Dear John,
It's been an exciting few days in politics! On Friday the National Party caucus met and elected Todd Muller as Leader, and Nikki Kaye as Deputy Leader. Todd is a good friend of mine and I know he will do a fantastic job. His first speech has had brilliant feedback and you can read it here. By the way, the Bishmullet came off for the caucus meeting after eight days and $8400 raised (read more below).
In his speech Todd said "my absolute focus as National Party Leader will be New Zealand's economic recovery after the immense devastation from COVID-19. We will save jobs, get the economy growing again and we will do so by leveraging our country’s great strengths: our people, our communities, our great natural resources, our values of hard work, tenacity, innovation and aspiration." As part of this he has taken the Small Business portfolio, a symbol of how important he regards small business in helping us recover.
On Monday Todd announced the new National Party team and I'm really pleased to join his frontbench with the roles of Infrastructure and Transport. Both are critical for New Zealand and I'm excited about developing our policies and plans in this area. Watch this space!
The last few days have been hard, and I want to acknowledge our outgoing Leader and Deputy Leader Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett. Simon has worked hard as Leader, given the job his all, and the caucus is grateful for his service.
Letter: Could you lend a hand helping me get my first letter of the year into mailboxes around the Hutt? I have about 20,000 to deliver around the Hutt in the next couple of weeks, and I'd love your help. You can sign up here. 200 letters takes a couple of hours and you can do them in your own time. We either drop them off to you or you can pick them up.
Business with Bish: I'm getting great feedback on my "Business with Bish" videos that feature a local Hutt business and what they do. You can see the most recent ones on my Facebook page - Clive's Chemist in Wainuiomata, Buzz Cafe in High St, and Shazly Experience. If you're keen to have a chat with me and promote your own business, drop me a message and I'll come by and say hello!
Transport: My focus in transport at the moment is on the debacle that is Auckland light rail (see my question to Phil Twyford on Tuesday in Parliament), Transmission Gully (which is, astonishingly, proposing almost 100 redundancies), and the upcoming rise in petrol tax and road user charges. Our argument is that the 4c a litre rise scheduled for July 1 should be deferred in light of the pressure on households thanks to COVID-19 and the simple fact that the project which the revenue was going to be used for (light rail) is now no longer happening. Let's see if the government agrees.
Have a great Friday and long weekend.
Chris
P.S A reminder my offices are now open! Please contact me at any time of course if you need a hand with anything.
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