- By Simeon Brown, Member of Parliament for Pakuranga
This week marks one year since National formed a new Government alongside our coalition partners ACT and New Zealand First to get our country back on track.
We’ve accomplished a great deal in those 12 months, with key highlights including:
- Tax relief to ease the cost-of-living for more than three million Kiwis and the FamilyBoost tax credit to help young families with the cost of childcare.
- Restoring law and order by tackling gangs and violent crime head on, providing more resources for frontline police, and by reforming sentencing laws to ensure criminals are held accountable.
- Reforming our education curriculum to focus on the basics of reading, writing, and maths, and banning cell phones in schools, to help turnaround falling achievement levels.
- A $33 billion transport plan to get New Zealand moving again, including new Roads of National Significance, a Pothole Prevention Fund to quickly fix potholes and prevent them from forming in the first place, record investment in public transport, and funding to strengthen our transport networks.
- Work to improve health outcomes for Kiwis with targets focused on providing faster cancer treatment and funding that’s enabled 13 new critical medicines, shorter wait times for first specialist assessments and elective treatment, shorter stays in emergency departments, and improved immunisation rates for children.
I’m privileged to serve in this Government as the Minister of Transport, Energy, Local Government, and Auckland, and I’m working to deliver on the promises Kiwis voted for at last year’s election.
This included scrapping flawed Labour policies like the unfair Ute Tax, the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax, their co-governed mega entity Three Waters, and Auckland Light Rail, which could have cost up to $29b, and we’re reversing the blanket speed limit reductions they implemented that only slowed Kiwis down.
We’re also delivering Local Water Done Well for New Zealanders to keep water assets in local control, avoiding a nasty 25.8 per cent rates hike in Auckland.
We’ve boosted funding for lifeguards and Coastguard, introduced legislation to roll out roadside drug testing, outlined our plan to get councils back to basics collecting rubbish and maintaining our local roads and water assets, and introduced legislation to fast track 22 renewable electricity projects to secure a reliable and affordable supply of electricity in New Zealand.
We know there’s still much to do to get our country back on track, and National will continue working hard on your behalf to deliver on the promise of a better future for all New Zealanders.
