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December 9, 2025 11 mins

Today on Politics Wednesday, Labour’s Ginny Andersen and National’s Mark Mitchell joined Heather du Plessis-Allan to discuss the week thus far. 

They discussed the newly-announced RMA reforms – how does Labour feel about the new acts?  

There's been another development in the McSkimming saga, with Andrew Coster claiming he briefed both Chris Hipkins and Mark Mitchell on the situation previously – something neither of them recall. 

And is the Ministerial Advisory Group for Retail Crime taking the mickey with how much they’re charging for their services? 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Politics Wednesday, Mark Mitchell, Ginny Anderson with us. Hello you two,
good morning. Listen. I tell you what, but I'm loving
the reno's. I'm loving the r When I say the renolds,
I mean the rm reforms that might lead to easier renos.
How about you?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Are you going to have busy out the building to
deck over the summer.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
I think that will be you. And I know that
anybody who lives a hammer in this family is me,
but also weirdly, Also weirdly, Mitch, is your wife who
does all the hard work, doesn't she?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
She does. She's amazing, There's no doubt about that, and
she would definitely agree with you. She's the handy person home.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
You come up against the RMA yet, Ginny, Uh.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Not really, No, No, I haven't. But it is looking
a lot like the one they checked out when they
first got in. Even yeah, it's very similar to what
we had in place that got biffed. They've literally going
to change the titles.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
But this is good, Ginny. This is good because what
it well, you like it? You like did you put
it out.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
In the spirit of in the spirit of Christmas. Bipartisanship
is important, but it means yeah, we want to take
a good look like they've only just landed, so we'll
have a good lock through it. And Rachel Brooking has
been been doing that work for us. But the one
they introduced last night that we didn't know about, that
that that was disappointing. They chucked something through all stages

(01:25):
of urgency, didn't mention it and and we didn't get
there in the briefings.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (01:30):
And there was one about I think it was notification,
the way you do do things that's changing for There
was one that went through that was at the early stages.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Do you know what he's talking about?

Speaker 3 (01:43):
There was one around there was oh, forgotten the title
of the bill, but it was on an urgency last
night and it was around consenting and how that works.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
So it's just it was about it was about some
bracest thing to protect people that are already engaged in
having consents done so that they're not adversely impacted by
the changes that are going to be made, and the
bills that will deal with that will be going through
a full parliamentary process. It's really positive for us as
a country. It's going to save rate pars and tax

(02:12):
payers about thirteen point three billion dollars by regulating only
what is necessary and starting to giving people's freedom to
be able to do more around their own properties and landowners.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, okay, that sounds reasonable. Now much on Costa, What
is going on here? Is Andrew Costa lying or is
he being genuine and someone has just someone has forgotten
what actually happened.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, I'm trying not to talk about Andy Costa too
much because I'm moving on from all of that and
getting focused on public safety. But I will say this,
is he lying about the fact that he breathed me
or had an informal chat with me about geimate skilling.
Absolutely is if he had bought that forward to me,
bearing in mind in the context that at that time
I was having issues around the executive and performance anyway,

(02:57):
it would have been a massive red flag for me
to seek more advice and information on it. When I
did find out about Givin skimming m said, which was
on the sixth of November, I immediately called a meeting
with the PSC and the solicit General on the seventh
to bring forward my concerns around her.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Okay, now, is there value in us maybe doing an inquiry?
I mean I hate an inquiry, but given them, we've
got this, he said. She said, nonsense, why not do
an inquiry and clar enough.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, it's not, he said, She said, because both myself
and Chris Hipkins have been very clear and unequivocal about
the fact that we have not received those briefings. There's
no file notes, there's no memos, there's no aid memoirs,
there's nothing at all. So it's incumbent on him if
he's going to come out and say that to prove it,
which he can't. The IPCA report is very thorough. It

(03:44):
deals with all of those issues. We have accepted all
the recommendations. We're going to be implementing those. We're putting
a Inspector General in over the top of police to
make sure that ensure that the public can have confidence
that this can't happen again, and we just got to
get on with it. We've got a very good new
police commissioner that so that's fixing a lot of those issues,
and it's been dealing with those issues before.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Now what do you reckon, Jenny, how do we clear
this up?

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Well, there's a big job here really to rebuild that
trust and confidence with new Zealand Public In my concern
at all of this is that we already have a
really low rate of reporting family violence and sexual violence.
It's sits at like less than twenty percent in some
instances are being reported. And so when you have issues

(04:28):
like this happening that get so much profile and so
much media, my concern is that it takes away people's
ability to feel like they can front up and report
crimes and hope they'll be investigated. And so I really
hope that in the program of work that you know,
Mark's got ahead of them, that those things will be addressed.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
So here that I agree with those comments that the
biggest concern that we had, of course was around public confidence,
and we were really hard to try and show that
this was contained to a small group of people, yes,
the previous leaders team, but we've got fifteen thousand outstanding
non sworn and sworn keiwis that turn up every day
and serve their communities, and I think the public have

(05:08):
been able to work that out. And then you've had
people like Louise Nicholas who've got a much louder voice
on this, then the likes of me who's coming out
and I.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Got to interrupt you match. I've got to interrupted because
producer Sam just came in with Winston Peter's post on
his phone on Facebook. Have you seen this, Jinny, what
Winston said about what chiping you? So he's posted on facing.
Is it not a fact that Chris Hopkins knew about
Jevin mc skimmings affair in twenty twenty two when he
was the police minister.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
No, it's not true. He did not age that.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, there was a post that was put up yesterday
and looks that'll be for New Zealand first to speak to,
you know, so you'll have to get them on.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Do you know that? Do you know that it's a fact?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
No? I don't. I was very clear yesterday that, judging
on my own experience with the fact that Andrew Costa
came out and just blatantly lied about the fact that
he had previously briefed me in twenty twenty four, I
said that I completely support Chressipkins and what he's come
out and if he said the same experience as me
is that I think that he came out and even

(06:08):
went a bit further and said he was in a
police car at the time. There are other people in
the car No one recollects that conversation at all.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Interesting, Ginny, what are we going to do about Sunny
Kochel's boogie morning teas?

Speaker 3 (06:17):
I don't know. That's quite a lot of money. Three
two hundred dollars. That's a lot of sausage rolls, a
you know, if you break that down. So, yeah, he couldn't.
We didn't get any straight answers out of that. There
was a lot of money. We don't know how many
people were here, so that would have helped to understand,
and we don't know. We did know.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
I thought there were eighty people the image. Didn't we
know that.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
I'm not sure I was. I wasn't on the committee.
And that's not my portfolio, it's Paul's. But all it
is so Sonny, Colshiel has dedicated. I don't think anyone
would challenged him around the dedication he's given to public safety,
especially our small and medium sized businesses, of retail crime
and violent retail crime. I know that he has literally
done dozens of public meetings around the country.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
He needs to have two hundred and twenty seven thousand
dollars now, Mitch, is that is that annual or is
that quarterly?

Speaker 2 (07:09):
No, that'd be annual, but five a day.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's nine hundred and twenty five a day and he's
claimed the full amount. That was the point so that committee, No,
we asked the question about how many at the meeting.
We didn't get that clear, but the point was that
he'd claimed even like weekends in public holiday, so we
questioned whether he was actually working for all.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
We just had it. We just had a stabbing. A
shopkeeper was stabbed in christ Hutch last week. Sunny Kelshill
was straight down there meeting with the meeting with the community,
meeting with the shopkeepers. He's brought forward some very good
policy ideas. He cheers the Ministerial Advisory Group Pau Goldsmith
and they're doing some outstanding work and going to explain

(07:50):
to me how this works.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
So much he goes down there, he meets with them
and then as a result, are you expecting that he
would come back to you with Hey, listen, this is
a this is a problem that we've got to deal
with and this is how we can fix this kind
of thing and prevent it happening again.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Well, the best, the best way to make good laws
in Wellington's to go out and speak to the people
that were actually impacted by it, and that's what he does.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Well, that goes, say Ginny, doesn't that go some way
to explaining why he's working every single day that God
gave him.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Well, that's encouraging, I will say there heither. But the
point I think is that bothers me is all the
ideas he's come up with. He offered them marp to
me when I was Minister for free he came and
gave me it. We gave us a petition to committee,
he came and talked to us. He didn't charge me
two hundred and thirty nine dollars or a three thousand
dollars lunch for those same ideas.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
But also now you're raised. Now you're opening up questions
about if he gave them to you for free, white
and you do them mate.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
Because they're and the police said that people get citizens
the police rest so here.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
That I'll just say this, under the under labor violent
retail crime went through the roof on the national we're
reducing it. So it probably tells you a lot, doesn't
it That you had a guy like Sonny Kelshut there,
who was campaigning, who was holding public meetings, who was
trying to speak to the gun And what's Jenny's response,
They just dumb ideas. These are coming from the shopkeepers, Ginny, these.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Are some ideas that Caroline Young on that are really
got these sensible ideas.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
In Carolina, and we work with Caroline Young and retail
in Zet as well. But we're talking about the small
dairy owners on the corner that don't have all the
money that the big end of town do. And they
deserve a voice because are the ones and the employees,
are the ones turning up at the shop at the counter,
and the ones that are having to face this violent
retail crime. So yes, they need a voice, and we
listen to them and we bring their ideas forward. We

(09:33):
don't get to get stuck on this beltway mindset where
we know best. We've actually got to listen to the
people that are impacted.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Match, I'm just doing a really quick order. How long
are you taking off of summer holidays?

Speaker 2 (09:46):
I'm going to We're going up to Bali for ten
days to meet my daughter, my son in law and
my granddaughters live and Dubai and go and stay on
our private island and pulling. According to Ginny and we've
got a private life island island. I don't those I'm
not your Your bully is not really good because we

(10:08):
do not have a private island house.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
I've got a house.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
We're meeting them there and we're going to have ten days.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Okay, so you're back early New Year, Jinny.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
I'm going to Castle Point. I don't own Castle Point.
I'm just carrying any BMB there. I don't know if
there is.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Between the two of you bickering, I'm never going to
be able to do this order.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
It's usually about that inniversary days. So about the nineteen.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Twenty nice all right for sume, Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
What are you going to be? Well, what about you?
You guys are going to be doing some surfa.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah, mate, I'm going there and I'm going to see
I'm going to come gate crash your Corimandel place. I
don't know if you know this, Jinny, but he's also
he also owns a town in the Corimandel. So there's that.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Can I come and my board?

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Good to talk to the peer lord. Honestly, you two
is like husband and a wife. Make Mitchell, Ginny Anderson. Anyways,
trying to figure out if summer holidays are too long.
Obviously Ginny's end. Yes, there's no for.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
More from the mic Asking Breakfast. Listen live to news talks.
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