August 2, 2025 • 40 mins
This week on The Panel, Tim Beveridge is joined by lawyer and commentator Liam Hehir, and CEO of Infometrics Brad Olsen to discuss the biggest stories from the week that was.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks
HEADB beating all the issues and more. It's the panel
on the Weekend Collective on News Talks head b.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Add A. Very good afternoon to you. I'm Tim Beverage.
Welcome to the show this Weekend Collective Saturday, the second
of August. August. Gosh, it makes me nostalgia for the
old fashioned school holidays. The date of August, but of
course we know it's July these days. But anyway, you
can text your feedback anytime on nine two nine two
email if you're not in a hurry. Tim b at
(00:43):
Newstalk SHADB dot co dot NZID. Coming up on today's
showing just a moment our panelists. I'll be introducing shortly,
but looking forward a little further to when we also
take your calls after four for the One Roof Radio show.
Debbie Roberts is with us. You're going to talk about,
is being a property investor really that passive? You know,
we hear a lot of talk about it's a great
passive investment, just making blah blah blah, and then you
(01:05):
speak to people who are landlords and say, oh god,
it's not that passive. I'm working a butt off, and
especially if you've got two or three properties, then again
maybe they're managing their own their own properties, But is
it really that passive? And also the decision to sell.
Lots of advice on when to buy, which is often now,
But what about the decision to sell and what drives
it for you? O eight one hundred and eighty ten
(01:25):
eight will be taking your calls, and after five four
the Parents Squad will be joined by John Cowan. You
might have seen some headlines in the last day or
two or three or four about some bad behavior from
parents on the sidelines and fights and things like that.
Some great headlines, but what behavior is okay? And we
(01:47):
can probably work out what's not okay? But is there
a gray line? There? Is there cheering too enthusiastically? Is
that sort of the boating? I sometimes have to turn
my back at various sporting occasions just because I need
to keep a lid on it. So I just turned
my back for a while. And also we didn't do
it last week, so we might have a chat about
is it ever okay to tell off another parent's child
(02:08):
or do you tell off the parent? Surely and also
before six we'll have the sports rap and I think
it's Elijah Farfeu is going to be joining us talking
about the Wallabies and lines which is tonight, and we
have a bit of a chat about the NPC as well.
Lots to get onto and right now welcome to the
Weekend Collective. It is coming up to nine minutes past three.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Tim Beveridge on the Weekend Collective called eight hundred eighty
ten eighty News Talk ZB.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yes and joining joining me for our panel today. Who
needs no introduction actually both probably need no introduction, but
firstly he's coming to us from our Wellington studios. He's
been with us for Smart Money. It's a bit like
where is Where's it? Where hasn't he been? It's Brad Olsenkay, Brad,
how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Good afternoon? I'm doing very well. I think I've probably
made it onto most different ZIB sort of shows over
my time, which is always fun. But I do like
spending my Saturday afternoons talking about the hot topics of.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I think have we had you on Smart Money? Haven't we?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, years back. I remember doing it once from the
beach over some of it because I was trying to
take a break, but locked myself in a very hot
room and set with my cell phone up to my
ear for an hour. That was That was good fun.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And we've had you on property as well, so we've
just got parenting. We'll need to sort you out as
a that's a bit further down the track and I'd
rather not to be honest. And the health Hub. We'll
get you on the health Hub, you know, keeping keeping
healthy in a desk job, not that you're on a
desk forreo off and you make it around quite but anyway,
that's enough for me, Enough for me. Enough about Brad
my other panelist today. Actually he has been on the
(03:40):
panel before, back in the days when I was hosting
with Roxburgh, but it has been a long time between drinks.
And he's a political commentator and lawyer as well. And
it's Liam here, good ay Liam, And we can't hear
Liam there, so I just need to work out so
we could hear Brad. But he's coming down the line,
is that you there?
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Liam?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
No, we haven't got Liam there yet, so we might
just do bit of a We're just trying to figure
it out right now, can.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
You hear me?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Right there?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
He is there he goes, sorry about that. Hello, Hello Brad,
Hello Tim?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
How are you?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I'm reasonably well? Thanks for asking reasonably.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well, that's a little qualified. It's my when I say
fair to middling or is that just your standard response?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Well, you know, reasonable is not too bad. You know
I've had better days, but I've certainly had a lot
of worse days. So you can't complain about a reasonable day.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
No, no, indeed, Okay, right, let's get into it, guys.
Shall we? Firstly, Shane Jones and the tsunami alerts. I mean,
I'm not sure the big story is Shane Jones or
the big story of his the tsunami alerts and quite
a few people irritated by being woken at six thirty
in the morning, of course. But Shane Jones reckoned he
had switched off his phones because he'd gone to bed
(04:52):
early after enjoying a few wines. He said, there might
have been a glass or three of red wine. I
would say, if somebody says a last of three, I'm
going five or six. And he missed the tsunami alerts. Look,
I mean, should he have left he's a Minister of
the crownd should he have left his phone? On Brad
and did you get the alerts at six thirty am?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
So I didn't get it at six thirty. I got
it a couple of hours later, so I thought I'd
missed it because I woke up and you know, all
of these people were posting on social media about how
challenging it was to get woken up early, and I
mean I was awake at that time, and I wasn't
too fussed. And then I thought I'd avoided sort of
you know that panic attack that comes through when the
alert goes off, and was driving down. It's probably about
(05:33):
eight o'clock by the time.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I got it.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I don't know what went on. I only got it once, thankfully,
But I mean, to be honest, I was more surprised that,
you know, people still turn their phones absolutely off. It's
like when you go into the cinema and they say
to tell you turn your phone off. I never do it.
I turn it on to do not disturb or tell
it on, you know, put it on to shut up mode,
but turn it fully off. I thought, geez, Shane's being
very technologically enabled there just.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
To actually turn his phone off.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It's quite a big effort.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
That's quite a that is an effort, isn't it, Because
you've just got to push that button for a few
seconds and hold it down un till it goes You
sure you want me to turn off? And you go, yeah,
I got three alerts, Liam, How many did you get?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
I got two, I got one, I got one driving
home the night before, and then I got one at
city in the morning. We don't live on the coast
or anything, but I guess we live close enough to
the coast because people in Land didn't get it right,
so you had to be within a certain distance of
the coast to get it.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
But which is most of New Zealand's population, to be fair,
isn't it?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I think, Well, you know, I mean I live in
the Great Inland man or two of course, so I
must have been run on the edge. But look here
here's the thing though, right, So I think you're right
about if you say you've had two or three glasses
of wine, it's it's four or five. And if you
say you turned your phone off, that means you forgot
to charge it because probably have had four or five
(06:50):
glasses of wine. So you know, like, but regardless, here's
the thing, Like, I don't really think I don't really
want to have in any kind of sewel defense system
that relies on Shane Jones like having to have his
phone at hand. You know, I can see the President
of the I think he's always got to have the
guy with the nuclear codes, you know in the room
saw that. I can understand that, and I know we're
(07:10):
talking about that later. But like Shane Jones, if the
system is built around in any way Shane Jones or
any New Zealand Minister of the crown having to have
their phone on them anytime, I think it's a pretty
terrible system. So I think it's enough.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Actually, you know what, guys, I just reckon that this
is a story just because it's fun. Shane Jones is
a colorful character, and it's just it's an opportunity for
the for the news to say, hey, shan Shane Jones
when he has a bit of a bender, he gets
stuck into it, I know, and missus his numbing lets
I mean, is that part of it. If it had
been a less interesting minister, would this even be a story?
(07:46):
Brand Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I don't think so. And to be fair, you know
a lot of other ministers probably wouldn't have put it
that way. Even if they had have done it the
same sort of you know way, they probably would have said, oh,
look I didn't get it, or you know, I'd turn
my phone onto some sort of mode whatever it was.
But you're right, it would have been a non story.
But and it sort of still is a non story.
I think it just made it a little bit of
light of what was still a pretty serious situation.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I think there were a lot of questions being asked
about these emergency alerts coming out, and I think reasonable questions.
But equally, I think agencies fronted up and said, look,
rather be safe than sorry. Still the right result. But
you know, you need to have a little bit of
a laugh every now and then, and I think that's
probably the right way to have done it. Poke a
little bit of fun at a government minister. They can't
take themselves too seriously actually to be and look, civil
(08:30):
defense gets a bit of a hard time because I
was doing overnight talkbacks and we had regular updates coming
in and the expression was, look, we're not expecting any
coastal inundation, but if you are on if you're living
on board your boat, get off it and get in
land and don't go out, and.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That didn't really change. So I did slightly question the
six thirty am. You know, i'd think if at six
thirty am it should be if it's getting any worse.
But I don't like beating up on the agencies as well,
because they get damned if they do LIAM and damned
if they don't.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Eh. Yeah, I know that's what they're there for, that
they can make the judgment calls and get them right. Look,
I do, I do have it doing that. We'll get
into the car alarm type situation, you know, where you
hear a car alarm go off in the street. You know,
like how do you run out to them and like
investigate it or you just assume someone's bumped into a
car or.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
A If I heard it in my car, pard, i'd
definitely go.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Out, yeah, in the street, right, So, so, like, I
understand entirely where you're coming from. But I do think
that you know, it's one of those instances where they
have the tool, and you know, anyone who's got a tool,
it's the law of the instrument. They're going to be
looking to use it whenever they can. And I think
you have to be careful about pushing people's patients or this,
And I think the sixth City in the morning one,
(09:42):
I agree with you. I think it was overkill. I
understand the night before, but I think the one in
the morning was just there was just one too many.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah. Actually, I think the whole car alarm thing, not
that we've got this as a topic, but I think
the car alarm just depends on the neighborhood you live in.
If you live in an angelic, very quiet neighborhood and
a car alarm goes off, probably people do go out
and check because I think that's odd. Whereas if you're
live in a sort of slightly more colorful neighborhood where
(10:09):
it happens, well, well, I don't know where, you know.
Let's say you were living in Sydney's King's Cross, you
might not go out and check it out. By the way.
And also, I just think if you as a pr thing,
if you are a politician and you have had a
big night, I would imagine what you'd say is, listen, look,
(10:29):
I was working late. I had a function last night,
and I was a bit tired, and I just switched
my phone off and didn't hear it would be the
way to do it, So I think Shane likes us
to know he had a good time a brad.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I was going to say, I mean, like you could
say that, but geez, no one could report on it.
That'd be boring. So like, it depends you trying to
sort of, you know, generate clicks and views and make
sure that the name's out there or not. And if
you're not, then yeah, you'll take the safe fruit.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Well, as I say, as Osquwad says, there's only one
thing in the world worse than being talked about, and
that is not being talked about anyway. Look, let's move
on to the I did get a little bit of
a jolt when I turned on my phone to read
the news this morning and saw the headline about Donald
Trump and bnouncing that he had ordered the deployment of
two nuclear submarines towards Russia in response to threats from
(11:11):
the country's former president that's Medvedev, who had you know,
they rattle sabers and everything. And then he literally says
that he's going to send the nuclear submar marines to
be closely positioned around Russia. The headline is disturbing, but Liam,
I I struggle to get too excited about it, much
(11:34):
as a lot of the other journalists who are experts
in this stuff aren't too excited about it, because it's
all perform performative, is it? What do you reckon?
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Yeah, it is. I mean, it's the Trump effect. And
that's what makes it really hard to tell what's going on,
because this type of thing, the gamesship of the brinksmanship,
it always happens, but normally with US Russia relations, at
least for a long time, it's sort of happened through
back channels. It's happened in a secret, But I don't
think Donald Trump does anything a secret, right, And so
what we can't tell is whether Obama or George W.
(12:05):
Bush or dred Widen, whether or not they would be
taking similar precautions but not talking about it and not
openly confronting the former president of Russia about it, issuing
short deadlines and revising them and issuing new ultimatums. So
it's hard to know how much of it's a change
in what the United States is doing. What is the
(12:27):
change is how it's being acknowledged. And but you know,
that's Trump, That's Trump on everything. There are no precedents
really and it's not the first time that Trump's been
different to other presidents and how he's announced things.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, what did you make of it? Brad Well?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Interestingly, he didn't actually say that he was sending these
Russian subs towards sorry, his nuclear subs towards Russia. He
said he was sending them to be positioned in quote
the appropriate regions end quote, which is I mean, again,
probably code for what we all know. But just even
the sort of weird cat and mouse game of he's
telling us but also like teasing us with not a
whole lot of information, it just seems to all play
(13:05):
into the sort of very retail politic y sort of thing.
You know, he wants everyone to know that he's doing something,
but for obvious reasons, can't tell them much more. I
guess I just get a bit worried that given the
amount of conflict that's around the world, like genuine you know,
conflict with between sovereign states, I don't think we need
nuclear jokes. I just surely we don't have to sort
(13:26):
of start reacting to tweets with repositioning you know, naval vessels.
It just becomes a little bit too freaky. In my mind,
and yep, I'm pretty sure nothing else comes of it,
like everyone else, but you just never know with these guys,
what's going to happen next.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, I sort of. I had a mixed response. I
actually went to read a couple of other bits of
media about it, and one of the columnists I read,
I think was in the Telegraph, was saying, basically, you know,
normally this sort of rhetoric would would have people quite alarmed,
but given Donald Trump's quixotic style of governing, few are
panicking today. And the other thing is, you know what,
(14:01):
there's a part of me that says, you know, Russia
loves to rattle that nuclear saber. And then Trump's gone, okay,
well I can play that game as well. Not that
we want to escalate it, but I sort of have
a little bit of sympathy for what he's done.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
But remember the first remember his first term, when he
had that initial sort of conflict with Kim Jong un,
you know, and he's calling a rocket man and you
treating about you know, ours of my rockets are longer
than your rockets, and you know, things like that, and
you know, that was all considered to be very you know,
alarming at the time to write, and I was like,
(14:38):
what the hell's going on to the president? And then
and then they had a summit and they sort of
became bff, you know, and you know, I guess Kim
Jonglan played like a strativarius and on that occasion. But
it's just Trump right like so it's like it's he's
different to all of the presidents, but he's he's different
(14:59):
in ways that are kind of predictable.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Also, he wasn't saying something, as another expert I read said,
he wasn't saying anything about the positioning. That's not true
at any stage that the subs are. The fact is
they're always in position to anyway god it. So it's
all of it. It's all of it much though, doesn't
that have a cup of teen? I lie down?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
The question though, Tim, right, is that what's going to
happen next? Because Okay, there's a saber rattling at the moment,
you know with these repositionings. The real one for me
is that you know, Trump keeps saying he's going to
you know, either tariff or do something worse to Russia
going forward in the next ten days, if you know,
if there's no resolution reached in Ukraine and someone I'm
pretty sure we've heard that from literally every single day
(15:38):
of the US presidency so far, and there's still be
no action. Like not that I'm wanting the Russian subs
conversation to go any further, but it's probably more important
to me do we actually see any end in sight
on those conflicts or not, because otherwise it does get
back to that topic that often gets talked about. We've
heard it from financial commentators about you know, Taco Trump
Trump always chickens out, who knows where things go next?
(16:00):
Like we are just sort of caught up in this
world and we've got to blind react every couple of
minutes when something new emerges.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Somebody actually texted me during the course of this and said, look,
it's just another diversion from the Epstein saga, which is pretty.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Well, oh you say that, But then memory bombed the
hell out of Iran, you know, like openly, and that's
also you know, you just was I just wouldn't. I
wouldn't count anything and or out. I just wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I just if I was to be uptimistic, I'd hope
that this is an empty threat, which means he has
to follow through on his tariff threats and the next
and then however, many days has left for Russia on
actually bringing to them account. But anyway, look, oh well, anyway,
look we'll take a quick break with Liam here and
Brad Olsen. This is the Weekend Collective Tim Beverage. The
(16:43):
panel will continue next in just a moment. It's twenty
three past three.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Where you're coming.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
You happy, I continue.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It and welcome back to the Weekend Collective. This is
the panel. My guests are Brad Olsen and Liam Hare.
Now Liam will start with you on this one. FBI
coming to Wellington, so the I guess we were not
a huge surprise or anything, but maybe mildly that Cash
Purttel was in town opening up an office, although apparently
(17:23):
had been a suboffice of the FBI, so the FBI's
were a new office in Wellington. But probably the bit
that caused a bit more trickiness for the government was
top of the list of issues was countering the Chinese
Communist Party in the Indo Pacific, which we would be
squirming about a bit that he said it, So obviously
don't you reckon, Liam.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Well, there's just American diplomacy for you. Isn't it, especially
under the Trump administration, they'll say the sense aloud quite
part out loud. But beyond that, I mean, you know,
whether or not the loudness of it was in politic
or undiplomatic. You know, it's not like not like the
Chinese government doesn't know, doesn't have an idea about what's
going on or why things are happening. But beyond that,
(18:06):
I do kind of feel like it's a bit of
a nothing story because I mean, as we know that,
you know, policing around the world is becoming more and
more integrated every every year. The reason why it's so
hard to open up a bank account or sign up
with a new accountant and you're going to prove everything
is because we are constantly now having to conform to
America and European standards about tracking financial crime and proving
(18:30):
the providence of funds because it's all being more and
more subjected to international policing oversight. And we, of course
we have our own police attaches and embassies around the world.
So yeah, like it's like it's whether you know whether
or not cash Betel was politic and saying that whether
or not that's good for good for a domestic audience
(18:51):
or not. Like, I'm really not that surprised, and I'm
frankly not that alarmed either. I think if, if if
mine wants to surveil New Zealanders, I've got the ability
to do it, whether or not they have an office
or not.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Far too reasonable for you, Liam, but but good points.
I guess the thing that surprised me, Brad was that
we often feel that and in when it comes to
the tariff talk and things like that, which we're not
going to dig into today, but you know, often the
rhetoric from US and commentators is that look, Washington, you know,
New Zealand's not even a blip on the map. So
(19:23):
I was surprised that the head of the FBI was here, definitely.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
I mean, it sort of makes for a good conspiracy theory,
doesn't it. You know, everyone starts to get excited when
you have the FBI director here. I do feel like
the entire trip feels both a little bit random and
a little bit clumsy from both sides, Like why did
we have the you know, the FBI director That almost
seems like from the reporting lurking around the basement of
the beehive, like shouldn't this have been a little bit
more structured so that everything was either announced in the
(19:50):
right way or you didn't have a journalist that spotted
him and you know, passing the in the elevator and went, oh,
I should report on this. And then also within twenty
four hours, you know, New Zealand's you know, accepting an
FBI office or an upgrade of an office. But then
we get slapped tariffs. I mean, I agree to them.
Let's not get into the tariffs too much because again
they might change an instant. But it did just feel
(20:11):
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
On the nose.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
It was like, come on, what's going on? Who planned
this trip? And went, you know what, there's nothing else
happening around here. From an American point of view, let's
just a random trip to New Zealand. It just seemed
random and clumsy.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
We're not We're not quite a blip though. When it
comes to intelligence. You know, we're in the Five Eyes Alliance,
and that's an extremely privileged position to be in. We
get not only do we have stuff shared with us,
but we get legitimately consulted on and so there will
be more concern about security in New Zealand and New
Zealand's vulnerabilities than there would be for another country of
(20:45):
a comparative size, and you know, we benefit from that intelligence.
And so that's part of the crisis of those is
that we actually have to we've got to be a
bit more attentive to what the Americans want.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Well, that'd be all good and well if that they
didn't just whack a higher tariff on US than Australia.
I mean, where do they expect our trade and exports
to go, certainly not to the US. I mean again,
I get I get all of those points. So just
I found it like a little bit of an own
goal that you know, you had this mixed messaging. If
you're sitting out there, you know at home, you're going well,
(21:18):
on one hand, you know, FBI's in town. Obviously there's
important sort of stuff to do on the justice front
and similar, but you know, when it comes to the
actual dollars and cents and what's happening to the global economy,
US is happy to slap us again.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
It just it found reason. You're seeing it as a
two way thing, Brad, if you see it from the
very perspective they call the shots serve senior partner the
US that they want, and they tell us what they
want in terms of a law enforcement presence here, and
we want to access to their markets, also want their intelligence.
So it's welcome to being a junior partner just like lawfully,
same with countries.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I wonder if I imagined myself when I saw Judith
Colin standing there next to Cash Mattel. I did wonder
whether Judith might just be tempted to say, hey, listen,
we've just heard the news about the towns. Any chance
you can have a little bit of a chat with
Donald and just say, you know, because come on, we've
got a great relationship any form of diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Bred what I want to know is that do if
we've got an FBI office, does that now mean that
we can start to have some of the cool American
procedural spin offs that come down here as well? Like
there's n CIS Sydney Now is a TV show? When
does n CIS Wellington or FBI Wellington start to become
a thing?
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Is?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Can we get some more TV shows out of this?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Please FBI Wellington well and get some special efforts done
effects done by Wetter. But that's another topic not for conversation,
but terrible news that they've been laying off all those workers.
But we've only got so much we can talk about,
so we're going to move on to the you know,
the Australia the likely ban on social media, including YouTube.
(22:48):
I think they're wrong on this one, guys, Liam, I
think that I think they're right on I love the
ban on social media and people saying, oh, kids have
away getting around it. But to me as a parent,
it's a great tool to be able to say to
my kids, listen, you're not having that. But the YouTube ban,
I think because is a bit strange. What do you reckon, Liam?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Well, like, we've still got four young kids and we
have a constant war of attrition over devices. Sometimes my
wife and I are winning the battle and sometimes we're losing.
But social media is a has always has always been
a bit of a red line for us because they're
all under sixteen, right, So, but what you don't realize
(23:29):
is that YouTube is social media and YouTube gives us
gives us quite a bit of grief. We've had to
put some pretty tough limits on YouTube because YouTube is wonderful,
but it's got some stuff and that the younger kids
just shouldn't be seeing. But here's the thing, right, I
think that we parents still have all the tools that
(23:49):
they need to be able to regulate it themselves. Like
I still think this is the type of thing we're
parental sovereignty should apply. Like I said, it is hard
and it's a constant battle. I mean, being a parent
is hard. But we find that with four children who
are always desperate to consume as much digital media as
it can, that we think we're doing a pretty good job.
We'll keep them a little in it. I don't think
(24:10):
it's for the government to come in and say to
us what we can and can't do, what they can
and can't do when it's still within the realm. I
think of individual families making decisions about what will be
allowed and when.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, what do you reckon? Brad?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Look, I completely agree. I think it's absolutely none of
government's business, to be honest. I think that about the
wider band as well. But I think also my worry
a little bit with this YouTube piece is that you
sort of my worry always with these is that you
start to throw the baby out with the bath water.
I mean, all of the educational opportunities that exist on YouTube.
Yes there's some awful stuff. Yes there's some just rubbish
(24:47):
brain rot that comes through, but there's a lot of
useful insights as well in the island to fair bit
of economics from YouTube back in the day. But my
worry as well is probably more though, Tim, are you
really telling me that, you know, sixteen years or fifteen
years and three hundred and sixty five days you are
not allowed on it, But by the time you'd sort
of go twenty four hours into the future, you are
(25:08):
now definitely loud on it, with sort of no controls,
having no experience with it before. I just don't think
that's necessarily a good way to go about it. I'd
be much more, as Lim's highlighted, leave it up to
the parents. If the parents want to go down that way,
if they want to have a mature conversation, if they've
got more or less mature kids for their age, then
you can sort of tailor it. I just never like
the government coming that sort of close into my life.
(25:29):
I'd like them to sort of stay at the front
door play well.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Although we do we do have limits on age for
other things such as you're not supposed to be able
to drink alcohol, although chemically and home you can. But
I think the problem is the blurring of the whole
thing with YouTube being included in there, because I mean
they're online classrooms on YouTube and all sorts of things.
But I mean in terms of the evidence of how
(25:51):
bad social media and device addiction is for young people,
I don't know if there's much debate to be had
about that. So I don't have a problem with the
broader band. Liam, You're going to chip.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
In that, but you know that's my call, right, you know,
they my kid, so I know what's best and I
know what they can and can't handle that. There are tools.
The tools are there for parents to be able to
monitor it if parents are motivated to do it. I
just look. Here's the other thing though. The other thing
that worries me is that so you've got this scene
now where you're going to have continuous biometric monitoring, right,
(26:23):
So it's constantly monitoring who's what you're looking at. And
the idea is that that that will stop people from
just you know, glogging in some way with a photo
or something and then being able to watch it when
they're under fifteen, sixteen or whatever. But how often is
it that technology will be implemented for a good purpose,
and then it will creep and creep and creep and
(26:43):
be used more and more. So we develop these tools
for noble purposes to begin with, we normalize them, and
I just don't trust that they're not going to be
extended in a way that's just a result in more surveillance.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
More surveillance, yeah, of us. Yeah, I don't mind being targeted.
I don't want to be targeted for things I'm not
interested in. I'm sort of okay with the profiling. So
if I'm looking up I don't know ski resorts in France,
I don't mind if I'm going to get targeted from
ski resorts in France because I'm interested in it.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
But there's no VPN that will be able to lay
you to be anonymous on the internet. And I suppose
the arguments always you've got nothing to worry about, You've
gotta I think, a hide. But you know, it's just
I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not comfortable with that
data being continuously gethered and I can't see how this
doesn't end up with that happening.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I put it this way, to put it, we'd be
having a very different conversation. If a government in New
Zealand said, look, you know, we're going to put a
radio band for news Talk ZB on anyone under the
age of sixteen because we don't think that sixteen year
olds can handle the conversation. Let's let's be real, we'd
be having a very conversation.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
That's why we use our common sense on what we
think is not too bad. And it looks understandable because
listening to this show is totally addictive. So what can
I just tell you one very funny thing that happened
to me on radio once we're talking about It was
about government surveillance and a caller called up and he says,
you know, Tim, there could be people listening to this
show right now. And I was like, bloody well hope.
(28:13):
So anyway, look, we need to take another quick break.
We'll be back in just to teck. This is the
Weekend Collective panel with Liam here and Brad Olsen. I'm
Tim Beveridge. It is twenty two minutes to four.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
Holidays.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Wait, yes, so welcome back to the Weekend Collective. This
is the panel. I'm Tim Beverage and I guess the
brad Olsen and Liam here. Now I must say, guys,
I struggle. I go with it to you first. Liam
on this one, I struggle with quite getting my head
around n CEA. My kids are just heading into that,
(28:56):
My oldest is just heading into it. But it looks
like for one there is definitely going to be an overhaul.
The current setup's being described as not working Erica Stan
but I'm just waiting for her to make the announcement.
But there's a question about whether they're whether some of
the flexibility of NCAA needs to be traded off for
a more structured system. People gain the flexibility, you know,
(29:16):
easier courses to get points, and also the connection to
vocational pathways. I mean, I don't know how you haven't said,
ho old your kids are, Liam, But are you into
the NCAA side of things yet?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
On?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
William got Liam?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
There?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Can we just turn Liam's mic on or let's lim
see if you can get his mic on. I can't.
Let's go to Brad first, because I can see Liam.
I just can't hear them.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
As I feel like I could have a job but
potentially term me as an NCAA whisperer given that I
did the system, so I know very intimately how how
things work. And yes it changes sort of yet to year,
but they're not points. Just to be clear that the
credits that you get depending on what it is. But look,
what I will say is that I think for a
(30:01):
lot of people there's enough sensibility that if you're going
to sort of, you know, take one course in history
and one course in chemistry and one course and something else,
and you don't do it comprehensively, you're gonna be rubbish
at all of them out the other side. But at
the moment, the system is yes set up or at
least skewed a lot more towards people who are going
to try and find that easier pathway. They're going to
take more internal credits than external credits. They don't have
(30:24):
to worry about the pressure of exams. Means though that
when they get into the workforce, one, they might not
have that comprehensive view of what they actually need going
into the future. You know that they don't have the
full package. But two, sometimes not ready for the real
world because I've only ever done stuff without a lot
of time pressure and similar and then all of a
sudden you go into the workplace, you sort of get
put that time pressure on, you get top hold on
(30:44):
where's the open book tests? And in the four weeks
that I'd normally have. So yes, there's got to be changes.
I guess the question is how do we, in my
mind make it as sort of work enabling as possible,
Because if you're educating a whole bunch of people they're
not coming out into the workplace and they're ready to
hit the workforce, then I feel like we're really failing everyone,
not only the individuals, but the rest of the economy.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Toohaul, would you like to see Brad? It seems like
NCA one is the one that people are complaining about
the most. Is it level one?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Well, I think especially because realistically the benchmark for most
people seems to be NCAA level two. Still, I mean,
in my mind it should be level three. Gosh, back
in the day when I was a student, I was
actually on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework Review Group. I mean,
we've been talking about this for a long time. I
do think that part of it's got to be that
you should have to sort of be able or sort
(31:36):
of coerced a little bit into taking a slightly more
packaged approach. So if you're going to take sort of
credits in a certain area, you should need to sort
of make up a certain amount of them. You can't
just sort of take one paper from any area and
just leave it hanging. You should have to sort of
take a few from a certain area enough to sort
of bulk you up so that you've clearly got some
(31:56):
competency in that area. Otherwise people will just gain the system.
But I mean, there's very very smart people that have
been going through this. One of the challenges, genuinely, I
think is because parents don't fully understand the system, they
can't often help their kids guide it.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
Now.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I can tell you when I went to school, I
did a lot of it myself. My parents sort of
that they were still going, well, you know, we're back
in bursary in school. See. So that was tough for
right because at the time I can't go to mom
and Dan and say, hey, do you reckon I should
go for this paper with six credits or should I
go for this paper at four credits? And they're like,
what the heck's a credit? So that's tough. If you
don't have it understandable enough for parents, then you're probably
(32:31):
gonna lose everyone.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
What do you reckon, lamb?
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Well, look, I'm the last year to do school. See
I was the last one to go for it, or
the last cohort to go for it. And why I'm
the oldest. All my brothers and sisters they went through
NCA and it was thinkreed worth all the way for
all of them. It was changed a little bit year
to year, but the one consonant was that nobody could
tell how well they had done or not done, or
what they could do what couldn't do. And for all
(32:55):
its faults, the old system, it was a drafting git
all right, And if you're proficient and enough of the subject,
you could pass right at the moment, you've got something
that's highly customizable, which means it's highly gainable and it
will always be that way if it's structured like that.
And one of the things is the result of that
(33:16):
is that we defer the hard conversations with kids about
what track they want to go down and what future
because too many it's too easy to pass by assembling
a patchwork of credits to get you through the subject.
Now this is not to say that kids who have
a more mechanical or vocational inclination aren't smart. If you're
(33:37):
an electrician or a plumber, you are smarter than most
people in lots of ways. But it does show what
you have in attitude for and that you need to
have those drafting gates to know if someone is suitable
to go down in the academic track or if they
need to go down a vocational track. And the whole
system has felt the whole time like it's been set
up to obscure any kind of idea about how people
(34:02):
have actually performed in those subjects and with or not
there should continue. And maybe it was set up to
do that. But the way that it works, the function,
the results are the system, and it has not changed.
If you were to go back to the starting in
CEA and say this is what's going to be like
in twenty years or whatever, do you think that this
(34:24):
we should do? It is this? Has the system become
more equitable? Have we got better trained kids? Do we
have kids to have more knowledge more proficiency in school?
I mean the answer is no. Right, So the overhaul
is so overdue, needs to be more structured, but also
it needs to be done in a way that's not
going to be require this constant tinkering every year like
(34:46):
we've had ever since we've had in c A.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
When did you guys know what you wanted to do
with your lives? Brad, let's go with you first.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Oh, I mean when I started to write down the
stock market numbers when I was an intermediate in a
little notebook, I was pretty well said on that path.
But see what was in I remember? So, look, my
dad's a builder, and a really good one at that.
And it was always interesting because when we did would
work at school, it was one of those things where
I think we were just trying to pass the time
rather than try and figure out who was good at it.
(35:16):
Because we spent about eight weeks planning the same bit
of wood to make a sort of you know, hexagon
shaped mallet. And I remember I going home and there
was like, mate, we could have made them like five minutes.
And so I mean, like, like to Liam's point there,
we do have to make the sort of useful and
practical instead of tinkering with it. But look, I knew,
I think other people probably knew even sooner than I did,
that I was destined for this economic track.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, what about you, Liam.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Well, I'm a lawyer, and I figured it out by
the time I was eighteen or nineteen, because let's look
at my exit. I was good at English and I
was good at history, and then you line up, well, okay,
what are the actual professions that are remunerative for someone
with that sort of inclination and that skill set. You know,
I could have become a secondary school teacher, but that
didn't fancy it. So, you know, for someone who's good
(36:01):
at school, but he's good at English and he wants
to make enough money, water family laws the way to go,
and so the exams were very good for that.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, that's interesting because I was.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
I was.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
I did the sort of final year that Brad sort
of talked about as doing a bit of everything. I
did chemistry and history and physics. But anyway, I always
liked history, and I thought I was a bit like you,
which is why I did a lauda Gren then ended up,
of course being a musical theater performer. And actually, no,
probably it's yeah, well I guess so, yeah, it's difficult
(36:34):
to narrow that one down anyway. But actually, by the way,
just on the one of my daughter's friends, I was
chatting to the girls and the cars dropping them somewhere.
And I asked her if they all knew what they
wanted to do. And this girl's fourteen years old, and
she said, yeah, I want to be a pediatric an enthesiologist.
And I said, wow, that's and she could tell me why,
(36:54):
and she'd already planned how she was going to get
Australian citizenship through her father so she could actually get
into med school in Australia. Given the difficult pathway here
because I'm not taking the right boxes. Well, and I thought, wow,
that was I was impressed. Anyway, Well, my.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Eight year old he wants to be a toy shop
owner and a palaeontologist. He wants to have like those
two jobs, you know, and so he wants to do
what he loves. But it's very precise. But I somehow
don't think he's going to end up with both of
those jobs. Maybe one or neither.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Hey, Brad, can you do di y we're giving your
dad's a builder or are you just none of it's off.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Look, let's just say that when I'm allowed to be,
you know, a contractor on site with my father as
the foreman, we have a lot of arguments. There's a
lot of a lot of discussion, a lot of talk
around productivity. Put its way. I haven't been ordered off
site before, but I'm not often sort of asked to
lead a lot of projects.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
No okay, yeah, okay, And in fact your DI why
I would be like, just dad, if you've got a
few spare half an hour or two, I guess.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Basically, I mean put it this way, if you need
a hand, you could find a huge number of better
people than I could ever provide to you my DIY skills,
because it would be a to sort of get the
hammer and just smash something up and hope and hope
it sort of worked.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Well, that's probably the rule of thumb for a lot
of people. Like people not do their in DIY. Anyway, Hey, look,
we'll be back in just a moment. This is the
panel on the We Can Collective. It's nine minutes to four. Yes,
welcome back for the panel of brad Olsen and Liam
here with me just very quickly, guys. I was amused
by that exchange between Willie Jackson and Erica Stanford when
Willy revealed his kids go to private school, but they've
(38:30):
been given ministers a hard time for having private health insurance.
I just sort of think, you know, when your family
is concerned, I don't care whether they're politics, they can
do what they want.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Brad, Yeah, they totally can. But I mean, I think
that's the thing as long as you don't then cart
stones yourself, because then you're going to get it thrown
back in your face. So I don't think it's right that,
you know, we draw people's families into it. But if
they are going to sort of act in this very
righteous manner, you know, and sort of point the finger
and shake the stick in the other direction, that they
can't be surprised when it comes back the other.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Way one hundred percent. That's why I disagreed with Labour
bringing it up in the first place. Was I guess
what my point was, Liam, But sorry, Liam, Yeah, same.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Takes a different emphasis. I guess. I mean, it's but
that is hypocritical. It just is, you know, it's completely hypocritical.
It's King's College is an expensive school, you know, it's
it's an elite school. Uh, and so the hYP hypocrisy
is there. But sometimes you just actually just have to
suck up the fact that politicians are allowed to be
hypocrites about these things. Because description yeah, Yeah, you don't
(39:34):
know what goes on inside a family, right, and so
for all we know, you know, Willie Jackson wants them
to go to public school and his partner or spouse
wants them to go to that school, and it's a
compromise of reach. You just don't know, right, And so
for that reason you just have to give the politicians
a bit of a free hit. I mean, it is
completely hypocritical, but but you know, so what you know,
(39:55):
sometimes you just have to give them.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Well and as Brad cso, Brad, that mistake was in
them having a crack at people having private health insurance.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
I think so. I guess I worry as well, right
that if we really do get in that argument of well,
you've got to sort of do this because the government
provides it or it doesn't, or you can't make decisions
because you don't have this level of experience, but you
go down into sort of so many very niche options
where you know, different people can't do so many things
that it just it becomes too complex. And I feel
like we elect leaders to represent generally, that's what we
(40:23):
need to leave them to do.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Good stuff. Guys, Hey, Brad, Liam great to have you
on the panel. Thanks you so much guys, and we'll
look forward to next time. Ay and that wraps the panel.
You can check it out on the news Talk said
B if you missed any of it, and we'll be
back shortly with the one roof radio show news Talk SEDB.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
For more from the weekend collective, listen live to News
Talk SEDB weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks
HEADB beating all the issues and more. It's the panel
on the Weekend Collective on News Talks head b.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Add A. Very good afternoon to you. I'm Tim Beverage.
Welcome to the show this Weekend Collective Saturday, the second
of August. August. Gosh, it makes me nostalgia for the
old fashioned school holidays. The date of August, but of
course we know it's July these days. But anyway, you
can text your feedback anytime on nine two nine two
email if you're not in a hurry. Tim b at
(00:43):
Newstalk SHADB dot co dot NZID. Coming up on today's
showing just a moment our panelists. I'll be introducing shortly,
but looking forward a little further to when we also
take your calls after four for the One Roof Radio show.
Debbie Roberts is with us. You're going to talk about,
is being a property investor really that passive? You know,
we hear a lot of talk about it's a great
passive investment, just making blah blah blah, and then you
(01:05):
speak to people who are landlords and say, oh god,
it's not that passive. I'm working a butt off, and
especially if you've got two or three properties, then again
maybe they're managing their own their own properties, But is
it really that passive? And also the decision to sell.
Lots of advice on when to buy, which is often now,
But what about the decision to sell and what drives
it for you? O eight one hundred and eighty ten
(01:25):
eight will be taking your calls, and after five four
the Parents Squad will be joined by John Cowan. You
might have seen some headlines in the last day or
two or three or four about some bad behavior from
parents on the sidelines and fights and things like that.
Some great headlines, but what behavior is okay? And we
(01:47):
can probably work out what's not okay? But is there
a gray line? There? Is there cheering too enthusiastically? Is
that sort of the boating? I sometimes have to turn
my back at various sporting occasions just because I need
to keep a lid on it. So I just turned
my back for a while. And also we didn't do
it last week, so we might have a chat about
is it ever okay to tell off another parent's child
(02:08):
or do you tell off the parent? Surely and also
before six we'll have the sports rap and I think
it's Elijah Farfeu is going to be joining us talking
about the Wallabies and lines which is tonight, and we
have a bit of a chat about the NPC as well.
Lots to get onto and right now welcome to the
Weekend Collective. It is coming up to nine minutes past three.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Tim Beveridge on the Weekend Collective called eight hundred eighty
ten eighty News Talk ZB.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yes and joining joining me for our panel today. Who
needs no introduction actually both probably need no introduction, but
firstly he's coming to us from our Wellington studios. He's
been with us for Smart Money. It's a bit like
where is Where's it? Where hasn't he been? It's Brad Olsenkay, Brad,
how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Good afternoon? I'm doing very well. I think I've probably
made it onto most different ZIB sort of shows over
my time, which is always fun. But I do like
spending my Saturday afternoons talking about the hot topics of.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I think have we had you on Smart Money? Haven't we?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, years back. I remember doing it once from the
beach over some of it because I was trying to
take a break, but locked myself in a very hot
room and set with my cell phone up to my
ear for an hour. That was That was good fun.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And we've had you on property as well, so we've
just got parenting. We'll need to sort you out as
a that's a bit further down the track and I'd
rather not to be honest. And the health Hub. We'll
get you on the health Hub, you know, keeping keeping
healthy in a desk job, not that you're on a
desk forreo off and you make it around quite but anyway,
that's enough for me, Enough for me. Enough about Brad
my other panelist today. Actually he has been on the
(03:40):
panel before, back in the days when I was hosting
with Roxburgh, but it has been a long time between drinks.
And he's a political commentator and lawyer as well. And
it's Liam here, good ay Liam, And we can't hear
Liam there, so I just need to work out so
we could hear Brad. But he's coming down the line,
is that you there?
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Liam?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
No, we haven't got Liam there yet, so we might
just do bit of a We're just trying to figure
it out right now, can.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
You hear me?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Right there?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
He is there he goes, sorry about that. Hello, Hello Brad,
Hello Tim?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
How are you?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I'm reasonably well? Thanks for asking reasonably.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well, that's a little qualified. It's my when I say
fair to middling or is that just your standard response?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Well, you know, reasonable is not too bad. You know
I've had better days, but I've certainly had a lot
of worse days. So you can't complain about a reasonable day.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
No, no, indeed, Okay, right, let's get into it, guys.
Shall we? Firstly, Shane Jones and the tsunami alerts. I mean,
I'm not sure the big story is Shane Jones or
the big story of his the tsunami alerts and quite
a few people irritated by being woken at six thirty
in the morning, of course. But Shane Jones reckoned he
had switched off his phones because he'd gone to bed
(04:52):
early after enjoying a few wines. He said, there might
have been a glass or three of red wine. I
would say, if somebody says a last of three, I'm
going five or six. And he missed the tsunami alerts. Look,
I mean, should he have left he's a Minister of
the crownd should he have left his phone? On Brad
and did you get the alerts at six thirty am?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
So I didn't get it at six thirty. I got
it a couple of hours later, so I thought I'd
missed it because I woke up and you know, all
of these people were posting on social media about how
challenging it was to get woken up early, and I
mean I was awake at that time, and I wasn't
too fussed. And then I thought I'd avoided sort of
you know that panic attack that comes through when the
alert goes off, and was driving down. It's probably about
(05:33):
eight o'clock by the time.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I got it.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I don't know what went on. I only got it once, thankfully,
But I mean, to be honest, I was more surprised that,
you know, people still turn their phones absolutely off. It's
like when you go into the cinema and they say
to tell you turn your phone off. I never do it.
I turn it on to do not disturb or tell
it on, you know, put it on to shut up mode,
but turn it fully off. I thought, geez, Shane's being
very technologically enabled there just.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
To actually turn his phone off.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It's quite a big effort.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
That's quite a that is an effort, isn't it, Because
you've just got to push that button for a few
seconds and hold it down un till it goes You
sure you want me to turn off? And you go, yeah,
I got three alerts, Liam, How many did you get?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
I got two, I got one, I got one driving
home the night before, and then I got one at
city in the morning. We don't live on the coast
or anything, but I guess we live close enough to
the coast because people in Land didn't get it right,
so you had to be within a certain distance of
the coast to get it.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
But which is most of New Zealand's population, to be fair,
isn't it?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I think, Well, you know, I mean I live in
the Great Inland man or two of course, so I
must have been run on the edge. But look here
here's the thing though, right, So I think you're right
about if you say you've had two or three glasses
of wine, it's it's four or five. And if you
say you turned your phone off, that means you forgot
to charge it because probably have had four or five
(06:50):
glasses of wine. So you know, like, but regardless, here's
the thing, Like, I don't really think I don't really
want to have in any kind of sewel defense system
that relies on Shane Jones like having to have his
phone at hand. You know, I can see the President
of the I think he's always got to have the
guy with the nuclear codes, you know in the room
saw that. I can understand that, and I know we're
(07:10):
talking about that later. But like Shane Jones, if the
system is built around in any way Shane Jones or
any New Zealand Minister of the crown having to have
their phone on them anytime, I think it's a pretty
terrible system. So I think it's enough.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Actually, you know what, guys, I just reckon that this
is a story just because it's fun. Shane Jones is
a colorful character, and it's just it's an opportunity for
the for the news to say, hey, shan Shane Jones
when he has a bit of a bender, he gets
stuck into it, I know, and missus his numbing lets
I mean, is that part of it. If it had
been a less interesting minister, would this even be a story?
(07:46):
Brand Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I don't think so. And to be fair, you know
a lot of other ministers probably wouldn't have put it
that way. Even if they had have done it the
same sort of you know way, they probably would have said, oh,
look I didn't get it, or you know, I'd turn
my phone onto some sort of mode whatever it was.
But you're right, it would have been a non story.
But and it sort of still is a non story.
I think it just made it a little bit of
light of what was still a pretty serious situation.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I think there were a lot of questions being asked
about these emergency alerts coming out, and I think reasonable questions.
But equally, I think agencies fronted up and said, look,
rather be safe than sorry. Still the right result. But
you know, you need to have a little bit of
a laugh every now and then, and I think that's
probably the right way to have done it. Poke a
little bit of fun at a government minister. They can't
take themselves too seriously actually to be and look, civil
(08:30):
defense gets a bit of a hard time because I
was doing overnight talkbacks and we had regular updates coming
in and the expression was, look, we're not expecting any
coastal inundation, but if you are on if you're living
on board your boat, get off it and get in
land and don't go out, and.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That didn't really change. So I did slightly question the
six thirty am. You know, i'd think if at six
thirty am it should be if it's getting any worse.
But I don't like beating up on the agencies as well,
because they get damned if they do LIAM and damned
if they don't.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Eh. Yeah, I know that's what they're there for, that
they can make the judgment calls and get them right. Look,
I do, I do have it doing that. We'll get
into the car alarm type situation, you know, where you
hear a car alarm go off in the street. You know,
like how do you run out to them and like
investigate it or you just assume someone's bumped into a
car or.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
A If I heard it in my car, pard, i'd
definitely go.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Out, yeah, in the street, right, So, so, like, I
understand entirely where you're coming from. But I do think
that you know, it's one of those instances where they
have the tool, and you know, anyone who's got a tool,
it's the law of the instrument. They're going to be
looking to use it whenever they can. And I think
you have to be careful about pushing people's patients or this,
And I think the sixth City in the morning one,
(09:42):
I agree with you. I think it was overkill. I
understand the night before, but I think the one in
the morning was just there was just one too many.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah. Actually, I think the whole car alarm thing, not
that we've got this as a topic, but I think
the car alarm just depends on the neighborhood you live in.
If you live in an angelic, very quiet neighborhood and
a car alarm goes off, probably people do go out
and check because I think that's odd. Whereas if you're
live in a sort of slightly more colorful neighborhood where
(10:09):
it happens, well, well, I don't know where, you know.
Let's say you were living in Sydney's King's Cross, you
might not go out and check it out. By the way.
And also, I just think if you as a pr thing,
if you are a politician and you have had a
big night, I would imagine what you'd say is, listen, look,
(10:29):
I was working late. I had a function last night,
and I was a bit tired, and I just switched
my phone off and didn't hear it would be the
way to do it, So I think Shane likes us
to know he had a good time a brad.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I was going to say, I mean, like you could
say that, but geez, no one could report on it.
That'd be boring. So like, it depends you trying to
sort of, you know, generate clicks and views and make
sure that the name's out there or not. And if
you're not, then yeah, you'll take the safe fruit.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Well, as I say, as Osquwad says, there's only one
thing in the world worse than being talked about, and
that is not being talked about anyway. Look, let's move
on to the I did get a little bit of
a jolt when I turned on my phone to read
the news this morning and saw the headline about Donald
Trump and bnouncing that he had ordered the deployment of
two nuclear submarines towards Russia in response to threats from
(11:11):
the country's former president that's Medvedev, who had you know,
they rattle sabers and everything. And then he literally says
that he's going to send the nuclear submar marines to
be closely positioned around Russia. The headline is disturbing, but Liam,
I I struggle to get too excited about it, much
(11:34):
as a lot of the other journalists who are experts
in this stuff aren't too excited about it, because it's
all perform performative, is it? What do you reckon?
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Yeah, it is. I mean, it's the Trump effect. And
that's what makes it really hard to tell what's going on,
because this type of thing, the gamesship of the brinksmanship,
it always happens, but normally with US Russia relations, at
least for a long time, it's sort of happened through
back channels. It's happened in a secret, But I don't
think Donald Trump does anything a secret, right, And so
what we can't tell is whether Obama or George W.
(12:05):
Bush or dred Widen, whether or not they would be
taking similar precautions but not talking about it and not
openly confronting the former president of Russia about it, issuing
short deadlines and revising them and issuing new ultimatums. So
it's hard to know how much of it's a change
in what the United States is doing. What is the
(12:27):
change is how it's being acknowledged. And but you know,
that's Trump, That's Trump on everything. There are no precedents
really and it's not the first time that Trump's been
different to other presidents and how he's announced things.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, what did you make of it? Brad Well?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Interestingly, he didn't actually say that he was sending these
Russian subs towards sorry, his nuclear subs towards Russia. He
said he was sending them to be positioned in quote
the appropriate regions end quote, which is I mean, again,
probably code for what we all know. But just even
the sort of weird cat and mouse game of he's
telling us but also like teasing us with not a
whole lot of information, it just seems to all play
(13:05):
into the sort of very retail politic y sort of thing.
You know, he wants everyone to know that he's doing something,
but for obvious reasons, can't tell them much more. I
guess I just get a bit worried that given the
amount of conflict that's around the world, like genuine you know,
conflict with between sovereign states, I don't think we need
nuclear jokes. I just surely we don't have to sort
(13:26):
of start reacting to tweets with repositioning you know, naval vessels.
It just becomes a little bit too freaky. In my mind,
and yep, I'm pretty sure nothing else comes of it,
like everyone else, but you just never know with these guys,
what's going to happen next.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, I sort of. I had a mixed response. I
actually went to read a couple of other bits of
media about it, and one of the columnists I read,
I think was in the Telegraph, was saying, basically, you know,
normally this sort of rhetoric would would have people quite alarmed,
but given Donald Trump's quixotic style of governing, few are
panicking today. And the other thing is, you know what,
(14:01):
there's a part of me that says, you know, Russia
loves to rattle that nuclear saber. And then Trump's gone, okay,
well I can play that game as well. Not that
we want to escalate it, but I sort of have
a little bit of sympathy for what he's done.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
But remember the first remember his first term, when he
had that initial sort of conflict with Kim Jong un,
you know, and he's calling a rocket man and you
treating about you know, ours of my rockets are longer
than your rockets, and you know, things like that, and
you know, that was all considered to be very you know,
alarming at the time to write, and I was like,
(14:38):
what the hell's going on to the president? And then
and then they had a summit and they sort of
became bff, you know, and you know, I guess Kim
Jonglan played like a strativarius and on that occasion. But
it's just Trump right like so it's like it's he's
different to all of the presidents, but he's he's different
(14:59):
in ways that are kind of predictable.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Also, he wasn't saying something, as another expert I read said,
he wasn't saying anything about the positioning. That's not true
at any stage that the subs are. The fact is
they're always in position to anyway god it. So it's
all of it. It's all of it much though, doesn't
that have a cup of teen? I lie down?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
The question though, Tim, right, is that what's going to
happen next? Because Okay, there's a saber rattling at the moment,
you know with these repositionings. The real one for me
is that you know, Trump keeps saying he's going to
you know, either tariff or do something worse to Russia
going forward in the next ten days, if you know,
if there's no resolution reached in Ukraine and someone I'm
pretty sure we've heard that from literally every single day
(15:38):
of the US presidency so far, and there's still be
no action. Like not that I'm wanting the Russian subs
conversation to go any further, but it's probably more important
to me do we actually see any end in sight
on those conflicts or not, because otherwise it does get
back to that topic that often gets talked about. We've
heard it from financial commentators about you know, Taco Trump
Trump always chickens out, who knows where things go next?
(16:00):
Like we are just sort of caught up in this
world and we've got to blind react every couple of
minutes when something new emerges.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Somebody actually texted me during the course of this and said, look,
it's just another diversion from the Epstein saga, which is pretty.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Well, oh you say that, But then memory bombed the
hell out of Iran, you know, like openly, and that's
also you know, you just was I just wouldn't. I
wouldn't count anything and or out. I just wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I just if I was to be uptimistic, I'd hope
that this is an empty threat, which means he has
to follow through on his tariff threats and the next
and then however, many days has left for Russia on
actually bringing to them account. But anyway, look, oh well, anyway,
look we'll take a quick break with Liam here and
Brad Olsen. This is the Weekend Collective Tim Beverage. The
(16:43):
panel will continue next in just a moment. It's twenty
three past three.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Where you're coming.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
You happy, I continue.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It and welcome back to the Weekend Collective. This is
the panel. My guests are Brad Olsen and Liam Hare.
Now Liam will start with you on this one. FBI
coming to Wellington, so the I guess we were not
a huge surprise or anything, but maybe mildly that Cash
Purttel was in town opening up an office, although apparently
(17:23):
had been a suboffice of the FBI, so the FBI's
were a new office in Wellington. But probably the bit
that caused a bit more trickiness for the government was
top of the list of issues was countering the Chinese
Communist Party in the Indo Pacific, which we would be
squirming about a bit that he said it, So obviously
don't you reckon, Liam.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Well, there's just American diplomacy for you. Isn't it, especially
under the Trump administration, they'll say the sense aloud quite
part out loud. But beyond that, I mean, you know,
whether or not the loudness of it was in politic
or undiplomatic. You know, it's not like not like the
Chinese government doesn't know, doesn't have an idea about what's
going on or why things are happening. But beyond that,
(18:06):
I do kind of feel like it's a bit of
a nothing story because I mean, as we know that,
you know, policing around the world is becoming more and
more integrated every every year. The reason why it's so
hard to open up a bank account or sign up
with a new accountant and you're going to prove everything
is because we are constantly now having to conform to
America and European standards about tracking financial crime and proving
(18:30):
the providence of funds because it's all being more and
more subjected to international policing oversight. And we, of course
we have our own police attaches and embassies around the world.
So yeah, like it's like it's whether you know whether
or not cash Betel was politic and saying that whether
or not that's good for good for a domestic audience
(18:51):
or not. Like, I'm really not that surprised, and I'm
frankly not that alarmed either. I think if, if if
mine wants to surveil New Zealanders, I've got the ability
to do it, whether or not they have an office
or not.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Far too reasonable for you, Liam, but but good points.
I guess the thing that surprised me, Brad was that
we often feel that and in when it comes to
the tariff talk and things like that, which we're not
going to dig into today, but you know, often the
rhetoric from US and commentators is that look, Washington, you know,
New Zealand's not even a blip on the map. So
(19:23):
I was surprised that the head of the FBI was here, definitely.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
I mean, it sort of makes for a good conspiracy theory,
doesn't it. You know, everyone starts to get excited when
you have the FBI director here. I do feel like
the entire trip feels both a little bit random and
a little bit clumsy from both sides, Like why did
we have the you know, the FBI director That almost
seems like from the reporting lurking around the basement of
the beehive, like shouldn't this have been a little bit
more structured so that everything was either announced in the
(19:50):
right way or you didn't have a journalist that spotted
him and you know, passing the in the elevator and went, oh,
I should report on this. And then also within twenty
four hours, you know, New Zealand's you know, accepting an
FBI office or an upgrade of an office. But then
we get slapped tariffs. I mean, I agree to them.
Let's not get into the tariffs too much because again
they might change an instant. But it did just feel
(20:11):
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
On the nose.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
It was like, come on, what's going on? Who planned
this trip? And went, you know what, there's nothing else
happening around here. From an American point of view, let's
just a random trip to New Zealand. It just seemed
random and clumsy.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
We're not We're not quite a blip though. When it
comes to intelligence. You know, we're in the Five Eyes Alliance,
and that's an extremely privileged position to be in. We
get not only do we have stuff shared with us,
but we get legitimately consulted on and so there will
be more concern about security in New Zealand and New
Zealand's vulnerabilities than there would be for another country of
(20:45):
a comparative size, and you know, we benefit from that intelligence.
And so that's part of the crisis of those is
that we actually have to we've got to be a
bit more attentive to what the Americans want.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Well, that'd be all good and well if that they
didn't just whack a higher tariff on US than Australia.
I mean, where do they expect our trade and exports
to go, certainly not to the US. I mean again,
I get I get all of those points. So just
I found it like a little bit of an own
goal that you know, you had this mixed messaging. If
you're sitting out there, you know at home, you're going well,
(21:18):
on one hand, you know, FBI's in town. Obviously there's
important sort of stuff to do on the justice front
and similar, but you know, when it comes to the
actual dollars and cents and what's happening to the global economy,
US is happy to slap us again.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
It just it found reason. You're seeing it as a
two way thing, Brad, if you see it from the
very perspective they call the shots serve senior partner the
US that they want, and they tell us what they
want in terms of a law enforcement presence here, and
we want to access to their markets, also want their intelligence.
So it's welcome to being a junior partner just like lawfully,
same with countries.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I wonder if I imagined myself when I saw Judith
Colin standing there next to Cash Mattel. I did wonder
whether Judith might just be tempted to say, hey, listen,
we've just heard the news about the towns. Any chance
you can have a little bit of a chat with
Donald and just say, you know, because come on, we've
got a great relationship any form of diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Bred what I want to know is that do if
we've got an FBI office, does that now mean that
we can start to have some of the cool American
procedural spin offs that come down here as well? Like
there's n CIS Sydney Now is a TV show? When
does n CIS Wellington or FBI Wellington start to become
a thing?
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Is?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Can we get some more TV shows out of this?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Please FBI Wellington well and get some special efforts done
effects done by Wetter. But that's another topic not for conversation,
but terrible news that they've been laying off all those workers.
But we've only got so much we can talk about,
so we're going to move on to the you know,
the Australia the likely ban on social media, including YouTube.
(22:48):
I think they're wrong on this one, guys, Liam, I
think that I think they're right on I love the
ban on social media and people saying, oh, kids have
away getting around it. But to me as a parent,
it's a great tool to be able to say to
my kids, listen, you're not having that. But the YouTube ban,
I think because is a bit strange. What do you reckon, Liam?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Well, like, we've still got four young kids and we
have a constant war of attrition over devices. Sometimes my
wife and I are winning the battle and sometimes we're losing.
But social media is a has always has always been
a bit of a red line for us because they're
all under sixteen, right, So, but what you don't realize
(23:29):
is that YouTube is social media and YouTube gives us
gives us quite a bit of grief. We've had to
put some pretty tough limits on YouTube because YouTube is wonderful,
but it's got some stuff and that the younger kids
just shouldn't be seeing. But here's the thing, right, I
think that we parents still have all the tools that
(23:49):
they need to be able to regulate it themselves. Like
I still think this is the type of thing we're
parental sovereignty should apply. Like I said, it is hard
and it's a constant battle. I mean, being a parent
is hard. But we find that with four children who
are always desperate to consume as much digital media as
it can, that we think we're doing a pretty good job.
We'll keep them a little in it. I don't think
(24:10):
it's for the government to come in and say to
us what we can and can't do, what they can
and can't do when it's still within the realm. I
think of individual families making decisions about what will be
allowed and when.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, what do you reckon? Brad?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Look, I completely agree. I think it's absolutely none of
government's business, to be honest. I think that about the
wider band as well. But I think also my worry
a little bit with this YouTube piece is that you
sort of my worry always with these is that you
start to throw the baby out with the bath water.
I mean, all of the educational opportunities that exist on YouTube.
Yes there's some awful stuff. Yes there's some just rubbish
(24:47):
brain rot that comes through, but there's a lot of
useful insights as well in the island to fair bit
of economics from YouTube back in the day. But my
worry as well is probably more though, Tim, are you
really telling me that, you know, sixteen years or fifteen
years and three hundred and sixty five days you are
not allowed on it, But by the time you'd sort
of go twenty four hours into the future, you are
(25:08):
now definitely loud on it, with sort of no controls,
having no experience with it before. I just don't think
that's necessarily a good way to go about it. I'd
be much more, as Lim's highlighted, leave it up to
the parents. If the parents want to go down that way,
if they want to have a mature conversation, if they've
got more or less mature kids for their age, then
you can sort of tailor it. I just never like
the government coming that sort of close into my life.
(25:29):
I'd like them to sort of stay at the front
door play well.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Although we do we do have limits on age for
other things such as you're not supposed to be able
to drink alcohol, although chemically and home you can. But
I think the problem is the blurring of the whole
thing with YouTube being included in there, because I mean
they're online classrooms on YouTube and all sorts of things.
But I mean in terms of the evidence of how
(25:51):
bad social media and device addiction is for young people,
I don't know if there's much debate to be had
about that. So I don't have a problem with the
broader band. Liam, You're going to chip.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
In that, but you know that's my call, right, you know,
they my kid, so I know what's best and I
know what they can and can't handle that. There are tools.
The tools are there for parents to be able to
monitor it if parents are motivated to do it. I
just look. Here's the other thing though. The other thing
that worries me is that so you've got this scene
now where you're going to have continuous biometric monitoring, right,
(26:23):
So it's constantly monitoring who's what you're looking at. And
the idea is that that that will stop people from
just you know, glogging in some way with a photo
or something and then being able to watch it when
they're under fifteen, sixteen or whatever. But how often is
it that technology will be implemented for a good purpose,
and then it will creep and creep and creep and
(26:43):
be used more and more. So we develop these tools
for noble purposes to begin with, we normalize them, and
I just don't trust that they're not going to be
extended in a way that's just a result in more surveillance.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
More surveillance, yeah, of us. Yeah, I don't mind being targeted.
I don't want to be targeted for things I'm not
interested in. I'm sort of okay with the profiling. So
if I'm looking up I don't know ski resorts in France,
I don't mind if I'm going to get targeted from
ski resorts in France because I'm interested in it.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
But there's no VPN that will be able to lay
you to be anonymous on the internet. And I suppose
the arguments always you've got nothing to worry about, You've
gotta I think, a hide. But you know, it's just
I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not comfortable with that
data being continuously gethered and I can't see how this
doesn't end up with that happening.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I put it this way, to put it, we'd be
having a very different conversation. If a government in New
Zealand said, look, you know, we're going to put a
radio band for news Talk ZB on anyone under the
age of sixteen because we don't think that sixteen year
olds can handle the conversation. Let's let's be real, we'd
be having a very conversation.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
That's why we use our common sense on what we
think is not too bad. And it looks understandable because
listening to this show is totally addictive. So what can
I just tell you one very funny thing that happened
to me on radio once we're talking about It was
about government surveillance and a caller called up and he says,
you know, Tim, there could be people listening to this
show right now. And I was like, bloody well hope.
(28:13):
So anyway, look, we need to take another quick break.
We'll be back in just to teck. This is the
Weekend Collective panel with Liam here and Brad Olsen. I'm
Tim Beveridge. It is twenty two minutes to four.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
Holidays.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Wait, yes, so welcome back to the Weekend Collective. This
is the panel. I'm Tim Beverage and I guess the
brad Olsen and Liam here. Now I must say, guys,
I struggle. I go with it to you first. Liam
on this one, I struggle with quite getting my head
around n CEA. My kids are just heading into that,
(28:56):
My oldest is just heading into it. But it looks
like for one there is definitely going to be an overhaul.
The current setup's being described as not working Erica Stan
but I'm just waiting for her to make the announcement.
But there's a question about whether they're whether some of
the flexibility of NCAA needs to be traded off for
a more structured system. People gain the flexibility, you know,
(29:16):
easier courses to get points, and also the connection to
vocational pathways. I mean, I don't know how you haven't said,
ho old your kids are, Liam, But are you into
the NCAA side of things yet?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
On?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
William got Liam?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
There?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Can we just turn Liam's mic on or let's lim
see if you can get his mic on. I can't.
Let's go to Brad first, because I can see Liam.
I just can't hear them.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
As I feel like I could have a job but
potentially term me as an NCAA whisperer given that I
did the system, so I know very intimately how how
things work. And yes it changes sort of yet to year,
but they're not points. Just to be clear that the
credits that you get depending on what it is. But look,
what I will say is that I think for a
(30:01):
lot of people there's enough sensibility that if you're going
to sort of, you know, take one course in history
and one course in chemistry and one course and something else,
and you don't do it comprehensively, you're gonna be rubbish
at all of them out the other side. But at
the moment, the system is yes set up or at
least skewed a lot more towards people who are going
to try and find that easier pathway. They're going to
take more internal credits than external credits. They don't have
(30:24):
to worry about the pressure of exams. Means though that
when they get into the workforce, one, they might not
have that comprehensive view of what they actually need going
into the future. You know that they don't have the
full package. But two, sometimes not ready for the real
world because I've only ever done stuff without a lot
of time pressure and similar and then all of a
sudden you go into the workplace, you sort of get
put that time pressure on, you get top hold on
(30:44):
where's the open book tests? And in the four weeks
that I'd normally have. So yes, there's got to be changes.
I guess the question is how do we, in my
mind make it as sort of work enabling as possible,
Because if you're educating a whole bunch of people they're
not coming out into the workplace and they're ready to
hit the workforce, then I feel like we're really failing everyone,
not only the individuals, but the rest of the economy.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Toohaul, would you like to see Brad? It seems like
NCA one is the one that people are complaining about
the most. Is it level one?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Well, I think especially because realistically the benchmark for most
people seems to be NCAA level two. Still, I mean,
in my mind it should be level three. Gosh, back
in the day when I was a student, I was
actually on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework Review Group. I mean,
we've been talking about this for a long time. I
do think that part of it's got to be that
you should have to sort of be able or sort
(31:36):
of coerced a little bit into taking a slightly more
packaged approach. So if you're going to take sort of
credits in a certain area, you should need to sort
of make up a certain amount of them. You can't
just sort of take one paper from any area and
just leave it hanging. You should have to sort of
take a few from a certain area enough to sort
of bulk you up so that you've clearly got some
(31:56):
competency in that area. Otherwise people will just gain the system.
But I mean, there's very very smart people that have
been going through this. One of the challenges, genuinely, I
think is because parents don't fully understand the system, they
can't often help their kids guide it.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
Now.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I can tell you when I went to school, I
did a lot of it myself. My parents sort of
that they were still going, well, you know, we're back
in bursary in school. See. So that was tough for
right because at the time I can't go to mom
and Dan and say, hey, do you reckon I should
go for this paper with six credits or should I
go for this paper at four credits? And they're like,
what the heck's a credit? So that's tough. If you
don't have it understandable enough for parents, then you're probably
(32:31):
gonna lose everyone.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
What do you reckon, lamb?
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Well, look, I'm the last year to do school. See
I was the last one to go for it, or
the last cohort to go for it. And why I'm
the oldest. All my brothers and sisters they went through
NCA and it was thinkreed worth all the way for
all of them. It was changed a little bit year
to year, but the one consonant was that nobody could
tell how well they had done or not done, or
what they could do what couldn't do. And for all
(32:55):
its faults, the old system, it was a drafting git
all right, And if you're proficient and enough of the subject,
you could pass right at the moment, you've got something
that's highly customizable, which means it's highly gainable and it
will always be that way if it's structured like that.
And one of the things is the result of that
(33:16):
is that we defer the hard conversations with kids about
what track they want to go down and what future
because too many it's too easy to pass by assembling
a patchwork of credits to get you through the subject.
Now this is not to say that kids who have
a more mechanical or vocational inclination aren't smart. If you're
(33:37):
an electrician or a plumber, you are smarter than most
people in lots of ways. But it does show what
you have in attitude for and that you need to
have those drafting gates to know if someone is suitable
to go down in the academic track or if they
need to go down a vocational track. And the whole
system has felt the whole time like it's been set
up to obscure any kind of idea about how people
(34:02):
have actually performed in those subjects and with or not
there should continue. And maybe it was set up to
do that. But the way that it works, the function,
the results are the system, and it has not changed.
If you were to go back to the starting in
CEA and say this is what's going to be like
in twenty years or whatever, do you think that this
(34:24):
we should do? It is this? Has the system become
more equitable? Have we got better trained kids? Do we
have kids to have more knowledge more proficiency in school?
I mean the answer is no. Right, So the overhaul
is so overdue, needs to be more structured, but also
it needs to be done in a way that's not
going to be require this constant tinkering every year like
(34:46):
we've had ever since we've had in c A.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
When did you guys know what you wanted to do
with your lives? Brad, let's go with you first.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Oh, I mean when I started to write down the
stock market numbers when I was an intermediate in a
little notebook, I was pretty well said on that path.
But see what was in I remember? So, look, my
dad's a builder, and a really good one at that.
And it was always interesting because when we did would
work at school, it was one of those things where
I think we were just trying to pass the time
rather than try and figure out who was good at it.
(35:16):
Because we spent about eight weeks planning the same bit
of wood to make a sort of you know, hexagon
shaped mallet. And I remember I going home and there
was like, mate, we could have made them like five minutes.
And so I mean, like, like to Liam's point there,
we do have to make the sort of useful and
practical instead of tinkering with it. But look, I knew,
I think other people probably knew even sooner than I did,
that I was destined for this economic track.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, what about you, Liam.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Well, I'm a lawyer, and I figured it out by
the time I was eighteen or nineteen, because let's look
at my exit. I was good at English and I
was good at history, and then you line up, well, okay,
what are the actual professions that are remunerative for someone
with that sort of inclination and that skill set. You know,
I could have become a secondary school teacher, but that
didn't fancy it. So, you know, for someone who's good
(36:01):
at school, but he's good at English and he wants
to make enough money, water family laws the way to go,
and so the exams were very good for that.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, that's interesting because I was.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
I was.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
I did the sort of final year that Brad sort
of talked about as doing a bit of everything. I
did chemistry and history and physics. But anyway, I always
liked history, and I thought I was a bit like you,
which is why I did a lauda Gren then ended up,
of course being a musical theater performer. And actually, no,
probably it's yeah, well I guess so, yeah, it's difficult
(36:34):
to narrow that one down anyway. But actually, by the way,
just on the one of my daughter's friends, I was
chatting to the girls and the cars dropping them somewhere.
And I asked her if they all knew what they
wanted to do. And this girl's fourteen years old, and
she said, yeah, I want to be a pediatric an enthesiologist.
And I said, wow, that's and she could tell me why,
(36:54):
and she'd already planned how she was going to get
Australian citizenship through her father so she could actually get
into med school in Australia. Given the difficult pathway here
because I'm not taking the right boxes. Well, and I thought, wow,
that was I was impressed. Anyway, Well, my.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Eight year old he wants to be a toy shop
owner and a palaeontologist. He wants to have like those
two jobs, you know, and so he wants to do
what he loves. But it's very precise. But I somehow
don't think he's going to end up with both of
those jobs. Maybe one or neither.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Hey, Brad, can you do di y we're giving your
dad's a builder or are you just none of it's off.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Look, let's just say that when I'm allowed to be,
you know, a contractor on site with my father as
the foreman, we have a lot of arguments. There's a
lot of a lot of discussion, a lot of talk
around productivity. Put its way. I haven't been ordered off
site before, but I'm not often sort of asked to
lead a lot of projects.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
No okay, yeah, okay, And in fact your DI why
I would be like, just dad, if you've got a
few spare half an hour or two, I guess.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Basically, I mean put it this way, if you need
a hand, you could find a huge number of better
people than I could ever provide to you my DIY skills,
because it would be a to sort of get the
hammer and just smash something up and hope and hope
it sort of worked.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Well, that's probably the rule of thumb for a lot
of people. Like people not do their in DIY. Anyway, Hey, look,
we'll be back in just a moment. This is the
panel on the We Can Collective. It's nine minutes to four. Yes,
welcome back for the panel of brad Olsen and Liam
here with me just very quickly, guys. I was amused
by that exchange between Willie Jackson and Erica Stanford when
Willy revealed his kids go to private school, but they've
(38:30):
been given ministers a hard time for having private health insurance.
I just sort of think, you know, when your family
is concerned, I don't care whether they're politics, they can
do what they want.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Brad, Yeah, they totally can. But I mean, I think
that's the thing as long as you don't then cart
stones yourself, because then you're going to get it thrown
back in your face. So I don't think it's right that,
you know, we draw people's families into it. But if
they are going to sort of act in this very
righteous manner, you know, and sort of point the finger
and shake the stick in the other direction, that they
can't be surprised when it comes back the other.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Way one hundred percent. That's why I disagreed with Labour
bringing it up in the first place. Was I guess
what my point was, Liam, But sorry, Liam, Yeah, same.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Takes a different emphasis. I guess. I mean, it's but
that is hypocritical. It just is, you know, it's completely hypocritical.
It's King's College is an expensive school, you know, it's
it's an elite school. Uh, and so the hYP hypocrisy
is there. But sometimes you just actually just have to
suck up the fact that politicians are allowed to be
hypocrites about these things. Because description yeah, Yeah, you don't
(39:34):
know what goes on inside a family, right, and so
for all we know, you know, Willie Jackson wants them
to go to public school and his partner or spouse
wants them to go to that school, and it's a
compromise of reach. You just don't know, right, And so
for that reason you just have to give the politicians
a bit of a free hit. I mean, it is
completely hypocritical, but but you know, so what you know,
(39:55):
sometimes you just have to give them.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Well and as Brad cso, Brad, that mistake was in
them having a crack at people having private health insurance.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
I think so. I guess I worry as well, right
that if we really do get in that argument of well,
you've got to sort of do this because the government
provides it or it doesn't, or you can't make decisions
because you don't have this level of experience, but you
go down into sort of so many very niche options
where you know, different people can't do so many things
that it just it becomes too complex. And I feel
like we elect leaders to represent generally, that's what we
(40:23):
need to leave them to do.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Good stuff. Guys, Hey, Brad, Liam great to have you
on the panel. Thanks you so much guys, and we'll
look forward to next time. Ay and that wraps the panel.
You can check it out on the news Talk said
B if you missed any of it, and we'll be
back shortly with the one roof radio show news Talk SEDB.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
For more from the weekend collective, listen live to News
Talk SEDB weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.