Will's Word: Prime Minister's state of the nation address falls short

I want to go there now by reflecting on Christopher Luxon's State of the Nation speech. Did you catch it yesterday? Boy.

Now, I'll just say from the outset, it was a good speech but, just to bring you up to speed with it in case you missed it.

The Prime Minister promised a new foreign investment agency, economic reforms, frankly, felt like more of the same from national.

Now, while focusing on fixing the economy is no doubt important, and absolutely should be praised, the plans presented don't really seem to offer anything new or innovative.

Luxon laid out typical right-wing solutions. Attract foreign investment, reduce regulations, push for economic growth through business-friendly policies, you name it. And I'm not saying it's the wrong way to do things.

In fact, I do acknowledge each of those solutions. They're great in their own unique way. But, the creation of Invest New Zealand to bring in foreign investment for sectors like fintech, banking, infrastructure, is not ground-breaking.

Luxon even mentioned it in a speech yesterday, it's a strategy other countries like Singapore and Ireland have already used. It's a good approach, don't get me wrong.

It feels like something we've seen before, though, which is the problem.

Without addressing deeper economic challenges in this country, we all know how tough it is at the moment, with low wages, workforce shortages, growing inequality.

Also, this idea that it seems to come about from, you know, we're going to fix the problems of this country by slashing and cutting through red tape, with Luxon's call for a lot less ‘no’ and a lot more ‘yes’, his direct words, not mine.

That's just classic National Party playbook. And, yes, I agree, cutting bureaucracy is absolutely helpful. In fact, I am a fan of slashing through red tape.

Christopher Luxon's State of the Nation Address

To fix the bigger, more complicated problems, though, we need to be doing a lot more than that.

We need to be a lot more ambitious if we are to bring in the big dollars.

Also, I just want to very quickly make mention of National's focus, or this apparent focus, they've got on mining and resource extraction.

This is dumb policy. This is dumb decision-making, I think. It's short-sighted.

Luxon suggested that we need to be embracing oil and mining to achieve the kind of incomes that we've seen in Australia. I could not disagree more with something like that. It is so short-term, especially given climate change.

Dumb.

That's Will's Word.