“I’m really confident. We will never be complacent.”
While National was keen to win back the East Coast seat it lost three years ago, Mr Luxon emphasised the importance of the party vote.
National was focused on “what the country needs” and had three major aims, if in Government — to rebuild the economy, restore law and order and improve health and education.
Mr Luxon said the New Zealand’s economy was poor and the Labour Government was responsible for it, not Covid-19 or the war in Ukraine.
“We are the only country in the Asia-Pacific region in a recession.
“We got to it much sooner and we’ve been in it much longer than other countries.”
The government had not controlled spending.
“We were the second biggest spender — per capita — in the world.”
Despite Covid-19, New Zealand was particularly bad, said Mr Luxon.
“We were the fourth biggest printer of money -per capita _in the world.
“We also shut the country down like very few other countries did.”
Mr Luxon was asked to elaborate on his “shut down” comment, but went on to say those three actions created massive asset price inflation and a huge amount of domestic inflation.
Treasury would say the country was one of those less impacted by Ukraine, oil or other global effects prices.
Subsequent higher interest rates had led to recession.
Mr Luxon said the government had been too soft on crime.
The government’s policy on reducing the jail population would be fine if there had been a commensurate decrease in crime.
Violent crime had increased 33 percent while gang membership had increased by more than 70 percent.
There were two ram raids a day in New Zealand, he said.
New Zealanders did not feel safe in their own homes.
A National government would ban gang patches in public places, gang membership would be taken as an aggravating factor in all court cases during sentencing, and police would be given warrantless search powers to remove guns from violent gang members.
There needed to be serious consequences for young offenders.
A new category of young serious offender (YSO) aged 10 to 17 would be sent to a young offender military academy.
Other tools would involve electronic monitoring, or being subject to an intensive supervision order in their community.
Some YSOs would undergo intensive supervision, including for literacy and addiction issues, with community-based organisations.
Such schemes had already proved to be a huge success, Mr Luxon said.
Something different had to be done because the country would suffer from increasing levels of gratuitous violence.
On infrastructure, Mr Luxon said National would introduce a 30-year New Zealand commission or pipeline which would deliver long-term certainty and reduce project costs.
A national infrastructure agency would coordinate government funding, connect domestic and offshore investors with New Zealand infrastructure, and improve funding, procurement and delivery.
There would be investment opportunities for ACC, the NZ Super Fund and KiwiSaver funds and national, city and regional deals to partner with local government to create long-term pipelines of regional projects.
Infrastructure funding was currently fragmented with numerous bodies such as the Provincial Growth Fund and the Tourism Infrastructure Fund.
A fast-track consents process would be created.
Mr Luxon said he also met with “youngish” Gisborne entrepreneurs or business owners who expressed concerns about infrastructure and education.
