August 4, 2026 • 8 mins
The Prime Minister ponders meat and massages, a recovering economy, and whether peace in the Middle East is a pipedream or in the pipeline.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wednesdays on the Country, The Prime Minister kicks off the show,
Christopher Luxen. Do you want to start with the good
news or the bad news? The good news is the meat.
The bad news is the Mallori massage is nine million
dollars in our prisons. What the what the hell's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, there's a large government agencies across the piece, and
good on Mark Mitchell for anything and in doing something
about it. But that just sounds like absolute lunacy. So
good that it's been stopped.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Whose head rolls because of this? It's all very well
saying Mark Mitchell stopped that, didn't know about it, But
there has to be a consequence. Surely, what happens if
you're someone who's been assaulted by one of these thugs
or had your property stolen. They're getting nine million dollars
worth of massages, you're out of pocket and beaten up.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, well, look, I mean, as you know, we've got
forty six thousand few victims of violent crime, and I
think youth offendings down twenty two percent under our government.
And yes we've put two thousand more people into prison.
What we want in prison for is to get rehabilitation services.
Not to have a massage. So that's really where the
focus needs to go, and that's where the nine million
dollars needs to be spent actually making sure we're rehabilitating
(01:07):
those people with the programs that are actually working and
stuffing the dumb ones that aren't working.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
It's woke nonsense, Rightio, are the good news. Let's get
on to the meat. Gee, you'd be buggered without the
farmer's Prime Minister.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, I think you've got a government that's done a
great job, Jamie. I just take all the farmers to
close their eyes, go back two and a half years.
You were going to be thrown into an easier scheme.
You're going to be hit with agricultural pricing, all sorts
of things. And look what we're doing when we've got
the markets pumping and opening up. I mean I was
looking at those numbers that came through basically red meat
(01:38):
as up. I think, what was it? Up twenty one percent?
And when you look at markets like even the US
was up twenty one percent despite the tariff, China was
up seven percent. European Union, which is the EU, we've
got FAA we go under force, drove another two billion
dollars of red meat into New Zealand over the last
year and it's up twenty five percent. And actually the
(01:58):
UK drove another billion dollar into New Zealand and that
was up fifty one percent. Even Canada was up too,
So you know, there's some really good growth. And what's
happening essentially, is the world a short of red meat.
The herds have been run down around the world. Our
products of super high quality, as you saw in the US.
We've got two challenges there. One good news story, which
(02:20):
is beef has got no tarif assassinated with it because
of the quality of the beef and what it does
to the mix of beef in America. And then we've
got this challenge about sheep meat, which we'll oppose vigorously.
So yeah, like red meat's going well, dairy is going well,
horticultures going is going really really well. Will as you've
seen as have seen, has been doing some cool as growing.
(02:40):
But we also have got a chance now to innovat
on will and to add more value to it like
we have been doing with red meats and with dairy.
And in this last week I was in I was
a red stag and seeing what they are doing with
laminated wood, and you know, there's a lot of value
to be added in the forestry sector particularly, and I
were just setting logs off around the world actually doing
some really hall engineering the alternatives with wood. In Parliament,
(03:04):
he had it when you were down for your soiree,
having your barbecue, and when you notice out the back
of it, they're building a six story building, all with
full wood structure, no steal and some struct classic structure.
It's all New Zealand wood laminated, just as strong and
a great way to do it. So I think there's
a lot of opportunity for us to do a lot
more in that space too.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Hey, the take home numbers for me on the red meat.
We're out of the EU and the UK. We now
have free trade agreements with both of them. The EU
up twenty five percent, the UK up fifty one percent,
So bring on the free trade agreements. Look, I want
to move on to a recovering economy. We're starting to
see some green shoots, but very few people are seeing
(03:44):
the fruits of the recovery. From your point of view.
With an election coming up and what about ninety odd
days or something like that, is the recovery going to
be too late to save your bacon.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, I'm just I haven't thought about that part of
it with inherit links to an election, But I'm more
worried about making sure the recovery is coming through. I mean,
we've had two point one percent growth of the last
nine months. We've predicted to be just under three for
the next four years on average. The thing that's really
been fantastic in the last quarter or so, it's been
manufacturing growth. That's been what the banks Had's gone ballistic
(04:16):
higher since twenty twenty one. Services, growing, exports, tourism have
you know, we've just talked about it doing really well.
We typically are selling more than we're bringing into the country.
That's good things. The one that's been helpful is since
we announced our things around building the Strategic Coal Reserve
and place and hunt Ley, the Strategic des Or Reserve
and fund Ray, the Lergy import facility, wholesale electricity forward
(04:36):
prices around to thirty five percent, which means, you know,
our businesses and the regions will be able to do well.
We had building consents come through yesterday up nineteen percent,
forty thousand new homes. Construction jobs as the biggest sector
being advertising on up to forty three percent, and ye know,
as you know, pretty good levels of farmer, business, consumer
and retail investor confidence. And the other one that's quite
(04:57):
good for young people is we've got stable house prices,
record first time buyers running about twenty nine percent of
all purchases, and the lowest rint increase we've had in
twenty five years. So yeah, we've got low inflation, low
lower interest rates. We've got fourteen I think you know,
we've had up to I think seven to fourteen percent
to me in which month you look at it, growth
and the key is coming home from Australia in the
last year and debt tracking below what was forecast. So
(05:21):
yet we've got that's positive. Okay, Yeah, we've's got to
come through and people got to feel.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It all right well and then some of them, a
lot of them aren't feeling good at the moment. But
you're going to get some higher unemployment numbers this morning
as we record this at eight thirty, we don't know
those numbers, but they're going to be about five and
a half percent. So it's pretty hard to get a
job out there, especially if you're a young person.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Well that's to be expeded just because you remember the
quarterly number four Q two and of course that's from
the middle of a fuel crisis where we've had inflation
hit up to four percent. We expect the hit to
inflation and it hit to growth, and therefore we expect them,
you know, a small hit to unemployment as well. You know,
the last quarter least we saw the first turn in
unemployment as well. But you know, you know the yes,
(06:00):
I mean that's unemployment is the last thing that gets
sort of when you get spinning under control, inflation down,
interest rates down, growth happening in an economy, then the
thing that comes on stream of unemployment. And actually when
you look at job ads and some of that activity
is going to lead into driving unemployment down, they're good
leading indicators.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Peace in the Middle East, is it a pipe dream
or is it in the pipeline? Or will it allders
blow up again? It seems to me who knows, maybe
on the cusp of something here. What's your intel telling you?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Oh, look, it's just been such a volative, fragile roller
coaster ride. I mean, lots of promises of peace and
cessfires and nous and then hostility start up again. So
it's a very volatile situation. All we can do is
just prepare for it. That's why we've put the money
aside in case things continue. You would have heard us
(06:50):
say this week that you know, we yes, we've had
four weeks of the petrol price being under three dollars,
but now it's forecast to jump this week and we
just don't want to be turning things on off, so
we need to see some stability there. But you know,
there's lots of you know, conversations and you know, at
the end of the day, you know, you sort of
you do stut. You know, we were you know, the
literal the ships were flying before this conflict. They're not
(07:12):
flowing now. It's having huge impact on the global economy.
It's having has had huge impact on New Zealand. I
think our management of it has been, you know, very
good and as a result, I think we come through
it with less challenges than other countries have with some
of the measures and actions that they've taken. So, you know,
our job. As you can see, even through this crisis,
we're still seeing good levels of exports. Our products are
(07:33):
getting to markets, we've got good supplies in country. All
of those kinds of issues. But yes, it's going to
keep going and bouncing and who knows it's the short answer.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, we started off talking about meat and massages. Maybe
you need to invite Winston round for a barbecue and
give them a soothing message, tell them to calm the farmer.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Either. I'll leave that to you, Jamie Prime.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Honister Christopher Luxon, thanks for your time. Appreciated on the
country every Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
You have a great week. See us
Wednesdays on the Country, The Prime Minister kicks off the show,
Christopher Luxen. Do you want to start with the good
news or the bad news? The good news is the meat.
The bad news is the Mallori massage is nine million
dollars in our prisons. What the what the hell's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, there's a large government agencies across the piece, and
good on Mark Mitchell for anything and in doing something
about it. But that just sounds like absolute lunacy. So
good that it's been stopped.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Whose head rolls because of this? It's all very well
saying Mark Mitchell stopped that, didn't know about it, But
there has to be a consequence. Surely, what happens if
you're someone who's been assaulted by one of these thugs
or had your property stolen. They're getting nine million dollars
worth of massages, you're out of pocket and beaten up.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, well, look, I mean, as you know, we've got
forty six thousand few victims of violent crime, and I
think youth offendings down twenty two percent under our government.
And yes we've put two thousand more people into prison.
What we want in prison for is to get rehabilitation services.
Not to have a massage. So that's really where the
focus needs to go, and that's where the nine million
dollars needs to be spent actually making sure we're rehabilitating
(01:07):
those people with the programs that are actually working and
stuffing the dumb ones that aren't working.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
It's woke nonsense, Rightio, are the good news. Let's get
on to the meat. Gee, you'd be buggered without the
farmer's Prime Minister.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, I think you've got a government that's done a
great job, Jamie. I just take all the farmers to
close their eyes, go back two and a half years.
You were going to be thrown into an easier scheme.
You're going to be hit with agricultural pricing, all sorts
of things. And look what we're doing when we've got
the markets pumping and opening up. I mean I was
looking at those numbers that came through basically red meat
(01:38):
as up. I think, what was it? Up twenty one percent?
And when you look at markets like even the US
was up twenty one percent despite the tariff, China was
up seven percent. European Union, which is the EU, we've
got FAA we go under force, drove another two billion
dollars of red meat into New Zealand over the last
year and it's up twenty five percent. And actually the
(01:58):
UK drove another billion dollar into New Zealand and that
was up fifty one percent. Even Canada was up too,
So you know, there's some really good growth. And what's
happening essentially, is the world a short of red meat.
The herds have been run down around the world. Our
products of super high quality, as you saw in the US.
We've got two challenges there. One good news story, which
(02:20):
is beef has got no tarif assassinated with it because
of the quality of the beef and what it does
to the mix of beef in America. And then we've
got this challenge about sheep meat, which we'll oppose vigorously.
So yeah, like red meat's going well, dairy is going well,
horticultures going is going really really well. Will as you've
seen as have seen, has been doing some cool as growing.
(02:40):
But we also have got a chance now to innovat
on will and to add more value to it like
we have been doing with red meats and with dairy.
And in this last week I was in I was
a red stag and seeing what they are doing with
laminated wood, and you know, there's a lot of value
to be added in the forestry sector particularly, and I
were just setting logs off around the world actually doing
some really hall engineering the alternatives with wood. In Parliament,
(03:04):
he had it when you were down for your soiree,
having your barbecue, and when you notice out the back
of it, they're building a six story building, all with
full wood structure, no steal and some struct classic structure.
It's all New Zealand wood laminated, just as strong and
a great way to do it. So I think there's
a lot of opportunity for us to do a lot
more in that space too.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Hey, the take home numbers for me on the red meat.
We're out of the EU and the UK. We now
have free trade agreements with both of them. The EU
up twenty five percent, the UK up fifty one percent,
So bring on the free trade agreements. Look, I want
to move on to a recovering economy. We're starting to
see some green shoots, but very few people are seeing
(03:44):
the fruits of the recovery. From your point of view.
With an election coming up and what about ninety odd
days or something like that, is the recovery going to
be too late to save your bacon.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, I'm just I haven't thought about that part of
it with inherit links to an election, But I'm more
worried about making sure the recovery is coming through. I mean,
we've had two point one percent growth of the last
nine months. We've predicted to be just under three for
the next four years on average. The thing that's really
been fantastic in the last quarter or so, it's been
manufacturing growth. That's been what the banks Had's gone ballistic
(04:16):
higher since twenty twenty one. Services, growing, exports, tourism have
you know, we've just talked about it doing really well.
We typically are selling more than we're bringing into the country.
That's good things. The one that's been helpful is since
we announced our things around building the Strategic Coal Reserve
and place and hunt Ley, the Strategic des Or Reserve
and fund Ray, the Lergy import facility, wholesale electricity forward
(04:36):
prices around to thirty five percent, which means, you know,
our businesses and the regions will be able to do well.
We had building consents come through yesterday up nineteen percent,
forty thousand new homes. Construction jobs as the biggest sector
being advertising on up to forty three percent, and ye know,
as you know, pretty good levels of farmer, business, consumer
and retail investor confidence. And the other one that's quite
(04:57):
good for young people is we've got stable house prices,
record first time buyers running about twenty nine percent of
all purchases, and the lowest rint increase we've had in
twenty five years. So yeah, we've got low inflation, low
lower interest rates. We've got fourteen I think you know,
we've had up to I think seven to fourteen percent
to me in which month you look at it, growth
and the key is coming home from Australia in the
last year and debt tracking below what was forecast. So
(05:21):
yet we've got that's positive. Okay, Yeah, we've's got to
come through and people got to feel.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It all right well and then some of them, a
lot of them aren't feeling good at the moment. But
you're going to get some higher unemployment numbers this morning
as we record this at eight thirty, we don't know
those numbers, but they're going to be about five and
a half percent. So it's pretty hard to get a
job out there, especially if you're a young person.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Well that's to be expeded just because you remember the
quarterly number four Q two and of course that's from
the middle of a fuel crisis where we've had inflation
hit up to four percent. We expect the hit to
inflation and it hit to growth, and therefore we expect them,
you know, a small hit to unemployment as well. You know,
the last quarter least we saw the first turn in
unemployment as well. But you know, you know the yes,
(06:00):
I mean that's unemployment is the last thing that gets
sort of when you get spinning under control, inflation down,
interest rates down, growth happening in an economy, then the
thing that comes on stream of unemployment. And actually when
you look at job ads and some of that activity
is going to lead into driving unemployment down, they're good
leading indicators.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Peace in the Middle East, is it a pipe dream
or is it in the pipeline? Or will it allders
blow up again? It seems to me who knows, maybe
on the cusp of something here. What's your intel telling you?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Oh, look, it's just been such a volative, fragile roller
coaster ride. I mean, lots of promises of peace and
cessfires and nous and then hostility start up again. So
it's a very volatile situation. All we can do is
just prepare for it. That's why we've put the money
aside in case things continue. You would have heard us
(06:50):
say this week that you know, we yes, we've had
four weeks of the petrol price being under three dollars,
but now it's forecast to jump this week and we
just don't want to be turning things on off, so
we need to see some stability there. But you know,
there's lots of you know, conversations and you know, at
the end of the day, you know, you sort of
you do stut. You know, we were you know, the
literal the ships were flying before this conflict. They're not
(07:12):
flowing now. It's having huge impact on the global economy.
It's having has had huge impact on New Zealand. I
think our management of it has been, you know, very
good and as a result, I think we come through
it with less challenges than other countries have with some
of the measures and actions that they've taken. So, you know,
our job. As you can see, even through this crisis,
we're still seeing good levels of exports. Our products are
(07:33):
getting to markets, we've got good supplies in country. All
of those kinds of issues. But yes, it's going to
keep going and bouncing and who knows it's the short answer.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, we started off talking about meat and massages. Maybe
you need to invite Winston round for a barbecue and
give them a soothing message, tell them to calm the farmer.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Either. I'll leave that to you, Jamie Prime.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Honister Christopher Luxon, thanks for your time. Appreciated on the
country every Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
You have a great week. See us
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