It follows an interview the Prime Minister gave the Herald during which he reflected on critics’ early predictions of a tumultuous working relationship in the country’s first three-party coalition Government.
Luxon also told the Herald of how he gets on with other party leaders, his achievements in government thus far and plans for the upcoming year.
He told Hosking there was no stoush between himself and David Seymour over the Waikato medical school plans.
”All respect, David’s not the Minister of Health, he’s the Minister for Regulation. He needs to focus on that,” he said.
”I disagree [with teachers unions that we have rushed the new curriculum through],” he said.
”We got a set of results that said four out of five of our kids going into high school are not where they need to be. I’m sorry, we can sit around having consultation and kumbaya all year, but we actually need to make an intervention. We did that within a week.
”[Education Minister] Erica Stanford has done an exceptionally good job to make sure they’ve got the [resources] they need to teachers.”
He touched on how “abysmal” NCEA is: “Whether you’re a parent or an employer or a teacher, it’s not working. And it’s no surprise when kids show up for third form and four out of five aren’t at the standard they need to be in maths,” Luxon said.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon talks to Mike Hosking on Mike Hosking Breakfast in the NewstalkZB studio. Photo / Jason Dorday
As he opened a new “police base” in central Auckland, the Prime Minister spoke of going after gangs “hard”, changing sentencing laws and wanting to rebuild the country’s economy and reduce the cost of living.
Luxon was formally appointed Prime Minister on November 27 last year by the Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro. Luxon and his ministers, including Act Party leader David Seymour and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, were sworn in in front of their families and friends at Government House.
Peters was sworn in as the Deputy Prime Minister under the arrangement in the coalition deals. The deal gave Peters the role for the first 18 months before Seymour would take it over for the remainder of the parliamentary term.
Central to maintaining his relationships with the two leaders, Luxon told the Herald, have been the “coalition clearinghouse meetings”, conducted in every Parliament sitting block. They were originally agreed as meetings between the three leaders, their deputies and the Leader of the House, but they’d since morphed to sometimes involve just two leaders.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in his Beehive office giving an interview for the Herald. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“There are three different takes in this Government, the different parties, different leaders, and where we have issues of potential tension, we try and diffuse it all in advance and that’s why we have a regular clearinghouse meeting,” he said.
Luxon also believed inheriting a “pretty dysfunctional” National Party in 2021 had prepared him well to manage a three-party coalition.
On what he saw as the coalition’s achievements thus far, Luxon pointed to efforts to tame inflation and “put financial discipline back into government”. He also cites the heightened intensity placed on New Zealand’s international relationships, led in part by Peters as Foreign Minister.
