Christopher Luxon has unveiled his Government’s 100-day plan, as he faces pressure from Labour leader Chris Hipkins to rein in Winston Peters, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Addressing media this afternoon at his first post-Cabinet press conference, Luxon said it had been a “very busy three days” since being sworn in on Monday.

At Cabinet, Luxon said he had laid out his expectations to “get things done for the New Zealand people”.

He said almost everyone was struggling with the cost of living, adding today’s Reserve Bank forecast signalled it could get tougher.

The Government was unveiling the 100-day plan today, which included 49 actions.

“It is ambitious, and frankly that is because we are ambitious for New Zealand.”

The Government’s plan for its first 100-day plan now includes the pledges of NZ First and Act, including a pledge to scrap Labour’s Smokefree policy, in a bid to fund tax cuts, and a change in the way the Government interacts with the World Health Organisation.

NZ First forced National to agree to “lodge a reservation against adopting amendments to WHO health regulations to allow the government to consider these against a ‘national interest test’”.

Peters has also extracted an agreement to stop work on He Puapua, the report on implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). He Puapua was written for the Government when Peters was last in office, though he now alleges Labour hid it from him. Work stopped on the report after it was delivered to ministers.

Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson was tasked with implementing the Government’s response to UNDRIP, but he stopped work on that prior to Jacinda Ardern leaving office.

The plan also says National will scrap Labour’s prison population reduction target, something former Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis himself scrapped on the campaign.

Other, more conventional parts of the 100-day plan have survived. National will begin working on a new road-focussed GPS on land transport and cancel Labour’s fuel tax hikes, and begin extending the breast cancer screening age to 74.

Luxon told media the three parties had gone through their policies line-by-line to get to the 100-day plan and were determined to get it done.

Luxon said it was “incredibly disappointing” to see the Reserve Bank signal it could need to raise the OCR. He said it was due to “economic vandalism on a scale not seen before” by the previous Labour Government.

To reduce inflation domestically, Luxon said they would set about reducing Government spending.

Luxon said he had met with the Reserve Bank Governor yesterday and they were “united” on fighting inflation.

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters during a testy exchange with journalists after the swearing-in ceremony at Government House, Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

On Peters’ comments about the Public Interest Journalism Fund and false claims media had been bribed, Luxon declined to condemn them. He said that he and National had not agreed with the fund either.

He said “it was not the way I would have expressed it” but that he was “frustrated” by the fund as well.

Luxon said he thought it had led to perceptions of bias “rightly or wrongly”.

He thought Peters’ comments to RNZ and TVNZ around their use of te reo Māori were not directions.

Luxon said his Government was determined to deliver better outcomes for Māori.

He said the rhetoric around repealing Labour’s smokefree law was “disingenuous”. All three parties opposed all or at least parts of the legislation.

Luxon said he thought there would have been “unintended consequences” and the Government did not think the laws would work.

Leader of the House Chris Bishop said Parliament would open at 11am on Tuesday and Gerry Brownlee would be nominated by National.

On Thursday would be the first Question Time. There will be 42 maiden speeches in the new Parliament.

During the last two weeks before Christmas, the Government will move urgency for a range of bills, the first being to return the Reserve Bank to a single mandate, fighting inflation.

They also intended to move a bill to repeal Fair Pay Agreements, the RMA reforms, the Clean Car Discount and introduce and refer to select committee a bill to reintroduce 90-day trials.

Luxon is hosting the first post-Cabinet press conference of the new Government this afternoon, amid a swarm of controversy over the conduct of his deputy.

Luxon had his first Cabinet meeting yesterday, which was mainly a photo opportunity. He said today’s meeting would discuss implementing his 100-day plan for the new Government.

The press conference comes as Luxon faces pressure from Labour leader Chris Hipkins to rein in Peters, who has spent the last three days in a self-described “war” with the media, whom Peters accuses of accepting bribes from the former Government.

Peters has been unable to substantiate his claims but has said the Public Interest Journalism Fund, a Covid-era media support initiative, was in fact a bribe.

Ahead of yesterday’s Cabinet, Peters asked media who were filming the meeting to “tell the public what you had to sign up to to get the money, it’s called transparency”.

Peters was himself part of Cabinet discussions on the media support package and signed off on the first package of $50 million in support. He had left Government by the time the $55m package was agreed to.

Labour leader Hipkins is putting pressure on Luxon to restrain his Deputy Prime Minister following Peters’ latest outbursts.

“The behaviour that we’ve seen from Winston Peters in the last 48 hours is just wrong,” Hipkins said. “Christopher Luxon needs to show that he is actually the Prime Minister and stamp down on that very quickly.

“It is wrong for Winston Peters to be stepping outside the Cabinet manual at the very meeting where they were supposed to be confirming the Cabinet,” Hipkins said.

Peters’ said the PIJF amounted to bribery of media outlets, an allegation that stems from the PIJF having a goal of supporting the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Applicants to the Public Interest Journalism Fund were asked, when appropriate in producing funded content, to support NZ identity, culture and public interest requirements, including support for the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

However, overriding this in NZME’s funding agreements - a clause specifically requested by the company - is an acknowledgement of the absolute editorial independence of the media entity: “We acknowledge the importance of your editorial discretion as a media entity and confirm nothing in this Agreement will limit or in any way impede or influence the ability of your news reporting functions to report and comment on news stories and current events, including those involving us, as you see fit.”