Christopher Luxon: Prime Minister on NCEA Level 1, education, economy, interislander ferries

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the “more tax, more borrowing” of the last Labour Government hadn’t worked. 

“The decision for New Zealand is really about getting this country growing,” he told Mike Hosking. 

One of the areas they’ve been focusing on in order to do so has been education. 

Luxon said he was unaware of schools not getting necessary maths resources, and disagrees with the teachers unions, who say the Government has rushed the new curriculum through. 

“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, saying that 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. 

When it comes to the economy, he says there’s still “a lot of turbulence” to navigate before it gets better. He pointed to reductions in inflation as achievements. 

“I think every quarter you’ll start to see growth improve. We’re still not out of the woods. The last thing that gets sorted is employment, and there’s a lag effect. 

“We did it pretty tough. We had monetary policy where we were printing a lot of cash.” 

Luxon confirmed there would be an announcement on the Cook Strait ferries by the end of the year. 

“We’ve made a commitment; we’ll talk about the ferries by the end of the year. We’re going to get a solution in place. 

“There’s always ongoing conversations. You’ll know [the details] when you know. 

“It’ll be rail compatible, as it is today. I can tell you it’ll be done a lot cheaper than $3.2 billion.” 

He said 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. 

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