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Speaker 1: Now we've got the first example of David Seymour's Ministry

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Speaker 1: of Regulation pulling another minister into line. Buy now, pay

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Speaker 1: later providers will be allowed to charge whatever fees they

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Speaker 1: want after Cabinet decided to exempt them from the credit

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Speaker 1: contract and consumer finance. Basically, Cabinet decided to side with

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Speaker 1: David Seymour and not Andrew Bailey. Janative Trainey is The

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Speaker 1: Herald's Wellington Business editor. Hey you name? Hey, Yeah, how

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Speaker 1: did how did David Seymour get them to side with him?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question and I think it is

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Speaker 2: pretty significant because you know, David Seymour, Minister for Regulation,

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Speaker 2: his advice that he gets from the new Ministry for

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Speaker 2: Regulation gazumps the advice of MB and the Commerson Consumer

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Speaker 2: Affairs Minister Andrew Bailey, the experts in consumer affairs issues

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Speaker 2: like around buy now pay later, So you know the

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Speaker 2: effects of this could be quite big. Buy now, pay later.

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Speaker 2: The way it works is you got you go and shop,

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Speaker 2: you buy something and then you repay the money in installments,

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Speaker 2: so you don't pay any interest, but if you miss

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Speaker 2: a payment you pay a big fee. So what I

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Speaker 2: think the government recognizes is that that model is quite

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Speaker 2: different to traditional debt, so like quite different to a

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Speaker 2: credit card or something like that where you're paying interest.

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Speaker 2: So the argument is we'll buy now, pay later, shouldn't

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Speaker 2: be put under the exact same rules as the banks

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Speaker 2: and the credit cards that they issue, for example. Everyone

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Speaker 2: agrees on that, but Andrew Bailey thought, hey, we still

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Speaker 2: need to put some rules around the fees that these

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Speaker 2: buy now, pay later providers are charged, because you know,

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Speaker 2: we don't want to sort of just just let them,

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Speaker 2: let them have complete free reign. And David Seymour, you know,

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Speaker 2: i'd act leader ideologically doesn't love a lot of regulation.

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Speaker 2: He said, no, let's just let the market sort it out.

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Speaker 2: You know, these providers can't hike fees too much because

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Speaker 2: if they do, they'll lose their customers. So let's just

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Speaker 2: leave them to it. And David Seymour won.

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Speaker 1: Now, Janey, it's the second time in a matter of

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Speaker 1: literally days that David Seymour has overridden Andrew Bailey on

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Speaker 1: something becase. The other one was also the supermarket regulation.

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Speaker 1: Do we know whether David is doing this out of

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Speaker 1: actual ideological purity or is he using Is this some

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Speaker 1: sort of political horse trading going on? Here.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question, and it might be a

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Speaker 2: bit of both. Really, you know, I think this is

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Speaker 2: always the challenge with political parties in a coalition. They

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Speaker 2: need to keep their voters happy and differentiate themselves from

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Speaker 2: the major party, in this case, National that they're in

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Speaker 2: a coalition with. So I think it may well be both.

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Speaker 2: I have no doubt that ideologically David Seymour prefers to

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Speaker 2: take hands off approach. You know, he believes that you

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Speaker 2: intervene too much and you distort the market and actually,

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Speaker 2: you know, yeah, just just let let competition do its thing.

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Speaker 2: But at the same time, you know, he's a good

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Speaker 2: politician and it really almost seems like he enjoys, you know,

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Speaker 2: ribbing his coalition partner a little bit. It was interesting

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Speaker 2: because Christopher Luxon was asked about this and post cabinet

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Speaker 2: press conference earlier this week, because David Seymour came out

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Speaker 2: and said, you know, leave, leave the supermarkets alone. They

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Speaker 2: don't need to be regulated more, even though Andrew Bailey said,

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Speaker 2: look what, we're open to regulating the supermarkets more heavily,

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Speaker 2: and Christopher Luxon just shot down a question. He was

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Speaker 2: pretty snappy when asked about it. And he said what

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Speaker 2: did he say? Said something to the effect of right,

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Speaker 2: Andrew Bailey is the Commison, Consumer Fires Minister, full stop.

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Speaker 2: Let me be really clear. So yeah, I think it's

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Speaker 2: you know, I think this is kind of an amusing situation,

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Speaker 2: but it's the way the systems set up, how EMP works.

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Speaker 2: It makes for a bit of entertainment for us at Yes.

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Speaker 1: I don't mind a bit of friction in there because

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Speaker 1: usually grind out the stupid ideas like that. Hey, thank

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Speaker 1: you very much much really appreciated. That's Janative trainee, who's

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Speaker 1: the Wellington Business Editor. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen

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