August 9, 2025 • 8 mins
This week on the Sunday Panel, broadcaster and journalist Wilhelmina Shrimpton and director at Capital NZ, Ben Thomas, joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
Labour's Chris Hipkins has admitted his education spokesperson should have replied to the Minister over NCEA changes before the Government moved to scrap the qualification. What do we make of this! And what do we think of Labour at the moment?
The boot camp data is in, with new reports revealing seven participants re-offended seriously enough to warrant returning from the community to residence. Can the Government make changes to the programme?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Panel Time and joining me today on the panel, we
have director at Capitol New Zealand Ben Thomas. Good morning,
monitor and broadcaster and journalist. I want to mean a Shrimpton. Hi,
will Amena, Hi, good morning. Good to have you both
with us. We spoke to Christop Hipkins. Chris Hipkins, I
should say sorry at the beginning of the show today,
(00:33):
we were talking about what's been happening with education and
how it sort of looks like as education spokespersons decided
to do things on their own term, own terms and
in their own time. Our oppositional members of Parliament, Ben,
we expect them to be doing the work, to be
fully engaged with whatever portfolio they are the spokesperson for,
(00:54):
to be collaborating when asked with the opposition. I mean,
I expect them to be doing their job. And I
just felt here like, well, I Jing Prime was just
I don't know, taking the money and doing her own thing.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Sometimes you have a bit of a problem with former
ministers who don't realize that, you know, their position in
the world has changed.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
When they go into opposition.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
You know, this idea that she basically willaging Prime basically
ignored requests from Erica Stanford, the Education Minister, to meet
with her, be briefed on and discuss potential changes until,
you know, until she was sort of ready, at which
point she should.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Have said, I'm ready to engage now.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
And you know, yeah, as you say, the job changes.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
That's interesting. So do you think that's what was happening,
that she just was sort of stuck in that old mentality.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I think there is a little bit of arrogance that
comes with it.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Yeah, you would think that normally they would be over that.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
By about a year and a half into a new government.
But you know, who knows that there.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Does seem to be have a of a prevalent sort
of sense that maybe labor are just waiting for this
government to fail to be reinstated to their rightful places
government and you look to their credit, you know, that
seems to be working okay for Labour's poll compared to Nationals,
But I'm not.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Sure it can be relied on in an election yet
next year.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, And that's a really interesting comment to make. Well,
I meana, you know, we're getting all these comments. The
Greens are telling us that they're the main opposition and
that they're the ones being proactive and that you know,
Labor has a visibility issue. But then you look at
the polls and you see that, you know, Chris Hopkins
is actually doing quite well, and you're thinking, well, maybe
that's all he does have to do is sit there
and just let everybody else make them some mess of
(02:47):
things and it'll be fine.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Which works to a certain point, right, But we're coming
up to crunch time. Next year is election year. You
can only rely so much on that swinging the other way.
I think there's a real danger in being complacent, and
I know that that's actually in the term opposition. It's
their job to oppose things, but it actually needs to
come with with some sort of substance. You can't just
sit there and oppose or say publicly that you're against
(03:13):
a particular policy or move or whatever and not do
something constructive or not come up with a solution. Otherwise
you're just winging, and that's not how you win an election.
That's just that's how you lose votes.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Ben is Labor doing a good job in.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Opposition, Well, they're doing a reasonable job compared to their
appalling election result. Right, they shed about exactly half of
their votes from that twenty twenty sort of bonanza, and
they shed it in all directions to the left, to
the right, and you know, to be sort of near
(03:52):
national who which themselves have come down, you know a
lot since the election. You know, they would probably be
reasonably happy with that. But look in the long term,
sort of tracking at in the low thirties gives them
very limited leverage if they were to former government with
either the Greens and or to party body. You know,
(04:15):
the Greens tend to do best when the Labor is weak,
and it's pretty instructive that the Greens are happily tracking along,
but you know, ten percent or more no matter how
many of their MPs leave and disgrace or charged with
criminal offenses.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Will Amana do you think labor has a visibility issue?
Speaker 5 (04:36):
I don't think it's.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
About what you'd expect that this point out from you know,
an election, which is a way all.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
These the huge issues that are dominating the news cycle
really has national at the forefront. I don't know if
it's a visibility issue. I think it's just about the
substance of what they're delivering. It's about the substance of
what they're saying. I think, like I said, when you're
opposing something, there needs to be a solution. There needs
to be another policy. There needs to be something more
(05:04):
than just saying something isn't working in order to actually
gain a bit of traction. I mean, I remember, I
think it was when just under our Doune came into power,
and I think it was the second election that she
was elected after that the landslide, and I know there
was a lot of criticism about National just coming out
and saying that what they were doing was bad. They
weren't offering a solution, and people actually want to know
(05:25):
that something's going to change. They don't just want to
know that it's not working. So what are they going
to do about it?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I'd love to talk about the boot camps and where
we go to from here. Of course, this has been
pretty controversial since it began. We've learnt that seven out
of ten participants re offended. This was after leaving the
in house segment of the program, which does last for
the twelve months. What do we judge the program based
on that particular statistic been or are we digging with
people whose lives and it's so much more complicated. There's
(05:53):
more to it than just that stat Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
I mean, if you look at the recidivism rates of
young offenders who have already offended you know, twice, so
I think that the overall recidivism rate is about sixty percent,
And these participants were selected because they were among the
most serious youth offenders in the country, people with you
know what, we would regard as sort of crazy kind
(06:20):
of histories of offending.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So I don't think there's any surprise at all. I certainly.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I think it would be something of a miracle if
this had prevented the reoffending to a greater extent. Looks,
it's probably too seen to tell. I think the history
shows that these military style camps are not some sort
of panacea that will solve everything. More important, I guess,
(06:49):
are the new sort of wrap around care elements that
have been brought into this version of it under this
center right government. And maybe the evaluation will show that,
you know, that there have been some positives and that
there should be.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
More work on it. Honestly, just don't know. We can't
tell from the numbers here.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I suspect in the end of these will be abandoned
like their predecessors are after some time, and then a
future national party will campaign on them in ten to
fifteen years time, bringing them back.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, what do we do with amina? Do do we
keep going with them? We stick at it?
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Look, seven out of ten reoffending. I definitely wouldn't label
that as a success. It's obviously not going to be
one hundred percent you know, a success rate. But you know,
for example, if you've got thirty percent on a test,
would you say that you pass.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I think what.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Needs to be done is there needs to be a
bit of a stock take of what's actually been successful
within that. And I know, Ben, you just mentioned no
wrap around elements, and that's been proven to really work
to really wrap around these kids who are you know,
reoffending and getting caught up in crime. I think it's
clearly not working one hundred percent in the current states.
(08:04):
So let's look at it. Go what were there that
were successful? Take those out, add them to something else.
Perhaps it's not the traditional boot camp structure that is good,
but not completely throwing it out and wasting that money
in that time and that investment, but taking the good
successful elements and making it into a hybrid, into something
(08:25):
that would work moving forward. I think it would be
a shame to throw out everything, but combining things together
is it potential?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
No, it's an interesting one, isn't it. Thank you so much,
Ben Thomas and one of men Is Strimpton for your
time this morning. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks there'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Panel Time and joining me today on the panel, we
have director at Capitol New Zealand Ben Thomas. Good morning,
monitor and broadcaster and journalist. I want to mean a Shrimpton. Hi,
will Amena, Hi, good morning. Good to have you both
with us. We spoke to Christop Hipkins. Chris Hipkins, I
should say sorry at the beginning of the show today,
(00:33):
we were talking about what's been happening with education and
how it sort of looks like as education spokespersons decided
to do things on their own term, own terms and
in their own time. Our oppositional members of Parliament, Ben,
we expect them to be doing the work, to be
fully engaged with whatever portfolio they are the spokesperson for,
(00:54):
to be collaborating when asked with the opposition. I mean,
I expect them to be doing their job. And I
just felt here like, well, I Jing Prime was just
I don't know, taking the money and doing her own thing.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Sometimes you have a bit of a problem with former
ministers who don't realize that, you know, their position in
the world has changed.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
When they go into opposition.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
You know, this idea that she basically willaging Prime basically
ignored requests from Erica Stanford, the Education Minister, to meet
with her, be briefed on and discuss potential changes until,
you know, until she was sort of ready, at which
point she should.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Have said, I'm ready to engage now.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
And you know, yeah, as you say, the job changes.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
That's interesting. So do you think that's what was happening,
that she just was sort of stuck in that old mentality.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I think there is a little bit of arrogance that
comes with it.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Yeah, you would think that normally they would be over that.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
By about a year and a half into a new government.
But you know, who knows that there.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Does seem to be have a of a prevalent sort
of sense that maybe labor are just waiting for this
government to fail to be reinstated to their rightful places
government and you look to their credit, you know, that
seems to be working okay for Labour's poll compared to Nationals,
But I'm not.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Sure it can be relied on in an election yet
next year.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, And that's a really interesting comment to make. Well,
I meana, you know, we're getting all these comments. The
Greens are telling us that they're the main opposition and
that they're the ones being proactive and that you know,
Labor has a visibility issue. But then you look at
the polls and you see that, you know, Chris Hopkins
is actually doing quite well, and you're thinking, well, maybe
that's all he does have to do is sit there
and just let everybody else make them some mess of
(02:47):
things and it'll be fine.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Which works to a certain point, right, But we're coming
up to crunch time. Next year is election year. You
can only rely so much on that swinging the other way.
I think there's a real danger in being complacent, and
I know that that's actually in the term opposition. It's
their job to oppose things, but it actually needs to
come with with some sort of substance. You can't just
sit there and oppose or say publicly that you're against
(03:13):
a particular policy or move or whatever and not do
something constructive or not come up with a solution. Otherwise
you're just winging, and that's not how you win an election.
That's just that's how you lose votes.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Ben is Labor doing a good job in.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Opposition, Well, they're doing a reasonable job compared to their
appalling election result. Right, they shed about exactly half of
their votes from that twenty twenty sort of bonanza, and
they shed it in all directions to the left, to
the right, and you know, to be sort of near
(03:52):
national who which themselves have come down, you know a
lot since the election. You know, they would probably be
reasonably happy with that. But look in the long term,
sort of tracking at in the low thirties gives them
very limited leverage if they were to former government with
either the Greens and or to party body. You know,
(04:15):
the Greens tend to do best when the Labor is weak,
and it's pretty instructive that the Greens are happily tracking along,
but you know, ten percent or more no matter how
many of their MPs leave and disgrace or charged with
criminal offenses.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Will Amana do you think labor has a visibility issue?
Speaker 5 (04:36):
I don't think it's.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
About what you'd expect that this point out from you know,
an election, which is a way all.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
These the huge issues that are dominating the news cycle
really has national at the forefront. I don't know if
it's a visibility issue. I think it's just about the
substance of what they're delivering. It's about the substance of
what they're saying. I think, like I said, when you're
opposing something, there needs to be a solution. There needs
to be another policy. There needs to be something more
(05:04):
than just saying something isn't working in order to actually
gain a bit of traction. I mean, I remember, I
think it was when just under our Doune came into power,
and I think it was the second election that she
was elected after that the landslide, and I know there
was a lot of criticism about National just coming out
and saying that what they were doing was bad. They
weren't offering a solution, and people actually want to know
(05:25):
that something's going to change. They don't just want to
know that it's not working. So what are they going
to do about it?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I'd love to talk about the boot camps and where
we go to from here. Of course, this has been
pretty controversial since it began. We've learnt that seven out
of ten participants re offended. This was after leaving the
in house segment of the program, which does last for
the twelve months. What do we judge the program based
on that particular statistic been or are we digging with
people whose lives and it's so much more complicated. There's
(05:53):
more to it than just that stat Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
I mean, if you look at the recidivism rates of
young offenders who have already offended you know, twice, so
I think that the overall recidivism rate is about sixty percent,
And these participants were selected because they were among the
most serious youth offenders in the country, people with you
know what, we would regard as sort of crazy kind
(06:20):
of histories of offending.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So I don't think there's any surprise at all. I certainly.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I think it would be something of a miracle if
this had prevented the reoffending to a greater extent. Looks,
it's probably too seen to tell. I think the history
shows that these military style camps are not some sort
of panacea that will solve everything. More important, I guess,
(06:49):
are the new sort of wrap around care elements that
have been brought into this version of it under this
center right government. And maybe the evaluation will show that,
you know, that there have been some positives and that
there should be.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
More work on it. Honestly, just don't know. We can't
tell from the numbers here.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I suspect in the end of these will be abandoned
like their predecessors are after some time, and then a
future national party will campaign on them in ten to
fifteen years time, bringing them back.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, what do we do with amina? Do do we
keep going with them? We stick at it?
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Look, seven out of ten reoffending. I definitely wouldn't label
that as a success. It's obviously not going to be
one hundred percent you know, a success rate. But you know,
for example, if you've got thirty percent on a test,
would you say that you pass.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I think what.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Needs to be done is there needs to be a
bit of a stock take of what's actually been successful
within that. And I know, Ben, you just mentioned no
wrap around elements, and that's been proven to really work
to really wrap around these kids who are you know,
reoffending and getting caught up in crime. I think it's
clearly not working one hundred percent in the current states.
(08:04):
So let's look at it. Go what were there that
were successful? Take those out, add them to something else.
Perhaps it's not the traditional boot camp structure that is good,
but not completely throwing it out and wasting that money
in that time and that investment, but taking the good
successful elements and making it into a hybrid, into something
(08:25):
that would work moving forward. I think it would be
a shame to throw out everything, but combining things together
is it potential?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
No, it's an interesting one, isn't it. Thank you so much,
Ben Thomas and one of men Is Strimpton for your
time this morning. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks there'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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