July 25, 2024 • 30 mins
In this week's episode, Thomas has a long-form chat with Labour leader and former Prime Minister turned Leader of the Opposition, Chris Hipkins, to discuss seven months in the role, Labour's analysis of its failed re-election campaign, what they'll do differently next time, and what needs to change in the political climate..
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello and welcome to on the titles the New Zealand
Heeriorals Politics podcast. I'm your host Thomas Coglan. Today we've
got a really interesting interview it's worth Labor leader Resipkins.
It's eight months since Hepkins lost the election and became
Leader of the Opposition, but it's quite an interesting look
back at the failed election campaign last year and what
he's doing to rebuild the party in the election machine
(00:25):
for the next election. Recipkins leader of the Opposition currently.
Congratulations on holding that role. It's not a role that
one is typically congratulated on holding, but the guy, I.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Don't think it's a job that anybody particularly wants. The
most people would recognize that being leader of the Opposition
is a prerequisite to becoming Prime minister. In my case,
I'm kind of doing it the wrong way around. I
had a brief stint as Prime minister for nine months
now doing this job and the goal is to be
Prime minister again after the election.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Well, thank you very much for joining us and sitting
down with us to discuss Sam. Your first six months
been but longer than six months now in the role.
Can I ask you thought we'd struggure structure this in
three parts, sort of the past and then looking forward
to the future. Later did a campaign review of twenty
twenty three. That's that returned some time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, I mean the campaign review was mostly structured on
you know, what parts of the campaign worked well, what
parts didn't? You know, mechanically, how does the campaign work?
You know, did we do the right things during the campaign?
No campaign reviews ever going to give you a conclusive
answer as to.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Why did you win or why did you lose?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
That's much more subjective, and every voter has an individual
decision making process that they make. The overall conclusion is
pretty clear, we lost because not enough people voted for us.
Why they didn't vote for us, that's something that is
a bit more complicated, and we need to take the
time to make sure we I mean, we can spend
a lot of time trying to figure out why they
didn't vote for us last time. Really the focus has
(01:56):
to be on how do we get them to vote
for us next time?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Who did the review?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So the review was done by Marion Street, former Labor
Party president. She'd been a minister in the Clerk government
and she had a panel of people who worked with her,
but Marion was the lead reviewer.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Right and and you know, if you if you were
to digest its findings into three sort of key takeaways,
threw yourself on the part.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I mean, I think it was mostly focused at the
practical level about how we make sure our candidate selections
are good and robust. I mean, that's there's increasing concern
across the political spectrum about the vetting process for political candidates.
So you know, what are the lessons that we learned
from the last round that we can take into future elections.
What's the right timing for candidate selection processes, what's the
(02:37):
right timing for reduced for releasing policy. We released a
lot of policy in the last sort of six weeks
of the campaign, but nobody really heard it. I think
increasingly the way people consume that kind of information has
changed in recent times. The campaign itself now has a
different feel to it than it might have done, you know,
(02:57):
a decade ago, and so we have to adjust the
way we campaign to that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
It's an interesting point. I mean, National release its main
text policy in twenty twenty two March of twenty twenty two,
and they campaigned it for more than a year.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's right, and so I think we have to recognize
that now the political cycle has changed, policy takes longer
to filter through the days of the big campaign surprise.
In terms of new policy, they're not what they used
to be. And I don't think we'll see as much
of that in the future because the big campaign surprise
often doesn't resonate in the way that it used to.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I suppose early voting, you know, it changes the calendar,
pushes everything forward a few weeks despite the campaign period
not really changing. It means that the grunt work really
has to be done quite early, and the final couple
of weeks are just relitigating previous points.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, and it's a really good lesson. If you look
at the last election. For example, we put a lot
out in the last few weeks. We actually had a
swing towards US on election day relative to the early
vote by quite a significant margin, but it was too late.
You know, that the advanced vote had already consumed up
enough that it guaranteed there was going to be a
change of government. So even though the votes flowed more
(04:06):
strongly towards US on election day, it was too late
to change the overall demograph. You know overall profile by then.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Did it make any points about Auckland.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yet certainly made points about some of the issues of
concern in Auckland, you know, issues around crime and cost
of living. I mean, I think almost every post election
review will find that crime and cost of living were
really big issues, but even more so in Auckland than
the rest of the country.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
You've just your sister party in the UK has just
won a massive majority on quite a small share of
the vote. Has to be said, but you know that
you play you played the electoral system you're dealt and
they played it very well. One of the criticisms that
was made of the Tory Party going out over there
was that it sort of in its final well final
(04:49):
five years, I suppose, became increasingly focused upon itself and
voters kind of spung against that. I was wondering if
there are a few moments in Labour's final term where
the same the same criticism could been made about the
Labor Party. There was a moment, I think the entrenchment
of the Three Waters of one part of three Waters legislation,
that the part of the anti privatization measure. Just Sinder
(05:12):
at the time said a mistake has been made and
we are taking it as a team. But Labor sort
of protected itself, I guess, and refused to explain what
had happened, how that had happened to be fear you
did fix it, and you, as leader of the House
at the time, you know, contributed to fixing it, But
there was a sense of protecting yourselves rather than getting
to the bottom of the issue. Is that Do you
(05:33):
feel like at times you focused on yourselves but too much?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I don't think that example resonated particularly with the public.
It resonated with some constitutionalists who were outraged by what
had happened, But actually the things that resonated for us
much more were losing three ministers and the run up
to the election campaign.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
That really hurt.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And that does give you the impression that you're focused
on yourselves rather than focused on the needs of the
general public. And there's no question that when they're kicked
off and there were three ministers in very rapid succession,
our polling took a real knock during that time, and
I think that the combination of that and the cost
of living crisis being at real crunch point at that
(06:10):
time suggested to people we're focused on ourselves and not
on fixing the cost of living.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Has Michael wood Is on your campaign, your policy councils,
he signal he's keen to come back and run again
in his electorate.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I haven't had a conversation with him about that. Ultimately,
you know, candidate's elections are really a matter for the party.
But I mean, I think you know, he will need
to rebuild his relationship with the party, with the electorate
and with the country ultimately, if he wants to be
an MP again.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Does he have his trained relationship with the party When
you talk about rebuilding it?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Oh, I mean, I think anybody who has left and
those circumstances needs to make sure they're rebuilding some relationships.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
And just I mean, just on that three Waters thing
is like, now it's been two nearly two years, what
did happen?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
You know? What?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
What? Why? How did that? How did that get entrenched?
How did how how did something which which I guess
you weren't meant to vote for get voted on? Can
you explain it?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I mean, ultimately, you know, I think it was it
was a mistake made by the labor team who were
in the house at the time. You know, they they
voted in favor of an amendment which they which they
shouldn't have And I mean, I wasn't in the House
at the time, so I can't give a blow by
blow account of the discussions that took place on the
floor of the House, but it was pretty immediate. It
was obvious to me as Leader of the House, immediately
(07:28):
after it had happened, that it was the wrong thing
to do, and so we were going to need to
fix it.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So Dan, it didn't go to cortcause obviously it wasn't discussed.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
No, I didn't and it wasn't discussed. And you know,
had it been discussed, I think the position would have
been much clearer from the beginning that we shouldn't have
supported it.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Did it Was it an honest mistake or do people
actually try to vote for it because they wanted wanted
it to pass?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I think, I mean, certainly the people who voted for
it thought it was a good idea, But I don't
think there was any deliberate intention to kind of slip
one through. I think it was just perhaps people had
an thought through the overall consequences.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Of you and and and obviously you know you you
restate that in a system like them, the New Zealand system,
stuff like that always goes to caucus first. Absolutely, let's
(08:25):
talk about the prison so so far. Now, look correct
me if I'm wrong, because this is taking a fair
bit of googling on my part. But the main thing
that you've currently said is not going to survive a
future Reciplicans government is charter school's bagne anything else that
you've that you've pleached her overturn.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I mean, we're not going to.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Sort of respond to every government policy p announcement by
announcing what we would do in the future, because you
running into an election campaign, you need to have a
complete package, and you can't necessarily come up with a
complete package if you're doing it on an ad basis
as you're going along charter schools. That's a pretty important
point of principle for Labor though. We believe in a
publicly funded public education system and we think charter schools
(09:10):
undermines that. And you know, the past experience of charter
schools in New Zealand was not a good one. You know,
they ended up costing a lot of money for not
particularly good outcomes. So yes, we're opposed to that one.
But in terms of the rest of the policy. You know,
we have a well developed manifesto before the election.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I mean the ones that I was thinking about, things
that I would you think would be and the realm
of stuff that you'd overturn would be the smoke free changes,
reverting to the status quo. On that the clean card
discount would be one I would have thought that you
might be looking to bring back for a pay agreement,
something dear to Labour's heart.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I mean, on all of those, the world will have
changed by the time the next election rolls around. So
if you look at smoke free, for example, it won't
be a case of just simply reinstating what we've done before,
because we will have had three more years. If you
look at the most recent change that they've just made,
for example, where they're allowing for they're not vapes, what
do they call the heated devices heated tobacco devices. So
(10:08):
that's a new thing and we don't know how fast
the uptake of that will be before the next election,
so we're going to have to.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Respond to that.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So, yes, it is the overall agenda, right, Yes, we
still want New Zealand to be a smoke free country.
What will be the process for us to get there.
We'll have to have a different package for that. Issues
around the clean car discount, the nature of the vehicles
being purchased has changed, so we've gone from having a
high uptake of electric vehicles as a result of the
clean card discount to a reversion of purchasing the double.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Cab diesel use.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
But we don't necessarily know whether that's still going to
be the case two years from now.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
What about fair pay agreements?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Fair pay agreements absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I mean I have said that we want to have
New Zealanders earning better money and we want to make
sure that those who are in the lowest income jobs
are getting better pay.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You're worried about AI.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I'm worried and excited by AI at the same time.
I think AI has got huge potential for New Zealand.
We could be quite uniquely positioned. If you look at
renewable energy, for example, one of the biggest constraints to
AI development and uptake is going to be access to energy.
AI is very energy hungry and New Zealand can be
part of the answer to that. So there's opportunities for
(11:19):
us in there. There's opportunities for us to use AI
in new and creative ways. But we need to go
into that eyes wide open. I think the world and
this will be a topic and world politics in the
next few years will be around well, what kind of
constraints should we ethically and morally have around where AI
is used and how it's used.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Part of the growth story. One of the criticisms that
that's been made of the labor opposition at the moment
is opposition to fast Track. You've launched that campaign things
this weekend on that. There's also there's a long standing
disagreement between perhaps not long standing because national broke broke
from that, but the recent disagreement over agricultural emissions pricing. Now,
(11:59):
obviously fast track is about economic development. That's well, that's
what the government is arguing. Agricultural emissions pricing is a
challenge for one of our most important, strategically competitive industries.
The criticism that's made of Labor is that, you know,
if it's not if we're not going to fire up
the resource extraction economy, if we're going to if we're
(12:21):
going to target the primary industries with more regulation, where
does the New Zealand Where does New Zealand's growth come from.
Where's that bet driver of economic growth and prosperity.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I think that's an overly simplistic argument. So if you
look at agricultural pricing, for example, the government haven't said
that they're not going to do it. They've just said
that they're going to do it. And by twenty thirty,
what have they done In the meantime They've created six
more years of regulatory uncertainty for the primary sector. What's
that going to do? Ultimately, it's going to delay investment
in the primary sector and decarbonizing and reducing their methane emissions,
(12:55):
because why would they do that if they don't know
what the regulatory settings are going to be. I spent
some time visiting farms two weeks ago, used the parliamentary
recess as the opportunity to do that. They know that
this is a big issue. They know that they're going
to have to grapple with it because the market is
already driving them towards that. If anything, they do need
to see some regulatory certainty because the sorts of investments
(13:16):
that they need to make are investments that are going
to take ten to fifteen years to pay back. So
will they make those investments now, no, they won't because
they aren't going to do that if the whole regulatory
environment's going to change by twenty thirty. So I actually
think that the government should take the opportunity to try
and find a bipartisan way forward because the issue around
agricultural emissions is not going to go away. It's going
(13:39):
to continue to be a challenge for New Zealand. The
international market is going to continue to demand that we
do something about it. And I think the biggest hurdle
for our farmers is going to be lack of regulatory
certainty and consistency. So I think they should be aiming
to try and achieve that sooner rather than later. So
I actually think they've left farming in a worse position
in the sense of they've now got a huge question
(13:59):
mark hanging over the terms of what's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I mean, the sectors worried it will make them uncompetitive.
They are highly productive, that they worried it will make
them less productive and therefore less competitive internationally. I mean,
is that a fair criticism.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I think the biggest risk to the sector at the
moment is that international consumers stop buying their stuff, So
you know, big companies Esclay, Tesco, Walmart. These are all
major international brands have said that they're going for a
reduction in their emissions and they're not going to be
buying goods if we can't demonstrate that we're driving down
our emissions in the process of producing those goods. There
(14:33):
are a range of options for the primary sector. Electrifying
farms is one of the ways they can reduce their
carbon emissions, for example, but it requires a long lead
time to both get that in place and then to
pay add off. Reducing methane emissions, there is technology available
that can be rolled out sooner rather than later, but
you need regulatory certainty for that to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Well, what about what about resource extraction mihining? You know,
you must look over at Australia. They've got your very
powerful unions but a very permissive culture when it comes
to mining. You see immense wealth being dug out of
the ground and that wealth being shared with labor thanks
to title label laws. It's a very attractive kind of
(15:14):
economic model to anyone from New Zealand, you'd think.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
But the primary extractives that the government are talking about
are coalon gas and coal and gas aren't part of
our energy future and shouldn't be part of our energy future.
So they're talking about reopening coal mines on the West Coast,
and they're talking about drilling for more natural gas. Well,
we haven't had a significant natural gas find in New
Zealand since two thousand and one. Bearing in mind the
(15:38):
oil and gas the expiration band has only been in
place for the last five years or so. So the
reality here is if there was a whole lot of
natural gas, they're ready to be tapped into. You think
they might have found that in the period between two
thousand and one and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
What about these other these climate free new minerals which
are needed for the transition antimony? I'm maybe saying it right.
They found that on the West coast. I think it
could be. It can be very, very valuable. You know what,
why not in the West coast long along a labor
sort of stronghold. Obviously gon'ta blue this time around, but
you know what, why can't they unleash the wealth from
(16:17):
beneath their own feet.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I think anyone in the Labor Party is saying that
we should turn our backs on the minerals that we
need for example, to sustain the renewable energy revolution that's
happening around the world. But there do need to be
protections around the natural environment as we extract those minerals,
So mining on conservation land, mining where it endangers biodiversity,
these are areas of concern for us. So we've got
(16:39):
to make sure that any regime that we've got in
place around consenting for those sorts of activities actually adequately
protects those things.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
As a basic point, though, if you could, like coal
and oil and gas accepted, would you like to boost
mining New Zealand, we see it seemore mining.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I'm not opposed to the mining of some of the
minerals that we may need for the renewable energy future,
as long as there are appropriate environmental safeguards and place,
as long as there are good consenting processes in place.
But I don't think that's going to be a huge
driver of the New Zealand's New Zealand's future economic growth.
I think that's more likely to be in areas around
renewable and energy. It's more likely to be in areas
(17:16):
around digital technology. It's more likely to be in areas
around sustainable food production. I think those are the sorts
of things where we will see job rich opportunities for
New Zealand in the future.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
You've just finished your regional conference circuit, so there's been
a bit of talk about this captain's calls now. Labour
says that the idea of a captain's call is a
bit of a media invention and a creature of New
Zealand politics obviously, but there's no sort of formal captain's
call process in that the captain's calls, that what are
at leads to have been captain's calls are extras to
follow course process.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I mean, ultimately the leader of the party is entitled
to have an opinion and if you want to call
that a captain's call, go ahead. If you don't want
to have the leader having an opinion, you're probably looking
for somebody who's not much of a learner. So but
the reality is that if we look at the last
election campaign, our tax policy, lots of discussion about that,
but our tax policy was ultimately signed off by the caucus.
(18:23):
It was signed off by the party's policy council. It
was not determined unilaterally.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Would you accept I mean, are you open to some
sort of discussion with members about them having a bit
more of a say in some of those decisions. I think,
accepting that there is no such thing as a captain's
call formally, there seems to have been a bit of
disgruntlement about the way that the tax policy was handled.
Would you accept members putting forward some changes to give
them more of a say on those decisions in future?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I mean, we have a manifesto process, which I actually
think is a pretty good one. It's a pretty robust one,
and people might not always agree with the outcome from
that manifesto process, but I think it works pretty well.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I mean, look, I suppose, let's face it'd be prettyfficult
to bring Labor Party members into the beehive during an
election campaign to give them a say on what your
text policy is. But at the same time that there
does seem to be a bit of an appetite on
behalf of the membership to have a bit more of
a voice in those crucial decisions. Is there anything you
can see changing there to give them more say.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
We've done a number of things since the election. We've
just had our round of regional conferences. I intended every
one of those regional conferences where there's some really good
policy discussions going on. We've had a number of zoom
sessions where we've got guest speakers coming in from around
the world actually to talk with our members about policy
development and new policy initiatives and ideas. So I think
(19:37):
engaging members in the policy process is important in a
political party, and we're doing a lot more of that
than we did over the last six years.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And how's the text check going?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Text Check's very constructive.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, So you know, do you think we'll see a
return of interest deductability?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Look, I mean what we'll see from US is a
tax policy at the next election that will reflect labor values,
but it will also fit within a broader economic strategy.
You can't deal with text alone, you know, as an
isolated as you it does has to fit within your
broader economic strategy wealth tax. I know people will want
to know what the text policy is going to be.
We haven't determined.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
We talked to about how national announcement is quite early on.
Do you see some major policy announcements text or otherwise
coming I suppose it would be next year. It would
be the equivalent point in the political side.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I think you'll certainly see big policy announcements earlier from
US this time around compared to last time.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And that would mean twenty twenty five paps.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I'm not going to put a specific timeframe on it,
but I certainly think it'll be earlier than it was
during the last campaign.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I mean the I'm sort of hesitated to waste more
time about asking text when you don't have a tax policy,
but the labor seems to be quite tortured by capital
gains text. You went to two difficult, two difficult elections
on a capital gains tax, and I suppose you almost
went to twenty seventeen on a capital gains text because
that was pretty clearly lurking in the wings there the
(20:59):
party seeing to have a sort of it seems to
have been burnt by that tax. And when you ask,
when you ask sort of economists like what is it,
what is a really sort of a gaping hole in
the tax system? What would you like to see a
government do tax wise? They often say, look, capital gains
tax is a glaring emission in New Zealand's tax licy.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I certainly acknowledge if you look at what the banks
are arguing, what the credit ratings agencies have argued what
the I am ever argued.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
They've all argued that our tax base is.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Too narrow, that our over reliance on PAYE is the
main form of government taxation. Revenue actually disproportionately penalizes those
who are salary and wage journers relative to those who
were in their money through investment returns and so in
particularly property investment returns, and so, you know, I think
(21:45):
that's something that we there's a lot of argument about
how best to do that. I mean, capital gains tax
and wealth tax are actually variants of the same things.
It's a form of taxation on capital. And so that's
the process that we're working through now. If we're going
to close that gap, what's the fairest, most equitable way
of doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And you don't think labor has been slightly sort of
psychologically damaged by previous elections having been burned on it.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It certainly had an impact to the text policy that
we had at the last election. I mean, the text
policy that we had at the last election was absolutely
informed particularly by twenty seventeen, and then again by what
we said in twenty twenty. You know, one of the
criticisms I get and it's really interesting is from people saying, oh,
but you had three years, we had a majority wide.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Didn't you do it?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Well, we said in twenty twenty that we weren't going
to do it, and I think it would have been
bad faith with the electric for us to implement a
wealth text or a capital gains tax when we had
specifically said that we weren't going to do those things.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
As someone who was a full time minimum wage Jurner
would have would have had some of their income slip
into the thirty percent tax bracket this year had the
brackets not been changed. In fact, they will have because
the brackets don't change until the end of this month.
I mean, was that something that you could have countenance
as Prime minister? Would you have locked this term to
finally interest those brackets?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Does need to be more regular adjustment of tax brackets
to allow for fiscal drag, and I do think we
need a mature conversation as a country about the consequences
of that and how we plug the gap that that
will inevitably create in the revenue screams for the government.
Because fiscal drag is a problem. I acknowledge that fiscal
(23:21):
drag is a problem. But I'd also note that the
last time that these tax brackets were adjusted was sixteen
years ago, and Labour's only was only in government for
six years of that. So actually you could argue that
the national previous national government advantage was more advantage by
fiscal drag than the labor government was.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
And there's a reason for that.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
It's because it's the only major source of revenue outside
of GST that the government has to fund everything that
we want government to do. So if we want to
adjust tax brackets more regularly, and I think we should,
and I think that's a fair argument, we need to
have a way of plugging the gap.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
And you think you would have done that maybe this term.
You know, at some point this tom you would have
looked at it and thought, you know what, you can't
read have a minimum wage work on, a full time
minimum wage worker having some of their income tax at
thirty percent.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I mean, I think we should always look at how
we can support people on the lowest incomes, and text
is one of those ways one of the things that
we need to look at. But also, I mean, one
of the debates about income text that frustrates me is
that the parties on the center right of the political
spectrum have sort of been stressing for decades now that
the way you're raising people's incomes is to cut their taxes. Actually,
(24:27):
the way you raise their incomes is to make sure
they're being paid more now.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And it's finished by talking about the government that you
might perform. There's been what the Greens have had a
tough year. It's called a spade of spade and to
Party Malori obviously is having this problem with the multiple
issues around Manudua Murai, one of which I believe was
resulted from a label resulted in a Labor Party complaint
(24:52):
about the way that campaign was run in the Tamaki
Makodo electorate. Is it possible to build a bridge with
the the Maori Party after such a fracture set of
in particular in that seat.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I've got a pretty constructive relationship with both of those parties.
I've always described the relationship between Labor and the Greens
and more letter lead to Party Mahiti because of course
they used to be on the other side of the
political aisle to the one they're on now as a
state of coopertition and you know, so we will cooperate
on things, but we compete for votes and you know
(25:25):
some of those, like the Tomachemakodo campaign, they become pretty
tight and very very competitive.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And you know you've said there are what you're penning
the outcome of the Motel investigations into that into that campaign.
You know, you've said what the allegations rais are pretty
seriously needs to be looked into. Do you think it's possible?
I mean, there might need to be some serious change
that to Party Malori for them to become a fully
fledged member of a government that they literally.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I mean ultimately to Party Maori will have to determine
whether they want to be a part of government or
whether they want to be a campaigning for you know,
you know, a crusading sort of activist protest movement. That's
ultimately a question for them to work their way through.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
The idea of a separate Maori parliament was raised in
the HP report. I think I actually was trying to
find out what we labor was on that I think
might have said no to a supro Malori parliament. What
do you think of that idea?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
We have been very clear as a party that we're
opposed to that there is one parliament and it is
the New Zealand Parliament.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
And what about returning to the co governance debates of
the past. Do you think your future sort of tr
Maori policy might might might relook at the idea of
co governance or do you think, given the reaction from
the elector at twenty three, might you might seek to
address issues in the tr Maori space differently.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Well, we're certainly not going to go and remove all
of the co governance models that have been put in place,
largely under a national government's actually, because I think that
would be wrong to do. I think we would think
very carefully about where we might look to have co
governance arrangements in the future if they're not already in
place now, because I don't want it to be the
polarizing issue that it was before the last election.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So you so think about it a different way of
addressing similar issue.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, I mean there are still underlying issues there around
how you involve Mardian decisions that affect them, and we
do have to add answers to that. Co governance is
only one of the ways that we do that as
a country, and I would point out that a lot
of the most successful co governance arrangements that we've got.
I'm thinking of to uras, I'm thinking of the Waikato
and Wanganui rivers. These are all put in place under
a national government.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
And finally, the Green's mean that disaster starts to thee
from them where to begin. But Labour's not really capitalizing
on that. In terms of the polling, why's that. I
think you can capitalize on them.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
To be honest, I'm always pretty ambivalent, not ambivalent, but
I think we need to take polling at this point
in the electoral cycle with a fairly big grain of salt.
It's it's useful, but it's not an indication of where
people are going to be two years from now when
we head in the next election. If we were going
to take polling as an indication of the last election
(28:06):
two years before the last election, Labor would have comfortably
won that election. So the reality is a lot changes
over the term of a parliament.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Do you think. I mean, we've seen some terrible violence
in the United States, and I'm so skeptical the way
in which you could port United States politics to New Zealand.
But there have been caused from the current presidents have
turned down the temperature. Both the Greens and To Party
Mardi have raised the temperature recently. I think deb Nardi
were Packer said the smoke free reversal. The reversal of
smoke free policy was systemic genocide of Maori. It's pretty intense.
(28:36):
I think you called out that language at the time.
Do you think those two parties need to sort of
dial it down a little bit.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I think the ACT Party in New Zealand First also
need to dial it down a bit. I think Mary
are being used as a wedge in New Zealand in
a way that's really unfair and I don't think it's
going to be good for New Zealand and the longer term.
I don't think it's going to bring New Zealanders together.
I don't think it's going to tackle into generational equity
issues than the way that we should be as a country.
(29:01):
And I think ext national New Zealand First to Party
madeo I think a bit less. So the Greens have
been stoking there and I think they should all stop
doing that.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So everyone should to take a look at themselves and
just stile it down for the sake of political discourse.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I mean, I think political discourse should be a bit
more civilized than some of it is. I mean, Christopher
Lexan described me as an arsonist a few weeks ago,
and you know, having having the week prior told me
that I need to tone my language down. I mean,
I think everybody needs to take a deep breath.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Well, thank you very much for joining us. And on
the Tiles, Chris, I'll let you, I'll let you ge
into your lunch. We've interrupted, interrupted the lunch breaking the
labor labor party today, so I'm very sorry about that.
All good. Thank you very much for joining us. That
was on the Tile, the Herald's politics podcast. Thanks for listening,
and thanks to Chris Epkins for participating in that interview.
(29:54):
We'll have more on the Tiles next week. Ethan Sills
was our executive producer. Thanks for listening.
Hello and welcome to on the titles the New Zealand
Heeriorals Politics podcast. I'm your host Thomas Coglan. Today we've
got a really interesting interview it's worth Labor leader Resipkins.
It's eight months since Hepkins lost the election and became
Leader of the Opposition, but it's quite an interesting look
back at the failed election campaign last year and what
he's doing to rebuild the party in the election machine
(00:25):
for the next election. Recipkins leader of the Opposition currently.
Congratulations on holding that role. It's not a role that
one is typically congratulated on holding, but the guy, I.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Don't think it's a job that anybody particularly wants. The
most people would recognize that being leader of the Opposition
is a prerequisite to becoming Prime minister. In my case,
I'm kind of doing it the wrong way around. I
had a brief stint as Prime minister for nine months
now doing this job and the goal is to be
Prime minister again after the election.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Well, thank you very much for joining us and sitting
down with us to discuss Sam. Your first six months
been but longer than six months now in the role.
Can I ask you thought we'd struggure structure this in
three parts, sort of the past and then looking forward
to the future. Later did a campaign review of twenty
twenty three. That's that returned some time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, I mean the campaign review was mostly structured on
you know, what parts of the campaign worked well, what
parts didn't? You know, mechanically, how does the campaign work?
You know, did we do the right things during the campaign?
No campaign reviews ever going to give you a conclusive
answer as to.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Why did you win or why did you lose?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
That's much more subjective, and every voter has an individual
decision making process that they make. The overall conclusion is
pretty clear, we lost because not enough people voted for us.
Why they didn't vote for us, that's something that is
a bit more complicated, and we need to take the
time to make sure we I mean, we can spend
a lot of time trying to figure out why they
didn't vote for us last time. Really the focus has
(01:56):
to be on how do we get them to vote
for us next time?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Who did the review?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So the review was done by Marion Street, former Labor
Party president. She'd been a minister in the Clerk government
and she had a panel of people who worked with her,
but Marion was the lead reviewer.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Right and and you know, if you if you were
to digest its findings into three sort of key takeaways,
threw yourself on the part.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I mean, I think it was mostly focused at the
practical level about how we make sure our candidate selections
are good and robust. I mean, that's there's increasing concern
across the political spectrum about the vetting process for political candidates.
So you know, what are the lessons that we learned
from the last round that we can take into future elections.
What's the right timing for candidate selection processes, what's the
(02:37):
right timing for reduced for releasing policy. We released a
lot of policy in the last sort of six weeks
of the campaign, but nobody really heard it. I think
increasingly the way people consume that kind of information has
changed in recent times. The campaign itself now has a
different feel to it than it might have done, you know,
(02:57):
a decade ago, and so we have to adjust the
way we campaign to that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
It's an interesting point. I mean, National release its main
text policy in twenty twenty two March of twenty twenty two,
and they campaigned it for more than a year.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's right, and so I think we have to recognize
that now the political cycle has changed, policy takes longer
to filter through the days of the big campaign surprise.
In terms of new policy, they're not what they used
to be. And I don't think we'll see as much
of that in the future because the big campaign surprise
often doesn't resonate in the way that it used to.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I suppose early voting, you know, it changes the calendar,
pushes everything forward a few weeks despite the campaign period
not really changing. It means that the grunt work really
has to be done quite early, and the final couple
of weeks are just relitigating previous points.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, and it's a really good lesson. If you look
at the last election. For example, we put a lot
out in the last few weeks. We actually had a
swing towards US on election day relative to the early
vote by quite a significant margin, but it was too late.
You know, that the advanced vote had already consumed up
enough that it guaranteed there was going to be a
change of government. So even though the votes flowed more
(04:06):
strongly towards US on election day, it was too late
to change the overall demograph. You know overall profile by then.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Did it make any points about Auckland.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yet certainly made points about some of the issues of
concern in Auckland, you know, issues around crime and cost
of living. I mean, I think almost every post election
review will find that crime and cost of living were
really big issues, but even more so in Auckland than
the rest of the country.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
You've just your sister party in the UK has just
won a massive majority on quite a small share of
the vote. Has to be said, but you know that
you play you played the electoral system you're dealt and
they played it very well. One of the criticisms that
was made of the Tory Party going out over there
was that it sort of in its final well final
(04:49):
five years, I suppose, became increasingly focused upon itself and
voters kind of spung against that. I was wondering if
there are a few moments in Labour's final term where
the same the same criticism could been made about the
Labor Party. There was a moment, I think the entrenchment
of the Three Waters of one part of three Waters legislation,
that the part of the anti privatization measure. Just Sinder
(05:12):
at the time said a mistake has been made and
we are taking it as a team. But Labor sort
of protected itself, I guess, and refused to explain what
had happened, how that had happened to be fear you
did fix it, and you, as leader of the House
at the time, you know, contributed to fixing it, But
there was a sense of protecting yourselves rather than getting
to the bottom of the issue. Is that Do you
(05:33):
feel like at times you focused on yourselves but too much?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I don't think that example resonated particularly with the public.
It resonated with some constitutionalists who were outraged by what
had happened, But actually the things that resonated for us
much more were losing three ministers and the run up
to the election campaign.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
That really hurt.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And that does give you the impression that you're focused
on yourselves rather than focused on the needs of the
general public. And there's no question that when they're kicked
off and there were three ministers in very rapid succession,
our polling took a real knock during that time, and
I think that the combination of that and the cost
of living crisis being at real crunch point at that
(06:10):
time suggested to people we're focused on ourselves and not
on fixing the cost of living.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Has Michael wood Is on your campaign, your policy councils,
he signal he's keen to come back and run again
in his electorate.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I haven't had a conversation with him about that. Ultimately,
you know, candidate's elections are really a matter for the party.
But I mean, I think you know, he will need
to rebuild his relationship with the party, with the electorate
and with the country ultimately, if he wants to be
an MP again.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Does he have his trained relationship with the party When
you talk about rebuilding it?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Oh, I mean, I think anybody who has left and
those circumstances needs to make sure they're rebuilding some relationships.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
And just I mean, just on that three Waters thing
is like, now it's been two nearly two years, what
did happen?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
You know? What?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
What? Why? How did that? How did that get entrenched?
How did how how did something which which I guess
you weren't meant to vote for get voted on? Can
you explain it?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I mean, ultimately, you know, I think it was it
was a mistake made by the labor team who were
in the house at the time. You know, they they
voted in favor of an amendment which they which they
shouldn't have And I mean, I wasn't in the House
at the time, so I can't give a blow by
blow account of the discussions that took place on the
floor of the House, but it was pretty immediate. It
was obvious to me as Leader of the House, immediately
(07:28):
after it had happened, that it was the wrong thing
to do, and so we were going to need to
fix it.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So Dan, it didn't go to cortcause obviously it wasn't discussed.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
No, I didn't and it wasn't discussed. And you know,
had it been discussed, I think the position would have
been much clearer from the beginning that we shouldn't have
supported it.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Did it Was it an honest mistake or do people
actually try to vote for it because they wanted wanted
it to pass?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I think, I mean, certainly the people who voted for
it thought it was a good idea, But I don't
think there was any deliberate intention to kind of slip
one through. I think it was just perhaps people had
an thought through the overall consequences.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Of you and and and obviously you know you you
restate that in a system like them, the New Zealand system,
stuff like that always goes to caucus first. Absolutely, let's
(08:25):
talk about the prison so so far. Now, look correct
me if I'm wrong, because this is taking a fair
bit of googling on my part. But the main thing
that you've currently said is not going to survive a
future Reciplicans government is charter school's bagne anything else that
you've that you've pleached her overturn.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I mean, we're not going to.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Sort of respond to every government policy p announcement by
announcing what we would do in the future, because you
running into an election campaign, you need to have a
complete package, and you can't necessarily come up with a
complete package if you're doing it on an ad basis
as you're going along charter schools. That's a pretty important
point of principle for Labor though. We believe in a
publicly funded public education system and we think charter schools
(09:10):
undermines that. And you know, the past experience of charter
schools in New Zealand was not a good one. You know,
they ended up costing a lot of money for not
particularly good outcomes. So yes, we're opposed to that one.
But in terms of the rest of the policy. You know,
we have a well developed manifesto before the election.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I mean the ones that I was thinking about, things
that I would you think would be and the realm
of stuff that you'd overturn would be the smoke free changes,
reverting to the status quo. On that the clean card
discount would be one I would have thought that you
might be looking to bring back for a pay agreement,
something dear to Labour's heart.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I mean, on all of those, the world will have
changed by the time the next election rolls around. So
if you look at smoke free, for example, it won't
be a case of just simply reinstating what we've done before,
because we will have had three more years. If you
look at the most recent change that they've just made,
for example, where they're allowing for they're not vapes, what
do they call the heated devices heated tobacco devices. So
(10:08):
that's a new thing and we don't know how fast
the uptake of that will be before the next election,
so we're going to have to.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Respond to that.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So, yes, it is the overall agenda, right, Yes, we
still want New Zealand to be a smoke free country.
What will be the process for us to get there.
We'll have to have a different package for that. Issues
around the clean car discount, the nature of the vehicles
being purchased has changed, so we've gone from having a
high uptake of electric vehicles as a result of the
clean card discount to a reversion of purchasing the double.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Cab diesel use.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
But we don't necessarily know whether that's still going to
be the case two years from now.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
What about fair pay agreements?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Fair pay agreements absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I mean I have said that we want to have
New Zealanders earning better money and we want to make
sure that those who are in the lowest income jobs
are getting better pay.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You're worried about AI.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I'm worried and excited by AI at the same time.
I think AI has got huge potential for New Zealand.
We could be quite uniquely positioned. If you look at
renewable energy, for example, one of the biggest constraints to
AI development and uptake is going to be access to energy.
AI is very energy hungry and New Zealand can be
part of the answer to that. So there's opportunities for
(11:19):
us in there. There's opportunities for us to use AI
in new and creative ways. But we need to go
into that eyes wide open. I think the world and
this will be a topic and world politics in the
next few years will be around well, what kind of
constraints should we ethically and morally have around where AI
is used and how it's used.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Part of the growth story. One of the criticisms that
that's been made of the labor opposition at the moment
is opposition to fast Track. You've launched that campaign things
this weekend on that. There's also there's a long standing
disagreement between perhaps not long standing because national broke broke
from that, but the recent disagreement over agricultural emissions pricing. Now,
(11:59):
obviously fast track is about economic development. That's well, that's
what the government is arguing. Agricultural emissions pricing is a
challenge for one of our most important, strategically competitive industries.
The criticism that's made of Labor is that, you know,
if it's not if we're not going to fire up
the resource extraction economy, if we're going to if we're
(12:21):
going to target the primary industries with more regulation, where
does the New Zealand Where does New Zealand's growth come from.
Where's that bet driver of economic growth and prosperity.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I think that's an overly simplistic argument. So if you
look at agricultural pricing, for example, the government haven't said
that they're not going to do it. They've just said
that they're going to do it. And by twenty thirty,
what have they done In the meantime They've created six
more years of regulatory uncertainty for the primary sector. What's
that going to do? Ultimately, it's going to delay investment
in the primary sector and decarbonizing and reducing their methane emissions,
(12:55):
because why would they do that if they don't know
what the regulatory settings are going to be. I spent
some time visiting farms two weeks ago, used the parliamentary
recess as the opportunity to do that. They know that
this is a big issue. They know that they're going
to have to grapple with it because the market is
already driving them towards that. If anything, they do need
to see some regulatory certainty because the sorts of investments
(13:16):
that they need to make are investments that are going
to take ten to fifteen years to pay back. So
will they make those investments now, no, they won't because
they aren't going to do that if the whole regulatory
environment's going to change by twenty thirty. So I actually
think that the government should take the opportunity to try
and find a bipartisan way forward because the issue around
agricultural emissions is not going to go away. It's going
(13:39):
to continue to be a challenge for New Zealand. The
international market is going to continue to demand that we
do something about it. And I think the biggest hurdle
for our farmers is going to be lack of regulatory
certainty and consistency. So I think they should be aiming
to try and achieve that sooner rather than later. So
I actually think they've left farming in a worse position
in the sense of they've now got a huge question
(13:59):
mark hanging over the terms of what's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I mean, the sectors worried it will make them uncompetitive.
They are highly productive, that they worried it will make
them less productive and therefore less competitive internationally. I mean,
is that a fair criticism.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I think the biggest risk to the sector at the
moment is that international consumers stop buying their stuff, So
you know, big companies Esclay, Tesco, Walmart. These are all
major international brands have said that they're going for a
reduction in their emissions and they're not going to be
buying goods if we can't demonstrate that we're driving down
our emissions in the process of producing those goods. There
(14:33):
are a range of options for the primary sector. Electrifying
farms is one of the ways they can reduce their
carbon emissions, for example, but it requires a long lead
time to both get that in place and then to
pay add off. Reducing methane emissions, there is technology available
that can be rolled out sooner rather than later, but
you need regulatory certainty for that to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Well, what about what about resource extraction mihining? You know,
you must look over at Australia. They've got your very
powerful unions but a very permissive culture when it comes
to mining. You see immense wealth being dug out of
the ground and that wealth being shared with labor thanks
to title label laws. It's a very attractive kind of
(15:14):
economic model to anyone from New Zealand, you'd think.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
But the primary extractives that the government are talking about
are coalon gas and coal and gas aren't part of
our energy future and shouldn't be part of our energy future.
So they're talking about reopening coal mines on the West Coast,
and they're talking about drilling for more natural gas. Well,
we haven't had a significant natural gas find in New
Zealand since two thousand and one. Bearing in mind the
(15:38):
oil and gas the expiration band has only been in
place for the last five years or so. So the
reality here is if there was a whole lot of
natural gas, they're ready to be tapped into. You think
they might have found that in the period between two
thousand and one and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
What about these other these climate free new minerals which
are needed for the transition antimony? I'm maybe saying it right.
They found that on the West coast. I think it
could be. It can be very, very valuable. You know what,
why not in the West coast long along a labor
sort of stronghold. Obviously gon'ta blue this time around, but
you know what, why can't they unleash the wealth from
(16:17):
beneath their own feet.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I think anyone in the Labor Party is saying that
we should turn our backs on the minerals that we
need for example, to sustain the renewable energy revolution that's
happening around the world. But there do need to be
protections around the natural environment as we extract those minerals,
So mining on conservation land, mining where it endangers biodiversity,
these are areas of concern for us. So we've got
(16:39):
to make sure that any regime that we've got in
place around consenting for those sorts of activities actually adequately
protects those things.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
As a basic point, though, if you could, like coal
and oil and gas accepted, would you like to boost
mining New Zealand, we see it seemore mining.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I'm not opposed to the mining of some of the
minerals that we may need for the renewable energy future,
as long as there are appropriate environmental safeguards and place,
as long as there are good consenting processes in place.
But I don't think that's going to be a huge
driver of the New Zealand's New Zealand's future economic growth.
I think that's more likely to be in areas around
renewable and energy. It's more likely to be in areas
(17:16):
around digital technology. It's more likely to be in areas
around sustainable food production. I think those are the sorts
of things where we will see job rich opportunities for
New Zealand in the future.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
You've just finished your regional conference circuit, so there's been
a bit of talk about this captain's calls now. Labour
says that the idea of a captain's call is a
bit of a media invention and a creature of New
Zealand politics obviously, but there's no sort of formal captain's
call process in that the captain's calls, that what are
at leads to have been captain's calls are extras to
follow course process.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I mean, ultimately the leader of the party is entitled
to have an opinion and if you want to call
that a captain's call, go ahead. If you don't want
to have the leader having an opinion, you're probably looking
for somebody who's not much of a learner. So but
the reality is that if we look at the last
election campaign, our tax policy, lots of discussion about that,
but our tax policy was ultimately signed off by the caucus.
(18:23):
It was signed off by the party's policy council. It
was not determined unilaterally.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Would you accept I mean, are you open to some
sort of discussion with members about them having a bit
more of a say in some of those decisions. I think,
accepting that there is no such thing as a captain's
call formally, there seems to have been a bit of
disgruntlement about the way that the tax policy was handled.
Would you accept members putting forward some changes to give
them more of a say on those decisions in future?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I mean, we have a manifesto process, which I actually
think is a pretty good one. It's a pretty robust one,
and people might not always agree with the outcome from
that manifesto process, but I think it works pretty well.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I mean, look, I suppose, let's face it'd be prettyfficult
to bring Labor Party members into the beehive during an
election campaign to give them a say on what your
text policy is. But at the same time that there
does seem to be a bit of an appetite on
behalf of the membership to have a bit more of
a voice in those crucial decisions. Is there anything you
can see changing there to give them more say.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
We've done a number of things since the election. We've
just had our round of regional conferences. I intended every
one of those regional conferences where there's some really good
policy discussions going on. We've had a number of zoom
sessions where we've got guest speakers coming in from around
the world actually to talk with our members about policy
development and new policy initiatives and ideas. So I think
(19:37):
engaging members in the policy process is important in a
political party, and we're doing a lot more of that
than we did over the last six years.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And how's the text check going?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Text Check's very constructive.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, So you know, do you think we'll see a
return of interest deductability?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Look, I mean what we'll see from US is a
tax policy at the next election that will reflect labor values,
but it will also fit within a broader economic strategy.
You can't deal with text alone, you know, as an
isolated as you it does has to fit within your
broader economic strategy wealth tax. I know people will want
to know what the text policy is going to be.
We haven't determined.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
We talked to about how national announcement is quite early on.
Do you see some major policy announcements text or otherwise
coming I suppose it would be next year. It would
be the equivalent point in the political side.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I think you'll certainly see big policy announcements earlier from
US this time around compared to last time.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And that would mean twenty twenty five paps.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I'm not going to put a specific timeframe on it,
but I certainly think it'll be earlier than it was
during the last campaign.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I mean the I'm sort of hesitated to waste more
time about asking text when you don't have a tax policy,
but the labor seems to be quite tortured by capital
gains text. You went to two difficult, two difficult elections
on a capital gains tax, and I suppose you almost
went to twenty seventeen on a capital gains text because
that was pretty clearly lurking in the wings there the
(20:59):
party seeing to have a sort of it seems to
have been burnt by that tax. And when you ask,
when you ask sort of economists like what is it,
what is a really sort of a gaping hole in
the tax system? What would you like to see a
government do tax wise? They often say, look, capital gains
tax is a glaring emission in New Zealand's tax licy.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I certainly acknowledge if you look at what the banks
are arguing, what the credit ratings agencies have argued what
the I am ever argued.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
They've all argued that our tax base is.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Too narrow, that our over reliance on PAYE is the
main form of government taxation. Revenue actually disproportionately penalizes those
who are salary and wage journers relative to those who
were in their money through investment returns and so in
particularly property investment returns, and so, you know, I think
(21:45):
that's something that we there's a lot of argument about
how best to do that. I mean, capital gains tax
and wealth tax are actually variants of the same things.
It's a form of taxation on capital. And so that's
the process that we're working through now. If we're going
to close that gap, what's the fairest, most equitable way
of doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And you don't think labor has been slightly sort of
psychologically damaged by previous elections having been burned on it.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It certainly had an impact to the text policy that
we had at the last election. I mean, the text
policy that we had at the last election was absolutely
informed particularly by twenty seventeen, and then again by what
we said in twenty twenty. You know, one of the
criticisms I get and it's really interesting is from people saying, oh,
but you had three years, we had a majority wide.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Didn't you do it?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Well, we said in twenty twenty that we weren't going
to do it, and I think it would have been
bad faith with the electric for us to implement a
wealth text or a capital gains tax when we had
specifically said that we weren't going to do those things.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
As someone who was a full time minimum wage Jurner
would have would have had some of their income slip
into the thirty percent tax bracket this year had the
brackets not been changed. In fact, they will have because
the brackets don't change until the end of this month.
I mean, was that something that you could have countenance
as Prime minister? Would you have locked this term to
finally interest those brackets?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Does need to be more regular adjustment of tax brackets
to allow for fiscal drag, and I do think we
need a mature conversation as a country about the consequences
of that and how we plug the gap that that
will inevitably create in the revenue screams for the government.
Because fiscal drag is a problem. I acknowledge that fiscal
(23:21):
drag is a problem. But I'd also note that the
last time that these tax brackets were adjusted was sixteen
years ago, and Labour's only was only in government for
six years of that. So actually you could argue that
the national previous national government advantage was more advantage by
fiscal drag than the labor government was.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
And there's a reason for that.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
It's because it's the only major source of revenue outside
of GST that the government has to fund everything that
we want government to do. So if we want to
adjust tax brackets more regularly, and I think we should,
and I think that's a fair argument, we need to
have a way of plugging the gap.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
And you think you would have done that maybe this term.
You know, at some point this tom you would have
looked at it and thought, you know what, you can't
read have a minimum wage work on, a full time
minimum wage worker having some of their income tax at
thirty percent.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I mean, I think we should always look at how
we can support people on the lowest incomes, and text
is one of those ways one of the things that
we need to look at. But also, I mean, one
of the debates about income text that frustrates me is
that the parties on the center right of the political
spectrum have sort of been stressing for decades now that
the way you're raising people's incomes is to cut their taxes. Actually,
(24:27):
the way you raise their incomes is to make sure
they're being paid more now.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And it's finished by talking about the government that you
might perform. There's been what the Greens have had a
tough year. It's called a spade of spade and to
Party Malori obviously is having this problem with the multiple
issues around Manudua Murai, one of which I believe was
resulted from a label resulted in a Labor Party complaint
(24:52):
about the way that campaign was run in the Tamaki
Makodo electorate. Is it possible to build a bridge with
the the Maori Party after such a fracture set of
in particular in that seat.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I've got a pretty constructive relationship with both of those parties.
I've always described the relationship between Labor and the Greens
and more letter lead to Party Mahiti because of course
they used to be on the other side of the
political aisle to the one they're on now as a
state of coopertition and you know, so we will cooperate
on things, but we compete for votes and you know
(25:25):
some of those, like the Tomachemakodo campaign, they become pretty
tight and very very competitive.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And you know you've said there are what you're penning
the outcome of the Motel investigations into that into that campaign.
You know, you've said what the allegations rais are pretty
seriously needs to be looked into. Do you think it's possible?
I mean, there might need to be some serious change
that to Party Malori for them to become a fully
fledged member of a government that they literally.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I mean ultimately to Party Maori will have to determine
whether they want to be a part of government or
whether they want to be a campaigning for you know,
you know, a crusading sort of activist protest movement. That's
ultimately a question for them to work their way through.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
The idea of a separate Maori parliament was raised in
the HP report. I think I actually was trying to
find out what we labor was on that I think
might have said no to a supro Malori parliament. What
do you think of that idea?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
We have been very clear as a party that we're
opposed to that there is one parliament and it is
the New Zealand Parliament.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
And what about returning to the co governance debates of
the past. Do you think your future sort of tr
Maori policy might might might relook at the idea of
co governance or do you think, given the reaction from
the elector at twenty three, might you might seek to
address issues in the tr Maori space differently.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Well, we're certainly not going to go and remove all
of the co governance models that have been put in place,
largely under a national government's actually, because I think that
would be wrong to do. I think we would think
very carefully about where we might look to have co
governance arrangements in the future if they're not already in
place now, because I don't want it to be the
polarizing issue that it was before the last election.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So you so think about it a different way of
addressing similar issue.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, I mean there are still underlying issues there around
how you involve Mardian decisions that affect them, and we
do have to add answers to that. Co governance is
only one of the ways that we do that as
a country, and I would point out that a lot
of the most successful co governance arrangements that we've got.
I'm thinking of to uras, I'm thinking of the Waikato
and Wanganui rivers. These are all put in place under
a national government.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
And finally, the Green's mean that disaster starts to thee
from them where to begin. But Labour's not really capitalizing
on that. In terms of the polling, why's that. I
think you can capitalize on them.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
To be honest, I'm always pretty ambivalent, not ambivalent, but
I think we need to take polling at this point
in the electoral cycle with a fairly big grain of salt.
It's it's useful, but it's not an indication of where
people are going to be two years from now when
we head in the next election. If we were going
to take polling as an indication of the last election
(28:06):
two years before the last election, Labor would have comfortably
won that election. So the reality is a lot changes
over the term of a parliament.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Do you think. I mean, we've seen some terrible violence
in the United States, and I'm so skeptical the way
in which you could port United States politics to New Zealand.
But there have been caused from the current presidents have
turned down the temperature. Both the Greens and To Party
Mardi have raised the temperature recently. I think deb Nardi
were Packer said the smoke free reversal. The reversal of
smoke free policy was systemic genocide of Maori. It's pretty intense.
(28:36):
I think you called out that language at the time.
Do you think those two parties need to sort of
dial it down a little bit.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I think the ACT Party in New Zealand First also
need to dial it down a bit. I think Mary
are being used as a wedge in New Zealand in
a way that's really unfair and I don't think it's
going to be good for New Zealand and the longer term.
I don't think it's going to bring New Zealanders together.
I don't think it's going to tackle into generational equity
issues than the way that we should be as a country.
(29:01):
And I think ext national New Zealand First to Party
madeo I think a bit less. So the Greens have
been stoking there and I think they should all stop
doing that.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So everyone should to take a look at themselves and
just stile it down for the sake of political discourse.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I mean, I think political discourse should be a bit
more civilized than some of it is. I mean, Christopher
Lexan described me as an arsonist a few weeks ago,
and you know, having having the week prior told me
that I need to tone my language down. I mean,
I think everybody needs to take a deep breath.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Well, thank you very much for joining us. And on
the Tiles, Chris, I'll let you, I'll let you ge
into your lunch. We've interrupted, interrupted the lunch breaking the
labor labor party today, so I'm very sorry about that.
All good. Thank you very much for joining us. That
was on the Tile, the Herald's politics podcast. Thanks for listening,
and thanks to Chris Epkins for participating in that interview.
(29:54):
We'll have more on the Tiles next week. Ethan Sills
was our executive producer. Thanks for listening.
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