Speaker 1: Yoda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a summer special of
Speaker 2: The Front Page, the Enzid Herald's.
Speaker 1: Daily news podcast.
Speaker 2: While The Front Page is on summer break, we're taking
Speaker 2: a look back at some of the biggest news stories
Speaker 2: and top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: New episodes will return on January thirteenth. The twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three general election was a battle between the two Chris's
Speaker 2: Labour's Chris Hipkins and National's Christopher Luxen. It was a
Speaker 2: battle that Luckxon ended up winning thanks to the support
Speaker 2: of two coalition partners in Act and enz First, but
Speaker 2: it's a matchup that currently looks to be repeated next year,
Speaker 2: with Hipkins sticking around as Labour's leader and showing no
Speaker 2: signs of stepping aside.
Speaker 1: That's likely because.
Speaker 2: The polls between the Coalition and labor the Greens and
Speaker 2: Tabati Maldi remain pretty evenly split.
Speaker 1: At the end of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: We caught up with both leaders a week apart for
Speaker 2: a rap of the year. First, we spoke with Chris
Speaker 2: Hipkins a few days after Labour's annual party conference. First
Speaker 2: Off Press, We're a year into this new coalition government.
Speaker 1: What do you make of it?
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, I think the government's had a pretty
Speaker 3: bumpy start. Was always going to be challenged for them
Speaker 3: to pull together three parties with quite different views of
Speaker 3: the world and sort of certainly some personal animosity amongst
Speaker 3: the party leaders. You know, Winston Peters and David Seymour's
Speaker 3: dislike for one another is well known and clearly hasn't
Speaker 3: debated since the government has been formed. But they've made
Speaker 3: things worse for New Zealand in the decisions that they've taken.
Speaker 3: So it's a challenging time economically around the world at
Speaker 3: the moment, and the government making decisions to massively cut
Speaker 3: back government spending, cutback infrastructure projects and so on has
Speaker 3: actually made a tough economic environment even tougher for Kiwi's.
Speaker 2: Well, Winston and David haven't ripped each other's heads off
Speaker 2: in public yet, have they.
Speaker 3: They've certainly be you know, if anything, they've both been
Speaker 3: taking pop shots at the Prime minister instead, and you know,
Speaker 3: I think that's somewhat new for New Zealand to see
Speaker 3: the deputy prime Minister from a different party saying that
Speaker 3: he thinks the Prime Minister is struggling in his job,
Speaker 3: and to have David Seymour and Christopher Luxen basically criticizing
Speaker 3: each other in public, I don't think we've seen that before,
Speaker 3: even an MMP where there's agreed to disagree. I think
Speaker 3: generally there's still been a respectful relationship between party leaders.
Speaker 2: Luckson's leadership has been called into question in recent weeks.
Speaker 1: How do you rank him personally?
Speaker 2: Like, where do you think he sets compared to other
Speaker 2: former prime ministers?
Speaker 3: I think probably the one and only time you'll find
Speaker 3: me agreeing with Winston Peters actually is I think he
Speaker 3: is struggling in the job. I think he's brought border
Speaker 3: court mindset to running the country, and the country isn't
Speaker 3: a corporation, and a corporation you can decide to make
Speaker 3: people redundant and basically then there's someone else's problem, and
Speaker 3: you can say this group of customers is a group
Speaker 3: of customers, we're no longer going to chase as a company.
Speaker 3: You don't get to make those sorts of decisions in
Speaker 3: running a country. Everybody is your problem, everybody is your customer,
Speaker 3: everybody is your responsibility. I think he's kind of struggling
Speaker 3: with that. A little bit, because the process of government
Speaker 3: doesn't stop just because you've decided that your priorities are elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Is he a bad prime minister?
Speaker 3: Oh? I mean people for form their own views about that.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of New Zealanders think he's a
Speaker 3: bad prime minister, and I think they've got good grounds
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 2: You've said Labor needs to regain the public's trust after
Speaker 2: a historic defeat. How are you going to start.
Speaker 3: I think the public want to see us getting back
Speaker 3: to the basics of what Labour stands for, making sure
Speaker 3: that we are focused on how we can bring the
Speaker 3: country back together. I think government's creating a lot of
Speaker 3: division and they want to know that we have an
Speaker 3: approach that's going to end that division and bring people
Speaker 3: back together again. And I think also just demonstrating that
Speaker 3: we do know we lost. You know that we have
Speaker 3: reflected on why we lost, and that we change as
Speaker 3: a result of that. You know, we we're not going
Speaker 3: to rerun the twenty twenty three election campaign. That's that's
Speaker 3: a campaign we lost, and so twenty twenty six we
Speaker 3: need to offer different things and we need to be different.
Speaker 4: We're making sure that we've got inflation now within the
Speaker 4: band first time in three and a half years. You've
Speaker 4: had three interest rate cuts in twelve months. That's fantastic.
Speaker 4: You've got rising confidence at annual highs right in the.
Speaker 5: Last three years.
Speaker 1: Construction especially credibility. We see growth, that's what we've got
Speaker 1: to go.
Speaker 6: We're not seeing growth. We're actually again you can't point
Speaker 6: to any growth.
Speaker 4: Gette naive to be honest with you, to say, look,
Speaker 4: we had six years of economic mismanagement and in twelve
Speaker 4: months we're supposed to fix that all.
Speaker 6: Or someone I need to say that the previous government
Speaker 6: had a credibility problem because they pushed the service practice
Speaker 6: years and government when you're doing e the same thing
Speaker 6: about twelve months.
Speaker 2: When do you think the cutoff period is when a
Speaker 2: new government can stop blaming an old governments.
Speaker 1: For its problems. Do you reckon it's about now?
Speaker 3: I think it's totally. I think it's long gone. Actually,
Speaker 3: I mean they up to their first budget, yep. I
Speaker 3: guess you get to say, oh, the previous government made
Speaker 3: all these decisions and you know, we're just having to
Speaker 3: live with those. But once you get through a budget,
Speaker 3: you know that's your chances of government to really reset
Speaker 3: everything and to say, well, okay, that spending decisions that
Speaker 3: the government's taken are now ours, and I think you
Speaker 3: know it's well and truly time for them to accept
Speaker 3: responsibility for the fact that under their watch and as
Speaker 3: a result of their decisions, the New Zealand economy is
Speaker 3: getting worse and kew we households are going backwards.
Speaker 1: Isn't the economy getting better?
Speaker 3: Though? If you've just lost your job and unemployment is
Speaker 3: forecast to continue to increase, I think you'll find the
Speaker 3: economy is getting worse. Overall, New Zealand is not where
Speaker 3: it needs to be. Other economies are rebounding much more
Speaker 3: healthily than New Zealanders.
Speaker 1: So let's get to the weekend.
Speaker 2: Labor held its conference in christ Church. Labor will build
Speaker 2: dened In Hospital, as it was committed to prior to
Speaker 2: the election in twenty twenty three. Now the project's been
Speaker 2: dogged by delays. There's been a budget overruns. The cost
Speaker 2: has now belonged to three billion dollars from an original
Speaker 2: one point two to one point four in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: How on earth are you planning on paying for this?
Speaker 3: To be fair, there were delays in the beginning, but
Speaker 3: actually we have made a lot of progress on we
Speaker 3: did and government make a lot of progress on the
Speaker 3: Darnedan hospital. So the outpatients building, which is about a
Speaker 3: third of the new hospital, is almost finished actually and
Speaker 3: should be opening shortly. That's great news for Dunedin in
Speaker 3: terms of the main part of the hospital, so you
Speaker 3: know the part where if you're admitted you stay overnight,
Speaker 3: that that larger part of the hospital. The current government
Speaker 3: have made a number of claims about the cost escalation
Speaker 3: of that that simply don't stack up when closer scrutiny
Speaker 3: is applied. So they've included in the supposed cost blowout
Speaker 3: things that were never in the original cost in the
Speaker 3: first place, like car parking buildings and a new lab
Speaker 3: which was always envisioned probably to be built by a
Speaker 3: private sector contracted provider, because that's the way lab services
Speaker 3: across the country often end up being provided. But it
Speaker 3: all comes down to choices and trade offs as well.
Speaker 3: So they found two hundred million dollars to give a
Speaker 3: tax break to tobacco, They found nearly three billion dollars
Speaker 3: for tax breaks for landlords, and then overall, I think
Speaker 3: the tax breaks for other kiwis that they gave out
Speaker 3: it was about twelve billion dollars in the budget. So
Speaker 3: it comes down to choices that you make as a government.
Speaker 2: Won't the cost climb even more by the time you're
Speaker 2: in government.
Speaker 1: If you win, the.
Speaker 3: Cost of these projects never goes down, But the longer
Speaker 3: you take to do them, the more expensive they become,
Speaker 3: which is one of the reasons why they should just
Speaker 3: get on with it and build the hospital. And my
Speaker 3: experience and I oversaw a lot of school rebuilding projects.
Speaker 3: You just want to get them done. Every time slow
Speaker 3: them down for another review. You're just the cash ridge
Speaker 3: is to those kitching kitchin kitching. You know, all of
Speaker 3: these reviews are one of the reasons why everything, the
Speaker 3: costs keep blowing out on everything.
Speaker 2: Also, a publicly owned into island ferry connection including some
Speaker 2: kind of rail transport.
Speaker 1: What does that look like, Well.
Speaker 3: It means that we've got to have fairies that you
Speaker 3: can drive trains on and off. And bear in mind
Speaker 3: too that this is about making sure that we've got
Speaker 3: the most efficient ferry service for New Zealand. A ferry
Speaker 3: service that you can't drive trains on and off. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: then transfers cost back on to freight providers, which then
Speaker 3: transfers cost back on to customers. An investment in a
Speaker 3: reliable ferry service is actually an investment in a productive economy.
Speaker 3: Then did Treasury do this thing called a BCR benefit
Speaker 3: to cost ratio analysis. The benefit cost ratio, even at
Speaker 3: the higher price for the inter island ferry was something
Speaker 3: like four point eight, So for every dollar you spend
Speaker 3: you get about four point eight dollars back. The cost
Speaker 3: benefit ratio for the billions of dollars they're going to
Speaker 3: spend on the road from Auckland to fungad A is
Speaker 3: about one, so you get one dollar back for every
Speaker 3: dollar that you spend. So you know, again it's about
Speaker 3: choices and trade offs. This government a choosing to say, well,
Speaker 3: roads are everything, and interrland furies and rail connections are
Speaker 3: not important. Actually they are important because if you want
Speaker 3: better roads, getting freight off the roads and onto rail's
Speaker 3: going to be a good way of delivering that.
Speaker 2: New Zealand won't be signing up to AUCUST Pillar two
Speaker 2: under a labor government. We know that Pillar one involves
Speaker 2: the nuclear powered subs, but Pillar two involves sharing and
Speaker 2: developing high tech defense technology.
Speaker 1: Why this turnaround on aucust Pillar two.
Speaker 3: We've always been very skeptical of UCUS. Aucus fundamentally is
Speaker 3: a nuclear powered submarine pact between those three countries, and
Speaker 3: we're a nuclear free country.
Speaker 1: But that's the pillar one.
Speaker 2: We're looking at Pillar two now, that's the technol an
Speaker 2: ai aspect of it.
Speaker 3: Right. The two things are related though, you know, the
Speaker 3: Pacific is a proudly nuclear free region. Who are in
Speaker 3: the Pacific countries have made it very clear, and they're
Speaker 3: very important relationships for New Zealand that they are also
Speaker 3: opposed to AUCUS. So I think you can't separate those
Speaker 3: two things completely. In terms of coordinating with those other
Speaker 3: countries around things like military technology, around things like intelligence sharing,
Speaker 3: we already have arrangements to do that. So you know,
Speaker 3: we have a formal alliance, a formal ally relationship with Australia.
Speaker 3: We have a five country relationship with those three countries,
Speaker 3: including and then adding Canada into that, which gives us
Speaker 3: access to a lot of the stuff that's happening around
Speaker 3: intelligence but also around technology, and we think that we're
Speaker 3: best to stick with those relationships rather than be involved
Speaker 3: in a relationship which is proving to be incredibly antagonistic.
Speaker 3: In it within the.
Speaker 2: Region antagonistic to China, though primarily right China.
Speaker 3: Actually the Pacific of finding have raised a lot of
Speaker 3: concerns about nuclear prospect of nuclear ships in the Pacific
Speaker 3: as well, and so I think we shouldn't be blind
Speaker 3: to that.
Speaker 2: Andrew Little's come out backing the current government's decision to
Speaker 2: investigate our potential involvement in Pillar two. Here's, of course
Speaker 2: are former Defense Minister and Intelligence Agencies Minister, and of
Speaker 2: course a former leader of the Labor Party.
Speaker 1: Do you trust his judgment?
Speaker 3: I think Andrew Little's got you know, he was a
Speaker 3: fantastic minister. Doesn't mean we're going to agree on everything.
Speaker 3: We didn't agree on everything when we're in government, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure we won't now. And as a former you know,
Speaker 3: parliamentary and he's free to share his used however he wishes.
Speaker 2: And the parties are passed a proposal to take forward
Speaker 2: work on a capital gains tax and a wealth tax
Speaker 2: and stop any work on other forms of tax. Does
Speaker 2: this mean it'll very likely be a part of your
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six campaign.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't comment on the remits that get pasted
Speaker 3: at conference, but I've said right at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the year that we needed to do work on tax
Speaker 3: policy and we needed a different tax policy ahead of
Speaker 3: the next election, which is what we're working on at
Speaker 3: the moment. Any remits that get past at party conference
Speaker 3: helped to inform that policy development process. But we're a
Speaker 3: long way away at this point from having a finalized
Speaker 3: approach to tax because you can't just look at tax
Speaker 3: and isolation. You've also got to look at you know,
Speaker 3: what are you taxing for, what are the things that
Speaker 3: you're funding, where's that money going to go, how's it
Speaker 3: going to be applied, what are the consequences for other taxes,
Speaker 3: and also, you know, what are the things you're trying
Speaker 3: to do. Are you trying to you know, I believe
Speaker 3: we need to incentivize more productive investment in our economy
Speaker 3: rather than speculative investment.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty three, you ruled out in introducing a
Speaker 2: wealth tax or CDT if re elected. That was before
Speaker 2: the last election. Of course, now it's back on the table.
Speaker 2: Has it got anything to do with labor likely needing
Speaker 2: the Greens and Tabati Mali in order to form a
Speaker 2: government next time?
Speaker 3: No, not at all. I said before the last elections,
Speaker 3: as I would say, you know, every election, you should
Speaker 3: form your policies for the next term of government, and
Speaker 3: then if you want to change those, then you change
Speaker 3: them at the next election so that people can vote
Speaker 3: on them. I said, when I said that we wouldn't
Speaker 3: implement a wealth tax or a capital gains tax, I
Speaker 3: was very clear that that was the commitment that I
Speaker 3: was making for the next term of government. You know,
Speaker 3: should our position change, that were the time we would change,
Speaker 3: that would be at the next election.
Speaker 2: Last week we spoke to politics professor Bryce Edwards and
Speaker 2: asked him about how the opposition parties were performing, and
Speaker 2: he didn't think you guys were doing a great job
Speaker 2: of holding the government to account.
Speaker 5: If you look back on the last year, I think
Speaker 5: the government has had lots of areas that needed to
Speaker 5: be more strongly critiqued on, especially things like the Fast
Speaker 5: Track Act, especially on a lot of the ways that
Speaker 5: it seems to be governing for vested interests or the wealthy.
Speaker 5: And I don't think that Labour's done it a good
Speaker 5: enough job of highlighting some of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those deficits, what do you make of that?
Speaker 3: Well? I disagree. I think if you look on issues
Speaker 3: that where the government's been divided in the country, like
Speaker 3: the Treaty Principal spill, you've seen a very united approach
Speaker 3: from the opposition parties if you look at areas like
Speaker 3: the health system, for example. I think we've applied real
Speaker 3: pressure to the government on their issues, on the things
Speaker 3: that they're trying to do around deregulation of guns. Again,
Speaker 3: I think we've really kind of stepped up the pace
Speaker 3: there in terms of the pressure we've applied. But what
Speaker 3: I've also said, and I think you know New Zealanders
Speaker 3: have a lot of sympathy for this, is they get
Speaker 3: sick of politicians criticizing their opponents for doing something that
Speaker 3: they themselves would do, or opposing something which then they
Speaker 3: get into government and do exactly the same thing they've opposed.
Speaker 3: So I've said that we're the government are doing things
Speaker 3: that we would ourselves do in government. There will be
Speaker 3: constructive rather than obstructive, and I think actually New Zealanders
Speaker 3: want to see that from their politicians.
Speaker 2: What's something the government's done that you've thought that that's
Speaker 2: a good job.
Speaker 3: Look, it's kind of difficult because there's not a give
Speaker 3: a lot that I think they've been doing well, but
Speaker 3: I think some of the there are a few decisions
Speaker 3: they've taken that might have some early promise. So if
Speaker 3: I look at the infrastructure space, for example, I agree
Speaker 3: with the government that we need a much longer term
Speaker 3: approach to planning infrastructure investment. The short term nature of
Speaker 3: our thinking around infrastructure in New Zealand is one of
Speaker 3: the reasons we're in the mess we're in now, and
Speaker 3: so if they can come up with things that will
Speaker 3: help the country to achieve that, then I think we
Speaker 3: can be supportive and we can be constructive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that certainly makes sense when you're talking billions
Speaker 2: of dollars for say a couple of ferries, or billions
Speaker 2: of dollars for a second Auckland bridge, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Right absolutely. I mean, if you look at Auckland light Rail,
Speaker 3: you know, we had work underway on Auckland light Rail.
Speaker 3: It's a big project and I think the time frames
Speaker 3: that we had previously put out were unrealistic and I've
Speaker 3: said that, but Auckland is going to need mass rapid
Speaker 3: transit are given the scale of population growth there. Within
Speaker 3: the next decade, Auckland could have two million people and
Speaker 3: you've got to be able to get around, and even
Speaker 3: with more investment in roads, there's still going to be
Speaker 3: road congestion. The only way you're going to tackle that
Speaker 3: is by making sure that you've got good alternative options,
Speaker 3: which includes public transport. So I think we need a
Speaker 3: plan around Auckland that says over the next twenty to
Speaker 3: thirty years, what's the transport infrastructure we need. And so
Speaker 3: even if the current government came in and said, Okay,
Speaker 3: we don't think Auckland light rails an immediate priority, why
Speaker 3: scrap it all together? Why not just continue with the planning,
Speaker 3: the design, the consenting work so that at a future
Speaker 3: point we can continue the momentum on it. Even if
Speaker 3: they said and their priority for construction is going to
Speaker 3: be new roads, why don't they continue with the planning
Speaker 3: on the stuff which they might not want to do immediately.
Speaker 3: I think that is the sort of that's the sort
Speaker 3: of thinking that we need around infrastructure. So I've said
Speaker 3: when we come into government next time, and I want
Speaker 3: that to be after the next selection, that's what I'm
Speaker 3: aiming for. We're not going to stop everything just because
Speaker 3: the previous government started it. I think we've got to
Speaker 3: make sure that we keep the wheels of infrastructure investment moving.
Speaker 2: So if we look overseas, gaffes and controversial policies didn't
Speaker 2: really stop Donald Trump getting re elected last month. Hey,
Speaker 2: the economy and cost of living remains a top priority
Speaker 2: for voters here and overseas. Do you think labour has
Speaker 2: a chance in twenty twenty six even if the economy
Speaker 2: picks up under.
Speaker 3: National I think one of the things that Donald Trump
Speaker 3: tapped into, and I think it's very important for all
Speaker 3: Western democracies to think about, is the fact that the
Speaker 3: economy isn't working as it should for a larger and
Speaker 3: larger group of people. So if you look at the US,
Speaker 3: for example, under Biden, their economy was growing, they were
Speaker 3: creating new jobs, but people weren't feeling that they were
Speaker 3: actually feeling at a household level like they were going backwards.
Speaker 3: And I think the same thing is happening here. Is
Speaker 3: even if say GDP growth numbers improve, and frankly, it'd
Speaker 3: be hard for them to do otherwise given how bad
Speaker 3: they've been. But even if they do start to improve,
Speaker 3: then if people are still feeling like how US whole
Speaker 3: costs are still going up, our salary and wages aren't
Speaker 3: going up, and we feel like we're going backwards. I
Speaker 3: think that's the space where I think we're very rightly frustrated.
Speaker 3: And I think if you look over the last forty
Speaker 3: odd years since we embarked on some pretty radical reforms
Speaker 3: in the nineteen eighties, New Zealand households, a lot of
Speaker 3: New Zealand households have been going backwards.
Speaker 2: And finally, Chris, while we're on Trump, he managed to,
Speaker 2: of course win re election after a defeat. Are you
Speaker 2: confident you can do the same in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I wouldn't still be here if I didn't think that.
Speaker 3: You know, we're getting really strong support from New Zealanders.
Speaker 3: Even you know, when I've been out and about, there's
Speaker 3: plenty of people who have come up and said, look,
Speaker 3: we didn't vote for you last time because x Y
Speaker 3: and Z, but we're open to voting for you next time.
Speaker 1: What was x Y and Z?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's the things that we just talked about before,
Speaker 3: you know, cost of living, crime. I think people just
Speaker 3: wanted to get over COVID. They just wanted to forget
Speaker 3: about it and move on, and also the fact that
Speaker 3: they were but it's dissatisfied with the fact that we
Speaker 3: had taken on so many big reform projects all at once,
Speaker 3: and they wanted a sense that we were focusing on
Speaker 3: getting the basics right. So those are all messages that
Speaker 3: we've heard.
Speaker 2: And are you personally committed to lead Labor into the
Speaker 2: next election? Will you be heading Labor?
Speaker 3: I absolutely will be wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Spress good as gold, happy to
Speaker 1: talk to you.
Speaker 2: Next, we spoke with Prime Minister Christopher Luxen to get
Speaker 2: his take on twenty twenty four. First off, Prime Minister,
Speaker 2: how's the year gone?
Speaker 4: Well, look, I mean it's been a really tough year
Speaker 4: for many New Zelanders as we've dealt with sort of
Speaker 4: some of the economic challenges. But you know, to be
Speaker 4: Prime Minister is just a huge privilege and an awesome responsibility,
Speaker 4: and it's also been a very inspiring one in the
Speaker 4: sense of you you get to see Kiwi through incredible
Speaker 4: things across this country each and every day. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm proud of the year in terms of I feel
Speaker 4: like we've formed a good team, We've made some good progress.
Speaker 4: You know, we're being able to lift you our international relationships,
Speaker 4: been able to a number of things, and I feel
Speaker 4: very very optimistic about our future as I go forward
Speaker 4: from here.
Speaker 1: What's been the biggest challenge so far?
Speaker 4: I mean everything's challenging when you're Prime minister in the
Speaker 4: sense of if they were easy decisions, they would be
Speaker 4: made somewhere else in the system. And so you know,
Speaker 4: the difficult decisions come onto your desk and they're often
Speaker 4: complex and a bit more layered than you may initially
Speaker 4: think or observe from outside. So every day there's something
Speaker 4: new and different and complex and challenging, and that's you know, personally,
Speaker 4: that's what I enjoy, is that you're there to solve
Speaker 4: problems and you're there to make decisions and in the
Speaker 4: interests of the country and trying to set it up
Speaker 4: for long term success. And so there's no not one
Speaker 4: particular thing per se. It's just that you know, every
Speaker 4: day there's something different and complex to work your way through.
Speaker 4: You know, how do you get in place the funding
Speaker 4: that you need to spend money on health and education
Speaker 4: when you might have a big interest bill at nine
Speaker 4: billion dollars to pay. You know, it's those sorts of
Speaker 4: challenges that we can counter each and every day.
Speaker 2: You've faced a lot of criticism in recent weeks from
Speaker 2: across the political divide.
Speaker 1: Are you paying attention to any of that first off?
Speaker 1: Or is that just noise to you?
Speaker 4: There is criticism every day in this job, so you're
Speaker 4: informed of it, but you're not consumed by it. But look,
Speaker 4: I just say to you, Look, you know, we feel
Speaker 4: really good. We've great to see that our support, the
Speaker 4: numbers that I see has actually improved over where we
Speaker 4: were in the election. You know that means that people
Speaker 4: used to say the country was hitting in the wrong direction.
Speaker 4: Now people say the country is hitting in the right direction.
Speaker 4: They know it's been tough, but they know that we're
Speaker 4: a government with a plan and we're having to face
Speaker 4: up some really difficult choices, but we're working our way
Speaker 4: through it well. So you know, it's pretty good when
Speaker 4: you think about a government twelve months into it. To
Speaker 4: be ahead of where we were on election night in
Speaker 4: public support as fantastic. And I get out of well
Speaker 4: Inton as quickly as possible, and you meet New Zealanders
Speaker 4: all up and down this country, and yes it's been
Speaker 4: challenging for many, but they can see that the interest
Speaker 4: bills are coming down, their mortgages inflations come down. Crime
Speaker 4: is starting to turn and come down. They can see
Speaker 4: that we're trying to drive our education system back to basics,
Speaker 4: that our kids are set up for success and not
Speaker 4: behind kids in Singapore or Australia or somewhere else in
Speaker 4: the world. And we've got some real investment going to
Speaker 4: healthcare and we've got to make sure it work that
Speaker 4: hard to get improved outcomes for people. We've got a
Speaker 4: long way to go, so you know, we've got a
Speaker 4: lot of work ahead of us. But in twelve months,
Speaker 4: you know, we're doing a big turnaround job. We're getting
Speaker 4: you know, and we're getting get in the country moving,
Speaker 4: which has been good.
Speaker 6: Wouldn't an economically literate government have worked this out of
Speaker 6: it sooner?
Speaker 2: Jack?
Speaker 6: Jack, Jack, I just say to you, it tells everyone
Speaker 6: about your economic I just say, hang on, I haven't
Speaker 6: even asked a question.
Speaker 4: What I'm saying to you is it is challenging times
Speaker 4: when New Zealand, I'd say that I would say to
Speaker 4: you that, well, I just say to you, we've seen
Speaker 4: I'll just say to you.
Speaker 6: Got more under your tax package. Well to say to
Speaker 6: you with relatives to the rest of the population. But but
Speaker 6: what I say to you, Jack, You're saying a lot
Speaker 6: of things to me, but you're not Actually we actually answered.
Speaker 2: So I've heard that you acknowledge that you need to
Speaker 2: work on your tendency for corporate speak. There's also been
Speaker 2: some reaction into your use of the phrase what I
Speaker 2: say to you is, are.
Speaker 1: These things that you're going to be working on in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five?
Speaker 4: Well, I haven't heard about the second one.
Speaker 1: But look, what I say to you is, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: I will.
Speaker 4: Say to you is that I am from outside the
Speaker 4: political system. You know, I'm not a career politician and
Speaker 4: that's a fantastic thing because right now New Zealand has
Speaker 4: been in a huge economic mess, one that we haven't
Speaker 4: seen for decades. And actually, I think my background, my
Speaker 4: experience coming to politics in the way that I have
Speaker 4: just four years ago and being Prime Minister and leading
Speaker 4: a team to actually make sure we sought problems out
Speaker 4: for people is exactly what New Zealand needs right now.
Speaker 4: So if I get it the beltwegh and a lot
Speaker 4: of people who are pundits and commentators and say whatever
Speaker 4: they want. They've been saying that for four years since
Speaker 4: I came to politics. Frankly, I'm informed about it, but
Speaker 4: I'm not consumed by it, because I know why I'm here,
Speaker 4: because I choose to do this job. I chose to
Speaker 4: come to politics because I think this is a fantastic
Speaker 4: country with an awesome future, and I think I've got
Speaker 4: something to offer.
Speaker 1: We had Chris Hopkins on last week and he said.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of New Zealanders think he's a
Speaker 3: bad prime minister, and I think they've got good good
Speaker 3: grounds for that.
Speaker 1: What would you say to that? Was he a good pam?
Speaker 4: He was a terrible prime minister. He took the keys
Speaker 4: to the car, he drove it at tremendous speed, put
Speaker 4: it into the ditch. We're hauling it out of the ditch,
Speaker 4: getting it our right way up, and then we're moving
Speaker 4: it forward. I mean, honestly, he was a terrible prime minister.
Speaker 4: I mean, how do you increase government spending by eighty
Speaker 4: four percent? How do you drive inflation to highs? How
Speaker 4: do you have twelve interest rate rises that for the
Speaker 4: average New Zealand I meant they had to find seven
Speaker 4: hundred dollars a fortnite if they were lucky enough to
Speaker 4: own a house. How do you spend more borrow more,
Speaker 4: tax more, hire more people and deliver worse outcomes in
Speaker 4: every dimension. So you know, yeah, look, I mean, so
Speaker 4: don't take lectures from crecipians with all due respect.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of the economy, how much credit do you
Speaker 2: think the government deserves for how things have performed this year?
Speaker 4: I mean, that is job number one for us as
Speaker 4: to put financial discipline back into the government. Businesses have
Speaker 4: had to do that over last few years because of
Speaker 4: the mismanagement from Chrislipkins team and himself. Families have had
Speaker 4: to adjust their budgets and decide not to spend money
Speaker 4: on things for their kids because of the mismanagement from
Speaker 4: the previous government. You cannot spend, drive inflation, interest rates up,
Speaker 4: put the economy into recession for the last three years,
Speaker 4: and drive unemployment up. And that is the legacy and
Speaker 4: record of CRCIP cans and Labour team. So you know,
Speaker 4: this government we're fixing those things. We have to go
Speaker 4: back and relearn some lessons that the country learned thirty
Speaker 4: five years ago. You've got to have good financial management,
Speaker 4: just like you do in your family budget, just like
Speaker 4: you do in your small business. You've got it, then
Speaker 4: get inflation down for people. It's now within the band
Speaker 4: under three percent, which is fantastic. Because of that, and
Speaker 4: because we've been good fiscal plan operators, you end up
Speaker 4: then lowering your interest rates. That doesn't just happen. It
Speaker 4: doesn't just miraculously sort of happen. It happens because there's
Speaker 4: a plan and we're working our way through it. We
Speaker 4: now have business confidence at a teen year high, we
Speaker 4: have consumer confidence at a three year high, and so
Speaker 4: and now we've got to focus on that trans adding
Speaker 4: into economic growth. And they're obviously making sure that we
Speaker 4: keep our people in jobs and employment. Unemployment's the last thing,
Speaker 4: and unemployment sadly affects lower middle income New Zealanders. And
Speaker 4: so if you care about lower middle income working News
Speaker 4: Islanders as I do, as my government does, as my
Speaker 4: party does, that's why you need to manage the economy well,
Speaker 4: because when you don't and you take it for granted,
Speaker 4: you end up with the mess that we inherited after
Speaker 4: six years of a labor experiment that was horribly wrong.
Speaker 2: Could they be an opportunity for New Zealand to welcome
Speaker 2: more public private partnerships with the stipulation of the funds
Speaker 2: are key.
Speaker 1: We based.
Speaker 2: I mean, I saw a figure from Ossie and they're
Speaker 2: seeing something like one hundred and sixty billion dollars a
Speaker 2: quarter in investments by super funds into infrastructure alone. Imagine
Speaker 2: just half a percent of that, we'd have a second
Speaker 2: harbor bridge in Auckland and no time.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, you're onto the right thing. We have major
Speaker 4: challenges on infrastructure. We can't get things built, it takes
Speaker 4: too long, and also we don't always we don't have
Speaker 4: the financial capacity to fund it all from within government
Speaker 4: for the infrastructure that we want to see. So there's
Speaker 4: two things. You're right. Yes, we could use domestic pools
Speaker 4: of capital more and will continue to look at that.
Speaker 4: But the other thing, frankly, Chelsea, is that we also
Speaker 4: need to make sure that we attract foreign investment to
Speaker 4: New Zealand. New Zealand is thirty eight out of thirty
Speaker 4: eight now in terms of being an attractive place for
Speaker 4: big international superannuation funds all around the world, which is
Speaker 4: lots of money in those funds looking for a home
Speaker 4: to invest who are very open to investing in New
Speaker 4: Zealand but don't because they think it takes too long,
Speaker 4: it costs too much. And that's why things like our
Speaker 4: fast tracked legislation have been important. That's why you're setting
Speaker 4: a thirty year pipeline of infrastructure projects that are actually
Speaker 4: laid out really clearly, like you see in New South
Speaker 4: Wales and other parts of the world. All of those
Speaker 4: things that we're putting in place are other things that
Speaker 4: we need to do to make sure that we actually
Speaker 4: move on and she can access pools of capital from
Speaker 4: overseas automistically to get things built quicker and faster in
Speaker 4: New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Well, what we really need though, is long term plans. Hey,
Speaker 2: last time you're on the front page, you said more
Speaker 2: cross party collaborations are needed when it comes to those
Speaker 2: big infrastructure projects. Is that something that we could see,
Speaker 2: say next year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we have been. What we've got to
Speaker 4: do is work on a thirty year pipeline that should
Speaker 4: be an independent list of infrastructure projects for the country
Speaker 4: that are the right things for us to be doing
Speaker 4: at the moment. We get money together, we scrape it
Speaker 4: all around, we put it together on one project, we
Speaker 4: work really hard to try and get that project done
Speaker 4: and everything it takes too long, and everybod there's a
Speaker 4: cost over because it's been badly managed, partly by the
Speaker 4: previous government. Think to need in hospital, Think berries. And
Speaker 4: then what we've got to do is have a longer
Speaker 4: term pipeline of infrastructure projects and then have our city
Speaker 4: regional deals and have an agency that actually knows how
Speaker 4: to get the funding and financing in place for it.
Speaker 4: And so that's the mechanism we're putting in place. I
Speaker 4: do agree with you. I think it'd be fantastic to
Speaker 4: have bipartisan support. And so even just on our new
Speaker 4: statement around public private partnership, you know, we've reached out
Speaker 4: to labor, We've got Barbara Edmonds to come on board
Speaker 4: and actually support that that program as well. So that's
Speaker 4: a good development. That's a good thing. You know, it
Speaker 4: shouldn't be as politicized as it is in New Zealand.
Speaker 4: If you just think about a project like Auckland light rail,
Speaker 4: which the last government we mismanaged so badly. You know,
Speaker 4: Montreal started a project similar to that. They started it
Speaker 4: but later finished it within five years. People are on
Speaker 4: the on the light rail trains. You know, we spent
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifteen million dollars on it and we
Speaker 4: still didn't know where we were. We were putting the
Speaker 4: tracks if we could even get the tracks down, So
Speaker 4: I mean we are terrible at it. You know, Cambridge
Speaker 4: to Party road gets turned on off depending on which
Speaker 4: government's in place. That is just basics. Building roads is
Speaker 4: not difficult or complicated. It happens all around the world. So
Speaker 4: we do have to manage infrastructure a much better way
Speaker 4: going forward.
Speaker 7: This is a damaging piece of legislation. This government, Christopher Luxon,
Speaker 7: is taking a wrecking ball to the work that has
Speaker 7: been done by success of governments over the past fifty
Speaker 7: years since the White Time Tribunal was established. This BILLIP
Speaker 7: would amount to the dictatorship of the majority this parliament
Speaker 7: can it has passed racist laws in the past, and
Speaker 7: Marty are still paying the price and we all are
Speaker 7: still paying the.
Speaker 1: Price when it comes to the Treaty Principals Bill.
Speaker 2: I know you're probably sick of talking about it, but
Speaker 2: do you think voting against the bill at the second
Speaker 2: reading is good enough? Because it seems like just the
Speaker 2: mere existence of it has kickstarted a debate that will
Speaker 2: never end. And I mean Sima will no doubt bring
Speaker 2: it up again in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4: Well, what I say on that one is that you
Speaker 4: have to understand that under Hipkins and Adourn and when
Speaker 4: they went off into things like the Maori Health Authority,
Speaker 4: when they went off and forced Mark Marty Walls onto
Speaker 4: local governments from Central Wellington, when they started to talk
Speaker 4: about co governance and spent one point two billion dollars
Speaker 4: on three waters projects that didn't even go anywhere. You know,
Speaker 4: all of that created a huge division and frustration within
Speaker 4: New Zealand. And unlike Jim Boulger who took New Zealanders
Speaker 4: on a journey and made the case for treaty settlements,
Speaker 4: there was no political capital spent or any effort to
Speaker 4: take New Zealanders with them on that agenda. So going
Speaker 4: into the last election there was immense frustration, and that
Speaker 4: frustration sits on both sides of that debate. We just
Speaker 4: happen to think that that frustration, as legitimate as it
Speaker 4: may well be, is not being served by a very
Speaker 4: simplistic Treaty Principles bill that with the stroke of a pinion,
Speaker 4: overcomes one hundred and eighty four years of debate and discussion.
Speaker 4: We need to make sure these Landers have equal rights.
Speaker 4: It's a fundamental and we also need to make sure
Speaker 4: that the Crown meets its obligations under the treaty and
Speaker 4: so and that treaty process. We disagree on the issues,
Speaker 4: but we stay committed and we stayed talking to each
Speaker 4: other over the last one hundred and eighty four years.
Speaker 4: We haven't agreed on everything over that period of time,
Speaker 4: but I think the treaty has made us better. So
Speaker 4: we should continue to grapple with it. We should continue
Speaker 4: to wrestle author but we should also take the issues
Speaker 4: case by case, issue by issue, and that's our approach.
Speaker 4: And so you know, we dismantled the Malori Health Authority
Speaker 4: because it just wasn't going in deoliver outcomes. We pushed
Speaker 4: actually the decision on local wards and local governments should
Speaker 4: be a local community decision, not mandated out of here,
Speaker 4: out of Wellington. We have believed that the Marine and
Speaker 4: Coastal Court decisions were wrong. We're inconsistent with the legislation
Speaker 4: subsequently been confirmed by the Supreme Court. But you know
Speaker 4: that's why we're legislating for that. You know, that's why
Speaker 4: we've pushed three Waters back to local communities and also
Speaker 4: given them funding and financing mechanisms to make sure they
Speaker 4: manage those assets. Well, so you know that's the way
Speaker 4: to deal with it is wrestle with each individual issue
Speaker 4: that comes up, as we have done for one hundred
Speaker 4: and eighty four years, rather than have a simplistic bill.
Speaker 4: And then, most importantly, Chelsea, it's all about outcomes. And frankly,
Speaker 4: Mary want higher incomes. Mary want better quality housing, Mary
Speaker 4: want better education and comes with their kids. They want
Speaker 4: better access to healthcare, and they want to be less
Speaker 4: victims of crime across New Zealand. So the things that
Speaker 4: we're focused on of rebuilding the economy, restoring law and order,
Speaker 4: delivering better health and education the same things that might want.
Speaker 4: And we've got to deliver outcomes because frankly, six years
Speaker 4: of labor talk a lot didn't deliver for Mari at all.
Speaker 2: When do you think the deadline is when you can
Speaker 2: stop blaming the previous government?
Speaker 1: Do you think it's about now? Do you reckon you're
Speaker 1: still allowed to do that next year? I mean genuine question.
Speaker 4: Well, the reality is that what you were doing a
Speaker 4: turnaround job here, right, I mean we are six years yeah, yeah, sure,
Speaker 4: so six years of mismanagement doesn't get sorted in twelve months.
Speaker 4: But you've got to under When you're doing a turnaround job,
Speaker 4: you've got to face up to the reality and the
Speaker 4: starting point. You may want to put your head in
Speaker 4: the sand and say it's all fine and not confronted,
Speaker 4: but you actually have to call out that reality and
Speaker 4: say this is where I'm starting on, this is the
Speaker 4: motivation or this is the problem that we now need
Speaker 4: to solve. If you think about it, we have violent
Speaker 4: crime up thirty three percent. We've gained membership up fifty percent.
Speaker 4: We have a doubling of retail crime. We have fourfold
Speaker 4: increase in RAM rates. That's the starting point. That's what
Speaker 4: we inherited. Do we want to carry on and just
Speaker 4: let that carry on or do you want to do
Speaker 4: something about it. We chose to do something about it.
Speaker 4: As a result, we now have victimizations down three percent.
Speaker 4: Think we have ram raids down sixty four percent. You
Speaker 4: and I don't talk about ram raids. That what it
Speaker 4: needs to do with the media every single day. We
Speaker 4: have a thirty percent increase of police out on the beat.
Speaker 4: I said, total crimes down about three percent at this point. Now,
Speaker 4: we've got a lot longer to go, but we've done things.
Speaker 4: Gain laws, serious young offenders, sentencing laws, police recruitment efforts.
Speaker 4: We're doing that, but the actual tasks and the jobs
Speaker 4: and the actions you need to do in order to
Speaker 4: get a different set of outcomes.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining US, Prime Minister.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much.
Speaker 4: Bye.
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 at.
Speaker 1: Enzadherld dot co dot nz.
Speaker 2: The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin,
Speaker 2: who is also our sound engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for
Speaker 1: another look behind the headlines.