Chris Hipkins held his first post-Cabinet media briefing as prime minister at the Beehive today.
In his opening remarks, Prime Minister Hipkins said that, at the first Cabinet meeting he chaired for 2023, he “reiterated my expectation that the reprioritisation of work that I have signalled will be our absolute priority over the coming weeks.”
Hipkins said the government would be “reining in some of our plans and putting them on a slow track” so as to be able to focus on the immediate priority issues facing New Zealand , particularly the cost of living pressures that have been caused by the economic situation.
“Today’s unchanged inflation figure confirms that this is the right and immediate focus for the government that I lead,” the PM said.
Hipkins added: “The inflation level that we are seeing is nor unexpected nor unusual, with many economies around the world feeling the same economic effects.”
The prime minister said New Zealand “stacked up pretty well” against most of those countries, with an inflation rate below the OECD average. But he recognised that household budgets in New Zealand “were being stretched”.
Hipkins said the government had already taken active steps to address the underlying causes of high prices, including at the petrol pump and the super market. The government was doing its bit to bring spending down to more normal levels “so that we don’t add to those inflationary pressures.”
Hipkins claimed the government’s measures were having an impact, with the Treasury forecasting “real government consumption will fall by about 8.2 percent over the next couple of years.”
Hipkins quoted the Treasury as saying that “fiscal policy is supporting monetary policy in dampening inflationary pressures.”
Hipkins said he would be meeting with business leaders in Auckland on Thursday, which he described as his “first major engagement as prime minister.” The meeting was aimed at accelerating the important relationship needed between business and government.
One of the major topics that he expected would come up at the meeting was the global labour shortage, that continues to put additional pressure “on most New Zealand businesses who need additional workers.”
Hipkins referenced the changes to the immigration settings, with nurses, tradespeople, teachers and others added to the straight- to- residency pathway. “It’s too early to see the results of that yet,” he observed.
Bus companies are in line to receive 100 additional drivers from overseas, the PM added.
To a question put to him by the Indian Weekender on his plans for dairy owners affected by ram raids and other retail crimes, Prime Minister Hipkins replied: “The former prime minister and I announced just late last year quite a significant amount of additional support for small businesses, dairy owners in particular, who have been affected by ram raids and aggravated robberies. That includes making fog cannons much more widely available.”
The PM added: “We have an uncapped fund available to subsidise fog cannons to cover part of the cost of those fog cannons. The Retail Crime Prevention Fund, which has been established to support businesses that were the victims of ram raids, has been extended to businesses that have been the victims of aggravated robbery. We’ll continue to work hard to roll those out.”
The prime minister said additional funding had been put into partnering with local government “on the sorts of initiatives that will help to keep those businesses safe.” Environmental design can have a significant impact there, Hipkins noted.
On the question of culpability for retail crime , the PM said: “ We are making sure that we are doing everything we can to identify who the young offenders are and to hold them accountable for their actions and actually stop their offending from continuing.”
To a follow-up question from the Indian Weekender on whether that would involve a law change, if necessary, the prime minister replied: “ There is a lot we can do within the existing law. I don’t think that the existing laws that we have at the moment have necessarily been used to the full extent possible, to make sure that we are getting these young kids out of trouble.”
The prime minister added: “This was a work that I was helping to lead before I became prime minister, and obviously I have an active interest in it. I think it is a very important, very significant priority, and you can be reassured that I won’t be taking my eyes off that one.”