Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on Winston Peters revealing the Government plans to scrap fees-free uni

There's concerns about what the Government's latest pre-Budget announcement means for students.

Winston Peters told Newstalk ZB on Friday that they'd get rid of the final free year of tertiary education, and Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed it. 

She says they will have more to say on it in due course.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan says it's likely the Government isn't thrilled with Peters leaking these details - and it wasn't pre-authorised by Willis or anyone else. 

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning, Good morning. So we've got a budget coming
up at the end of the month and the number
one rule about the budget is you don't leak the budget.
Would that be fair to say? I mean, I mean
sometimes sometimes we get feed little announcements, don't we buy
the Finance minister when they have the opportunity to control
the narrative and the messaging around it. How do you

(00:34):
think the Finance Minister is feeling about Winston Peters leaking
the peas Free News on Friday.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
I think the polite way of putting how she's feeling
would be not very happy. The number one rule, the
number zero rule, the number one, two, three, four and
five rules of the budget is that you do not
leak the budget. And yes, you're right. Occasionally before the
budget the Finance Minister and the Senior Minister will put
out what they call a pre budget announcement. That's a
very orchestrated way of drawing people's attention to something and say, look,

(01:04):
we're going to feed you something a week before the
budget to focus on this. On Friday, Winston Peters did
something that was very much not that he was speaking
to here the duplus y Allen doing an interview, and
he basically just came out and said, look, I'll give
you a budget leak. He used the words budget leak,
and he said that the fees free policy was gone.
And it appears from our conversations with the Beehive on

(01:25):
Friday night that that was not pre pre authorized by
the Finance Minister or anyone else.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
I've I've had a text here. I made the point,
you know, I wonder what this says about sort of
how this captain's going to hold themselves together for the
next six months, because we'd all they are still in government,
we'd like them to get on and get some things done.
I had a text from Craig. He said, these aren't
cracks in the coalition as it's been reported. It's just
a product of MMP an election years. Each party tries
to stake their claim to supporters to their supporters. Is

(01:55):
that a fair call or actually, is this a bit naughty?

Speaker 3 (01:59):
I think I think both those things can be true.
At the same time. I think everyone's aware that this
is a wee bit of EMMP game playing. People are
sort of testing the war to seeing how far they
can go. And I think before the government was formed
everyone knew well, look as you go into the next
election in election year twenty twenty six, the parties are
going to become a bit more combative with each other.

(02:20):
That's just sort of normal on this issue. I think
giving away part of the budget ahead of time before
before a large part of the budget hasn't even gone
to kep it yet, so as being agreed in stages,
so as it I think this possibly crosses the line.
It certainly if it were any other minister, they would

(02:41):
be in line for being sacked. If we were a
National Party minister that went out on the radio and said, look,
I'll just give you a bit of the budget, they
might very well be sacked. It is a secable offense,
but obviously you can't do that with the leader of
a coalition party.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Tom, it's giving your thoughts on this council amalgamation. The
government's given councils an automation work it out, how to
do it in three months, or will do it for you.
It's actually a really big job to do this to
amalgamated council sounds easy, right, but it's not. You've got
to work out how everyone fits together, who's doing what,
how many jobs are keeping, how many get rid of it.
It's actually massive. Do you think it's possible to.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Do I don't think. I don't. I don't. I think
it will be very interesting to see what councils managed
to put together in three months, because as you say,
I mean I live in Wellington, which and there's a
log illogical case to be made for for amalgamating some
of the Wellington councils in the way that it was
done in Auckland a little more than a decade ago.
But the specifics of how you do that takes a lot.

(03:38):
I mean in Auckland, I think it took it took
a Royal commission in multiple years of working out how
it would go. These cash Strep councils are not going
to be able to come up with three detailed proposals
of their of their amalgamations in three months, but they
might come up with a blueprint of sort of of
logically which which services can be shared or whether a
full amalgamation is necessary. I think that sort of the

(04:01):
phone print. There is clearly that the beehive wants amalgamations
to occur. And structure of this which is that councils
can choose to put a proposal to the beehive or
they can not choose to put a proposal to the beehive,
but the beehive will be the final decision maker regardless.
That basically says the beehives telling you to a Malcolm Athan,
you have just some The only question is what level

(04:23):
of say you want to have over your future.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Thomas, really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much.
That was New Zealand Herald Political editor Thomas Coblin.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
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