Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said there was “a process that needs to play out here”, regarding his decision not to intervene in the case of the brothers imprisoned in Thailand. 

Hamish and Oscar Day were arrested in Phuket last month while on holiday after fighting with a police officer and taking his gun. 

He said the case was before the courts in Thailand. 

Luxon is speaking to media from Bangkok, where he touched down overnight for the first dedicated visit to Thailand by a New Zealand Prime Minister since 2013. 

Luxon said he would raise the situation in Myanmar during his meetings in Thailand. 

”As you know Thailand has a very long border with Myanmar... Thailand is handling a very difficult situation,” Luxon said. 

Luxon defended the decision to allow Myanmar to participate in ASEAN meetings in New Zealand. 

“The position within ASEAN is that the political leadership is not participating in the conversations, but in terms of an official level... they want to make sure they maintain some engagement with officials,” he said. 

“It is an officials meeting, that is what this is. 

“New Zealanders expect us to ensure that every dollar is directed towards an outcome,” Luxon said. 

He argued the cuts at the Ministry of Education and Oranga Tamariki announced today would be back office. 

“I am being very clear with the New Zealand people... There has been a massive amount of bureaucracy built-up in the system,” he said. 

“We are going to continue to invest more in Oranga Tamariki but we are going to expect better results,” Luxon said. 

Communications to staff detail about 1900 of 5100 positions are “in the scope of this change”, including all positions in the national office below the chief executive, and, in regional offices, all roles below chief executive and above site manager, youth justice manager, and residence manager, or equivalent front-line roles. This does not mean all of these jobs are proposed to be cut. 

According to the change proposals sent to staff, seen by NZME, 632 roles are proposed to be disestablished in total, with 185 proposed to be created. That leaves 447 total net jobs to go. 

This article was originally published on the NZ Herald here.