Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed the TVNZ/RNZ merger will be scrapped and the income insurance scheme and hate speech legislation at least delayed.

RNZ and NZ On Air will receive a funding boost to strengthen its public media role, the biofuels mandate will be halted, while potential changes to the Three Waters project will be considered by Cabinet soon.

He has also announced a new $1.50 minimum wage increase to $22 an hour, which would apply from 1 April.

Watch the announcement below:

Hipkins made the announcement after today's Cabinet meeting, his first announcement of planned cuts to the government's work programme with the aim of refocusing on cost-of-living pressures.

"I want to be clear here that we hear from people that a lot of these things are good ideas and worth pursuing but now is not the right time to forge ahead with them.

"I said the government is doing too much too fast, and that we need to focus on the cost of living. Today we deliver on that commitment."

He says the social insurance scheme was "off the table" and would not proceed until New Zealand saw a "significant improvement in economic conditions".

"Work will continue to explore ways to best address these inequities in the long term when the economy is better placed to make change. But it is off the table for now."

Hipkins says these would not be the last policy changes that would be made, "but they are some of the most substantive".

Merger scrapped

Hipkins says wrk on the TVNZ-RNZ public media entity "will stop entirely".

"Support for public media needs to be at a lower cost and without such significant structural change."

The government did not have a final figure on how much has been spent on the RNZ-TVNZ merger, Hipkins says.

"We will provide a financial breakdown of that ... there has been investment in it up until now.

"I don't want to look backwards, I'm looking forwards. There's no question that the broadcast media landscape has changed significantly. The private sector are experiencing that as well, so I think it is important that government looks to how we can best support making sure that there's quality New Zealand content available to a wide range of audiences.

"I think there's an easier way of doing that and ultimately that's the decision that Cabinet has supported today."

He says he was not "taking the easy way out" on a political decision.

"I've set out the way forward for the government, it's the way forward that I support. It's my paper that I took to Cabinet and so of course I support it."

He says RNZ was likely to need about $10 million to ensure it could be sustainable, and the broadcasting minister will bring further options to Cabinet for funding a way to reach underserved audiences.

"They have cost pressures to meet regardless of whether there was a reorganisation or not.

"Five and a half years is a long time, and during that time the media landscape has continued to change, so if you look at discussions other media players were having ... there's very different discussions happening now."

He says some of the funding reorganisation from the scrapping of the merger will not need to wait for budget processes.

Hate speech laws

The government had already severely reduced its plans to change hate speech laws, with Justice Minister Kiri Allan last year announcing it would be restricted only to a change around incitement against religious groups - but confirmed that would also be postponed.

Other aspects of hate speech law had already been referred to the Law Commission, and Hipkins says the amendment bill currently before Parliament would also be withdrawn and considered alongside.

"This will allow the Law Commission the opportunity to consider a difficult and highly contested area of law in totality," he says.

"This decision allows them the opportunity to consider a difficult and highly contested area of the law in its totality. The Law Commission's got a good track record on developing guidance on difficult issues and often in the past helped to generate cross-party support for those issues and that's what we hope to achieve here."

Hipkins says the hate speech changes were a contentious area of law, and would have consumed the government's time and energy at a time when it needed to focus.

"I would rather we took a step back and tried to reach that political consensus that we have been able to reach on issues that the law commission has considered in the past."

Three Waters

On Three Waters, he says the need for reform was "unquestionable", with the recent flooding in Auckland demonstrating the limits of the infrastructure, but would need to be carefully considered whether the changes - some proposed, others already set down in law - would be fit for purpose.

"Cabinet has asked the new minister for local government to report back on options for refocusing the reforms and that will mean seeking further feedback from local government and from Māori."

He says it was fundamentally about infrastructure, the cost of living and the quality of life for New Zealanders.

"We'll work through those options carefully and that process is likely to take a few more weeks."

"All ministers will continue to review their work programmes to see if there's more tightening work that we can do."

The background

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins spoke to media after meeting with his re-organised Cabinet for the first time.

When he was confirmed as the new Labour leader and prime minister after Jacinda Ardern's resignation in January, he says he would be reining in programmes and policies that "aren't essential right now" to focus on immediate priorities like the cost of living.

He has already confirmed the continuation of reductions on fuel tax, road user charges and public transport fares.

Hipkins has largely refused to be drawn into ruling in or out policies so far - but says he would not be ditching Three Waters entirely.

Cabinet meetings are often held on Mondays, but was delayed this week because of Waitangi Day and Hipkins' visit to Australia.

- RNZ.