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Speaker 1: Well, the hunts on for savings for next year's budget.

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Speaker 1: Already savings this time ran amount of the four point

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Speaker 1: eight billion you might remember, a lot of it came

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Speaker 1: from the pay equity changes, of course, So what's left

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Speaker 1: behind the couch, so to speak. David Seymore's the Associate

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Speaker 1: Finance Minister and he's on this and.

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Speaker 2: He's with us.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning May. Now the public said, how

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Speaker 1: much of this is the future of your government given

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Speaker 1: next year's election year. How much is it about cutting back,

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Speaker 1: cutting back and cutting back versus growing something and actually

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Speaker 1: bringing some more in.

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Speaker 2: Well that there's a difference between the private sector and

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Speaker 2: the government. The role of the government is to be

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Speaker 2: small and be efficient, to deliver the things that people

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Speaker 2: absolutely need in a really professional way, and leave a

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Speaker 2: larger and larger slice of the pie for the private

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Speaker 2: sector to reinvest and grow. So if you look at

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Speaker 2: where we've come from, the government started out with almost

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Speaker 2: thirty five percent of GDP being spent by the government.

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Speaker 2: Our goal over our four year forecast to get that

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Speaker 2: down to about thirty one. That may not sound like

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Speaker 2: a big change, but it's just a matter of every year,

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Speaker 2: every budget looking behind the couch, finding things that are

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Speaker 2: happening in government that actually we wouldn't have started stopping them,

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Speaker 2: and then putting that money into things that we actually need,

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Speaker 2: such as healthcare.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so last year's well, this year's trick was four

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Speaker 1: point eight. A lot of it was the pay equity.

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Speaker 1: Is there another big money pile there or is this

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Speaker 1: we down to rats and mice?

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Speaker 2: Well, people will call it rats and mice, but there's

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Speaker 2: an old saying, if you manage the pennies, the pounds

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Speaker 2: will look after themselves. And my goal in the sixth

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Speaker 2: extent that I've been involved in budgets and I play

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Speaker 2: a small partnicle that says, can you go and find

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Speaker 2: some places to save money? And I say, yep, to

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Speaker 2: savel up. And we find that sometimes there's a program

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Speaker 2: that actually a lot of people didn't know about it

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Speaker 2: was spending a lot of money. We find that there's

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Speaker 2: an agency that's grown exponentially over the last five or

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Speaker 2: six years, and no one's quite sure what it was

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Speaker 2: that they were doing. So you didn't call it rats

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Speaker 2: and mice. I call it just a constant drive for efficiency.

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Speaker 2: That's what everybody else has had to do, and every

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Speaker 2: farm every firm, every family for the last five or

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Speaker 2: six years of this inflation that has really ravaged the economy.

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Speaker 2: The government is now playing its part after it blew

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Speaker 2: out massively.

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Speaker 1: I was, funnily enough, just during the news it suddenly

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Speaker 1: occurred to me, you know, Andrew Costra and the Social

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Speaker 1: Investment Agency occurred to me to ask the questions some people,

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Speaker 1: what's he done now, what he's done so far as

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Speaker 1: he's written some reports, what's the point of him? And

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Speaker 1: is that a waste of money?

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Speaker 2: Well, I just look at something like, say, the prison population.

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Speaker 2: It is right to lock people up if they're committing crimes,

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Speaker 2: because the first thing I want the government to do

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Speaker 2: is make it safe for me to walk to the

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Speaker 2: supermarket and not see people walking a trolley out. But

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Speaker 2: your strategy can't be to just keep on locking people

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Speaker 2: up for decades into the future until prison population starts

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Speaker 2: to look American. So what do you do? You start asking, Well,

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Speaker 2: you know, are there things we could do that are smarter,

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Speaker 2: mainly with younger people. School attendance is something I'm involved

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Speaker 2: And if you get a kid to go to school,

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Speaker 2: are far less likely to end up in a prison

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Speaker 2: later on. And that is the thrust of Nikola Willis's

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Speaker 2: Social Investment Agency. I think it's a good insight and

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Speaker 2: fairness to them. They've only been going for a year

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Speaker 2: and dealing with problems that pan out over a citizen's lifetime.

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Speaker 2: So look, I think people could say, oh, well, just

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Speaker 2: cut it, just don't do it. On the other hand,

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Speaker 2: you know, what is our strategy to make this welfare

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Speaker 2: state web inherited work? Because right now, I think people

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Speaker 2: around the world are disillusioned with government because politicians for

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Speaker 2: eighty years have been saying, look, you give us a third,

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Speaker 2: maybe half of your money, we will make all the

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Speaker 2: problems go away. Clearly that is not working, and people

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Speaker 2: are casting around the world for politicians who make big

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Speaker 2: promises but maybe don't have solutions either. So I think

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Speaker 2: it's critical that we do this kind of long term

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Speaker 2: thinking about, well, you know, if you can do something

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Speaker 2: that's going to get kids to stay in school and

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Speaker 2: make that more appealing, then maybe that means you don't

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Speaker 2: have to spend so much imprisoning them later on.

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Speaker 1: Fair Enough is the Trump's comments yesterday, By the way,

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Speaker 1: on the tariffs, the rest of the world I e.

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Speaker 1: US is going to end up somewhere between fifteen and

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Speaker 1: twenty percent, possibly twenty percent. Are there alarm bells in

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Speaker 1: the bee hive? Did anyone in government talk about this yesterday?

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Speaker 1: Is there a plan to deal with this? And we

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Speaker 1: are now materially not better off or no worse off

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Speaker 1: than the rest of the world. Is anybody awaken cognizant

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Speaker 1: to this?

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Speaker 2: Well, there's the old saying, have the courage to know that,

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Speaker 2: or the wisdom to know the difference between what you

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Speaker 2: can change and what you can't. The American government is

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Speaker 2: elected the sovereign. They'll make their own policies and we

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Speaker 2: will deal with it. But if you look at how

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Speaker 2: we're dealing with it, we're opening up all sorts of

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Speaker 2: trade right across the world. We've got Todd McClay working

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Speaker 2: over in India. We've now got an EU Free trade

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Speaker 2: agreement on board. If you look at the last year,

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Speaker 2: we've had an increase of a billion dollars of trade

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Speaker 2: going into the EU. There's also the UK. We've also

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Speaker 2: got the Arab Emirates and the Gulf States, so opening

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Speaker 2: up new markets is a big part of the solution. There.

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Speaker 2: There's also the simple facts that no matter what the

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Speaker 2: trading conditions are the more innovative businesses you have with

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Speaker 2: more valuable stuff to sell, the more it's a matter

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Speaker 2: of people asking can they buy from us, rather than

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Speaker 2: us asking can we sell to them? And when you

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Speaker 2: travel up and down New Zealand, visit some of the

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Speaker 2: businesses out there that are making new and innovative stuff,

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Speaker 2: that's our real future.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So your answer basically as there's nothing we can

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Speaker 1: do about it's just the Prime Minister said, we don't

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Speaker 1: want to be materially worse off than anyone else. At

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Speaker 1: twenty percent, we will be.

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Speaker 2: Well, he's absolutely right, we don't want to be materially

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Speaker 2: worse off than anyone else. But it's also true that

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Speaker 2: we're the government of New Zealand. He's our Prime minister.

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Speaker 2: He's not in charge of US policy. And so, yep,

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Speaker 2: do we want to have a good deal. Yep. Do

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Speaker 2: our diplomatic teams work hard to make sure that the

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Speaker 2: Americans understand where we are, but we're a good friend. Yep.

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Speaker 2: We do all of that. But at the end of

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Speaker 2: the day, it's about opening up alternative markets and generating

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Speaker 2: a place where people can actually build successful businesses and

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Speaker 2: be welcome for it at important time to just acknowledge

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Speaker 2: Sir Michael Hill. I mean what an extraordinary guy starts

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Speaker 2: his business in his forties and actually manages to succeed

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Speaker 2: in Australia and Canada where so many New Zealand businesses

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Speaker 2: have failed. The more that we can be building businesses

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Speaker 2: with that spirit, the brighter our future as regardless of

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Speaker 2: trade conditions.

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Speaker 1: And a lovely bloke will appreciate your time. David Seymour,

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Speaker 1: the Associate Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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Speaker 2: the podcast on iHeartRadio