Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks by.
Speaker 2: Yes I got a good old tune. Now look, Winston
Speaker 2: Peters has the Deputy Prime Minister, has just finished up
Speaker 2: with the New Zealand First thirty first a GM and Hamilton.
Speaker 2: The party members discussed well a truckload of things, from
Speaker 2: reliable energy to the future of the country and even
Speaker 2: the future of them zwed that we got a bit
Speaker 2: of that yesterday. It's the first AGM since they joined
Speaker 2: the coalition and formed the government almost a year ago.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a lot of ground was covered. I
Speaker 2: caught a little bit of Winston Peter's speech, which is
Speaker 2: just concluded. I don't mind telling you it was pretty
Speaker 2: entertaining and Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First Leader
Speaker 2: Winston Peters. Winston Peters joins me, now, good.
Speaker 3: Afternoon, Good afternoon.
Speaker 2: Just quickly looked like you're having great time up there.
Speaker 3: Well meeting we go between other people there, that's huge. Yeah,
Speaker 3: no room stating room only and out the door. So yeah,
Speaker 3: we were very very pleased.
Speaker 2: I didn't manage to catch the whole thing, but I've
Speaker 2: read a lot of information about it. But you seemed
Speaker 2: to spend cool reasonable amount of time having a crack
Speaker 2: at labor. Are you making a play for the some
Speaker 2: of the more traditional.
Speaker 3: Voters representing they're working people of this country, who are
Speaker 3: after all, all sorts of people. They're the businesses, they're
Speaker 3: in manual jobs, they're all got the same struggle on
Speaker 3: and sort of resenting they're elitist and they've forgotten who
Speaker 3: they're meant to be talking about.
Speaker 2: You had also talked a lot about some of the
Speaker 2: international success stories, maybe the smaller countries. I think it
Speaker 2: was Ireland, Croatia, and you know, the success that they
Speaker 2: have experienced, especially Ireland, I think, given the terrible conflict
Speaker 2: internally they had and now they've turned themselves around generally,
Speaker 2: what are the lessons we can learn from countries like that?
Speaker 3: Well, that's a harvest do you ask that question? Because look,
Speaker 3: Ireland was when I first went there, a very very
Speaker 3: poor country and their biggest export were highly educated young
Speaker 3: people going to some other country, and they in a
Speaker 3: short time became the Celtic Tiger with some sound policies
Speaker 3: to attract investment, new industries, new jobs, and new wealth.
Speaker 3: And they were just duplicating what Taiwan had done, and
Speaker 3: what Singapore had done, and what other countries wisely had
Speaker 3: doing now like Croatia free from the chapels of communism,
Speaker 3: and it's taken off. And so I'm saying, why are
Speaker 3: we standing here not learning from them and doing things
Speaker 3: that we used to be the world leaders of when
Speaker 3: we were number one?
Speaker 2: What specific lessons do you think about from those countries
Speaker 2: that you'd love to bring into New Zealand.
Speaker 3: Well, they recognized that they were going to go nowhere
Speaker 3: with their own resources, with their own people unless they
Speaker 3: get some assistance. But their businesses say will start up
Speaker 3: there because they understand what business needs. And so they
Speaker 3: have answerd the question why Ireland, Why Singapore? Why now Croatia?
Speaker 3: And we haven't both answered that question. We've been trapping
Speaker 3: an ideological extremist view that tacticians should be neutral and
Speaker 3: it should not pick winners. And yet we've had Rocket Lab,
Speaker 3: which is the fourth biggest company putting rockets into the
Speaker 3: air into the stratosphere. Now in the whole world, we
Speaker 3: can be a much better country if we picked the
Speaker 3: white people to back and add Baldy on the way
Speaker 3: through her.
Speaker 2: Guests, Speaker Australian senator just enterprise. You said the West
Speaker 2: can't win wars of children are taught to be ashamed
Speaker 2: of their countries. Is that a problem we've got here?
Speaker 3: It was a very very good speech on her part,
Speaker 3: and she was talking about, you know, basically, there are
Speaker 3: some good things in every country and some bad things.
Speaker 3: Well picked the big things in our past and make
Speaker 3: them alive again. And she made a very very powerful
Speaker 3: speech about the need for people to be trained to be,
Speaker 3: and for good reasons, proud of their country. We used
Speaker 3: to be, you know, when we were much younger. You'd
Speaker 3: hardly get off a boat, usually where people are going
Speaker 3: by boat, and you'd be asked what do you think
Speaker 3: of New Zealand And you hadn't been here for five minutes.
Speaker 3: That's how proud we were. And now we're not being
Speaker 3: proud because we've got not so much to be proud of.
Speaker 3: So let's make our country proud again by following the
Speaker 3: right policies.
Speaker 2: What do you think the biggest obstacle to New Zealand's
Speaker 2: success is?
Speaker 3: Broadly speaking, it's in practical ideology. It is a lack
Speaker 3: of common sense. When I see what Lequan you did,
Speaker 3: with a country, an island country, the size of Lake
Speaker 3: tarp or low resources. It is really the result of genius.
Speaker 3: But at the time he was starting that out, we
Speaker 3: were helping him with the offshore aid program called a
Speaker 3: Columbo plan. Why do we lose sight of what we
Speaker 3: were good at and why do we end up, for example,
Speaker 3: instead of exporting milk formula baby formula at our top price,
Speaker 3: we were exporting milk powder. See what's wrong?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a lot of energy talk. What's your
Speaker 2: plan New Zealand fiest plan for energy security going ahead?
Speaker 3: Well, we've got a transition period and we've got the resources,
Speaker 3: but we need to understand as we transition to the
Speaker 3: changed economy, we will need extraction to get there. And
Speaker 3: you know Norway as a famous country for environmentalism and
Speaker 3: for sound policies, they have significant extraction. So has Iceland.
Speaker 3: So these Nordic countries leaving the world in terms of
Speaker 3: environmental policy and sustainability have an extraction plan, which we
Speaker 3: have in political parties being totally opposed, totally opposed to
Speaker 3: frustrating in the extreme. There's no way we can deliver
Speaker 3: what we're going forward to in the future unless we
Speaker 3: do have extraction.
Speaker 2: I just you mentioned made a comment that came out
Speaker 2: of the intra islander could run for another twenty years.
Speaker 2: Have we been distracted by headlines where they've had a
Speaker 2: bit of bad luck? Is there really now the twenty
Speaker 2: years in those vessels?
Speaker 3: What are was saying to them? And it's more explained
Speaker 3: in today's paper. I was saying, if they leave me
Speaker 3: Zald go for another fifteen to twenty years, because they're
Speaker 3: not useless in that context, but quality, en upgrade of
Speaker 3: maintenance is required to keep them going. First of all,
Speaker 3: we were told that they were finished in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: Now now we talked last three twenty nine. And my
Speaker 3: argument is, how do you know that when you were
Speaker 3: put to the test by international shipping experts, they will
Speaker 3: tell you otherwise. And I've been told otherwise by shipping experts.
Speaker 2: By the way, I deliberately didn't ask this question first
Speaker 2: because you mentioned that probably lead the news at six o'clock,
Speaker 2: but do you love a good heckle?
Speaker 3: Well what happened, and of course the media then started
Speaker 3: running like nobody's business sone hunder of people there about
Speaker 3: Scott ignored whilst they rushed out for a couple of protesters.
Speaker 3: Isn't that typical?
Speaker 2: Did they have a crack at you? Afterwards? Somebody mentioned
Speaker 2: to me that they tried to sort of accost you
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 3: What happened after the conference, Well, one try to cost me.
Speaker 3: I said, we had an appointment. I mean, I've got
Speaker 3: another meeting coming up and this interview now, And so
Speaker 3: I said, have you made a point? No, Well what
Speaker 3: makes you special? Everybody else is curious enough to bring
Speaker 3: up and say can I see it? And we have
Speaker 3: been famous for saying, yes, we see all sorts of people.
Speaker 3: And on the question of Palestine, I have met the
Speaker 3: Palestine in the governing parties. I have met the foreign
Speaker 3: minister from Egypt, from Jordan and other parts of the country,
Speaker 3: the Golf States and what have you. They have not
Speaker 3: met anybody. And so it's arrogance to say that we
Speaker 3: don't care. Of course we can. We've got five with
Speaker 3: a record of doing then there one off protests, which,
Speaker 3: as I say, they'll regard what they did. There's a
Speaker 3: hard day's work.
Speaker 2: Look, so you've obviously, I mean we've seen the images
Speaker 2: of the conference and the party faithful and your your
Speaker 2: MP's and ministers. So they'll have just loved the conference
Speaker 2: and they'll have taken away probably a lot of detail.
Speaker 2: But for the average punter, the average key we who
Speaker 2: will read a bit about out on the news on
Speaker 2: in the paper, what do you want them to take
Speaker 2: out of the New Zealand First Conference.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a name putting in his Zealand and the
Speaker 3: Landers First is back and stronger than ever and that
Speaker 3: huge men to day when we couldn't find enough chairs
Speaker 3: and people had been locked out because they've got rules
Speaker 3: here to do with fire safety and what have you.
Speaker 3: They'll be going away thinking well we'll be back to
Speaker 3: Bay Party at least, and now we're to get much
Speaker 3: more stronger support going forward.
Speaker 2: What's your next big challenge for the party.
Speaker 3: To wrap up a serious year around the provinces and
Speaker 3: all the way to Christmas and then, to tell you
Speaker 3: the truth, you get ready for a decent break because
Speaker 3: we haven't had one for a long time.
Speaker 2: Excellent, Well, Winstone, I really instant Peters, I really appreciate
Speaker 2: your time this afternoon. Thank you very much, enjoyed the
Speaker 2: risty day. By right we'll be taking we'll be taking
Speaker 2: your feedback on that. I actually just want to ask
Speaker 2: a really simple question for you, based on the check
Speaker 2: now with Winston Peters. I watched quite a bit of
Speaker 2: the interview, sorry that the interview his speech, and he's
Speaker 2: pretty blim and good when he's on his feet and
Speaker 2: he's responding to Heckler's the reason I asked him if
Speaker 2: he liked the Hecklers. He come up with that line
Speaker 2: as soon as they got them out of the room.
Speaker 2: He says, that's their idea of a good day's work,
Speaker 2: and I did laugh out loud. I thought it was
Speaker 2: quite funny, regardless of whether you agree with the protests
Speaker 2: or not. But I just want to ask a really
Speaker 2: simple question because it's based on probably my own experience
Speaker 2: with Winston. He is something to me. You could say
Speaker 2: he's a bit of a political chameleon. He would probably
Speaker 2: say he's never changed. He's the same all the time.
Speaker 2: But when he was campaigning for the to be in
Speaker 2: government during the election campaign, I don't like him very much,
Speaker 2: and I didn't like a lot of his rhetoric, and
Speaker 2: I got a bit bored with the having the crack
Speaker 2: at the media, although you know, we all have our
Speaker 2: own cracks at our own industry as well anyway, But
Speaker 2: since he has been in government. I have to say
Speaker 2: I like him. I'm impressed with him as our foreign minister,
Speaker 2: as our deputy prime minister, and I'm not sure my
Speaker 2: mind has been changed permanently, but I think Winston is
Speaker 2: doing great job and probably out of the two coalition partners.
Speaker 2: I mean, actors certainly had some good moments as well,
Speaker 2: but I would say Winston, New Zealand Fest Rock and Rolling.
Speaker 2: Of course, they've had their negative side of things as well.
Speaker 2: I don't think Casey Costello has been doing a particularly
Speaker 2: flash job. That's probably an understatement. I think she's been
Speaker 2: absolutely dreadful.
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