Hitting 2019 running

The Parliamentary sitting year kicked off last Tuesday, and, as is tradition, the Prime Minister’s Statement to Parliament was tabled. In her opening speech Jacinda Ardern set out the work programme for our coalition government, a great plan of action built around three core themes — the economy, wellbeing and leadership.

Her speech was a reminder of the scale of change that we needed to bring to government 15 months ago, in order to place better outcomes for our people back at the forefront of policy.

We came in after nine years of a government that took a hands-off approach across the board, leaving us with an economy that wasn’t working for far too many Kiwis, a housing crisis, struggling health and education systems, neglected regions and a rapidly escalating prison population.

Our coalition government knew we needed to take a new approach to problems.

For my part as a Minister, that new approach meant working with Corrections to finally see a significant reduction in the prison population, which is currently hovering around the 10,000 mark. This would have been unthinkable two years ago, but has been achieved safely, by making the system more effective.

In my Tourism portfolio, we’re ensuring we all benefit from productive, sustainable and inclusive tourism growth, by bringing in the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy, providing extra funding for infrastructure, and helping councils spread the responsible camping message.

And in Ma¯ori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti, we’ve established a new agency to oversee the government’s work with Ma¯ori in a postsettlement era, address the difficult issues, measure the health of the Ma¯ori Crown relationship, and support the government to be a better Treaty partner.

We are beginning 2019 with the economy performing well, with the second-lowest level of unemployment in a decade, with wages going up and support for those who need it through the Families’ Package. We have solid growth, low inflation, and we’re running strong surpluses.

There are international headwinds, like the potential impact of Brexit, but our government’s economic plan and responsible management of the books means we are in a good position to face them.

We have got overseas speculators out of our housing market, begun raising living standards, protecting our environment and upgrading critical transport. We’re rebuilding the hospitals, schools and public services that we all rely on.

I am proud of what has been achieved so far.

We still have a long way to go, but we’re on the right track. We aim to do great things for New Zealand, and this is another year of delivering. This is going to be a great year.

"We are beginning 2019 with the economy performing well, with the secondlowest level of unemployment in a decade, with wages going up and support for those who need it through the Families’ Package."