The Sunday Panel: What did we make of the 2025 Budget?

This week on The Sunday Panel, Coast Day host and host of the Trip Notes podcast, Lorna Riley and Partner and Freebairn and Hehir Lawyers, Liam Hehir, joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the week - and more! 

The 2025 Budget was unveiled to the nation last week - what did we make of it? Did it fill us with confidence about the future of the economy?

David Seymour is set to take over as the Deputy Prime Minister next week - what can we expect from this change? 

There's been some controversy over the Enhanced Games - despite the safety concerns, are we curious to see how this goes? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
And it is time for the panel and today I
am joined by Coast Day host and host of Trip
Notes podcast, Lorna Riley. Good morning, Launa, Good morning Francesca.
And we have partner at Freebahn and here lawyers Liam Here.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
How are you? Liam?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (00:28):
Very good, that's Marie.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Good to have you with us. Okay, So, of course
we had budget week and I've got a really broad
question for you. But Laurna, does this budget give you
confidence about our economy going forward?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Not really, No. I think there was some sensible measures
in there. I'm all for the Kiwi savored changes. I
think the bottom line is we don't have enough money
and we're not going to have enough money moving forward,
and it's hard to see where more cuts can be made.
You can't keep taking more money away from people who
don't have it. So I'm thinking we need to start

(01:02):
asking some serious questions about raising the retirement age and
perhaps introducing a capital gains tax, both of which I
realized are extremely unpopular measures for any government.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
But we're actually going to have to. We're going to
actually have to have those conversations, aren't we, Liam, We
actually have to grow up and have those uncomfortable conversations.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Well at some point, right, I mean, I'm absolutely in
full agreement. I think it was a you know, there
was a there was a there was significant realignments in
the budget, significant reallocations. But the big thing is going
to be the ongoing cost of the of superannuation and
there's nothing in there for that. And look, something is
like economis say, if you can't go on forever, it

(01:42):
won't go on forever. And we are just putting off
the evil day when when they have so so for
all the cuts and all the restraint in this budget,
the debt is still being added to and it's not
there's no there's no turning around in sight. So we
are putting off that evil day. We have to address it.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
But they're also liamb one of cuts, right, so you
know what happened. Your question then is seeing what what
happens next year? I mean, do we then completely remove
the keep we save the government's contribution?

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Well, well, well I hope not. I mean on kee,
we save a Look the thing is key saver remains
probably quite generous by by Worlds standards and the move
towards you know, having more more of it being coming
from the employer and the employee contribution is sensible. But

(02:32):
I guess the thing is is that this is this
is a budget where we're still hoping for growth to
steppin right and to solve a lot of the problem.
So the idea would be that if we have a
growth mindset and the and the economy turns around, it
starts to grow strongly, then we're not going to relate
need to rely on making further cuts and too much
further restraint because the money will flow in from the

(02:54):
from the growth. Now, the modeling for the for the
treasure that the Treasury did is very conservative on inflation,
can't optimistic on growth. So you know, like any forecast,
the forecast good weather to come and just you know,
that's not something we can control. So maybe we'll need
to do further cutting. You know, we're down to the

(03:15):
bone almost, but that the government will be hoping that
actually the weather will be good and that we don't have.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
To I love to talk about growth, launa, but I'm
not confident we're going to see an economy grow before
the next election, are.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
We Liam knows a lot more about this stuff than
I do, But all I would say is, yeah, that
is a big if the economy grows. And yeah, I'm
not optimistic at all.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
I mean, it's not something that happens overnightly And but
how long would you give a government to see a
decent amount of growth or we just stuck with our.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
Well control. We can't call it into existence, right, It's
we're part of a world economy, and so you know,
we know that over time the economies do grow and
we become more prosperous over time. That's dorotly been the case.
But we know there are things that they can do.
I think you know, there was there was talk of

(04:07):
it where they were and might cut the corporate tax, right,
but the said they've gone for this depreciation acceleration and
you know that will that will spur some investment, but
it won't be enough itself to kick things up another year.
So listen that like all governments, you know, they're just
waiting that they are, to a large extent beholden on
the world economy.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, and looks as David Seymour, who was in the
studio earlier this morning, we'll get to him in just
a moment. He said, you know, all political parties have
to have a discussion about whether you're what you're going
to cut, borrow or tax over the next five years.
You know, you can't ignore it any longer. Spot on,
Hey talking about David Seymour. He is, of course on
the thirty first. He's about to become our new Deputy

(04:50):
Prime minister. As we do this funny little thing where
were you know we you know, switch rolls and things.
He has implied the job might restrain him a little lorna.
I'm not sure if it's going to have a huge
impact on the way he goes about.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
His Possibly not, although I'm hoping it'll keep him quite
busy so he can be middling in areas that he
doesn't need to. I'm actually quite pleased. I know some
people say they're scared about him taking over. I'm actually pleased.
I think he brings on the upside, brings a passionate
positivity to the role that perhaps has been missing with

(05:27):
Winston Peters in there, and relative youth to the role
as well. I certainly don't agree with all of acts policies,
but I don't think he's going to have any more
sway as a deputy prime Minister than he would as
just a part of the coalition government. So I think
I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt

(05:47):
and see how he goes in the role.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Well, as he said this morning, Liam, it doesn't actually
affect him hugely day to day. You know, it's just
a couple of days here and there. He might step
up as acting Prime minister.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah, So the thing that matters most about the being
Deputy Prime Minister as the ego boost for having that title.
There's not much else to the job really, Like if
the Prime Minister goes overseas, you might get to be
the acting Prime Minister for a bat and it might
make me feel good about things, but it's not like
an influential, institutionally influential role. And Wilson Peters said, no,

(06:21):
trouble was probably being pretty contentious as a deputy Prime Minister,
including telling off christpher Luxen for meddling Indien and Foreign
Afa like his own Prime minister. And so you know,
I don't think David Seymore was going to find have
too much trouble remaining David Seymour, I mean It was
funny though, because this handover, this job sharing, was one

(06:42):
of the sticking points of the coalition negotiations. But it
doesn't matter very much at all, apart from the fact
that they quite like having their job part of having
it on the CV, so that's the main effect. The
main effect is it's a nice thing for David Seymore
to have in a CV that he was his deputy
Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
I just loved his diplomacy this morning when you asked
how he ranked Winston Peter's in the role, and he
basically we only talked about the foreign affairs role to
actually answer the question. So I think, you know, you
can take diplomacy there for David Seymour.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
I noticed that as well. But yeah, anyway, let's move
on enhanced games. I find this fascinating. We're going there.
This is going to take place in May next year,
and of course this is when athletes are encouraged to
track all the substances which are banned normally in sport
to see how fast and how superhuman they can become.

(07:35):
And we had a couple of experts on this morning
that just went okay, that's all very good and well,
and apparently this has been spoken about for a very
very long time, but finally now some of these you know,
billion near tech guys have come on board and they're
paying to put these games on because they too are
very interested in longevity. But what I discovered this morning,
and there isn't a huge amount of longevity. There's a
huge amount of concern around taking some of these substances laurna,

(07:59):
I mean, you know, and doesn't seem to be any
ethics around it.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
Well yeah, I mean a cynic might say that we've
already had and had games for years with the Olympics.
It's not a case of who's taking what drugs, but
who's got better masking agents? And you know, we've got
things like the one hundred meters world record for women
Florence Griffith Joyner that may never be beaten without some
kind of use of enhanced drugs. But yes, there are
massive dangers with it, but then there's massive dangers with

(08:25):
any drugs that people choose to take rightly or wrongly.
So I'm a bit of a hypocrite because although I
think it's very dangerous, I also think that I will
probably watch it just to see how far the human
body can be pushed. Would I encourage my children to
aim for the enhanced games?

Speaker 2 (08:41):
No way. No, that's interesting you say that, because I too,
I'm just a little bit curious to see how fast
they can go. But Liam, it does concern me because
you've got people taking these drugs looking a certain way,
saying I feel eighteen again. Isn't this great? And I
do worry because there are a lot of especially young
men out there at the moment, who are really concerned
about how they look. Social media is having a massive

(09:03):
impact on men and their body image, and we want
them thinking, Okay, I'm going to start tearing into it.
But it does at the gym.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
I don't think it's very spiritually healthy, you know, And
in some ways this is inevitable. Over the last sort
of century, we've had sort of dying off of the
amateur ethos. And I know that the amateur ethos was
very much our time and place, but it was this
idea that you know, sport is part of life, and
that you know it was it was about character, and
that you know in fact, you know even if you

(09:33):
practice too much. That was considered to be sort of cheating,
almost in a way, and we've got and with this,
we're going in the complete opposite extreme, and we're going
to this thing where you know, the human the humans
and the participating and are kind of like specimens, you know,
they're like gladiators. We're going back to a much more
glanatorial ethos rather than an amateur wonder where it's not

(09:54):
about character, but it's about the maximum entertainment for the
viewers and for the people who like who are might
be curious or sometimes morbidly curious about what's going to
happen and in how far things can be. And so
you know, I suppose, like I said, it's not the
it's not the death of amateurism or the amateur ethos
that happened a long time ago that we're finally burying

(10:17):
it with us, I think.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Liam here, Lorna Riley, thank you very much for your
time this morning, and enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
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.