News Story

New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called general elections for November 7 on Wednesday, touting his government's record on the economy and crime.

Luxon said the election date, which lands a month after the All Blacks play at home against Australia, was swayed in part by the sports-mad country's fixtures.

The latest Taxpayers Union/Curia survey released last month gave the opposition Labour Party a narrow lead of 31.6 percent to 30.0 percent over Luxon's conservative National Party.

But the poll indicated that Luxon's coalition government would still remain in power, based on those figures, with the support of its partner parties.

Luxon vowed that his government would "deliver on our plan to fix the basics".

"When we took office the country was going in the wrong direction, and it's taken a lot of hard work in the last two years to start turning things around," the prime minister told reporters.

"The economy is picking up, with increasing business and consumer confidence, building and manufacturing taking off, and exports doing incredibly well."

The prime minister said inflation had dropped from seven percent under the previous government to less than three percent.

Luxon pointed to a free trade agreement struck with India, saying legislation to enshrine it was expected to pass this year.

The New Zealand leader commended his government's efforts to combat crime.

"In law and order, police are more visible on the beat, there are 38,000 fewer victims of crime, youth offending is down by 16 percent and ram raids are down by 85 percent," he said.