May 13, 2025 • 9 mins
Tonight on The Huddle, CTU economist Craig Renney and Tim Wilson from the Maxim Institute joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
Why has the CTU been excluded from the Budget lock-up?
The green bins debate- do they need to go? Simeon Brown suggested Aucklanders could shave 2 percent off their rates bills if they went away. What do we make of this?
The IRD is cracking down on chasing up people overseas who haven't paid back their student loans. Why have they taken so long to do this?
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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 on the huddle with us this evening,
Tim Wilson, Maximum Institute and Craig rinny Ce to you economist. Hello,
are you too anyone getting the feeling that the mayor
has been playing silly buggers on this one?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Just yeah, my goodness, when you say something in public,
you should make sure the story at least checks out somehow.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, okay, so we all are. Hey Craig, how are
you feeling about being kept out of the budget lockup?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm disappointed, naturally. I've been to many budget lockups previously,
and the Sea to you has been to pretty much
every budget lockup, but I have been invaded to, so
I guess I'm more disappointed for all of our members
who won't be able to have access to the information
they normally would have and be able to understand what's
actually in the budget.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Well no. Jason Wall's, the political editor at news Talk
zib says he doesn't need an economist to tell him
to go to the back of the budget and read
the numbers. He doesn't need you.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You don't add anything because that's what I told Jason
Walls how to read the budget five years ago. And
so so he's quote, he's deliberately actually quoting me and
telling how.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Great great can you look in twenty twenty because I
understand you're probably going to get into Parliament in Willington Central.
So in twenty twenty nine, when you're the Minister of Finance,
will you pledge now that you'll let me into the
budget lockup.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I'll tell you what, if I'm ever in the fortunate
place of being the Minister of Finance, I will absolutely
let you into the lock up, and I'll let anybody
else into the lockup who works for a reasonable organization,
who has a reasonable reason for being there. Unfortunately, what
we have right now is a situation whether the Treasury
or the Minister of Finance has made decisions to lock
up not just the CTU, not just me, but also
(01:40):
the PSA, every other trade union, lots of other organizations, Zealand, Zeyland,
the Taxpayers Union, a whole bunch of organizations who have
perfectly reasonable reasons to be there. I mean, if you
don't like me, just kick me out, right, but don't
kick out everybody else, right. That seems to be a huge,
(02:01):
huge decision.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I mean, because what they do, let's be honest about it, Tim,
what they're doing is they are avoiding scrutiny because they
know that the economs bring a different level of scrutiny
to your journos and that's just too tough, right, so
they're keeping them out. There's what's going on here.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, it seems to be right, and I'm of the
opinion that some scrutiny is actually helpful when we're looking
at numbers and are you talking with the textpayers union
guy who said we've actually spotted mistakes. Well, if we
can get more people into spot mistakes, that might be
helpful for the healthy the health of the country.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Certainly, the New Zealand Initiative a couple of years ago
noticed an error in the tobacco taxation that was inside
the documents. So there's perfectly good reasons for being there.
But just generally speaking, it's essentially seeing financial institutions like
big Australian banks or Bloomberg, who's a US based organization,
they're allowed access to this information, but three hundred and
(02:55):
fifty thousand workers who we represent aren't, and that doesn't
seem to be.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
No, I don't.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's fair reason why we're doing that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
No, it's not fear at all. Craig, did you just
confirmed by thought before, by the way, that you're going
to run as a laborer imprint?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Absolutely not. I confirmed that if I was, if I
was the Minister of Finance in twenty twenty nine, which
seems like such a vanishingly ridiculous suggestion that I'm ill happily,
I'll happily back up. If I'm in that position, then
I'll happily let you.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
That seems like.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Rule out for us that you're going to be on
the labor ticket next year.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Well, first things first, there's a there's a whole party
process is involved in that. I'm not going to rule
anything in or out, because there's a long way before
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I just want you to acknowledge, when you are the
Minister of Finance that we made you famous on the huddle.
Nobody knew who you were Craig before this.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I'm very happy to do that, Heather, very happy.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I'll tell you what Eulit mesa Eulit Maxim and Craig
will bring scrutinally in the scones. So it's done.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
The fantastic we made that there are already already savings
to the crown.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Really, okay, we'll take a break back to you guys
shortly the.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's international Realty achieve extraordinary results
with unparallel reach.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Right, you're back of the huddle. Tim Wilson and Craig Greennye. Tim,
did you see the carbon cost of those green bins
in Auckland?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness, central government mandating and
not thought through, not particularly desirable policy with not desirable outcomes.
I mean, the plastic bags made in China shipped here,
the bins from Ossie shipped here, polluting trucks. It's a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It totally is. But I mean, okay, Craig, you're an economist.
Does this work on any level when you do this
whole elaborate scheme and it costs you fourteen hundred dollars
per carbon ton when you could just buy a unit
on the carbon auction for fifty bucks.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
It doesn't. But I think would also belies.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I think Nikola did that. Nicholas done that. She didn't
like what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Actually you know who it was. It was actually Jason Walls.
He was Jason was going to be exposed and he
just said that he had to shut poor old Craig down.
But when Craig's the Minister of Finance, Walls, will.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You think Jason was like, we don't actually need an
economist's opinion on this. Cut him off. We all understands.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Never mind, well this is but this is this is
probably how they wrote this policy here, That is, we'll
just shut the economists out and you know, your compost
is great. Don't worry about the numbers that they'll wash
their own faces.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Do you use the green bins?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Tim, No, we throw a compost over the fience like
most Awklanders.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Oh no, that is an absolute lie. That's on the
other side of the hang on tech. Now, if you're
going to talk nonsense like that, I'm going to talk
to Craig. Hellow Craig you.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
There, Yes, I am apologies, Go on, then tell me
what you think. Yeah, essentially, and this is one of
these situations in which you know that the principle of
allowing local government to actually work should actually take place,
you know, and when central government say to pervade mandates
on our thing that often doesn't work in one area,
it doesn't work in another area. We should this is
(05:59):
what we elect local government to make these decisions and
we should allowed.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
No Craig all right, but what about this though? Government
has actually repealed the mandating here, right, So it's up
to councils now and they can scrap these things if
they don't want don't want them anymore. But Auckland Council
continues with this. So this is not a central government problem.
This is now an Auckland council problem, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
It sounds like it and I think if the carbon
price is well higher than that, then this is something
that you know in the canes, in the resource constrained
universe that we're all in right now, and certainly many
local residents facing ever increasing rates bills, we'll be asking
hard questions. The key thing here is you know what
works in what's actually going to really make a difference.
And it doesn't sound as if it's really working or
(06:42):
if it's actually got the level of community support or
community buy and that will actually deliver a really good
outcome for Auckland. Is there too?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Absolutely? Hey, what do you make tim of IID doing
this crackdown and getting the student loan blood is to
pay their money back.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well, yeah, we all hate Texas, but i ID need
to be collecting them. And this just shows that money
buys money. So they got more on the last budget
to go for this stuff, two hundred million. I think
they should keep doing it because apparently we've got two
point three billion outstanding. Winston Peter should jump on this.
If you get that back, you could buy eight fererries.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
You could buy eight feerries you by, you could buy
a lot of stuff about whole bunch of green bins
as well. Craig, isn't this interesting though? So I think
the best example of what's going on here is one
of the old mates is not paying the money back
for years, presumably defaulted. IAD arrests the person at the border,
and suddenly they pay the money back, So they clearly
have the money, they just don't want to pay it.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I think that happens sometimes. I think there's lots of
different reasons and lots of different things that occur, and
some people will have the money and some people won't.
I think there's a couple of things, one of which
is we can't just keep putting more loans and more
costs on students. Student costs when the cost tituition when
it's six percent last year, the costs of interest if
you're having to pay it when it's more last year. Again.
(07:58):
But two, this is a great example of if you
invest in the public service, you get a good outcome.
It would be lovely if we followed that example elsewhere
in governments and we made investments in government that actually
allowed good outcomes. Funny Zealand doesn't. This is a really
good example of that happening in the real world.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I can't tell whether you like the crackdown on the
student loan defaulters or us.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Do you.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
I certainly like that people. When people owe money, they
should pay it, and they should. The question is if
they can't pay it, then there's a you know, there's
a process by which they can go through ird in
order to get support to get change. So there's no
you won't find me saying that they shouldn't pay it.
But we shouldn't be continuing to hugely overburdened students as
(08:45):
a consequence of And secondly, we should then be making
sure that they've got good jobs to go to in
New Zealand, rather than essentially forcing many of them to
go overseas to get the kinds of work and experience
that they need to write.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's been great to chat to the pair of you
look after Yourselves. That's Craig Rennie and Tim Wilson our
huddle this evening.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Agin 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 on the huddle with us this evening,
Tim Wilson, Maximum Institute and Craig rinny Ce to you economist. Hello,
are you too anyone getting the feeling that the mayor
has been playing silly buggers on this one?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Just yeah, my goodness, when you say something in public,
you should make sure the story at least checks out somehow.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, okay, so we all are. Hey Craig, how are
you feeling about being kept out of the budget lockup?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm disappointed, naturally. I've been to many budget lockups previously,
and the Sea to you has been to pretty much
every budget lockup, but I have been invaded to, so
I guess I'm more disappointed for all of our members
who won't be able to have access to the information
they normally would have and be able to understand what's
actually in the budget.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Well no. Jason Wall's, the political editor at news Talk
zib says he doesn't need an economist to tell him
to go to the back of the budget and read
the numbers. He doesn't need you.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You don't add anything because that's what I told Jason
Walls how to read the budget five years ago. And
so so he's quote, he's deliberately actually quoting me and
telling how.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Great great can you look in twenty twenty because I
understand you're probably going to get into Parliament in Willington Central.
So in twenty twenty nine, when you're the Minister of Finance,
will you pledge now that you'll let me into the
budget lockup.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I'll tell you what, if I'm ever in the fortunate
place of being the Minister of Finance, I will absolutely
let you into the lock up, and I'll let anybody
else into the lockup who works for a reasonable organization,
who has a reasonable reason for being there. Unfortunately, what
we have right now is a situation whether the Treasury
or the Minister of Finance has made decisions to lock
up not just the CTU, not just me, but also
(01:40):
the PSA, every other trade union, lots of other organizations, Zealand, Zeyland,
the Taxpayers Union, a whole bunch of organizations who have
perfectly reasonable reasons to be there. I mean, if you
don't like me, just kick me out, right, but don't
kick out everybody else, right. That seems to be a huge,
(02:01):
huge decision.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I mean, because what they do, let's be honest about it, Tim,
what they're doing is they are avoiding scrutiny because they
know that the economs bring a different level of scrutiny
to your journos and that's just too tough, right, so
they're keeping them out. There's what's going on here.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, it seems to be right, and I'm of the
opinion that some scrutiny is actually helpful when we're looking
at numbers and are you talking with the textpayers union
guy who said we've actually spotted mistakes. Well, if we
can get more people into spot mistakes, that might be
helpful for the healthy the health of the country.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Certainly, the New Zealand Initiative a couple of years ago
noticed an error in the tobacco taxation that was inside
the documents. So there's perfectly good reasons for being there.
But just generally speaking, it's essentially seeing financial institutions like
big Australian banks or Bloomberg, who's a US based organization,
they're allowed access to this information, but three hundred and
(02:55):
fifty thousand workers who we represent aren't, and that doesn't
seem to be.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
No, I don't.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's fair reason why we're doing that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
No, it's not fear at all. Craig, did you just
confirmed by thought before, by the way, that you're going
to run as a laborer imprint?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Absolutely not. I confirmed that if I was, if I
was the Minister of Finance in twenty twenty nine, which
seems like such a vanishingly ridiculous suggestion that I'm ill happily,
I'll happily back up. If I'm in that position, then
I'll happily let you.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
That seems like.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Rule out for us that you're going to be on
the labor ticket next year.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Well, first things first, there's a there's a whole party
process is involved in that. I'm not going to rule
anything in or out, because there's a long way before
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I just want you to acknowledge, when you are the
Minister of Finance that we made you famous on the huddle.
Nobody knew who you were Craig before this.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I'm very happy to do that, Heather, very happy.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
I'll tell you what Eulit mesa Eulit Maxim and Craig
will bring scrutinally in the scones. So it's done.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
The fantastic we made that there are already already savings
to the crown.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Really, okay, we'll take a break back to you guys
shortly the.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's international Realty achieve extraordinary results
with unparallel reach.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Right, you're back of the huddle. Tim Wilson and Craig Greennye. Tim,
did you see the carbon cost of those green bins
in Auckland?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness, central government mandating and
not thought through, not particularly desirable policy with not desirable outcomes.
I mean, the plastic bags made in China shipped here,
the bins from Ossie shipped here, polluting trucks. It's a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It totally is. But I mean, okay, Craig, you're an economist.
Does this work on any level when you do this
whole elaborate scheme and it costs you fourteen hundred dollars
per carbon ton when you could just buy a unit
on the carbon auction for fifty bucks.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
It doesn't. But I think would also belies.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I think Nikola did that. Nicholas done that. She didn't
like what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Actually you know who it was. It was actually Jason Walls.
He was Jason was going to be exposed and he
just said that he had to shut poor old Craig down.
But when Craig's the Minister of Finance, Walls, will.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You think Jason was like, we don't actually need an
economist's opinion on this. Cut him off. We all understands.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Never mind, well this is but this is this is
probably how they wrote this policy here, That is, we'll
just shut the economists out and you know, your compost
is great. Don't worry about the numbers that they'll wash
their own faces.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Do you use the green bins?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Tim, No, we throw a compost over the fience like
most Awklanders.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Oh no, that is an absolute lie. That's on the
other side of the hang on tech. Now, if you're
going to talk nonsense like that, I'm going to talk
to Craig. Hellow Craig you.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
There, Yes, I am apologies, Go on, then tell me
what you think. Yeah, essentially, and this is one of
these situations in which you know that the principle of
allowing local government to actually work should actually take place,
you know, and when central government say to pervade mandates
on our thing that often doesn't work in one area,
it doesn't work in another area. We should this is
(05:59):
what we elect local government to make these decisions and
we should allowed.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
No Craig all right, but what about this though? Government
has actually repealed the mandating here, right, So it's up
to councils now and they can scrap these things if
they don't want don't want them anymore. But Auckland Council
continues with this. So this is not a central government problem.
This is now an Auckland council problem, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
It sounds like it and I think if the carbon
price is well higher than that, then this is something
that you know in the canes, in the resource constrained
universe that we're all in right now, and certainly many
local residents facing ever increasing rates bills, we'll be asking
hard questions. The key thing here is you know what
works in what's actually going to really make a difference.
And it doesn't sound as if it's really working or
(06:42):
if it's actually got the level of community support or
community buy and that will actually deliver a really good
outcome for Auckland. Is there too?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Absolutely? Hey, what do you make tim of IID doing
this crackdown and getting the student loan blood is to
pay their money back.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Well, yeah, we all hate Texas, but i ID need
to be collecting them. And this just shows that money
buys money. So they got more on the last budget
to go for this stuff, two hundred million. I think
they should keep doing it because apparently we've got two
point three billion outstanding. Winston Peter should jump on this.
If you get that back, you could buy eight fererries.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
You could buy eight feerries you by, you could buy
a lot of stuff about whole bunch of green bins
as well. Craig, isn't this interesting though? So I think
the best example of what's going on here is one
of the old mates is not paying the money back
for years, presumably defaulted. IAD arrests the person at the border,
and suddenly they pay the money back, So they clearly
have the money, they just don't want to pay it.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I think that happens sometimes. I think there's lots of
different reasons and lots of different things that occur, and
some people will have the money and some people won't.
I think there's a couple of things, one of which
is we can't just keep putting more loans and more
costs on students. Student costs when the cost tituition when
it's six percent last year, the costs of interest if
you're having to pay it when it's more last year. Again.
(07:58):
But two, this is a great example of if you
invest in the public service, you get a good outcome.
It would be lovely if we followed that example elsewhere
in governments and we made investments in government that actually
allowed good outcomes. Funny Zealand doesn't. This is a really
good example of that happening in the real world.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I can't tell whether you like the crackdown on the
student loan defaulters or us.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Do you.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
I certainly like that people. When people owe money, they
should pay it, and they should. The question is if
they can't pay it, then there's a you know, there's
a process by which they can go through ird in
order to get support to get change. So there's no
you won't find me saying that they shouldn't pay it.
But we shouldn't be continuing to hugely overburdened students as
(08:45):
a consequence of And secondly, we should then be making
sure that they've got good jobs to go to in
New Zealand, rather than essentially forcing many of them to
go overseas to get the kinds of work and experience
that they need to write.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's been great to chat to the pair of you
look after Yourselves. That's Craig Rennie and Tim Wilson our
huddle this evening.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Agin 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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