July 31, 2024 • 44 mins
TVNZ and Newstalk ZB host Jack Tame shares his best and worst money stories with Liam Dann.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, I'm Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at
Large and welcome to this episode of Money Talks. This
is a podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
About money, but we're not going to.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
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
over the years. Today I am joined by the host
of TVNZ's Q and A News Talk zb's Saturday mornings,
(00:37):
Jack tame Cura, Jack Calda Lev.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome to Money Talks. How's the running going, Oh? Very poorly?
I mean you you you have been subject to my
running in the past. Yeah, you've been a witness and
as you know, I'm not someone who is blessed with
a very esthetically pleasing running technique. And I'm now very
much insconsin middle age and I've recently discovered the toxic
(01:00):
mix of middle age and social sport, which means that
it's taken me about three months to get over a
sprained ankle. But I'm back out there pounding the pavements,
albeit not very graceful. I thought a better disclosed that
we've been running a few times. I'm broken down at
the moment. Okay, there's two of us.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
It's gone, trying to get back into action. But you know,
there are some other things we can talk about growing
up in christ Church and Cashmere and so forth. So
let's go right back and can I ask you what
your first memories are of having money?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Do you recall holding it in your hands? I have
a couple of early memories I thought I would share
with you, And I knew you were going to ask
that question because I always listened to the show. So
I'm delighted to be here. A couple of things. First
of all, at Christmas time, my mum is a real
stickler for tradition, and when she was a kid, her
mum had made one of those really old school, amazing
(01:51):
boiled fruit puddings, like mixed fruit puddings, and as part
of that she would put silver coins inside the pudding.
And then it was the kind of pierced the resistance
of the Christmas lunch. You'd have the turkey, you'd have
everything else, and then for dessert, Dad would make custard,
would get ice cream out. We'd have all these other
little treats and Mum would bring this big pudding out
(02:11):
to the middle of the table and she would light
it on fire and burn off all of the remaining liquor.
But before doing that, she would bury these silver coins
in the pudding. And so I can remember as a
little kid, everyone saying, be careful, be careful when you're
eating the pudding, because there are going to be coins
in there. Make sure you don't choke on the coins.
And you know, I was a young little capitalist who
(02:32):
also loved dessert, so it was kind of combining two
of my favorite and most exciting things. And I would
eat as much pudding as possible in order to get
as many silver coins as possible, because at the end
of Christmas dinner, Mum would exchange them for real money.
So if you had, say a florin, you get twenty
cengs classic. It was the classic old, you know, because
I think I don't know that you can put the
(02:53):
new modern ones in there. I think there's something about
my mum, being the woman she iss will have researched this,
but I think I don't thk they're supposed to boil
the new metal, yeah, but the old metal you could safely.
You could safely boil, and so yeah, we would do that,
and I would so you'd finish. And so the last
event on Christmas Day was the swapping with the exchanging
of a couple of florins for and you know, you
(03:15):
were always trying to get the serve of Christmas pudding
that had the most coins in it, so I remember that.
I also, I don't remember getting pocket money for the
first time, but as the oldest of four, I distinctly
remember when my sister got pocket money for the first time.
And I remember it because I immediately determined that she
was younger than I had been when I first got
(03:36):
twenty cents or fifty cents a week. And so when
Mum and Dad set me down and explained to me, oh,
you know we've given you know, we're giving your sister
pocket money now as well, I remember trying to ask
them if they would backdate me pocket money to the
time of my life when I had been the same
age as my sister now was in receiving pocket money
for kind of so I was already kind of like
(03:57):
trying to try to work something to get a bit
more cash. Negotiation. Yeah, it's the curse of the eldest though,
isn't it because the youngest always get a little bit
of scrub. Yeah, yeah, great. So you were getting pocket
money at some point. Did you save it? Did you
spend it? Do you remember what? Yes? I just think
so I got a very small amount of pocket money,
but I wanted more money from a young age, and
(04:20):
I remember a couple of things. So I remember that
my first money making scheme, which was to sell plums
on the side of the road. We had a prolific
plum tree and my parents tried to They saw it
as a learning opportunity, and so we went to the
supermarket and my plan had been just to steal a
few produce bags, you know, the old plastic bags used
(04:42):
to have the produce. I was like, well, I can
just take those. Those are free, and Mum and Dad
were like, no, no, no, that's a capital expense for
your business. So they made me go and buy these
little plastic bags. And then I picked all the plums
with my sister. We went and put them in plastic bags.
We had a whiteboard at home and I would hold
up a sign on the side of the road saying
plums for dollar, and cars would stop and I remember
we made a profit of about seven dollars each, which
(05:05):
was a huge sum of money at the time. And
my dad said, bad news, guys, and we said what
and he said, you got to pay tax seven dollars
and we were like, you know, we would have been
probably ten years old. I would have been ten years old.
I couldn't believe it. Fortunately my mum intervened. But my
dad is an accountant, right, because it sounds very entrepreneurial.
(05:25):
That was quite entrepreneurial, and I actually had a few
other entrepreneurial measures throughout my high schooling years. I would
go and busk outside Barrington Mall in christ Church with
my best mate Mike, and he had the voice of
an angel. But I had the entrepreneurial skills to really
hustle for the money, and I had I had all
of these little I remember having all of these little ideas, like,
(05:48):
for example, I don't know if you've ever busked before.
That we very quickly worked out was sort of real
time data which songs made the most money, right, And
so we knew that there were certain songs that would
appeal to a certain demographic that was more likely to
give us cash. So, for example, you go hard on
Cat Stevens. We were just like, we would play Cat
Stevens over and over again. But what we would do
(06:10):
is we would have a little bucket out there, and
when it filled up with seven or eight dollars, we
would then, when no one was looking, secrete that money away.
So again it looked like so that the thing was
never have more than a few bucks and the bucket.
So people walk past and they give you more cash.
And this will sound crazy when I said to you,
(06:30):
we would finish a day with eight hundred dollars. Wow,
we made hundreds of dollars. And you can only you
can only do this every now and then. But you
know I was in my teens. Again, my dad being
an accountant, he made me pay tax. Well, he'd be like,
that's great, you've made this.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Actually claim the tax back later on as a child,
because you'd hope.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
So, yeah, I wouldn't have thought that, yeah I was
paying much tax. But to your question, I had a
full time or I had it not full time. I
had a paper around from about the age of eleven
or twelve, started that as young as I possibly could,
and from the moment that I had regular income, my
Mum would make me keep a balance book, and every
(07:14):
month I had to work out my sums and the
rule was that I had to save sixty five percent
of what I earned and I could spend thirty five
percent of what I am right specific, very specific, and
so I wasn't blowing all of my money. I was
very much saving from the word go, very nerdily. And
it was a painful exercise for everyone in the house
(07:35):
when once a month we had to sit down and
make and compare our pay slips with whatever money had
gone into our bank accounts and then make sure that
we had saved sixty five and been thirty five.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
It's sort of I mean, this is jumping ahead, and
I'll come back to life in christ Church and Keshma
High School and things.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
But it's so entrepreneurial. How do you end up in journalism?
How come you're not totally I wish well I've had.
I mean, I I did my toes in the shear market,
as other people do, with mixed success, to say the least,
I definitely had as a younger person. I definitely had
an entrepreneurial streak, and funnily enough, if I weren't in
(08:12):
journalism as much as I as fulfilling as my job
is now, business commerce economics are still really interesting to me.
And if I think if I would have another career,
especially if I were starting now, that that's probably the
direction I would hit in, right.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, I mean, let's talk about school. We went to
the same school, Keshmia High School. It's turned out a
few good journalists. I've talked to Guy and Espiner, my
kid brother Koren.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
And a few others.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
There's a few years between us. I wasn't at school
at the same time as you by a fair way.
In fact, I suspect I think one of my friends
had gone back as a teacher and was a teacher,
mister Billings. Ah, I would to age myself horrendously. How
was that environment for you growing up in christ Shurch
in the nineties, was the sort of were aware of
(08:57):
the economy and all that sort of stuff. It's a
little bit of a.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yearh So for people who are outside of christ Church, obviously,
schools are a big deal in christ Church, and schools
are kind of inextricably linked with class, as they are
in every New Zealder city, But in christ Church, I
think in more ways than most. And it's my view
probably that in the last few years, and indeed in
the year's post earthquake, cash Me High, the public school
(09:22):
that we went to has probably become a bit more
Lardi Dah than when I was there, Like it seems
a bit wealthier now than when I was there relative
to other schools. It's not to say that it was
a tough school or anything like that. When I went there,
it was a do you know, I just had a
great childhood. I loved school. I just had the best time.
(09:42):
And so I feel, you know, I feel incredibly grateful
for the opportunities that I had through then, and was
I aware of wealth disparities. I would say that one
of the things I've been most fortunate about is that
I was aware of having a certain level of privilege,
but always kept in a really appropriate check by my parents.
(10:06):
So I can remember a couple of things. For example,
I can remember one time there was a you know,
you come home with a school slip that says, oh,
you need to pay this for this trip or something
I said. And I had a terrible habit, as many
teenage boys do, of never giving mom and dad the
notices from school. Now I remember I was cleaning out
my bag once I found a notice. I brought it
(10:26):
down to mom and dad and it was for something.
It was like an expense that was like ninety bucks
or one hundred bucks or something, which in two thousand
and three and still today, but in two thousand and
three was a lot of money. And I took it
down and it was due in about two days, and
my mum sat me down and she was like, we
can pay this, but this is a huge amount of money,
(10:48):
and you've given us almost no notice. And in order
for us to pay this, we're going to have to
move some things around. We're gonna have to do some
shuffling with our finances in order to be able to
pay this. You need to know that there are some
of your mates who if they'd done the same thing,
they wouldn't be paying the spill and they would be
done on this trip. And I remember that. I remember
(11:08):
that today. But that being said, you know, I think
I just I was afforded lots of opportunities that I
think lots of other kids didn't get, and I maybe
wasn't quite as aware that other kids didn't get those opportunities, like,
for example, my parents are big music heads, and so
my dad was like, if you experence any interest in
music whatsoever, we're doing it. I remember, you know, I
(11:31):
was ready into like old rock back then, and so
you know, and I played guitar and stuff, and my
parents are always paying for music lessons. And one time I said, oh,
you know, I'd be really good if my band could
practice at home, and Dad was like, we got great news.
We're buying a drum kit and stuff like that, which
which most kids probably couldn't do. So from busking, you didn't.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
You weren't a tempted to carry that on or go
to go to I guess a sort of stage school,
or I was. I was definitely a performer in school,
but kept me a high school production. Yeah yeah, yeah,
I did that, and probably with mister Billings too. But
I had a real curiosity about the world, and I
think I probably grew out of performing being my absolute
(12:10):
number one passion. You know, I loved playing sport as well,
and so you know, for a while, you dream of
being an All Black, or dream of playing cricket for
New Zealand, and you know, you dream of being in
a really successful rock band or anything like that, but
I'd always been super interested in news. I've been super
interested in the world and been really curious, and so
I think by the time I finished high school, it
(12:31):
was really clear to me that a career where I
could put that curiosity into a really practical profession made
a lot of sense. And when I finished high school,
I got into the New Zealand Broadcasting School, and you know,
I remember it was the first time in my life
(12:52):
that I thought, oh, my gosh, this is my tribe,
Like even when here is on the same page, this
is where I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
I felt. It wasn't that I felt like an outsider
at school, because like I said, I had a great time,
but it was the first time I thought, my gosh,
I'm definitely in the right place.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, so you kind of focused from there. You knew
what your goals were.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah. Yeah, I was a lousy student at high school
and that I just was quite a late bloomer and
many respects. And I remember in fifth form I had
like really good marks and then I was like, yeah,
my mark's are so good, I don't need to try,
and so I just didn't try, And like, sixth form
(13:30):
was an absolute disaster, and my mom used to be
a math teacher. And I think it was like two
days before the end of year sixth form exams and
my mum realized that I knew literally zero of the
entire curriculum. I knew nothing because I'd just been working
around in class. And so she sat me down and
for forty eight hours taught me the entire year twelve
(13:51):
math curriculum. And I, you know, scraped by however, and
I just I just did not apply myself academically at
all at high school. But then when I started studying
the first year out of high school at broadcasting School,
it had kind of been drummed into us that this
was an environment it's really competitive, and it's so hard,
and everyone he is so smart, and that kind of thing.
I mean, yeah, yeah, you've got to beat these things
(14:14):
up in your own head. And maybe it was just
because I was with my tribe. Maybe it was because
I felt like I had purpose, or I was really
passionate about it. Maybe it was just a combination of
those things and maybe a bit of maturing. But I
just applied myself for the first time. And as I
applied myself, I found that actually, you know, I was
really suited to it.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, so it sounds like money, it's per se. Wasn't
really a goal through any of that, clearly, not when
you're failing maths in the sixth form. Yeah, but the
goal was to become a journalist and a broadcaster.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, it was. I have. Over summer I was going
through some old photo albums and I found a certificate
from when I was ten years old that said to
Jack for his keen interest in current affairs and news.
And I remember in English class US and year thirteen
the teacher saying, oh, you know, what are you reading
and what are you interested in? And I said, oh,
(15:05):
you know, what do you want to do in the
year to come? And I said, oh, I want to
be like Paul Holmes, you know, a job I wanted.
And it's quite unusual now that someone of my generation
I'm a millennial, would just have a really linear career,
but I, in a sense I have, and that I
have just done a version of the same job since
(15:25):
I was nineteen the year out of high school. Immediately
out of high school, I studied to be a journal
I became a broadcast journal and I've done it ever since.
So what was the first gig out of broadcasting school. Well,
I'd done some sort of work experience and stuff, so
(15:46):
I again I was applying myself and I was quite strategic,
so I deliberately went and sought work experience with different places.
I went to news talks, heb, I went to radio sport,
I went to TV three and TV one. And when
I was still at broadcasting school, I got a call
out of the blue one day that said, hey, you know,
(16:08):
I'm the manager for tvn Z in the South Island.
We've got this job going on breakfast and it's currently open.
I don't know if you know anything about it, but
would you be interested in interviewing for it? So I
got a cold call just randomly one day and it
was the next morning. The interview was the next morning,
so I had about, you know, I just had an
evening to prepare. And as it had turned out, one
(16:31):
of my tutors had recommended me to tv Z because
he did some tutoring, but he also worked at tvn
Z and he was it was just an incredibly generous
thing for him to do. And you know, you look
back at little things like that, and that was like
that sound grandiose. That changed the course of my life. Yeah, absolutely,
Like as a nineteen year old to get an interview.
(16:53):
I got the job and they said, here's the plan.
You're going to work on breakfast from five am to
nine m him every day, then go to broadcasting school,
do your day at broadcasting school, and then as soon
as you graduate broadcasting school, we'll give you a full
time internship. Well yeah, and then and that was it.
And like I said, because of you know, the company.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
You get that break or you know, you might you look,
not saying you wouldn't have got there anyway, but you
might have been not going to pick a small town
and defend someone. You might have been on provincial radio
somewhere for a while or yeah like.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
That, you know, yeah, yeah, do you know. It's funny
because I was very close friends with Maddy McLain at
the time, and he studied the same time as me,
and both of us aspired to getting similar jobs or internships,
and so I was fortunate to get this and Maddy
went to one Double X and Fakatani the radio station
absolutely loved it and crushed it, and then six months
(17:45):
later was also at TVNZ. Right, so there are kind
of two ways to look at it. Like sometimes I think, like, man,
would I have ever ended up there if I hadn't
got that call and had that chance. And sometimes I'm like, oh,
it's funny how the fates kind of come.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Together and you end up you know, you end up
working to get down Yeah, year or something like that.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I mean, you're on breakfast for quite a while. I
was on Breakfast for a while. And my ethos at
the time, so it was just when it was with
Paul Henry and k Gregory, and it was just when
live TV was kind of becoming a thing in New Zealand,
and my ethos was that I would get as much
experience out of everything as possible before trying to climb
(18:24):
the ladder. So I knew that I was the krill
basically in the newsroom. And obviously they're quite you know,
they certainly were there in quite competitive places. And so
I really benefited from timing because live TV was just
becoming a thing. The TVNZ newsroom in christ Gych at
that time had this incredible wealth of super experienced, celebrated reporters,
(18:48):
really celebrated reporters, and they all had done amazing things
and won lots of awards and stuff, but many of
them had had very little live TV career, live TV experience.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Because they didn't. Nowadays, everyone every reporter is standing there talking.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Constantly, right yeah, and even you know, people are used
to talking on their phones and Instagram lives and that
kind of thing, and back then it just didn't happen.
So it just meant that all of these really experienced
reporters were really nervous about being live, and you know,
with us retisent to do it, whereas I was just
shitting myself about everything. And so I was like, well,
(19:23):
the difference between me, I'm nervous enough writing a script,
I'm nervous enough, interviewing someone. I'm nervous enough making coffee
for someone. What's the difference between doing that and doing
a live It's all it's all terrifying your hair. And
as such, I just I volunteered to do it wherever
I could. And because I volunteered to do it, I
got better at it. And as I got better at it,
(19:43):
I got more opportunities, and it all just kind of cascaded,
and you know, in the space for a couple of years,
I had many, many more.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Opportunities yeah, well, I mean you kind of ended up
probably as the US correspondent Knew Rope, right, that was
kind of quite a high profile role in terms of
live live cross from anything big that happened totally in
the States at that time. Can you tell me a
little bit about the financial life change going, you know,
so you get out of broadcasting school, you're kind of
(20:11):
straight into a job. But I mean, how was it
going to live in New York. I mean, it's I'm
sure they give you some money, but it must.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Be don't be sure. Yeah, So, first of all, I
mean I was Another reason I was lucky timing wise,
is because there was still a little bit of money
and TV back then, and obviously there's just nothing now.
So in terms of money, I remember leaving, I remember
joining TV and ZED as an intern, and the interns
(20:38):
wage was three hundred and twenty dollars a week tax free,
and I was flatting, and three hundred and twenty dollars
a week tax free. When you're flatting and it's two
thousand and seven or whatever, it was was like car cheing.
I was cashed up. All of my flatmates for university students,
so I was big bucks team and I would like,
I'd like throw the money around, get an extra beers
(21:00):
for the boys, like we get two takeaway pizzas like whoa,
And then you know, I've moved on to a full
time job and got a salary and stuff. But the
thing that people don't necessarily appreciate about those jobs, and
I'm not sure if it's exactly the same today, is
that the correspondent job in the US was not a
salaried position, right because of I think there are tax
(21:22):
implications if you have if you have a salary position,
and so basically you were essentially a freelancer working back
for New Zealand and knowledge that you're going to get
used yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and so so I.
But there was sort of no cast iron guarantees about anything.
And I had had a few savings at the time,
(21:43):
but I wasn't you know. I was just aware that
New York was going to cost a lot of money.
And I knew literally one person in New York, so
I didn't have many people I could kind of lean
on when I moved over there, but I did. I
did do one thing that proved to be a really
good decision. I went to TVNZ and I said, guys,
you do these crosses to New York all the time.
I think that camera technology is good enough that some
(22:06):
of them I could film myself, right And up until
that point, my predecessor, Tim Wilson, who's still a really
close friend, he would be the first to say he's
a bit of a technophobe. So every time he needed
to do a live cross in the field, like outside
in New York where you're actually showing the city, or
you know, you're traveling around the country, he would have
to hire a freelance cameraman. Freelance cameraman even in twenty
(22:31):
eleven twenty twelve in the States was costing twelve hundred
US bucks a day. That's a huge financial impediment, right
for it for a company. So I said to Steeping
and said, why don't you buy a camera, a cheap
camera and a tripod and microphones and stuff, and we're
ever possible, I'll film myself. And at the time they said, no,
we don't think that's a we don't probably think that's
(22:52):
a great idea. And I'm not sure what it was.
Maybe it was just a youthful cockiness or whatever, but
I used a massive slab of my savings to buy
the kit myself well, and so I bore a camera
tripod all the works set up in a flat in
East Harlem, and I started teaching myself to film, and
(23:13):
in the kind of downtimes when the wem big stories
that needed to be covered, I would go out and
I would make a video and edit it, and then
I would send it to my family and say, oh,
this is the neighborhood I'm living in. You know, here's
Central Park and Spring, all of that kind of thing.
And of course the more I practiced, the better I got.
And it wasn't exactly award winning cinematography, but it was passable.
(23:34):
And I would film the stuff send it back for
TVNZ and they were like, hang on, that didn't cost
us eighteen hundred years, And I said, no, it didn't.
It costs you two hundred bucks and they said, what
do you mean. And I'd say, that's that's my fee
for filming it. That's contributing to camera and everything else,
and they said fair cop. And so for the five
years that I lived there, I traveled around the country heaps,
(23:57):
filming my own stuff, and of course it proved to
be a good financial decision because I paid off the camera,
but also it just upskilled me. And when you think
about how media has changed now and how especially how
TV has kind of evolved and got way cheaper and
all of those things. Gone are the days where you
are only expected to be able to do one thing,
(24:18):
And so it was it was a really good decision.
And you know, like I went to Guantna my Bay,
I took my kit because I could just travel by myself.
I took my kit to go on Ton and my
Bay and filmed the prisoners and gwan to stuff that
couldn't have got otherwise they couldn't have got or they
couldn't have afforded. And I think they probably had a
certain I don't know this for sure, but I think
there was a certain amount of money they were they
had assigned for my role. But by not spending money
(24:42):
on freelance New York cameramen, it gave me more fat
in the budget to travel around and do a whole
range of stories. And so in terms of experiences over
the time I was the year, I got to experience
way more than if they'd been paying for two of
us to do everything. Yeah, didn't necessarily look as good.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
But you know, well it's that people people, you know,
where the people notice who knows you know, yeah, yeah,
the professionals maybe, but you know, the average person.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, yeah, maybe not. And it was yeah, but it
just proved to be a really for me, it was
a really it was a really good decision.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So, I mean, again, there's a bunch of reasons for
that decision, but there's there's there's some economics in it.
You know, when you look at your career moves since then,
you've you've kind of got a multimedia role, a joint
sort of roll across you know, Indied, ME and TV
and Z. I mean, how do you put that together?
And how much was money a factor? And sort of
putting the way that you've you know, approached media since
(25:36):
you've got back.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So I was really lucky because I was man, being
with you just makes me reflect on I sound. I've
made myself sound way more kind of cunning and devious
and entrepreneurial than I really am. But anyway, I think
just luck has this huge kind of looming factor in
all of this, right, It's a symbiotic Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
(25:58):
So when I was in New York, they decided to
launch seven chart the TV show Yea, And it was
rumored at the time that I don't know why, but
it was rumored that I might be a presenter on
the show, and for whatever reason, the bosses at Newstalks,
he'd be thought, oh, maybe Jack, who's only been in
New York for a year, is going to come back
(26:19):
and be a host on the show. But I personally
wanted to be over there reporting, experiencing all those different
things US elections and you know, everything else that was
going on. And so they called me up and said, oh,
you know, I don't know if you're thinking of anything,
but if you were, wink, nudge nudge. Support Holmes is
really unwell and his Saturday morning show on New Storks
(26:40):
hed B is probably not going to be a show
that he's going to have the capacity to do for
much longer. Is that something you'd be interested if you
were moving back? And I said, I'm really flattered, you know,
and Support Holmes is the legend of New Zealand broadcasting.
I'm not planning to come back. However, what about doing
(27:04):
the show from New York and again to the immense
credit and really with no good justification, they said, Okay,
just give it a go. Sure, And so for four
years when I was in New York, I would go
down to Tribeca to a studio up in this amazing
(27:28):
in this amazing radio building in the kind of heart
of New York broadcasting. I remember I'd go in and see,
you know, like, oh, Lady Gaga's outside today. Oh there's
Sheer today, Like just you know, like these incredible rappers
walking past. And then I'd be tuning and be like, yo,
News Talk's there'd be yeah, hello, yeah, and just just
through you know, incredible good fortune but also a really
(27:49):
brave and tenacious decision by my bosses at News Talk
that was able to work. And then I came back
to New Zealand after the twenty sixteen US election because
there was an opportunity on Breakfast and I really wanted
to work with Hillary Barry and I thought that'd be great.
And also Troop being told I was this will sound
(28:09):
really macab, but a big part of that job at
that time was just going and doing the massacre run.
So there would be a massacre here, a massacre there,
you have to scramble, fly out there, you turn up,
you report on the massacre, and yeah, there were just
heaps and heaps of these mass shootings, and after a while,
I just sort of felt like, ah, it's kind of
(28:29):
wearing me down, and it just it just for whatever reason,
it felt like a good time to move back, and
I really wanted to work with Hillary. It was a
going from being a kind of freelance reporter to being
a presenter is a huge change in terms of finances.
But in the years since, I would say that money
has not been a big or the big factor in
(28:52):
my decisions. So I was on Breakfast for a couple
of years with Hillary and and then Haley Holt, and
then I moved to Q and A, which involved a
significant pay cut, which I totally leaned into because I
does mean getting into more serious particle. It was work
that I was more much more passionate about and more
(29:15):
excited about, and I was just exhausted from kind of
working myself too hard for a few years. And so, yeah,
it's funny because I've worked six days a week for
eleven years now something like that, and I've never For
two and a half or three years, I worked on
Breakfast as well as on Newstalk's CB, and I maintained
(29:39):
that there is just something about morning TV and having
to get up and be bright and for three hours
you're on air and all of that that just wears
you down. And I'm convinced that I aged two days
every day I work their job. I loved it. It
was a great job, but it really just took something
out of it. Just not natural to be that perpose,
(30:01):
I think. So Yeah, yeah, I reckon like getting up
after five is doable, getting up with anything starting with
a three? Yeah, you know, even if you're being paid
super well and you're in a high profile job, it
just breaks you down. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
How about I mean, you know you were single a
bachelor for quite a long time. You know you've been
married recently. Yeah, if you're a step dad, how does
that change the attitude to money is a bit more
feeling of responsibility and things?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, good question, I think. I mean fundamentally, it changes
your priorities. Right. So I felt really passionately when I
was in New York and when I moved home from
New York, and I still feel passionately about this that
for the right stages in life, high density living is
absolutely crucial. In New Zealand. I think that for far
too long we have just allowed this kind of sprawl
(30:48):
and protection of these big spaces with very few people
living on them, in the central parts of our city
in particular. And so I was determined when I moved
back from New York to have an apartment, to embrace
apartment living. That was great. Like I say, though, it's
all a time of life thing. My stepson's seven years old,
and I think in New Zealand, although more people should
be living in high density options, the thing about living
(31:09):
in New Zealand is when you're seven years old, you
want to be able to go outside and shoot a basketball.
And so it was really important for me in making
that transition to go from having an apartment and a
high density life to having a bit more space and
having a house. So that's the kind of the biggest
change that we've gone through in the last couple of years.
As well as that, I should say, you know, I'd
(31:30):
never really thought about life insurance before, right, yeah, yeah,
you know, and making sure all of that really boring, like,
you know, make sure my will is in order. That
kind of stuff is all stuff that I am now
way more conscious of than I would have been a
couple of years ago, you know, a couple of years ago,
I was like, I'm in it for me and myself
and I and now I think, well, you know, there
are obviously other mouths to feed, and we're the worst
(31:51):
to happen. I want to make sure that these guys
are Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, you made obviously a smart financial decision just getting
on the property ladder when you got back.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Ah, I did, except that I think I have a
real habit of mistiming the property market, right. And you know,
I look back at the in my apartment and I
massively overpaid for it. Not massively, but you know, as
a percentage of my income. Because i'd been out of
New Zealand for all of these years, I'd never bought
property before. I didn't really understand the market as well
(32:21):
as I probably could have, and so I think if
I had my time again, I just would have taken
a bit more time to properly understand the market before
diving in. But I sort of was in a real
rush to get on with life at that stage. I mean,
I'm hardly the first person to say this on your podcast,
but I just think housing is this kind of massive,
entrenched problem in our economy that we still haven't properly tackled.
(32:42):
And I know the current minister has some really quite
aggressive plans to do stuff about that, so maybe things
will change. But I'm acutely aware that, you know, I
have been in a high profile, very well paid, relatively
jobs and have managed to get on the housing letter.
If you are a nurse and a teacher looking to
start a life in our biggest city, it's very very
(33:04):
very difficult.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Let's get into some of the quick fire questions I
have here. What's the poorest you've ever been.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
The poorest I've ever been was when I started. It
was before I had my It was when I had
zero dollars, which is when I had my Westpac savings account,
or it was the Trust Bank, but the Trust Bank
savings account. And so you would I remember at our school,
at our primary school, you were encouraged to bring in
a gold coin in your little book every week if
you could, and for me it was a real fat
(33:38):
I was like, why don't I have to take in
a gold coin? You know? And so I often just
didn't do it. But then I would have been about
seven or eight where I realized that the money would
ultimately be going to me, and all of a sudden,
I just became the It was there every week with
his little gold coin, you know, banking it away. After that,
the poorest I've ever been was when I was studying
and I had a student loan, and I remember I
(34:01):
wasn't getting the cost of living payments, but I did
get a couple of the bulk payments you could get
study Link that would help out with my And to
be honest, I wasn't putting that money towards books and
you know, computers and that kind of stuff. I was
putting it towards going to the pub and that kind
of thing. And you know, I had some pretty you know,
(34:22):
some pretty ill disciplined spending decisions during that period. Yeah,
they let you get ring up, get a big chunk
of money. Totally. I was right. Talk to my kid brother.
It's funny a I you know, I know people who
got out the absolute maximum from study Link in terms
of the student the cost of living and whatever one
you have to pay back. So they got the absolute maximum,
(34:46):
they banked it in high interest accounts or on term deposits,
and then they use that to pay for a house.
Which is it like, if you are if you are
disciplined enough as a nineteen weeks now it's interest free.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Since Helen totally totally and yeah we were. I was
paying seven percent, so not such a good idea, Yeah,
but yeah, now if you're clever.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, I had an interest for a student loan too,
and we had the ten percent bulk payback thing, so
I ended off ended up paying back my student loan
with the benefit of that ten percent thing. So if
you gave like two thousand dollars, the government would contribute
an extra two hundred, right, which I think I helped
to pay mine off.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, flip it round. What's the most indulgent purchase you
ever made.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I'm not really into things, into material possessions. I'm really
into experiences, and so I've never hesitated to spend thousands
of dollars on holidays and adventures. And if I was
to assess all of my big expenses of my life,
that would that would certainly take the cake in terms
(35:46):
of material experience material possessions. I've got a like a
three thousand dollars Gibson guitar, and I've got a big TV,
but I bought that second hand, so I reckon that
that probably doesn't count. And you know driver a twenty
twelve Toyota Corolla. Yeah, you know, I don't. I just don't. Really.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
It's about doing things, definitely, about doing things rather than
rather than experiences rather than stuff is usually there. So,
speaking of material possessions, you're famously, to a certain point
in your life had never owned a couch.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, I just I really embraced a minimalist esthetic there
for a while. In that first apartment that I had,
I yeah, I had a couple of big armchairs. They
were nice, expensive armchairs, and I just figured I don't
really need a couch because these are great arm chairs
and you can kind of sit here, and you know,
(36:39):
and I had that the apartment had really big windows,
and so I thought, well, you know, you're gonna swivel
on these arm chairs look out the window anyway. You
don't need a couch, and it would be crazy to
put a couch in front of these big windows. My
wife has delighted that I have matured in my tastes
a little bit, so we now have not one, but
two or three couches. Even so, yeah, those those days age, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
The indulgent purchases another weird one, you know, a promise
to Christopher Luxen was asked about his grocery spend on
the election campaign, and I always think he maybe didn't
quite understand the question because he said sixty dollars. He
bought some coffee and he talked about his flat and Wellington.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
But anyway, he got a bit.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Of stick for that. But how do you approach a
grocery spend? Are you a big spending shopper at the supermarket?
Speaker 2 (37:23):
So this is the nerdy kind of interested in the
economics side of me. I often break my life down
into little parcels of productivity, so I think, like, what
is an hour of my time worth and how do
I want to spend it. Thus, one of the things
I'm happy to outsource is meal planning. I absolutely hate
(37:45):
spending time on meal planning. I look at my sister
who is amazing with her budgeting, and she's really careful
with every dollar spent in her household, and she thinks
about meals a month in advance and has a chest
freezer and all of that stuff. We don't do that
in our house. In our house, I'm like, right, four
meals a week, happy to have that as a as,
a food bag thing, a food kit thing, whatever turns
(38:07):
up on the box turns up, and the rest of
the stuff I will we will get from the supermarket
and we'll just kind of, you know, rinse and repeat
the same meals. So I reckon in terms of an
overall spend for the supermarket for a week, there's three
of us, and I reckon we would be about four
hundred dollars a week, Yeah, including the food bag. Including
the food bag. Yeah, and then but it also depends
(38:30):
I do that we get the four person thing so
that there's one left over, there's a portion leftover which
I'll take for lunch next day. They're smart, that is smart,
but you know, often would approve she'd approve of that.
But then but then you know, it still gets a
bit to tell you what the old lunchtime expense is. Like,
lunch is minimum twenty like twenty bucks, it's like trebled.
It's crazying in town. I would say, it's crazy. It is,
(38:51):
that's right.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Do you imagine winning lotto? And if so, how much
do you imagine winning?
Speaker 2 (38:57):
I don't because I don't think I've ever had a
lot of tickets, do you know, I wouldn't even know
how to play lotto. I wouldn't know what to do.
I wouldn't know as do you call it like as
like a triple dip or something. Now, Yeah, because we're
just two guys here have never booked. Yeah, it has
a hardy aliver and romantic and I do imagine winning it,
even though I don't buy tickets, you see, that's it's
(39:19):
my cheap No, I never I never even think about it.
I think because so, my my dad is an accountant,
my mum is a mathematician. My granddad or my grandparents
are both like really serious mathematicians, which I think means
that everyone in my family has always had a really
rational approach to things like a lot of tickets and
(39:39):
they're like, wow, no, statistically, you're not going to win anything,
so you just what you're just freshering money away if
I were to win. I think that that old cliche
with wealth is that it gives you options, right, and
that you know, having having a few million bucks, say
it's five or ten million bucks now up your sleeve
means that you might have a few more options about
future choices. And so one thing I think about is
(40:01):
like we have a big mortgage, and you know, these
are very tenuous times in media, and I'm acutely aware
that media, even at the best of times, is the
sort of industry where your fortunes change on a dime.
It's kind of like being an athlete that and I
know that maybe sounds over the top, but and that
you're in one day and then you go on the next. Right,
and you know, my attitude is like make haywhile the sunshines.
(40:24):
If you can try and pay down some of that mortgage,
that's great. And if I would to somehow come into
several million dollars in years to come, well, that will
give me options for the future where maybe I wouldn't
feel compelled to work six days a week, and maybe
I would feel more empowered to go and do something
else if I wanted to do something else. But it's
the options that it had given me, rather than anything
(40:45):
you'd spend it on. As such, I think, I just,
I know it's so boring. I think I just I
honestly would just pay off the mortgage. Maybe I get
a new car, or like I get a new second
hand car, you know, I get a RelA over the top.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
So look, last question and it is kind of a
tough one, but it's an interesting one in that I
like to give everyone the opportunity to be the prime
minister for a day or even.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
More than that.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Let's say non coalition government. You've got real power here
and the cabinet scared of you. Yeah, you can get
your rob while doing basically you can get any policy
across the line you want. Is there something that would
be your number one priority to try and address, you know,
the big problems in New Zealand, some of the things
that I know you're passionate about, you know, socially inequality
(41:32):
and those kind of things.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I think, for me it is education. And I know
that people go on about that and it sounds kind
of all hoity toity and high and mighty. I mean,
I think education in New Zealand is facing massive problems
at the moment. I also think that it's not something
we talk about enough when we talk about the kind
of inequalities in life and things. And I'm someone who
(41:54):
thinks that you should be rewarded for taking chances and
seizing opportunities in life. I think it's really clear that
not all New Zealand kids have the same chance I
remember reading this report from KOI II a couple of
years ago, the Center for and form Futures at Orkin University,
you know, Professor Sir Peter Glakman, And one of the
(42:16):
things they suggested was that schools in New Zealand and
perceptions around schools dictate heaps when it comes to housing
prices and class and the opportunities that people have. And
they question what might happen if you were to poor
resources into those poorer schools in New Zealand and make
the schools that people don't really want to send their
(42:36):
kids to at the moment, make those the most desirable
schools in New Zealand. And I don't know, maybe that's
pie and the sky stuff, but I do think that
we massively underappreciate just how important those formative years are
in kids' lives. And I know you're friendly with economists,
Cameron Bagri. He has this line, you know what is
(42:57):
the number one economic indicator in New Zealand And today
for the New Zealand of fifteen or twenty years from now,
and it's education. I just totally totally agree with that,
and I think at the moment we're facing massive problems
in that front. So I think, to answer your question,
anything we can do to improve the opportunity, especially for
people who you know are from more disadvantage backgrounds, to
(43:21):
an absolutely world class education in New Zealand is the
best way to progress us. Well. Sounds like a great plan.
We're going to leave it there. Thanks very much, Jack,
Thank you. Great to talk, No, great to chat. Thanks
lenne Chez.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
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 nzme dot co dot nz
and you can read more from me at mzidherld dot
co dot MZED. Thanks to my producer Ethan Sills and
sound engineer Leane McDonald. Follow Money Talks on iHeartRadio or
(43:56):
wherever 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.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
About money, but we're not going to.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
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
over the years. Today I am joined by the host
of TVNZ's Q and A News Talk zb's Saturday mornings,
(00:37):
Jack tame Cura, Jack Calda Lev.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome to Money Talks. How's the running going, Oh? Very poorly?
I mean you you you have been subject to my
running in the past. Yeah, you've been a witness and
as you know, I'm not someone who is blessed with
a very esthetically pleasing running technique. And I'm now very
much insconsin middle age and I've recently discovered the toxic
(01:00):
mix of middle age and social sport, which means that
it's taken me about three months to get over a
sprained ankle. But I'm back out there pounding the pavements,
albeit not very graceful. I thought a better disclosed that
we've been running a few times. I'm broken down at
the moment. Okay, there's two of us.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
It's gone, trying to get back into action. But you know,
there are some other things we can talk about growing
up in christ Church and Cashmere and so forth. So
let's go right back and can I ask you what
your first memories are of having money?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Do you recall holding it in your hands? I have
a couple of early memories I thought I would share
with you, And I knew you were going to ask
that question because I always listened to the show. So
I'm delighted to be here. A couple of things. First
of all, at Christmas time, my mum is a real
stickler for tradition, and when she was a kid, her
mum had made one of those really old school, amazing
(01:51):
boiled fruit puddings, like mixed fruit puddings, and as part
of that she would put silver coins inside the pudding.
And then it was the kind of pierced the resistance
of the Christmas lunch. You'd have the turkey, you'd have
everything else, and then for dessert, Dad would make custard,
would get ice cream out. We'd have all these other
little treats and Mum would bring this big pudding out
(02:11):
to the middle of the table and she would light
it on fire and burn off all of the remaining liquor.
But before doing that, she would bury these silver coins
in the pudding. And so I can remember as a
little kid, everyone saying, be careful, be careful when you're
eating the pudding, because there are going to be coins
in there. Make sure you don't choke on the coins.
And you know, I was a young little capitalist who
(02:32):
also loved dessert, so it was kind of combining two
of my favorite and most exciting things. And I would
eat as much pudding as possible in order to get
as many silver coins as possible, because at the end
of Christmas dinner, Mum would exchange them for real money.
So if you had, say a florin, you get twenty
cengs classic. It was the classic old, you know, because
I think I don't know that you can put the
(02:53):
new modern ones in there. I think there's something about
my mum, being the woman she iss will have researched this,
but I think I don't thk they're supposed to boil
the new metal, yeah, but the old metal you could safely.
You could safely boil, and so yeah, we would do that,
and I would so you'd finish. And so the last
event on Christmas Day was the swapping with the exchanging
of a couple of florins for and you know, you
(03:15):
were always trying to get the serve of Christmas pudding
that had the most coins in it, so I remember that.
I also, I don't remember getting pocket money for the
first time, but as the oldest of four, I distinctly
remember when my sister got pocket money for the first time.
And I remember it because I immediately determined that she
was younger than I had been when I first got
(03:36):
twenty cents or fifty cents a week. And so when
Mum and Dad set me down and explained to me, oh,
you know we've given you know, we're giving your sister
pocket money now as well, I remember trying to ask
them if they would backdate me pocket money to the
time of my life when I had been the same
age as my sister now was in receiving pocket money
for kind of so I was already kind of like
(03:57):
trying to try to work something to get a bit
more cash. Negotiation. Yeah, it's the curse of the eldest though,
isn't it because the youngest always get a little bit
of scrub. Yeah, yeah, great. So you were getting pocket
money at some point. Did you save it? Did you
spend it? Do you remember what? Yes? I just think
so I got a very small amount of pocket money,
but I wanted more money from a young age, and
(04:20):
I remember a couple of things. So I remember that
my first money making scheme, which was to sell plums
on the side of the road. We had a prolific
plum tree and my parents tried to They saw it
as a learning opportunity, and so we went to the
supermarket and my plan had been just to steal a
few produce bags, you know, the old plastic bags used
(04:42):
to have the produce. I was like, well, I can
just take those. Those are free, and Mum and Dad
were like, no, no, no, that's a capital expense for
your business. So they made me go and buy these
little plastic bags. And then I picked all the plums
with my sister. We went and put them in plastic bags.
We had a whiteboard at home and I would hold
up a sign on the side of the road saying
plums for dollar, and cars would stop and I remember
we made a profit of about seven dollars each, which
(05:05):
was a huge sum of money at the time. And
my dad said, bad news, guys, and we said what
and he said, you got to pay tax seven dollars
and we were like, you know, we would have been
probably ten years old. I would have been ten years old.
I couldn't believe it. Fortunately my mum intervened. But my
dad is an accountant, right, because it sounds very entrepreneurial.
(05:25):
That was quite entrepreneurial, and I actually had a few
other entrepreneurial measures throughout my high schooling years. I would
go and busk outside Barrington Mall in christ Church with
my best mate Mike, and he had the voice of
an angel. But I had the entrepreneurial skills to really
hustle for the money, and I had I had all
of these little I remember having all of these little ideas, like,
(05:48):
for example, I don't know if you've ever busked before.
That we very quickly worked out was sort of real
time data which songs made the most money, right, And
so we knew that there were certain songs that would
appeal to a certain demographic that was more likely to
give us cash. So, for example, you go hard on
Cat Stevens. We were just like, we would play Cat
Stevens over and over again. But what we would do
(06:10):
is we would have a little bucket out there, and
when it filled up with seven or eight dollars, we
would then, when no one was looking, secrete that money away.
So again it looked like so that the thing was
never have more than a few bucks and the bucket.
So people walk past and they give you more cash.
And this will sound crazy when I said to you,
(06:30):
we would finish a day with eight hundred dollars. Wow,
we made hundreds of dollars. And you can only you
can only do this every now and then. But you
know I was in my teens. Again, my dad being
an accountant, he made me pay tax. Well, he'd be like,
that's great, you've made this.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Actually claim the tax back later on as a child,
because you'd hope.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
So, yeah, I wouldn't have thought that, yeah I was
paying much tax. But to your question, I had a
full time or I had it not full time. I
had a paper around from about the age of eleven
or twelve, started that as young as I possibly could,
and from the moment that I had regular income, my
Mum would make me keep a balance book, and every
(07:14):
month I had to work out my sums and the
rule was that I had to save sixty five percent
of what I earned and I could spend thirty five
percent of what I am right specific, very specific, and
so I wasn't blowing all of my money. I was
very much saving from the word go, very nerdily. And
it was a painful exercise for everyone in the house
(07:35):
when once a month we had to sit down and
make and compare our pay slips with whatever money had
gone into our bank accounts and then make sure that
we had saved sixty five and been thirty five.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
It's sort of I mean, this is jumping ahead, and
I'll come back to life in christ Church and Keshma
High School and things.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
But it's so entrepreneurial. How do you end up in journalism?
How come you're not totally I wish well I've had.
I mean, I I did my toes in the shear market,
as other people do, with mixed success, to say the least,
I definitely had as a younger person. I definitely had
an entrepreneurial streak, and funnily enough, if I weren't in
(08:12):
journalism as much as I as fulfilling as my job
is now, business commerce economics are still really interesting to me.
And if I think if I would have another career,
especially if I were starting now, that that's probably the
direction I would hit in, right.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, I mean, let's talk about school. We went to
the same school, Keshmia High School. It's turned out a
few good journalists. I've talked to Guy and Espiner, my
kid brother Koren.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
And a few others.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
There's a few years between us. I wasn't at school
at the same time as you by a fair way.
In fact, I suspect I think one of my friends
had gone back as a teacher and was a teacher,
mister Billings. Ah, I would to age myself horrendously. How
was that environment for you growing up in christ Shurch
in the nineties, was the sort of were aware of
(08:57):
the economy and all that sort of stuff. It's a
little bit of a.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yearh So for people who are outside of christ Church, obviously,
schools are a big deal in christ Church, and schools
are kind of inextricably linked with class, as they are
in every New Zealder city, But in christ Church, I
think in more ways than most. And it's my view
probably that in the last few years, and indeed in
the year's post earthquake, cash Me High, the public school
(09:22):
that we went to has probably become a bit more
Lardi Dah than when I was there, Like it seems
a bit wealthier now than when I was there relative
to other schools. It's not to say that it was
a tough school or anything like that. When I went there,
it was a do you know, I just had a
great childhood. I loved school. I just had the best time.
(09:42):
And so I feel, you know, I feel incredibly grateful
for the opportunities that I had through then, and was
I aware of wealth disparities. I would say that one
of the things I've been most fortunate about is that
I was aware of having a certain level of privilege,
but always kept in a really appropriate check by my parents.
(10:06):
So I can remember a couple of things. For example,
I can remember one time there was a you know,
you come home with a school slip that says, oh,
you need to pay this for this trip or something
I said. And I had a terrible habit, as many
teenage boys do, of never giving mom and dad the
notices from school. Now I remember I was cleaning out
my bag once I found a notice. I brought it
(10:26):
down to mom and dad and it was for something.
It was like an expense that was like ninety bucks
or one hundred bucks or something, which in two thousand
and three and still today, but in two thousand and
three was a lot of money. And I took it
down and it was due in about two days, and
my mum sat me down and she was like, we
can pay this, but this is a huge amount of money,
(10:48):
and you've given us almost no notice. And in order
for us to pay this, we're going to have to
move some things around. We're gonna have to do some
shuffling with our finances in order to be able to
pay this. You need to know that there are some
of your mates who if they'd done the same thing,
they wouldn't be paying the spill and they would be
done on this trip. And I remember that. I remember
(11:08):
that today. But that being said, you know, I think
I just I was afforded lots of opportunities that I
think lots of other kids didn't get, and I maybe
wasn't quite as aware that other kids didn't get those opportunities, like,
for example, my parents are big music heads, and so
my dad was like, if you experence any interest in
music whatsoever, we're doing it. I remember, you know, I
(11:31):
was ready into like old rock back then, and so
you know, and I played guitar and stuff, and my
parents are always paying for music lessons. And one time I said, oh,
you know, I'd be really good if my band could
practice at home, and Dad was like, we got great news.
We're buying a drum kit and stuff like that, which
which most kids probably couldn't do. So from busking, you didn't.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
You weren't a tempted to carry that on or go
to go to I guess a sort of stage school,
or I was. I was definitely a performer in school,
but kept me a high school production. Yeah yeah, yeah,
I did that, and probably with mister Billings too. But
I had a real curiosity about the world, and I
think I probably grew out of performing being my absolute
(12:10):
number one passion. You know, I loved playing sport as well,
and so you know, for a while, you dream of
being an All Black, or dream of playing cricket for
New Zealand, and you know, you dream of being in
a really successful rock band or anything like that, but
I'd always been super interested in news. I've been super
interested in the world and been really curious, and so
I think by the time I finished high school, it
(12:31):
was really clear to me that a career where I
could put that curiosity into a really practical profession made
a lot of sense. And when I finished high school,
I got into the New Zealand Broadcasting School, and you know,
I remember it was the first time in my life
(12:52):
that I thought, oh, my gosh, this is my tribe,
Like even when here is on the same page, this
is where I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
I felt. It wasn't that I felt like an outsider
at school, because like I said, I had a great time,
but it was the first time I thought, my gosh,
I'm definitely in the right place.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, so you kind of focused from there. You knew
what your goals were.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah. Yeah, I was a lousy student at high school
and that I just was quite a late bloomer and
many respects. And I remember in fifth form I had
like really good marks and then I was like, yeah,
my mark's are so good, I don't need to try,
and so I just didn't try, And like, sixth form
(13:30):
was an absolute disaster, and my mom used to be
a math teacher. And I think it was like two
days before the end of year sixth form exams and
my mum realized that I knew literally zero of the
entire curriculum. I knew nothing because I'd just been working
around in class. And so she sat me down and
for forty eight hours taught me the entire year twelve
(13:51):
math curriculum. And I, you know, scraped by however, and
I just I just did not apply myself academically at
all at high school. But then when I started studying
the first year out of high school at broadcasting School,
it had kind of been drummed into us that this
was an environment it's really competitive, and it's so hard,
and everyone he is so smart, and that kind of thing.
I mean, yeah, yeah, you've got to beat these things
(14:14):
up in your own head. And maybe it was just
because I was with my tribe. Maybe it was because
I felt like I had purpose, or I was really
passionate about it. Maybe it was just a combination of
those things and maybe a bit of maturing. But I
just applied myself for the first time. And as I
applied myself, I found that actually, you know, I was
really suited to it.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, so it sounds like money, it's per se. Wasn't
really a goal through any of that, clearly, not when
you're failing maths in the sixth form. Yeah, but the
goal was to become a journalist and a broadcaster.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, it was. I have. Over summer I was going
through some old photo albums and I found a certificate
from when I was ten years old that said to
Jack for his keen interest in current affairs and news.
And I remember in English class US and year thirteen
the teacher saying, oh, you know, what are you reading
and what are you interested in? And I said, oh,
(15:05):
you know, what do you want to do in the
year to come? And I said, oh, I want to
be like Paul Holmes, you know, a job I wanted.
And it's quite unusual now that someone of my generation
I'm a millennial, would just have a really linear career,
but I, in a sense I have, and that I
have just done a version of the same job since
(15:25):
I was nineteen the year out of high school. Immediately
out of high school, I studied to be a journal
I became a broadcast journal and I've done it ever since.
So what was the first gig out of broadcasting school. Well,
I'd done some sort of work experience and stuff, so
(15:46):
I again I was applying myself and I was quite strategic,
so I deliberately went and sought work experience with different places.
I went to news talks, heb, I went to radio sport,
I went to TV three and TV one. And when
I was still at broadcasting school, I got a call
out of the blue one day that said, hey, you know,
(16:08):
I'm the manager for tvn Z in the South Island.
We've got this job going on breakfast and it's currently open.
I don't know if you know anything about it, but
would you be interested in interviewing for it? So I
got a cold call just randomly one day and it
was the next morning. The interview was the next morning,
so I had about, you know, I just had an
evening to prepare. And as it had turned out, one
(16:31):
of my tutors had recommended me to tv Z because
he did some tutoring, but he also worked at tvn
Z and he was it was just an incredibly generous
thing for him to do. And you know, you look
back at little things like that, and that was like
that sound grandiose. That changed the course of my life. Yeah, absolutely,
Like as a nineteen year old to get an interview.
(16:53):
I got the job and they said, here's the plan.
You're going to work on breakfast from five am to
nine m him every day, then go to broadcasting school,
do your day at broadcasting school, and then as soon
as you graduate broadcasting school, we'll give you a full
time internship. Well yeah, and then and that was it.
And like I said, because of you know, the company.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
You get that break or you know, you might you look,
not saying you wouldn't have got there anyway, but you
might have been not going to pick a small town
and defend someone. You might have been on provincial radio
somewhere for a while or yeah like.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
That, you know, yeah, yeah, do you know. It's funny
because I was very close friends with Maddy McLain at
the time, and he studied the same time as me,
and both of us aspired to getting similar jobs or internships,
and so I was fortunate to get this and Maddy
went to one Double X and Fakatani the radio station
absolutely loved it and crushed it, and then six months
(17:45):
later was also at TVNZ. Right, so there are kind
of two ways to look at it. Like sometimes I think, like, man,
would I have ever ended up there if I hadn't
got that call and had that chance. And sometimes I'm like, oh,
it's funny how the fates kind of come.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Together and you end up you know, you end up
working to get down Yeah, year or something like that.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I mean, you're on breakfast for quite a while. I
was on Breakfast for a while. And my ethos at
the time, so it was just when it was with
Paul Henry and k Gregory, and it was just when
live TV was kind of becoming a thing in New Zealand,
and my ethos was that I would get as much
experience out of everything as possible before trying to climb
(18:24):
the ladder. So I knew that I was the krill
basically in the newsroom. And obviously they're quite you know,
they certainly were there in quite competitive places. And so
I really benefited from timing because live TV was just
becoming a thing. The TVNZ newsroom in christ Gych at
that time had this incredible wealth of super experienced, celebrated reporters,
(18:48):
really celebrated reporters, and they all had done amazing things
and won lots of awards and stuff, but many of
them had had very little live TV career, live TV experience.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Because they didn't. Nowadays, everyone every reporter is standing there talking.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Constantly, right yeah, and even you know, people are used
to talking on their phones and Instagram lives and that
kind of thing, and back then it just didn't happen.
So it just meant that all of these really experienced
reporters were really nervous about being live, and you know,
with us retisent to do it, whereas I was just
shitting myself about everything. And so I was like, well,
(19:23):
the difference between me, I'm nervous enough writing a script,
I'm nervous enough, interviewing someone. I'm nervous enough making coffee
for someone. What's the difference between doing that and doing
a live It's all it's all terrifying your hair. And
as such, I just I volunteered to do it wherever
I could. And because I volunteered to do it, I
got better at it. And as I got better at it,
(19:43):
I got more opportunities, and it all just kind of cascaded,
and you know, in the space for a couple of years,
I had many, many more.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Opportunities yeah, well, I mean you kind of ended up
probably as the US correspondent Knew Rope, right, that was
kind of quite a high profile role in terms of
live live cross from anything big that happened totally in
the States at that time. Can you tell me a
little bit about the financial life change going, you know,
so you get out of broadcasting school, you're kind of
(20:11):
straight into a job. But I mean, how was it
going to live in New York. I mean, it's I'm
sure they give you some money, but it must.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Be don't be sure. Yeah, So, first of all, I
mean I was Another reason I was lucky timing wise,
is because there was still a little bit of money
and TV back then, and obviously there's just nothing now.
So in terms of money, I remember leaving, I remember
joining TV and ZED as an intern, and the interns
(20:38):
wage was three hundred and twenty dollars a week tax free,
and I was flatting, and three hundred and twenty dollars
a week tax free. When you're flatting and it's two
thousand and seven or whatever, it was was like car cheing.
I was cashed up. All of my flatmates for university students,
so I was big bucks team and I would like,
I'd like throw the money around, get an extra beers
(21:00):
for the boys, like we get two takeaway pizzas like whoa,
And then you know, I've moved on to a full
time job and got a salary and stuff. But the
thing that people don't necessarily appreciate about those jobs, and
I'm not sure if it's exactly the same today, is
that the correspondent job in the US was not a
salaried position, right because of I think there are tax
(21:22):
implications if you have if you have a salary position,
and so basically you were essentially a freelancer working back
for New Zealand and knowledge that you're going to get
used yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and so so I.
But there was sort of no cast iron guarantees about anything.
And I had had a few savings at the time,
(21:43):
but I wasn't you know. I was just aware that
New York was going to cost a lot of money.
And I knew literally one person in New York, so
I didn't have many people I could kind of lean
on when I moved over there, but I did. I
did do one thing that proved to be a really
good decision. I went to TVNZ and I said, guys,
you do these crosses to New York all the time.
I think that camera technology is good enough that some
(22:06):
of them I could film myself, right And up until
that point, my predecessor, Tim Wilson, who's still a really
close friend, he would be the first to say he's
a bit of a technophobe. So every time he needed
to do a live cross in the field, like outside
in New York where you're actually showing the city, or
you know, you're traveling around the country, he would have
to hire a freelance cameraman. Freelance cameraman even in twenty
(22:31):
eleven twenty twelve in the States was costing twelve hundred
US bucks a day. That's a huge financial impediment, right
for it for a company. So I said to Steeping
and said, why don't you buy a camera, a cheap
camera and a tripod and microphones and stuff, and we're
ever possible, I'll film myself. And at the time they said, no,
we don't think that's a we don't probably think that's
(22:52):
a great idea. And I'm not sure what it was.
Maybe it was just a youthful cockiness or whatever, but
I used a massive slab of my savings to buy
the kit myself well, and so I bore a camera
tripod all the works set up in a flat in
East Harlem, and I started teaching myself to film, and
(23:13):
in the kind of downtimes when the wem big stories
that needed to be covered, I would go out and
I would make a video and edit it, and then
I would send it to my family and say, oh,
this is the neighborhood I'm living in. You know, here's
Central Park and Spring, all of that kind of thing.
And of course the more I practiced, the better I got.
And it wasn't exactly award winning cinematography, but it was passable.
(23:34):
And I would film the stuff send it back for
TVNZ and they were like, hang on, that didn't cost
us eighteen hundred years, And I said, no, it didn't.
It costs you two hundred bucks and they said, what
do you mean. And I'd say, that's that's my fee
for filming it. That's contributing to camera and everything else,
and they said fair cop. And so for the five
years that I lived there, I traveled around the country heaps,
(23:57):
filming my own stuff, and of course it proved to
be a good financial decision because I paid off the camera,
but also it just upskilled me. And when you think
about how media has changed now and how especially how
TV has kind of evolved and got way cheaper and
all of those things. Gone are the days where you
are only expected to be able to do one thing,
(24:18):
And so it was it was a really good decision.
And you know, like I went to Guantna my Bay,
I took my kit because I could just travel by myself.
I took my kit to go on Ton and my
Bay and filmed the prisoners and gwan to stuff that
couldn't have got otherwise they couldn't have got or they
couldn't have afforded. And I think they probably had a
certain I don't know this for sure, but I think
there was a certain amount of money they were they
had assigned for my role. But by not spending money
(24:42):
on freelance New York cameramen, it gave me more fat
in the budget to travel around and do a whole
range of stories. And so in terms of experiences over
the time I was the year, I got to experience
way more than if they'd been paying for two of
us to do everything. Yeah, didn't necessarily look as good.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
But you know, well it's that people people, you know,
where the people notice who knows you know, yeah, yeah,
the professionals maybe, but you know, the average person.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, yeah, maybe not. And it was yeah, but it
just proved to be a really for me, it was
a really it was a really good decision.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So, I mean, again, there's a bunch of reasons for
that decision, but there's there's there's some economics in it.
You know, when you look at your career moves since then,
you've you've kind of got a multimedia role, a joint
sort of roll across you know, Indied, ME and TV
and Z. I mean, how do you put that together?
And how much was money a factor? And sort of
putting the way that you've you know, approached media since
(25:36):
you've got back.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So I was really lucky because I was man, being
with you just makes me reflect on I sound. I've
made myself sound way more kind of cunning and devious
and entrepreneurial than I really am. But anyway, I think
just luck has this huge kind of looming factor in
all of this, right, It's a symbiotic Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
(25:58):
So when I was in New York, they decided to
launch seven chart the TV show Yea, And it was
rumored at the time that I don't know why, but
it was rumored that I might be a presenter on
the show, and for whatever reason, the bosses at Newstalks,
he'd be thought, oh, maybe Jack, who's only been in
New York for a year, is going to come back
(26:19):
and be a host on the show. But I personally
wanted to be over there reporting, experiencing all those different
things US elections and you know, everything else that was
going on. And so they called me up and said, oh,
you know, I don't know if you're thinking of anything,
but if you were, wink, nudge nudge. Support Holmes is
really unwell and his Saturday morning show on New Storks
(26:40):
hed B is probably not going to be a show
that he's going to have the capacity to do for
much longer. Is that something you'd be interested if you
were moving back? And I said, I'm really flattered, you know,
and Support Holmes is the legend of New Zealand broadcasting.
I'm not planning to come back. However, what about doing
(27:04):
the show from New York and again to the immense
credit and really with no good justification, they said, Okay,
just give it a go. Sure, And so for four
years when I was in New York, I would go
down to Tribeca to a studio up in this amazing
(27:28):
in this amazing radio building in the kind of heart
of New York broadcasting. I remember I'd go in and see,
you know, like, oh, Lady Gaga's outside today. Oh there's
Sheer today, Like just you know, like these incredible rappers
walking past. And then I'd be tuning and be like, yo,
News Talk's there'd be yeah, hello, yeah, and just just
through you know, incredible good fortune but also a really
(27:49):
brave and tenacious decision by my bosses at News Talk
that was able to work. And then I came back
to New Zealand after the twenty sixteen US election because
there was an opportunity on Breakfast and I really wanted
to work with Hillary Barry and I thought that'd be great.
And also Troop being told I was this will sound
(28:09):
really macab, but a big part of that job at
that time was just going and doing the massacre run.
So there would be a massacre here, a massacre there,
you have to scramble, fly out there, you turn up,
you report on the massacre, and yeah, there were just
heaps and heaps of these mass shootings, and after a while,
I just sort of felt like, ah, it's kind of
(28:29):
wearing me down, and it just it just for whatever reason,
it felt like a good time to move back, and
I really wanted to work with Hillary. It was a
going from being a kind of freelance reporter to being
a presenter is a huge change in terms of finances.
But in the years since, I would say that money
has not been a big or the big factor in
(28:52):
my decisions. So I was on Breakfast for a couple
of years with Hillary and and then Haley Holt, and
then I moved to Q and A, which involved a
significant pay cut, which I totally leaned into because I
does mean getting into more serious particle. It was work
that I was more much more passionate about and more
(29:15):
excited about, and I was just exhausted from kind of
working myself too hard for a few years. And so, yeah,
it's funny because I've worked six days a week for
eleven years now something like that, and I've never For
two and a half or three years, I worked on
Breakfast as well as on Newstalk's CB, and I maintained
(29:39):
that there is just something about morning TV and having
to get up and be bright and for three hours
you're on air and all of that that just wears
you down. And I'm convinced that I aged two days
every day I work their job. I loved it. It
was a great job, but it really just took something
out of it. Just not natural to be that perpose,
(30:01):
I think. So Yeah, yeah, I reckon like getting up
after five is doable, getting up with anything starting with
a three? Yeah, you know, even if you're being paid
super well and you're in a high profile job, it
just breaks you down. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
How about I mean, you know you were single a
bachelor for quite a long time. You know you've been
married recently. Yeah, if you're a step dad, how does
that change the attitude to money is a bit more
feeling of responsibility and things?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, good question, I think. I mean fundamentally, it changes
your priorities. Right. So I felt really passionately when I
was in New York and when I moved home from
New York, and I still feel passionately about this that
for the right stages in life, high density living is
absolutely crucial. In New Zealand. I think that for far
too long we have just allowed this kind of sprawl
(30:48):
and protection of these big spaces with very few people
living on them, in the central parts of our city
in particular. And so I was determined when I moved
back from New York to have an apartment, to embrace
apartment living. That was great. Like I say, though, it's
all a time of life thing. My stepson's seven years old,
and I think in New Zealand, although more people should
be living in high density options, the thing about living
(31:09):
in New Zealand is when you're seven years old, you
want to be able to go outside and shoot a basketball.
And so it was really important for me in making
that transition to go from having an apartment and a
high density life to having a bit more space and
having a house. So that's the kind of the biggest
change that we've gone through in the last couple of years.
As well as that, I should say, you know, I'd
(31:30):
never really thought about life insurance before, right, yeah, yeah,
you know, and making sure all of that really boring, like,
you know, make sure my will is in order. That
kind of stuff is all stuff that I am now
way more conscious of than I would have been a
couple of years ago, you know, a couple of years ago,
I was like, I'm in it for me and myself
and I and now I think, well, you know, there
are obviously other mouths to feed, and we're the worst
(31:51):
to happen. I want to make sure that these guys
are Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, you made obviously a smart financial decision just getting
on the property ladder when you got back.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Ah, I did, except that I think I have a
real habit of mistiming the property market, right. And you know,
I look back at the in my apartment and I
massively overpaid for it. Not massively, but you know, as
a percentage of my income. Because i'd been out of
New Zealand for all of these years, I'd never bought
property before. I didn't really understand the market as well
(32:21):
as I probably could have, and so I think if
I had my time again, I just would have taken
a bit more time to properly understand the market before
diving in. But I sort of was in a real
rush to get on with life at that stage. I mean,
I'm hardly the first person to say this on your podcast,
but I just think housing is this kind of massive,
entrenched problem in our economy that we still haven't properly tackled.
(32:42):
And I know the current minister has some really quite
aggressive plans to do stuff about that, so maybe things
will change. But I'm acutely aware that, you know, I
have been in a high profile, very well paid, relatively
jobs and have managed to get on the housing letter.
If you are a nurse and a teacher looking to
start a life in our biggest city, it's very very
(33:04):
very difficult.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Let's get into some of the quick fire questions I
have here. What's the poorest you've ever been.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
The poorest I've ever been was when I started. It
was before I had my It was when I had
zero dollars, which is when I had my Westpac savings account,
or it was the Trust Bank, but the Trust Bank
savings account. And so you would I remember at our school,
at our primary school, you were encouraged to bring in
a gold coin in your little book every week if
you could, and for me it was a real fat
(33:38):
I was like, why don't I have to take in
a gold coin? You know? And so I often just
didn't do it. But then I would have been about
seven or eight where I realized that the money would
ultimately be going to me, and all of a sudden,
I just became the It was there every week with
his little gold coin, you know, banking it away. After that,
the poorest I've ever been was when I was studying
and I had a student loan, and I remember I
(34:01):
wasn't getting the cost of living payments, but I did
get a couple of the bulk payments you could get
study Link that would help out with my And to
be honest, I wasn't putting that money towards books and
you know, computers and that kind of stuff. I was
putting it towards going to the pub and that kind
of thing. And you know, I had some pretty you know,
(34:22):
some pretty ill disciplined spending decisions during that period. Yeah,
they let you get ring up, get a big chunk
of money. Totally. I was right. Talk to my kid brother.
It's funny a I you know, I know people who
got out the absolute maximum from study Link in terms
of the student the cost of living and whatever one
you have to pay back. So they got the absolute maximum,
(34:46):
they banked it in high interest accounts or on term deposits,
and then they use that to pay for a house.
Which is it like, if you are if you are
disciplined enough as a nineteen weeks now it's interest free.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Since Helen totally totally and yeah we were. I was
paying seven percent, so not such a good idea, Yeah,
but yeah, now if you're clever.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, I had an interest for a student loan too,
and we had the ten percent bulk payback thing, so
I ended off ended up paying back my student loan
with the benefit of that ten percent thing. So if
you gave like two thousand dollars, the government would contribute
an extra two hundred, right, which I think I helped
to pay mine off.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, flip it round. What's the most indulgent purchase you
ever made.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I'm not really into things, into material possessions. I'm really
into experiences, and so I've never hesitated to spend thousands
of dollars on holidays and adventures. And if I was
to assess all of my big expenses of my life,
that would that would certainly take the cake in terms
(35:46):
of material experience material possessions. I've got a like a
three thousand dollars Gibson guitar, and I've got a big TV,
but I bought that second hand, so I reckon that
that probably doesn't count. And you know driver a twenty
twelve Toyota Corolla. Yeah, you know, I don't. I just don't. Really.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
It's about doing things, definitely, about doing things rather than
rather than experiences rather than stuff is usually there. So,
speaking of material possessions, you're famously, to a certain point
in your life had never owned a couch.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, I just I really embraced a minimalist esthetic there
for a while. In that first apartment that I had,
I yeah, I had a couple of big armchairs. They
were nice, expensive armchairs, and I just figured I don't
really need a couch because these are great arm chairs
and you can kind of sit here, and you know,
(36:39):
and I had that the apartment had really big windows,
and so I thought, well, you know, you're gonna swivel
on these arm chairs look out the window anyway. You
don't need a couch, and it would be crazy to
put a couch in front of these big windows. My
wife has delighted that I have matured in my tastes
a little bit, so we now have not one, but
two or three couches. Even so, yeah, those those days age, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
The indulgent purchases another weird one, you know, a promise
to Christopher Luxen was asked about his grocery spend on
the election campaign, and I always think he maybe didn't
quite understand the question because he said sixty dollars. He
bought some coffee and he talked about his flat and Wellington.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
But anyway, he got a bit.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Of stick for that. But how do you approach a
grocery spend? Are you a big spending shopper at the supermarket?
Speaker 2 (37:23):
So this is the nerdy kind of interested in the
economics side of me. I often break my life down
into little parcels of productivity, so I think, like, what
is an hour of my time worth and how do
I want to spend it. Thus, one of the things
I'm happy to outsource is meal planning. I absolutely hate
(37:45):
spending time on meal planning. I look at my sister
who is amazing with her budgeting, and she's really careful
with every dollar spent in her household, and she thinks
about meals a month in advance and has a chest
freezer and all of that stuff. We don't do that
in our house. In our house, I'm like, right, four
meals a week, happy to have that as a as,
a food bag thing, a food kit thing, whatever turns
(38:07):
up on the box turns up, and the rest of
the stuff I will we will get from the supermarket
and we'll just kind of, you know, rinse and repeat
the same meals. So I reckon in terms of an
overall spend for the supermarket for a week, there's three
of us, and I reckon we would be about four
hundred dollars a week, Yeah, including the food bag. Including
the food bag. Yeah, and then but it also depends
(38:30):
I do that we get the four person thing so
that there's one left over, there's a portion leftover which
I'll take for lunch next day. They're smart, that is smart,
but you know, often would approve she'd approve of that.
But then but then you know, it still gets a
bit to tell you what the old lunchtime expense is. Like,
lunch is minimum twenty like twenty bucks, it's like trebled.
It's crazying in town. I would say, it's crazy. It is,
(38:51):
that's right.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Do you imagine winning lotto? And if so, how much
do you imagine winning?
Speaker 2 (38:57):
I don't because I don't think I've ever had a
lot of tickets, do you know, I wouldn't even know
how to play lotto. I wouldn't know what to do.
I wouldn't know as do you call it like as
like a triple dip or something. Now, Yeah, because we're
just two guys here have never booked. Yeah, it has
a hardy aliver and romantic and I do imagine winning it,
even though I don't buy tickets, you see, that's it's
(39:19):
my cheap No, I never I never even think about it.
I think because so, my my dad is an accountant,
my mum is a mathematician. My granddad or my grandparents
are both like really serious mathematicians, which I think means
that everyone in my family has always had a really
rational approach to things like a lot of tickets and
(39:39):
they're like, wow, no, statistically, you're not going to win anything,
so you just what you're just freshering money away if
I were to win. I think that that old cliche
with wealth is that it gives you options, right, and
that you know, having having a few million bucks, say
it's five or ten million bucks now up your sleeve
means that you might have a few more options about
future choices. And so one thing I think about is
(40:01):
like we have a big mortgage, and you know, these
are very tenuous times in media, and I'm acutely aware
that media, even at the best of times, is the
sort of industry where your fortunes change on a dime.
It's kind of like being an athlete that and I
know that maybe sounds over the top, but and that
you're in one day and then you go on the next. Right,
and you know, my attitude is like make haywhile the sunshines.
(40:24):
If you can try and pay down some of that mortgage,
that's great. And if I would to somehow come into
several million dollars in years to come, well, that will
give me options for the future where maybe I wouldn't
feel compelled to work six days a week, and maybe
I would feel more empowered to go and do something
else if I wanted to do something else. But it's
the options that it had given me, rather than anything
(40:45):
you'd spend it on. As such, I think, I just,
I know it's so boring. I think I just I
honestly would just pay off the mortgage. Maybe I get
a new car, or like I get a new second
hand car, you know, I get a RelA over the top.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
So look, last question and it is kind of a
tough one, but it's an interesting one in that I
like to give everyone the opportunity to be the prime
minister for a day or even.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
More than that.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Let's say non coalition government. You've got real power here
and the cabinet scared of you. Yeah, you can get
your rob while doing basically you can get any policy
across the line you want. Is there something that would
be your number one priority to try and address, you know,
the big problems in New Zealand, some of the things
that I know you're passionate about, you know, socially inequality
(41:32):
and those kind of things.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I think, for me it is education. And I know
that people go on about that and it sounds kind
of all hoity toity and high and mighty. I mean,
I think education in New Zealand is facing massive problems
at the moment. I also think that it's not something
we talk about enough when we talk about the kind
of inequalities in life and things. And I'm someone who
(41:54):
thinks that you should be rewarded for taking chances and
seizing opportunities in life. I think it's really clear that
not all New Zealand kids have the same chance I
remember reading this report from KOI II a couple of
years ago, the Center for and form Futures at Orkin University,
you know, Professor Sir Peter Glakman, And one of the
(42:16):
things they suggested was that schools in New Zealand and
perceptions around schools dictate heaps when it comes to housing
prices and class and the opportunities that people have. And
they question what might happen if you were to poor
resources into those poorer schools in New Zealand and make
the schools that people don't really want to send their
(42:36):
kids to at the moment, make those the most desirable
schools in New Zealand. And I don't know, maybe that's
pie and the sky stuff, but I do think that
we massively underappreciate just how important those formative years are
in kids' lives. And I know you're friendly with economists,
Cameron Bagri. He has this line, you know what is
(42:57):
the number one economic indicator in New Zealand And today
for the New Zealand of fifteen or twenty years from now,
and it's education. I just totally totally agree with that,
and I think at the moment we're facing massive problems
in that front. So I think, to answer your question,
anything we can do to improve the opportunity, especially for
people who you know are from more disadvantage backgrounds, to
(43:21):
an absolutely world class education in New Zealand is the
best way to progress us. Well. Sounds like a great plan.
We're going to leave it there. Thanks very much, Jack,
Thank you. Great to talk, No, great to chat. Thanks
lenne Chez.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
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 nzme dot co dot nz
and you can read more from me at mzidherld dot
co dot MZED. Thanks to my producer Ethan Sills and
sound engineer Leane McDonald. Follow Money Talks on iHeartRadio or
(43:56):
wherever you get your podcasts, with new episodes available every Thursday.
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