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October 3, 2024 • 4 mins

Prime Minister Chris Luxon's feeling 'stoked' with today's Mood of the Boardroom survey results.

The nation's business heavy-weights have ranked Government ministers in the Herald's annual survey - and they're feeling pretty optimistic with the state of the current Government.

NZ Herald deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan says the nation's business community always feels more positive when they get a centre-right Government aligned with their needs.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And New Zealand Herald Deputy political editor Thomas Coggins with
us this evening kild to Thomas cleaving Jack. So, mood
of the boardroom this morning, what has the response been?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yeah, really interesting mood of the boardroom this morning. Unsurprisingly,
businesses are feeling pretty positive. They tend to like a
center right government and tend to be pretty skeptical of
a center left government. So you've seen a lift and
sentiment across the board. Interestingly, we've got Erica Stamford coming
out on top. Typically you have well, certainly the Finance

(00:31):
Minister tends to be number one. That was the case
under Label where Grant Robinson tended to come first, and
under National where the last National government where Bill English
came first. And but but you know, quite interestingly this
time round under the last under the last National government,
John Key obviously very popular, tended to come second. Christoph
Luxon this time round coming a distant sexth after Judith

(00:54):
Collins even who's obviously the former National Party leader. So
so some positive stuff for the in there for Christopher
Luxon obviously that that people tend to like what businesses
tend to like the government. Uh and and tend to
be pretty favorable to what it's doing, but some concerning
kind of signals to him that he is not, you know,
in that top kind of top three. So the rankings
are are Erica Stamford, Simeon Brown, Nichola Willis, christ Bishop

(01:17):
due to Collins, and then Christopher Luxon.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
I don't think nothing too surprising the ra you know,
there's no no real bolter in those kind of results.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
No, there's nothing, there's nothing. There's nothing that would suggest
that the boardroom as we're seeing something different from the
general public. I think if you were to asked the
public for their own rankings of the cabinet, provided they
knew who they were, because people tend not to know.
I have a deep knowledge of of who they were.
But but I think it would be fair to say

(01:46):
that those that those are all quite high performing ministers.
Christo Relucance said as much today. He said, you know,
obviously he would say this, but he said he was
proud to have a clearly have a good team around him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Right. The government is to consider hiking road charges and
tolls to help NZTA before the end of the term.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, this is a really really interesting one. It's sort
of been bubbling away in the background even since Labor
Labor was in charge, as anyone paying attention to so
the news would know, we've had some pretty incredible infrastructure
cost inflation recently, and that hasn't been helped by some
incredible infrastructure promise inflation. We both Labor and National have

(02:24):
promised some very expensive infrastructure projects towards the end of
the term and certainly towards the end of the decade.
What this means is that the revenue nz TA gets
from fuel taxes and road user charges that is not
going to be sufficient for their expenses, which tends to
be on maintaining infrastructure, potholes, that sort of thing, and

(02:46):
also building new infrastructure. The deficit by the end of
the decade is expected to be six billion dollars, so
that's really quite an eye watering some NZTA was wanted
an assurance from the government that if it got into trouble,
the government that would bail them out, and and uh
so the government has given ZTA the assurance and said, well, look,

(03:07):
you know, if you'reet into trouble, we will consider helping
you out with with these new revenue increases. But obviously
that rather cuts against the ideological commitment of the government,
which is to keep revenue low.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah. Right, And Wellington's long tunnel investigation is taking longer
itself than expected and then costing more as well, So
that's good.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, yes, this is an incredible project. So that this
if you come into Wellington, you will know that there
is a very bad good luck this proposal. It's quite
quite an incredible sort of pie in the sky's proposal
that that you would you would essentially go into a
tunnel at Mount Victoria and you would pop up on
the other side of Wellington CBT CBD. It would effectively

(03:49):
bypass the entire CBD. It's quite incredible. People think it
was potentially too expensive. D TA is having a look
at it, but the investigation they were meant to, I
mean the Transport Minister said he would like this investigation
wrapped up by the middle of the year. It is
well past the middle of the year. They are still
looking at it and the investigation has called. The consultants

(04:11):
have built one point six million dollars on this, so
costing got as well. I know, this thing's never come cheap.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
No, no, that's it. Hey, thanks Thomas appreciate it. That
is Thomas Coglin, the New Zealand Herald Deputy Political editor.
Right now, it is eight minutes to five. For more
from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks
it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
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