Barry Soper: ZB senior political correspondent on Prime Minister Chris Luxon shooting down Olympic victory parade

Prime Minister Luxon has congratulated the Kiwi athletes after a record-shattering Olympic Games - but claimed hosting a victory parade would be difficult.

The idea of a post-Olympics victory parade was floated to the Prime Minister, but Luxon says arranging this event isn't as easy as it sounds.

ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper says there was an 'incredible' turnout for this Olympiad, and New Zealand came away with 10 gold medals, seven silvers and three bronzes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barriso for Senior political Correspondence with US. Now, hey Barry,
good afternoon. The Prime Minister has been asked whether there'll
be a parade for the Olympians when they come back.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Will they What an amazing event the high jumping was,
I thought, in particular, I know the rowers and all
the rest of them were great, and of course we
spent a lot of time watching them, and what I
loved was and I went back and looked at it
at the Fosbury flop that they all do, of course
now when they high jump, And I've got to say,

(00:29):
hither might surprise you. But I introduced the Fosbury flop
to Gore High School in the nineteen sixties and they
all thought I was nuts, as they did Dick Fosbury,
who won the gold medal at the Mexico Olympics in
nineteen sixty eight, and they thought it was a gimmick
when he won that medal. This man was sort of

(00:50):
he never practiced, didn't do any practice for it. He
slept in his van. He was an engineer, yes he was,
and it's all about the center of gravity, and he
figured out that was the best way to achieve height
and of course after the scissors. The height that they
had now achieved is phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
The scissors, well, this is what they used to do.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
The scissors. You do one leg and then the other,
and that was the old jumping style. But you know
when you consider what they do now, when you think
of the height of a door in your house, they
go above that, quite a bit above that.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
I mean crazy when you think about it, that these
guys are running up and basically jumping higher than their
own heights.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Oh absolutely curb Hamish Kurr is six foot six, I think,
and of course he's well and above well and truly
above that. It's phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
So anyway, how to gore high? Then react to your
Fosbury flop?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well to athletic school, because I was quite good at
not just jumping, jumping was wasn't my speciality. This Fostbury
flop was just being introduced, and I like the idea,
probably a bit of a show of and I did
it quite successfully, never quite achieved the heights that they
get to these days. But look, the idea of a

(02:03):
victory parade for our returning athletes dangling their medals was
floated with the Prime Minister this afternoon. But Chris lucks
and says that's not as easy as it sounds.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Many of them are actually going off around the world
for more competitions. Others are already here at home, you know.
So it's really they don't all come back like a
rugby team together, and that many of them are based
overseas and heading back to their home bases as well,
so that may be a little difficult. There is opportunities
through the course of the year. I know we've got
an Olympic gala dinner towards the end of the year.
That'll be a great opportunity to do so. But you know, again,

(02:34):
I think, as I said, we should be incredibly proud.
I think all of us have tried to manage the
time zone and our work commitments and watch bits of
the Olympics as we can through the last two weeks.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
It's been incredible, hasn't it. You know, it's a great
time for New Zealand. I think this was so many
metals medals totally.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
I agree with you. Hey, what about the beneficiary, So
what's brought not such a.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Great time for beneficiaries at the moment. No that this
traffic light system that'll come in effect from today, so
welfare beneficiaries they'll be contacted and they'll be told and
mainly there are people on jobs. The job seekers benefit
is not far shy of two hundred thousand people on
that and they'll be notified by the MSD to say

(03:17):
what where they are in the traffic like system and
you know it goes obviously from read through to green
all the other way. And of course there's this charge
card that fifty percent of your benefit can be controlled
and that was an act idea and they certainly have
been pushing that. But you know the number of people

(03:39):
on job seeker benefits, it's increased by seventy thousand under
the last government and the use of sanctions then basically
reduced quite significantly. Louise Upston, I know you're having her on,
she says, beneficiaries from today will be no doubt what
they have to do to keep the benefit.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
This afternoon, those who are currently on red and Orange
will be notified and contacted by MST and then overcoming
days they'll be notified if they're at green. So the
process is for those who are at orange, they've got
five days and so that will absolutely kick off. But
if they're in Orange, then they've already been in a process.

(04:18):
They've already failed an obligation which they will be aware of.
But the traffic light system is making it much easier
for people to understand where they are and what they
need to do to fully comply.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
And of course the political opponents have already come out.
The Greens were the first out of the starting blocks.
They said the government was quickly building a legacy of cruelty.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
I just hope we don't go like I feel like
we are. I hope we don't go down this path
were we start getting all sooky on it and feeling
sorry for people are who are you know, squandering taxpayer money?
And then we force the government if a person.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Deserves a benefit, they deserve the benefit if they are
really in need. But if and there are are a
lot of going on, well we know there are the
linguages out there that are on benefits for many, many,
many years, and they don't need.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
To be barry. Thank you appreciate it. By the way,
somebody said, if you were doing the Fosbury flop at
Gore High in nineteen sixty eight, you would have been
flopping onto sand, because that's what people saiss it onto?
Is that true?

Speaker 2 (05:17):
That's right. It was that that was the problem with
the Fosbury flop, that.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
You bang your head on set.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Well, no, you had you had to fall on a
certain way, you'd fall on your back, essentially on your
shoulders to roll over. And that's that was the initial problem,
and then it became universally adopted when they have explained
a lot.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Though, doesn't it constant head? Thank you, Barry, appreciate it.
Barry's for Senior Political Correspondence. Seven Away from five.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
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