June 3, 2025 • 10 mins
Tonight on The Huddle, Rob Campbell and Maurice Williamson joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
Will we read Jacinda's new book? What are we expecting? Are we annoyed there's no apology over the Covid response?
The new WorkSafe changes kicked in - are we glad the Government is dialling back on the health and safety enforcement or do we think this is a step too far?
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty Find You're
one of the kind.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Actually, I haven't finished with Steve Braunius's scathing review, so
I'll give you a little bit more of that later.
It's quite the hoot with me on the huddle right now.
Morris Williamson and Rob Campbell. Hello you too, Morris? Are
you just dying to read this book? Morris?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
No?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hmm, okay what about you?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Rob?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You've already got a copy, haven't you?
Speaker 4 (00:24):
I bet no, I haven't. I haven't got a copy.
Ye's I'm not really the audience for it. I actually
like reading things by people I know I disagree with
other them that I probably agree with.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Oh okay, that's disappointing.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
I owed.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I was just picturing you wandering down to the women's
bookstore on Ponsanbly Road, Rob of Morning and paying sixty
dollars for it. Do you think I got ripped off? Rob?
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Well, all the truth is there is we're I'm by
my box. As you probably know, it's a very good bookshop.
So let's put in a free ad for them. But
I haven't looked for this one there yet.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Morris sixty is a lot for it, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, I'm going to say something that'll be a bit
of a surprise to you that I actually thought Desinda's
first sort of year or so in the job, she
did quite well, and the public warm to her and
thought she was doing a great job. And what happened
was she started to believe her own rhetoric, that she
could do whatever she want, whenever she liked. By the
end of her term, I saw some of the polling.
(01:20):
It was so toxic and so awful, and if she'd
stayed the leader, labor would have taken an even bigger
thrashing than they did, a real hero to zero.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, are you telling me so? The first year that
was the year they banned the oil and gas exploration.
You like that, did you?
Speaker 5 (01:35):
No?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
No, no, no, I'm just saying the public light. No.
The public like to her, and that's why she got
elected in two and twenty with an outright majority. What
happened then was that you start to believe your own rhetoric,
You think you can do whatever you like. I got
a really good example. I wrote to her and said, look,
your dreadful buddy, MiQ management is dreadful. People have been
(01:56):
stuck for and I said, I've got a computer solution.
I can show it to you. You can put it online.
People will earn points for every day they're waiting. They
will bubble to the top of the queue. They'll know
when their time's coming. And it was just I got
a letter back when I'm saying, not not prepared to.
So we ended up with this just ridiculous lottery where people,
you know, waiting to see a dead or dying relative
(02:18):
couldn't get in.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
But some did.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Somebody DJA that was a friend of there's gotten three times.
It's disgraceful, see Robert, disgraceful the.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Thing this has bang on the kind of stuff. I
just wanted to read her book and just once have
her go. You know what, Not everything we did was great,
and we did some things wrong, and I'm sorry, not
a chance, not a chance of apologizing it. Am I
being ridiculous? Wanting that?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Oh you to some extent being ridiculous. I mean most
politicians books after they retire and basically pleasing mitigation rather
than explanations of anything. So I wouldn't be too surprised
about that. And I think you know on the points
that Morris is making a lot of the things that
did go wrong in terms of the popular perception of
to cinder Ad In tell you as much about New
(03:06):
Zealand's broader character than as they do about to Cinda Adin.
And there are two parties in this thing. We're very
keen and very eager to bear things down. We sometimes
build things up a little bit too quickly, and so
a lot of the negatives that flow are not BNY
means universal here. But they tell you a lot about
(03:26):
the New Zealand psyche as much as they tell you
about to Sindra Adin. And I'm still very pleased that
on the world stage she is still recognized as representing
some very valuable and positive things about this country. And
you know, if that carries over, if this book helps
to do that, then I think again she's doing a
service for the country by what she's doing. Whether I
particularly relate to some of the things or not, it's
(03:49):
not the point.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, well, I suppose we'll just take the wins where
we can. I will take a break, come back to
you guys shortly.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's international realty achieve extraordinary
results with unparallel reach.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
All right, you're back with the Huddle with Morris Williamson
and Rob Campbell. Morris, how do you feel about the
work safe changes?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Oh, look, I think it's fantastic that we're finally getting
to recognize what the old paradigm should have always been,
and that is safety at reasonable cost and the transport sector.
While I was minister, I had to drum that into
officials and there were people that were wanting to save
every life there is on the road. The only way
you can do that is to have cars drive at
five kilometers and now I have a man walking in
front of them with a red black or a woman sorry,
(04:30):
and you would be the economy of the bankrupt for
by the end of the week. She could go to
international conferences and say we don't have any road deaths
in New Zealand. It has to be at reasonable cost.
You've got to try and step the balance point and
say there will be deaths on the road. There are
deaths and aircraft when they crash, people get killed in
sort of boats and all sorts of things. So get
(04:51):
that safety at reasonable cost culture. Not what the Labor
Party brought in last time, which was Michael Wood was
going with sort of safety at any cost to try
and stop road deaths.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
How do you feel about it?
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Right?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Well, I think the road come thing really is a
bit of a diversion from the main issue here, and
this actually is not about road safety. It's really an
entirely different topic. The main issue here is health and
safety in the workplace, and New Zealand record in this
is very, very bad. It's not to say that all
of the regulations we have are sensible. Sometimes they are
a bit irritating if you're in a management or governance position,
(05:25):
But the truth is that they are not generating outcomes
which are acceptable. They're not equivalent to other countries of
our type, and we're having far too many people cooled
and injured in the workplace. So we need to find
a better way to do that. The way to do
that is not to have it dreamed up in Wellington
by MPs or bureaucrats or anything else. Being it was
(05:47):
being addressed by way of some joint discussions between workers
and employers and workers organizations and employers, and that's the
way that it has to be progressed. So this is
a step backwards. You throw the cones in it because
it's just a bit of a dead cat on the
on the dining table for people to take notice of.
But it's a division.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, maybe so right that again I disagree.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean that the road cone it just got to
the ludicrous where vehicles were just being completely impeded from
moving around the city. There were road cones, there was
one little wee valve in a water main being fixed,
and they'd put road cone down the entire road both sides,
block off traffic and so on. What you have to
do is go to reasonable and sensible safety and you
(06:27):
don't want people being Injuredrill.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
But I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with you.
But it seems to me work Safe actually has nothing
to do from what I'm told earlier in the program,
has nothing to do with the road cone situation that
was an NZTA problem. The only reason WorkSafe are now
involved is because we're asked where they are the ones
who have to go and make sure there aren't too
many road cones. Isn't that right?
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Well?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
No, I think as the other way around. I think both.
Like I'm on the board of Auckland Transport and our
concern originally was We've got to be very careful not
to step outside of what the health and safety regulate
and legislation are, or we'll look to have made a mistake.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Now, it was what I originally thought. Let me just clarify,
this was what I What I originally thought was that
MZTA was being overly cautious because it was worried about
what might happen with work Safe.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Correct, and we've already started making a move and organ
Transport the chief executive Dean Kimpton's confession and a directive
out to the people. You know, we're not going to
keep doing the ridiculous. We're not going to do the
insane but sensible things that do protect people.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Where we did filtering through Morris because, like I said
on the show last week, I drove down Lincoln Street
in Ponsiby, I think it was a couple of weeks ago,
and I could not believe the extreme links to those
guys went to funnel me down this little corridor because
one guy was sitting on a digger on the side
of the road. Why are they still doing it?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Well, first of all, a lot of the cones you'll
see out on the road, and organ are not actually
Orkham Transport. A whole lot of the utility providers the gas,
the water, They go and do the dig up of
the road and they put their own cones. So we're
trying to get.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Strict with it.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Do we pay that as right payers?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I'm sure you do. You'll pay for everything that occurs.
And that's why I keep thinking the whole temporary traffic
management is.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Ludicrous, right, Okay, so why are they ignoring the government's directive?
Speaker 4 (08:09):
And you can have cones or you can have no
cones or a thousand cones on the road and it
won't make any difference to the number of people being
hurt in the workplace. And that's the issue that's really
being addressed here, and that's what is happening.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Working on the side of the road is a workplace.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
It is a workplace, but it's a minor one, frankly
in terms of the total problem. And there's no reason
why they shouldn't be health and safety practices the cones
here that you know it, you're sounding like a couple
of geriatrics that at a cocktail party in a retirement home,
you two carrying on about cones. There's some real there's
some real resemble that. Yeah, well you've already admitted that
(08:49):
you're on an ORCS and transports, which is causing a
bigger part of the problem than anyone else. But the
issue here is.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
And I'm trying to fix it. There is a series
of actions being taken by the new minister which are
not increasing the chances of us improving our shocking health
and safety record at work. Throwing and quite.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Deliberately is a distraction on this and you know it,
so now here we are carrying on about it.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
No, I totally disagree with you, Rob. What is going
on is set aside, set aside what you're worried about,
which is deaths in the workplace. These guys are changing.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
The way that that minor little issue.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
There's now point even trying to argue with you about this.
Is it anyway?
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Water? I just give I got to crack a story
for you though.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Heather that Chief, our chairman of AT said he woke
up one day and part Allen went for a bike
ride and there were cones all down. I think it
was either St. George's Bay Road or one of them.
I can't remember which road, And he thought, what is
going on? He couldn't work out there was no roadworks
and so when he got to at on the Monday,
he asked him to do an investigation.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Who's done all that?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
It turns out all those cones had been stolen from
a work site somewhere in South Orkland and the hilarious
trek had come and put them all down Parnell's main road.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Just to drive your nuts. Guys, it's wonderful to talk
to the pair of you. Appreciator Rob Campbell, Morris Williams
and now Huddle this evening eight away from.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Six 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
The Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty Find You're
one of the kind.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Actually, I haven't finished with Steve Braunius's scathing review, so
I'll give you a little bit more of that later.
It's quite the hoot with me on the huddle right now.
Morris Williamson and Rob Campbell. Hello you too, Morris? Are
you just dying to read this book? Morris?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
No?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hmm, okay what about you?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Rob?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You've already got a copy, haven't you?
Speaker 4 (00:24):
I bet no, I haven't. I haven't got a copy.
Ye's I'm not really the audience for it. I actually
like reading things by people I know I disagree with
other them that I probably agree with.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Oh okay, that's disappointing.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
I owed.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I was just picturing you wandering down to the women's
bookstore on Ponsanbly Road, Rob of Morning and paying sixty
dollars for it. Do you think I got ripped off? Rob?
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Well, all the truth is there is we're I'm by
my box. As you probably know, it's a very good bookshop.
So let's put in a free ad for them. But
I haven't looked for this one there yet.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Morris sixty is a lot for it, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, I'm going to say something that'll be a bit
of a surprise to you that I actually thought Desinda's
first sort of year or so in the job, she
did quite well, and the public warm to her and
thought she was doing a great job. And what happened
was she started to believe her own rhetoric, that she
could do whatever she want, whenever she liked. By the
end of her term, I saw some of the polling.
(01:20):
It was so toxic and so awful, and if she'd
stayed the leader, labor would have taken an even bigger
thrashing than they did, a real hero to zero.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, are you telling me so? The first year that
was the year they banned the oil and gas exploration.
You like that, did you?
Speaker 5 (01:35):
No?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
No, no, no, I'm just saying the public light. No.
The public like to her, and that's why she got
elected in two and twenty with an outright majority. What
happened then was that you start to believe your own rhetoric,
You think you can do whatever you like. I got
a really good example. I wrote to her and said, look,
your dreadful buddy, MiQ management is dreadful. People have been
(01:56):
stuck for and I said, I've got a computer solution.
I can show it to you. You can put it online.
People will earn points for every day they're waiting. They
will bubble to the top of the queue. They'll know
when their time's coming. And it was just I got
a letter back when I'm saying, not not prepared to.
So we ended up with this just ridiculous lottery where people,
you know, waiting to see a dead or dying relative
(02:18):
couldn't get in.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
But some did.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Somebody DJA that was a friend of there's gotten three times.
It's disgraceful, see Robert, disgraceful the.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Thing this has bang on the kind of stuff. I
just wanted to read her book and just once have
her go. You know what, Not everything we did was great,
and we did some things wrong, and I'm sorry, not
a chance, not a chance of apologizing it. Am I
being ridiculous? Wanting that?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Oh you to some extent being ridiculous. I mean most
politicians books after they retire and basically pleasing mitigation rather
than explanations of anything. So I wouldn't be too surprised
about that. And I think you know on the points
that Morris is making a lot of the things that
did go wrong in terms of the popular perception of
to cinder Ad In tell you as much about New
(03:06):
Zealand's broader character than as they do about to Cinda Adin.
And there are two parties in this thing. We're very
keen and very eager to bear things down. We sometimes
build things up a little bit too quickly, and so
a lot of the negatives that flow are not BNY
means universal here. But they tell you a lot about
(03:26):
the New Zealand psyche as much as they tell you
about to Sindra Adin. And I'm still very pleased that
on the world stage she is still recognized as representing
some very valuable and positive things about this country. And
you know, if that carries over, if this book helps
to do that, then I think again she's doing a
service for the country by what she's doing. Whether I
particularly relate to some of the things or not, it's
(03:49):
not the point.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, well, I suppose we'll just take the wins where
we can. I will take a break, come back to
you guys shortly.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's international realty achieve extraordinary
results with unparallel reach.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
All right, you're back with the Huddle with Morris Williamson
and Rob Campbell. Morris, how do you feel about the
work safe changes?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Oh, look, I think it's fantastic that we're finally getting
to recognize what the old paradigm should have always been,
and that is safety at reasonable cost and the transport sector.
While I was minister, I had to drum that into
officials and there were people that were wanting to save
every life there is on the road. The only way
you can do that is to have cars drive at
five kilometers and now I have a man walking in
front of them with a red black or a woman sorry,
(04:30):
and you would be the economy of the bankrupt for
by the end of the week. She could go to
international conferences and say we don't have any road deaths
in New Zealand. It has to be at reasonable cost.
You've got to try and step the balance point and
say there will be deaths on the road. There are
deaths and aircraft when they crash, people get killed in
sort of boats and all sorts of things. So get
(04:51):
that safety at reasonable cost culture. Not what the Labor
Party brought in last time, which was Michael Wood was
going with sort of safety at any cost to try
and stop road deaths.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
How do you feel about it?
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Right?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Well, I think the road come thing really is a
bit of a diversion from the main issue here, and
this actually is not about road safety. It's really an
entirely different topic. The main issue here is health and
safety in the workplace, and New Zealand record in this
is very, very bad. It's not to say that all
of the regulations we have are sensible. Sometimes they are
a bit irritating if you're in a management or governance position,
(05:25):
But the truth is that they are not generating outcomes
which are acceptable. They're not equivalent to other countries of
our type, and we're having far too many people cooled
and injured in the workplace. So we need to find
a better way to do that. The way to do
that is not to have it dreamed up in Wellington
by MPs or bureaucrats or anything else. Being it was
(05:47):
being addressed by way of some joint discussions between workers
and employers and workers organizations and employers, and that's the
way that it has to be progressed. So this is
a step backwards. You throw the cones in it because
it's just a bit of a dead cat on the
on the dining table for people to take notice of.
But it's a division.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, maybe so right that again I disagree.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean that the road cone it just got to
the ludicrous where vehicles were just being completely impeded from
moving around the city. There were road cones, there was
one little wee valve in a water main being fixed,
and they'd put road cone down the entire road both sides,
block off traffic and so on. What you have to
do is go to reasonable and sensible safety and you
(06:27):
don't want people being Injuredrill.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
But I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with you.
But it seems to me work Safe actually has nothing
to do from what I'm told earlier in the program,
has nothing to do with the road cone situation that
was an NZTA problem. The only reason WorkSafe are now
involved is because we're asked where they are the ones
who have to go and make sure there aren't too
many road cones. Isn't that right?
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Well?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
No, I think as the other way around. I think both.
Like I'm on the board of Auckland Transport and our
concern originally was We've got to be very careful not
to step outside of what the health and safety regulate
and legislation are, or we'll look to have made a mistake.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Now, it was what I originally thought. Let me just clarify,
this was what I What I originally thought was that
MZTA was being overly cautious because it was worried about
what might happen with work Safe.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Correct, and we've already started making a move and organ
Transport the chief executive Dean Kimpton's confession and a directive
out to the people. You know, we're not going to
keep doing the ridiculous. We're not going to do the
insane but sensible things that do protect people.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Where we did filtering through Morris because, like I said
on the show last week, I drove down Lincoln Street
in Ponsiby, I think it was a couple of weeks ago,
and I could not believe the extreme links to those
guys went to funnel me down this little corridor because
one guy was sitting on a digger on the side
of the road. Why are they still doing it?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Well, first of all, a lot of the cones you'll
see out on the road, and organ are not actually
Orkham Transport. A whole lot of the utility providers the gas,
the water, They go and do the dig up of
the road and they put their own cones. So we're
trying to get.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Strict with it.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Do we pay that as right payers?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I'm sure you do. You'll pay for everything that occurs.
And that's why I keep thinking the whole temporary traffic
management is.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Ludicrous, right, Okay, so why are they ignoring the government's directive?
Speaker 4 (08:09):
And you can have cones or you can have no
cones or a thousand cones on the road and it
won't make any difference to the number of people being
hurt in the workplace. And that's the issue that's really
being addressed here, and that's what is happening.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Working on the side of the road is a workplace.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
It is a workplace, but it's a minor one, frankly
in terms of the total problem. And there's no reason
why they shouldn't be health and safety practices the cones
here that you know it, you're sounding like a couple
of geriatrics that at a cocktail party in a retirement home,
you two carrying on about cones. There's some real there's
some real resemble that. Yeah, well you've already admitted that
(08:49):
you're on an ORCS and transports, which is causing a
bigger part of the problem than anyone else. But the
issue here is.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
And I'm trying to fix it. There is a series
of actions being taken by the new minister which are
not increasing the chances of us improving our shocking health
and safety record at work. Throwing and quite.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Deliberately is a distraction on this and you know it,
so now here we are carrying on about it.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
No, I totally disagree with you, Rob. What is going
on is set aside, set aside what you're worried about,
which is deaths in the workplace. These guys are changing.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
The way that that minor little issue.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
There's now point even trying to argue with you about this.
Is it anyway?
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Water? I just give I got to crack a story
for you though.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Heather that Chief, our chairman of AT said he woke
up one day and part Allen went for a bike
ride and there were cones all down. I think it
was either St. George's Bay Road or one of them.
I can't remember which road, And he thought, what is
going on? He couldn't work out there was no roadworks
and so when he got to at on the Monday,
he asked him to do an investigation.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Who's done all that?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
It turns out all those cones had been stolen from
a work site somewhere in South Orkland and the hilarious
trek had come and put them all down Parnell's main road.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Just to drive your nuts. Guys, it's wonderful to talk
to the pair of you. Appreciator Rob Campbell, Morris Williams
and now Huddle this evening eight away from.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Six 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
Popular Podcasts
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.