May 13, 2025 • 9 mins
The Opposition Leader's welcoming Government investment into school attendance.
$140 million from this year's Budget will go towards a new system and better data monitoring.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins wanted truancy officers reintroduced two years ago when he was PM.
Hipkins told John MacDonald it's clear disbanding the previous truancy service in 2012 was the wrong decision.
He says it’s a good step in the right direction, and gives credit where credit is due.
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 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk Z'B.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Chris Sipkins is whether skin of Chris.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Good day, John. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm very well. You must be excited about the government's
announcement for the new Truancy Agency, given you know, back
in twenty twenty three you've maken all sorts of noises
when you were in the top job about reintroducing truancy officers.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yeah, I think it's a good thing. You know. I
think when we go back ten why it's more than
ten years ago now about twenty twelve, where previous truancy
service was disbanded. You know, I think it's clear that
was the wrong decision. So I think, yeah, it's good
step in the right direction. I'll give them credit where
it's too. This one's this one's what I support. All right?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
What about what about my ideas? Do you support these?
I reckon kids should be allowed to start school later,
we should start high schools later to give the teenagers
a lie in. And I think teenagers or school kids
should be allowed to work from home if they want to.
But it's all about participating education, not attending.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
The funny thing about that, John is if you did
it based on kids and natural kind of biological clocks,
you'd have primary kids starting school in the morning earlier
and teenagers starting school later on in the morning. From
a parent perspective, that that becomes a bit more challenging.
So the standard those school hours certainly work a lot
better from a parent's perspective than they do necessarily from
(01:25):
a kid's perspective.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Even though a trial in the UK found that it
reduced true and see by twenty seven percent.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I think we should be open to letting schools have
a bit more flexibility about that. I mean some schools
already will adjust their opening hours a little bit. And look,
I'm relaxed about that. I'm open to having that conversation
with schools if that's something that they wanted to consider.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
How concerned are you the things will move on to
the pay e could he dispute or row? How concerned
are you that people within labor and doing some silly
things might be going a bit over the top in
relation to this. I mean, we have images of Brook
van Veld in a Nazi uniform posted online. You must
had your head in your hands when you saw that.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Oh without age. And to be clear, that wasn't a
Labor Party censured action. That was a volunteer somewhere up
in Funga Puaa who did that and as soon as
it was discovered it was removed immediately. But it shouldn't
have been allowed to happen. So I've actually asked the
party headquarters, because this is not anything that was done
out of parliament, I've asked the party headquarters to look
(02:24):
at that and say you've got to you know, you've
got to have better controls to stop that stuff from happening.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Except though I knew you were really strong the other day,
do you think that you know, beyond your own party,
that you have whipped people into a bit of a
frenzy about this?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
No?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I mean I think New Zealanders can see a cut
for what it is, you know, taking money, billions of
dollars who were set aside for women's pay and cutting it.
There's a cut, So you know, I think the government
arguing semantics here. Basically this was money that women were
otherwise going to get that they're no longer going to get.
That's a cut to their pay.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
They're not quite arguing semantics though, when you've got Christoph
Luxen and Chris Bishop both saying that you're a liar.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, I mean, I just don't think that's I don't
think they're right. I mean, I think New Zealanders will
see straight through that. Thinkally, you know, Christoph relux and
Chris both of them, they're going to get a pay
increase this year, They're going to get a pay increase
next year. If the government, if we turned around and
changed the law so they weren't going to get that
pay increase, I think they would regard that as a paycup.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
You're taking that on the chin, the lying.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
But oh, I mean, I think it shows that they're
getting a bit desperate. I think they massively underestimated the
extent to which women all over New Zealand would be
outraged by the way they've done this. But they basically
capped billions of dollars. Who was going to go to some.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Of our will hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on,
let's let's woman, let's you want a chance. Let's just
whine back a bit, because we're talking about claims that
were only in the process of being considered. It's not
like saying, oh, they'd all been approved and suddenly all
this money has been taken away from people.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
But basically it is because all of those claims and
now now going back to square one, some of them
were close to settlement and they're now right back at
square one, and some of them are no longer eligible
to apply. So under the rule changes they made last week,
secondary school teachers no longer eligible. So a primary school
(04:19):
teacher is, but a secondary school teacher isn't. Where's the
logic of that?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
In your run pre budget speech, she start, which I
thought was kind of weird because it's not like you
were announcing anything, and you didn't actually announce anything. But
in your pre budget speech you accused the government of
gas lighting women. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Well, when they're saying that they're not cutting pay for women,
but they're cutting billions of dollars out of money that
was the mark for women's pay and they say, oh,
but we're not doing that, I think that's gas lighting.
And I think women across the country and men, frankly,
I think Kiwi's all over the country could see right
through this.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And do you think people are feeling that way because you're,
as I say, you're fanning the flames and possibly exaggerating
things a bit.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
No, I don't think we're exaggerating at all. They're cutting money.
There was ear marks to ensure women are properly paid,
and they rushed it through under urgency, hoping that no
one would notice. Well, people have noticed, and I think
that it's not just me saying that. You've actually got
National Party cheerleaders who normally write very sycophantic and sympathetic
things about the National Party now in the media saying
(05:23):
that they're outraged by it. So I mean it's I
think people have a reason to be outraged by it.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Can you And I don't think you can say that
you you're totally clean in this department either when when
you were in government. But it's been revealed in the
last twenty four hours that nearly a quarter of the
money spent on the government's family boost policy has gone
into admin So fourteen million dollars on administration costs. How
do we avoid that happening?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Well, that's because the National Party.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
No no, no, no, no, no, no, no, hey yeah yeah yeah, yeah,
Well you were just as good as with administration costs
when you were in government. The question was how do
we stop that sort of stuff happening.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Well, John, you can't blame me for the time.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I'm giving you
an opportunity.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Was the centerpiece of their elections.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yes, I'm giving you, I'm giving you benefiting. I'm giving
you an opportunity which you didn't take up in your
pre budget speech yesterday of delivering a vision of the future.
How can government be less hopeless at this stuff chewing
up money on administration costs?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah, I mean I think that's a fair question. So
fair enough. I think we've got to keep things simple. Frankly,
I think the Family Boost scheme is far too complicated.
So parents have to claim it, they've got to collect
up invoices in order to claim it. You'd be better
to increase the subsidies so that parents don't are charged
for the early childhood education in the first place, which
is what we were doing. So we were going to
extend twenty hours a week three to two year olds,
(06:49):
which would mean two three and four year olds get
twenty hours of the early childhood education free. Parents never
need to pay for it upfront. Therefore there's no administrative
cost and parents claiming that benefit because they're just not
paying it. The government canceled that and instead put their
money into the Family Boost, which only a fraction of pearance.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Are Okay, that's enough.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Made it more administratively complex, scheme, keep it easy, keep
it simple, make it easy for parents, and then more
people will benefit.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
All right. You spoke another opportunity here, because your speech
yesterday was kind of announcements or illusions of illusions rather
than announcements of announcements. You spoke in this speech about
tax and you said, quote, we believe in a fair
tax system. What were you getting out there? What were
you alluding to?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well, I mean what I've said all along. You know,
if you look at New Zealand's tax system to meet
to other countries around the world, we place a disproportionate
level of the tax burden on salary and wage journeys.
When people earn money through a range of other sources
that either aren't tax or a text, it only a
much much lower rate than salary in wages. And I
think a fairer tax system means that we need to
(07:55):
look at that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
And what does it mean? Come on, what does it mean?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, I'll give you a practical, real life example, Christopher
Luxen made more money selling rental properties last year than
he made in his primate sterial salary. He paid tax
on every dollar that he made as Prime minister. He
didn't pay tax on the capital gains that he got
from his rental properties. I think that shows that the
systems a bit out of.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Whack and missing a capital gains tax.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Well, that's one of the options that we're considering. I mean,
no one be surprised by that. Would We've been very
open about the fact that's one of the things that
we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
When are you announcing it?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I've said we'll announced our tax policy before the end
of the year, so people have plenty of time to
scrutinize it before the next election.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
When will we be able to scrutinize it. We're going
to wait until the end of the.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Year, well, once we finalized it. In order to be
able to finalize the tax policy, you've got a way
of a whole lot of things that it's not just
the individual text policy. The interaction with a whole lot
of other government policies matters as well, and we've got
to be able to answer all the questions on all
of that. So that's what we're working through at the moment.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
When you had to drink with David Parker the other night,
did you whisper him when you left? Don't worry, mate,
it's on its way.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Ah Well, David, David and I on a personal level
have always gotten on very very well. We didn't always
agree on things, but actually that's the sign of a
healthy democracy that you can still be friends with someone
and disagree.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
All right, well, we'll be friends again in two weeks.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Cal good to talk to you, John.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Thank you. Chris Hepkins, Labor and Opposition leader, with this
say every two weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
For more from Caterbory Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
to news talks at be Christ Church from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk Z'B.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Chris Sipkins is whether skin of Chris.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Good day, John. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm very well. You must be excited about the government's
announcement for the new Truancy Agency, given you know, back
in twenty twenty three you've maken all sorts of noises
when you were in the top job about reintroducing truancy officers.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yeah, I think it's a good thing. You know. I
think when we go back ten why it's more than
ten years ago now about twenty twelve, where previous truancy
service was disbanded. You know, I think it's clear that
was the wrong decision. So I think, yeah, it's good
step in the right direction. I'll give them credit where
it's too. This one's this one's what I support. All right?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
What about what about my ideas? Do you support these?
I reckon kids should be allowed to start school later,
we should start high schools later to give the teenagers
a lie in. And I think teenagers or school kids
should be allowed to work from home if they want to.
But it's all about participating education, not attending.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
The funny thing about that, John is if you did
it based on kids and natural kind of biological clocks,
you'd have primary kids starting school in the morning earlier
and teenagers starting school later on in the morning. From
a parent perspective, that that becomes a bit more challenging.
So the standard those school hours certainly work a lot
better from a parent's perspective than they do necessarily from
(01:25):
a kid's perspective.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Even though a trial in the UK found that it
reduced true and see by twenty seven percent.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I think we should be open to letting schools have
a bit more flexibility about that. I mean some schools
already will adjust their opening hours a little bit. And look,
I'm relaxed about that. I'm open to having that conversation
with schools if that's something that they wanted to consider.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
How concerned are you the things will move on to
the pay e could he dispute or row? How concerned
are you that people within labor and doing some silly
things might be going a bit over the top in
relation to this. I mean, we have images of Brook
van Veld in a Nazi uniform posted online. You must
had your head in your hands when you saw that.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Oh without age. And to be clear, that wasn't a
Labor Party censured action. That was a volunteer somewhere up
in Funga Puaa who did that and as soon as
it was discovered it was removed immediately. But it shouldn't
have been allowed to happen. So I've actually asked the
party headquarters, because this is not anything that was done
out of parliament, I've asked the party headquarters to look
(02:24):
at that and say you've got to you know, you've
got to have better controls to stop that stuff from happening.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Except though I knew you were really strong the other day,
do you think that you know, beyond your own party,
that you have whipped people into a bit of a
frenzy about this?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
No?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I mean I think New Zealanders can see a cut
for what it is, you know, taking money, billions of
dollars who were set aside for women's pay and cutting it.
There's a cut, So you know, I think the government
arguing semantics here. Basically this was money that women were
otherwise going to get that they're no longer going to get.
That's a cut to their pay.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
They're not quite arguing semantics though, when you've got Christoph
Luxen and Chris Bishop both saying that you're a liar.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, I mean, I just don't think that's I don't
think they're right. I mean, I think New Zealanders will
see straight through that. Thinkally, you know, Christoph relux and
Chris both of them, they're going to get a pay
increase this year, They're going to get a pay increase
next year. If the government, if we turned around and
changed the law so they weren't going to get that
pay increase, I think they would regard that as a paycup.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
You're taking that on the chin, the lying.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
But oh, I mean, I think it shows that they're
getting a bit desperate. I think they massively underestimated the
extent to which women all over New Zealand would be
outraged by the way they've done this. But they basically
capped billions of dollars. Who was going to go to some.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Of our will hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on,
let's let's woman, let's you want a chance. Let's just
whine back a bit, because we're talking about claims that
were only in the process of being considered. It's not
like saying, oh, they'd all been approved and suddenly all
this money has been taken away from people.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
But basically it is because all of those claims and
now now going back to square one, some of them
were close to settlement and they're now right back at
square one, and some of them are no longer eligible
to apply. So under the rule changes they made last week,
secondary school teachers no longer eligible. So a primary school
(04:19):
teacher is, but a secondary school teacher isn't. Where's the
logic of that?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
In your run pre budget speech, she start, which I
thought was kind of weird because it's not like you
were announcing anything, and you didn't actually announce anything. But
in your pre budget speech you accused the government of
gas lighting women. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Well, when they're saying that they're not cutting pay for women,
but they're cutting billions of dollars out of money that
was the mark for women's pay and they say, oh,
but we're not doing that, I think that's gas lighting.
And I think women across the country and men, frankly,
I think Kiwi's all over the country could see right
through this.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And do you think people are feeling that way because you're,
as I say, you're fanning the flames and possibly exaggerating
things a bit.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
No, I don't think we're exaggerating at all. They're cutting money.
There was ear marks to ensure women are properly paid,
and they rushed it through under urgency, hoping that no
one would notice. Well, people have noticed, and I think
that it's not just me saying that. You've actually got
National Party cheerleaders who normally write very sycophantic and sympathetic
things about the National Party now in the media saying
(05:23):
that they're outraged by it. So I mean it's I
think people have a reason to be outraged by it.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Can you And I don't think you can say that
you you're totally clean in this department either when when
you were in government. But it's been revealed in the
last twenty four hours that nearly a quarter of the
money spent on the government's family boost policy has gone
into admin So fourteen million dollars on administration costs. How
do we avoid that happening?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Well, that's because the National Party.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
No no, no, no, no, no, no, no, hey yeah yeah yeah, yeah,
Well you were just as good as with administration costs
when you were in government. The question was how do
we stop that sort of stuff happening.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Well, John, you can't blame me for the time.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I'm giving you
an opportunity.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Was the centerpiece of their elections.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yes, I'm giving you, I'm giving you benefiting. I'm giving
you an opportunity which you didn't take up in your
pre budget speech yesterday of delivering a vision of the future.
How can government be less hopeless at this stuff chewing
up money on administration costs?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah, I mean I think that's a fair question. So
fair enough. I think we've got to keep things simple. Frankly,
I think the Family Boost scheme is far too complicated.
So parents have to claim it, they've got to collect
up invoices in order to claim it. You'd be better
to increase the subsidies so that parents don't are charged
for the early childhood education in the first place, which
is what we were doing. So we were going to
extend twenty hours a week three to two year olds,
(06:49):
which would mean two three and four year olds get
twenty hours of the early childhood education free. Parents never
need to pay for it upfront. Therefore there's no administrative
cost and parents claiming that benefit because they're just not
paying it. The government canceled that and instead put their
money into the Family Boost, which only a fraction of pearance.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Are Okay, that's enough.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Made it more administratively complex, scheme, keep it easy, keep
it simple, make it easy for parents, and then more
people will benefit.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
All right. You spoke another opportunity here, because your speech
yesterday was kind of announcements or illusions of illusions rather
than announcements of announcements. You spoke in this speech about
tax and you said, quote, we believe in a fair
tax system. What were you getting out there? What were
you alluding to?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well, I mean what I've said all along. You know,
if you look at New Zealand's tax system to meet
to other countries around the world, we place a disproportionate
level of the tax burden on salary and wage journeys.
When people earn money through a range of other sources
that either aren't tax or a text, it only a
much much lower rate than salary in wages. And I
think a fairer tax system means that we need to
(07:55):
look at that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
And what does it mean? Come on, what does it mean?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, I'll give you a practical, real life example, Christopher
Luxen made more money selling rental properties last year than
he made in his primate sterial salary. He paid tax
on every dollar that he made as Prime minister. He
didn't pay tax on the capital gains that he got
from his rental properties. I think that shows that the
systems a bit out of.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Whack and missing a capital gains tax.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Well, that's one of the options that we're considering. I mean,
no one be surprised by that. Would We've been very
open about the fact that's one of the things that
we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
When are you announcing it?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I've said we'll announced our tax policy before the end
of the year, so people have plenty of time to
scrutinize it before the next election.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
When will we be able to scrutinize it. We're going
to wait until the end of the.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Year, well, once we finalized it. In order to be
able to finalize the tax policy, you've got a way
of a whole lot of things that it's not just
the individual text policy. The interaction with a whole lot
of other government policies matters as well, and we've got
to be able to answer all the questions on all
of that. So that's what we're working through at the moment.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
When you had to drink with David Parker the other night,
did you whisper him when you left? Don't worry, mate,
it's on its way.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Ah Well, David, David and I on a personal level
have always gotten on very very well. We didn't always
agree on things, but actually that's the sign of a
healthy democracy that you can still be friends with someone
and disagree.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
All right, well, we'll be friends again in two weeks.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Cal good to talk to you, John.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Thank you. Chris Hepkins, Labor and Opposition leader, with this
say every two weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
For more from Caterbory Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
to news talks at be Christ Church from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.