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July 22, 2025 11 mins

Halfway through the week, Mark Mitchell and Ginny Andersen are back with Mike Hosking to discuss the biggest political stories thus far. 

Labour MP Camilla Bellich’s member’s bill, the Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill, has passed its second reading. But why do we want to talk about salaries?  

Nicola Willis has met with Fonterra over the cost of butter – has anything come of it yet? 

And how intense will the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election be? 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's do a little bit of politics Mike Mitchell and
Jenny Anderson and with morning you too.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Good morning, morning Jenny, and welcome beat Mike.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Thank you, good morning. I hope you had a nice brain.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
I did. I had a reason. You don't sound like
you mean it, Jenny having a nice brain.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Well, I just kind of get it, and I did.
Hope you did go away? Was pleasing.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
No, no, no, no, no. You don't have to ask supplementaries, Jenny,
just because you've been called out on it. No, I
didn't go away, and this will help you, Jenny. I
didn't go away because of the cost of living crisis,
because I'm too busy paying for the butter Oh my goodness.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Really couldn't get a staycation stay home.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes it was a staycation, but I am I put
some good infrastructure into my country property.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Did you good? Well?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Cutting back on dairy mate has been good for you
because you've come back fired up. There's no doubt about that.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
That is true. I've never sounded better. I talked to
myself last night. I said, you never sound a bit
of Michael, and I agreed with myself. Anyway, Can I
just compliment you? Mark Funnily enough, and you could have
a word with Luxo about this. When you got out
of the helicopter the other day when you went down
to Nelson, you had a good pair of chinos on
a contrasting pair of chinos, and you had a backpack,

(01:12):
and you look like a blood and you look like
a bloke it'd been to a few emergency scenes and
he might be there for the night, whereas Luxo looked
like a guy who didn't leave the city all that much,
and he had some rim Williams on and they're a
bit shiny, you know what I mean. You've got to
look the part when you turn up at the appropriate
locations a rid right.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
No, he's not interested in what he looks like. He's
interested in getting on the ground. Since I've been Emergency
Management Minister, he has been out on the ground at
every just about every major emergency that we've had. And
with it, without a doubt, the people of Tessman were suffering,
and by the way, they might just to highlight that
he was there just at the right time. Because we
go through the response, everyone's full of adrenaline. It's when

(01:52):
the response is over the adrenaline's gone and people look
and see what they have to deal with. That's when
you've got to be there to reassure.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
The look we can get through this good point. Are
you at Parliament this morning, Jinny.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yes, I am at my desk.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Component Have you heard any whispers about what happened at
the butter meeting?

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Not? No, I have not, No, I did not. I
did watch the TV one story and.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
That was shocking, wasn't it. Yeah? I thought it was.
But mean that it's uncor Yeah, that he's Miles Hurrel
is not a crook or responsible for the price of
your butter directly, and he doesn't need to be harangued
down the street, does he.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Well, there are fair questions that people want to know
the answers in appropriate right way. Yeah, I'm agreeing with you.
I don't think it was quite the right thing. I mean,
he had several meetings with different parties, and I think
people are really interested to know what's in behind some
of those prices. But it's not It's not just butter.
I mean it was when we had a yarn with him,

(02:53):
it was about also particularly in those Asian markets. It's
it's protein rich foods like milk as well are really
in high demand. While that's a that's a good thing
for our overall economy, it also hurts people who are
trying to just buy fot you kind of cutting.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I didn't see the one news report.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
What was it?

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Mos horrible as a good god, he's a great guy.
Mikey Sheman, who's the political editor, sort of tried to
doorstop and while he was actually walking and sort of
treated him like he done a ram raid. And the
guy's just there for a meeting, and she's going and
is it too expensive? It's butter too expensive? But to
expensive and it's just like he's just walking down the street.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
I'll tell you what he's he's got his shoulders to
the wheel in terms of promoting US as a country
and get our products out there. And I personally think
he does a great job.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
I think he's done a magnificent job. And he's another
example of why Tao spearings was a disaster and he
should have been there all along. Can you explain to
me were you in the butter meeting, Ginny.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
We were one of the groups that met with a mess.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Right, so do you understand how butter is priced and
therefore there's no scandal here at the end of as
much as you would like to make it into a scandal,
there is no scandal here. We sell to the world
and the price is the price.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
But the problem we have, Mike is it's not just butter.
It's the price of electricity, other foot groups and couse
costs as well, things like rates and insurance. It's all
of those things, not just butter.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Traveling with that. And this is where Hipkins in this
question yesterday comes in. The price of electricity is not
the government's fault and the cost of rates is not
the government's fault, and so what are the government is
supposed to do well?

Speaker 3 (04:31):
I would debate that Kenning water infrastructure projects across New
Zealand has resulted in rates increasing, So I would say
that that one is the government's fault. We had a
plan in place to fix water infrastructure would have kept
rates lower. They threw that out and the cost of
that is rates going up for you.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Okay, Mark, sorry, you were going to say you want
to say something about the electricity cost. I mean, you've
got to cap these councils for start, because that they're
out of control and this is inflationary.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, and just get them focused back on their core role.
So you know that is critical important, and Solomon Wattson
is doing some work around that, and I'll be having
some input on that too, especially on the emergency management
side of it, because I've been working with a lot
of the councils around the country and certainly see the
good things that are happening, but have also identified where
there's efficiencies that he gained as well. But look, at
the end of the day, on the economy, is that

(05:19):
you know that we've got it. We had a mounted
of debt, interest rates were extremely high, and and inflation
was high. And under this government we've brought all of
those things down. What's difficult, we've got there are some
leavers that the government can pull and we are using
We're doing everything that we can to do that, and
there's some leavers that we don't control.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
What's interesting about that, though, Mark is the pole that
came out yesterday, and so the question is the country
going in the right direction and the majority of people
fifty one percent just say no. Now, politically that doesn't
play well for you. If you accept your argument, I
get it. But the politics may well be different. They
may well be labor may well be if Hepkin stands
up and goes, look at the price of tomatoes, look
at the prizer, but look at the price, and everyone goes, yeah, exactly,

(06:00):
you're in trouble. Well, I mean, we.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Knew that it was going to be tough. You know,
we didn't take the job on knowing that was going
to be easy.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
And this is the.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
Second told around from I was in the last National
Gunment till we had to do exactly the same thing.
We had to come and clean up the economy and
give it moving again, where this time has been harder
because we had more debt and infrastrates with higher inflation side.
But we are moving in the right direction. We're fully
focused on growth and you know we've we've been relentless.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
And how we approached it just being clear up your signal, yeah, sorry.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
In a shower or something. Well, I think the problem
we've got. The problem we've got is that Christopher Luxon
promised to make the cost of learning better. So we
went out in an election campaign and really upsold the
fact that the cost of living relief would be coming.
So I think your kiwis are simple in the sense
that if they've been promised something they're expecting to see that,

(06:51):
and we're a fear way into this government now and
people are still hurting. So I think that's the problem.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
That interesting.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Eighteen months and we're eighteen months soon after six years
of a labor government that put us in the situation
that we are in. We inherited this issue.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
We're working really hard and by the way it's gone
on No. I just I just want to correct you
on that one. Is that when you're in government, inflation
was at seven plus percent, and it was there for
way too long. We've now got it down to two
point seven. When you're in government, interest rates people were
almost having to double what they're paying on their mortgages.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
All right, so now we're.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Now reducting that.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Okay, fair enough, quick question for you, Jinny.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Come.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
I keep wanting to call a Karmela Camilla Balach and
her lets small talk about our pay and income bill.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yes, Mark Clark said, doesn't he Well.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
The NATS are on board. What what what's the point
given that everyone's just going to hate everyone.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
I did read your piece on it, and then I
thought of there's patransparency in your workplace. You'd have to
make your own coffee and definitely make your own cheese toasty,
because that would be dangerous indeed. So but I think
the point that is you don't have to tell every
It just means that your boss can't stop you from
telling people.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, but I think, but beyond that, what is it
going to achieve? Because you know how people are. The
moment I find out that you're earning more than I am,
I hate you and you hate me, and it's a
bitch session. So beyond that as a piece of law,
what does it achieve?

Speaker 3 (08:18):
It means that it helps address unfairness in the workplace.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, but what fairness?

Speaker 3 (08:24):
Well, I mean I've been in a situation where I've
had say five years more experience, a better qualification, and
you find out that someone else is getting paid more
than you when you feel like you're doing the same
work all or greater. Then and so those pay gig
clauses mean that it means you can't just find out
where you're at. So more transparency means unfairness, discrimination, even

(08:49):
long standing sort of gender gaps along those areas. And
I think that's why National is supporting it. They took
ahead on pay equity, and so this is why are.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
You supporting it, Mark, because I can't work it out,
to be honest.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
With you and what they're engaged in this issue, notolio.
I think as long as it's not compulsory, I think
that's that's important.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Want to put your chinos on and grab a backpack
and bugger off situation?

Speaker 2 (09:17):
No, No, we need to break. We need to break
from the from the weather stuff. I think the old
country does. But yeah, as long as not compulsory.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Who would have who would have made the decision? How
does the party who would have made the decision to go? Yep,
we'll we'll back that. Who decides that?

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Ultimately it's a it'll be a caucus decision, but of
course it will be the portfolio holder.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Was it for what's the portfolio? Who's what? What's what's
Camilla's portfolio? What's under what spec that's probably that's probably
supporting this, which is not.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
It's only national So when New Zealand first and aren't
supporting it but national art so that indicates that they
felt they took hit on pay equity, that people were
angry about that. So this is some kind of appeasement
towards them.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Well, well, it's weird that you call in your own
bill and appiacement either you back it or you don't.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
But now I'm saying you are appeasing pay the fact
that you voted down pay equity and it's weird.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Can you can you Mark find out just who changed
your mind? Well you know who decided national this is
the thing, because I just think it's weird. Jenny, real quick.
The by election in Tomackey, Mikado. How intense do you
think the battle will be? Is this a genuine contest?
Do you reckon? Oh?

Speaker 3 (10:30):
It definitely is a genuine content contest. And penaking that
day is excellent and he's working incredibly hard, So no
doubt about it. It's going to be It's going to
be a real contest at a tough fight.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
You think people will do it well.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
By elections are always harder to engage people. We know that,
but we know how to also go door to door,
to go out and talk to people and to motivate
them to get out and vote.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
And we'll be doing a Judith Collins is the answer,
Mark Public Services is what it comes under regulator.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
For more from the Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to
News Talk SETB from six am weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
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