1
00:00:05,960 --> 00:00:08,559
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at

2
00:00:08,640 --> 00:00:12,879
Speaker 1: Large and welcome to this episode of Money Talks. This

3
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:15,840
Speaker 1: is a podcast about money, but we're not going to

4
00:00:15,880 --> 00:00:18,080
Speaker 1: tell you how to get rich, and we're not going

5
00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:20,880
Speaker 1: to try and pick the next interest rate move. In

6
00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:24,279
Speaker 1: this series, I'll be talking to interesting New Zealanders about

7
00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:27,520
Speaker 1: how money has shaped their lives and what they've learned

8
00:00:27,560 --> 00:00:31,520
Speaker 1: over the years. For today's podcast, I'm joined by leader

9
00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:34,159
Speaker 1: of the Act Party, the MP for EPSOM, and the

10
00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,000
Speaker 1: Associate Finance Minister David Seymour Cuta.

11
00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:40,080
Speaker 2: David, Welcome to Money Talk and thanks for having me. Hey.

12
00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:42,199
Speaker 1: Look, yeah, so one thing I want to clarify here

13
00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:44,279
Speaker 1: is that when we have politicians on Money Talks, we're

14
00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:46,840
Speaker 1: not going to get deep into fiscal policy or anything.

15
00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:50,080
Speaker 1: So you're safe regard. I know you probably wouldn't mind.

16
00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:52,640
Speaker 1: If you have got any big announcements, feel free to

17
00:00:53,159 --> 00:00:56,600
Speaker 1: make them. But really this is about going back and

18
00:00:56,640 --> 00:01:00,160
Speaker 1: getting into your relationship with money and all that sort

19
00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:02,360
Speaker 1: of stuff. So you know, if I can jump back,

20
00:01:02,880 --> 00:01:05,560
Speaker 1: what would be your first memories of having your own money?

21
00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:07,760
Speaker 1: Do you recall having it in your hand or your

22
00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:09,760
Speaker 1: pocket as a young child.

23
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,360
Speaker 2: I have a very strange memory of it having a

24
00:01:12,360 --> 00:01:15,840
Speaker 2: two dollar note, and I must have been I don't know,

25
00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:18,920
Speaker 2: four or five six, and I lost the thing and

26
00:01:18,959 --> 00:01:21,840
Speaker 2: I was so devastated. I couldn't believe it.

27
00:01:21,880 --> 00:01:23,240
Speaker 1: Was probably big money back then.

28
00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:27,000
Speaker 2: Well well look I just start talking about some of

29
00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:31,960
Speaker 2: the management of inflations. But no, no it was. And

30
00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,920
Speaker 2: so I just remember that real panic it have lost

31
00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:36,720
Speaker 2: the two dollar note. It was a purple thing with

32
00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:37,959
Speaker 2: a big picture of on them.

33
00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:40,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they didn't last. I mean, I'm guessing that

34
00:01:40,959 --> 00:01:43,600
Speaker 1: you're born in the eighties, so its late eighties.

35
00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:45,440
Speaker 2: Maybe eighty three, so it was long before the coins

36
00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:49,560
Speaker 2: came in. Well that's another thing I remember really clearly

37
00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:53,240
Speaker 2: because nineteen ninety was an exciting time. We had the

38
00:01:53,240 --> 00:01:57,640
Speaker 2: Expo and it was the Sesqui Centenary of retreating and

39
00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:01,560
Speaker 2: the new money and the plastic which you could put

40
00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:02,080
Speaker 2: through the wash.

41
00:02:02,240 --> 00:02:04,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So where were you growing up at that point?

42
00:02:05,560 --> 00:02:07,840
Speaker 2: So I was in Fargray, So my dad's families from

43
00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:10,120
Speaker 2: the mun Or two. He grew up in Fielding. My

44
00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:14,720
Speaker 2: mum was born in Tekopuru, where a hugely disproportionate number

45
00:02:14,760 --> 00:02:18,520
Speaker 2: of New Zealanders have been born and her family moved

46
00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:21,600
Speaker 2: over to Parade, So we set it all there in

47
00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:22,200
Speaker 2: the eighties.

48
00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,760
Speaker 1: Sure, And would you describe it as a fairly middle

49
00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:29,359
Speaker 1: class family A note. I think in the bio that

50
00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:31,959
Speaker 1: you went to a desol one intermediate, you know, it

51
00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:34,280
Speaker 1: was it sort of a yeah, I mean it was.

52
00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:36,600
Speaker 1: It was a whole mix of things. And you get

53
00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:41,000
Speaker 1: that in a small provincial city, so you know, it's

54
00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:43,840
Speaker 1: not like the country where you sort of isolated in

55
00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:46,519
Speaker 1: a very small community, or a really big city which

56
00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:49,560
Speaker 1: has sort of sorted into lots of different communities, rich

57
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:51,799
Speaker 1: and poor and so on. It's a provincial city where

58
00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:55,600
Speaker 1: everyone's beside everybody. So I went to in a suburb

59
00:02:56,320 --> 00:02:59,160
Speaker 1: which had you know, it's pretty idyllic. It was a

60
00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:03,040
Speaker 1: new subdivision. Everyone could ride their bikes in a colder sack.

61
00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:06,239
Speaker 1: And also it was on the fringe of the city,

62
00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:08,240
Speaker 1: so you'd also go on the bush and build huts.

63
00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:11,200
Speaker 1: Went to a primary school that still had an egg

64
00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:14,000
Speaker 1: day because it had traditionally been out in the country,

65
00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:20,600
Speaker 1: and then went intermediate across town that was a totally

66
00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:23,639
Speaker 1: different kettle of fish. So in many ways that that

67
00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:24,680
Speaker 1: was sort of a.

68
00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:28,120
Speaker 2: Real introduction to the world because he realized that not

69
00:03:28,240 --> 00:03:32,120
Speaker 2: everything was like this sort of city fringe, sort of

70
00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:36,000
Speaker 2: a suburb, sort of a country type suburban paradise. Yeah.

71
00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:38,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean did you have pocket money growing up?

72
00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:40,720
Speaker 2: Yeah? I used to get two bucks a week for

73
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,200
Speaker 2: this was and they were coined, so this must have

74
00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:45,920
Speaker 2: been after I lost the note. But I used to

75
00:03:45,960 --> 00:03:50,520
Speaker 2: get two bucks a week for opening the emptying the dishwasher,

76
00:03:51,440 --> 00:03:56,360
Speaker 2: and also used to get two bucks for mowing my

77
00:03:56,840 --> 00:04:02,040
Speaker 2: grandparents pretty big backyard. So that was I hate to

78
00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:04,280
Speaker 2: think about what the labor inspectors would say about that.

79
00:04:04,480 --> 00:04:07,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, were the things that you were spending it

80
00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:10,400
Speaker 1: on saving for or were you a savor or just

81
00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:12,080
Speaker 1: go straight to the dairy? Well.

82
00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:14,000
Speaker 2: I sort of was sort of sporadic, and it sort

83
00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:17,279
Speaker 2: of repeated throughout my life that you'd be really disciplined

84
00:04:17,360 --> 00:04:19,200
Speaker 2: for a while, and yeah, maybe you get up to

85
00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:21,480
Speaker 2: you know, thirty or forty bucks and you think you're rich,

86
00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:24,520
Speaker 2: but then you sort of want to buy a model

87
00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:27,120
Speaker 2: car or toy or something and then you sort of

88
00:04:27,520 --> 00:04:32,000
Speaker 2: blew it or so no, I suspect probably you know,

89
00:04:32,160 --> 00:04:33,520
Speaker 2: fifty cent mixed from the dairy.

90
00:04:33,800 --> 00:04:36,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a universal theme. Almost amongst

91
00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:39,360
Speaker 1: anyone I've spoken to on this is running down to

92
00:04:39,400 --> 00:04:42,640
Speaker 1: the dairy in New Zealand. Yeah. So from there, you know,

93
00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:45,960
Speaker 1: we the part time jobs. Did you deliver papers or

94
00:04:45,960 --> 00:04:46,839
Speaker 1: any of that sort of stuff.

95
00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:51,400
Speaker 2: No, I wanted a paper run. But the thing that

96
00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:54,680
Speaker 2: thwarted me for most of my time was I went

97
00:04:54,760 --> 00:04:58,040
Speaker 2: to boarding school in Auckland, So I tried to get

98
00:04:58,279 --> 00:05:02,040
Speaker 2: a job at McDonald's in various places, but they'd always say, well,

99
00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:04,080
Speaker 2: you're going to bugger off in two weeks, so why

100
00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:06,679
Speaker 2: would we train you? Right? Yeah, yeah, because I didn't

101
00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:09,240
Speaker 2: really appreciate it at that time. But for a business,

102
00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,400
Speaker 2: you actually end up sort of sinking a lot into

103
00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:16,080
Speaker 2: a person until they're actually useful to you. And if

104
00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:17,719
Speaker 2: they're going to be gone in a few weeks, that's

105
00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:20,520
Speaker 2: not going to work out. So pretty limited. My first

106
00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:24,479
Speaker 2: job was at TDC Sawmills, Tony Davies Collie. I actually

107
00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:26,440
Speaker 2: saw Tony up in fun at Ages yesterday.

108
00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:27,800
Speaker 1: So this was a summer job, was it.

109
00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:30,679
Speaker 2: Yep? This was after I finished finished high school, finished

110
00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:33,280
Speaker 2: sixth form, went off to Yuni and it was tough.

111
00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:37,320
Speaker 2: We're doing sixty hours a week and I remember, for

112
00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:40,240
Speaker 2: some reason me and my mate from school. We started

113
00:05:40,279 --> 00:05:43,000
Speaker 2: at seven for the first month we were starting out,

114
00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:46,920
Speaker 2: but actually the sawmill opened at six and when we

115
00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:50,080
Speaker 2: transferred to starting we discovered that everyone else was being

116
00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:54,760
Speaker 2: given a fresh pair of gloves every morning. Well, which

117
00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:57,000
Speaker 2: was just an unbelievable relief.

118
00:05:57,440 --> 00:06:00,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you went up to board in school at

119
00:06:00,839 --> 00:06:01,359
Speaker 1: Ukland Grammar.

120
00:06:01,480 --> 00:06:01,840
Speaker 2: Is that right?

121
00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:03,800
Speaker 1: I mean, was that because it was just it wasn't

122
00:06:03,839 --> 00:06:05,800
Speaker 1: the opportunity there in the high school or you know,

123
00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:08,240
Speaker 1: was there a driver for you to get there? Did

124
00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:10,640
Speaker 1: you have a passion for sort of getting out of

125
00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:11,440
Speaker 1: Hong today?

126
00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:14,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's mostly my parents at

127
00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:17,560
Speaker 2: that time. Some of their friends were sending their kids

128
00:06:17,640 --> 00:06:19,800
Speaker 2: out of and I know at that time there was

129
00:06:19,839 --> 00:06:23,160
Speaker 2: a bit of debate about, you know what, what's the

130
00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:27,719
Speaker 2: merits of the schools here versus there? But I certainly

131
00:06:27,839 --> 00:06:31,080
Speaker 2: found it life changing that. You know, a couple of

132
00:06:31,160 --> 00:06:33,880
Speaker 2: things happened. One is I met Sir Edmund Hillary in

133
00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:36,680
Speaker 2: my first couple of months. And one of the reasons

134
00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:39,520
Speaker 2: I think we need a four lane road up north

135
00:06:39,960 --> 00:06:42,040
Speaker 2: is that when you grow up in a place like that,

136
00:06:43,760 --> 00:06:46,040
Speaker 2: you can feel like the world's a long way away.

137
00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:49,120
Speaker 2: I remember a story someone that made the North and

138
00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:52,240
Speaker 2: Reps that I knew under fourteens or under twelves. I

139
00:06:52,560 --> 00:06:54,200
Speaker 2: did not make the North and Reps or any other

140
00:06:54,240 --> 00:06:55,760
Speaker 2: representative sports team. I can assure you.

141
00:06:55,839 --> 00:06:56,560
Speaker 1: Did you play sports?

142
00:06:56,760 --> 00:06:59,720
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, it's not very well. I was. My

143
00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:04,360
Speaker 2: main position was left right out. And you know there's

144
00:07:04,360 --> 00:07:06,280
Speaker 2: a kid from up north came down to play Auckland

145
00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:08,400
Speaker 2: sat in a motel in Saint Mary's Bay and he

146
00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:10,400
Speaker 2: sat up the whole night just staring at the harbor

147
00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:12,280
Speaker 2: Bridge because he couldn't believe it, and he's seen nothing

148
00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:15,840
Speaker 2: like it, hadn't seen an escalator an elevator before. So

149
00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:19,760
Speaker 2: you know, cerddainly coming to the big smoke and meeting

150
00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:22,960
Speaker 2: famous people, it suddenly changed how you looked at what

151
00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:23,679
Speaker 2: was possible.

152
00:07:23,880 --> 00:07:26,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean at school, what were you what were

153
00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:28,040
Speaker 1: your passions? What were the subjects that you kind of

154
00:07:28,840 --> 00:07:29,720
Speaker 1: fell naturally into?

155
00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:34,040
Speaker 2: Rugby? I love playing rugby. I wish I could do

156
00:07:34,080 --> 00:07:35,720
Speaker 2: it again. But it's a bit like some of your

157
00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:37,920
Speaker 2: columns of at the stage where you feel a bit creaky.

158
00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:41,200
Speaker 2: You're not sure that you're more likely to get injured

159
00:07:41,240 --> 00:07:45,600
Speaker 2: and less likely to recover. Yeah, So despite having limited talents.

160
00:07:45,640 --> 00:07:52,760
Speaker 2: So I loved playing rugby. Did you play mostly open side? Thinker? Well,

161
00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:55,800
Speaker 2: I was a lock, Yes, I was. Actually people can't

162
00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:57,480
Speaker 2: believe I was a lot, but I am actually tall

163
00:07:57,520 --> 00:07:57,960
Speaker 2: for my weight.

164
00:07:58,280 --> 00:08:00,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well I was a hooker, which is also

165
00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:03,600
Speaker 1: people in a team that was not very good, but

166
00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:07,720
Speaker 1: which I actually worked out. I probably probably probably could

167
00:08:07,760 --> 00:08:10,360
Speaker 1: have played Chris Luxeon's team, like you know, he was

168
00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:11,280
Speaker 1: third level.

169
00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:14,960
Speaker 2: Okay, were there any ball people on the other they already.

170
00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:17,040
Speaker 1: Got to hear then, I don't know. But apart from

171
00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:18,600
Speaker 1: the rugby years, it was it. I mean, you winded

172
00:08:18,760 --> 00:08:24,520
Speaker 1: engineering and philosophy right at university. I guess one one's

173
00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:26,400
Speaker 1: right in the thick of the arts and one is

174
00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:29,679
Speaker 1: very practical. Was that because you you enjoyed both sides

175
00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:30,920
Speaker 1: of that sort of academic world.

176
00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:33,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I just wanted a bit of insurance.

177
00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:36,400
Speaker 2: I mean, I wanted to do engineering partly because my

178
00:08:36,520 --> 00:08:41,000
Speaker 2: family has been in that business for several generations. And

179
00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:44,880
Speaker 2: I think, you know, coming out of a good form

180
00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:47,599
Speaker 2: class at a school like Grammar, there's a lot of

181
00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:49,959
Speaker 2: you know, I was useless at English, so I want

182
00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:53,000
Speaker 2: to do law, and I didn't quite think I'd make

183
00:08:53,080 --> 00:08:56,319
Speaker 2: ned school so and I was useless at drawing, so

184
00:08:56,400 --> 00:09:01,439
Speaker 2: that was architecture gone. So that really left engineering. And

185
00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:03,559
Speaker 2: so you had a bit of pressure to do something

186
00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:06,360
Speaker 2: like that, plus the family connection to it. But I

187
00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:08,959
Speaker 2: just felt like I wanted an outlet or something else.

188
00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:11,200
Speaker 2: So I wanted to hedge my bets, not put all

189
00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:14,720
Speaker 2: the eggs in the same basket, et cetera, and philosophy

190
00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:17,600
Speaker 2: sort of seemed like the way to go. I actually

191
00:09:17,679 --> 00:09:21,720
Speaker 2: started off doing a couple of education paperscuse I wanted

192
00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:24,079
Speaker 2: to be a teacher, and I was quickly persuaded that,

193
00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:29,560
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of highly ideological education that's given

194
00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:32,520
Speaker 2: as part of initial teacher education is not preparing people

195
00:09:32,600 --> 00:09:36,079
Speaker 2: for the classroom. And that's something, Funnily enough, twenty years

196
00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:39,840
Speaker 2: later they still, well, the government's moving on that now, but.

197
00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:42,599
Speaker 1: You're up against I mean and too much policy, but

198
00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:46,280
Speaker 1: up against that ideological force in the teacher unions.

199
00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:49,520
Speaker 2: And yep, well, and I look, I think there's been

200
00:09:49,640 --> 00:09:53,000
Speaker 2: a strong belief for a long time that if you

201
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:55,400
Speaker 2: got the cap and gown photo, you'd made it, and

202
00:09:55,520 --> 00:09:58,840
Speaker 2: so successive governments have made it much easier to get

203
00:09:58,920 --> 00:10:01,160
Speaker 2: the cap and gown photo kept the fees at the UNI,

204
00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:03,280
Speaker 2: They've up ramped up the subsidies. I've taken the interest

205
00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:05,719
Speaker 2: off the loans while you're studying then forever, And as

206
00:10:05,760 --> 00:10:07,880
Speaker 2: a result, lots more people get their picture with the

207
00:10:07,920 --> 00:10:10,920
Speaker 2: cap and gown. But I'm not sure that the level

208
00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:15,480
Speaker 2: of skill and usefulness is there. And I suspect that, actually,

209
00:10:15,520 --> 00:10:17,080
Speaker 2: if you look at how they do it in places

210
00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:19,439
Speaker 2: like Germany, that there's a place for more learning on

211
00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:23,000
Speaker 2: the job. But that's a whole other rabbitue.

212
00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:26,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, Yeah. Philosophy though, do you have a favorite

213
00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:27,959
Speaker 1: philosopher or favorite school? Oh?

214
00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:31,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I'm a big Paperian. I think what Popper

215
00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:36,440
Speaker 2: did in the Philosophy of Knowledge was really really powerful.

216
00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:40,520
Speaker 2: And the short, short summary is that, you know, you

217
00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:43,680
Speaker 2: have your skeptics who believe it's impossible to know anything

218
00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:47,040
Speaker 2: with certainty, your dogmatists who believe that you can know

219
00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:51,559
Speaker 2: things with certainty, and neither of them are particularly satisfying.

220
00:10:52,760 --> 00:10:58,800
Speaker 2: You know, Popper's I guess a view of critical rationalism

221
00:10:58,920 --> 00:11:02,760
Speaker 2: or falsification that well, look, you probably never get to

222
00:11:02,800 --> 00:11:07,240
Speaker 2: absolute truth, but you can have a hypothesis that you

223
00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:10,920
Speaker 2: are prepared to abandon if the facts change. Your mind.

224
00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:14,480
Speaker 2: That to me seemed to be the most civilized way

225
00:11:14,559 --> 00:11:16,959
Speaker 2: to think about the world, and it is the basis

226
00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:20,439
Speaker 2: of science, or has been the basis of scientific progress

227
00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:24,160
Speaker 2: for a long time. I think it's under enormous attack.

228
00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:31,080
Speaker 2: I saw the latest Green MP has a CV where

229
00:11:31,160 --> 00:11:38,920
Speaker 2: he has done research quote unquote attacking Western empiricism. And

230
00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:44,480
Speaker 2: I don't think that observing the world you see and

231
00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:48,920
Speaker 2: testing that against a hypothesis is a Western thing. No,

232
00:11:49,679 --> 00:11:52,680
Speaker 2: it's a method that's available to all people and appears

233
00:11:52,800 --> 00:11:55,840
Speaker 2: to advance knowledge and solve problems and extend people's lives

234
00:11:55,880 --> 00:11:58,079
Speaker 2: with better medicine and so on, much better than anything

235
00:11:58,080 --> 00:12:01,679
Speaker 2: else that any humans have tried. But my point is

236
00:12:01,800 --> 00:12:06,079
Speaker 2: that you know, when you've got people taking serious papers

237
00:12:06,160 --> 00:12:09,760
Speaker 2: doing research that is based on attacking the whole method

238
00:12:09,840 --> 00:12:15,760
Speaker 2: of hypothesizing and observing cheaper, that that whole methodology that's

239
00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:18,559
Speaker 2: done so well for us with science and reason for

240
00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:21,360
Speaker 2: a couple of centuries now is really under attack.

241
00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:23,960
Speaker 1: I guess it goes to the engineering a bit too,

242
00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:25,920
Speaker 1: because how do we're building a bridge if you're not going.

243
00:12:25,840 --> 00:12:29,559
Speaker 2: To Yeah, and look, this postmodern view is that you know,

244
00:12:29,679 --> 00:12:31,640
Speaker 2: we all have lived experience and we all have our

245
00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:34,360
Speaker 2: view of the world and they're equally valid, And if

246
00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:40,079
Speaker 2: you criticize someone's worldview, then you know you're actually, you know,

247
00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:43,440
Speaker 2: attacking them. Well, that doesn't cut it in engineering. I mean,

248
00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:45,880
Speaker 2: if you're an electrical engineer, you get it wrong, people

249
00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:50,240
Speaker 2: get electrocuted, or your signal just doesn't arrive or isn't

250
00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:55,920
Speaker 2: properly decoded. So the way that postmodernism has made all

251
00:12:56,679 --> 00:12:59,679
Speaker 2: academia sort of relativist and based on the perspective of

252
00:12:59,720 --> 00:13:03,800
Speaker 2: the I think is nuts and it's doing huge harm

253
00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:06,840
Speaker 2: because it makes it very difficult for us to talk

254
00:13:06,920 --> 00:13:07,480
Speaker 2: to each other.

255
00:13:08,040 --> 00:13:10,760
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're kind of quite skeptical of ideology.

256
00:13:11,800 --> 00:13:15,160
Speaker 1: You probably get accused of being ideological from them by

257
00:13:15,200 --> 00:13:17,439
Speaker 1: the left because they see you as being on the

258
00:13:17,559 --> 00:13:20,319
Speaker 1: right or neoliberal or whatever. I mean, how do you

259
00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:23,360
Speaker 1: feel about the idea of ideology, the idea that your

260
00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:26,160
Speaker 1: viewers near? You know, if you take it to economics,

261
00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:28,760
Speaker 1: you've got your canes and your freedmen. And where do

262
00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:32,200
Speaker 1: you sit on those sort of schools of ideological thought.

263
00:13:32,360 --> 00:13:34,680
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you've got to remember that Milton Friedman

264
00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:37,439
Speaker 2: and Anna Schwartz, you know, they won the Nobel Prize

265
00:13:38,480 --> 00:13:42,160
Speaker 2: for examining the history of monetary policy in the US,

266
00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:48,640
Speaker 2: and they demonstrated that their hypothesis that inflation is always

267
00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:54,000
Speaker 2: and everywhere a monetary phenomenon fits the data that it

268
00:13:54,080 --> 00:13:57,280
Speaker 2: actually existed in reality better than Whatkines had put forward.

269
00:13:57,679 --> 00:14:00,400
Speaker 2: Kines himself said, when the facts change or change my mind,

270
00:14:00,840 --> 00:14:04,000
Speaker 2: Cain himself had had Crow up with a theory that

271
00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:06,200
Speaker 2: fit the data better than anyone else up to that point.

272
00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:10,000
Speaker 2: So and you know, since then we've had modern monetary theory.

273
00:14:10,040 --> 00:14:11,599
Speaker 2: And now you don't hear them very much about that

274
00:14:11,720 --> 00:14:13,160
Speaker 2: after the last through or three years, so.

275
00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:17,360
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, but well, sorry to hear it.

276
00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,480
Speaker 2: But you know, the point is, on any issue, you

277
00:14:20,640 --> 00:14:25,680
Speaker 2: can actually take that basic preparian method that there is

278
00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:29,040
Speaker 2: a real world that we can all join hands and

279
00:14:29,080 --> 00:14:31,640
Speaker 2: problem solve through it. That there's a universal humanity and

280
00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:34,880
Speaker 2: we all have the same chances and choices to work

281
00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:38,520
Speaker 2: through the world. That works. Once you get into this postmodernism,

282
00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:40,720
Speaker 2: I have lived experience. I'm writing from an X Y

283
00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:43,800
Speaker 2: Z perspective, and you know, if you attack my view

284
00:14:43,880 --> 00:14:47,080
Speaker 2: then you're wrong, and that is nuts. And the worst

285
00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:49,760
Speaker 2: example of it is, you know, there's actually people in

286
00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:54,200
Speaker 2: universities around the world who will seriously argue that the

287
00:14:55,080 --> 00:15:00,800
Speaker 2: Western scientific tradition is I guess, angled against people who

288
00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:02,840
Speaker 2: are obese. And when you say, well, actually, you know,

289
00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:06,600
Speaker 2: medicine has made discoveries that you know, being overweight can

290
00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:08,960
Speaker 2: lead to correlate with a number of heart conditions and

291
00:15:09,040 --> 00:15:12,280
Speaker 2: other health problems, they say, oh, well, that's just an

292
00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:16,320
Speaker 2: oppressive regime of thought that doesn't apply to me. That's

293
00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:21,000
Speaker 2: what this relativism means at its most absurd but real example.

294
00:15:27,680 --> 00:15:29,520
Speaker 1: Let me bring it back to where you were coming

295
00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:32,120
Speaker 1: through and how you got onto the political side of it.

296
00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:33,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I see where you're coming from, but you know,

297
00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:35,880
Speaker 1: like at the time you were coming through, it hadn't

298
00:15:35,920 --> 00:15:38,240
Speaker 1: sort of switched around so much. There was I guess

299
00:15:38,280 --> 00:15:40,600
Speaker 1: there was a sense when I was coming through anyway,

300
00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:43,320
Speaker 1: that there was a sort of an absolutist conservative view

301
00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:45,440
Speaker 1: that dominated the world. And this was you know, in

302
00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:49,160
Speaker 1: those days the postmodernism woke, whatever you want to call it.

303
00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:52,000
Speaker 1: They were the underdogs. They're coming through. It's sort of

304
00:15:52,760 --> 00:15:55,080
Speaker 1: it's sort of flipped around. And why I'm interested is

305
00:15:55,120 --> 00:15:58,560
Speaker 1: because often young people and students in particular tend to

306
00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:04,120
Speaker 1: be more on that rebellious coming from the left side

307
00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:05,960
Speaker 1: of it, and it seems like you're attracted quite early

308
00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:10,160
Speaker 1: to a more conservative outlook. I mean, is that fair?

309
00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:14,440
Speaker 2: No, I mean there might be a bigger age gap

310
00:16:14,480 --> 00:16:19,800
Speaker 2: between us, is obvious from your appearance. But certainly the

311
00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:22,240
Speaker 2: years I was at the University of Auckland from one

312
00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:28,440
Speaker 2: to six, there was a real, uh, you know what

313
00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:33,360
Speaker 2: I regarded as a heavy bias towards the postmodernest way

314
00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:38,560
Speaker 2: of thinking. You certainly didn't get you know, perhaps outside

315
00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:41,360
Speaker 2: the economics department where I tutored for for a semester,

316
00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:47,040
Speaker 2: you didn't get people coming out defending you know what

317
00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:50,920
Speaker 2: I would regard as the sort of neoliberal view of

318
00:16:51,040 --> 00:16:55,640
Speaker 2: the world. We were as act on campus as I

319
00:16:55,800 --> 00:16:58,720
Speaker 2: was a member of then we were countercultural.

320
00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:01,320
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, probably about ten years older than you, but

321
00:17:02,640 --> 00:17:05,720
Speaker 1: you know, you could see that coming. But certainly, say,

322
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:08,240
Speaker 1: if you think of countercultural in the sixties and seventies,

323
00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:10,399
Speaker 1: it was pushing back against what it saw as you know,

324
00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:13,920
Speaker 1: the industrial military complex, all that sort of conservatism of

325
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:17,879
Speaker 1: the fifties. But you felt coming through that already you

326
00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:20,000
Speaker 1: were there was a sense of, you know, where the

327
00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:23,879
Speaker 1: action was in politics was more to the right or

328
00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:25,960
Speaker 1: how do you describe it, you know, because I get

329
00:17:26,119 --> 00:17:29,520
Speaker 1: you know, your conservative, neoliberal, right wing. You know, people

330
00:17:29,800 --> 00:17:31,080
Speaker 1: use all these labels, do you have a.

331
00:17:31,119 --> 00:17:33,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do, but no, I mean, I think that

332
00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:38,840
Speaker 2: that philosophical view of being prepared to hypothesize and tests

333
00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:41,120
Speaker 2: against the evidence is important. I've changed what might about

334
00:17:41,160 --> 00:17:43,600
Speaker 2: things over the years, but I think it's also important

335
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:46,040
Speaker 2: not to pigeonhole people, because sometimes a person can be,

336
00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:49,040
Speaker 2: you know, on the same side as you on one issue,

337
00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:51,440
Speaker 2: but against you on others. So for example, I mean,

338
00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:55,760
Speaker 2: I'm known for having legalized euth in Asia, you know,

339
00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:59,760
Speaker 2: and that is a socially liberal cause it's about individual choice,

340
00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:03,920
Speaker 2: opposed by a lot of the religious establishment quite vehemently.

341
00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:08,560
Speaker 2: I was one of twenty MPs that voted for abortion

342
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:12,200
Speaker 2: to be decriminalized, but actually go even further, to be

343
00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:14,880
Speaker 2: between a woman and a doctor, you know, at any time,

344
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,640
Speaker 2: not to have this kind of halfway house that actually eventuated,

345
00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:21,399
Speaker 2: but which still better than what we had. But so,

346
00:18:21,560 --> 00:18:24,040
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a liberal or that. On free speech,

347
00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:26,720
Speaker 2: I almost an absolutist. I think you should have the

348
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:29,520
Speaker 2: right to say what you like. You certainly shouldn't be

349
00:18:30,520 --> 00:18:36,160
Speaker 2: corralled by some sort of you know, censor, a human

350
00:18:36,240 --> 00:18:37,920
Speaker 2: rights commissioner, someone that can haul you and say you

351
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:39,840
Speaker 2: offended someone, you're in big trouble and lock you up.

352
00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:43,600
Speaker 2: I'm posed to that. But equally, I look at the

353
00:18:43,760 --> 00:18:46,679
Speaker 2: fact that I, as a minister now am responsible as

354
00:18:46,720 --> 00:18:51,680
Speaker 2: a fifty percent shareholder in twenty eight different state owned enterprises,

355
00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:54,600
Speaker 2: Crown Research inst Should your four companies and so on,

356
00:18:56,320 --> 00:18:59,600
Speaker 2: and I think this is nuts. You know, I don't

357
00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:03,480
Speaker 2: believe it's possible for a politician to have that level

358
00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:07,080
Speaker 2: of oversight as a shareholder on behalf of five million people.

359
00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:10,879
Speaker 2: And there's very good evidence that private and privatized firms

360
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:14,159
Speaker 2: do better. The soees that we have have made a

361
00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:17,200
Speaker 2: very poor return on equity, and I don't think we

362
00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:20,440
Speaker 2: should own those now the current government policy I hasten

363
00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:22,720
Speaker 2: to add us that we will continue own, but within

364
00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:26,080
Speaker 2: the government I continue to editate we shouldn't and the

365
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:27,960
Speaker 2: facts are that. You know, what do you say to

366
00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:31,440
Speaker 2: someone who believes in privatization, a woman's right to choose

367
00:19:31,520 --> 00:19:32,760
Speaker 2: euthanasia and free speech.

368
00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:35,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, liberal is a complicated word these days right now.

369
00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:39,040
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a liberal in the classical and consistent sense

370
00:19:39,119 --> 00:19:40,480
Speaker 2: of it that I believe you should be able to

371
00:19:40,520 --> 00:19:41,760
Speaker 2: do it, you like, as long as you're not arming

372
00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 2: anyone else.

373
00:19:42,520 --> 00:19:45,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I sort of lived my life along

374
00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:48,120
Speaker 1: those lines. But then I'm sort of conscious that as

375
00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:50,919
Speaker 1: a relatively lazy person or whatever.

376
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:52,560
Speaker 2: I sometimes yourself aware.

377
00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:56,680
Speaker 1: But the government involvement is the government making me put

378
00:19:56,720 --> 00:19:58,920
Speaker 1: into KEYI Saver, making me do some things that actually

379
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:00,840
Speaker 1: are good for me. Guess what I'm getting out. I

380
00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:03,480
Speaker 1: had a good chat to Sir Roger Douglas here and he,

381
00:20:04,240 --> 00:20:06,560
Speaker 1: you know, takes it to extreme that probably isn't politically

382
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:09,800
Speaker 1: viable now around what you do with welfare payment and

383
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:12,320
Speaker 1: health system and things like that. But what do you

384
00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:14,560
Speaker 1: do with the people who aren't And I'll use myself,

385
00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:17,960
Speaker 1: but you know, who aren't up to making those choices

386
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:21,119
Speaker 1: and decisions. That's where the government comes in, right.

387
00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:24,000
Speaker 2: Well again, go back to the data. So the guy

388
00:20:24,080 --> 00:20:27,440
Speaker 2: I find most interesting on KEIWI savers David Laws, who says, look,

389
00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:29,960
Speaker 2: you know, yes, people can point to a big wad

390
00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:32,240
Speaker 2: of cash and their key WE Saver account. What they

391
00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:34,840
Speaker 2: can't point to is that maybe they've kept their credit

392
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,720
Speaker 2: card running longer than they would have otherwise. Maybe they've

393
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:40,440
Speaker 2: paid off their mortgage slower than they would have otherwise.

394
00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:44,200
Speaker 2: Maybe they've you know, neglected, or they've pulled back from

395
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:46,760
Speaker 2: investing in other things that they might have otherwise. So

396
00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:48,800
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, once you take out

397
00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:51,879
Speaker 2: the taxpayer contribution to your KEII saver, it hasn't actually

398
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:55,440
Speaker 2: increased your saving at all. So I just again to

399
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:57,960
Speaker 2: be ideological, you can look at what's what's been the

400
00:20:58,040 --> 00:20:59,800
Speaker 2: outcome of this particular.

401
00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:01,399
Speaker 1: I mean, there's always opportunity cost, but I would I

402
00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:04,199
Speaker 1: would say, well, even myself, it's like, I'm glad it's

403
00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 1: there because I might not. I probably wouldn't have invested

404
00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:08,479
Speaker 1: it was they probably would have spent it on records.

405
00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:11,560
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, but what I'm telling is

406
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:14,359
Speaker 2: you've you've got someone who has devoted a lot of

407
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:17,600
Speaker 2: their time and has considerable expertise on the subject, and

408
00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:21,240
Speaker 2: they've they've studied it and they've recorded their observations. I mean,

409
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:23,920
Speaker 2: this is a scientific method, right, and they've said that

410
00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:27,080
Speaker 2: the actually when you when it's all said and done,

411
00:21:27,119 --> 00:21:29,159
Speaker 2: the things you're conscious of the things you're not conscious of,

412
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:31,919
Speaker 2: your net saving levels is no different.

413
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:36,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you wouldn't support compulsory super No, one doesn't

414
00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:39,200
Speaker 1: any part of it, to be fair. But when you

415
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:42,680
Speaker 1: look at Australia four point eight trillion dollars there, they're

416
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:46,840
Speaker 1: a wealthy country and their financial markets they've got their hummer.

417
00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:49,000
Speaker 2: So that's just unpack that. I mean, first of all,

418
00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:51,480
Speaker 2: on the compulsion. So I've had a few people lately,

419
00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:54,960
Speaker 2: given the high interest rates and the tough situation we face,

420
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:58,080
Speaker 2: they're saying, look, I'm getting a hammered up the wazoo

421
00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:01,320
Speaker 2: on my mortgage interest, far more mortgage interest than my

422
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,560
Speaker 2: keywisavers returning why can't I'm actually losing money because I

423
00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:06,560
Speaker 2: can't take the principle out of my keivsaver and reduce

424
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 2: my mortgage. That's the kind of thing that people are

425
00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 2: forced to do in a system of compulsion, and I

426
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:14,880
Speaker 2: think that's wrong. Then you look at Australia. It's absolutely

427
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:19,920
Speaker 2: true that Australia has the super funds, but you're not

428
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,680
Speaker 2: asking what's the counter factual if they hadn't had compulsion,

429
00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:26,840
Speaker 2: would Australian savings rates be any different? Well, evidence was

430
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:30,480
Speaker 2: actually around the world. If you talk to I'm going

431
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 2: to forget his name Michael Littlewood at the University of

432
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:35,400
Speaker 2: Aalknings actually doesn't make a huge difference how much compulsion

433
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:39,160
Speaker 2: there is, savings rates influenced by other factors. So again

434
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:41,680
Speaker 2: everyone points to Australia, but you got to ask yourself,

435
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:43,880
Speaker 2: what's the counter factual if they didn't have that compulsion,

436
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,160
Speaker 2: suspect they would have saved just as much.

437
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to jump back to career a little bit.

438
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 1: You come out of university, you briefly an engineering job.

439
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 2: Yep, yepy. It was a pretty rough time. So I

440
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 2: got a job, a three month contract and in my

441
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,480
Speaker 2: second month the project I was working on was canceled.

442
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 2: It was actually ericson doing fiber opt at cables being

443
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:15,840
Speaker 2: blown with compressed ear through Vector's channels. So this was

444
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:18,159
Speaker 2: fiber to the home before there was. But it was

445
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:20,800
Speaker 2: very cool stuff and you know, just to ahead of

446
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,640
Speaker 2: the curve a year while they were playing regulatory trick

447
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:25,840
Speaker 2: and with them it was a very messy thing anyway,

448
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:27,920
Speaker 2: Needless to say, one of the first people to go

449
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 2: was their twenty one year old they'd just hired as

450
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:34,200
Speaker 2: well see you later. So that was that was the

451
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:36,120
Speaker 2: end of that contract. But at that time my Mum

452
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 2: had become very ill. So I returned to fang Ray

453
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 2: and started working for my what was then my grandfather's company.

454
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 2: While we sort of, you know, Mum sort of convalesse there.

455
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 2: She passed. Now I thought, what the hell do I do?

456
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:54,840
Speaker 2: I got off at a job in Canada, so I left, and.

457
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:58,920
Speaker 1: You're in Canada, basically a shorthand. And it's completely fair,

458
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: but that you're kind of word looking for think tanks

459
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: that maybe along the long lines of the New Zealand

460
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:03,439
Speaker 1: initiative that kind.

461
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 2: Of be very similar to the interative. And it was

462
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 2: it was like it was a wonderful thing because first

463
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:10,840
Speaker 2: of all, you know, go off and find a fed

464
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:13,399
Speaker 2: some time in Auckland. Suddenly you're in a place that

465
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 2: you know actually has flights to Chicago, a place that

466
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:17,920
Speaker 2: you just couldn't even think of going to.

467
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 1: But that was through the I mean, that wasn't through engineering.

468
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 1: That was through maybe the political stuff you were doing

469
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: around the sides and having a philosophy degree and knowing

470
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 1: they could you could.

471
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 2: Well, it was actually through Roger Douglas because Canada went

472
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:36,639
Speaker 2: broke in the early nineties and they formed these taxpayers

473
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 2: federations and then they got Roger Douglas to come and

474
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 2: tell them what they thought they should do, because New

475
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:45,920
Speaker 2: Zealand had been through a similar problem that Canada was

476
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 2: then in, and so Roger maintained a connection with these

477
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 2: Canadian think tanks, and so he was my my connection

478
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 2: to them well twenty years almost twenty years later, so

479
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:02,240
Speaker 2: that that's how that happened. I effectively did like a

480
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:04,119
Speaker 2: postgraduate degree. I mean I learned how to do a

481
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 2: media interview or try read a lot more philosophers and economists,

482
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 2: wrote newspaper op eds and you know, policy papers such

483
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 2: as they were for the think tanks. So it was

484
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:18,199
Speaker 2: if you were going to do what I eventually end

485
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 2: up doing, it was it was like a sort of

486
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 2: a perfect sort of it was like a learn while

487
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 2: you study free. In fact they paid me post grad degree.

488
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and getting into all that political action, I guess

489
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: in a Canadian way.

490
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I think about the think tanks said, you know,

491
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 2: they're quite proud of not dirtying themselves with politics. It's

492
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 2: always a debate or should you get involved in actual politics.

493
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 2: So well it wasn't. It was policy rather than politics.

494
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people in politics today

495
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 2: surprising how little they know about policy and how unimportant

496
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:52,479
Speaker 2: it is to them.

497
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and look, I don't want to harp on

498
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: about the fact, but because we had Sir Roger here

499
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:00,920
Speaker 1: and he made some comments and he made before the

500
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 1: election last year in a couple of places which were

501
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 1: kind of dismissive of all the parties, and part of that,

502
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 1: I guess was a sense that he feels that act

503
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: now has gone to centrist or mainstream. I just wondered

504
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: what you thought of those comments, you know, are you

505
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 1: still pushing for those very much those you know? Like

506
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess he is pushing a you know,

507
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: a very the flat tax and all that stuff that

508
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: maybe you just think that you couldn't sell.

509
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 2: Or well, it's interesting. I was reading a political autobiography

510
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 2: of a guy called Peter mccardal, who's those fascinating guys.

511
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 2: He was in at least three different parties, he was

512
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 2: a minister. He actually went from being a minister to

513
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 2: a political staffer, which most people are far too proud

514
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 2: to do. So I read with interest and mccardal said,

515
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:53,959
Speaker 2: Roger Douglas, without a doubt, is the most significant New

516
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 2: Zealand politician in the post war era, and I agree

517
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 2: with that. But a couple of things about Roger One

518
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 2: is he's always in a state of rebellion. So he

519
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 2: has bagged every political leader he's been a member of

520
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 2: since Norman Kirk, so I, you know, it would be

521
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 2: disappointed if he hadn't bagged me as the current act leader.

522
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 2: He bagged Rodney, he bagged Richard, and everyone bagged Long.

523
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 2: He has famously fell out forty years ago now, and

524
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 2: he also has been so significant historically because he's just

525
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 2: absolutely uncompromising. He knows what he believes needs to be

526
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 2: done and he just goes and does it. And so

527
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 2: very proud to be associated with him, proud to be

528
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 2: attacked by him, and totally understand why he says what

529
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:41,160
Speaker 2: he says.

530
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, coming back through early on, you got

531
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 1: you know, you come back to New Zealand. What was

532
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 1: the driver for coming back? I mean you could have

533
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: could have Presumably he had a career in Canada.

534
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:55,359
Speaker 2: Well I did, and by that time I'd moved to Calgary,

535
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:57,440
Speaker 2: I was I was working with Preston Manning, who people

536
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 2: describe as the best Prime minister can and I never

537
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 2: had he had started a party with one person kind

538
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 2: of familiar and got it up to be the official opposition.

539
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 2: So it's a bit of an inspiration and what Preston

540
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:13,159
Speaker 2: was able to do with the Reform Party there, and

541
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 2: he was just a great mentor and he was running

542
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 2: a think tank there. I loved working for Presto, but

543
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 2: then I came back for my brothers and one of

544
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 2: my friend's weddings, two separate weddings, and basically at that

545
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 2: point John Banks had resigned X was really for all

546
00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 2: intents and purposes over and I thought, well, if I

547
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 2: spend the year knocking on doors basically apologizing for everything

548
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 2: that's happened and asked them to give you another chance,

549
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 2: they might do it. So I did that. I knocked

550
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 2: on about fourteen thousand doors in the EPSOM Electric and

551
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 2: it was a useful experience for a bunch of reasons,

552
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 2: but mainly people said, yeah, okay, but don't let us down.

553
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 2: And that's been a lot of those conversations still stick

554
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 2: with me, so being the MP's always been my first job.

555
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 2: But also a style of politics, it's old fashion. It's

556
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 2: like what you learn about in forth form social studies

557
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 2: that basically people choose their representative to go and speak

558
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 2: and they're responsible for those people. That's that's sort of

559
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 2: that that was quite formative for me.

560
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: Sure, I mean you're really associated with EPSOM. It has

561
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: a reputation for being you know, the seat that's being

562
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: part of a deal and all that sort of stuff.

563
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 1: But when you came back, did you you target at

564
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: EPSOM because you felt a connection? Did you live there?

565
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 2: Is that?

566
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: Yeah?

567
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 2: Well i'd live there for you or compared apart from

568
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 2: when I lived in Canada in farm Ra, when I've

569
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 2: lived in Auckland, I almost always lived in the EPSOM electorate.

570
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 2: I think I had a year down at the UNI hostel,

571
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 2: but other than that, i'd been on epsomite.

572
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you had a reputation for being

573
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: a party leader who didn't own their own house. You

574
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: own your own house now.

575
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 2: I do now. But it took me til those thirty

576
00:29:55,760 --> 00:30:00,040
Speaker 2: seven because I'd basically spent my life up to and

577
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 2: then on passion projects and traveling, so you know, being

578
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 2: a waiting for a think tank. Like I said, it

579
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 2: was a sort of a post grad degree and it

580
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 2: was free and in fact they paid me but not much.

581
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 2: I'd spent two years of my life in twenty eleven

582
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 2: and twenty fourteen basically taking the year off to campaign,

583
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 2: so that didn't help with the finances, and so you know,

584
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 2: it took me a few years in Parliament before I

585
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 2: got to at the stage where, like many people of

586
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 2: my generation, if you have a partner, it's doable. If

587
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 2: you don't have a partner, it's nearly impossible. And also

588
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:37,360
Speaker 2: just add if you're someone who's a bit older who

589
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 2: doesn't own their house, lives very hard. So you know,

590
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 2: we've I think one of the most important things we

591
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 2: can do as a government is get back to the

592
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 2: stage where a generation can realistically build and own its

593
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 2: own home and have families at a younger age and

594
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 2: get on with life. Whereas at the moment I think

595
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 2: our dysfunctional housing market has actually bugged up many many

596
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 2: aspects of life in New Zealand.

597
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting too much into policy, but the stuff

598
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 1: that Chris Biship's been talking about and coming from the

599
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: policy stuff in the last few weeks or months, it

600
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: seems like this government is prepared to talk about house

601
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: prices not going up or going down.

602
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 2: You know, are you well they're going down as we speak.

603
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they've been going down because you know the

604
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: cycle obviously, But the idea that we can really get

605
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: enough built that house prices go down is that something

606
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: you can live with as a as a party leader.

607
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: It used to be sort of a poison poison sort

608
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: of statement to suggest that house prices go down in

609
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: this country.

610
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 2: Look, I remember daw knocking in the twenty seventeen campaign

611
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 2: and people in the epsom A lecture were saying, yeah,

612
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 2: I've done well, but where are my kids going to live?

613
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 2: And I knew that the government was going to change

614
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 2: because people were so disappointed with where the housing market

615
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:53,719
Speaker 2: was going. Now she twenty seventeen it was a paradise anyway,

616
00:31:54,200 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 2: housing affordability, labor came in, and rightly or wrongly, the

617
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 2: things that they did, such as Kiwi build, such as

618
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 2: kyeing Aura, I don't well, I don't think, I mean,

619
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 2: I know, they did not affect housing prices. What was

620
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 2: astonishing is that they banned foreign investors and then actually

621
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:18,479
Speaker 2: shut the border for two years, which saw housing prices

622
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 2: go even higher, which I think probably finally put a

623
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 2: lie to the idea that it was about foreign demand.

624
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 2: And then, of course, you know, with rising interest rates,

625
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 2: and there's there's a real economic well I hesitate to

626
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 2: say collapse, but it's pretty bad. So you know, what

627
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 2: we now have the opportunity to do is to reset

628
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 2: and make it easier to build homes again.

629
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing that was surprising me about labors

630
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 1: where they talk about housing those they failed on the

631
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: Kiwi building, but they got the private sector during their

632
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: term built far more houses than happened under John Keyes government.

633
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: I mean, but they don't really like to take credit

634
00:32:59,320 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: for it.

635
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, I mean yes, and no, I mean

636
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 2: they built I mean I've always said nineteen seventy four

637
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 2: was the sort of healthy and year. I think there's

638
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 2: about forty five thousand houses consented. It was roughly the

639
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 2: same in twenty twenty two, if I remember right, I

640
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 2: think we beat it. I think it was the biggest

641
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 2: you might have built it. But of course New Zealand

642
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 2: twice the population. Yeah, yeah, of course, of course, But

643
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 2: I mean it was still you know.

644
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: We've only just come back to the consent levels that

645
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: are nearing what we averaged through the John Key years

646
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: when you were in government.

647
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. So definitely there is more private sector building going on.

648
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 2: But if you look at the New Zealand Initiative have

649
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 2: done good work on this. There's a certain number of

650
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 2: houses that just wear out every year, make it ten thousand.

651
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 2: There's a certain number of houses needed for population increase,

652
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 2: and there's also I would say a major shortage. That's

653
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 2: where people be living in motels and stuff before that

654
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 2: in cars and garages.

655
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: So certainly had a big population increase years.

656
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 2: So you know there's still needs to be fifty or

657
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 2: sixty thousand a year for the next decade, and that's

658
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 2: size of the challenge.

659
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: Look, I want to get into some quick fire money

660
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 1: talks questions. We ask everyone, what's the poorest you've ever been.

661
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 2: I was a student, very very poor, basically literally jigging

662
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 2: under the seat of your car to see if you

663
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 2: go a buck that you can go across to the

664
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:25,880
Speaker 2: bakery and buy a bigette.

665
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: Were you a student loan guy? Did you wreck up

666
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: a student loan or yeah? You said you didn't really

667
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 1: have part time job as much except in the summer.

668
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 2: Well when I was a student. That was by the

669
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 2: time I was a university student, that's different. I was

670
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 2: a warterproofer and in the end I got hired a

671
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 2: whole bunch of my mates ended up working for the

672
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 2: same guy who's now quite a strong political supporter of mine.

673
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 2: But no worked. I remember one week I did forty

674
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 2: hours and went to all my lectures. Yeah, so it

675
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 2: was different by the time I was a university student.

676
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 1: Flip side of that question, I suppose is when you

677
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: finally got a bit of money in your pock what

678
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:02,759
Speaker 1: was the most indulgent purchase you've ever made?

679
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 2: Oh g, that's a great, great question. I think probably

680
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 2: in most of my twenties and thirties, I just traveled.

681
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:15,879
Speaker 2: I mean I've been to about sixteen countries. I think

682
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 2: I've been to twenty eight American states, most of the

683
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 2: Canadian provinces, and I've been all over New Zealand. So

684
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 2: I feel really lucky that I've been able to travel

685
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 2: pretty freely through my life and see a lot of places.

686
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: Sure. On the campaign trail, Christopher Luxen was asked about

687
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: his spend on groceries and he said sixty dollars and

688
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:37,439
Speaker 1: got a bit of flag. I think he was talking

689
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: about his own, his own flat and Wellington, not the family.

690
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 1: But how's your grocery spend? Are you a big shopper?

691
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 2: I think it's an unfair question because I don't know

692
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 2: what city I'm going to be in from day to day.

693
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 2: So that's where Christoph Luckxon got coot and what not

694
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 2: that I would give my colleagues advice in public, But

695
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:59,800
Speaker 2: what I would have said is, look, I appreciate that

696
00:35:59,880 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 2: it's a very tough time getting groceries, but in all honesty,

697
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 2: the life that you have to lead to do well

698
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 2: at this job. You actually can't plan a weekly shop

699
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 2: because I've tried it and you end up throwing half

700
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,839
Speaker 2: of it out because, as it turns out, you didn't

701
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 2: realize that you were going on the bus for a week,

702
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 2: and by the time you get up get back, you've

703
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 2: just got a whole lot of milk you've got to

704
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:23,319
Speaker 2: tip down the sink and breed you've got to put

705
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:25,399
Speaker 2: in the bin. So you know, fair enough.

706
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:28,280
Speaker 1: Hey, do you do you buy a lot of tickets?

707
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:28,880
Speaker 2: No?

708
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: Do you ever imagine winning lotto? No?

709
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 2: I sometimes think about if I'd made better investment decisions

710
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 2: when I was younger, Right, yeah, yeah, if I'd realized

711
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 2: that houses in two thousand and four were actually a

712
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 2: real bargain, then maybe I'd be at a different place now.

713
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean obviously, I mean, you know, probably not

714
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: to some people. But the kind of career you're in,

715
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: the question there is money important to you? Is it

716
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: a driver for you? Or is it just a byproducts success?

717
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 2: To be really honest, you don't think about it a

718
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 2: lot because the job is all encompassing, it's highly public,

719
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 2: and you know, losing in politics is like losing and boxing.

720
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:16,240
Speaker 2: It's not actually fun. You know, if you're a lawyer

721
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 2: and you don't do very well, then chances are there's

722
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 2: there's still a there's still a job somewhere for okay lawyers.

723
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 2: If you fail at this, you can't just go and

724
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:27,319
Speaker 2: work down the road at a different parliament. Some people

725
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 2: end up doing that with a local council, which not

726
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:35,320
Speaker 2: something fills me with with with joy. So you know,

727
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 2: you sort of you know, obviously you want to have

728
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 2: a plan in the background to there's a rapid fire,

729
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 2: isn't it to make sure that you know you're going

730
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 2: to be able to pay your bills and eventually pay

731
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:48,319
Speaker 2: off your mortgage? But no, no, not not really.

732
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 1: I mean, would you broadly say you're good with money?

733
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:53,479
Speaker 1: You know when it comes to all that personal finance stuff,

734
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: without going into all the detail about you.

735
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 2: I think I think you can. I think what I've

736
00:37:57,600 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 2: learned is you can change. So it's a game of

737
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,279
Speaker 2: two half. So you know, in my twenties, like I say,

738
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 2: I mean, I took jobs that didn't pay as well

739
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 2: as I might have, you know, went out and and

740
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 2: you know, traveled endlessly, and you know, just had a

741
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:15,800
Speaker 2: pretty good time really party through you know, most of

742
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:20,879
Speaker 2: the two thousands. But you know, after that, I sort

743
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:23,800
Speaker 2: of thought, well, shosh, you know I was going to

744
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 2: be pretty tragic. I carry on like this. I'm a

745
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 2: sixties so fair to start sending some foundations to grow older.

746
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 2: And so I've been you know, it's a game of

747
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 2: two halves. I really really changed tech a couple of

748
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 2: years after I was elected.

749
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: Sure, look, this is a weird question to ask you

750
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: because it's it's a hypothetical question to ask everyone. You know,

751
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 1: if you were prime minister for a day, well that's

752
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:48,800
Speaker 1: actually next week, that's gonna yeah, yeah, and and and

753
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 1: there's going to be a few more opportunities over the

754
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:54,879
Speaker 1: rest of this term at least, and then then you're

755
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 1: going to be in the actually being prime minister. And

756
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,839
Speaker 1: it's hard to work. But hypothetically, in an imaginary world

757
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: where we can make you all powerful leader of New

758
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 1: Zealand for a day, what would be the policy or

759
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 1: what is the big initiative that you would want to

760
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: focus on to really try and deal with the equity

761
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:16,760
Speaker 1: issues and the social inequality in this country.

762
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 2: Well, changing the way that we regulate the use of

763
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:26,240
Speaker 2: land and fund and finance infrastructure. You know, you solve

764
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 2: so many problems for everything from health from bad housing

765
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 2: and education, from kids getting moved from one school to

766
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 2: the next, to people aging in place, to people having

767
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,359
Speaker 2: a sense of belonging and wanting to vote and take

768
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 2: an interest in their community. I mean the number of

769
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 2: problems you can solve by making it possible for a

770
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 2: person to really do their best at life. But know

771
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 2: there's the reward of aar going to have a place

772
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 2: of their own, and unfortunately for too many New Zealanders

773
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 2: now that's not realistic no matter how hard they work.

774
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:58,239
Speaker 2: And when someone tells you, no matter how hard you work,

775
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 2: it's not going to count, well, man, that's demoralizing and

776
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 2: then you either get beaten down or you rise up,

777
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 2: and neither of them are actually good. So you know,

778
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 2: I would change the way we regulate land use and

779
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:15,799
Speaker 2: fund and finance infrastructure, both of which we're doing.

780
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:18,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you think they can make a fundamental difference

781
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: a lot of the poverty. You know, it starts with

782
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: a stable home environment.

783
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 2: Look if you look at the data, and this is

784
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:27,880
Speaker 2: a little bit old, but this is about twenty seventeen.

785
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 2: But they took the Household Labor Force Survey, which started

786
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two and eighty two, the poorest twenty

787
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:39,840
Speaker 2: percent of households, they were spending twenty seven percent of

788
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 2: their income on housing, so make it a quarter. By

789
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, they were spending fifty four percent of their

790
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 2: income on housing, so make it a bit over half. Basically,

791
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,279
Speaker 2: what's left went from three quarters of their income after

792
00:40:57,320 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 2: they pay their rental orbit to less than half of

793
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 2: their come after they pay their rental mortgage. Now that

794
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:05,880
Speaker 2: really constrains your options. And the other thing about it is,

795
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 2: you know, people say that young people are a bit

796
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 2: hopeless and lazy and not doing what they should, and

797
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 2: you know, you can debate whether that's true. But one

798
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 2: thing I know is true is that if you don't

799
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,879
Speaker 2: have a realistic goal that you can actually achieve. It's

800
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 2: very hard to stay motivated and it's very hard to

801
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 2: build your self esteem by saying, right, here's the thing

802
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 2: I want to do. I've done it, I can do

803
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 2: another thing. So look at it is essential and I

804
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:34,879
Speaker 2: know I'm going on. But the other thing is you're

805
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 2: going to have a concept of what this country is about.

806
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 2: I mean, we got probably the best piece of land

807
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 2: on the planet in terms of just natural beauty per

808
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 2: square kilometer. We've got the mildest climate. I mean, some

809
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 2: people go to Sydney for better weather. I Dinet it's horrible.

810
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 2: You know, go to Perth and January it's about die.

811
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 2: And then there's this question of you know what, We're

812
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 2: a preally nice place to be, but somehow, despite this

813
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 2: huge inheritance, we've managed to make it almost impossible for

814
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 2: people to build a place of their own to live here.

815
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 2: That's just nuts. So that is the thing I would fix.

816
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:12,320
Speaker 2: File as dictator for a day. Prime minister for a

817
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 2: day doesn't work because I had a whole week next

818
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 2: week exit prime minister, and I don't think we're going

819
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:17,359
Speaker 2: to fix it in that time. But I do think

820
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 2: the things the government is doing will take us a

821
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 2: long way in that direction.

822
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: That's great, David, look gonna leave it there. Good luck

823
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 1: in the Prime Minister's seat. Thanks for being on Money Talks.

824
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having me. It's been a great show.

825
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Money Talks. If

826
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch, drop me a line

827
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 1: at Liam dot Dan at nzme dot co dot nz

828
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 1: and you can read more from me at enzidherld dot

829
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:44,719
Speaker 1: co dot NZED. Thanks to my producer Ethan Sills can

830
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: sound engineer Line McDonald. Follow Money Talks on iHeartRadio or

831
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, with new episodes available every Thursday.