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Speaker 1: Kiyota.

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Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a

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Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The debate

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Speaker 2: over assets sales has reared its head again, this time

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Speaker 2: after a very grim result for our national carrier in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand has reported an after tax forty million dollar

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Speaker 2: loss for the six months to December. We've had a

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Speaker 2: controversial and complicated history when it comes to selling off

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Speaker 2: state assets, from bailing out banks to the Great nineties

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Speaker 2: airport selloff. It's always been a touchy subject for Kiwis

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Speaker 2: who want to keep everything in house. But is it

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Speaker 2: time for us to face facts and maybe privatization isn't

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Speaker 2: that bad after all. Today on the Front Page, ACT

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Speaker 2: Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour is with

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Speaker 2: us to chat about what should stay and what should go. So, David,

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Speaker 2: the airline is blaming global maintenance issues, softer domestic demand

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Speaker 2: and higher aviation costs. Do you think that they have

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Speaker 2: a lake to stand on when it comes to this result?

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Speaker 3: I guess the question is where does the bad luck

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Speaker 3: end and the taking responsibility begin? So, yeah, they've had

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Speaker 3: some bad luck, but I've also had bad luck. Because

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Speaker 3: of choices that were made earlier about acquiring engines and

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Speaker 3: retiring planes and so on. The other point I'd make

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Speaker 3: is that they tell us that they are a flag carrier,

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Speaker 3: and people say, you know, it's our national carrier. Well,

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Speaker 3: if it's true that they want to play this role

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Speaker 3: as being a sort of symbol of New Zealand, let's

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Speaker 3: look at what they symbolize. I mean, you know, twenty

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Speaker 3: percent of their annual report is all about their climate policy.

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Speaker 3: They spend all this time trying to make biofuels and

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Speaker 3: fly electric planes and take the paper cups out of

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Speaker 3: the corro lounge because you know, heaven forbid you have

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Speaker 3: a paper cup while you're flying through the year with

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Speaker 3: exploding kerosene. They've got to think about the environment people,

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Speaker 3: you know, it seems to me. And I talk to

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Speaker 3: these guys and a lot of people I like in

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Speaker 3: their New Zealand and the people in the front line.

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Speaker 3: I love as an MPF to fly a lot, to

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Speaker 3: get around and see people. And you know, at the

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Speaker 3: same time, I've been saying to them for years, all

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Speaker 3: these priorities like you know, take off land on time,

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Speaker 3: good price, you know, customer satisfaction, make sure the lugger derives.

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Speaker 3: I mean, none of this stuff is complicated, or at

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Speaker 3: least maybe it is complicated to do, but it's not complicated.

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Speaker 3: Set the goals. They've made it complicated when actually it's

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Speaker 3: very simple.

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Speaker 2: Well, how do you reckon it? Reflects because at the

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Speaker 2: same time you've got Quantus across the ditch, Australia's national carrier,

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Speaker 2: reporting a twenty eight percent rise in net profit to

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Speaker 2: one point six billion. Now I know that there's a

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Speaker 2: bit completely a different situation. They've obviously got a subsidiary,

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Speaker 2: cheaper airline alternative, it's a bigger population, it's a lot

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Speaker 2: more routes, et cetera. But it also does have its

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Speaker 2: sustainability goals as well. So what is New Zealand or

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Speaker 2: in New Zealand doing so wrong?

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Speaker 3: Well, I question what Quantus's overall goal is. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I'm sure they're not out there saying our goal is

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Speaker 3: to pollute as much as possible. But I don't know

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Speaker 3: that Quantus has taken on research into creating biofuels or

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Speaker 3: research into electric planes. I mean, they've done a lot

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Speaker 3: of things, and there's other things I know about that

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Speaker 3: I'm not talking about by the way, just for anyone

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Speaker 3: in New Zealand that thinks I'm being unfeared, there's other

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Speaker 3: stuff we could be talking about that we're not. No, no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: so that their priorities have been far, far too diffuse.

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Speaker 3: And that's my point. If there is a symbol of

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Speaker 3: New Zealand, then we go to ask ourselves as a country.

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Speaker 3: We want to be rich. We don't want to find

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Speaker 3: ourselves much poorer than Poland and Hungary and Slovakia, Czech

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Speaker 3: Republic countries we used to kind of look down on

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Speaker 3: and take.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: That babies from you know, you know, as adoptees, I mean,

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Speaker 3: you know, orphans. We used to look down in these countries.

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Speaker 3: They're overtaking us economically, They've done that in the last

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Speaker 3: thirty years. We used to compare ourselves with Canada, Australia,

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Speaker 3: you know, we think we're like Japan, America, UK. We're

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Speaker 3: now significantly poorer than them, and we got to start

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Speaker 3: making good choices. And in New Zealand seems to symbolize

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Speaker 3: making a whole lot of choices to pursue a whole

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Speaker 3: lot of other goals while our actual performance falls behind.

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Speaker 2: And can you not reveal what you know because their

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Speaker 2: market sensitive.

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Speaker 3: Because I think that they have a right to a

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Speaker 3: bit of privacy. But we'll see some of these things

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Speaker 3: will come out in time.

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Speaker 2: Well you Pinky's for someone and New Zealand's you can't

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Speaker 2: say anything.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well let's just say I suspect some of their staff.

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Speaker 3: Over time, we'll talk more.

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Speaker 2: Do you think the airline is actually serving the New

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Speaker 2: Zealand taxpayer? Because I had a quick look this morning

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Speaker 2: to just see just to see how how much are

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Speaker 2: right and something like Auckland to christ Church if you

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Speaker 2: want a flexi fare and luggage, if you're going safe

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Speaker 2: for a wedding or a birthday or something like that

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Speaker 2: for a long weekend, that's getting up to about four

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty five hundred dollars one way. And that's

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Speaker 2: Aukland to christ Church.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like a pretty wild price, right, And

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Speaker 3: there's a competitor and a lot of people are choosing that.

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Speaker 3: But I mean, let's just unpack this for a second.

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Speaker 3: There is a cost. I know, people say it's our

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Speaker 3: national carrier, it must remain in New Zealand hands and

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Speaker 3: people can have that. But I just want to tell

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Speaker 3: you what the cost is. You know, apparently it's worth

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Speaker 3: about two billion dollars in its market camp. That means

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Speaker 3: that if we sold what we own fifty percent, we

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Speaker 3: get about a billion dollars. At the moment, the government

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Speaker 3: pays four percent on its debt, so we could have

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Speaker 3: a billion dollars less debt, and that the moment four

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Speaker 3: percent of a billion dollars is forty million a year.

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Speaker 3: So taxpayers, we are paying forty million a year in

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Speaker 3: order to cover the interest on the debt that we're

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Speaker 3: holding in order to own this thing. That's simple. What's more,

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Speaker 3: just lost sixty million and a half a year, So

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Speaker 3: make that one hundred million dollar cost to own the thing. Admittedly,

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Speaker 3: other times it makes money and that's nice, but on balance,

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Speaker 3: after the bail arts, we're actually hosing money into this thing,

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Speaker 3: so it's a cost to own it. Then you say, okay,

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Speaker 3: well what are we getting for that? Well, there's there's

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Speaker 3: three basic arguments. I think One is in economical connections.

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Speaker 3: I think a lot of people would say we're not

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Speaker 3: getting that. Two is serving regions that wouldn't otherwise be served. Well, actually,

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Speaker 3: you know what origin air ear chattems sounds here? I mean,

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Speaker 3: there's all these plucky, upstart airlines that are doing more

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Speaker 3: for the really underserved regions than in New Zealander, so

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Speaker 3: they can't claim to be doing that anymore. And then

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Speaker 3: the other part of it is, well, you know a

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Speaker 3: sense of pride and it gives us some fulfillment. And

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Speaker 3: I just asked, well, what exactly are we proud of

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Speaker 3: given all these performance issues?

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Speaker 1: Right? Has that kind of stuff tripped you up? About

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Speaker 1: an electric plane you don't even you've been trialing it,

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Speaker 1: you don't even know how to deploy it in your fleet.

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Speaker 1: Worrying about sustainable aviation fuel all the time, which is

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Speaker 1: miles more expensive than what you're paying for general fuel,

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Speaker 1: is all of the stuff tripping you guys up, when

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Speaker 1: you should just be focusing on flying the existing planes.

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Speaker 4: No, it's not distracting us. I know from the outside

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Speaker 4: it might look like it might be distracting us. I

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Speaker 4: can assure you, as the CEO of the company, it

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Speaker 4: is far from distracting us. I think the point you

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Speaker 4: make around getting back to the fundamentals of the business

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Speaker 4: is a very important point. You know, as far as

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Speaker 4: our customer experience is concern knowing the key customer segments

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Speaker 4: that we serve and making sure that our offering is

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Speaker 4: aligned to them is very important.

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Speaker 2: Do you think that we scrutinize these private companies that

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Speaker 2: we have shares in enough?

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Speaker 3: Well. I mean, one of the good things about them

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Speaker 3: being private companies is that there's also a private in

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Speaker 3: vista that's on the other side of the bargain. And

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Speaker 3: look at a New Zealand share price. I mean that's

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Speaker 3: been falling, so it seems that you know a lot

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Speaker 3: of people in the private sector don't want to own it,

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Speaker 3: and it's been coming down over the last couple of years.

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Speaker 3: I think we need to start asking ourselves, you know,

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Speaker 3: we own something that's a choice, what's the costs, what's

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Speaker 3: the benefits? Because if we don't start being a little

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Speaker 3: bit more honest with each other, then you know, we

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Speaker 3: get all these distractions, all this focism and identity politics,

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Speaker 3: But the numbers don't lie. We are slowly becoming a

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Speaker 3: poorer country relative to the ones we like to compare

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Speaker 3: ourselves with. And the countries we can compare with ourselves

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Speaker 3: with are the ones that we used to look down

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Speaker 3: on as being poor and take orphans from. So that's

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Speaker 3: the choice guys, we're going to take the emotion up,

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Speaker 3: scrutinize a bit harder, and start being a bit more

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Speaker 3: analytical about what choices we make.

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Speaker 2: Do you think that if we sold our stake in

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Speaker 2: in New Zealand, though, they would have to be some

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Speaker 2: kind of clause saying that, look, there will be no

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Speaker 2: bailout in future, there will be no buy back because

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Speaker 2: in my mind, if they they would still operate as

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Speaker 2: if that there is a a safety net below them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, do you know what I mean?

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Speaker 3: Well, you go back to the worst possible scenario. I

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Speaker 3: saw here the duplessy Allen, who I agree with most

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Speaker 3: of the time, saying, oh, I'm wrong about this because

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Speaker 3: we needed the airline in COVID. Well, you know, the

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Speaker 3: truth is that if we had not had public ownership

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Speaker 3: of Air New Zealand during COVID, you had a country

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Speaker 3: that was spending all that money, huge billions of dollars

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Speaker 3: of debt, most of which went into Air New Zealand.

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Speaker 3: Are you really saying that the New Zealand government, for

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Speaker 3: the money that it put into bailing out their New Zealand,

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Speaker 3: could not have persuaded anyone to fly an aeroplane to

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Speaker 3: New Zealand for two years. I mean, come on, it's

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Speaker 3: an interesting argument. It's an emotive argument, but it doesn't

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Speaker 3: stack up once you get into it.

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Speaker 2: But I guess what I'm saying is that how do

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Speaker 2: we guarantee that the business will become more risk averse?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean I think, first of all, we can't.

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Speaker 3: We can do all sorts of things as a government owner,

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Speaker 3: but that hasn't worked. We can appoint people, but then

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Speaker 3: of course you say, well, you know, the other guys

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Speaker 3: win the election, which they will do at some point

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Speaker 3: in the next decade. I hope as a Democrat that

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Speaker 3: there will be changes of government, just not too soon,

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Speaker 3: and you know, then other people get put on the board.

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Speaker 3: So it's an inherently political beast, and it's reflecting political choices.

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Speaker 3: That's the problem with it. That's why I don't believe

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Speaker 3: that governments should own commercial enterprises, because you can't pursue

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Speaker 3: political goals and commercial goals. In New Zealand is a

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Speaker 3: perfect example of trying to do that and failing.

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Speaker 2: If we were to seriously consider ourset sales, do you

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Speaker 2: think that there should be some kind of cross party

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Speaker 2: collaboration on how that profit will actually be used because

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Speaker 2: I suppose like you can't sell your house to pay

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Speaker 2: off your credit card debt because then you have nowhere

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Speaker 2: to live. So it's like, what should we actually be

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Speaker 2: using this money for.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think it would be useful to have more

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Speaker 3: cross party agreement on infrastructure. So you've seen that in

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Speaker 3: the last week. This cross party accord, I think is

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Speaker 3: a really useful thing to say. Right. You know, it

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Speaker 3: takes ten years to build something out of concrete. I

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Speaker 3: think that's too long, but it takes at least ten years.

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Speaker 3: We have three elections in that cycle. So if you

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Speaker 3: look at what's happened lately, we had a whole lot

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Speaker 3: of roads getting built labor in New Zealand. First government

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Speaker 3: came in in twenty seventeen, canceled all of that, said

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Speaker 3: they were going to build a bike bridge in a

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Speaker 3: light rail. Didn't build a break bridge or a light rail,

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Speaker 3: which is probably a good thing, but meanwhile didn't build

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Speaker 3: any roads either. Now we're restarting that and what's happened.

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Speaker 3: A decade's gone by, nothing got built. So getting long

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Speaker 3: term alignment on infrastructure absolutely critical and it's happening. Maybe

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Speaker 3: the next thing you do is say, right, well, you know,

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Speaker 3: we're going to look at all the assets we own

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Speaker 3: and say, are there things that are losing money not

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Speaker 3: doing a public service? And actually, if we put more

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Speaker 3: money into infrastructure, the economy could grow and would all

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Speaker 3: be wealthier. So I would actually talk more about recycling.

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Speaker 3: You know, we're not going to say that we're necessarily

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Speaker 3: going to end up owning less stuff, but it's going

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Speaker 3: to be stuff that assists the economy to grow, other

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Speaker 3: than competing with the rest of the economy.

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Speaker 2: Or even just finding something. And it's funny that you

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Speaker 2: say infrastructure because it's the first thing that came to

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Speaker 2: my mind as well. Perhaps using the money to bring

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Speaker 2: our woefully deteriorating infrastructure all around the country up to standard.

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Speaker 2: I think that should be something that every party should

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Speaker 2: agree with, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And the problem is that no politician has had

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Speaker 3: their photo taken with underground infrastructure. Now, some people say

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Speaker 3: some of us probably should, but there aren't the photo

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Speaker 3: ops for fixing leaky pipes under the ground. That's why

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Speaker 3: they end up creating catastrophes and then suddenly it gets

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Speaker 3: political attention when it's too late. We need to have

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Speaker 3: more cross party consensus that there are some things that

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Speaker 3: will benefit over a couple of generations. Those things need

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Speaker 3: to be done and paid for over a couple of generations.

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Speaker 3: It's all part of New Zealand, I think, becoming a

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Speaker 3: more mature country.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because whenever I see the issue of asset sales

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Speaker 2: come up, people say, well, we shouldn't be selling our

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Speaker 2: debt using it to with our debt as a nation.

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Speaker 2: So something like that would make sense. But I saw

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Speaker 2: that the New Zealand election study that tracks QWI attitudes

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Speaker 2: about a range of topics, close to half of the

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Speaker 2: public agree that privatization of state owned enterprises has gone

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Speaker 2: too far. I would argue that half isn't too bad. Right.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, my job is to make the case,

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Speaker 3: and I'm grateful of you giving me the opportunity to say, Okay,

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Speaker 3: it's costing your forty million bucks and interest payments on

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Speaker 3: the debt we hold to owning in New Zealand. Do

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Speaker 3: you think it's worth forty million plus whatever they're just

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Speaker 3: about to lose? What are you getting for that? And

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Speaker 3: could you get more for a billion dollars forty million

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Speaker 3: a year on the interest? Could you get more from owning?

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Speaker 3: I don't know. Another tunnel under the Harbor Bridge that

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Speaker 3: might give more growth potential to New Zealand than we

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Speaker 3: have currently.

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Speaker 2: What do you think the voter hates more though asset

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Speaker 2: sales or the possibility of higher taxes.

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Speaker 3: Well, that that is that is a choice because the

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Speaker 3: other way you look at it, you're paying tax to

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Speaker 3: pay the interest on owning the New Zealand's and so

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Speaker 3: that that that is a choice, right. But I mean

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Speaker 3: I would just say, look, I hear what people say,

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Speaker 3: and I'm listening to what people are saying, but I'm

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Speaker 3: also I hope bringing something useful to the table, which is, guys,

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Speaker 3: you know, we are in a state of long term

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Speaker 3: decline as a country. People are leaving in huge numbers.

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Speaker 3: We need to change course. We can't just keep doing

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Speaker 3: what we're currently doing. And you know, I'm up for

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Speaker 3: having the debate about it. I ask how many of

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Speaker 3: my colleagues are.

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Speaker 2: Do you think that the and New Zealand issue is

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Speaker 2: such a big one because it is seen as a

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Speaker 2: strategic asset?

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Speaker 3: Well, people use these words, but don't I don't know

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Speaker 3: what they mean. But what if it's a strategic asset,

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Speaker 3: what's the strategy? No one ever seems to know, you know,

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Speaker 3: we need to get away from the rhetoric and say, well, practically,

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Speaker 3: what would happen if there was some real disaster. And

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Speaker 3: the truth is that for the money we had to

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Speaker 3: put into bailing Ady in New Zealand, we could have

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Speaker 3: paid to maintain your services into New Zealand during the crisis.

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Speaker 3: I mean, you just remember the mal Brays managed to

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Speaker 3: charter a jet and bring more essential equipment into New

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Speaker 3: Zealand in the early days of COVID than perhaps the

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Speaker 3: in New Zealand did considering the amount of money that

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Speaker 3: went in. So you know, there's always other alternatives, and

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Speaker 3: so people say it's a strategics. I just say, what strategy?

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Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, David, Thanks Chelsea, Pleasure. That's it

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Speaker 2: for this episode of The Front Page. You can read

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Speaker 2: more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidherld

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Speaker 2: dot co dot enz The Front Page is hosted and

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Speaker 2: produced by me Chelsea Daniels Caine. Dicky is our studio operator,

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Speaker 2: Richard Martin, our producer and.

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Speaker 1: Editor, and our executive producer.

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Speaker 3: Is Jane Ye.

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Speaker 2: Follow the Front Page on the iHeart app or wherever

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Speaker 2: you get your podcasts and join us next time for

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Speaker 2: another look beyond the headline.

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Speaker 1: Four