The government has unveiled a new fast-track consenting regime as a part of its 100 day plan but the announcement was overshadowed by revelations about the prime minister’s merry Christmas party in Premier House.
After facing backlash over claiming a living allowance of $52,000 of taxpayers’ money this week to live in his own apartment rather than the official residence, it was revealed Chris Luxon held a Christmas function at Premier House with extended family despite claiming it is “unlivabl”e.
He told media that it was nothing to be concerned about.
“We were only there for one or two nights, some of us.
“We want to be able to live in Premier House. It’s really important that we can.”
Meanwhile Luxon and Ministers Shane Jones and Chris Bishop launched a new fast-track bill, where the processing of large infrastructure projects can be sped up, and avoid a consenting process.
The government says this will ‘unlock opportunities in industries such as aquaculture and mining in the regions.
Luxon says iwi have been consulted and Treaty of Waitingi settlements are being upheld in the regime.
“I’ve spoken with iwi who are saying, ‘We want to be involved in doing these projects, we want to participate in building some of this infrastructures so this is going to help us with some of our projects’,” he says.
100-day plan
As the first 100 days of the government comes to an end, Luxon says the position on the plan is leading the country “into the right direction”.
The 100-day plan has already seen the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority (Te Aka Whai Ora), the lifting of the Smokefree 2025 regime and more, the removal of student cellphones in schools and the enforcement of an hour each of reading, maths and writing to “improve” the education system.
Luxon says the government is on target to complete the 49 actions that were promised in the first 100 days in Parliament.
“We told you what we’re going to do, we’ve done it and now we’re going to tell you what we’ve done. We said we’ve got to get things built, we’re not going to be an obstruction economy anymore.”
“We will have all actions completed by the end of the play this week, which is exactly where we want to be and then we’re in the process of thinking through what our quarter two set of actions we’ll be working towards and ultimately we’ll do that for quarter three and quarter four.
“The 49 actions that we talked about in the 100-day plan will be completed within the 100 days,” he says.
