{"id":258697,"date":"2025-11-03T01:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T01:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/258697\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T01:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T01:31:08","slug":"christopher-luxon-hopeful-trump-will-take-up-his-nz-golf-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/258697\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Luxon hopeful Trump will take up his NZ golf offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luxon said the informal nature of their talk was a positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a good meeting because he had very formal meetings with China and Korea. And then he met with us just informally or me personally, which was great. So he was very good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luxon mixed and mingled with some of the world\u2019s most powerful leaders, such as Chinese President Xi Jinping, during his time at Apec in South Korea.<\/p>\n

At the meeting with Xi, Luxon made sure New Zealand was still on the Chinese radar. <\/p>\n

Speaking of New Zealand\u2019s relationship with China<\/a>, Luxon said it was an \u201cimportant\u201d and \u201ccomplex\u201d one with areas for further co-operation but also differences to be called out publicly and privately.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe leaders previously met in June when Christopher Luxon was in Beijing. Photo \/ Supplied.<\/p>\n

Luxon also discussed recent changes to the education curriculum for years 1-10, taking issue with criticism from the PSA and other unions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel very strongly about this\u201d, he told Hosking. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a stack of high-paying jobs out there in the world, and we need them to come to New Zealand. And what\u2019s been happening is actually our standards have been slipping versus lots of other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luxon said he does not remember unions \u201cgoing after\u201d Labour leader Chris Hipkins when he was Education Minister, while standards were being dumbed down and children were underachieving. <\/p>\n

Strengthening the curriculum was the \u201csingle biggest thing that we can do to set ourselves up for the future\u201d, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you know, the unions, there\u2019s a consultation period, be constructive, don\u2019t be political, get in behind, but where were you when the last six years calling out the poor performance?\u201d<\/p>\n

In other policy, changes to Chinese tourist visas were announced this morning,<\/a> with Chinese tourists no longer needing to apply for a New Zealand visitor visa if they already hold an Australian one.<\/p>\n

The changes announced by Minister for Immigration Erica Stanford are expected to bring a boost to the country\u2019s tourism sector. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe anticipate that as many as 50,000 additional visitors may now come each year on holiday via Australia through these changes,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Currently, those travelling from China to New Zealand must apply for a visitor visa, which costs $441 and can take up to two weeks to process.<\/p>\n

However, the change now means Chinese visitors with a valid Australian visa can request an Electronic Travel Authority (NZeTA) – permission to enter New Zealand without needing a visa.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Health Minister Simeon Brown also announced four hospitals will open new wards during the second half of next year. <\/a><\/p>\n

The rapid-build projects will provide for 140 new beds nationwide at Middlemore Hospital, Waikato Hospital, Wellington Regional Hospital and Nelson Hospital, said Brown. <\/p>\n

The minister said the wards would be constructed off-site and installed on hospital grounds.<\/p>\n

They will open at the same time as a new ward at Hawke\u2019s Bay Hospital that was announced in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese new wards will make a real difference for both patients and staff. They will ease pressure on emergency departments, support faster admissions and discharges and improve patient flow right across the hospital,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luxon said the informal nature of their talk was a positive. \u201cThat was a good meeting because he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,152345,13885,755,9703,152347,152348,152346,50029,1697,21920,40167,20401,3607,85,10965,6449,3281,8045,100796,1050,3205],"class_list":["post-258697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-christopher","tag-donald","tag-golf","tag-his","tag-hopeful","tag-hoping","tag-luxon","tag-minister","tag-nz","tag-offer","tag-president","tag-prime","tag-round","tag-sports","tag-take","tag-takes","tag-trump","tag-up","tag-visit","tag-will","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}