I am incredibly proud of the work my team has delivered in 2024. It’s been a mammoth year for the Government – because a mammoth amount of work is needed to get New Zealand back on track.
New Zealanders should feel confident our plan is helping to rebuild the economy to reduce the cost of living, make all Kiwis safer by restoring law and order, improve the quality of education our kids are receiving, and deliver better healthcare for everyone.

And it’s been a good start.

We delivered tax relief for the first time in 14 years, meaning 83 per cent of Kiwis are keeping more of what they earn, while FamilyBoost childcare payments have already hit the bank accounts of nearly 42,000 families.

With fiscal and monetary policy working together, we’ve seen inflation drop to 2.2 per cent creating the conditions for three cuts to the Official Cash Rate and much-needed mortgage relief.

Police foot patrols are up 30 per cent, ram raids are down 60 per cent, and overall victimisations have dropped 3 per cent after years of rising crime.

We’re getting back to teaching the basics brilliantly, and Kiwis who are at their most vulnerable are already starting to access 26 new cancer treatments that our $604 million investment delivered.
Despite these achievements, we have a lot more to do to get our economic engine humming, so it is working for everyone.
We’ve worked with speed, focus, and determination all year long to lay the foundations for growth, so we can start to hit the economic gas pedal and lift the country out of the stagnation we inherited.
We need to grow. That’s how we create more jobs, achieve higher incomes, and afford the public services Kiwis deserve and expect.

This is a Government of action and delivery, and each quarter we have outlined clear plans focused on the priorities we were elected on. In fact, this year we completed 160 actions in our four quarterly plans alone.

I am proud to say that when we close out the year, our Government will have completed 42 of the 43 actions in our quarter four action plan.
Our fourth quarter focused heavily on tackling issues that have been holding New Zealand back from delivering modern, reliable infrastructure, which is critical in driving the economic growth we desperately need.

Whether it’s a new road or bridge that better connects our communities, a development of warm, dry homes for families in need, a solar farm generating renewable energy, or a new public transport project that could end up carrying thousands of Kiwis every day, we simply need to get things done – faster.

We do this by fast-tracking projects for consent, which is why, this week, we passed legislation to speed up the delivery of regional and national projects of significance.

We’re sorting out the Resource Management Act and have passed an amendment to ease the regulatory burden hampering our world-class farmers.
We’ve also introduced an RMA amendment to cut through the red and green tape holding back growth in the infrastructure, energy, housing and farming sectors, and we’ve introduced legislation to make it easier to build offshore wind farms.
We’ve completed this work alongside a swathe of other actions to restore law and order and deliver better public services.
This year is just the beginning. We are committed to rebuilding and growing the economy so every New Zealander can get ahead. –Hon Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister of New Zealand