Can you

tell us how your vision for tourism in New Zealand differs from the current reality? From the current

reality? Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, what I would say to you is that it was very clear under Nicola Willis's announcement last year when she opened up the books. We've got years of deficits ahead of us. So, quite rightly, any government needs to cut its cloth and that's what we're doing. Like any family and business has done in the last few years. The other side of that equation is how do we then grow the economy? Tourism and hospitality is one of our biggest export earners. So, what we want to do is grow tourism. And I'm really excited about the figures that were announced yesterday and showed that tourism had bounced back to our second biggest export owner. The data to March 2023 showed that tourism expenditure was about $37 billion. Only about $4 billion shy of the $41 billion it was at pre-COVID. So, it shows that the tourists are coming back. And as I travel around the country as a new tourism and hospitality minister, it's really exciting. And I love meeting all the colourful characters, our tourism operators and they're loving the ability to showcase New Zealand to our

international community. So, back to my question. How would your vision for tourism and New Zealand change things? What would you do

differently? Well, at the moment, what we want to do is grow tourism. How much bigger should it be do you think? Well, that's not for me to say. Could it be New Zealand's largest export industry again? Well, potentially. But when I say I want to grow the value of tourism, I want to do it with social licence. I want communities to be part of that discussion. I'm really encouraged at the moment of the structure we have in New Zealand. We have our regional tourism organisations who put together what's called destination management plans. That's part of communities deciding do they want tourism, what attractions do they have to offer and what levels do they want coming in. So, look, it's not for me out of the beehive to tell areas what they want to do in tourism. Other than I think a government's role is to create the settings, that tourism operators can grow, invest in other dollar, employ another person, and then

get out of their way so they can go on and do what they need to do. So, it was good for productivity, for growing wage rises, that kind of thing?

Yeah, when you look at hospitality and tourism, it's a way of bringing jobs into some of the smaller rural towns. But it's a good problem. Our regional is as well. When you think about it, it is about jobs and incomes they're jack. And that's what tourism can do. It can be a real economic catalyst for rural and

regional New Zealand. MB is of the view that our managed tourism growth over the medium to long term is unlikely to tackle New Zealand's broader economic challenges, including productivity and lifting per capita incomes. Yeah, it's from

your briefing. I know, I've not slightly pushed back on that, Jack. What I'm actually seeing from our tourist operators, and I think really, when you look at the value of tourism to our GDP, the latest stats showed about 3.7 billion. I think we should be petting our tourism operators on the back and thanking them for being part of our economic recovery. And what they're telling me is that they are looking at their products now, at their services, and looking at higher value of what they are achieving with the international visitors. I think that will drive productivity, and I think that should be encouraged. And for me, when you look at tourism, it's largely private capital. We should be creating the settings that our tourist operators can go on and flourish. And that's what I think the role of government is.

That's Matt Doocy. If you want to contact the Q&A team, please call it or mie. These are our main platforms. You can flick us an email. You can find us on X or on Facebook. Next, we will ask, if a Labour government in the future will revive the Māori health authority, and then what news hub's proposed closure says about the state of news media in New Zealand. We can choose formal function.