July 20, 2026 • 8 mins
Finance Minister Nicola Willis joined Heather du Plessis-Allan for their weekly chat.
On the Golden Bay Cement bailout, Willis defended the Government's decision to not change the ETS and instead provide funding directly to the company.
"If we had said 'actually no, the ETS doesn't apply to you, Golden Bay Cement', there would have been a conga, well, there could have been a conga line of others who would have said, 'hey, we don't want the ETS to apply to us either.'"
Willis also confirmed that Erica Stanford is expected to make announcements on a potential social media ban in the coming weeks.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nicola Willis Finance ministers with US high nicoler Hither, Okay,
instead of giving sixty million dollars to Golden Base Cement,
why didn't you just tweak the ETS to help.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Them, Because that would have undermined the whole ETS and
the integrity of that scheme. So instead, what we have
done is we've recognized they face high emissions costs relative
to international competitors. We've assessed the finances of that, and
ultimately what we judged was it is going to be
(00:30):
bad for New Zealand if we lose the domestic ability
to manufacture cement here at home. That would expose us
to global supply chain risks and it would mean that
once that factory closed down, it would never be opening again,
and we could find our whole economy coming to a
standstill if we were unable to import cement at some
(00:50):
point in the future.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
So it's a reluctant step that we've taken. It's not
a decision.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
We took lightly, but ultimately we judged this was the
best way to keep cement being manufactured here in the NZ.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
How would your tweak have undermined the ETS?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well, if we had said, actually, no, if the ETS
doesn't apply to you, Golden Base Cement. That conger, Well,
there could have been a conger line of others who
would have said, hey, we don't want the ETS.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
That either.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
That wasn't your only option. I mean, currently you give
free allocation of units to all of these companies. In
any case, you could simply have changed the settings, changed
the algorithm to increase the free allocation.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
You are right that there is an industrial allocation regime
that applies to Golden Based Ement and a range of
other companies. What we were reluctant to do was to
make a bespoke intervention to change the allocation for one
firm because we then knew that all of the other
firms who are part of that regime would say, hah,
that regime doesn't apply anymore. There are going to be changes,
(01:52):
and it would have undermined the UBA.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
But again, that wasn't your own people, That wasn't your
only option. You could have changed the algorithm for everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You are correct, and we weighed up a range of options,
and we judge that ultimately the way to minimize the
risk to the taxpayer, to maintain the integrity of the
emissions trading scheme, and to do this in the least
cost way possible was to do the sixty million dollar
grant approach with the very strict conditions that we've set. Ok, Yes,
(02:21):
we mean a range of options before we came to that.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Explain to me how changing a regulatory setting, which is
just you just changing the allocations that you're giving to
various companies, how's that more expensive than sixty million dollars
to Fletcher.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Because then we wouldn't necessarily just be changing it for Fletcher,
we would be changing the obligations for a range of
other firms and therefore taking on costs that they should
more properly take on themselves, because actually they're already able
to meet those costs. They're not producing goods which are
of such strategic importance as cement, they're not as globally
(02:56):
exposed to trade disruption as cementers. But we'd be getting
them all in the same basket and having to pay
for all of them when actually this is a bespoke,
one off case, and we took a case by case
approach rather.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Than making a generic change to the regular case.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Ye tell me what you think of the ets, because
I'm looking at the ETS. It's adding cost to my
power bill, your power bill out the petrol that we
use to drive the cars. It's also failing at the
auction level. It is driving businesses out of business where
they literally have to come and ask you for money.
And it's not the first business asking government for money
because of the ETS. Is this system working or do
(03:31):
we need to scrap it?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, the ETS is adding cost. And let's be clear,
New Zealand's international obligations to reduce our emissions, in fact,
our domestic legal obligations to reduce our missions come with
a cost. That is reality. In the absence of an
emissions trading scheme, which essentially says to firms, look, if
(03:55):
you're going to use really high carbon ways of doing
your business, that's going to cost you more. Prefer for
you to find lower carbon alternatives and that'll cost you
lesse in the absence of having a price signal, we
do not think that firms would face good incentives to
reduce their emissions and New Zealand would not be able
to meet.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
True.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But then all they want to national obligation, which would
they come great to you about it and you go,
let me give you sixty million dollars to help you
get around your climate obligations.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That is the precedent risk we were very very conscious of,
and we looked into this case as an exceptional example
and we went through three steps. One, this is quite
different in that it is strategically so important that you
can produce cement for your domestic economy that you're not
exposed to not being able to have cement if there
(04:41):
was an international trade disruption. Two, the financial case here
is that actually this is a business that is working
over all. The key thing is just that emission's cost.
And three, we've set in place some really firm requirements
that Golden Bay need to meet in order to get
this cash, with clawbacks if they don't those requirements, and
that includes keeping production going through to at least twenty forty,
(05:04):
making one hundred and fifty million dollars worth of investments
in that manufacturing capability, keeping the jobs at that factory going,
and having an open book exercise with us the government,
so that we can order that investment. So we set
a very high bar. We took a very case by
case approach. Believe you me, I did not want to
be setting a precedent that we're going to keep doing this.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Okay, Hey, what do you think of David Seymour's idea
of banning smartphones for kids?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
That one really caught me by surprise, because I've got
four kids and I can tell you they're accessing social
media on their laptops, on their school computers, on their iPads,
And the idea that if they just didn't have a
smartphone they would no longer be social media harm seemed
a bit far fetched to me.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And that's a fair point that you make, But you
and I both know, I mean, don't you agree with
me that it's more addictive on your phone, right, because
your phone's in your pocket, So it doesn't matter where
you go. You're sitting on the toilet, you pick up
your phone, you go to the doc is waiting in
the waiting room, you pick up the phone. It's everywhere
whereas the laptop is far less compulsive.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
You obviously haven't met my teenage son. I think he
finds the laptop pretty compulsively exciting as well. Yeah, but look,
parents do have a range of choices here, and you know,
certainly in my family, we limited access to smartphones until
the kids were a bit older, and we impose limits
on how they use the thing with social media though,
is it's really difficult for parents to police whether or
(06:30):
not kids have a social media app on their phone
and whether they're using it. And we want to give parents
more tools, more ability to know that their kids are
safe when they are online, and in particular, we want
to put the burden back on the tech companies themselves
to say, look, if you're going to be providing these products,
you need to have some controls.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
You need to limit the harm.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Which he's a bit I agree with David on what
he's acknowledging is social media use by kids is creating harm.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
That's not really up for debate. So how to limited?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
So are you still doing a band? Are you guys
still working on a social media ban?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Erica Stanford is working on that and she expects to
have announcements to make in the next few weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Is it a ban?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Well? What? No, What she's looking at is age restrictions
and restrictions so that the tech companies minimize the harm
that can occur for young people online.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Is it a ban under certain ages?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
She is looking at how you restrict people under the
age of sixteen from using it, and how you minimize
the harms of it.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Why have you backed away from a ban?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Well, no, that that is exactly what she's looking at.
But she's also going broader, which is to say, one,
how do you stop kids under sixteen using it? But
two how do you make sure that the tech companies
are actually managing the impacts of it? Is it a
band they themselves? Yes, she's looking at banning it for
under sixteen.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Oh good, okay, start Nikoler, and then we wouldn't have
been in it of me asking you if it's a ban.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Sorry I thought you were implying a band for everyone. No, no,
sixteens is what she's like.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
No, thank god, No, I still want to be able
to look at all that weird stuff. Hey, thank you appreciated.
Look after yourself. Nichola Willis, Finance Minister. 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.
Nicola Willis Finance ministers with US high nicoler Hither, Okay,
instead of giving sixty million dollars to Golden Base Cement,
why didn't you just tweak the ETS to help.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Them, Because that would have undermined the whole ETS and
the integrity of that scheme. So instead, what we have
done is we've recognized they face high emissions costs relative
to international competitors. We've assessed the finances of that, and
ultimately what we judged was it is going to be
(00:30):
bad for New Zealand if we lose the domestic ability
to manufacture cement here at home. That would expose us
to global supply chain risks and it would mean that
once that factory closed down, it would never be opening again,
and we could find our whole economy coming to a
standstill if we were unable to import cement at some
(00:50):
point in the future.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
So it's a reluctant step that we've taken. It's not
a decision.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
We took lightly, but ultimately we judged this was the
best way to keep cement being manufactured here in the NZ.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
How would your tweak have undermined the ETS?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well, if we had said, actually, no, if the ETS
doesn't apply to you, Golden Base Cement. That conger, Well,
there could have been a conger line of others who
would have said, hey, we don't want the ETS.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
That either.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
That wasn't your only option. I mean, currently you give
free allocation of units to all of these companies. In
any case, you could simply have changed the settings, changed
the algorithm to increase the free allocation.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
You are right that there is an industrial allocation regime
that applies to Golden Based Ement and a range of
other companies. What we were reluctant to do was to
make a bespoke intervention to change the allocation for one
firm because we then knew that all of the other
firms who are part of that regime would say, hah,
that regime doesn't apply anymore. There are going to be changes,
(01:52):
and it would have undermined the UBA.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
But again, that wasn't your own people, That wasn't your
only option. You could have changed the algorithm for everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You are correct, and we weighed up a range of options,
and we judge that ultimately the way to minimize the
risk to the taxpayer, to maintain the integrity of the
emissions trading scheme, and to do this in the least
cost way possible was to do the sixty million dollar
grant approach with the very strict conditions that we've set. Ok, Yes,
(02:21):
we mean a range of options before we came to that.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Explain to me how changing a regulatory setting, which is
just you just changing the allocations that you're giving to
various companies, how's that more expensive than sixty million dollars
to Fletcher.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Because then we wouldn't necessarily just be changing it for Fletcher,
we would be changing the obligations for a range of
other firms and therefore taking on costs that they should
more properly take on themselves, because actually they're already able
to meet those costs. They're not producing goods which are
of such strategic importance as cement, they're not as globally
(02:56):
exposed to trade disruption as cementers. But we'd be getting
them all in the same basket and having to pay
for all of them when actually this is a bespoke,
one off case, and we took a case by case
approach rather.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Than making a generic change to the regular case.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Ye tell me what you think of the ets, because
I'm looking at the ETS. It's adding cost to my
power bill, your power bill out the petrol that we
use to drive the cars. It's also failing at the
auction level. It is driving businesses out of business where
they literally have to come and ask you for money.
And it's not the first business asking government for money
because of the ETS. Is this system working or do
(03:31):
we need to scrap it?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, the ETS is adding cost. And let's be clear,
New Zealand's international obligations to reduce our emissions, in fact,
our domestic legal obligations to reduce our missions come with
a cost. That is reality. In the absence of an
emissions trading scheme, which essentially says to firms, look, if
(03:55):
you're going to use really high carbon ways of doing
your business, that's going to cost you more. Prefer for
you to find lower carbon alternatives and that'll cost you
lesse in the absence of having a price signal, we
do not think that firms would face good incentives to
reduce their emissions and New Zealand would not be able
to meet.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
True.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But then all they want to national obligation, which would
they come great to you about it and you go,
let me give you sixty million dollars to help you
get around your climate obligations.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That is the precedent risk we were very very conscious of,
and we looked into this case as an exceptional example
and we went through three steps. One, this is quite
different in that it is strategically so important that you
can produce cement for your domestic economy that you're not
exposed to not being able to have cement if there
(04:41):
was an international trade disruption. Two, the financial case here
is that actually this is a business that is working
over all. The key thing is just that emission's cost.
And three, we've set in place some really firm requirements
that Golden Bay need to meet in order to get
this cash, with clawbacks if they don't those requirements, and
that includes keeping production going through to at least twenty forty,
(05:04):
making one hundred and fifty million dollars worth of investments
in that manufacturing capability, keeping the jobs at that factory going,
and having an open book exercise with us the government,
so that we can order that investment. So we set
a very high bar. We took a very case by
case approach. Believe you me, I did not want to
be setting a precedent that we're going to keep doing this.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Okay, Hey, what do you think of David Seymour's idea
of banning smartphones for kids?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
That one really caught me by surprise, because I've got
four kids and I can tell you they're accessing social
media on their laptops, on their school computers, on their iPads,
And the idea that if they just didn't have a
smartphone they would no longer be social media harm seemed
a bit far fetched to me.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And that's a fair point that you make, But you
and I both know, I mean, don't you agree with
me that it's more addictive on your phone, right, because
your phone's in your pocket, So it doesn't matter where
you go. You're sitting on the toilet, you pick up
your phone, you go to the doc is waiting in
the waiting room, you pick up the phone. It's everywhere
whereas the laptop is far less compulsive.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
You obviously haven't met my teenage son. I think he
finds the laptop pretty compulsively exciting as well. Yeah, but look,
parents do have a range of choices here, and you know,
certainly in my family, we limited access to smartphones until
the kids were a bit older, and we impose limits
on how they use the thing with social media though,
is it's really difficult for parents to police whether or
(06:30):
not kids have a social media app on their phone
and whether they're using it. And we want to give parents
more tools, more ability to know that their kids are
safe when they are online, and in particular, we want
to put the burden back on the tech companies themselves
to say, look, if you're going to be providing these products,
you need to have some controls.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
You need to limit the harm.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Which he's a bit I agree with David on what
he's acknowledging is social media use by kids is creating harm.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
That's not really up for debate. So how to limited?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
So are you still doing a band? Are you guys
still working on a social media ban?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Erica Stanford is working on that and she expects to
have announcements to make in the next few weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Is it a ban?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Well? What? No, What she's looking at is age restrictions
and restrictions so that the tech companies minimize the harm
that can occur for young people online.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Is it a ban under certain ages?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
She is looking at how you restrict people under the
age of sixteen from using it, and how you minimize
the harms of it.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Why have you backed away from a ban?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Well, no, that that is exactly what she's looking at.
But she's also going broader, which is to say, one,
how do you stop kids under sixteen using it? But
two how do you make sure that the tech companies
are actually managing the impacts of it? Is it a
band they themselves? Yes, she's looking at banning it for
under sixteen.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Oh good, okay, start Nikoler, and then we wouldn't have
been in it of me asking you if it's a ban.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Sorry I thought you were implying a band for everyone. No, no,
sixteens is what she's like.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
No, thank god, No, I still want to be able
to look at all that weird stuff. Hey, thank you appreciated.
Look after yourself. Nichola Willis, Finance Minister. 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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