National leader Chris Luxon on unemployment and delivery

National leader Christopher Luxon has warned young unemployed people their "free ride" under Labour would come to an end if he wins the election next year.

"To young people who don't want to work: You might have a free ride under Labour, but under National, it ends," Luxon said, unveiling a policy that would cut money from the Ministry of Social Development and use it to fund community providers to provide job coaching.

Luxon said National would "not keep funding failure by government departments", and if a department "can't deliver" he would "find someone else who can".

Luxon was speaking to his party's annual party conference - his first conference as party leader. He unveiled a policy harking back to the Bill English and John Key era of social investment.

The policy will offer people who are under 25 and on a benefit for three months or more with a dedicated job coach to help them find a job.

"Young jobseekers will get more support, with a proper assessment of their barriers, and an individual job plan to address those barriers, and find a job," Luxon said.

Anyone who had been on the benefit for 12 months or longer, who then finds a job and stays off the benefit for the next 12 consecutive months will get $1000 for staying in work.

"A government I lead won't waste human potential and we won't give up on people who could and should be contributing.

"Currently people are not, as standard practice, required to have a plan to obtain employment until they've spent 12 months on a benefit. That is far too late.

"And you don't have to have a case manager, though you can call an 0800 number if you want one. That is far too casual," Luxon said.

Luxon used his speech to slam Labour for under delivery and said it was his task to run as many of Labour's "hopeless" MPs "right out of Parliament".

Luxon said Labour's vision was for a "dependent society where big government squeezes out business and community initiatives".

"Labour MPs wouldn't have a clue how it feels to be responsible for a business whose employees' jobs depend on that business succeeding.

"I know that feeling. I've borne that sense of responsibility," he said.

He gestured to previous anxieties over caucus divisions saying he and Deputy Nicola Willis led a "stellar caucus that is united, committed and really humming".

"I can tell you that our MPs have their hopeless Labour counterparts on the run, and our task is to run as many of them as we can right out of Parliament," Luxon said.

This was Luxon's party conference speech as leader, and one of his first opportunities to tell party faithful the kind of leader he wants to be.

He said wanted a New Zealand where young people travelled to "act on a bigger stage" not to "escape the cost of living and lack of opportunities back home".

He said he wanted a country that "meets its emission reduction targets", and "holds on to its ethos of fairness, including to the generations that follow ours".

"A country that fosters social mobility, and that encourages government, businesses and communities to work together.

"I want New Zealanders who can't support themselves to know they will always be looked after," he said.

Luxon said he had a vision of a country that embraced "diversity and multi-culturalism, recognises the Treaty, acknowledges Auckland as the biggest Pasifika city in the world, welcomes needed migrants, but that first and foremost serves the common cause of all New Zealanders.

"A country that emphasises what unites us, instead of what divides us. A country that says absolutely, explicitly, that there is one standard of democracy, equal voting rights and no co-governance of public services," he said.