Christopher Luxon: Prime Minister loses a bet, discusses Waitangi Tribunal, Fast Tracking

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been forced to wear a Highlanders jersey this morning after the team beat the Crusaders on the weekend. 

Luxon —a die-hard Crusaders fan— had a bet with Newstalk ZB producer Sam Carran over the outcome of Saturday’s game. 

He was a good sport at the NZME offices this morning, laughing as he donned the jersey - but he told ZB’s Mike Hosking to expect a “shocking interview”. 

He said Carran was “the nicest man in the country” on the outside but inside was “Machiavellian”. 

Luxon said he had warned Carran he was a size XL but the producer had given him an XS jersey. 

Luxon last week maintained the Crusaders would turn around their losing form against the Highlanders, but it wasn’t to be. 

Waitangi Tribunal appeal 

Luxon told Hosking the Government is still considering whether to appeal the Court of Appeal’s judgement, which sided with the Waitangi Tribunal over its summons of Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. 

”We only got the judgement yesterday. So it’s a pretty big judgement and we need to work our way through it, and then take advice on whether we will appeal it and what we’ll do next. 

”The key issue was that “we don’t believe section 7AA is the right thing. We think the primacy of a child is important over above their cultural needs”. 

Some of the information the Waitangi Tribunal had asked for was from Cabinet discussions, which was “frustrating”, he said. 

The Government was trying to act in the spirit of “probity” - “making sure that the different branches of government are respectful of each other”. 

Fast Tracking 

Regarding Monday’s announcement about new the regional roading programme, Luxon said the Government was “very up for bringing in private capital” for public-private partnerships. 

The Fast-Track consenting process would be critical for many of the projects, and the planned National Infrastructure Agency would deal with financing and funding - working out whether private, domestic or international capital was most appropriate for each project. 

New Zealand also needed to become more attractive for foreign capital, Luxon said - adding that NZ was ranked second-least attractive in the OECD in that respect, just ahead of Mexico. 

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