Chris Hipkins’s deck chair speech

Responding to Chris Hipkins’s State of the Nation speech, ACT Leader David Seymour says:

“It was a deck chair speech. All the changes he’s proposing involve politicians and bureaucrats being reorganised, and will have no effect on actual people.

“A new ‘economic team’ of Labour MPs, a new ‘jobs and incomes’ portfolio for Ginny Anderson, talking to ‘experts’ and ‘unions’ – none of this is real change.

“We’ve seen this before. Hipkins spent resources reorganising the health system, and what we got was a new org chart while patients were ignored.

“We won’t reshuffle our way to prosperity. But to give Hipkins credit, giving a speech in Auckland was probably a bold step for someone who struggles to think outside the Wellington bubble.

“By contrast, we’ve got a Government that is making real change to red tape and regulation, focusing public services on patients and students, reducing government waste so inflation and interest rates are lower for the people.

“The amazing thing is Chris Hipkins’s changes could all be made without any real person in New Zealand noticing. It may not be long before some of Hipkins’s caucus decide to reorganise him.”