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Speaker 1: The Financement has just given a pre budget speech today

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Speaker 1: and revealed that she is putting an extra one hundred

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Speaker 1: million dollars into the Elevate Venture Fund, which invests in startups. Now,

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Speaker 1: James Ross is from the Taxpayers Union with us right now. Hey, James,

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Speaker 1: you don't like this idea, do.

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Speaker 2: You No, we don't like this idea at all. Why.

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Speaker 2: I think there's two big issues that we see with this.

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Speaker 2: The first is that, you know, a week out from

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Speaker 2: the budget, we are still seeing a government who thinks

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Speaker 2: that the key to growth is taxing more, spending more,

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Speaker 2: and picking winners. The second half is that, frankly, you

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Speaker 2: know this is it's venture capital. It's high risk by design,

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Speaker 2: it's gambling with taxpayers money and it's all going on

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Speaker 2: the credit card. It's money. We don't have.

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Speaker 1: The point that she's made, though, is that this particular

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Speaker 1: fund has actually backed successful companies in the past, like

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Speaker 1: down Aerospace.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's I mean the nature, it's high risk's

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Speaker 2: it pays off until it doesn't. You know, if we

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Speaker 2: compare this to something like the New Zealand Green Investment

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Speaker 2: Investment Finance Fund, which was a very similar scheme, you

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Speaker 2: know it paid off until they made one hundred and

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Speaker 2: forty five million dollar loan to settle a zero which

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Speaker 2: went broken. Then it very quickly didn't. It's just it's

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Speaker 2: the nature of the sort of gambling that it is

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Speaker 2: going to backfire on taxpayers.

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Speaker 1: Do so. I mean, one of the arguments is that

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Speaker 1: any of these businesses would actually be able to attract

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Speaker 1: investment without having to go to the government if they

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Speaker 1: were good. Do you subscribe to that idea?

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Speaker 2: Look, if they were, if they were commercially viable, then

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Speaker 2: they would be able to attract that finance and they

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Speaker 2: wouldn't need the government to prop up these essentially prop

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Speaker 2: up these other venture capital firms. The fact that the

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Speaker 2: government is having to do that just proves how high

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Speaker 2: risk these investments are, and it proves the risk that

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Speaker 2: taxpayers are being exposed to.

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Speaker 1: James, why should we lit the taxpayers Union into the

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Speaker 1: budget lockup?

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Speaker 2: We should let the Taxpairs Union into the budget lock

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Speaker 2: up because we're there to cut through the spin. And frankly,

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Speaker 2: it's this sort of spin that we're there to cut through.

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Speaker 1: Jason Walls in political edituses, he doesn't need anyone to

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Speaker 1: tell them to go to the back of the budget

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Speaker 1: and look at the numbers. Do you do more than that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. You know we're I mean, we've

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Speaker 2: been in there before. We've actually found mistakes and points

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Speaker 2: the match Treasury officials, which have subsequently been corrected. We

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Speaker 2: do this day in day out. We are we are

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Speaker 2: I hesitate to say experts, but frankly we spend far

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Speaker 2: too much time with our heads in these books. We

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Speaker 2: know these numbers inside and out. The public have a

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Speaker 2: right to know what those numbers are without the spin.

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Speaker 1: James, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. James Ross,

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Speaker 1: the Taxpayers Union. For more from Hither Duplassy Alan Drive,

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