Speaker 1: Kyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. From entering
Speaker 2: Parliament in two thousand and eight to leading the country
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three, Chris Hipkins is no stranger to
Speaker 2: the spotlight. During COVID's beginnings, he was known as a
Speaker 2: safe set of hands, tackling education, health and becoming the
Speaker 2: Minister in charge of the COVID response for a time.
Speaker 2: Now he's firmly setting his sights on election twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: but is he confident he'll still be in Labour's driving
Speaker 2: seat when it rolls around?
Speaker 3: Today?
Speaker 2: On the Front Page, Hipkins joins us to discuss the
Speaker 2: cost of living, vibes around Parliament, and.
Speaker 1: Whether he'll ever be able to shake COVID.
Speaker 2: First off, Chris, we had David Seymour on a wee
Speaker 2: while back. We asked him if it'd be open to
Speaker 2: working with you. He said that would require Chris Hopkins
Speaker 2: to be working. He then made an odd reference calling
Speaker 2: you Pooh Midas, which I can only assume is replacing
Speaker 2: gold with pooh.
Speaker 1: So is everything you touched he in to shit or something?
Speaker 4: Oh? Look, I mean I think this is just what
Speaker 4: we're seeing from this government, you know, and the culture
Speaker 4: starts from the top, It starts in the Prime Minister,
Speaker 4: Winston Peter's David Seymour down where they just think that
Speaker 4: attacking people, belittling people, degrading people is what leadership looks like.
Speaker 4: I don't believe that. I'm all for a bit of
Speaker 4: humor in politics, you know a little bit of a
Speaker 4: sledge now and then where it's funny. That can add
Speaker 4: to a bit of you know, political engagement. But they're
Speaker 4: not very funny, and they're also not very good at it,
Speaker 4: so I think they should just stick to actually doing
Speaker 4: what people ask them to do. You know, the New
Speaker 4: Zealanders wanted them to fix the cost of living crisis.
Speaker 4: They wanted them to, you know, get the economy moving.
Speaker 4: They haven't done either of those things. Maybe they should
Speaker 4: focus on them rather than sledging other people.
Speaker 2: Well what about more recently, looks like you've got the
Speaker 2: prime ministers go to little He said. I'm not taking
Speaker 2: any lectures from frickin' Chris Hipkins or the Labor Party.
Speaker 1: But why are you bothering people lately? Chris? Is it
Speaker 1: getting a bit tasty? In Parliament at the minute.
Speaker 4: I think it's getting The government's certainly feeling the pressure,
Speaker 4: and they should be feeling the pressure because they made
Speaker 4: people a whole lot of promises that they haven't delivered on.
Speaker 4: But I remember standing next to Christopher Luxan during the
Speaker 4: leader's debates where he said that, you know, families with
Speaker 4: kids were going to be two hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 4: a fortnight better off if he became Prime minister. And
Speaker 4: they haven't identified one single family that's two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty dollars a fortnight better off, and you know, food
Speaker 4: prices are still going up. You know, households are still
Speaker 4: really feeling the squeeze, and so I think the government
Speaker 4: are feeling that pressure. Really, they shouldn't have made promises
Speaker 4: that they didn't intend to keep, and so I think
Speaker 4: that's why they're lashing out at everybody else. They're just
Speaker 4: trying to find people to blame for that. And you know,
Speaker 4: on the other side, there's a lot of pressure coming
Speaker 4: on us to say, well, what would labor do differently?
Speaker 4: Shear your policies, But the point that I've been making
Speaker 4: to people is I'm not going to put policies out
Speaker 4: there unless I know that I can deliver on them,
Speaker 4: because I don't want to end up two years down
Speaker 4: the track and find myself in the same position that
Speaker 4: they're currently in, where I've promised stuff that I can't deliver.
Speaker 4: I think we've had way too much of that in
Speaker 4: New Zealand politics, governments of all stripes making big, sweeping
Speaker 4: promises for elections and then not delivering on them. So
Speaker 4: we're keeping up how to dry on the policy front
Speaker 4: deliberately because when we do announce it, I want to
Speaker 4: know that we can do it, and we won't be
Speaker 4: able to make that judgment till closer to the election,
Speaker 4: once we see the shape the economies in and so on.
Speaker 2: So you basically do want to have a look at
Speaker 2: the books, maybe by next budget, and then you'll start
Speaker 2: kind of trickling out stuff.
Speaker 1: Is that how it works in an election?
Speaker 4: It is, it's kind of about looking at the government's books,
Speaker 4: but it's also about making sure we're doing the work
Speaker 4: now and opposition you don't unlike in government. You know,
Speaker 4: you don't have the entire public service doing the work
Speaker 4: for you. You've got to do the work. So we're
Speaker 4: looking at you know, what would things cost, how would
Speaker 4: we actually deliver them. I think one of the valid
Speaker 4: criticisms of us last time we were in opposition was
Speaker 4: that we had some really good ideas, but we hadn't
Speaker 4: worked through the detail of exactly how would we do that.
Speaker 4: And then when we got into government, we found that
Speaker 4: some of the things that we said we were going
Speaker 4: to do very well intentioned, we didn't have a clear
Speaker 4: plan for how we would do it. And I think
Speaker 4: the same thing has happened to this government. They've made
Speaker 4: promises with no plan on how they're actually going to
Speaker 4: do it, and I don't want to be in that position.
Speaker 4: So we're going to take our time. I know people
Speaker 4: are eager to hear what we want to do, but
Speaker 4: I'm going to make sure that when I do go
Speaker 4: out there and say label will do X, I can
Speaker 4: then answer all the questions about it, and I can
Speaker 4: tell people how we're going to do it, so that
Speaker 4: they know that the promises we're making a credible and
Speaker 4: ones that they can rely on us delivering.
Speaker 5: On Well, mister Speaker, hasn't it been a shambolic year for.
Speaker 2: The Labor Party?
Speaker 1: Has that?
Speaker 6: And I have to say, has there ever been a
Speaker 6: leader of.
Speaker 5: The opposition with less substance than Chris Hopkins, because what
Speaker 5: you get, what you get is a lot of carping.
Speaker 5: What you get is a lot of points of order,
Speaker 5: and you get a lot of wishy washy, don't you.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of wishy washy because beneath it all,
Speaker 5: they have no policies, zero policies, and they have no plan.
Speaker 2: What is something that the party's tinkering away in the
Speaker 2: background at the moment.
Speaker 6: We're looking at a lot of things.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think if you look at what is
Speaker 4: important to us, I said when I took over from
Speaker 4: Jacinda that I wanted to see labor get back to
Speaker 4: the core sort of things that are important.
Speaker 6: To labor, back to basic, back to basics. Jobs.
Speaker 4: You know, it's in the name of the Labor Party.
Speaker 4: That's what the Labor Party was founded on the basis of,
Speaker 4: you know, good jobs that mean people get well paid
Speaker 4: and could have a better life. That's why the Labor
Speaker 4: Party exists. So that's that's got to be front and
Speaker 4: center for us. And at a time when unemployment's going up, jobs, jobs, jobs,
Speaker 4: is very very important. So jobs health because you know,
Speaker 4: if you don't have access to good quality health care.
Speaker 4: Then you're going to your options in life are going
Speaker 4: to be limited. And homes. Everyone deserves a place to
Speaker 4: call home. And if I've got so many the other
Speaker 4: issues we deal with, it stems back to one of
Speaker 4: those three things, or sometimes a combination of those three
Speaker 4: things not not being where we need them to be. So,
Speaker 4: you know, kids not going to school. Well, if your
Speaker 4: family's moving around houses all the time because they haven't got,
Speaker 4: you know, somewhere that they can put down roots, that's
Speaker 4: actually a big part of the problem. Kids who are
Speaker 4: getting into trouble In many cases, it's because they're living transiently.
Speaker 4: So let's make sure everyone has a home. And then
Speaker 4: I think more recently, you know, we were expecting that
Speaker 4: once inflation was back down within the target band, that
Speaker 4: cost of living would sort of drop off the radar
Speaker 4: almost It hasn't. Cost of living is getting worse. So
Speaker 4: I think we need re election on the cost of living,
Speaker 4: and it's going to have to be more than just
Speaker 4: shouting at supermarkets and shouting at banks. It's going to
Speaker 4: have to be things that government can actually do that
Speaker 4: will tackle the cost of living for people.
Speaker 2: Well, when it comes to that, I was doing some
Speaker 2: research about it, and I mean, how do we make
Speaker 2: sure that the price of butter doesn't get anywhere like
Speaker 2: any more ridiculous?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: In the Great Depression, I know that the government introduced
Speaker 2: subsidies for farmers and agriculture that kind of dropped off
Speaker 2: in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: Why can't we do something like that again.
Speaker 4: Ultimately, we do live in a global market for that,
Speaker 4: and the real challenge for us is if we started
Speaker 4: to do that sort of thing here, we potentially limit
Speaker 4: our ability to then sell into the international market. It
Speaker 4: would compromise our ability to trade internationally if we brought
Speaker 4: back subsidies. I think there are real questions about our
Speaker 4: New Zealander is paying too much for butter everyone's fixated
Speaker 4: on but I've never spoken so much about butter in.
Speaker 6: My life as I have in the last week.
Speaker 4: But again, the government sort of shouting at Fontier is
Speaker 4: not going to solve the problem. I think there are
Speaker 4: real issues around the supermarket sector, around whether we've got
Speaker 4: enough competition in the supermarket sector. But again, just talking
Speaker 4: about it, admiring the problem, it's not going to solve it.
Speaker 4: So what's the government actually going to do in that
Speaker 4: space to get better competition in supermarkets, and how we're
Speaker 4: going to support New Zealanders to have a higher standard
Speaker 4: of living will go up and down. You know, if
Speaker 4: you think about fruit and veggies, for example, the weather
Speaker 4: has an impact.
Speaker 6: You know, we had our.
Speaker 4: Cyclone in the first few weeks that I was Prime
Speaker 4: Minister that wiped out a huge amount of our fresh
Speaker 4: produce across the East Coast to the North Island, and
Speaker 4: that meant that that actually was one of the things
Speaker 4: that forced up fruit and vegie prices. The government couldn't
Speaker 4: fundamentally change that, but we do have to make sure
Speaker 4: we're supporting families through you know, what is a really
Speaker 4: tough economic cycle at the moment, So looking at their incomes,
Speaker 4: looking at how we can you know, contain other costs.
Speaker 4: Public transport, which the government have cut subsidies for, is
Speaker 4: going up hugely. Families on low incomes are more likely
Speaker 4: to rely on public transport, and now they're finding that
Speaker 4: their cost of transport, the cost of getting to and
Speaker 4: from work is going up. That's money that they then
Speaker 4: can't spend on food. So for those families that are
Speaker 4: living hand to mouth, everything matters and regardless of what
Speaker 4: the price of butter is doing. The real question is
Speaker 4: what's the overall family expendit you're doing. You know, because
Speaker 4: there are areas where we can ease some pressure on
Speaker 4: families and things like public transport. You know, there are
Speaker 4: good examples of things governments can do.
Speaker 2: What about the Greens approach, what about free dental, free
Speaker 2: GP visits.
Speaker 1: And what was the first free childcare? Seems like a
Speaker 1: good idea.
Speaker 4: So if you look at what we were talking about
Speaker 4: at the last election, you know, we had a plan
Speaker 4: to start delivering free dental. The reason that we were
Speaker 4: setting that out over a period of time is we
Speaker 4: don't have the dentists to be able to just you know,
Speaker 4: turn on a tap and say right, dental's free. That
Speaker 4: would be hard because we wouldn't have enough dentists. So
Speaker 4: over time it's absolutely achievable. You know, I did this
Speaker 4: work as Prime Minister to identify, yes, we can have
Speaker 4: free dental here, and the case of GP visits, I
Speaker 4: wouldn't necessarily start there. I do think that making it
Speaker 4: easier to go to the GP is really important. So
Speaker 4: we might not get to free immediately. At the moment,
Speaker 4: it's costing some families one hundred bucks for a GP visit.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's okay. I think we've got to
Speaker 4: deal with that. But there's things that we can do.
Speaker 4: Even before that, we abolished the five dollars co payment
Speaker 4: for prescriptions because if people were not picking up their prescriptions,
Speaker 4: they were more likely to end up having to go
Speaker 4: to a GP or go to a hospital emergency room
Speaker 4: than if they went to the pharmacist, got whatever medications
Speaker 4: they need and stayed healthy in the first place. So
Speaker 4: we did more than just that. We also said to pharmacists,
Speaker 4: you can give out some medications without prescription for winter ailments.
Speaker 4: And as a result, because people could go to the pharmacy,
Speaker 4: they didn't end up going to the doctor because they
Speaker 4: didn't need to. And I think there's a lot more
Speaker 4: we can do in that area. You know, pharmacies do
Speaker 4: an amazing job around the country. When I became Minister
Speaker 4: of Health briefly, I learned so much more about what
Speaker 4: pharmacists can do. And I think that those opportunities to
Speaker 4: provide better preventative health care are just all over the place.
Speaker 4: Keep people healthy and the health system will be under
Speaker 4: a lot less pressure.
Speaker 1: And what about that free childcare.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I've always been committed to that. So when
Speaker 4: I was working for Trevor mallard is the Ministry of
Speaker 4: Education back at a long time ago now, I was
Speaker 4: working on implementing twenty hours free early childhood education for
Speaker 4: three and four year olds. As Prime Minister, I extended
Speaker 4: that to two year olds. The current government have canceled
Speaker 4: the extension to two year olds unfortunately, but I do
Speaker 4: think progressively increasing more access to free early childhood education. A.
Speaker 4: It's got benefits for the kids because we know kids
Speaker 4: who have been in early childhood education quality early childhood
Speaker 4: education do better when they go to school. But it
Speaker 4: also means that for parents it's a huge easing of
Speaker 4: cost and it allows them to get back into work.
Speaker 4: And it will benefit women more than men, but there
Speaker 4: are some men who will benefit from that too. So
Speaker 4: women are more likely to be the person who is
Speaker 4: at home looking after the kids, but increasingly now in
Speaker 4: this day and age, there are more dads doing that too,
Speaker 4: and free early old education really helps them to be
Speaker 4: able to go out and earn money as well as
Speaker 4: looking after the kids.
Speaker 1: Right, So what's stopping us from just doing it tomorrow?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: The money, do we need to tax the retch.
Speaker 4: We could have done twenty hours free early childhood education
Speaker 4: for two year olds, and we had done that. Actually
Speaker 4: the government took the money away from that to fund
Speaker 4: their Family Boosts, which has been an absolute flop. You know,
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty three families I think have actually
Speaker 4: got the full amount of the family boost which you know,
Speaker 4: whereas every family with a two year old would have
Speaker 4: got the twenty hours free and they wouldn't have had
Speaker 4: to fill in a form to get it. It just
Speaker 4: would have happened automatically, so big saving for the family.
Speaker 4: So there is money there to extend that out over
Speaker 4: time to more so you could potentially, you know, increase
Speaker 4: the number of hours or increase the age groups who
Speaker 4: are eligible. I think that's something that we should certainly
Speaker 4: aspire to and we can afford that as a country
Speaker 4: if we make the right choices. Bearing in mind that
Speaker 4: if we've got kids in early childhood education and the
Speaker 4: result of that is that their parents are then going
Speaker 4: back to work, those parents are going to be earning
Speaker 4: money and paying taxes, which is a good thing for
Speaker 4: government because it means that ultimately governments and you know, yes,
Speaker 4: we're spending more money on ECU, but we're getting more
Speaker 4: money because of the parents earning more money.
Speaker 1: What do you think about taxing the.
Speaker 4: Rech I think it's a I don't like the phrase.
Speaker 4: And the reason I don't like the phrase is because
Speaker 4: I think that tax fundamentally should come down to fairness.
Speaker 4: Everyone should pay their fair share, Everyone should make a contribution.
Speaker 4: We all benefit from health education, you know, the infrastructure
Speaker 4: that we build, things like roads, we all benefit from that.
Speaker 4: We all benefit from having a police force, we all
Speaker 4: benefit from having a good justice system. We all benefit
Speaker 4: from having a defense force. So we should all contribute
Speaker 4: to the cost of those things. And the tax system
Speaker 4: should be fair, which means those on higher incomes. And
Speaker 4: I am one of those people should pay more. And
Speaker 4: I'm quite proud to say that I'm happy to pay
Speaker 4: more as someone on a higher income.
Speaker 6: I accept that. You know, it's a great tagline.
Speaker 1: You know, it's on a poster.
Speaker 4: If it's on a poster, but it kind of it
Speaker 4: creates a culture of resentment about Texas. Texas aren't a punishment,
Speaker 4: you know, Texas are the contribution that we all make
Speaker 4: to living in a decent society, and.
Speaker 3: Ow poll, we asked do you support or oppost the
Speaker 3: introduction of a capital gains tax on properties other than
Speaker 3: the family home. Forty six percent of voters are in
Speaker 3: support of the idea, while forty one percent oppose it,
Speaker 3: and thirteen percent either don't know or preferred not to say.
Speaker 1: I've read something published on Aaron said.
Speaker 2: This was in December, though, and it suggested that you
Speaker 2: will be campaigning on a capital gains tax at the
Speaker 2: next election, and that quote details would be announced as
Speaker 2: early as mid next year.
Speaker 1: Now it's past mid next year. Now it's July. Now
Speaker 1: any word on that how that may look.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I've said that we'll announce our policy on
Speaker 4: that before the end of this year, because I think
Speaker 4: it is important. You know that that is big policy area.
Speaker 4: People want to know where they stand. Certainly people to
Speaker 4: my left, you know, on the left of politics, get
Speaker 4: really excited about tax debates, and I understand that, but
Speaker 4: we also need to talk about how we get people
Speaker 4: into good, well paid jobs, how we generate more wealth
Speaker 4: for the country, and we need to do that as
Speaker 4: well as ensuring that the benefits of that are fairly
Speaker 4: shared by everybody. And you can't have one side of
Speaker 4: that debate without the other. So tax is one of
Speaker 4: the ways we ensure that everybody gets the affairs share
Speaker 4: and pays the affairs here. But we've also got to
Speaker 4: make sure that we're generating good, well paid jobs, that
Speaker 4: we've got businesses who are doing well so they can
Speaker 4: employ more people. And I don't think you can separate
Speaker 4: those two things. I think those two things do need
Speaker 4: to go together.
Speaker 1: So you will commit to yes or no by the
Speaker 1: end of this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we're going to have a different tax policy
Speaker 4: to the one we had at the last election. Very
Speaker 4: upfront about that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: In New Zealand, I think we've paced far too much
Speaker 4: emphasis on buying and selling houses amongst ourselves, pushing up
Speaker 4: the price so that potentially a whole generation of homeowners
Speaker 4: is being shut out of the housing market, and not
Speaker 4: enough emphasis on productive investment, on building businesses that employ
Speaker 4: people that allow them to earn more money. And our
Speaker 4: tax system currently encourages people to do that, you know,
Speaker 4: to basically go and just speculate in the residential property market,
Speaker 4: and that's not going to make us rich as a country.
Speaker 4: So I think our tech system does need to change.
Speaker 4: I understand why mums and dads have gone out and said, oh,
Speaker 4: I've got a house. Now I can use the equity
Speaker 4: I've got my house to buy our rental property and
Speaker 4: that that can be my retirement savings. I understand why
Speaker 4: people have done that. The tax systems actually encouraged them
Speaker 4: to do that. But that's not sustainable. If every person
Speaker 4: who owns a house now buys another one, the next
Speaker 4: generation of homeowners won't exist. So we have to do
Speaker 4: things differently.
Speaker 2: Do you think labor will ever escape the COVID curse?
Speaker 4: When you say COVID curse, I mean it's challenging because
Speaker 4: it was hard. You know, it was hard for the
Speaker 4: whole country, and it's actually really I find as a
Speaker 4: politician it's also quite hard to talk about it now
Speaker 4: because you did we get everything right during that time? No,
Speaker 4: I don't think we did get everything right. Were there
Speaker 4: lessons that we learned from that? Yes, of course, you know,
Speaker 4: no one had ever done this before, no government had
Speaker 4: ever encountered what we encountered with COVID. Undoubtedly there are
Speaker 4: things that if we could go back and do them differently,
Speaker 4: we would do some things differently. I can say that,
Speaker 4: And then someone asked me a specific question that'll be like, well,
Speaker 4: what about decision X, And so you explain the reasoning
Speaker 4: behind that decision and then they say, oh, so you
Speaker 4: don't think you made any mistakes.
Speaker 6: I said, no, I'm not.
Speaker 4: I'm just explaining why we made the decision we made
Speaker 4: at that time because there wasn't a rule book and
Speaker 4: it was hard. The management of the border was so
Speaker 4: hard because one of the ways that we avoided lockdowns,
Speaker 4: long prolonged lockdowns in New Zealand was by having the
Speaker 4: border restrictions in place that we had. But that meant
Speaker 4: that if you were traveling, if you had to travel
Speaker 4: for business, if you had family who were away overseas
Speaker 4: and they wanted to come back and see you, or
Speaker 4: you wanted to go and see them, you couldn't travel
Speaker 4: freely in the way that we're all used to being
Speaker 4: able to travel. And that was really, really hard.
Speaker 2: And some people have just gotten over the fact that
Speaker 2: we didn't travel for a couple of years, and some
Speaker 2: people are still holding onto it.
Speaker 1: It seems.
Speaker 2: I mean, every time it must come up, you must,
Speaker 2: you must a little person inside you must just sigh.
Speaker 6: A little bit.
Speaker 4: But I do understand because it was hard and there were,
Speaker 4: and it really had a bigger effect on people's lives.
Speaker 4: But I guess the point that I would make is, yes,
Speaker 4: government decisions weren't perfect, but actually it was the virus
Speaker 4: and the global pandemic that caused a lot of the pain.
Speaker 4: Because the decisions the New Zealand government was making we're
Speaker 4: not out of line with what other countries were doing.
Speaker 4: We were more successful, I think partly because we're an
Speaker 4: island nation and we were able to isolate ourselves better
Speaker 4: and avoiding long protracted lockdowns. I mean, I've got friends
Speaker 4: and family who are in the UK who spent a
Speaker 4: year and a half of rolling lockdowns. We avoided that
Speaker 4: here and we were able to live relatively freely during
Speaker 4: that time, other than know some periods where we weren't.
Speaker 4: And you know, for Auckland, that last lockdown was the
Speaker 4: hardest and it was hard, and that was one of
Speaker 4: the areas which I don't think we got it completely right.
Speaker 4: You know, it went on for too long and we
Speaker 4: as we moved, as we dealt with the new variants.
Speaker 4: Remember we sort of shifted from from COVID early COVID
Speaker 4: to delta omicron and then and then we had you know,
Speaker 4: moving from elimination where we're aiming to just get back
Speaker 4: to what we've been doing before, to realizing that we
Speaker 4: couldn't and that we were going to have to deal
Speaker 4: with COVID in the community. That was very bumpy and
Speaker 4: very hard, and we didn't get every decision right in there,
Speaker 4: and I'd never say that we did. And so as
Speaker 4: a result, I think there are people who look at
Speaker 4: that going, you know, if they'd been government, why or
Speaker 4: you know, would we have made decisions differently if we
Speaker 4: knew then what we know now.
Speaker 7: Yes, Unquestionably, when it comes to election next year, are
Speaker 7: you still confident that you'll be leading the Labor Party?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? And you know, look, I've still got a lot
Speaker 4: of energy for this job. I only took over about
Speaker 4: eight months before the election. I had eight months as
Speaker 4: Prime Minister, and you know I said there as soon
Speaker 4: as I took over from Jacinda, I want Labor to
Speaker 4: get back to focusing on what the Labor Party is
Speaker 4: all about, jobs, health, homes, you know, making sure we're
Speaker 4: raising living standards for all New Zealanders, focusing on the
Speaker 4: things that unite New Zealanders rather than the things that
Speaker 4: divide us apart making sure that we we're dealing with
Speaker 4: controversial and tricky areas like the Treaty for example, that
Speaker 4: we're slowing down a bit and we're bringing people with us.
Speaker 6: We're not.
Speaker 4: You know, people don't feel like a whole lot's happening
Speaker 4: that they don't know about, and they're mistrustful of that.
Speaker 4: You know, I started that work when I became Prime Minister,
Speaker 4: and then you know, I still think that's work that
Speaker 4: the Labor Party needs to do. I think we need
Speaker 4: to make sure that we're there for the people who
Speaker 4: we represent.
Speaker 2: And would you be open to working with the Greens
Speaker 2: and TPM or those conversations just not started yet.
Speaker 6: We work closely with them.
Speaker 4: When I say closely, we cooperate with them quite a
Speaker 4: lot in opposition. And you'll see things like the Treaty
Speaker 4: Principles Bill, which we thought was a really divisible but
Speaker 4: we work really closely with the Greens and with the
Speaker 4: Mardi Party to oppose that and to make sure that
Speaker 4: it was defeated. We have a lot of values in
Speaker 4: common with both of those parties, you know, if you're
Speaker 4: talking about the values of unity, of collective action, of
Speaker 4: making sure that we are catering to the squeezed middle,
Speaker 4: but also those on the lowest incomes. I think we
Speaker 4: share those aspirations. We want to make sure that we're
Speaker 4: leaving the planet in at least as good as state
Speaker 4: as we found it. I think we share those goals.
Speaker 4: I've said that what we will do before the election,
Speaker 4: as I did last time, as I say, look, these
Speaker 4: are the areas that we've got in common with other parties,
Speaker 4: and these are the areas where we think we can
Speaker 4: work with them, and these are the things we categorically
Speaker 4: would take off the table. We won't do that, and
Speaker 4: I think that will make it clear what the future
Speaker 4: governing arrangements might look like. But I differ for a
Speaker 4: bit from the current govern in the sense that, you know,
Speaker 4: I respect the important constituencies the smaller parties represent, and
Speaker 4: I also respect that we compete with them for votes too.
Speaker 6: I don't think.
Speaker 4: Under MMP the smaller parties should call all of the shots.
Speaker 4: You know, I still think that the bigger parties have
Speaker 4: a mandate to reflect the view of a much larger
Speaker 4: section of the electorate, and so I do think under
Speaker 4: MMP you need to kind of keep proportionality in mind. Yes,
Speaker 4: there should be some concessions and some trade offs to
Speaker 4: the other parties in order to form government. But that
Speaker 4: doesn't mean that you should be doing things that you
Speaker 4: specifically told the electorate before the election that you weren't going.
Speaker 1: To do, like the Treati's Principle.
Speaker 4: The Treaty Principle's Bill is a good example, the Regulatory
Speaker 4: Standards Bill. You know, some of these things that no
Speaker 4: one knew that they were voting for at the last election,
Speaker 4: and now they're being inflicted on them. I don't think
Speaker 4: that's the spirit of MMP or democracy. I think, you know,
Speaker 4: the majority should still rule in a democracy, and at
Speaker 4: the moment that's not happening. We're currently being ruled by
Speaker 4: a minority, a small minor, and I don't think that's
Speaker 4: what New Zealand has voted for.
Speaker 1: I can only assume David not Winston.
Speaker 6: When I'm talking about the minorities.
Speaker 1: There's the small minority.
Speaker 4: Well, both of them to some extent on different issues.
Speaker 4: You know, they've both got their hobby horses that they're
Speaker 4: sort of inflicting on the rest of the country, and
Speaker 4: they're not things that New Zealand has voted for.
Speaker 1: Well, Ending greyhound racing is not that.
Speaker 4: Look, I support Winston Peters on ending greyhound racing that
Speaker 4: I know the greyhound racers don't particularly like the fact
Speaker 4: that were supporn in the government on that, but it's time.
Speaker 4: And you know I said before the election that I
Speaker 4: thought it was time and I congratulate him for doing it.
Speaker 4: You know, not everything in politics needs to be about
Speaker 4: saying I impose that just because it's the other side
Speaker 4: that are doing it. I think there's actually too much
Speaker 4: of that. And I also think let's make sure that
Speaker 4: when we're opposing each other, it's for the right reasons,
Speaker 4: not the wrong reasons. So it shouldn't be just it
Speaker 4: should be because we disagree, not because we're trying to,
Speaker 4: you know, secure political advantage or political points. So thinks
Speaker 4: things like infrastructure projects, why does everything take so long
Speaker 4: in New Zealand and why does it cost so much money? Well,
Speaker 4: the political cycle is part of the problem. You know.
Speaker 4: New government comes in and says we don't like all
Speaker 4: that stuff that the last lot we're doing, so we're
Speaker 4: going to stop all of that and we're going to
Speaker 4: start again. Everything slows down, everything costs more money, and
Speaker 4: in the meantime, seventeen thousand fewer people are working in
Speaker 4: construction today than they were at the last election, and
Speaker 4: the government's part of the problem. I've said that I
Speaker 4: want to take a lot of the politics out of that.
Speaker 4: The Infrastructure Commission have come out with a big list
Speaker 4: that says these are the things that New Zealand needs.
Speaker 4: They're not things that political parties have decided, you know,
Speaker 4: these are the things the Infrastructure Commission have said. For
Speaker 4: the country of the size that we are, with the
Speaker 4: geography we are, this is what we need and we
Speaker 4: need to do it. I've said to the current government,
Speaker 4: if you're doing stuff that's on that list, let's not
Speaker 4: fit all with that. Let's just get on and do
Speaker 4: it because that's been objectively determined that that's what we
Speaker 4: need as a country. And let's stop the stop start
Speaker 4: nature of what we're doing because not everything needs to
Speaker 4: be political.
Speaker 2: And looking forward, Chris, what does a better New Zealand
Speaker 2: look like to you?
Speaker 4: I think it involves higher standards of living for all
Speaker 4: New Zealanders, So people having good jobs, recognizing that there's
Speaker 4: going to be turnover in jobs as technology changes, but
Speaker 4: that if you lose your job because things have changed,
Speaker 4: that you can get another one, if you need to
Speaker 4: retrain and reskill in order to do that, that you're
Speaker 4: supported to do that. That you can have a place
Speaker 4: that you can call home, whether it's owning your own
Speaker 4: home or having a security in your rental, that you
Speaker 4: can access good healthcare, that your kids are getting a
Speaker 4: good education, a world class education. That we are actually
Speaker 4: preserving the environment that we live in so that it
Speaker 4: can sustain future generations of people, and that we're living sustainably.
Speaker 4: You know that we're having a high quality of life,
Speaker 4: but in a way that's sustainable. To me, that's what
Speaker 4: New Zealand should be all about. There's huge opportunities for us.
Speaker 4: You know, the move to a more sustainable way of
Speaker 4: living doesn't need to be a hardship. Infact, it could
Speaker 4: be the source of our great prosperity in the future.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Chris.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzidherld dot co dot mz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our editor.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
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