inflation rates topping 4%<\/a> \u2013 the worst in more than two years.<\/p>\nBusinesses were absorbing rising costs rather than passing them on to customers as foot traffic continued to decline.<\/p>\n
Luxon said if businesses were not \u201cretooling and radically disrupting\u201d their business \u2013 \u201cyou ain\u2019t doing your job\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he knew the \u201creality\u201d of running a business.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last person I wanted to ever talk to as a CEO was the Government.\u201d<\/p>\n
He never wondered whether he could \u201cget some grant money to do something\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cI was building a kick-arse business\u201d like an \u201cadult\u201d.<\/p>\n
He urged businesses to \u201cgo out there and smack it and go create the road\u201d.<\/p>\n
As Prime Minister, his job was to \u201cset up the conditions for you to be able to go and create that growth\u201d.<\/p>\n
Some \u201cbig mistakes\u201d were made during the Covid-19 pandemic when \u201cthe teenagers in charge [were] feeding the kids with sugar\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve taken that lesson … the economy\u2019s on an upswing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Luxon said his comments were \u201creally blunt\u201d, but he stood by them.<\/p>\n
![\"]()
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at a Rotorua Business Chamber event on Friday. Photo \/ Michelle Cutelli Photography<\/p>\n
After a question-and-answer session, the Rotorua Daily Post asked Short what she made of his response.<\/p>\n
Short said her concerns reflected the reality facing Rotorua businesses.<\/p>\n
She regularly spoke with local businesses through the chamber, its board and as the owner of two businesses herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cFundamentally I understand what he\u2019s saying … but it\u2019s still hard … it\u2019s still tough,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do do it ourselves,\u201d Short said.<\/p>\n
She said the Government had a role in providing confidence and direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s knowing the Government has a plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rotorua Daily Post asked Luxon how the Government was helping those in the community facing financial hardship. <\/p>\n
Luxon said the Government had focused on bringing inflation and interest rates down to get wages growing faster than prices.<\/p>\n
He said that, in Rotorua, this would mean a \u201cbetter quality of life\u201d.<\/p>\n
The community would benefit from the Government\u2019s support through measures including more affordable housing, stable rents and help with early childcare costs, Luxon said.<\/p>\n
The PM said he saw the \u201cchaos that was ensuing\u201d in Rotorua when he first came into office in 2023 and told the community they would \u201csort out Fenton St and emergency housing\u201d.<\/p>\n
He believed the Government had delivered on resolving housing issues.<\/p>\n
Annabel Reid<\/a> is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke\u2019s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luxon told Short her view was \u201cquite negative\u201d. New Zealand businesses needed to move away from a \u201cparent-child…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[138,16426,2950,154261,10668,16427,6722,111,43,139,69,9769,415,16121,1327,61],"class_list":["post-553718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-business","tag-christopher","tag-confidence","tag-deflated","tag-economic","tag-luxon","tag-minister","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-owners","tag-prime","tag-responds","tag-rotorua","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553718","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=553718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}