July 1, 2025 • 21 mins
Labour leader and Remutaka MP Chris Hipkins says he is sceptical of the idea the Interislander could be privatised.
It comes after a cabinet paper obtained by the Herald floated the possibility of partially or fully privatising the ferry service.
Hipkins joined Nick Mills for his monthly catch-up, where the pair also discussed the state of the economy, whether weight-loss 'wonder drugs' should be funded, and the government's recent law and order announcements.
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 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talk said b.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Joining us now as labor leader in RAMATUCKA MP. Chris Hipkins,
good morning, Chris, good morning. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm very good.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Thank you, I'm very good.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You've got your kids out for the day. You're spending
your family day.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Well, we were having a bit of time in town.
But cracky, it's cold out there today. Five degrees when
I left up just before.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It's probably a hell of a lot warm. It's probably
twenty degrees in downtown. Wanting to hate you, it's Atti Apperhart,
that's goat. Yesterday we had Nikola Willis, Finance Minister, in
the studio. She said. She told us that unemployment is
peaking right now and for people, you know, it's still tough.
Things are still feeling a bit tough. You know. It
felt a little bit different to last time I spoke
(00:52):
to her, when she was saying survive till twenty five
and everything's going to come right. Centric's data out yesterday
showed that fourteen percent more Kiwis are struggling to pay
their bills compared to this time last year. Do you
think in all honesty and sincerity that things are on
the improved.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Well, I think it's typical you know, spin from the government.
They say, oh, I think things are just starting to
get better. They're just starting to get better. They're just
starting to get better. And then when things get worse,
they s out, well, they're just we've just turned the corner.
We've turned the corner so many times, we've gone in
full circles. What they don't acknowledge is that some of
the decisions that they've made have made things harder and
worse than they needed to be, such as well, if
you look at let's just look at the fundamentals first,
(01:32):
because I think we should celebrate the fact that inflation's
back down and interest rates are back down. Reserve Bank
ultimately can claim most of the credit for that. The
government's decisions have very little to do with that. The
decisions that they took after the election to cut housing projects,
cut school projects, cut roading projects, cut hospital projects, All
of that spending that they cut on upgrading things and
(01:54):
building new things has resulted in fifteen It's been one
of the big contributors to fifteen thousand fewer people working
and building and construction. If you look at the company liquidations,
A large chunk of those are building construction companies, and
the government's directly responsible for a good chunk of that.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We didn't have the money. We didn't. We didn't, I mean,
we would have had to borrow more and more and more,
and you know, you guys had got the overdraft up
pretty big.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, no, but that's not true. So you know, the
government are saying that they're going to spend more money.
It's not true that you've got the over They're saying
that they're going to spend more money on those things.
So the cuts they made weren't supposedly if you listen
to what they say, their cuts weren't about saving money.
They're saying, oh, we just want to do different things.
And in the meantime, while they've decided to, while they're
trying to figure out what the different things they want
to do, is, everything's ground to a halt. I just
(02:41):
think that kind of political expediency we say it doesn't
matter if we if everyone's business goes to the war,
We're just going to stop spending money while we change
the government's priorities. I think that's recklessly irresponsible. You know,
these are people's livelihoods that have been ruined by what would.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Have done differently? I mean that's a very good question.
I mean, because I have this discussion in my business
world every day with people. You know, would you be
better off with labor or would you be better off
with the coalition game? What would you have done differently?
Would you have sat back and watched all these companies
folding under You know a lot of it's the government
that are folding these companies. You know, if you know,
aren't getting it well.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
If you look at the infrastructure work that we need
to get done, we can't afford for all of our
infrastructure companies to fold. We can't afford for the exodus
of people. And if you look at building and construction again,
if you're a qualified engineer, for example, you can jump
on a plane head over the Gold Coast or Sydney
or Melbourne. You can have a job tomorrow if you
do that, we can't afford to lose those people given
(03:36):
the amount of work ahead we've got. So probably the
better question, Nick is what will we do differently after
the next election if we win the next election. Number One,
we won't just stop everything. We won't just say that
because as national started it, that we're going to stop it,
because I think that kind of stop start cycle has
to stop.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Ultimately, we might choose to do different things over the
longer timeframes, but we're not going to stop everything that's
already underway, because I think their decision to do that
after the last election is actually one of the things
that's led to some of the problems we're seeing now.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
If you really was serious about it and looked in
a mirror this morning and said to yourself right now,
if labor had stayed in power, would we be in
a better situation as a country than we are now.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I think we would be because we wouldn't have done
the slash and burn that they have done. You know,
I think that what we've seen is that they've made
things worse. So you've got more people on an unemployment benefit.
They're still borrowing. They're actually borrowing more money than labor was.
They're just borrowing it to pay for different things. So
instead of borrowing money to pay to upgrade schools and hospitals,
they're borrowing money to pay people to sit at home
on the unemployment benefit. You know, I think they've made
(04:42):
a bad set of decisions.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And what would you have done differently right now?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Well, I wouldn't have cut all of this new state
house builds because actually that was keeping a lot of
builders in work and we need the houses. I wouldn't
have stopped all the school upgrades. I wouldn't have stopped
the hospital rebuilds.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
We would have.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Actually looked at doing more in that area because the
more we do in that area, the less we have
to pay in things like unemployment benefits.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Tell me, what have you heard about golden visas? Are
they been successful? Is that a good move?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It's a mixed bag. Ultimately, the question that I always
have is what are the people who are taking the
Golden visas doing with their money? Are they just buying
up passive New Zealand assets and extracting dividends out of
the country, or are they investing in businesses that are
helping to create jobs. So if they're coming in and
buying existing businesses or buying existing assets and just taking
(05:30):
money out of them, that's not really in New Zealand's
best interests. If they're coming in and saying, actually, we
think we can grow some new businesses here, then I
think we should have welcomed that capital investment.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
What are you hearing though, I mean, you'd have your
finger on the pulse. You'd have advisers telling you, are
we getting these investors coming in here? Is it working
for us as a country.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I've heard anecdotal reports, but again nothing substantial, nothing that
I could could claim as authoritative that there is more
speculative investment. Are you They're coming in and they're buying
stuff that already exists, And that's a bit of a concern.
If that's what's happening. If they're coming in and saying
we're going to grow new businesses for New Zealand, it's
a good thing. So I just think that.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
But surely, surely I'm talking as a businessman here. Surely
you're going to come into a country, you're going to buy,
if you're under this visa idea, you're going to buy
something so you can get the feel of the country
and get the feel of the environment and then move
on to what you want to get into. Wouldn't that
be normal?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
So if that and again, if that's what's happening, I
don't have a problem with that. So if someone's getting
a bit of a toe hold in New Zealand while
they figure the place out, and then their intention is
to grow new businesses in New Zealand. That's good for
the country. I think that the debate around foreign investment
needs to be a bit more sophisticated. You know, it's
not foreign investment good or foreign investment bad, it's what
type of foreign investment do we want and what do
(06:45):
we want those investors putting their money into.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Labor under your leadership? Would it be an open for
business you know style? Would it? We would be be saying, yes,
we want you to come into New Zealand, we want
you to invest in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
There's a difference between saying we're open for business and
saying everything's in the bargain bin for a basements, you know,
for a quick fire sale. Are we open for business? Absolutely?
It Does that mean that we're just going to hock
everything off? No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Right, So I still didn't quite get the right answers.
So would you be a yes we are open for
business style government?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Well, we were never closed for business. Actually, New Zealand
exports grew even when the border was closed.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I think Christophlexen going around the world saying on New
Zealand's reopening for business, a lot of our business leaders
were really hacked off by that because they're saying, actually,
we were bloody hard during COVID nineteen to make sure
New Zealand stayed open for business. So I think we've
always been open for business. But again the question is
what kind of business. Is it just people coming and
buying up more rental houses. No, we're not open for that.
(07:46):
Is it them coming up and coming in and you know,
building new businesses that helped to grow our economy, grow good,
well paid jobs for Kiwi's Absolutely we're open for that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I want to move on to law and order because
this week we've had so much of it happened. Where
you had the three big law and order announcements basically
from the government, it's almost like it's page one, page
two and page three. Firstly, there was an increased penalties
for assaults against first respondents. Secondly increasing penalties for coward punches.
And yesterday the government announced the spot finds for shoplifting.
(08:17):
First the assaults against first respondents. Surely this policy is
a good policy from the government, but surely wouldn't there
be an offense against punching someone. And as a first respondent, well,
I mean, I.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Think that's your description of the flurry of announcements is
a good one. Basically, they've decided that the economy is
continuing to go backwards, so they need to find other
things to talk about.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Oh, let's talk about law and order.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
You can you can actually see the conversations playing out
that way and the beehive. What they've done is dusted
off a few members bills that they had in opposition.
You know, they're a bit short of new ideas here.
There's already you know, if you look at coward punches.
Coward punches are already prosecuted under existing laws if you look.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
At us, but we don't. We haven't taken it serious enough.
And I'm hands on, so I see these stuff, the
stuff happening. We've never really taken it serious enough compared
to other Western countries in the world, have we?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And look, I'm open to a debate about that. We
haven't said that we would, you will oppose those I
think we need to see what the government are proposing
before we make that decision. So I'm looking forward to
receiving from the government what it is that they're proposing
to do. No one wants to see first responders, you know,
ambulance paramedics, police corrections offices, working in prisons. No one
(09:31):
wants to see them unsafe at work.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
The public seems to want to hear these sort of
a public announcements, though, don't they They want to feel
they want to feel safer.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I totally understand that, you know, I think the public
do want to feel safer. But one of my messages
is just longer sentences and harsher penalties doesn't necessarily give
you that. If we want to be safer as a community,
we've got to have less crime in the first place.
We've got to really tackle crime at the source.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
My concern, if I was you, would be that does
the public actually trust labor law and order? Do they
think that labor are stronger, strong enough leaders in law
and order.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I think there was a lot of misrepresentation of the
last labor government's position around law and order. Actually, what
we were focused on doing was tackling crime at the source.
If you look at I think where a lot of
the public anxiety came from. In the post pandemic world.
Around the world, we saw a big surge in sort
of violent crime, and I think as a government we
(10:33):
were too slow to respond to that. So I think
that's fair explain that to me. Well, so things like
ram raids, for example. You know, in my view, that's
a violent crime, you know, stealing a car and driving
it into someone's business or someone's home. In many cases
it's both. That is to me, a violent criminal offending,
and that we needed to do more there. We were
too slow to respond. We did get there, you know,
(10:55):
we were doing some really proactive work to get those kids,
to identify those kids and get them out of trouble,
and also to support those businesses.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Can I just quickly ask you, can I just quickly
ask you there, we don't ever hear of ram raids
anymore of the system that you put in place, or
is it since the coalition's come in.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Now it's because your Tory owners that endsed me have
just decided not to put it on the front page anymore.
It's still happening, it's just endsed Me have decided that
it's not in the government's best interests. And they do
the national parties singing for them, so they are they're
not covering it as much anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Oh gosh, that's a bit tough to do. Do you
think that that actual if you got voter back and
the public would actually trust you on your law and order. Look,
we are reviewed.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Law in order is one of the areas that we're reviewing,
and we're not just going to oppose everything that government
does just because it's something the government's doing.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
What about this idea of writing out a ticket for shoplifting?
Do you like that idea?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Well, frankly, I'd rather they took it seriously if people
are out there shoplifting. Basically they're now proposing lower consequences
for that. It was only a few months ago they
were saying that shopkeepers were going to be able to
arrest people.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
There's that ender.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Well, I don't know, it's just disappeared off the face
of the earth. Suddenly they're not talking about that anymore.
And I think that highlights one of this government's problems.
They're interested in slogans when it comes to law and
order rather than actually making sure that what they're doing
is going to work.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Do you think that people in New Zealand would actually
feel safer right now under the Coalition government and they
would Underlabor.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Well, I think. You know, we've got a lot of
work still to do around crime. If we want to
feel safer, all of us feel safer, then having less
crime in the first place is the way that we're going.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
To achieve that.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
And how do we do that, Well, we focus on
the underlying causes. So when I did that work around
ram raids, and you know, the kids involved in ram raids,
about ninety percent of those kids have got a parent
who's in prison. So if anyone thinks the answer has
just locked more people up, it doesn't. You know, all
you're doing is creating and then another generation of future
ram raiders. We've actually got to deal with the issues.
(12:53):
So when we started properly supporting those kids, about seventy
five percent of them stopped reoffending. I'd rather do more
of that, have fewer people offending in the first place,
than just lock more people up and then repeat the
cycle of crime.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I'm confused about your comments on the ram raids because
I mean, surely you could put us to one side,
en Zimeta one side, but there's a whole lot of
other media. I haven't seen a ram raids story in months.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Well, they're still happening. That they aren't happening at the
same degree because, as I said, some of that what
do you call it circuit breaker stuff that we were doing.
I mean that seventy five percent of those kids stopped reoffending,
so a lot of that work had already been done
by the time the election rolled around.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Okay, Wellington Mornings and we've got Labor leader and Rimatuka
MP Chris Hipkins in the studio with us. Chris, we
learned yesterday that the cabinet paper put forward by Rail
by rail Minister Winston Peters proposed the idea of fully
or partly privatizing the Enti Islander. Then suddenly that door
got closed. I mean, would labor ever be open to
(13:52):
some sort of privatization, maybe something like Air New Zealand's
ownership model where it's public private ownership that controls the fairies.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I have to say I'm pretty skeptical about that. I mean,
the Interroland ferries were privatized before, when KiwiRail or what
was then New Zealand Rail was fully privatized and what happened,
you know, ultimately the inter Islander got run into the ground.
Can you say that for a ship? You know it
basically got neglected, you know, and they didn't upgrade the
ships and everything. And some of the problems we're dealing
with now actually stem back to that privatization decision in
(14:24):
the nineteen nineties because for several decades, money just wasn't
spent on upgrading rail.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
But we've seen the success of blue Bridge, surely that
a government, you know, like own part ownership in a
private partner public partnership could.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Work with or to respect to blue Bridge. You know,
they provide a great service, but they also have breakdowns.
They also have iss you know issues. So if you
compared to their you know, their sailing record with the
inter Islander, of my understanding is it's about the same.
So they also have issues. So let's not just assume
that because everybody focuses on the inter Islander because it's
(14:59):
a public, publicly owned company, that somehow the private sector
is doing massively better.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Can the government Can they actually run a business and
make a profit.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Well, I think we've got to look at it not
just as a business, but as a vital piece of infrastructure.
But it is still a business, but it's a vital
piece of infrastructure as well as being a business. So
it is the connection between the North and the South Island.
So if you want to move big stuff between the
North Island and the South Island, it either has to
go via rail on a ferry or via a truck
on a ferry. And in that respect, you know, we
(15:31):
shouldn't look at it as different to roads or you know,
or as the main rail line, because effectively it's the
road and rail connection between the two islands.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well, we've seen the success of private public roading.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
We well only for them in so far as the
delivery is concerned, you know. And if you think about it,
we're not going to be building the fairies, We're still
going to be buying them. So it is still going
to be there's still going to be a very good
degree of private sector involvement in the replacement of the
inter island ferries.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
What did you think of the plan? I mean, obviously
it wasn't your plan, but the plan of the government
confirming yesterday the port side infrastructure of the new ferries
yesterday decent plan. Is it a good plan?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Well, I mean one of the risks, one of the
worries that I have there is just around the age
of that infrastructure. So you can patch up the existing stuff,
keep it going for a bit longer. But you know,
go and.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Look at the wolves. They are old wolves.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You know, they're old terminals, and we are going to
have to at some point invest money in that. And
I think about this from an intergenerational viewpoint, right, So
we inherited that we've all benefited from that infrastructure being there,
and now we're saying, actually, we're just going to continue
to run that down a bit more until eventually it
falls into the harbor. Then it'll be the next generations problem.
I'm not sure that that's a responsible attitude for government
(16:42):
to take.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Do you have faith that the rail system, the inter
item system will work till twenty twenty nine until we
get the new Fairies? Do you think there we'll get
through it.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Oh, it's going to be very touch and go because
if you look at it, the Ardituty is about to
be taken out of service. That's our rail connection gone
until the new Fairies arrive. And then the two existing
that are left are both old ships and they've both
been praying to breakdowns themselves, so it'll be touch and go.
You know, you take one of them out and suddenly
there down to two. We're going to be down to
(17:14):
do you take one of them out because it breaks
down because it needs some work done on it. We're
down to one.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
How do you feel about the situation that came out
a couple of days ago that basically booking your car
to go across the ferries? Now over Christmas time you're
almost booked out.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah, and that's all I mean that. To be fair,
that's always been a bit of an issue for the
inter Islander. They've always encouraged people to book early and
the more capacity. It's one of the reasons that we
were looking at significantly increasing capacity on the cook Straight
is because at those peaked times it does get booked out.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
With time on your side and retrospect, the government make
the right decision by canceling your Fairies.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
No, I don't think they did if I could go back, though.
You know, Winston Peters was the one who came up
with the two mega fairies idea in the first place,
and the early advice when that decision was made, the advice,
you know, for example, that all the wolves and terminals
and all the land around it would be needed to
be lifted by a meat lifted by a meter. That
was one of the big things that added the cost
to it. That wasn't all clear at the very beginning.
(18:11):
But I think there's ships that were purchased, you know,
those two Fairies, they were at a very very good price.
It would be very interesting reckon.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
It's going to cost us? Well, it's going to do
what you're telling you.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
My gutets tells me that it's going to be more
expensive than if they've gone aheare.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
But that doesn't give me a figure, does it. What
do you think half a billion dollars? What's it going
to cost the government to get out of these deals?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Well, depending on how you calculate it, they've probably already
written off about a billion dollars worth of spend so far,
you know, between canceling the old Fairies, between you know,
writing off all the money that was spent on you know,
the new Wolves were already started, you know, the drilling
and stuff had already happened, so they wrote all that off.
So I suspect they won't get away from much much
below a billion dollars in terms of stuff they're writing off,
(18:53):
and then they've got the cost of what they're doing instead.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
On top of that, wow, we Govie. You heard about it?
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Yeah, I have.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, what do you think your decision would be made?
I mean, we've got one point four million people obese
in the country. This drug is supposedly a bit of
a wonder drug, and it has got side effects and
you have to guard and see your doctor. I don't
want to get a whole lot of cause about it.
What would your stance beyond it? Would you would you
push Farmac to fund it?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I think we should be open to it. I mean
maybe farm Acs should start with a trial first. You know,
look how it might help people in New Zealand who
are struggling with weight loss. But I think we should
be open to it. You know, we do have a
country of where where there are people who struggle with
their weight. And I also just want to you know,
a bit of a word of caution. I've already seen
(19:40):
some of the reports of this saying oh, this is
a drug for lazy people who want to lose weight
and so on. It isn't that simple. Actually, some of
the people who are struggling with what their weight is
not because they're lazy, and I think we do them
a great disservice if we say things like that, so
I think we should be open to medical advancements in
this area.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Thank you for coming in once again. It's that time
of the day you've got to go and have lunch
with your kids, and I appreciate you taking time out
of your family time to come in and stick to
your commitments. Chris Hopkins, labor leader and obviously Ruematucker MP
Ken Laban. Quick word on Ken Laban. He's going to
be You obviously know Ken. You know Winny very well.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I know Ken very well. Good top bloke from the
heart Valley, top from a white new Way I martialed.
I think you know. I'm excited about the fact that
he's standing for mayor. I think if he's elected, and
I think you have a damn good chance of getting elected,
I think he'd be a great mayor for Lower.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
He's got no party affiliation.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Well, I mean, I can ask be fair to know
that I know Ken, to say that I know Ken
very well, but I don't think he's standing on a
party ticket. I don't think he's any asked any parties
to endorse him. I think he's standing as Ken Laban
and and I think he'd be a great mayor if
he's elected.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think he'd be great for our city, to our regionals, I.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Think he'd be great for the region. Yeah, I think
I actually think him and Andrew Little would be great
for the regions.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Of course you're going to throw that one. Yesterday. I
saw Andrew yesterday. I said a low to him, actually
in the street, saw him yesterday. There you go.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Mills, listen live to
news talks It'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talk said b.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Joining us now as labor leader in RAMATUCKA MP. Chris Hipkins,
good morning, Chris, good morning. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm very good.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Thank you, I'm very good.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You've got your kids out for the day. You're spending
your family day.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Well, we were having a bit of time in town.
But cracky, it's cold out there today. Five degrees when
I left up just before.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It's probably a hell of a lot warm. It's probably
twenty degrees in downtown. Wanting to hate you, it's Atti Apperhart,
that's goat. Yesterday we had Nikola Willis, Finance Minister, in
the studio. She said. She told us that unemployment is
peaking right now and for people, you know, it's still tough.
Things are still feeling a bit tough. You know. It
felt a little bit different to last time I spoke
(00:52):
to her, when she was saying survive till twenty five
and everything's going to come right. Centric's data out yesterday
showed that fourteen percent more Kiwis are struggling to pay
their bills compared to this time last year. Do you
think in all honesty and sincerity that things are on
the improved.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Well, I think it's typical you know, spin from the government.
They say, oh, I think things are just starting to
get better. They're just starting to get better. They're just
starting to get better. And then when things get worse,
they s out, well, they're just we've just turned the corner.
We've turned the corner so many times, we've gone in
full circles. What they don't acknowledge is that some of
the decisions that they've made have made things harder and
worse than they needed to be, such as well, if
you look at let's just look at the fundamentals first,
(01:32):
because I think we should celebrate the fact that inflation's
back down and interest rates are back down. Reserve Bank
ultimately can claim most of the credit for that. The
government's decisions have very little to do with that. The
decisions that they took after the election to cut housing projects,
cut school projects, cut roading projects, cut hospital projects, All
of that spending that they cut on upgrading things and
(01:54):
building new things has resulted in fifteen It's been one
of the big contributors to fifteen thousand fewer people working
and building and construction. If you look at the company liquidations,
A large chunk of those are building construction companies, and
the government's directly responsible for a good chunk of that.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We didn't have the money. We didn't. We didn't, I mean,
we would have had to borrow more and more and more,
and you know, you guys had got the overdraft up
pretty big.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, no, but that's not true. So you know, the
government are saying that they're going to spend more money.
It's not true that you've got the over They're saying
that they're going to spend more money on those things.
So the cuts they made weren't supposedly if you listen
to what they say, their cuts weren't about saving money.
They're saying, oh, we just want to do different things.
And in the meantime, while they've decided to, while they're
trying to figure out what the different things they want
to do, is, everything's ground to a halt. I just
(02:41):
think that kind of political expediency we say it doesn't
matter if we if everyone's business goes to the war,
We're just going to stop spending money while we change
the government's priorities. I think that's recklessly irresponsible. You know,
these are people's livelihoods that have been ruined by what would.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Have done differently? I mean that's a very good question.
I mean, because I have this discussion in my business
world every day with people. You know, would you be
better off with labor or would you be better off
with the coalition game? What would you have done differently?
Would you have sat back and watched all these companies
folding under You know a lot of it's the government
that are folding these companies. You know, if you know,
aren't getting it well.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
If you look at the infrastructure work that we need
to get done, we can't afford for all of our
infrastructure companies to fold. We can't afford for the exodus
of people. And if you look at building and construction again,
if you're a qualified engineer, for example, you can jump
on a plane head over the Gold Coast or Sydney
or Melbourne. You can have a job tomorrow if you
do that, we can't afford to lose those people given
(03:36):
the amount of work ahead we've got. So probably the
better question, Nick is what will we do differently after
the next election if we win the next election. Number One,
we won't just stop everything. We won't just say that
because as national started it, that we're going to stop it,
because I think that kind of stop start cycle has
to stop.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Ultimately, we might choose to do different things over the
longer timeframes, but we're not going to stop everything that's
already underway, because I think their decision to do that
after the last election is actually one of the things
that's led to some of the problems we're seeing now.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
If you really was serious about it and looked in
a mirror this morning and said to yourself right now,
if labor had stayed in power, would we be in
a better situation as a country than we are now.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I think we would be because we wouldn't have done
the slash and burn that they have done. You know,
I think that what we've seen is that they've made
things worse. So you've got more people on an unemployment benefit.
They're still borrowing. They're actually borrowing more money than labor was.
They're just borrowing it to pay for different things. So
instead of borrowing money to pay to upgrade schools and hospitals,
they're borrowing money to pay people to sit at home
on the unemployment benefit. You know, I think they've made
(04:42):
a bad set of decisions.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And what would you have done differently right now?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Well, I wouldn't have cut all of this new state
house builds because actually that was keeping a lot of
builders in work and we need the houses. I wouldn't
have stopped all the school upgrades. I wouldn't have stopped
the hospital rebuilds.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
We would have.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Actually looked at doing more in that area because the
more we do in that area, the less we have
to pay in things like unemployment benefits.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Tell me, what have you heard about golden visas? Are
they been successful? Is that a good move?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It's a mixed bag. Ultimately, the question that I always
have is what are the people who are taking the
Golden visas doing with their money? Are they just buying
up passive New Zealand assets and extracting dividends out of
the country, or are they investing in businesses that are
helping to create jobs. So if they're coming in and
buying existing businesses or buying existing assets and just taking
(05:30):
money out of them, that's not really in New Zealand's
best interests. If they're coming in and saying, actually, we
think we can grow some new businesses here, then I
think we should have welcomed that capital investment.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
What are you hearing though, I mean, you'd have your
finger on the pulse. You'd have advisers telling you, are
we getting these investors coming in here? Is it working
for us as a country.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I've heard anecdotal reports, but again nothing substantial, nothing that
I could could claim as authoritative that there is more
speculative investment. Are you They're coming in and they're buying
stuff that already exists, And that's a bit of a concern.
If that's what's happening. If they're coming in and saying
we're going to grow new businesses for New Zealand, it's
a good thing. So I just think that.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
But surely, surely I'm talking as a businessman here. Surely
you're going to come into a country, you're going to buy,
if you're under this visa idea, you're going to buy
something so you can get the feel of the country
and get the feel of the environment and then move
on to what you want to get into. Wouldn't that
be normal?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
So if that and again, if that's what's happening, I
don't have a problem with that. So if someone's getting
a bit of a toe hold in New Zealand while
they figure the place out, and then their intention is
to grow new businesses in New Zealand. That's good for
the country. I think that the debate around foreign investment
needs to be a bit more sophisticated. You know, it's
not foreign investment good or foreign investment bad, it's what
type of foreign investment do we want and what do
(06:45):
we want those investors putting their money into.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Labor under your leadership? Would it be an open for
business you know style? Would it? We would be be saying, yes,
we want you to come into New Zealand, we want
you to invest in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
There's a difference between saying we're open for business and
saying everything's in the bargain bin for a basements, you know,
for a quick fire sale. Are we open for business? Absolutely?
It Does that mean that we're just going to hock
everything off? No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Right, So I still didn't quite get the right answers.
So would you be a yes we are open for
business style government?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Well, we were never closed for business. Actually, New Zealand
exports grew even when the border was closed.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I think Christophlexen going around the world saying on New
Zealand's reopening for business, a lot of our business leaders
were really hacked off by that because they're saying, actually,
we were bloody hard during COVID nineteen to make sure
New Zealand stayed open for business. So I think we've
always been open for business. But again the question is
what kind of business. Is it just people coming and
buying up more rental houses. No, we're not open for that.
(07:46):
Is it them coming up and coming in and you know,
building new businesses that helped to grow our economy, grow good,
well paid jobs for Kiwi's Absolutely we're open for that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I want to move on to law and order because
this week we've had so much of it happened. Where
you had the three big law and order announcements basically
from the government, it's almost like it's page one, page
two and page three. Firstly, there was an increased penalties
for assaults against first respondents. Secondly increasing penalties for coward punches.
And yesterday the government announced the spot finds for shoplifting.
(08:17):
First the assaults against first respondents. Surely this policy is
a good policy from the government, but surely wouldn't there
be an offense against punching someone. And as a first respondent, well,
I mean, I.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Think that's your description of the flurry of announcements is
a good one. Basically, they've decided that the economy is
continuing to go backwards, so they need to find other
things to talk about.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Oh, let's talk about law and order.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
You can you can actually see the conversations playing out
that way and the beehive. What they've done is dusted
off a few members bills that they had in opposition.
You know, they're a bit short of new ideas here.
There's already you know, if you look at coward punches.
Coward punches are already prosecuted under existing laws if you look.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
At us, but we don't. We haven't taken it serious enough.
And I'm hands on, so I see these stuff, the
stuff happening. We've never really taken it serious enough compared
to other Western countries in the world, have we?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And look, I'm open to a debate about that. We
haven't said that we would, you will oppose those I
think we need to see what the government are proposing
before we make that decision. So I'm looking forward to
receiving from the government what it is that they're proposing
to do. No one wants to see first responders, you know,
ambulance paramedics, police corrections offices, working in prisons. No one
(09:31):
wants to see them unsafe at work.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
The public seems to want to hear these sort of
a public announcements, though, don't they They want to feel
they want to feel safer.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I totally understand that, you know, I think the public
do want to feel safer. But one of my messages
is just longer sentences and harsher penalties doesn't necessarily give
you that. If we want to be safer as a community,
we've got to have less crime in the first place.
We've got to really tackle crime at the source.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
My concern, if I was you, would be that does
the public actually trust labor law and order? Do they
think that labor are stronger, strong enough leaders in law
and order.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I think there was a lot of misrepresentation of the
last labor government's position around law and order. Actually, what
we were focused on doing was tackling crime at the source.
If you look at I think where a lot of
the public anxiety came from. In the post pandemic world.
Around the world, we saw a big surge in sort
of violent crime, and I think as a government we
(10:33):
were too slow to respond to that. So I think
that's fair explain that to me. Well, so things like
ram raids, for example. You know, in my view, that's
a violent crime, you know, stealing a car and driving
it into someone's business or someone's home. In many cases
it's both. That is to me, a violent criminal offending,
and that we needed to do more there. We were
too slow to respond. We did get there, you know,
(10:55):
we were doing some really proactive work to get those kids,
to identify those kids and get them out of trouble,
and also to support those businesses.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Can I just quickly ask you, can I just quickly
ask you there, we don't ever hear of ram raids
anymore of the system that you put in place, or
is it since the coalition's come in.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Now it's because your Tory owners that endsed me have
just decided not to put it on the front page anymore.
It's still happening, it's just endsed Me have decided that
it's not in the government's best interests. And they do
the national parties singing for them, so they are they're
not covering it as much anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Oh gosh, that's a bit tough to do. Do you
think that that actual if you got voter back and
the public would actually trust you on your law and order. Look,
we are reviewed.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Law in order is one of the areas that we're reviewing,
and we're not just going to oppose everything that government
does just because it's something the government's doing.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
What about this idea of writing out a ticket for shoplifting?
Do you like that idea?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Well, frankly, I'd rather they took it seriously if people
are out there shoplifting. Basically they're now proposing lower consequences
for that. It was only a few months ago they
were saying that shopkeepers were going to be able to
arrest people.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
There's that ender.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Well, I don't know, it's just disappeared off the face
of the earth. Suddenly they're not talking about that anymore.
And I think that highlights one of this government's problems.
They're interested in slogans when it comes to law and
order rather than actually making sure that what they're doing
is going to work.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Do you think that people in New Zealand would actually
feel safer right now under the Coalition government and they
would Underlabor.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Well, I think. You know, we've got a lot of
work still to do around crime. If we want to
feel safer, all of us feel safer, then having less
crime in the first place is the way that we're going.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
To achieve that.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
And how do we do that, Well, we focus on
the underlying causes. So when I did that work around
ram raids, and you know, the kids involved in ram raids,
about ninety percent of those kids have got a parent
who's in prison. So if anyone thinks the answer has
just locked more people up, it doesn't. You know, all
you're doing is creating and then another generation of future
ram raiders. We've actually got to deal with the issues.
(12:53):
So when we started properly supporting those kids, about seventy
five percent of them stopped reoffending. I'd rather do more
of that, have fewer people offending in the first place,
than just lock more people up and then repeat the
cycle of crime.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I'm confused about your comments on the ram raids because
I mean, surely you could put us to one side,
en Zimeta one side, but there's a whole lot of
other media. I haven't seen a ram raids story in months.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Well, they're still happening. That they aren't happening at the
same degree because, as I said, some of that what
do you call it circuit breaker stuff that we were doing.
I mean that seventy five percent of those kids stopped reoffending,
so a lot of that work had already been done
by the time the election rolled around.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Okay, Wellington Mornings and we've got Labor leader and Rimatuka
MP Chris Hipkins in the studio with us. Chris, we
learned yesterday that the cabinet paper put forward by Rail
by rail Minister Winston Peters proposed the idea of fully
or partly privatizing the Enti Islander. Then suddenly that door
got closed. I mean, would labor ever be open to
(13:52):
some sort of privatization, maybe something like Air New Zealand's
ownership model where it's public private ownership that controls the fairies.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I have to say I'm pretty skeptical about that. I mean,
the Interroland ferries were privatized before, when KiwiRail or what
was then New Zealand Rail was fully privatized and what happened,
you know, ultimately the inter Islander got run into the ground.
Can you say that for a ship? You know it
basically got neglected, you know, and they didn't upgrade the
ships and everything. And some of the problems we're dealing
with now actually stem back to that privatization decision in
(14:24):
the nineteen nineties because for several decades, money just wasn't
spent on upgrading rail.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
But we've seen the success of blue Bridge, surely that
a government, you know, like own part ownership in a
private partner public partnership could.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Work with or to respect to blue Bridge. You know,
they provide a great service, but they also have breakdowns.
They also have iss you know issues. So if you
compared to their you know, their sailing record with the
inter Islander, of my understanding is it's about the same.
So they also have issues. So let's not just assume
that because everybody focuses on the inter Islander because it's
(14:59):
a public, publicly owned company, that somehow the private sector
is doing massively better.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Can the government Can they actually run a business and
make a profit.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Well, I think we've got to look at it not
just as a business, but as a vital piece of infrastructure.
But it is still a business, but it's a vital
piece of infrastructure as well as being a business. So
it is the connection between the North and the South Island.
So if you want to move big stuff between the
North Island and the South Island, it either has to
go via rail on a ferry or via a truck
on a ferry. And in that respect, you know, we
(15:31):
shouldn't look at it as different to roads or you know,
or as the main rail line, because effectively it's the
road and rail connection between the two islands.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well, we've seen the success of private public roading.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
We well only for them in so far as the
delivery is concerned, you know. And if you think about it,
we're not going to be building the fairies, We're still
going to be buying them. So it is still going
to be there's still going to be a very good
degree of private sector involvement in the replacement of the
inter island ferries.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
What did you think of the plan? I mean, obviously
it wasn't your plan, but the plan of the government
confirming yesterday the port side infrastructure of the new ferries
yesterday decent plan. Is it a good plan?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Well, I mean one of the risks, one of the
worries that I have there is just around the age
of that infrastructure. So you can patch up the existing stuff,
keep it going for a bit longer. But you know,
go and.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Look at the wolves. They are old wolves.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You know, they're old terminals, and we are going to
have to at some point invest money in that. And
I think about this from an intergenerational viewpoint, right, So
we inherited that we've all benefited from that infrastructure being there,
and now we're saying, actually, we're just going to continue
to run that down a bit more until eventually it
falls into the harbor. Then it'll be the next generations problem.
I'm not sure that that's a responsible attitude for government
(16:42):
to take.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Do you have faith that the rail system, the inter
item system will work till twenty twenty nine until we
get the new Fairies? Do you think there we'll get
through it.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Oh, it's going to be very touch and go because
if you look at it, the Ardituty is about to
be taken out of service. That's our rail connection gone
until the new Fairies arrive. And then the two existing
that are left are both old ships and they've both
been praying to breakdowns themselves, so it'll be touch and go.
You know, you take one of them out and suddenly
there down to two. We're going to be down to
(17:14):
do you take one of them out because it breaks
down because it needs some work done on it. We're
down to one.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
How do you feel about the situation that came out
a couple of days ago that basically booking your car
to go across the ferries? Now over Christmas time you're
almost booked out.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah, and that's all I mean that. To be fair,
that's always been a bit of an issue for the
inter Islander. They've always encouraged people to book early and
the more capacity. It's one of the reasons that we
were looking at significantly increasing capacity on the cook Straight
is because at those peaked times it does get booked out.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
With time on your side and retrospect, the government make
the right decision by canceling your Fairies.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
No, I don't think they did if I could go back, though.
You know, Winston Peters was the one who came up
with the two mega fairies idea in the first place,
and the early advice when that decision was made, the advice,
you know, for example, that all the wolves and terminals
and all the land around it would be needed to
be lifted by a meat lifted by a meter. That
was one of the big things that added the cost
to it. That wasn't all clear at the very beginning.
(18:11):
But I think there's ships that were purchased, you know,
those two Fairies, they were at a very very good price.
It would be very interesting reckon.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
It's going to cost us? Well, it's going to do
what you're telling you.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
My gutets tells me that it's going to be more
expensive than if they've gone aheare.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
But that doesn't give me a figure, does it. What
do you think half a billion dollars? What's it going
to cost the government to get out of these deals?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Well, depending on how you calculate it, they've probably already
written off about a billion dollars worth of spend so far,
you know, between canceling the old Fairies, between you know,
writing off all the money that was spent on you know,
the new Wolves were already started, you know, the drilling
and stuff had already happened, so they wrote all that off.
So I suspect they won't get away from much much
below a billion dollars in terms of stuff they're writing off,
(18:53):
and then they've got the cost of what they're doing instead.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
On top of that, wow, we Govie. You heard about it?
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Yeah, I have.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, what do you think your decision would be made?
I mean, we've got one point four million people obese
in the country. This drug is supposedly a bit of
a wonder drug, and it has got side effects and
you have to guard and see your doctor. I don't
want to get a whole lot of cause about it.
What would your stance beyond it? Would you would you
push Farmac to fund it?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I think we should be open to it. I mean
maybe farm Acs should start with a trial first. You know,
look how it might help people in New Zealand who
are struggling with weight loss. But I think we should
be open to it. You know, we do have a
country of where where there are people who struggle with
their weight. And I also just want to you know,
a bit of a word of caution. I've already seen
(19:40):
some of the reports of this saying oh, this is
a drug for lazy people who want to lose weight
and so on. It isn't that simple. Actually, some of
the people who are struggling with what their weight is
not because they're lazy, and I think we do them
a great disservice if we say things like that, so
I think we should be open to medical advancements in
this area.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Thank you for coming in once again. It's that time
of the day you've got to go and have lunch
with your kids, and I appreciate you taking time out
of your family time to come in and stick to
your commitments. Chris Hopkins, labor leader and obviously Ruematucker MP
Ken Laban. Quick word on Ken Laban. He's going to
be You obviously know Ken. You know Winny very well.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I know Ken very well. Good top bloke from the
heart Valley, top from a white new Way I martialed.
I think you know. I'm excited about the fact that
he's standing for mayor. I think if he's elected, and
I think you have a damn good chance of getting elected,
I think he'd be a great mayor for Lower.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
He's got no party affiliation.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Well, I mean, I can ask be fair to know
that I know Ken, to say that I know Ken
very well, but I don't think he's standing on a
party ticket. I don't think he's any asked any parties
to endorse him. I think he's standing as Ken Laban
and and I think he'd be a great mayor if
he's elected.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think he'd be great for our city, to our regionals, I.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Think he'd be great for the region. Yeah, I think
I actually think him and Andrew Little would be great
for the regions.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Of course you're going to throw that one. Yesterday. I
saw Andrew yesterday. I said a low to him, actually
in the street, saw him yesterday. There you go.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Mills, listen live to
news talks It'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
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.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com