October 29, 2024 • 9 mins
The PM ponders the US election (but not the result), fast-tracking building consents, support for a CGT, private capital for KiwiBank, and why he hasn't sacked Andrew Bayley.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wednesday's here on the Country, the PM kicks off the show. Now,
I know he can't talk about the American election because
he's going to have to deal with whoever the Americans
deliver too. But Christopher Luxon, I'm going to throw this
at you. I know you're a really keen student of
American politics. Is this the most significant election since Kennedy
(00:20):
Nixon nineteen sixty? There you go, there's my opening shot.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Woh wow, that's quite a question.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Well, good morning, good to be with you. But listen,
I mean, what I'd say is I think every election
in the US feels in the moment like it's the
most important election. I think that's often how elections are
around the world. But no doubt about it. This is
incredibly close, and I've got no idea which way it's
going to go.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
But as I said before, I've got to work with whoever.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
The American people sleep, and I'm confident I can build
a good relationship with either.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Now, I was reading some commentary I think from Liam
dam and The Herald saying Trump's curb on curbs on
immigration and his new proposed tariffs could be stag flationary
for the US economy and that would rub off obviously
on the world economy, where as he's saying a Harris victory,
a Democratic victory, would have no impact on New Zealand's
(01:09):
economic forecast. So you know, taking the logical path from that,
for New Zealand as Prime minister, a Harris victory would
be the best result.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well, look, I'm not going to speculate on uni of that,
as you know, as I said, I've got a very
clear position, which is that is a decision for the
American people, and the policies and the presidents that are
chosen we will work with incredibly effectively and well. And
I just also say there's a lot of commentators and
pundits that have a lot of views and economists on
our own domestic finances. If I go back over the
(01:39):
years and look at it, you know, people thought our
tax relief to lower middle income New Zealanders would be
inflationing and low and by old it wasn't so as
we had always been saying. But yet we spent a
lot of time, you know, discussing that and it went
to nought. So so look, at the end of the day,
looks going to be close. We'll work with whoever comes
out the other side of it very well.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Oh come on, I reckon you and your good mates,
Sir John Keyes sit around watching the with your Trump
hats on.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Oh no, he can have his own views.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
You're happy to be the MP for'sar wrong on this one. Okay,
let's talk about something positive and this was a good
announcement yesterday, fast tracking the building consents. It's ridiculous that
it takes a year or two years to build a house.
Back in the days of Michael Joseph Savage, a great
labor leader by the way, we used to build a
house in two minutes.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, what's amazing is it's taking now nineteen months on
average to build a house in New Zealand. But the
real worrying thing Jamie has a problem is it's fifty
percent more expenses in Australia. So you know why is
that happening? Well, a big part of it is our
resource consenting process is just too long and too expensive.
So for example, I was standing in a Jini and
Haudn's house yesterday, three or four bedroom home. It has
(02:51):
going to be inspected fifteen times over the course of
it's built, versus what we would propose would be two,
a prestart and a closing inspection, and that actually qualified.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Builders, you know, particularly if you're doing.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Pretty low risk type group homes versus complex you know,
multi stories, skyscrapers and in buildings. You know you should
be able to work your way through that because you
know the classic stories.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You know I've been hearing of.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
You're waiting on the inspected to come out to look
at your half brick wall and make sure it's tied
back to to your internal wall, and they get sick
and it's two weeks before you get an appointment. You
can't complete the job. And so that's just a huge
loss of productivity, extends out the time, adds and to
the cost, and as a result, that's why we end
up with houses more expensive in Australia. So what Chris
Pink and I were saying yesterday is lot we already
(03:37):
have s fitters and electrician self certifying their work. I'm
confident that we can introduce a self certification regime that
actually means we've got qualified builders, we've got good consumer
protection and important we've got good penalties in the place
should people breach that. But you know, we have to
do better than this. We have to be able to
build houses faster than nineteen months. We have to be
(03:58):
able to have costs that are more than the fifty
percent in Australia. And that's why you've seen Chris Pink Frankly,
you know, do a number of things around, you know,
certifying overseas building products. So that actually puts down a
pressure on our building market, more competition to the building
goods market. You've seen them announce, you know, sixty square
meter granny flats without resource consents. We're going to look
(04:20):
at the sixty seven building concent authorities we have up
and down this country that do it differently, and that
just seems like a whole heap of complexity that builders
are managing and having to manage because they're in different
jurisdictions within New Zealand. It's just insane. So you know,
we've got to really keep working hard at getting rid
of the red tape. Red tape is regulation. It doesn't
add any benefit. That's not code for we need smart regulation.
(04:43):
But we think we can manage the risk and actually
speed the process up by actually having build a self
certify in this way.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well a bit of common sense, play good on you, okay,
Labour's getting support for its capital gains tax. Would that
be a bit of common sense? I mean, the coffers
are empty. We've got to raise some money somehow, Prime Minister.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, when we raise the money by actually growing our economy,
not taxing our way out of the recession that we're in.
And let's just be careful and remind.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Ourselves of how we ended up where we are.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
And everyone's grasping around for a silver bullet to solve
all our problems. Well, the reality is labor got the
key to the car and they drove it straight into
the ditch. Increased government's been eighty four percent, increased borrowing
from five billion to one hundred billion dollars, creating a
ten billion dollar interest bill, and increase taxes by not
actually having way through inflation, having people float up at
higher tax rates and no tax relief for fourteen years.
(05:30):
So we've seen that movie. It didn't end well. We're
now dealing with the aftershocks and the drama of all
of that. We're cleaning it up and fixing it up.
Good to see inflation and interest rates coming down. We've
now got to focus on growth and jobs. But you know,
I just put it to you. I don't think the
New Zealand people want to see a capital gains tax
on an investment property, their business, any other assets like
(05:50):
boats or cars, or artwork or their family home. And
you know, I think you know Labour's been at this
several times before. It is a very big reason and a.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Big distance center for the why people think that's the
way forward.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
What we need to do is we need to control
government spending, make sure we're getting value out of it,
not spend more borough and more tax more, which is
what the labor resci peop will be.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Okay, Treasury is keen for private capital for Kiwi Bank,
and unlike Hosking who you were chatting to yesterday on
us talks, the'd be I reckon the banks are ripping
us off, especially when it comes to rural financing. And
it was good to hear you go into bat for
the farmers. I reckon the host might be getting a
backhander from one of those banks.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Well, I did say to you, We've got this finance
experience and Primary Industry's sleek committee here in Parliament doing
a review of the banks, and we made rural banking
deliberately a very big part of that that we've made
those committees drawn together to go after the banks, and
next the CEO has come before them. I think last
week we had Antonio Watson, May and Z come forward,
and we had our rural community folks asking questions as
(06:54):
well as people that are working on the Finance Committee.
So the bottom line is the Commerce Commissions found that
our banking sector dominated by those big four isy banks
and frankly, it's not competitive enough. And so as a
result of all of that, key Wes pay the price
farmers as.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, and I'd say argue more so.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And so our vision and the Commerce Commission's vision is
that we can turn key back into a bit more
of a maverick that actually puts some competitive pressure into
the system. But for it to do that, it needs
some growth capital. And that's what Nikola would have us
Treasury for is advice on how kere We Bank might
raise capital so that it can grow actually challenge those
banks more strongly.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
The ACC is sitting on a big pot of money.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, well, there's lots of you. We've got internal pools
of capital, and there's a number of options about how
we can raise capital for the kere We Bank and
it's just a bit premature because I suspect that conversation
will happen in cabinet in late December.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Why didn't you sack Andrew Bailey?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Well, look, I mean he felt short of the standards
that I expect from my ministers. He acknowledged that he
caused hurt an insult to the individual concerned. He apologized
to me but more importantly to the individual and has
assured me it won't ever happen again. And he, you know,
he might have it was lighthearted and it was misinterpreted
(08:11):
and all that stuff, but the reality is it caused
some insult and as a result, I think he's on
the right thing, you know, And so he's a good minister,
working incredibly hard. But he has apologized and assured me
it won't happen again.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And what about Jenny Anderson and the King and you
you were in on that as well.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I just say to you those are ultimately questions best
strict to that, and Jenny Andsen's onmane behavior is best
strict at the Labour Party, and Chrisip constrictly and how
he manages his team. I think when you go back
and look at the record of how the expectations I
have of my team and also how we manage any
personal issues are We're pretty.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Quick and pretty fast and pretty clear about what we're expecting.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Okay, Christph Luxe and we'll catch you again next Wednesday
on the country. That'll be the morning of the American election.
I wonder if I can weasele a prediction out of
you in seven a day's time, we'll see what we
can do. Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Hey good, have you been in the country, Jamie give
out the great words
Wednesday's here on the Country, the PM kicks off the show. Now,
I know he can't talk about the American election because
he's going to have to deal with whoever the Americans
deliver too. But Christopher Luxon, I'm going to throw this
at you. I know you're a really keen student of
American politics. Is this the most significant election since Kennedy
(00:20):
Nixon nineteen sixty? There you go, there's my opening shot.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Woh wow, that's quite a question.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Well, good morning, good to be with you. But listen,
I mean, what I'd say is I think every election
in the US feels in the moment like it's the
most important election. I think that's often how elections are
around the world. But no doubt about it. This is
incredibly close, and I've got no idea which way it's
going to go.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
But as I said before, I've got to work with whoever.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
The American people sleep, and I'm confident I can build
a good relationship with either.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Now, I was reading some commentary I think from Liam
dam and The Herald saying Trump's curb on curbs on
immigration and his new proposed tariffs could be stag flationary
for the US economy and that would rub off obviously
on the world economy, where as he's saying a Harris victory,
a Democratic victory, would have no impact on New Zealand's
(01:09):
economic forecast. So you know, taking the logical path from that,
for New Zealand as Prime minister, a Harris victory would
be the best result.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Well, look, I'm not going to speculate on uni of that,
as you know, as I said, I've got a very
clear position, which is that is a decision for the
American people, and the policies and the presidents that are
chosen we will work with incredibly effectively and well. And
I just also say there's a lot of commentators and
pundits that have a lot of views and economists on
our own domestic finances. If I go back over the
(01:39):
years and look at it, you know, people thought our
tax relief to lower middle income New Zealanders would be
inflationing and low and by old it wasn't so as
we had always been saying. But yet we spent a
lot of time, you know, discussing that and it went
to nought. So so look, at the end of the day,
looks going to be close. We'll work with whoever comes
out the other side of it very well.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Oh come on, I reckon you and your good mates,
Sir John Keyes sit around watching the with your Trump
hats on.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Oh no, he can have his own views.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
You're happy to be the MP for'sar wrong on this one. Okay,
let's talk about something positive and this was a good
announcement yesterday, fast tracking the building consents. It's ridiculous that
it takes a year or two years to build a house.
Back in the days of Michael Joseph Savage, a great
labor leader by the way, we used to build a
house in two minutes.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, what's amazing is it's taking now nineteen months on
average to build a house in New Zealand. But the
real worrying thing Jamie has a problem is it's fifty
percent more expenses in Australia. So you know why is
that happening? Well, a big part of it is our
resource consenting process is just too long and too expensive.
So for example, I was standing in a Jini and
Haudn's house yesterday, three or four bedroom home. It has
(02:51):
going to be inspected fifteen times over the course of
it's built, versus what we would propose would be two,
a prestart and a closing inspection, and that actually qualified.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Builders, you know, particularly if you're doing.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Pretty low risk type group homes versus complex you know,
multi stories, skyscrapers and in buildings. You know you should
be able to work your way through that because you
know the classic stories.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You know I've been hearing of.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
You're waiting on the inspected to come out to look
at your half brick wall and make sure it's tied
back to to your internal wall, and they get sick
and it's two weeks before you get an appointment. You
can't complete the job. And so that's just a huge
loss of productivity, extends out the time, adds and to
the cost, and as a result, that's why we end
up with houses more expensive in Australia. So what Chris
Pink and I were saying yesterday is lot we already
(03:37):
have s fitters and electrician self certifying their work. I'm
confident that we can introduce a self certification regime that
actually means we've got qualified builders, we've got good consumer
protection and important we've got good penalties in the place
should people breach that. But you know, we have to
do better than this. We have to be able to
build houses faster than nineteen months. We have to be
(03:58):
able to have costs that are more than the fifty
percent in Australia. And that's why you've seen Chris Pink Frankly,
you know, do a number of things around, you know,
certifying overseas building products. So that actually puts down a
pressure on our building market, more competition to the building
goods market. You've seen them announce, you know, sixty square
meter granny flats without resource consents. We're going to look
(04:20):
at the sixty seven building concent authorities we have up
and down this country that do it differently, and that
just seems like a whole heap of complexity that builders
are managing and having to manage because they're in different
jurisdictions within New Zealand. It's just insane. So you know,
we've got to really keep working hard at getting rid
of the red tape. Red tape is regulation. It doesn't
add any benefit. That's not code for we need smart regulation.
(04:43):
But we think we can manage the risk and actually
speed the process up by actually having build a self
certify in this way.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well a bit of common sense, play good on you, okay,
Labour's getting support for its capital gains tax. Would that
be a bit of common sense? I mean, the coffers
are empty. We've got to raise some money somehow, Prime Minister.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, when we raise the money by actually growing our economy,
not taxing our way out of the recession that we're in.
And let's just be careful and remind.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Ourselves of how we ended up where we are.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
And everyone's grasping around for a silver bullet to solve
all our problems. Well, the reality is labor got the
key to the car and they drove it straight into
the ditch. Increased government's been eighty four percent, increased borrowing
from five billion to one hundred billion dollars, creating a
ten billion dollar interest bill, and increase taxes by not
actually having way through inflation, having people float up at
higher tax rates and no tax relief for fourteen years.
(05:30):
So we've seen that movie. It didn't end well. We're
now dealing with the aftershocks and the drama of all
of that. We're cleaning it up and fixing it up.
Good to see inflation and interest rates coming down. We've
now got to focus on growth and jobs. But you know,
I just put it to you. I don't think the
New Zealand people want to see a capital gains tax
on an investment property, their business, any other assets like
(05:50):
boats or cars, or artwork or their family home. And
you know, I think you know Labour's been at this
several times before. It is a very big reason and a.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Big distance center for the why people think that's the
way forward.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
What we need to do is we need to control
government spending, make sure we're getting value out of it,
not spend more borough and more tax more, which is
what the labor resci peop will be.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Okay, Treasury is keen for private capital for Kiwi Bank,
and unlike Hosking who you were chatting to yesterday on
us talks, the'd be I reckon the banks are ripping
us off, especially when it comes to rural financing. And
it was good to hear you go into bat for
the farmers. I reckon the host might be getting a
backhander from one of those banks.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Well, I did say to you, We've got this finance
experience and Primary Industry's sleek committee here in Parliament doing
a review of the banks, and we made rural banking
deliberately a very big part of that that we've made
those committees drawn together to go after the banks, and
next the CEO has come before them. I think last
week we had Antonio Watson, May and Z come forward,
and we had our rural community folks asking questions as
(06:54):
well as people that are working on the Finance Committee.
So the bottom line is the Commerce Commissions found that
our banking sector dominated by those big four isy banks
and frankly, it's not competitive enough. And so as a
result of all of that, key Wes pay the price
farmers as.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, and I'd say argue more so.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And so our vision and the Commerce Commission's vision is
that we can turn key back into a bit more
of a maverick that actually puts some competitive pressure into
the system. But for it to do that, it needs
some growth capital. And that's what Nikola would have us
Treasury for is advice on how kere We Bank might
raise capital so that it can grow actually challenge those
banks more strongly.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
The ACC is sitting on a big pot of money.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, well, there's lots of you. We've got internal pools
of capital, and there's a number of options about how
we can raise capital for the kere We Bank and
it's just a bit premature because I suspect that conversation
will happen in cabinet in late December.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Why didn't you sack Andrew Bailey?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Well, look, I mean he felt short of the standards
that I expect from my ministers. He acknowledged that he
caused hurt an insult to the individual concerned. He apologized
to me but more importantly to the individual and has
assured me it won't ever happen again. And he, you know,
he might have it was lighthearted and it was misinterpreted
(08:11):
and all that stuff, but the reality is it caused
some insult and as a result, I think he's on
the right thing, you know, And so he's a good minister,
working incredibly hard. But he has apologized and assured me
it won't happen again.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And what about Jenny Anderson and the King and you
you were in on that as well.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I just say to you those are ultimately questions best
strict to that, and Jenny Andsen's onmane behavior is best
strict at the Labour Party, and Chrisip constrictly and how
he manages his team. I think when you go back
and look at the record of how the expectations I
have of my team and also how we manage any
personal issues are We're pretty.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Quick and pretty fast and pretty clear about what we're expecting.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Okay, Christph Luxe and we'll catch you again next Wednesday
on the country. That'll be the morning of the American election.
I wonder if I can weasele a prediction out of
you in seven a day's time, we'll see what we
can do. Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Hey good, have you been in the country, Jamie give
out the great words
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides.  Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer  Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.