Leighton Smith Podcast #242 - June 5th 2024 - Oliver Hartwitch - The Leighton Smith Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talks at B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
the information, all the debates of the US Now the
Leyton Smith Podcast powered by News Talks it B.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to Podcasts two hundred and forty two. For June five,
twenty twenty four. Oliver Hardrich, Executive Director of the New
Zealand Institute, on the twenty twenty four budget, the good
and the disappointing. We have some basics and expand discussion
to other realms such as Switzerland, the UK election and

(00:50):
the future of the Tory Party, New Zealand, economic growth
and productivity and will it really take fifteen years until
twenty forty for the economy to be righted? And then
from seemingly out of nowhere, we found ourselves talking about
what is known as the delectable lives multiculturalism, and that's

(01:11):
a very interesting little segment. Then at the back end
of two forty two, we look at the lost generation,
lost in the underbelly of a dysfunctional, fatherless society. A
psychologist reports from two thousand and nine, when things were
bad and with considerable foresight, predicts what will take place

(01:31):
if nothing's done about it, and today we live with
the consequences of inaction. Don't miss it. But first a
quick word on something that I know that you're curious about,
the next US president. The jury verdict in the Trump
case came out the day after last week's podcast. That
was frustrating, But there has been and there will be

(01:54):
so much written and said on the case. It requires
what you might call a record setting length podcast on
my part in order to address it. But here is
my brief take. The case will be studied in law
classes forever. It will in the end go down as
the most corrupt court room in American history, with the

(02:16):
judge and the prosecutor setting new lows, and I mean
really new lows in legal ethics. But I want to
quote you a little bit of a little bit of
detail there was. As we've heard since that decision was announced,
we've heard how much money the Trump campaign has raised.
But it doesn't stop there. Trump campaign says it raised

(02:38):
fifty three million within a day of his New York verdict.
The ultra wealthy Republican donors are rallying behind the former
US President Donald Trump following his historical trial and criminal conviction.
But there is much more. There was an announcement made
on my phone as I as I was working this morning,

(03:00):
and I'll get to that in a second, because it
follows on from this. Among the billionaires who have been
turning and supporting Trump are Silicon Valley investor David Sachs,
who posted on X that there is now only one
issue in this election, whether the American people will stand
for the USA becoming a banana republic. And he's right

(03:24):
on target, over and above what matters about Trump, That's
the most important thing. On June sixth, mister Sachs and
fellow investor Cheamus I don't know how to pronounce his
second name, are planning to host a fundraiser for Trump
in San Francisco. Attendees are reportedly being asked to contribute

(03:44):
as much as three hundred thousand dollars each. Now, while
I was while I was working, my phone came up
with an X release that fundraiser had sold out not
just for three hundred thousand an individual, but for five
hundred thousand four a couple, and they expect during the

(04:06):
course of the function to raise many many more millions.
Now the list of billionaires who are racing to his
support is shocking a lot of people because, especially when
it comes to Silicon Valley, because they're turning in their
droves because they realize finally that they were backing the

(04:28):
wrong horse all along. Now there's another article I want
to make a quick reference to, and and it's sort
of personal, and it's a bit lighting and in its
tone for this simple reason. From a site by James
Howard Kunstler. It's almost as if the principles, the prosecutors,
and the judge were performing for their political audience with

(04:48):
a wink and a nod and a stage whisper. Watch
this as they ignore yet another fundamental element of American
due process. The ninnies of Biden world seem to not
understand that by subjecting mister Trump to a kangaroo court,
they've made him the kind of outdoor that Americans revere
above every other archetypal hero. I just got to say

(05:11):
here at this point, the first hero in my life
was Robin Hood. He is the new Robin Hood, the
people's outlaw, with Joe Biden relegated as the wicked sir guy,
of Gisbon, master of foul play, and servant of the
evil Regent Prince John in Braggan's Barack Obama. The galvanizing
moment of this melodrama was not the verdict of the

(05:33):
judge one Merchant's Kangaroo Corral of a Court, but the
next day in the White House, when Joe Biden was
asked to comment on it, as he shuffled away from
the podium, halted, turned and smirked silently at the cameras,
a gesture that is sure to live in infamy. If

(05:55):
you didn't see that, you need to if you ever
get a chance, because it's just picture has a million words.
The fund should really kick in when the judge gets
to sentenced Trump the outlaw on July eleven, a few
days before the Republican Convention, et cetera, et cetera. Now,
in a sane world, of course, the US Supreme Court
would be entreated to adjudicate this gross insult to due process,

(06:18):
as spelled out in Section one of the fourteenth Amendment.
And this is where I'm going to terminate it in
a second, because this is just one example, but it's
a prime example of the corruption of the court here
is Section one of the Fourteenth Amendment. No State shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges

(06:42):
or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall
any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property
with our due process of law, nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Which you might have noticed that this is not a
sane world, at least not these days. Now. The point

(07:04):
being is the prosecution and the judge work together to
smash Section one of the fourteenth Amendment. And that's only
one example corruption beyond belief. Now in a moment, Oliver Hartwitch,

(07:26):
now some words from a very happy customer of wet
and forget on window which I purchased some window Witch recently,
and I'm thrilled with the product. I cleaned the ground
level of our home, the big conservatory and the glass
balustrades in about forty five minutes, nothing short of brilliant results.
Yet's another happy customer. And why are we surprised? Window

(07:47):
which exterior glass cleaner is the Bears window cleaner? Ever
it is streak free, no need to squeegee ever again
because of the invisible liquid squeegee window which is your
concentrate and garden sprayer all in one window which is
a combination of smart surfucants that dissolve crime and window
which has a unique formula that contains citrate water so

(08:08):
ofteners and high performance additives to sheet water from the window,
eliminating water spotting. So help yourself. Window Witch from wet
and Forget over twenty company standalone stores nationwide Wetinforget dot
co dot NZ or you can call them on a
weight hundred and three zero three thousand window Witch from
wet and Forget.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Laighton Smith.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Oliver Hartwich is the executive director of the New Zealand Initiative.
He's been on the podcast on a number of occasions
over the years and it's always a pleasure to say
thank you if you're agreeing to discuss the budget with
us and other matters, because this conversation won't be restricted
just to the budget, but Oliver from your own perspective

(09:00):
and or from the Initiative's perspective collectively, if you want,
what is your overall take on this budget?

Speaker 3 (09:08):
But first of all, lighton. Great to be with you again.
Always a pleasure to talk to you. And as for
the budget, well, I wasn't disappointed, but that was only
because I didn't have high expectations. The budget was disappointing,
perhaps in one way, until we get back to twenty
nineteen spending levels. Remember that was Grant Robertson's well being budget.

(09:31):
This budget now reveals we'll have to wait until twenty
thirty eight, and I think that sums up this budget
in a nutshell. It is I would say, not very ambitious,
which is also perhaps a bit disappointing if you consider
that this is, of course the new government's first budget,
and usually first budgets are the most ambitious of them all,

(09:51):
because that's when they still think they have a mandate
to be a bit more radical, to try a few
more things, and then usually governments actually lose that ambition
gradually over the years. So for a first budget, I
would have liked to see a bit more ambition to
bring spending levels back underc because right now they aren't.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
You've actually introduced something that I wasn't anticipating for a while,
so now I will park it just for the minute.
But where would you suggest they could have curbed the
ambitions that they that they are exercising well.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
The thing is, if you just go back five years
to that twenty nineteen Well Being Budget, that was when
Jasinda Adern and Grant Robertson introduced their new vision for
fiscal policy, and spending in that Well Being Budget was
about twenty nine percent of GDP and it was celebrated
as something progressive and ambitious from a kind of progressive

(10:49):
side of politics perspective, and nobody would have accused Adirn
and Robertson of being driven by austerity or by the
wish to slash government spending. We now have a government
budget delivered by a National led government that promises to
spend thirty three percent of GDP, and yet people are
going crazy over how austerity driven this budget is, when

(11:12):
in fact they're spending four percent of GDP more than
the Adern government did in their first Well Being budget.
And that's what I find astonishing. Actually, So when Adurn
spends twenty nine percent, people think this is really generous,
and when Nicola Willis spends thirty three percent, people say
this is actually quite austere. And what I would have

(11:33):
liked to see in this budget now is actually a
pathway back to where we were before overd and ideally
where we were in twenty seventeen before Adurn took over.
But the pathway to that physical normality is exceedingly long.
So if you have to wait fourteen years just to
go back to where we were in twenty nineteen, I

(11:54):
don't think that is very ambitious. The other thing I
would just mention is actually we have seen enormous spending
increases over the last few years. We just looked into
them the other day and found that in twenty nineteen
we of course projected where we would be today, and
so we could actually compare these figures now and realize that,

(12:14):
for example, in health, we are currently spending eight billion
dollars more then we would have anticipated just five years ago.
And then you ask yourself, okay, so we're spending eight
billion dollars more in health even compared to what we
thought we would, And yet where is all of that
money and what has it achieved? Because I haven't actually

(12:35):
seen any great improvements in health delivery. What we have
seen is of course a massive reorganization of the health sector,
where we got ready for DHBs, where we created a
new our Health authority, where we instituted a lot new
kind of organizational structures without actually seeing any results. So
if you're asking where I would have liked to see
an emphasis in this budget is actually trying to curb

(12:58):
all of these structures, all of this spending that doesn't
yield any results, and in doing so then point a
clearer pathway back to physical normality.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
So the obviously question is why didn't they do it.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Well? And the obvious answer is because it's totally hard,
because you're coming from a perspective where the budget is broken,
and not because of their own faults, but because of
everything that happened in the six years prior so. The
previous government really tested the limits of spending to destruction.
They created an almighty mess in fiscal policy. The left

(13:34):
a lot of pistol cliffs in the budget, meaning they
basically said we're going to fund stuff, but only really
funded them for the next year or two, and so
they left fiscal holes everywhere across government policy for the
new government to clean up. So, coming into that situation
now and with just a year actually in government, it

(13:55):
is difficult for any government to turn this around. And
I understand that a lot of the changes required will
also take years to think welfare spending. The previous government
did not actually enforce welfare rules, eligibility rules, and we
filled the welfare roles with people who shouldn't have been there.
That is enormously costly, and to turn that around will

(14:15):
take a long time. You probably can't do that overnight.
I mean, for all the things done over six years,
you can't expect them to fix it in a couple
of months. But I would have still liked to see
a clearer pathway out of this mess and a clearer
ambition to saying, look, we really want to go back
to where we once were as a country.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Okay, then let me ask you a reverse question. What
would you would like to have seen done? What could
they have done to head back in that direction that
would have won them plowed it well?

Speaker 3 (14:48):
There are small line items in the budget where you
can see that they probably didn't really go through the
budget with a fine tooth code. For example, subsidies for
the film industry. They are still running over forty million dollars.
Now you ask yourself, is that really something that you
want to do?

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Well?

Speaker 3 (15:06):
The rest of the budget is deep in the I
would have actually thought no, you can probably go a
bit harder on that. Next thing is they have issued
a blank target to government departments to cut between six
and a half and seven and a half percent spending,
and we have seen initial cuts of course to public
sector employment public service employment to be more specific. Well,

(15:29):
I think this could go a lot further, because we
know we started from forty seven thousand public servants in
twenty seventeen. We are now at a level of about
sixty five thousand. They cut about two or maybe three thousand,
but there's a long way to go on until we
go back to the levels we previously had.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Was it wise? I wonder to not take the big leap,
but the small step at this particular point, because well,
the best reason I can suggest for it is that
by making all of those people unemployed, it would create
an extra cost in welfare and put far too many

(16:09):
people on the unemployment list in a country that is
not really creating jobs.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
No, I don't think so for a moment. And I mean,
you wouldn't seriously suggest that all those people now employed
by the public service in Wellington are so poorly qualified
that they wouldn't find jobs elsewhere, would you.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, if I was going to be honest, I'd say
that I'd question how employable they were, otherwise they might
not be in the public service.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
There was a bit tongue in cheek anyway, but seriously,
there is no justification for employing that many people here
in Wellington. I mean, you look at individual departments and
you can see how much they have ballooned. My favorite
example is still the Ministry of Education that started its
life after the Department of Education in the early two

(17:01):
thousands on about four hundred people, and it's gone up
to about four and a half thousand. So we have
more bureaucrats in that ministry that we have schools in
the country. And I think you would probably find it
easy to cut back a little bit there.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Okay, I mentioned you took took us somewhere that I
wasn't going to go for a bit. The date of
thirty eight, twenty thirty eight, The date that I saw
that caught my attention and the really frustrated me was
twenty forty. That figgure has been mentioned in a couple
of opinion pieces. Twenty forty is when we are basically

(17:38):
looking for the country to reappear on the international scene
at any at any strength or level. Of strength twenty forty. Well,
you mentioned fourteen years, So fourteen or fifteen years from now,
that's what we're aiming at. And I couldn't agree with
you more that if we're looking that far ahead before

(18:00):
we can expect any real improvements. Then I repeat something
that somebody said to me just recently in answer to
a question. I said, how bad is it? And the
answer was very very, very bad or words that meant
the same. I don't remember exactly the quote, but extremely

(18:22):
bad was the state of the.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Country, Yes, and I would agree with that. I also
think actually twenty forty or thirty eight, as shocking as
it seems, is a realistic prospect for getting things back
under control, because in some of our areas of government
policy or problems are so enormous that it will take
a long long time to fix them. Again, talk about education.

(18:47):
So we have an education system that is currently plagued
by low attendance rates. So only forty six percent of
our school students are now attending school regularly, meaning at
least ninety percent of the time. We have seen our
results in international studies go back over decades. So think
of PISA and Timson Pearls that's going backwards. And we

(19:12):
now also have a new generation of teachers recently revealed
in a study by the ends at IR in New
Zealand Institute of Economic Research, where a huge proportion of
our young teachers have actually failed maths in English in
their own school time. So if you want to rebuild
a system with that kind of personnel, it's going to

(19:35):
be hard because we have plenty of teachers now in
our schools who have probably never seen what a good
school looks like, not even in their own experience. So
all of these reforms that we're doing now that my
colleague Michael Johnson is working on now as chair of
Erica Stanford's Ministerial Advisory Group, they are the right things
to do, except you can't expect results overnight. They will

(19:57):
take years to work their way through the system. I'm
not saying it will take until twenty forty, but you
can't expect an overnight improvement in our education results. That
will take a long time because the system is fundamentally broken.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Which part of it is fundamentally broken the teaching?

Speaker 3 (20:15):
Do you say which part is fundamentally broken? I would
say which part isn't Because practically everything in our education
system is not fit for purpose. You look at some
teacher training, well, we know actually from our own research
here the Initiative, that our young teachers do not get
the training that would actually prepare them for standing in

(20:37):
front of a classroom. You look at the way we're
teaching literacy and numeracy, and we know again from our
own research that for decades we've been going in the
wrong direction on both and we now have about forty
to fifty percent of school leavers leaving school functionally illiterate
and enumerate. What else of the system is not working? Well,

(20:57):
we could talk about what students do after leaving school.
Our vocational education system is broken after the forced amalgamation
of the politics into poking on and what it is
ours that has been We could then talk about a
university system, and again we hosted a symposium just a
few weeks ago at the Initiative we talked about the
state of university education New Zealand, and it is broken

(21:19):
on practically every level. You talk about free speech, academic freedom,
and universities. You talk about the financial financial situation of universities.
It is not a pretty picture. So no matter what
aspect of the education system you're looking at. It is
under enormous pressure and it will take a long time
to fix it.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
You didn't actually use the word curriculum.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
Well, that's probably because I forgot to mention it, because
there's so many other things that are wrong. I mean,
the curriculum is another field which is fundamentally broken because actually,
let's face it, we don't really have a proper curriculum
right now. It is a flimsy document that doesn't actually
give you any proper guidance on what students are supposed
to learn our school. And the flip side of the curriculum,

(22:00):
of course, is the assessment system that also needs to
be reformed, because at the moment, the assessment system is
geared towards ensuring that every students enough points to get
a certificate at the end, whether they learned anything before
or not. I mean, all of these areas are areas
of reform right now. So Erica Stanford is doing exactly
the right things across the whole board of education problems.

(22:24):
But even with the best efforts, we shouldn't expect miracles
from America Stanford. I'm a huge fan of Erica Stanford's work.
Don't get me wrong, and I think she's doing exactly
the right things. But I think it would be unfair
to measure her by successes that she would have had
in a year or two, because from where we are
coming from, this is going to be a very, very
long process.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
I interviewed somebody last week in the podcast Militia Grisola
from a primary school in West Sydney. I was talking
with some people yesterday about it, and the comment I
got was how good she was, and they were very
enthusiastic about what she had to say. And then one

(23:05):
of them said, yeah, but it's all just come and sense,
isn't it. And that created another discussion about the lack
of common sense. Common sense is not common anymore, and
for so many of those students who become teachers, they
have no idea about basics and common sense lit alone

(23:26):
getting a decent enough of education be able to teach
the curriculum whatever it might.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
That's right, that's right. And I listened to your interview
last week and I also came back with the same
impression that this is just common sense. She reminded me
very much of Katherine Berbertsing, another fantastic mistress. The head
of mikhaela School in London in Wembley, and for years,
of course Katherine Berbertsing has been on that mission to

(23:51):
introduce common sense back into the British education system with
enormously positive results. So it's probably now the best school
anywhere you can find in England, and it's based on
common sense, on actually teaching the basics and teaching them well,
i'll give you another exam. But we visited Ireland last
year with a delegation of the New Zealand Initiative and

(24:12):
we had a session with the Irish Education Ministry in
Dublin and they talked us through their basic strategies and
what they're trying to achieve. They taught us how they
measure success and how they're tracking their interventions, and you know,
we all sat there and thought, well, wouldn't it be
nice to hear something like that from our own education
ministry because there was none of this kind of modernist

(24:34):
nonsense that you often get, and none of the languages
that you wouldn't even understand because they sounds so sociological.
It was just good old common sense and trying to
make sure that their students get a decent education that
they learn how to read and write and do maths
and get a basic science education, and then tracking the
progress of their schools. It was just so refreshing to

(24:55):
hear that from a ministry because we haven't had that
kind of conversation with a ministry for years.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Okay, I want to stay with Militia Grizzuola just for
a moment longer. There are teachers who have no idea
about the way that she approaches things as a principal
of a school, but she outlines the way that she
trained some of those teachers that came to her school,
And the best part of it all, as far as

(25:20):
I was concerned, was right at the very end of
the discussion where she said the first thing she says
to a new teacher that arrives, sits them down and
talks to them and says, everything you learned at university,
forget it, and then retrains them. Famili, Do we not
just need a handful even of principles who are capable

(25:43):
of taking that approach.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Yes, we need these principles, and principles play a massive
role in our education system, but it shouldn't be up
to the principles to undo the damage done by university
education departments. I mean, ideally, you wouldn't want to have
any damage to correct in the first place, So we
should probably go back to proper teacher education as we

(26:06):
once had it. I mean today, when you look at
teacher education that happens predominantly at our universities, these teachers
are getting sociology lessons basically, but they're never really taught
practically what it means to stand in front of a classroom.
So we produced a report at the initiative last year
that was by my colleague Michael Johnston with his or

(26:26):
researcher Stephanie Martin. And Stephanie is a teacher herself, and
she writes up in that introductory chapter of the report,
which you can find on our website, her experience of
studying to become a teacher at the University of Auckland
and then realizing how useless that all education was once
she actually stood in front of first students for the
first time. So we've got a problem. It shouldn't be

(26:49):
actually left to the principles to undo the damage. Ideally
we would actually provide our teachers a decent education in
the first place.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yes, but you've got to start somewhere and working in
reverse is probably going to get you the fastest result. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Well, but what you can also do is, of course
you can establish an alternative teacher education system training system,
and we have some parts of that already operating in
the country. There is one training college in christ Church
that does it that way in cooperation with the schools
where the teacher's actually in practical experience. And from what
I've heard, a number of Auckland schools are now thinking

(27:26):
about pulling out of university teacher education by organizing their
own training courses.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
That's the best news I've heard today. Education is something
we spend so much time on and yet and yet
the results of the old discussion and the nitpicking seems
to have got us nowhere to date. But your confidence
in the new minister, I think is probably quite valid

(27:53):
and I'm looking forward to those results.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
Cars I'm optimistic, I would say, because I can see
it on a daily basis here in the office. My
colleague Michael Johnston chairs Erica Stanford's Minister Advisory Group, and
therefore every now and then I get a bit of
an insight into what's happening and the amount of reform
work they're doing, and I'm hugely impressed. It's the kind
of education reforms that for years we've only been talking

(28:18):
about and now they're happening. So for the first time,
really in twelve years of doing education, working at the initiative,
I'm really optimistic.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Let's look at some of the other aspects of the budget,
I think, just briefly, because it's had so much coverage already.
Tax changes. Is there anything worthwhile in the tax changes?

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Oh, let's talk about this in parts. I mean, I
understand why the government went ahead with the tax cuts
simply for political reasons. I've had this discussion with ministers
and actually with the Prime Minister themselves, and I argued, actually,
you probably shouldn't look at text cuts while the budget
is in such a big structural deficit, because you only

(29:00):
make your pistal consolidation job harder for yourselves. And the
answer I always got from the government was, look, promises
when we campaigned, we now have to deliver because otherwise
we'll lose all our credibility or political credibility just half
a year into the job. And I understand that political
calculus to a degree. I would say though that I

(29:22):
think most people would be understanding if you told them, Look,
we just took over. We found all the physical cliffs
and physical rules, and yes we promised you tax belief,
but we found a situation that is much much worse
and even we anticipated, and therefore we can't deliver it
just yet. This will have to wait maybe until next
year or the year after. I think people would have
understood that. So that's the political side of things. On

(29:45):
the economic side of things, I think it's clearer. We
are running the second largest structural deficit in the developed world.
There's only one country that has a higher structural deficit
than us in that's the United States. There's a small
difference between New Zealand and the United States because the
United States can print US dollars and somehow the world
things that US dollars are still useful. Therefore they get

(30:08):
away with this fiscal perflicacy. When Easiland, the situation is different.
We can't get away with structural deficits. And I should
probably explain what structural deficits are. So basically, a structural
deficit is a deficit. Yet you would have in a
normal year, So when the economy is not particularly booming,
when it's not in particular in a particular recession, but
just in a normal year, whether your taxes and your

(30:32):
spending actually end up. And on that measure, we are
currently running a massive structural deficit, and that is just
not sustainable because it would mean that if you do
this long enough, the country will go broke. Therefore, I
would have prioritized consolidating the budget, consolidating our finances and
basically closing this fiscal deficit and the structural deficit before

(30:56):
even contemplating any text cuts. So that's one thing to
look out. There is another way of looking at it economically,
which again perhaps makes the government's case a bit more
and that is the text inaxation issue, because actually, let's
face it, what we got now wasn't even a real
tax cut in that sense. It was basically just restoring
the tax brackets to a state where they would have

(31:18):
been had they been adjusted to normal inflation. And that
I think makes good sense in principle, and I think
we should probably make this a general rule that every
year the tax brackets automatically get adjusted by say, the
consumer price index. And that would also make this less
political because everybody would know this is happening on an

(31:40):
annual basis, and every year we get them adjusted just
in line with inflation. So I think that would make
sense to actually move to such a system in the
long run, well in the medium term hopefully, But right
now I would have on balance come down to keeping
the tax brackets just for this year as they are
because of his Scoo. Situation is so dire and we

(32:01):
probably can't afford as if tax adjustments, even they are
not even amounting to much of a tax cut.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Let me approach a couple of other aspects, the forecasts
that we've already discussed, and as I read through them
again in a couple of opinion pieces as well as
I read as I read through them, I thought, this
is all guesswork. The last few years have shown us
on two major fronts. COVID secondly, but the irresponsibility of

(32:32):
the administration that was in for three years before before
that ever happened. We don't know what's around the corner.
How do we how do we? I mean, how can
how can you as a Prime minister, mister of finance,
as part of the government, how could you say this

(32:52):
is what we're going to do, This is how we're
going to achieve it, and by twenty forty we should
be back on track. When you have no idea what's
going to come between now and then, and maybe you
should be taking precautionary measures to cover for that makes.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
Sense, Ye, makes perfect sense. That's exactly how I feel
as well. So there are many assumptions, of course in
the budget, and both of them strike me as relatively optimistic.
So they have inflation go down relatively quickly. They have
or financing costs for government debt staying moderately as at

(33:30):
around four and a half percent. They don't, of course
model what would happen after an earthquake is an army
of volcanic eruption, and yet we know that these events
occur quite regularly in New Zealand. So I think there
are lots of risks on the downside. On the upside,
I mean, what could happen that really surprised us? I mean,
I think suddenly getting a splurge of productivity, probably not.

(33:54):
Are we suddenly seeing all the conflicts in the global
economy disappear between the West and China, Russia and the others.
Probably not. So I think there are way more risks
actually on the downside and or modeling doesn't take that
into account properly. And by the way, I also think
we should always leave a bit more room for maneuver

(34:16):
for these external shocks when they occur, because they are
of course from memory. I think we spend about twenty
thirty percent of GDP on the cleanup of the Canterbury earthquakes.
So just imagine the Wellington Ford line goes off or
the Alpine fault, and then you would look at an
event of similar magnitude, if not larger. So I would

(34:37):
ideally like to leave some buffer for such events. And
that's another reason why we should actually try to keep
government debt as a percentage of GDP much lower than
it is in countries like the US or Europe, because
they don't have these extra risks added to their economies.
And that's why we I think, have to be even
more cautious here.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
But it's rather a small spanner in the works with
regard to the makeup of this country. There is growing
division at the moment. Fact it's never gone away. It
might calm down in better times, but it shows itself
with higher profile at a time like this. This is

(35:18):
the disagreement between races, to put it simply, and the
spin offs from those if we continue on this particular path.
If we had continued on the path that they put
us on, or they were intending to put us on
back in the previous administration, I fear the country would

(35:40):
have been lost forever. But at the moment I'm questioning
whether or not there need needs to be far more
done to overcome this son, far more done on a
if necessary, confrontational level, to overcome the issues.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah, the problem is actually that the genie is also
a bottle. It's really difficult to get it back in
after six years of having that as government pollus. It
scares me the development were on and it has actually
turned the country into a completely different country to the
one that I migrated to in twenty twelve. So when
I arrived here coming from Australia, I thought, actually Nsiven

(36:23):
was fortunate to be in race relations where it was
at the time, especially VIISA of the Australia. Were there
many more unsolved problems, I would say, And it seemed
to me, at least in contrast with Australia much more
harmonious as it was in twenty twelve, where everybody got
on and where the basic issues were resolved, they were
of course some still lingering injustices, because you could actually

(36:45):
look at, for example, education rates and compare them across
different ethnic lines and find that Mari and Pacific Our
students were on average far less successful at school than
Parking Are students, and especially Asian students. But I think
in order to fix these discrepancies, you would have focused
on the issues at hand, namely the education system. Instead,

(37:06):
what the government did from twenty seven onwards was to
turn every such socioeconomic problem into a race issue, and
I think in doing so it actually divided the country enormously,
and that is really difficult to mend together again. Know
that we've had a change of government, but in principle
I agree with you, this country is divided. I'm just

(37:27):
not sure whether a direct confrontational approach would help us,
or whether this would actually drive the country even further apart.
I wish we could just work on issues where there
are discrepancies, like education, fix these issues, and I hope
that by doing that we would make the overlying race
issues slowly disappear.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
It's a nice it's a pleasant thought. I I have
serious doubts if you've.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
Got I'm not saying that I'm confident that it will work,
but I would like to see a path to resolving
these issues that seize the least amount of confrontation and
polarize session, because we've got enough of that already.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Well, certainly I agree, which leads me on to the
situation in another part of the world, Switzerland, and there
has been a small campaign over a number of years
to try and introduce the Swiss system to the hundred
Days into New Zealand. Just before I go on, would

(38:34):
you approve of that? Do you think that would be
a good idea?

Speaker 3 (38:38):
Well, as you know, Laton, I'm a huge fan of Switzerland.
Switzerland is one of the most fascinating countries on Earth
because they are doing so many things differently, and they're
doing so many things much better than us. So anything
that Switzerland does I think is worth studying. And I've
really always admired Switzerland and a power from that. I mean,
as a German, you look at Switzerland think well, the

(39:00):
Swiss are just like the Germans, but nobody hates them,
so that's great. And when I look at Switzerland, what
I particular like is the way the country runs from
the bottom up. There's hardly anyone in the Swiss federal government.
Do you know how many ministers they have in burn.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Next to none? Seven. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
And the presidency of Switzerland rotates among the ministers. And
the ministers, by the way, are drawn from all political parties,
and it has been like that for decades, so they've
got a permanent all party coalition. The only reason why
that works is because everything in the end is subject
to the threat of a referendum. That's the one hundred
days you're talking about. So you collect enough signatures, you

(39:45):
take it to the people, and then the people will
have the final word. And I think that's a wonderful model.
But the other thing that works well about Switzerland is
the decentralization. The decentralization. We're in a country the size
of Canterbury with just over nine million people. They have
twenty six cantons and two thousand councils, and each and

(40:08):
each council has its own income tax system, so in effact,
you have more than two thousand different income tax systems
and Switzerland and our sounds crazy, of course when you
talk about it here in New Zealanders typically say, oh,
this must be a recipe, recipe for disaster. Actually it
is not, because it works. It has actually kept taxes
quite low in Switzerland. It has made sure that Swiss

(40:30):
local government is responsive to the population and that people
are actually treated like customers by their councils, which you
couldn't say of council's relationships with New Zealanders. And so
I think structurally Switzerland works so much better. So I
think we should study this system a lot more and
try to figure out what we could copy from them.

(40:53):
I would just say one word of caution, you cannot
copy Switzerland because Switzerland has grown like this over centuries literally,
and there are some structural elements of the Swiss experience
that you can't replicate here either. So, for example, in Switzerland,
you have a society that is maybe not polarized, but

(41:13):
definitely fragmented. So you have German speakers, you have French speakers,
Italian speakers, and Romance speakers, so you've got four languages
in the country. You have different religious affiliations, so you've
got strong Catholic parties still in strong Protestant parts, and
then you've got other who are not even Christian at all.
And then of course you've got the typical political divisions

(41:35):
left wing, right wing, centrist, green, whatever, and so you
put all of these different identities together and what you
have is a country that is fragmented in so many
different lines. Again, sounds like a recipe for disaster, but actually,
in a Swiss case, what it has done is it
is ensured that things are decided locally because you could
never find agreement among all of them at a central level.

(41:57):
And that has actually created a system of political governance
that has worked extremely well for Switzerland. But it's really
based on these factors. When you look at New Zealand,
yes we have different ethnic clients, but probably not quite
to the degree that the Swiss habits as a totally
fragmented society. And nevertheless, as I said, it is a

(42:19):
system worth learning from, and.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
It's probably not the only one, but it's certainly a
very a very good one. So while we're talking about
the makeup of a country, migration, immigration is a very
important thing.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
Now.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
I read something a little earlier this morning, before we
before we sat down to talk. I read that the
level of migration looks like it's going to be maintained
for the foreseeable future. Now, I've got a couple of
back questions off that one I've been asking for a while,
just throwing it out, rather than asking one hundred and

(42:56):
forty thousand people that came into this country last year,
where did they come from, what qualifications did they have?
What contribution to the country can they possibly make? Because
I'm a believer in the fact that a country is
and should have control of who comes into it, and
they should be people that are worthy of it, who

(43:16):
can contribute to the country and the rest of the population.
And I'm certainly aware that there are a lot of
people here who can't you say.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
I say that I have asked myself exactly the same
question and passed it on to our colic Bryce Wilkinson
a few weeks ago, and I asked Bryce to actually
look into these migration statistics and tell me who's coming,
because I had the same look at the statistics that
you probably had, and I thought, well, that's extraordinary. We
had a net loss of fifty thousand New Zealand citizens
to Australia, and at the same time we had a

(43:50):
net migration intake of one hundred and forty thousand. So,
by the way, these are net figures. I mean, there
are way more people arriving, but there are also people leaving.
But the net intake is one hundred and forty and
I wanted to know, actually, how does this work. You
occasionally read stories in the newspapers where they say this
is a massive net brain drain. So we're losing our

(44:10):
best qualified people and they are taking over across the
tessment to have a new career in Australia, and at
the same time we're getting relatively poorly qualified migrants in.
And so what we actually have as a net movement
as a net brain drain. And Bryce is looking into
this right now, but I haven't got the final figures
from him yet, but from everything that he has told

(44:31):
me so far, it does look, indeed like the loss
of skills is there and we are not getting the
same qualifications back into the country. Bryce is also looking
into the source of our new migrants and memory I
think in the last year the number of migrants from
European countries was I think only twelve percent of the total,

(44:54):
and the majority, the vast majority of our migrants now
are originating from Asian countries, and I mean, that seems
to be the experience anyway when you're looking around, especially
Auckland Auguland is slowly turning into a more ethnically Asian
sy team. It's not the same, of course in other
parts of the country, and especially the South Island is
still a bit of a different story. But there seems

(45:15):
to be definitely a changing ethnic composition of parts of
the country and as also from our early research, a
change in the skill set of the population that is
linked to our migration patterns.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
It's not the race, it's the it's the culture that
I mean, I've maintained for a long time. I'm not
a racist, but I am certainly a culturalist. If you
if you if you put people together from alien cultures
that have a history of not fitting, then taking them

(45:48):
in is something not to be not to be encouraged.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
You can throw can I can I can I respond
to that? Yeah, I think I'm going a long way
with you on that one. In fact, I think we
should probably not talk about a multicultural society. We should
talk about a multi ethnic society, and that's a different thing.
So I did write a short paper for the Australian

(46:15):
Productivity Commission when I worked there arguing that actually, when
you're looking at Australia, lots of Australians are claiming that
Australia is a multicultural society, and I actually, no, it
isn't it is a multi ethnic society because there is one,
or at least at the time, there was one Australian
culture where people are told, no matter where you're from,

(46:36):
you leave all that baggage behind. You become Australian, you
become one of us. You live in the suburbs, your
kids will be intermarry with each other, and after two
or three generations you will be basically indistinguishable from anyone
else in this country because you have all kind of
lived together, and you've had your kids had children together,
and therefore you become Australian. And by the way, on

(46:58):
arrival will make you sign an Australian value statement where
you sign up to our basic roots. And so I
thought this whole idea of Australian multiculturalism was a misnomal
Becauseustralian culture, at least at the time I wrote this paper,
I think around twenty nine or ten, it was defined
that there was such a thing as an Australian culture,
and then it doesn't matter was ethnic community you belong to.

(47:20):
You can have your ethnic community and your ethnic identity,
but the culture was clearly defined as that of a
Western liberal democracy and I liked that concept. And by
the way, this was how Australia at least always worked.
So think back even to the times Australian settlement. I mean,
Australia got migrants mainly from the United Kingdom, but people

(47:43):
who in the United Kingdom wouldn't have got on. So
you got Catholics and Protestants and Irishmen and Englishmen. And
basically the only way that Australia could work at the
time was to tell all of them, look, we know
about your conflicts you had back home, but they belonged
to where you came from, and you are not allowed
to parade them around here. Your idea is to become Australian.

(48:04):
And it's worked again. And after the war, think of
the Greek migration wave into Australia. I saw statistics at
the time about the prevalence of Greek orthodox as a
denomination in Australia, and that basically lasted about two generations
of Greek migration into Australia and then the integration, they
became indistinguishable from the rest of society. So I think

(48:28):
we should really be careful how we are calling these things.
Is it multiculturalism. I think if it's really multiculturalism and
you've got different cultures living side by side, it's a
recipe for disaster. There is something that all people in
the country should agree on, and these are the foundations
of society. That we've got equal rights for men and women,

(48:48):
that we have no problem no matter what sexual orientation
you have. You can have any religion or none. This
is all part of living in a free Western society.
And if you can sign up to that, you're welcome.
But you are not allowed to bring any other culture
that is incompatible with these basic values, because that would
be a recipe for disaster and for driving societies apart.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
So do I take it that you were agreeing with
as far as I.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
Went, Yes, but I would be careful in how we
call this. I think this is actually multicultures is a
bit of misnoma. I think we should talk about multi
ethnic societies, but with a clear, clearly defined national culture
which is based on enlightenment, on Western civilization, on the
rule of law, on property rights, and there are some

(49:34):
things that I believe should not be subject to debate,
such as such as the ones that I mentioned. These
are the basic pillars on which our society rests. And
then it doesn't matter the color of your skin or
what you believe. And when you come into the country,
you basically sign up to that. And the Australians actually
literally make you sign up to these values by putting

(49:54):
this Australian value statement to every migrant. You have to
sign this to get a visa, and that I think
sends a very clear signal to newcomers that yes you
have come and yes you're welcome here, but there are
some basic rules that we would expect you to live by.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Do you think that is still the same with the
same success now as it was over the periods that
you mentioned.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
No, it has changed, and that worries me. But at
least that's how it was traditionally practiced in Australia, and
I believe in New Zealand too.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
So where did the practice go wrong?

Speaker 3 (50:26):
The practice goes wrong when people think, oh, there is
basically an equivalence of cultures, and we can't actually say
that one culture is better than the other. And maybe
you can't say that one culture is better than the other,
but you can definitely define what culture you live under.
And I think it becomes really difficult and dangerous when
that is no longer clear, when anything goes because it

(50:46):
just leads to the segregation of society. And by the way,
if you want to see an example of where that's
gone wrong, just look at Europe, look at what's happening
in France, look at Germany, look at parts of Britain.
The segregation of society that we see in parts of
Europe is something that I wouldn't want to see replicated here.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
And I would certainly join you on that.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
By the way, can I say one more thing about that?
I think it is also in part it's not just
the fault of the migrants in these countries, looking at
the German experience that I'm quite familiar with, still, it
is also a fault of German society of never having
actually walken up to the fact that Germany is a

(51:28):
country that attracts migrants. What I have in mind are
the so called guest workers that started arriving in the
nineteen fifties, initially from countries like Spain and Italy, and
then over the years I extended to especially Turkey. So
these people came in. They were called guest workers, and
the idea was, as the name suggests, that there are

(51:51):
guests in the country and after a few years they
would leave and disappear and go back home to their
countries where they had come from. And they didn't, and
in fact they had children and their children had children.
So suddenly, by the nineteen eighties nineties there was serious
talk in German of guest workers of the third generation.

(52:11):
And I think it is ludicrous. If your family has
been in a country for fifty or sixty years, and
if you're now the third generation of those so called
guest workers, you're no longer a guess at that stage
you should belong to society. But mainstream society had never
signaled to them that they were supposed to be there
for the long term, and therefore they were always told, well, actually,

(52:33):
you're not really one of us, and we don't expect
you to become one of us, because in the end
you're guests and we expect you to leave again. And
I think that was again the wrong policy to take,
because you would have ideally practiced, for example, what the
Australians do, where they say, okay, you have arrived now,
and now we're making sure that you become Australian. In

(52:54):
the same way, the Germans could have said, actually, you
have arrived now and we're trying to make sure that
you actually learned German and become part of mainstream society here.
But they didn't. They always pretended and kept up this
fiction that at some stage she would just disappear. And
while they kept up the fiction, they allowed them to
form parallel societies. So you've got whole suburbs now of
German cities where they basically have their parallel infrastructure, where

(53:15):
everything is Turkish and where you wouldn't find it a
word of German spoken. What I find interesting, by the way,
is when you look at this experience, you can find
that the first generation was perfectly integrated, because that was
a generation that worked. They find found jobs in the factories,
they had German colleagues, They learned the language because they
wanted to interact with their colleagues. And so the first

(53:37):
generation of Turkish Mirgrants was by some measures better integrated
than their children and grandchildren are today because mainstream society
allowed them to segregate and form parallel social structures. And
again it just shows you what you have to do
to integrate newcomers. The best form of integration for newcomers
is through the labor market because it forces people to

(54:00):
learn the language of their colleagues. It forces them to
actually pay for their own households, so they're not aligned
on benefits and in that way they become part of
mainstream society. Once you give up on that, and once
you actually push them away out of mainstream society, you
are asking for trouble down the liner. That's where many
European countries are.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
You mentioned Switzerland, you mentioned France, and you mentioned Germany
and Turkey, but you haven't mentioned the UK.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
Yeah, and I've lived in the UK two for four
and a half years. What do you want to talk about?

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Well, the politics of the UK at the moment, the
scenario there, what's your interpretation?

Speaker 3 (54:39):
I mean, the real question is actually will the Conservative
Party survive. It's not a question of whether they might
win the election. I think that will not happen, but
it's just a question of how bad that election result
will be for the Tories after fourteen years in government.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Can I reimate can I rearrange that how bad it is,
how bad it will be for the country, not just
the story party, the country.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
Well, yes, I mean we can take that almost as
a given that we will have a strong labor government
with a strong majority in the Commons, but they might
not even be any meaningful opposition left. So, especially after
Nigel Farage declared that he's now entering as the new
leader of Reform, he will probably take enough percentage points
off the Tories to really reduce the Tories to maybe

(55:25):
where the Canadian Conservatives were in the nineteen nineties stay
I think they finished with just two MPs. It might
not be that bad, but I wouldn't be surprised if
in the end we just have maybe thirty or forty
Conservative MPs left. Now he can't really run a proper
opposition all of that, and they will be crushed by
perhaps more than five minute Labor MPs. So this will
be an extraordinary situation that we haven't really hadn't Britain

(55:47):
for a long time.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
What would be the reaction to it? Do you think?

Speaker 3 (55:52):
Well? I think we will probably see the most left
wing government that Britain has had in a long time.
I mean Margaret Thatcher was once asked after leaving office
what was her biggest achievement, and her response was Tony Blair,
because she argued that she had actually forced the British
Labor Party so much to the right to accept most

(56:15):
of her basic settings of the British economy that it
didn't really matter that there was a change of government
in nineteen ninety seven from John Major to Tony Blair
and Ny Margaret Thatcher was right. But what has happened
since is, of course that the Labor Party has had
a massive shift to the left, especially of course previously
under Jeremy Corbyn as later, but even now with Kiir Starmer.

(56:37):
It is a far cry from where it used to
be under Tony Blair and even under Gordon Brown. So
I think we are now looking at the prospect of
a seriously left leaning government governing Britain over the next
five years, and that will be quite a turning point
for the country.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Let me ask you a tourism question, given that that's
the result, and give it six months to a year.
Based on the experience that we've witnessed with the Mayor
of London, do you think a parliament of five hundred
labor labor rights with no opposition would change the country

(57:17):
enough to say to some of us, at least Britain's
off the travel list.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Lloyd might have to do the opposite. And because we
could see sterling collapse and then your holiday becomes a
lot cheaper.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Some people are so selfish, just trying to be a
little bit optimistic. Though I wasn't referring to you, I
was referring to the people that you referred to. No,
it's and I understand that, I understand that completely. But
the country itself. Look at what's happened in the United
States with the non existent southern border, the amount of

(57:52):
crime that exists all across America now from an extra
ten or the last figure I heard was twelve million
illegals in there just on this occasion in the last
three years. The country is very unsafe. Look. I watched
a video, short video that somebody took on their camera
of a guy in San Francisco the middle of the

(58:14):
day walking down what looked like a main street. There
weren't a lot of people, about plenty of traffic walking
down on main street. Who got jumped on by four
It could have even been five I couldn't quite make
it out. Gangsters who were dressed in hoodies and the
whole thing who kicked the proverbial out of him and

(58:36):
took everything he had, jumped in, jumped in their car
and drove off the middle of the day.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
But it could have been Central Auckland.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Too, My point exactly if you want, mm hmm yep.
But what I was, what I was really relating to,
I suppose I was using that as an example to
say where London could end up.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Sure, and I mean in parts of Britain you probably
already have these problems. So yeah, that is a prospect
and it won't get much better, or it might get
a lot. Boy is actually under that Labor government. But
we should probably talk a little bit about the Tories too,
because they've been in power for fourteen years and I

(59:17):
have now read I like reading comments to newspaper columns
from British newspapers because you get a bit of a
sense of what their readers think, and especially in the
Daily Telegraph, which is one of my favorite papers. I
read comments now under practically every article saying things like
I'm a lifelong Tory voter and I've had it with
that party and I've been voting for the Tories for

(59:38):
forty or fifty years, but in this coming election they
will not have my vote. The Tory parties fourteen years
in office have been disastrous, with few exceptions. I think
the one exception being Michael Gove's education reforms is probably
the only positive legacy that they're leaving behind. But the
rest of those fourteen years, starting with David Cameron and

(59:59):
then continuing with Teresa May, then Boris Johnson, List Trusts
Bishi Sonak, it's been a disaster for the country. Actually
they did nothing. Actually their spending went up. They are
spending more than Tony Blair ever did. They didn't do
any of the things that they promised. They are still
going on with high speed railway links to Birmingham and

(01:00:21):
other places. What is the legacy of the Tory government? Yes,
and what was the promise when they started? So they
started with all sorts of wonderful marketing slogans under David Cameron.
And I mean I worked there until two thousand and
eight when Cameron was opposition leader and we were in

(01:00:42):
a thing than quite closely linked to him, and even
at the time I thought, well this is all a
lot of marketing talk, but not much substance because they
were not actually talking much policy anymore these days. They
were focused on just rebuilding the image of the party.
They gave it a new logo. Gone was market such
as torture Freedom, and it was replaced by a left

(01:01:02):
leaning tree that children could have painted. It was all
it was all appearance, it was all pr it was
all marketing, and I think basically that's what gutted the
Tory Party and led to them spending fourteen years in
government not really knowing who they are anymore. And I
see that as a problem not just for the Tory

(01:01:24):
Party but for many center right parties around the world,
where they have actually put the slogans ahead of decent
policy development. And that worries me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
It should worry all of us. What should worry all
of us is the decline of government in practically every
Anglo country, namely one where they're booming, namely one where
everything is going really well.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
And not just Anglo countries. I can tell you that
the situation is not much better, if at all, on
the continent in Europe. So I think it's a decline
that we see in governance or government across developed countries
around the world, and it is frightening, as absolutely frightening.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
I've got a couple of books. I can't see that
of them at the moment, but I've got a couple
of books that I've had for some time. One I
remember was published in nineteen ninety seven, Why the West
Leads for Now, and the other one was even more provoking.

(01:02:27):
It's interesting to keep books that make predictions to see
just how the authors have, how successful they've been, how
good they are, and whether they're worth willing and you
learn you actually learn something from the approach that authors
take when you when you see a history of correct
predictions or even one major one. We don't teach history

(01:02:48):
in schools, and here we are back on education while
I am so, let's give it a miss. RBNZ governor
says eventually monetary policy will win the day end quote,
beating ordinary kiwi's and blames overseas factors. On the very
same day, inflation fell in the UK to two point
three percent. Now that's Robert McCulloch from the University of Auckland,

(01:03:12):
but there are others making similar comments. There's been a
bit of a bit of a sour taste in the
mouth lately from the governor of the Reserve Bank, and
you are well familiar with it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
You say, well, at a time when we have our
tradeables inflation running at relatively law levels and un non
tradable inflation still running it close to six percent, I
think it would be wiser for the Reserve Bank governor
to just acknowledge his own contributions, or that are the

(01:03:45):
contributions of his bank that he leads towards some our
inflation crisis. Because a lot of our inflation problems in
New Zealand are homemade. They are still the result of
the extraordinary amount of money that the Reserve Bank created
during the OVID years fifty five billion dollars that flooded
our markets, that drove up domestic prices, and I think

(01:04:06):
that is the main story behind. On the other thing,
where the Reserve Bank should probably just acknowledge some responsibilities
and the enormous losses to the taxpayer that they have
caused in pursuing these policies. So we are currently looking
at about eleven billion dollars that the taxpayer has to
spend on recapitalizing the Reserve Bank of New Zealand because

(01:04:28):
for all the money printing activities, the Reserve Bank was
indemnified from by the Minister of Finance at the beginning,
meaning that any losses that they incurred could be passed
on to the taxpayer. And that's what's happening right now.
So the Reserve Bank's performance actually in these COVID years,
I think deserves much closer stroordiny and I think maya

(01:04:51):
kulpa from the Reserve Bank governor would be appropriate.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
Can I just raise with you the fact that the
Reserve Bank seems to have turned itself into a forest,
or at least the start of a forest, that other
aspects of the banks, I should probably say the governor's
approach to life questionable for a Reserve Bank governor.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
Yes, you're probably referring to the articles that we saw
the end of last week about the conflict that we've
had with the Reserve Bank here the initiative. Well, it
was all an unfortunate episode, an incident that played out
when our chair Roger part Which wrote a column for
the New Zealand Herald in which he once again dealt

(01:05:39):
with capital requirements for banks. And that's a technical disagreement
that we've had with the Reserve Bank for many years.
Roger wrote a column and once again asked whether the
Reserve Bank's policies on prudential regulations the regulations for the
banks were properly argued. And I would have thought, under

(01:06:01):
normal circumstances, it was such a mild column. There was
nothing polemical about it. Nothing should have followed from it. Instead,
what happened, and it was revealed by Jeanne Tripsheney in
the Herald. The Reserve Banks governor then brought Nima to
the CEOs and chairs of our largest banks and complained
about that column and basically told the banks you are

(01:06:22):
members of the New Zealand Initiative and why are you
supporting an organization that writes columns for the Herald like that?
And he wrote a letter to the editor which was
some then printed in the New Zealand Herald last Saturday,
and he made the same points publicly as well, referring
back to the membership of the banks of the Initiative.

(01:06:44):
And when I saw all of that and read this
in a herald, I was alarmed because I thought, first
of all, you're the Reserve Bank governor. You should be
able to live with criticism, and especially if it's not polemical.
It was not personal, it was just a disagreement on
a policy matter, So why are you not able to
live with that level of public debate? And secondly, and

(01:07:06):
perhaps was disturbing. The banks that he sent the letter
to are the same banks, of course, that are being
regulated by the Reserve Bank, So to send them a
letter and tell them, look, we've just been criticized by
the initiative. You are members of that initiative. And then
between the lines, do you think it's a wise idea
to be members of the initiative when they're writing articles

(01:07:28):
that are so critical of us? I thought that at
a sour aftertaste, a Reserve Bank governor shouldn't behave like
But I mean, you have to be careful when you're
regulating an industry, when you're then telling the industry what
they have to do things that you are actually not
responsible for. I mean, he's not regulating them for the

(01:07:48):
articles that we write. And therefore I was concerned. And
then on Friday last week, the Minister of Finance revealed
in a press conference that I had sent her and
the chair of the Reserve Bank a letter to just
make these points and now we will see what happens
and what follows after that. But I was not impressed
by the approach taken by the Reserve Bank on that matter.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
There was a column headline five or six years ago
in the Herald referring to the Governor of the Reserve
Bank genius or zombie. Is it too early to say?

Speaker 3 (01:08:20):
I wouldn't characterize him with either of these terms. I
want him to do his job and I want him
to do his job in accordance with the Reserve Bank
of New Zealand Act twenty twenty one and with the
Reserve Bank's own Court of Conduct. It's a beautiful document,
by the way. When you read the Court of Conduct,
it says we treat everybody with respect, we are all

(01:08:40):
for big debates, we take on board alternative viewpoints. Basically,
we're open minded and we are not engaging in name calling. Roughly,
that's what the Court of conducts as well. Then I
would like to see the Reserve Bank behave like that,
and by actually putting pressure on members of the Initiative

(01:09:01):
to effectively withdraw their membership from an organization that criticizes
the Reserve Bank. I don't think it complies with their
own court of conduct and actually should be unacceptable in
a rule of law based democracy to have a regulator
behave like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
That well spoken. So finally, last question, growth and productivity.
If you were in a position to wave your magic
wand what would what move would you make to aid
and abid those two things?

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Even with a magic wand, it wouldn't be easy because
some productivity draw are things that result from getting your
whole set of policies right. And currently I think we've
got a whole set of policies wrong. So it will
take more than just one abracadabra until we get the
economy growing again. But if I could just single out

(01:09:54):
a couple of things I would like to do immediately.
The first thing I would do, I would open New
Zealand to international capital. We are one of the most
restrictive countries when it comes to capital imports to foreign
liked investment, and we are shooting our in the foot
because we need that capital and we need that investment
not just because we need the money, but we need

(01:10:15):
to be linked into international value chains. We need to
have access to these value chains in order to lift
on productivity and by the way, once we've got the
capital here, that will create growth, opportunities, jobs, And if
you want to see an example of a country that
works along those lines, look at Ireland. They became rich
out of foreign direct investment, and I think we should

(01:10:36):
be trying to do the same. And that means basically
getting rid of Overseas Investment Office and our Overseas Investment Act.
If you want to keep any of this just limited
to national security concerns, but otherwise open the floodgates to capital,
that's what New Zealand needs. The second thing I would do,
and that links us back to the discussion we had
earlier on Switzerland. I would love to abolish or counsel

(01:11:00):
rights system and replace it with a local income tax.
The way that would work for growth and productivity is
input because currently councils will always get the same amount
of tax revenue council rates revenue, because it doesn't matter
whether the council performs, whether the council's economy performs, whether
the businesses in the council's area are successful, you will

(01:11:23):
always get the same revenue regardless. There are no incentives
for the council to be good for its local economy
under that system. Once you replace this with a local
income tax, you get a completely definit incentive structure. Then
a council would get more tax revenue if people have
higher incomes, if they generate more growth, if they generate

(01:11:44):
more wealth. And therefore, I think once you change the
system towards a Swiss tile local income tax, you will
see councils bending over backwards to make it possible for
companies to grow and invest. I have some very practical
examples in mind. I recently spoke to a CEO of
a small company that tried to build a small factory,

(01:12:06):
and they've been trying that since twenty eighteen. Cost the
Council's been an absolute nightmare. So practically every step along
the way, the council asks for twenty more clarifications than
each time they ask for twenty clarifications, you spend an
average of ten thousand dollars on each bullet point answering
it with consultants. Now, imagine the council at an incentive
an interest in getting this company this new factory off

(01:12:27):
the ground. I think the council would ask fewer questions,
they would streamline the whole process because they would have
an interest in getting the factory up and running so
that they could generate text revenue for the council. And
I think in that way we would create a lot
more growth, would probably create a lot more housing as well.
And if I had this magic wand I would do

(01:12:49):
these two things at once. So abolish any rules on
FDI or a direct investment and changing the way that
we find as councils so that they have a reason
to go for growth.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
That would be the next mayor of Oakland, do you.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
No, I don't think I've got the charm The office requires.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Oliver Hart, which it is always a pleasure, and this
one was supremely so thank you for your time and
keep your thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
One last question, one last question.

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
Now called lumber, right, I have the lumber, always had
the last question.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
I've asked you this before on at least one, but
I think more occasions. Would you consider leaving this country
at the moment?

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
No, because I've got its shop to them.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
Still, it's a good answer and I'll take it. Thanks again,
thank you, and it won't be the last time.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
Lateon, there are essential fat nutrients that we need in
our diet as the body can't manufacture them. These are

(01:14:01):
Omega three and Amiga six fatty acience. Equisin is a
combination of fish oil and virgin evening primrose oil, a
formula that provides an excellent source of Omega three and
Omega six fatty acids in their naturally existing ratios. The
Omega six from evening primrose oil assists the Omega three
fish oil to be more effective. Equisine is a high

(01:14:22):
quality fish oil supplement enriched with evening primrose oil that
works synergistically for comprehensive health support. Source from the deep
sea sardines Anchovisa Magril provide essential Amiga three fatty acids
in their purest form without any internal organs or toxins.
Every batch is tested for its purity before it's allowed
to be sold. Equisine supports cells to be flexible, so

(01:14:45):
important to support healthy blood flow and overall cardiovascular health.
Equisine can support mood, balance and mental clarity and focus
in children, all the way to supporting stiff joints, mental focus,
brain health and healthy eyes as we get older. Equisine
is a premium, high grade fish and evening primrose oil
to be taken in addition to a healthy diet. It

(01:15:08):
is only available from pharmacies and health stores. Always read
the label and users directed, and if symptoms persist, see
your healthcare professional. Farmer Broker Auckland. Welcome to the mail
room for podcast two hundred and forty two, missus producer,

(01:15:31):
I would like you to lead. If you don't mind.

Speaker 4 (01:15:34):
Lateon, I will. Kevin says, listening to your weekly podcasts
and many times re listening to them, is a pleasant
diversion and thankfully reminds me the whole world hasn't transformed
into absurdity. I rather suspect you have a deeper understanding
of the nature of the world's state of affairs, maybe
not apparent to those interviewees who miss your obvious clues

(01:15:55):
and dispersed amongst the insightful questions you ask. I'm usually
in a state of anticipation as you poke holes in
the fabric of current reality and tease out and expose
the pieces of information each guest may have to further
unpick the powers that Bee's masterful plan to continually enslave
mankind in a beehive mentality. For this and the information

(01:16:19):
imparted by your refusal to embrace a woke or meronic
dumbed down, politically correct narrative.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
I thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:16:27):
More recently John or Cock, Muriel Newman and Anthony Willie
I have shared with many friends, but the real tour
of forse without doubt was the letter from Leon Hill,
the assie from Iceland. Being on the fringes of a
loosely organized freedom movement of New Zealand, I was aware
of the conspiracy theory pertaining to a proposed population wide

(01:16:49):
digital idea which is to be implemented overseas and here.
But the shock of realizing Australia just now legislated for
its implementation galvanized me into sharing that letter with as
many people as possible for being that watchman for encroachments
on our freedom. Again, I thank you from Kevin.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
Kevin, very nice of you. Thank you. And there's a
couple of things to comment on, specifically where he says,
I rather suspect you have a deeper understanding of the
nature of the world's state of affairs, maybe not apparent
to those interviewees who miss your obvious clues blah blah.
I've decided what the problem is the problem is that

(01:17:30):
there are too many people who have no idea what
really is going on because they restrict themselves to their
own particular format without and I've had this discussion with
so many people over over a long period of time.
If you're reading material that comes via media that shuts

(01:17:51):
down any objection to the narrative of the day or
the moment, or the year or the lifetime, then you're
going to be ignorant of what might really be going
on because you can't make a judgment call. All you're
doing is group thinking and being spoon fed, which is
really done. And I've had a couple of those in
interviews in the not too distant past. If I may

(01:18:13):
say from Chester Laateon just wanted to say I listened
to Uriel Newman last week and thought that she was
truly brilliant. It just saddens me that she is ignored
by mainstream media in this country as she delivers her
message intelligently and thoughtfully. She covered the issues read the
treaty and general topics around it with great clarity. When

(01:18:35):
the Herald were running their radio ads about how they
quote told both sides of the story those quote, I
put in a complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority suggesting
that no, they didn't it attached several of Muriel's newsletters
as proof, only to be told that my complaint did

(01:18:55):
not reach the threshold where they would or could take action.
Spare me. You're up against it, aren't.

Speaker 4 (01:19:02):
You, Leake Jen says. Just a month ago, Channel nine
Australia reported that Minisha Grizoo had been dubbed Australia's strictest
Principle and the success of the Marsden Road Public School
was mostly due to her strict implementation of her behavior
curriculum in her school. Menisha explains, we are teaching children

(01:19:23):
how to address an adult, how to enter the classroom
and correctly look after your books when you teach. This
is a lesson from when the child is five. They
don't see it as a discipline by the time they
are twelve years old, because it is something that is
ingrained in them right from the time they enter the school.
The article detailed four pillars of the Marsden Way. The

(01:19:45):
first pillar is the standardized core syllabus which all teachers follow.
The second pillar is the systematic way in which all
teachers are to teach. The third pillar is the structured
system by which all students are assessed and the fourth
pillar is the consistent drumming of good civics and citizenship

(01:20:07):
into all students. These four pillars show that Manisha Grizzuola's
success is due to the clarity and uniformity of expectations
she has set for all teachers, students and parents. I
loved it when she said in your podcast that we
need to train and discipline kids while they are young
because quote that little defiance becomes swearing tomorrow. How true.

(01:20:32):
Just recall those disrespectful New Zealand students brazenly swearing at
David Seymour in public. We need more Miniesia Grizzolas, not
just in Australia, but in New Zealand too.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
Excellent, Paul writes, thanks for discussing digital ideas. Sadly it's
something we will likely have to contend with due to
public apathy and low IQ or conniving globalist politicians combination
of all. I'd say New Zealand, a small country at
the bottom of the world, needs to diversify what it

(01:21:06):
does to pay the bills. Too often we have followed
along and copied what larger nations have done, even after
it had failed. Offshore gives an example of the firearms Register.
We don't have to do this, It's not in our
best interest. Look how we copied the deregulated power market
and now we have expensive power and limited generation. When

(01:21:28):
the Ministry of Electricity was closed, it was planning on
building a nuclear reactor. We need to work smarter, not harder.
We could be one of the countries offering the electronic
id haven for poor souls stuck in socialist hellholes around
the platter. We could be the New Switzerland of the

(01:21:50):
South Pacific and the lifeboat of personal freedom. If only
cheers from Paul Paul, very good suggestions, good comments the
New Switzerland. While we've bandied that one around for some time,
going all the way back to the eighties and the
changes wrought by Roger Douglas Attel. But the commentary we

(01:22:13):
just enjoyed with Oliver Hartwich, I think has made a
contribution to the discussion. There just isn't enough of it.

Speaker 4 (01:22:21):
Laken Colin says the last government in New Zealand, using
identity politics and guidance from the UN has left us
with a lot of people feeling a sense of victimization. Therefore,
some are resorting to a sense of entitlement, and others
are sick of it all and are leaving the country.
We even have one political party wanting to legitimize something

(01:22:43):
like a Part eight because of their sense of entitlement.
One hopes that Mary King can use his king e
Tunga to steer a better path. Otherwise we are going backwards.
People should realize the monetary and social damage needs some
time to be corrected. In the last podcast, Minisha Grizzuola
optimized the way of thinking we need to get back

(01:23:05):
to where people have a sense of decency and want
to contribute to society.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
That's from Colin, Colin, thank you. From Chris, I have
a feeling. I read this last week. I just have
a feeling, but I woult to include it anyway because
worthy of a second reading. It comes from Chris. It
comes as no surprise that primary teachers are failing maths
and science. This is because both these subjects explore reality

(01:23:30):
and facts, and changing the answer doesn't alter truth, but
only makes the answer wrong. The reason for teachers failing
subjects based on truth and reason is candidates who are
strong in these areas will self select out of teacher training.
The problem is not the teaching of math and science,

(01:23:53):
but the type of system that favors candidates with flexible
ideas on how the world works. If in a teacher
training and school system that tells you what to think
and prohibits reason discussion, the situation will not imp until
candidates who value a fact based approach to life are
welcome to bag in. For the record, I'm married to

(01:24:15):
a school teacher who understands the system and the politics
of keeping your job, and then there's a ps at
the bottom. I homeschool our kids and the biggest champion
of this continuing is my school teacher's.

Speaker 4 (01:24:28):
Spouse, Layton George says. This week we were treated to
a wonderful example of apology, acknowledgment and gracious acceptance, where
the mutual act of goodwill to parties agreed to a
settlement which goes some way to address historical wrongs and
allow both sides to move forward and look to the future.
The mood in Parliament was profound. Unfortunately, there was a

(01:24:51):
misunderstanding around the protocols of both parties. At the end
of proceedings, Predictably, Mari members of the opposition seized upon
the opportunity to make political capital of the oversight. As
a result, the positive mood became tainted by unseemly political posture.
The budget was presented the following day. The Marie Party

(01:25:12):
was present only for the time required for their speech.
In reply, their co leader's address was full of acrimony
and vitriol, with demands for separate governance and large portions
of taxpayer funds. The contrast with the previous day could
not have been more stark. From a day of respect
and forgiveness to one of rancor and threats of revolt.

(01:25:36):
Questions arise on whether some of the Marie political leadership
is serving the best interests of their constituents or simply
preferring self serving histrionics. That's from George.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
George, appreciate it now, Peter Wrights. Firstly, I send my
condolences over Carolyn's mother's death. I don't really know what
else to say other than it hurt like hell when
my mum died, so I can only presume that Caroline
is hurting too very much. I have to say I
hope that she theres plenty of support around her at

(01:26:10):
this time. She did have plenty and still does. Secondly,
how refreshing it was to hear your interview with Miniitia Gazula.
I found her approach to be forthright, clear, honest and
no nonsense, all qualities which I think any leader must possess.
While she didn't come out and use the it's my
way of the highway cliche, that is what her actions

(01:26:32):
amounted to, and I can only presume that her teachers
must at least have appreciated her direct communication, regardless of
whether they liked it or not. I only wish that
the last Labour led government had behaved more like this.
It is all very well being inclusive, but when you're
running a country, I think that clear, direct and unambiguous

(01:26:54):
language is needed, and lord knows there was precious little
of that during the adern Hipkins years. Was it only years,
not like centuries? From the actions of the current coalition,
it seems that they are at least being far more
directed an upfront with their language, and long may it continue.
I was going to suggest that we your podcast listeners,

(01:27:16):
passed the hat around and raise money to send Erica
Stanford to Minesia Gazoula's school for some lessons of her
own Stanford's that is, but then it occurred to me
that I am already a taxpayer of which Erica Stanford
is a recipient. Therefore, as I am directly paying her
wages as her employer, I direct her to I direct

(01:27:36):
her to make this trip. She could learn a lot. Well.
I wonder if you changed your mind or modified your
thoughts a little bit after the discussion with Oliver because
he was singing her praises some highly in whiting, was
he not, missus producer? Your mother was a wonderful person,
an even greater woman actually, and she was somebody that

(01:28:01):
everybody I know, she was somebody that they all loved,
or if they didn't know well enough, they thought admirably
of her. Very intelligent woman. And you've been telling me
that for years.

Speaker 4 (01:28:13):
Well, I'm so proud of my mum. She died at
the age of ninety two. And you know, you kind
of think that once somebody gets to that great old age,
it becomes easier because you know that they have had
a wonderful breadth of life. But it doesn't get easier
at all. She was highly intelligent. She was one of

(01:28:34):
those first women at university. She went to university in
London and then to the Sorbonne, Paris. Apparently she just
narrowly managed to not get into Oxford or Cambridge, and
in the would have been fifties, No forties, wouldn't it
forties and fifties, That would have been quite the achievement.

(01:28:57):
She was by far the most intelligent one in my family,
and right up until the day she died, she was
doing crosswords.

Speaker 2 (01:29:05):
And blakes gravel.

Speaker 4 (01:29:08):
Her breadth of the English language was ridiculous. I'm going
to miss her so terribly, but I am so thankful
to have my family around me. And it happens to
us all, does it not? And thank you Layton.

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
Unfortunately does happen to us all. And she was a wonderful,
wonderful woman. I loved it dearly. Thank you, thank you,
and we shall see you next week, Yes you will.

(01:29:51):
I made mentioned earlier of the Lost Generation, written by
a psychologist who forwarded it to me in two thousand
and nine, written and read on news talks at me
in two thousand and nine. Back then, there was some
lots of issues, lots of trouble with kids, young kids,

(01:30:11):
undisciplined kids, et cetera. It is only worse today because
it hasn't been addressed appropriately. So the proof is in
the interim period from two thousand and nine to now
as to what should have been done and what could
have been done but wasn't. And this is what she wrote,

(01:30:32):
the last generation lost in the underbelly of a dysfunctional
fatherless society. The saddest aspect of recent events, particularly amongst
young men, is that it's unlikely to stop in the
near future. Why because no one or no organization or
social agency or government department is doing anything to address
the deepening chaos. It is a multi layered problem, not

(01:30:56):
just the domain of responsibility of one group of people,
but that of a collective of people, organizations, and yes,
especially government departments. The problem pheps Almost half of the
Y generation, that is, those born after nineteen eighty were
raised in a single parent family, mainly mothers. The absent

(01:31:17):
father syndrome is now epidemic, and the result more destructive
than could ever have been imagined. Keep in mind this
is two thousand and nine. Now it's worse. A generation
full of extremely angry young men has been the result.
Then in bracket she puts, there are also many very
angry adolescent girls, with few of these adolescents having a

(01:31:40):
positive male role model. The outcome will soon border on
anarchy by this displaced group, and they don't know how
to behave or what acceptable behavior is because it's never
been role modeled or taught to them in their formative years.
Mothers can only do so much and nothing at all
if they suffer from any addictions or dependence on alcohol

(01:32:02):
or drugs. Who has any teeth to stop them doing
exactly what they like? Not parents, not the police, not teachers.
They despise and defy authority, why because they can. Years
of PC crap has brought about a breed of uncivilized
little monsters, some of whom terrorize their parents on a

(01:32:24):
regular basis. Kids from age ten and up are inflicting
untold pain and agony on their parents, from diabolical behavior
to physical assault. Some parents feel helpless and fearful. Does
this necessarily point to bad parenting? In some cases? It does,
In others, it simply points to excessive indulgence and no boundaries.

(01:32:49):
The despair that afflicts these kids and the perceived futility
of their lives, coupled with anger and low self esteem,
is what drives some of them to drugs and suicide.
Some never had a chance. Some have had plenty of
chances and not had the common sense to grab them.
So possible solutions. All primary schools must have at least

(01:33:13):
fifty percent male teachers who are paid a decent professional salary.
Scrap NCEEA and bring back sc A and O levels
as in the UK reintroduce a realistic minimum entrance level
to any tertiary institution and not a free for all.

(01:33:33):
I'm biding my tongue because I want to add to
all this, but I don't need to. Competition and genuine
achievement made a goal and not something to be modest about,
but recognized and praised. Police and teachers to be given
more power, reasonable force included in controlling defiant adolescence. This
is the only way to restore any respect for authority.

(01:33:56):
Political correctness must be dispatched immediately to the scrap heap
where it belongs with all the other garbage in the world.
A bostal system for the encouragible young men under at
where they're supported, educated and rehabilitated back into society and
not in training for a life of crime. Much tougher

(01:34:17):
penalties for the eighteen plus group, particularly for crimes of
violence and drug dealing. The minimum age for driving raised
to eighteen and only for four cylinder cars, and directing
age raise back to twenty. No doll or benefits other
than sickness or invalids for anyone under twenty. They then

(01:34:38):
become their parents' responsibility. All of these changes require cooperation
from many government departments and social agencies, more so in
the areas of education and justice. Revising legislation should clearly
be no hardship for the current government two thousand and nine.
Who is going to be first to put their hands

(01:34:59):
up badger your MP relentlessly if nothing is done to
address the worsening problem of suicide street violence, and nothing
will change, and dozens more young people will die needlessly
and tragically. No one is safe. You too, or a
family member can become a statistic or victim. So again,

(01:35:23):
I say this was written in two thousand and nine.
I read it on radio, but it didn't go any
further than that. It's a damn fine piece. It's short,
it's sharp, it's honest, and it's truthful. And here we are,
fifteen years down the track. And as the author says,

(01:35:44):
if nothing's done, it'll only get worse, much worse, and
so it has. Back in two thousand and nine, they
didn't have ram raiders, they didn't have a lot of
other things. Now they do and there's more coming. Now.
You tell me who is responsible, My suggestion is it's
the authorities, the people who should have been leading, should

(01:36:04):
have been introducing all of the above and didn't. Why
because we have been putting up with a range of
politicians who in some areas in particular, are gutless or
haven't got a clue, take your choice, and the last
six years is only promoted it much further, of course,

(01:36:25):
because when you are a sop to this age group,
you'll pay the price. And we all are still have
I overstated that the psychologist overstate in neither cases the
answer yes. So that will take us out for podcasts
two forty two. If you would like to write to us,

(01:36:46):
love getting email latent at news Talks AV dot co
dot nz or Carolyn Newstalks AV dot co dot nz.
We'll return with two forty three very shortly. Until then,
as always, thank you for listening and we'll talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:37:09):
Thank you for more from News Talk set b listen
live on air or online and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio,

All Episodes

Leighton Smith Podcast #242 - June 5th 2024 - Oliver Hartwitch

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Leighton Smith Podcast #242 - June 5th 2024 - Oliver Hartwitch