisation.  

He says they're refreshing the board. 

Luxon said that he doesn't know the details of the redundancy, and doesn't want to, what he wants to know is that the organisation is starting to get better.

The Prime Minister has also pledged to address law and order during the Government’s plan for the third quarter of this year, although he was often coy when asked about specific details of policies.  

Luxon published his Government’s plan for the third quarter on Monday. The plan covers the period from July to the end of September and included 40 “actions” across areas like the economy and climate change, but Luxon said law and order would be his priority.  

“The Government I lead is one of action and we are already making meaningful changes that will keep Kiwis safe in their homes, workplaces and communities,” Luxon said. The plan pledges the Government to giving police “tough powers to go after gangs by restricting their ability to associate and banning gang patches in public” and the power to “get guns out of the hands of criminals”. 

While plans for a Government’s first 100 days in office have become fairly common features of New Zealand politics, Luxon decided his Government would adopt a 100 day plan-style approach to its entire term of Government by publishing a plan each quarter of what “actions” the Government intends to tick off over the next three months. 

Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast, Luxon compared his progress throughout his time as Prime Minister to the many “corporate turnarounds” he has accomplished in his career, although he acknowledged the difference between a business and a country. 

”I am just focused on the must-do stuff right now, that’s what you to do when you are turning stuff around… we can plant those seeds now that we can benefit from down the road. 

”If we don’t do that, we are heading down a very dark road.” 

Other significant pledges include to publish New Zealand’s second Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP), the first such plan published by this Government. ERPs are meant to set out how a Government meets its emissions budgets under the Zero Carbon Act. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Prime Minister, whether it's Cristopher Luxan, good morning. I'm
very well indeed, I'm not overly hung up on this,
but I do want a reasonably clear explanation. I know
it's not directly your job and moots no idiot, but
how do you redefine a CEO's role when there will
be another CEO and treat something as a redundancy when
it's not a redundancy and write a check.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, I can't comment too much on the employment metter
between the CEO and the board, but what I'm saying is,
from my point of view, KO has been an underperforming organization.
That's why we've changed the chair. We are refreshing the
board and I do want to turn around plan by
the end of the year. As to then the arrangements
with the CEO of the management team that does sit
with Simon and as chair in the board as well.

(00:43):
So I can't get into that detail. But all I'm saying,
you say you.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Can't get into it, you can't get into because you
don't know or because you don't want to.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
No, because the profit controls is that the decision that
we as a government make is about who are the cheers,
and who are the boards, who are the governors of
those organizations. And that's the thing that we have direct
influence on the management teams. You know, that is something
that then has sorted out between the board and how
they get a brief from government as to what we're saying.
I'm saying very clearly that KAO has been underperforming. It's
been chronically correct for a long PERI, but we agree

(01:13):
with all of that. You want to change the board
and want to turn around plan, then then it's up
to the manager. Then it's up to the board and
the government's work out what happens.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
So Mota has cart blanche on the checkpocket. Just this
is an unusual interpretation of redundancy for someone who's not
being made redundant because the job still exists. I just
don't understand all on the cification of the thinking.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, yeah, I guess, I guess, Mike. I don't know
the details. It will be an employment contract and there'll
be you know, entitlements, and it'll be a structured to
do with the employment contract, and I don't know, they
could be different by different CEOs, and there'll be obligations
that you know, a board needs to make sure they're
meeting and that employment contract and arrangement. I don't know
the detail of it. I don't really want to know
the detail of it. What I want to know is

(01:52):
that the Chao organizations starting to get better.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Why why don't you want to detail of it? I
go back to the Three Waters and those people who
are sitting in the Three Waters bodies, knowing full well
they were going to get laid off, they adjust their
contracts so the payment's nice and topped up by the
time they actually get booted out of office. That's just
routing the seat.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, I guess, I guess what I'm focused on as
the forty five billion dollar enterprises is KO to make
sure that that's performing. That's what I'm interested in. So yes,
I appreciate there'll be employment and arrangements and contracts that
need to be honored and respected and all that kind
of stuff. But really that is a decision for the
board and the management.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
So in watching as you know I do your postcab
press conference yesterday, the highlight of good woman, I.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Appreciate it, Mark Mike, And I've got to say to you,
I watch you as well. I watch goggle Box, which
is hosting shouting at the TV at a Warriors game.
I have that has become addictive viewing very late at
night on YouTube shorts. So that is quite something that
you do as well. What do you do?

Speaker 1 (02:45):
I tell my wife not to film me? Does your
wife film you?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
No? I've had the game on Saturday. It was really great.
Yeah I saw there No, Yeah, that was great. And
getting into the change room of those lads office, that's
done a great job. I mean the culture shift there
is and it's very inspiring and it's relevant to politics
and business and that is what you can learn from
sports teams and stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
But sorry, I do agree, No, yes and d but
you come out So the one thing you didn't do
was tepa king of the polytech. Why has consultation not
even started? And is it Penny simmons fault?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
No, it's not. It's a hell of them. Yes, Hipkins
was in charge of this for five and a half years.
We spent three hundred million dollars. We've got less kids
going to polytechnics. There's low morale. It's a hell of
a mess and it's not delivering for regionals Regionals New
Zealand either. Penny's got a good proposal. We've agreed to
the proposal. Now what she's got to do is practically
take that out to the public. That's going to happen

(03:39):
in the next few weeks. So it is genuinely complex
and there's lots of ways you can skin the cat
and get change, but we need to get a system
that's set up and it's quite enduring. So she's got
the proposal approved and we've discussed that internally. Now she's
got to go out and actually get that consultation different
folk in the sector as well.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Do you feel you're getting some momentum I'm citing you've
got support for fast track. There was another poll on
Mari re wards. You've got major support for that. You've
even got support on planes. Do you feel that you
might have now a chunk of New Zealand on site?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Well, I think you zilla understand what we've inherited, right,
and we're doing a turnaround job. And I've done a
lot of these in a different corporate world and it's
different the country and I get all that, but the
process is similar, which is you have to face the
ugly stuff and you have to face up to your
reality and you kind of have to deal with it,
and then you've got to have plan, not in a
combinur sense, but actually a proper plan that you can

(04:32):
get the country and yourself to a much better place.
And so that's what we're just focused on. Everything's about delivery,
everything's about I published these quarterly plans and people will
say to me, you know, why do you do that. Well,
I'm doing it because I'm trying to be transparent about
what we're working on as a government in the next
thirteen weeks. And some of it is taking decisions and
making sure we get alignment inside our government and our

(04:52):
coalition to do those programs. A lot of it's introducing legislation.
This August, you're going to see all our gang laws
get actually passed into law. That's a six month process
where we kick that off in that first one hundred days.
Now that's going to be law, that'll be picked up
by police in October and a way we'll go. So
it does take time, but it's really at the moment,
it's the turnaround, and you've got to just be what's

(05:13):
the problem I'm trying to solve. What's the common sense
solution that deals with that? Right is that moving forward
in the next thirteen weeks or not. And it's focusing
tremendously a public service that hasn't had direction. And it's
also focusing my ministers and my conversations with about what
I'm expecting from each of them. So and it's always
done through the mantra of rebuild the economy, restore law
in order to deliver bit of public services, particularly health

(05:35):
and education. And that's what we focus on. And so
I know there's forty actions coming up in the next quarter.
That was thirty six in the last one, forty nine
in the first one hundred days, and I just make
sure that we are just focused on what we can
do right now that must do stuff that's actually setting
things up for the future. And that's what you have
to do when you're turning things around. Put the platform,
put the foundations in place so that we can plant

(05:57):
those seeds now that we can actually benefit from down
the road. You know, I see polls and I'm on
top of that, and I see what people are saying.
But the bottom line is, I'm here to do a job,
and we're here to get the country turned around and sorted.
And if we don't do it, we're heading down a
really bad pathway and now's that moment. So it is,
we're driving hard inside government and inside the public service.

(06:17):
I'm making sure the ministers a supported bug at the
right people on the right assignments, focused and passionate about
what they're doing. And then I'm holding into account to
drive actions every three months.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Right a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Different way of running right from how I think I
observe government from the past, which is that we rock
up each day. You never quite know what's going I
never had a sense of what was happening. But for
right now, it's deal with the mess and then in
place the platform for big growth, because man, we have
a great future. We honestly can have a kick ass future.
And we've just got to get through this phase. Get
inflation down and get interest rates down, your economy growing,

(06:50):
and then work on those five big drivers that I
think will drive prosperity into the country.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Couple of quick timeline answers, transport, when's it coming, tolling,
all of those ideas from some me and Brown, Well.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
It'll start coming in, I know, you know, looking at
ruck and looking at tolling and congestion charging, all that
sort of stuff. He'll start working through those proposals. He's
got quite developed thinking on it right now, but I
think it will start kicking in the middle of the
next year. You'll see it, certainly twenty five into twenty six. Yep, defense,
it's a defense, yeah, defenses. Just so you know, we've

(07:23):
got new heads of Army, Navy, Air Force, new Chief
Defense Office, a new Minister and Duty of Collins, and
new Secretary of Defense as well. So I've got six
new leaders and what I'm asking them to do is
build me a ground up, proper strategy that I know
for the next ten to twenty years is what these
are the domains we're focused on leadst the capabilities we're
going to build. Rather than just go out and buy
random bits of kit. I actually want a proper plan

(07:43):
and a proper strategy. So I want that new leadership
team to work on what's called the Defense Capability Review.
But we're looking at that delving at the end of
this by the end of this year, and they're working
on that right now. But I want the new leadership
team to own it, because there's nothing worse than a
new group come in and say, oh, that was the
last crowds outfit strategy and I never quite bored into it. Well,

(08:04):
I want to hold you to account about delivering on it.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
A credits and employee of visa changes have been made
standard classification for occupations level four and five. Without a
pathway to residency, we're no longer able to support work,
visitor or student visa applications for partners and dependent children.
Some upset at that. Do are we a good enough
place to make those sort of calls when we're still

(08:28):
desperately short of labor or not? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (08:30):
I think we are. Because it's Erica Stanford and I've
talked a lot about essentially what's happened is and I've
been a big believer of this for a long time.
When you look at immigration policy around the world, it
works when it's very strongly linked to the economic strategy.
We've had four of our last quarters in recession, and
actually a lot of those lower skilled jobs have actually
been filled. When you and I were talking a year ago,

(08:52):
there was shortages in every region, every sector, every job
across the country. The reality is that has changed. But
what we've got to do is make sure that those
higher skilled jobs, the secondary sort of teachers the doctors,
the nurses, all of that. We've still got massive attraction
and we're making using on the very attractive place. But
you do have to flex your immigration strategy to met
your economic strategy and where you are in that cycle.

(09:13):
So that's why the changes have been made around a
credited visa program, and you know that's really our focus
and that's what Eric has just tightened up some of
that in recent months.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Regional fund loans as opposed to gifts. Does it bother
you some of it's going to go to councils and
can't they raise the money themselves?

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, I did to say we've done something quite different
with this Region Infrastructure Fund from what we've previously called
the Provincial Growth Fund. One. It's one point two billion,
but the criteria is it has to be what's called
capital expenditure, so it's actually hard assets that the Crown
will own. So you say's what's called operational money in there,
but before it wasn't defined in that way and that

(09:54):
means that then we're building infrastructure in the regions that's
actually productivity enhancing and for the long run. So Shane
Jones done a great job. I really respect Shane a lot.
He's uber smart, he's actually really hard working and he
does a great job. But he's got two hundred million dollars,
for example, in flood protection sitting in that. So it's
not just a lolly scramble where the money goes out
the door for X, Y and Z. I want the

(10:14):
money being used in the regions to build enduring infrastructure,
which is how we lift prosperity and actually how we
do a whole bunch of things. So he's got two
hundred millionaires. His first focus is really on flood protections
up and down regional New Zealand. So that's good. You know,
that's exactly the sort of thing that a regional infrastructure
for should be doing. So that is really the focus
is to say, look, nine hundred million of the one

(10:37):
point two billion has got to be in capital. Three
hundred millions what we call operational, which he needs some
of that to access to operationalize that capital expenditure. So
we've structured it quite differently in our coalition agreement, and
I think it's a really good, good structure and I
think we'll do good things, good.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Stuff if you up Crystal luxem Prime Minister Tuesday, mornings
and The Mic Asking Breakfast. For more from The Mic
Hosking Breakfast, listen live to news talks that'd be from
six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio