Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says SailGP postponement highlights ‘red tape and obstruction’

Monday, 25 March 2024

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says “red tape and obstruction economy” sees New Zealand risk losing hosting rights to major sporting events.

New Zealand SailGP at Lyttelton near Christchurch was reduced to a one-day event at the weekend after Saturday’s racing was cancelled out of safety concerns for dolphins on the race course.

SailGP chief executive Russell Coutts slammed officials for their “extreme” dolphin policy and suggested the event could be lost to New Zealand. Coutts told 1News on Friday that Christchurch was unlikely to host it again.

Luxon said “world class” events like SailGP were very important for the country’s economy and a balance must be found between attracting such events and protecting the environment “sensitively”.

At his post-cabinet press conference on Monday, Luxon said that balance wasn’t being found.

“My personal view is: way too much red tape, [an] obstruction economy, everything slowed up, and as a result, that doesn't make us a great place if you want to run a global event.

“And I want this to be a great place to run a global event. So we've got more work to do around making sure we don't put barriers and obstacles in the way of us being able to attract more types of events in New Zealand.”

Luxon said there were protocols that SailGP agree with local authorities and a number of parties. Everyone must try to make it work, he said.

“There's an awful lot of red tape, and we've actually got to make it really attractive to be able to run these events here… Clearly in this case, when you’ve got 50 million people watching on TV and 20,000 at the event, being delayed a day isn’t a great thing.”

Asked whether New Zealand, which successfully co-hosted the FIFA Women’s World Cup with Australia last year, was making it too difficult, Luxon repeated his red tape and obstruction economy line.

“If you're sitting overseas and you're thinking about properties and major events, we want to build a strong pipeline of future major events in this country that has huge advantages to us economically.

“It’s fantastic when these happen socially, and across our communities. So we want to encourage more of that, we want to build up a pipeline.

“For that to happen you've also got to be in the shoes of people that are bringing those things to New Zealand. They don't just choose to come here, there's 195 countries who actually try and make it work for them, be very welcoming, very proactive and I think we can do a better job of that.”