Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from Newstalks. They'd be follow
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rewrap O.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good there and welcome to the rerap for Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
All the best, but it's from the mic asking breakfast
on news Dogs. They'd be in a silly a package
starring Heather. Here we go supermarket's being charged for charging
the wrong prices? What does here they make of that?
Does anybody understand what's going on with the CGT figures
that they put together? And also does anybody understand heather
(00:53):
sense of humor? And then we'll finish up with some
real life succession news. But before any of that, mail
delivery is yeah, it's slowly but surely on its way out.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
It looks like New Zealand Posts might finally pull a
trigger that they haven't pulled yet, talking about actually stopping
the delivery of mail to some letter boxes. Now this
you might get hold on, Have I heard this before?
You kind of have heard this before, but not really
because up to now the proposal has been, as far
as I can see, mostly to deliver, not to stop
delivering to new houses. What they're now talking about is
(01:24):
actually not delivering to houses that already get the letters. Right,
So you already have a house, you already have a
letter box. Your letter box has been getting letters for years.
But now they're saying we're going to stop doing that
and instead, somewhere down the road or somewhere in town
have a cluster of boxes like a post office where
you basically have to go get your mail. And according
to the plan, if they get their way, what they
would do is they would cut five percent of letter
(01:44):
boxes every single year. So presumably within twenty years you
get to one hundred percent and no one's getting any
more mail anymore. Now I'm surprised by this, And when
I say surprised, unpleasantly surprised, I'm surprised New Zealand Post
is prepared to be this bold, because, let's be honest
about it, We're gonna have to do this at some point,
aren't we. I mean, letters are a luxury. They cost
us as a country a lot of money. And this
(02:06):
is what I think we fail to understand a lot
of the time. Getting the guy around to drop your
blinking I don't know whatever. Direct mail from the taxpayer's
union off to you is not free. The New Zealand
Post lost fourteen million dollars in the last financial year.
It lost fifty six million dollars in the year before.
That's money that we as a taxpayer are basically losing. Now,
most things you get in the letter. You can actually
(02:27):
get an email. Now, you can get your power bill,
your water bill, your rates bill, whatever. Some things still
have to come in the mail. I give you that
your credit card, maybe that little thing that you put
in that tails you've got an existing warrant fitness or regil,
whatever it is. But actually you can even get that
stuff in Korea instead of on the letters. I'm not
sure that there's anything that you have to get via
a letter that you can't get in some other form.
(02:48):
Now I'm not heartless about this, right, I get that
there are some communities that are going to be hit
harder than others when eventually we get to the point
where they are actually pulling the letters out of our
letter boxes, the elderly, rural communities and so on. But frankly,
it's going to be a shlip for all of us.
So you have to go down to wherever and get
the letter out of the old cluster box in town.
So we're all going to be in this together. But
(03:09):
here's the thing, right, the writing's been on the wall
for ages. The trend in letters is only going one way,
and that's downhill. And it's not a surprise it's coming
to this. It's just a pleasant surprise that New Zealand
Post has actually got the courage to start doing this
and talking about it right now.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's going to be weird, isn't it Like they're taking
it away five percent of us at a time. Imagine
when you're at that last five percent, who's still getting letters?
I mean you won't be, will you, because surely nobody
will be setting them by that stage. So it's very
very odd, but you know, kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I don't know, it's the rewrap, right.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So the supermarkets that are in trouble for overcharging at
the checkout compared to what they're supposed to be charging
with the special prizes, something to wonder if it's happened
to me.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Look, I've got to be honest, I do not feel
sorry for the supermarkets getting pinged by the Commerce Commission
laying those criminal charges. I mean, I know that there
are some who are going to criticize the ComCom for
this being small beer, and it is, and there are.
They'll say there are bigger structural issues in the grossersector
to actually be dealing with, and that's true as well,
there are. But this is still important because the supermarkets
have known for long enough now that they have, if
(04:16):
not misleading pricing and misleading specials, that they have inaccurate
pricing on their shelves. Now, I don't want to prejudge
the outcome of this court case, but you know, we
can talk about the circumstances that led to this. These
are some of the most profitable businesses out Just have
a look at the number of supermarket owners that are
on the Rich list. So absolutely got the means, absolutely
had the time to put in the electronic shelf tag
(04:38):
systems that would have got around, at the very least
most of the inaccurate pricing problems. Right, instead of using
the paper, you use the electronic stuff. And yet despite
the money and the time, we still have this problem
going on. And it's not good enough to say, oh,
the customers could just go up to the count to
get a refund. You have to before in order to
get a refund, you have to know that you have
been charged incorrectly, And how many of us actually know that,
(04:58):
how many of us actually have the time or the
inclination to check our supermarket receipts. And this stuff is
not actually all that inconsequential, because groceries are one of
the expenses that families cannot avoid, much like putting a
roof over your head, and the stuff adds up over time. Now,
look the fines that are available to the Commerce Commission here. Yes,
they are relatively small compared to the money that the
(05:20):
supermarket owners are making. But I suspect that the charges
themselves will give other supermarket owners a fright, if only
for reputational reasons. I suspect they're going to take this seriously.
I suspect that they will actually go and have a
look at what they're doing on their shelves as well.
And that's a good thing. They have absolutely had long
enough to sort this out.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Is it going to be some kind of compensation, Hey, out,
if you can prove that you're a customer of the supermarket,
that you'll get your money back.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Just trying to figure out how I can prove that.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
I mean, there will be people somewhere who've probably kept
all their supermarket receipts. Ever, I always mean when they
say do you want your receipts? I always going up.
And this is why you need to keep your receipts.
People rewrapped right now? What's going on? Why is it
that the people who want a wealth tax or a
(06:10):
capital gains cat tax can't do simple a reprotech.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
It doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I have got fantastic news for you. I'm full of
good news for you today, great news. Have you seen
how rich we're going to be when we introduce that
capital gains tax? We are absolutely going to be rolling
in the dough. So Debbie as in Debbie Narde Wapaka
from the Mardi Party. Debbie was at Parliament News today
and she just let the cat out of the bag.
She's like, two hundred billion dollars. That's how much we're
going to make in the next six years. I am
(06:37):
thrilled we're just going to be able to afford everything.
Because let me just give you an I'm just gonna
put this in context for you. How much money two
hundred billion dollars is right, that's thirty three billion dollars
a year. Now, I'm going to come back to that number,
but two hundred billion dollars six years, that's half the
size of our entire economy. I mean, that is a
lot of money. This is a slam dunk on the CGT.
(06:58):
Now we've got to do it because if you're going
to bring in half of your entire economy, you've got
to do it right. It would be for every single
dollar that the government spends in those six years, this
would bring in about a third or thereabouts. So that's huge.
That's going to help the government, you know, just basically
afford everything. It is also twenty times more than the
tax Working Group. Who are they even, what do they know?
(07:20):
Twenty times more than they said we would bring in.
So Debbie's on the money with this one eight, I
feel like, you know what, I'm building a case for
how absolutely accurate Debbie is thirty three billion dollars a year. Now,
in order for us to get thirty three billion dollars
a year, what needs to happen is we need to
buy all the houses that we possibly can every single
year and then tax the hell out of them. Because
(07:41):
the highest number of how the biggest year property wise
was twenty twenty one. Remember after COVID and everybody needs
to buy a beach house. And that year we bought
about ninety one billion dollars worth of housing stock, So
ninety one billion dollars if we can do that every
single year from here on, and so we're going to
have to start buying do that every single year, and
then we tax it at about thirty percent, so we're
(08:02):
just going to take a third of what you get
roughly or thereabouts. I think we're going to be able
to make this work. I don't know about you, but
I'm feeling very confident about how awesome this capital gains
tax that Debbie's got planned for us is.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I have you heard her go out and start buying houses?
Do it for your country. The more houses you buy,
the better off the country is going to be the
re rabbit. That was, of course a joke, just in
case it turns out we had to explain these things.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Heather, that's satire on the capital gains tax was a
little too subtle. I only realized you were joking at
the end. Hither, surely you are taking the piss about
the CGT. Debbie has not got a degree in finance.
Give me strength, Heither have you checked guys, have you
checked her numbers? You're such a just did Okay, I'm
going to dial back the sarcasm, but just I don't
(08:51):
know how to, because there's nothing I can do but
be sarcastic about stuff like that, because otherwise I would
cry at the incompetence of it. So I was trying
to deliver the incompetence to you in a way that
you could kind of get it anyway. But then it
turns out I was also too sarcastic about Auckland International
Airport because either I don't know what you've been hiding under,
but all Cland Airport's been in chaos for years. I know,
(09:12):
I know, I'm giving you all of the psychasms.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
So what we're going to do jokes than when you
have to explain them, I find Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
I've completely ruined everything by having to now explain to
you that I do not think the CGT is going
to work, and I think Auckland Airport is the international
part is a complete show.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Now that's not what you said. You've changed your mind completely. Now,
as I.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
As a woman prerogative, I will end everything with just joking.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I used to start these podcasts
by saying everything you're about to hear is probably not real.
I'm not sure if that covers you off or not rerap.
This is the opposite way around though. Now instead of
having Succession on TV, you've got it in real.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Life over in the US. Listen, if you've been following
this Murdoch court case where the family are fighting each
other for control of Rupert Murdoch's empire when he finally
pops his clogs. This thing came to a head yesterday
in the courts. If you've been following this and you've
been thinking, Jesus feels like an episode out of Succession?
What about this? For a twist, the whole thing kicked
off because of an episode of Succession. So weirdly, they
(10:15):
were and I don't think all together, Like I don't
think all the adult kids were sitting in one living
room together, but they were all like the rest of us,
watching Succession where everything goes into chaos because old mate
dies or is going to die. The whole thing is
just chaos the whole way through. But anyway, when they
were watching it, they started thinking, oh, what about us,
weird life mirroring everything? Everything is weird about this The
(10:39):
show is based on them, and then they're basing their
lives on the show anyway. So then Lachlan, James, Elizabeth,
and Prudence, the four eldest kids, start getting together and
having little chats about it, start devising a public relations
strategy for the father for Rupert's eventual death. Elizabeth Staffer
writes a succession memo for the trust, which basically is
as how they're going to avoid having a real life
(11:01):
example of succession play out, which takes them to court
and they have a real life example of succession playing out.
That is the definition of meta that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Of course, it's not really like succession. If it was
one of the Murdochs would have run in the presidential
election that they just had and they would have got
about one percent of the vote.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I think that's what is it?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
What kind of got I think it was about that,
and it ended up being the ambassador to let.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
The am I remembering that correctly.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
If I haven't spoiled that for you guys, if you
haven't watched the decision yet or when you're in the
middle of doing so, should.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Spoilers, I am glean that. I'm really sorry about that.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
How do you people do that I mean had finished
quite some time ago, so I think I think I'm
in the clear. There. That was the rewrap. We'll be
back with more exciting Showbi's news like that for you news.
It wasn't really wasn't, but we'll be back with something tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
See then.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
For more from News Talks. The'd be listen live on
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