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