Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
Speaker 2: I'd be Jordan. You've you've got got yourself into the
Speaker 2: room for the lockup too, I see, so good on
Speaker 2: you for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a bit of a silly brew haha.
Speaker 3: The Minister of Finance had a bit of a I
Speaker 3: think quite an unbecoming spat with the Council of Trade
Speaker 3: Union's economists about a year ago, and other groups including
Speaker 3: the Taxpayers, Union, Businesses, Zeland, Infrastructure News Zealand among others,
Speaker 3: were potentially banned from the budget, which was just stupid.
Speaker 4: It means that basically only those.
Speaker 3: On the on the party sorry government payroll, we're allowed in.
Speaker 3: But luckily Treasury have seen since.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually is it are you going to are you
Speaker 2: going to regret it? Is it fun being in there?
Speaker 2: Or is it just what's it like being in the
Speaker 2: pre budget?
Speaker 3: It'll be my eleventh budget and it's really I mean,
Speaker 3: the key thing is finding and it's a little bit
Speaker 3: I don't mean to make it sound like a game,
Speaker 3: but it's it's to find what the politician don't want
Speaker 3: you to know, because of course you're bombarded with press releases.
Speaker 3: I think one year, the record is about thirty two
Speaker 3: be high press releases that come in the pack. But
Speaker 3: really you're looking for what the government and the spin
Speaker 3: doctors don't want you to find. And that's kind of
Speaker 3: the game to if you can, if you can identify
Speaker 3: those before, especially in a modern media environment where you
Speaker 3: sort of you get sort of one yet one one
Speaker 3: lick of the story sort of thing. There's not like
Speaker 3: the good old days where there would be days of
Speaker 3: rolling coverage and new angles and things. Unfortunately, the media
Speaker 3: are so thin. That's no disrespect to you guys that
Speaker 3: actually that you know that plays for the government's advantage.
Speaker 3: So I would argue when even you know, we went
Speaker 3: into bat for the Council of Trade Unions, you know
Speaker 3: it won't surprise your listeners that, you know, the lefties
Speaker 3: over the Air and the Taxpayers Union don't agree on much,
Speaker 3: but we certainly agree that if you've got a legitimate interest,
Speaker 3: if you've got like the Taxpayers Union or the counts
Speaker 3: of trade unions literally hundreds of thousands of people that
Speaker 3: rely on you for you know, what's really going on
Speaker 3: inside government, then you should be there.
Speaker 2: Hey, just look, I want to take in a little
Speaker 2: bit to the pre government the pre budget announcement guys.
Speaker 2: But firstly, have you caught up with the announcement that
Speaker 2: was made of just an hour or two ago about
Speaker 2: the funding for next four years for twenty four hour
Speaker 2: urgent care clums you've caught up with that, Stuart.
Speaker 5: I haven't actually caught up with her. That's what level
Speaker 5: of funding is that.
Speaker 2: One hundred and sixty four million dollars over the next
Speaker 2: I think it's over the next four years. Basically, they
Speaker 2: want to have better access and they're saying that it's
Speaker 2: going to I'm just quoting Simmy and Brown here because
Speaker 2: I haven't interviewed, said the funding boost is going to
Speaker 2: mean ninety eight percent of New Zealanders will have access
Speaker 2: to in person urgent care within an hour's drive.
Speaker 5: So that's thems in. So that's about three point three
Speaker 5: billion dollars of pre budget announcements. Quite a lot there, actually.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's what I was thinking. Let's go to
Speaker 2: you first for that, Jordan, your reaction on that, But
Speaker 2: also how significant are is pre budget action to are
Speaker 2: we going to is it going to be an anti
Speaker 2: climax on the day? But tell us about the pre
Speaker 2: budget and announced that your reaction to that, if you've, if
Speaker 2: you managed to catch up with it.
Speaker 3: But you know, I've said about ten emails in the
Speaker 3: last few hours and I actually I haven't got my
Speaker 3: head around Watson bargoed and what's not so I still
Speaker 3: don't want to get myself into trouble.
Speaker 2: It's something sliss stream on.
Speaker 3: It's very clear that the government wants a little bit
Speaker 3: of a rolling moll over the next twenty four hours
Speaker 3: with lots of targeted commns. And this is to what
Speaker 3: I mean, by the way the sort of the budget works,
Speaker 3: that the government wants the milk as much as they can.
Speaker 3: Stew's right, though you know you do the numbers. They
Speaker 3: have announced far more new funding than what the total
Speaker 3: new funding of this budget is. Of course, you know,
Speaker 3: the perception is that Nicola Willis is cutting spending or
Speaker 3: has cut spending. Nothing could be further from the truth,
Speaker 3: both as a percentage of the economy and inflation in
Speaker 3: justin terms, she's spending more than when Grant Robinson leed this.
Speaker 3: I mean that it all roads point to and this
Speaker 3: is why I actually think that there's going to be
Speaker 3: some something. It's quite quite an extraordinary budget because in
Speaker 3: order to make the numbers work, they've got to be
Speaker 3: making cuts elsewhere. The question is as weird as that,
Speaker 3: and all will be revealed on Thursday.
Speaker 2: Well, don't we have an obvious one that everyone's been
Speaker 2: talking about. And Andrew Vant's got upset about Jordan. I'll
Speaker 2: go back to you, Jordan and then go to your student.
Speaker 3: Yeah that that that I mean, it was pretty pretty
Speaker 3: difficult or pretty pretty dumb politics, But yeah, absolutely it
Speaker 3: was inevitable the way that notwithstanding the you know, the
Speaker 3: so called brutal cuts that don't exist, you still had
Speaker 3: a situation largely as a result of those that mad
Speaker 3: change in the law. The last government did no offense
Speaker 3: to whereby you you know, you could compare apples and
Speaker 3: oranges and somehow, you know, you were you were getting
Speaker 3: what was it the teachers or nurses comp comparing themselves
Speaker 3: to prison offices, you know, this sort of thing, or
Speaker 3: my favorite was the you know, the vet nurses and
Speaker 3: the prison officers. You know that it was very clearly
Speaker 3: an issue the yere to be tackled.
Speaker 4: But I think there's going to be a lot more.
Speaker 3: We've got a paper coming out in the morning whereby
Speaker 3: we put to We've put together a couple of dozen
Speaker 3: options where you where the government could reduce spending to
Speaker 3: get the books back in the black. You know, we've
Speaker 3: just finished our nationwide debt clock tour. You know it's
Speaker 3: about ninety two thousand dollars per household the government has borrowed.
Speaker 3: We are on an unsustainable path. There's going to it
Speaker 3: is actually regardless of what Nikola Willis wants, there's going
Speaker 3: to have to be some tough decisions over the next
Speaker 3: few years.
Speaker 2: Hey, Stuart, what do you make of the pre budget announcements?
Speaker 2: Because we've seen that one I've just mentioned to you.
Speaker 2: We've seen the defense of twelve billion over four years.
Speaker 2: We've got education on math, support and science and innovation, infrastructuring.
Speaker 2: I've got quite a list in fun of me. Is
Speaker 2: this more than Is this more than we're used to
Speaker 2: with pre budget announcements?
Speaker 4: Not really.
Speaker 5: I mean to go to Jordan's first point that he made.
Speaker 5: There will be twenty to thirty press releases put out
Speaker 5: on budget Day and a lot of the good stuff
Speaker 5: will get lost. It's up to the media to sift
Speaker 5: through and find out the ones that are actually going
Speaker 5: to make the headlines. So what you do is you
Speaker 5: release stuff that you think is going to be good
Speaker 5: because you don't want it to get lost, like the
Speaker 5: one that's I mean just made like the Minister of
Speaker 5: Education around something for mass But it also signals that
Speaker 5: there's going to be a lot more money spent in
Speaker 5: those portfolios because you know, something like education. You don't
Speaker 5: come out with your hero your hero policies or your
Speaker 5: hero projects pre budget because you want them to make
Speaker 5: the news day of the budget, because this is where
Speaker 5: you want people to buy into it. But let me
Speaker 5: say one other thing. I mean, this government's come out
Speaker 5: with a going for growth agenda the to being very
Speaker 5: clear about that. Chris Luxeon got in became leader of
Speaker 5: the National Party and their Prime Minister on the back
Speaker 5: of the fact that he was a businessman, he ran
Speaker 5: in New Zealand and therefore he knows how to run
Speaker 5: a country. So it's got to be more than just cuts.
Speaker 5: Nicola has announced that they've got about one point three
Speaker 5: billion to spend, but what they've got to do now
Speaker 5: is provide something to the private sector which really turbo
Speaker 5: boosts growth. And now I've been talking about accelerate depreciation
Speaker 5: for two or three years when I was Minister for
Speaker 5: Economic Development, we had papers go through the second stage
Speaker 5: of budget. I've even talked to the Prime Minister and
Speaker 5: the Minister of Finance about that. So you can't just
Speaker 5: cut and hope that we'll feed into a narrative of
Speaker 5: going for growth. You've got to provide a financial or
Speaker 5: fiscal incentive for businesses to start investing and driving productivity.
Speaker 5: So it is something like accelerate depreciation. But announcing that
Speaker 5: we're going to cut public servants jobs does not turbo
Speaker 5: charge the economy in a way that will create productivity,
Speaker 5: wealth and get rid of some of the terms of
Speaker 5: billion worth a debt that Jordan's been talking about.
Speaker 2: Just before we get into what we want to see
Speaker 2: from this budget, what has been the best pre budget
Speaker 2: announcement in both your views?
Speaker 3: First, Jordans, I can certainly think of the worst, and
Speaker 3: that is the bloody one hundred million dollars for subsidies
Speaker 3: for the for the film industry that Nicola willis to
Speaker 3: cried in opposition and is now yet now literally borrowing
Speaker 3: money to give to Hollywood at a time where Donald
Speaker 3: Trump has said he's coming out to get the government,
Speaker 3: the countries and governments that are artificially subsidizing a competition
Speaker 3: to Hollywood. It's if a nuts in terms in terms
Speaker 3: of the good announcement, it's probably the reduction in the
Speaker 3: size of what's called the fiscal envelope that that stew
Speaker 3: just referred to, and that's the amount of new permanent
Speaker 3: spending because the way it works sort of cumulative the increases.
Speaker 3: Nicola Willis made a big hoo ha that she has
Speaker 3: reduced it, but I mean it's it's still I mean,
Speaker 3: when the when labor or the media or the government
Speaker 3: talk about cuts, what that actually meaning or what it's
Speaker 3: not cuts in the way that that that the average
Speaker 3: person thinks it is. It's simply growing the pie or
Speaker 3: what the government spends slower.
Speaker 4: And because they predicted out.
Speaker 3: Into the future, they say that's a cut, which clearly isn't.
Speaker 2: What did you what was your most exciting pre budget announcement, Stuart?
Speaker 2: For good or bad reasons?
Speaker 5: Let's let's roll with Well, well, the worst one would
Speaker 5: have to be defense, you know, spinning over two billion
Speaker 5: dollars on defense while at the same time telling you know,
Speaker 5: women that pay equity isn't important and so you know,
Speaker 5: we'd rather have tanks and guns and ships and soldiers
Speaker 5: than than pay equity. I think was absolutely I know,
Speaker 5: I thought they got that completely wrong and they didn't
Speaker 5: manage political risk in a way that someone like Helen
Speaker 5: Clark or John Key, both both superb politicians from either
Speaker 5: side of the political spectrum, obviously did incredibly well. I
Speaker 5: think it was the g will take head on that
Speaker 5: my best one. I mean, I'm a huge believer in education.
Speaker 5: I mean I used to work in the teristory sector.
Speaker 5: I wrote the business case for a university campus and
Speaker 5: then meeting ran it. I've got four kids in the
Speaker 5: education system and I've had a really bad experience with
Speaker 5: one school where I just do not think that the
Speaker 5: teacher was up to teaching maths to my form two
Speaker 5: year old son. With all due respect to her, she's listening.
Speaker 5: So you know, the Minister of Education's expert maths teachers
Speaker 5: and tests one hundred million dollars. There is no downside
Speaker 5: to that. Kids have got to learn maths. They've got
Speaker 5: to be competent maths and when they hit high school,
Speaker 5: maths is the basis of economics, of finance, of everything.
Speaker 5: We need our young kids to be competent.
Speaker 2: Point Stuart I wonder if Judith Collins just wanted to
Speaker 2: have guns like yours, Stuart, because they are quite famous
Speaker 2: your guns.
Speaker 5: But I'm almost impossible. But you know, two billion dollars
Speaker 5: will will go a long way.
Speaker 2: I'm think twenty five bucks a month at a fit
Speaker 2: that center. Sorry was that mischievous of me? I'm actually
Speaker 2: with just not get distracted about that. Have you got
Speaker 2: any just quick follow up on that's Jordan before we
Speaker 2: crack on with looking at the actual budget.
Speaker 4: I didn't push.
Speaker 3: We ad a member of staff who's so right way.
Speaker 3: He thinks that, you know, you can't justify defense spending
Speaker 3: even even the taxpayer union isn't quite there yet. The
Speaker 3: thing is due in a geopolitical environment where there's real
Speaker 3: international pressure to get your percentage of GDP spending on
Speaker 3: defense up. I think that the broader question is is
Speaker 3: where that defense money is going? Because our reading of
Speaker 3: how the US and OECD with I don't know if
Speaker 3: it's OECD or World Bank that define what defense spending is,
Speaker 3: it actually can include some quite useful stuff the search
Speaker 3: and rescue for example, for example, some infrastructure stuff you
Speaker 3: can actually get within that international meaning of defense. So
Speaker 3: I sort of kept my power dry a bit on
Speaker 3: that one, because the key question of is is it
Speaker 3: in defense in terms of wasting money on armored personnel carriers,
Speaker 3: or is it stuff that actually ticks off the international
Speaker 3: requirements but things that we'll actually use.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, let's say, Look, I just one thing. I
Speaker 5: don't disagree with that, but I don't think we should
Speaker 5: be bullied into spending two percent of GDP when we
Speaker 5: don't actolutely need to. I mean, you know, I got
Speaker 5: a feeling that the money was spending on a twentieth
Speaker 5: century defense force when we need twenty first century solutions,
Speaker 5: and you know, we've got to play our roles, that
Speaker 5: is no doubt. But yeah, but I would like to
Speaker 5: see that money spent a hell of a lot smarter
Speaker 5: than the announcements that I've seen today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just my two penas worth. When we did
Speaker 2: talk bit of talk back on this, I didn't. I
Speaker 2: don't think I got a single bit of pushback on
Speaker 2: the defense spending. I think there's a large part of
Speaker 2: the public who think we're embarrassed by the fact that
Speaker 2: we see we can put up a hang glider or
Speaker 2: to an assessmenter as a sort of say it's our
Speaker 2: air force. But that's being a little bit mischievous, I'll
Speaker 2: be honest with you. Hey, okay, well let's look at
Speaker 2: this budget is Jordan? Is this budget? Is this the
Speaker 2: one where the government sort of will take the risk
Speaker 2: of a few tough announcements. Is it like it as
Speaker 2: a free hit because they've got another budget after this
Speaker 2: before they have to run for election.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: My reading on the National Party caucus is they realize
Speaker 3: now that they missed the trick last year, that they wasted.
Speaker 3: Last year's budget didn't actually get on top of any
Speaker 3: of the big structural stuff. And we're quite an extraordinary
Speaker 3: situation about three or four months ago where the Nats
Speaker 3: were well, the center right were down a bit in
Speaker 3: the polls, and of course a normal political sort of
Speaker 3: intuition is that you then hug the center. What I
Speaker 3: can tell you is both the focus group and the
Speaker 3: poll data showed clearly is that they actually wanted government,
Speaker 3: wanted mister Luxeon to stand for something. And I hope
Speaker 3: that will be reflected on Thursday, that we actually see
Speaker 3: something bold because we've had I mean, come on, how
Speaker 3: much rhetoric we had about going for growth, going for growth.
Speaker 3: We'll get on with it, and Stue rightly pointed to
Speaker 3: accelerated depreciation. He's being a bit soft there. If you
Speaker 3: really want to put a rocket under the economy and
Speaker 3: go for growth, I would or the tax faser Union
Speaker 3: have long argued that best bang for buck is full
Speaker 3: expensing of capital items. And that's what Rushie Sonak did,
Speaker 3: It's what Donald Trump did the first time around, and
Speaker 3: it really would put not only a sort of stimulus
Speaker 3: under the economy, but it's the very capital spending that
Speaker 3: would result in high productivity, which ultimately makes new zeel
Speaker 3: and more prosperous.
Speaker 2: Are we going to see tax cuts at all, Stuart?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 4: No? I don't.
Speaker 5: Do we see tax cuts. We won't see increase in
Speaker 5: tax now. But I'm going Jordan, I agree with you.
Speaker 5: I mean, expense and capital would just be brilliant. But
Speaker 5: I think accelerated appreciation is a way to get around
Speaker 5: it as well. I mean the paper that I put
Speaker 5: forward and like I said, got quite a way down.
Speaker 5: The process was up fifty percent over five years, and
Speaker 5: I spoke to a whole lot of men and women
Speaker 5: who ran big companies and they said it would be
Speaker 5: a game changer in terms of what we spent money on.
Speaker 5: So at appreciation law thirty years old, they appreciate an
Speaker 5: asset its physical life as opposed to was economic life.
Speaker 5: A gain way out of step. But what we're seeing
Speaker 5: here is I think, you know, gone of the days
Speaker 5: where the general public can expect the government to stimulate
Speaker 5: the economy through spending. I think the government has to
Speaker 5: provide now the tools for the predate set to stimulate
Speaker 5: growth through spending, and you do that through accelerate depreciation
Speaker 5: or expensive but you've got to put the tools in place.
Speaker 5: I mean I read something where one of the captains
Speaker 5: of well Ahead, of one of the think tanks, said,
Speaker 5: you know, men and women who run businesses have got
Speaker 5: to change their attitude. That does not work. You've got
Speaker 5: to provide some form of economic consenter for them to
Speaker 5: do that. Capital expending or acceleraty appreciation would do that.
Speaker 5: I hope we see that. That would be a game changer.
Speaker 2: I think actually I've got a text from someone saying
Speaker 2: what the hell is accelerated depreciation, which would lead me
Speaker 2: to the question about are they going to have stuff
Speaker 2: in the budget that's for the general public to digest
Speaker 2: and go No, none, we love that or is this
Speaker 2: more something where we're going to have extended analysis in
Speaker 2: the news and people like yourselves, Jordan, are gonna tell
Speaker 2: us what the hidden tricks are.
Speaker 4: Well, i'll give it.
Speaker 3: I'll see if I can explain it in twenty seconds.
Speaker 3: It's the best tax idea most people haven't heard of.
Speaker 3: So let's say I'm a business and I have an
Speaker 3: expense like wages. I get to write that off my
Speaker 3: tax because it's an expense. But I buy a new
Speaker 3: piece of cat, a new flang down machine. Okay, I
Speaker 3: don't get to deduct that for the purposes of what
Speaker 3: I pay income tax, except over the lifetime of the
Speaker 3: assets that can be up to you know, it could
Speaker 3: be twenty five years, and it depends on the type
Speaker 3: of asset. What the Taxpayer's Union is arguing is give
Speaker 3: that tax seduction that year, and we actually argue it
Speaker 3: should be time limited. So you've got an incentive to
Speaker 3: bring forward capital investment. Because look, it is a stimulus.
Speaker 3: But unlike a sort of tax simulus where it's you know,
Speaker 3: run down to Harvey Norman and you know, spend.
Speaker 4: Your tax cart.
Speaker 3: It's the stimulus on the very sort of cat, very
Speaker 3: capital equipment that would make New Zealand more productive.
Speaker 2: And culture basically essentially, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we have questions because we're low productivity the
Speaker 3: very investment to increase that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, change right.
Speaker 5: But you're going to get some announcements like Minister Stanfords
Speaker 5: educational one that that parents with kids at school who
Speaker 5: are struggling with maths understands. You're going to get some
Speaker 5: like Semians to do with health, which parents and voters understand,
Speaker 5: and then you're going to get some I'm really hopeful
Speaker 5: of the sort of stuff that Jordan and I are
Speaker 5: talking about, where if we went into greater depth, we'd
Speaker 5: lose the vast majority of people because it's sort of
Speaker 5: a it's a big business finance, tax economics question. But
Speaker 5: if you have those though, the men and woman who
Speaker 5: drive growth across the country and who are responsible for
Speaker 5: big investments will look at this and go wow, okay,
Speaker 5: this is fantastic as well. So you've got to have
Speaker 5: a mixture of both. You've got to have a meaningful
Speaker 5: going for growth agenda that actually does drive growth, but
Speaker 5: you've also got to have the social packages that actually
Speaker 5: the public expect from a government.
Speaker 2: Okay, guys, look, I want to just get you to
Speaker 2: hold fire for a second and we're just going to
Speaker 2: take a quick break and we'll come back with a
Speaker 2: little bit more on this and just a moment where
Speaker 2: with Jordan Williams and Stuart Nash talking about anticipations for
Speaker 2: the budget and a whole bunch of things around that.
Speaker 2: We'll be taking your cause later on in this our
Speaker 2: eight hundred and eighty ten eighty, but we'll be back
Speaker 2: in a tick. It's twenty seven past three. Yes, welcome back.
Speaker 2: We're with Jordan Williams, the Taxpayer Union, Taxpayers Union director
Speaker 2: and former police minister. Stuart Nash is also with us,
Speaker 2: looking ahead to the government. Actually, Jordan, just quickly, so,
Speaker 2: how much do you know about the budget that you
Speaker 2: can't share because you've mentioned you've got a handful of
Speaker 2: embargoed emails there. What do you know that we don't know?
Speaker 4: No, that's just the normal. That's the normal.
Speaker 3: Before you create a scandal, this is the normal media
Speaker 3: unless be No, don't believe me.
Speaker 4: I twist a lot of arms at the behave try
Speaker 4: to okay, won't tell me?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, okay, let's stick with you. Then surprises we've had.
Speaker 2: I don't know historically what the biggest surprise would have been,
Speaker 2: but are you anticipating that Nikola Willison has got any surprises?
Speaker 2: And what would you like it to be? Putting aside
Speaker 2: accelerated depreciation.
Speaker 3: So the surprises I'd love would be that actually we
Speaker 3: see just tough but necessary decisions that we don't continue
Speaker 3: to kick the can down the road. On New Zealand's
Speaker 3: structural deficit. You know, you'd look at the forecasts. The
Speaker 3: last Treasury forecasts were done just before Christmas, and that
Speaker 3: they were forecasting that this year's budget not only was
Speaker 3: the deficit going to be bigger than last year than
Speaker 3: the current year we're in, but that it's going the
Speaker 3: deficit's going to winnow amount to more than four percent
Speaker 3: of GDP. Then the government alone is spending that's the
Speaker 3: difference between its income and its expenditure. I'd be wrapped
Speaker 3: if that we could actually tackle that and get it
Speaker 3: down in such a way that right now we'll have
Speaker 3: surplus in sort of three or four years time. But
Speaker 3: then you look at Treasury's long term projections and we're
Speaker 3: straight back into deficit deep because really because of NSAID
Speaker 3: super and the cost of health spiraling out of control.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess because you're saying it's surprised you're not
Speaker 2: expecting those wishes to be fulfilled.
Speaker 3: I mean, full capital expensing would be That's what would
Speaker 3: make me very excited. That would be a wonderful surprise,
Speaker 3: particularly if it's time limited. But we shall I mean, look, look,
Speaker 3: let's be frank well, you know, and on Thursday we
Speaker 3: find out whether the government is serious. Is its rhetoric
Speaker 3: around getting on top of the box and going for growth?
Speaker 3: Is it just a continuation of the last few really, frankly,
Speaker 3: a generation of politicians that have just been comm's led
Speaker 3: bumper sticker type policy or do they have the mantle?
Speaker 3: That's the begun nine. Everything else is just detail, Stuart,
Speaker 3: What do you reckon?
Speaker 2: Surprise is looking for something to make you happy on
Speaker 2: budget day? Oh hang on a second, Stuart, how before
Speaker 2: you start talking, I'll just put you back to here.
Speaker 2: That was my fault.
Speaker 4: Where you go?
Speaker 2: Sorry, Stuart.
Speaker 5: Look, I was a Minister of Police, but I was
Speaker 5: also Minister for the Economic Development and Minister for Revenue.
Speaker 5: I attach, so you know a lot of my comments
Speaker 5: today are based around my economic development and tax hat
Speaker 5: so I'm more like Jordan.
Speaker 4: I would be.
Speaker 5: So the bottom line is is the government has announced
Speaker 5: Mclair has announced she has no money for spending. That's clear,
Speaker 5: that's out there. So this is going to be an
Speaker 5: austerity budget. Back to Jordan's comment, so what this budget
Speaker 5: has to deliver is the means for the private sector
Speaker 5: to drive growth in a way that the government can't.
Speaker 5: So the government's not going to be spending on roads
Speaker 5: or massive infrastructure projects. It hasn't got the money. So
Speaker 5: I would be surprised if it doesn't have something, something
Speaker 5: major in there that big business well began small actually
Speaker 5: can look at and go, wow, this is what I've
Speaker 5: needed to buy the kit to drive productivity, because what's
Speaker 5: happened in this country term is we've overvalued labor and
Speaker 5: undervalued capital. What that means is instead instead of investing
Speaker 5: in plants and machinery to drive productivity, we just employ
Speaker 5: more people and that is a really unproductive way to
Speaker 5: do things. I would be surprised if there isn't a
Speaker 5: massive spend on education. I think this minister is doing
Speaker 5: a really good job of revamping the education system. We
Speaker 5: need to see that continue. I would be surprised if
Speaker 5: Simeon hasn't managed to extract something out of health because
Speaker 5: he's struggling. I'll be honest with you. We need to
Speaker 5: see big investment in the health sector, but again to
Speaker 5: drive productivity. I'm a little like Jordan again. I was
Speaker 5: surprised at nicholas announcement around the film subsidies, particularly because
Speaker 5: Trump has come out and said we're going to put Well, no,
Speaker 5: he hasn't said that. He's floating the idea of a
Speaker 5: hundred pcent tariff. So if that happens, no one knows
Speaker 5: what it actually means, but it could see the death
Speaker 5: of the film industry new But expect to see something
Speaker 5: that actually is meaningful around the growing for Going for
Speaker 5: growth agenda. It's got to be that. Whereas I think
Speaker 5: you're going to find a whole lot of keys will
Speaker 5: give up on the man who came in because he
Speaker 5: ran a business and knew how the economy worked. If
Speaker 5: he doesn't deliver, then it's all just smoking mirrors.
Speaker 2: Do you guys have agreed with each other? Them far
Speaker 2: more than I expecting. I think as if you're just
Speaker 2: placed on your board spare for a Stuart there.
Speaker 3: Well, actually we do. We now have a spear spot
Speaker 3: for the lock up on Thursdays.
Speaker 4: Do you want to take that seat? You know we're
Speaker 4: going to give it in the CTU.
Speaker 5: But the thing is to what you've got is you've
Speaker 5: got two economic pregmatists here, right, and you know we
Speaker 5: don't agree around the margins, but we do agree on
Speaker 5: the big issues. That is, we're an economy that is
Speaker 5: very low multi factor productivity, ie, we work too hard
Speaker 5: and we're not smart with how we invest because successive
Speaker 5: governments have not provided businesses with the incentives. The tax
Speaker 5: incentives are the tool to go and invest.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 5: Now, I think you'll find people on the right and
Speaker 5: the leaft agree with that. That is, any education. I'm
Speaker 5: a huge believer in the value of education. You've got
Speaker 5: to get that right. This Sminster's doing a fantastic job.
Speaker 5: Let's hope she's funded to continue to.
Speaker 3: Sue's actually explained why we don't like capital gains tax
Speaker 3: because every capital gains tax and wealth tax you get,
Speaker 3: including the Greens, excludes the family home, which makes the
Speaker 3: very problem that's got us into this mess that you
Speaker 3: know it disproportionately favors housing.
Speaker 4: It would make it even worse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Hey, guys. I just wanted to end on a
Speaker 2: note that's slightly more political, well hell of a lot
Speaker 2: more political actually, because I'm not sure when this debate
Speaker 2: is going to happen. That Jerry Brown's allowing for the
Speaker 2: discussion around the censorship of the Mari Party. But firstly, Stuart,
Speaker 2: you'll take on the recommendations from the Privileges Committee for
Speaker 2: twenty one day suspension for the leaders in seven days
Speaker 2: for Hannah Mighty Clark. What did you make of that
Speaker 2: and Jerry's handling of it?
Speaker 5: Subsequently, the Privileges Committee is one of the most powerful
Speaker 5: in Parliament. I back at one hundred percent. I think
Speaker 5: any party that boats against us, and any major party
Speaker 5: that the Nats have said they're going to support it,
Speaker 5: Labours come out and said they probably won't. I think
Speaker 5: that is a massive, massive political mistake on behalf of Labor.
Speaker 5: I think the way the Married Party has behaved is terrible,
Speaker 5: but I also think the standards and Parliament have dropped.
Speaker 5: It started with Trevor Mallard when he relaxes a dress
Speaker 5: standards and it's just continued. And you know, I look
Speaker 5: at Parliament now, guys are coming in caftans people. You know,
Speaker 5: Rawdi looks like he's off to Hawaiian Party half the time.
Speaker 5: Get the standards back. The speaker has the ability to
Speaker 5: do that, pull it back and get some bloody respect
Speaker 5: in that chain because at the moment the antics set
Speaker 5: are going on. Like I said, I think what happens
Speaker 5: is the vast majority of good hard work and keywis
Speaker 5: look at this. I think it's people behaving badly. It's
Speaker 5: a plague in everyone's house. People that their respect for
Speaker 5: politicians diminishes and people become disenfranchised.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I actually agree wholeheartedly Stuart and Jordan. The
Speaker 2: other thing is, I mean, Stuart used that wonderful expression
Speaker 2: when people say the incredibly powerful, powerful Privileges Committee. But
Speaker 2: so far, the impression that we've got until a few
Speaker 2: days ago is that the worst you get is a
Speaker 2: bit of a telling off after you apologize, and maybe
Speaker 2: a day's suspension. And for instance, people ask me about
Speaker 2: what you know, Julian Genta, how come you know it's
Speaker 2: so much less for her? But I would argue she
Speaker 2: should have got more.
Speaker 4: But what's your cake? Was?
Speaker 3: It was during a vote and it was intimidating. It
Speaker 3: wasn't actually the Harker. It was the intimidation and going
Speaker 3: over to the other side, and then the stumbing their
Speaker 3: nose at the legitimacy of the Privileges Committee. Look, I've
Speaker 3: worried for some years. I've worried about our institutions being
Speaker 3: able to stand up to matters pertaining to Malori, particularly
Speaker 3: around corruption in the resource management sector, in conflicts of
Speaker 3: interest and things like that, and they put this into
Speaker 3: a similar sort of category. I think that it is
Speaker 3: really important for the frankly democracy to hold to Party
Speaker 3: Malory up to the same standards as everyone else. I
Speaker 3: note that the police recently let to Party Malory off
Speaker 3: for not only filing a late return, but they still
Speaker 3: haven't filed their return as it relates to that the
Speaker 3: sort of the electoral donations and the like, And despite
Speaker 3: having not done it, police have already said we're going
Speaker 3: to let you off with a warning. That is that
Speaker 3: is a danger, danger danger that we have. I don't
Speaker 3: think it's to tear or anything. I actually think it's
Speaker 3: our institutions not having the self confidence to be able
Speaker 3: to do their job, and that I find really worrying.
Speaker 3: So do I agree, yes, they should be held up.
Speaker 3: It is a very serious punishment, particularly to dock the pay.
Speaker 3: But this sort of punching someone in parliament, how much
Speaker 3: more serious does it get?
Speaker 4: Yeah? No, good on it.
Speaker 2: Hey, guys, I really appreciate your time this afternoon. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much. And are you going to accept Jordan's
Speaker 2: offered to Stuart to sit next to him at the lockup?
Speaker 4: Look forward to hearing you.
Speaker 5: Take to buy me beer afters.
Speaker 2: I just minded it might need to bear during it.
Speaker 5: I've been a number of lock ups as well, remember,
Speaker 5: and it requires a stiff whiskey, not just a beer.
Speaker 4: Hey, thank you so much, guys.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate your time. That is a former police
Speaker 2: minister Stuart Nash and the Taxpayers Union director Jordan Williams.
Speaker 2: We're going to take your calls after this as well
Speaker 2: on your response to with the chat. Actually, you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't an incredible amount of colegiality there, which is
Speaker 2: wouldn't it be nice if politics was like that all
Speaker 2: the time, where people express, you know, varying opinions and
Speaker 2: then acknowledge when they agree with each other and something's
Speaker 2: a good idea. But I guess you know, once you're
Speaker 2: outside the house, pats things to become a bit more
Speaker 2: civil save this lack of civility for inside parliament, don't we?
Speaker 4: But I also want to get your take.
Speaker 2: You will hear Stuart's strong comments and echoed there by
Speaker 2: Jordan about the punishment there's meet to party Marie, and
Speaker 2: I thought, actually Stuart expressed himself very well there that
Speaker 2: this is you know how much and also Jordan's saying
Speaker 2: how much more serious would.
Speaker 4: It have to get?
Speaker 2: But the other side of it is that Jerry Brownlee
Speaker 2: is going to throw it open for debate, and it's
Speaker 2: the potential there's open ended debate, I think, is what
Speaker 2: he's going to allow, and that seems to me to
Speaker 2: be a sure recipe for potential fulfillerbustering, which is just
Speaker 2: extending things out for as long as you can. But
Speaker 2: also you'll come in some What are you looking for
Speaker 2: in the budget? We've got time for some talk back now.
Speaker 2: I eight one hundred and eighty ten eighty. Will there
Speaker 2: be any surprises? There's lots of questions around the budget.
Speaker 2: What was your favorite to pre budget announcement, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. We're throwing it open. It's over to you
Speaker 2: for until we wrap up this out. Just come up
Speaker 2: to eighteen minutes too four News Talks Your B eight
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty ten eighty.
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