September 29, 2025 • 10 mins
Tonight on the Huddle, Child Fund CEO Josie Pagani and Tim Wilson from the Maxim Institute joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
A big shake-up of our earthquake strengthening laws that's said to reduce significant costs for building owners was announced today. Do we think these changes are the way to go?
Did the Government make the right decision to not recognise a Palestinian state until certain conditions were met?
Producer Laura's food waste bin wasn't collected last week because it was too heavy. Is this another mark against the green bins?
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):
And huddle with me. This evening we have Josepahgani, CEO
(00:02):
of Child Fund, and Tim Wilson, the director of the
Maximums to Jude. Hello, you guys, Hello Josie. The shakeup
of the earthquake rules as well over due, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh? Yeah, I actually think this is a pretty good balance.
I mean, you've got to get somewhere between no risk
at all and you can't do anything that's going to
have any potential risk of injury or death, and then
some kind of balanced risks. So we do it with
cars all the time, right, I mean, if we didn't
want anyone to die on the roads, we would say
everybody has to drive at five kilometers per hour. Yeah,
(00:33):
and no one would die. Maybe a few cats, so
you kind of go. You know, you've got to have
a sensible sort of in between. I do worry, though,
while I think this is really good, the big issue
I know for friends of mine are in this position
where they can't sell their house because it's earthquake prone,
or their building or their commercial building, is that you
(00:55):
have to get insurance. That's one big thing. And I'm
not convinced yet that they've really thought that through. And
the other thing is you have to be able to
get a bank loan, and people who are buying a
property have to be able to get a bank with
the insurance. Well if they're not insuring. So I listened
to the minister and he said, oh, no, the buildings
that come off the earthquake risk, they will be able
(01:16):
to be and should. Now I think that's an assumption.
I'm not yet sure that that's what the insurance companies
will do. But probably even more of an issue is
being able to get a bank loan. So if you're
buying a property, you want to get a bank loan,
the bank says, nope, won't lend to you because we
still don't think that this is going to be earthquake
proof enough or something. So I just wonder if they've
(01:37):
tacked all those boxes.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, that's a fair point. What do you think, Tim?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, two fair points. I mean the Minister was saying,
as you mentioned, that he expects the insurance cost to
sort of go down. Bank loans another thing, and the
banks are typically you know, they're very long faced about
any risk at all. But I've got to say generally,
thinking about this policy, when Torri Farano and Wayne Brown
agree on something. I that it's a positive move. The
(02:04):
idea is clearly so practical as to maybe be beyond
ideology and have some merit. So hats off to Chris Pink.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, absolutely, Tim, I do.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I do wonder though, Heather, whether or not, because we
do have a tendency in New Zealand to kind of
celebrate these things. We're removing regulation and we shove the
resk on to customers. I have a feeling we've done
it a little bit with building new building regulations not
clear that customers or building owners will be protected, and
I wonder here. I mean, it's all very well if
(02:32):
you're walking down Wellington or Auckland, weather's a big population,
But if God help you, if you're in a rural
community with a population under ten thousand and they've decided
that your buildings in the main street do not need
to be earthquake proof and the building fors on you.
So I think a better conversation about offloading risk into
the public probably needs to happen too.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's a fair point to make, Tim. Where are you
on the government's call on the state of Palestine?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah, look, I heard your editorial and I do think
that this is actually what independent foreign policy actually looks like.
It's not doing what everyone else is doing. And it's
this it was accused, you know, the Winston Peters was
accused of being cowardly. We were being accused of being cowardly.
It's courageous in the sense that declarations from the UK
(03:20):
and Canada they're all premised on a mass not being
involved and releasing hostages, and those things are not going
to happen, so they're whimsical. So it's got it's got
no value. The other the other issue here is if
we recognize the state whom are we recognizing a maas
or the Palestinian authority?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, Josey, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I mean you've got to accept that people on both
sides of this argument can make a reasonable case. And
I think Winston made a reasonable case for me. You know,
I mean, I run a CEO, I run a charity
where we're working in Gaza. And the thing, You're absolutely right, Heather,
I mean, this doesn't immediately solve the problem of getting
food and medical supplies across the border. So you know,
(04:00):
we've got trucks that are stuck on the border that
can't get across, and the pressure needs to come on
Israel to lift the bureaucratic registration that's required for NGOs
like ours to get across the border. So there's all
these very practical, immediate things that would release trucks straight away.
And you're right, recognizing Palestine doesn't make a difference to that,
but it would actually make it easier for us to negotiate.
(04:24):
If you have most countries recognizing that you're never going
to see river to see Palestine, and you're never going
to see a greater Israel that takes over Palestine. These
are two people to claim.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Explain to me. Explain to me how recognizing a state
of Palestine would make your job.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Easier, because then you can negotiate. So I actually think
this marginalizes Hummus. It doesn't reward it because it says
we will not negotiate with Hummus, but will we will
recognize the state that's read, that's led by Palestinian authority,
with Arab countries backing it. So then you have a
direct line, in a very practical line, to start negotiating policies, positions, rules, regulations.
(05:06):
You start being able to negotiate some of this very
practical stuff because with the Palestinian authority, that's years away.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Just in terms of the Palestinian.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Joseph right, it is years away, or it could be
a year away. But what you would have is Egypt, Jordan.
You'd have the Arab countries in Saudi Arabia and the
region starting to act like a transition government. You'd have
someone like Tony Blair coming in who's been floated.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
You're talking about Donald Trump's peace plan, right, That's that's
not what these are. Two Are you not conflating the
two things.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
No, I'm saying that if you recognize, if you recognize
the principle of a state of Palestine, you can negotiate
with the Palestine authority, but you would be it would
be led at this stage by an Arab coordinated Arab
group of countries. And probably you're right, there are something.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Just hold that for because I want to hear it,
but I just have to take a quick break. We'll
come back to a door the huddle with New Zealand
Southeby's International Realty, the global leader in luxury real estate.
So you're back with the huddle. Tim Wilson, Joe Spiguanni, Tim, Sorry,
what were.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You going to say, Oh, just about the Palestinian authority.
I mean it seemed from within Palestine as corrupt, authoritarian
and inefficient. And just just last week the Telegraph reported
that it had just stopped its pay to slayh program
of rewarding the families of terrorists for those they killed.
So the Palestinian authority is not necessarily the kind of
(06:42):
organization that you want to deal with it. And I
think all of these, all of these paradoxes and concerns
were well, I guess well laid out in Winston Peter's speech.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, fair point. Okay, Now have you caught up Josie
on the green bline controversy.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Well, look, yeah, this is much more important, clearly. Yeah,
I love our priorities are set right. I hate those
green bins in the office. If they're like electric cars
in the office. It's like, get the bloody things out
of the office. They stink and everything. But this is
about I know, the collection at home. So I would
say to your German, wonderful German producer Laura that it's
(07:24):
fourteen k it's quite it's quite a lot. And if
you're going to have, if you're going to put fourteen
k of oranges in your green bin. Laura, you probably
need a compost bin. Why don't you get a compost bin?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Isn't that what? Hold on? Isn't Laura? Isn't that what
the lady on the phone told you, The lady on
the phone that she called Auckland Council. The lady on
the phone, Jos said to her, why don't you get
a compost bin? And she said, I don't want to.
And then she said, why don't you get a second
green bin? And she said, I don't want toe, I
just want them because it's going to cost you more.
Then she said, why don't you stick your oranges in
your neighbor's green bin?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Oh? Why don't you put them in the waistmaster?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
But also I was look, I'm not oh wasistmaster. It's
nice for some yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Very push Also I have a toaster and a dish washer.
But yeah, hopefully one day you'll get those lovely modern cons.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I've brought four dish washers, but that's another story.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, well that's what happens. If you bring lots of children,
you're going to have lots of people to wash the dishes.
It's very good, but I think also you've got a
bear in mind that even though I would have got
rid of these green bins entirely, but actually they're funding
a whole bunch of bio energy stuff. It's actually quite valuables.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh, get off the grass. Have you read how much
this is costing Auckland City You could literally buy carbon
credits for I think it's something like thirteen times less
or something. Anyway, to put some inject some common scenes here,
please tim.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Okay, So the cost, the cost saving carbon saving sort
of the cost of the bins is fourteen hundred per ton,
thank you. If you bought it an ets, it's fifty
to sixty per ton, So you buy it on the
open mart. Don't give me a economics that was there?
I think that was a phrase from was it Ronald
Reagan or George Bush? Anyway? Anyway, the issue here, you
(09:10):
know what, there's two issues here. There's the soft handed
socker Bubba that wouldn't lift fourteen kg. That's useless. I
mean fourteen kg is the size of a Christmas Ham.
If you can't lift a Christmas Ham, you shouldn't be
working on the truck. The other one at fold here
is Laura if she can get fourteen kg's worth of
oranges off the tree. What she does is she presses them,
makes orange juice sheltered on the side of the road.
(09:31):
The kids did it last week and she get fifteen
bucks for a liter.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
That's also a lot of Laura cake that didn't get baked.
I'd like to point out Tim, you say you speak
so much common sence, Josie, go and work on it, please,
Thank you very much. Pair of you. Joe Speghany, Tim Wilson,
our huddled you know what it has. We are aware
that on this program we may well be making the
case worse, the situation worse, because the obvious, I mean
the obvious thing to do for Auckland councilors, if the
(09:55):
Green Ben's are causing this most trouble, just scratch them,
scrap them. But Auckland Council does not logical or rational,
So probably what they're going to do is go buy
a gigantic truck, can reconvert all of their trucks to
have hydraulic arms that can pick up the bins, thereby
lumping all cland Concil ratepayers with so much more cost.
Because that would be the thing that they would do
to avoid the man having to pick up fourteen kgs,
So if that happens, sorry, that was our fault.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
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
And huddle with me. This evening we have Josepahgani, CEO
(00:02):
of Child Fund, and Tim Wilson, the director of the
Maximums to Jude. Hello, you guys, Hello Josie. The shakeup
of the earthquake rules as well over due, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh? Yeah, I actually think this is a pretty good balance.
I mean, you've got to get somewhere between no risk
at all and you can't do anything that's going to
have any potential risk of injury or death, and then
some kind of balanced risks. So we do it with
cars all the time, right, I mean, if we didn't
want anyone to die on the roads, we would say
everybody has to drive at five kilometers per hour. Yeah,
(00:33):
and no one would die. Maybe a few cats, so
you kind of go. You know, you've got to have
a sensible sort of in between. I do worry, though,
while I think this is really good, the big issue
I know for friends of mine are in this position
where they can't sell their house because it's earthquake prone,
or their building or their commercial building, is that you
(00:55):
have to get insurance. That's one big thing. And I'm
not convinced yet that they've really thought that through. And
the other thing is you have to be able to
get a bank loan, and people who are buying a
property have to be able to get a bank with
the insurance. Well if they're not insuring. So I listened
to the minister and he said, oh, no, the buildings
that come off the earthquake risk, they will be able
(01:16):
to be and should. Now I think that's an assumption.
I'm not yet sure that that's what the insurance companies
will do. But probably even more of an issue is
being able to get a bank loan. So if you're
buying a property, you want to get a bank loan,
the bank says, nope, won't lend to you because we
still don't think that this is going to be earthquake
proof enough or something. So I just wonder if they've
(01:37):
tacked all those boxes.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, that's a fair point. What do you think, Tim?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, two fair points. I mean the Minister was saying,
as you mentioned, that he expects the insurance cost to
sort of go down. Bank loans another thing, and the
banks are typically you know, they're very long faced about
any risk at all. But I've got to say generally,
thinking about this policy, when Torri Farano and Wayne Brown
agree on something. I that it's a positive move. The
(02:04):
idea is clearly so practical as to maybe be beyond
ideology and have some merit. So hats off to Chris Pink.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, absolutely, Tim, I do.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I do wonder though, Heather, whether or not, because we
do have a tendency in New Zealand to kind of
celebrate these things. We're removing regulation and we shove the
resk on to customers. I have a feeling we've done
it a little bit with building new building regulations not
clear that customers or building owners will be protected, and
I wonder here. I mean, it's all very well if
(02:32):
you're walking down Wellington or Auckland, weather's a big population,
But if God help you, if you're in a rural
community with a population under ten thousand and they've decided
that your buildings in the main street do not need
to be earthquake proof and the building fors on you.
So I think a better conversation about offloading risk into
the public probably needs to happen too.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's a fair point to make, Tim. Where are you
on the government's call on the state of Palestine?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah, look, I heard your editorial and I do think
that this is actually what independent foreign policy actually looks like.
It's not doing what everyone else is doing. And it's
this it was accused, you know, the Winston Peters was
accused of being cowardly. We were being accused of being cowardly.
It's courageous in the sense that declarations from the UK
(03:20):
and Canada they're all premised on a mass not being
involved and releasing hostages, and those things are not going
to happen, so they're whimsical. So it's got it's got
no value. The other the other issue here is if
we recognize the state whom are we recognizing a maas
or the Palestinian authority?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, Josey, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I mean you've got to accept that people on both
sides of this argument can make a reasonable case. And
I think Winston made a reasonable case for me. You know,
I mean, I run a CEO, I run a charity
where we're working in Gaza. And the thing, You're absolutely right, Heather,
I mean, this doesn't immediately solve the problem of getting
food and medical supplies across the border. So you know,
(04:00):
we've got trucks that are stuck on the border that
can't get across, and the pressure needs to come on
Israel to lift the bureaucratic registration that's required for NGOs
like ours to get across the border. So there's all
these very practical, immediate things that would release trucks straight away.
And you're right, recognizing Palestine doesn't make a difference to that,
but it would actually make it easier for us to negotiate.
(04:24):
If you have most countries recognizing that you're never going
to see river to see Palestine, and you're never going
to see a greater Israel that takes over Palestine. These
are two people to claim.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Explain to me. Explain to me how recognizing a state
of Palestine would make your job.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Easier, because then you can negotiate. So I actually think
this marginalizes Hummus. It doesn't reward it because it says
we will not negotiate with Hummus, but will we will
recognize the state that's read, that's led by Palestinian authority,
with Arab countries backing it. So then you have a
direct line, in a very practical line, to start negotiating policies, positions, rules, regulations.
(05:06):
You start being able to negotiate some of this very
practical stuff because with the Palestinian authority, that's years away.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Just in terms of the Palestinian.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Joseph right, it is years away, or it could be
a year away. But what you would have is Egypt, Jordan.
You'd have the Arab countries in Saudi Arabia and the
region starting to act like a transition government. You'd have
someone like Tony Blair coming in who's been floated.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
You're talking about Donald Trump's peace plan, right, That's that's
not what these are. Two Are you not conflating the
two things.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
No, I'm saying that if you recognize, if you recognize
the principle of a state of Palestine, you can negotiate
with the Palestine authority, but you would be it would
be led at this stage by an Arab coordinated Arab
group of countries. And probably you're right, there are something.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Just hold that for because I want to hear it,
but I just have to take a quick break. We'll
come back to a door the huddle with New Zealand
Southeby's International Realty, the global leader in luxury real estate.
So you're back with the huddle. Tim Wilson, Joe Spiguanni, Tim, Sorry,
what were.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You going to say, Oh, just about the Palestinian authority.
I mean it seemed from within Palestine as corrupt, authoritarian
and inefficient. And just just last week the Telegraph reported
that it had just stopped its pay to slayh program
of rewarding the families of terrorists for those they killed.
So the Palestinian authority is not necessarily the kind of
(06:42):
organization that you want to deal with it. And I
think all of these, all of these paradoxes and concerns
were well, I guess well laid out in Winston Peter's speech.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, fair point. Okay, Now have you caught up Josie
on the green bline controversy.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Well, look, yeah, this is much more important, clearly. Yeah,
I love our priorities are set right. I hate those
green bins in the office. If they're like electric cars
in the office. It's like, get the bloody things out
of the office. They stink and everything. But this is
about I know, the collection at home. So I would
say to your German, wonderful German producer Laura that it's
(07:24):
fourteen k it's quite it's quite a lot. And if
you're going to have, if you're going to put fourteen
k of oranges in your green bin. Laura, you probably
need a compost bin. Why don't you get a compost bin?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Isn't that what? Hold on? Isn't Laura? Isn't that what
the lady on the phone told you, The lady on
the phone that she called Auckland Council. The lady on
the phone, Jos said to her, why don't you get
a compost bin? And she said, I don't want to.
And then she said, why don't you get a second
green bin? And she said, I don't want toe, I
just want them because it's going to cost you more.
Then she said, why don't you stick your oranges in
your neighbor's green bin?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Oh? Why don't you put them in the waistmaster?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
But also I was look, I'm not oh wasistmaster. It's
nice for some yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Very push Also I have a toaster and a dish washer.
But yeah, hopefully one day you'll get those lovely modern cons.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I've brought four dish washers, but that's another story.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, well that's what happens. If you bring lots of children,
you're going to have lots of people to wash the dishes.
It's very good, but I think also you've got a
bear in mind that even though I would have got
rid of these green bins entirely, but actually they're funding
a whole bunch of bio energy stuff. It's actually quite valuables.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh, get off the grass. Have you read how much
this is costing Auckland City You could literally buy carbon
credits for I think it's something like thirteen times less
or something. Anyway, to put some inject some common scenes here,
please tim.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Okay, So the cost, the cost saving carbon saving sort
of the cost of the bins is fourteen hundred per ton,
thank you. If you bought it an ets, it's fifty
to sixty per ton, So you buy it on the
open mart. Don't give me a economics that was there?
I think that was a phrase from was it Ronald
Reagan or George Bush? Anyway? Anyway, the issue here, you
(09:10):
know what, there's two issues here. There's the soft handed
socker Bubba that wouldn't lift fourteen kg. That's useless. I
mean fourteen kg is the size of a Christmas Ham.
If you can't lift a Christmas Ham, you shouldn't be
working on the truck. The other one at fold here
is Laura if she can get fourteen kg's worth of
oranges off the tree. What she does is she presses them,
makes orange juice sheltered on the side of the road.
(09:31):
The kids did it last week and she get fifteen
bucks for a liter.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
That's also a lot of Laura cake that didn't get baked.
I'd like to point out Tim, you say you speak
so much common sence, Josie, go and work on it, please,
Thank you very much. Pair of you. Joe Speghany, Tim Wilson,
our huddled you know what it has. We are aware
that on this program we may well be making the
case worse, the situation worse, because the obvious, I mean
the obvious thing to do for Auckland councilors, if the
(09:55):
Green Ben's are causing this most trouble, just scratch them,
scrap them. But Auckland Council does not logical or rational,
So probably what they're going to do is go buy
a gigantic truck, can reconvert all of their trucks to
have hydraulic arms that can pick up the bins, thereby
lumping all cland Concil ratepayers with so much more cost.
Because that would be the thing that they would do
to avoid the man having to pick up fourteen kgs,
So if that happens, sorry, that was our fault.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
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
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.