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Speaker 1: Parliament's having its first ever scrutiny week. It's an idea

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Speaker 1: borrow from Australia, apparently to improve oversight of government actions.

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Speaker 1: Select committees will call ministers and department bosses and for

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Speaker 1: questioning over the government spending plans. The Leader of the House,

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Speaker 1: Christ Bishop is with us on this one. Very good

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Speaker 1: morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning.

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Speaker 1: Anything going to come out of it, literally, well.

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Speaker 2: I think it will lead to best scrutiny of what

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Speaker 2: the government's up to. I mean, fundamentally, the government's responsible

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Speaker 2: to Parliament and we've got to go to Parliament and

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Speaker 2: us into appropriate the money. That's what the budget's all about.

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Speaker 2: And so ministers are going to front up and explain

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Speaker 2: what they want to do with the money and talk

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Speaker 2: about their portfolios. To be honest, we've always done that.

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Speaker 2: It's just that this year we're doing it in a

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Speaker 2: one week period and most of the committees will be

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Speaker 2: meeting for longer. I mean to give you an example.

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Speaker 2: I used to get frustrated when I was in the position.

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Speaker 2: We'd get MB which is the ad Ministry, Business, Innovation

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Speaker 2: of Employment. It's got billions of dollars. We've got about

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Speaker 2: thirteen different ministers We used to get them in for

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Speaker 2: an hour and by the time you by the time

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Speaker 2: you sort of divide up the questions and there's a

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Speaker 2: sort of pray hamble, a conclusion and all the rest

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Speaker 2: that they have like seventeen minutes. With MB in charge

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Speaker 2: of like you know, all of these very important things,

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Speaker 2: he'd have barely any time to get into it. So

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Speaker 2: it was pretty it was pretty one mover likely to

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Speaker 2: be honest. But so I think this will be a

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Speaker 2: better way.

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Speaker 1: Will you front up as a minister of for example,

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Speaker 1: something like fast track can be asked about that or not.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm up tomorrow. I've got an hour of

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Speaker 2: forty minutes on the housing. I've got an hour on

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Speaker 2: infrastructure on tomorrow as well, I think, and I've got

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Speaker 2: support and Rex. So yeah, all of my portfolios, I'm frank.

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Speaker 2: All ministers will be appearing over the course of the week,

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Speaker 2: so for varying lengths of time. I know Nicola Wallis

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Speaker 2: is up for three hours. I think it's on Wednesday

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Speaker 2: morning to the on the Finance Committee, other other sort

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Speaker 2: of slightly lesser Well, every ministry is important, but you know,

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Speaker 2: not ever gonna pay for three not ever gonna be

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Speaker 2: for three hours, so I'm going to.

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Speaker 1: Get Yeah, all those loser ministers, what you're saying, all

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Speaker 1: those all those all those malcontents in the background haven't

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Speaker 1: said that.

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Speaker 2: Well, well I'm I'm on sport for half an hour

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Speaker 2: for example. Bit different, defind it?

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Speaker 1: Okay, what is it political? I mean, what's stopping it

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Speaker 1: just being a you know, a bonfight.

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Speaker 2: Well that'll be over to the opposition. I mean, I'll

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Speaker 2: be asking the bulk of the questions, so we'll front

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Speaker 2: up and we'll you know, they've asked some preliminary questions

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Speaker 2: in advance, but the actual hearings themselves are over to

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Speaker 2: the opposition to make make of them what they will.

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Speaker 2: They can be very political my own experience from having

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Speaker 2: been in oppositions, when you get really political, it doesn't work.

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Speaker 2: It's actually about getting into the numbers. You know, what

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Speaker 2: is what is the government trying to get from parliament

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Speaker 2: to do it to run government? What are the programs

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Speaker 2: that you are you are funding? What are the programs

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Speaker 2: that you are cutting? Because this government, of course has

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Speaker 2: made a lot of fiscal savings, so that will be

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Speaker 2: part of it. And what are you trying to achieve

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Speaker 2: with the money that you were seeking from Parliament. So

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Speaker 2: it should be about that now. As you know, Mike,

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Speaker 2: policy has been politics. It's not always about that.

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Speaker 1: No, that is true. Will it be televised because a

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Speaker 1: loser like me loves a good question time and I'd

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Speaker 1: be into this.

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Speaker 2: I think the all of the select mineies have got

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Speaker 2: Facebook feeds and I'm pretty sure they still live streating

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Speaker 2: most of the hearings, so they'll be on Facebook. And

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure about Parliament TV, but they'll definitely be

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Speaker 2: on Facebook. I think.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let me grab you while you as infrastructure and

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Speaker 1: it's these PPPs you were talking about with local government

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Speaker 1: last week? Is there a disconnect with people understanding what

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Speaker 1: you're trying to do? You're looking at building stuff and

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Speaker 1: using other mechanisms as opposed to just the taxpayer or

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Speaker 1: the ratepayer.

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 1: Are people up against this?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Look, that's exactly what we're trying to do. And

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Speaker 2: you know, I look at it like this. If we

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Speaker 2: can get a situation where we build some toll roads

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Speaker 2: in this country and the super Fund all the key

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Speaker 2: we say the fund helps fund the toll roads, how

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Speaker 2: good would it be when people drive down one on

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Speaker 2: one of the toll roads and they pay five bucks

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Speaker 2: or whatever, knowing that they're helping to save for their retirement.

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Speaker 2: I just think we need to be open to these

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Speaker 2: sort of prospects. We need to be open to foreign capital,

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Speaker 2: we need to be open to the super Fund, and

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Speaker 2: we need to be opened to toile roads. We just

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Speaker 2: need to get on a build some stuff in this

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Speaker 2: country and PPPs are away to do it.

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Speaker 1: Well. I was just watching Kereen macinnulty's saying, Oh, they're

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Speaker 1: leaving it all to the councils and stuff. So that's

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Speaker 1: not the case, is.

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Speaker 2: It, Well not at all. I mean this government's been

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Speaker 2: more money on infrastructure than any government and uses on history,

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Speaker 2: so we're really stepping up. What we're saying is we

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Speaker 2: just need to use new we need to use new tools.

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Speaker 2: The Labor Party had a complete aversion to private capital.

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Speaker 2: They never wanted to use private capital for anything. We're

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Speaker 2: very open to that prospect because we've got an infrastructure deficit.

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Speaker 2: We need to solve it.

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Speaker 1: Exactly. The other thing, there's fast Track. So last week

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Speaker 1: I'm reading about Eden Park. They're in front of the

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Speaker 1: Select Committee and they were saying, well, with the fast

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Speaker 1: Track we can yes, still talk to locals, but we

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Speaker 1: can move on and get more you know, concerts, et cetera,

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Speaker 1: into an Eden park. Then I note over the weekend

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Speaker 1: of the insurers are saying, well, you can build better

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Speaker 1: resilience for natural disasters because you can make it happen quicker.

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Speaker 1: That's the good side of fast Track. Why has Fastrack

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Speaker 1: got so many negative headlines?

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Speaker 2: Ah? I think, look, Hayter's going to hate it, you know,

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Speaker 2: Mike end this game. There's a few people were sort

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Speaker 2: of professional, professionally negative about everything, and look, I just

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Speaker 2: think this country's got economic troubles. We've worried about our

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Speaker 2: place in the world. We've got a country that needs

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Speaker 2: to grow for the first time in a while, and

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Speaker 2: fast Trek as a way to do it, and we'll

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Speaker 2: be pushing ahead with it, open to sensible changes. But

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Speaker 2: you know, we've got a lot of work to do

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Speaker 2: in this country to get it back on track.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate your time, Chris Bishop, who's the Infrastructure Minister, Leader

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Speaker 1: of the House and of course part of the first

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Speaker 1: day of strategy. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks that'd be from six am weekdays,

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