Barry Soper: Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent on MFAT avoiding cuts ahead of Budget 2026

The Finance Minister says she's disappointed by revelations MFAT is exempt from cutting spending this year.

It's been confirmed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade won't be given a reduced baseline budget.

Most agencies face two percent cuts - but MFAT will be subject to the same five percent reduction for most agencies next year, and the year after.

Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper explained further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barry soapers of that high Barring.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Good afternoon, Heather, So talk to me about the.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Razor Gang on the public service.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Well, it's had a lot of debate, as you would
imagine today in Parliament because it is significant the announcement
made yesterday by Nikola Willis, and what it's led to,
of course, is a lot of attention being paid to
Winston Peters because you'll remember when the last Razor gang
talked to the public service six point four percent. I

(00:28):
think they wanted savings from the public wage bill. Winston
Peters was exempt from that. And foreign affairs and Winston
has always when his Foreign Affairs under Helen Clark, he
also he got a big boost to foreign affairs. That's
why foreign affairs love him. But he is very good
at that job. But nobody would deny that. And he's

(00:49):
always argued that we should be well represented overseas, and
I don't think anybody would argue without either. But what
Willis was saying, and not really opposing Winston's view, but
saying maybe not this side of the election, Well, none
of the big cuts will come the side of the
election anyway. It will be the other side.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well, it'll be three years old.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, indeed, so it's a slow train this one. Actually,
she said, in some cases, both in Fat staff and her,
for example, could start flying cattle class and not business. Well,
I don't know whether that's going to save a lot
of money, and it won't save a lot in terms
of prestige either. I mean, I think a cabinet minister

(01:34):
should be flying business class in my view. And probably
some people are saying, why shouldn't they just be like us, Well,
they like a chief executive of a pretty big company.
So she said that the two ministers, that's her and Winston,
have had extensive debate about going in fats ongoing funding.

(01:54):
She says she always wants to communicate with Winston, the
Finance Minister. She was being quizzed in by Labor this
afternoon by her opposite number, Barbaria and Edmunds about what
would appear to be contradictory statements coming from Winston Peas
and her over in FAT funding. Not so, says Willis.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Once again, as the member has done in this House repeatedly,
she's mischaracterizing a statement from another member, and in this case, yes,
what the Minister of Foreign Affairs is reflecting fairly as
he said to me face to face, as he said
to journalists, as the member has picked up on that
he would like to see the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
continue to receive more funding into the future. It is

(02:37):
the case that we have agreed that the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs will submit savings proposals as part of the
baseline savings exercise.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
So he's prepared to get on board. But like I said,
this is sort of further out as a coalition negotiation
to take place between now and then. So you know,
I think you're pretty safe if you're in Winston Peter's
position to argue that he won't be adopting any servants.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Have you just found this discussion about AI just so
hopelessly naive?

Speaker 2 (03:07):
No, I don't see. I don't entirely agree with you,
and that's not that unusual, and I'd say either. But look,
David Seymour, he was certainly busy in the bear put
today filling in for the Prime Minister. And you know,
the AI thing and the public service cuts, they were
sort of inter linked. Seimol said. The public service was

(03:29):
cumbersome and made so by the Labor government who added
eighteen thousands. We all know public servants to the public payroll.
The act leader says many the aim of this government
was quite simple.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
The simple answer is that sometimes you can actually do
something smarter and get a better result with the same
or fewer people. How will artificial intelligence be used to
replace the work of a front line's corrections officer working
in a prison. I tell you what, if that member
got artificial intelligence, it wouldn't be replacing anything.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
It wasn't a bad line. But just on the AI debate,
and we're going to have a lot of this in
the coming years. That and I've listened to a number
of podcasts about it from various so called world experts
on it. I mean one of the intelligence pioneers and
economists at Lobal Nobel Laureate Jeffrey Hinton and Bill Gates

(04:27):
indeed said that AI will transform the workforce like the
Industrial revolution did. It'll be about the same, although it
will deal in different areas that will replace jobs as
the Industrial revolution did. But because it's essentially about cognitive work,
there will be other ways found of doing those jobs.

(04:48):
As this cutback, you'll probably find it'll be used in
that way.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, it's so what I mean cool it's going to
transform work in the way the computers transformed work.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, no, no, to a larger degree. I think, I
mean you you if you listen to these people as too.
We haven't got the time to go into it here,
but if you listen to the experts, they say jobs
will be replaced, there will be fewer people that will
be needed because of artificial intelligence. No, and how many,
Well they say it'll be tantamount to what we saw

(05:23):
in the Industrial Revolution.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Whatever. Well, everybody's just making stuff up. It's just embarrassing, Barry,
Thank you very much, appreciate it, very so for senior
political correspondent.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
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