Taine Randell: former All Blacks captain explains why he's joining up with New Zealand First

Ex-All Blacks captain Taine Randell says he's joining New Zealand First for this year's election, after a long dance with the party.

An announcement by leader Winston Peters was scheduled at a public meeting in Hastings on Sunday, but cancelled because of Cyclone Vaianu. 

Randall's likely to become Hawke’s Bay official candidate in coming weeks. 

He says he's fortunate to have had a great rugby career - but his eyes have now turned to the state of the country. 

"Right, now the next phase of my life - I'm pretty keen to contribute to New Zealand." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now former All Blacks Captain Taine Randall has announced he's
going to stand for New Zealand First at the next election.
He was supposed to be revealed by Winston Peter's at
a public meeting in Hastings on Sunday, but of course
the bad weather they put off that announcement and Taine
is with us now. Hitane, Good evening, Heatherah, mate, are
you sure you want to do this?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Do what?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
The politics?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, to be perfectly on us.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
It's a bit of a divided house Randall household on
that I have a young teenage daughter.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
But with all the scrutiny and stuff, but yeah, I do.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
It's been a bit of a long dance with New
Zealand First to making this decision.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
But I've been fortunate in my time in New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
I had a good, good education, had a really good
time playing rugby and getting paid for it, a commercial
out of your lucky commercial and business career. And right
now next phase of my life. Pretty keen to tribute
to New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
But are you taking such a risk? Everybody loves the
All Blacks, so we love the All Blacks, but most
of us hate the politicians. So you're do you really
want to do this to yourself?

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Completely agree with everything you said. I guess yessue is
who hated more politicians or a journalists there? Yeah, No,
it's for me, you know, it's I want to do
stuff of consequence in my life and as I've had
I've been blessed by my time in New Zealand and

(01:34):
for me doing something of consequence is now hopefully involved
in politics.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay, So if you could do one thing in your
time in politics and get it done to help this country,
what would it be?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Build electricity generation and noodles of it? Why electricity used.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
To be a competitive advantage for our country and my
grandparents generation they handed us. Then my parents and their
grandkids out in US the most prosperous country in the world,
Number one globally in the world for electrician We've had
a business which was processing vegetables and I've seen the

(02:18):
effects of electricity bill doubling.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Would you tell that?

Speaker 3 (02:23):
I know that last year had they would have increased,
but probably another seventy percent. So for companies like Hinds,
for companies like mccains and you know I live in
Hawks Bay, they are iconic companies. They're not actually they're
not just hawks, but they are national companies when they
cannot operate because of the way electricity sector has been

(02:45):
handled over the last number of decades. That's not a
failure of how we do things in New Zealand. That's
a failure of our elect electricity sector.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
But I could not agree with you more that this
is fundamental to our prosperity in this country. We have
to get this right. Would you do it, would you
force the current gent tailors to do it, or would
you do it through the government in your own way
and then just release supply all the time.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
I believe electricity it's an essential piece of infrastructure. It's
not like you Land Corp farms orders, energy drives, energy
is everything. Everything in that room you're sitting on. Everything
the room that I'm sitting in comes from energy. Energy
has had to go in to get what we do right.
So I spent a week bit of time overseas, came

(03:30):
back in two thousand and nine, and things that sticks
with me. Our populations increased significantly, The size of our
economy is significantly larger than it was, say, sixteen years ago.
The electricity generation is pretty much the same. So when
we talk about growing our infrastructure, which is a force multiplier,

(03:52):
we have not done that for electricity.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Have you thought though you thought it, or have you
thought it through the mechanism by which you do it.
Do you do it through transperer, through the government, or
do you do it through the gent tailor's being forced
to build it? You thought about that yet?

Speaker 3 (04:04):
So the gen tailors at the moment when they were
put into soees, they were charged with maximizing efficiency, maximizing profit.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
How do you do that? You put the price up. Yep,
you're basically to industry.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
So the government has to do it.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
I mean we sold half our companies, half half of
our electricity companies ten years ago. But electricity is a
genuine force multiplier, force multiplier of infrastructure in New Zealand.
And it's for the it's for the it's for the
benefit of New Zealand Inc. Now it's where we've got
to operate. It for the benefit of New Zealand Inc.

(04:39):
Not benefited for the shareholders of our electric companies almost
half of them.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Roshaw, Well, listen, good luck in Turki Turki because it's
tuky Toky, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
It is yeah, great place, fantastic place, very tough.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Love it right. Well, you have to go. I could
talk to you for ages about this, but we have
to go. Attain. Thank you, Mattained Randall, former All Blacks captain.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
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