Leighton Smith Podcast #316 - February 18th 2026 - Dr Mike Schmidt

There are numerous approaches to management: Legacy, Ideological, Corporate, and Political Management.

These combine to produce a system that cannot sustain long-term strategies.

“Cultivation Management is the alternative.”

According to Dr Mike Schmidt, it is also the approach that Christopher Luxon needs to adopt to retain his Prime Ministership.

And then there’s the question; can Mr Luxon afford to bypass the advice Schmidt has to offer?

Advice that is equally applicable to most other forms of management. You can decide for yourself.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks 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 now the Leyton
Smith podcast cowered by news Talks B.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to Podcasts three hundred and sixteen or February eighteen,
twenty twenty six. Doctor Mike Schmidt is one of those
people that I find the interesting, in fact sometimes fascinating.
He is a highly qualified man and I shall endorse
that comment with a list as a Master's in Organization

(00:49):
Change and Resilience. He has a postgraduate certificate in Connected Environments.
He has a Company Director's Certificate New Zealand Institute of Directors,
a Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults from the
University of Cambridge, Doctorate of Business Administration Supply and Demand
Theory University of South Australia. Are Masters of Business Administration

(01:12):
and MBA Masters of Science Thesis and Special Papers General Microbiology,
molecular Genetics, Immunology and Virology from the University of Otago
and also from the University of Otago Bachelor of Science
by Microbiology and immunology, with special papers in botany and anatomy.

(01:34):
Now there's more than that, but that's the essential list.
So you can see that he's he's well. You might
say he's been a professional student, but he has put
it to good use and he's traveled much of the
world and worked in many places. We had him on
the podcast for two hundred and thirty three. That was
about two years ago. So he returns today because because

(01:57):
this is an election year and he has some advice
and while it's directed at Chris Luckson, it's probably applicable
to any politician who wants to improve his or her lot.
So it's a fascinating conversation I think, and Mike Schmidt
will join us shortly. But first, politics on both sides

(02:19):
of the Tasman has reverted to the days of well
Malcolm Fraser and Rob Muldoon I think. In other words,
there are things happening on both sides of the Tasman
and they're fascinating. The Liberal Party in Australia, of course,
was the biggest party for a long long time and

(02:41):
Robert Menzie serve Robert Menzies was the best Prime minister
of the country's ever had as I think we'll hear
again in the Male room today. But with the election
by the party for Angus Taylor to become its leader,
they've taken a step in the right direction, a huge
step after what they've been struggling with for some time now.

(03:03):
For those of us who think that we could be
proven wrong, because you always can when it comes to politics,
but I'm very hopeful that the Liberal Party will restore
itself down the track somewhere to a position that it
has had before, because otherwise the country's doomed. And I
think there's not too much discussion about that. When we

(03:23):
were in Sydney, everyone wanted to know about New Zealand politics.
I think I mentioned that everyone wanted to know about
people here like Erica Stanford and mister Jones, So there
are people here who want to know about things in Australia.
After the election, Rowan Dean, who is the editor of
Spectator and of course heads up The Outsiders, on a

(03:44):
Sunday on Sky wrote a very short article. No, he
wrote a very short commentry and it was published in Spectator,
and I'm just going to quote it because it's telling,
it's good and I know the writing he wrote after
missing by a whisker being shot in the head. Donald
Trump's instinctive battle cry was to fight, Fight, Fight, So

(04:04):
to the Liberal Party has just avoided a near death
experience by jettisoning Suzanne Lee and the hopeless, hapless moderate ethos,
a pathetic creed more deadly to electoral success than any
assassin's bullet. Angus Taylor must now two fight, fight, fight,

(04:25):
Fight the last vestiges of Turnbull era liberalism, fight the
destructive ideology of identity and climate politics. Above all, he
must fight to dismantle, decimate, and destroy the worst government
in Australia's history. This is the fight Angus Taylor has
been preparing for audi life. He must not flinch, he

(04:46):
must not waiver. As Tony Abbatis said, the next election
can now be won. Mister Taylor's solid election victory, basically
a sixty to forty win, mirrors the last decent victory
Australian Conservatives enjoyed, that of the Voice referendum. I have
always maintained that there is a natural sixty forty conservative

(05:08):
majority in this nation, but one which cannot abide wishy, washy,
small l liberal bedwetting. It's up to mister Taylor to
harness that note. Working with his national colleagues and one nation,
we urgently need mister Taylor to offer up sound policies
to slash immigration, slash spending, and destroy the climate change wrought.

(05:29):
The fight is there to be won. The enemy is labor.
The role of the opposition is not to hold this
bad labor government to account, quote unquote. You hear that
all the time, hold him to account. That's not the job.
It is to destroy it. And from this broadcaster's perspective,

(05:50):
it's much the same here. That's the job that needs
to be done. Have we got the people to do it? Anyway?
We'll get onto some of that in the interview in
a few moments right after a short break. Buccolan is

(06:10):
a natural oral vaccine in a tablet form called bacterial licate.
It'll boost your natural protection against bacterial infections in your
chest and throat. A three day course of seven Buckelan
tablets will help your body build up to three months
of immunity against bugs which cause bacterial cold symptoms. So
who can take buccolan well, the whole family from two

(06:32):
years of age and upwards. A course of Buckelan tablets
offers cost effective and safe protection from colds and chills.
Protection becomes effective a few days after you take buccolan
and lasts for up to three months following the three
day course. Buccolan can be taken throughout the cold season,
over winter, or all the year round. And remember Buckelan
is not intended as an alternative to influenza vaccination, but

(06:55):
may be used along with the flu vaccination for added protection.
And keep in mind that millions of doses have been
taken by Kiwis for over fifty years. Only available from
your pharmacist. Always read the label and users directed, and
see your doctor if systems persist. Farmer Broker or clumb.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Layton Smith.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Doctor Mike Schmidt is a nexialist. Now, if you don't
know what that is, we'll get round to it in
a moment. He's a man of many parts. He's got qualifications.
I'm talking university education specifically, but others in various fields
like science, business, it and he knows a lot of

(07:44):
things and I find him, I find him very interesting.
When I spoke with him the last time, it was
in Podcasts two hundred and thirty three. Well, this is
three hundred and sixteen, so it's been a bit of
water under the bridge. But if you want to know
what he is a nextialist, go back listen to the
introduction of two hundred and thirty three and you'll find out.

(08:08):
And it was so long. That's why I'm not repeating it,
because you can go and find it for yourselves. So
it is with great pleasure I say, welcome back to
the podcast, Mike, Thank you very much. So the reason
is you write a note to me. We stay in
touch occasionally, but you wrote a note to me very

(08:29):
recently about something that you had worked your way into,
which I suppose involves the nextierism, if that's a word.
But it has to do with politics, and it has
to do with business, It has to do with the world,
and it has to do with I think everybody who

(08:49):
was listening to this podcast, and even those who aren't.
Is that a fair assumption, Yes, definitely. So let me
quote from this Luxon from Legacy to Resilience. I have
previously described Christopher Luxon as a legacy manager, someone who
operates by inertia, defends inherited frame works, and mistakes enforcement

(09:10):
for imagination. His support of The current proposal to ban
those under sixteen from the Internet is a good example.
Keep in mind that this was this was written for
it went through parliament. The description still holds. His instinct
is to reach for legislation, his reflex is to patch,
and his style remains managerial. However, I do not criticize

(09:35):
without offering solutions. The question is not whether Luxon can
rehabilitate his leadership, but how What he must do is
shift from legacy management to resilience leadership, and he must
do it before the next election. Now there, I'll stop
because I want you to to take over and explain
to us what you actually mean. But first I have

(09:56):
a question. Is this a because it sounds like it
to this point, is this a hit job on Luckson
or you of some other mind.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
No, it's not a hit job on lucks and specific
He's just emblematic of the style of management that seems
to rule and politics, but also in the bureaucracy in
Wellington or It's legacy management is all around us, to
be honest, It's in our corporate it's in our bureaucracy.
It's particularly within our politicians. It's where they're so used

(10:29):
to doing the same reaching for the same levers of
control as they did in the past, and they used
to work that they automatically do it. Now they're very
process managed, and if you go to any of the
government websites you can see that. You know, for example,
if you're making an application for a grand through MBIE,
the whole thing is so process orientated it virtually acts

(10:53):
as a filter against people who really are innovators. That
it's quite bizarre.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yes, it is bizarre, and that organization has outgrown it,
I won't say usefulness, but outgrown its purpose. Just give
us a brief description of what a next list is, okay.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
I first came across the idea of nexialism when I
read the book The Vodge of the Space Beagle by A.
Van Gott. It was written in nineteen fifty two and
it dealt with a guy who has put upon the Beagle, which,
just like the Beagel historically was a ship that went
around the world doing investigations. He was on a space

(11:31):
going around the universe doing investigations. But his particular ability
was that he was across all of the disciplines, whether
it was science, whether it's humanities, or whether it was
medicine or some other discipline, and it was his job
to bring together all these disciplines to find unique solutions
to the unique problems they came across during the voyage.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Are there many of you?

Speaker 3 (11:54):
I think there are quite a few of us. Many
people are what you call futurists who pulled together a
variety of ideas. An example of this would be Stephen Pinker,
who was in giving a speech. I think it was
January sixteen or seventeen. Another guy is Nias Lomberg, who

(12:17):
is a Danish economist who undeals in climate change and
the consequences of it, where he has the ability to
put together all the economic data but include demographics and
technology changes to provide a synthesis of how climate change
could or should be managed.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
How accurate is.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
He oh, I think he's pretty jolly good. And some
of the facts that he brings out. For example, there
are these claims all the time that there's more wildfires
in Australia than there ever was before, but he shows
the satellite data which actually says that there are not
more fires. The problem is that there's more people near
areas where there are fires, so it all looks a

(12:58):
lot more dramatic than it really is.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yes, and it's crazy in Australia because they build into
the bush and then expect everything to go hunky dory.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
I would say, in reality, fewer people dying catastrophes nowadays
and ever died ever before in history, because the systems
of support have just become so much better.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
So let's get back to the Prime Minister. He said
it's not a hit job. So what are you suggesting
that he does to help himself into another term.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Well, there are actually two things, two primary things that
I think that he could do. The first thing I
would say is regarding immigration. Like all legacy managers, they
tend to grab the same levers of control that they
had in the past and expect to get different results, which,
as Einstein said, is quite crazy. For example, immigration New

(13:50):
Zealand ex COVID twenty twenty two is one hundred and
fifty four thousand migrant arrivals. Still there was a job
shortage apparently twenty twenty three, one hundred and thirty eight
thousand arrivals. Still apparently there's a shortage and skill talent.
And then in twenty two before we had another one
hundred and thirty eight thousand. That was year to date

(14:12):
for December, and then apparently just on the paper the
other day he said there's still a shortage of skilled migrants. Well,
with unemployment running at five point four percent, that's a
December figure and that means about one hundred and sixty
five thousand people are unemployed. Does it not occur to
him that the immigration imports that he is supporting is

(14:34):
not actually solving the problem and maybe we should look
internally and start to train people up. And there is
a massive shortage of trained people and the skills on
their trades. So that's one example of how he's continually
reaching for the same lever again and again and expecting
a different result and it's just simply not working.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Okay, So if you're well, you're going to say an
addition one.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah, I was going to say, in addition to that,
we've got the energy crisis in New Zealand and we
absolutely need to build more energy production and we're not
addressing it in a serious manner that I think that
we should have been addressing it. And instead, if you
bring in one hundred and twenty thousand people as an example,
then that increases New Zealand's population by two percent, and

(15:20):
all those people need to be fair clothed, housed. And
at the basis behind all is energy and we're already
having problems with energy, but you're bringing in more people.
Doesn't make sense.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Well, it's the same across the Tasman and in fact
it's probably the same around the world, is it not.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
That's true. But this cold comfort and being equally as wrong.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
I hadn't heard that before, and I like it. So
if you're talking to the Prime Minister, you're sitting in
his office and he's asking your advice, seeing that you're
such a clever nextialist, what do you tell him?

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Well, let's say, Chris, what we need is a more
holistic and temporal plan to go forward. We need to
know that all these things well, hold it.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
I'm going to do this to you because there are
words you used, and temporal is not a common word.
What do you mean?

Speaker 3 (16:16):
All right? So, Chris, what we need is a better
structured and more holistic plan going forward. We need one
that takes into account that everything's interrelated. So if you
bring in more people, you need more housing, you need
more energy, you need more infrastructure, And he'd say yes,
and I'd say, but you also need to integrate into
that demographics, we will very soon have a declining population.

(16:39):
Already the birth rate amongst native New Zealanders, not self
sustaining in our population is only growing because of immigration.
When that starts to decline and fall, because even immigrants
having been brought in start to apply accommodate to the
same sort of size families, particularly if the houses are smaller,
if you've got a bit of education system and so

(17:00):
on and so forth. So you need to account for that.
You know, everything is intertwined. But it seems so the
government are using short term solutions reactively. And this is
not just the national government, sorry, the Coalition government. It's
also the labor government. You know, they're ideological push to

(17:20):
get rid of fossil fuels and things like that, but
it's also our public service. We see that they are
very short term in the way they regard situations. The
example that I've mentioned to people is housing. Under John Keys,
it was, oh, we've got to sell off some of
our housing stock, and yet just a few years later,
when labors in government, they're saying, oh, we need to

(17:42):
build one hundred thousand houses we're short in our housing stock.
I mean, these people are just not thinking forward in
time as to actually what is required and why. Rather,
the bureaucracy seems to try and take care of itself
with some short term accommodate this three year government or
that three year government, rather than say, well, we're going

(18:03):
to need its amount of houses over the next twenty years.
We've better start now.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Based on your knowledge, which Prime Minister of the country
would you say was the closest to what you're raising
what you're discussing.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
He's not Prime minister, but I would say that probably
Shane Jones is the closest to doing it. The other
but that's on the energy front. I'd say David Seymour
is also close because he's actually looking on the racial front.
It was said in the past that, you know, the
solution to New Zealand's integration problems will be made in

(18:41):
the bedroom. I can't remember the name of the guy
who said it, but they're basically saying that, you know,
with intermarriage and all that sort of stuff, there is
going to be a hollowing out of the identity of
particular racial groups in New Zealand, and we should actually
probably move forward on that basis, So courage.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
What you're telling us is that there hasn't been a
prime minister that has the capacity that you're in favor of.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Not recently.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Know what does that say?

Speaker 3 (19:10):
Mostly it says that the best and brightest are not
going into politics, probably because and I'll quote a friend
of mine who is a female, non European doctor, and
I said to her, you know, why don't you go
into politics? And she said, oh, God, no, but make
much more money about going into politics. Why would I

(19:32):
want to do that? So that's one reason. But the
other reason is we also have a public service itself
that goes from government to government. And I'm sure those
who have watched the television series Yes Minister understand that
the public service, and they say that loosely. They know
that they'll survive from government to government and they have

(19:53):
their own agenda which includes not rocking the boat, which
includes short term solutions to maslage whoever is in power
at the time, but all the time having their own
long term agenda for their own careers and their own security.
And if we look at a public service in New Zealand,
you can also see their own ideology.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Taking into account that your nextialist view, how would you
describe the public service?

Speaker 3 (20:22):
I think the public service in New Zealand is very
ideologically driven and very limited because they're also legacy driven,
so they look at all the same leads and tools
in order to achieve their I would say, more progressive agenda.
This is really easy to spot. For example, you go
to the doc website de Partner Conservation and you'll see

(20:46):
that they've got their rainbow tick there, and they've got diversity,
equity and inclusion and all that sort of stuff. But
you'd be very hard put to find whether or not
they had any mention of merit. And yet presumably a
meritorious public service is exactly what you want, but it's
not actually what we're getting. We're getting a public service
that is driven by other objective and you virtually have

(21:10):
to force them to rewrite their job at and recently
in order to make them in line with the law
and also with the policies of the current government. But
I suppose they think that they can just sit out
the current coalition and I hope that labor comes in next.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, we know that there are incompetent people who get
appointed to possessions of ministers. I'm not saying all of
them by any stretch, but they exist and they are
easily manipulated. Right yep. Why then, why then have we
tolerated it? You've got two You've got two teams here, really,

(21:48):
you've got your political team and you've got your public,
the voting team. Why haven't we conquered this sort of crisis?
I'd call it that exists in this country, but it
never gets addressed.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
I think that the voting public are in the process
of addressing that issue, and the evidence for that is
that we now have a coalition government and the politicians
have actually had to group themselves together or else they
wouldn't have sufficient support because people are now dividing their
vote depending upon who they feel more strongly aligned with.

(22:23):
So I think the public has recognized that there is
this issue, and I think the public is responding to it.
I think that the politicians themselves, to a certain extent
are responding to it, but many of them are held
back by the advice they get and also by the
as I said, legacy management habits. For example, pres Luxen

(22:45):
comes from corporate. Now corporate also has its own style
of management, which is very much towards financial quarters and
very much towards pragmatic results, but it's not really orientated
towards laying the seeds that need to be laid now
for a review of the public service as time goes on,
for stronger and more resilient energy infrastructure as things go on.

(23:09):
They're more short sighted than that. And the example I
used in one of the articles I wrote was, you know,
here we have Luxon turning up to open the IKEA,
whereas in reality, if he was thinking further ahead, he
should be in danny Vik and danny Vik with a
built of solar farm and also built an infrastructure of

(23:29):
more independence because you know they're always being flooded and
things like that. He should have been up via opening
that up and then trumpeting that as an example of
what we could or should be doing in communities at risk.
For example, Gisbon.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
New Zealand is currently very fragile. You're right, both economically
and structurally, and this makes the situation all that more urgent.
We have seen how storms on the West Coast can
knock out transmission lines and leave communities in blackout. How
cyclone Gabrielle devastated hawks bay orchards and livelihoods. These are
not isolated events. They are symptoms of a system stretched, thin,

(24:05):
exposed and unprepared. It is something that I wrote about
over five years ago in a letter printed in the
New Zealand Herald concerning New Zealand's electricity system and how
Transpower is failing in its duties five years ago. With
a relatively new CEO, James Kitty, installed in February of
twenty twenty five, a new opportunity presents itself. Resilience must

(24:28):
become an organizing principle of Luxon's leadership. Link those two
together for us.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Okay, I would link the two except for the fact
that I've had a longer thought and I think that
resilience is not quite the correct word, because in many cases,
resilience is just an excuse for managed to climb. And
we can see this in the UK, where they basically
be managing decline over the past two decades and now
they've got to the point where the energy costs are

(24:56):
so high and the infrastructure is so run down that
it's almost beyond fixing. Here in New Zealand, we have
a similar situation where we have an average increase in
energy demand of about one point two five percent per year,
but our production of energy is in no way keeping
up with that, and Hunting Power Plant needs an overhaul seriously.

(25:18):
In fact, they were supposed to overhaul two of the
generators last year, but instead the generators were in constant use.
And also they should overhaul it to burn gas instead
of Indonesian coal, he says ironically, although I think they're
switching it to south and coal, and these are all
leadership things that actually Luxeon could use as a public

(25:42):
policy going forward, you know, to say, look, we are
addressing these problems because we recognize them, and here is
what we need to do about it. And instead you
don't see that sort of upfront address where the whole
community could get behind it. Rather you see the situation
being worsened by bringing in another one hundred and twenty
thousand people who will need to have showers and iron

(26:05):
their clothes and have energy demand. They're just making the
situation worse.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Do you really think that we're capable of getting projects
and ideas that everybody would support.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
I think that it is in the majority possible, because
we only really need the majority to and get behind it.
And there are always going to be some people who
are going to kick up the fuss about one thing
or another because nimbi ism, you know, not in my
backyard is rife in New Zealand. But I'll give you
an example. We're going to need about three hundred gigawatts

(26:39):
of extra electricity over the next decade. If we could
get just as an example, a geothermal plant up and
going in New Zealand, and there's many sites that we
could do it, then I think that that would show
have less resistance than it would to do a new
project like Kluther or actually you only need one about
the size of Roxburgh, where all the environmentals would come out.

(27:02):
It would have less resistance than building another power plant
that is fueled by oil or coal or gas. So
you know there are options out there for us Regarding immigration.
I mean, it's obvious. If you can pay for the
first year of all the students going to university, I
don't see why you can't pay for the first year

(27:22):
of all the tradees becoming electricians, becoming brickies, becoming carpenters
and sign and so forth. It's just a matter of
planting the seeds and using cultivation management with a view
to the future.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
You've done a pretty good job of drawing the distinction
between university qualifications and see we say trade qualifications. That
has been I think am I wrong in saying well
known over a period of time now that you know
there's no point in going to university, You go out
and you get a trade and that's where you futureize.

(27:56):
Or does it contribute to leaving us high and dry
because they get their qualifications and then scarp of the
country because they don't see any future here.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
I think the situation is actually worse than what you
have pointed out the length. Sorry about that, And the
reason I say it is because I recognized it has
been recognized that it is more worth while getting a trade.
There was American television series on it about fifteen years ago.

(28:28):
It is called Dirty Jobs by some guy called Mike.
But he pointed out that there's whole other people who
already sat down with a piece of paper and said, okay,
am I going to have a student line at the
end of my qualification or am I already going to
be employed in the trades? And it works out much
better that people should have gone into the trades. But
instead there was this emphasis particularly during the key years

(28:50):
of everybody should go to university. Then we had the
universities themselves. And I've actually done a doctorate on this
dumbing down all the courses, increasing the price of all
the courses, and actually offering courses that are of no
constructive value to the country whatsoever. So a trade is
always going to be better than a course that is

(29:11):
of no real value. For example, you've done a humanity's
course in the distinction between female and male television watching
during premium advertising hours. I mean, well, okay, that's interesting
for marketing, but it's of no real value, to be honest,
as a guy who's done marketing.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Now, I didn't. I didn't know that you got your
doctorate on that. When when was there?

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Oh? I finished my doctor in twenty ten. The doctorate
was in supply and demand theory. So it's basically it
was actually a doctorate in business administration. But I applied
it to education and I pointed out how as governments
have guaranteed student loans and things like that, what's happened
is the university seeing the dollar to be made, has

(30:01):
simply increased the prices of the courses. And of course
it's the government that initially pays that and guarantees to
pay it, but then it's the students who are left
with the final bill. In addition to that, they've changed
the courses. For example, MBA courses. You now started to
get executive NBA courses that would only take you eighteen

(30:21):
months tour instead of two years to do. You had
MBAs and specific courses like niche places. Oh there was
one which is a MBA in females and management. It's like, okay,
I can see some distinction, but not a whole MBA
upon it, maybe a couple of units. So you know,
the universities have actually started to decline quite seriously, whereas

(30:47):
the trades have actually become in greater demand and in
addition to that, become far more sophisticated. You know, for example,
the types of tools that you use in the trades,
I mean they're a lot more sophisticated than that they
were thirty or forty years ago, and require a certain
amount of training in order to use them.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
You discovered anything This is a sort of a sidebar issue,
but if you discovered anything about the organizations that control
the trades, be they electricians or engineers or whatever, and
how they manage things in this day and age.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
No, I haven't, really, I haven't done looked into all
that much. My main concern has been the shift of
some of the trades one towards consolidation, which is not
necessarily a good thing because it means that if you
want to become a trade and you live in Graymouth,
you've got to shift all the way to Nelson. But
also the movement of some of the trade courses into

(31:48):
the universities, which has more to do once again with
the universities making money out of the courses and to
trying to push their own ideological agendas into another section
of society.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
What I was referring to was the movement within some
of those organizations into the world of woke, and not
just not just the toe in the water, but the
whole leg Why do you think that was Let's say
that you accept what I've just said, Why do you
think that happened?

Speaker 3 (32:20):
I think that the reason has happened is that people
want to feel that they are included in the zeitgeist
of whatever they think society currently is, and DEI seems
to be flavor of the month, and as such they
move into that area. Another reason could be that they
want to attract women, which are more sympathetic towards DEI

(32:43):
and other policies like that, into the trades. And once again,
they make the shift because they're an organization like any other,
and they want to grow and they want to look good.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
But what if they're growing and looking good and failing
in their duty at the same time.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
They probably are. They are, I said, they probably are.
I mean, when you start choosing people outside of the
basis of merit and ability, then obviously standards will drop.
Say that again, when you start to choose people outside
of merit and ability, then standards naturally drop.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
That's been true forever. So let me take it back
to where we started well in the same vicinity, and
that is politicians and the management by politicians. Have they
have we improved our situation anytime over the last few years.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
The evidence is that generally living standards, education standards, and
so on and so forth are increasing. But that's more
of a situation of progress despite everything. And when I
say despite everything, I'm going to say we grind out
the progress so slowly that our historical mistakes are probably

(34:01):
going to catch up to us, and we cover that
when we talked about energy requirements. We're now starting to
see it regarding houses and silence so forth. But there's
also the management problem, and that is most of our
politicians are that the politicians, and some have only ever
been politicians and that's the way they managed. And with
three year terms, it's very difficult for them to have

(34:23):
the time to projects established that will go through different
governments administrations. You know, we're talking ten or twenty year projects,
things like reforming New Zealand's energy infrastructure, which is going
to be an extremely long, complex, arduous and difficult task.
And if you get getting governments that are changing before

(34:46):
the project's really been seated in because we've only got
three year periods which probably suited back in their nineteen
twenties and that, but not in the twenty twenties, then
our progress is going to be retarded again and again,
you know, by this constant shopping and changing, and when
you don't get the support of the bureaucracy because they
see themselves naturally threatened some of the changes. One example

(35:10):
would be the inclusion of AI and a whole lot
of these process driven systems that the bureaucracy uses an
example of that being making an application with MBIE. You
don't need all of these pen pushes basically in all
the offices, so the whole system needs to be reconfigured.

(35:33):
So that is a much longer term approach to New
Zealand's problems.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
How do you suppose then we move into that zone
where do we get the money? Because it all depends
on money. Where do we get the money? And how
long would it take do you think to turn the
country around? Although I've now got to sort of counter myself.
Today there was an article in the New Zealand Herald

(36:01):
with regard to gross in New Zealand, our GDP will
be according to the your and I haven't read it,
but I've been had it reported to me. According to
the author, we will be somewhere around double the GDP
of Australia over the next couple of years. Do you

(36:24):
see that as a likelihood or could you see that
as a likelihood?

Speaker 3 (36:31):
It depends what reasons there are for the GDP growth.
If you continue bringing people in two percent of the
population one hundred thousand people each and every year, then
the GDP of your country will naturally grow. However, the
GDP per capita of the country unless these people are
all productive, is constantly shrinking. And the most important thing

(36:52):
is GDP per capita because that's what's eventually going to
pay for everybody's superannuation and things like that. So just
growing GDP is an extremely shortsighted and silly thing to do.
You know, we can make the country itself a lot richer,
but because there's so many more people, we're all individually
a lot poor. How does that work out?

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Not very well.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
It's a silly idea, yeah, And that's why we need
to actually look at the levers of what we can
do in order to increase the GDP per capita. Instead
of just bringing in people and hope that they are skilled,
we need to equip people. For example, we've got mechanization,
we've got robotics, and we've got AI and they're all

(37:38):
present and we know what their capabilities are and what
we could do with them, and we should start exploring
how they can be implemented more effectively. In New Zealand,
as an example, you could give tax breaks to people
who can demonstrably prove that they are upskilling their workforce.
In the tools that I mentioned, the nail gun versus

(38:01):
a hammer sort of idea. That's a very simple idea.
We can upskill people to better UNDERSTAN and AI, even
at just the base level of using it consistently to
help write reports and legal letters and so on and
so forth. And as such, and I do it myself,
you can increase your productivity virtually double it after just

(38:23):
a very short course of how to properly use some
of the tools that are available. These are all the
things that we can do without bringing in more people,
And these are things that we can do that can
actually probably bring a whole lot of people a lot
more job satisfaction and lower that unemployment rate of five
point four percent down towards three percent, and also put
people for a future where there is going to be

(38:44):
more mechanization, more robotics and more AI.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
These there's a lot of questions I could throw in there,
but let me ask you your opinion of the Indian
Trade Agreement and whether that falls well which side of
the line does that forlong?

Speaker 3 (39:02):
I think that it's a very poorly thought out trade agreement.
And just using immigration as an example, in the last
trunch of people who came into New Zealand, it was
mainly Chinese, Indian and Filipinos. Let's just assume that it's
one third one third, so one hundred and twenty thousand people.
That means forty thousand of them were Indian. Just for

(39:24):
a hypothetical stake, If you increase that number by another
five thousand, which is what in the article by Audrey
Young New Zealand Herald from two or three days ago,
when she'd said it's one thousand, six hundred and sixty
seven specialist, but it's anticipated the five thousand people, then
that's one eighth increase, which is twelve point five percent increase.

(39:46):
Now that's actually a fairly massive increase in the number
of people to bring into New Zealand, and where are
they going to live? And also we're making the assumption
that their skills will actually match the jobs, and we're
bringing them in rather than training up people who are
already in New Zealand, and we're bringing them in and
there's going to be chain migration following them. So, you know,

(40:07):
it seems to me a very short sighted strategy that
once again, all those other stats they gave at the
beginning of this interview of you know, bringing in one
hundred thousand people in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two,
twenty twenty three. It didn't fix the problem of skill shortage.
And I suspect that a lot of people come into
New Zealand and then use it as a gateway to

(40:28):
leaving for Australia.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
And we've lost a lot of people to Australia in
the last couple of years. So that's one reason. I
suppose they feel that they need to bring more in.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
It gets worse than that, I'm sorry, Laden what happens
that a lot of people will go over to Australia
for the work, but then they'll leave their kids and
their parents still have asked the kids here in New Zealand,
you know, because the parents, as an example, don't qualify
for superannuation for fifteen years and that may be sort
of too late, but in Australia they may not qualify

(41:01):
at all because they spent time here in New Zealand.
And as such, we're essentially becoming an old person's home.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Oh got to be good for something.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Yeah, it's good for selling hearing aids.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
I was in conversation with somebody about work permits. They
were promoting the idea for the sake of our discussion.
They were promoting the idea that we follow on with
other countries that allow people in for a work permit
for a limited period of time, and then when that

(41:36):
time is up, they leave, no two ways about it,
they're gone. My response was that they were talking mostly
about Asian countries or the Middle East, where it's not
far from work to home. It's too far to drive
every day or get a bust or whatever, but you

(41:57):
can hop on a plane and go home for a
brief holiday fairly quickly and fairly cheaply. It's the distance
is what I'm toying with here. Whereas if you get
people down here and they're locked in for four years,
say they're not going to be able to make that
home visit because it's outside their outside their scope, and

(42:19):
therefore you're not going to get the good people to
come down. Does that fall into any sort of form
for you.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
I'm not sure whether or not that means that you
won't get the good people coming down. You'll certainly get
the dedicated people coming down. But this system has worked
for hundreds of years. Hundreds of years there have been
people who traveled from one country to another just for
work and then when the time was up, they went home.
If you look at a country like Qatar, where ninety

(42:48):
seven percent of the population is on such a contract,
and yet they have no problem whatsoever of bringing in
people from the Philippines, Pakistan, India and sign and so forth.
So you know it works. The Singaporeans are no falls.
They bring in people from all over the world and

(43:09):
when your contract is finished, then it's time to go.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, but each of those countries has connection closer connection
with the rest of the world or the part of
the world where these people come from. It's not like
New Zealand, which is way down here and you know
what the affairs are like these days.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
Yes, I agree, but the assumption that people won't come
is unfounded because people have come and do come and
then they go back. There's a lot of Americans who
come to live and work in New Zealand and then
when their contractors up, then they go back home. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
I know one in particular who works here and is
going back to the States on a regular basis, just
for a few days, visit the family and what have you,
because they can afford. It's really what I'm pointing out.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, but people have the choice to do it. And
it's not as if there is any shortage of people
who want to come to New Zealand and simply to
work here and then are willing to go back home.
And the reason I say that is because I've lived
in other countries overseas. In fact, I myself went to
Papua New Guinea to work there setting up medical clinics.

(44:21):
When the contract finishes, then bang you have to come home.
You know that going in, and you know that going up.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
I just think the world's changed a bit. But I
bow to you to your credibility. You mentioned AI a
couple of times. Yeah, I'm going to make a statement
to you or want your reaction. I think it's evil.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
I think that is a tool for st Yeah. Well,
I think it's a tool like any other tool that
can be like a gun, or a or a golf club.
It can be used for the correct purposes or the
incorrect purposes. However, the Coddese do have is that I
think that AI have been released far too early. I

(45:06):
think in many cases it's unfit for what it's used for.
And I have very serious privacy considerations regarding AI. And
I know for an absolute fact that they do track.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
You, Well, you could turn that into what I just said,
it's evil or it has the capacity to be utilized
for evil, and if it has the capacity, it will
be used for evil.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
Yeah, but I'm saying it just like any other tool.
It doesn't mean to say that we can't put boundaries
and safeguards on it or built into it. And I
think built into it is the easiest way to do
it and demand the code actually be able to be
read and recognized. That's the only safeguard I can think of.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Does building safeguards into a piece of legislation actually fulfill
its task.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
Like most legislation, unless it is used as described and
it's enforced, then I think it will be ignored. We've
got to remember that some of the best programmers in
the world. In fact, the country with the largest number
of programmersfortunately is not China, it's in there. It's not
the United States, it's Russia. And I don't think that

(46:21):
they're necessarily going to follow the rules that we set
down for them.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
No, I think there's a sound evidence for that. Why
don't you give us a description of Well, tell us
what you would do if you were in a position
to do it because you were the prime minister, with
your view of things, how would you be tackling it
from here on?

Speaker 3 (46:43):
The very first thing I would do if as Prime
minister is I would lobby for there to be four
year terms for governments rather than three year terms. And
as soon as you do that, then the questions will
come up as to how much can governments achieve during
their terms? Why can they only achieve so much? What
has changed between the three term situation and the four

(47:06):
year suggestion, And all of the things will provide a
platform on which some of the very necessary problems and
issues can be discussed. For example, if you're in government
for four years and you're having problems with Sir Humphrey
and our civil service, you've actually got a four year
period over which try and resolve the problem, rather than

(47:26):
you just being a transitory government that comes and goes
and they can just carry on doing what they want.
The other thing is that you are more likely as
the government to overlap on the CEOs of these various
government departments. I think there's forty eight of them, and
if they are not up to scratch in a merit

(47:47):
sort of way, then you can simply not renew their contracts,
you can try and get rid of them, because a
lot of the problems that we have in government and
in the civil service in particular, stem from the head
of these various organizations. So if you just made that
one suggestion, then you can open the doors to discussions

(48:08):
of all the other products and topics.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Anything else.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
Well, I would focus on energy policy if I had
to choose a particular portfolio. I really think that New
Zealand we can't be more productive if we don't have
cheaper energy. And we can see an example of this
in the UK, where the cost of energy is approximately
three times the cost of energy in the US. So
how can UK industry or German industry, because they're under

(48:37):
the same sort of situation, how can they be competitive
with other countries which have much lower energy costs and
basically the same types of automation. In addition to that,
I have cold every year than die of heat strokes
and things like that, and the one linting factor on
fighting cold, and they call it energy poverty and we're

(48:59):
seeing it in Europe right now is basically cold. You've
already had a few people, I think it was last week,
fifteen people died in New York, just in cold.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
There's going to be a lot more of them doing
the same under the presence newly elected administration of New York.
So on that note, and I've saved this for last yep.
Net zero, good, bad, or stupid.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Netzero is an excuse for a massive wealth transfer from
the developed countries to the less developed countries. It doesn't
achieve a thing, and it's cheated on. For example, when
you have a market where you can sell carbon credits,
you have people who double sell sol twice, you have
companies that do what's called green washing, and you have

(49:52):
a whole lot of perfectly, I was going to say,
behind the whole thing, it's not worth its time and effort,
And you don't want to ruin your economy as they
have done in the UK for the sake of fighting
something where you won't make any difference. And it's the
economy that you need sustain to best in new wind farms,
solar farms, research, all that sort of stuff. You know,

(50:13):
it's sort of like chopping off your league to win
the race.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
I see, well, if you were in a one legged race,
I suppose it might work.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Well, some countries aren't now aren't.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
They indeed, Well, my attitude is that I agree with you, actually,
But as long as you've got people in positions of
authority and we do, who are pursuing it and won't
listen to any alternative, realistic argument, then you're going to

(50:45):
stay in trouble in my opinion, and that bothers me
a great deal, because I think there are people in
positions who are not very bright.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
The issue is not always that they're not very bright,
but sometimes you use some very intelligent people who are
driven by ideology. One example of that is I was
sitting one day in a plane to side was it
Jillian Julian Jenner? Very very nice lady, very smart, and
everything else like that, but all we discussed was bicycles.

(51:16):
And another example was a guy who I like a lot,
Simon Brown here in pack Oranger. Very very nice guy,
very smart. He's had some senior portfolios, but at the
end of the day, politics is where he spent all
his life. And so, you know, people with those sort
of experiences in life tend to reflect those experiences in

(51:38):
life when it comes to the types of decisions that
they make and the way they think.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
I wonder if you think that there is enough politicians
in Parliament at the moment who are good enough to
make this country great.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
I haven't seen any evidence of that.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
So on that note, Mike, it's been a pleasure again,
and I look forward to the next time we talk
because it will be based on something interesting.

Speaker 3 (52:07):
You're welcome and I hope to speak to you again.
She is.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
I went to the mail room for podcast number three
hundred and sixteen and missus producer, how are you this week?

Speaker 3 (52:27):
Late?

Speaker 4 (52:27):
And I'm fabulous?

Speaker 3 (52:28):
How are you just.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
Put that on loop? She's always she's always fabulous. Ye's good, Yes,
well it's not bad.

Speaker 5 (52:36):
And I see you've I've got a swag of emails here.
You did find your missing emails?

Speaker 2 (52:42):
I did find a button I found I found the
mid afternoon of last week, after we'd done the mail
room in the morning, and they sort of appeared out
of nowhere.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
I find it.

Speaker 5 (52:53):
I find it funny to think that we would sit
in two studios in our radio life, with so much
tech that we controlled separately, and now we're finding it
difficult to press the right button to get our emails.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Well, it's it's well, this is this was the missing
emails was the result of the the changes that they've
made to the system.

Speaker 5 (53:18):
Now we've got to get on because I've got about
twenty here, So let me just first start with a
few time that you won't read, but I will. Gary Layton,
congratulations on the honor and happy New Year. Judy, Congratulations Layton,
A special radio man. Jude Layton, congratulations on your world
deserved honor of an m NS.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Always get that wrong, m n z M.

Speaker 5 (53:43):
I've listened to your podcast for a few years and
everyone has taught me so much. Congratulations on your going
from Margaret well deserved. We were delighted to hear and
then read that you had been the recipient of award
in the New Year's Honors. We have always enjoyed your
program on the radio, and since your retirement of the retirement,
the weekly podcasts have been eagerly awaited. From Pamela, I

(54:08):
have only just caught I'll finished with this. There loads more,
but this is from someone special who we know, Deirdre.
It's so lovely to hear from you, Deirdre. I hope
you're well. I have only just caught up with your
splendid news. Congratulations a well deserved honor. You have given
so much to so many enlightenment, entertainment and knowledge through

(54:29):
the years, that newstalks'd be in your podcasts. I imagine
Carolyn is so proud of you. Yes I am, including
your sons. Please give my very kind regards to Christian
And she says, I have fond memories of the Gallipoli
tour on the Plong cruise and Deirdre so have we
so much.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
Love, absolutely and can you believe that that was coming
up eleven years ago? Noop, unbelievable, You can't believe it.
If it's unbelievable, all all, and thank you. Now let
me just say that we've got a ton of those,
and it's not an ego trip. It's more recognizing and

(55:07):
appreciate what you're saying and sharing with everybody.

Speaker 5 (55:13):
Well, we were saying this morning, weren't we, you know,
even on the radio. We were just two people who
went to work in two little rooms and then went
home again afterwards. And it's still, you know, still a
bit amazing to think that actually people.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Oh and this being the ATA too, don't forget that.
And you had a little room maybe, but I had
a big studio. This is from Judy read your intro
this week dated eleven December, our local GP surgery in
pong Array are giving all incoming patients a permission slip
to allow the surgery to use AI to write up

(55:51):
all their medical file notes and save the GP time.
But that's all, she says. My question is, are they
reducing their fees because they are now able to get
more patients in because they're using AI to write up
the reports. I think it's a good question from H. Paul.
You're probably across this already, but please share this on

(56:14):
your excellent platform. From the Brownstone Institute, the FDA memo
that shakes the world quote, the Office of Biostatistics and
Farmer Covigilance Career staff have found that at least ten
children have died after and because of receiving COVID nineteen vaccination.

(56:35):
These deaths are related to vaccination quote unquote. These children,
like all young people, were never at risk from COVID
rip Rory Nane and many others. The vax was not
safe nor effective. Hand in your knighthood, Dame doctor Jacinda.

Speaker 5 (56:55):
Late and John says, I've just listened to podcasts three
twelve with John Orcock. I think it's the most interesting
and disturbing of your podcasts which I have listened to.
Your questioning was excellent and his explanations were very concise
and easy to understand. He's an excellent communicator. Further into
the interview I listened, the more the Tower of Babel

(57:18):
came to mind. There will be a danieument, although I
wouldn't like to try and predict what that might be.
Regarding John's reference to philosophy and the passing on of
the teachings of the philosophers. I went to Catholic schools
in the fifties and sixties, and whilst we learned about
individual philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle, we didn't study

(57:40):
their philosophy in detail. I believe this is still true
today unless you have a liberal education at institutions such
as Campian College in Sydney and the New University of
Notre Dame and possibly the Australian Catholic University. Once you
may have chosen to study philosophy at secular universities. I imagine
today you can probably still study that, but I imagine,

(58:04):
given the state of the modern university, there would be
an emphasis on those philosophers favored by left wing academics
such as Marks.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
I think very correct now from Claire, I'm a real
Shane Jones fan, so well done getting him back on
to launch. Twenty twenty six, My brother Matt sent his
siblings each a US fifty cent coin for Christmas. When
he sent them, they were worth US seventy dollars an ounce,
and a fifty cent coin was worth twenty five US dollars.

(58:37):
Today silver is worth eighty three ninety three announce pre
nineteen sixty five US dimes, quarters and other fifty cent
coins are ninety percent silver. It was a memorable and
generous gift. I look forward to another year of your
interviews clear appreciated.

Speaker 5 (58:53):
Thank you, and Layton Jin says, well, you're already on
your eighth year of your podcast. This means that I
must have been following following you for at least fifteen years,
maybe more. I've lost count Through the years I've listened
to your broadcasts, drank Layton's, and read beyond the microphone.
I feel like I've literally been sharing life together with
you both and loving every minute.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Thanks.

Speaker 5 (59:15):
I've grown to love Shane Jones as a politician over
the years. He is one of the very few intelligent
orators left in New Zealand politics. His cut and thrust
speeches in Parliament are often incisive in truth and spectacular
in theatrics. I vehemently agree with his analysis that the
core problem in our society can be attributed to, in

(59:36):
his words, men abandoning responsibilities and easy access to welfare.
The reality is that these twin issues of family breakdown
and intergenerational welfare dependency are interrelated. And Jin goes on,
thank you just a little bit long for today, but
he says, I breathe a cygh of relief now that

(59:57):
your podcast is back.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Apprecia hates it always gin thank you. I'm glad you
survived the absence. I've just listened to your interview with
Martin Durkhain. That was the replay. It was very interesting.
A couple of points on Robert Menzies. I agree with
you about Menzies. He is by far the best PM
of Australia ever. Apart from being a very intelligent man,

(01:00:22):
he also had the common touch and loved nothing better
than being on the hustings. He particularly enjoyed responding to
the hecklers. Unlike the politicians of today who wouldn't have
a clue about how to respond to Heckler's about how
to respond to Hecklers. You also ask Martin if there
is hope for the under thirties. I think so, says Chris.

(01:00:46):
Why I say this is there appears to be a
religious revival in countries like America, Britain, France and even
Australia in the Catholic Church. I've had personal experience of
that in my local Catholic parish in Canberra. This seems
to be particularly so with young men who have had
enough of being called and treated as toxic. It's also

(01:01:08):
the case with young families. The fact that there appears
to be a religious revival tells me that they are
not buying the woke nonsense which is usually anti Christian
and particularly anti Catholic. Chris from Condor in the Act
now written on December thirteenth, From Bruce, I thought you'd

(01:01:29):
appreciate this. This is a quote. We will look back
on this period in the history of science as the
Dark Ages, when knowledge and power resided with politicians and
scientists who abused the scientific process for their own selfish ms.
They ruined careers, breaking the will of good men and
women with whom they disagreed. While performing terrible disservice to

(01:01:51):
science itself, they betrayed the fundamental tenets of the scientific process,
the rigorous, unflinching search for facts. They forgot that it
is not a search for truth. For that, look to religion.
An excerpt from I'm What I Read What He Read
from PJ Media, posted twelve December, Merry Christmas from Bruce.

(01:02:17):
I'll take that for Christmas coming. And Bruce, by the way,
that quote is very good. I'm going to hang on
to it.

Speaker 5 (01:02:24):
Tank you ladon, I'll finish with this one and forgive
me because I'm going back to your M and ZM,
so the last one. I am a longtime listener, says Greg,
going back to the mid nineteen eighties and Adelaide. When
I first heard you on air back then, it was
a breath of fresh air to listen to you. Unfortunately,
you didn't hang around for long and your replacement and

(01:02:44):
his Blue Rinse Brigade audience took over again. So when
I moved to New Zealand in nineteen ninety two, I
picked up where we left off. I have been a
fan of podcasts for quite a while now, and I
look forward to yours coming out every Wednesday. Last year,
I have to say every week you had a great
guest kicking off this year with Shane Jones again was brilliant.
Even journalists over here think he is on the money,

(01:03:07):
and I see that Greg is now in Melbourne. I
saw one interview last year where a skyjournalist asked him
if he could clone himself and come over here to
help out anyway. I just wanted to reach out and
finally touch base with you. Keep up the great work
that's from Greg.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
If he could clone himself, we'd keep all the copies, yes,
because we need them. Greg, that's the most exciting email
I've had for a while. That's not to discredit the others,
but just you going back. That's amazing. Adelaide, What was
it forty years ago or even for this is the
forty first year since I put in six months in Adelaide,

(01:03:47):
and I sometimes wonder what would have befalled me if
I'd stayed there, because they tried to get me back
for three years.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
They tried.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
I can only say that if I had gone back
to Adelaide or stayed there in the first place, I
wouldn't have two boys. I wouldn't have the woman sitting
across from me at the moment in my life, and
lots of other good friends and experiences. So the move
was good, but I still wonder what would have happened.

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
As we all do, however, sliding doors.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
So that'll do, and we'll see you next week and
we'll roll with a few more of these. But in
the meantime Latent News Talks AB dot co dot and said,
or Carolyn with a y at NEWSTALKSB dot co dot
N said, if you want to correspond, go for it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
Thanks Layton, Layton Smith.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
Just after the interview was recorded, well shortly thereafter, I
received from Mike an article he just done some work
on under the heading of cultivation management. And I think it.
I think it adds what did to me, adds to
our understanding. So I would like to read it, and
I we'll read it in its entirety, I think, because
some little under two pages, if you've got other things

(01:05:09):
to do, then I understand. But you can come back
to it, of course. So cultivation management treats management as
the deliberate shaping of whole systems over time. It assumes
that every policy, practice and decision generates downstream effects that accumulate, interact,
and ultimately determine the long term health of the system.

(01:05:31):
It is grounded in the recognition that the world now
changes faster than the management styles inherited from the twentieth
century can cope with. Conditions shift more rapidly, pressures compound
more quickly, and the consequences of inaction or misaction arrive
sooner and with greater force. Cultivation management, therefore, treats change

(01:05:52):
as a constant and designs for it. It initiates adjustments
and system level shifts in anticipation of emerging pressures, strengthening
and renewing the system before crises force reactive responses. Now
this stands in sharp contrast to the short term, reactive
modes of management that dominate many governments and organizations today.

(01:06:15):
These modes respond to immediate pressures, political incentives, market cycles,
or inherited routines, rather than the long term needs of
the system. New Zealand's housing system illustrates how these modes
interact to produce persistent, compounding failure. The continued reliance on
motels as emergency housing, a practice that existed and persists

(01:06:40):
under the previous Labor government and now under the current
government did not arise from a single decision or single administration.
It emerged from the convergence of several short term management
styles operating simultaneously. Legacy management is the first of these motels.
Began as a temporary stopgap, but once embedded in bureaucratic processes,

(01:07:04):
they became the default response. The system kept using them
not because they were effective, but because they were familiar,
administratively simple, and required no structural change. Legacy management is
the logic of institutional inertia. Inherited tools persist long after
the conditions that justified them have changed. Ideological management adds

(01:07:29):
a second layer. Different governments brought different world views, and
the public service aligned its advice accordingly. Under the Key government,
the Department of Housing advised that state housing stock should
be reduced and sold, and that advice was acted upon.
Years later, under the Addern government, the same department, often
the same individuals, advised that there was now a severe

(01:07:52):
shortage of state housing and that rapid construction was urgently required.
That advice was also acted upon. Both governments were held
accountable by voters for the outcomes of these decisions, Yet
those who provided the advice and whose earlier recommendations helped
create the conditions for the later crisis, whenever held accountable

(01:08:13):
at all. This dynamic is well understood in Westminster systems.
Margaret Thatcher once observed that Yes, Minister was not a
comedy but a documentary. The New Zealand Public Service, like
its counterparts elsewhere, is a politically aware, self preserving institution.
It adapts its advice to the ideology of the government

(01:08:35):
of the day, protects its own continuity, and avoids responsibility
for long term consequences. Public servants have longer careers than politicians,
but their longer horizon is oriented toward institutional survival, not
toward the long term health of the system. The ability
to pivot from sell to build without ever acknowledging the

(01:08:59):
consequences of earlier advice is not evidence of neutrality. It
is evidence of a system designed to preserve itself. Corporate
management forms a third layer. Developers, financiers, and landowners operate
on short financial cycles, not long term system horizons. Their
incentives quarterly returns, risk minimization, land speculation, and profit driven

(01:09:23):
development patterns contribute to chronic undersupply of affordable housing. This
market driven shorterism creates the conditions in which the governments
are repeatedly forced into reactive crisis management. Corporate actors do
not create the motel solution directly, but they shape the
environment that makes the Motel solution politically and administratively attractive.

(01:09:47):
Political management completes the picture three year electoral cycles, media
driven urgency, and the need to demonstrate visible action makes
motels politically convenient. They produce immediate results, avoid contentious reforms,
and provide a tangible response to crisis. Long term structural

(01:10:07):
solutions will not mature within a single term and carry
political risk. Politicians therefore gravitate toward actions that can be announced, photographed,
and defended, rather than those that will bear fruit in
ten or twenty years. Legacy, ideological, corporate and political management

(01:10:28):
combine to produce a system that cannot sustain long term strategies.
Temporary measures become permanent. Contradictory policies accumulate market pressures, distort supply.
Bureaucratic incentives protect the institution rather than the public. Governments
are punished at the ballot box for outcomes shaped by

(01:10:49):
decades of contradictory advice, while those who shaped the advice
remain untouched. Cultivation management is the alternative to this pattern.
It's designed for a world where conditions change rapidly and
where systems must be strengthened and renewed continuously. It integrates short, low,
and very long time horizons. It anticipates emerging pressures and

(01:11:13):
adjusts system settings before they become brittle. It maintains continuity
across political cycles, ideological shifts, bureaucratic habits, and market pressures.
Where legacy management clings to inherited routines, ideological management swings
with the political world views. Corporate management chases quarterly upcomes,

(01:11:35):
and political management pursues immediate support. Cultivation management focuses on
what the system will require in the future, not what
is convenience in the present. Nada wrap this up. Mike
makes a final comment and it reads Luxon's opportunity is
visible within this new vision. He can transition from a

(01:11:58):
caretaker and legacy management role to resilience leadership by championing
structural projects that harden the grid, secure, agriculture, and tech
regional lifelines. This requires abandoning the current inadequate inertia and
adopting resilience as the organizing principle of his leadership. If

(01:12:19):
he does, he could not only rehabilitate his reputation, but
anchor New Zealand's future in continuity and competence. He could
establish the foundation for the increase in GDP that he
has said is desperately needed, but to date seems to
be unable to elucidate how it could be achieved. So
I will leave you with that, and I think it's

(01:12:40):
a very good comment to finish on. So that takes
us out for podcast number three hundred and sixteen. If
you would like to write to us Layton at USTALKSB
dot co dot nz and Carolyn at us TALKSB dot
co dot nz. We shall return as always in a
few days time with the podcast number three hundred and seventeen.

(01:13:03):
In the meantime, thank you for listening and we shall
talk soon.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
Mm hmmmmmmmm.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Thank you for more from News Talks at B. Listen
live on air or online, and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio