June 19, 2024 • 34 mins
Business leader Rob Campbell shares his best and worst money stories with Liam Dann.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, I'm Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at
Large and welcome to this episode of Money Talks. This
is a podcast about money, but we're not going to
tell you how to get rich, and we're not going
to try and pick the next interest rate move. In
this series, I'll be talking to interesting New Zealanders about
how money has shaped their lives and what they've learned
(00:27):
over the years. For today's podcast, I'm joined by professional director,
business leader and quite outspoken social commentator at times, Rob Campbell.
You're Rob current, Liam, good to see, Welcome to Money Talks.
I'll get started at the beginning because you know you've
had quite a high profile, particularly in the business world,
but not everyone knows the history of your career and
(00:50):
so forth. But we usually like to go right back
on Money Talks and ask what were your first memories
of having money? Do you remember as a child holding
money in your hand and what you might have been
off to spend it on.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
My first memories and my background is that my mother
was Dumbatian, not the dog but the creatos creations as
we call them now, and there were living in Upper Heart.
There were quite a large number of old creation guys
who had come out and either gum digging or working
(01:26):
in the Ministry of Works. And they lived in a
camp at the Trent And Military camp just nearby where
we lived, and they were kind of uncles. And when
everyone went to visit them, which I always liked for
this reason, their habit was to give you a.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Silver coin, right and kidding this silver corn coin would
have been worth something.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It was really it was really quite significant for a
little guy. And that's my first real memory of money,
and that was guys who didn't have any giving it
to someone to whom it was quite precious.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Did you get pocket money and stuff growing up? Was
it part of the childhood regime?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
We didn't, in due course, as always later than the
other kids, schoolded and less than the other kids at
school died, But yeah we did, and we had to
do various tasks for it.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, was that because you know, was money tight in
the household? What were your parents doing basically?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, I mean when he was tight. When I was young.
My father left school at fourteen or fifteen because he
had to look after his mother and his younger brother,
so he didn't We didn't come from any money. And
mum's dad worked for the Ministry of Works, so they
didn't come from any money, and I think money was
(02:41):
generally tighter than anyway for many people. They got pretty
comfortable as dad's career moved on, but that was largely
after my sister and I had left home, and so
they ended up comfortably retired. But we didn't have great
deal of money. We were late to get a TV,
(03:01):
we were late to get a car. All those kind
of material things were quite quite a struggle for us.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, I mean people I talk too often recall those
times as being, you know, New Zealand was sort of
nominally wealthy but at the same time were sort of
egalitarian and sort of not having that much around the household.
Did it feel like a sort of normal sort of household.
I mean, there wasn't wild differences between the.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Kids you knew who were wealthy in yourselves in not
in Upper Hut, and I mean we were relative. While
I'm not saying we went well off, you know, there
was no real wealth around, and there was certainly one
was aware of kids more probably at the rugby club
(03:46):
than at school. At the rugby club, which was the
much bigger focus of life than school. There were certainly
aware of the differences, and obviously ethnic differences as well.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Sure, So what sort of I mean, not to hassle
you for your age exactly, but what sort of era
are we talking here?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I was born in nineteen fifty one, so we're talking
about the nineteen fifties, early six.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Fifties and fifties and sixties, which often is seen as
a sort of a golden era for the New zeal
On economy. I guess there was.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of nostalgia in that.
I don't think it was easy for many people at all,
and certainly for working class people and for people in
the rural areas that were on something of a downturn
over those years, particularly from Mali living in rural areas.
You know, it's a little bit romanticized just quite how
good it was. But you know, there was certainly perhaps
(04:41):
a great unity of society, particularly park Our society at
that time than there is now.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah. Jumping back to that money in your hand, did
you have things that you had your eye on that
you're passionate about spending any pocket money on, or any
of those coins on, or was it just off to
the dairy, which is an answer I get from a
people as well.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Definitely, definitely the dairy.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, yeah, And sort of after that, After the dairy,
it was comics. I was pretty keen on Western comics
or war comics. They were the kind of the next destination.
As I matured, you keep them. They probably are worth
a fortune now to kick them.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Well gone, all right? And how were you at school?
Were you an academic kid? Did you have a passion
for certain subjects that might have suggested where you were
going to go? I guess career wise.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Look, I was on the on the brighter side amongst
the kids at school, and I took a bit of
a dive when we got introduced to fractions because I
had bad eyesight and no one had realized it till
that time, and I couldn't see what was on the blackboard.
I came right once I went and got a pair
of glasses. But yeah, I was. I was reasonably adept
(05:55):
at school.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah, and so it was sort of like being able
to handle a bit of maths and leading into the economics.
Is that sort of would you say that you sort
of had an aptitude for that?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Look, my maths was never particularly strong. To be honest,
I don't want to hood up to criticism of anything
to say about econometric matters. But my math was never
really my strong point.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I could.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know I was in that category. I think a
property investor much later in my career once said to me,
you should stick to property. Wrong. All you need to
do is be able to add and multiply. You don't
need anything else. Yeah, and he was pretty good at multiplying,
this particular guy. But no, you know, basic basic maths
I was all right at, but probably I was better
(06:41):
verbally and writing than I was.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Right, Yes, I did sort of the idea of you know,
financial security and money drive your decisions at school later
at high school, and things around what you wanted to do.
At that time.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, we were a pretty conservative family by background, so yes,
I think that I probably had quite high aspirations for
security at that time and even up until probably my
last year at school.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Going into university.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
When you know, if you unless you were comatose in
the late nineteen sixties, you were going to be exposed
to some quite radicalizing influence amongst young people. And I was,
and you know, I moved into what I might call
a rejectionist phase in my life.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Well, at school, did you do a bit of economics
at school? Was that what led to the doing it
at university?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
No, No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Was There wasn't such a thing as ever, right, ye
at school when I was there, you know, the current
ministry of education would have loved it. It was pretty traditional,
start right, reading right, that kind of thing. So and Rugby,
of course that was the other r. So it was
only at university that I got into economics. And you
(08:01):
know that was almost accidentally, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, and that, as you say, that was a fairly
radical time politically through the universities that the economics itself
probably was the height of the Kensian kind of thinking,
was it? You know it was it all that kind
of stuff that you were seeing.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, Victoria University was kind of a hotbed of Keensianism,
if there can be such a thing. My learning in
economics was dominated by economic history rather than economics itself,
so it was the study of economic thought and the
study of events through history, economic events through history. So
(08:41):
I kind of came at it at a sort of
a tangent to some extent.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah. Yeah, And you know you've talked about this before
you Actually, I guess you know, what's the right word.
You kind of did become a bit of a hippie
at the time. You were anti establishment. There was some
involvement with the Anarchist Collective and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, you know, I was in that university life, and
I was involved with Resistance Bookshop, which was, you know,
a socialist anarchist kind of bookshop, and with pretty much
most of the causes which you know, of anti war
and anti racism that were at the time. And regrettably,
(09:22):
here we are fifty years or so later, still dealing
with the same issues, so we weren't particularly successful. But
I certainly got involved with all of those issues and
was heavily influenced by them.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah did you, I mean, did you take an economic
lens to them through the study.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Look, I became reasonably academic at that stage of my life,
so I was reading radical left wing material from around
the world during that time, trying to reconcile the street
activism with the academic work. And it was an era
when you know, people who were doing that, we're leading,
(10:01):
We're reading things like the New Left Reviewer and others,
and you know, I was involved with importing some of
that material, funnily enough, in conjunction with Jaris de Bress,
who later became a race relations conciliator and a very
prominent career in human rights. So we had a little
importing book operation that we ran not for profit, but
(10:24):
to spread the ideas.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yea. And so you know what was the leap into
I guess a mainstream career. Trade unionism was I guess,
a bridge there to sort of a career and a
job that could actually pay the bills for you and things.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
No, I had a job at Victoria than at Messi
University in the economics departments, and I was attracted away
from that by unionists that I met in the Andy
War and ady racism.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So you could have gone a more academic route.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Ah, Yeah, that was certainly my intention at the time.
And you know, I got attracted away by the opportunity
to work more closely with unions, and you know, spent
quite a decade or so doing that sort of work.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
One of the questions I always ask on this podcast
is what's the poorest you've ever been? And the answer
is often the student years. But was that time, you know,
were you living, you know, a sort of a pretty
spartan existence at that time.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Does it go with the ideology A look, it was
reasonably spartan in the student years, but it kind of
should be in a way.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
You know, our fees were being paid.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And I was lucky enough to actually get a scholarship
from the if I can say this on your podcast,
from the Wellington Publishing company right, because I thought I
might be a journalist and I got the scholarship. It
can't have been very hardly competed for, but anyway, I
got the scholarship and then it was in a demonstration
(12:07):
outside the publishing companies officers because of something that had
written or said, and they decided they didn't want me
to come and work in the holidays, but they couldn't
take the scholarship off me.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So I got the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But journalism wasn't for you. It turned out not to
be that well though you're at you're in print a
little bit these days that were.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well, I am, but you know, so I didn't ever
you know, then I was at elector at university, which
was comfortable enough for a young person. And then when
I worked as a trade union official. I didn't start
in the Drivers Union, but I segued.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Into the Drivers Union, and the Drivers Union I.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Was paid at the top rate and the Driver's award
on a sixty hour week, that was the pay. So
it was it was not we weren't going to get
rich on it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
No, but you obviously thrived in that role on that
path because I recall as a child that you already
were quite sort of prominent as a kind of a
spokesperson for the union, and you'd feature on the late
night news on these sort of serious current affairs debates
and things that we used to have in those days,
and so that was sort of probably the first step
(13:17):
into the public eye, I guess, was it.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yeah. The union movement at the time was obviously.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
At least apparently very strong, was very much part of
what we now call civil society, so it was involved
in all of those debates, and.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
You know, to be fair, the.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
People that made up most of the Trajani your leadership
came from a very working class background, weren't necessarily all
that adept at economic debate and those kinds of things.
So I was often pushed forward into that and was
happy to be able to advance the cause. And I
think it's great, incidentally, that I see more recently because
(13:56):
the Union's kind of faded out of that sort of
society economic debate, and it's been fantastic to see in
recent years people like Craig Greenny and others within the
union movement becoming part of that debate again and giving
a voice to that perspective.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Sure, yeah, well, we'll come back round to that. But
I guess in between, you know, you had this incredible
career in the private sector, So can you just run
me through a sort of a highlights version of how
you made the transition from the union movement too, I guess,
you know, into the likes of telecom and so forth.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, I never planned to do it. So at the
time of the Longy government, you may recall, or maybe
aware from reading history in your case there, that there
was quite a bit of economic debate going on, and
I was involved in that from the union perspective. But
(14:54):
I guess I did see the need for economic chain
as well as social change at the time, and my
view at the time was that there should have been
a much closer accommodation between the union movement and the
political movement of labor and that the unions had the
(15:17):
opportunity to mold that change. In the end, that wasn't
the dominant view in the unions. It was regarded I
was regarded as a conservative view.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
That there were.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
People who agreed with me, but meant many who didn't. Obviously, equally,
some of the leadership of the Labor Party, without naming
any name, just completely trashed that point of view.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Roger Douglas has been on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, okay, so he would be a prominent person in
that in that respect.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, why it.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Got completely trashed as an idea, And you know, I
was very disheartened at the time and decided, look, this
isn't working.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
And I don't really know what my role as now.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
There are two things about that which I felt at
the time, but even more in reflection. One was that
it did reflect that I didn't come from a working
class background myself, and so I wasn't as embedded in
that movement as others. So it probably made it me
more shaky. And I've had that criticism from union colleagues
(16:23):
and I understand it and it's certainly true. But I
think the kind of second thing was that I had
become quite emotionally and otherwise psychologically tired of a lot
that was going on at the time, and I simply
(16:44):
needed respite from it at any event, at a personal level.
So when I decided I wasn't going to be a
union officially anymore, various offers started to come in, some
from the government and some from the privacy as to
other roles I could play, And because they were intellectually interesting,
(17:06):
that old academic thing was still there. I was attracted
into those largely because they were intellectually interesting challenges.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And did you feel you know, there was kind of
a wave of must have been quite exciting in a way,
a wave of opening up of New Zealand and all
the business, you know, really thriving as the old sort
of economic model fell away. Were you sort of swept
up on that a bit?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, it was I don't know who swept up in it.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I was here. I was coming out of.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
The labor movement in quite a prominent position and very
committed to it. So I was very aware of all
the contradictions that were in that, but certainly there was
plenty of change going on to get your teeth into
and try and understand.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, so you ended up on the telecom board, was
that right?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
No, not on the telecomboard, but on a range of
other boards, from the Bank of New Zealand, on the
establishment board of the post office. You know, you name
a disaster. I was there at some stage of the
last fifty years.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, yeah, I guess bring it back to money and things,
you know, like so that was there a point at
which you sort of went, oh, you know, you're in
the business world now you realize that, you know, there
was a financial upside to it, that you were feeling
more comfortable financially than your head previously, all that sort
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I look, undoubtedly, you know, over the period of my
business life, through.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Largely through fees and.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Rates pay that I had, you know, I was able
to accumulate what for many people would be, you know,
a reasonable amount of wealth. I also made a few
mistakes which got rid of odd bits of it, but no,
no doubt, I mean I became a lot more well
off economically than I would have been had I stayed
(19:03):
in the trade unions. Wasn't why I did it, But
you'd be an idiot to say you didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, I mean one of the questions we ask as
well as the poorest you've ever been, is what would
be the most indulgent purchase you ever made? Something? I
mean you usually we're getting at something you might have
done for far nor for just this year, hell of it.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
The most indulgent purchases I've made have probably been works
of art that hang on the wall, which were bought
for numbers that I would never have contemplated when I
was younger, but which you know, we own because they
give us pleasure rather than because there worth a lot
of money. But sometimes if I think about what we
(19:43):
paid for them, it's indulgent.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
You're sort of passionate about New Zealand art.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Passionate it's a bit strong for me. No, I think
that I am very fond of New Zealand art, and I.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Think that there's a distinctive New Zealand And art.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Movement in set of capabilities that are really important. I've
reflected on that. But recently the art that I thought
was reflecting an authentic New Zealand voice was actually and
still does reflect a parkiher appreciation of ot A pakiher
(20:34):
observance of this country, rather than be the real culture
I was at an art opening actually on Friday Nightly
and where a young Marty woman was talking to me
and she said, it's really interesting presentation this, but all
the Murray's are on the wall and not in the room.
And it was a verys dute observation. I think it's
a lot of a lot of our artists about unfortunately,
(20:56):
but that's changing.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, you, I mean, you up. You know, one of
our most high profile company directors, big company, SkyCity Tourism Holdings,
someone Set Holding's, Guinness Peak Group was a really high
profile investor for a long time. Obviously you had skills
to bear there, I mean, you know, I'm just interested
(21:17):
in how you see the connection between managing personal wealth
and personal finance with what you do on a corporate board.
Are they Are they different skills?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah? I think they're very different skills.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And actually I was quite a lot better at doing
the corporate stuff than my own finances. I don't even
this is an old fashioned statement, but I don't even
run my own checkbook. No one runs a checkbook now,
but you know what I mean. So the corporate management
and creation of wealth was something that I think I
(21:53):
do have, did have and still do have some aptitude
for understanding what the economic model is that make something
work is both intellectually interesting and important for boards. And
I think too often, and I made this public criticism before,
too often people are appointed to boards who either aren't
(22:14):
capable of or are not willing to really understand the
business model that they're talking about. And I think it's
one of the reasons why we have business failures that
not enough thoughts has put into what is this model,
why does it work? What factors might make it not work,
rather than the kind of the constant new bits of
(22:35):
paper that come before you and compliance issues, all of
which have importance but won't save a business, and we
end up in New Zealand, I think, and I've been
part of this in many ways, you know, perfectly governing
a business as it goes over a cliff.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Right, yeah, yeah, I mean you've obviously got to have
a passion and throw yourself into the business. And it's just,
I guess strikes me that it's different than you. You know,
you'll know people who have a passion for building their
own wealth, you know, for whatever reason, and so you've
never really had that drive to just focus on maximizing
(23:13):
every dollar of your own personal wealth in that sort
of way.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
No, No, I haven't, and I don't hold that out
as anything good, bad, or and different, just as what
it is.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Some people are just I mean, yeah, I'm same. I'm
not really judging. It's just I noticed some people have
that sort of passionate interest in doing that, and other
people like, well, I've got enough money. I'm just going
to focus on what I'm interested.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, I mean, I was doing perfectly well and there
was absolutely no need to do more than that. But
it's interesting. I mean, those people who are driven primarily
by their own wealth are not necessarily any worse than
anyone else. It's hard to explain to socialists friends, They're
(23:54):
not actually any worse than anyone else. They are simply
applying the dictates of a system more effectively than many.
Some of them are absolute pricks. Incidentally, if I can
say that on here, they are, but not all of them.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
And you'll find the absolute pricks everywhere as well.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
There's a reasonably even distributions across various parts of life.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, So, reflecting on having been that outspoken through the career,
were there ever times where you kind of regret and
we talked about ta Fata or times where you think, well,
maybe I should have ranged it in that time.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Oh, look, lots lots of times not on to Far
to Wara. I stand by everything that I said, and indeed,
within a few months what I said about three waters
became Labor Party policy. So no point in regretting that.
I do regret not being part of the ongoing to
Far to Worra journey, but amazingly I'm still involved with
(24:56):
quite a lot of those debates, and in fact, this
week I'm involved in two conferences where I'm still contributing
to the debates about health policy.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
So no, I don't regret.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
That having been I guess slightly burned by that sort
of government involvement and is it off the table? Would
you work with governments again on those kind of big initiatives.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I'd certainly, I'd love to, but not.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
If they thought in engaging me they were engaging a
public servant who was just going to tow the line
and sort of nod whenever they said.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
So.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
If I got the opportunity to contribute to government in
a way that was honest and open, yes I would,
but I wouldn't take on one of the existing jobs,
and I'm not going to be offered one.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Let me ask, do you you ever imagine winning lotto?
Do you buy lotto tickets? I don't buy lotto tickets.
I don't like the odds.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Messes at least that could Well, you've got to remember
I've cheered a casino as well, so I know who
wins games with gambling.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, but actually I suppose at least the odds are
fairly well marked on that.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Well, the odds are better up the raid at sky
City without being an advertisement for them. But just I'm
pretty sure I could say that every game in a
casino is better odds than the lotto.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, I mean, in the last year or two, I
guess it might be fair to say you've stepped back
from the big boards. Has that given you a bit
more freedom to say what you think?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I mean?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I know there was a bit of controversy in the
health scenario because you know, you were on a board
and spoke out. But beyond that, do you feel more
freed up to sort of say what you think about
the world?
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Now? Well?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I do, I do since losing the tifat or role.
But frankly, i'd kind of decided to move on from
the large corporate world anyway, and did stop a number
of roles in order to take on the Tafat role.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
You know, I was actually.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Pretty outspoken for a business person when I was fully
immersed in the private sector and in governance. I didn't
hold back talking about the things that were important as
I saw them at the time in business. So I
don't know that I've actually changed all that much. I've
just got a bit more time to be mischievous.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Now, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, And I recall in those times too, they would
often ruffle a few feathers. I mean, how did some
of those columns and statements that you made when you
were right in the thick of the corporate we will
go down with all the colleagues.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Well, obviously they didn't. They didn't like it very much.
But you know, I think there was a respect for
my ability to do the corporate job that we were
doing that ran alongside of it.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
So most people.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
One prominent business person when I took on the fato
Aura job, actually right at the start, very preciently said
to me, you may think we're bustards, rob but we
won't throw you under a bus the way these guys
will right, and.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
You know he was right.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, you know you are quite outspoken about addressing social
inequality and those things, particularly for someone who's come from
that corporate background. But I guess there's all you know,
the Marxist roots and all that sort of stuff. You
know what, now, when you look at it and you
look at the inequality in society, what do you think
it would be the biggest or the biggest drivers of
(28:48):
why some people are poor and why some people are rich.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Well, I think it at the risk of sounding Marxist again,
and I don't mind being called a Marxist. I regard
that as a badge of honor. Really, I'd rather be
a Marxist than a Freedman night, if you take those
two extremes. But the system we have is one that
(29:12):
relies on, frankly, exploitation, exploitation of resources and exploitation of people,
and that produces many advances. It has done many good
things in society materially, but it does inevitably produce a
(29:35):
situation where there is an equality, and not just an equality,
but the people at the bottom are subject to severe problems.
And you know that happens not only within an economy
like New Zealand's But it happens between this economy and
you know, other countries. And the classic is the people
(29:57):
in a copper mine or some other kind of are
earth mine in a third world country being exploited for
the phones that we use and the cars that we drive, etc.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
So that.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Is in the nature of the economic system that has
conquered the world. And I think what disturbs me most
at the moment is that we are clearly nearing the
end of what some of that could do in terms
not just of resources, but in terms of pollution and
(30:31):
the damage that has been caused to the natural environment
and the damage that's been caused to people. And we
should be taking note of that. And it's beyond my
capability to devise the new system, but I think it's
(30:53):
pretty obvious that unless we find some better way to
organize economic things, we are headed for a huge descers.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, so I mean not to put you on the spot,
but another question I like to ask is if I
could make your prime Minister for the day and you
could change maybe one big low. Is there something you
would target from a New Zealand perspective to make some change?
You know, where would you be focused.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
If I was Prime Minister for a day, I would
tell David Seymour and Winston to go and take a
running jump and give Chloe Swarbrick a call.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, do you she's got enough economic nouse.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
To I'm sure she's got enough economic now. So I
think there are certainly people within the Labor Party too
who understand that general proposition that I've just made that
if we don't make significant changes, and we don't change
the direction of our economic structure and life, then we're
headed for a major disaster. I don't think the current
(31:54):
Prime Minister will do that, but if I was, if
I was put in a seat, that's what I would do,
because for all the faults of business, we have to
find a way to take business with us. We have
to find a way to take people with us and
the change that we're going to need. So you know, frankly,
(32:16):
if the current government doesn't head in that direction, then
it'll just join the dustbin of history.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Basically, Wow, I'm going to wrap it up here, but
I just thought i'd ask what's keeping you busy right now?
What are you passionate about right now?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
I'm really passionate about aut the university of opportunity. A
university of equity I think is just so important in
New Zealand. That's something that we're building there. I'm a
very small part of it, but I happen to have
a titular a role there, a very small partner that
(32:55):
occupies a lot of not just time but thought. Very
interested from a commercial point of view in what we're
doing in rural land with the company I'm involved with there.
I'm very interested in what we're doing at our AK
and energy innovation so that it's not bad for an
(33:16):
old guy. And I also like the engagement that I
increasingly have with young activists social activists around the city
who can see some value in what this old guy's
got to say and I can hopefully help them realize
some of their dreams.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So it sounds like you're heating back into the more
activist world.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Well, yeah, I'm probably not, probably not much used to them,
but I think it's a time for activism. If ever
there was a time for activism, it feels to me
like the late nineteen sixties early nineteen seventies, where, to
take that old phrase, you know, if you're not part
(34:03):
of the solution, you're part of the problem, something that
has to happen, you might as well.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Be part of the solution.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, Rob, Thank you very much, Cheers, Thank you. Thanks
for listening to this episode of Money Talks. If you
want to get in touch, drop me a line at
Liam dot Dan at inzme dot co dot nz and
you can read more from me at inzidherld dot co
dot nz. Thanks to my producer Ethan Sills and sound
engineer Liann McDonald. Follow Money Talks on iHeartRadio or wherever
(34:33):
you get your podcasts, with new episodes available every Thursday.
Hi, I'm Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at
Large and welcome to this episode of Money Talks. This
is a podcast about money, but we're not going to
tell you how to get rich, and we're not going
to try and pick the next interest rate move. In
this series, I'll be talking to interesting New Zealanders about
how money has shaped their lives and what they've learned
(00:27):
over the years. For today's podcast, I'm joined by professional director,
business leader and quite outspoken social commentator at times, Rob Campbell.
You're Rob current, Liam, good to see, Welcome to Money Talks.
I'll get started at the beginning because you know you've
had quite a high profile, particularly in the business world,
but not everyone knows the history of your career and
(00:50):
so forth. But we usually like to go right back
on Money Talks and ask what were your first memories
of having money? Do you remember as a child holding
money in your hand and what you might have been
off to spend it on.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
My first memories and my background is that my mother
was Dumbatian, not the dog but the creatos creations as
we call them now, and there were living in Upper Heart.
There were quite a large number of old creation guys
who had come out and either gum digging or working
(01:26):
in the Ministry of Works. And they lived in a
camp at the Trent And Military camp just nearby where
we lived, and they were kind of uncles. And when
everyone went to visit them, which I always liked for
this reason, their habit was to give you a.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Silver coin, right and kidding this silver corn coin would
have been worth something.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It was really it was really quite significant for a
little guy. And that's my first real memory of money,
and that was guys who didn't have any giving it
to someone to whom it was quite precious.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Did you get pocket money and stuff growing up? Was
it part of the childhood regime?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
We didn't, in due course, as always later than the
other kids, schoolded and less than the other kids at
school died, But yeah we did, and we had to
do various tasks for it.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, was that because you know, was money tight in
the household? What were your parents doing basically?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, I mean when he was tight. When I was young.
My father left school at fourteen or fifteen because he
had to look after his mother and his younger brother,
so he didn't We didn't come from any money. And
mum's dad worked for the Ministry of Works, so they
didn't come from any money, and I think money was
(02:41):
generally tighter than anyway for many people. They got pretty
comfortable as dad's career moved on, but that was largely
after my sister and I had left home, and so
they ended up comfortably retired. But we didn't have great
deal of money. We were late to get a TV,
(03:01):
we were late to get a car. All those kind
of material things were quite quite a struggle for us.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, I mean people I talk too often recall those
times as being, you know, New Zealand was sort of
nominally wealthy but at the same time were sort of
egalitarian and sort of not having that much around the household.
Did it feel like a sort of normal sort of household.
I mean, there wasn't wild differences between the.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Kids you knew who were wealthy in yourselves in not
in Upper Hut, and I mean we were relative. While
I'm not saying we went well off, you know, there
was no real wealth around, and there was certainly one
was aware of kids more probably at the rugby club
(03:46):
than at school. At the rugby club, which was the
much bigger focus of life than school. There were certainly
aware of the differences, and obviously ethnic differences as well.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Sure, So what sort of I mean, not to hassle
you for your age exactly, but what sort of era
are we talking here?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I was born in nineteen fifty one, so we're talking
about the nineteen fifties, early six.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Fifties and fifties and sixties, which often is seen as
a sort of a golden era for the New zeal
On economy. I guess there was.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of nostalgia in that.
I don't think it was easy for many people at all,
and certainly for working class people and for people in
the rural areas that were on something of a downturn
over those years, particularly from Mali living in rural areas.
You know, it's a little bit romanticized just quite how
good it was. But you know, there was certainly perhaps
(04:41):
a great unity of society, particularly park Our society at
that time than there is now.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah. Jumping back to that money in your hand, did
you have things that you had your eye on that
you're passionate about spending any pocket money on, or any
of those coins on, or was it just off to
the dairy, which is an answer I get from a
people as well.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Definitely, definitely the dairy.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, yeah, And sort of after that, After the dairy,
it was comics. I was pretty keen on Western comics
or war comics. They were the kind of the next destination.
As I matured, you keep them. They probably are worth
a fortune now to kick them.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Well gone, all right? And how were you at school?
Were you an academic kid? Did you have a passion
for certain subjects that might have suggested where you were
going to go? I guess career wise.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Look, I was on the on the brighter side amongst
the kids at school, and I took a bit of
a dive when we got introduced to fractions because I
had bad eyesight and no one had realized it till
that time, and I couldn't see what was on the blackboard.
I came right once I went and got a pair
of glasses. But yeah, I was. I was reasonably adept
(05:55):
at school.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah, and so it was sort of like being able
to handle a bit of maths and leading into the economics.
Is that sort of would you say that you sort
of had an aptitude for that?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Look, my maths was never particularly strong. To be honest,
I don't want to hood up to criticism of anything
to say about econometric matters. But my math was never
really my strong point.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I could.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know I was in that category. I think a
property investor much later in my career once said to me,
you should stick to property. Wrong. All you need to
do is be able to add and multiply. You don't
need anything else. Yeah, and he was pretty good at multiplying,
this particular guy. But no, you know, basic basic maths
I was all right at, but probably I was better
(06:41):
verbally and writing than I was.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Right, Yes, I did sort of the idea of you know,
financial security and money drive your decisions at school later
at high school, and things around what you wanted to do.
At that time.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, we were a pretty conservative family by background, so yes,
I think that I probably had quite high aspirations for
security at that time and even up until probably my
last year at school.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Going into university.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
When you know, if you unless you were comatose in
the late nineteen sixties, you were going to be exposed
to some quite radicalizing influence amongst young people. And I was,
and you know, I moved into what I might call
a rejectionist phase in my life.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Well, at school, did you do a bit of economics
at school? Was that what led to the doing it
at university?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
No, No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Was There wasn't such a thing as ever, right, ye
at school when I was there, you know, the current
ministry of education would have loved it. It was pretty traditional,
start right, reading right, that kind of thing. So and Rugby,
of course that was the other r. So it was
only at university that I got into economics. And you
(08:01):
know that was almost accidentally, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, and that, as you say, that was a fairly
radical time politically through the universities that the economics itself
probably was the height of the Kensian kind of thinking,
was it? You know it was it all that kind
of stuff that you were seeing.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, Victoria University was kind of a hotbed of Keensianism,
if there can be such a thing. My learning in
economics was dominated by economic history rather than economics itself,
so it was the study of economic thought and the
study of events through history, economic events through history. So
(08:41):
I kind of came at it at a sort of
a tangent to some extent.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah. Yeah, And you know you've talked about this before
you Actually, I guess you know, what's the right word.
You kind of did become a bit of a hippie
at the time. You were anti establishment. There was some
involvement with the Anarchist Collective and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, you know, I was in that university life, and
I was involved with Resistance Bookshop, which was, you know,
a socialist anarchist kind of bookshop, and with pretty much
most of the causes which you know, of anti war
and anti racism that were at the time. And regrettably,
(09:22):
here we are fifty years or so later, still dealing
with the same issues, so we weren't particularly successful. But
I certainly got involved with all of those issues and
was heavily influenced by them.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah did you, I mean, did you take an economic
lens to them through the study.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Look, I became reasonably academic at that stage of my life,
so I was reading radical left wing material from around
the world during that time, trying to reconcile the street
activism with the academic work. And it was an era
when you know, people who were doing that, we're leading,
(10:01):
We're reading things like the New Left Reviewer and others,
and you know, I was involved with importing some of
that material, funnily enough, in conjunction with Jaris de Bress,
who later became a race relations conciliator and a very
prominent career in human rights. So we had a little
importing book operation that we ran not for profit, but
(10:24):
to spread the ideas.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yea. And so you know what was the leap into
I guess a mainstream career. Trade unionism was I guess,
a bridge there to sort of a career and a
job that could actually pay the bills for you and things.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
No, I had a job at Victoria than at Messi
University in the economics departments, and I was attracted away
from that by unionists that I met in the Andy
War and ady racism.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So you could have gone a more academic route.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Ah, Yeah, that was certainly my intention at the time.
And you know, I got attracted away by the opportunity
to work more closely with unions, and you know, spent
quite a decade or so doing that sort of work.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
One of the questions I always ask on this podcast
is what's the poorest you've ever been? And the answer
is often the student years. But was that time, you know,
were you living, you know, a sort of a pretty
spartan existence at that time.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Does it go with the ideology A look, it was
reasonably spartan in the student years, but it kind of
should be in a way.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
You know, our fees were being paid.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And I was lucky enough to actually get a scholarship
from the if I can say this on your podcast,
from the Wellington Publishing company right, because I thought I
might be a journalist and I got the scholarship. It
can't have been very hardly competed for, but anyway, I
got the scholarship and then it was in a demonstration
(12:07):
outside the publishing companies officers because of something that had
written or said, and they decided they didn't want me
to come and work in the holidays, but they couldn't
take the scholarship off me.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So I got the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But journalism wasn't for you. It turned out not to
be that well though you're at you're in print a
little bit these days that were.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well, I am, but you know, so I didn't ever
you know, then I was at elector at university, which
was comfortable enough for a young person. And then when
I worked as a trade union official. I didn't start
in the Drivers Union, but I segued.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Into the Drivers Union, and the Drivers Union I.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Was paid at the top rate and the Driver's award
on a sixty hour week, that was the pay. So
it was it was not we weren't going to get
rich on it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
No, but you obviously thrived in that role on that
path because I recall as a child that you already
were quite sort of prominent as a kind of a
spokesperson for the union, and you'd feature on the late
night news on these sort of serious current affairs debates
and things that we used to have in those days,
and so that was sort of probably the first step
(13:17):
into the public eye, I guess, was it.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yeah. The union movement at the time was obviously.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
At least apparently very strong, was very much part of
what we now call civil society, so it was involved
in all of those debates, and.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
You know, to be fair, the.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
People that made up most of the Trajani your leadership
came from a very working class background, weren't necessarily all
that adept at economic debate and those kinds of things.
So I was often pushed forward into that and was
happy to be able to advance the cause. And I
think it's great, incidentally, that I see more recently because
(13:56):
the Union's kind of faded out of that sort of
society economic debate, and it's been fantastic to see in
recent years people like Craig Greenny and others within the
union movement becoming part of that debate again and giving
a voice to that perspective.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Sure, yeah, well, we'll come back round to that. But
I guess in between, you know, you had this incredible
career in the private sector, So can you just run
me through a sort of a highlights version of how
you made the transition from the union movement too, I guess,
you know, into the likes of telecom and so forth.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, I never planned to do it. So at the
time of the Longy government, you may recall, or maybe
aware from reading history in your case there, that there
was quite a bit of economic debate going on, and
I was involved in that from the union perspective. But
(14:54):
I guess I did see the need for economic chain
as well as social change at the time, and my
view at the time was that there should have been
a much closer accommodation between the union movement and the
political movement of labor and that the unions had the
(15:17):
opportunity to mold that change. In the end, that wasn't
the dominant view in the unions. It was regarded I
was regarded as a conservative view.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
That there were.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
People who agreed with me, but meant many who didn't. Obviously, equally,
some of the leadership of the Labor Party, without naming
any name, just completely trashed that point of view.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Roger Douglas has been on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, okay, so he would be a prominent person in
that in that respect.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, why it.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Got completely trashed as an idea, And you know, I
was very disheartened at the time and decided, look, this
isn't working.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
And I don't really know what my role as now.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
There are two things about that which I felt at
the time, but even more in reflection. One was that
it did reflect that I didn't come from a working
class background myself, and so I wasn't as embedded in
that movement as others. So it probably made it me
more shaky. And I've had that criticism from union colleagues
(16:23):
and I understand it and it's certainly true. But I
think the kind of second thing was that I had
become quite emotionally and otherwise psychologically tired of a lot
that was going on at the time, and I simply
(16:44):
needed respite from it at any event, at a personal level.
So when I decided I wasn't going to be a
union officially anymore, various offers started to come in, some
from the government and some from the privacy as to
other roles I could play, And because they were intellectually interesting,
(17:06):
that old academic thing was still there. I was attracted
into those largely because they were intellectually interesting challenges.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And did you feel you know, there was kind of
a wave of must have been quite exciting in a way,
a wave of opening up of New Zealand and all
the business, you know, really thriving as the old sort
of economic model fell away. Were you sort of swept
up on that a bit?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, it was I don't know who swept up in it.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I was here. I was coming out of.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
The labor movement in quite a prominent position and very
committed to it. So I was very aware of all
the contradictions that were in that, but certainly there was
plenty of change going on to get your teeth into
and try and understand.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, so you ended up on the telecom board, was
that right?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
No, not on the telecomboard, but on a range of
other boards, from the Bank of New Zealand, on the
establishment board of the post office. You know, you name
a disaster. I was there at some stage of the
last fifty years.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, yeah, I guess bring it back to money and things,
you know, like so that was there a point at
which you sort of went, oh, you know, you're in
the business world now you realize that, you know, there
was a financial upside to it, that you were feeling
more comfortable financially than your head previously, all that sort
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I look, undoubtedly, you know, over the period of my
business life, through.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Largely through fees and.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Rates pay that I had, you know, I was able
to accumulate what for many people would be, you know,
a reasonable amount of wealth. I also made a few
mistakes which got rid of odd bits of it, but no,
no doubt, I mean I became a lot more well
off economically than I would have been had I stayed
(19:03):
in the trade unions. Wasn't why I did it, But
you'd be an idiot to say you didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, I mean one of the questions we ask as
well as the poorest you've ever been, is what would
be the most indulgent purchase you ever made? Something? I
mean you usually we're getting at something you might have
done for far nor for just this year, hell of it.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
The most indulgent purchases I've made have probably been works
of art that hang on the wall, which were bought
for numbers that I would never have contemplated when I
was younger, but which you know, we own because they
give us pleasure rather than because there worth a lot
of money. But sometimes if I think about what we
(19:43):
paid for them, it's indulgent.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
You're sort of passionate about New Zealand art.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Passionate it's a bit strong for me. No, I think
that I am very fond of New Zealand art, and I.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Think that there's a distinctive New Zealand And art.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Movement in set of capabilities that are really important. I've
reflected on that. But recently the art that I thought
was reflecting an authentic New Zealand voice was actually and
still does reflect a parkiher appreciation of ot A pakiher
(20:34):
observance of this country, rather than be the real culture
I was at an art opening actually on Friday Nightly
and where a young Marty woman was talking to me
and she said, it's really interesting presentation this, but all
the Murray's are on the wall and not in the room.
And it was a verys dute observation. I think it's
a lot of a lot of our artists about unfortunately,
(20:56):
but that's changing.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, you, I mean, you up. You know, one of
our most high profile company directors, big company, SkyCity Tourism Holdings,
someone Set Holding's, Guinness Peak Group was a really high
profile investor for a long time. Obviously you had skills
to bear there, I mean, you know, I'm just interested
(21:17):
in how you see the connection between managing personal wealth
and personal finance with what you do on a corporate board.
Are they Are they different skills?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah? I think they're very different skills.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And actually I was quite a lot better at doing
the corporate stuff than my own finances. I don't even
this is an old fashioned statement, but I don't even
run my own checkbook. No one runs a checkbook now,
but you know what I mean. So the corporate management
and creation of wealth was something that I think I
(21:53):
do have, did have and still do have some aptitude
for understanding what the economic model is that make something
work is both intellectually interesting and important for boards. And
I think too often, and I made this public criticism before,
too often people are appointed to boards who either aren't
(22:14):
capable of or are not willing to really understand the
business model that they're talking about. And I think it's
one of the reasons why we have business failures that
not enough thoughts has put into what is this model,
why does it work? What factors might make it not work,
rather than the kind of the constant new bits of
(22:35):
paper that come before you and compliance issues, all of
which have importance but won't save a business, and we
end up in New Zealand, I think, and I've been
part of this in many ways, you know, perfectly governing
a business as it goes over a cliff.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Right, yeah, yeah, I mean you've obviously got to have
a passion and throw yourself into the business. And it's just,
I guess strikes me that it's different than you. You know,
you'll know people who have a passion for building their
own wealth, you know, for whatever reason, and so you've
never really had that drive to just focus on maximizing
(23:13):
every dollar of your own personal wealth in that sort
of way.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
No, No, I haven't, and I don't hold that out
as anything good, bad, or and different, just as what
it is.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Some people are just I mean, yeah, I'm same. I'm
not really judging. It's just I noticed some people have
that sort of passionate interest in doing that, and other
people like, well, I've got enough money. I'm just going
to focus on what I'm interested.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, I mean, I was doing perfectly well and there
was absolutely no need to do more than that. But
it's interesting. I mean, those people who are driven primarily
by their own wealth are not necessarily any worse than
anyone else. It's hard to explain to socialists friends, They're
(23:54):
not actually any worse than anyone else. They are simply
applying the dictates of a system more effectively than many.
Some of them are absolute pricks. Incidentally, if I can
say that on here, they are, but not all of them.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
And you'll find the absolute pricks everywhere as well.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
There's a reasonably even distributions across various parts of life.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, So, reflecting on having been that outspoken through the career,
were there ever times where you kind of regret and
we talked about ta Fata or times where you think, well,
maybe I should have ranged it in that time.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Oh, look, lots lots of times not on to Far
to Wara. I stand by everything that I said, and indeed,
within a few months what I said about three waters
became Labor Party policy. So no point in regretting that.
I do regret not being part of the ongoing to
Far to Worra journey, but amazingly I'm still involved with
(24:56):
quite a lot of those debates, and in fact, this
week I'm involved in two conferences where I'm still contributing
to the debates about health policy.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
So no, I don't regret.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
That having been I guess slightly burned by that sort
of government involvement and is it off the table? Would
you work with governments again on those kind of big initiatives.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I'd certainly, I'd love to, but not.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
If they thought in engaging me they were engaging a
public servant who was just going to tow the line
and sort of nod whenever they said.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
So.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
If I got the opportunity to contribute to government in
a way that was honest and open, yes I would,
but I wouldn't take on one of the existing jobs,
and I'm not going to be offered one.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Let me ask, do you you ever imagine winning lotto?
Do you buy lotto tickets? I don't buy lotto tickets.
I don't like the odds.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Messes at least that could Well, you've got to remember
I've cheered a casino as well, so I know who
wins games with gambling.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, but actually I suppose at least the odds are
fairly well marked on that.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Well, the odds are better up the raid at sky
City without being an advertisement for them. But just I'm
pretty sure I could say that every game in a
casino is better odds than the lotto.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, I mean, in the last year or two, I
guess it might be fair to say you've stepped back
from the big boards. Has that given you a bit
more freedom to say what you think?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I mean?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I know there was a bit of controversy in the
health scenario because you know, you were on a board
and spoke out. But beyond that, do you feel more
freed up to sort of say what you think about
the world?
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Now? Well?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I do, I do since losing the tifat or role.
But frankly, i'd kind of decided to move on from
the large corporate world anyway, and did stop a number
of roles in order to take on the Tafat role.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
You know, I was actually.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Pretty outspoken for a business person when I was fully
immersed in the private sector and in governance. I didn't
hold back talking about the things that were important as
I saw them at the time in business. So I
don't know that I've actually changed all that much. I've
just got a bit more time to be mischievous.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Now, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, And I recall in those times too, they would
often ruffle a few feathers. I mean, how did some
of those columns and statements that you made when you
were right in the thick of the corporate we will
go down with all the colleagues.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Well, obviously they didn't. They didn't like it very much.
But you know, I think there was a respect for
my ability to do the corporate job that we were
doing that ran alongside of it.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
So most people.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
One prominent business person when I took on the fato
Aura job, actually right at the start, very preciently said
to me, you may think we're bustards, rob but we
won't throw you under a bus the way these guys
will right, and.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
You know he was right.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, you know you are quite outspoken about addressing social
inequality and those things, particularly for someone who's come from
that corporate background. But I guess there's all you know,
the Marxist roots and all that sort of stuff. You
know what, now, when you look at it and you
look at the inequality in society, what do you think
it would be the biggest or the biggest drivers of
(28:48):
why some people are poor and why some people are rich.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Well, I think it at the risk of sounding Marxist again,
and I don't mind being called a Marxist. I regard
that as a badge of honor. Really, I'd rather be
a Marxist than a Freedman night, if you take those
two extremes. But the system we have is one that
(29:12):
relies on, frankly, exploitation, exploitation of resources and exploitation of people,
and that produces many advances. It has done many good
things in society materially, but it does inevitably produce a
(29:35):
situation where there is an equality, and not just an equality,
but the people at the bottom are subject to severe problems.
And you know that happens not only within an economy
like New Zealand's But it happens between this economy and
you know, other countries. And the classic is the people
(29:57):
in a copper mine or some other kind of are
earth mine in a third world country being exploited for
the phones that we use and the cars that we drive, etc.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
So that.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Is in the nature of the economic system that has
conquered the world. And I think what disturbs me most
at the moment is that we are clearly nearing the
end of what some of that could do in terms
not just of resources, but in terms of pollution and
(30:31):
the damage that has been caused to the natural environment
and the damage that's been caused to people. And we
should be taking note of that. And it's beyond my
capability to devise the new system, but I think it's
(30:53):
pretty obvious that unless we find some better way to
organize economic things, we are headed for a huge descers.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, so I mean not to put you on the spot,
but another question I like to ask is if I
could make your prime Minister for the day and you
could change maybe one big low. Is there something you
would target from a New Zealand perspective to make some change?
You know, where would you be focused.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
If I was Prime Minister for a day, I would
tell David Seymour and Winston to go and take a
running jump and give Chloe Swarbrick a call.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, do you she's got enough economic nouse.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
To I'm sure she's got enough economic now. So I
think there are certainly people within the Labor Party too
who understand that general proposition that I've just made that
if we don't make significant changes, and we don't change
the direction of our economic structure and life, then we're
headed for a major disaster. I don't think the current
(31:54):
Prime Minister will do that, but if I was, if
I was put in a seat, that's what I would do,
because for all the faults of business, we have to
find a way to take business with us. We have
to find a way to take people with us and
the change that we're going to need. So you know, frankly,
(32:16):
if the current government doesn't head in that direction, then
it'll just join the dustbin of history.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Basically, Wow, I'm going to wrap it up here, but
I just thought i'd ask what's keeping you busy right now?
What are you passionate about right now?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
I'm really passionate about aut the university of opportunity. A
university of equity I think is just so important in
New Zealand. That's something that we're building there. I'm a
very small part of it, but I happen to have
a titular a role there, a very small partner that
(32:55):
occupies a lot of not just time but thought. Very
interested from a commercial point of view in what we're
doing in rural land with the company I'm involved with there.
I'm very interested in what we're doing at our AK
and energy innovation so that it's not bad for an
(33:16):
old guy. And I also like the engagement that I
increasingly have with young activists social activists around the city
who can see some value in what this old guy's
got to say and I can hopefully help them realize
some of their dreams.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So it sounds like you're heating back into the more
activist world.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Well, yeah, I'm probably not, probably not much used to them,
but I think it's a time for activism. If ever
there was a time for activism, it feels to me
like the late nineteen sixties early nineteen seventies, where, to
take that old phrase, you know, if you're not part
(34:03):
of the solution, you're part of the problem, something that
has to happen, you might as well.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Be part of the solution.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, Rob, Thank you very much, Cheers, Thank you. Thanks
for listening to this episode of Money Talks. If you
want to get in touch, drop me a line at
Liam dot Dan at inzme dot co dot nz and
you can read more from me at inzidherld dot co
dot nz. Thanks to my producer Ethan Sills and sound
engineer Liann McDonald. Follow Money Talks on iHeartRadio or wherever
(34:33):
you get your podcasts, with new episodes available every Thursday.
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