Does economic development minister Steven Joyce see himself as a future leader?
"No, I have no aspiration in that regard," he told TVNZ's Q+A.
"I’ve watched the big guy from up close, and, believe me, I think I work hard, but he works a heck of a lot harder."
Mr Joyce acknowledged that the size of the current migration cycle is ‘quite significant’ but said "We can’t just sort of turn around and say we’re going to cut migration levels hugely, because that would impact on many successful parts of the economy. So you’ve just got to walk and chew gum at the same time, train lots of locals and also be prepared to bring in people, particularly experienced people, if there are shortages."
When asked about increasing exports as a percentage of the economy from 30% to 40% Mr Joyce said, "Well, to be fair, that’s a long target. It’s targeted out for 2025. Let’s look at the export strategy.
When it was put to him, "But it has gone nowhere since you’ve been in. It’s still at 30%", he replied, "No, that’s not true. If you look at exports, calendar year 2015, exports went up from $67 billion to $69 billion in that year at the same time as dairy, our biggest export, was going backwards by 3 billion, which meant that non-dairy exports had to grow by 10.5% in one year. That’s across the average, and they’ve done that.’