July 6, 2025 • 16 mins
Cost of living, crime and supermarkets remain a source of concern for the Government.
The coalition has released its latest quarterly action plan – and it has come with a reiteration from the Prime Minister that they’re going to get on top of the cost of living.
It comes as surveys show that National’s lost voters’ confidence in managing the issue – with many voters now seeing Labour as the better party to tackle the number of issues facing the country.
Crime is another major concern, with a string of policy announcements in recent weeks. But the Opposition’s attempts to weigh in on the subject have only furthered the controversy.
Today on The Front Page, we speak to Newstalk ZB’s political editor Jason Walls about what’s behind the Beehive’s top headlines lately, and whether the tide is turning when it comes to who Kiwis truly trust.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Yoda.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Cost of living,
crime and supermarkets remain a source of concern for the government.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The Coalition has released its latest quarterly.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Action plan and it's come with a reiteration from the
Prime Minister that they're going to get on top of
the cost of living. It comes as surveys show that
Nationals lost voter's confidence in managing the issue, with many
voters now seeing Labor as the better party to tackle
the number of issues facing the country. Crime is another
major concern with a string of policy announcements in recent weeks,
(00:49):
but the opposition's attempts to weigh in on the subject
have only furthered the controversy. Today on the Front Page,
we speak to Newstalk zb's political editor Jason Walls about
what's behind the beehives top headlines lately and whether the
tide is turning when it comes to.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Who Kiwi's really trust.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
So jas another quarter, another action plan, but it looks
like the government's giving itself a bit less to do
with this new plan.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, I think Chris Luxon would push back on you
quite strongly on that one. In fact, it's exactly what
happened when he was asked that very question. He said
that some of the things that they're working on are
more sort of meaty options and more bigger, sort of
profile things that they're doing. So it's not that they're
doing less, it's the things that they're doing might take
a little bit more time. But I've always been quite
a fan of these quarterly action plans. I mean, the
(01:44):
way that the news is it was always going to
be the first one was the biggest and most exciting,
and then they would sort of peter off and not
be as newsworthy as they happen. But it's a good
way of the public having a good idea of what
the government is doing. It gives them a bit of
a roadmap to say, well, I can't be surprised at anything.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
That the government is doing.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's not to say that the government don't surprise by
doing things that aren't in the action plan. But one
of the big criticisms of the former government is this people,
particularly in business, were blindsided quite often by various different things.
I mean, think the oil and gas ban, the reserve
Bank's dual mandate, things like that which weren't as forecast
and as maybe that there should have been.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
So it's always been.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Something this government has touted itself on as being having
much more of a roadmap, especially for that business community.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Are there any major highlights from this one?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Listen, Honestly, I wouldn't say anything that I would stop
the press for and say, holy moly that this is happening.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
It's a lot of business as usual.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
But as a government, that's exactly what you want to
be doing midway through your first.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Term of government.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
You don't want to be doing anything particularly groundbreaking. You
want to reserve that closer to the time of the
election so you have a little bit more ammunition.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
But it's a lot of things that you would expect,
I say, Luckson's been quick to remind New Zealander is
that the cost of living is still front of mind.
The latest IPSOS and z Issues Monitor survey, which was
done immediately after the May budget, found that national had
lost a voter's confidence in managing inflation and the cost
of living. Labor was actually more trusted with what is
(03:15):
considered the main issue for the country at the moment.
Why do you think this is.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I was quite curious about that as well I saw
those numbers. It might be because people are just really
doing it tough and they're looking for somebody to blame.
And it would be the same case if labor was
in government, they would probably look to the oppositions. They
probably could do a better job, because it can't get
much worse than this. On inflation, it's a bit of
a strange one as well too, because it's the Reserve Bank.
(03:42):
It's their job to deal with inflation and it's their
mandate to keep that between one and three percent. But this,
I mean, the government can't really have its cake and
eat it too on this one. I mean it talks
so much about how the fact because it's brought down
at spending is a reason behind the fact that the
Reserve Bank has been able to reduce it's official cash rates.
So they can't exactly get upset and say, well, it's
(04:04):
the reserve banks fault when people stop blaming them for
the level of infletion as well.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
We wouldn't be the right way to look at it
just on sheer numbers. There's some complexity to a lot
of those actions. That we've got on that big pieces
of work. Ending in oil and gas band for example,
was a pretty big piece of work. And so it's
just making sure that we focus the public service. They
know exactly what we're focused on in the next three months.
We focus the ministers and the coalition government so they
know exactly what's needed to be delivered in the next
(04:32):
three months. All so that we can actually rebuild and
grow the economy, to lower the cost of living, make
sure that we restore law in order, and obviously deliver
a better public services, particularly in health and education.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, is the government doing actually anything directly to target
the cost of living today? I mean, they keep harping
on about the investment and growing the economy, but that's
not putting more money in your back pocket straight away
because that takes time, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
H Yeah, I mean, but people do forget about things
the tax cuts because it happened quite early on in
the government's tenure. You just have to look at the
counterfactual about how much tax you would be paying if
you didn't have those tax cuts. Now, the government will
consistently talk about things like that, and they'll always come
back to the fact that look we're not spending as
much money as the previous government. Yes, New Zealand's national
(05:18):
debt level as a net figure, is rising, but it's
not as fast as it has been in the past,
and as a proportion of GDP it's actually projected to
start going down soon as well. But what this government
does tend to forget about quite often is the fact
that the last government did have to deal with COVID
and that was no matter how you pitch it, no
(05:39):
matter your thoughts on the response, it was a big
economic shock to the economy.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Is this why supermarkets remain in the firing line?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
That was right up there on the quarterly Plan?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And Nikola Willis has been talking a bit about them recently,
But honestly, Jason, we've been talking about sorting out the
supermarkets for years and I'm so sick of hearing it's coming.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But nothing seems to add actually change.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
We're still seeing reports and stories about misleading prices and
the like every week.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, and Nicola Willis is always talking about how she's
going to bring them in line and they're on notice
and they should pull their socks up, But it doesn't
really seem that anything can pick really that tangible it
is happening.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I mean a couple of weeks ago, she sent a.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Couple of letters to say what her expectations were, and
I wouldn't think that a minister of the Crown needed
to do that. I just thought expectations were expectations. She
did have a point in the fact that these are
big the supermarkets that were eventually caught for this misleading
price information. She does make a good point that in
twenty twenty five this shouldn't be happening, and she does
(06:40):
have a responsibility to publicly rebuke them. But this just
consistently keeps happening. And it's They're an easy target for
a government because that is where the cost of living
crisis hits most people. It's where the rubber hits the road.
So they're an easy target. But the government actually at
some point needs to start putting us money where its
mouth is. It can do a thousand commerce inquiries into
(07:01):
the level of competition and find out, surprise, surprise, New
Zealand's only two major supermarket players have a monopoly or
a duopoly. You know who would have thought, But here
we are, and this is the situation that we're in.
I will say that, you know, there are some other
issues that the government and the supermarket can't really control.
The price of butter is in vogue at the moment,
(07:22):
it's because milk prices are quite high.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
The other side of.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
That coin, as farmers, you know, traditionally not really happy
all that often, we're actually quite happy about this because
it means it's more money in their back pocket.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
So it really depends how you spin it.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
The government has also, unsurprisingly been firing off a lot
of crime related and announcements in the last week, on
everything from coward punchers to trespassing to shoplifting.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
What's been the motivation here, Laura?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
In order week, they like.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
To have a theme of the week. In this week
they chose law and order. And again this is I mean,
it's a national government. You shouldn't be surprised to be
seeing these types of policies being unveiled by the NATS.
I mean a lot of them. Most people would agree with.
If somebody power punches somebody, they should be in jail
for a long time. If somebody is shoplifting, there should
be harsher consequences for that. It's pretty basic law and order.
(08:20):
Right wing politics, and I would even argue that it's
not really all that right wing, it's just sort of
a lot of it does seem to make sense. I mean,
the fact that they're making it more of a punishable
offense to assault frontline health workers, people like ambulance workers
and correction stuff. Again, these things make sense. So they're
really tapping into that idea that most of Middle New
(08:41):
Zealand would look at the fact that they're going a
bit harder on these very basic but very obvious crimes
and thinking we'll hang on a second, and that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I saw Green mpay Tamotha Pole suggested last week that
people with no money to buy food could turn to shoplifting,
which prompted, obviously Paul Goldsmith to say suggest the Greens
were excusing shoplifting. Do opposition parties need to tread carefully
perhaps when it comes to anything to do with law
and order, as to not be seen siding with offenders
(09:11):
because the government is so hard on a law and
order Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Well, I mean I think the Greens especially should probably
stay away from commenting on shoplifting. But that's a whole
other problem. But the thing with it, I mean, you're right,
it does kind of back them into a bit of
a corner here, because you don't want to be seen
to be siding with the people that hit somebody with
a card's punch, Like you don't want to be the
one saying, well, hang on a second, what was their motivation?
(09:35):
We don't want them in jail, and they seem to
have this the ethos behind it all is they don't
want more people in prison. They don't want these and
what they keep coming up with is these American style
mega prisons. But the government is being quite consistent. They're like,
we don't care as long as these people aren't on
the streets and the Greens, you know, you can you
can discount the way of thinking and say that it's
university style politics.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
That most people don't agree with.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
But if you look at their polling, they're actually up
higher than the likes of the app Party and they're
consistently pulling at about twelve percent. So there's nuts that
some people might say that their thinking is on some
of these issues. It still resonates with quite a few
people across the country, and Chloe Sawbrick is tapping into
that sort of more left wing side of New Zealand politics.
And has found quite a comfortable home.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And speaking of prime, Labour's Chris Hipkins got himself into
a bit of hot water over a throwaway line last
week on Newstalk zb's Wellington Mornings program.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Can I just quickly ask you there, we don't ever
hear of ram rage anymore?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Is that because of the system that you put in place?
Or is it since the coalition's come in now.
Speaker 6 (10:40):
It's because your Tory owners that enzied me have just
decided not to put it on the front page anymore.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It's still happening.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
It's just ensied me have decided that it's not in
the government's best interests and they do the National parties
singing for them, so they are. They're not covering it
as much anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It looks like he had support from some fellow Labor MPs,
but it feels like it's the latest in a string
of politicians targeting media that believe they're treating them unfairly.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Hey, just look at David Seymour and John Campbell.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, yeah, and I've noticed it quite a lot in
the press gallery.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
I mean David Seymour specifically was the first one to
be doing this.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
He comes to his press conferences with a camera crew
and then puts the whole thing on YouTube. And it's
the ones that don't do very well are the ones
where it's just him answering questions with the media, Whereas
nine times out of the ten that's what happens.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
But every time he gets into.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
A bit of a scuffle with a journalist, the video
is always David Seymour destroys wokey journalists or something like that,
and that gets thousands and thousands, sometimes even tens of
thousands of views, and you can start to see his
rhetoric changing a little bit when he's talking to reporters,
almost like he has a kpi to have a bit
of a clash so they.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Can get more views on YouTube. And I'm not saying
it's wrong.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I mean I think that if a political if a
political leader wants to have an entire exchange with the
media put on YouTube, that's absolute their prerogative. But I
think we just need to be quite clear on why
this is happening. I think it's a lot of it
is to generate outrage so you can have more people
looking at your videos.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
And seeing Chris Hipkins do it.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Was a bit strange because the center right, the center
parties that is, National and Labor don't haven't traditionally tended to.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Be doing these sorts of stuff. It was more for
the smaller.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Parties on the side to get a little bit more airtime.
So it was quite curious to see him having a
go at the quote unquote Tory owners of news talks
that'd be in the Herald. That's end Zeta me an
obvious reference to Steven Joyce, who used to be a
National Party cabinet minister and was a Finance minister for
some time, who is now the chairman of the board.
But what he was saying wasn't technically correct. He was
(12:43):
having a crack at the fact that we don't cover
ram raids as.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Much as we used to.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Well, as my colleague Thomas Coglin points out, it's because
there are fewer ram raids and they're not on the
front page of the Herald anymore because there are fewer
of them. And I think that he didn't really he
might have not understood that, or if he did, he
we just wanted to, you know, pull in a little
bit of Winston, pull in a little bit of symore.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Do you think this signals quite a different election campaign
ahead of next year's vote.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Yeah, I'm interested to see how the election is going
to play out, because we have seen in the past
year and a half that political parties are starting to
do a lot more of their own media and not
relying so much traditionally on the fourth estate, and I
am interested to see how that translates to an election campaign.
But at the end of the day, these political parties
(13:30):
will talk about how they don't want to interact with
the media, how we're all biased, how it's not as
good as it used to be.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
But then at the end of.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
The day, they will still send us their locations for
where the press damn ups are happening. They'll still still
send us their policies. They'll still interact with us the
same way that they always have. The only difference now
is that they'll take this sort of counter intuitive approach
about how bad that both the state is now when
really they need us more than ever.
Speaker 7 (13:58):
Well, I get that you were surprised we'd accept the interview.
I didn't, so there you. I gather you used the
sea word in reference to her. We were supposed to
regard you. I don't think I did that oh, fair enough,
maybe it was a misunderstanding, and I guess.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
To wrap up, Jason, I was wondering if any political
party or politician feels like they've particularly stood out recently
for the right or wrong reasons, what comes front of
mine to you.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, I mean I would say probably Tamatha Paul sticks
out for the wrong reasons coming out and again it
comes back to this idea of shoplifting. For the Greens,
it's just probably something that they shouldn't have touched. She
should have been able to identify the very very obvious
political risk in the Green Party talking about shoplifting.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
However, she will argue that it got.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
The Green Party view in the media, so she might say, well,
I did what I sort out to do as an MP.
In terms of people that have been doing quite well, listen,
it's been a recess week, so it's a lot harder
to pinpoint people that have done quite well, I guess
you know, Paul Goldsmith has been in the media quite
a lot for these law and order of these justice
policies and law and order weeks, so it's an easy
(15:10):
easy to point at him and say that he's been
doing some things that are you know what he's supposed
to be doing as a minister. But you know, it's
just been sort of a mid couple of weeks for
political for or four politicians, so it's quite hard to
pick them.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
I'll pick a youth youth MP instead.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Maybe, Yeah, go on, man, I don't know that.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I didn't I don't know their names, to be honest.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I had a lot of involvement in helping organizing it,
and so I was watching as they stood up in
the house and talked about how the youth have no
voice and then sat down and somebody else stood up
and talked in the house about the youth having no voice,
and I thought it was a little bit, a little
bit counterintuitive at times, but good on them for.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Having a crack right.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So no no future PM standing out just yet.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Oh, there's definitely a future Prime minister in there.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I mean, the thing that you find out about youth
Parliament is there's always a crop for future MPs. And
in fact, the likes of Chris Bishop and Katherine wab
who are at col Bates who are all National MPs now,
and Kamala Balleich who's a lead REMP, they all used
to be Eth MPs, so there's no doubt a few
of them in there.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Thanks for joining us, Jason, no problem at all. 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
(16:32):
sound engineer.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
behind the headlines.
Yoda.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Cost of living,
crime and supermarkets remain a source of concern for the government.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The Coalition has released its latest quarterly.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Action plan and it's come with a reiteration from the
Prime Minister that they're going to get on top of
the cost of living. It comes as surveys show that
Nationals lost voter's confidence in managing the issue, with many
voters now seeing Labor as the better party to tackle
the number of issues facing the country. Crime is another
major concern with a string of policy announcements in recent weeks,
(00:49):
but the opposition's attempts to weigh in on the subject
have only furthered the controversy. Today on the Front Page,
we speak to Newstalk zb's political editor Jason Walls about
what's behind the beehives top headlines lately and whether the
tide is turning when it comes to.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Who Kiwi's really trust.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
So jas another quarter, another action plan, but it looks
like the government's giving itself a bit less to do
with this new plan.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Tell me about it.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, I think Chris Luxon would push back on you
quite strongly on that one. In fact, it's exactly what
happened when he was asked that very question. He said
that some of the things that they're working on are
more sort of meaty options and more bigger, sort of
profile things that they're doing. So it's not that they're
doing less, it's the things that they're doing might take
a little bit more time. But I've always been quite
a fan of these quarterly action plans. I mean, the
(01:44):
way that the news is it was always going to
be the first one was the biggest and most exciting,
and then they would sort of peter off and not
be as newsworthy as they happen. But it's a good
way of the public having a good idea of what
the government is doing. It gives them a bit of
a roadmap to say, well, I can't be surprised at anything.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
That the government is doing.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's not to say that the government don't surprise by
doing things that aren't in the action plan. But one
of the big criticisms of the former government is this people,
particularly in business, were blindsided quite often by various different things.
I mean, think the oil and gas ban, the reserve
Bank's dual mandate, things like that which weren't as forecast
and as maybe that there should have been.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
So it's always been.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Something this government has touted itself on as being having
much more of a roadmap, especially for that business community.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Are there any major highlights from this one?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Listen, Honestly, I wouldn't say anything that I would stop
the press for and say, holy moly that this is happening.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
It's a lot of business as usual.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
But as a government, that's exactly what you want to
be doing midway through your first.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Term of government.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
You don't want to be doing anything particularly groundbreaking. You
want to reserve that closer to the time of the
election so you have a little bit more ammunition.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
But it's a lot of things that you would expect,
I say, Luckson's been quick to remind New Zealander is
that the cost of living is still front of mind.
The latest IPSOS and z Issues Monitor survey, which was
done immediately after the May budget, found that national had
lost a voter's confidence in managing inflation and the cost
of living. Labor was actually more trusted with what is
(03:15):
considered the main issue for the country at the moment.
Why do you think this is.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I was quite curious about that as well I saw
those numbers. It might be because people are just really
doing it tough and they're looking for somebody to blame.
And it would be the same case if labor was
in government, they would probably look to the oppositions. They
probably could do a better job, because it can't get
much worse than this. On inflation, it's a bit of
a strange one as well too, because it's the Reserve Bank.
(03:42):
It's their job to deal with inflation and it's their
mandate to keep that between one and three percent. But this,
I mean, the government can't really have its cake and
eat it too on this one. I mean it talks
so much about how the fact because it's brought down
at spending is a reason behind the fact that the
Reserve Bank has been able to reduce it's official cash rates.
So they can't exactly get upset and say, well, it's
(04:04):
the reserve banks fault when people stop blaming them for
the level of infletion as well.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
We wouldn't be the right way to look at it
just on sheer numbers. There's some complexity to a lot
of those actions. That we've got on that big pieces
of work. Ending in oil and gas band for example,
was a pretty big piece of work. And so it's
just making sure that we focus the public service. They
know exactly what we're focused on in the next three months.
We focus the ministers and the coalition government so they
know exactly what's needed to be delivered in the next
(04:32):
three months. All so that we can actually rebuild and
grow the economy, to lower the cost of living, make
sure that we restore law in order, and obviously deliver
a better public services, particularly in health and education.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, is the government doing actually anything directly to target
the cost of living today? I mean, they keep harping
on about the investment and growing the economy, but that's
not putting more money in your back pocket straight away
because that takes time, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
H Yeah, I mean, but people do forget about things
the tax cuts because it happened quite early on in
the government's tenure. You just have to look at the
counterfactual about how much tax you would be paying if
you didn't have those tax cuts. Now, the government will
consistently talk about things like that, and they'll always come
back to the fact that look we're not spending as
much money as the previous government. Yes, New Zealand's national
(05:18):
debt level as a net figure, is rising, but it's
not as fast as it has been in the past,
and as a proportion of GDP it's actually projected to
start going down soon as well. But what this government
does tend to forget about quite often is the fact
that the last government did have to deal with COVID
and that was no matter how you pitch it, no
(05:39):
matter your thoughts on the response, it was a big
economic shock to the economy.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Is this why supermarkets remain in the firing line?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
That was right up there on the quarterly Plan?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And Nikola Willis has been talking a bit about them recently,
But honestly, Jason, we've been talking about sorting out the
supermarkets for years and I'm so sick of hearing it's coming.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But nothing seems to add actually change.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
We're still seeing reports and stories about misleading prices and
the like every week.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, and Nicola Willis is always talking about how she's
going to bring them in line and they're on notice
and they should pull their socks up, But it doesn't
really seem that anything can pick really that tangible it
is happening.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I mean a couple of weeks ago, she sent a.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Couple of letters to say what her expectations were, and
I wouldn't think that a minister of the Crown needed
to do that. I just thought expectations were expectations. She
did have a point in the fact that these are
big the supermarkets that were eventually caught for this misleading
price information. She does make a good point that in
twenty twenty five this shouldn't be happening, and she does
(06:40):
have a responsibility to publicly rebuke them. But this just
consistently keeps happening. And it's They're an easy target for
a government because that is where the cost of living
crisis hits most people. It's where the rubber hits the road.
So they're an easy target. But the government actually at
some point needs to start putting us money where its
mouth is. It can do a thousand commerce inquiries into
(07:01):
the level of competition and find out, surprise, surprise, New
Zealand's only two major supermarket players have a monopoly or
a duopoly. You know who would have thought, But here
we are, and this is the situation that we're in.
I will say that, you know, there are some other
issues that the government and the supermarket can't really control.
The price of butter is in vogue at the moment,
(07:22):
it's because milk prices are quite high.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
The other side of.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
That coin, as farmers, you know, traditionally not really happy
all that often, we're actually quite happy about this because
it means it's more money in their back pocket.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
So it really depends how you spin it.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
The government has also, unsurprisingly been firing off a lot
of crime related and announcements in the last week, on
everything from coward punchers to trespassing to shoplifting.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
What's been the motivation here, Laura?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
In order week, they like.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
To have a theme of the week. In this week
they chose law and order. And again this is I mean,
it's a national government. You shouldn't be surprised to be
seeing these types of policies being unveiled by the NATS.
I mean a lot of them. Most people would agree with.
If somebody power punches somebody, they should be in jail
for a long time. If somebody is shoplifting, there should
be harsher consequences for that. It's pretty basic law and order.
(08:20):
Right wing politics, and I would even argue that it's
not really all that right wing, it's just sort of
a lot of it does seem to make sense. I mean,
the fact that they're making it more of a punishable
offense to assault frontline health workers, people like ambulance workers
and correction stuff. Again, these things make sense. So they're
really tapping into that idea that most of Middle New
(08:41):
Zealand would look at the fact that they're going a
bit harder on these very basic but very obvious crimes
and thinking we'll hang on a second, and that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I saw Green mpay Tamotha Pole suggested last week that
people with no money to buy food could turn to shoplifting,
which prompted, obviously Paul Goldsmith to say suggest the Greens
were excusing shoplifting. Do opposition parties need to tread carefully
perhaps when it comes to anything to do with law
and order, as to not be seen siding with offenders
(09:11):
because the government is so hard on a law and
order Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Well, I mean I think the Greens especially should probably
stay away from commenting on shoplifting. But that's a whole
other problem. But the thing with it, I mean, you're right,
it does kind of back them into a bit of
a corner here, because you don't want to be seen
to be siding with the people that hit somebody with
a card's punch, Like you don't want to be the
one saying, well, hang on a second, what was their motivation?
(09:35):
We don't want them in jail, and they seem to
have this the ethos behind it all is they don't
want more people in prison. They don't want these and
what they keep coming up with is these American style
mega prisons. But the government is being quite consistent. They're like,
we don't care as long as these people aren't on
the streets and the Greens, you know, you can you
can discount the way of thinking and say that it's
university style politics.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
That most people don't agree with.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
But if you look at their polling, they're actually up
higher than the likes of the app Party and they're
consistently pulling at about twelve percent. So there's nuts that
some people might say that their thinking is on some
of these issues. It still resonates with quite a few
people across the country, and Chloe Sawbrick is tapping into
that sort of more left wing side of New Zealand politics.
And has found quite a comfortable home.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And speaking of prime, Labour's Chris Hipkins got himself into
a bit of hot water over a throwaway line last
week on Newstalk zb's Wellington Mornings program.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Can I just quickly ask you there, we don't ever
hear of ram rage anymore?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Is that because of the system that you put in place?
Or is it since the coalition's come in now.
Speaker 6 (10:40):
It's because your Tory owners that enzied me have just
decided not to put it on the front page anymore.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It's still happening.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
It's just ensied me have decided that it's not in
the government's best interests and they do the National parties
singing for them, so they are. They're not covering it
as much anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It looks like he had support from some fellow Labor MPs,
but it feels like it's the latest in a string
of politicians targeting media that believe they're treating them unfairly.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Hey, just look at David Seymour and John Campbell.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, yeah, and I've noticed it quite a lot in
the press gallery.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
I mean David Seymour specifically was the first one to
be doing this.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
He comes to his press conferences with a camera crew
and then puts the whole thing on YouTube. And it's
the ones that don't do very well are the ones
where it's just him answering questions with the media, Whereas
nine times out of the ten that's what happens.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
But every time he gets into.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
A bit of a scuffle with a journalist, the video
is always David Seymour destroys wokey journalists or something like that,
and that gets thousands and thousands, sometimes even tens of
thousands of views, and you can start to see his
rhetoric changing a little bit when he's talking to reporters,
almost like he has a kpi to have a bit
of a clash so they.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Can get more views on YouTube. And I'm not saying
it's wrong.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I mean I think that if a political if a
political leader wants to have an entire exchange with the
media put on YouTube, that's absolute their prerogative. But I
think we just need to be quite clear on why
this is happening. I think it's a lot of it
is to generate outrage so you can have more people
looking at your videos.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
And seeing Chris Hipkins do it.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Was a bit strange because the center right, the center
parties that is, National and Labor don't haven't traditionally tended to.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Be doing these sorts of stuff. It was more for
the smaller.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Parties on the side to get a little bit more airtime.
So it was quite curious to see him having a
go at the quote unquote Tory owners of news talks
that'd be in the Herald. That's end Zeta me an
obvious reference to Steven Joyce, who used to be a
National Party cabinet minister and was a Finance minister for
some time, who is now the chairman of the board.
But what he was saying wasn't technically correct. He was
(12:43):
having a crack at the fact that we don't cover
ram raids as.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Much as we used to.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Well, as my colleague Thomas Coglin points out, it's because
there are fewer ram raids and they're not on the
front page of the Herald anymore because there are fewer
of them. And I think that he didn't really he
might have not understood that, or if he did, he
we just wanted to, you know, pull in a little
bit of Winston, pull in a little bit of symore.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Do you think this signals quite a different election campaign
ahead of next year's vote.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Yeah, I'm interested to see how the election is going
to play out, because we have seen in the past
year and a half that political parties are starting to
do a lot more of their own media and not
relying so much traditionally on the fourth estate, and I
am interested to see how that translates to an election campaign.
But at the end of the day, these political parties
(13:30):
will talk about how they don't want to interact with
the media, how we're all biased, how it's not as
good as it used to be.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
But then at the end of.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
The day, they will still send us their locations for
where the press damn ups are happening. They'll still still
send us their policies. They'll still interact with us the
same way that they always have. The only difference now
is that they'll take this sort of counter intuitive approach
about how bad that both the state is now when
really they need us more than ever.
Speaker 7 (13:58):
Well, I get that you were surprised we'd accept the interview.
I didn't, so there you. I gather you used the
sea word in reference to her. We were supposed to
regard you. I don't think I did that oh, fair enough,
maybe it was a misunderstanding, and I guess.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
To wrap up, Jason, I was wondering if any political
party or politician feels like they've particularly stood out recently
for the right or wrong reasons, what comes front of
mine to you.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, I mean I would say probably Tamatha Paul sticks
out for the wrong reasons coming out and again it
comes back to this idea of shoplifting. For the Greens,
it's just probably something that they shouldn't have touched. She
should have been able to identify the very very obvious
political risk in the Green Party talking about shoplifting.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
However, she will argue that it got.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
The Green Party view in the media, so she might say, well,
I did what I sort out to do as an MP.
In terms of people that have been doing quite well, listen,
it's been a recess week, so it's a lot harder
to pinpoint people that have done quite well, I guess
you know, Paul Goldsmith has been in the media quite
a lot for these law and order of these justice
policies and law and order weeks, so it's an easy
(15:10):
easy to point at him and say that he's been
doing some things that are you know what he's supposed
to be doing as a minister. But you know, it's
just been sort of a mid couple of weeks for
political for or four politicians, so it's quite hard to
pick them.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
I'll pick a youth youth MP instead.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Maybe, Yeah, go on, man, I don't know that.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I didn't I don't know their names, to be honest.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I had a lot of involvement in helping organizing it,
and so I was watching as they stood up in
the house and talked about how the youth have no
voice and then sat down and somebody else stood up
and talked in the house about the youth having no voice,
and I thought it was a little bit, a little
bit counterintuitive at times, but good on them for.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Having a crack right.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So no no future PM standing out just yet.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Oh, there's definitely a future Prime minister in there.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I mean, the thing that you find out about youth
Parliament is there's always a crop for future MPs. And
in fact, the likes of Chris Bishop and Katherine wab
who are at col Bates who are all National MPs now,
and Kamala Balleich who's a lead REMP, they all used
to be Eth MPs, so there's no doubt a few
of them in there.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Thanks for joining us, Jason, no problem at all. 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
(16:32):
sound engineer.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
behind the headlines.
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