The Government has begun looking for possible areas for cutbacks for next year's Budget.
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour said he hopes the Government can equal or exceed the savings achieved in its first two Budgets.
He says the Government's trying to reduce its spending from about 35% of GDP to about 31%.
Seymour told Mike Hosking it's an ongoing process of "looking behind the couch" for savings.
He says it's a matter of every year, every Budget, finding things that the Government would never have started and stopping them.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, the hunts on for savings for next year's budget.
Already savings this time ran amount of the four point
eight billion you might remember, a lot of it came
from the pay equity changes, of course, So what's left
behind the couch, so to speak. David Seymore's the Associate
Finance Minister and he's on this and.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
He's with us.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Good morning, good morning May. Now the public said, how
much of this is the future of your government given
next year's election year. How much is it about cutting back,
cutting back and cutting back versus growing something and actually
bringing some more in.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well that there's a difference between the private sector and
the government. The role of the government is to be
small and be efficient, to deliver the things that people
absolutely need in a really professional way, and leave a
larger and larger slice of the pie for the private
sector to reinvest and grow. So if you look at
where we've come from, the government started out with almost
(00:52):
thirty five percent of GDP being spent by the government.
Our goal over our four year forecast to get that
down to about thirty one. That may not sound like
a big change, but it's just a matter of every year,
every budget looking behind the couch, finding things that are
happening in government that actually we wouldn't have started stopping them,
(01:13):
and then putting that money into things that we actually need,
such as healthcare.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Okay, so last year's well, this year's trick was four
point eight. A lot of it was the pay equity.
Is there another big money pile there or is this
we down to rats and mice?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Well, people will call it rats and mice, but there's
an old saying, if you manage the pennies, the pounds
will look after themselves. And my goal in the sixth
extent that I've been involved in budgets and I play
a small partnicle that says, can you go and find
some places to save money? And I say, yep, to
savel up. And we find that sometimes there's a program
that actually a lot of people didn't know about it
(01:49):
was spending a lot of money. We find that there's
an agency that's grown exponentially over the last five or
six years, and no one's quite sure what it was
that they were doing. So you didn't call it rats
and mice. I call it just a constant drive for efficiency.
That's what everybody else has had to do, and every
farm every firm, every family for the last five or
six years of this inflation that has really ravaged the economy.
(02:12):
The government is now playing its part after it blew
out massively.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I was, funnily enough, just during the news it suddenly
occurred to me, you know, Andrew Costra and the Social
Investment Agency occurred to me to ask the questions some people,
what's he done now, what he's done so far as
he's written some reports, what's the point of him? And
is that a waste of money?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, I just look at something like, say, the prison population.
It is right to lock people up if they're committing crimes,
because the first thing I want the government to do
is make it safe for me to walk to the
supermarket and not see people walking a trolley out. But
your strategy can't be to just keep on locking people
up for decades into the future until prison population starts
(02:53):
to look American. So what do you do? You start asking, Well,
you know, are there things we could do that are smarter,
mainly with younger people. School attendance is something I'm involved
And if you get a kid to go to school,
are far less likely to end up in a prison
later on. And that is the thrust of Nikola Willis's
Social Investment Agency. I think it's a good insight and
fairness to them. They've only been going for a year
(03:15):
and dealing with problems that pan out over a citizen's lifetime.
So look, I think people could say, oh, well, just
cut it, just don't do it. On the other hand,
you know, what is our strategy to make this welfare
state web inherited work? Because right now, I think people
around the world are disillusioned with government because politicians for
(03:35):
eighty years have been saying, look, you give us a third,
maybe half of your money, we will make all the
problems go away. Clearly that is not working, and people
are casting around the world for politicians who make big
promises but maybe don't have solutions either. So I think
it's critical that we do this kind of long term
thinking about, well, you know, if you can do something
(03:56):
that's going to get kids to stay in school and
make that more appealing, then maybe that means you don't
have to spend so much imprisoning them later on.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Fair Enough is the Trump's comments yesterday, By the way,
on the tariffs, the rest of the world I e.
US is going to end up somewhere between fifteen and
twenty percent, possibly twenty percent. Are there alarm bells in
the bee hive? Did anyone in government talk about this yesterday?
Is there a plan to deal with this? And we
are now materially not better off or no worse off
than the rest of the world. Is anybody awaken cognizant
(04:25):
to this?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, there's the old saying, have the courage to know that,
or the wisdom to know the difference between what you
can change and what you can't. The American government is
elected the sovereign. They'll make their own policies and we
will deal with it. But if you look at how
we're dealing with it, we're opening up all sorts of
trade right across the world. We've got Todd McClay working
over in India. We've now got an EU Free trade
(04:48):
agreement on board. If you look at the last year,
we've had an increase of a billion dollars of trade
going into the EU. There's also the UK. We've also
got the Arab Emirates and the Gulf States, so opening
up new markets is a big part of the solution. There.
There's also the simple facts that no matter what the
trading conditions are the more innovative businesses you have with
(05:11):
more valuable stuff to sell, the more it's a matter
of people asking can they buy from us, rather than
us asking can we sell to them? And when you
travel up and down New Zealand, visit some of the
businesses out there that are making new and innovative stuff,
that's our real future.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Okay, So your answer basically as there's nothing we can
do about it's just the Prime Minister said, we don't
want to be materially worse off than anyone else. At
twenty percent, we will be.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Well, he's absolutely right, we don't want to be materially
worse off than anyone else. But it's also true that
we're the government of New Zealand. He's our Prime minister.
He's not in charge of US policy. And so, yep,
do we want to have a good deal. Yep. Do
our diplomatic teams work hard to make sure that the
Americans understand where we are, but we're a good friend. Yep.
(05:57):
We do all of that. But at the end of
the day, it's about opening up alternative markets and generating
a place where people can actually build successful businesses and
be welcome for it at important time to just acknowledge
Sir Michael Hill. I mean what an extraordinary guy starts
his business in his forties and actually manages to succeed
(06:19):
in Australia and Canada where so many New Zealand businesses
have failed. The more that we can be building businesses
with that spirit, the brighter our future as regardless of
trade conditions.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And a lovely bloke will appreciate your time. David Seymour,
the Associate Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
Well, the hunts on for savings for next year's budget.
Already savings this time ran amount of the four point
eight billion you might remember, a lot of it came
from the pay equity changes, of course, So what's left
behind the couch, so to speak. David Seymore's the Associate
Finance Minister and he's on this and.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
He's with us.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Good morning, good morning May. Now the public said, how
much of this is the future of your government given
next year's election year. How much is it about cutting back,
cutting back and cutting back versus growing something and actually
bringing some more in.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well that there's a difference between the private sector and
the government. The role of the government is to be
small and be efficient, to deliver the things that people
absolutely need in a really professional way, and leave a
larger and larger slice of the pie for the private
sector to reinvest and grow. So if you look at
where we've come from, the government started out with almost
(00:52):
thirty five percent of GDP being spent by the government.
Our goal over our four year forecast to get that
down to about thirty one. That may not sound like
a big change, but it's just a matter of every year,
every budget looking behind the couch, finding things that are
happening in government that actually we wouldn't have started stopping them,
(01:13):
and then putting that money into things that we actually need,
such as healthcare.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Okay, so last year's well, this year's trick was four
point eight. A lot of it was the pay equity.
Is there another big money pile there or is this
we down to rats and mice?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Well, people will call it rats and mice, but there's
an old saying, if you manage the pennies, the pounds
will look after themselves. And my goal in the sixth
extent that I've been involved in budgets and I play
a small partnicle that says, can you go and find
some places to save money? And I say, yep, to
savel up. And we find that sometimes there's a program
that actually a lot of people didn't know about it
(01:49):
was spending a lot of money. We find that there's
an agency that's grown exponentially over the last five or
six years, and no one's quite sure what it was
that they were doing. So you didn't call it rats
and mice. I call it just a constant drive for efficiency.
That's what everybody else has had to do, and every
farm every firm, every family for the last five or
six years of this inflation that has really ravaged the economy.
(02:12):
The government is now playing its part after it blew
out massively.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I was, funnily enough, just during the news it suddenly
occurred to me, you know, Andrew Costra and the Social
Investment Agency occurred to me to ask the questions some people,
what's he done now, what he's done so far as
he's written some reports, what's the point of him? And
is that a waste of money?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, I just look at something like, say, the prison population.
It is right to lock people up if they're committing crimes,
because the first thing I want the government to do
is make it safe for me to walk to the
supermarket and not see people walking a trolley out. But
your strategy can't be to just keep on locking people
up for decades into the future until prison population starts
(02:53):
to look American. So what do you do? You start asking, Well,
you know, are there things we could do that are smarter,
mainly with younger people. School attendance is something I'm involved
And if you get a kid to go to school,
are far less likely to end up in a prison
later on. And that is the thrust of Nikola Willis's
Social Investment Agency. I think it's a good insight and
fairness to them. They've only been going for a year
(03:15):
and dealing with problems that pan out over a citizen's lifetime.
So look, I think people could say, oh, well, just
cut it, just don't do it. On the other hand,
you know, what is our strategy to make this welfare
state web inherited work? Because right now, I think people
around the world are disillusioned with government because politicians for
(03:35):
eighty years have been saying, look, you give us a third,
maybe half of your money, we will make all the
problems go away. Clearly that is not working, and people
are casting around the world for politicians who make big
promises but maybe don't have solutions either. So I think
it's critical that we do this kind of long term
thinking about, well, you know, if you can do something
(03:56):
that's going to get kids to stay in school and
make that more appealing, then maybe that means you don't
have to spend so much imprisoning them later on.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Fair Enough is the Trump's comments yesterday, By the way,
on the tariffs, the rest of the world I e.
US is going to end up somewhere between fifteen and
twenty percent, possibly twenty percent. Are there alarm bells in
the bee hive? Did anyone in government talk about this yesterday?
Is there a plan to deal with this? And we
are now materially not better off or no worse off
than the rest of the world. Is anybody awaken cognizant
(04:25):
to this?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, there's the old saying, have the courage to know that,
or the wisdom to know the difference between what you
can change and what you can't. The American government is
elected the sovereign. They'll make their own policies and we
will deal with it. But if you look at how
we're dealing with it, we're opening up all sorts of
trade right across the world. We've got Todd McClay working
over in India. We've now got an EU Free trade
(04:48):
agreement on board. If you look at the last year,
we've had an increase of a billion dollars of trade
going into the EU. There's also the UK. We've also
got the Arab Emirates and the Gulf States, so opening
up new markets is a big part of the solution. There.
There's also the simple facts that no matter what the
trading conditions are the more innovative businesses you have with
(05:11):
more valuable stuff to sell, the more it's a matter
of people asking can they buy from us, rather than
us asking can we sell to them? And when you
travel up and down New Zealand, visit some of the
businesses out there that are making new and innovative stuff,
that's our real future.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Okay, So your answer basically as there's nothing we can
do about it's just the Prime Minister said, we don't
want to be materially worse off than anyone else. At
twenty percent, we will be.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Well, he's absolutely right, we don't want to be materially
worse off than anyone else. But it's also true that
we're the government of New Zealand. He's our Prime minister.
He's not in charge of US policy. And so, yep,
do we want to have a good deal. Yep. Do
our diplomatic teams work hard to make sure that the
Americans understand where we are, but we're a good friend. Yep.
(05:57):
We do all of that. But at the end of
the day, it's about opening up alternative markets and generating
a place where people can actually build successful businesses and
be welcome for it at important time to just acknowledge
Sir Michael Hill. I mean what an extraordinary guy starts
his business in his forties and actually manages to succeed
(06:19):
in Australia and Canada where so many New Zealand businesses
have failed. The more that we can be building businesses
with that spirit, the brighter our future as regardless of
trade conditions.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And a lovely bloke will appreciate your time. David Seymour,
the Associate Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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