\u201cNo, they\u2019re not. I love Craig, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time with him given he\u2019s had some major weather events in Wairoa over the last few years, and so I\u2019ll happily wear a woke label this time if it means we didn\u2019t lose anyone\u2019s lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a significant event with 10 local states of emergency actioned, and in a number of regions there were road closures, power outages and flooding.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the Government had worked \u201cincredibly well\u201d with Little in the past, including supporting dredging at the harbour entrance, and \u201cI\u2019d sooner be prepared than talking to you about an event that we were underprepared for\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the response got better \u201ceach time we have one of these severe weather events\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe join-up and the teamwork that we saw between local and central government, Niwa and civil defence, iwi and marae, rural support and first responders and emergency management is truly inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second iterations of Dunedin flooding and fires on the Port Hills had been much better handled than the first time around, but \u201csadly the same thing\u2019s been happening with our weather events\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
Luxon said it was incumbent on households to prepare for the worst.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink about an evacuation plan, make sure we have a container full of our key supplies, don\u2019t go driving through floodwaters because that\u2019s how we\u2019ve been losing lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think New Zealanders are taking it more seriously, we\u2019re getting better at responding, and that\u2019s all good.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he wanted to thank the New Zealanders who \u201cheeded the call to take personal responsibility and actions to keep themselves and their family safe in this event\u201d.<\/p>\n
Fuel rationing plan to take weeks to finalise<\/p>\n
Luxon offered reassurance New Zealand had \u201csufficient\u201d fuel after the latest official numbers from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, but it would take \u201ca few more weeks\u201d to finalise the Phase 3 and Phase 4 fuel prioritisations.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the learnings out of Covid is we don\u2019t want to do this to industry, we don\u2019t want to be operating in a parent-child manner, we want to be operating in an adult-to-adult manner working with industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they have many of the solutions that we need in order to make sure that we could manage ourselves… if needed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just had the submissions come in, there are 2000 of them, we have a series of forums and groups we\u2019ve worked with from day one, we\u2019ve worked with diesel users, we\u2019ve worked with importers, we\u2019ve worked with big key CEO groups and we need to digest all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While fuel stock numbers were down on the previous update, it was within normal fluctuations, reflecting distribution around the country and \u201cno material issues\u201d with incoming shipments, Luxon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also do welcome the ceasefire and we hope seriously for constructive negotiations between the parties involved to stop this conflict, but we have all seen how volatile and unpredictable this conflict has been and how fragile this ceasefire is and negotiations are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to call for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened. The longer shipping in the strait is disrupted, the more it impacts New Zealanders here at home… it is urgent to find a diplomatic solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
He refused to confirm further targeted support for those struggling with high fuel prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur prices at the pump are really set by global prices, as you\u2019d understand… price of oil today is probably $20 lower than what it was just a week ago, we expect those prices to flow through within a week or two.<\/p>\n
\u201cEqually, those prices can go up or down very easily based on what\u2019s happening with the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luxon repeated comments that New Zealand could not afford untargeted spending to cushion the blow for all New Zealanders after \u201creckless Covid spending\u201d had \u201cused up the rainy-day fund and maxed out the credit card\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he thought the Government had done well with its handling of the fuel crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve done a very good job. We already had an essential treaties agreement with Singapore, for example … I\u2019ve spoken with the Singaporean Prime Minister again but also the South Korean President as well, where the vast majority of our supplies come from.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose refineries have been doing a good job of trying to find alternative feedstocks and that gives us great confidence and that\u2019s why … New Zealanders are reassured, they know that there is supply of fuel in the country and I think that\u2019s because we\u2019ve done some good work on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luxon batted away concerns about rising inflation after ANZ\u2019s prediction earlier in the day of three Official Cash Rate hikes before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the ANZ\u2019s own admission it\u2019s pretty uncertain and there are a lot of economists with a lot of views about where inflation will go and where economic growth will go… our job from day one has been to make sure we don\u2019t repeat the mistakes of Covid.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to be responsible economic managers so we actually protect the long-term economy for New Zealanders.\u201d<\/p>\n
India FTA talks with Labour \u2018constructive\u2019<\/p>\n
Top exporters represented by Business NZ have also signed an open letter calling for all political parties to back the India free trade agreement Luxon announced at the end of last year.<\/p>\n
The deal had not been supported by New Zealand First, so support from the Opposition will be needed to pass the related legislation.<\/p>\n
Labour has not yet agreed, saying there were inconsistencies between National\u2019s public statements about the deal and what the text of the agreement said.<\/p>\n
Luxon said conversations with Labour about the deal were \u201cvery constructive and good\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be about politics, I don\u2019t think it is, we\u2019re having constructive conversations with Labour \u2013 but [they should] get on board because it\u2019s a bipartisan thing, trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery constructive and good conversations undertaken I think with a tremendous amount of goodwill, we\u2019ve made our ministers and officials available to the Labour side in many meetings now, there\u2019s been an exchange of letters and it\u2019s just essentially alleviating their concerns… helping them understand why we think this is such a fantastic deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said India was the most populous country and the deal would be looked back on in the future as a good one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is about benefiting regular, everyday New Zealanders. One in four of them have their jobs tied to trade, in a crisis like we\u2019re experiencing now you want to create more opportunity so that our traders and our exporters have more markets to move product to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNo, they\u2019re not. I love Craig, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time with him given he\u2019s had some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1975,1863,16426,11220,6650,4508,6093,16427,10934,111,43,139,69,1523,20157,11763,15289,13032],"class_list":{"0":"post-379063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-at","9":"tag-back","10":"tag-christopher","11":"tag-comment","12":"tag-craig","13":"tag-hits","14":"tag-little","15":"tag-luxon","16":"tag-mayor","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-over","22":"tag-palmer","23":"tag-russell","24":"tag-wairoa","25":"tag-woke"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379063","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=379063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}