Full Show Podcast: 04 December 2024

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Pressing the newsmakers to get the real story.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's Andrew Dickens on hither due to sellen drive with
one New Zealand let's get connected.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
You stop, said b.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
It's good up to you.

Speaker 4 (00:13):
It is Wednesday, the fourth of December. I'm Andrew Dickens
here until seven. Ayesha Viril has gone all out. She's
accuses Health Commissioner Lester Levy of cooking the books. He's
gone all out. He's demanded an apology. She'll be with
us after five thirty. Today, the Chief Onwardsman has slammed
the Ministry for Social Developments, saying it's payments to abuse
and care survivors are unreasonable and arbitrary and not nearly enough.

(00:35):
But what is enough in these times? And we will
talk to the Onwoodsman as well. And Barry Soper had
lunch with Boris Johnson again. Yes, that's two lunches in
two days. So what happened today? He joins me at
four forty five. And next, are we willing to pay
extra to put wool carpets in state houses? That's the program.
You can text me ninety two. You can email Dickens
at newstorkstb dot co dot and z it is eight

(00:57):
out to four.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Andrew Dickins or.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Under fire for ditching will carpets in favor of nylon,
and that is despite government plans to direct government agencies
to use wool over anything else where possible. Caring Aura
says it's cost analysis has shown nylon was thirty four
percent cheaper than more alternatives. And so joining me to
talk about this is the man who blewed the whistle.

(01:23):
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Hella, Mark Hill Angela, you are going today, I'm good.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
If nylon's really that much cheaper, can we really be
upset with caring Aura?

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Well, how do they know. They haven't even given the
carpet manufactures a chance to tender, So that's pretty premature statement.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
How do you think it's cheaper?

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Look, it's not all about price, it's about value. And
you know, wil carpets certainly have some attributes that synthetics
will never be able to match the sofa, healthier, more
environmentally friendly targets. There's a big swing back to war actually,
and there's good reason for that. But this isn't the

(02:09):
coalition agreement. I think that's get issues here and somewhere
deep within the bowels of mb that decided to defy that.
So that's a problem.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
Yes, I was wondering whether this was just a knee
jerk somebody going the government wants to save money. I
believe that nylon is cheaper, and they just went we'll
go nylon.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Oh look, it could be. And I mean, this is
sort of an operational issue for them at one level,
but then it is directly in the coalition agreement. It's
clear the intent of the governments here. We're trying to
revitalize the sheep industry and the war industry. We're starting
to make some progress on that, but this is a

(02:50):
bit of a kick in the guts and certainly to
feedback from getting from farmers and the industry in general.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Well, you mentioned you mentioned it briefly already. The Brend
with CEO Greg Smith was on with Mike Hosking this
morning and when I asked, he claimed that they could
be competitive on price, but even more worryingly, they weren't
asked to forward a price at all. So is KO
not shopping around for the best deal and therefore breaking
its promise with the government, And isn't this what they
were supposed to be doing to give the taxpayer bang

(03:17):
for buck.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, absolutely that they didn't. That tender did not allow
for the tablets to even be considered in new builds,
which is a direct contradiction to the government's and key.
So Greg has got every right to be a bit
agreed about that, as am I.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
The other bigger question is also do government agencies actually
have an obligation to the state, to the people, to
the farmers to support our wool industry even if it
costs more.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Well, as I say, it's not all that price. It's
about value on a more holistic part of it, which
is safer, healthier, more environment and friendly at supporting our
law industry as sheep farmers that have really been struggling
of late. So it is that's white. It's in a
coalition agreement. It's why New Zealand First has campaigned on
it for a number of elections and National have been

(04:16):
good enough to come on board with it in the
coalition agreement. And we want it to be wanted.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
But the other coalition partner Act will claim that this
is good old classic corporate welfare.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Well, we all sign up to various things in the
coalition agreement that we might not totally be on board with,
but you know it's there in black and white, and
that's the way this government operates, and we'll work through this.
I'm sure we're will and we've just been blindsided. This
has come out of NBM. We'll have a look at
this and see if there's anything we can do at

(04:49):
least get the wall guys a chance to put in
it in, because that's the at least they can expect.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yeah, that sounds fair. My Pattison course associated Agriculture Minister
in New Zealand first as well, so that's his thing.
But yes, Ac would say, you know, you go to
the market Texta and already Andrew, some of the KO
homes have vinyl in the living areas. You could do
that as well. Someone wanted me to ask him whether
he was wearing woolen socks or not. But is a
little factoid for you from caying Aura. In the last

(05:17):
six years they've laid six hundred thousand meters of synthetic carpet.
The volume that volume in the last six years of
that synthetic carpet requires importing one point seven million kilos
of plastic for its production. Meanwhile, the wolve's right here

(05:38):
now very important for our lists in Northland. If you
are listening on ten twenty six am in Fangala, we're
about to go off here for an hour because we're
fixing things up. The texts are replacing the air conditioning
up there. It's your fault, you're too hot Northland. But
this will be call and you can keep on listening
on iHeartRadio. Go get the app, then you put it

(06:00):
on the phone, then you bluetooth to a speaker. It's
called the twenty first Century and it's in perfect stereo,
not muldy old Am, though I probably shouldn't have said that.
It's at thirteen minutes after four now black Caps out
in England to both find and lose championship points because
when they were playing cricket they played it too slow.
Was that fair or not? Darcy Waldgravers with us next,

(06:22):
it is thirteen minutes after four.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Who will take the White House results and analysis of
the US election?

Speaker 1 (06:31):
On hither Dupless Alum drive with one New Zealand. Let's
get connected news talk said b.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Sport with tab get your bed on RI team bet responsibly.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
It's sixteen enough to four respndent in blue. It's your color,
Darcy Waldegrave. Hit to toe today, hit to toe? And
why not blue cap? Blue blue? And then do you
call it love and lover? What do you call your funga?
There we go?

Speaker 5 (06:58):
What's the sum one version means with pockets considering the
heat of the day in this area, yep. And then
and blue burks and blue burks, I might do well
white tomorrow will grow the next day all black? Something
to entertain myself in the morning in the sun.

Speaker 4 (07:12):
Are used to porting the English cricket team with this
color choice? No, why would I do that?

Speaker 5 (07:18):
Next thing?

Speaker 6 (07:18):
You know?

Speaker 5 (07:19):
Well, no, it's news talk Z e B colors? How
about that.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
Nice black caps? Did England find the lose championship points?
That's the champion chances for us? Over or because we
couldn't pull our finger out and bowl an extra three
overs each? Is this fair?

Speaker 5 (07:32):
Well, we're going to talk about that with Greg Barclay,
former chair of the ic C.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
He joins us on the.

Speaker 5 (07:38):
Show this evening to talk about how they actually come
to this conclusion around do they find do they find
individuals that they need to find the team? Do they
need to take points off them? What effect it has
on the crowd, because the new term around is putting
the fans at the center of the room, and this
is what they've got to do. How does this affect
the fan base? Anything else? Nothing else is important, the

(08:00):
people at home and the people at the ground.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
Did the fans feel ripped off that they didn't get
six people? Same people don't What did they know that
they were six overs a cricket they may or may
not have had.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
Yep, Well they lost a whole lot at the end
because the game stopped.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
Well this is right. Well that's a very good point.

Speaker 5 (08:16):
There's a whole day's madness. I suppose when you're enoughy
like myself, and you really enjoy the game and you
know it's being slow and you know the messing, and
it's like, oh, I didn't pay my money to sit
here and watch you scuff the floor. A little bit
of a conversation about you feel do something, don't just
do something? Stand there. That's what it's like cricket. It

(08:37):
is cricket and it's slow, but in some relevant arguments
both ways. But what gets me about this is the
Black Cats win the final two matches in Wellington and Hamilton,
they will still need a number of results to go
their way to qualify for the World Chest Final. They
mean South Africa needs to lose a home series to
nil to Pakistan, Sri Lanka needs to lose a home
series to Australia, and Indy need to win the current

(09:00):
series and Aussie four to one or the hosts win
three to two or better. So you're telling me there's.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
A charge, Nick, But can I also say how good
it is that the international cricket's scene right now any
of that could actually happen.

Speaker 5 (09:14):
Yes, And also let's throw in there, kuld be a
team with loads slow overrage, which is what happens to
the Australians, which is why we get onto the final
of the first place that we won.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
New Bull World Cup could shift to every two years.

Speaker 5 (09:27):
They're looking at this is only an idea. They throw
it around saying how can we catch up with the Joneses.
Everybody has a pinnacle event every couple of years, don't they.
It's always something big to look forward to. So a
Continental Cup to be added to the international calendar, possibly,
which is the top five teams from each playing continent
base if you will, maybe the fast five World series

(09:49):
will be more regular and global, the aligned global calendar,
which of course the World Cup coming every alternate year
between the continental Cups. So they're looking at ways again
of eyeballs, and fast fire is probably the way because
it's easily digestible, it's quick as fast it's done. And
I think that in order to get more global traction,

(10:10):
you need to attract more teams, more teams playing the
game with something that's slightly more not that netball isn't
dynamic because it has.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
More accessible you know, and I and the example there
is seven's rugby, you know, where Spain beat New Zealand
twice in the last tournament.

Speaker 5 (10:28):
Stop there, please to endure that.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
I'm sorry, yeah, but there we go. And how good
is that for the game of rugby.

Speaker 5 (10:34):
It's great for rugby, terrible for us. And then the
Australians managed to wallop not wallet, they managed to squeeze
past the ferns and the final of that too. This
was my weekend.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
Thanks, but that's the whole thing. You know, maybe fast
five could do for netball what sevens done for rugby.

Speaker 5 (10:47):
We want that more eyeballs and it's great that world
netball are going right they're not. I don't think this
conceding that's broken. But they're saying we need change. We don't.
It will break.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
Good stuff does is on from seven. This is a
new stalks At.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Beat digging deeper into the day's headlines.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
It's Andrew Dickens on Heather duples see Ellen drive with
one New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Let's get connected and.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
Use talks that'd be well versus nylon, nylon versus wool.
The battle is on text through Andrew from a firefighter
thirty five years via a wool carpet does not burn
like synthetics. To synthetics melt, then they burn fiercely, hence
the toxic black smoke from house fires. Modern houses have
a very high amount of plastics and noll. It's not good.
There we go, there's one another person, those says Andrew.

(11:30):
For God's sake, it is all about price. In the
current environment, there is no money, so we need to
move on. But here's the thing. Kanga Order did not
ask Bremworth for a price, and they would have sharpened
their pencils. I've had another text from Ben Ben says
Kanga Order did not ask New Zealand owned and made
carpet mill to supply. I don't know exactly how they

(11:50):
made the decision, but it sounds like they just assumed.
You know about an assumption. If you assume, it makes
an ass out of you and me. That's how it's spelled,
you know that thing. Somebody else says, definitely wool carpet
for the state houses. This is colleen and much more
healthier for the children. Also support the farmers. So this
is a great debate. We had good debate over the
course of the afternoon wol versus Nylon. But also are

(12:11):
we really being forensic about this? Are we really sharpening
our pencils? And are we really finding the best deals
the way we were promised we will operate in the future. Now,
can I just tell you how good boris Johnson is
half an hour with Kerry Woodham yesterday and he almost
made me support Brexit. So I'm not a natural supporter

(12:32):
of Brexit. I'll tell you why I have a UK passport.
I was born in hamil Hamstead. I used it to
live and work in France for nearly three years. Thirty
years ago. All my friends were British. They were all
in the same place. They were all in pan European business.
They were part of the EU. It expanded their domestic
market by five hundred percent. They loved it. It was

(12:53):
a free trade agreement that we all took advantage of.
And I then went and parts of my British passport
onto my kids and they were itching to grow up
to go and live and work in whatever so did
they wanted Berlin or Rome. So we were not automatic
lovers of Brexit for purely selfish reasons. I'll give you that.
But here yesterday was Bojo on this station, in full flow,
eloquently and charmingly pointing out about how Britain regained regulatory

(13:16):
control of its products and services and public policy, how
it made their economy more nimble and able to explore
other alternators like a New Zealand free trade deal and
a more trade with the United States, and how its
benefits will only accrue as time marches on. And I
started listening to him and going, okay, you are seducing
me with your wise words. Mister Johnson. You are awesome.

(13:37):
And it has been easy from Afar to view him
as a clown with the crazy hair who likes the bikes,
but to see the beast up and close and unfettered.
It is quite a thing. His charm and his wit
at his ease of argument explains why he was successful
winning first the Mariorty of London and then the top
job in the UK. And it also explained to me

(13:57):
how he's managed to have so many children by so
much any women. He's been asked whether he may return
to politics, but you know, come on, why should he.
He's having lunch all over the world right now. He's
making an absolute fortune. He is free to be an
unadulterated Boris, which is quite a thing, rampaging freely over

(14:20):
the world, eating lunch, drinking wine and saying wires things.
By the way, that thing, that unadulterated Boris Barry Soper
had lunch with again today. That is twice during his
visit that Barry has been talking with Bojo. And apparently
today he was even better because he wasn't in a

(14:41):
big room full of a whole lot of people. He
was with some industry people. He was with some farmers,
and he was just full flight and full flow and
apparently very very scruffy. But I won't tell you all
the stories because that's what we've got Barry Soper here
for Barry Soper is here a round about a quarter
to five on news talks, But we'll go to America
with Dan Mitchenson. Trump is using the underbid and pardon

(15:02):
as the reason why he should be pardoned for everything.
My name is Andrew Dickens. Heather's fine, but not fine
enough to come to work. We'll be soon.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, Yeah, the day's newsmakers talk to Andrew first, Andrew
Dickens on Hither Duper see Alan drive with one New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Let's get connected news talk as it'd be.

Speaker 7 (15:48):
Marry ponyboy Bunny combat to get off first body.

Speaker 8 (15:56):
Okay, I've been breaking my back just keeping the waiting down.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
YU mean, y'au no with gold when it's a barfied.

Speaker 4 (16:08):
Nor are you keep missing me saying the fact that
Heather's fine but not fine enough to come to work.
We're not sure about tomorrow, but I'm quite happy to
be here for a little bit. It's a lot of thing.
So I've had a text from a fella called Joel Sterling.
Joel Sterling's an NBA student who's done all sorts of things.
He's hung out with Sir Richard Branson and all that
sort of stuff. Anyway, this is what Joel has written
to me. He said, I have had the privilege to

(16:30):
spend some time with Boris Johnson yesterday. He was everything
I expected him to be. He had everyone around him
at laughter and had ease to ask him anything. I
took this is Joel Sterling. I took a handmade chest
set to the event with a huge hope that he
would be able to sign it for me and then
donate it to the New Zealand Parliament. Boris was very
open and very willing to sign it. I suggested he

(16:52):
sign for King and Country, but Boris, being the amazing Boris,
said no for King and Commonwealth. It was at this
moment I understood why he was PM for the UK.
Love him or hate him, he is amazing at what
he does and so likable when you get to speak
with him. By the way, at the same event with
some Peters was also amazing in his speech and history

(17:13):
lesson on the entire world, which comes when you've actually
been live for a thousand years. He'd get to know
some stuff. And Barry Soaper was there as well, and
he's going to join me at four forty five to
talk more about this.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
It's the world wires on news talks. He'd be drive
all right.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
The White House has expressed relief that South Korean President
Yun has withdrawn his decoration of martial law. It's an
outbreak of democracy. He backed down after the country's parliament
voted to reject the decoration. The presidents initially justified martial
law by accusing opposition parties of having ties to North Korea.
But everyone says, mate, that doesn't stack up.

Speaker 9 (17:51):
In the past, there have been a partner was a
party in South Korea that was investigated and tried and
banned from office. He could have taken legal steps to
try and remove anyone who actually did have ties to
North Korea. So it seems like this was really an
affecitake and settle a domestic political dispute, all right.

Speaker 10 (18:09):
Ope.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
The ditch in Australia has once again broken ranks with
the US and Israel at the United Nations, and for
the first time since two thousand and one, Australia voted
in favor of emotion to manding the end of Israel's
presence in the occupied Palestinian territories one hundred and fifty
six other countries, all including New Zealand, also voted in favor.
Now Here is Australia's UN ambassador.

Speaker 11 (18:30):
We welcome the resolution's confirmation that a high level international
conference be convened in twenty twenty five aimed at the
implementation of a two states solution for the achievement of
a just, lasting and comprehensive piece in the Middle East.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
And finally, archaeologists in Arizona have found what they believe
is the oldest surviving gun in the continental United States
of America. They've dug up a bronze cannon. Well it's
more than just a gun. It's a bronze cannon that
they think was built to defend a town established by
Spanish conquistadors in the mid sixteenth century. The conquistadors, we're

(19:11):
searching for the Seven Cities of Goals. You know that
if you've read your Scrooge mcdac comics, because the Junior
Woodchucks are also on the search. Always He's always on
the search. But of course they never found any Golden
Cities in Arizona, so they wound up abandoning the town
before they even had a chance to fire.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
The Canon International Correspondence with ends and eye insurance, peace
of mind for New Zealand business.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
Yes, and now to the United States of America, Dan Mitchison,
Welcome to the program.

Speaker 8 (19:41):
Hey, thanks, Andrew.

Speaker 4 (19:42):
So Donald Trump not one to you know, not take
advantage of a situation. He's using the Hunter Biden pardon
to argue that he should be pardoned and everything.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, here he is.

Speaker 8 (19:53):
I mean, this decision has kind of had all kinds
of blowback, and that's one of the main ones as well.
And legal experts are now saying that he's got a
fresh president on this because of what Joe Biden did.
And I mean most people are using the example of
Gerald for the former president that pardon Richard Nixon, and

(20:14):
with the exception of him, I don't think there's been
a president that's ever issued such a broad grant of
clemency here. So Hunter Biden is now effectively cleared of
all the consequences for the next ten or eleven years.
And the whole process was so secretive the Justice Department's office,
a partner attorney, which typically advises a sitting president on
these clemency issues, was caught off guard. So I think,

(20:36):
you know, you've got people on the left end the
right here that aren't very happy with the decision. But
as a dad, maybe you understand a little bit. You
know why the president might have done what he did.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
Well, the question is when the Trump administration takes over,
will they continue a which hunt against Hunter Biden or
does this step actually just a new hunter for the rest.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Of his life.

Speaker 8 (20:55):
Well, I think that's what President Biden was going for,
just because he saw what the hand riding on the
wall and knew that if if President Electro came into office,
that this was going to be at the top of
his list. You know, he had a he had a
list of vendettas and he was going to go after this.
So basically, as a dad, Joe Biden said, I'm going
to have to do this. I know, I said I
wasn't going to do this. I was vocal about it.

(21:16):
So as a voter you may be disappointed. As somebody
in the Democratic Party you're probably disappointed as well. Republicans
are outraged, as you know the sound bites on the news.
But you know, again, going back to being a dad,
maybe you're thinking, this is the this is the best
way I can protect my son at the you know,
the last few years of my life.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
Do you do realize that the rest of the world
looks at America and the way their prisons can actually
pardon people for anything and go, well, you know, are
you really the defenders of freedom and law and all
that stuff?

Speaker 5 (21:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (21:46):
Do we have another four hours for that conversation? You
bring up a good point, but you know that's that's
the you know, Trump, but it pardons at Bill Clinton.
I mean, every president has done their own pardon and
every time there's at least one or two about and
are controversial. And this is just the only one that
we know of now before he leaves office, but I'm
sure there will be more.

Speaker 4 (22:07):
Okay, So it's moved to California where a law maker
wants priority given to slave descendants looking to get into college.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, this is kind of interesting.

Speaker 8 (22:16):
They want the descendants of slaves to be able to
get into the University of California and California State University,
which are two of the largest public schools and public
universities that we have here in the country.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
And there's been a.

Speaker 8 (22:26):
Big push by people, especially on the left, for reparations
giving money or land to descendants.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
Of these slaves.

Speaker 8 (22:33):
But this is the first time that something like this
has been introduced. And with the again we go back
to the incoming Trump administration, they're expected to dismantle a
lot of the diversity and equity and inclusion programs. So
I don't know how this is going to take off.
I mean one senator saying, you know, when you think
about reparations, you think about cash payments, but then there's
also the harm that goes down from generation to generation.

(22:55):
And these policies are a bigger process than writing somebody
a check, which they're already starting to do.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Yes, but do you want a doctor who's got in
purely because you know the dead and the great grandfather
happened to be a slave.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
You know, right?

Speaker 8 (23:10):
Yeah, And that's what they're saying right now. This is
gonna this is going to open a floodgate for a
lot of other people too. I mean we had we
had Asians that were in internment camps during the Second
World I mean there's you could just go back to
a lot of people.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
And is it entry requirements or is it over you know,
like like final qualifications.

Speaker 8 (23:28):
Well that's what they're still trying to work out right now.
This bill has just been introduced at this point in time.
So I think he's going to have a lot of
people that are going to be coming up with questions
exactly like this. And then that's why this, this whole
thing is going to probably stall once Trump gets into office.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
Okay, they are porch pandits. That's steal your passes that
arrive with Kuria. Apparently you can get insurance for that.

Speaker 8 (23:46):
Now, well, well you can, and I don't know how
big the problem is over there, but over here, I
mean it's terrible. We have one hundred and nineteen million thefts.
The costs about thirteen billion dollars each year over here.
So there's this company called porch Pals, and what you
do is you write them a check for one hundred
and twenty bucks or fifty or a year for fifteen
dollars a month, and you can file three claims for

(24:07):
something that's been stolen off your front porch and each
one covers about two thousand dollars and it doesn't really
matter the value of the purchase. Now, it's a good idea,
I guess, in theory, But I mean you're also thinking
about all the fake claims that these companies are going
to start getting, especially around the holidays too, with people
trying to get a refund. But I'll tell you that
this is a this is a growing problem. People are

(24:28):
just blatant about doing it.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
Now.

Speaker 4 (24:30):
It's the same down here, mate, don't worry. It's it's
will wide and I thank you for your time. That
is dam Mitch Isson out of the United States of
America at the time is now sixteen to five. This
is news. I'm Andrew dickens Ayeshaverro ran all out and
accused Health Commissioner Lisa Livy of cooking the books. She
did it at a selict committee. She's said it outside
the house as well, so she's pretty confident because she's

(24:51):
outside of privilege to essays all of this. Barry Sopa
is with us in just a few moments time here
on newskiv.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Politics with Centric Credit, check your custom and get payment certainty.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
He's talk to b It is now thirty minutes to
find it.

Speaker 12 (25:06):
Was stunned into silence as I walked into the studio.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
This is true.

Speaker 12 (25:10):
I didn't believe.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
I thought there might be some wishing, big show business
thing to herold the arrival of the man who has
had not one but two lunches with Boris Johnson and
this despite what you said about him yesterday.

Speaker 12 (25:21):
Well, yes, I was quite critical of Boris yes today.
And when I met him today over lunch, when he
was introduced to me, he said, oh you're you're the man.
You're the man I heard on radio yesterday talking about me.
He said people have said worse things about me. So
I thought, well yeah. And he went on around lunch

(25:42):
and it's Chathamhouse rules, you can't say exactly what was said.
But he did defend free speech, hates woke asm, defended
free speech and said that anybody's got an entitlement to
say anything they want about anything. But I found it
absolutely curious that a former Prime Minister of Britain would

(26:02):
bother tuning into radio to see what people were saying
about him. So if you're listening at the moment, Boris,
you're not a bad bugger's he was pretty good. Today's
lunch was hosted by General Finance, was around a table
and it was.

Speaker 5 (26:20):
Really just a yarm your cass.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
How many people are fifteen to twenty other? Okay, So
this is a much bit of a different environment to
the big public one last where people bought their ticket.
This one was invitees. So did this mean there was
a different Boris that was on show, perhaps even more unfettered.

Speaker 5 (26:37):
Well, he was very different.

Speaker 12 (26:38):
I mean yesterday what I didn't like about it was
I said it was like watching a mowhead jersey being
unraveled because he did it and through the speech. But
it's part of the whole persona of Boris Johnson. I
mean I said yesterday that Whenston Peters cracked a great
joke saying he looked as though just for all out

(27:00):
of a shower and used the towel as his hair brush.

Speaker 5 (27:03):
And that's what he did.

Speaker 12 (27:04):
But that's part of the brand of Boris Johnson. And
I've got to say now having sat down and talked
to the man, I really enjoyed his company. He's a journo,
so he remembers, you know, the media. And in fact
I had an interview, as I said to him, at
the Daily Telegraph for he was at one stage a

(27:25):
reporter on it, and I said, I was interviewed by
a man that was a field marshal.

Speaker 5 (27:31):
Remember that's really old funny, don't you So? Yeah, No,
he was.

Speaker 12 (27:36):
He's very entertaining, Its very clever he talked a lot
about Ukraine and it was a good backgrounder if he
wanted that.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
But a massive amount of institutional knowledge from all sides
of the fence, so obviously very entertaining. Let's get into
some serious But so Asha Vero makes an accusation and
Select Committee Jimmy Markroff gets her niggers in the night
about it. She says that Lester Levy cook the books.
Now this is covered by but she since said that outside.

Speaker 12 (28:02):
Well, yes, there's limited privilege when it comes to a
parliamentary Select committee anyway, but because the members of the public,
they appear before the privilegeous committee. But aischeverel, she was
asked whether they are named by Lester Levy produced a
deficit that looked like it was worse than it actually was,

(28:23):
and she said he had three recorded three former district
health boards, she said, where he claimed that the produced
surpluses were great and then they turned into deficits when
he left. Verell said that that was the state of

(28:44):
New Zealand's health system and in fact it was used
by this government to effect big cuts there. But this
is how the exchange unfolded. The Select Committee to.

Speaker 13 (28:53):
Day, given your reputation for cooking the box.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Did any minister one order order?

Speaker 5 (29:03):
I don't think that's appropriate to attack in that manner.

Speaker 14 (29:06):
There were no deficits while I was there. The deficits
that occurred when I left is when, and the record
will show this. Anyone can go have a look at
that were when provisions first started to be made for
Holiday Act. So that is incorrect. I will provide that information,
and on the provision of that information, I would preferably

(29:28):
love to have an apology for that.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
And I can understand why, of course, of course, And
that's I can understand that excuse as well, because the
Holiday Acts and provisions for extra stuff and the pay
changes has blown all the budgets.

Speaker 12 (29:41):
All over the place and it came into effect after
after he did that.

Speaker 5 (29:44):
So yeah, I mean he has a good argument.

Speaker 12 (29:46):
And look, the thing is that this man's integrity is
without question. I mean, he's a very renowned professor and
he's an expert, So you know, to malign him in
that way before a select committee, I think is.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
But rich, do you think she should give him an
up on?

Speaker 5 (30:02):
Absolutely?

Speaker 12 (30:02):
Okay, Well, when she sees the evidence, and no doubt,
we'll all go digging for the evidence now and when
we see it, of course he deserves an apologies.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
She's here at five point thirty today on this radio show,
and maybe she'll do it that you get it there.
I reckon, I reckon now very quickly. We only have
a minute. Apparently Christmas parties in the in Wellington.

Speaker 12 (30:22):
The Gritch has stolen Christmas absolutely in Wellington. And you
know it has been tough for the public service, let's
face it, but the biggest, one of the biggest ministries
are mb They've told staff, they told them last month
that they won't be providing any subsidies for an end
of the year function workers the Ministry of Housing and
Urban Development. They are also going without any Christmas cheer

(30:45):
this year. Customs are not arranging to fund a party,
Crown Start, Crown Law stuff. They can pay for their
own BYO when they get along to their Christmas party.

Speaker 5 (30:58):
And I required as to whether we're going to have
an end of the year party, Andrew, and you'll be pleased. No,
we are, we are.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
I know, godness, we're not a public service. I know
exactly right. Well, I've got I've got family in public
service and in local government. They haven't had paid for
parties in years, and they are still having parties. They
pay for it for them themselves, yep, you know. And
the managers in local government are all taking the key
staff out for dinner and they're all lunch and they're

(31:25):
paying for it themselves, you know, because that's just the
way it is. Yes, thank you so very very much.
It's news talks here, b it's coming up six minutes
to five.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Putting the tough questions to the newsmakers the mic asking breakfast.

Speaker 15 (31:41):
The grand old die in Auckland is one of the
city's more disliked operations. Auckland Transport got a fair bit
of power taken off them and it will be transferred
back to the council Transport Minister Simming and Brown is
whether us would you have still done it, no matter
how good eighty were or not.

Speaker 6 (31:53):
I did a key thing here is every other region
across New Zealand disciplin's around who approved the Regional Land
Transport plan for road controlling authorities those decisions set with
elected members and Auckland it does not.

Speaker 16 (32:04):
This is actually a.

Speaker 6 (32:05):
Principal decision to restore democracy to those decisions and allow
Aucklanders if they don't like the fact that their local
board or their counselors are removing some car parks to
put in a cycle way, they can boat them out.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
At the moment, they don't have that ability.

Speaker 15 (32:17):
Back Tomorrow at six am, the mic asking breakfast with
the rain driver of the LAHM used talk zb.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
It is coming out three minutes to five. We don't
have enough money. I mean, we just had the wall
versus nylon carpet debate at Kanga Aura, which is the
cheapest wat should we put in our houses? Even though
the wolves supports, of course our farmers. But you know,
we've got no money. We've got the money. You hear
that chant all the time. There's no money now. Peter Bochier,
the chief onwardsman, has come out and said we're not
paying the victims of state abuse enough. He's called the

(32:46):
rates arbitrary and the criteria to narrow. He wants them
to have more. But do we have the money? Does
he even consider that anyway? Peter Boche will be joining me.
Asha Verel is joining me, of course, to talk about
how Lester Levy cooked the books, whether she's going to
apologize to him or not, and the whole heap war.
It's news Talks. I'm Andrew Dickens go on in.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
The only Drive show you can trust to ask the questions,
get the answers by the facts and give the analysis.
Andrew Dickens on, hither dup to see allan drive with
one New Zealand Let's get connected news talk as sid be.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
After then welcome to the program. Heather's a little bit ill,
not bad, but not good enough to come to work.
Should be here as soon as she came. The Chief
Ombardsman says the Ministry of Social Development's payment scheme for
survivors of abuse and care is unreasonable. Peter Bocha says
the rates of compensation are arbitrary and the criteria for
accepting claims are too narrow. And the finding comes after

(34:01):
a complaint by a law firm representing one thousand claiments
saying that the payments are just not enough. Peter Bosher now,
and Busha joins me.

Speaker 17 (34:08):
Now, how Peter, good afternoon to you, Andrew.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
So you're saying that MSD is paying victims of state
abuse too little.

Speaker 17 (34:17):
There are a number of things about the scheme, Andrew,
which are unsatisfactory. Can I quickly put a context for
your listeners. Everyone's heard of the Royal Commission of Abuse
and Care and redress that will occur to our survivors
of abuse. This relates to the period before two Thy
seventeen and MASB set up a scheme whereby ED would

(34:42):
offer redress to those who claimed. We've found that aspects
of this are unreasonable. The basis upon which decisions were
being approached not clear, what was being taken into account
not clear. But perhaps worst of all, Andrew and something
I'm really keen on on this role. People not getting
clear reasons for decisions and not understanding why what they

(35:06):
received was the amount in question. So a number of
things we were unhappy.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Well, well, have you also investigated why the ministry might
be actually, you know, being arbitrary and being I don't
want to say the word tight, that's a terrible way
to say, but you know why the purse strings closed?
Have you looked into why they're doing it? Can you?
Can you even answer that?

Speaker 17 (35:29):
Yes, I can look look. Some schemes for redress, such
as the accident compensation scheme, are quite prescriptive and quite known,
and I think a number of people when they have
an acc situational claim have a pretty fair idea of
what's likely to happen to their claim in terms of outcomes.
The real problem here was a lack of structure in

(35:54):
terms of what was being considered and what might be
felt to be appropriate. So I think the best way
for me to answer your very good question is the
results were two arbitrary. I think what people want is
to know the territory into which they're heading. Here they
didn't know, and sometimes when the result came couldn't understand

(36:14):
why it was what it was, So just to arbitrary, really, Andrew.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
Okay, sure, but of course the reaction from people who
haven't been involved in the decision is New Zealand currently
is in a bad economic state. We just don't have
more money.

Speaker 17 (36:28):
The fact is that for anyone who is injured or damaged,
whether it's a road accident or whether it's through state
care which has been careless and negligent, that person has
the right to have their dignity restored. The can, for instance,
go to court and see, which is a very expensive exercise,

(36:51):
and if they succeed, there will be meaningful redress. Look,
I'm afraid we are a society. We care for everyone.
That's what we do as a caring, civilized society where
the state has cared for someone carelessly and in for them,
the state has the responsibility to say so into front.

Speaker 4 (37:12):
Up, Peter, I thank you for your time this afternoon.
Peter Boscher is the chief on Woodsman. This is Newstalks.
Who'll be it's eleven enough to find Dickens okay, horrified,
disgusted and a step backwards? Who said this? Well, the
science community, and they found out this afternoon that there's
been a decision by the government to no longer fund
research into humanities and social sciences. Instead, all the science

(37:35):
funding will be directed to physics and chemistry and maths
and engineering and biomedical sciences, the sorts of skills that
the government says will rebuild the economy. So Nicola Gaston
is a smart person and co director of the mcdarmod's
Institute for Advanced Materials in Nanotechnology. Hello Nikola, Hello, So
are you horrified, disgusted? And is this a step backwards.

Speaker 18 (38:00):
Completely? So I'll just correct you on one thing that
you said in the intro, which is that this is
not all of science funding, right. So this is the
Marsden Fund, which is the fundamental science, basic research, blue
Sky's research in some terms. And there are other research
funding mechanisms for science. There is mb funding, There is

(38:22):
the Endeavor Fund, There is the Smart Ideas Fund. There
is also the Health Research Council funding for health specific
medical research. Right, so there's a lot out there for
science which is not the mars And Fund. The mars
And Fund is the only funding mechanism that is equitable
in the way that is distributed across research areas. And

(38:47):
it is equitable because it is not granted with the
intention that there should be specific impact. It's about creating
knowledge first and foremost, and so it does that in
science and social science, in the humanities as well.

Speaker 19 (39:03):
I get it.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
I get in the Mars and mars And Fund will
help fund physics and chemistry, maths and engineering and biomedical sciences.
Are what upside are there in the areas that they're
not going to do, such as humanities and social sciences.
In terms of you know, pure economics.

Speaker 18 (39:18):
Yeah, there's oh, in the terms of pure economics. One
of the really funny things around scientific investment because funding
of science is always funding of research is always a
form of investment, right, governments do it because there is
an economic upside downstream. That's clear, it's well understood. But

(39:40):
the problem is that governments, the politicians in place, are
not very good at picking what actually has an economic
upside downstream. And when you're doing fundamental research, and it
doesn't matter if it's science or humanities or social science,
if you're doing fundamental research, that the economic up turn,

(40:03):
the economic benefit is a decade or even multiple decades away.

Speaker 13 (40:09):
And so politicians are not.

Speaker 18 (40:11):
The people the best second guess what this impact is
going to be. And so we tend to measure these
proposals for research by having experts in that particular field
who look at the proposal and they evaluate it on
its excellence in terms of is this likely to change

(40:35):
the way that we think about something that's really important?
And so it's all about knowledge generation.

Speaker 4 (40:42):
Okay, there was a very eloquent argument. But at the
same time, I don't know if you've noticed that everyone
has been saying we don't have money. This is this
is the theme of this afternoon program. We do not
have money. People have to be cut. Where there are
cuts happening all over the place. People are being cut
in all sorts of businesses, all sorts of services are
being cut in this case. I'm sorry.

Speaker 20 (41:00):
I know this very very well.

Speaker 18 (41:03):
So I'm a physicist and a physics department. I've had
colleagues who I work with very closely who's been made
redundant over the last year across our universities, across our
CRI system. I have had students who have gone overseas
because they see absolutely no prospect of a job in
New Zealand. And that's in the physical sciences. So I

(41:24):
understand very very well the financial constraints that we're working under.
But I work in a field of research that has
significant potential for economic impact as the Minister sees it.
Jennis Collins pointed to this in her press release today.
I lead an institute that has two hundred and forty

(41:46):
students at the moment across nine institutions working on these
areas of physical science research. In the last three years,
we've had eleven startup companies come out of the type
of research that we do. I have colleagues working in
based research. I have colleagues working in quantum technologies research.
I have colleagues working in clean tech research, really trying

(42:07):
to leverage the renewable energy resources of New Zealand for
all of our economic benefits. So I get the economic arguments,
and we are trying to do this, okay, but well
it's not something that relies.

Speaker 17 (42:21):
On the physical sciences alone.

Speaker 18 (42:23):
We need our colleagues and the social sciences, Nicolin, our
colleagues and the humanities as well.

Speaker 4 (42:26):
Nicola, I thank you for your championing. And every issue
needs a champion, and I thank you, said very much
Nicola Gaston's point of view there, and Nicola, of course
is the co director of the McDermond Institute for Advanced
Materials at Nanotechnology. We're losing little bits here and there.
At sixteen after five.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
This is news Talk, said the breaking news and the.

Speaker 4 (42:47):
Yana Bow murder trial. The jury has a turned and
as found Tinging shall guilty of murdering christ Urge real
estate agent jan fey Bell. So he's guilty. It wasn't
a long deliberation.

Speaker 5 (43:08):
How long was it?

Speaker 4 (43:08):
Well, I think we should find out we often We're
going to talk to our reporter who is there at
the court as we speak, Emily Ansel, to find out
what has gone down in this case over the last
few minutes. Here on news Talks. Heb right here is
a rose deal that is so good we actually have
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(43:30):
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(43:53):
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(44:14):
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(44:35):
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Speaker 1 (44:40):
Andrew Dickens.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
In the breaking news the Yumphai Boo murder trial, the
jury found Tingjung Cutch Owl guilty of murdering Christ Church
real estate agent Yumfae Bell and our reporter Emily Ansel
was there and has been there for the past few weeks. Emily, Hello,
great drama.

Speaker 20 (44:57):
Hello Hello, how's it going good?

Speaker 4 (45:00):
It was not a long deliberation, not in the end.

Speaker 20 (45:04):
There was speculations liberations would be on the shorter side
from those convinced by the Crown's argument, believing their case was,
as Crown lawyers put it, a slam dunk, and in total,
deliberations took just over an hour and a half from
late this afternoon.

Speaker 4 (45:18):
Of course, he represented himself. How did he react?

Speaker 20 (45:22):
Yeah, he did represent himself. He chose to do that
quite early on. I've definitely seen him far more animated
and frustrated and angry throughout this process compared to how
he reacted. He he left as he walked in this afternoon,
with his hands behind his back, his head slightly down.
He seemed silent. He seemed to calm, my meaning and
quiet throughout the jury reading out their verdict. The court

(45:47):
was silent too, however, Boo's partner, while he kept a
straight face in it, initially he did call out, as
charl left, you might want to get a refund of
for that plane ticket, scumbag, before he broke down silently
being comforted by the man sitting next to him and
those around him.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
It certainly seemed like a crazy defense, and can we
ask was the man all there.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Right?

Speaker 20 (46:13):
So his defense was one that those around me say
they hadn't seen necessarily those reporters have been, especially to
a few trials themselves. His defense was essentially that the
Crown and police had made up the evidence, that most
of the evidence was falsified and fake. He sometimes accused
police of planting evidence themselves. He also said that his

(46:36):
actions on the day were largely to do with this
man named mister Toungue, who we hadn't heard from until
about until quite late in the trial. Apparently mister Tongue
was sort of directing him around christ Church by a
walkie talkie on where to go to find a job,
and that Tongue had drove his car foxshoes to do
so had been he was the one who had been
seen cleaning his car, and that you know, Chow himself

(46:59):
never actually saw miss Bow at the property in which
he was accused of attacking her and then killing her
later that day.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
Wow, strange, but it sounds like justice has been done.
So what's next sentencing? When's that schedule for?

Speaker 20 (47:15):
So he has been remanded in custody until next March,
and that is we will just have to wait and
see to see what the judge decides on that. The now,
the sort of six and a half week trial was
supposed to be six is now over, which I'm sure
will be a relief to the jury, to lawyers, and
to those loved ones of Missyiantepal.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
And how much of it did you get to see?

Speaker 20 (47:37):
I was here for most of it. I think there
was about a week where I wasn't in court, But
I have been here throughout. I was actually there when
she went missing, and so I've been following it for
a long time. So it is a relief. I guessed
to see this wrapped up, but yeah, we'll be waiting
to see what happened next year.

Speaker 4 (47:54):
Good work, Emily, write the book and I thank you
so much for your time. It is now five twenty four.
News Talks hereb the name you trust.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
To get the answers you need.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Andrew dickens On, Heather duple c Allen drive with One
New Zealand let's get connected and news talk as they'd be.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
This is five twenty seven. So we talked to Nikola
cars Gaston, who's the co director of the mcdarmood Institute
for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, all about the Marsden Fund,
which is science funding and it has been decided that
the funding will be directed to physics, chemistry, maths, engineering
and biomedical sciences and not towards the humanities and social sciences.

(48:29):
So big reaction next written. Nicola was very eloquent as
she was, but she made the most salient point. Yes
she did. I heard it too, and that is that
the governments are not good at picking scientific winners long term.
And this is true and this has been always David
Semow's point about some of this corporate welfare that the
picking of winners by government's not great. Therefore, argues Nick,

(48:52):
why should the public person fund such risky investments in
science activity that may not ever return value to the
public that's paying for it at this time? Maybe it's
best to leave that to private investment to take the
risk and reap any future reward. Fair point. And here's
another one from a fellow who is a retired chemistry teacher,
so you'd think he'd have something to say. Totally agrees

(49:12):
with the government policy on what it will fund in science.
Science has to be reproducible and certain until proven in exact.
This does not apply to humanities. If you know the
opinions of the researcher, you can probably predict their findings.
That's a very good point, Toning. And certainly some of
that mars and funds was used to study tinder, And
really is that helping? Is that helping our economy?

Speaker 5 (49:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (49:35):
Well, it depends whether an economist finds love through tinder
or not. I guess I don't know. Aysha Verel says
that less Levy, cooked books, lester demands and apology, we
can't have duels. That's unfortunate, but we do have Asia on.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Your smart speaker, on the iHeart app and in your
car on your drive home it's Andrew Dickens on hither
duplicy Alan drive with one New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Let's get connected a news talk as they'd be. You'll
meet together and to day whence kiss.

Speaker 4 (50:13):
The Knollida welcoming into the program. It's summer went on
the west coast, but pretty warm everywhere else. It is
twenty three minutes to six. We got the huddle coming
up very shortly. We're going to be joined by Ryan
Bridge from the early addition, but also Mark Sainsbury. Have
it talked to Mark for Ages and Mark Sainsbury Extra

(50:35):
seven sharp will be joining us in about five or
six minutes. Citi is now twenty three to six. Right,
this is a big thing. Health Commissioner Leicester Levy has
demanded an apology from Labour MP Aisha Verel at Select
Committee today. What happened well, Leicester was fronting up to
the Select Committee as part of Scrutiny week. He was
talking about Health New Zealand's finances and then I show

(50:57):
got up and did some of the old cross examining
thing and that got less than a few Government MPs
quite riled up because this is what she said.

Speaker 13 (51:05):
Doctor Levy, given your reputation for cooking the box, did
any minister order.

Speaker 5 (51:15):
I don't think that's appropriate to attack in that manner.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
Well, Asa Verel joins us, Now, how are you good evening?

Speaker 13 (51:22):
Andrew?

Speaker 4 (51:23):
It's pretty full on, isn't it. And one which you
repeated without privilege is the limited privilege in this sect committee.
But you've said it outside as well, so you're pretty
confident you're telling the truth. But it's pretty full on.

Speaker 21 (51:32):
Well.

Speaker 13 (51:32):
The important issue here is that the Order to General
has identified two transactions and two reversals that have to
be made to help New Zealanders. New Zealand's accounts that
show that they had tried to put costs into the
past financial years and that would have the result of
making that look worse and have it and make the

(51:54):
next financial year look better. And the reason this matters
is because New Zealanders have been told that health services
need to health budgets and services need to be cut
because Health New Zealands and a deficit. Well, we found
out over two hundred million of that deficit is due
to these unusual accounting treatments. So that's actually what we
went into the Selectimittee today.

Speaker 4 (52:15):
Still cook the books suggest criminal activity. That's a heavy.

Speaker 13 (52:18):
Fat rubbish Andrew, that's actually rubbish. That's not a crime.
What it says is that there's.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
Using I said, the phrase cook in the books is
what you say to fusters.

Speaker 13 (52:31):
No, it could be that these accounts had been presented
in a way that's non conventional. That's what cooked the
books means, and that's exactly what I'm saying. This is
pretty fishy. You have this process which is being used
tostify healthcares, where the Order to General said the accountman
treatment is not right. We also had the Chief Financial

(52:51):
Office of Health New Zealand having her job changed and
she had to leave. Plus we had most of the
people in finance at Health New Zealand non disclosure. This
is very strange. It needs to be explained a lot
of this.

Speaker 4 (53:03):
Of course very hard for many people to actually comprem ahend.
But can I just suggest that what you're suggesting is
that when mister Levy was in charge of DHBs, he
made the accounts look better, and now that he's in
charge of Health New Zealand, he's making the accounts look
worse well that.

Speaker 13 (53:17):
What I read to least levy around that the treatment
of DHDS was a quote already in the public donate it.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
So I get the impression here.

Speaker 13 (53:28):
Back in June, the government told the country that there
was a massive deficit at health in New Zealand and
that a commissioner is being brought in, and that said
and train a series of cuts to health services, that
have nurses on strike, that have people being told that
they can't even get on wasting lists, and all of
this is because of the finances. So of course it's
incredibly important that we understand the finances. And this is

(53:51):
the point the Bembs regularity that it is totally my
job as a parliamentarian.

Speaker 4 (53:56):
I get the impression of them. I shall get the
impression you're not going to apologize.

Speaker 13 (54:01):
Well, the I'm not going to apologize. When the Health
New Zealand accounts land in Parliament on the day of
scrutiny week, when every other Crown entity has them in
Parliament beforehand, it does seem like they are a repeated opportunity,
a repeated measures taken by the government to make sure

(54:23):
we don't have the information we need to get to
the bottom of these very important questions for the New
Zealand public. But if you go to if you go
to work to leave, the r outlined a very different
process to the chair of the Selectility. We'll see what
comes with that.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
You've also accused leader of manufacturing a crisis, but the
thing is he was brought into actually fix a crisis.
He can't manufacture the crisis when he wasn't there to
manufacturer in the first place.

Speaker 13 (54:45):
There are times of a manufactured crisis across the country.
You look at the fact that the government claimed that
there was a three billion dollar cost of need in
hospital and then they've never actually provided the unreducted documents
to prove that's the case. You look at what they've done,
what the Health ca Zealand accounts, which are just detailed.
They said it was going to be a one what
was it a one point four and then a one

(55:06):
point eight billion dollar deficit and neither of those figures
are any longer on the count aunt and they were
two hundred million dollars out. All of these things are
being used to justify cats the services that all ordinary
New Zealanders need and deserve. That is exactly what a
manufactured crisis.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
Is okay, but using such inflammatory language completely diverts the
attention away from the issues that you are talking about.

Speaker 13 (55:31):
Now, Andrew, that's a robust radio show. It's routine on
this show that you hold people to account. Are we
really saying in New Zealand it's too tough to say
to a public official cock the box? Is that really
the case? Because that seems to be incredibly fragile if you.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
Look up cook the books and the Oxford dictionaraders associated
with illegal fraudulent behavior, and it wouldn't be surprised if
thisster Levy wanted to take a defamation case against you.
Yet all he asked for was an apology. Well nice,
You're going to go around telling people their crooks the
whole time. Are they ever going to do anything great?

Speaker 19 (56:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 13 (56:11):
So I think that that's not the point. I asked
him a fair enough question about the treatment of health
New Zealand accounts, and the fact is that what was
presented to our committee last and September, a week after
he appeared, I might add, is very different and that
tells a very different story. I think it's totally fair
for us to hold people to account on this very.

Speaker 4 (56:32):
Good and I thank you for your time today. Thank you,
Hi Severil, who is not going to say sorry.

Speaker 13 (56:38):
We've got a.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Huddle with New Zealand Southby's international realty, local and global
exposure like no other.

Speaker 4 (56:45):
So on the huddle we have Ryan Bridge, who's still awake.
Good evening, Thank you to be very good man, and
of course Mark Sainsbury as well, broadcaster, welcome back back,
get a andry what you're doing these days?

Speaker 21 (57:01):
Well, well, bits and pieces. I still do a lot
of well used to do a lot of event work
and a bit of media advice, so.

Speaker 4 (57:09):
You can I just ask the question, is the media?
So obviously you're preparing to actually become mayor of Willington,
is okay? Now look, gentlemen, you have just heard a
severel and the Battle against Leicster Levy, And as I
said beforehand, you know, gosh, don't you wish we had
a duel and we could actually do ten pieces and
you know see what happens next. What did you make

(57:29):
of that run?

Speaker 7 (57:32):
Well, it's scrutiny, wheat and shock horror.

Speaker 19 (57:34):
There's a bit of scrutiny.

Speaker 7 (57:36):
I mean the problem I sort of agree with what
Isshaba was saying towards the end of that interview, like,
are we being a bit precious with the whole use
of that phrase? But it's kind of it's the right
issue to wrong approach. I think for her, she's at
risk of looking like she's playing the man and not
the ball. And she didn't need to bring up the
past because she said it was a history of cooking

(57:57):
the books. She's got a smoking gun in the newsroom
reporting from today that there was this financial trickery that
they were trying to do, trying to switch the cost
for some years, attribute them to others. There was a whistleblower.
The order to general says you can't do that. There's
your spoken gumb that's your amo for your session. No
need to raise the passing discretion. So I think right issue,

(58:20):
probably wrong approach because the headline now looks like you
know ver all ghosts there.

Speaker 4 (58:25):
Well, that's right, and that's is Zach how I treated
the interview. That you went so ballistic that you're taking
all all detension off your message.

Speaker 18 (58:32):
Mark.

Speaker 21 (58:33):
Yeah, look, I'm a bit I'm a bit with Brian
on this one. I mean, in one, in one sense,
you could sort of say, oh, look you know that's
is this a fametory calling someone the cooking the books.

Speaker 19 (58:42):
Lest the leave.

Speaker 21 (58:42):
He's been round a long time and he's suffered the
slings and arrows at most places.

Speaker 19 (58:47):
That he's gone.

Speaker 21 (58:48):
So yeah, I mean, you look at those select committee
processes in the UK, you know, once we had murd
up get the pie in the face. I reckon, they're
great and it's a great forum to have a look
at things. So I think there's a bit of both.
I think, yes, she probably could have been more had
a more fruitful attack taking it from another way, but
you know, it's not the end of the world. And
boy boy, I mean I've heard worse things thrown around

(59:10):
in that place.

Speaker 19 (59:12):
Than that.

Speaker 4 (59:13):
Absolutely, gentlemen, it's lovely to have you on the program.
We're back in just a few months time and it's
fourteen to six.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
The Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty Elevate the
Marketing of your Home.

Speaker 4 (59:25):
Mark Jamesbury and Ryan Bridge on the Huddle today. Mark,
can I ask you, are you a Nylon man or
a wool man when it comes to a KO home?

Speaker 19 (59:34):
Oh, definitely definitely.

Speaker 16 (59:35):
Wolf.

Speaker 4 (59:36):
What if I think, you know, what if it's more expensive.

Speaker 19 (59:40):
Well, see this this thing has to be a trade off.

Speaker 21 (59:42):
Iign Lander years ago they refurbished the beehive, they discovered
all the veneer that used has sort of come from
some endangered forest in Indonesia or somewhere, you know, with
ire supposed to and they had to sort of rip
it all out and do it again. Becau, they're supposed
to also show an example. And if you're tunning government departments,
try and look support our industry support products. You know,
I think there should be a buying guy from supporting

(01:00:04):
New Zealand supplies wherever possible. And I think in the
wool in the street needs us much support and get
and it's a fantastic product.

Speaker 4 (01:00:12):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 19 (01:00:13):
I agree.

Speaker 4 (01:00:13):
Well, look they say it's going to be thirty four
percent more expensive to put it in wool. But then
the brimwidth guy and the carpet milk guy have come
out and said they didn't even ask us. And you know,
we see so little of this carpet Ryan that that
we could have sharpened the pencil and be more than competitive.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:00:28):
I think hold fire for a one to eighty U
turn on this one. Mark Patterson, the associate Agriculture Minister
sounds like he's going to do some tweaking to the
procurement rules and they'll reverse it. I mean, when else
do you get farmers, the Greens, Winston Peters all sitting
down holding handsinging kumbaya on the same issue. And it's

(01:00:48):
in the coalition agreement with New Zealand First as well.
There is a tabat on that agreement where it says
we're practical, and you could argue that maybe with that
cost in seventy five thousand honds, it's not practical. But
I think they're going to go back to the drawing
board and they're going to come back and they're going
to one eight.

Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
Right, Well, okay, we'll see. Ryan. You're right, it's part
of the New Zealand First coalition agreement. But at the
same time, you know, doing preferential deals for corporates would
not be what ACT believes in, So the other coalition
partner we'll be saying, no, that's corporate welfare.

Speaker 9 (01:01:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:01:21):
The most interesting part of the story, I think is
the wording in the document. I mean, why not even
allow the wool industry to apply to be a for
the contract. Of course, it is specifically no, Well, I
mean they might discount their products and beat the nylon price.

Speaker 19 (01:01:39):
You know, why not let them try.

Speaker 5 (01:01:41):
That doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
I think it was a low level functionary who just
made a decision based on a gut feeling.

Speaker 19 (01:01:47):
You record, Andrew.

Speaker 21 (01:01:48):
They could have said, you guys are telling us to
save money everywhere. Well snuffed you in your preference cheap adoption.

Speaker 19 (01:01:54):
Then you can wear it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
Okay, we're talking about the lack of money. Of course,
we have the reports through the public sector. Christmas parties
are going to be pretty sad that nobody's actually having one.
They can't afford to have one, and they're not even
going to have one and pay for it themselves. So
do you feel any sympathy, Mark, Yeah.

Speaker 19 (01:02:12):
Look I do.

Speaker 21 (01:02:13):
But look I can remember back in the days when
you know you're working at tv ins. The Christmas party
is greatly reduced over time, but it used to be
when you're.

Speaker 19 (01:02:21):
Working some of the Christmas party is something you affward
to all year. That's gone.

Speaker 21 (01:02:24):
I mean those days are gone when they started asking
people to pay for it. You organize it yourself, you
get a better do. But you know, once again, you're
in a public service. You're just laid off sort of
whatever percentage of your work colleagues are down the road.
It's not a great look to be seen in spending
money on a Christmas.

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
Okay, well here here's another point of it is well
known the public service pay packets are actually lower than
private areas. So you've taken you've taken a hit in
your personal money to actually help the world, Ryan and
to help the country, and they don't even say thank
you by buying you a couple of chardies.

Speaker 7 (01:02:58):
No, these bureaucrats don't bother turning up for work these days.
They instead of working from home, they can party from
home and they can do it on their own dime.
I'm not having I did feel bad actually reading the
story said that there was it spoke about Crown Law.
I think it was there's a Crown Law Social Committee
fund raising group. Yes, I mean how that just sounds sad,

(01:03:21):
doesn't it. Imagine someone going around doing a sausage or
happening around.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
Can I just say the city council has been doing
that forever because they don't fund that sort of stuff,
and you've got all their managers. If they're going to
say thank you, they pay for their own pocket.

Speaker 19 (01:03:38):
I did.

Speaker 21 (01:03:38):
Let's create some envy here you guys having a Christmas
were of course we are.

Speaker 9 (01:03:42):
Do you have to pay?

Speaker 19 (01:03:44):
No any jobs going?

Speaker 4 (01:03:49):
You can enter Ryan, Ryan took the job. Mate, you
should have applied. Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:03:55):
You must be the.

Speaker 19 (01:03:55):
Only guys running a bready. Well you know successful.

Speaker 4 (01:03:59):
Successful have you ever?

Speaker 10 (01:04:01):
Have you?

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
Mark Sainsbury? You call yourself a broadcaster. You've never heard
of the word contra?

Speaker 19 (01:04:06):
Yeah? Yes, well, in fact we used to do that
in there.

Speaker 4 (01:04:10):
We don't know, sirch what stays and broadcasting stays and
stays and broadcasting you know what I mean? Thank you gentlemen,
Ryan Bridge, Mark Sainsbury. This is news talks in b.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Red or Blue, Trump or Harris? Who will win the
battleground states? The latest on the US election. It's Heather
Duplicy Alan drive with one New Zealand. Let's get connected talk.

Speaker 4 (01:04:35):
All right, we're in this business. We talk a lot
about optics. Optics are very very important things. You know,
you can do something that is you think right, but
if it looks bad, it looks bad, and then sudden
things go a bit funny. So let's talk about Aischeverril
and the optics of he cooked the books, as someone
said as a finance professional, cooking the books as a

(01:04:57):
profoundly insulting phrase and implies malfeasants. She knows exactly what
she said, and that was the point of my interview
with Aisher. She knew exactly what she meant by that,
and it took away from the Actually, I wasn't there
to argue about whether the books work were wrong or
right or where we're at. I was there to talk
about her behavior in this select committee and the ways

(01:05:19):
she said cook the books. Sue says that was a
good interview because Aischer was showing herself to be unprofessional.
She did a low blow in politics. She knew what
cooked the Books meant and it is a serious accusation
and she kept with it. Speaking of optics, we have
two high profile presenters departing Television New Zealand. It's just

(01:05:40):
been announced the presenters to go, and we know the
problems that TV instead are going through right now, our
breakfast co hosts Ada Burns Francis and also sports presenter
Haley Holt leaving as the broadcaster looks to show presenters.
Both those women are currently absent from work on the

(01:06:00):
Trinity leave and how would you feel if you were
a woman working for TV and Z right now seeing
how they were being treated at that moment. So when
I talk about optics, there's a bit of bad optics
as well. But that's what's happened in these hard times.
All right, coming up we mean business between six and seven.
Guess what international students are on the rise big time.

(01:06:22):
We're nearly up to pre COVID levels. Remember the money
they brought to CBDs. So we'll talk about that round
about six thirty five. Next Todd McLay about what are
we going to do about all these pine trees taking
good lands? This is New Stalks EB.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
If we're Business meets Insight the Business Hour with Andrew
Dickens and my Hr on New Stalks at B.

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Thanks, good evening and welcome to the program. It is
now seper but it's after sex. So let's talk about
converting farmland into forestry. The government has brought in new
rules to stop so much farmland being converted into that
forestry land. It's now going to be more difficult to
get exotic forest planted on the most productive land, going
to become difficult to get it into the emissions trading scheme.

(01:07:11):
So Tom McClay is balancing two of his ministerial hats
on his head at once for this announcement, and the
Minister of Agriculture and also the Minister of Forestry jointing. Now, hello,
Minister Andrew, good afternoon. What are you actually changing? How
have you done this?

Speaker 22 (01:07:29):
Yeah, well, this is something we campaigned on, it was
policy before the election when we're in opposition, and we've
just taken the year to make sure we can get
the detail right so there's no unintended consequences. What we're
saying is for our most productive food producing land that
has a classification sort of a one through five think
of dairy and horticulture land, things like that, we're putting

(01:07:50):
a moratorium in place so there can be no full
farm full farm to forest conversion, but we are allowing
farmers to convert up to twenty five percent of their
own land to go into the missions trading scheme should
they wish, because you know there is a role for that,
particularly in areas that they think should have trees rather
than perhaps be farming on Luck six land, which is

(01:08:11):
some of the quite hilly sheep type land where we're
putting in place a quota or a cap of fifteen
thousand hectares per year, which can be converted outside of
that any other types of land, a land that's not
actively farmed, there will be no change to the rules.
And we're also looking at any land that has a
treaty obligation on it. It's MARI multiple owned land would

(01:08:34):
be Aside from that, does.

Speaker 4 (01:08:35):
This classification Do these categories already exist or are you
going to have to do a survey of New Zealand
land to classify it all and say that's good, that's
really good, that's rubbish.

Speaker 22 (01:08:45):
No, it already exists and it is already used by council,
so it does exist. But one of the things we're
also saying is that where a landowner or a farmer
thinks that the classification that a council has may not
be correct, they can ask for reassessed at a farm level.
We're also being very clear that we're not taking away

(01:09:06):
the ability for people to do things where they've already
made a decision. So any decision that somebody has to
have invested where they have already or can demonstrate an
intention to be able to, you know, to want to
go and plant trees. Up to today, they're able to
continue to but the you know, the decision will take
effect from today onwards once a law comes into place.

Speaker 4 (01:09:27):
Well, it's their land, it's their choice, isn't it. There
is a freedom of doing what you want with your
own property.

Speaker 19 (01:09:32):
Yeah, that's that's exactly right.

Speaker 22 (01:09:34):
But what we are finding is that because of the
emission trading scheme and an expectation of that the carbon
price will go up over time, that investors.

Speaker 19 (01:09:42):
Are looking to do things with land they wouldn't otherwise.
But I do agree with you. If a landowner wants
to plant trees on their farm and not going to
the mission's trading scheme, our announcement today will have no
effect upon that, they're able to do so.

Speaker 4 (01:09:56):
So this moratorium on certain bands for etes cre and
all that, how much how much would it decrease the
amount of forestation of productive land?

Speaker 22 (01:10:06):
Well, there are estimates from Beef and Lamb and others
that over the last six to seven years about two
hundred and sixty thousand hectares of land forests farmland has
been converted into trees for the emissions trading scheme.

Speaker 19 (01:10:18):
A lot of that is the luck six land are
less four one through five.

Speaker 22 (01:10:23):
Although I've just been with the Prime ministers out in
Southland where some dairy farms have been purchased to be converted,
and that's because the people purshoning that believes I'll make
more money out of those carbon credits and they will
milking cows. And so what we have seen over the
last three or four years or towards the end of
the Labor government a very fast, deep escalation of purchasers

(01:10:44):
of farmland to go into trees.

Speaker 19 (01:10:45):
So this will slow that down. That doesn't stop it.
That slows it down.

Speaker 22 (01:10:49):
There is a very important role for pine trees and
other types of trees to play, not only in the
economy but also to meet our carbon reduction obligations. We
just want to get that balance right and some rule
so you know, the highly productive land that produces the
food in the export doesn't get taken away to the
grid has been.

Speaker 4 (01:11:08):
And we'll see it as well. But you know, at
the same time, do you honestly believe that the planting
of trees is actively decreasing climate change?

Speaker 19 (01:11:17):
Well, it's sequest as carbon is the point, and we
have an obligation in to nationally to reduce That was
the question.

Speaker 4 (01:11:24):
Do you believe it? Do you believe it works well?

Speaker 19 (01:11:26):
Because well, the answer is yes. The answer is yes,
I do.

Speaker 22 (01:11:30):
Because if you get to a net zero situation where
the amount you're emitting, the carbon you're emitting is sequested elsewhere,
then actually you can stop warning.

Speaker 19 (01:11:41):
We'll have a bit more to talk about that over
the next few days and some other.

Speaker 22 (01:11:45):
Areas where we have policy we're developing where we want
to part with the Provo sixs of plant trees on
crown land that has very low conservation of farming value.

Speaker 19 (01:11:55):
But the answer is yes.

Speaker 22 (01:11:56):
It is shown around the world that actually you can
plant Teresa supquested of carbon that mitigates where you may
be emitting carbon somewhere else in the economy.

Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
Very good, and we need to remember that there's an
awful lot of unproductive land in New Zealand. There's only
a very small amount that is actually the primo land,
and so we do have upside on there. I know
you've also announced our methane admissions targets. What are they
and how are we going to meet?

Speaker 22 (01:12:21):
Well, no, we haven't announced the targets. What we committed
for the election was an independent scientific review of a
biogenic methane so methane from animals against additional warming. We
set up an independent panel of experts from New Zealand
and around the world to give government advice.

Speaker 19 (01:12:37):
We've published that advice today.

Speaker 22 (01:12:39):
The Climate Change Commission also is about to publish some
advice as well. We're going to take some time to
consider both of these pieces of advice and during the
course of next year we'll come up with a target
for agriculture. Currently in legislation, agriculture has to reduce its
omissions methane emissions by twenty four to forty twenty fifty
what the pendent to review has said, so that there

(01:13:02):
would be no additional warming and to meet our international obligations,
a reduction of twenty four percent by twenty fifty would
be required. But we're going to take some time to
consider that before the Climate Change Minister has the legislative
responsibility and Cabinet will make a decision on exactly what
the target for agriculture should be.

Speaker 4 (01:13:20):
Well, a very comprehensive answer of a very complicated business,
and I thank you so much, Tom McLay, Minister of
lots of Stuff that I thank you very much. It
is now fourteen minutes after six, but here's one in
text Cavin during it, I didn't ask the question. It
wasn't what was on the table, but it is a
good question, Andrew. Will there be a cap for productive
land going into housing, which is certainly a big issue

(01:13:42):
book a co. Immediately somebody says, that's a bigger issue
on our best land. Well, yeah, maybe maybe not. In
a few moments time, we're going to talk about the
government's plans to reduce the amount that employees can be
compensated by their employers, in some cases to zero. I
know you're interested. It's next here on news storks he.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Be analysis from the experts, bringing you everything you need
to know on the US election. It's the Business Hour
with Heather Duplicy, Allen and my Hr Ehr solution for
busy SMEs news talks.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
They'd be.

Speaker 4 (01:14:15):
There's an interesting one news talk SEB. The government has
unveiled plans to reduce the amount aggrieved employees can be
compensated by their employees to zero in some cases. All right,
so this is a change, you know, to the Employment
Relations Act. Brook van Velden is driving this. She's the
workplace relations. She has the worry that employees are incentivized

(01:14:38):
to and I quote, try their luck with a personal
grievance in the hope of getting a payout. So Genative
Shrenni is The Herald's Wellington business Editorncy's been looking.

Speaker 5 (01:14:49):
At the story.

Speaker 4 (01:14:50):
Hello, hi Andrew, how are you doing very good? So
to zero? So, so the minister is wanting to reduce
the money that an employee can get. But what if
the complaint has been upheld, you know, and BORI decided
it's zero. Do they not get money even though their
complaint has been upheld? This seems weird.

Speaker 23 (01:15:08):
Yeah, that's right. So basically, if you're an employee, you
can take your employer to the employment relations authority or
the employment court and you can bring forward a personal grievance.
So that's if you think you've been unfairly dismissed or
you know, harassed or humiliated or something like that in
the workplace, you can take your complaint forward. Now, the

(01:15:29):
authority or the court could uphold your complaint. They could
say yes to nay, that's fine. You know you have
been treated badly by your employer. But what Brooke van
Valden is saying is that she reckons the authority and
the court should be able to discount the amount that
you get paid out if you've actually done something bad
as well in the process. So currently that's the case.

(01:15:49):
Let's say I'm dismissed because I perform really poorly. Currently
they can say, well, you're not going to get the
full payout because you actually haven't been a very good employee.
What she's saying is that if you've done something really
bad like stolen or hurt somebody, your employer doesn't need
to pay you out at all. So the authority in

(01:16:11):
the court can say, yes, actually you're you know, you've
been unfairly dismissed, but you've acted so badly your employer
doesn't need to pay you anything.

Speaker 4 (01:16:20):
So as the idea will she have to will have
to therefore schedule all the various complaints that employee employees
can have of employers and vice versa, so that we
know exactly whether you're a zero you're whether you're a
ten buck, or whether you're a one thousand.

Speaker 19 (01:16:38):
Yeah, good question.

Speaker 23 (01:16:39):
So currently the court and the authority has some discretion
to discount the amount that you get paid out. But
she wants to tweak the law to say that actually,
if the employee employee has engaged in serious misconduct, now
that has some sort of legal definition serious misconduct, then
you get nothing. There's another thing that she wants to

(01:17:02):
change here, whereby if reducing the sort of compensation you
might get for hurt and humiliation again if your behavior
contributed towards the dispute. So there's already a bit of
a scale here where, you know, because these things are
never clear cut right. Often it's you know, a bit
of give and take, and it's a bit of this,

(01:17:22):
and the court and the authority can already use that scale.
But she wants to tip things very much in favor
of employers because she thinks people are sort of taking
the mickey a little bit, and you know, and this
is creating uncertainty and hurting businesses.

Speaker 4 (01:17:41):
And whenever people, whenever people make these sorts of accusations
and they say we're doing this, you say, well, have
you got evidence? Has Brook van Alden van Velden got
evidence of employees exploiting personal grievances because there's money tree
at the end of it.

Speaker 23 (01:17:55):
Yeah, well that's that is a good question. And you know,
she's just referred to some and don't evidence. For example,
she said, there was a case where you know, no
names or anything, just where someone worked in health care,
they abused a patient and then they got their job
back at the end of it. She said, well, that's
that's not on. But the thing here is that, you know,
if you do have a personal grievance, it still costs

(01:18:16):
you money to take it forward in most cases, depending
on you know, sorts of legal services you have access to.

Speaker 19 (01:18:24):
So I yess.

Speaker 23 (01:18:24):
The unions would argue that actually, as an employee, you
might already be on the back foot. You don't want
to cause a saga and go through all that stress
and everything unnecessarily. So the unions say, well, there's already
power and balance. But then the employer's groups they say, well,
you know, an employer and employer shouldn't be penalized if

(01:18:48):
they just did their paperwork incorrectly or did something minor,
but the employee actually did the bad thing, like the
employee actually didn't turn up to work or punch somebody
at work or stole So it's a it's a pretty
heated debate. I think it's sextually it's quite complicated.

Speaker 4 (01:19:03):
Yeah, absolutely, very abstract and very hard to actually quantify.
And you know, the employers feel like sitting ducks and
they feel that they're being exploited, and the employees feel
like they're just pawns at the end of the day
again getting exploited.

Speaker 8 (01:19:14):
And so there we go.

Speaker 4 (01:19:15):
An interesting story. Thank you Jane Janet de Brishani, who
is our Wellington Business editor. And this is News Talks
heb It is now twenty two minutes after six.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
Quenching the numbers and getting the results.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
It's Andrew Dickens with the Business Hour thanks to my
HR the HR solution for busy Smmy's on News talksb.

Speaker 4 (01:19:38):
Sex twenty five. Let's talk about the n z X
and I'm joined by Sam Trathui and he's from Milford
Asset Management.

Speaker 24 (01:19:44):
Hellos, Sam evening Andrew.

Speaker 4 (01:19:47):
So, the market, the ins and X has been a
material underperformer, particularly when you're compared to major offshore share
markets this year.

Speaker 24 (01:19:56):
Why I think, Look, firstly, it's ten percent over the
course of the year, which is not a bad years
and it's definitely what I call respectable, but agree like
it's not the twenty five thirty percent that we are
seeing in major offshore share markets the likes of the
S ANDB five hundred, et cetera. So why hasn't kept
up Really three key reasons. So firstly, interest rates the

(01:20:19):
first half of this year, the stance taken by the
RBNZS was a really big headwind to the local market.
It's pretty sensitive dentist rates, the dividen yields, et cetera.
The attractive and attractiveness of them as a big driver
of performance, and it wasn't until that first cut that
we saw from the RBNS in July that that pressure is. Secondly,
corporatings have been under pressure. That's the what we all

(01:20:43):
can see and feel in the economy coming through and
heading the market. And then finally, if you look closely
at the performance of those major share markets offshore at
the return, it's really been driven by a handful of stocks.
So take the US for example, the Magnificent seven there
led by Navidi on the artificial official intelligence theme. That

(01:21:03):
stock is up one hundred and eighty percent this year,
so it's.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
A big part of the market.

Speaker 24 (01:21:07):
The INXETX does have some winners. Frish and Buckle Health
get the largest stock up sixty percent this year, but
not to the same extent, So three key differences there.

Speaker 4 (01:21:16):
Andrew, Okay, so what about the year ahead?

Speaker 24 (01:21:19):
I think, Look, the headline really is that I'm probably
more optimistic about the outlook for the inxet X that
we than I have been in some time. And that's
really since the pandemic. So where interustrates are heading, the
official cash rate towards three percents, and the prospect of
improving economic conditions in the year ahead and then therefore

(01:21:40):
improving corporate earnings really are the big drivers there. If
you look back at history pre the pandemic, when we're
last cutting intostrates back and from say twenty fifteen to
twenty twenty, back then we had the rockstar economy, but
we also had a rockstar share market, and that's when
we saw some pretty persistent steady flow market looking for

(01:22:00):
better returns.

Speaker 19 (01:22:01):
Most of that was term deposits.

Speaker 24 (01:22:03):
So it will be interesting to see as ten rates
a stem deposit rates come down, will that drive the
share market higher like it has in the past.

Speaker 4 (01:22:12):
Well, we always said, you know, survive until twenty five,
but these days they're saying, well, twenty five is still
going to be a grind. Let's get to twenty six.
Would you agree with that?

Speaker 24 (01:22:20):
I think, well, the testers and what we're not seeing
yet as if the interest rate cuts that are coming
through from the Reserve Bank when they do actually start
to start to influence the local economy, and that's what
we really need to see. And I think people are
hopeful of it at the stage. But twenty six, to
your point, certainly looks a lot easier and a lot

(01:22:42):
better set up than twenty five And.

Speaker 4 (01:22:44):
Does the nz X. Does do New Zealand need a
hero stock like in video? And before we go too
much about in video, see the SMP says that AAI
might be being a little bit over hyped in America,
but still there's are hero stock there. Do we really
need one of those to make our markets perform?

Speaker 19 (01:22:58):
I think it.

Speaker 24 (01:22:59):
Look it's certainly was the biggest story, the biggest thematic
of twenty twenty four, and I expect that to evolve
in the video to the aartmatic and Nvidia to evolve
into the next test stage over the year head So
maybe it's into software companies that benefit from that AI
tech to new point around how long it can last.
But locally we have had these stocks before at Milk

(01:23:22):
for instance, dominated the market a while ago. And you know,
sure it does help performance, but I think the biggest
drivers that interest rate set up and where the economic
conditions he had. So certainly if they do improve, it
is a very good prospect to your head.

Speaker 4 (01:23:39):
Sam, Thank you so much. Merry Christmas, Sam tra Thority
from Milford's Asset Management. Christmas Music Goodness Sake is in December.

Speaker 5 (01:23:47):
Oh it is too.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
News is next, whether it's macro micro or just playing economics.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
It's all on the Business Hour with Andrew Dickens and
my HR the HR solution for busy SMS news talks.

Speaker 10 (01:24:03):
It be.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
A friend with lasses, mass.

Speaker 7 (01:24:10):
Can friends.

Speaker 4 (01:24:15):
God, it's a Chrystmas song. It's a real Christmas songs
to change.

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
Last Christmas?

Speaker 4 (01:24:29):
Where's the sleigh belt? All Christmas songs have a sleigh
bell in it. You know, it's been a while since
I've been on news and I was hoping you wouldn't
actually fall for the disease of playing Christmas music far
too early, but you have. It's okay. Now, do you
remember about an hour ago and I was talking about
I said Verel and you may also remember that she

(01:24:51):
said that she accused Lester Levy of cooking the books,
and I said to her, do you know that cooking
the books under the Oxford English Dictionary is considered to
be a criminal and a legal activity? And I would
be surprised if Lester Levy wanted to take a defamation
suit against you. And she said, oh, heart it up,
or something to that line. This is what Lester Levy
said a short time ago.

Speaker 25 (01:25:11):
I'd like her to reflect on her comments that she
made to me, which were totally unfair, disappointing and inappropriate.
I think that it could be considered to be defamatory
and we will have a look at that, but it
was unnecessary.

Speaker 4 (01:25:28):
Yeah, well, we're going to watch this one. I remember
I just said that there's limited there's limited privilege in
the Select committee halls. That's because there are members of
the public there. So okay, when you're in the House
you can go go for broke. You're not going to
be done. You get into the Select committee. There's a
limited privilege there because there are members of the public
who can hear the terrible slurs that you make about

(01:25:51):
your fellow parliamentarians, et cetera. And then if you're outside well,
it's open slother guess what I should did it in
a select committee and then outside in a stand up
and on this program she said, I'm not saying sorry,
so she's all on. We will keep an eye on
this for you. Thank you so very very much. Asha,
it's gold. It's twenty one to seven. Andrew dickens, Okay,

(01:26:12):
good news for our universities. International student numbers are up
all up. There were seventy three thousand enrollments between January
and August this year, up twenty four percent. Remember this
is tertiary, secondary and primary. The Tertiary Education Ministers says
international student enrollments at universities are now just seven percent

(01:26:33):
below pre COVID levels. So University's New Zealand CEO Chris
Wheelan joins, you are now good eving to here, Chris Hi,
how are you good? How big a win?

Speaker 19 (01:26:43):
Is this? Look?

Speaker 16 (01:26:45):
Very pleasing to see We are almost back to where
we were pre COVID and it's just very pleasing to
see students coming back from our traditional markets. You know,
we knew there was strong dem and it's just good
to see it actually play out like this.

Speaker 4 (01:27:02):
Are some universities getting stronger interests than others.

Speaker 16 (01:27:06):
It varies a little bit, but in general numbers are
coming back very strongly across all of our universities. There
are broadly they're only on average they're down only slightly
pretty much for every university from what they were pre COVID.

Speaker 4 (01:27:23):
China and India obviously lead the statistics. Are we getting
other students too.

Speaker 16 (01:27:28):
Look, we're trying to. We certainly still have more than
fifty percent of our students from China. It's a massively
important market for us, and you know we love having
Chinese students, but obviously we would also like to be
able to grow in other markets, perhaps a little bit
less dependent. That's a set of ongoing conversations that we'll

(01:27:48):
be having, particularly with ministers and immigration in immigration New
Zeoning colleagues, because often it's some of the evidentiary requirements,
requirements around things like finances and such that students struggle
from some countries to demonstrate to be able to get here.

Speaker 4 (01:28:07):
Universities have always put in a lot of effort to
get international student enrollments. Have we put in even more
efforts since the Great Coapse?

Speaker 16 (01:28:15):
Look, I don't know that we've put in any more
effort I think it's perhaps been different effort. So we know,
you know, we've had to rebuild interest in our pipelines.
A lot of our students come through, for example, overseas agents.
We've spent a lot of time working with those agents.
We've spent a lot of time going back to university

(01:28:37):
fairs to make sure we're visible to our students, and
it's clearly paying off.

Speaker 4 (01:28:43):
Just one thing, primary school enrollments are up sixty nine percent.
That's about thirty thousand people. Who are these people and
they're surely not people seeking news on education, more likely
the children of immigrant workers that are here in only
part time. So is this making the statistics seem a
little bit better than they really are.

Speaker 16 (01:29:00):
Always had reasonably good numbers of primary and secondary school students.
You know, what we know as a system is that
you know, these you know, we don't know necessarily that
much around their backgrounds, except that obviously they're not permanent
residents or citizens, so they are recorded as international students.
We know that a lot of them do continue through

(01:29:22):
from primary school to secondary school and on to tertiary education.
And those that actually remain after tertiary education, it's a
small percentage but they do add an awful lot to
our economy, so it's well worth getting those students in
through school.

Speaker 4 (01:29:36):
How healthy are universities and certainly after COVID and of
course also and the drop at international students and a
falling trust in tertiary education, It saw some of our
universities over the last few years just interest from collapse.
Where are they at now?

Speaker 16 (01:29:53):
Look, I don't think i'd characterize any of our universities
being anywhere near collapse. I think it's a challenging financial environment.
I think international students are an incredibly helpful part of
managing our way through that environment. But far more than that,
So much of the success of our universities depends on

(01:30:14):
having good international relationships. An awful lot of those come
out of our international students. So it's just great to
have them back.

Speaker 4 (01:30:21):
And here's the big question, of course, do you think
we're seven percent down on what we used to have
pre COVID? Do you think we can get to that level?
In fact, do you think we can go beyond that level?

Speaker 16 (01:30:31):
I'm more than confident of that. We know from these
are applications for students who are wanting to start next year.
We should easily return to pre COVID levels for next year.

Speaker 4 (01:30:45):
Thank you so much. Chris Whelan is the university's New
Zealand CEO and the time is now seventeen minutes to seven.
So one of the big stories that we've had over
a little while there is the renaissance, the rebirth of
the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris five years since the fire,
and they managed to rebuild this whole thing. A number
of things I want to talk about about that. Number one,
they did it. They did the whole job for what

(01:31:06):
was it a billion euros? And what's that? That's about
what two billion New Zealand dollars. And yet we to
build a train line through Auckland's costing five point five
and going up. Could we have all those French guys
with the oak, could they come down here and actually
build our trains because they appeared to be a lot
more efficient in building a beautiful thing than we are.
That's the first thing. But I think they built it

(01:31:27):
because of a national pride and they know they felt it.
It was in their heart and their soul. They would
have done it for free, they would have paid to
do it, I guess. So that's the first thing. The
second thing is I know that Doctre done quite well.
I lived in France for quite a lot of time,
and I spend a lot of time up there, and
it used to be dark and dingy and gothic, and
the new Notre Dame is bright and light and airy.
It's amazing and as the guy said, it's going to

(01:31:50):
be great for the next eight hundred and sixty years,
because the whole place is eight hundred and sixty years old. Anyway,
We're going to talk more about that sort of stuff
about brands with Devin Gray because apparently their prime minister
is facing a no confidence vote. The good Priss from
the Notre Dawn doesn't last, obviously. That's next. It is
a quarter to seven.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
Everything from SMEs to the big corporates, The Business Hour
with Andrew Dickens and my HR the HR Solution for
busy SMS on Newstalk ZIBB.

Speaker 4 (01:32:22):
Yes, it is twelve minutes to seven. Off to the
Northern Hemisphere we go Gavin Gray from the UK. Hello, Gevin,
either Andrew, how's is it cold?

Speaker 9 (01:32:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (01:32:32):
Well, last night was cold and people are still suffering.
I'm afraid from the storm of last week. Very heavy
rains and so forth.

Speaker 19 (01:32:40):
But yeah, not not too bad.

Speaker 10 (01:32:42):
It doesn't look at the moment in the long term
forecast like a white Christmas.

Speaker 4 (01:32:46):
However, no, this is true, but there are floods in Spain,
and of course there is snow on the Alps, and
everyone's getting quite excited about this. Let's get down to possess.
The French Prime Minister Michel Bagnier faces a no confidence
vote today. This was of course after I think we're
on hold during the Paris Olympics. But it's all foot
born down, yes, it sure is.

Speaker 10 (01:33:05):
And Michelle Barnier and indeed the French government facing I
think a very very important day for French politics. Plenty
of people believing that the political spectrum could enter a
period that we've never seen before in France. So what
has happened, of course, is that back in the day,
as it were, Emmanuel Macron called an election. He thought

(01:33:26):
he would strengthen his party. Instead it led to a
really bad, cobbled together coalition party, and then he put
in place the president that put in place the Prime
Minister Michelle Barnier, to try and sort things out. Now,
Michelle Barnier put before politicians this really tough cost cutting,
tax rising budget. Unsurprisingly, people and the politicians don't like it.

(01:33:52):
They keep voting it down. He has then said, well,
I'm just going to push it through, which he did
using special powers. And now today they're holding a vote
of no confidence in him, in which both the far
right and the left wing parties are uniting to vote
against him. So he is set to become the shortest
reigning prime minister in the fifth Republic of France's history

(01:34:15):
just three months. He says, there is no better way forward.
We have to do these things. They're unpleasant, but we've
got to cut costs. Others are saying, well, not on
my watch.

Speaker 4 (01:34:25):
No, No, has anything ever happened that was good. After
someone's used special powers to push through an attractive legislation,
It's very autocratic, isn't it.

Speaker 10 (01:34:36):
Yeah, it seemed an odd thing, but he felt forced
to do it. He kept having to water it down
so that people would agree to vote for it. But
in the end he just couldn't water it down anymore.
So it wasn't worth it, and he pleaded on television
last night, to our time last night, to say to people, look,
you know this will plunge the country into crisis because

(01:34:56):
a general election cannot be held until July, which means
the parties are just going to have to muddle along
for that period and that is where the stock exchanges
have taken fright as well in France.

Speaker 4 (01:35:08):
Finger are quite good at muddling. But anyway, yes, okay,
thank you very much. Right, you've got a COVID corruption commissioner.

Speaker 10 (01:35:15):
Yes, and the staffing work and this is all about
how much PPE personal protective equipment was ordered for health
workers during COVID and it was an amazing amount. Some
eighteen billion New Zealand dollars worth of PPE was bought
during the pandemic that now has had to be written

(01:35:37):
off from the government's books. Now there are reports that
some of it didn't meet the standards, some of it
fell apart, some of it was ordered the wrong way,
it's alleged, and today we're now finding out this COVID
Corruption Minister Tim Haho is going to look at that
amount that was written off in the government books and
also likely to review the previous government's abandoning of it

(01:36:00):
to reclaim the money from deals that were said to
be worth at least one point four billion New Zealand
dollars and the government simply let the trails go cold
because it was felt many people were deliberately trying to
rip off the taxpayer. There is a separate investigation with
criminal offenses potentially at stake committed in the procurement system.

(01:36:21):
Of course, in truth Andrew, it was chaotic. Everyone wanted PPE.
People were just trying to get it from anywhere, and
people were offering it as having never made any PPE before.
And this is this what this new COVID Corruption Commissioner
is going to have to wait for.

Speaker 4 (01:36:37):
What I found amazing is that sitting members of the
House of Parliament were also trying to get into the record,
you know, and I thought, what are you doing there?

Speaker 19 (01:36:45):
Boy?

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):
You know?

Speaker 10 (01:36:46):
Yeah, yeah, there's some lots of oddities, including a fast lane,
a fast track lane of vip lane as it was
called for certain companies. Well you know, why were they
allowed to bed you know, extra fast and of course
the answer as well, sometimes allegedly friends of friends and
sometimes because yeah, the government was just desperate.

Speaker 4 (01:37:06):
Yeah, okay, now how's Queen Camilla?

Speaker 18 (01:37:10):
Not?

Speaker 19 (01:37:10):
Well?

Speaker 10 (01:37:10):
So the Kataris have had a state visit here to
the UK. The Red carpet has been rolled out quite literally,
a visit the House of Parliament for the emmett and
also a state banquet, and on show was the King
and Prince William and Princess Catherine, So Princess Catherine's first

(01:37:31):
state visit since sending her chemotherapy, but no sign of
the Queen. She apparently has taken part of the state visit,
but not having taken part in any event that's outside.
We're now being told her chest infection, which she's had
for several weeks and was told it would be over
in a couple of days, that's been off for several

(01:37:52):
weeks but has transformed and she's struggling with the side
effects of a form of pneumonia. And that's the first
time the said seven year old has had the word
pneumonia described about her from the press officers, And so
it does look a little bit more serious than perhaps
we were all being told.

Speaker 4 (01:38:09):
Yes, but you know, we still don't know what happened
to Princess Kate, but we do know she's.

Speaker 10 (01:38:12):
Back, yes, and many people delighted, of course to see
that it might make mark a full return now to
royal duty for her. And she was looking remarkably good.
I think you know those sorts of things you never
potentially quite recover from. But doing it in the full
face and glare at the media is going to be tough.

(01:38:33):
And of course yes, all eyes were on her rather
than anyone from Katar or the King himself, just to
see how she was looking.

Speaker 4 (01:38:40):
Brilliant stuff. Kevin Grave from the UK, I thank you
for your time. It is now six to.

Speaker 19 (01:38:43):
See him.

Speaker 1 (01:38:46):
Getting ready for a new administration in the US. What
will be the impact?

Speaker 2 (01:38:50):
It's the Business Hour with hither duplicy Ellen and my
HR the HR solution for busy news talks.

Speaker 4 (01:38:57):
It'd be new talks be Andrew, Are you on tomorrow? Yes,
I just found out I am so I'll see you tomorrow. Andrew.
Please note that the French led the CRL contract in Auckland,
so they're not all good. Good point, John and Andrew.
Compare the restoration of the Notre Dame to our christ
Church Cathedral fifteen years and tens of millions to do

(01:39:18):
nothing other than to think about what to do. This
is true, Simon, It's not ten hundreds of millions of
billions like the French. The French were proud of it.
And also the corporates stood up and actually donated money
to fix Notre Dame. But we're not seeing that with
christ Church Cathedral. But hey, that's another story. Hey missus, DJ,
what are you going to play?

Speaker 26 (01:39:34):
Who's Afraid a Little Old Me?

Speaker 16 (01:39:36):
To play?

Speaker 26 (01:39:36):
Us out tonight? Andrew by Taylor Swift. She has thanked
all her fans for listening to her so much that
she became the most streamed artist on Apple Music this year.
Apple Music has released the Apple Music Replay, which is
not Spotify raps but would be if they had got
there first.

Speaker 19 (01:39:51):
And yeah, she was the top.

Speaker 26 (01:39:52):
Streamed artist and the album The Torture Poets Department was
the top stream album. This is my favorite song with
the album, so I thought we'll go up with that one.

Speaker 4 (01:39:58):
My problem. Does she also say even I'm over me?

Speaker 18 (01:40:02):
No?

Speaker 17 (01:40:02):
She didn't.

Speaker 4 (01:40:03):
No, of course, not pretty good? See you tomorrow me.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
Hello, Who's Afraid a Little Me?

Speaker 2 (01:40:26):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio

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