August 28, 2025 • 11 mins
Tonight on The Huddle, Auckland Council's Maurice Williamson and Ali Jones from Red PR joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
We've got councillors laughing at rate rises in Grey District - how outrageous is this? Or was it out of context?
The Government has made moves to loosen liquor laws. They're not cutting the hours, but they're making it easier for bars to operate. Is this the right move - or opening us up to more harm?
AT recently defended its $63 million dollar spend on road cones, claiming it takes two years to implement the new safety guidelines. Do we believe this?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the huddle with me this evening. We have two counselors,
Morris Williamson from Auckland Council and Alie Jones from somewhere
in christ Church something.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What are you, Alie?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I don't really know anyyboard.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Yeah, there's like basically the same thing. Well, okay, Morris,
was it nervous laughter?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Was it? No? No? And look, quite frankly, any rate
rise of that sort of magnitude is embarrassing for them,
and they should have because here we've got an Orkham,
We've got a five point eight, people get five point out.
There's a lot up in the fifteens and the twenties,
because at either end of an average there's eiland some
(00:37):
of winners and losers. And I just feel for some
of those poor sods. You know, they're on fixed income.
Some people they live in a place that where it
just happens that they are on the higher end of it,
a struggling to pay already, and we go and suck them.
So I sit there every day pleading with counselors to say,
let's please not just keep spending money that just gets
adding a bill onto ratepayers, and at five point high
(01:00):
foot still high? Thirteen's disgraceful?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, totally, Ali, did that sound nervous to you?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Do you know?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I think the mayor actually said, or what someone said.
They were not laughing about rate payers. It was the
irony of being asked if they'd been pushed back over
the rates. But the optics were awful, And I think
that's the point. If I was in a room with
a whole lot of colleagues and someone said, so, did
you get pushed back on thirteen point nine percent? I'd go,
are you kidding? But I wouldn't do that in a
(01:29):
public meeting, So you know, I think it's the context
of it, and they were silly to think that they
could do that in a public meeting. It's a very somber,
as Morris said, it's a very serious, important issue. So
I think it's about appropriate appropriateness, and it wasn't appropriate.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Do you know what that? What it felt to me
like was if you really understood the devastating impact that
these rate increases have on some people's lives and the
decisions they have to make, like potentially even selling their house,
you would have no reason to even nervously laught like
it would be far too grim to even crack a smile.
And the fact that they were able to suggest to
me they maybe don't realize, which is what I've always suspected,
(02:08):
don't realize the impact of what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
No, I think it's I think that's not right, Heather.
I think it was the context. It was the irony
of being asked if they've been pushed back. You know,
you say to someone, I'm trying to think of an
example that I might use.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I can't think. So you're getting old house your memory.
It's really terrible, you know. I mean that's a bad example. Yeah.
So I don't think it's that they're out of touch,
but you certainly don't do that in the public arena.
And look, but I do think counselors are out of touch.
We need a GAP's rate. That's what I want in
christ Church, and I think that's what we should be
delivering a race cap Ye.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Look, Heather, all I can tell you is I get
in calls from people in tears and saying we've lived here,
like in how I got Bucklan's by, just as they
get a lovely view of Harbor. I mean they're on
the fix, they're on the superannuation and maybe a bit more,
and that's it. And that's struggling like stink to keep
in the house. They've been and I've had a couple
of them in tear saying we're just going to have
to sell because of what you guys keep putting your
(03:07):
rates every year. Every year it goes up way more
than inflation. There's a few graphs more than double whatever
wage increases have been over the years, and whatever the efficient,
I only have been priced out of house and home.
And we've got to stop doing it because we're regularly
cutting services but increasing what we're charging for it. There's
(03:29):
going to be a big, big bust up. You better
be ready for this on your radio show within the
next few years, because we've got people open counselor who
want to move to fortnightly rubbish collection and some people
who say to me, my bins are fall every week
when I put them out same amount, and yes, well,
I mean it's just madness. And so I really feel
(03:50):
for the poor ratepayers of the city, and I keep
saying at those meetings, let's stop spending money.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
They could just stop spending money on things like two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the fairy lights at
Silo Park.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Oh, I haven't got the numbers around the table, Morris.
What's your table made up of?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
That's your problem, that is all. It's the problem in
local government see and central by thirty years off. You
just when you're a minister and you put paper together
and you get it done at cabinet, you don't even
worry about it because the votes are done down in
the House and you know you've got the whips and
the whips carry it was done. But you bring something
to the council on any one day. We've had a
gardening body meeting all day to day. You actually have
(04:26):
no idea where the votes will form. You have no idea,
And on many occasions I think, oh, this will just
get absolutely slammed, don't finished, and it gets through and
then there's others other this is innsible, stuff gets bold
and I keeps Jesus I can't read it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, okay, listen, We're just going to take a quick
break because Morris, your line is dodgy as all hell,
and we'll come back shortly. Right, You're back with Morris
Williamson and Allie Jones, Ellie, what do you make of
the government loosening the liquor licensing rules.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I think it flies in the face of what a
lot of people are saying around local alcohol policy. See
certainly in christ Church we've managed to get one through
after not having much success the last time we tried it.
I didn't have a problem with liquor stores closing a
little earlier, and there seems to be a lack of
consistency over it as well around the country, which I
think is confusing. But yeah, I would I'd think it
(05:19):
is opening us up to more harm from alcohol abuse,
to be honest, I mean I think, you know, although
we have to sort out the delivery, the home delivery
of alcohol as well, there's no point in closing alcohol
stores down in supermarkets and other places if you can
pick the phone up in order until God knows when
in the morning.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Morris, Well, I lived in California and you had big
billboards all up and down the road offering uber each
delivering you your wacky backy. So I thought that was
quite I thought that was quite interesting. Look, I would
have thought there were plenty of outlets for alcohol and
open enough as it is the idea that somehow, if
you're at three o'clock in the morning on a Wednesday,
(05:56):
stuck somewhere and you can't buy yourself a drink, will
so what I mean, I'm reasonably liberal on all these things,
and it's not the biggest I wouldn't thought it was
the biggest thing on the government's radar. I think they've
got a lot more on their plate to be sorting
out now. I just think there's quite a lot of
harm from alcohol. Alcohol, in my views, like a toyota.
If you use it properly, it's good for you. You
misuse it and it's really bad what it can describe you.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
No, No, fair enough, Hey listen, tell me Morris. We
had the guys from at On yesterday and they were
saying the spend on the temporary traffic management and the
Roe Cones is fair because it's only five percent of
the capital expenditure. Now you're on the board as five
percent fair.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I think that's a dreadful answer to say that that's
sixty three million, and I think it worked out. It's
sort of what was it, seventeen thousand dollars a day
or something. I think if you might divide that by
the three sixty five and it's just a port one
hundred and seventy one thousand a day. That is one
hundred and seventy one thousand a day. Look, in the end,
we've tried, the Mayor's tried. He's really tried to say
to them right from the outset, there's a new regime
(06:56):
in town because the National Party came in and put
a new policy state an on temper traffic management, which
is a risk based system. When I heard that interview
last night, I thought to myself, Yeah, there are contracts
in place, so we really can't do anything about it. Well,
if you had a commercial bone in your body, you'd
go straight to those big contracts you've got and say
to those people we'd like to renegotiate. Are going to
(07:16):
actually make it less onerous for you. So dropping how
much you have to do and we'll try and harve
the amount that we can save. You take fifty percent,
you could have drop back to the new risk based
system which was introduced by NZTA, which is the leader.
That's the government's one. We should be following the government.
We should be having all of the contracts new as
(07:37):
of now. Not I mean halfway through twenty twenty seven
is just nonsense. But you could also do some of
the big contracts that are in place and say to
the big companies, here we go, well share in the
la jess. Out of this, you can get about three
million Yeah, split savings, and we'll go to that new
regime as of next week.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yes, yeap, fair enough. Do you like the idea of that, Alley.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, I do like the idea of that. But I think,
going back to what you were saying before, Heather about
you know, why do we keep spending this money? Why
do rates keep going up? And I think it's I
think it's a culture. I think it's a lack of
understanding that every dollar counts. I mean, this is how
we run our homes, how we run our businesses, and
within reason, it shouldn't be any different in government. But
for eighty to say that sixty three million dollars isn't
(08:20):
much considering they've got a one point two billion dollar
infrastructure program to me encapsulates exactly what the problem is here.
This is like boiling a frog in hot water.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
You know, it's it.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Happens over years, over years, over years, and then you
get to point you go, how the hell did we
get here? Or it was only a point zero two
percent of the rates, So you know, I think that
kind of attitude has got to go because that's why
we're in the stock that we're in.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Totally now Talli's Ali's absolutely correct. But let me tell
you one other thing is that it's not their money,
and that's what annoys me about it. You see, if
if you were in if it was your money and
you were deciding whether you would do it or not,
you'd take a totally different attitude to what you were doing.
And I was on the board of a private company
here in Auckland that was very successful, and everything was
(09:06):
about should we need to spend this money? Why are
we not getting that now? Safety is one of those
issues where you've got to get it clearing your head.
It always has to be safety at reasonable cost, not
safety at any cost, because if you make at any cost,
you could turn the speed limit to five kilometers an
hour for every vehicle in New Zealand, have a man
walking in front of it with a red flag, sorry,
(09:27):
a person walking in front of it with a red flag,
and we'd have no one die on the roads, but
we'd be bankrupt within a week.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah too. Right now, listen, Alie, can I just ask
you really quickly, do you have any theory as to
why it is that remarriages are down since the nineties.
You'll have it. You're a woman, you'll have a theory
on this marriage. So in the nineties, when when they
looked at the number of marriages happening across the country,
(09:54):
thirty three percent were people getting remarried, like you know,
the first marriage didn't work or the second and they
were on their third. Now it's only a quarter. And
my theory is is because as women we don't need
the men anymore, Like financially we're dependent so independent, so
we're tossing it up. We're going it's just too hard.
Had one. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I think you're right. Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I researched the documentary number of years ago called Married
Again and Again, and we found a woman who'd been
married eight times and she'd be married for two guys
twice than that.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So she was a cheam.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
But not the reason you No, it wasn't who.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I think you're right, and I think the reason is
too that people have decided that they can live You
know much more frugally. That's that's how I feel. I'd
live in a bus if it meant that you didn't
have to marry again.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Okay, God of One of the lovely old sayings I
used to remember being said is that a woman who
remarries doesn't deserve to have lost her first husband.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Guys, it's lovely to chat to the pair of you. Honestly,
so many of us are getting in big trouble. Later on,
Marris Williams and Allie Jones Our Huddle for more from
Heather Duplessy Allen Drive.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
On the huddle with me this evening. We have two counselors,
Morris Williamson from Auckland Council and Alie Jones from somewhere
in christ Church something.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What are you, Alie?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I don't really know anyyboard.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Yeah, there's like basically the same thing. Well, okay, Morris,
was it nervous laughter?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Was it? No? No? And look, quite frankly, any rate
rise of that sort of magnitude is embarrassing for them,
and they should have because here we've got an Orkham,
We've got a five point eight, people get five point out.
There's a lot up in the fifteens and the twenties,
because at either end of an average there's eiland some
(00:37):
of winners and losers. And I just feel for some
of those poor sods. You know, they're on fixed income.
Some people they live in a place that where it
just happens that they are on the higher end of it,
a struggling to pay already, and we go and suck them.
So I sit there every day pleading with counselors to say,
let's please not just keep spending money that just gets
adding a bill onto ratepayers, and at five point high
(01:00):
foot still high? Thirteen's disgraceful?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, totally, Ali, did that sound nervous to you?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Do you know?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I think the mayor actually said, or what someone said.
They were not laughing about rate payers. It was the
irony of being asked if they'd been pushed back over
the rates. But the optics were awful, And I think
that's the point. If I was in a room with
a whole lot of colleagues and someone said, so, did
you get pushed back on thirteen point nine percent? I'd go,
are you kidding? But I wouldn't do that in a
(01:29):
public meeting, So you know, I think it's the context
of it, and they were silly to think that they
could do that in a public meeting. It's a very somber,
as Morris said, it's a very serious, important issue. So
I think it's about appropriate appropriateness, and it wasn't appropriate.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Do you know what that? What it felt to me
like was if you really understood the devastating impact that
these rate increases have on some people's lives and the
decisions they have to make, like potentially even selling their house,
you would have no reason to even nervously laught like
it would be far too grim to even crack a smile.
And the fact that they were able to suggest to
me they maybe don't realize, which is what I've always suspected,
(02:08):
don't realize the impact of what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
No, I think it's I think that's not right, Heather.
I think it was the context. It was the irony
of being asked if they've been pushed back. You know,
you say to someone, I'm trying to think of an
example that I might use.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I can't think. So you're getting old house your memory.
It's really terrible, you know. I mean that's a bad example. Yeah.
So I don't think it's that they're out of touch,
but you certainly don't do that in the public arena.
And look, but I do think counselors are out of touch.
We need a GAP's rate. That's what I want in
christ Church, and I think that's what we should be
delivering a race cap Ye.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Look, Heather, all I can tell you is I get
in calls from people in tears and saying we've lived here,
like in how I got Bucklan's by, just as they
get a lovely view of Harbor. I mean they're on
the fix, they're on the superannuation and maybe a bit more,
and that's it. And that's struggling like stink to keep
in the house. They've been and I've had a couple
of them in tear saying we're just going to have
to sell because of what you guys keep putting your
(03:07):
rates every year. Every year it goes up way more
than inflation. There's a few graphs more than double whatever
wage increases have been over the years, and whatever the efficient,
I only have been priced out of house and home.
And we've got to stop doing it because we're regularly
cutting services but increasing what we're charging for it. There's
(03:29):
going to be a big, big bust up. You better
be ready for this on your radio show within the
next few years, because we've got people open counselor who
want to move to fortnightly rubbish collection and some people
who say to me, my bins are fall every week
when I put them out same amount, and yes, well,
I mean it's just madness. And so I really feel
(03:50):
for the poor ratepayers of the city, and I keep
saying at those meetings, let's stop spending money.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
They could just stop spending money on things like two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the fairy lights at
Silo Park.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Oh, I haven't got the numbers around the table, Morris.
What's your table made up of?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
That's your problem, that is all. It's the problem in
local government see and central by thirty years off. You
just when you're a minister and you put paper together
and you get it done at cabinet, you don't even
worry about it because the votes are done down in
the House and you know you've got the whips and
the whips carry it was done. But you bring something
to the council on any one day. We've had a
gardening body meeting all day to day. You actually have
(04:26):
no idea where the votes will form. You have no idea,
And on many occasions I think, oh, this will just
get absolutely slammed, don't finished, and it gets through and
then there's others other this is innsible, stuff gets bold
and I keeps Jesus I can't read it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, okay, listen, We're just going to take a quick
break because Morris, your line is dodgy as all hell,
and we'll come back shortly. Right, You're back with Morris
Williamson and Allie Jones, Ellie, what do you make of
the government loosening the liquor licensing rules.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I think it flies in the face of what a
lot of people are saying around local alcohol policy. See
certainly in christ Church we've managed to get one through
after not having much success the last time we tried it.
I didn't have a problem with liquor stores closing a
little earlier, and there seems to be a lack of
consistency over it as well around the country, which I
think is confusing. But yeah, I would I'd think it
(05:19):
is opening us up to more harm from alcohol abuse,
to be honest, I mean I think, you know, although
we have to sort out the delivery, the home delivery
of alcohol as well, there's no point in closing alcohol
stores down in supermarkets and other places if you can
pick the phone up in order until God knows when
in the morning.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Morris, Well, I lived in California and you had big
billboards all up and down the road offering uber each
delivering you your wacky backy. So I thought that was
quite I thought that was quite interesting. Look, I would
have thought there were plenty of outlets for alcohol and
open enough as it is the idea that somehow, if
you're at three o'clock in the morning on a Wednesday,
(05:56):
stuck somewhere and you can't buy yourself a drink, will
so what I mean, I'm reasonably liberal on all these things,
and it's not the biggest I wouldn't thought it was
the biggest thing on the government's radar. I think they've
got a lot more on their plate to be sorting
out now. I just think there's quite a lot of
harm from alcohol. Alcohol, in my views, like a toyota.
If you use it properly, it's good for you. You
misuse it and it's really bad what it can describe you.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
No, No, fair enough, Hey listen, tell me Morris. We
had the guys from at On yesterday and they were
saying the spend on the temporary traffic management and the
Roe Cones is fair because it's only five percent of
the capital expenditure. Now you're on the board as five
percent fair.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
I think that's a dreadful answer to say that that's
sixty three million, and I think it worked out. It's
sort of what was it, seventeen thousand dollars a day
or something. I think if you might divide that by
the three sixty five and it's just a port one
hundred and seventy one thousand a day. That is one
hundred and seventy one thousand a day. Look, in the end,
we've tried, the Mayor's tried. He's really tried to say
to them right from the outset, there's a new regime
(06:56):
in town because the National Party came in and put
a new policy state an on temper traffic management, which
is a risk based system. When I heard that interview
last night, I thought to myself, Yeah, there are contracts
in place, so we really can't do anything about it. Well,
if you had a commercial bone in your body, you'd
go straight to those big contracts you've got and say
to those people we'd like to renegotiate. Are going to
(07:16):
actually make it less onerous for you. So dropping how
much you have to do and we'll try and harve
the amount that we can save. You take fifty percent,
you could have drop back to the new risk based
system which was introduced by NZTA, which is the leader.
That's the government's one. We should be following the government.
We should be having all of the contracts new as
(07:37):
of now. Not I mean halfway through twenty twenty seven
is just nonsense. But you could also do some of
the big contracts that are in place and say to
the big companies, here we go, well share in the
la jess. Out of this, you can get about three
million Yeah, split savings, and we'll go to that new
regime as of next week.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yes, yeap, fair enough. Do you like the idea of that, Alley.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, I do like the idea of that. But I think,
going back to what you were saying before, Heather about
you know, why do we keep spending this money? Why
do rates keep going up? And I think it's I
think it's a culture. I think it's a lack of
understanding that every dollar counts. I mean, this is how
we run our homes, how we run our businesses, and
within reason, it shouldn't be any different in government. But
for eighty to say that sixty three million dollars isn't
(08:20):
much considering they've got a one point two billion dollar
infrastructure program to me encapsulates exactly what the problem is here.
This is like boiling a frog in hot water.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
You know, it's it.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Happens over years, over years, over years, and then you
get to point you go, how the hell did we
get here? Or it was only a point zero two
percent of the rates, So you know, I think that
kind of attitude has got to go because that's why
we're in the stock that we're in.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Totally now Talli's Ali's absolutely correct. But let me tell
you one other thing is that it's not their money,
and that's what annoys me about it. You see, if
if you were in if it was your money and
you were deciding whether you would do it or not,
you'd take a totally different attitude to what you were doing.
And I was on the board of a private company
here in Auckland that was very successful, and everything was
(09:06):
about should we need to spend this money? Why are
we not getting that now? Safety is one of those
issues where you've got to get it clearing your head.
It always has to be safety at reasonable cost, not
safety at any cost, because if you make at any cost,
you could turn the speed limit to five kilometers an
hour for every vehicle in New Zealand, have a man
walking in front of it with a red flag, sorry,
(09:27):
a person walking in front of it with a red flag,
and we'd have no one die on the roads, but
we'd be bankrupt within a week.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah too. Right now, listen, Alie, can I just ask
you really quickly, do you have any theory as to
why it is that remarriages are down since the nineties.
You'll have it. You're a woman, you'll have a theory
on this marriage. So in the nineties, when when they
looked at the number of marriages happening across the country,
(09:54):
thirty three percent were people getting remarried, like you know,
the first marriage didn't work or the second and they
were on their third. Now it's only a quarter. And
my theory is is because as women we don't need
the men anymore, Like financially we're dependent so independent, so
we're tossing it up. We're going it's just too hard.
Had one. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I think you're right. Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I researched the documentary number of years ago called Married
Again and Again, and we found a woman who'd been
married eight times and she'd be married for two guys
twice than that.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So she was a cheam.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
But not the reason you No, it wasn't who.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I think you're right, and I think the reason is
too that people have decided that they can live You
know much more frugally. That's that's how I feel. I'd
live in a bus if it meant that you didn't
have to marry again.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Okay, God of One of the lovely old sayings I
used to remember being said is that a woman who
remarries doesn't deserve to have lost her first husband.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Guys, it's lovely to chat to the pair of you. Honestly,
so many of us are getting in big trouble. Later on,
Marris Williams and Allie Jones Our Huddle for more from
Heather Duplessy Allen Drive.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.
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
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.