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Speaker 1: So the latest US inflation data looks quite promising and

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Speaker 1: people are starting to talk about rate cuts by the Fed.

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Speaker 1: Will there or won't there be? Or talk to Shane

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Speaker 1: Soley from Harbor Asset Management about that and Fletchers in

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Speaker 1: just a few months time. But first we're joined by

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Speaker 1: Alfinance Minister Nicola with us. Hello Nikola, Kling Andrew, big

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Speaker 1: day for you, lots of announcements you and Christopher talking

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Speaker 1: about the tax cuts they come into effect on Wednesday,

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Speaker 1: with two hundred and fifty thousand employers across New Zealand

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Speaker 1: taking a little less money from their employees pay packets.

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Speaker 2: Do you reckon?

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Speaker 1: Those employers are ready for this.

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Speaker 3: It's a big week for New Zealand workers. We have

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Speaker 3: been working with payroll providers across the country to make

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Speaker 3: sure they've changed their system so that from Wednesday people

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Speaker 3: will only pay the right amount of tax and that's

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Speaker 3: less tax than they have been paying. So for New

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Speaker 3: Zealanders this means relief is coming and it's on track

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Speaker 3: to Wednesday.

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Speaker 1: And would you advise employees though to double check their

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Speaker 1: pace the just in case their employers have not quite

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Speaker 1: crossed all the t's and dotted the.

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Speaker 3: Eyes yeah, look, I think that's a good idea. Can

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Speaker 3: spare your pacelets with what it was the fortnight before,

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Speaker 3: make sure that you are being charged at lower rate

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Speaker 3: of text. We've been advised by payroll providers that their

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Speaker 3: confidence are made for changes. If for any reason there

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Speaker 3: was a problem and the text changes didn't fly through

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Speaker 3: to you, you can still get it in areas, so

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Speaker 3: you will get what's o to you eventually. I have

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Speaker 3: no reason to think that you won't be getting it

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Speaker 3: from the time you do now.

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Speaker 1: While the tax cuts obviously give you money back, and

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Speaker 1: I've got many texts people saying how lovely I get

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Speaker 1: my money back, You obviously get money back from a

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Speaker 1: tax cut's inherent in the name. The opposition, though, is

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Speaker 1: arguing you're also taking money though with some of your

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Speaker 1: other policies around user pays, local governance and all sorts

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Speaker 1: of things, and so the net cost of living remains high.

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Speaker 1: What would you say to that?

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Speaker 3: I just stated that, oh, my goodness, that is the

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Speaker 3: government that, through fuel on the inflation fire, created the

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Speaker 3: cost of loving crisis, and we're content to keep wasting

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Speaker 3: billions of dollars on wasteful programs across government to have

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Speaker 3: cried about every reduction we've made, and public servants in Wellington,

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Speaker 3: every wasteful program we've stopped, they've said no. The truth

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Speaker 3: is the opposition would rather they had that money than

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Speaker 3: New Zealanders if they voted against tax relief. And our

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Speaker 3: government is determined that hard working people and a cost

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Speaker 3: of lowing crisis should get to keep more of what

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Speaker 3: they earn. We're delivering it and labor never would have

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Speaker 3: done it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So Health New Zealand, here's a budgetary thing for you.

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Speaker 1: And you should know this because you run your handover

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Speaker 1: all all the budgets. Health New Zealand has gone from

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Speaker 1: running a surplus to running a huge deficit pretty much

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Speaker 1: within a year. And the question that everyone is asking

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Speaker 1: is where did it all go wrong? And there's so

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Speaker 1: many different theories. Maggie Arthur as say we hired too

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Speaker 1: many nurses, Others that saying you haven't funded enough. Where

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Speaker 1: do you think it wrong?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think this was a botched merger. You'll remember

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Speaker 3: that the government decided to throw all the bees together

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Speaker 3: in the immediate aftermath of a pandemic. There were many

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Speaker 3: frontline health workers who said, hey, am you sure it's

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Speaker 3: really a great year to be doing this massive restructure,

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Speaker 3: and we've just come through the last crisis. And then

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Speaker 3: we as a government came in and found that the

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Speaker 3: board was struggling to even get oversight of what was

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Speaker 3: happening with the financial performance of the health system because

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Speaker 3: all of the systems had been thrown up in the

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Speaker 3: year and then rearranged. So we've acted fast to make

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Speaker 3: sure we had capable Crown observer put in, to make

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Speaker 3: sure that we had people with financial capability on the board. Ultimately,

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Speaker 3: that wasn't enough to give us confidence that this system

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Speaker 3: could be well managed, and so we've sent a commissioner

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Speaker 3: in and look, I just say, Andrew, this is all

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Speaker 3: about making sure the dollars go where they can make

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Speaker 3: the biggest difference, which is to patience. And we didn't

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Speaker 3: have the confidence that we could see where the dollars

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Speaker 3: were going, and we need to have that confidence.

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Speaker 1: With with one health authority, of course, the fear was

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Speaker 1: your empire building and bureaucratic expansion. But with four regional

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Speaker 1: health authorities, don't you have four opportunities for empire building

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Speaker 1: and rampant bureaucratic expansion.

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Speaker 3: Well, the promise for the efficiency that was what the

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Speaker 3: reforms will need to be about, reducing the layers of

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Speaker 3: bureaucracy and administration. We simply haven't seen that yet and

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Speaker 3: that's what we are demanding because we want actually the

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Speaker 3: voice of the nurse, the voice of the doctor to

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Speaker 3: be listened to in the system and where things need

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Speaker 3: to change, that they can change quickly. As it is,

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Speaker 3: there are so many layers of management that the health

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Speaker 3: system can't be as responsive as it needs to be,

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Speaker 3: and our approach is all about making it easier for nurses,

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Speaker 3: doctors to give patients the cares that need.

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Speaker 1: Apparently Labour would like you to open the health books

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Speaker 1: just to try and prove who's right in all this argument.

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Speaker 1: Are you happy with that? Would you do that?

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Speaker 3: Well, look, we do want to be upfront and transparent

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Speaker 3: about what's going on, and the challenge that we have

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Speaker 3: had over the past few months is getting that information

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Speaker 3: out of Health New Zealand so haphazard with the systems

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Speaker 3: that the outgoing government left it with and it's monitoring

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Speaker 3: of those systems that we have found it challenging to

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Speaker 3: get basic financial information and we're now on that case

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Speaker 3: and I think being transparent about that improvement in the

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Speaker 3: funding position over time is going to be helpful for

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Speaker 3: building trust and confidence.

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Speaker 1: Good. Yes, And as Stephen Joyce said over the weekend,

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Speaker 1: you know this is the biggest single merger in New

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Speaker 1: Zealand's business history, eighty thousand staff. You know it dwarf

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Speaker 1: on terror. So yeah, they a lot got dropped.

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Speaker 2: So let's like listen my observation as Andrew, they designed

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Speaker 2: it on paper and it was all a big theory

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Speaker 2: that they had no real plan to operationalize it in

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Speaker 2: a practical, real world way.

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Speaker 1: Right, Let's get to the big one, which I haven't

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Speaker 1: asked first because you can't actually influence them. Should the

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Speaker 1: Reserve Bank drop interest rates? Look, I'm seeing wholesale interest rates,

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Speaker 1: you know, dropping. I'm seeing the retail bank say you

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Speaker 1: could actually do it in August not November. I know

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Speaker 1: you're not supposed to be able to influence, but you know,

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Speaker 1: could they?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Look, I've seen all that commentary. There are many banks

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Speaker 3: picking a reduction in the official cash rates earlier than

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Speaker 3: they were previously forecasting. Certainly there are a lot of

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Speaker 3: New Zealanders who want to see that. I've got to

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Speaker 3: stick in my lane, and my lane is all about

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Speaker 3: ensuring we've put the conditions in place that the Reserve

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Speaker 3: Bank can cut interest rates, and we've done that. That's

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Speaker 3: why we've been so careful about our spending, because we

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Speaker 3: don't want to be putting pressure on inflation. We've done

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Speaker 3: everything we can and you've seen that inflation number is

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Speaker 3: coming down now down to three point three, so it's

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Speaker 3: dropped pretty quickly and that's exactly what the Reserve Bank

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Speaker 3: needs to see in order that they can make changes

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Speaker 3: to the interest rates.

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Speaker 1: All right, nick, I thank you so very very much

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Speaker 1: for your time and thanking you so much so that

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Speaker 1: I didn't even ask you about the greens of Darling

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Speaker 1: townic because I frankly think we're all over it. So

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Speaker 1: that thank you very much. That is got bitter things

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Speaker 1: to think about. Thank you so much. Nikola Willis is

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Speaker 1: the Finance Minister.

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Speaker 2: For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive.

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