Barry Soper: Senior political correspondent on RMA reform, Coster vs Mitchell and Helen Clark's father

Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper talked to Ryan Bridge about today's political hot topics.

Luxon sold the RMA reform we'll see tomorrow from Chris Bishop and Simon Court.

Minister of Police Mark Mitchell is at odds with former police commissioner Andrew Coster over who knew what and when in the McSkimming scandal.

A New Zealand war ship is being shadowed by a Chinese fleet near Taiwan. 

And, Helen Clark's father passed away.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ryan, parents find it difficult to say no to social
media apps because the peers have them too. It's simple,
they have tantrums. Please help us by supporting a legal band,
says Rich. Honestly, just because if your child has a tantrum,
you give them what they want. That's what's wrong with
the world, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Correct? Ryan? Correct? I know you're a childless man, but
I'm a father of seven, and I can tell you what.
You get a lot of tantrums that I have over
the years about trying to keep them off social media.
It's virtually impossible.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
But you just say, don't buy them. I mean, if
they're that young, you don't buy them a phone.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
You don't buy them a phone, and you give them
you know, you've got to set parameters in place, and
I always have with television and that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
So, you know, tantrums or not, parents just need to
harden them.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Luxn's getting some flat. Well, they've had the RMA discussion,
of course, that's coming tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, and that's you know, this is significant really when
you think about it. I mean, I remember the law
professor Jeffrey Palmer bringing in the first RMA in nineteen
eighty nine. It wasn't enacted then it was introduced, but
they lost the election, so it was enacted by a
person who would have read it word for word, more
than three hundred pages. The original act was that was

(01:15):
Simon Upton for the National Party. He enacted the peace
of legislation and now it's grown to over seven hundred pages.
I mean, and it's it's not just the volume of it,
it's what it's done to virtually everything in this country
that you can't do without a permit. Well, I've got

(01:36):
to say that Chris Luxon was today doing a selling
campaign on what's what we're going to see tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
There will be less talking and filling in forms and
more building and more growing. To give your sense of
how radical our changes will be, officials estimate that up
to forty six percent of consent and permit applications required
under the current rmay could be removed under our new
planning system based on twenty three twenty four volumes. That
represents between fifteen twenty two thousand consents that would no

(02:06):
longer be needed. Of course, what it means is more houses,
more wind farms, more supermarkets and more roads homeowners will
be able to build a deck or extend their home
without unnecessary costs and delays. Farmers can spend more time
on the farm and less time on paperwork. Successive governments
have tried to make changes which have ended up being
completely unworkable or merely tinkering around their margins. What we're

(02:28):
proposing tomorrow will be a game changer.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Right, It does sound that that's half consents basically wouldn't
be needed.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Incredible.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
You can go out and build a deck without having
turning it on because you can barely fart without needing
a resource. See these days terrible?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:43):
No, Now what do you make of the cost of thing?
Do you think people of tuning out to this near? Well?

Speaker 2 (02:48):
I think so actually, but not the press gallery at Parliament.
I mean Chris Luxen sort of announced that, but you
heard and then there were no questions on it. I
mean I pulled out up to twelve minutes. They all
talked about Costa, who knew what and when? And Mark
Mitchell is now coming out and saying that Costa on

(03:08):
his interview yesterday on Q and A was talking at
a nonsense when he said that he had briefed him
on the MC skimming thing in October. Well it was
November that certainly, Mark Mitchell, and I've known Mark Mitchell
every ever since he come into Parliament. He's very much
a straight shooter and he's not likely to fudge this.

(03:31):
And why would he He said he only knew in November,
and I'd take him at his word. And certainly, Chris Luckson,
despite all the questioning from the gallery today, talk him
at his word as well.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, Costa marked up by blaming by throwing stones at
both Labor and National That's right. He should have just
lobbed one and he would have had all the right
wingers on his side, no one.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
But did you notice when he was asked the question,
did you know was he right in saying what he said?
What the minister said? There was quite a hesitation before
he answered the question.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
He was right. Well we're here from hipkins on that
soon too on his side of the story. Now our
warship's being shadowed by the Chinese fleet.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, we've got a fleet. The Aton naval vessel is
the biggest in our complement of goodness only knows how
many ships, but not a lot. And now we're being
followed around in the well, we went into the South
China Sea last month and went through the Taiwan straight.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Well they're there essentially to look at what's going on
with North Korea and the missile testing and what have you.
So it will be part of the Five Eyes thing.
But the Chinese, I mean, they really do know how
to let you know that they're watching. Remember they were
in our waters, not in our territorial waterers, but within
our waters a couple of months ago. Well, here they

(04:59):
are a fleet following our one little worship.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
We'll talk to Jiffrey Miller about that after five. Finally,
this is very sad news because, as you know, know
how close they were. Helen Clark's fathers passed.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Away, Yes, exactly. It was fascinating. The story about Helen
Clark and her father, I think is a great one
because he was one hundred and three when he died,
and I was talking to Helen very recently and she's
always been down when she's in the country down And
why he had a dad's side and he lived at home,

(05:30):
at his own home, and why he one hundred and
three years old. I mean, he had a number of complications.
But George was a national Party supporter when Helen joined
the Princess Street branch of the Labor Party and then
went on to become the Prime minister. And apparently George
had a conversion on the road to the beehive. And

(05:54):
obviously if your daughter's a prime minister, you don't want
to speak too much about what your background politics would be.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
No, you fall into mind a beautiful relationship. She would
go down to why He Booch and make them meals
and put them in the freezer like she was a
very attentive Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
And the thing is, I think always Ryan and I know,
having lost older relatives myself. The longer the thea like
her dad is, they're all alive and she's in the
mid seventies. The harder it is, I think on you
as a person to lose them.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Very Soper, that's politics. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
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