Video: Prime Minister says his Government wants to work well with local authorities
The Government is looking at ways in which to get central and local government working together well, says Prime Minister Christopher.
Luxon visited Hawke’s Bay today and visited businesses as well as spending time at the Horse of the Year in Hastings.
“We're looking at ways in which we can get central and local government to work together well. We'd all like to have more public services, we'd all like things to be cheaper, but this is the reality of New Zealand after six years of economic mismeasurement. This is why we are all experiencing this right now.”
“We are working our way through it, first and foremost making sure that we in central government, are not wasting money. We're asking all our government agencies to generate savings and efficiencies so we can get that money forward deployed into the front line, whether it's around infrastructure, whether it's around health and education, places where we know we need to continue to spend more money.”
“But we need to deliver that money in a better way to get a better outcome. And councils need to be doing the same, unfortunately. And so we are wanting to work with councils in a more joined up fashion so that we actually, around things like infrastructure in particular, we want to have a 30-year pipeline of infrastructure projects.”
Luxon said his Government was keen on setting up 10-year city or regional deals.
“We'd like to have a national infrastructure agency that can tap into alternative funding and financing models that means that we can get some of this investment away.”
“But we are where we are right now as a function of the economic mismeasurement's taken over the last six years. And I hope New Zealanders understand this.”
“If you don't get the foundation right economically, you may wish for lots of the things to be different, but until you actually get a bigger economic engine in place, a better economic engine in place. That's how we actually can afford the infrastructure and the investment that we want to see happening.”
