Category: MIL-OSI

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

Kia ora and good morning everyone.

Before I start, can I acknowledge the Wellington Chamber of Commerce for the opportunity to speak to all of you this morning.

It comes at a difficult time for the global economy, with rising rhetoric, escalating tariffs, and the prospect of further retaliation to come.

I had originally planned to take this opportunity to speak about my Government’s plan for economic growth – to create jobs, lift incomes, and put more money back in the wallets of Kiwis.

I will still touch on that.

It’s my Government’s top priority and it frames just about every decision we take here in Wellington as we focus on improving the lives of all New Zealanders.

But with markets rocked and exporters facing uncertainty, I know there’s one topic front of mind for many businesses and many households.

So this morning I want to take some time to speak to those events and make the case for free trade and the rules-based international order.

Trade is the lifeblood of the New Zealand economy.

Whether it’s our incredible farmers and growers, our outstanding tourism industry, or our burgeoning tech sector, Kiwis businesses thrive when we compete on the world stage.

Our success isn’t an accident – and it didn’t happen overnight.

Successive generations of trade negotiators and political leaders have invested in relationships offshore, and worked hard to complete deals like CER, the China FTA, the CPTPP, and the more recent EU, UK, UAE and GCC FTAs.

Business leaders have moved rapidly, too – finding fresh opportunities for growth in emerging markets, and developing outstanding products back home that put New Zealand on the map.

Our rural economy in particular represents the very best of open and competitive trade – selling into difficult markets, with no direct financial support, and consistently coming out on top.

I could – and often do – speak at length about the contribution exporters make to the domestic economy.

But trade goes both ways.

Yes, export growth will be critical to improving New Zealand’s economic prospects in the coming years.

But the removal of New Zealand’s own trade barriers and embrace of goods and services imported from offshore has also led to a major improvement in our quality of life in recent years.

Our clothing is more affordable, our cars are more reliable, our diets are more diverse, and our holidays in Bali and Europe are a nice contrast to summers at the lake or the beach.

Free trade of goods purchased from offshore has also supported growth in productivity.

Kiwi exporters rely on the trucks, tractors, jet engines, computers, and smart phones we buy from overseas that make their businesses tick.

And it’s not realistic to expect that in a country of just five million people, we could make everything we need here at home.

Political leaders have tried that before in New Zealand – and it didn’t end well.

Older generations will remember the efforts we went to.

Governments imposed strict import controls and encouraged cars and televisions to be assembled here at home.

And like today, conflict offshore occasionally helped to send prices spiralling – but the response looked very different.

In the late 1970s, politicians imposed “carless days”, with stickers on your vehicle dictating which days you could drive to work, and which days you caught a ride with a friend or just walked into town instead.

There was no “work from home” in 1979.

Agriculture, today the backbone of our economy, was heavily subsidised and much less productive, much less diverse than the efficient and entrepreneurial sector thriving in New Zealand today.

Those failed policies weren’t just foolish economics.

They reflected the best efforts of political leaders to insulate New Zealand from an era of major social and geopolitical change.

History shows those best efforts were a mistake, that required years of difficult choices and careful recovery.

New Zealanders paid the price then.

I don’t intend for them to do so again.

Which brings us to today.

The events of recent days are the most significant challenge to the rules-based trading system since the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was formed in 1947.

Action, reaction, and response have shocked financial markets.

As the Minister of Finance highlighted earlier this week, the direct impact on the New Zealand economy from the US tariffs announced last week is likely to be around $900 million or roughly 0.2% of GDP.

But the second order consequences of a region and a world retreating from trade and increasingly uncertain about its economic future will be more significant, despite the welcome news of de-escalation this morning.

I know for many businesses keeping an eye offshore and for those New Zealanders watching their KiwiSaver accounts, that could be confronting.

The exporters I’ve spoken to in recent days remain buoyant, rightly confident in the quality of their product, and their ability to navigate choppy waters.

But for countries whose prosperity is underpinned by global trade, the months ahead will be challenging for their economic interests.

Many commentators will see these events as just the next step in a longer-term trend towards economic security and national resilience, as countries insure themselves against emerging geopolitical threats.

Others have gone further, declaring an end to the era of free markets, free trade, and free people, and the rules-based international order underpinning it.

For my part, I’m not ready to throw in the towel quite yet. Kiwis have worked too hard and for too long, to give up on the values and institutions which have seen our country and the region we live in thrive.

So, for as long as I am Prime Minister, New Zealand will keep making the case for trade as a cornerstone of our prosperity.

Yes, we are a small country – but stature has never been a barrier to our success.

Take the P3 – a proposed trade agreement which began life under negotiation at APEC between New Zealand, Singapore, and Chile in the early 2000s.

Three small countries, practicing what we preach – and doing everything we could to create opportunity for our people through trade.

Today, that agreement lives on as the CPTPP and covers a dozen countries, including New Zealand and Australia, Canada, much of Asia, and most recently the United Kingdom.

In total, that’s roughly 15% of global economic activity, or $13 trillion USD – a long way from where we started just over twenty years ago.

The United Kingdom might be the most recent accession, but I expect they won’t be the last.

New Zealand will continue to work with like-minded countries to promote free trade as a path to prosperity and explore the role of the CPTPP in strengthening that vision.

One possibility is that members of the CPTPP and the European Union work together to champion rules-based trade and make specific commitments on how that support plays out in practice.

My vision is that includes action to prevent restrictions on exports and efforts to ensure any retaliation is consistent with existing rules.

Collective action, and a collective commitment, by a large portion of the global economy would be a significant step towards preserving free trade flows and protecting supply chains.

Clearly though, efforts at collective action won’t be enough to support New Zealand’s economic interests.

As Prime Minister, I have a responsibility to do everything I can to both bolster the existing rules-based order and to further strengthen New Zealand’s position offshore.

It’s why I have put so much emphasis on deepening our relationships with partners around the region, with visits throughout South-East Asia, Korea and Japan, the United States, and to India last month as we commenced negotiations for a free trade agreement.

It’s why my Government has worked so hard to close out fresh agreements with the UAE and GCC that enable additional trade and investment.

It’s why we hosted an Investment Summit in Auckland, making the case both for New Zealand as an outstanding place to do business and for the opportunity to enter long-term infrastructure partnerships.

It’s why on Monday this week the Minister of Defence and I launched the Government’s Defence Capability Plan, that lifts defence expenditure to 2% of GDP and ensures New Zealand pulls its weight for many years to come.

It’s why I will be on the phone later today to world leaders comparing notes on world trade, and testing what we can do together to buttress the rules-based trading system.

And it’s why I will be heading to the United Kingdom later this month to meet Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, to talk trade, security, and the geopolitical backdrop in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

We can’t make the case for New Zealand sitting at home.

We have to position ourselves as advocates both for our own economic interests and the institutions that underpin them.

I’m very lucky to lead a Government with so many Ministers dedicated to that task, whether that’s the Foreign Minister, the Minister of Trade, or the Minister of Defence, each of whom having already made a number of significant achievements supporting New Zealand’s interests offshore.

Back home, the volatility offshore is a fresh reminder of just how important our focus on economic growth will be in the coming years.

As I said recently at our Investment Summit in Auckland, New Zealand can be a shelter from the global storm.

That brings a serious opportunity from ensuring our business environment is as welcoming as possible for investment and growth.

We are making serious inroads into that task.

Earlier this year, Minister for Economic Growth Nicola Willis published our Government’s Going for Growth Agenda, which outlines a range of actions we are taking to get the New Zealand economy moving and realising its vast potential.

Each of those actions fits into one of five pillars we have identified as critical to lifting economic growth and improving New Zealanders’ standard of living:

• Developing talent,
• Encouraging innovation, science, and technology,
• Introducing competitive business settings,
• Promoting global trade and investment,
• And delivering infrastructure for growth.

Across each of those pillars, we have Ministers working day and night to drive through reform – in transport, tourism, aquaculture, construction, advanced aviation, mining, energy, agriculture, and horticulture.

In just the last few weeks, we have presented our plans to replace the Resource Management Act, fix our broken health and safety laws, and make nation-shaping investments like the Northland Expressway.

We have introduced the Fast Track regime, streamlining the consenting process for projects of regional and national significance.

We are re-writing the Overseas Investment Act, so major investments from offshore are consented faster and more reliably.

We are tearing down the barriers to fresh investment in renewable and non-renewable energy, by repealing the oil and gas ban and ushering in new consenting rules for wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal.

And we are doubling down on efforts to showcase New Zealand to the world, promoting our tourism and international education sectors offshore so we can attract even more people to spend their money here.

I know there’s more we can do.

Growth has now returned, and the economy has turned the corner, but our reform agenda will need to continue at pace for us to out-run the challenges to growth facing us from offshore.

The challenges to the rules-based international order are intense and the strategic environment my government has inherited is more difficult than it has been for many years.

For New Zealanders who grew up watching events unfold in Europe and the Middle East, it will be confronting to watch strategic competition and the deterioration of rules-based trade come to our neighbourhood, the Indo-Pacific.

But the response for New Zealand cannot be retreat.

New Zealanders are at our best when faced with adversity and we thrive when we compete on the world stage.

To quote my friend the Foreign Minister, this isn’t our first rodeo.

Our export sector is jam-packed with talented, sharp New Zealanders who make great products – and create jobs here at home while they do it.

Farmers, growers, wine makers, and start-ups from all around the country investing in our nation’s future because they have confidence that better days lie ahead.

I’m not ready to call time on the rules-based trading system.

And I’m not ready for New Zealand to give up on our efforts to advocate for it on the world stage.

We’re not in this alone.

The same institutions that have served New Zealand so well for so long, also underpin the prosperity of so many of our friends and partners, many of whom are also continuing to make the case for free and open trade in recent days.

My government will keep making the case – overseas, here at home, with a strong voice and a consistent message.

Free trade works.

It lifts incomes.

It creates jobs.

It builds partnerships.

And it secures peace.

I think that’s worth fighting for – and I’m up for that fight.

Thank you.

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

Kia ora, aloha, good morning.

Interim President of the East-West Center, Jim Scott, distinguished guests.

It is an absolute pleasure to be here in Hawaii, leading a cross-party delegation through the Pacific. New Zealand’s commitment to the Pacific is foundational to who we are as a people. It transcends governments, political parties, and the disruptive events and controversies of the moment.

A core and enduring part of New Zealand’s approach is our determination to work with our Pacific brothers, sisters and cousins to forge together a more secure, more prosperous and more resilient future, which grows opportunities and possibilities for our peoples.

Our delegation is looking forward to an open, free-flowing discussion with you, representatives of the East-West Centre. This institution has, for generations, sought to promote dialogue about the developments in our region and the United States’ place in it. As the name of this Centre implies, the world works best when different cultures – from East to West – come together.

Before we start our discussion, I wanted to offer some reflections – as New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs – about the relationships binding New Zealand, the United States, the Pacific and the broader Indo-Pacific.

New Zealand and the United States are Pacific partners, as Hawaiians know well. Indeed, Auckland and Honolulu are two of the great Pacific cities: the northern and southern points of the so-called Polynesian triangle. Many, many Polynesians scattered across our vast, oceanic region have, over many, many generations, migrated to Auckland and Honolulu. These two wonderful cities stand as diverse, vibrant testaments to Polynesian histories and cultures.

We gather in Honolulu at an important, uncertain, anxious time in world affairs. Every day, we wake up to headlines about confronting events that are happening on the world stage.

It is a common human tendency to think that the events or ravages of the moment are unprecedented. That the challenges we face are uniquely urgent or complex. Indeed, the most overused word in politics is ‘crisis’. This, coupled with the hyperactive social media age we live in, can generate an urge to react too quickly and too stridently. To set out absolute principles to defend. To draw battle lines. To pick sides. To form teams. To fight.

But, being in Honolulu, it’s hard not to take a longer view of what the world is currently experiencing and of the choices facing New Zealand and our Pacific partners.

This morning, we were hosted on the USS Missouri, where the Pacific part of World War II formally came to an end. This was a reminder of the history of shared sacrifice that forever binds New Zealanders, Americans and people from throughout the Pacific.

Our peoples have fought, and died, together in defence of a free, open and democratic region .  A region in which our people are free to elect their own political leaders and to worship the god of their choice. And a region, the Pacific, that lives up to the promise of that name.

But this dark, painful chapter in our history also provides the backdrop to the efforts we have collectively made, in the eight decades since, to painstakingly build an international order based on dialogue, compromise, diplomacy and trust. This determination not to go back to an era of global wars – to prefer jaw, jaw to war, war – must always be at the forefront of our minds.

In recent weeks, the tendency to hype up a debate about how international trade works into a black-and-white, polarising issue has been unfortunate and misguided. The use of military language – of a “trade war”, of the need to “fight”, of the imperative to form alliances in order to oppose the actions of one country – has at times come across as hysterical and short-sighted.

For a small country like New Zealand, when events are moving fast and changing day-by-day, the best course is almost always to be cautious, to be modest, to be pragmatic, and to be practical. To wait for the dust to settle before making choices we may later regret.

Working closely with our one formal ally, Australia, we are guided by a cool-headed assessment of New Zealand’s interests. Those assessments are formed by equally sober analysis of our relative strengths and vulnerabilities, rather than any desire to draw sharp lines in the sand, especially during times when the sand is shifting so fast its final shape is unknown.

There are historical parallels here. Notwithstanding our strong, indispensable and long-standing partnership during and since the two World Wars of the 20^th Century, the governments and peoples of New Zealand and the United States have not always seen eye-to-eye. We have often fought side-by-side, but we have sometimes differed on certain military conflicts. New Zealand pursued a position on the nuclear issue with which the US disagreed. And US Presidents have not always been popular back home.

Some of us have been around long enough to witness the ironies in the cycles of history. In two World Wars, New Zealanders were there from the beginning – and our country lost more people per capita than almost any other. We have also contributed military forces towards trying to solve countless other conflicts, alongside other Western countries. So we know about sacrifice and burden-sharing.

But we also recall certain protestors, in New Zealand and across the Indo-Pacific, chanting “Yankees Go Home!” during the rancorous days of the late 1960s. Some of those protestors chanted those words perhaps unaware that, just a few decades earlier, their parents and grandparents had been praying that the Americans would arrive to save them.

We also recall the order-shattering change throughout American history. Presidents as different as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan all, in historically significant ways, upended their inherited orthodoxies. Yet the enduring experiment in democratic government that was created by America’s Founders still stands, unbowed.

Appreciating this history also serves to quiet the breathless language of panic because what we are seeing now is what many of our predecessors have seen before. So, one lesson is that cool heads and quiet diplomacy will succeed where talk of “fighting” will not.

My view of the strategic partnership between New Zealand and the United States is this: we each have the right, indeed the imperative, to pursue our own foreign policies, driven by our own sense of national interest.

But close friends do not need to be, and should not be, confrontational and rude with one another, as New Zealand sometimes was towards the United States in the mid-to-late 1980s. And we should never forget what binds and unites us, bonds stronger and more long-lasting than the controversies and headlines of the moment.

We should give each other the benefit of the doubt and a fair hearing, seek to understand each other’s perspectives, and find common cause and common purpose.

New Zealand looks forward to working with the new US Administration to support a peaceful, prosperous and resilient Pacific and wider Indo-Pacific region. We look forward to continue partnering across the interdependent areas of security, economics and development.

We were in Washington DC recently, to meet representatives of the new US Administration, including the Secretary of State and the National Security Adviser. One message they had for us was that the United States expected New Zealand to carry our share of the burden in keeping our part of the world safe and prosperous.

This New Zealand government, through decisions on defence capability and development spending, is seeking to meet that challenge under difficult fiscal conditions. To carry, like we did in the war that ended on the USS Missouri, our part of the burden of keeping our region and our world safe, free and open.  We do this because it’s the right thing to do. Because it’s in New Zealand’s interests.

One message we carried to Washington DC was that New Zealand wants, indeed needs, for the United States to remain an active, engaged and constructive partner in the Indo-Pacific.

Our discussions here in Honolulu over the next few days are designed to reinforce that message, and to carry forward the generations-old commitment of New Zealanders and Americans to work together for a more peaceful, more prosperous, and more resilient Pacific.

On this score, we valued our discussions in Washington DC last month and we look forward to more constructive dialogue in the days ahead. We acknowledge there is uncertainty and indeed anxiety over aspects of current US policy towards the Pacific. Part of that is a natural and regular consequence of a change of Administration in Washington. Part of it relates directly to recent US decision-making on such issues as development spending and tariffs – positions that, in our view, are still evolving. 

But our message to both our American friends, and to our Pacific family, is a timeless one. As we work through the issues facing us today, let us treat one another with open minds, hear each other out, opt for quiet rather than megaphone diplomacy, and remember our collective purpose of pursuing and protecting a free, democratic, open, prosperous and resilient Pacific. Let us proceed carefully, cautiously, and always as friends.

In the coming days, we will be reflecting about the past as we contemplate the future. We will be having dialogue about the Pacific with representatives of the US Government, the governments of Northern Pacific countries Palau, Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, as well as the Hawaiian state Government.

We will be visiting the Bishop Museum, one of the world’s largest repositories of Pacific artefacts, and Pearl Harbor – where the Second World War was dramatically changed on one, fateful day. And we will be laying a wreath in honour of American and New Zealand servicemen who died in defence of our region.

As we go through this interesting and important programme here in Honolulu, we will seek to remember those enduring values and interests that unite New Zealand, the United States and the Pacific. And we will continue to promote careful, pragmatic, quiet dialogue – aimed at deescalation and practical problem solving, rather than premature posturing.

That is the Pacific Way.

Thank you. 

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

[Speech delivered in the Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament, to media at the announcement of the decision on the future of the interisland ferries]

Welcome.

First, can we acknowledge Chris Mackenzie, the Chair of Ferry Holdings who is here today, and directors Heather Simpson, Greg Lowe, Katherine Rich and Captain Iain Macleod.

They have worked hard, but they have not worked alone. Sensible people from across Port Marlborough, CentrePort and KiwiRail have come to the fore and we thank them all.

On the 11th of December, we resumed responsibility for the Rail portfolio and with it the leadership of the Cook Strait ferry replacement programme.

We said then that we would outline the key ship and infrastructure decisions by the end of March.

Today is the 31st of March.

The programme we cancelled

The iReX programme, which our Government cancelled in December 2023, should be studied by members of the public who want to see their tax dollars respected.

It is a cautionary tale.

In 2020, when we were responsible for KiwiRail, we committed $400.1 million as a taxpayer contribution to buying two new ferries and readying the infrastructure for them.

Back then, the total cost of that programme was supposed to be $1.4 billion, with most costs financed by KiwiRail and the ports.

This arrangement placed the commercial incentive on the companies to keep the costs low.

What happened between 2021, when the ship contract was signed, and 2023 when the truth came out about this project is as follows:

The project leaders approached this task as though they were pricing the job, not delivering it.

They did so because the previous Government gave them every reason to believe they would get their way.

The only method to stop behaviour like that is to do exactly as the Minister of Finance did in December 2023.

Today, we have vindicated the decision of the Minister of Finance to stop the project.

Project iReX was said to cost $3.1 billion according to KiwiRail, while officials warned the previous Government it would approach $4 billion.

Taking a charitable view of the world by accepting KiwiRail’s estimate, that meant the infrastructure costs alone would be $2.6 billion.

The vast bulk of this cost was expected from you, the taxpayer.

We said no. We could do better. So here is what we will do.

What we will deliver on ferries

By Christmas 2029, two new Interislander ferries will enter service on the Strait. They will get you, your family, the caravan, the dog and all the rest across the Strait.

New ferries mean we are buying for a full-service life of 30 years. We are looking to the long term.

These ferries will be about 200 metres in length, and about 28 metres in width. That is longer and wider than the current Interislander fleet of three, meaning it has capacity to serve current and future demand.

Both ferries will have capacity for 1,500 passengers.

Crucially, these ferries will be smaller than what the previous Government contracted in 2021. That saves us materially on infrastructure.

The Cook Strait is also an essential connection for the movement of our goods and services. It has a freight task to serve, and these ferries will do exactly that.

Trucks will drive onto these ferries.

Rail will shunt onto these ferries.

Both ferries will have 2.4 kilometres of lanes for trucks and cars, with space for 40 rail wagons.

We serve both, because they serve every business stretching across our provinces and our cities in New Zealand.

The reason for this is just plain common sense. Road-only ferries would require us to reconfigure the whole operation, at considerable costs.

Road and rail ferries mean we shunt large freight volumes in single movements. That saves time, and time is money.

This is not the Ministerial Advisory Group’s plan

The Ministerial Advisory Group proposed the Government buy two road-only ferries, said it would be cheaper overall, and that we should approach just one shipyard to do a deal.

We did not accept that advice. We believe in competitive tenders, and a full appreciation of what best serves our country.

And road-only ferries came out as more expensive than buying road and rail ferries.

What we will deliver on infrastructure

The surest way to keep infrastructure costs low is to use what you’ve already got.

The marine infrastructure in Picton requires replacement, so it will be replaced. The marine infrastructure in Wellington has life left in it, so we will modify and keep using it.

This level of pragmatism was completely absent under iReX.

The road and rail marshalling yards will be modestly modified, but not completely renewed like under iReX. These yards were built by our forebears. They knew what they were doing. We know it because these yards have served us well for decades.

The road connections in Wellington and Picton will also be improved, in discussion with those councils.

The terminal buildings in Wellington and Picton will remain as they are today. While some may regret the absence of a Taj Mahal in Picton and the Sydney Opera House in Wellington, the people paying their taxes will not.

And need we remind you that the main experience people have when they wait to board the ship is not the terminal building, it’s their own vehicle. For those walking on, it’s the ship that gives the experience, not the walkway.

The time will come when new terminal buildings will be needed, and space is allocated for when the ports are ready. But they are not needed now, and not at your expense.

Our new wharf in Picton is looking to the future. It will have a dual-level linkspan and double lanes. That means unloading and offloading will be faster in Picton than it is today.

While Wellington remains single lane, as this saves the taxpayer considerable money, the time will come when the port companies invest in double-lane infrastructure.

The door to the port’s long-term aspirations remains open, but we are focused on what’s needed right here, right now.

The next steps

So, today our Government has agreed to buy two new ferries to serve our people, cars, trucks and rail.

Our Government has agreed to a pragmatic infrastructure solution that focused on minimum viable, maximum reuse.

We have said yes to affordability, and no to extravagance.

This gives the small Ferry Holdings team the mandate they need to negotiate a good ship contract with commercial shipyards.

Ferry Holdings now has key ship decisions, which enables them to finalise the ship specifications and invite a shortlist of shipyards into a closed tender process.

These shipyards won’t know who each other are, and they will compete on price and quality.

Ferry Holdings also has key infrastructure decisions, and a firm budget to live within. This enables them to progress the engineering and construction programme with both ports and KiwiRail.

They will keep a firm hand on the tiller to keep scope and costs under control. And the ports will share this view, as their dollars are on the line too.

We have decided in the national interest to directly purchase ships and proceed with an infrastructure plan that meets our needs.

We’re buying ships and sorting infrastructure, and what must follow is a commercially disciplined business to safely, reliably and affordably serve our people and their goods.

Programme cost

And for those in the media who want to know, ‘how much will this cost,’ let us say this: we will not approach this like Wellington Water, by which we mean revealing our budget while negotiating the price. That turns a buyers’ market into a sellers’ market.

When the ship and port agreements are signed later this year, you will know the total cost and the shares between the Government and the ports.

In the meantime, it should be patently obvious to even the most casual observer that an infrastructure programme that makes use of what is already there will be markedly cheaper than the iReX programme which sought to knock everything down and build utopia in its place.

Port Marlborough, CentrePort and KiwiRail have approached this with a focus on pragmatism, cost-effectiveness, and a heavy dose of reality. Together with Ferry Holdings, they have a single plan to concentrate on now, and to deliver on.

And we will back them all the way.

Thank you very much.

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

Distinguished guests, community leaders, business representatives, and faith leaders.

It is my pleasure as the Minister for Ethnic Communities to address you today. 

New Zealand is home to speakers of more than 170 languages, and while I would love to greet you in each one, for now let me extend a warm welcome to you all with a simple “Kia ora. Tēnā koutou, katoa.”

I would like to acknowledge and extend my gratitude to everyone here today.  Your dedication and contributions continue to strengthen the fabric of our nation.

I also wish to thank those of you who have shared your insights and experiences, providing valuable perspectives on the opportunities and challenges facing New Zealand’s Ethnic Communities. Your input is critical in shaping policies and initiatives that reflect the needs of all New Zealanders.

It is a privilege to serve as the Minister for Ethnic Communities. When the Prime Minister invited me to take on this role, I was deeply honoured and excited by the opportunity to support and champion the diverse communities that make up our nation.

Almost one in four people in New Zealand belong to an Ethnic Community. In Auckland, that number rises to one in three. These communities contribute immeasurably to our country—bringing expertise, knowledge, and cultural vibrancy that enriches every aspect of New Zealand life.

I was fortunate enough to become Minister just in time to host the Lunar New Year event at Parliament, which was a vibrant and wonderful celebration.

And in a couple of days, I will be hosting Eid celebrations as well, and I look forward to recognising and celebrating the many other significant cultural events that unite our communities throughout the year. 

Today, I would like to outline my priorities as your Minister and share my vision for how we can work together to achieve meaningful outcomes.  I will get to that shortly.  First, a bit about myself. 

I bring my own experience to this role.  I have lived in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. I have lived and worked in many communities sharing the challenges they faced and immersing myself in the culture and history of their countries.

I am constantly learning but my experience has helped me understand where our ethnic communities come from, what is important to them, some of the challenges and complexities of making a new country home, and the richness and value they have brought to New Zealand, whether they arrived a week ago or 100 years ago. 

Recently at an event celebrating EID I was able to talk to 3 young 2nd generation Somali Kiwis about Somalia. The beauty of the country, rich in history and with so much potential but facing continued challenges.

They love being Kiwis and love New Zealand but remain so proud of their Somali heritage. 

My message is I’m a 4th generation Kiwi of Irish descent and very proud of both being Kiwi and of my Irish heritage. I have the privilege of not just looking through the eyes of our ethnic communities through a New Zealand lens but also in many cases through the country-of-origin lens. 

I believe this experience will help me be an informed, effective, passionate Minister and advocate, providing loyal service to our Ethnic Communities.

My priorities

There are four key areas that I will focus on as Minister to ensure that Ethnic Communities thrive in New Zealand: economic growth, security and resilience, emergency management, and social cohesion.

Economic growth

First, economic growth.

Many of you will have seen the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation speech.  In that speech, the PM focused almost exclusively on economic growth as the main priority for our Government.

Why? Because economic growth is vital for improving quality of life. For delivering better infrastructure. For providing Kiwis with more choices. And for giving a sense that better days lie ahead.

Ethnic Communities already make a huge contribution to our economy.

In 2021, this contribution was estimated at $64 billion. The average value of export goods for ethnic businesses is more than double the New Zealand average.  However, there are barriers that need to be addressed to unlock the full potential of these businesses.

At the Ethnic Xchange business symposium the Ministry facilitated last year, people identified what the Government could do to increase foreign investment.  Business owners said long waiting times with the Overseas Investment Office and a lack of coordination between agencies put off foreign investors.

The Government is taking action. We are setting up Invest New Zealand to be a ‘one-stop-shop’ to attract and promote foreign investment. 

We are making changes to the Overseas Investment Act to make investment rules less restrictive and more welcoming of investment.

The changes will ensure that for many investments, decisions will be made in just 15 days, where the application isn’t contrary to New Zealand’s national interest. 

And we announced changes to the Active Investor Plus Visa to simplify the categories, increase the scope of acceptable investments and remove other potential barriers to investment, such as the English language requirement.

Last month, we held a global infrastructure investment summit to showcase New Zealand’s infrastructure pipeline and growth sectors.

You may be aware that I recently travelled to India with the Prime Minister.

During that trip I saw first-hand the value and strength of the relationship between New Zealand and India, and our trading relationship was very clear.  All of this shows the Government’s commitment to growing the economy.

Security and resilience

Second, I want to talk about security and resilience.

Foreign interference affects the safety and security of everyone in New Zealand.  The Government is clear that we do not condone foreign interference in New Zealand. It is particularly concerning that some members of our Ethnic Communities are experiencing undue pressure and suppression of rights from foreign states. This is unacceptable.

As Minister, I want to acknowledge that Ethnic Communities’ resilience is a national security asset to all of New Zealand.  I’m committed to delivering practical support that will help our communities to withstand foreign interference and to ask for help when they need it.

We’ve released resources in 24 languages to raise awareness about foreign interference in New Zealand. Including case studies, information about your rights, keeping safe online and how to report foreign interference.

This is only the beginning of the work. I know the Ministry for Ethnic Communities is working hard, including looking internationally, to ensure what it produces for our communities is world-class.

While we’ve started to shine a light on foreign interference there is more to be done.  Work will continue with a range of communities to develop and release more resources later this year.

Emergency management

Third, I want to talk about emergency management.

We can’t get away from the fact that New Zealand is prone to emergencies. Many of us have experienced the devastating impacts of floods, cyclones and earthquakes, and have learned about them first hand.

Recent events have highlighted gaps in the system, particularly in how emergency responses account for the linguistic, cultural, and religious needs of Ethnic Communities.

The support provided was often not responsive to language, cultural or religious needs. And important information in different languages was slow in getting to the people who needed it.

The Government has committed to making changes to the emergency management system to ensure it is fit for purpose. 

The changes will build capability and capacity, support local government and help different parts of the system to work better together.  They are based on the idea that everyone needs to be part of preparing and responding to emergencies and recovering afterwards.

Our Ethnic Communities often stand up in times of emergencies to provide life services for the entire community.  I have asked NEMA to make sure this important role is formally recognised and codified in the new Emergency Management legislation. 

There has been positive progress made in recent years.  The Get Ready website, which provides information about what to do before, during and after an emergency, is translated into 14 languages. This proved to be a valuable resource during Cyclone Gabrielle.

NEMA have also told me they are close to completing a resource about what support is available and where to find it. 

This resource can be distributed to communities in multiple languages as soon an emergency happens, rather than taking days to develop and translate.

You can have confidence that the needs of Ethnic Communities will be reflected in NEMA’s work. 

Social cohesion

Finally, I want to talk about social cohesion.

New Zealand is becoming increasingly diverse.  With Ethnic Communities expected to make up one-third of the population in the next two decades, it is essential that we build cohesive and safe communities.

We must build an inclusive society where all communities feel a sense of belonging and where discrimination and prejudice have no place. 

I have heard concerns from many of you about experiences of harassment, Islamophobia, and antisemitism. These are issues we must confront directly.

I’m also particularly concerned about the impact geopolitical events overseas are having on domestic social cohesion.

It’s important we don’t let overseas tensions and conflict play out between our communities here.

I am committed to listening, learning and taking action to deliver relevant and tangible initiatives that will make a difference for Ethnic Communities.

Ensuring that we don’t just talk about social cohesion but do things to actively strengthen it.

I want to explore more ways to foster Ethnic Communities’ sense of belonging to and integration with New Zealand society.

I would like better ways to bring faith and community leaders together to build bridges and unite communities.

The Ministry for Ethnic Communities is actively fostering social cohesion through community engagement, interfaith dialogue, and targeted funding. And I am committed to continuing these efforts and identifying further ways to strengthen ties between communities.

Other issues

While some issues fall outside my direct ministerial responsibilities, I remain committed to advocating for the needs of Ethnic Communities.

For example, mental health remains a pressing concern. 

Research indicates that Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African youth face disproportionately high rates of mental health struggles, yet cultural barriers often prevent individuals from seeking help. 

I will work closely with the Minister for Mental Health to ensure that culturally appropriate support services are accessible to all who need them.

Closing

New Zealand’s Ethnic Communities make an invaluable contribution to our society—socially, culturally, and economically. My commitment as Minister is to ensure that these contributions are recognised, valued, and celebrated.

By working together, we can build a stronger, more inclusive nation—one where diversity is seen as a strength, and where every community has the opportunity to thrive.

Thank you for being here today.  I look forward to continuing these important conversations and strengthening our relationships.

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

Today I am announcing next steps in the Government’s mission to deliver better grocery prices for Kiwis.

Our Government knows that the cost of living is a major concern for New Zealanders. We are focused on delivering changes that will bring down the cost of living, now and in the years ahead.

One major driver of the cost of living is the high prices many Kiwis pay for their basic groceries. After housing, food is the second-most expensive item in Kiwis’ household budgets.

The current situation

New Zealand grocery prices are high by international standards. Kiwi shoppers are being poorly served by extremely low levels of competition in our grocery sector. 

This lack of competition is the result of a series of mergers that have occurred over the past 30 or 40 years, reducing a sector once characterised by a number of grocery chains to a market now dominated by just two major players per island:  Foodstuffs North Island, Foodstuffs South Island  (with the New World, Pak ‘n Save and Four Square brands) and Woolworths (with the Countdown and Fresh Choice / Super Value brands).

These incumbents exhibit significant market power and act as an effective island duopoly, with many communities experiencing what could be characterised as a localised grocery monopoly, as they have no other store to choose from near their homes.

It’s noteworthy that Foodstuffs argued in the courts that the merger of Progressive Enterprises and Woolworths NZ was not in consumers’ interests. 

This dynamic was acknowledged by a 2022 market study and led to a series of reforms.   

In September last year the Commerce Commission published its first annual report into the grocery sector, which provided an update on the impact of reforms so far. 

It concluded that competition in the grocery sector had not materially improved.

The Commerce Commission did note pockets of improved competition due, for example, to Costco entering the Auckland market, and the Warehouse expanding its range of grocery offerings. But these incursions have not fundamentally changed the competitive dynamics in the market.

There has been no reduction in market concentration, with evidence of increasing margins for major supermarkets, and ongoing levels of profitability much higher than would be expected in a workably competitive market.

There have also been recent examples of firms struggling to compete in the market. Organic grocer Huckleberry, which owned three stores in Auckland, went into liquidation in 2024. Online grocer Supie was put into voluntary administration in October 2023.   

The Grocery Commissioner has noted the disappointing impact of new wholesale regulations, and ongoing problems with the Grocery Supply Code.

The simple reality is this: Despite good intentions, the last Government’s reforms have not improved grocery competition or delivered better prices for Kiwi supermarket shoppers. 

I am advised that without further action, meaningful changes to competition will be some time away. 

Progress Update

Last month I announced my desire to see another competitor enter the supermarket scene to deliver more effective competition in the grocery sector, disrupt the major players, drive down prices and increase options for Kiwi shoppers.

I made clear then that the Government wants to help remove barriers that could get in the way of a new entrant, including potentially removing a range of regulatory hurdles. 

Since February, I and my officials have engaged with a range of interested parties who’ve shared their views of what might be needed to help their entry or expansion into the New Zealand grocery market.

These engagements have been instructive.  My key findings have been:

1. To achieve the best outcomes for consumers we need at least one competitor entering or expanding to operate at a national scale. The Commerce Commission’s first grocery report supports this view, stating that success in the grocery industry “requires a third major network of supermarkets, offering a full range of groceries nationwide”.
2. That the Government’s work to replace the Resource Management Act, and changes to the Overseas Investment Act can help to ease the path for new grocery stores.
3. That the Commerce Commission’s work to target multiple other issues – including on wholesale supply of groceries, monitoring of anti-competitive behaviour and strengthening information and protections for consumers and suppliers – must continue at pace.
4. That further bespoke regulatory intervention could help some potential entrants – including by addressing potential barriers in food labelling and import standards that could prevent the importation of competitor products.
5. That even with all these changes, major commercial and regulatory barriers could still prevent a third player from being able to enter or compete at a national scale.

A competitor at scale

This final point is very important.

I want to see a new grocery competitor that can introduce competitive pressure not just in one niche or region but across the country, so that it improves shopping choices and prices for as many Kiwi shoppers as possible. 

International experience suggests that for this to occur, a new player would probably need to reach a scale of at least 10% of the existing market and do so relatively quickly.

There are a range of views about what additional interventions could be needed to make that possible. Some suggest that progressing the current Commerce Commission work programme, in conjunction with consenting and investment reform may be sufficient. 

Others advocate more significant changes to the structure of the New Zealand grocery market. 

These include splitting existing brands currently housed under one umbrella back into separate businesses (horizontal separation or demerger); splitting wholesale and retail provision of groceries (vertical separation); divestment approaches explored but ultimately put on hold by the previous Government, or a combination of these approaches.

In light of this work, and the advice and views I have considered to date, I have now made recommendations to Cabinet about the next steps needed to improve competition in the New Zealand grocery sector.

Issuing a formal “Request for Information” to support a supermarket competitor

Today I am announcing that Cabinet has agreed to commence a formal Request For Information (RFI) process to accelerate improved competition in the New Zealand retail grocery market.

The RFI I am releasing will help the Government identify the next regulatory and legislative steps needed to support a significant national-scale competitive challenge to the New Zealand supermarket duopoly.

We want to know what it would take for one or more new grocery retailers to enter the grocery market on a national scale, or existing competitors to grow to sufficient size to generate a material increase in the level of competition in the New Zealand grocery sector. 

We want to hear from firms or groups who have the capability and capacity to provide New Zealand consumers with a full range of grocery products, at scale, nationwide. 

This is about obtaining detailed information about how the Government can support a new supermarket competitor, using the full range of legislative and regulatory tools available to us.

We are asking respondents to set out the ideal conditions that would need to exist for them to enter and grow in the New Zealand retail grocery market. I also want to hear about barriers, both commercial and regulatory, and what the Government can do to improve conditions to allow them to set up and better compete with the incumbents. 

For example, they may face barriers securing appropriate sites to build on, or they may have issues accessing supply, or there may be fundamental issues with the structure of the market.

I expect that a new competitor would need to have, buy or build a substantial physical store network. That is a big ask. We can’t just cross our fingers and wait for that to happen. Nor am I satisfied that we’ve yet flushed out everyone who might be up for the task – if we get the conditions right.

As such, I have asked officials to seek responses from firms which already have a presence in the New Zealand market, such as Costco and the Warehouse as well as established overseas grocery firms, such as Coles, Aldi and Lidi. Investors for targeting will include general investment funds, specialist infrastructure investors and iwi groups. 

I have also asked officials to seek views from the existing major players, alongside the smaller store owners who work under their brands, to ensure their perspectives are heard.

The scale of the challenge

The challenges facing a major new competitor should not be underestimated.

My engagements to date have suggested that for so long as the current duopoly structure continues, and even with targeted regulatory action, potential investors may perceive that the commercial barriers to success in the NZ grocery market are just too high. 

Initial research suggests a new or expanding national-scale grocery competitor would require significant upfront capital.  It’s expected that the RFI will expose the “J Curve“” for investment, that is the potential for upfront losses that would be incurred during set-up followed by larger returns down the line. 

Any large new supermarket business would need to compete with what are large, well-established retailers, with strong brand recognition, substantial market power and significant efficiencies of scale. 

Concerns include the difficulty in obtaining suitable store sites at scale and pace, the potential for existing players to use their market power to block or squeeze out new entrants and the potential for existing players to place pressure on suppliers to offer less advantageous terms to new entrants. 

I want potential participants in the Government’s RFI to know I understand the mountain we are asking them to climb. 

It’s important they take this opportunity to articulate potential challenges as plainly as possible. 

Further options for Government Intervention

I acknowledge that we can’t just wait for another competitor to arrive.

In order to make the New Zealand grocery sector more competitive sooner it’s possible more significant reform of the underlying grocery market structure may be required. 

I have therefore advised Cabinet that when I report back to them later this year I will potentially recommend progressing additional intervention options for the New Zealand grocery market, including new legislation, should I view this as necessary to achieve the increased levels of grocery competition we are seeking for New Zealand shoppers.

I am actively anticipating what that may involve.

Accordingly, I am also announcing today that I am considering a possible structural separation of existing entities in the New Zealand grocery sector.

To support this, I have commissioned specialist external advice on ways in which the existing supermarket duopoly could be restructured to improve competition, including advice on options for ‘de-merger’ of existing brands, the potential impacts of structural separation of existing entities, and concepts for how this could be achieved.

It’s important this work, and any recommendations I make to Cabinet, are informed by the responses the Government receives to the Request for Information we are issuing today. 

And that resulting recommendations properly consider the potential benefits – and costs – of intervention. 

In considering potential design options I consider any newly created market structure would need to deliver net consumer benefits from greater competition, be enduring, ensure the market is dynamic and efficient and ensure that any transaction costs are kept to a minimum.

I do not take this step lightly. 

In a global context, the New Zealand grocery market has experienced exceptional consolidation, a point that the OECD and other international experts agree is major cause for concern.

This is a $27 billion sector – roughly the size of New Zealand’s tourism and dairy sales combined – so it’s crucial that we get this market working effectively. 

Doing so will deliver benefits into every shopping trolley and create new business opportunities up and down the supply chain.

I want to emphasise once again that this Government is not looking to run a supermarket chain: there will be no KiwiShop. 

Next steps 

I know that while this work progresses, Kiwi shoppers, feeling the pinch at the checkout, will remain impatient. 

They have already waited too long for more competitive grocery offerings.

We need to move fast, and also with due care. 

The RFI will proceed at pace, with information sought in the next six weeks. Work on market structure options will continue while this occurs, as will the Commerce Commission’s work to complete its wholesale inquiry, its analysis into land-banking issues and its second grocery report.

In mid 2025, once I have considered the evidence coming in from the RFI, and the Commission’s work, I will bring further recommendations to Cabinet. Depending on what I hear, I may seek Cabinet’s mandate to progress further design work on structural options to improve competition in the grocery sector.

If legislation is needed, I would want to introduce it before the end of the year and pass it during this parliamentary term, with rapid implementation shortly thereafter. 

I am determined that this be a thorough and considered process. It’s vital we get this right. 

As I said, I take seriously the need to weigh carefully not only the potential benefits of further intervention, but also its potential costs. And, it’s important to note, Cabinet has not yet formed a view on whether structural intervention will, in fact, be needed. 

The RFI we are issuing today is a crucial step for informing our future deliberations. I can’t yet predict the detailed recommendations I will make as a result. 

It could also be the case that the incumbent supermarkets propose actions that would prevent the need for any new legislation – for example through voluntary divestment undertakings under section 69A of the Commerce Act.

My key message is this: if further intervention is needed to drive competition in the grocery sector, then I’m up for it. 

I’m putting all options on the table. 

I’ll now take your questions.

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

Introduction

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today about the new resource management system the Government is introducing, starting this year. I want to acknowledge Hon Rachel Brooking, opposition spokesperson for RMA Reform, as well as Simon Court, my Under-Secretary, who I will invite to speak after me.

I would like to acknowledge the NZPI, David and Andrea, and the many planners here today, as key and influential players as the Government takes action to replace the Resource Management Act.

You, more than most, will understand the frustration and headwinds that the RMA has caused for everyone involved in the system – from applicants just wanting to get things done, to councils trying to implement and administer the RMA, to planners such as yourselves, and other experts, who are trying to do their best within what is a fundamentally broken system.

I am concerned that the social license of planning is at risk, with some seeing planners as stifling development rather than enabling it.

I accept that you have been working and operating in an uncertain and broken system. A system that encourages too much consultation and too much regulation for fear of landing yourselves court.

We are fixing the planning system. We are doing our part to improve the system, which means you have to do your part, too.

You have to properly balance the protection of the environment with the necessity of development, accepting that things like houses, supermarkets, and quarries are not nice to haves: they are essentials for human life.

We live in a free market economy, and not a planned one. Commerce and trade must happen, and it isn’t the job of the planning system to control or prevent those things.

You all have a critical role to play in New Zealand’s growth journey. We are a country that has been living beyond our means for too long – with an economy our size, that is thirsty for growth, we cannot justify being as restrictive and fragmented as we have been.

As a country, we have to start saying ‘yes’ a lot more, and ‘no’ a lot less. We have accepted our part we play in helping you do that, and I look forward to working with you on the part you need to play as well.

I know the NZPI has thousands of members and a long proud history of providing good advice and advocacy and I look forward to working with you on the replacement for the RMA.

As you know, earlier this week, Cabinet took decisions on a new resource management system. We’ve made some announcements including sharing the Expert Advisory Group report and recommendations, which I have heard has contributed to healthy discussion and debate at your yearly conference down here in Invercargill.

The need for reform

As you know more than most, the RMA is broken and is a handbrake on growth for the country and you can directly trace the onset of our housing affordability crisis to the introduction of the RMA.

It’s also too hard to build renewable energy, it’s too hard to get a road or quarry consented, it’s too hard to get roads built, it’s too hard to do anything.

That’s why it’s critical that over the next two years and beyond, we nail resource management reform.

The Government is committed to reforming the resource management system to drive economic growth and increase productivity by making it easier to get things done in New Zealand.

Our intention is to replace the Resource Management Act with two new acts – one to focus on land-use planning and the second to focus on the natural environment.

The new system will provide a framework that makes it easier to plan and deliver infrastructure as well as protecting the environment. But before I share further detail, I’d like to cover the significant progress we have made already.

As you will be aware, we have taken a phased approach to resource management reform.

Our first phase of resource management reform was the repeal of the Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act in December 2023.

The second phase was to deliver targeted changes to the RMA through two amendment bills, focused on relieving the most significant resource management issues in the short term, as well as fast-track and changes to the suite of national direction.

In October 2024, the first RMA Amendment Bill, came into force. This sought to reduce the regulatory burden on resource consent applicants as well as supporting development in key sectors, including farming and other primary industries.

In December the Fast-track Approvals Bill was enacted, and from February it has been open for referral and substantive applications.

The second of the RMA bills is now before the Environment Select Committee – and is a precursor to full replacement of the Resource Management Act. This Bill will make important changes in the short term to make it quicker and simpler to consent renewable energy, boost housing supply, and reduce red tape. The Select Committee is due to report back in June on this Bill.

Phase three

The third and final phase of the resource management reform programme is the full replacement of the RMA.

Last year, we established the Expert Advisory Group, ably led by Janette Campbell to develop a blueprint for replacing the resource management legislation. The Expert Advisory Group worked at pace, and I would like to congratulate Janette and the Group on the quality of the report and appreciate all their efforts in the later part of last year to deliver the Blueprint.

At the commencement of the reform process, Cabinet set 10 principles for the Expert Advisory Group to consider in the development of the Blueprint. The EAG report provides a broadly workable basis for the new resource management system, and the report has guided Cabinet decision-making on the broad architecture.

I say broadly workable – it is of course obvious to everyone in this room that with any planning system the devil is in the detail, and we do have more work to do.

Today I want to take you through the ten principles Cabinet asked the EAG to ‘build out’, and how they are being carried forward into the next system.

Narrow the scope of the system

The first of these principles was to narrow the scope of the resource management system and the effects it controls. The RMA right now just does far too much.

When you’re trying to manage for everything, often, you achieve nothing.

The new system will have a narrower approach to effects management based on the economic concept of externalities. Effects that are borne solely by the party undertaking the activity will not be controlled, while financial or competitive matters will be excluded.

For example, under the new system you will be able to change the interior or exterior of a building, which have no impact on neighbours, such as the size or configuration of apartments, the provision of balconies, as well as outdoor open spaces for a private dwelling.

The new legislation will narrow the scope of system, with the enjoyment of property rights as the guiding principle.

Now a lot of people are getting quite worked up about this. People often get obsessed about whether or not something is or is not a human right – and I must admit that a pet peeve of mine is the overuse of this label.

But something that is actually contained in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property”.

When people are stopped from doing what they want on their own property, for no good reason, then in my view: that is arbitrarily depriving them of their property.

We have been very clear that the new system will protect property rights, so long as you are not impacting others. To be even clearer: I see protection of the environment as a fundamental feature of any regime built on these ideals.

Respecting private property rights within the framework of a market economy, while also protecting the environment is exactly what we will do.

Compared to the RMA, the new legislation will more clearly define the types of adverse effects that can be considered and raise the threshold for when those adverse effects must be managed.

This will be a significant transformation of New Zealand’s resource management system and marks a shift from aprecautionary to a more permissive approach.

Both Acts will include starting presumptions that a land use is enabled, unless there is a significant enough impact on either the ability of others to use their own land or on the natural environment. This will reduce the scope of effects being regulated and enable more activities to take place as of right.

There will be a requirement for regulatory justification reports if departing from approaches to regulation standardised at the national level.

Subject to further detailed design advice, the legislation will also include protection against regulatory takings. This will allow affected landowners to seek recourse where it is found that unjustified restrictions placed on them.

We are also proposing a smaller number of consent categories that will make it simpler and more certain for applicants.

This includes removing non-complying activities.

8-10% of all resource consent applications every year are for non-complying activities. The gateway test in the RMA, creates a barrier to development even when applicants do everything they can to mitigate effects.

One point that I wanted to make today was in regards to the effects threshold, or the materiality of effects that is addressed by our resource management system. The RMA has led to a system that accounts for and address all effects, with only ‘de minimus’ effects discounted.

The EAG recommended lifting the threshold to ‘minor’ or ‘more than minor’ adverse effects, meaning that land-use is enabled, unless there are minor or more than minor effects on either the ability of others to use their land (in the Planning Act) or on the natural environment in the NEA.

The EAG point out that the RMA requires less than minor effects to be considered, including for who is involved in consenting processes i.e. who may be affected or whether a consent is publicly notified.

Cabinet has agreed to ‘raise the threshold for the level of adverse effects on people and the environment that can be considered in setting rules and determining who is affected by a resource consent’.

We liked where the EAG was going, but we want to take a look at this to make sure that we have the settings right, and that what we do will avoid as much as possible 30 years of litigation about what the proper definition of the thresholds are.

This has a real impact on how people interact and use the resource management system, and how decisions are made, so we do need to do further work here and I look forward to feedback on where we land.

Establish two Acts with clear and distinct purposes

The second principle was to establish two Acts with clear and distinct purposes, one to manage environmental effects arising from activities and another to enable urban development and infrastructure.

Cabinet has now recommitted to this, and can confirm that the new planning system will be made up of two new Acts.

The first act – The Planning Act – will focus on planning and regulating the use, development and enjoyment of land.

It will enable the urban and infrastructure development New Zealand needs and will align with the Government’s Going for Housing Growth plan and 30-year National Infrastructure Plan.

The second act – The Natural Environment Act – will focus on the use, protection, and enhancement of the natural environment. This includes our land, air, freshwater, coastal and marine water, and other natural resources.

Our natural resource management needs a clearer focus on what matters most in regulating the use, protection and enhancement of the environment.

Cabinet has accepted the EAG’s recommendation for only one set of national direction under each act.

National Direction under the Natural Environment Act will cover freshwater, indigenous biodiversity and coastal policy.

National Direction under the new Planning Act will cover urban development, infrastructure – including renewable energy – and natural hazards. 

Strengthen the role of environmental limits

The third principle was to strengthen and clarify the role of environmental limits and how they are to be developed.

For environmental limits there will be a clearer legislative basis for setting them for our natural environment. This will provide more certainty around where development can and should be enabled, whilst protecting the environment.

Like I mentioned earlier, things like houses, supermarkets, and quarries are essential to any modern country. They actually aren’t nice to haves – they are must haves. A regime of environmental limits ensures that everyone’s obligations are clear, and developers have understood safe harbours to operate within.

While local variation will still be possible, designing the system around default pathways like this will provide greater investment certainty, and improve the timeliness of decision-making.

National standards

And that nicely brings me to the fourth principle, to provide for greater use of national standards to reduce the need for resource consents and to simplify council plans, so that standard-complying activity cannot be subjected to a consent requirement.

Nationally set standards, including standardised land use zones, will provide significant system benefits and efficiencies. The new legislation will provide for greater standardisation and ensure that policy setting happens at the national level, while local decision is enabled for the things that matter.

New Zealand does not need 1175 different types of zones. In Japan, which uses standardised planning, they have only 13 zones.

Standardised zones will significantly reduce the cost of plan development borne by councils.

Across New Zealand local government incurs costs of $90 million per year, developing consulting and implementing regional and district plans.

Under the new system, council costs for developing their own zones, definitions, policies, objectives, rules and overlays will significantly reduce, as these would be set at the national level. They will focus on where the zones developed by central government will apply, and develop bespoke zones, if needed.

An economic analysis of the EAG report estimated a halving in the overall costs of plan making and implementation, across the country. This could save an estimated $14.8 billion in council administrative and compliance costs, over a 30-year period.

A standardised system will also provide much more consistency for users working across multiple local government borders, a benefit that should not be underestimated. Inconsistent rules cause frustration and added cost for resource consent applicants who have to redo otherwise identical proposals to match local plan requirements.

In addition to cost savings, standardised zones will be more flexible and permissive than many of the zones applied by local councils. This will improve economic efficiency and provide more choice for businesses and consumers. I would expect, for example, this to help drive down the cost of building a house.

We will be looking to international examples of standardised zones. While we hope to go somewhat further in terms of standardisation than some of the Australian states have done, they provide a useful cross reference for us. Victoria replaced 2,870 zones with 25 standardised zones which enable a wider range of land uses and development.

Resource consents will still be needed under the new system, but with the new nationally standardized land use zones and more national standards, there will be much fewer resource consents required and more permitted activities.

Compliance monitoring and enforcement

The fifth principle was the agreement that the new system would see a shift from consenting before any works are undertaken, to strengthened compliance monitoring and enforcement after the activity. 

We are acutely aware that if we truly want an enduring system that is enabling of development, we need to show Kiwis that this can exist at the same time as good environmental protection.

All users of the system need to be aware that while we will be enabling them, we expect them to follow the rules. And if they don’t, there will be consequences.

The new system will improve the consistency and strength of environmental monitoring and enforcement. This will ensure that whilst the new system will be more enabling, the rules for environmental protection will be clear and consistent across the country, and anyone seen to be flouting the rules will be more likely to have enforcement action taken against them.

This work will involve consideration of an entity like the Environmental Protection Authority to perform compliance and enforcement functions, and environmental monitoring functions centrally, removing these functions from councils.

This will be done in a separate legislative process and is not part of the two new Acts.

This, combined with other system changes (ie, national standards and zones) would involve a reduction in the role of local government which if progressed, could have wider implications for the structure of local government in New Zealand. The Minister of Local Government and I are working through these issues now, and expect to have more to say later this year.

Council plans

Each Act will require one combined plan per region – including spatial planning – with plan chapters being developed by each local authority, combined for each region, then presented as a national e-plan as per Cabinet principles six and seven.

This will result in a smaller number of plans overall, that will be simpler to use, and consistent across the country.

Spatial planning done right will enable housing and business development in places where constraints can be avoided or appropriately managed, as well as support early protection of infrastructure corridors and strategic sites, lowering the cost of infrastructure.

Cabinet has also agreed to establish a new planning tribunal for low-cost dispute resolution, as per the eight principle.

Uphold Treaty of Waitangi settlements

Critically, the ninth principle was to uphold Treaty settlements and the crowns obligations.

In the last few days, some people have been mischaracterising the Government’s position by saying there would be no treaty clause at all in the new planning system. This is untrue.

As per our coalition agreements, there will not be a generic Treaty clause that says that the act must give effect to or take account of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Government’s intent is that there will be a descriptive clause instead, that will recognise the Treaty of Waitangi and the uniqueness of the settlements entered into by Iwi with the Crown.

The problem with generic treaty principles clauses is they are open ended and amorphous, and they create uncertainty and legal risk for everybody. There is an opportunity through the development of more descriptive treaty clauses to really spell out everyone’s specific roles in the new system.

This may include refreshing provisions that provide for Māori participation in the RMA, making sure they are relevant in modern New Zealand and are achieving their underlying purpose.

We will also work with post-settlement governance entities to ensure that historical Treaty settlements and other arrangements, including rights acknowledged under Takutai Moana legislation, are upheld.

It is a bottom line for this government that we uphold and honour Treaty settlements that the Crown has entered into in good faith, and this includes in these reforms.

Having outlined the above nine principles, I hope you can agree that principle ten has clearly been achieved, which was to provide faster, cheaper and less litigious processes within shorter, less complex and more accessible legislation.

As I have said: the devil will be in the detail, and there is still water to go under the bridge. But with the EAG’s blueprint, I feel confident that we are going to get this done, achieving better outcomes for all New Zealanders.

Changes to Phase 2 national direction programme

Now those eagled-eyed viewers of government policy will remember the Government has an ambitious plan in Phase 2 of our reforms to update and modernize a series of National Direction to ensure New Zealanders experience gains in the short term from a more enabling system.

Our previously announced national direction program included 21 instruments, which collectively would have substantial implementation requirements of local government.

In light of the significance of the phase 3 reform, the Government has decided to relook at our Phase 2 national direction program and focus it to deliver on Government priorities while minimizing disruption to the resource management system.

Today I am confirming that we will still be progressing most of what was previously announced.

As promised, the planned freshwater package will continue, as well as changes to both national policy statements (known as NPSs) and national environmental standards (known as NESs).

Specifically: for freshwater – the package will include amendments to the NPS-Freshwater Management, NES for freshwater, the stock exclusion regulations, drinking water proposals and enabling vegetable growing and water storage.

In fact, all NES proposals will continue as planned. This includes new national standards on granny flats, pakakāinga, and amendments to existing standards on electricity transmission, telecoms, aquaculture, and commercial forestry.

Targeted changes to selected national policy statements (NPSs) will also continue, and will have immediate effect to support better decision making on the ground.

These include more enabling policies in the NPS Infrastructure, NPS-Renewable Electricity Generation, NPS-Electricity Transmission and the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement.

Also as promised, we will also be progressing quarrying and mining consistency changes across NPS-Freshwater Management, NPS-Indigenous Biodiversity and NPS-Highly Productive Land.

We will do a narrow change to the NPS-Highly Productive Land – to remove Land Use Capability (LUC) class 3 from the definition of highly productive land, to help support cities expand but still protect key soils under LUC 1 and 2.

And finally a scaled back national direction on managing natural hazard risk to support councils managing significant risk from hazards.

Some of you may be disappointed that we aren’t progressing some policies, for example changes to the effects management hierarchy for things like electricity and infrastructure development, as well as more substantial changes to things like the NPS-Indigenous Biodiversity, and some changes to the NPS-Urban Development.

Last year I announced changes we intended to progress on the NPS-Urban Development. We are committed to progressing housing growth targets and strengthening density requirements. But if we made changes now to the NPS-UD, this would require councils undertaking substantive plan changes, which considering the new planning system will be up and running by 2027, forcing councils to undertake a costly and lengthy plan change now wasn’t really feasible.

So as part of the consultation on national direction we will include a package on housing and urban development, focused on how our proposals will port into the new system.

The new system provides opportunities to achieve greater urban outcomes, through standardized zones and spatial planning, so this is a little short-term pain for massive long-term gain.

I expect to release the detail of these changes in the next 2 months, and have them in place by the end of the year.

Conclusion

We’re acutely conscious that the Government is moving fast and we’re making a lot of changes to resource management law.

But we want to settle on a system that is enduring, so that we can get on with implementing it.

The Government wants a rapid transition to the new system.

Our intention is that both new acts are put in place together, along with prioritised sets of new national direction, as I outlined earlier.

We anticipate turning on the new system at a fixed date, rather than the 10-year timeframe under the previous Government’s reforms. Local government entities are expected to be able to begin implementing the new system from 2027.

We also recognize that in order to transition quickly to the new system, with minimal disruption, local government and others in the system will require implementation support, which we have started work on already.

What we are doing is difficult and complicated, but it will create a more enabling framework, one that protects the environment and sets environmental bottom lines.

As members of the planning community, you have a huge part to play in providing feedback and ideas on how the new system can work, along with supporting councils and others with implementation.

We need a resource management system that will help drive economic growth and increase productivity by making it easier to get things done in New Zealand.

I look forward to your feedback and to discussing your ideas, as we continue to create a better resource management system for everyone.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I will now hand over to my Under-Secretary, Simon Court, who is assisting me with these reforms.

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

Opening

Good afternoon. I’m excited to be here at the KangaNews Debt Capital Markets Forum.

It’s a pleasure to be here with all of you – investors, financial institutions, and wholesale market participants who play a vital role in unlocking New Zealand’s economic future.

I’d like to thank ANZ for hosting this event and for inviting me to speak.

Debt capital markets are fundamental to the success of the Government’s plan to go for growth.

Capital is like water to a seed – it enables New Zealanders, businesses, government, and NGOs to action and grow their bright-ideas, ambitions, and aspirations.

The deeper our capital markets get, the more opportunities our country will have to thrive.

Today, I want to discuss how the Government is unlocking growth and overcoming funding and financing challenges in housing and infrastructure in a fiscally constrained environment.

I will also be announcing actions Cabinet has recently agreed to that will reduce debt financing barriers for Community Housing Providers.

Unlocking growth

New Zealanders have said that inflation and the economy are in the top three issues facing the country.

The only sustainable way to fix the cost-of-living crisis is to ensure wages grow faster than inflation.

That means growing the economy through more high-paying jobs, increased productivity, greater innovation, and more investment.

The best thing the Government can do to support this is:

• one ensuring systems, regulations, and laws are growth-enabling – like the Resource Management Act, and
• two getting interest rates lower.

Now, the Government doesn’t set the Official Cash Rate (OCR) – that’s the Reserve Bank’s job – but we can help support lower interest rates through responsible fiscal management, getting the government’s books back in order, and investing in productivity-enhancing infrastructure.

That’s what we have been doing, and since we came into Government the OCR has dropped 175 basis points.

In Budget 2024, we found $5.9 billion on average in annual operating savings and revenue, and $3.1 billion in capital savings and revenue over the forecast period. We reprioritised savings to fund tax relief and cost pressures in Health, and to support other growth-enabling initiatives.

For us, it’s about ensuring every public dollar goes to its best use. Greater value for money means we can provide more and higher quality services that people need.

Budget 2025 will be no different.

Without swerving too far into the Minister of Finance’s lane – I can say that Budget 2025 will focus on four areas:

1. Lifting economic growth through measures to tackle New Zealand’s long-term productivity challenges,
2. Using a social investment approach to improve life outcomes for people with high needs,
3. Keeping tight control of government spending, while funding high-priority commitments and cost pressures, and
4. Developing a pipeline of long-term infrastructure investments.

In terms of infrastructure, this Government has and will continue to invest a record amount. More than $68 billion in capital is forecast to be spent by central government on infrastructure over the next five years.

For comparison from 2019 to 2023, $50.8 billion in capital was spent on infrastructure.

Infrastructure Investment Summit

However, we know achieving economic growth is not all about government. We can’t unlock New Zealand’s potential without the private sector.

So, we are also focused on attracting long-term private capital, capacity, and capability into our economy.

To do this, earlier this month, the Prime Minister and I hosted the New Zealand Infrastructure Investment Summit in Auckland, which was attended by over 100 world-leading institutional investors, private investment firms, and construction companies.

It was a huge win for our country, and it was good to see some of you there.

During the Summit, we reaffirmed New Zealand’s position as being open for business, and as a safe and strong country to invest in.

Overall, we focused on three areas:

1. First, New Zealand’s infrastructure vision and upcoming public infrastructure opportunities,
2. Second, changes to policy, regulation, and legislation to make it easier to do business here, and
3. Third, other investment opportunities in growth sectors and the Māori economy.

I just want to briefly touch on the first area.

It was great to get investable and developable opportunities in public infrastructure to market, including Christchurch Men’s Prison PPP and the Northland RoNS PPP.

But as Minister for Infrastructure, I think showcasing our long-term infrastructure pipeline made the biggest impression.

This is what will give the private sector confidence to stay here and invest in people and equipment.

Firms just want to know: What’s next.

For example, the Italian tunnelling company Ghella was preparing to leave New Zealand after completing the 16.2-kilometre Central Interceptor tunnel in Auckland. But following presentations on the pipeline and the positivity of the Summit, Ghella have decided to keep their workers, expertise, and tens of millions of dollars of plant, equipment, and associated services here.

Similarly, Plenary, an infrastructure investment firm managing more than $100 billion in assets has also committed to opening an office in New Zealand and to bidding on at least five PPPs over the next five years due to the PPP pipeline.

Many global firms showed an interest in New Zealand.

When Guido Cacciaguerra of Webuild, a multinational construction and civil engineering firm, said “the Italians are coming back”, all I could think was – yes, that’s fantastic.

These guys helped us construct tunnels for the Tongariro hydro scheme in the 1960s.

It’s partnerships like these we need to help us close our infrastructure deficit, and we are committed to keep this momentum going.

Overcoming funding and financing challenges in infrastructure and housing

Now, let’s move onto overcoming funding and financing challenges in infrastructure and housing.

Public infrastructure in New Zealand has historically been primarily funded by taxpayers or ratepayers.

But our heavy reliance on this blunt approach is not serving us well and has led to perverse outcomes including congestion, run-down assets, and the unresponsive provision infrastructure – contributing to unaffordable housing.

The scale of New Zealand’s infrastructure challenge means we cannot continue the status quo – we need to leverage private capital and alternative funding and financing tools.

I want to outline several pieces of work that interact with debt capital markets, including:

• The establishment of the National Infrastructure Funding and Financing Ltd– or NIFFCo,
• Treasury’s new Funding and Financing Framework,
• The refresh of the Government’s PPP policies, and
• New funding and financing tools for infrastructure to support growth.

Establishment of NIFFCo

Let’s start with NIFFCo.

On 1 December 2024, we established NIFFCo to carry out three key functions:

• Its first function is to act as the Crown’s ‘shopfront’ to facilitate private sector investment and interest in infrastructure – this includes receiving and evaluating any Market Led Proposals, or Unsolicited Bids.
• Its second function is to partner with agencies, and in some cases, local government, to provide expertise on projects involving complex procurement, alternative funding mechanisms and private finance – including PPPs and IFF Act transactions.
• Its third function is to administer central government infrastructure funds.

When you decide to join us in transforming New Zealand’s infrastructure, you will likely work with NIFFCo.

Overall, I expect NIFFCo will help unlock access to capital for infrastructure and give the private sector a clear and knowledgeable Government-side partner to work with on projects and transactions.

So, if you want to put forward a project, are looking for an opportunity to invest in New Zealand infrastructure or want to partner with Government – NIFFCo is open for business.

NIFFCo will also lift the government’s commercial capability and help us be a better client of infrastructure. It will do this by deploying expertise into agencies that are working on projects involving private finance and alternative funding mechanisms.

This includes, but is not limited to, projects involving traditional loans, equity investments, PPPs, developer levies, beneficiary levies, concessions, or other value uplift mechanisms.

Funding and Financing Framework

Now, let’s talk about Treasury’s new Funding and Financing Framework.

Last year, Treasury released this Framework to broaden the funding base for Crown investments, and to utilise private capital where efficient.

It provides guidance to agencies that they should, in the first instance, seek user or beneficiary pays to fund new infrastructure projects rather than defaulting to taxpayer money.

I expect proposals from sectors like transport, water, energy, housing, and adaptation to demonstrate how user or beneficiary pays can contribute towards funding.

More utilisation of user- and beneficiary-pays will provide greater opportunities for the private sector, including debt capital markets, to participate in public investments.

We want to use the government’s balance sheet more strategically and apply good commercial disciplines when deciding how to financially support a proposal – essentially providing “just enough support” to make proposals feasible.

This will mean we can deliver more projects, and channel support to sectors where it is appropriate for the Crown to be the primary funder, like in health and education.

PPP Framework and other guidance

To match our more commercial Funding and Financing Framework – we also needed to modernise the Crown’s policies and contracts, particularly in the PPP space.

After extensive engagement, in November last year, we released a Blueprint outlining how the government will approach future PPPs.

There are several key elements in the refreshed Blueprint that will foster a more appealing market for all participants:

• A more practical approach to risk transfer,
• Guidance for agencies on bid cost recognition,
• Enhancing the Interactive Tender Process,
• Allowing reasonable price validation to occur during the procurement process,
• Improving the process for managing claims and dispute resolution, and
• Increasing the capability and resourcing of the Crown so that we can be a better client.

Our approach is to be smart about private capital and use it in a way that unlocks investment, enhances incentives for on-time on-budget delivery, and brings more maturity to the design, build, and maintenance of projects.

The new PPP Blueprint sits alongside new Strategic Leasing Guidance, and Guideline for Market Led Proposals.

New infrastructure funding and financing tools to get more houses built

Let’s move onto new infrastructure funding and financing tools to get more houses built.

As Minister of Housing, I am committed to – well, more accurately obsessed with – fixing our housing crisis.

We are not a small country by land mass, but our restrictive planning system, particularly restrictions on the supply of urban land, has created a scorching hot land and housing market driven by artificial scarcity.

We are changing that by allowing our cities to grow up and out. But this won’t be enough on its own. We also need to enable the timely provision of enabling infrastructure.

Put simply, you can’t have housing without water, transport, and community facilities.

However, under current settings councils, infrastructure providers, and developers face significant challenges to fund and finance enabling infrastructure for housing.

We want to move to a future state where funding and financing tools enable the responsive supply of infrastructure where it is commercially viable to build new houses.

This will shift market expectations of future scarcity, bring down the cost of land for new housing, and improve incentives to develop land sooner instead of land banking.

To achieve this future, our overarching approach is that growth pays for growth.

Last month, I announced five changes to our infrastructure funding and financing toolkit to support urban growth.

I won’t cover all of these. But the most relevant to you are changes to the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act (IFF) Act.

The IFF Act allows the creation of a Special Purpose Vehicle to raise finance for projects, where the cost is repaid through a levy charged to properties that benefit from a project over a period of about 20 to 30 years.

We are making several remedial amendments to improve the effectiveness of the Act, particularly for developer-led projects, which will make the process simpler and cheaper.

We are also broadening the Act to enable levies to be charged for major transport projects – a gamechanger in New Zealand for funding city-shaping projects.

These changes will lead to the Act being more effective, efficient, and utilised more often.

I expect, private capital will have far more opportunity to support public infrastructure projects.

Reducing debt financing barriers for CHPs

Now, I would like to move onto actions the Government is taking to reduce debt financing barriers for Community Housing Providers, or CHPs.

As I noted earlier, we are fixing the housing crisis by getting the underlying market fundamentals right. This is the single best thing we can do to make housing more affordable.

At the same time, I recognise that these changes will take some time and that there will always be New Zealanders who need housing support.

This Government believes in social housing, and we believe the CHP sector and private capital have a greater role to play in this space.

Currently, CHPs account for 16% of our social homes – or around 13,000 houses.

My ambition for the social housing system is to create a level playing field between CHPs and Kāinga Ora.

I’m obsessed with building houses across the housing continuum for people who need them. But I am agnostic as to whether those houses are delivered by CHPs or by the government.

I call this competitive neutrality. In some areas and for some people, CHPs are the answer. In other areas, Kāinga Ora is the way to go.

However, we don’t have competitive neutrality right now.

As I am sure you are aware, Kāinga Ora can borrow at a small margin above the Crown’s cost of financing, while CHPs effectively get access to finance at commercial rates.

Update on last year’s announcement

In November last year, I outlined three actions we are taking to help CHPs access borrowing to deliver housing:

The first was making $70 million of Operating Supplement available upfront, unlocking equity CHPs need to raise debt.

The second was making changes to IRRS contracts that makes the revenue stream more attractive for financiers.

And the third was to review the use of leasing to provide social housing.

I’ll just give you a quick update on where those are at.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development are implementing updated criteria for providing Operating Supplement upfront to support delivery of the 1,500 CHP places committed through Budget 2024.

The updated criteria will focus on the basics – strategic alignment, value for money, deliverability, and whether upfront funding is really needed to unlock financing. We are also removing unhelpful eligibility requirements and allowing larger CHPs and projects in urban areas to access upfront funding, where appropriate.

On updates to the IRRS contracts, HUD are making the following changes that will be in place for the contracting of places from late May onwards:

• Additional compensation where the Termination for Convenience clause is exercised on Build to Lease projects,
• Limiting the ‘step-in’ period to six months, and
• Providing a Financier Direct Deed when requested on all Build to Own projects.

These changes will go some way to reducing real and perceived risk to financiers, although I acknowledge that there is more work to do.

On the use of leasing to provide social housing, HUD has moved to an ownership-agnostic approach.

Leasing could be useful where CHPs want to leverage their local expertise in managing social housing, while partnering with developers who could leverage their larger balance sheets to access finance that a small CHP could not.

CHP credit enhancement

Last year, I also announced that the Government would explore a credit enhancement intervention for CHPs, so that they can access suitable debt.

I am pleased to announce today that Cabinet has agreed to establish Crown lending facilities of up to $150 million for the Community Housing Funding Agency (CHFA) to cover:

• an interim lending facility to be provided in early April to support CHFA’s immediate financing needs, and
• a final liquidity facility.

In addition to this, the Minister of Finance intends to offer a loan guarantee scheme to banks to support their CHP lending.

Both of these interventions align with our market-led approach to fixing our housing crisis, and our transition to more efficient and effective Crown investment.

The liquidity facility and loan guarantee scheme will provide critical support whilst we get the system right.

Let’s start with CHFA –

CHFA was launched by Community Finance in 2024 and aggregates the finance requirements for CHPs around New Zealand, unlocking lower cost finance at scale to support the delivery of social housing.

The CHFA is largest lender to CHPs in New Zealand already indicating they are providing lending solutions highly valued by the sector.

A Crown liquidity facility and credit rating will allow CHFA to lend to more CHPs on a much larger scale.

This will lay the foundation for CHFA to borrow billions of dollars, supporting not just the delivery of social housing, but also CHPs’ broader affordable housing portfolios.

Housing Australia has a similar model – the Affordable Housing Bond Aggregator (AHBA).

Since its inception in 2018, Housing Australia has approved around $4.5 billion in AHBA loans to support the development of more than 18,800 social and affordable homes.

The AHBA loans have helped the sector save an estimated $800 million in interest and fees.

I want this for New Zealand too.

Finally, on the loan guarantee scheme, the Minister of Finance and I have endorsed key design criteria as a starting point for Government’s engagement with banks.

I don’t want to get into too much detail, I will leave that to officials –

But, at a high-level, I expect that this scheme will encourage participation among banks and enable them to pass on meaningfully reduced interest rates and other lending accommodations to CHPs.

Relatedly, last year, the Minister of Finance wrote to the Reserve Bank asking them to look further at the risk weights for lending to CHPs. The Bank intends to consult on potential changes in the middle of 2025. This process may also lead to a meaningful reduction in borrowing costs for CHPs.

Overall, I am really excited about how these changes will support the CHP sector – we heard you, and we hope these changes enable you to grow and do more good work.

Conclusion

Delivering on this Government’s vision for growth and higher living standards will require a strong partnership between government, investors, and the private sector.

Capital markets will play a pivotal role in financing New Zealand’s infrastructure future, and I encourage all of you to explore how your expertise and resources can contribute to this effort.

We are committed to creating a stable, predictable, and investable infrastructure and housing environment – one that supports economic growth, enhances productivity, and improves the quality of life for New Zealanders.

Together, through innovation and partnership, I am confident we can build a more prosperous New Zealand.

I look forward to your insights and collaboration.

Thank you.

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

It’s great to be here today on what has been a momentous week for resource management reform.

As you’ve heard, Minister Bishop and I have been working hard to reset resource management in New Zealand.

Today I want to talk to you about the broader step change and what that is going to mean.

Among the many problems the RMA has caused is a playing field of skewed incentives for decision makers that has led to a culture of risk aversion and restriction.

As policy makers, we must expect people to follow the incentives they face. That is rational.

This is why it is important our reforms get the incentives right, to minimise distortion and incentivise optimal outcomes.

There are several elements of the reform that are particularly important in achieving this; in transforming this culture of planners first saying “no, but…” to one of “yes, and…” We must do away this culture of regulatory anxiety.

Regulatory anxiety

Good decisions rest on benefits outweighing costs, and on decision-makers facing the right incentives to adequately assess these costs and benefits in full.

Yet, planners working under the RMA are trapped in an asymmetric system.

The risks of saying yes—public backlash, political fallout, legal challenge and cost—are much more direct and salient to those making the decisions. 

The costs of excessive caution—housing shortages, infrastructure deficits, wasted economic opportunity, and infringements on people’s property rights—not so much.

Many of these costs are spread across society and felt over decades, some just shovelled onto private property owners to cop. This system rewards planners for avoiding risk, not for enabling growth, and it enables the undermining of property rights in the process.

The result? A culture of “no” and a bias toward excessive caution; caution that ties us down and squanders the great opportunity we have to cement our spot as the best country on the planet.

We’re making several moves to drive change.

Fixing the problem

Descoping

I have been beating the drum about the RMA’s absurdly broad scope for a while now, and we’ve talked about descoping as principle number one of the reform, so I will spare you the further noise beyond saying this: descoping the ‘effects’ the system manages will play a core role in liberating planners from the regulatory anxiety with respect to so many things currently managed. 

There will simply be less to do, and less to worry about.

The right to plan

The reforms will reinforce that districts and cities have the right to plan. Your city, your district, will have democratic accountability for choosing where to grow from standardised zones set at a national level, providing a high level of regulatory assurance to planners.

By closing the door to anyone who doesn’t like their specific height to boundary ratio to agitate for some bespoke zoning rules, this will necessarily ease pressure facing planners who currently must defend these things.

Communities will still get to have their say at the planning phase—and, in fact, they will be incentivised to do so—but we do intend for the ability for appeals to be greatly reduced which will go a long way toward reducing regulatory anxiety. This is an area we will firm up over the coming months.

National standards for common activities

Similarly, national standards for common activities will reduce anxiety that planners and decision makers currently have when it comes to forming up defensible consent conditions for what are relatively common and necessary activities.

Under the current system, decision makers must assess a wide range of potential effects, which often drives disproportionality between the consent conditions and the effect they are trying to manage, for the sake of appeasing noisy NIMBYs who don’t like things like quarrying, and who may be motivated to appeal otherwise reasonable decisions.

This often leads to a “ratcheting up” effect on consent conditions in an attempt by both applicants and decision makers to ward off pesky appeals. 

Codifying practice for common activities, like earthworks and working in a water course, into regular standards will liberate the anxiety planners face to set ever more stringent conditions and give development a mandate to certainly and sensibly occur, from Cape Reinga to Bluff.

Environment

The current system presumes that developers and infrastructure must avoid sensitive environments and that only by a torturous and often litigious process can an outcome which benefits the environment overall be arrived at.

Instead of spending weeks and months and years and tens of millions of dollars arguing with any Tom, Dick or Harry in various hearings, wouldn’t it be better that experts direct their energy into win-wins? Biodiversity offsetting springs to mind as a particular area of opportunity to help deliver both better development and environmental results.

Offsetting and compensation should be a starting point for conversations beginning with “yes, and”, because for someone like me who thinks an ideal date is an eco-adventure to see creatures like lizards, bats, and Freddie the frog, that could equally be a constructed wetland at an active or rehabilitated mine site, as much as it could be to Zealandia. 

Planning Tribunal

While these anxiety-reducing steps we’re taking will go some way to restoring balance and proportionality in decisions, there is a need for additional tension in the system to offset the distortion towards regulatory overreach and too much “no” in planning and decision-making.

This is a key focus of the Planning Tribunal.

By providing an accountability mechanism against scope creep and unjustified regulation, the Planning Tribunal will provide the tension in the system necessary to ensure the system is delivering as intended.

No longer will it be the easy way out to default into decision making that appeases salient interests and pressures at the expense of growth and progress.

Compensation for takings

Further tension will be introduced through compensation for regulatory takings to ensure decision makers are confronted with the costs of decisions to infringe on property rights.

Morally, it is simply not fair to force people to privately cop the cost of decisions supposedly made in the public interest—if the public has an interest, the public should pay.

Compensation for regulatory takings is akin to a congestion charge on regulation. 

Without a price on congestion, there is too much traffic. Without a price on protecting trees, or ‘outstanding’ or ‘highly productive’ land, there is a risk of too much regulation on people who want nothing to do with it.

We pay people for their losses from compulsory acquisition under the Public Works Act, and there’s no reason the same principle should not apply for partial takings for the public good under resource management legislation.

Moral case aside, this will lead to more careful consideration with respect to decisions that would restrict property rights, and ensure they occur only where there is a genuine net public good.

Conclusion

We are clear on the problems we intend to solve through the new planning system for people and the environment.

We are clear this requires a culture change.

We are clear that this culture change rests on a reset of the incentives for decision makers.

This requires a fundamental shift in the values and behaviours of the planning workforce which must align with our nation’s ambitions for the new system. 

A culture change means planners and decision makers share the ambition of property owners to maximise enjoyment of their property, of developers to deliver affordable homes, and of the infrastructure guardians to provide efficient and safe infrastructure.

To enhance overall performance, a culture change from “no, but” to ”yes, and” is a must-have, not a nice to have.

The new system will be designed to enable this culture change, and to enforce it where old habits persist.

I look forward to working with planning professionals on this necessary evolution.

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

Good morning.

I’m excited to be here at the Residential Development Summit.

Thank you to the Property Council for hosting this event.

Residential developers, investors, and the broader property community will play a key role in fixing New Zealand’s housing crisis.

We need your knowledge, expertise, and big ideas to help New Zealand’s housing system grow. We need to go up, we need to go out, we need more housing choice, and we need more tenure types.

Today I’d like to give you an update on our Going for Housing Growth programme, and how changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) will make it simpler and easier to supply the housing that New Zealanders so desperately need.

I will also be announcing actions Government has agreed to that will enable more greenfield development – allowing our cities to grow out.

Letting our cities grow

I am, unapologetically, an urbanist – dare I say, an ‘urban nerd’ – and a proponent of growth.

I won’t dwell on our housing challenge. You’ve all heard me bang on about that before. Our housing crisis is holding New Zealand back socially and economically.

Report after report and inquiry after inquiry has found that our planning system, particularly restrictions on the supply of urban land, are at the heart of our housing affordability challenge.

I believe that fixing our planning system by making it more enabling and getting the fundamentals right in housing are the best things we can do to unleash New Zealand’s potential.

Getting this right will:

• lift economic growth and productivity,
• reduce the cost-of-living pressure from housing, and
• ensure New Zealanders can enjoy a higher standard of living.

As the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Minister of Housing, and now Minister of Transport, I get up every day determined to try and make a difference.

Update on Going for Housing Growth

Let me start with an update of our Going for Housing Growth programme.

It has three pillars:

• Pillar One: freeing up land for development and removing unnecessary planning barriers,
• Pillar Two: improving infrastructure funding and financing to support urban growth, and
• Pillar Three: providing incentives for communities and councils to support growth.
• Housing Growth Targets for Tier 1 and 2 councils to “live-zone” 30-years of housing demand,
• making it easier for cities to expand,
• strengthening the intensification provisions in the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD),
• putting in new rules requiring councils to enable mixed-used development, and
• abolishing minimum floor areas and balcony requirements.

Pillar One

We have made good progress on Pillar One which includes:

I announced these changes last year and officials have been working hard on the finer details.

The changes I announced last year build on the NPS-UD brought in by the previous government in 2020, but they obviously sit within the existing RMA structure.

As you’ll have seen on Monday, the Government is replacing the RMA entirely with two new laws.

This presents an obvious sequencing problem. We are committed to housing growth targets, strengthening density requirements, and so on.

This year we will consult on changes through Pillar One, as intended. You can expect that around May.

However, if we implemented them straight away in 2026, Councils would be forced to conduct expensive and lengthy plan changes – only to start all over again a year or so later once the new RMA comes into effect.

So, we’ve made the pragmatic decision to implement Pillar One of our Housing Growth changes as part of the replacement of the RMA.

This also allows us to think about housing growth targets in the context of standardised zones.

So, councils will implement Phase 3 of the Resource Management reforms through development of new plans, starting from 2027.

Rest assured, Pillar One will be ready to go for Councils’ 2027 Long Term Plan cycle.

Pillar Two

Now, let’s talk about Pillar Two – improving infrastructure funding and financing.

Pillar One is about upending the system by flooding the market with development opportunities and fundamentally making housing more affordable.

But, freeing up urban land is not enough on its own. We also need to ensure the timely provision of infrastructure.

Put simply, you can’t have housing without land, water, transport, and other community infrastructure.

But under the status quo, councils and developers face big challenges to fund and finance enabling infrastructure.

So, last month I announced five changes to our infrastructure funding and financing toolkit to get more houses built.

• The first is replacing Development Contributions (DCs) with a Development Levy System, where growth pays for growth,
• The second is establishing regulatory oversight of these Levies to ensure charges are fair and appropriate,
• The third is increasing the flexibility of targeted rates,
• The fourth is making changes to the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act (IFF Act) that will make it more effective and simplify processes, and
• The fifth is broadening the IFF Act so that beneficiaries can help pay for major transportation projects.

I won’t go into too much detail here today.

But at a high-level, these changes will help create a flexible funding and financing system to match our flexible planning system.

These are some big changes, and it will take some time to get them right.

Our aim is to have legislation in the House by September this year, to come into effect next year.

Councils will be able to make the shift to development levies on the same timeline as the 2027 Long Term Plan cycle.

You can see, I hope, a lot of really good things coming together around 2027.

Pillar Three

On Pillar Three, officials are working away on this, and we will have more to say later this year.

Changes to RMA will support more housing

I want to quickly talk about how RMA reform will make it simpler and easier to supply the housing New Zealanders need.

For example, standardised zones will be a game changer.

I completely agree with urban economist Stuart Donovan – zoning is so balkanised that even large developers tend to stick to one or a few main centres as branching out requires reconfiguring to different planning rules.

Developers currently face a Gordian knot of these rules.

Maximum building heights of 9m in Kapiti versus 8m in Dunedin. Porirua requires an outdoor living space of at least 20m² for a medium-density residential unit – in the Manawatu it’s 36m². In Dunedin, maximum building site coverage can vary from 30% to 60% whereas in Taupō it varies from 2.5% to 55%.

Councils are even getting involved with things as niche as whether it is possible for someone to see the TV from the likely location of their couch – or whether doors should face out for “privacy” or in for “inclusion and community”.

I get email after email about this stuff. People stop me in the street to tell me about it. It is utterly out of control.

Councils should be focusing on engaging with communities, looking at capacity in the network, and making decisions on where growth is most appropriate.

And we need to grow both up and out.

For the remainder of this speech, I want to focus on what we are doing to enable more greenfield development.

Changes to the NPS-HPL

The National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land – or the NPS-HPL, was introduced by the last Government to protect New Zealand’s highly productive soils. This piece of national direction is intended to boost food security for both our domestic food supply and primary exports.

However, it is clear that it has gone too far. As currently drafted, the NPS-HPL protects a total of 15 percent of the country’s landmass. That’s nearly as large as the entire Canterbury region.

This protected land often surrounds our biggest and fastest growing cities where growth is busting to get out.

I have lost count of the number of developers who have come up to me since this has been introduced, frustrated that they are unable to secure land for greenfield housing to be developed.

There needs to be a balance between how we protect our most productive land with our need for more housing to tackle our housing crisis.

Right now, that balance is out of whack.

National campaigned on amending the NPS-HPL to remove the lowest classification of land protected, what is known as LUC-3.

This kind of land is not the golden soils we need in Pukekohe – instead, it’s much lower quality land that is good for housing.

Despite being a lower quality of soil, two thirds of land protected by the NPS-HPL is classified as LUC-3.

I am pleased to announce today that Cabinet has agreed to remove LUC-3 from the NPS-HPL this year, fulfilling our election promise.

Across the country, this will open up land for housing roughly equivalent to the size of the Waikato region.

Alongside this, we are going to consult on whether we should establish what we’ve called ‘special agriculture zones’ around key horticulture hubs like Horowhenua or Pukekohe. This would essentially protect LUC 1, 2 and 3 land when it is grouped together in a natural configuration.

We need more houses, and we need more greenfield development.

Removing these restrictions will allow us to have our vegetables and eat them too.

Changes to the NPS-HPL will be progressed as part of our National Direction changes in Phase 2 of our RMA reforms.

I will announce further details about the timing and shape of that package tomorrow but wanted to announce this change today to highlight our Government’s commitment to greenfield housing.

Greenfield Model

To further demonstrate this commitment, we are also taking action to get more greenfield houses built in the near term.

I am pleased to announce that the Government will provide finance to developers to ensure more medium-sized greenfield developments – think around 1,000 to 2,000 dwellings – are enabled through the Infrastructure Funding and Finance Act.

We are calling this the Greenfield Model.

The Government will support National Infrastructure Funding and Financing Ltd – or NIFFCo – in lending up to $100 million to developers for infrastructure needed to enable new greenfield housing.

This model is being funded using existing unallocated funding within NIFFCo.

Here is how it will work.

NIFFCo will lend to an IFF Act Special Purpose Vehicle at a very competitive interest rate during the development phase of a project.

Then, the debt will be refinanced to private markets once the development is complete, with the funding ultimately being repaid by future homeowners through an annual levy.

The development phase of a project is often the riskiest – and private financiers reflect this by charging higher interest rates.

NIFFCo’s loan will provide lower cost financing to developers over the development period by charging approximately what private financiers would charge for completed developments.

This is a big win for growth.

NIFFCo will also be able to recycle capital into new projects after the five- to seven-year development period.

We are putting the Greenfield Model in place as a targeted interim measure while our Going for Housing Growth policy and Local Government reforms bed-in from 2027 or so onwards.

To date, the IFF Act has not been used for greenfield housing developments.

The Act is complex, and levies are deemed too expensive. The higher than anticipated levies are also much less favourable than using DCs which are often artificially low, under-recover growth costs, and are cross subsidised by rates.

The economics of IFF Act levies just don’t make sense right now.

The changes we are making through Pillar Two, particularly around improvements to the IFF Act and our shift from DCs to Development Levies, will do the heavy lifting to fix incentives and put in place a more effective infrastructure funding and financing system where growth pays for growth.

But, as fast as we are going on this, it won’t happen overnight.

So, the Greenfield Model is a good short-term, cost-effective intervention as the lower interest rate provides benefits of around $10,000 per dwelling.

For comparison, the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, which was set up to support new housing by the previous government, cost around $28,000 per house.

This model will support growth that otherwise wouldn’t have happened – or would have happened much later.

I am excited to just crack on.

Conclusion

Let me finish by saying that solving our housing crisis is one of this Government’s top priorities.

And to be honest, it is my number one priority.

I look forward to working with you to grow up and out, and to deliver more housing that New Zealanders need.

Thank you.

Source: NZ Music Month takes to the streets

Check against delivery.

Kia ora and thank you so much for inviting me here today. It’s great to be with you all.

Can I start by thanking Fran O’Sullivan for her hard work in organising and supporting this annual event and the also NZME for sponsoring the event as always. 

I’d also like to acknowledge our Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson, Councillor Richard Hills, and my colleague the Honourable Chris Bishop, the Minister of many things relevant to Auckland’s future and success – Transport, Housing, RMA Reform, Infrastructure – the list goes on. He is also, importantly, Leader of the House because you can’t change the law if he doesn’t let you change the law, so it’s very important to have the Leader of the House on site – great to see you here. 

Also, the opposition spokesperson for Auckland, Carmel Sepuloni, and Shanan Halbert – lovely to see you here today as well.

It’s always good to be with you all as leaders of our city – people who believe in Auckland’s future and are committed to its success.

This shared commitment mirrors our Government’s focus on Going for Growth – driving positive change for this city, and delivering real results.
 

Context
 

As a Government, we have set a clear, decisive plan to get New Zealand back on track.

There is no doubt that our country – and this city – faces significant challenges.

At the heart of those challenges are the economy, inflation, and interest rates, which have been tightening household budgets and stifled economic growth. 

The Government has spent the last 18 months focused on the basics – rebuilding our economy, restoring law and order, and delivering better public services, particularly in health and education.

By reducing wasteful spending, reining in inflation, and lowering interest rates, we are easing the pressure on families and mortgages and giving businesses the certainty they need to grow and invest.

We campaigned on this, and we are starting to see the green shoots of economic recovery.

Inflation is back within the one to three per cent band, and interest rates are falling. This is good news for Kiwi households and businesses and is critical to easing the cost-of-living pressures for New Zealanders.  

Just last week, it was confirmed that our economy has also started to turn the corner, with GDP growing by 0.7 percent in the three months to December – ahead of what the economists were projecting – welcome news after a long period of economic decline, which we inherited, leaving Kiwis feeling poorer. 

Under Christopher Luxon’s leadership, our Government is Going for Growth, and working tirelessly to sustain this momentum, because a stronger economy means more jobs, better incomes, and more opportunities for Kiwis to get ahead. 

Rebuilding our economy also requires discipline across every part of government, local and central – delivering the services and infrastructure that Kiwis need, while ensuring every dollar is spent wisely to produce tangible results. 

This disciplined approach is especially crucial for Auckland – home to 34 per cent of our population and generating 38 per cent of New Zealand’s GDP.

Rebuilding our economy means the Government can continue to invest in the priorities facing our city, whether that is better schools, more doctors and nurses in our hospitals, or the infrastructure needed for our fast-growing city.

As Minister for Auckland, my role is to champion this city’s interests and ensure it receives the attention and investment it rightfully deserves from central Government, and I am proud of what we have already achieved as a Government. 

Delivering for Auckland

Since entering government, we have moved quickly deliver on our promises and get Auckland back on track. 

We axed the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax, removing 11.5 cents per litre from the cost of fuel.

We delivered tax relief for hardworking Aucklanders, with average-income households receiving up to $102 a fortnight.

We have also prevented a 25.8 per cent increase in water rates through our Local Water Done Well plan, ensuring Aucklanders have access to affordable and sustainable water services.

This will save Aucklanders around $899 million in water and wastewater charges over four years through the Watercare Charter. 

I want to acknowledge the team from Watercare for the excellent work they’ve done, as well as Auckland Council who have partnered with the Government to enable this deal. 

The deal with Auckland Council to financially separate Watercare has also built huge confidence in the pipeline of water infrastructure in Auckland. 

A major sign of this confidence was the decision by tunnelling company, Ghella, who are building the Auckland Central Interceptor, to keep their tunnel boring machine in Auckland, following the completion of the central interceptor tunnels this Friday. They see the growing pipeline of water infrastructure projects that require delivering in our city. 

This is what real confidence in the infrastructure pipeline looks like and it’s a privilege to play a part in delivering that. 

We have also opened new state-of-the-art radiology equipment at Auckland City Hospital’s Regional Cancer and Blood Service.

We’ve deployed additional cops on the beat – raising beat cops to 51 in the CBD – strengthening law and order to improve safety in the inner city and across Auckland.

We scrapped Auckland Light Rail, halting a project that haemorrhaged over $228 million without delivering a single metre of track.

We have introduced legislation for Time of Use Schemes, which will support the Government’s and Auckland Council’s efforts to reduce congestion across the city and improve efficiency of our roading network. 

We set a clear direction for both roading and public transport projects across Auckland, including the Northland Corridor, Mill Road Stage 1, the North-West Alternative State Highway, the Northwestern Busway and the Airport to Botany Busway so Aucklanders can have a clear plan of future transport projects for the city – both roading and public transport connections that this city needs for the future. 

And we are restoring democratic accountability for transport decisions, ensuring Auckland ratepayers have a genuine say in shaping our city.

Our track record as a Government demonstrates our commitment to delivering real outcomes for Auckland and getting our city back on track.

What’s next for Auckland

But the question is what’s next for Auckland?

While we’ve achieved a lot in a short space of time, our work isn’t done. There is much more to do. Two key areas of work that will be underway over the next 12-18 months, which I think are critically to our city’s success, is capitalising on the benefits of the City Rail Link and developing an Auckland Regional Deal.

The next 12-18 months see significant change in Auckland as we look forward to the completion of the City Rail Link. 

This project, started under the last National Government, will be truly transformational for the city and unlock huge benefits for Aucklanders, including reduced travel times and increased opportunities for development along our rail corridor. 

Once complete, the City Rail Link will be truly city shaping, and will have a significant impact beyond just making transport more accessible for Aucklanders. 

Unlocking the benefits of the CRL is key to Auckland’s success. Both the Government and Auckland Council have invested billions of dollars into this project and we must make sure that we are getting the benefits from it. 

Whether it is the work Transport Minister Chris Bishop is delivering with Auckland Council to remove level crossings to keep traffic moving safely in our suburbs, or it is unlocking development around train stations across Auckland, we must make sure that the city maximises the benefits. 

The Government has also recently welcomed proposals around regional deals, and I welcome Auckland Council’s proposal which has been put forward as part of that process. 

I hope that maximising the City Rail Link benefits can be part of that deal because that is something we must jointly ensure happens for the city. 

Regional deals are an opportunity to bring Councils, Government, Business, Iwi and community together with a longer-term view than just the three-year political cycle, about what’s need to enable the key issues to be unlock, whether that economic growth, productivity, housing, or infrastructure. 

I’m looking forward to the opportunity we have before us to build on the work already underway with Auckland Council, and how a regional deal could support that. 

As Minister of Auckland, I will be advocating for Auckland to be the first cab off the rank for a regional deal so we can build on the strong progress we have already made for Auckland in the past 18 months. 

A regional deal will be a long-term plan for the city, outlining how both local and central government can work together to unlock economic growth in our city, build houses, and deliver the infrastructure needed for this city. 

It is also an opportunity to outline how central and local governments need to work together to solve problems and deliver tangible solutions. 

Taxpayers and Ratepayers are ultimately the same people – and they expect central and local governments to work together to deliver on their priorities over the long term. 

Regional deals are an opportunity to do just that and I will be working closely with Auckland Council on their plan to deliver a Regional Deal for Auckland. 

But, great infrastructure and economic reforms also need high-quality public services, particularly in health, that are efficient and put patients first.

Keeping Auckland healthy

That’s why we’re determined to ensure Aucklanders have timely, quality access to healthcare.

A lot has changed since I last spoke to you in March, when I was talking about potholes – but even Bernard Orsman managed to find a pothole at Greenlane Hospital carpark yesterday, and we got it fixed. 

Some might say I traded one challenge for an even bigger one. In a growing city like Auckland, we need a resilient health system, so that rising demand from a growing population doesn’t mean waitlists balloon out even more than they already have.

The Government is putting more money into health than ever before and we are focussing our health system on delivering the timely and quality healthcare for all New Zealanders. 

To achieve this – we have restored national health targets – which are key to delivering timely and quality healthcare. 

Unfortunately over the last 6 years, we’ve seen the results go backwards for patients, whether its Kiwis waiting longer in emergency departments or elective surgeries, which increased from 1000 people more than four months in 2017 to over 27,000 waiting more than four months in 2023.

It is unacceptable and New Zealanders deserve better. Health targets have been restored to deliver better outcomes for patients because what gets measured gets managed.

But performance also depends on infrastructure. Auckland’s population is growing, so we need modern hospitals to keep up.

For the expectant new mother needing maternity care.

For the elderly patient needing a hip replacement.

For the injured tradie needing urgent care after an accident on the job.

Health Infrastructure Plan

At the recent New Zealand Infrastructure Summit, I highlighted 67 health infrastructure projects – valued at $6.39 billion – which are in the pipeline across the country. 

$1.5 billion of that is in Auckland, including Manukau Health Park here in Auckland, large scale remediation programmes across our estate at Auckland Hospital and Greenlane Hospital.

But at current estimates, we cannot build capacity fast enough to meet the demands of a growing population. 

Today, I am providing an update on the Health Infrastructure Plan that Cabinet is developing. This plan will set a direction for the next 10 to 20 years to ensure that as a country, we build the right things in the right places at the right size and scale.

While each project will require its own business case, the plan will set a long-term view of health infrastructure needs across the country and gives Health New Zealand a clear plan to work upon. 

We know that hospitals across the Auckland region are experiencing pronounced bed shortages, which are expected to increase as the population grows.

South Auckland in particular is one of our fastest-growing communities, with significant health challenges. 

This community experiences higher rates of infectious conditions and long term conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic respiratory disease. 

The health needs of South Auckland are compounding, and this impacts the whole region, with both Middlemore and Auckland City Hospital under pressure to service the south Auckland population – and this pressure will only continue to grow.

A new site in South Auckland has long been acknowledged by the region’s health planning as necessary to meet the growing demand. 

Today, I’m confirming that as part of the Health Infrastructure Plan, a new major hospital in South Auckland is being explored. 

The next steps involve detailed planning by Health New Zealand and securing land to accelerate development.

This hospital would work alongside Middlemore, adding more beds, modern surgical theatres, and expanded emergency services – easing pressure on the system and improving outcomes for Aucklanders. 

Kiwis deserve better than long waits in overcrowded emergency departments and long waits for surgery. Patients come first, and investing in infrastructure is key to delivering that.

The Health Infrastructure Plan has been considered by Cabinet and will be published in the coming weeks 

Conclusion

We have a clear growth agenda for Auckland. We’ve taken decisive action to ease the cost of living, restore law and order, and keep our city moving.

Auckland must be a city that works for its people – where businesses thrive, families can afford to live, people can travel quickly and safely, and everyone has access to timely, quality healthcare.

That’s my focus.

Thanks very much for having me here.

Thank you, and I look forward to continuing this work alongside you all.