Issue #930

by Joseph Mooney, Queenstown’s MP (Southland constituency)

After receiving the highest number of candidate votes ever in this region, I am looking forward to reciprocating the confidence placed in me by being a strong voice for our electorate within the Coalition Government.

As National get going with the newly-formed Coalition Government partners Act and New Zealand first, we are looking forward to making great progress with our first 100-day plan.

At the election, New Zealand voted for change and put their trust in National, Act and NZ first to help navigate the country towards a prosperous future. So, we have wasted no time in announcing 49 actions to deliver within 100 days to kick-start the process of improving New Zealanders lives.

As promised during the election there will be a strong determination to see Government focused on rebuilding the economy, easing the cost of living, restoring law and order and delivering better public services.

Infrastructure is a big issue in the Queenstown-Lakes region and it is a focus for this Coalition Government as it starts the work to establish a National Infrastructure Agency.

The National Infrastructure Agency will have a focus of coordinating investment into infrastructure. There will be a focus on creating a long-term pipeline of projects that will enable central Government to partner with local government to ensure success in regions like ours.

This Government will repeal the Spatial Planning and Natural and Built Environment Act and introduce a fast-track consenting regime to make it easier to build the infrastructure New Zealand needs. Infrastructure is critical for economic growth and higher living standards.

We are going to start the work required to enable more houses to be built by implementing our ‘Going for Housing Growth’ policy as well as making the Medium Density Residential Standards optional for councils.

Going for Housing Growth will unlock land for housing, reform the Infrastructure and Financing Act to reduce red tape for developers and incentivise local councils to deliver more new housing.

A shortage of housing, and in particular, rental housing has been a significant issue for Queenstown and the Coalition Government will be making policy decisions to amend the Overseas Investment Act 2005 to make it easier for build-to-rent housing to be developed.

The Coalition Government has announced quick actions to improve New Zealand’s public services, which have fallen off a cliff in the past six years.

We will re-introduce targets for the health system and lift educational performance by ensuring primary and intermediate schools are teaching an hour of maths, reading and writing from start of 2024.

New Zealand faces a number of challenges, and you can have confidence the Coalition Government has both the team and the strategy to address them.