Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to on the titles the New Zealand
Speaker 1: Heeriorals Politics podcast. I'm your host Thomas Coglan. Today we've
Speaker 1: got a really interesting interview it's worth Labor leader Resipkins.
Speaker 1: It's eight months since Hepkins lost the election and became
Speaker 1: Leader of the Opposition, but it's quite an interesting look
Speaker 1: back at the failed election campaign last year and what
Speaker 1: he's doing to rebuild the party in the election machine
Speaker 1: for the next election. Recipkins leader of the Opposition currently.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on holding that role. It's not a role that
Speaker 1: one is typically congratulated on holding, but the guy, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think it's a job that anybody particularly wants. The
Speaker 2: most people would recognize that being leader of the Opposition
Speaker 2: is a prerequisite to becoming Prime minister. In my case,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of doing it the wrong way around. I
Speaker 2: had a brief stint as Prime minister for nine months
Speaker 2: now doing this job and the goal is to be
Speaker 2: Prime minister again after the election.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much for joining us and sitting
Speaker 1: down with us to discuss Sam. Your first six months
Speaker 1: been but longer than six months now in the role.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you thought we'd struggure structure this in
Speaker 1: three parts, sort of the past and then looking forward
Speaker 1: to the future. Later did a campaign review of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. That's that returned some time ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the campaign review was mostly structured on
Speaker 2: you know, what parts of the campaign worked well, what
Speaker 2: parts didn't? You know, mechanically, how does the campaign work?
Speaker 2: You know, did we do the right things during the campaign?
Speaker 2: No campaign reviews ever going to give you a conclusive
Speaker 2: answer as to.
Speaker 3: Why did you win or why did you lose?
Speaker 2: That's much more subjective, and every voter has an individual
Speaker 2: decision making process that they make. The overall conclusion is
Speaker 2: pretty clear, we lost because not enough people voted for us.
Speaker 2: Why they didn't vote for us, that's something that is
Speaker 2: a bit more complicated, and we need to take the
Speaker 2: time to make sure we I mean, we can spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time trying to figure out why they
Speaker 2: didn't vote for us last time. Really the focus has
Speaker 2: to be on how do we get them to vote
Speaker 2: for us next time?
Speaker 1: Who did the review?
Speaker 2: So the review was done by Marion Street, former Labor
Speaker 2: Party president. She'd been a minister in the Clerk government
Speaker 2: and she had a panel of people who worked with her,
Speaker 2: but Marion was the lead reviewer.
Speaker 1: Right and and you know, if you if you were
Speaker 1: to digest its findings into three sort of key takeaways,
Speaker 1: threw yourself on the part.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it was mostly focused at the
Speaker 2: practical level about how we make sure our candidate selections
Speaker 2: are good and robust. I mean, that's there's increasing concern
Speaker 2: across the political spectrum about the vetting process for political candidates.
Speaker 2: So you know, what are the lessons that we learned
Speaker 2: from the last round that we can take into future elections.
Speaker 2: What's the right timing for candidate selection processes, what's the
Speaker 2: right timing for reduced for releasing policy. We released a
Speaker 2: lot of policy in the last sort of six weeks
Speaker 2: of the campaign, but nobody really heard it. I think
Speaker 2: increasingly the way people consume that kind of information has
Speaker 2: changed in recent times. The campaign itself now has a
Speaker 2: different feel to it than it might have done, you know,
Speaker 2: a decade ago, and so we have to adjust the
Speaker 2: way we campaign to that.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting point. I mean, National release its main
Speaker 1: text policy in twenty twenty two March of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and they campaigned it for more than a year.
Speaker 2: That's right, and so I think we have to recognize
Speaker 2: that now the political cycle has changed, policy takes longer
Speaker 2: to filter through the days of the big campaign surprise.
Speaker 2: In terms of new policy, they're not what they used
Speaker 2: to be. And I don't think we'll see as much
Speaker 2: of that in the future because the big campaign surprise
Speaker 2: often doesn't resonate in the way that it used to.
Speaker 1: I suppose early voting, you know, it changes the calendar,
Speaker 1: pushes everything forward a few weeks despite the campaign period
Speaker 1: not really changing. It means that the grunt work really
Speaker 1: has to be done quite early, and the final couple
Speaker 1: of weeks are just relitigating previous points.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a really good lesson. If you look
Speaker 2: at the last election. For example, we put a lot
Speaker 2: out in the last few weeks. We actually had a
Speaker 2: swing towards US on election day relative to the early
Speaker 2: vote by quite a significant margin, but it was too late.
Speaker 2: You know, that the advanced vote had already consumed up
Speaker 2: enough that it guaranteed there was going to be a
Speaker 2: change of government. So even though the votes flowed more
Speaker 2: strongly towards US on election day, it was too late
Speaker 2: to change the overall demograph. You know overall profile by then.
Speaker 1: Did it make any points about Auckland.
Speaker 2: Yet certainly made points about some of the issues of
Speaker 2: concern in Auckland, you know, issues around crime and cost
Speaker 2: of living. I mean, I think almost every post election
Speaker 2: review will find that crime and cost of living were
Speaker 2: really big issues, but even more so in Auckland than
Speaker 2: the rest of the country.
Speaker 1: You've just your sister party in the UK has just
Speaker 1: won a massive majority on quite a small share of
Speaker 1: the vote. Has to be said, but you know that
Speaker 1: you play you played the electoral system you're dealt and
Speaker 1: they played it very well. One of the criticisms that
Speaker 1: was made of the Tory Party going out over there
Speaker 1: was that it sort of in its final well final
Speaker 1: five years, I suppose, became increasingly focused upon itself and
Speaker 1: voters kind of spung against that. I was wondering if
Speaker 1: there are a few moments in Labour's final term where
Speaker 1: the same the same criticism could been made about the
Speaker 1: Labor Party. There was a moment, I think the entrenchment
Speaker 1: of the Three Waters of one part of three Waters legislation,
Speaker 1: that the part of the anti privatization measure. Just Sinder
Speaker 1: at the time said a mistake has been made and
Speaker 1: we are taking it as a team. But Labor sort
Speaker 1: of protected itself, I guess, and refused to explain what
Speaker 1: had happened, how that had happened to be fear you
Speaker 1: did fix it, and you, as leader of the House
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, contributed to fixing it, But
Speaker 1: there was a sense of protecting yourselves rather than getting
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the issue. Is that Do you
Speaker 1: feel like at times you focused on yourselves but too much?
Speaker 2: I don't think that example resonated particularly with the public.
Speaker 2: It resonated with some constitutionalists who were outraged by what
Speaker 2: had happened, But actually the things that resonated for us
Speaker 2: much more were losing three ministers and the run up
Speaker 2: to the election campaign.
Speaker 3: That really hurt.
Speaker 2: And that does give you the impression that you're focused
Speaker 2: on yourselves rather than focused on the needs of the
Speaker 2: general public. And there's no question that when they're kicked
Speaker 2: off and there were three ministers in very rapid succession,
Speaker 2: our polling took a real knock during that time, and
Speaker 2: I think that the combination of that and the cost
Speaker 2: of living crisis being at real crunch point at that
Speaker 2: time suggested to people we're focused on ourselves and not
Speaker 2: on fixing the cost of living.
Speaker 1: Has Michael wood Is on your campaign, your policy councils,
Speaker 1: he signal he's keen to come back and run again
Speaker 1: in his electorate.
Speaker 2: I haven't had a conversation with him about that. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, candidate's elections are really a matter for the party.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I think you know, he will need
Speaker 2: to rebuild his relationship with the party, with the electorate
Speaker 2: and with the country ultimately, if he wants to be
Speaker 2: an MP again.
Speaker 1: Does he have his trained relationship with the party When
Speaker 1: you talk about rebuilding it?
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, I think anybody who has left and
Speaker 2: those circumstances needs to make sure they're rebuilding some relationships.
Speaker 1: And just I mean, just on that three Waters thing
Speaker 1: is like, now it's been two nearly two years, what
Speaker 1: did happen?
Speaker 3: You know? What?
Speaker 1: What? Why? How did that? How did that get entrenched?
Speaker 1: How did how how did something which which I guess
Speaker 1: you weren't meant to vote for get voted on? Can
Speaker 1: you explain it?
Speaker 2: I mean, ultimately, you know, I think it was it
Speaker 2: was a mistake made by the labor team who were
Speaker 2: in the house at the time. You know, they they
Speaker 2: voted in favor of an amendment which they which they
Speaker 2: shouldn't have And I mean, I wasn't in the House
Speaker 2: at the time, so I can't give a blow by
Speaker 2: blow account of the discussions that took place on the
Speaker 2: floor of the House, but it was pretty immediate. It
Speaker 2: was obvious to me as Leader of the House, immediately
Speaker 2: after it had happened, that it was the wrong thing
Speaker 2: to do, and so we were going to need to
Speaker 2: fix it.
Speaker 1: So Dan, it didn't go to cortcause obviously it wasn't discussed.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't and it wasn't discussed. And you know,
Speaker 2: had it been discussed, I think the position would have
Speaker 2: been much clearer from the beginning that we shouldn't have
Speaker 2: supported it.
Speaker 1: Did it Was it an honest mistake or do people
Speaker 1: actually try to vote for it because they wanted wanted
Speaker 1: it to pass?
Speaker 2: I think, I mean, certainly the people who voted for
Speaker 2: it thought it was a good idea, But I don't
Speaker 2: think there was any deliberate intention to kind of slip
Speaker 2: one through. I think it was just perhaps people had
Speaker 2: an thought through the overall consequences.
Speaker 1: Of you and and and obviously you know you you
Speaker 1: restate that in a system like them, the New Zealand system,
Speaker 1: stuff like that always goes to caucus first. Absolutely, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the prison so so far. Now, look correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, because this is taking a fair
Speaker 1: bit of googling on my part. But the main thing
Speaker 1: that you've currently said is not going to survive a
Speaker 1: future Reciplicans government is charter school's bagne anything else that
Speaker 1: you've that you've pleached her overturn.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're not going to.
Speaker 2: Sort of respond to every government policy p announcement by
Speaker 2: announcing what we would do in the future, because you
Speaker 2: running into an election campaign, you need to have a
Speaker 2: complete package, and you can't necessarily come up with a
Speaker 2: complete package if you're doing it on an ad basis
Speaker 2: as you're going along charter schools. That's a pretty important
Speaker 2: point of principle for Labor though. We believe in a
Speaker 2: publicly funded public education system and we think charter schools
Speaker 2: undermines that. And you know, the past experience of charter
Speaker 2: schools in New Zealand was not a good one. You know,
Speaker 2: they ended up costing a lot of money for not
Speaker 2: particularly good outcomes. So yes, we're opposed to that one.
Speaker 2: But in terms of the rest of the policy. You know,
Speaker 2: we have a well developed manifesto before the election.
Speaker 1: I mean the ones that I was thinking about, things
Speaker 1: that I would you think would be and the realm
Speaker 1: of stuff that you'd overturn would be the smoke free changes,
Speaker 1: reverting to the status quo. On that the clean card
Speaker 1: discount would be one I would have thought that you
Speaker 1: might be looking to bring back for a pay agreement,
Speaker 1: something dear to Labour's heart.
Speaker 2: I mean, on all of those, the world will have
Speaker 2: changed by the time the next election rolls around. So
Speaker 2: if you look at smoke free, for example, it won't
Speaker 2: be a case of just simply reinstating what we've done before,
Speaker 2: because we will have had three more years. If you
Speaker 2: look at the most recent change that they've just made,
Speaker 2: for example, where they're allowing for they're not vapes, what
Speaker 2: do they call the heated devices heated tobacco devices. So
Speaker 2: that's a new thing and we don't know how fast
Speaker 2: the uptake of that will be before the next election,
Speaker 2: so we're going to have to.
Speaker 3: Respond to that.
Speaker 2: So, yes, it is the overall agenda, right, Yes, we
Speaker 2: still want New Zealand to be a smoke free country.
Speaker 2: What will be the process for us to get there.
Speaker 2: We'll have to have a different package for that. Issues
Speaker 2: around the clean car discount, the nature of the vehicles
Speaker 2: being purchased has changed, so we've gone from having a
Speaker 2: high uptake of electric vehicles as a result of the
Speaker 2: clean card discount to a reversion of purchasing the double.
Speaker 3: Cab diesel use.
Speaker 2: But we don't necessarily know whether that's still going to
Speaker 2: be the case two years from now.
Speaker 1: What about fair pay agreements?
Speaker 3: Fair pay agreements absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean I have said that we want to have
Speaker 2: New Zealanders earning better money and we want to make
Speaker 2: sure that those who are in the lowest income jobs
Speaker 2: are getting better pay.
Speaker 1: You're worried about AI.
Speaker 2: I'm worried and excited by AI at the same time.
Speaker 2: I think AI has got huge potential for New Zealand.
Speaker 2: We could be quite uniquely positioned. If you look at
Speaker 2: renewable energy, for example, one of the biggest constraints to
Speaker 2: AI development and uptake is going to be access to energy.
Speaker 2: AI is very energy hungry and New Zealand can be
Speaker 2: part of the answer to that. So there's opportunities for
Speaker 2: us in there. There's opportunities for us to use AI
Speaker 2: in new and creative ways. But we need to go
Speaker 2: into that eyes wide open. I think the world and
Speaker 2: this will be a topic and world politics in the
Speaker 2: next few years will be around well, what kind of
Speaker 2: constraints should we ethically and morally have around where AI
Speaker 2: is used and how it's used.
Speaker 1: Part of the growth story. One of the criticisms that
Speaker 1: that's been made of the labor opposition at the moment
Speaker 1: is opposition to fast Track. You've launched that campaign things
Speaker 1: this weekend on that. There's also there's a long standing
Speaker 1: disagreement between perhaps not long standing because national broke broke
Speaker 1: from that, but the recent disagreement over agricultural emissions pricing. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously fast track is about economic development. That's well, that's
Speaker 1: what the government is arguing. Agricultural emissions pricing is a
Speaker 1: challenge for one of our most important, strategically competitive industries.
Speaker 1: The criticism that's made of Labor is that, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's not if we're not going to fire up
Speaker 1: the resource extraction economy, if we're going to if we're
Speaker 1: going to target the primary industries with more regulation, where
Speaker 1: does the New Zealand Where does New Zealand's growth come from.
Speaker 1: Where's that bet driver of economic growth and prosperity.
Speaker 2: I think that's an overly simplistic argument. So if you
Speaker 2: look at agricultural pricing, for example, the government haven't said
Speaker 2: that they're not going to do it. They've just said
Speaker 2: that they're going to do it. And by twenty thirty,
Speaker 2: what have they done In the meantime They've created six
Speaker 2: more years of regulatory uncertainty for the primary sector. What's
Speaker 2: that going to do? Ultimately, it's going to delay investment
Speaker 2: in the primary sector and decarbonizing and reducing their methane emissions,
Speaker 2: because why would they do that if they don't know
Speaker 2: what the regulatory settings are going to be. I spent
Speaker 2: some time visiting farms two weeks ago, used the parliamentary
Speaker 2: recess as the opportunity to do that. They know that
Speaker 2: this is a big issue. They know that they're going
Speaker 2: to have to grapple with it because the market is
Speaker 2: already driving them towards that. If anything, they do need
Speaker 2: to see some regulatory certainty because the sorts of investments
Speaker 2: that they need to make are investments that are going
Speaker 2: to take ten to fifteen years to pay back. So
Speaker 2: will they make those investments now, no, they won't because
Speaker 2: they aren't going to do that if the whole regulatory
Speaker 2: environment's going to change by twenty thirty. So I actually
Speaker 2: think that the government should take the opportunity to try
Speaker 2: and find a bipartisan way forward because the issue around
Speaker 2: agricultural emissions is not going to go away. It's going
Speaker 2: to continue to be a challenge for New Zealand. The
Speaker 2: international market is going to continue to demand that we
Speaker 2: do something about it. And I think the biggest hurdle
Speaker 2: for our farmers is going to be lack of regulatory
Speaker 2: certainty and consistency. So I think they should be aiming
Speaker 2: to try and achieve that sooner rather than later. So
Speaker 2: I actually think they've left farming in a worse position
Speaker 2: in the sense of they've now got a huge question
Speaker 2: mark hanging over the terms of what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, the sectors worried it will make them uncompetitive.
Speaker 1: They are highly productive, that they worried it will make
Speaker 1: them less productive and therefore less competitive internationally. I mean,
Speaker 1: is that a fair criticism.
Speaker 2: I think the biggest risk to the sector at the
Speaker 2: moment is that international consumers stop buying their stuff, So
Speaker 2: you know, big companies Esclay, Tesco, Walmart. These are all
Speaker 2: major international brands have said that they're going for a
Speaker 2: reduction in their emissions and they're not going to be
Speaker 2: buying goods if we can't demonstrate that we're driving down
Speaker 2: our emissions in the process of producing those goods. There
Speaker 2: are a range of options for the primary sector. Electrifying
Speaker 2: farms is one of the ways they can reduce their
Speaker 2: carbon emissions, for example, but it requires a long lead
Speaker 2: time to both get that in place and then to
Speaker 2: pay add off. Reducing methane emissions, there is technology available
Speaker 2: that can be rolled out sooner rather than later, but
Speaker 2: you need regulatory certainty for that to happen.
Speaker 1: Well, what about what about resource extraction mihining? You know,
Speaker 1: you must look over at Australia. They've got your very
Speaker 1: powerful unions but a very permissive culture when it comes
Speaker 1: to mining. You see immense wealth being dug out of
Speaker 1: the ground and that wealth being shared with labor thanks
Speaker 1: to title label laws. It's a very attractive kind of
Speaker 1: economic model to anyone from New Zealand, you'd think.
Speaker 2: But the primary extractives that the government are talking about
Speaker 2: are coalon gas and coal and gas aren't part of
Speaker 2: our energy future and shouldn't be part of our energy future.
Speaker 2: So they're talking about reopening coal mines on the West Coast,
Speaker 2: and they're talking about drilling for more natural gas. Well,
Speaker 2: we haven't had a significant natural gas find in New
Speaker 2: Zealand since two thousand and one. Bearing in mind the
Speaker 2: oil and gas the expiration band has only been in
Speaker 2: place for the last five years or so. So the
Speaker 2: reality here is if there was a whole lot of
Speaker 2: natural gas, they're ready to be tapped into. You think
Speaker 2: they might have found that in the period between two
Speaker 2: thousand and one and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: What about these other these climate free new minerals which
Speaker 1: are needed for the transition antimony? I'm maybe saying it right.
Speaker 1: They found that on the West coast. I think it
Speaker 1: could be. It can be very, very valuable. You know what,
Speaker 1: why not in the West coast long along a labor
Speaker 1: sort of stronghold. Obviously gon'ta blue this time around, but
Speaker 1: you know what, why can't they unleash the wealth from
Speaker 1: beneath their own feet.
Speaker 2: I think anyone in the Labor Party is saying that
Speaker 2: we should turn our backs on the minerals that we
Speaker 2: need for example, to sustain the renewable energy revolution that's
Speaker 2: happening around the world. But there do need to be
Speaker 2: protections around the natural environment as we extract those minerals,
Speaker 2: So mining on conservation land, mining where it endangers biodiversity,
Speaker 2: these are areas of concern for us. So we've got
Speaker 2: to make sure that any regime that we've got in
Speaker 2: place around consenting for those sorts of activities actually adequately
Speaker 2: protects those things.
Speaker 1: As a basic point, though, if you could, like coal
Speaker 1: and oil and gas accepted, would you like to boost
Speaker 1: mining New Zealand, we see it seemore mining.
Speaker 2: I'm not opposed to the mining of some of the
Speaker 2: minerals that we may need for the renewable energy future,
Speaker 2: as long as there are appropriate environmental safeguards and place,
Speaker 2: as long as there are good consenting processes in place.
Speaker 2: But I don't think that's going to be a huge
Speaker 2: driver of the New Zealand's New Zealand's future economic growth.
Speaker 2: I think that's more likely to be in areas around
Speaker 2: renewable and energy. It's more likely to be in areas
Speaker 2: around digital technology. It's more likely to be in areas
Speaker 2: around sustainable food production. I think those are the sorts
Speaker 2: of things where we will see job rich opportunities for
Speaker 2: New Zealand in the future.
Speaker 1: You've just finished your regional conference circuit, so there's been
Speaker 1: a bit of talk about this captain's calls now. Labour
Speaker 1: says that the idea of a captain's call is a
Speaker 1: bit of a media invention and a creature of New
Speaker 1: Zealand politics obviously, but there's no sort of formal captain's
Speaker 1: call process in that the captain's calls, that what are
Speaker 1: at leads to have been captain's calls are extras to
Speaker 1: follow course process.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: I mean, ultimately the leader of the party is entitled
Speaker 2: to have an opinion and if you want to call
Speaker 2: that a captain's call, go ahead. If you don't want
Speaker 2: to have the leader having an opinion, you're probably looking
Speaker 2: for somebody who's not much of a learner. So but
Speaker 2: the reality is that if we look at the last
Speaker 2: election campaign, our tax policy, lots of discussion about that,
Speaker 2: but our tax policy was ultimately signed off by the caucus.
Speaker 2: It was signed off by the party's policy council. It
Speaker 2: was not determined unilaterally.
Speaker 1: Would you accept I mean, are you open to some
Speaker 1: sort of discussion with members about them having a bit
Speaker 1: more of a say in some of those decisions. I think,
Speaker 1: accepting that there is no such thing as a captain's
Speaker 1: call formally, there seems to have been a bit of
Speaker 1: disgruntlement about the way that the tax policy was handled.
Speaker 1: Would you accept members putting forward some changes to give
Speaker 1: them more of a say on those decisions in future?
Speaker 2: I mean, we have a manifesto process, which I actually
Speaker 2: think is a pretty good one. It's a pretty robust one,
Speaker 2: and people might not always agree with the outcome from
Speaker 2: that manifesto process, but I think it works pretty well.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I suppose, let's face it'd be prettyfficult
Speaker 1: to bring Labor Party members into the beehive during an
Speaker 1: election campaign to give them a say on what your
Speaker 1: text policy is. But at the same time that there
Speaker 1: does seem to be a bit of an appetite on
Speaker 1: behalf of the membership to have a bit more of
Speaker 1: a voice in those crucial decisions. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: can see changing there to give them more say.
Speaker 2: We've done a number of things since the election. We've
Speaker 2: just had our round of regional conferences. I intended every
Speaker 2: one of those regional conferences where there's some really good
Speaker 2: policy discussions going on. We've had a number of zoom
Speaker 2: sessions where we've got guest speakers coming in from around
Speaker 2: the world actually to talk with our members about policy
Speaker 2: development and new policy initiatives and ideas. So I think
Speaker 2: engaging members in the policy process is important in a
Speaker 2: political party, and we're doing a lot more of that
Speaker 2: than we did over the last six years.
Speaker 1: And how's the text check going?
Speaker 3: Text Check's very constructive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, do you think we'll see a
Speaker 1: return of interest deductability?
Speaker 2: Look, I mean what we'll see from US is a
Speaker 2: tax policy at the next election that will reflect labor values,
Speaker 2: but it will also fit within a broader economic strategy.
Speaker 2: You can't deal with text alone, you know, as an
Speaker 2: isolated as you it does has to fit within your
Speaker 2: broader economic strategy wealth tax. I know people will want
Speaker 2: to know what the text policy is going to be.
Speaker 2: We haven't determined.
Speaker 1: We talked to about how national announcement is quite early on.
Speaker 1: Do you see some major policy announcements text or otherwise
Speaker 1: coming I suppose it would be next year. It would
Speaker 1: be the equivalent point in the political side.
Speaker 2: I think you'll certainly see big policy announcements earlier from
Speaker 2: US this time around compared to last time.
Speaker 1: And that would mean twenty twenty five paps.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to put a specific timeframe on it,
Speaker 2: but I certainly think it'll be earlier than it was
Speaker 2: during the last campaign.
Speaker 1: I mean the I'm sort of hesitated to waste more
Speaker 1: time about asking text when you don't have a tax policy,
Speaker 1: but the labor seems to be quite tortured by capital
Speaker 1: gains text. You went to two difficult, two difficult elections
Speaker 1: on a capital gains tax, and I suppose you almost
Speaker 1: went to twenty seventeen on a capital gains text because
Speaker 1: that was pretty clearly lurking in the wings there the
Speaker 1: party seeing to have a sort of it seems to
Speaker 1: have been burnt by that tax. And when you ask,
Speaker 1: when you ask sort of economists like what is it,
Speaker 1: what is a really sort of a gaping hole in
Speaker 1: the tax system? What would you like to see a
Speaker 1: government do tax wise? They often say, look, capital gains
Speaker 1: tax is a glaring emission in New Zealand's tax licy.
Speaker 2: I certainly acknowledge if you look at what the banks
Speaker 2: are arguing, what the credit ratings agencies have argued what
Speaker 2: the I am ever argued.
Speaker 3: They've all argued that our tax base is.
Speaker 2: Too narrow, that our over reliance on PAYE is the
Speaker 2: main form of government taxation. Revenue actually disproportionately penalizes those
Speaker 2: who are salary and wage journers relative to those who
Speaker 2: were in their money through investment returns and so in
Speaker 2: particularly property investment returns, and so, you know, I think
Speaker 2: that's something that we there's a lot of argument about
Speaker 2: how best to do that. I mean, capital gains tax
Speaker 2: and wealth tax are actually variants of the same things.
Speaker 2: It's a form of taxation on capital. And so that's
Speaker 2: the process that we're working through now. If we're going
Speaker 2: to close that gap, what's the fairest, most equitable way
Speaker 2: of doing that.
Speaker 1: And you don't think labor has been slightly sort of
Speaker 1: psychologically damaged by previous elections having been burned on it.
Speaker 2: It certainly had an impact to the text policy that
Speaker 2: we had at the last election. I mean, the text
Speaker 2: policy that we had at the last election was absolutely
Speaker 2: informed particularly by twenty seventeen, and then again by what
Speaker 2: we said in twenty twenty. You know, one of the
Speaker 2: criticisms I get and it's really interesting is from people saying, oh,
Speaker 2: but you had three years, we had a majority wide.
Speaker 3: Didn't you do it?
Speaker 2: Well, we said in twenty twenty that we weren't going
Speaker 2: to do it, and I think it would have been
Speaker 2: bad faith with the electric for us to implement a
Speaker 2: wealth text or a capital gains tax when we had
Speaker 2: specifically said that we weren't going to do those things.
Speaker 1: As someone who was a full time minimum wage Jurner
Speaker 1: would have would have had some of their income slip
Speaker 1: into the thirty percent tax bracket this year had the
Speaker 1: brackets not been changed. In fact, they will have because
Speaker 1: the brackets don't change until the end of this month.
Speaker 1: I mean, was that something that you could have countenance
Speaker 1: as Prime minister? Would you have locked this term to
Speaker 1: finally interest those brackets?
Speaker 2: Does need to be more regular adjustment of tax brackets
Speaker 2: to allow for fiscal drag, and I do think we
Speaker 2: need a mature conversation as a country about the consequences
Speaker 2: of that and how we plug the gap that that
Speaker 2: will inevitably create in the revenue screams for the government.
Speaker 2: Because fiscal drag is a problem. I acknowledge that fiscal
Speaker 2: drag is a problem. But I'd also note that the
Speaker 2: last time that these tax brackets were adjusted was sixteen
Speaker 2: years ago, and Labour's only was only in government for
Speaker 2: six years of that. So actually you could argue that
Speaker 2: the national previous national government advantage was more advantage by
Speaker 2: fiscal drag than the labor government was.
Speaker 3: And there's a reason for that.
Speaker 2: It's because it's the only major source of revenue outside
Speaker 2: of GST that the government has to fund everything that
Speaker 2: we want government to do. So if we want to
Speaker 2: adjust tax brackets more regularly, and I think we should,
Speaker 2: and I think that's a fair argument, we need to
Speaker 2: have a way of plugging the gap.
Speaker 1: And you think you would have done that maybe this term.
Speaker 1: You know, at some point this tom you would have
Speaker 1: looked at it and thought, you know what, you can't
Speaker 1: read have a minimum wage work on, a full time
Speaker 1: minimum wage worker having some of their income tax at
Speaker 1: thirty percent.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we should always look at how
Speaker 2: we can support people on the lowest incomes, and text
Speaker 2: is one of those ways one of the things that
Speaker 2: we need to look at. But also, I mean, one
Speaker 2: of the debates about income text that frustrates me is
Speaker 2: that the parties on the center right of the political
Speaker 2: spectrum have sort of been stressing for decades now that
Speaker 2: the way you're raising people's incomes is to cut their taxes. Actually,
Speaker 2: the way you raise their incomes is to make sure
Speaker 2: they're being paid more now.
Speaker 1: And it's finished by talking about the government that you
Speaker 1: might perform. There's been what the Greens have had a
Speaker 1: tough year. It's called a spade of spade and to
Speaker 1: Party Malori obviously is having this problem with the multiple
Speaker 1: issues around Manudua Murai, one of which I believe was
Speaker 1: resulted from a label resulted in a Labor Party complaint
Speaker 1: about the way that campaign was run in the Tamaki
Speaker 1: Makodo electorate. Is it possible to build a bridge with
Speaker 1: the the Maori Party after such a fracture set of
Speaker 1: in particular in that seat.
Speaker 2: I've got a pretty constructive relationship with both of those parties.
Speaker 2: I've always described the relationship between Labor and the Greens
Speaker 2: and more letter lead to Party Mahiti because of course
Speaker 2: they used to be on the other side of the
Speaker 2: political aisle to the one they're on now as a
Speaker 2: state of coopertition and you know, so we will cooperate
Speaker 2: on things, but we compete for votes and you know
Speaker 2: some of those, like the Tomachemakodo campaign, they become pretty
Speaker 2: tight and very very competitive.
Speaker 1: And you know you've said there are what you're penning
Speaker 1: the outcome of the Motel investigations into that into that campaign.
Speaker 1: You know, you've said what the allegations rais are pretty
Speaker 1: seriously needs to be looked into. Do you think it's possible?
Speaker 1: I mean, there might need to be some serious change
Speaker 1: that to Party Malori for them to become a fully
Speaker 1: fledged member of a government that they literally.
Speaker 2: I mean ultimately to Party Maori will have to determine
Speaker 2: whether they want to be a part of government or
Speaker 2: whether they want to be a campaigning for you know,
Speaker 2: you know, a crusading sort of activist protest movement. That's
Speaker 2: ultimately a question for them to work their way through.
Speaker 1: The idea of a separate Maori parliament was raised in
Speaker 1: the HP report. I think I actually was trying to
Speaker 1: find out what we labor was on that I think
Speaker 1: might have said no to a supro Malori parliament. What
Speaker 1: do you think of that idea?
Speaker 2: We have been very clear as a party that we're
Speaker 2: opposed to that there is one parliament and it is
Speaker 2: the New Zealand Parliament.
Speaker 1: And what about returning to the co governance debates of
Speaker 1: the past. Do you think your future sort of tr
Speaker 1: Maori policy might might might relook at the idea of
Speaker 1: co governance or do you think, given the reaction from
Speaker 1: the elector at twenty three, might you might seek to
Speaker 1: address issues in the tr Maori space differently.
Speaker 2: Well, we're certainly not going to go and remove all
Speaker 2: of the co governance models that have been put in place,
Speaker 2: largely under a national government's actually, because I think that
Speaker 2: would be wrong to do. I think we would think
Speaker 2: very carefully about where we might look to have co
Speaker 2: governance arrangements in the future if they're not already in
Speaker 2: place now, because I don't want it to be the
Speaker 2: polarizing issue that it was before the last election.
Speaker 1: So you so think about it a different way of
Speaker 1: addressing similar issue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there are still underlying issues there around
Speaker 2: how you involve Mardian decisions that affect them, and we
Speaker 2: do have to add answers to that. Co governance is
Speaker 2: only one of the ways that we do that as
Speaker 2: a country, and I would point out that a lot
Speaker 2: of the most successful co governance arrangements that we've got.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of to uras, I'm thinking of the Waikato
Speaker 2: and Wanganui rivers. These are all put in place under
Speaker 2: a national government.
Speaker 1: And finally, the Green's mean that disaster starts to thee
Speaker 1: from them where to begin. But Labour's not really capitalizing
Speaker 1: on that. In terms of the polling, why's that. I
Speaker 1: think you can capitalize on them.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I'm always pretty ambivalent, not ambivalent, but
Speaker 2: I think we need to take polling at this point
Speaker 2: in the electoral cycle with a fairly big grain of salt.
Speaker 2: It's it's useful, but it's not an indication of where
Speaker 2: people are going to be two years from now when
Speaker 2: we head in the next election. If we were going
Speaker 2: to take polling as an indication of the last election
Speaker 2: two years before the last election, Labor would have comfortably
Speaker 2: won that election. So the reality is a lot changes
Speaker 2: over the term of a parliament.
Speaker 1: Do you think. I mean, we've seen some terrible violence
Speaker 1: in the United States, and I'm so skeptical the way
Speaker 1: in which you could port United States politics to New Zealand.
Speaker 1: But there have been caused from the current presidents have
Speaker 1: turned down the temperature. Both the Greens and To Party
Speaker 1: Mardi have raised the temperature recently. I think deb Nardi
Speaker 1: were Packer said the smoke free reversal. The reversal of
Speaker 1: smoke free policy was systemic genocide of Maori. It's pretty intense.
Speaker 1: I think you called out that language at the time.
Speaker 1: Do you think those two parties need to sort of
Speaker 1: dial it down a little bit.
Speaker 2: I think the ACT Party in New Zealand First also
Speaker 2: need to dial it down a bit. I think Mary
Speaker 2: are being used as a wedge in New Zealand in
Speaker 2: a way that's really unfair and I don't think it's
Speaker 2: going to be good for New Zealand and the longer term.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to bring New Zealanders together.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to tackle into generational equity
Speaker 2: issues than the way that we should be as a country.
Speaker 2: And I think ext national New Zealand First to Party
Speaker 2: madeo I think a bit less. So the Greens have
Speaker 2: been stoking there and I think they should all stop
Speaker 2: doing that.
Speaker 1: So everyone should to take a look at themselves and
Speaker 1: just stile it down for the sake of political discourse.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think political discourse should be a bit
Speaker 2: more civilized than some of it is. I mean, Christopher
Speaker 2: Lexan described me as an arsonist a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: and you know, having having the week prior told me
Speaker 2: that I need to tone my language down. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think everybody needs to take a deep breath.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much for joining us. And on
Speaker 1: the Tiles, Chris, I'll let you, I'll let you ge
Speaker 1: into your lunch. We've interrupted, interrupted the lunch breaking the
Speaker 1: labor labor party today, so I'm very sorry about that.
Speaker 1: All good. Thank you very much for joining us. That
Speaker 1: was on the Tile, the Herald's politics podcast. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and thanks to Chris Epkins for participating in that interview.
Speaker 1: We'll have more on the Tiles next week. Ethan Sills
Speaker 1: was our executive producer. Thanks for listening.