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Speaker 1: Now let's talk about this Nichola Willis Ruth Richardson debate. Right,

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Speaker 1: here's a challenge to Nichola Willis. Do this debate this year,

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Speaker 1: do it next week. And the reason I'm saying that

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Speaker 1: is because I'm hearing that, having challenged Ruth Richardson to

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Speaker 1: the debate, Nichola Willis's office would now prefer to do

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Speaker 1: it next year. And I can understand why I'm in

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Speaker 1: politically that's a smart move because by next year, the

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Speaker 1: momentum will be gone and we'll all have moved on

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Speaker 1: to other things, and probably it will not get as

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Speaker 1: big an audience as if she was to do it

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Speaker 1: next week, because next week is a very big economic week,

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Speaker 1: isn't it. The government's opening its books. Ed looks like

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Speaker 1: Nichola Willis might be pushing out surplus again for the

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Speaker 1: second time in two years. And then we've got the

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Speaker 1: GDP number and that's coming off the back of the

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Speaker 1: taxpayers Union campaign calling her out for her big spending,

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Speaker 1: which is kicked off today. So next week, there were

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Speaker 1: a whole lot more energy around a debate and a

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Speaker 1: whole lot more interest in what she's got to say

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Speaker 1: for herself. Now, if it's pushed out to next year.

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Speaker 1: I would read this as the first sign of her

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Speaker 1: losing courage, and if I was cynical, which i am,

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Speaker 1: I would read it as the first side of them

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Speaker 1: hoping in the office that this just fizzle out and die,

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Speaker 1: because frankly, it was a political mistake to challenge Ruth

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Speaker 1: Richardson to a debate. Ruth Richardson for all of her faults,

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Speaker 1: and there are many, I would imagine, people think can

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Speaker 1: articulate all the problems with Nichola's big spending budgets and

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Speaker 1: debt gathering in a way that most members of the

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Speaker 1: media nowadays simply can't, which is to say, she will

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Speaker 1: mount a case that Nichola is spending too much money

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Speaker 1: and is taking us down exactly the same path of

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Speaker 1: economic trouble that Grant started us on, which I suspect

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Speaker 1: will convince a lot of voters when they sit down

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Speaker 1: and have a listen to it, they'll go, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe we've got a problem here, and we do. We

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Speaker 1: have a problem when we have a government that promised

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Speaker 1: to cut spending and get us quote back on track,

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Speaker 1: and yet spends more money than Grant Robertson ever did.

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Speaker 1: Which was I watering in and of itself, and this

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Speaker 1: government will buy mid next year. Have taken on forty

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Speaker 1: five billion dollars worth of debt, which by then will

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Speaker 1: account for almost a quarter of our total debt. That

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Speaker 1: is how much debt they're racking up. This is a

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Speaker 1: really important debate, by the way, for Labour who wants

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Speaker 1: to poop poo and call it a flex it is not.

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Speaker 1: It is a very important debate because what is more

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Speaker 1: important for a government to do well than to run

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Speaker 1: the country's books. So next week, how about it? For

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Speaker 1: more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to News

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Speaker 1: Talks at B from six am weekdays, or follow the

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Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.