{"id":301638,"date":"2026-02-25T15:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/301638\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T15:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:18:14","slug":"government-quietly-ditches-prime-minister-christopher-luxons-quarterly-actions-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/301638\/","title":{"rendered":"Government quietly ditches Prime Minister Christopher Luxon\u2019s quarterly actions plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The quarterly plans released near the start of each quarter typically<\/a> had about 30 to 40 actions the Government intended to complete in the three-month periods. Many of the actions were simply to \u201ctake Cabinet decisions\u201d or \u201cpass legislation\u201d that was already close to passing through the legislative process. <\/p>\n

A Herald analysis of the first quarterly plan from April 2024<\/a> found more than half of the 36 items on it were easy ticks or mere formalities. For example, there were commitments to deliver a Budget and then to legislate for tax relief that would be announced in that Budget. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Government’s Chris Bishop commented on X after news of the quarterly plans coming to an end.<\/p>\n

That plan included: \u201cRaise the energy New Zealand brings to key relationships through international engagements, focusing on our traditional partners, the Pacific and South East and South Asia.\u201d <\/p>\n

In announcing that first plan, Luxon said having \u201ca clear plan with specific actions and timeframes for delivery creates momentum and drives focus\u201d. <\/p>\n

Some of the actions in the plan released midway through 2025 were just next steps on policies that were included in previous plans. <\/p>\n

For example, the Government promised to \u201cprogress legislation to make stalking an illegal and jailable offence\u201d that quarter. The fourth-quarter plan in 2024 had a line about how the Government would \u201cintroduce legislation to address stalking\u201d. <\/p>\n

In late 2024, NZ First leader and Deputy Prime Minister at the time Winston Peters<\/a> hit out against \u201cdashboard crap\u201d, mentioning the likes of quarter-year or 100-point plans. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have this sort of dashboard crap that I see other people perform on and a 50-point plan, or a 100-point plan, or a quarter-year plan,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Government’s action plans normally had around 30 to 40 items. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

He later said he was referring to dashboards from the previous Labour Government, but wouldn\u2019t give his opinion on the quarterly actions produced by his Government. <\/p>\n

Luxon at the time said his Government was trying to \u201cturn New Zealand around\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re doing a turnaround, you\u2019ve got to be very, very focused on what you\u2019re gonna do, what you must do versus the nice to do and we need to focus the public service and we need to focus the new coalition Government.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said he was \u201cproud of the way they work because they actually focus our public service and they focus the Government\u201d. <\/p>\n

Labour leader Chris Hipkins on Monday said the quarterly plans had become \u201can exercise in managerialism rather than actually setting the direction for the country\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got to focus on making sure we have a long-term plan for New Zealand. That is something this Government doesn\u2019t have. You are not going to turn the country around in quarterly increments.\u201d <\/p>\n

Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald\u2019s Chief Political Reporter, based in the Press Gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The quarterly plans released near the start of each quarter typically had about 30 to 40 actions the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[432,13735,16426,165527,29853,1958,266,42,9832,16427,27983,6722,43,2171,415,3109,42303,77617,3048,2552,1361,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-301638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-action","9":"tag-actions","10":"tag-christopher","11":"tag-ditched","12":"tag-ditches","13":"tag-focus","14":"tag-government","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-helped","17":"tag-luxon","18":"tag-luxons","19":"tag-minister","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-plans","22":"tag-prime","23":"tag-public","24":"tag-quarterly","25":"tag-quietly","26":"tag-said","27":"tag-service","28":"tag-that","29":"tag-top-news","30":"tag-top-stories","31":"tag-topnews","32":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}