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Speaker 1: Now, the Prime Minister yesterday you'll know this, announced an

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Speaker 1: extra almost half billion bucks in capital spending in the

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Speaker 1: upcoming budget. The net capital allowance is now four billion.

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Speaker 1: That's up from three point six billion that they signaled

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Speaker 1: in the budget policy statement. Health, education, defense, transport. Those

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Speaker 1: will be the focuses for them. That'll be the focus

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Speaker 1: for them. Oliver Hartwich, New Zealand Initiative Executive Director, with

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Speaker 1: me this morning.

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Speaker 2: Olive, A good morning, good morning.

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Speaker 1: What did you make of this?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a relatively minor announcement because okay,

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Speaker 2: capital spending was up by ten or eleven, but really

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Speaker 2: we're only talking about less than five million dollars precisely.

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Speaker 2: And then the grand scheme of things, that's actually a

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Speaker 2: drop in the government's orce.

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Speaker 1: You have advocated quite strongly for changing up our assets

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Speaker 1: and the ownership of our assets. This obviously does nothing

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Speaker 1: to deal with that. But what do you think we

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Speaker 1: should get rid of?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think obviously we've got a few stay on companies,

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Speaker 2: especially in energy for example. It also government owns a

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Speaker 2: huge chunk of air New Zealand. That is where you

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Speaker 2: could start quite easily if you want to sell state

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Speaker 2: owned assets. But altogether we have a huge state portfolio

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Speaker 2: of assets that deserves a bigger discussion. For example, kind

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Speaker 2: of aura, how much should the government be invested there?

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Speaker 2: The question is actually what to do with that? And

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Speaker 2: we think one of the ways to deal with state

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Speaker 2: owned asset is actually to go into a process of

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Speaker 2: so called asset recycling where the government sells some of

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Speaker 2: the assets to have some more room for manoeuver when

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Speaker 2: it comes to investing in new state owned assets.

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Speaker 1: And just finally on the business front, where they're going

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Speaker 1: to keep the research and development tax incentive, there is

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Speaker 1: talk that potentially they will look at doing more incentives

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Speaker 1: for business to invest to buy you manufacturing in particular

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Speaker 1: to buying new equipment. Do you think that's a good idea?

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Speaker 1: Do you think that's worthwhile?

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Speaker 2: Well, the way I read the retention of the I

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Speaker 2: and D text credit is actually that it provides some

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Speaker 2: certainty for business is already investing under that scheme. I

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Speaker 2: mean that was introduced by Labor in twenty nineteen. To

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Speaker 2: be clear, Luxon didn't change it. He didn't extend the

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Speaker 2: IMD credits. He basically keeps it where it is. So

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Speaker 2: I think that's more pragmatic solution.

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Speaker 1: All right, Thanks for you, Tom Oliver, I appreciate Oliver

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Speaker 1: Heartwatch New Zealand Initiative executive directed.

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