“We’re making tough decisions, we’re also moving at an incredible pace. There’s encouraging signs, we’ve seen some good recent progress around interest rates, around inflation falling, but importantly we’re also seeing people saying they’re confident about the future and the direction that we’re going.”

On the preferred Prime Minister results, he said he was not focused on polls but working for New Zealanders because the country had “fantastic potential”.

Chris Hipkins – who spent two weeks overseas in the United Kingdom earlier this month – said he was not too worried about his preferred Prime Minister ranking at this point in the electoral cycle.

He said in all of the publicly available polls Labour was up on its election night result, although they did “bounce around” from month to month.

Today’s Question Time was the first since September following a two-week recess block.

It followed a ministerial statement raised by Minister Chris Penk on behalf of Defence Minister Judith Collins about the sinking of the navy vessel Manawanui near Samoa.

In response to questions from MPs, Penk was unable to give further details about when the vessel might be recovered, whether it would be recovered, and whether compensation would be offered to Samoa.

Starting Question Time, Hipkins questioned the Government’s support for the South Island given it hadn’t made a decision on the replacement of the Cook Strait Interislander ferries and only had two of its roads of national significance in the South Island.

Luxon maintained his Government was committed to the South Island and urged the Opposition to “watch this space” regarding a decision on the ferries.

Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.