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Speaker 1: Heather due to see ours.

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Speaker 2: The Labor Party has announced its first major policy ahead

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Speaker 2: of next year's election. It's a Future Fund. The Future

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Speaker 2: Fund will use capital from some Crown assets to invest

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Speaker 2: in Kiwi businesses and infrastructure projects. And the Labor Party

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Speaker 2: leader Chris Hopkins is with us.

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Speaker 1: Now, how HP can I Heather?

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Speaker 2: What's the actual goal of this fund?

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Speaker 1: We want to back New Zealand businesses and invest in

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Speaker 1: New Zealand. We need to see more of our wealth

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Speaker 1: being invested back here in New Zealand rather than flowing overseas.

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Speaker 1: So by using some of our existing public assets, our

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Speaker 1: resisting state assets, putting them into a future fund, using

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Speaker 1: the returns from them to reinvest in growing New Zealand businesses,

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Speaker 1: we can create jobs and keep more wealth here at home.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So this fund is not able to invest in

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Speaker 2: overseas businesses, is it.

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Speaker 1: No, We've got the New Zealand Superannuation Fund that can

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Speaker 1: do that. So this will be complementary to the New

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Speaker 1: Zealand Superfund, but in terms of our sovereign wealth investment abroad,

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Speaker 1: they will continue to be managed by the New Zealand Superfund.

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Speaker 2: Right, you're putting in two hundred million dollars in cash.

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Speaker 2: Are you're also putting in assets?

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Speaker 1: Right, So we're not being specific right now on which companies,

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Speaker 1: which existing our companies would go in because there are

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Speaker 1: market disclosure issues and so on. Some of those are

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Speaker 1: partially publicly listed companies. But we've said all of that

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Speaker 1: out in government.

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Speaker 2: I mean, isn't the mere fact that you've mentioned that

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Speaker 2: likely to have a market impact because there are only

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Speaker 2: so many that are partially listed.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's almost impossible to announce something like this without

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Speaker 1: giving some information. But we're not going to go and

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Speaker 1: identify which specific companies we're talking about.

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Speaker 2: Is the fund able to if it looks at let's

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Speaker 2: say one of the crown owned companies and thinks this

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Speaker 2: is not really actually a good investment, it's not performing well,

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Speaker 2: is it able to sell it down?

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Speaker 1: The companies that we'll be putting in there is the

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Speaker 1: seed funding will not be able to be sold, but

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Speaker 1: the companies that the fund invests in will be able

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Speaker 1: to be They will be able to buy and sell those.

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Speaker 2: Why can it? What are these companies that we put

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Speaker 2: in as the seed funding are just crappy companies? By contrast?

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Speaker 2: Why can't they sell them?

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Speaker 1: Well? We want to have. We're focused on a long

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Speaker 1: term investment. So we own all of those public assets

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Speaker 1: for a reason, and they're often reasons that are overlooked,

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Speaker 1: but they're often have you know, quite some time we

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Speaker 1: just owntry.

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Speaker 2: We've always owned them, chippy, we don't need to own them.

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Speaker 1: I disagree here there. I mean if you actually go

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Speaker 1: and look at the purpose of what's left being you know,

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Speaker 1: there were there that was an argument that might have

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Speaker 1: applied previously, But most of the stuff where there wasn't

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Speaker 1: a good case for crown ownership's now already been sold.

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Speaker 1: What's left there's normally a public interest in still owning it.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So if you take six hundred thousand dollars or

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Speaker 2: six hundred million dollars sorry annually in crown asset dividends

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Speaker 2: to put into this fund, doesn't that mean that the

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Speaker 2: government has six hundred million dollars less to spend on

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Speaker 2: health and education.

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Speaker 1: We'll set out a fiscal plan before the elections.

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Speaker 2: So you're going to have to You will have to

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Speaker 2: find some other way to replace that money, won't you?

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Speaker 1: What will We will show you know what we're envisaging

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Speaker 1: in terms of dividend diversion into that fund versus are

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Speaker 1: still coming to the crown, and then we'll be clear

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Speaker 1: how we balance the budget. So the fiscal plan will

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Speaker 1: show how we will balance the governments.

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Speaker 2: That's going to mean extra tax, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: I thought there's a number of choices. We have different

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Speaker 1: choices to what the current government would make in terms

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Speaker 1: of a spending You know, we'll have different spending choices

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Speaker 1: to them.

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Speaker 2: You will have spend less than a national part of government.

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Speaker 2: So the only possibility is that you raise more tax.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, we'll set out our text policy soon.

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Speaker 1: That's on the way. But what I'm saying is we

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Speaker 1: will make different choices of it. They remember, this is

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Speaker 1: the government that said they weren't going to borrow for

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Speaker 1: text cuts and is now borrowing almost the entire amount

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Speaker 1: of the text cuts.

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Speaker 2: Now, is this an idea that you just nicked straight

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Speaker 2: from Winston Peter's working with Grant Robertson in the twenty

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Speaker 2: seventeen to twenty twenty government.

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Speaker 1: I mean it was something that Grant Robertson had started

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Speaker 1: to do some work on pre COVID that didn't progress

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Speaker 1: during COVID, But yes, with it's something we've been working

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Speaker 1: on for a while.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Chippy, thanks very much, appreciate it. Chris Hopkins, Labor

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Speaker 2: Party leader.

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