100-day plan: The 49 actions Govt pledges to act on
1. Stop work on the Income Insurance Scheme.
2. Stop work on Industry Transformation Plans.
3. Stop work on the Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme.
4. Begin efforts to double renewable energy production, including a NPS on Renewable Electricity Generation.
5. Withdraw central government from Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM).
6. Meet with councils and communities to establish regional requirements for recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle and other recent major flooding events.
7. Make any additional Orders in Council needed to speed up cyclone and flood recovery efforts.
8. Start reducing public sector expenditure, including consultant and contractor expenditure.
9. Introduce legislation to narrow the Reserve Bank’s mandate to price stability.
10. Introduce legislation to remove the Auckland Fuel Tax.
11. Cancel fuel tax hikes.
12. Begin work on a new GPS reflecting the new Roads of National Significance and new public transport priorities.
13. Repeal the Clean Car Discount scheme by 31 December 2023.
14. Stop blanket speed limit reductions and start work on replacing the Land Transport Rule: Setting of Speed Limits 2022.
15. Stop central government work on the Auckland Light Rail project.
16. Repeal the Fair Pay Agreement legislation.
17. Introduce legislation to restore 90-day trial periods for all businesses.
18. Start work to improve the quality of regulation.
19. Begin work on a National Infrastructure Agency.
20. Introduce legislation to repeal the Water Services Entities Act 2022.
21. Repeal the Spatial Planning and Natural and Built Environment Act and introduce a fast-track consenting regime.
22. Begin to cease implementation of new Significant Natural Areas and seek advice on operation of the areas.
23. Take policy decisions to amend the Overseas Investment Act 2005 to make it easier for build-to-rent housing to be developed in New Zealand.
24. Begin work to enable more houses to be built, by implementing the Going for Housing Growth policy and making the Medium Density Residential Standards optional for councils.
Restore law and order
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25. Abolish the previous Government’s prisoner reduction target.
26. Introduce legislation to ban gang patches, stop gang members gathering in public, and stop known gang offenders from communicating with one another.
27. Give Police greater powers to search gang members for firearms and make gang membership an aggravating factor at sentencing.
28. Stop taxpayer funding for section 27 cultural reports.
29. Introduce legislation to extend eligibility to offence-based rehabilitation programmes to remand prisoners.
30. Begin work to crack down on serious youth offending.
31. Enable more virtual participation in court proceedings.
32. Begin to repeal and replace Part 6 of the Arms Act 1983 relating to clubs and ranges.
Deliver better public services
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33. Stop all work on He Puapua.
34. Improve security for the health workforce in hospital emergency departments.
35. Sign an MoU with Waikato University to progress a third medical school.
36. By 1 December 2023, lodge a reservation against adopting amendments to WHO health regulations to allow the government to consider these against a “national interest test”.
37. Require primary and intermediate schools to teach an hour of reading, writing and maths per day starting in 2024.
38. Ban the use of cellphones in schools.
39. Appoint an Expert Group to redesign the English and maths curricula for primary school students.
40. Begin disestablishing Te Pukenga.
41. Begin work on delivering better public services and strengthening democracy.
42. Set five major targets for health system, including for wait times and cancer treatment.
43. Introduce legislation to disestablish the Māori Health Authority.
44. Take first steps to extend free breast cancer screening to those aged up to 74.
45. Repeal amendments to the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990 and regulations.
46. Allow the sale of cold medication containing pseudoephedrine.
47. Begin work to repeal the Therapeutics Products Act 2023.
48. Establish a priority one category on the social housing waitlist to move families out of emergency housing into permanent homes more quickly.
49. Commission an independent review into Kāinga Ora’s financial situation, procurement, and asset management.
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Poll: Have you ever been bullied?
People associate bullying with children in schools, but it can actually stretch beyond childhood to workplaces or neighbourhoods.
This Friday is Pink Shirt Day, which began in Canada in 2007 when two students took a stand against homophobic bullying after a new student was harassed for wearing pink. People across the globe are now encouraged to wear pink on this day to take a stand against bullying and promote inclusivity.
Have you or your whānau ever experienced bullying? Share your thoughts on Pink Shirt Day below.
Type 'Not For Print' if you wish your comments to be excluded from the Conversations column of your local paper.
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79.8% Yes
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19.9% No
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0.4% Other - I'll share below
Controlling Crime
I think National was going to go hard on crime. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working.
www.rnz.co.nz...
Record numbers are leaving NZ – who could blame them?
Migration figures show a record number of New Zealanders are choosing not to stick around – and you don’t have to look hard to figure out why, writes Q+A presenter Jack Tame.
No data point says more about the current state of our country than the fact that record numbers of New Zealanders don’t want to be here.
Over the last two years, the quarterly release of migration statistics has steadily plotted a massive exodus of New Zealand citizens.
Once all citizen returns and departures were accounted for in the year to March 31, provisional net numbers indicated New Zealand lost more than a thousand Kiwis every week.
But why?
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The pandemic restrictions are over and the borders have been open for New Zealanders for more than two years.
Pent-up demand for overseas adventure could explain the initial post-Covid surge in departures, and some New Zealanders who returned during the worst of Covid-19 have left again. But the more recent departures are better attributed to other factors.
As I’ve noted before, what’s perhaps most extraordinary about the huge outward migration of New Zealand citizens is it has coincided with near-record inbound migration of non-citizens.
Facing pressure from business groups amidst a global labour shortage, the previous government responded by massively relaxing immigration settings.
In the year to March 31, New Zealand recorded a net migration gain of 163,000 non-citizens.
Accounting for both the provisional citizen and non-citizen migration flows, there are 111,000 extra people in New Zealand than the year before. Add to that the births and deaths for the same period, and our overall population has increased by approximately 130,000 people in the last year.
During the same period, however, the number of consents issued for new houses dropped 25% on the previous 12 months.
As our population surges and construction slows, the average rent paid by the generation of New Zealanders most likely not to own their own homes has increased. TradeMe Property recorded a median rent increase of 8.3% in the year to March 2024 — more than double the corresponding annual increase in wages.
This renting generation, coincidentally, is the same generation most likely to have left New Zealand.
Of all migrant departures of New Zealand citizens, people between the ages of 18 and 30 made up almost 40%.
But even older New Zealanders — who are more likely to have established careers, families, and assets — are leaving in huge numbers. Accounting for all arrivals and departures, a net total of more than 7500 New Zealand citizens between the ages of 31-40 left our shores.
So, what will stem the bleed?
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In the short term, at least, there is perhaps little economic reason to stay.
The new Government has moved swiftly to tighten immigration settings but, as the full impact of higher interest rates seeps through the economy, unemployment is steadily increasing.
The national unemployment rate currently sits at 4.3% and most economists expect it to climb above 5% in the coming months. The Māori unemployment rate is already at its highest point in four years at 8.2%.
Young Zealanders now find themselves competing with more people for relatively fewer houses and relatively fewer jobs.
And, as we enter a winter of economic discontent, who could blame them for leaving?
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