Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB political editor on the return of Parliament for 2025

The Government and Opposition have butted heads on the first day in Parliament.

The Prime Minister boasted of the Government plans to boost economic growth - while Labour slammed its achievements and pointed to record departures from the country.

Chris Luxon is calling it 'the party of no' - which said no to tax relief, gene technology, and backing farmers.

Later, opposition leader Chris Hipkins claimed Luxon was in favour of saying no to delivering new ferries, a new Dunedin hospital, and affordable water reform.

Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls says Chris Luxon fired back at Hipkins' outfit choices and lack of organisation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Walls's with our Sidby's political editor in Wellington, Jason,
Good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Oh hello, Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, the battle lines for the next election already been drawn.
This is over asset sales.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Indeed, well, it was kind of hinted at yesterday with
Nikola Willis, who said that the Treasury had undertaken a
body of work to draw up a proposed statement for
state owned enterprises essentially almost company like things that are
owed by the Crown. Now essentially it's assessing their viability
to remain state owned. She did not elaborate too much

(00:31):
in terms of the various assets that they were looking at.
But today Chris Hipke Chris Luxon was forced to elaborate
a little bit more because he had previously ruled out
the sale of state assets. So we naturally asked them
questions about that this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
That's not something that we've been talking about this term.
We won't be talking about this term. I'm open to
talking about it in the longer term and at the
next election, but that's something for the selection for this term.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's not on so not this term of government. But
it's definitely not a no. We will never be selling
state assets. In fact, it sounds like it is going
to be an issue for the election.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Well, well, just as I said, we just take it
to the election, and we would obviously seek to get
a bit part of our program that we want to
talk about it be upfront with new something else.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
So like Nikola Willis, you won't say what assets he's
talking about, but he's really moved away from any sort
of suggestion that it's going to be our areas of
healthcare or the bigger METEA parts of education. David Seymiller meanwhile,
is on board and wants asset sales to always be
on the agenda.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Do we own the right things for the debt we've
taken on to ownland? We need to be asking that
question every day, not just you know, at some point
worth a binary debate.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
So hang on a second. It doesn't sound like Winston
Peters is that ken.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
I spent my whole career ensuring that our actually has
stay on our position.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
So all three of them seem to be on different
pages on this issue. However, the good thing about elections
are you don't need agreement with your coalition partners to
make promises.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
No, it's interesting one, doesn't it? I did it a
toil about this the other day, Jason, because I feel
like for voters in twenty twenty six, we're going to
have to make a choice what direction do we want
New Zealand to go into and do we want to
put national back in a strait jacket between the sort
of economic protectionism of New Zealand first versus that you know,

(02:13):
let's sell the assets, flog the family silver kind of
stuff from Act Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, I think there is a middle ground there because
I mean, you can do privatization without selling off hospitals
and schools, whereas looking at cultable value and saying, well,
why the heck does the government own a property valuation company?

Speaker 1 (02:30):
You know they won't go flog the schools off. Well
they no one will let that happen. Let's talk about
the House today, but firey.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, Well they did away with question time today because
the Prime Minister had a statement in the House and
all other parties could respond to that. There was nothing
too specific. It was just sort of like a speech
from all parties about whatever the Prime Minister said and
their response to that. So Chris Luxen coined a new
name for the opposition.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Got to say, we are a coalition on this side.
They are a noalition on that side. That's what they're about.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
He took aim at Chris Hopkins's dress sense.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
And mister speaker.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
While we have been back at work four weeks pushing
through changes to make Kiwis so much better off, Chris
Hipkins is barely out of his jendles. We had signed
a trade deal before it even grabbed the workshirt out
of the laundry basket, and.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
He brought together his two great loves, Taylor Swift and
Sledging the Labor Party.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
But I think all this talk about Eden Park Concerts
has got in his head because he got it mixed
up because people wanted the Era's tour. What they didn't
want was the tour that he was proposing era Iss.
That's not what they wanted.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
I think that one's a little bit better when it's
written down. Chris Hopkins, meanwhile, was ready to return fire.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
This House has no confidence in this coalition government because
under its incompetent, arrogant, shambollock and divisive leadership, New Zealand
is going backwards.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Jeez, Jippy, tell us how you really feel. And Winston
was as per ready to attack anyone and everyone here
he is yelling at somebody at the Greens or Tie party. Marty.
We couldn't work out who let the wind blow your
stupid tongue around? Why what?

Speaker 4 (04:06):
Sunshine?

Speaker 3 (04:07):
And I know I've got the microphone and I'll be
here long after you're gone.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Parliament is well and truly back. Ladies and gentlemen, strap
yourselves in.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
All right, Jason, Thank you for that, Jason Walls, News
Talk ZIBB Political Editor.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live

Speaker 1 (04:25):
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