Dear John, 

Today I gave my first State of the Nation speech as Prime Minister where I was straight up about the major challenges that we face as a country and outlined what our Government is doing to get New Zealand back on track.

The last few years have been too tough, for too many of you. You were badly let down by a broken and distracted government.

Under Labour, there was too much wasteful government spending, high inflation, high interest rates, an economy in recession, and rising unemployment.

Despite all of Labour’s spending, violent crime went up, hospital wait-times went up, and education attendance and achievement went down.

It’s important to be upfront about the mess left behind by the previous government, but you can be optimistic because we’re going to fix it.

It is only through a strong economy that we can end the cost of living crisis, lift incomes and deliver better schools and hospitals.

We are a government of action. We are delivering big changes and I’m incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made as a government in just 81 days as we’ve already achieved so much:

• Abolished the Ute Tax
• Cancelled the blanket speed limit reductions.
• Stopped Auckland Light Rail
• Started work on repealing the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax – gone on the 1st of July
• Cancelled the planned hikes to fuel tax
• Cancelled Let’s Get Wellington Moving
• Abolished FPA legislation and brought back 90 day trials
• Returned the Reserve Bank to a single focus on price stability
• Delivered more than $7 billion in savings
• Repealed Labour’s broken RMA reforms 
• Banned cellphones in schools
• Made sure every kid in every school gets an hour a day of reading, an hour of writing and an hour of maths
• Begun disestablishing Te Pukenga
• Commissioned an independent review into the woeful state of Kainga Ora led by Sir Bill English
• Progressed work on a third medical school with Waikato University
• Taken the first steps to extend free breast cancer screening up to age 74
• Introducing legislation to disestablish the Māori Health Authority – because we want to see better results for Māori, not more bureaucracy
• Deployed 200 additional security personnel in hospital emergency departments
• Bringing in tough new laws going after gangs and illegal firearms
• Ending taxpayer funding for cultural reports
• Abolished Labour’s prisoner reduction target
• And just this week, we repealed Labour’s undemocratic and unaccountable Three Waters reforms.

I am committed to delivering the change New Zealanders voted for because I am so confident this country can be so, so much better than we are right now.

You can read my full speech here. 

Thank you,
Christopher

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