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Speaker 1: While we wait for Adream to work out what is

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Speaker 1: next and when David Seymore is wasting no time and

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Speaker 1: his role is acting Prime Minister this week to tell

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Speaker 1: us that budget twenty twenty five is well underway despite

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Speaker 1: the fact we've only just got past twenty twenty four

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks back. David Seymore's with us Morning Morning mate.

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Speaker 1: The fact you're working on next year's budget having just

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Speaker 1: got past this year's budget. Is this part of the

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Speaker 1: reminder that this year it wasn't a one off in

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Speaker 1: terms of savings and cuts and there's more where that

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Speaker 1: came from.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard Nikola Willis say something like you're not

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Speaker 2: going to fix six years of trouble in one budget.

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Speaker 2: And if you just look at the basic numbers, the

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Speaker 2: government spending about one hundred and forty billion. We've said

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Speaker 2: that we're committed to only increasing by two point four

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Speaker 2: billion a year. Now, that's about one point seven percent.

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Speaker 2: You're going to see inflation that you know, probably about

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Speaker 2: two in the long term. Then if you get population

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Speaker 2: growth of nearly two percent like we've had recently, well

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Speaker 2: that's a four percent increase to stay stay still. But

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Speaker 2: we're only allowing point seven. So already you've got to

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Speaker 2: get a couple of percent efficiency each year, and a

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Speaker 2: couple of percent means that you've got to find three

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Speaker 2: billion of savings each year just to stand still. But

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Speaker 2: in reality, we know that surprises come along. Who knows

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Speaker 2: our allies seem to want us to spend more on defense,

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Speaker 2: for example, I personally think we should, and who knows

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Speaker 2: what other pressures will come across. But just as a

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Speaker 2: starting point, you've got to save several billion a year

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Speaker 2: just to keep doing what you're doing.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying, you your quoted are saying we will

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Speaker 1: see better savings. Is that better or bigger? And how

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Speaker 1: much bigger do they get before people go to tell

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Speaker 1: you what this is too far, too much and that

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Speaker 1: becomes political.

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Speaker 2: Well, just put it in a bit of context. Grant Robertson,

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Speaker 2: who doesn't exactly have a reputation for being a big saver.

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Speaker 2: He keeps government spending at about twenty eight to twenty

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Speaker 2: nine percent of GDP pre COVID. Now you know, thirty

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Speaker 2: two thirty three, aiming to get down to thirty one

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Speaker 2: in the next few years. So on our current trajectory,

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Speaker 2: we're still going to be bigger spenders than pre COVID Robertson,

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Speaker 2: I'd certainly like to be ambitious to say, look, maybe

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Speaker 2: we can actually save a bit more and get a

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Speaker 2: bit closer to that standard. That's going to mean instead

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Speaker 2: of just saying, look we're going to take a haircut

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Speaker 2: of six or seven percent of every department, let's do

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Speaker 2: some deep dives and start asking, well, how can we

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Speaker 2: actually go back to first principles? If we weren't already

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Speaker 2: doing this, would we start it today and what would

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Speaker 2: be the basis for that? But as I said yesterday,

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Speaker 2: all of this is kind of you know, we've just

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Speaker 2: started the twenty five budget with a few preliminary meetings

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Speaker 2: and all of that still up in the year. None

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Speaker 2: of it's none of it's certain at this point.

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Speaker 1: All right, appreciate time Acting Prime Minister David Seymour this morning.

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