The Prime Minister's keen to raise the retirement age -- but it's not possible in coalition with New Zealand First.
The Government is halving its KiwiSaver contribution rate -- and canning if people earning more than 180-thousand dollars.
The default rate of worker and business contributions to KiwiSaver will rise over time.
Chris Luxon told Kerre Woodham pushing out the retirement age to 67 makes sense.
He says Labour doesn't think it’s a good idea, and New Zealand First does not want to move that forward.
Luxon also spoke about the cuts the government made to make funding available elsewhere.
Budget 2025 includes 21 billion dollars of cost-savings - 13 billion of that from the controversial change to pay equity law - raising claim thresholds.
Prime Minister Chris Luxon told Kerre Woodham these are difficult choices, but there's no way they could afford that.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carry wood In morning's podcast from
News Talk said B.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
News Talk said, b are very good morning to you.
Seven past ten. Carrey Wooden with you through until mid
day and the Prime Minister with us through until eleven,
taking your calls. Look, we're starting with a positive look
at this. The first text I see on the machine
is when the PM is in, says Gary from Canterbury.
Can please say thank you to him?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
We're We're nice of Gary to say that we're in a.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Difficult period and don't forget there are many of the
population that are grateful that the PM and his team
are sensible in their decision making. Oh, says Gary Canterburry.
So there we go.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Well, firstly, good morning, good morning. How are you okay?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I'm really good. Good And it was a sensible budget.
I wouldn't call it a growth budget. It was a
sensible budget for the time.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It is really sensible and it's important to be really
responsible because essentially we've inherited a hall of a mess.
As everybody understands that, we get it as our job
to fix it. Now, that's what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
But you've actually got a pillar job, is it?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's not a popular job. It's not an easy job.
It would be much easier to carry on just spending
willing nearly like the last lot were on a lot
of stuff that was actually not driving the country forward
in the way that I think we've been very sensible
about it. We've got really big investments to eccentivize growth,
which is good. We're also trying to support people in
the cost of living. We're also trying to invest money
in frontline savior and frontline services. So yep, but you're
(01:30):
in a challenging time internationally. We're in a challenging time
coming out of the debt that we've got to deal with.
We've got to find a pathway back to what they
call surplus, which is where you know your revenues are
greater than your expenses, because that's actually important for our future,
rather than loading up our kids and our grandkids with
all this debt that labor at one hundred and twenty
billion dollars worth of debt and we have no better schools, roads, hospitals,
(01:51):
anything to show for it. So we've got to deal
with that. We're spending nine billion dollars a year just
on the interest payments on that debt that is more
than we spend on police, corrections, customs, the justice system combined.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
But your government's borrowing more too.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
The short term. But as you'll see, you know, it
starts in the budgets for what's called a four year period,
and so towards the end of that period, we obviously
get ourselves back to a surplus, which is meaning our
revenues are greater than our expenses, and we start to
then obviously get the debt coming drapped down or tracking down.
At that point in time.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
How though, you're going to be depending on our export
as a hell of a lot because a lot of
the things that you have used to offset to Rob Peter,
to pay Paul, you can't do again, like the equity Amendment,
the equity legislation, the key we saver, you know, the
means testing.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, I think I think what you're seeing with our
government is quite a different approach. Like for the people
listening out there that might be small business owners, they
look at the total pool of their expenses or their
costs each and every year. And government is the oddest
thing and I found this in the four years there
is that you have a budget, and the budget loads
and a whole bunch of new money for a four
year period, and then you go to the next year
(03:01):
and there's another foot load in of four years. So
you get this layer cake of cost and you know,
or layer cake of spending that takes place. What we're saying,
and you saw us do it last year, you've seen
us do it again this year. Is we're saying to
those government agencies, I want you to look at your
total amount of spending, not just what your extra ask
is for this coming year, and I want you to say, honestly,
(03:22):
hand on heart, can you tell me for honest that
with that every dollar is perfectly deployed and is actually
getting a result. That's what everyone does and their total
family budgets that they do in their small business budgets.
But government doesn't operate that way. And so last year
we saved twenty three billion dollars. We stopped, you know,
things that we thought weren't actually driving results, and we
took that savings and we reprioritized it and put it
(03:44):
into other frontline services. This year, we did the same thing.
We found twenty one billion dollars worth of savings over
that four year period, and we put that money into
those frontline services, into opening up investment boost into making
sure we do cost of living adjustments where we can.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Why wasn't there, Why wasn't the metal grasped and the
age of super raised? Because every other country has had
that conversation, every other country has made that decision. Were
years behind?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, we are, I mean, you know the position we
National Party believe we should lift it to sixty seven.
Every ten years New Zealanders live another year in a
bit in terms of life expectancy. Canada is already I
think it's sixty seven, Australia's on its way there, and
certainly the UK's on its way to sixty seven as well.
We have a Labor Party that doesn't think it's a
good idea, We have a New Zealand First Party that
(04:30):
doesn't want to move that forward as well, And so
for that to become a law you need to be
able to get a majority of parties in the Parliament
to actually want to do that. So we have a
National Party position which is that we want to move
it to sixty seven. But I'm in coalition government. Thank
you to the New Zealand people who give us the result,
and we've got to make it work, and as a
result you've got a Labour party in a New Zealand
(04:51):
First Party that don't want to lift it from sixty five.
I agree with you. I think it makes sense. We
are all living longer. You out there in the workforce today.
You know, I remember when I was at New Zealand,
very common we'd have people a sixty seven early seventies
wanting to work in King working and still able to
work and still doing a great job. And so I
think that's a sensible thing to do. But the other
(05:11):
thing I think is really good is you know the
key we saver changes are really important. And I've seen
labor out there today saying, oh this is terrible. It's
completely wrong. Their maths are completely wrong, and I've got
no respect for them economically. But here's the deal, you
and I. You know, I lived in Australia for a
bit and iman into Australian guy last night and he said, Chris,
I get eleven percent contribution to my superannuation in Australia
(05:35):
the other fifth I think, biggest superannuation market in the
world now. But you know that gives them a bigger
retirement balance. And what we've done is by lifting from
three percent to four percent phased in over three years
employer and employee contributions. That's going to lead people with
bigger retirement balances because that little bit extra invested over
a twenty thirty year period the time you get to retirement.
(05:57):
You know, some of their treasure analysis says you could
have it to twenty five percent. Bigger balance is because
of that contribution rate, all of those investments reinvested, invested
each and every year, you get all the benefit of
that compound interest essension in that compound growth.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Well, would you be able to get it across the
line if you allowed people to access their key we
savers earlier? Like the tradees have worn their bodies out
Maori Pacific and men you.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Mean the sixty five sixty seven age. Look, I mean,
I think you get into real complexity then in managing
those you know that situation and every country's obviously had
to wrestle with the same idea.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
No, but allow anybody to access it, like not put
not make people jump through hoops, but only you know,
you'd only access the key we saver if you needed
to at sixty.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, I think I mean there's I mean like, if
I think about the American system, you're very penalized. If
you withdraw your KEII savers equivalent money before the age
of sixty five. You can do it, but it comes
with massive penalties. You lose a lot of your money
if you want that. And I think the point is
we're trying to support people in retirement, and you really
want to pick that age. I get the point, which
(07:03):
is people. The argument is, are people who may be
doing more manual labor, more fatigued, tired our bodies are.
I get all that. But even so, you know when
every ten years the average life expensive zone is going
up a year and a half, and it's been sixty
five for a long time, I don't think sixty seven
is a big big I don't think it is either.
And I think that the complexity associate with all of
(07:23):
those exceptions. Just as a bit of a night meta manage.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
News talk said, be we do have the calls coming in,
so keep them coming out of eight hundred eighty ten eighty,
how much has this government borrowed during its time and power?
Please ask Sea Texter.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, look, good question. So essentially what's happened is in
twenty seventeen. Our debt, as you think about it, easiest
to think about it as a percentage of our GDP,
which is the size of our total economy, was about
twenty three percent. Today it sits at forty three percent.
And actually we're actually still borrowing money for the next
two or three years before we actually can get the
surplus back in place and actually then start to pay
(07:59):
down that debt. Obviously, it depends on how fast the
economy grows as to actually, even in the last six months,
you've seen our economy slightly performed better than some of
the earlier forecasts six months ago. But there's no doubt
about it. We're still borrowing money, yep.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And can you please explain how the pay equity scheme
ballooned from around three billion and twenty twenty to thirteen
billion and twenty twenty five. It is such a big issue,
and it is because that was such a massive own
goal from your government.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I lot lots of different views on it, and you
and I will disagree on it. And it was a calling. Yeah,
the optics are terrible.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
We've got Erica Stanford and you've got Nicola will Is
standing up in twenty twenty proudly trumpeting their support for
this bill under urgency.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yep. So what happened was we're all supportive of pay equity.
This is a government, a national government that introduced pay equity.
If you remember back in twenty seventeen through the tear
and overcase, we had a great piece of legislation ready
to go to deal with this. Just remember, because the
government is that the labour guys have tried to scaremonger
on this quite a bit, as we're not talking about
equal pay, we're not talking about pay parity, we're not
(08:58):
talking about collective bargaining, which about something called pay equity,
and that is about saying women industries predominantly that have
been undervalue and not actually being paid for equivalent valued
work in other sectors and making a comparison to another sector.
That's important, which is hard to understand, hard to understand,
But I just need people to understand that because this
debate gets really mixed up and it becomes very emotional,
(09:19):
very very quickly understandably, and I get it, and I
get your view, you know, I take that very clearly
to me and I understand that. But I'm just trying
to say to you, we are committed to pay equity.
But what happened was the claims actually had to have
you know, would deemed to have merit, and now then
they move to being what's called arguable. Then you actually
had a whole bunch of occupations come together, up to
(09:40):
ninety different jobs come together as actually launching a pay
equity claim trying to compare themselves to a different sector.
The claims became too broad. Then the claims were reviewed
every three years and became more of a collective bargaining thing,
because you should still go through a fight, you know,
and have a negotiation with a union and an employer
or an individual and an employer to work out what
your employment contracts should be. And so that's all we're
(10:02):
doing is bringing it back essentially to what we have
proposed in twenty seventeen, because the interpretation of it over
time had broadened. Doubt claims became way.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
To that when you voted for it in the House
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, so the legislation got introduced in twenty twenty under
the Labor government. We had a bill in twenty seventeen,
and then what happened in twenty twenty two, there was
decision made that actually the government would backstop essentially what's
called we got private employers that employ a group of workers,
and essentially the government might fund or partially fund some
(10:33):
of that work. Or you know, think about age care,
or think about different industries across the piece, and some
of it we put little money in, so we might
put a lot more money in. And essentially they just said,
oh yeah, we'll fund all of that. And the bottom
line is, actually, then there's no incentive on the employer
to actually do the negotiation with the union or with
the pay equity claimant to actually get a to do
(10:54):
that negotiation. And so we're just saying, look, we'll deal
with that on a case by case basis. There's no
problem with what's called the funded sector. We'll look at
that and we'll deal those cases. People today can go
launch a pay equity claim. We expect to be paying
out pay equity claims. But what happened was the whole
thing balloon because it moved from very specific claims to
very broad claims and it became about more than just
(11:16):
gender based or sex based discrimination in sectors. And that
happened with the legislation twenty twenty and then you see
in twenty twenty two a different change from the government.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Then why didn't you signal that rather than do it
retrospectively and under urgency just in time for the budget.
You can see why Brook van Velden sees the narrative
on that.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, well you get I can I get it, and
you've challenged pretty hard on that. I just say to you,
having two systems up and running is pretty unfair and
pretty unworkable, and we felt the best way, rightly or wrongly,
was to go through under urgency. And I support that.
I still support that today to make sure we have
clarity about one system. Not any individual, any union can
launch a pay equity claim today under the new laws,
(11:56):
we expect to be paying out pay equity claims sadly
actually because we shouldn't have to do so, because we
should have employers paying women equally and equivalently to work
of similar value. But we will we will continue to
support that. And then with respect to the funded sector
where the government may doesn't pay for you know, you
think about it, You've got some big New Zealand stock
(12:16):
exchange companies that actually are profit making enterprises that employee
workers that might have a pay equity claim or they
should deal with that rather than come to the government
and say we're going to backstop all of that.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And to your point, I do understand, but it's the
optics and it's all very well and good. I'm not
even saying I disagree with the decision, but it's how
it's done. And unless you get into government, you won't
be in a position to make decisions. Yeah, but make
the right decisions. And it's got smacks of that. That
your thatcher milk snatcher, you know, that's and that's how
it will.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
No, and I hear your point of view. I you
and I can disagree on that, but I just say
to you, you know, we're a government that's actually had
to face up to a hell of a lot of
this stuff. You know, we had to face up with
the fact that farmac wasn't funded. You know, drugs were
going to stop in the middle of last year. You
know for New Zealanders, we had to face up the
fact school lunches weren't funded. We had to face up
to a ferry that was actually you know going at
the three point two billion heading to four that was
(13:10):
planned for six hundred million Dunedin hospital that was planned
for you know, one point six and heading to three
point two. You know, we've had to deal with this
stuff and this was sitting there and I get it, people,
these are difficult decisions, are tough choices, but the point
is there's no way we can afford twelve billion dollars. Now,
we saved twenty one billion dollars out of the public
sector over the course of this budget. Half of those
(13:33):
savings came out of pay equity. The other half actually
came out of one hundred and fifteen initiatives that were
actually saying, this is money that's not being well spent
for the taxpayer. Let's go take that money and put
it into frontline services.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I've asked far too many questions. The Prime Minister open
to the carters very shortly. Nick Helen's staring at me
because I'm getting I'm getting the Russian dead stand normally
it's no.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I appreciate you asking that question because I know that
that is one where there is strong feeling on that.
And yep, no, and I appreciate you got a point
of view.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It news talk is zid B carry. I ran my
numbers through sorted dot org. The new Zealand. Can we
save a calculator says I'll be twenty k better off
with the budget changes. Hipkins is wrong as usual, says Simon.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
That's a really good point. No, can I just say
that because labor is trying to make this argument that
you're going to be worse off of keeping Saber. There's
nothing further from the truth. Right, Honestly, the Treasury say,
and they've run for a number of scenarios, your retirement
balance could be twenty to twenty five percent higher by
virtue of lifting the contribution rates and having that money
invested and the dividends of that investment reinvested. You know,
(14:39):
that is the compounding power of money. Basically that happens
over a lifetime that sets you up well for retirement
or gives you a bigger deposit for that first house.
So that is I would encourage everybody what your listener
just said then is exactly right. Get on sorted and
actually put your own numbers in and see what it
means for you. Sort it also look at it and
what's called an inflation adjusted period and also a non
(14:59):
inflation adjusted that's a technical way of just sort of saying,
you know, we know inflation will be with us over
the next thirty forty years, what will be the real
purchasing power of that money be when you get your retirement.
That's why you should always look at those sort of
investments anyway. But there's two ways to look at it.
But I just say to you do put your numbers
in and go check out the sort of calculator because
you know the power of that increased contribution is going
(15:21):
to be quite something. And you know, as I said,
I spoke to a couple of Australians overnight and or
Australian guy, young guy last night, and he said, Chris,
you know I have eleven percent of my contribution by
my employer put into my superannuation scheme. In Australia, I
don't have to put any in. So you know, we
are a long way behind, and we're trying to find
a pathway to get us to a place where actually
key we Saver now is in good shape. And the
(15:44):
cool thing about key we Saver is now one hundred
and ten billion dollars and that money, your money, needs
to be invested, and that will get invested back into
New Zealand, back into our core infrastructure and now that
it's of that size and scale, it's actually significant and
it can actually do some of the big investments that
we need to do, so that helps us down the
road as well.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Texasy Is. I thought this was for people to talk
to luck So and not for you to harrass him
over your pet shoes. John, good morning, talk to the
Prime min and stuff.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Good morning. Well yeah, yeah, morning both. Hey you look,
I'm not gonna harass or Harris, sorry either of you.
But look you were talking about Australia and the sort
of situation there. I'm a small business owner and I
have a small business here in New Zealand and in
Australia and in the UK. And it's a lot easier
in the UK and especially Australia to do tax returns,
right GST et ce Traia. Here it's every two months
you do a GST return. Then you've got FBT every quarter.
(16:34):
Then you've got provisional tax at various times through over
the year, and O they just do every quarter. You'll
know that you were there. Well maybe every quarter you
just yeah, you do every quarter you do a return
and that whatever your net profits, you pay tax on
that and that's your provisional. It's also your GST. Similar
in the UK, it's just every quarter here you've got
all these different dates for different taxes. Why not combine
(16:56):
them like they do in Australia.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
No, really good thought, John, really good thought. And I'm
up for that conversation. I'll take that forward and back
into the back into the ranch and talk to Nicolo
Willis about it too and time and what's because No,
because you did, right mate. I mean the key problem
we've got on the Zealand is we've turned the country
into a country of bureaucrats. We've got so much cost compliance,
platform filling, paper filling, going in. The only thing i'd
say to you, hopefully as a small business, you've clocked
(17:19):
that investment boost, which is an accelerated appreciation.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Yeah, look I saw that's a good stuff. A little
bit small for a little bit small for the big purchases, Chris,
but I do think it'll be good for sort of
of my customers here.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, it's a good start because I think if you
can write off twenty percent of your new asset and
you you know what we've got to do in small businesses.
We've got to get people to adopt more technology and
automation and plant and capital and starting to tick that off. Yeah. Good,
good point made on their GST and provisional tax. Is
it's so difficult yep, good challenge.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Love your work, Thank you, Thanks, Thanks John.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
With a two percent growth of such a small base,
what hope does New Zealand have to bridge the gaps
and infrastructure, wages, poverty that are I can't see anything
in this budget that deals with any of the macro issues.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Well, I just say to you that there's two parts
to it. One is that the real for New Zealanders
who are doing it tough, our lower middle income workers
who have had to be smashed by inflation, smashed by
interest rates in economy and recession and therefore may have
lost the helping people lose their jobs when that happens,
is that we have to get the macro settings right.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
The good news is every quarter of my government we've
had wages growing faster than inflation, first time in a
long time. Actually, in our first year average after wage
after inflation, wages have actually got up at one one
hundred dollars and we're up eighty dollars under labour because
they had inflation so much higher than wage growth. So
that's you've got to manage the macro because if you
actually care about lower middle income working New Zealanders, you
(18:45):
actually run the economy well and you have to be
really disciplined about that. The points are fair one on
what else are we doing on cost of living? We've
got some very targeted payments to support some families on
working for families. These are lower middle income working families.
We've got sixty six thousand super innuitants on the Super
Goal Card will actually benefit from rates rebates, which is
(19:05):
important and actually a little thing which I think people
may not have clocked, but there's a lot of people
in New Zealand that have regular medicines and they have
to go to their GP every three months to get
the GP to write out a script to go get
to repeat prescription. And what we're saying is, look, when
the GP writes it out, it should be good for
twelve months, not three months, and that then frees up
doctor's appointments for people who actually need them to talk
(19:25):
about their health issues rather and you can not have
to the time expense hausel of trying to check into
your doctor just to get them to sign off on
a script for you.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I will come back to that because you mentioned that
on this very show when we had you in in February.
That was the first time.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Ye a way of managing the GP.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I'll come back to that. The doctors warned that the
extending it to the twelve year period will lead to
a catastrophic GP shortages. Pharmacists say the same.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Extending prescriptions out to twelve months or actually they do
it in other countries around the world. They do it,
and the Australia thing's got to twelve months, I think,
so you know other countries are up there as well.
So no, I don't think there's any issue around that.
I think the issue is the doctors will be feeling
like they're losing money. They get paid for those appointments
and it's pretty easy one to write a renewer prescription,
(20:12):
but it's done in other jurisdictions out to twelve months,
and I think we should feel very comforta about it.
What we're trying to do there is, actually, to be honest,
is we know we've got problems with our GP service
because our primary care service, because it's pretty hard to
get an appointment with the GP, has been a big
package of work to try and get people into gps,
to get more nurses into the system as well into
the primary care system. That's why we've also extended the
(20:33):
urgent You might have seen the announcement on the one
hundred and sixty four million dollars for urgent care and
after hours. That's important because probably a third of the
people carrier showing up at ed department in hospital because
they can't get access to a GP and or are
urgent or after cares. So you've got to join the
link up between the GP and not just think about
the hospitals all the time. You've actually got a link
(20:54):
primary care with hospital care.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Can you really explain that beautifully, that continuity.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
It's a continuum.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, yeah, in the same Hayden, good morning to you.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Good morning hey, Prime Minister. Thank you for it's full budget.
One thing I wanted to raise though, is I totally
agree with what you've done for young people under twenty.
We've got to teach you've got habits. If they get
in the habit of working to day one, they will
have a successful future. The only the saying that's been
left out as students. I have a daughter at university,
(21:23):
who and I have other children. She cannot get allowance
because apparently we're fealthy rich when we're not. They don't
take into account. But I have four other children and
a mortgage. When they do their allocation, we're not on
high incomes. We're on middle of the road incomes. And
what we're saying is our daughter is having to burrow
to pay rent and to eat and that's not fair
(21:44):
for us young people. And she's already saying, while we
should you stay when the government wants us to go
into debt just to eat, Please, can you do something
about students?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, so your argument is that you end up getting
means tested based off your income. But of course we
know that the middle class is squeezed, you know, because
of high inflation and high middle clas class. Is what
I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I didn't squeeze me of
New Zealand. Yep. I mean, look, what we're trying to
do is make sure if I go back to do
the first point you know, on the we want people
off welfare and in to work, you know. So we've
got that's why we've got the eighty nineteen year olds
(22:16):
being linked back to printal income. We're still to design
that system, so we'll give that some thought given what
you've just said. But I think there is a great
future for key Wee kids in New Zealand. And I
understand it because you know, I've got kids of twenty
five and twenty three. I've also someone who went overseas
for a period of time as well. We've always done that, yes,
but actually we've got to make sure we build a country. Yeah. Yeah,
(22:38):
well no I wasn't when I left at twenty four.
But I mean, but what I'd say to you is that, yeah,
we've got That's exactly the job that I've got. That's
why I came to politics because essentially, we've got to
make sure this is the place our kids and a
grandkids want to stay in. And that means they have
to be able to work hard, got to get money.
They've got to be able to get ahead if they
work hard. They've got to be able to be safe.
They've got to get good health, good education.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Yeah, But why should a university student have to be
depending on the appearance income to twenty four? That's just
too much. Back to twenty I can accept, But twenty
four is too much. My daughter wants to be a doctor.
He's sart of that. At the end of the share,
she's going to go to Australia because you cannot afford
to stay.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Help us.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
Yeah, please, we're asking.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yep, we're trying to Yep, I hear it.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Thank you, Hayden. See that you have opened the door
to means testing and that, and you know we've all agreed.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
That, well, those are the choices you have to make, right,
So you've got to say, look, do someone earning over
one hundred and eighty thousand dollars actually need to get
the two hundred and sixty dollars for the government contribution
for key? We save it? No, you know, you've got
to be able to say, I mean, you know best
Start for example, which everyone gets the best start payment.
But in years two and three it's been means tested,
and we say, okay, in year one it's going to
be means tested.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
It's what about the pension.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Pension is something that we've always said as a universal right,
and that's not something that we've looked at, but people
will raise that with you as well. What we're trying
to do is get people to also embrace KEY we
savor because down the road that's begun to become the
way how.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Do you means test? Because you might have a two
million dollar home. Accidentally, like a lot of the PACIFICA
families in gray Lynn suddenly find themselves.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
As said, which income poor. Different ways of looking at it,
and that's a fair challenge. But I mean on the
eighteen to nineteen welfare thing, for example, we actually, you know,
we will look at that as to what the way
to deal with that with parents they'll obviously well, no,
we haven't. We've see to design that because we've got
to actually think that through quite care.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Because once you open the door to means testing, that's
the next question, how do you test?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
That's right? Yeah, And this is the question that's been raised,
which is that you can have incomes, but actually it's
about your net income essentially, and it's also about some
of the costs that people are incurring. So we'll think
that through appropriately. But the point is a very clear one,
which is I don't want under twenty five year olds
just drifting out of school and going on this no
benefit right there. We cannot have that, and we actually
(24:48):
have to get back rights and responsibilities back into the country,
and that means that we should expect an eighteen year
old either you're working or you're studying, but actually sitting
at home playing PlayStation isn't actually where we want you
to be, and it puts you know, it actually I've
had a number of parents say this is good because
it actually now says that I've got a you know,
I can now take push my eighteen nineteen year old
to actually go out and get job, job and do stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Mike got a text this morning from someone who said
that they've got a twenty five year old sitting at
home and they said, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yep, twenty five years Oh well, yeah, that life I've gone.
Well that you want healthy, independent adults at eighteen who
can actually go out in the world and actually understand
they've got to work. The reason why we want to
make this intervention is that when you look at young
people who end up going on jobs, see can benefit
before the age of twenty five. The forecast as they
stay there it can be up to eighteen years. And
(25:40):
so you want to make that intervention and change and
incentivize the behavior to get them off welfare and into work.
We're also going to have a budget here over the
next four years. It's going to create two hundred and
forty thousand new jobs. It's also a budget that's going
to grow the economy by two point seven percent on
average over that four year period as well. So there
is going to be jobs coming and we want people
to be able to take it. And that's why Louise
(26:01):
Upsin's done a good job. While we've been in a
very difficult time economically and unemployment is just almost peaking
and about to come down. There's been more people obviously
on job seeker benefit, but she's put the obligations in
place because that's still right that you're obligated to look
for a job. You don't get penalized for not having
a job, but you have to. Your job is to
look for a job when you're on unemployment because you're
(26:21):
deemed capable and able to work, and we've got to
be able to do everything we can to get you
into that work.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Absolutely a text to rights. I'm a national support always
have been the left of one. By the looks you
have to get out of the pope. We're going to
have to tax more. If we look across to OSSI,
they have stamp duty tax, capital gains tax a top
tax rate of forty five percent. Wouldn't it be smart
to introduce capital gains tax and stamp duty to pay
down debt?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Look, I mean that is an argument that you're going
to hear from the left really strongly, which is that
they want to spend more, and a lot of it's
on wasteful spending as we've seen. They want to tax
more and they want to borrow more. And I'm telling
you right now, what New Zealand does not need is
a capital gains tax is going to smash and punish businesses,
particularly small business owners, and that's not what we need.
What we need to do is grow our economy. And
(27:05):
that's exactly what we're trying to do with some of
the package that we've announced over the budget.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
The investment in education I love. I think that's really
powerful and really important. The student learning support package, Brant
can I.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
I mean on education, I have to say, in my
four years in politics, that is the thing that has
alarmed me when I first came in and it still
alarms me to today. I think we've got three big problems.
The first is that actually we're not getting our kids
to school, and for somehow in New Zealand it became
an optional thing not to show up and do compulsory education.
And I call out parents, and I call out principles,
(27:40):
and I call out the schools and obviously the government
and the Ministry of Education on that. But when we
came to power, we had over fifty percent of our
kids not at school regularly. That means they're not there
ninety percent of the time or more. And the problem
with that is by the time they get to sixteen,
they've lost one whole year of education. So how the
hell are we supposed to compete with Australian kids, or
Singaporean kids, or Canadian or Irish kids for high paying
(28:00):
jobs if they're not prepared for that future. And that's
why I call and ask parents to take some responsibility
for that to getting kids to school. The good news
is we've improved that. It's up to fifty eight percent,
so we've got forty two percent not in school regularly,
but we've got a hell of a lot more to
do there. The second thing is the achievement in our
school systems being suboptimhen our kids have been falling behind
kids the same age and other countries around the world
(28:22):
and Labour let that happen. Half our kids arrive at
high school not at the standard they need to be
at on reading, eighty percent arrive at high school sound
they need to be on maths. We had forty percent
of our teachers not confident to teach maths to nine
year olds a year four students because we hadn't prepared
them well enough to teach that maths curriculum. So what
we did was we put in structured literacy last year.
(28:43):
We did it under real urgency. We jammed it in
so that we can actually teach kids phonics, and we've
got halfway through that program. This year is the second
year and it's working really well. It doesn't matter when
you go over what background you come from, but we're
teaching our kids to read the same way every day,
every way. Then this year we put in place the
math Correculum based off those terrible maths results, and it's
based off more of an Australian Singaporean system as a result,
(29:04):
and Eric has done a great job with thin getting
those resources out to the teachers to support that, and
the teachers that we've got amazing, amazing teachers but the
system has let them down. We've got to keep working
at that. But the third thing you raise is what
I get raised when I'm out there in schools a lot,
which is we've got a lot more kids with learning needs.
And if your parents of these kids with learning needs,
they want to they want to know their kids got
a shot at realizing all of their potential as well.
(29:26):
So we're going to add nine hundred thousand extra hours
of teacher aid time between twenty twenty eight. It's the
biggest most comprehensive investment in learning support in a generation.
So it's the right next step as we try and
focus on attendance, achievement and then learning support.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
The parents, I mean, I think voters and the New
Zealand people have to take some responsibility too. I mean,
you can't just look to the government takes everything. You
can't look to the government to fix the fact that
your child is turning up at school not toilet trained.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, God, well, I think the way I look at it,
And you know the reason I came to politics four
years ago because I want the country to realize it's potential.
I'm going to do everything I can as the Prime
Minister and as a leader of the government. And government
can set the settings up and it can create the
right environment and all that sort of stuff, But then
we need our businesses. I can create the settings, but
the businesses go out and grow the ore the ones
that decide to grow their businesses and take on employees
(30:20):
and do all that good stuff. And in the community,
whether it's us as families, you know, or community organizations,
we need to take responsibility for our own kids. We
need to take responsible for our own families. When I
lived in America, it was really interesting their mentality and
there's a lot that's wrong with America, but they start
with I've got to look after myself. I look after
my family, I look after my community, and then I
go to government for assistance and or help. But you know,
(30:42):
it's the point I've been trying to make, is that
we don't want to be in a parent child relationship
where it's the government does everything, and actually business and
community and families don't. They become the children. Were's an
adult adult adult. Because we've got amazing community organizations that
seeing the paint, the need, the frustration, the problems out
in our society. We need to get the money out
of the bureaucracy, and we need to give it to
them because they get better results than the government will
(31:04):
doing that job. We need to let our businesses be
cut loose so they actually go out and grow. And actually,
if you're a business owner, you actually say, I do
want to have ambition and aspiration and positivity and I
want to grow this thing. And that's great. And then
we as a government got to make it as efficient
as possible and actually get the incentives right in the
operating system so that people can make that work. But
(31:24):
it's all three of us working together on this. It's
not just me as a single prime minister doing it
all with my team and my government. We're all in
this together. And that's what I'm really excited about. That's
what I love about this job is I see incredible
people up and down the system, raising great kids, doing
awesome by their family. You've even had some of it today.
You know, people in the squeeze middle as I call it,
who are doing everything right and you know, still struggling
(31:47):
to get ahead. I've got to try and fix that
with respect to the macro settings. But we've got to
do this together.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Oh is that us? Sorry, We're chatting away. Sorry, we're
just talking about good intentions and how they don't always
get the best outcomes. Do they know? I get the
biggest stages in the world, but you've got to be able.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
To imp you do. I think you know New Zealand
and the rest of the world. Actually, people across the
world are actually quite frustrated, right They've heard politicians spouse
off with good intentions and I get it. But you've
actually got to execute and you've got to deliver for people.
And that's what you know. That's the word I use
with my cabinet is delivery. You know, it's like we
and I get it. You know, people will say, oh,
but Christ, you should be doing this, this or this,
(32:27):
and you can get the danger of that as you
end up boiling the ocean. And that's why I have
those quarterly action plans, for example, because I need to
say to the public service and to my ministers, I'm
expecting you to deliver this. We know we've got lots
of things to do. We get very distracted with everything.
But if you choose to do everything, you do nothing,
and often good intentions without our You know, you want
to have big heart, but a clear head. You've got
to get that to those two bits working together. So yeah, no,
(32:50):
I think that's right. I think you know, people are
over good intentions. They want results, they want delivery.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
They certainly do.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
But I got to say, Cary, I mean, eighteen months
into this job, we have a great country. We honestly
have a kick ass country, and we do, and we
have so much potential. And I come, I go overseas
and I have the privilege with them coming back home
and I go. But man, I am energized because there
is a big world out there that actually wants New
Zealand's products and services that actually means what we'll lift
our businesses. Yep, that all lift our businesses, that will
(33:20):
actually help our people. We've got good social democratic institutions,
we've got lots of abundant natural resources, and we've got
super super smart people that just need to be freed
up in librate and get on with it.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Because I asked you in the lead up to the
election campaign why you would want to do the job,
because it is so big, it is so good, asked,
it's so sure, Runchy.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
I could do lots of different things, but I choose
to do this because I actually don't want to get
to ninety looking back saying I wish I'd given it
a go and maybe I had something to offer. And
I think actually people say, oh, but you're not a
career politician, and da da da, But actually I think
that's been really helpful in this time that actually you
come to this job wanting the country to do better,
and that's what it's all about. So now we've got
a great future to hang in there.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
All right, And your song choice is Zach Bryan nineball.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yeah, so Zach Bryan great country music artists. This is
but it was you got on saying countries. It's modern
music now, so it's not the old country and Western stuff.
This is awesome the song, great storytelling.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Okay, we'll I have thirty seconds've a prime minister, Thank
you for your time.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
As always, for more from Kerry Wooden Mornings, listen live
to news talks it be from nine am weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the carry wood In morning's podcast from
News Talk said B.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
News Talk said, b are very good morning to you.
Seven past ten. Carrey Wooden with you through until mid
day and the Prime Minister with us through until eleven,
taking your calls. Look, we're starting with a positive look
at this. The first text I see on the machine
is when the PM is in, says Gary from Canterbury.
Can please say thank you to him?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
We're We're nice of Gary to say that we're in a.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Difficult period and don't forget there are many of the
population that are grateful that the PM and his team
are sensible in their decision making. Oh, says Gary Canterburry.
So there we go.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Well, firstly, good morning, good morning. How are you okay?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I'm really good. Good And it was a sensible budget.
I wouldn't call it a growth budget. It was a
sensible budget for the time.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It is really sensible and it's important to be really
responsible because essentially we've inherited a hall of a mess.
As everybody understands that, we get it as our job
to fix it. Now, that's what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
But you've actually got a pillar job, is it?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's not a popular job. It's not an easy job.
It would be much easier to carry on just spending
willing nearly like the last lot were on a lot
of stuff that was actually not driving the country forward
in the way that I think we've been very sensible
about it. We've got really big investments to eccentivize growth,
which is good. We're also trying to support people in
the cost of living. We're also trying to invest money
in frontline savior and frontline services. So yep, but you're
(01:30):
in a challenging time internationally. We're in a challenging time
coming out of the debt that we've got to deal with.
We've got to find a pathway back to what they
call surplus, which is where you know your revenues are
greater than your expenses, because that's actually important for our future,
rather than loading up our kids and our grandkids with
all this debt that labor at one hundred and twenty
billion dollars worth of debt and we have no better schools, roads, hospitals,
(01:51):
anything to show for it. So we've got to deal
with that. We're spending nine billion dollars a year just
on the interest payments on that debt that is more
than we spend on police, corrections, customs, the justice system combined.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
But your government's borrowing more too.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
The short term. But as you'll see, you know, it
starts in the budgets for what's called a four year period,
and so towards the end of that period, we obviously
get ourselves back to a surplus, which is meaning our
revenues are greater than our expenses, and we start to
then obviously get the debt coming drapped down or tracking down.
At that point in time.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
How though, you're going to be depending on our export
as a hell of a lot because a lot of
the things that you have used to offset to Rob Peter,
to pay Paul, you can't do again, like the equity Amendment,
the equity legislation, the key we saver, you know, the
means testing.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, I think I think what you're seeing with our
government is quite a different approach. Like for the people
listening out there that might be small business owners, they
look at the total pool of their expenses or their
costs each and every year. And government is the oddest
thing and I found this in the four years there
is that you have a budget, and the budget loads
and a whole bunch of new money for a four
year period, and then you go to the next year
(03:01):
and there's another foot load in of four years. So
you get this layer cake of cost and you know,
or layer cake of spending that takes place. What we're saying,
and you saw us do it last year, you've seen
us do it again this year. Is we're saying to
those government agencies, I want you to look at your
total amount of spending, not just what your extra ask
is for this coming year, and I want you to say, honestly,
(03:22):
hand on heart, can you tell me for honest that
with that every dollar is perfectly deployed and is actually
getting a result. That's what everyone does and their total
family budgets that they do in their small business budgets.
But government doesn't operate that way. And so last year
we saved twenty three billion dollars. We stopped, you know,
things that we thought weren't actually driving results, and we
took that savings and we reprioritized it and put it
(03:44):
into other frontline services. This year, we did the same thing.
We found twenty one billion dollars worth of savings over
that four year period, and we put that money into
those frontline services, into opening up investment boost into making
sure we do cost of living adjustments where we can.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Why wasn't there, Why wasn't the metal grasped and the
age of super raised? Because every other country has had
that conversation, every other country has made that decision. Were
years behind?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, we are, I mean, you know the position we
National Party believe we should lift it to sixty seven.
Every ten years New Zealanders live another year in a
bit in terms of life expectancy. Canada is already I
think it's sixty seven, Australia's on its way there, and
certainly the UK's on its way to sixty seven as well.
We have a Labor Party that doesn't think it's a
good idea, We have a New Zealand First Party that
(04:30):
doesn't want to move that forward as well, And so
for that to become a law you need to be
able to get a majority of parties in the Parliament
to actually want to do that. So we have a
National Party position which is that we want to move
it to sixty seven. But I'm in coalition government. Thank
you to the New Zealand people who give us the result,
and we've got to make it work, and as a
result you've got a Labour party in a New Zealand
(04:51):
First Party that don't want to lift it from sixty five.
I agree with you. I think it makes sense. We
are all living longer. You out there in the workforce today.
You know, I remember when I was at New Zealand,
very common we'd have people a sixty seven early seventies
wanting to work in King working and still able to
work and still doing a great job. And so I
think that's a sensible thing to do. But the other
(05:11):
thing I think is really good is you know the
key we saver changes are really important. And I've seen
labor out there today saying, oh this is terrible. It's
completely wrong. Their maths are completely wrong, and I've got
no respect for them economically. But here's the deal, you
and I. You know, I lived in Australia for a
bit and iman into Australian guy last night and he said, Chris,
I get eleven percent contribution to my superannuation in Australia
(05:35):
the other fifth I think, biggest superannuation market in the
world now. But you know that gives them a bigger
retirement balance. And what we've done is by lifting from
three percent to four percent phased in over three years
employer and employee contributions. That's going to lead people with
bigger retirement balances because that little bit extra invested over
a twenty thirty year period the time you get to retirement.
(05:57):
You know, some of their treasure analysis says you could
have it to twenty five percent. Bigger balance is because
of that contribution rate, all of those investments reinvested, invested
each and every year, you get all the benefit of
that compound interest essension in that compound growth.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Well, would you be able to get it across the
line if you allowed people to access their key we
savers earlier? Like the tradees have worn their bodies out
Maori Pacific and men you.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Mean the sixty five sixty seven age. Look, I mean,
I think you get into real complexity then in managing
those you know that situation and every country's obviously had
to wrestle with the same idea.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
No, but allow anybody to access it, like not put
not make people jump through hoops, but only you know,
you'd only access the key we saver if you needed
to at sixty.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, I think I mean there's I mean like, if
I think about the American system, you're very penalized. If
you withdraw your KEII savers equivalent money before the age
of sixty five. You can do it, but it comes
with massive penalties. You lose a lot of your money
if you want that. And I think the point is
we're trying to support people in retirement, and you really
want to pick that age. I get the point, which
(07:03):
is people. The argument is, are people who may be
doing more manual labor, more fatigued, tired our bodies are.
I get all that. But even so, you know when
every ten years the average life expensive zone is going
up a year and a half, and it's been sixty
five for a long time, I don't think sixty seven
is a big big I don't think it is either.
And I think that the complexity associate with all of
(07:23):
those exceptions. Just as a bit of a night meta manage.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
News talk said, be we do have the calls coming in,
so keep them coming out of eight hundred eighty ten eighty,
how much has this government borrowed during its time and power?
Please ask Sea Texter.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, look, good question. So essentially what's happened is in
twenty seventeen. Our debt, as you think about it, easiest
to think about it as a percentage of our GDP,
which is the size of our total economy, was about
twenty three percent. Today it sits at forty three percent.
And actually we're actually still borrowing money for the next
two or three years before we actually can get the
surplus back in place and actually then start to pay
(07:59):
down that debt. Obviously, it depends on how fast the
economy grows as to actually, even in the last six months,
you've seen our economy slightly performed better than some of
the earlier forecasts six months ago. But there's no doubt
about it. We're still borrowing money, yep.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And can you please explain how the pay equity scheme
ballooned from around three billion and twenty twenty to thirteen
billion and twenty twenty five. It is such a big issue,
and it is because that was such a massive own
goal from your government.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I lot lots of different views on it, and you
and I will disagree on it. And it was a calling. Yeah,
the optics are terrible.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
We've got Erica Stanford and you've got Nicola will Is
standing up in twenty twenty proudly trumpeting their support for
this bill under urgency.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yep. So what happened was we're all supportive of pay equity.
This is a government, a national government that introduced pay equity.
If you remember back in twenty seventeen through the tear
and overcase, we had a great piece of legislation ready
to go to deal with this. Just remember, because the
government is that the labour guys have tried to scaremonger
on this quite a bit, as we're not talking about
equal pay, we're not talking about pay parity, we're not
(08:58):
talking about collective bargaining, which about something called pay equity,
and that is about saying women industries predominantly that have
been undervalue and not actually being paid for equivalent valued
work in other sectors and making a comparison to another sector.
That's important, which is hard to understand, hard to understand,
But I just need people to understand that because this
debate gets really mixed up and it becomes very emotional,
(09:19):
very very quickly understandably, and I get it, and I
get your view, you know, I take that very clearly
to me and I understand that. But I'm just trying
to say to you, we are committed to pay equity.
But what happened was the claims actually had to have
you know, would deemed to have merit, and now then
they move to being what's called arguable. Then you actually
had a whole bunch of occupations come together, up to
(09:40):
ninety different jobs come together as actually launching a pay
equity claim trying to compare themselves to a different sector.
The claims became too broad. Then the claims were reviewed
every three years and became more of a collective bargaining thing,
because you should still go through a fight, you know,
and have a negotiation with a union and an employer
or an individual and an employer to work out what
your employment contracts should be. And so that's all we're
(10:02):
doing is bringing it back essentially to what we have
proposed in twenty seventeen, because the interpretation of it over
time had broadened. Doubt claims became way.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
To that when you voted for it in the House
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, so the legislation got introduced in twenty twenty under
the Labor government. We had a bill in twenty seventeen,
and then what happened in twenty twenty two, there was
decision made that actually the government would backstop essentially what's
called we got private employers that employ a group of workers,
and essentially the government might fund or partially fund some
(10:33):
of that work. Or you know, think about age care,
or think about different industries across the piece, and some
of it we put little money in, so we might
put a lot more money in. And essentially they just said,
oh yeah, we'll fund all of that. And the bottom
line is, actually, then there's no incentive on the employer
to actually do the negotiation with the union or with
the pay equity claimant to actually get a to do
(10:54):
that negotiation. And so we're just saying, look, we'll deal
with that on a case by case basis. There's no
problem with what's called the funded sector. We'll look at
that and we'll deal those cases. People today can go
launch a pay equity claim. We expect to be paying
out pay equity claims. But what happened was the whole
thing balloon because it moved from very specific claims to
very broad claims and it became about more than just
(11:16):
gender based or sex based discrimination in sectors. And that
happened with the legislation twenty twenty and then you see
in twenty twenty two a different change from the government.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Then why didn't you signal that rather than do it
retrospectively and under urgency just in time for the budget.
You can see why Brook van Velden sees the narrative
on that.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, well you get I can I get it, and
you've challenged pretty hard on that. I just say to you,
having two systems up and running is pretty unfair and
pretty unworkable, and we felt the best way, rightly or wrongly,
was to go through under urgency. And I support that.
I still support that today to make sure we have
clarity about one system. Not any individual, any union can
launch a pay equity claim today under the new laws,
(11:56):
we expect to be paying out pay equity claims sadly
actually because we shouldn't have to do so, because we
should have employers paying women equally and equivalently to work
of similar value. But we will we will continue to
support that. And then with respect to the funded sector
where the government may doesn't pay for you know, you
think about it, You've got some big New Zealand stock
(12:16):
exchange companies that actually are profit making enterprises that employee
workers that might have a pay equity claim or they
should deal with that rather than come to the government
and say we're going to backstop all of that.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And to your point, I do understand, but it's the
optics and it's all very well and good. I'm not
even saying I disagree with the decision, but it's how
it's done. And unless you get into government, you won't
be in a position to make decisions. Yeah, but make
the right decisions. And it's got smacks of that. That
your thatcher milk snatcher, you know, that's and that's how
it will.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
No, and I hear your point of view. I you
and I can disagree on that, but I just say
to you, you know, we're a government that's actually had
to face up to a hell of a lot of
this stuff. You know, we had to face up with
the fact that farmac wasn't funded. You know, drugs were
going to stop in the middle of last year. You
know for New Zealanders, we had to face up the
fact school lunches weren't funded. We had to face up
to a ferry that was actually you know going at
the three point two billion heading to four that was
(13:10):
planned for six hundred million Dunedin hospital that was planned
for you know, one point six and heading to three
point two. You know, we've had to deal with this
stuff and this was sitting there and I get it, people,
these are difficult decisions, are tough choices, but the point
is there's no way we can afford twelve billion dollars. Now,
we saved twenty one billion dollars out of the public
sector over the course of this budget. Half of those
(13:33):
savings came out of pay equity. The other half actually
came out of one hundred and fifteen initiatives that were
actually saying, this is money that's not being well spent
for the taxpayer. Let's go take that money and put
it into frontline services.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I've asked far too many questions. The Prime Minister open
to the carters very shortly. Nick Helen's staring at me
because I'm getting I'm getting the Russian dead stand normally
it's no.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I appreciate you asking that question because I know that
that is one where there is strong feeling on that.
And yep, no, and I appreciate you got a point
of view.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It news talk is zid B carry. I ran my
numbers through sorted dot org. The new Zealand. Can we
save a calculator says I'll be twenty k better off
with the budget changes. Hipkins is wrong as usual, says Simon.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
That's a really good point. No, can I just say
that because labor is trying to make this argument that
you're going to be worse off of keeping Saber. There's
nothing further from the truth. Right, Honestly, the Treasury say,
and they've run for a number of scenarios, your retirement
balance could be twenty to twenty five percent higher by
virtue of lifting the contribution rates and having that money
invested and the dividends of that investment reinvested. You know,
(14:39):
that is the compounding power of money. Basically that happens
over a lifetime that sets you up well for retirement
or gives you a bigger deposit for that first house.
So that is I would encourage everybody what your listener
just said then is exactly right. Get on sorted and
actually put your own numbers in and see what it
means for you. Sort it also look at it and
what's called an inflation adjusted period and also a non
(14:59):
inflation adjusted that's a technical way of just sort of saying,
you know, we know inflation will be with us over
the next thirty forty years, what will be the real
purchasing power of that money be when you get your retirement.
That's why you should always look at those sort of
investments anyway. But there's two ways to look at it.
But I just say to you do put your numbers
in and go check out the sort of calculator because
you know the power of that increased contribution is going
(15:21):
to be quite something. And you know, as I said,
I spoke to a couple of Australians overnight and or
Australian guy, young guy last night, and he said, Chris,
you know I have eleven percent of my contribution by
my employer put into my superannuation scheme. In Australia, I
don't have to put any in. So you know, we
are a long way behind, and we're trying to find
a pathway to get us to a place where actually
key we Saver now is in good shape. And the
(15:44):
cool thing about key we Saver is now one hundred
and ten billion dollars and that money, your money, needs
to be invested, and that will get invested back into
New Zealand, back into our core infrastructure and now that
it's of that size and scale, it's actually significant and
it can actually do some of the big investments that
we need to do, so that helps us down the
road as well.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Texasy Is. I thought this was for people to talk
to luck So and not for you to harrass him
over your pet shoes. John, good morning, talk to the
Prime min and stuff.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Good morning. Well yeah, yeah, morning both. Hey you look,
I'm not gonna harass or Harris, sorry either of you.
But look you were talking about Australia and the sort
of situation there. I'm a small business owner and I
have a small business here in New Zealand and in
Australia and in the UK. And it's a lot easier
in the UK and especially Australia to do tax returns,
right GST et ce Traia. Here it's every two months
you do a GST return. Then you've got FBT every quarter.
(16:34):
Then you've got provisional tax at various times through over
the year, and O they just do every quarter. You'll
know that you were there. Well maybe every quarter you
just yeah, you do every quarter you do a return
and that whatever your net profits, you pay tax on
that and that's your provisional. It's also your GST. Similar
in the UK, it's just every quarter here you've got
all these different dates for different taxes. Why not combine
(16:56):
them like they do in Australia.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
No, really good thought, John, really good thought. And I'm
up for that conversation. I'll take that forward and back
into the back into the ranch and talk to Nicolo
Willis about it too and time and what's because No,
because you did, right mate. I mean the key problem
we've got on the Zealand is we've turned the country
into a country of bureaucrats. We've got so much cost compliance,
platform filling, paper filling, going in. The only thing i'd
say to you, hopefully as a small business, you've clocked
(17:19):
that investment boost, which is an accelerated appreciation.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Yeah, look I saw that's a good stuff. A little
bit small for a little bit small for the big purchases, Chris,
but I do think it'll be good for sort of
of my customers here.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, it's a good start because I think if you
can write off twenty percent of your new asset and
you you know what we've got to do in small businesses.
We've got to get people to adopt more technology and
automation and plant and capital and starting to tick that off. Yeah. Good,
good point made on their GST and provisional tax. Is
it's so difficult yep, good challenge.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Love your work, Thank you, Thanks, Thanks John.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
With a two percent growth of such a small base,
what hope does New Zealand have to bridge the gaps
and infrastructure, wages, poverty that are I can't see anything
in this budget that deals with any of the macro issues.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Well, I just say to you that there's two parts
to it. One is that the real for New Zealanders
who are doing it tough, our lower middle income workers
who have had to be smashed by inflation, smashed by
interest rates in economy and recession and therefore may have
lost the helping people lose their jobs when that happens,
is that we have to get the macro settings right.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
The good news is every quarter of my government we've
had wages growing faster than inflation, first time in a
long time. Actually, in our first year average after wage
after inflation, wages have actually got up at one one
hundred dollars and we're up eighty dollars under labour because
they had inflation so much higher than wage growth. So
that's you've got to manage the macro because if you
actually care about lower middle income working New Zealanders, you
(18:45):
actually run the economy well and you have to be
really disciplined about that. The points are fair one on
what else are we doing on cost of living? We've
got some very targeted payments to support some families on
working for families. These are lower middle income working families.
We've got sixty six thousand super innuitants on the Super
Goal Card will actually benefit from rates rebates, which is
(19:05):
important and actually a little thing which I think people
may not have clocked, but there's a lot of people
in New Zealand that have regular medicines and they have
to go to their GP every three months to get
the GP to write out a script to go get
to repeat prescription. And what we're saying is, look, when
the GP writes it out, it should be good for
twelve months, not three months, and that then frees up
doctor's appointments for people who actually need them to talk
(19:25):
about their health issues rather and you can not have
to the time expense hausel of trying to check into
your doctor just to get them to sign off on
a script for you.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I will come back to that because you mentioned that
on this very show when we had you in in February.
That was the first time.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Ye a way of managing the GP.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I'll come back to that. The doctors warned that the
extending it to the twelve year period will lead to
a catastrophic GP shortages. Pharmacists say the same.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Extending prescriptions out to twelve months or actually they do
it in other countries around the world. They do it,
and the Australia thing's got to twelve months, I think,
so you know other countries are up there as well.
So no, I don't think there's any issue around that.
I think the issue is the doctors will be feeling
like they're losing money. They get paid for those appointments
and it's pretty easy one to write a renewer prescription,
(20:12):
but it's done in other jurisdictions out to twelve months,
and I think we should feel very comforta about it.
What we're trying to do there is, actually, to be honest,
is we know we've got problems with our GP service
because our primary care service, because it's pretty hard to
get an appointment with the GP, has been a big
package of work to try and get people into gps,
to get more nurses into the system as well into
the primary care system. That's why we've also extended the
(20:33):
urgent You might have seen the announcement on the one
hundred and sixty four million dollars for urgent care and
after hours. That's important because probably a third of the
people carrier showing up at ed department in hospital because
they can't get access to a GP and or are
urgent or after cares. So you've got to join the
link up between the GP and not just think about
the hospitals all the time. You've actually got a link
(20:54):
primary care with hospital care.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Can you really explain that beautifully, that continuity.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
It's a continuum.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, yeah, in the same Hayden, good morning to you.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Good morning hey, Prime Minister. Thank you for it's full budget.
One thing I wanted to raise though, is I totally
agree with what you've done for young people under twenty.
We've got to teach you've got habits. If they get
in the habit of working to day one, they will
have a successful future. The only the saying that's been
left out as students. I have a daughter at university,
(21:23):
who and I have other children. She cannot get allowance
because apparently we're fealthy rich when we're not. They don't
take into account. But I have four other children and
a mortgage. When they do their allocation, we're not on
high incomes. We're on middle of the road incomes. And
what we're saying is our daughter is having to burrow
to pay rent and to eat and that's not fair
(21:44):
for us young people. And she's already saying, while we
should you stay when the government wants us to go
into debt just to eat, Please, can you do something
about students?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, so your argument is that you end up getting
means tested based off your income. But of course we
know that the middle class is squeezed, you know, because
of high inflation and high middle clas class. Is what
I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I didn't squeeze me of
New Zealand. Yep. I mean, look, what we're trying to
do is make sure if I go back to do
the first point you know, on the we want people
off welfare and in to work, you know. So we've
got that's why we've got the eighty nineteen year olds
(22:16):
being linked back to printal income. We're still to design
that system, so we'll give that some thought given what
you've just said. But I think there is a great
future for key Wee kids in New Zealand. And I
understand it because you know, I've got kids of twenty
five and twenty three. I've also someone who went overseas
for a period of time as well. We've always done that, yes,
but actually we've got to make sure we build a country. Yeah. Yeah,
(22:38):
well no I wasn't when I left at twenty four.
But I mean, but what I'd say to you is that, yeah,
we've got That's exactly the job that I've got. That's
why I came to politics because essentially, we've got to
make sure this is the place our kids and a
grandkids want to stay in. And that means they have
to be able to work hard, got to get money.
They've got to be able to get ahead if they
work hard. They've got to be able to be safe.
They've got to get good health, good education.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Yeah, But why should a university student have to be
depending on the appearance income to twenty four? That's just
too much. Back to twenty I can accept, But twenty
four is too much. My daughter wants to be a doctor.
He's sart of that. At the end of the share,
she's going to go to Australia because you cannot afford
to stay.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Help us.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
Yeah, please, we're asking.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yep, we're trying to Yep, I hear it.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Thank you, Hayden. See that you have opened the door
to means testing and that, and you know we've all agreed.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
That, well, those are the choices you have to make, right,
So you've got to say, look, do someone earning over
one hundred and eighty thousand dollars actually need to get
the two hundred and sixty dollars for the government contribution
for key? We save it? No, you know, you've got
to be able to say, I mean, you know best
Start for example, which everyone gets the best start payment.
But in years two and three it's been means tested,
and we say, okay, in year one it's going to
be means tested.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
It's what about the pension.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Pension is something that we've always said as a universal right,
and that's not something that we've looked at, but people
will raise that with you as well. What we're trying
to do is get people to also embrace KEY we
savor because down the road that's begun to become the
way how.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Do you means test? Because you might have a two
million dollar home. Accidentally, like a lot of the PACIFICA
families in gray Lynn suddenly find themselves.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
As said, which income poor. Different ways of looking at it,
and that's a fair challenge. But I mean on the
eighteen to nineteen welfare thing, for example, we actually, you know,
we will look at that as to what the way
to deal with that with parents they'll obviously well, no,
we haven't. We've see to design that because we've got
to actually think that through quite care.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Because once you open the door to means testing, that's
the next question, how do you test?
Speaker 3 (24:28):
That's right? Yeah, And this is the question that's been raised,
which is that you can have incomes, but actually it's
about your net income essentially, and it's also about some
of the costs that people are incurring. So we'll think
that through appropriately. But the point is a very clear one,
which is I don't want under twenty five year olds
just drifting out of school and going on this no
benefit right there. We cannot have that, and we actually
(24:48):
have to get back rights and responsibilities back into the country,
and that means that we should expect an eighteen year
old either you're working or you're studying, but actually sitting
at home playing PlayStation isn't actually where we want you
to be, and it puts you know, it actually I've
had a number of parents say this is good because
it actually now says that I've got a you know,
I can now take push my eighteen nineteen year old
to actually go out and get job, job and do stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Mike got a text this morning from someone who said
that they've got a twenty five year old sitting at
home and they said, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yep, twenty five years Oh well, yeah, that life I've gone.
Well that you want healthy, independent adults at eighteen who
can actually go out in the world and actually understand
they've got to work. The reason why we want to
make this intervention is that when you look at young
people who end up going on jobs, see can benefit
before the age of twenty five. The forecast as they
stay there it can be up to eighteen years. And
(25:40):
so you want to make that intervention and change and
incentivize the behavior to get them off welfare and into work.
We're also going to have a budget here over the
next four years. It's going to create two hundred and
forty thousand new jobs. It's also a budget that's going
to grow the economy by two point seven percent on
average over that four year period as well. So there
is going to be jobs coming and we want people
to be able to take it. And that's why Louise
(26:01):
Upsin's done a good job. While we've been in a
very difficult time economically and unemployment is just almost peaking
and about to come down. There's been more people obviously
on job seeker benefit, but she's put the obligations in
place because that's still right that you're obligated to look
for a job. You don't get penalized for not having
a job, but you have to. Your job is to
look for a job when you're on unemployment because you're
(26:21):
deemed capable and able to work, and we've got to
be able to do everything we can to get you
into that work.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Absolutely a text to rights. I'm a national support always
have been the left of one. By the looks you
have to get out of the pope. We're going to
have to tax more. If we look across to OSSI,
they have stamp duty tax, capital gains tax a top
tax rate of forty five percent. Wouldn't it be smart
to introduce capital gains tax and stamp duty to pay
down debt?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Look, I mean that is an argument that you're going
to hear from the left really strongly, which is that
they want to spend more, and a lot of it's
on wasteful spending as we've seen. They want to tax
more and they want to borrow more. And I'm telling
you right now, what New Zealand does not need is
a capital gains tax is going to smash and punish businesses,
particularly small business owners, and that's not what we need.
What we need to do is grow our economy. And
(27:05):
that's exactly what we're trying to do with some of
the package that we've announced over the budget.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
The investment in education I love. I think that's really
powerful and really important. The student learning support package, Brant
can I.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
I mean on education, I have to say, in my
four years in politics, that is the thing that has
alarmed me when I first came in and it still
alarms me to today. I think we've got three big problems.
The first is that actually we're not getting our kids
to school, and for somehow in New Zealand it became
an optional thing not to show up and do compulsory education.
And I call out parents, and I call out principles,
(27:40):
and I call out the schools and obviously the government
and the Ministry of Education on that. But when we
came to power, we had over fifty percent of our
kids not at school regularly. That means they're not there
ninety percent of the time or more. And the problem
with that is by the time they get to sixteen,
they've lost one whole year of education. So how the
hell are we supposed to compete with Australian kids, or
Singaporean kids, or Canadian or Irish kids for high paying
(28:00):
jobs if they're not prepared for that future. And that's
why I call and ask parents to take some responsibility
for that to getting kids to school. The good news
is we've improved that. It's up to fifty eight percent,
so we've got forty two percent not in school regularly,
but we've got a hell of a lot more to
do there. The second thing is the achievement in our
school systems being suboptimhen our kids have been falling behind
kids the same age and other countries around the world
(28:22):
and Labour let that happen. Half our kids arrive at
high school not at the standard they need to be
at on reading, eighty percent arrive at high school sound
they need to be on maths. We had forty percent
of our teachers not confident to teach maths to nine
year olds a year four students because we hadn't prepared
them well enough to teach that maths curriculum. So what
we did was we put in structured literacy last year.
(28:43):
We did it under real urgency. We jammed it in
so that we can actually teach kids phonics, and we've
got halfway through that program. This year is the second
year and it's working really well. It doesn't matter when
you go over what background you come from, but we're
teaching our kids to read the same way every day,
every way. Then this year we put in place the
math Correculum based off those terrible maths results, and it's
based off more of an Australian Singaporean system as a result,
(29:04):
and Eric has done a great job with thin getting
those resources out to the teachers to support that, and
the teachers that we've got amazing, amazing teachers but the
system has let them down. We've got to keep working
at that. But the third thing you raise is what
I get raised when I'm out there in schools a lot,
which is we've got a lot more kids with learning needs.
And if your parents of these kids with learning needs,
they want to they want to know their kids got
a shot at realizing all of their potential as well.
(29:26):
So we're going to add nine hundred thousand extra hours
of teacher aid time between twenty twenty eight. It's the
biggest most comprehensive investment in learning support in a generation.
So it's the right next step as we try and
focus on attendance, achievement and then learning support.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
The parents, I mean, I think voters and the New
Zealand people have to take some responsibility too. I mean,
you can't just look to the government takes everything. You
can't look to the government to fix the fact that
your child is turning up at school not toilet trained.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, God, well, I think the way I look at it,
And you know the reason I came to politics four
years ago because I want the country to realize it's potential.
I'm going to do everything I can as the Prime
Minister and as a leader of the government. And government
can set the settings up and it can create the
right environment and all that sort of stuff, But then
we need our businesses. I can create the settings, but
the businesses go out and grow the ore the ones
that decide to grow their businesses and take on employees
(30:20):
and do all that good stuff. And in the community,
whether it's us as families, you know, or community organizations,
we need to take responsibility for our own kids. We
need to take responsible for our own families. When I
lived in America, it was really interesting their mentality and
there's a lot that's wrong with America, but they start
with I've got to look after myself. I look after
my family, I look after my community, and then I
go to government for assistance and or help. But you know,
(30:42):
it's the point I've been trying to make, is that
we don't want to be in a parent child relationship
where it's the government does everything, and actually business and
community and families don't. They become the children. Were's an
adult adult adult. Because we've got amazing community organizations that
seeing the paint, the need, the frustration, the problems out
in our society. We need to get the money out
of the bureaucracy, and we need to give it to
them because they get better results than the government will
(31:04):
doing that job. We need to let our businesses be
cut loose so they actually go out and grow. And actually,
if you're a business owner, you actually say, I do
want to have ambition and aspiration and positivity and I
want to grow this thing. And that's great. And then
we as a government got to make it as efficient
as possible and actually get the incentives right in the
operating system so that people can make that work. But
(31:24):
it's all three of us working together on this. It's
not just me as a single prime minister doing it
all with my team and my government. We're all in
this together. And that's what I'm really excited about. That's
what I love about this job is I see incredible
people up and down the system, raising great kids, doing
awesome by their family. You've even had some of it today.
You know, people in the squeeze middle as I call it,
who are doing everything right and you know, still struggling
(31:47):
to get ahead. I've got to try and fix that
with respect to the macro settings. But we've got to
do this together.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Oh is that us? Sorry, We're chatting away. Sorry, we're
just talking about good intentions and how they don't always
get the best outcomes. Do they know? I get the
biggest stages in the world, but you've got to be able.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
To imp you do. I think you know New Zealand
and the rest of the world. Actually, people across the
world are actually quite frustrated, right They've heard politicians spouse
off with good intentions and I get it. But you've
actually got to execute and you've got to deliver for people.
And that's what you know. That's the word I use
with my cabinet is delivery. You know, it's like we
and I get it. You know, people will say, oh,
but Christ, you should be doing this, this or this,
(32:27):
and you can get the danger of that as you
end up boiling the ocean. And that's why I have
those quarterly action plans, for example, because I need to
say to the public service and to my ministers, I'm
expecting you to deliver this. We know we've got lots
of things to do. We get very distracted with everything.
But if you choose to do everything, you do nothing,
and often good intentions without our You know, you want
to have big heart, but a clear head. You've got
to get that to those two bits working together. So yeah, no,
(32:50):
I think that's right. I think you know, people are
over good intentions. They want results, they want delivery.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
They certainly do.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
But I got to say, Cary, I mean, eighteen months
into this job, we have a great country. We honestly
have a kick ass country, and we do, and we
have so much potential. And I come, I go overseas
and I have the privilege with them coming back home
and I go. But man, I am energized because there
is a big world out there that actually wants New
Zealand's products and services that actually means what we'll lift
our businesses. Yep, that all lift our businesses, that will
(33:20):
actually help our people. We've got good social democratic institutions,
we've got lots of abundant natural resources, and we've got
super super smart people that just need to be freed
up in librate and get on with it.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Because I asked you in the lead up to the
election campaign why you would want to do the job,
because it is so big, it is so good, asked,
it's so sure, Runchy.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
I could do lots of different things, but I choose
to do this because I actually don't want to get
to ninety looking back saying I wish I'd given it
a go and maybe I had something to offer. And
I think actually people say, oh, but you're not a
career politician, and da da da, But actually I think
that's been really helpful in this time that actually you
come to this job wanting the country to do better,
and that's what it's all about. So now we've got
a great future to hang in there.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
All right, And your song choice is Zach Bryan nineball.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yeah, so Zach Bryan great country music artists. This is
but it was you got on saying countries. It's modern
music now, so it's not the old country and Western stuff.
This is awesome the song, great storytelling.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Okay, we'll I have thirty seconds've a prime minister, Thank
you for your time.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
As always, for more from Kerry Wooden Mornings, listen live
to news talks it be from nine am weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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