July 22, 2025 • 10 mins
Tonight on The Huddle, former High Commissioner to the UK and former Auckland mayor Phil Goff and Thomas Scrimgeour from the Maxim Institute joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
Sky TV has bought Three for $1. What do we make of the deal? What does this mean for the future of the industry?
New Zealand has joined the international calls for an end to the ongoing war in Gaza - but do we need to let actions follow words?
A new Talbot Mills poll reveals the majority of the nation thinks the country is on the wrong track, and half of NZ First's voters think National doesn't deserve to be re-elected. Do you think we're looking at a one-term Government?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty Unique Homes
Uniquely for you on.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The huddle with me this evening. Thomas Scringer of the
Maximum Institute and Phil GoF, former High Commissioner to the UK,
former Labor Partty leader, former foreign mister, former Auckland mayor. Hello,
are you two good?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I Heather? Hi? Thomas?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now Sky TV Thomas? How good is this deal?
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Well, they probably overpaid them then A dollar seems a
bit steep.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
TV three has always been a bit broke.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
I could end up being a good, good deal in
the long term, but it's only a Sky fines efficiencies,
which is to say, you know, job cuts, So it's
sort of if it's good for Sky's business, it's not
good for people who currently work for TV three. This
won't prevent any of that kind of decline there in
terms of jobs available. I mean, if you're SkyTV, you're
in the business of a linear domestic TV programming.
Speaker 5 (00:50):
This is a hail Mary. It might not work, but
what else would you do as best?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
In my take, yeah, I think so. I think the
people who will be the most gutted about this today,
Phil will be TV and Z.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Don't you think, Well, it ups the level of competition
with TV and Z and that's probably not a bad thing.
The Commerce Commission is clearly okay with it. Warner Brothers
couldn't make a go of it and make it financially.
The Sky people think that they can, and it gives
them real advantages. My worry is what then happens to
(01:19):
the TV three News. I think the decline of TV
three and one less really well resourced news outlet is
never a good thing for coverage of current events and politics.
So I'm hoping that this won't be a further narrowing
of news outlets and where people can get news information from.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Do you watch the TV three news film?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I watch TV and Z on demand largely because then
I can watch it whatever time I want. I probably
could do the same with three. But TV one News
is the resourced news channel.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, this is the trouble. This is the trouble, Phil,
what's the point in having TV three News? I mean,
let's be honest about it. It's a pretty cruddy. It's
about I'd give it about a six out of ten
at the moment. So what's the point in having it
if it's just doing a kind of half last job.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean when I used to watch TV
one and three, you know, particularly when I was in politics,
you'd look avidly at what was showing on each and
how and they did show different perspectives on the same
issues and that was quite useful, and some picked up
issues that the other channel had ignored. And I thought
that diversity of news was a really good thing. Now,
(02:31):
you know, because I've cut back on what, you know,
stuff news can provide for TV three, it's less valuable
than it was, but I think it's still valuable to
have some competition in providing news and different perspectives.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Now, Thomas, let's talk about the situation in Gaza. How
do you see this actually in reality ending.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Well, I'm not really one to make predictions about how
it will end, but my observation would be is that
I don't think we have any clear light at the
end of the tunnel. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed
with the quality of the statement that New Zealand signed
up to. I think it was somewhat confused, and so
the specific concern I have is that there are kind
(03:13):
of several different parts in the statement. Early on it
talks about the hostages that Hamas currently holds of Israeli nationals,
and it says that a negotiated ceasefire offers the best
hope of bringing them home and ending their agony of
their families. So the statement is calling for a negotiated
ceasefire to bring the hostages home. But by the end
(03:34):
of the statement it says that we urge the parties
and the international community to unite in the common effort
to bring this terrible conflict to an end through an immediate,
unconditional and permanent ceasefire.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Are they calling for a negotiated cease fire or an
immediate unconditional one? Those are not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Fair criticism, phil.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Well. My focus is on the well I would now
turn I'd never view to previously, but the genocide that's
happening against Palestinians in Gaza. You can't starve people to
death and then shoot the people that are desperately seeking
food aid as they go to pick up that aid.
You can't kill over seventeen thousand children and maim tens
(04:18):
of thousands of children and still claim to be a
state that works on the basis of decency and morality.
You can't talk as or it's not more. It's more
than talk. You can't plan to move six hundred thousand
Palestinians and then the entire two point one million population
of Palestinians in Gaza into what former Israeli Prime Minister
(04:39):
Ihud Olmot has called a concentration camp, in which the
Israeli Defense Minister calls a humanitarian city. I know which
person I believe in terms of what that city will be.
It will be a concentration camp, a transit camp.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty, the ones
one MA results Right, we're.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Back with Phil Golf and Thomas Thomas. Okay, so how
I know you don't want to make predictions, but can
you see this ending without the hostages being released?
Speaker 4 (05:10):
First? Honestly, I don't see any way in which Israel
is giving up without those hostages either retrieved, alive or deceased.
Israel seem pretty well set on that approach and aren't
amenable to international I guess statements or criticisms. They have
(05:31):
clearly got a plan in mind, and I think part
of the challenge here is that they have entered into
an incredibly destructive war without a clear exit plan, because
if they're aiming for total retrieval of the hostages, that
doesn't seem like a goal that is achievable. And so
for a war to be just you have to have
a clear metric for success. And so basically I'm very
(05:55):
pessimistic about what the prospects are for peace.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Phil Do you see any way that this ends without
the hostages first being released?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Well, I think the hostages can be released if they
still alive after the further bombardments that are still going
on in the Gaza Strip, most of the hostages. You know,
no way justifying Harmas and the other organizations taking hostages,
but most of the hostages will have been killed in
the Israeli stride.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Now I know, I know this, And look, let's accept
Hamas does not care about what happens with the Palestinian people,
and the Israeli government does not actually care about what
happens with the hostages, right, They're using them as means
to further their own ends. But can this thing end?
Like I feel like we're putting a lot of pressure
on Israel quite rightly for the crimes that they are committing,
which they are, but actually should the pressure be put
(06:44):
on Hammas because actually, until those hostages are released, this
does not stop.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, look, releasing all the hostages is one of the
conditions of a ceasefire, and that can happen. My question
really is whether the Natana who wants it to happen.
As soon as the war is over, there will be
a resumption of the criminal charges for corruption against Netan
Yahoo and that will be the end of his career
(07:09):
and it will be a fair held.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Which brings us to the next more miserable point, which
is that we can say all we like that this
needs to stop. It will not stop because neither of
these sides actually wanted to stop. Do that they want
this to continue.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
There's an absence of leadership and it's long been a
problem in the Middle East on the side of the
Israelis and the Palestinians. In terms of finding a decent settlement,
you have to go back to Rabin, I think, to
find a leader of Israel that actually genuinely wanted to
find a long term and sustainable solution. But the tragedy
has to stop. The question is where the twenty seven countries,
(07:43):
and good on them for signing the letter I totally
approve of the letter, but whether they can make a difference.
The Israelis have just come back and said, you don't
know the reality on the ground, actually the truth as
we do it. We watch it every night on TV
as another atrocity happens, more kids have killed and maimed,
more civilians die, Rubble has turned into even smaller pieces
of rubble. It's got to stop. But the United States
(08:05):
is the key to this, and Trump doesn't have an
interest in reigning in ans in Yahoo, and that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, totally. Now, Thomas, listen at that pole that was
leaked today, the Talbot Mills pole. I think the thing
that was the most interesting out of it was when
New Zealand first supports it.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
What do you think, Oh, I'm quite confident that Winston
can convince his supporters of just about anything. So Winston's
getting his numbers and his polling really well, you know,
as far as he's entered into a government, and minor
parties often struggle there.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
So Winston will get his votes and then he can
make his call.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
You know, if he's got Stuart Nash as his wingman
at the next election, he might decide he wants to
go back with the Red team.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
But I think the coverage of the polling is really strange.
If we look at the politics has two blocks, a
left block and a right block. The right block was
doing its worst back in February.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
They have gained relative to the block for the past
four or five months and the gap is now the
largest it's been if you look at a polling amorrhage.
Suddenly this poll comes out and the media has picked
up on the story as if we have this new
struggle even though the gap is widening, not shrinking.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Interesting point, what do you think, Phil, Yeah, well, look
with the New Zealand first voters the populist though you know,
New Zealand's first appeal is the populist one to their voters,
and the voters, the alienated voters that they appeal to,
don't like any government, whoever's in government. That's the truth
of it. Peters has got the ability to pull some
(09:34):
of his people on side. A lot of it will
hinge on the cost of living, and you know at
the moment, well two things actually. One, I'm actually doing
the shopping now as a retired gentleman, and I can
just see what the rise in the cost of living
has been Secondly, I actually know several people who have
(09:56):
been made redundant. Now that's pretty unusual. Generally, you know
it's somebody else that you don't know that gets made redundant.
I've got a son that's in business as a trade
in the construction trade. I know that these are the
worst conditions that he's faced in more than a decade.
If those things persist, then the government may be in trouble,
but it's premature to say that it is.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, guys, it's good to talk to you. Have a
lovely evening. Phil Goff, former Everything you Know, and Thomas
Scrrimer of the Maximum Institute.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
For more from Heather 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 Unique Homes
Uniquely for you on.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The huddle with me this evening. Thomas Scringer of the
Maximum Institute and Phil GoF, former High Commissioner to the UK,
former Labor Partty leader, former foreign mister, former Auckland mayor. Hello,
are you two good?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I Heather? Hi? Thomas?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now Sky TV Thomas? How good is this deal?
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Well, they probably overpaid them then A dollar seems a
bit steep.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
TV three has always been a bit broke.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
I could end up being a good, good deal in
the long term, but it's only a Sky fines efficiencies,
which is to say, you know, job cuts, So it's
sort of if it's good for Sky's business, it's not
good for people who currently work for TV three. This
won't prevent any of that kind of decline there in
terms of jobs available. I mean, if you're SkyTV, you're
in the business of a linear domestic TV programming.
Speaker 5 (00:50):
This is a hail Mary. It might not work, but
what else would you do as best?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
In my take, yeah, I think so. I think the
people who will be the most gutted about this today,
Phil will be TV and Z.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Don't you think, Well, it ups the level of competition
with TV and Z and that's probably not a bad thing.
The Commerce Commission is clearly okay with it. Warner Brothers
couldn't make a go of it and make it financially.
The Sky people think that they can, and it gives
them real advantages. My worry is what then happens to
(01:19):
the TV three News. I think the decline of TV
three and one less really well resourced news outlet is
never a good thing for coverage of current events and politics.
So I'm hoping that this won't be a further narrowing
of news outlets and where people can get news information from.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Do you watch the TV three news film?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I watch TV and Z on demand largely because then
I can watch it whatever time I want. I probably
could do the same with three. But TV one News
is the resourced news channel.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, this is the trouble. This is the trouble, Phil,
what's the point in having TV three News? I mean,
let's be honest about it. It's a pretty cruddy. It's
about I'd give it about a six out of ten
at the moment. So what's the point in having it
if it's just doing a kind of half last job.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean when I used to watch TV
one and three, you know, particularly when I was in politics,
you'd look avidly at what was showing on each and
how and they did show different perspectives on the same
issues and that was quite useful, and some picked up
issues that the other channel had ignored. And I thought
that diversity of news was a really good thing. Now,
(02:31):
you know, because I've cut back on what, you know,
stuff news can provide for TV three, it's less valuable
than it was, but I think it's still valuable to
have some competition in providing news and different perspectives.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Now, Thomas, let's talk about the situation in Gaza. How
do you see this actually in reality ending.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Well, I'm not really one to make predictions about how
it will end, but my observation would be is that
I don't think we have any clear light at the
end of the tunnel. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed
with the quality of the statement that New Zealand signed
up to. I think it was somewhat confused, and so
the specific concern I have is that there are kind
(03:13):
of several different parts in the statement. Early on it
talks about the hostages that Hamas currently holds of Israeli nationals,
and it says that a negotiated ceasefire offers the best
hope of bringing them home and ending their agony of
their families. So the statement is calling for a negotiated
ceasefire to bring the hostages home. But by the end
(03:34):
of the statement it says that we urge the parties
and the international community to unite in the common effort
to bring this terrible conflict to an end through an immediate,
unconditional and permanent ceasefire.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Are they calling for a negotiated cease fire or an
immediate unconditional one? Those are not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Fair criticism, phil.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Well. My focus is on the well I would now
turn I'd never view to previously, but the genocide that's
happening against Palestinians in Gaza. You can't starve people to
death and then shoot the people that are desperately seeking
food aid as they go to pick up that aid.
You can't kill over seventeen thousand children and maim tens
(04:18):
of thousands of children and still claim to be a
state that works on the basis of decency and morality.
You can't talk as or it's not more. It's more
than talk. You can't plan to move six hundred thousand
Palestinians and then the entire two point one million population
of Palestinians in Gaza into what former Israeli Prime Minister
(04:39):
Ihud Olmot has called a concentration camp, in which the
Israeli Defense Minister calls a humanitarian city. I know which
person I believe in terms of what that city will be.
It will be a concentration camp, a transit camp.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty, the ones
one MA results Right, we're.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Back with Phil Golf and Thomas Thomas. Okay, so how
I know you don't want to make predictions, but can
you see this ending without the hostages being released?
Speaker 4 (05:10):
First? Honestly, I don't see any way in which Israel
is giving up without those hostages either retrieved, alive or deceased.
Israel seem pretty well set on that approach and aren't
amenable to international I guess statements or criticisms. They have
(05:31):
clearly got a plan in mind, and I think part
of the challenge here is that they have entered into
an incredibly destructive war without a clear exit plan, because
if they're aiming for total retrieval of the hostages, that
doesn't seem like a goal that is achievable. And so
for a war to be just you have to have
a clear metric for success. And so basically I'm very
(05:55):
pessimistic about what the prospects are for peace.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Phil Do you see any way that this ends without
the hostages first being released?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Well, I think the hostages can be released if they
still alive after the further bombardments that are still going
on in the Gaza Strip, most of the hostages. You know,
no way justifying Harmas and the other organizations taking hostages,
but most of the hostages will have been killed in
the Israeli stride.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Now I know, I know this, And look, let's accept
Hamas does not care about what happens with the Palestinian people,
and the Israeli government does not actually care about what
happens with the hostages, right, They're using them as means
to further their own ends. But can this thing end?
Like I feel like we're putting a lot of pressure
on Israel quite rightly for the crimes that they are committing,
which they are, but actually should the pressure be put
(06:44):
on Hammas because actually, until those hostages are released, this
does not stop.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, look, releasing all the hostages is one of the
conditions of a ceasefire, and that can happen. My question
really is whether the Natana who wants it to happen.
As soon as the war is over, there will be
a resumption of the criminal charges for corruption against Netan
Yahoo and that will be the end of his career
(07:09):
and it will be a fair held.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Which brings us to the next more miserable point, which
is that we can say all we like that this
needs to stop. It will not stop because neither of
these sides actually wanted to stop. Do that they want
this to continue.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
There's an absence of leadership and it's long been a
problem in the Middle East on the side of the
Israelis and the Palestinians. In terms of finding a decent settlement,
you have to go back to Rabin, I think, to
find a leader of Israel that actually genuinely wanted to
find a long term and sustainable solution. But the tragedy
has to stop. The question is where the twenty seven countries,
(07:43):
and good on them for signing the letter I totally
approve of the letter, but whether they can make a difference.
The Israelis have just come back and said, you don't
know the reality on the ground, actually the truth as
we do it. We watch it every night on TV
as another atrocity happens, more kids have killed and maimed,
more civilians die, Rubble has turned into even smaller pieces
of rubble. It's got to stop. But the United States
(08:05):
is the key to this, and Trump doesn't have an
interest in reigning in ans in Yahoo, and that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, totally. Now, Thomas, listen at that pole that was
leaked today, the Talbot Mills pole. I think the thing
that was the most interesting out of it was when
New Zealand first supports it.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
What do you think, Oh, I'm quite confident that Winston
can convince his supporters of just about anything. So Winston's
getting his numbers and his polling really well, you know,
as far as he's entered into a government, and minor
parties often struggle there.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
So Winston will get his votes and then he can
make his call.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
You know, if he's got Stuart Nash as his wingman
at the next election, he might decide he wants to
go back with the Red team.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
But I think the coverage of the polling is really strange.
If we look at the politics has two blocks, a
left block and a right block. The right block was
doing its worst back in February.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
They have gained relative to the block for the past
four or five months and the gap is now the
largest it's been if you look at a polling amorrhage.
Suddenly this poll comes out and the media has picked
up on the story as if we have this new
struggle even though the gap is widening, not shrinking.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Interesting point, what do you think, Phil, Yeah, well, look
with the New Zealand first voters the populist though you know,
New Zealand's first appeal is the populist one to their voters,
and the voters, the alienated voters that they appeal to,
don't like any government, whoever's in government. That's the truth
of it. Peters has got the ability to pull some
(09:34):
of his people on side. A lot of it will
hinge on the cost of living, and you know at
the moment, well two things actually. One, I'm actually doing
the shopping now as a retired gentleman, and I can
just see what the rise in the cost of living
has been Secondly, I actually know several people who have
(09:56):
been made redundant. Now that's pretty unusual. Generally, you know
it's somebody else that you don't know that gets made redundant.
I've got a son that's in business as a trade
in the construction trade. I know that these are the
worst conditions that he's faced in more than a decade.
If those things persist, then the government may be in trouble,
but it's premature to say that it is.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, guys, it's good to talk to you. Have a
lovely evening. Phil Goff, former Everything you Know, and Thomas
Scrrimer of the Maximum Institute.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
For more from Heather 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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