April 7, 2025 • 11 mins
Tonight on The Huddle, Trish Sherson from Sherson Willis PR and Child Fund CEO Josie Pagani joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
The Government has unveiled their new Defence Capability Plan - designed to inject an extra $12 billion into the Defence Force to boost jobs and equipment over the next four years. Do we agree with this move?
The Sensible Sentencing Trust has got a new billboard campaign out, calling to defund the police on behalf of the Greens. Should the Greens be upset about this?
The New Zealand stock market has taken the biggest significant hit since the pandemic - what do we make of the fallout? Do we see things improving?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's international realty the ones
with worldwide connections that perform not a promise.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Tris Shuson Huson Willis pr is with us this evening
high Trish, Hello, welcome along. And Josie Pagani child Fund
is with us too. Good evening trick, Joseie, forgive me. Now,
let's start with the Defense Capability Plan. It's quite a
big chunk of change, twelve billion dollars over four years,
although three billion dollars of that is going on depreciation apparently,
(00:27):
but it is a significant investment from the government. Trish,
are they putting it in the right places?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, cometh the hour, cometh Judith Collins, I mean cometh.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
The arched eyebrown.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I don't often hand out Bouquet's two ministers, but in
this case I want to say, I think Judith Collins
has done a very good job on this very important
piece of work. We have now got a government on
these big areas of work that takes time to get
a thoughtful plan together. There's been a lot of push
(01:01):
for them to get this capability report out. They've resisted that,
and they've come out today and it sounds like a
very thoughtful and robust plan. There are always going to
be questions around where the money's coming from. We'll have
to wait for the budget for that. But the big
signal that it's trying to send is that we are
ready to do our part, and we have to do
(01:22):
our part. The key takeout is really that New Zealand
can no longer rely on the tyranny or benefit of distance.
And you know, there was a great podcast recently Oliver
Hart which at the New Zealand Initiative with the former
Secretary of Home Affairs for Australia, Michael Paluzzo, who said
(01:45):
exactly that then effectively New Zealand has to sort of
wake up and grow up and we've got to do
our bit.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I think it's got pretty good chance of bipartisan support actually,
because it's pretty sensible. There was one line which is
apparently funding the modernization of accommodation messing and dining rooms,
which sounds a bit like a plan for a teenager's bedroom.
But everything else I think makes perfect sense. And you know, look,
I believe that we are in a nineteen thirty eight
(02:14):
moment and it really matters what we do and it
matters that New Zealand plays its part. You know, if
you look at it in ninety thirty eight, there were
hot wars all over the place that seemed disconnected. You had,
you know, Germany, Italy, Abyssinia, you had all of these
disconnected wars, hot wars. We've got the same now, we've
got Ukraine, we've got Middle East, we've got skirmishes in
(02:36):
the South China seas and it wouldn't take much. There's
a lot of trip wires around. We've got Trump promising
to invade Panama Canal in Canada and Greenland. You've got
Taiwan doing alarming war games around Taiwan just over the
last couple of days. So there's a hell of a
lot happening as the Middle East. And I think you know,
(02:57):
New Zealand has to be has to be ready. Big
question Ryan is going to be where's the money coming from?
And it mustn't come from aid budgets. I mean Judith
herself said, you know, the New Zealand Defense Force is
active in the Pacific around cyclones, around emergency responses and
someone and so are aid agencies like ours. You know
that it can't come at the expensive aid budgets, because
(03:20):
that's more important, the.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Only thing we don't have, and it's not necessarily Judith's job,
but is a direction of Okay, when Taiwan kicks off,
which it will, it's not a matter of if it's
when they do that. What is our role? You know,
whose side are we on here? What do we do
with this new military equipment that we've purchased.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Well, that was the big question out of today. Actually
there was a comment about we are serious and we
need we need friends. And when I was listening to
that in the press commens I put a dash and said,
who are our friends? Because this is the really crunchy
issue that they government is trying to deal with, the
(04:02):
fact that trade and what Trump is doing with tariffs
and upending the world trade order is inextricably linked to
defense and every other country that every other every ally
of the US has not been spared in Trump's tariff
trade war, not our best friend Australia, not New Zealand,
(04:24):
even though it's a little bit and what he's done
has made Europe go okay economically and from a defense perspective,
we have to get our shit together and we've got
to be able to essentially be a self sufficient European bloc.
So that's a trick question.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
That and I think you talk about China and Taiwan Ryan,
but actually, if you use the thirty eight nineteen thirty
eight metaphor again, you imagine if the Czech and Slovakans
had really pushed back on Hitler. You imagine if Chamberlain
hadn't signed a peace plan and appeasement like you can
have a bit of Czechoslovakia or not. What we've seen
with Ukraine is the opposite of what happened in thirty eight,
(05:05):
where actually, you know, they pushed back on Putin, and
if we don't appease one thug eye Putin, actually that's
going to have a domino effect around around the other
aristocrats who are threatening Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, I would agree with that, except that all it
does is drain your resources and you run out of money.
I mean, who's going to want to go and fight
a war on the Pacific when they've just spent everything
they had in Europe.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
But the same would be true of Putin, right, I mean,
if he gets pushed back in Ukraine, then you know,
China and Shi Jimping goes well maybe I won't try
Taiwan right away. You get pushed, you push back, putin,
and then suddenly they're going, all right, I can't, I
can't riskless. It's too there's too much to lose here.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So yeah, you do send a message. I agree with that.
And we're a long way off talking about drones now,
aren't we. But fascinating discussion, Joseph began to introduce on
the Huddle tonight, fourteen away from six. We're back in
a moment. We'll talk about the Greens and their billboards,
shall we?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty achieve extraordinary
results with unparallel reach.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
New talks in me. It is eleven away from six.
Trishuson and Josie BACGANI here on the Huddle tonight. The
Sensible Sentencing Trust has got a new billboard campaign out.
In fact, if you're in Auckland or Wellington, you might
have driven past one of these on your way home tonight,
calling for saying that the Greens want to defund the police.
But it's actually not a Green Party billboard, it's a
(06:31):
Sensible Senencing Trust billboard and they're trying to make the
point that the Greens don't like the cops. Is it
a good point, well made? Trish Well.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I think it's really interesting to see billboards coming back
in terms of political campaigning. I see in the States
the Canadians have put political attack ads in key states
that are going to lose jobs because of Trump's tariffs,
and the simple billboards saying you know, tariffs are are
a tax on groceries. But I just wanted to tell
(06:59):
you one of my best pieces of work I think
in my career might have been my worst. I was
working for a company and they wanted to change Zespree's
monopoly on being able to export kiwi fruit. So came
up with a billboard and it was two huge, dangly
browned kiwi fruit hairy Oh my god, that you know,
(07:21):
massive billboard as you drive into Wellington Airport. Whacked it
up there and it said it's kicking us right where
it hurts. So I love when I see other people.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Thing, isn't that there's a great tradition of satirical political billboards, right,
And the funniest thing about this one, I think is
that everybody's dislike kind of snook of themselves. So the
Greens are making a big fuss of it. We're talking
about it. It's getting a heap more attention. But then
with a Sensible Sentencing Trust, they've put these billboards up
(07:54):
in central Wellington and Central Auckland that the Green So
it's like, wouldn't you put it so if you wanted
to kind of increase the profile of sensible Sensing Trust
and go oh yeah right, you know those damn Greens
want to defund the police, wouldn't you put it somewhere
where you're going to get more support? Whereas everyone's just
looking at going great yep. The Greens they want to
defund the police and also replace them with New Zealand
(08:15):
flight attendants handing out Air New Zealand suites to criminals.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
The headline is very clever though, because as soon as
I read that headline I can hear the song that
tomanth Ball played. DJ said.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Defund de cops, it said on the billboard.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Might be better than our version.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Very quickly, before we go Trump and is tariffs. Josie,
you have the floor first, what is the reason will
he negotiate?
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Well, this is the problem. He's both negotiating and he's saying,
my great big capital letters, my politics are not changing,
you know. So in other words, the tariffs are there
because you're ripping off the US and I'm saving manufacturing
and jobs. Both of those things can't be true. You're negotiating,
it means you're prepared to drop the tariffs. So no
business is going to build a factory in Ohio or
(09:07):
anywhere if they think the tariffs are going to go
and they lose their domestic advantage. So it's completely incoherent.
So he's managed to freeze up any investment at the
same time as potentially cause a recession across the whole
world with this completely incoherent Trump tariff policy.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
It's economic vandalism in pursuit of an absolute mirage. As
Josie said, no one because of the huge political uncertainty
now in the system in the US, is going to
go and invest to build factories and jobs in the US.
But worse than that, this is a system that is
ripe for corruption. So going now on bended knee to
(09:50):
the President of the United States, all the opacity around that,
you know, who knows what those deals are going to be?
The thing to think about, and I loved you your editorial,
and I thought it's great to calm the horses. It
might be slightly a polyannoroish view, because what could happen
here is not only a global recession, but even more
(10:14):
serious than that, a serious economic meltdown. And if that happens,
unlike the GFC or when COVID hit, there aren't the
big serious players in the US at the highest levels
like we had at those times, who will be able
to join up, say with the UK, and lead us
(10:34):
through that. So you've still got the head of the
Federal Reserve, but you don't have anyone in those other
positions other than sicker fans around Trump.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
And I give one quote before we go, pg I,
the great American commentator. He said, his dad now, but
whenever there's a justice suppression is suffering, America will show
up six months late and bomb the country next to it.
So thanks America for baggering off from the world.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Thank you Donald Trump, begun interest US and thanks guys.
We have to leave it there on the huddle tonight.
It is seven away from the six news talks. ZB
don't forget. After six we're going to talk to Nikola Willis,
who's Finance Minister and will find out where that money
is coming from for defense.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
News Talk ZB from four pm weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's international realty the ones
with worldwide connections that perform not a promise.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Tris Shuson Huson Willis pr is with us this evening
high Trish, Hello, welcome along. And Josie Pagani child Fund
is with us too. Good evening trick, Joseie, forgive me. Now,
let's start with the Defense Capability Plan. It's quite a
big chunk of change, twelve billion dollars over four years,
although three billion dollars of that is going on depreciation apparently,
(00:27):
but it is a significant investment from the government. Trish,
are they putting it in the right places?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, cometh the hour, cometh Judith Collins, I mean cometh.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
The arched eyebrown.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I don't often hand out Bouquet's two ministers, but in
this case I want to say, I think Judith Collins
has done a very good job on this very important
piece of work. We have now got a government on
these big areas of work that takes time to get
a thoughtful plan together. There's been a lot of push
(01:01):
for them to get this capability report out. They've resisted that,
and they've come out today and it sounds like a
very thoughtful and robust plan. There are always going to
be questions around where the money's coming from. We'll have
to wait for the budget for that. But the big
signal that it's trying to send is that we are
ready to do our part, and we have to do
(01:22):
our part. The key takeout is really that New Zealand
can no longer rely on the tyranny or benefit of distance.
And you know, there was a great podcast recently Oliver
Hart which at the New Zealand Initiative with the former
Secretary of Home Affairs for Australia, Michael Paluzzo, who said
(01:45):
exactly that then effectively New Zealand has to sort of
wake up and grow up and we've got to do
our bit.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I think it's got pretty good chance of bipartisan support actually,
because it's pretty sensible. There was one line which is
apparently funding the modernization of accommodation messing and dining rooms,
which sounds a bit like a plan for a teenager's bedroom.
But everything else I think makes perfect sense. And you know, look,
I believe that we are in a nineteen thirty eight
(02:14):
moment and it really matters what we do and it
matters that New Zealand plays its part. You know, if
you look at it in ninety thirty eight, there were
hot wars all over the place that seemed disconnected. You had,
you know, Germany, Italy, Abyssinia, you had all of these
disconnected wars, hot wars. We've got the same now, we've
got Ukraine, we've got Middle East, we've got skirmishes in
(02:36):
the South China seas and it wouldn't take much. There's
a lot of trip wires around. We've got Trump promising
to invade Panama Canal in Canada and Greenland. You've got
Taiwan doing alarming war games around Taiwan just over the
last couple of days. So there's a hell of a
lot happening as the Middle East. And I think you know,
(02:57):
New Zealand has to be has to be ready. Big
question Ryan is going to be where's the money coming from?
And it mustn't come from aid budgets. I mean Judith
herself said, you know, the New Zealand Defense Force is
active in the Pacific around cyclones, around emergency responses and
someone and so are aid agencies like ours. You know
that it can't come at the expensive aid budgets, because
(03:20):
that's more important, the.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Only thing we don't have, and it's not necessarily Judith's job,
but is a direction of Okay, when Taiwan kicks off,
which it will, it's not a matter of if it's
when they do that. What is our role? You know,
whose side are we on here? What do we do
with this new military equipment that we've purchased.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Well, that was the big question out of today. Actually
there was a comment about we are serious and we
need we need friends. And when I was listening to
that in the press commens I put a dash and said,
who are our friends? Because this is the really crunchy
issue that they government is trying to deal with, the
(04:02):
fact that trade and what Trump is doing with tariffs
and upending the world trade order is inextricably linked to
defense and every other country that every other every ally
of the US has not been spared in Trump's tariff
trade war, not our best friend Australia, not New Zealand,
(04:24):
even though it's a little bit and what he's done
has made Europe go okay economically and from a defense perspective,
we have to get our shit together and we've got
to be able to essentially be a self sufficient European bloc.
So that's a trick question.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
That and I think you talk about China and Taiwan Ryan,
but actually, if you use the thirty eight nineteen thirty
eight metaphor again, you imagine if the Czech and Slovakans
had really pushed back on Hitler. You imagine if Chamberlain
hadn't signed a peace plan and appeasement like you can
have a bit of Czechoslovakia or not. What we've seen
with Ukraine is the opposite of what happened in thirty eight,
(05:05):
where actually, you know, they pushed back on Putin, and
if we don't appease one thug eye Putin, actually that's
going to have a domino effect around around the other
aristocrats who are threatening Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, I would agree with that, except that all it
does is drain your resources and you run out of money.
I mean, who's going to want to go and fight
a war on the Pacific when they've just spent everything
they had in Europe.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
But the same would be true of Putin, right, I mean,
if he gets pushed back in Ukraine, then you know,
China and Shi Jimping goes well maybe I won't try
Taiwan right away. You get pushed, you push back, putin,
and then suddenly they're going, all right, I can't, I
can't riskless. It's too there's too much to lose here.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So yeah, you do send a message. I agree with that.
And we're a long way off talking about drones now,
aren't we. But fascinating discussion, Joseph began to introduce on
the Huddle tonight, fourteen away from six. We're back in
a moment. We'll talk about the Greens and their billboards,
shall we?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty achieve extraordinary
results with unparallel reach.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
New talks in me. It is eleven away from six.
Trishuson and Josie BACGANI here on the Huddle tonight. The
Sensible Sentencing Trust has got a new billboard campaign out.
In fact, if you're in Auckland or Wellington, you might
have driven past one of these on your way home tonight,
calling for saying that the Greens want to defund the police.
But it's actually not a Green Party billboard, it's a
(06:31):
Sensible Senencing Trust billboard and they're trying to make the
point that the Greens don't like the cops. Is it
a good point, well made? Trish Well.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I think it's really interesting to see billboards coming back
in terms of political campaigning. I see in the States
the Canadians have put political attack ads in key states
that are going to lose jobs because of Trump's tariffs,
and the simple billboards saying you know, tariffs are are
a tax on groceries. But I just wanted to tell
(06:59):
you one of my best pieces of work I think
in my career might have been my worst. I was
working for a company and they wanted to change Zespree's
monopoly on being able to export kiwi fruit. So came
up with a billboard and it was two huge, dangly
browned kiwi fruit hairy Oh my god, that you know,
(07:21):
massive billboard as you drive into Wellington Airport. Whacked it
up there and it said it's kicking us right where
it hurts. So I love when I see other people.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Thing, isn't that there's a great tradition of satirical political billboards, right,
And the funniest thing about this one, I think is
that everybody's dislike kind of snook of themselves. So the
Greens are making a big fuss of it. We're talking
about it. It's getting a heap more attention. But then
with a Sensible Sentencing Trust, they've put these billboards up
(07:54):
in central Wellington and Central Auckland that the Green So
it's like, wouldn't you put it so if you wanted
to kind of increase the profile of sensible Sensing Trust
and go oh yeah right, you know those damn Greens
want to defund the police, wouldn't you put it somewhere
where you're going to get more support? Whereas everyone's just
looking at going great yep. The Greens they want to
defund the police and also replace them with New Zealand
(08:15):
flight attendants handing out Air New Zealand suites to criminals.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
The headline is very clever though, because as soon as
I read that headline I can hear the song that
tomanth Ball played. DJ said.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Defund de cops, it said on the billboard.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Might be better than our version.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Very quickly, before we go Trump and is tariffs. Josie,
you have the floor first, what is the reason will
he negotiate?
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Well, this is the problem. He's both negotiating and he's saying,
my great big capital letters, my politics are not changing,
you know. So in other words, the tariffs are there
because you're ripping off the US and I'm saving manufacturing
and jobs. Both of those things can't be true. You're negotiating,
it means you're prepared to drop the tariffs. So no
business is going to build a factory in Ohio or
(09:07):
anywhere if they think the tariffs are going to go
and they lose their domestic advantage. So it's completely incoherent.
So he's managed to freeze up any investment at the
same time as potentially cause a recession across the whole
world with this completely incoherent Trump tariff policy.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
It's economic vandalism in pursuit of an absolute mirage. As
Josie said, no one because of the huge political uncertainty
now in the system in the US, is going to
go and invest to build factories and jobs in the US.
But worse than that, this is a system that is
ripe for corruption. So going now on bended knee to
(09:50):
the President of the United States, all the opacity around that,
you know, who knows what those deals are going to be?
The thing to think about, and I loved you your editorial,
and I thought it's great to calm the horses. It
might be slightly a polyannoroish view, because what could happen
here is not only a global recession, but even more
(10:14):
serious than that, a serious economic meltdown. And if that happens,
unlike the GFC or when COVID hit, there aren't the
big serious players in the US at the highest levels
like we had at those times, who will be able
to join up, say with the UK, and lead us
(10:34):
through that. So you've still got the head of the
Federal Reserve, but you don't have anyone in those other
positions other than sicker fans around Trump.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
And I give one quote before we go, pg I,
the great American commentator. He said, his dad now, but
whenever there's a justice suppression is suffering, America will show
up six months late and bomb the country next to it.
So thanks America for baggering off from the world.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Thank you Donald Trump, begun interest US and thanks guys.
We have to leave it there on the huddle tonight.
It is seven away from the six news talks. ZB
don't forget. After six we're going to talk to Nikola Willis,
who's Finance Minister and will find out where that money
is coming from for defense.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
News Talk ZB from four pm weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
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