Christopher Luxon Hits Back At Labour’s Spending Plans, Brushes Off Winston Peters On India FTA

Russell
Palmer Political reporter

National
leader Christopher Luxon continues to claim more unfunded
spending from Labour, despite the latest policy coming from
the same source as his own KiwiSaver plans.

Labour at
its pre-election congress over the weekend announced an
election policy to expand the apprenticeship boost scheme
from one year to two, with more trades eligible, and grants
on offer for tools.

Originally introduced in 2020, the
scheme pays employers $500 a month to help cover wages and
keep apprentices earning while training.

Leader Chris
Hipkins said the funding for expanding it would come from
future budget operating allowances, the same source as
National’s KiwiSaver policy.

The party estimated it
would cost an average $56.6m a year, or $226.4m over four
years; compared to about $1 billion for National’s KiwiSaver
scheme over four years.

Luxon said National backed the
scheme.

“We put funding back in place after Labour
failed to fund it,” he said, referring to previous Labour
government Budgets that used time-limited funding.

“We
support apprenticeship boost, and we’re open to doing
whatever we can to create more trade opportunities, but the
bigger issue for Labour is more unfunded
spending.

“The bigger issue for Labour is there’s
another quarter-of-a-billion dollars of unfunded spending,
and they didn’t [say] over the weekend how they’re going to
fund it.

“We did two policies in the last week you
know, KiwiSaver and rooftop solar. We explain how we’re
going to fund it, and somehow they just seem to be able to
announce an idea and actually there’s just more tax and more
debt, and more being added to the hidden bill.”

Asked
what National would do instead, Luxon pointed to the recent
Budget doubling the places in skills trade academies and
providing more youth guarantee places and vocational
pathways.

Labour’s campaign chair Kieran McAnulty
backed the policy, pushing back on criticism of it being a
“retread”.

“Why can’t you just bring back something
that we know works? Why does it have to be something brand
new? If there’s something that worked in the past that is
just as relevant now that this government cut and we’re
bringing it back, that’s a good thing, right?

“I talk
to a lot of tradespeople with my housing portfolio, but I
also do a lot of public meetings in that space too, and also
as campaign chair, and so I’m talking to people not just
that back the party, but that traditionally support other
parties. I can tell you this every time I mention the
apprenticeship boost, the room’s full of nodding
heads.

“Doesn’t matter who they vote for, they know
that this is a good thing.”

He said something needed
to be done, and “sniping from the sidelines, like we’ve seen
in response from the government, is not going to solve the
problem”.

Luxon pushed back on the suggestion he was
just blaming Labour.

“No, I’m not doing that. I’m
saying to you, we’re the only ones with a long-term economic
plan to grow the economy and to make life more affordable,”
he said.

“In the last three quarters, nine months of
the year we’ve grown the economy at 2.1 percent, we’ve got
spending under control, we’ve got inflation down, we’ve got
interest rates down, we’ve got growth in the
economy.”

Peters trying to ‘sabotage’ India
FTA

Luxon also pushed back on New Zealand First
leader Winston Peters’ claims about the India Free Trade
Agreement (FTA), saying it was “no surprise”, but Peters
could “sabotage as much as he likes”.

Peters last week
claimed
National was secretly restricting immigration from India
specifically.

Luxon said his foreign minister had been
agitating against the deal, and – echoing the words of his
Trade Minister Todd McClay – was “wrong”.

“Winston
Peters is just simply wrong on the Indian FTA, in the same
way he was wrong on the China FTA,” he said.

“It’s now
getting quite confusing what he’s talking about, because he
says we had too many immigrants coming in, then now we
haven’t got enough. The bottom line is pretty simple. Todd
McClay did the deal, he was in the room, both sides know
exactly what we’ve agreed on. We’re getting on with
it.

“It’s time to move on, frankly.”

Luxon did
not directly answer repeated questions about what Peters had
got wrong, however, saying it was “no surprise”.

“He
doesn’t support the Indian FTA at all. We think it’s a
massive opportunity for New Zealand – 1.5 billion consumers,
the biggest economy, thousands of jobs, and billions of new
exports. We think that’s great. He’s just not a fan of the
Indian FTA.

“We’ve negotiated this deal with the
Indians, they’re happy with it, we’re happy with it, we’re
getting on with it, and Winston can, you know, agitate and
try and sabotage as much as he likes, but at the end of the
day it’s happening.”

Policy reversals ‘about making
better law’

Luxon defended two recent policy u-turns
from the government – including on Fisheries
and Conservation
– saying that reflected good lawmaking.

“It’s about
making better law. So, I think what’s worse is actually
mindlessly just pushing on for something when you’re not
listening to that feedback and there’s genuinely good
feedback that you should be trying to make that law better
with,” Luxon said.

Morning Report host Ingrid
Hipkiss then asked if it would not be better to have well
thought out law to start with.

“Well, we do,” Luxon
responded, “but it’s also quite good, Ingrid, that I think
the public in a democracy actually get to comment on that
legislation, actually get to strengthen or improve
it.”

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