December 2, 2024 • 19 mins
Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins has told the party it must change if it wants to re-gain the trust it's lost.
The party held its annual conference in Christchurch at the weekend, the first time its members have met since the 2023 election defeat.
The party has inched closer to campaigning on a wealth tax or a capital gains tax, at the next election - after members passed a proposal to move the idea forward.
And it’s made three major promises – a full Dunedin Hospital rebuild, rail-enabled ferries, and not getting involved in AUKUS.
As the coalition government deals with contentious policies and flat poll results, can Hipkins pull off a win in 2026?
He joins us today on The Front Page to discuss the path ahead for Labour.
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You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
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Producer: Ethan Sills
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hilda.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Labor Party
leader Chris Hipkins has told the party it must change
if it wants to regain the trust it's lost. The
party held its annual conference in christ Church at the weekend,
(00:28):
the first time its members of met since the twenty
twenty three election defeat. The party has inched closer to
campaigning on a wealth tax or a capital gains tax
at the next election after members passed a proposal to
move the idea forward, and it's made three major promises
(00:48):
a full Dneden Hospital, rebuild, rail enabled ferries and not
getting involved in orcus. As the coalition government deals with
contentious policy and flat pole results. Can Hopkins pull off
a win in twenty twenty six? He joins us today
on the Front Page to discuss the path ahead for Labor.
(01:15):
First off, pres we're a year into this new coalition government.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
What do you make of it? Oh? I mean, I
think the government's had a pretty bumpy start. It was
always going to be a challenged for them to pull
together three parties with quite different views of the world
and sort of certainly some personal animosity amongst the party leaders.
You know, Winston Peters and David Seymour's dislike for one
another is well known and clearly hasn't debated since the
government has been formed. But they've made things worse for
(01:43):
New Zealand in the decisions that they've taken. So it's
a challenging time economically around the world at the moment,
and the government making decisions to massively cut back government spending,
cutback infrastructure projects and so on has actually made a
tough economic environment even tougher for.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Kiwi's Well, Winston and David haven't ripped each other's heads
off in public yet, have they.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
They've certainly, you know, of anything. They've both been taking
pop shots at the Prime minister instead, and you know,
I think that's somewhat new for New Zealand to see
the deputy prime Minister from a different party saying that
he thinks the Prime Minister is struggling in his job,
and to have David Seymour and Christopher Luxen basically criticizing
each other in public. I don't think we've seen that before,
(02:29):
even an MMP where there's agree to disagree. I think
generally there's still been a respectful relationship between party leaders.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Luxeon's leadership has been called into question in recent weeks.
How do you rank him personally? Like, where do you
think he sets compared to other former prime ministers?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I think probably the one and only time you'll find
me agreeing with Winston Peters actually is I think he
is struggling in the job. I think he's brought board
a corporate mindset to running the country, and the country
isn't a corporation. In a corporation, you can decide to
make people redundant and basically then there's someone else's problem,
and you can say this group of customers is a
(03:05):
group of customers, We're no longer going to chase as
a company. You don't get to make those sorts of
decisions in running a country. Everybody is your problem, everybody
is your customer, everybody is your responsibility. I think he's
kind of struggling with that a little bit, because the
process of government doesn't stop just because you've decided that
(03:25):
your priorities are elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Is he a bad prime minister?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Oh? I mean people for form their own views about that.
I think a lot of new Zealanders think he's a
bad Prime minister, and I think they've got good grounds
for that.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
You've said Labor needs to regain the public's trust after
a historic defeat. How are you going to start.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I think the public want to see us getting back
to the basics of what Labour stands for, making sure
that we are focused on how we can bring the
country back together. I think this government's creating a lot
of division and they want to know that we have
an approach that's going to end that division and bring
people back together again. And I think also just demonstrating
that we do know we lost. You know that we
(04:04):
have reflected on why we lost and that we change
as a result of that. You know, we we're not
going to rerun the twenty twenty three election campaign. That's
a campaign we lost, and so twenty twenty six we
need to offer different things and we need to be different.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
But making sure that we've got inflation now within the
band first time in three and a half years. You've
had three interest rate cuts in twelve months.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
You've got rising confidence at annual highs right.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
In the last three years.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Constitution, especially credibility. We see growth. That's what we've got
to call. We're not seeing growth. We're actually again you
can't point to any growth. Get some naive to be
honest with you, to say, look, we had six years
of economic mismanagement and in twelve months we're supposed to
fix that all or at someone I need to say
that the previous government had a credibility problem because they
pushed the years and government when you're doing exactly the
(04:53):
same thing we've had twelve months.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
When do you think the cutoff period is when a
new government can stop blaming in old governments for its problems.
Do you reckon it's about now?
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I think it's totally I think it's long gone. Actually,
I mean they up to their first budget, yep. I
guess you get to say, oh, well, the previous government
made all these decisions and you know we're just having
to live with those. But once you get through a budget,
you know that's your chances of government to really reset
everything and to say well, okay, that spending decisions that
the government's taken are now ours. And I think you
(05:30):
know it's well and truly time for them to accept
responsibility for the fact that under their watch and as
a result of their decisions, the New Zealand economy is
getting worse and key we households are going backwards.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Isn't the economy getting better?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Though? If you've just lost your job and unemployment is
forecast to continue to increase, I think you'll find the
economy is getting worse overall. You know, New Zealand is
not where it needs to be. Other economies are rebounding
much more healthily than New Zealanders get to.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
The weeknd Labor held its conference in christ Church. Labor
will build dened In Hospital as it was committed to
prior to the election in twenty twenty three. Now the
project's been dogged by delays. There's been a budget overruns.
The cost has now belonged to three billion dollars from
an original one point two to one point four in
twenty seventeen. How on earth are you planning on paying
(06:23):
for this?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
To be fair, there were delays in the beginning, but
actually we have made a lot of progress on We
did in government make a lot of progress on the
Darnedan hospital. So the outpatients building, which is about a
third of the new hospital, is almost finished actually and
should be opening shortly that's great news for Dunedin in
terms of the main part of the hospital, so you
know the part where if you're admitted you stay overnight,
(06:45):
that that larger part of the hospital. The current government
have made a number of claims about the cost escalation
of that that simply don't stack up when closer scrutiny
is applied. So they've included in this supposed cost blowout
things that were never the original cost in the first place,
like car parking buildings and a new lab which was
(07:06):
always visioned probably to be built by a private sector
contracted provider, because that's the way lab services across the
country often end up being provided. But it all comes
down to choices and trade offs as well. So they
found two hundred million dollars to give a tax break
to tobacco, They found nearly three billion dollars for tax
breaks for landlords, and then overall, I think the tax
breaks for other kiwis that they gave out it was
(07:27):
about twelve billion dollars in the budget. So it comes
down to choices that you make as a government.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Won't the cost climb even more by the time you're
in government if you win the cost.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Of these projects never goes down. But the longer you
take to do them, the more expensive they become, which
is one of the reasons why they should just get
on with it and build the hospital. And my experience
and I oversaw a lot of school rebuilding projects. You
just want to get them done. Every time you slow
them down for another review, you're just the cashridge is
to goes kitching, kitchin kitching. You know, all of these
(07:59):
reviews are one of the reasons why everything, the costs
keep blowing out on everything.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Also, a publicly owned into island ferry connection, including some
kind of rail transport. What does that look like, Well.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It means that we've got to have fairies that you
can drive trains on and off. And bear in mind
too that this is about making sure that we've got
the most efficient ferry service for New Zealand. A ferry
service that you can't drive trains on and off. Ultimately
then transfers cost back on to freight providers, which then
transfers cost back on to customers. An investment in a
(08:33):
reliable ferry service is actually an investment in a productive economy.
Then did Treasury do this thing called a BCR benefit
to cost ratio analysis. The benefit cost ratio even at
the higher price for the inter island ferry was something
like four point eight, So for every dollar you spend
you get about four point eight dollars back. The cost
benefit ratio for the billions of dollars they're going to
(08:54):
spend on the road from Auckland to fungat A is
about one, so you get one dollar back for every
dollar that you spend. So you know, again it's about
choices and trade offs. This government a choosing to say, well,
roads are everything, and interrland ferries and rail connections are
not important. Actually they are important because if you want
better roads, getting freight off the roads and onto rail's
(09:15):
going to be a good way of delivering that.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
So New Zealand won't be signing up to AUCUST pillar
two under a labor government. We know that pillar one
involves the nuclear powered subs, but Pillar two involves sharing
and developing high tech defense technology. Why this turnaround on
AUCUST Pillar two.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
We've always been very skeptical of UCUS. Aucus fundamentally is
a nuclear powered submarine pact between those three countries, and
we're a nuclear free country.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
But that's the pillar one we're looking at Pillar two.
Now that's the technology and AI aspect of it.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Right, The two things are related though, you know, the
Pacific is a proudly nuclear free region. Who in the
Pacific countries have made it very clear, and they're very
important relationships for New Zealand that they are also opposed
to Aucus. So I think you can't separate those two
things completely. In terms of coordinating with those other countries
around things like military technology, around things like intelligence sharing,
(10:19):
we already have arrangements to do that. So you know,
we have a formal alliance, a formal ally relationship with Australia.
We have a five country relationship with those three countries
including and then adding Canada into that, which gives us
access to a lot of the stuff that's happening around
intelligence but also around technology. And we think that we're
(10:41):
best to stick with those relationships rather than be involved
in a relationship which is proving to be incredibly antagonistic
in it within the.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Region, antagonistic to China, though primarily right, not just China.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Actually the Pacific of finding have raised a lot of
concerns about nuclear prospect of nuclear ships in the Pacific
as well, and so I think we shouldn't be blind
to that.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Andrew Little's come out backing the current government's decision to
investigate our potential involvement in Pillar two. Here's, of course
our former Defense Minister and Intelligence Agencies Minister, and of
course a former leader of the Labor Party. Do you
trust his judgment?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I think Andrew Little's got you know, he was a
fantastic minister. Doesn't mean we're going to agree on everything.
We didn't agree on everything when we're in government, and
I'm sure we won't now, and as a former parliamentary
and he's free to share his used however he wishes.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And the parties are passed a proposal to take forward
work on a capital gains tax and a wealth tax
and stop any work on other forms of tax. Does
this mean it'll very likely be a part of your
twenty twenty six campaign.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Well, I don't comment on the remits that get past
at conference, but I've said right at the beginning of
the year that we needed to do work on tax policy,
and we needed a different tax policy ahead of the
next selection, which is what we're working on at the moment.
Any remits that get passed at party conference help to
inform that policy development process. But we're a long way
away at this point from having a finalized approach to
(12:09):
text because you can't just look at tax and isolation.
You've also got to look at you know, what are
you taxing for, what are the things that you're funding,
where's that money going to go, how's it going to
be applied, what are the consequences for other taxes, and also,
you know, what are the things you're trying to do.
Are you trying to you know, I believe we need
to incentivize more productive investment in our economy rather than
(12:31):
speculative investment.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
In twenty twenty three, you ruled out in introducing a
wealth tax or CGT if re elected. That was before
the last election. Of course, now it's back on the table.
Has it got anything to do with labor likely needing
the Greens and Tabatti Mali in order to form a
government next time?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
No, not at all. I said before the last elections,
As I would say in you know, every election, you
should form your policies for the next term of government,
and then if you've got to change those, then you
change them at the next election so that people can
vote on them. I said when I said that we
wouldn't implement a wealth tex or a capital gains tax.
I was very clear that that was the commitment that
(13:08):
I was making for the next term of government. You know,
should our position change, that were the time we would change,
that would be at the next election.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Last week we spoke to politics professor Bryce Edwards and
asked him about how the opposition parties were performing, and
he didn't think you guys were doing a great job
of holding the government to account.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
If you look back on the last year, I think
the government has had lots of areas that needed to
be more strongly critiqued on, especially things like the Fast
Track Act, especially on a lot of the ways that
it seems to be governing for vested interests or the wealthy.
And I don't think that Labour's done it a good
(13:47):
enough job of highlighting some of those. Yeah, those deficits.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
What do you make of that?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Well, I disagree. I think if you look at on
issues that where the government's been divided in the country,
like the tr Principle spill, you've seen a very united
approach from the opposition parties. If you look at areas
like the health system, for example, I think we've applied
real pressure to the government on their issues, on the
things that they're trying to do around deregulation of guns. Again,
(14:16):
I think we've really kind of stepped up the pace
there in terms of the pressure we've applied. But what
I've also said, and I think you know New Zealanders
have a lot of sympathy for this, is they get
sick of politicians criticizing their opponents for doing something that
they themselves would do, or opposing something which then they
get into government and do exactly the same thing they've opposed.
So I've said that we're the government are doing things
(14:38):
that we would ourselves do in government. There will be
constructive rather than obstructive, and I think actually New Zealanders
want to see that from their politicians.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
What's something the government's done that you've thought that that's
a good job.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Look, it's kind of difficult because there's not a he
give a lot that I think they've been doing well.
But I think some of the there are a few
decisions they've taken that might have some early promise. So
if I look at the infrastructure space, for example, I
agree with the government that we need a much longer
term approach to planning infrastructure investment. The short term nature
(15:14):
of our thinking around infrastructure in New Zealand is one
of the reasons we're in the mess we're in now,
and so if they can come up with things that
will help the country to achieve that, then I think
we can be supportive and we can be constructive.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, and that certainly makes sense when you're talking billions
of dollars for say a couple of ferries, or billions
of dollars for a second Auckland bridge, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Right absolutely. I mean, if you look at Auckland light Rail,
you know we had work underway on Auckland light Rail.
It's a big project and I think the time frames
that we had previously put out were unrealistic and I've
said that, but Auckland is going to need mass, rapid
transit are given the scale of population growth there. Within
the next decade, Auckland could have two million people and
(15:55):
you've got to be able to get around. And even
with more investment and roads, there's still going to be
road congestion. The only way you're going to tackle that
is by making sure that you've got good alternative options,
which includes public transport. So I think we need a
plan around Auckland that says, over the next twenty to
thirty years, what's the transport infrastructure we need. And so
(16:15):
even if the current government came in and said, Okay,
we don't think Auckland light rails an immediate priority, why
scrap it all together? Why not just continue with the planning,
the design, the consenting work so that at a future
point we can continue the momentum on it. Even if
they said, and their priority for construction is going to
be new roads, why don't they continue with the planning
(16:37):
on the stuff which they might not want to do immediately.
I think that is the sort of that's the sort
of thinking that we need around infrastructure. So I've said
when we come into government next time, and I want
that to be after the next selection, That's what I'm
aiming for. We're not going to stop everything just because
the previous government started it. I think we've got to
make sure that we keep the wheels of infrastructure investment
moving so.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
We look overseas gaffes and controvert your policies didn't really
stop Donald Trump getting re elected last month. Hey, the
economy and cost of living remains a top priority for
voters here and overseas. Do you think labor has a
chance in twenty twenty six, even if the economy picks
up under.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
National I think one of the things that Donald Trump
tapped into, and I think it's very important for all
Western democracies to think about, is the fact that the
economy isn't working as it should for a larger and
larger group of people. So if you look at the US,
for example, under Biden, their economy was growing, they were
creating new jobs, but people weren't feeling that they were
(17:37):
actually feeling at a household level like they were going backwards.
And I think the same thing is happening here is
even if say GDP growth numbers improve, and frankly it'd
be hard for them to do otherwise given how bad
they've been. But even if they do start to improve,
then if people are still feeling like, oh, our household
costs are still going up, our salary and wages aren't
going up, and we feel like we're going backwards. Think
(18:00):
that's the space where I think we're very rightly frustrated.
And I think if you look over the last forty
odd years since we embarked on some pretty radical reforms
in the nineteen eighties New Zealand households. A lot of
New Zealand households have been going backwards.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And finally, Chris, while we're on Trump, he managed to
of course, when reelection after a defeat, are you confident
you can do the same in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Absolutely. I wouldn't still be here if I didn't think that.
You know, we're getting really strong support from New Zealanders,
even you know, when I've been out and about, there's
plenty of people who have come up and said, look,
we didn't vote for you last time because x Y
and Z, but we're open to voting for you next time.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
What was x Y and Z?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Oh's the things that we just talked about before, you know,
cost of living, crime. I think people just wanted to
get over COVID. They just wanted to forget about it
and move on. And also the fact that they were
a bit dissatisfied with the fact that we had taken
on so many big reform projects all at once, and
they wanted a sense that we were focusing on getting
the basics right. So those are all messages that.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
We've heard and Are you personally committed to lead labor
into the next election? Will you be heading Labor?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I absolutely will be wonderful.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Thanks for joining us, Chress.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Good as Gold, happy to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzedherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(19:41):
tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
Hilda.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Labor Party
leader Chris Hipkins has told the party it must change
if it wants to regain the trust it's lost. The
party held its annual conference in christ Church at the weekend,
(00:28):
the first time its members of met since the twenty
twenty three election defeat. The party has inched closer to
campaigning on a wealth tax or a capital gains tax
at the next election after members passed a proposal to
move the idea forward, and it's made three major promises
(00:48):
a full Dneden Hospital, rebuild, rail enabled ferries and not
getting involved in orcus. As the coalition government deals with
contentious policy and flat pole results. Can Hopkins pull off
a win in twenty twenty six? He joins us today
on the Front Page to discuss the path ahead for Labor.
(01:15):
First off, pres we're a year into this new coalition government.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
What do you make of it? Oh? I mean, I
think the government's had a pretty bumpy start. It was
always going to be a challenged for them to pull
together three parties with quite different views of the world
and sort of certainly some personal animosity amongst the party leaders.
You know, Winston Peters and David Seymour's dislike for one
another is well known and clearly hasn't debated since the
government has been formed. But they've made things worse for
(01:43):
New Zealand in the decisions that they've taken. So it's
a challenging time economically around the world at the moment,
and the government making decisions to massively cut back government spending,
cutback infrastructure projects and so on has actually made a
tough economic environment even tougher for.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Kiwi's Well, Winston and David haven't ripped each other's heads
off in public yet, have they.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
They've certainly, you know, of anything. They've both been taking
pop shots at the Prime minister instead, and you know,
I think that's somewhat new for New Zealand to see
the deputy prime Minister from a different party saying that
he thinks the Prime Minister is struggling in his job,
and to have David Seymour and Christopher Luxen basically criticizing
each other in public. I don't think we've seen that before,
(02:29):
even an MMP where there's agree to disagree. I think
generally there's still been a respectful relationship between party leaders.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Luxeon's leadership has been called into question in recent weeks.
How do you rank him personally? Like, where do you
think he sets compared to other former prime ministers?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I think probably the one and only time you'll find
me agreeing with Winston Peters actually is I think he
is struggling in the job. I think he's brought board
a corporate mindset to running the country, and the country
isn't a corporation. In a corporation, you can decide to
make people redundant and basically then there's someone else's problem,
and you can say this group of customers is a
(03:05):
group of customers, We're no longer going to chase as
a company. You don't get to make those sorts of
decisions in running a country. Everybody is your problem, everybody
is your customer, everybody is your responsibility. I think he's
kind of struggling with that a little bit, because the
process of government doesn't stop just because you've decided that
(03:25):
your priorities are elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Is he a bad prime minister?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Oh? I mean people for form their own views about that.
I think a lot of new Zealanders think he's a
bad Prime minister, and I think they've got good grounds
for that.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
You've said Labor needs to regain the public's trust after
a historic defeat. How are you going to start.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I think the public want to see us getting back
to the basics of what Labour stands for, making sure
that we are focused on how we can bring the
country back together. I think this government's creating a lot
of division and they want to know that we have
an approach that's going to end that division and bring
people back together again. And I think also just demonstrating
that we do know we lost. You know that we
(04:04):
have reflected on why we lost and that we change
as a result of that. You know, we we're not
going to rerun the twenty twenty three election campaign. That's
a campaign we lost, and so twenty twenty six we
need to offer different things and we need to be different.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
But making sure that we've got inflation now within the
band first time in three and a half years. You've
had three interest rate cuts in twelve months.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
You've got rising confidence at annual highs right.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
In the last three years.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Constitution, especially credibility. We see growth. That's what we've got
to call. We're not seeing growth. We're actually again you
can't point to any growth. Get some naive to be
honest with you, to say, look, we had six years
of economic mismanagement and in twelve months we're supposed to
fix that all or at someone I need to say
that the previous government had a credibility problem because they
pushed the years and government when you're doing exactly the
(04:53):
same thing we've had twelve months.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
When do you think the cutoff period is when a
new government can stop blaming in old governments for its problems.
Do you reckon it's about now?
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I think it's totally I think it's long gone. Actually,
I mean they up to their first budget, yep. I
guess you get to say, oh, well, the previous government
made all these decisions and you know we're just having
to live with those. But once you get through a budget,
you know that's your chances of government to really reset
everything and to say well, okay, that spending decisions that
the government's taken are now ours. And I think you
(05:30):
know it's well and truly time for them to accept
responsibility for the fact that under their watch and as
a result of their decisions, the New Zealand economy is
getting worse and key we households are going backwards.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Isn't the economy getting better?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Though? If you've just lost your job and unemployment is
forecast to continue to increase, I think you'll find the
economy is getting worse overall. You know, New Zealand is
not where it needs to be. Other economies are rebounding
much more healthily than New Zealanders get to.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
The weeknd Labor held its conference in christ Church. Labor
will build dened In Hospital as it was committed to
prior to the election in twenty twenty three. Now the
project's been dogged by delays. There's been a budget overruns.
The cost has now belonged to three billion dollars from
an original one point two to one point four in
twenty seventeen. How on earth are you planning on paying
(06:23):
for this?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
To be fair, there were delays in the beginning, but
actually we have made a lot of progress on We
did in government make a lot of progress on the
Darnedan hospital. So the outpatients building, which is about a
third of the new hospital, is almost finished actually and
should be opening shortly that's great news for Dunedin in
terms of the main part of the hospital, so you
know the part where if you're admitted you stay overnight,
(06:45):
that that larger part of the hospital. The current government
have made a number of claims about the cost escalation
of that that simply don't stack up when closer scrutiny
is applied. So they've included in this supposed cost blowout
things that were never the original cost in the first place,
like car parking buildings and a new lab which was
(07:06):
always visioned probably to be built by a private sector
contracted provider, because that's the way lab services across the
country often end up being provided. But it all comes
down to choices and trade offs as well. So they
found two hundred million dollars to give a tax break
to tobacco, They found nearly three billion dollars for tax
breaks for landlords, and then overall, I think the tax
breaks for other kiwis that they gave out it was
(07:27):
about twelve billion dollars in the budget. So it comes
down to choices that you make as a government.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Won't the cost climb even more by the time you're
in government if you win the cost.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Of these projects never goes down. But the longer you
take to do them, the more expensive they become, which
is one of the reasons why they should just get
on with it and build the hospital. And my experience
and I oversaw a lot of school rebuilding projects. You
just want to get them done. Every time you slow
them down for another review, you're just the cashridge is
to goes kitching, kitchin kitching. You know, all of these
(07:59):
reviews are one of the reasons why everything, the costs
keep blowing out on everything.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Also, a publicly owned into island ferry connection, including some
kind of rail transport. What does that look like, Well.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It means that we've got to have fairies that you
can drive trains on and off. And bear in mind
too that this is about making sure that we've got
the most efficient ferry service for New Zealand. A ferry
service that you can't drive trains on and off. Ultimately
then transfers cost back on to freight providers, which then
transfers cost back on to customers. An investment in a
(08:33):
reliable ferry service is actually an investment in a productive economy.
Then did Treasury do this thing called a BCR benefit
to cost ratio analysis. The benefit cost ratio even at
the higher price for the inter island ferry was something
like four point eight, So for every dollar you spend
you get about four point eight dollars back. The cost
benefit ratio for the billions of dollars they're going to
(08:54):
spend on the road from Auckland to fungat A is
about one, so you get one dollar back for every
dollar that you spend. So you know, again it's about
choices and trade offs. This government a choosing to say, well,
roads are everything, and interrland ferries and rail connections are
not important. Actually they are important because if you want
better roads, getting freight off the roads and onto rail's
(09:15):
going to be a good way of delivering that.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
So New Zealand won't be signing up to AUCUST pillar
two under a labor government. We know that pillar one
involves the nuclear powered subs, but Pillar two involves sharing
and developing high tech defense technology. Why this turnaround on
AUCUST Pillar two.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
We've always been very skeptical of UCUS. Aucus fundamentally is
a nuclear powered submarine pact between those three countries, and
we're a nuclear free country.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
But that's the pillar one we're looking at Pillar two.
Now that's the technology and AI aspect of it.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Right, The two things are related though, you know, the
Pacific is a proudly nuclear free region. Who in the
Pacific countries have made it very clear, and they're very
important relationships for New Zealand that they are also opposed
to Aucus. So I think you can't separate those two
things completely. In terms of coordinating with those other countries
around things like military technology, around things like intelligence sharing,
(10:19):
we already have arrangements to do that. So you know,
we have a formal alliance, a formal ally relationship with Australia.
We have a five country relationship with those three countries
including and then adding Canada into that, which gives us
access to a lot of the stuff that's happening around
intelligence but also around technology. And we think that we're
(10:41):
best to stick with those relationships rather than be involved
in a relationship which is proving to be incredibly antagonistic
in it within the.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Region, antagonistic to China, though primarily right, not just China.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Actually the Pacific of finding have raised a lot of
concerns about nuclear prospect of nuclear ships in the Pacific
as well, and so I think we shouldn't be blind
to that.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Andrew Little's come out backing the current government's decision to
investigate our potential involvement in Pillar two. Here's, of course
our former Defense Minister and Intelligence Agencies Minister, and of
course a former leader of the Labor Party. Do you
trust his judgment?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I think Andrew Little's got you know, he was a
fantastic minister. Doesn't mean we're going to agree on everything.
We didn't agree on everything when we're in government, and
I'm sure we won't now, and as a former parliamentary
and he's free to share his used however he wishes.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And the parties are passed a proposal to take forward
work on a capital gains tax and a wealth tax
and stop any work on other forms of tax. Does
this mean it'll very likely be a part of your
twenty twenty six campaign.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Well, I don't comment on the remits that get past
at conference, but I've said right at the beginning of
the year that we needed to do work on tax policy,
and we needed a different tax policy ahead of the
next selection, which is what we're working on at the moment.
Any remits that get passed at party conference help to
inform that policy development process. But we're a long way
away at this point from having a finalized approach to
(12:09):
text because you can't just look at tax and isolation.
You've also got to look at you know, what are
you taxing for, what are the things that you're funding,
where's that money going to go, how's it going to
be applied, what are the consequences for other taxes, and also,
you know, what are the things you're trying to do.
Are you trying to you know, I believe we need
to incentivize more productive investment in our economy rather than
(12:31):
speculative investment.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
In twenty twenty three, you ruled out in introducing a
wealth tax or CGT if re elected. That was before
the last election. Of course, now it's back on the table.
Has it got anything to do with labor likely needing
the Greens and Tabatti Mali in order to form a
government next time?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
No, not at all. I said before the last elections,
As I would say in you know, every election, you
should form your policies for the next term of government,
and then if you've got to change those, then you
change them at the next election so that people can
vote on them. I said when I said that we
wouldn't implement a wealth tex or a capital gains tax.
I was very clear that that was the commitment that
(13:08):
I was making for the next term of government. You know,
should our position change, that were the time we would change,
that would be at the next election.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Last week we spoke to politics professor Bryce Edwards and
asked him about how the opposition parties were performing, and
he didn't think you guys were doing a great job
of holding the government to account.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
If you look back on the last year, I think
the government has had lots of areas that needed to
be more strongly critiqued on, especially things like the Fast
Track Act, especially on a lot of the ways that
it seems to be governing for vested interests or the wealthy.
And I don't think that Labour's done it a good
(13:47):
enough job of highlighting some of those. Yeah, those deficits.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
What do you make of that?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Well, I disagree. I think if you look at on
issues that where the government's been divided in the country,
like the tr Principle spill, you've seen a very united
approach from the opposition parties. If you look at areas
like the health system, for example, I think we've applied
real pressure to the government on their issues, on the
things that they're trying to do around deregulation of guns. Again,
(14:16):
I think we've really kind of stepped up the pace
there in terms of the pressure we've applied. But what
I've also said, and I think you know New Zealanders
have a lot of sympathy for this, is they get
sick of politicians criticizing their opponents for doing something that
they themselves would do, or opposing something which then they
get into government and do exactly the same thing they've opposed.
So I've said that we're the government are doing things
(14:38):
that we would ourselves do in government. There will be
constructive rather than obstructive, and I think actually New Zealanders
want to see that from their politicians.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
What's something the government's done that you've thought that that's
a good job.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Look, it's kind of difficult because there's not a he
give a lot that I think they've been doing well.
But I think some of the there are a few
decisions they've taken that might have some early promise. So
if I look at the infrastructure space, for example, I
agree with the government that we need a much longer
term approach to planning infrastructure investment. The short term nature
(15:14):
of our thinking around infrastructure in New Zealand is one
of the reasons we're in the mess we're in now,
and so if they can come up with things that
will help the country to achieve that, then I think
we can be supportive and we can be constructive.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, and that certainly makes sense when you're talking billions
of dollars for say a couple of ferries, or billions
of dollars for a second Auckland bridge, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Right absolutely. I mean, if you look at Auckland light Rail,
you know we had work underway on Auckland light Rail.
It's a big project and I think the time frames
that we had previously put out were unrealistic and I've
said that, but Auckland is going to need mass, rapid
transit are given the scale of population growth there. Within
the next decade, Auckland could have two million people and
(15:55):
you've got to be able to get around. And even
with more investment and roads, there's still going to be
road congestion. The only way you're going to tackle that
is by making sure that you've got good alternative options,
which includes public transport. So I think we need a
plan around Auckland that says, over the next twenty to
thirty years, what's the transport infrastructure we need. And so
(16:15):
even if the current government came in and said, Okay,
we don't think Auckland light rails an immediate priority, why
scrap it all together? Why not just continue with the planning,
the design, the consenting work so that at a future
point we can continue the momentum on it. Even if
they said, and their priority for construction is going to
be new roads, why don't they continue with the planning
(16:37):
on the stuff which they might not want to do immediately.
I think that is the sort of that's the sort
of thinking that we need around infrastructure. So I've said
when we come into government next time, and I want
that to be after the next selection, That's what I'm
aiming for. We're not going to stop everything just because
the previous government started it. I think we've got to
make sure that we keep the wheels of infrastructure investment
moving so.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
We look overseas gaffes and controvert your policies didn't really
stop Donald Trump getting re elected last month. Hey, the
economy and cost of living remains a top priority for
voters here and overseas. Do you think labor has a
chance in twenty twenty six, even if the economy picks
up under.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
National I think one of the things that Donald Trump
tapped into, and I think it's very important for all
Western democracies to think about, is the fact that the
economy isn't working as it should for a larger and
larger group of people. So if you look at the US,
for example, under Biden, their economy was growing, they were
creating new jobs, but people weren't feeling that they were
(17:37):
actually feeling at a household level like they were going backwards.
And I think the same thing is happening here is
even if say GDP growth numbers improve, and frankly it'd
be hard for them to do otherwise given how bad
they've been. But even if they do start to improve,
then if people are still feeling like, oh, our household
costs are still going up, our salary and wages aren't
going up, and we feel like we're going backwards. Think
(18:00):
that's the space where I think we're very rightly frustrated.
And I think if you look over the last forty
odd years since we embarked on some pretty radical reforms
in the nineteen eighties New Zealand households. A lot of
New Zealand households have been going backwards.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And finally, Chris, while we're on Trump, he managed to
of course, when reelection after a defeat, are you confident
you can do the same in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Absolutely. I wouldn't still be here if I didn't think that.
You know, we're getting really strong support from New Zealanders,
even you know, when I've been out and about, there's
plenty of people who have come up and said, look,
we didn't vote for you last time because x Y
and Z, but we're open to voting for you next time.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
What was x Y and Z?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Oh's the things that we just talked about before, you know,
cost of living, crime. I think people just wanted to
get over COVID. They just wanted to forget about it
and move on. And also the fact that they were
a bit dissatisfied with the fact that we had taken
on so many big reform projects all at once, and
they wanted a sense that we were focusing on getting
the basics right. So those are all messages that.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
We've heard and Are you personally committed to lead labor
into the next election? Will you be heading Labor?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I absolutely will be wonderful.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Thanks for joining us, Chress.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Good as Gold, happy to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzedherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(19:41):
tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
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