August 11, 2025 • 10 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!
Australia has confirmed it will recognise Palestine as a state at the next UN General Assembly. Should we follow their lead? Will this mean anything?
The Government is underperforming in the latest batch of polls - how bad does this all look?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty Unique Homes
Uniquely for you with us.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This evening we have Josephcganey, CEO at Child Fund and
Trisherson at Sherson Willis pr Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
You too, Hello, Hello, Hello Josie.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Do we need to recognize the state of Palestine.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Well, we're on the ground there with Child Fund. We've
got you know, local people on the ground. People staff
have been killed. It's awful, Heather, and I think the
only way that we're going to get any movement forward
on this is to recognize two state solutions. Now, I
mean the problem with that, Yes, two thirds of the
UN countries now recognize Palestine as a state. The definition
(00:38):
of a state is that you have to have a
stable population and you have to have a government that's
able to govern. Well, it doesn't have that. And of
course now France and Britain Australia have recognized Palestine. The
problem though is that neither Benjamin Nahu or the leaders
of Humas want to recognize a two state solutions. So
(00:59):
I don't know that. I think symbolically it's going to
be really important, and yes, I think we should and
if it helps to put pressure on Israel that ultimately
it's only going to be solved with having some kind
of peacekeeping force in there that's led by Arab states,
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan. You know, it needs to be
a PA Palestinian authority, not her mus. It must exclude
(01:22):
her mus Canada's made all these conditions right. One is
that Hamas has excluded there has to be a commitment
to democratic elections in twenty twenty six and so on.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
So there's a lot of detail there.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
But I think symbolically it will help us.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Get the aid in Ture. I agree, right, I think
the symbolism is important. But why are we not talking
about flooding the area with aid? Why is that not
where the effort is being put in, because that's actually
going to save lives, recognizing a state of Palestine's saving
no one's life.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Yeah, that's right, I mean I think that I think
there are two There are two things though what we've
what we have seen is that the getting aid and
that's sucha is so disastrous at the moment, and unfortunately,
and I heard a report on this the other week,
of flying in aid over the top that has become
(02:10):
more symbolic than actually useful to people on the ground
recognizing the two state solution. It is symbolic, but sometimes
with big intransigent issues like this, symbols matter. And obviously
that recognition is going to align us with our key
allies and it's going to shift the moral debate. I
(02:31):
agree with the approach being taken actually by Winston Peters,
which is there is no upside for New Zealand in
being first here or rushing into this. We are a
very small nation and our support is symbolic. But equally,
if we make a misstep on something like this, given
(02:52):
the sensitivities around the world, it could have an outsized
impact on us. In my view.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Can I just say, though, what the thing out?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
France and Britain and now Australia. But France and Britain
agreeing to recognize the state of Palestine's that's the Security Council,
those are the permanent members of the UN. That's quite significant.
That's different to two thirds of the General Assembly recognizing Palestine.
And I think I know you're connecting it with AID
and I know from our experience we will be able
(03:20):
to get more AID in there if Palestine is recognized
as a state, because then you start to get Egypt,
Jordan and so on involved, You start to have a
kind of political diplomatic process.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
That will start as a state.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
You know, the Palestine sits at the UN, but it
sits there in a weird comb.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
But we're talking about about something in September. These people
need eed now. Yeah, but if you have if you have.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Members of this of the of the permanent members of
the UN and Security Council recognizing Palestine, suddenly Egypt and
Jordan who do not want Palestinians to come to their
countries will say, okay, two state solutions, will get involved,
will will help to secure.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
The border and get aid in.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
All right, Trish, is there anything you want to say?
I feel like you got.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Well no, no, no, it's fine. I mean Josie's obviously
the specialists in this area. But what I would say is,
you know, in all the commentary that I have listened to,
the issue with getting aiden again is met in now
who in the israelis and unfortunately for the israelis the
fact that all of these countries now are wanting to
(04:24):
recognize a two state solution. It is a symbol that
Israel has completely lost the narrative on this and ultimately,
in my view, that doesn't Obviously that doesn't help people
who are starving now, but it may be the lever
that gets us to a better long term solution for
(04:45):
people of Gaza.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
All Right, guys, we'll take a break. Come back, talk
about the poll's boy.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
The Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty, the ones
for Unmasked results.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Right, you're back with the Huddle, Tric Sharson and Joseph
Aganni Triush. Do you think that the National Party, but
in particular and the government should be worried about what
they're seeing in the polls?
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I do.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
I don't know that any of us would have predicted
that this government would be polling where it is at
this time in the electoral cycle. They are only halfway
through their first term, and when you consider what they
came in off the back of the feeling across the
electorate about what had happened under the Labor government, what
(05:29):
it had meant for their individual's own back pockets, I think,
you know, I would have expected National to be polling
a lot higher at this point, because consider two factors
number one, we have absolutely seen nothing to change our
minds about our laghbour's stewardship of the economy or where
(05:49):
they might head in the future. And although this has
been a challenging time for National you know, unfortunately for them,
they should be the party of good economics. But I'm
just you know, trying to put my finger on kind
of what's going wrong here. And it's easy to make
(06:10):
this sound simplistic, but in my view, one of the
problems that we have got is because of this the
cost of living crisis, and it's such a near term issue.
What the government is really missing is a legacy focus.
If you think about the governments who have come and
off the back of very difficult economic times, I'm thinking
(06:32):
about the eighty four Labor government, and I'm thinking about
you know, the Rich Ruth Richardson time in the nineties
and even the Helen Clark government. One of the factors
that they have all had in common was a legacy focused.
Neither of them governed just for the next news cycle
or the election. They all of those had an aim
(06:54):
to leave the economic architecture in better shape for the
next generation. In my view, this is what's going wrong
for national and where that is really the rubbers hitting
the road here is a fallback into populism, and the
problem with that is it's all about us and them,
and in making it about us and them, you are
(07:15):
losing core parts of your voter base.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Hang on, Josie, Yeah, I mean I think potentially they
have a legacy issue around the NCAA stuff. And I
think you know the column you rode at the weekend
head on Erica Stanford.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
That there's a bold, courageous.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Politician who's going right, I'm going to blow it up
and set it up again. I'm also going to bring
people with me.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
So why don't they have the courage? Why does Nikola
Willis and Chris Luxon in particular, and you could probably
chuck Chris Bishop in there, but those people who are
involved in finance, why do they not have the courage
with the economy that Erica Stanford has with education.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, and I would put Chris Bishop in there for
getting rid of road taxes. There's a whole bunch of
things that he's done. I think part of the problem
is that the economy is in a resetting mode. You know,
we've had high inflation. You could argue the government, and
I do that they shouldn't have done a tax cut
when they first came in because that slowed down the
recovery because the only way you do it.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Is tinkering theme and when this doesn't work, n cechs
all gone, Yeah, that's massive.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Why But hold on one thing though, hold on Trish's
one thing though that I think is really important. It's
a Treasury report that said that people's wages compared to
the cost of living are now back to twenty twenty levels.
So that's the major problem that the government has is
that they've got.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
They've got a thousand, they've got myriad problems in the economy.
What were you going to say, trash.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
I was going to say, and to deal with that again,
just you know, really lifting this back up. I think
the the other missing parts that some of those big
transformational reforming governments had. Number one is strategic clarity. They
didn't drift. They came into offer and they had a
clear theory of the problem, a coherent set of solutions,
(08:59):
and the polite of Erica, the political will to execute
just like Erica Stanford can.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
I We're getting I'm excited.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
And the second one is political courage. So as an example,
if you think of Roger Douglas, he was willing to
make unpopular decisions in pursuit of what he saw was
in the national interest. Yes, and they he had to
resist intense pressure on that, and in my view, that
is what we're missing at the moment as well. You
(09:31):
have to govern for future current but future generations, and
if you were just governing based on focus grouping, you
are not going to tackle the really big problem.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
And a big example of that on the Labour side
would of course be Michael Joseph Savage right where you know,
you had a whole state house building building program, you
had a whole welfare state setup that we still have
today and that has bipart of.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Current fort right courage.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
But yeah, but I would also as another exc and
I would use David Seymour, you know, attacking his own government,
taking national for not being bold enough around reforms of
the public sector. And you'd have to say, Nashville came
in and went, right, we're going to fire a whole
lot of public servants. Well, you know, tough on them,
but it's also the easy bit politically to reduce numbers.
But what you have to do is exactly what Trisha's saying,
(10:19):
is thinking, what is the public service for? Why has
it not been.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Able to deliver good policy?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Why hasn't it been able to implement quickly urgently and
to do those things? You need to completely rethink the
public sector. Yes, divide implementation srategy Right. Thank you, ladies,
it's wonderful to talk to the pair of you. Really appreciated.
Joseph Gani, Trishurson, our hut all this evening.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
The huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty Unique Homes
Uniquely for you with us.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This evening we have Josephcganey, CEO at Child Fund and
Trisherson at Sherson Willis pr Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
You too, Hello, Hello, Hello Josie.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Do we need to recognize the state of Palestine.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Well, we're on the ground there with Child Fund. We've
got you know, local people on the ground. People staff
have been killed. It's awful, Heather, and I think the
only way that we're going to get any movement forward
on this is to recognize two state solutions. Now, I
mean the problem with that, Yes, two thirds of the
UN countries now recognize Palestine as a state. The definition
(00:38):
of a state is that you have to have a
stable population and you have to have a government that's
able to govern. Well, it doesn't have that. And of
course now France and Britain Australia have recognized Palestine. The
problem though is that neither Benjamin Nahu or the leaders
of Humas want to recognize a two state solutions. So
(00:59):
I don't know that. I think symbolically it's going to
be really important, and yes, I think we should and
if it helps to put pressure on Israel that ultimately
it's only going to be solved with having some kind
of peacekeeping force in there that's led by Arab states,
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan. You know, it needs to be
a PA Palestinian authority, not her mus. It must exclude
(01:22):
her mus Canada's made all these conditions right. One is
that Hamas has excluded there has to be a commitment
to democratic elections in twenty twenty six and so on.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
So there's a lot of detail there.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
But I think symbolically it will help us.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Get the aid in Ture. I agree, right, I think
the symbolism is important. But why are we not talking
about flooding the area with aid? Why is that not
where the effort is being put in, because that's actually
going to save lives, recognizing a state of Palestine's saving
no one's life.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Yeah, that's right, I mean I think that I think
there are two There are two things though what we've
what we have seen is that the getting aid and
that's sucha is so disastrous at the moment, and unfortunately,
and I heard a report on this the other week,
of flying in aid over the top that has become
(02:10):
more symbolic than actually useful to people on the ground
recognizing the two state solution. It is symbolic, but sometimes
with big intransigent issues like this, symbols matter. And obviously
that recognition is going to align us with our key
allies and it's going to shift the moral debate. I
(02:31):
agree with the approach being taken actually by Winston Peters,
which is there is no upside for New Zealand in
being first here or rushing into this. We are a
very small nation and our support is symbolic. But equally,
if we make a misstep on something like this, given
(02:52):
the sensitivities around the world, it could have an outsized
impact on us. In my view.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Can I just say, though, what the thing out?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
France and Britain and now Australia. But France and Britain
agreeing to recognize the state of Palestine's that's the Security Council,
those are the permanent members of the UN. That's quite significant.
That's different to two thirds of the General Assembly recognizing Palestine.
And I think I know you're connecting it with AID
and I know from our experience we will be able
(03:20):
to get more AID in there if Palestine is recognized
as a state, because then you start to get Egypt,
Jordan and so on involved, You start to have a
kind of political diplomatic process.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
That will start as a state.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
You know, the Palestine sits at the UN, but it
sits there in a weird comb.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
But we're talking about about something in September. These people
need eed now. Yeah, but if you have if you have.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Members of this of the of the permanent members of
the UN and Security Council recognizing Palestine, suddenly Egypt and
Jordan who do not want Palestinians to come to their
countries will say, okay, two state solutions, will get involved,
will will help to secure.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
The border and get aid in.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
All right, Trish, is there anything you want to say?
I feel like you got.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Well no, no, no, it's fine. I mean Josie's obviously
the specialists in this area. But what I would say is,
you know, in all the commentary that I have listened to,
the issue with getting aiden again is met in now
who in the israelis and unfortunately for the israelis the
fact that all of these countries now are wanting to
(04:24):
recognize a two state solution. It is a symbol that
Israel has completely lost the narrative on this and ultimately,
in my view, that doesn't Obviously that doesn't help people
who are starving now, but it may be the lever
that gets us to a better long term solution for
(04:45):
people of Gaza.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
All Right, guys, we'll take a break. Come back, talk
about the poll's boy.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
The Huddle with New Zealand Southeby's International Realty, the ones
for Unmasked results.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Right, you're back with the Huddle, Tric Sharson and Joseph
Aganni Triush. Do you think that the National Party, but
in particular and the government should be worried about what
they're seeing in the polls?
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I do.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
I don't know that any of us would have predicted
that this government would be polling where it is at
this time in the electoral cycle. They are only halfway
through their first term, and when you consider what they
came in off the back of the feeling across the
electorate about what had happened under the Labor government, what
(05:29):
it had meant for their individual's own back pockets, I think,
you know, I would have expected National to be polling
a lot higher at this point, because consider two factors
number one, we have absolutely seen nothing to change our
minds about our laghbour's stewardship of the economy or where
(05:49):
they might head in the future. And although this has
been a challenging time for National you know, unfortunately for them,
they should be the party of good economics. But I'm
just you know, trying to put my finger on kind
of what's going wrong here. And it's easy to make
(06:10):
this sound simplistic, but in my view, one of the
problems that we have got is because of this the
cost of living crisis, and it's such a near term issue.
What the government is really missing is a legacy focus.
If you think about the governments who have come and
off the back of very difficult economic times, I'm thinking
(06:32):
about the eighty four Labor government, and I'm thinking about
you know, the Rich Ruth Richardson time in the nineties
and even the Helen Clark government. One of the factors
that they have all had in common was a legacy focused.
Neither of them governed just for the next news cycle
or the election. They all of those had an aim
(06:54):
to leave the economic architecture in better shape for the
next generation. In my view, this is what's going wrong
for national and where that is really the rubbers hitting
the road here is a fallback into populism, and the
problem with that is it's all about us and them,
and in making it about us and them, you are
(07:15):
losing core parts of your voter base.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Hang on, Josie, Yeah, I mean I think potentially they
have a legacy issue around the NCAA stuff. And I
think you know the column you rode at the weekend
head on Erica Stanford.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
That there's a bold, courageous.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Politician who's going right, I'm going to blow it up
and set it up again. I'm also going to bring
people with me.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
So why don't they have the courage? Why does Nikola
Willis and Chris Luxon in particular, and you could probably
chuck Chris Bishop in there, but those people who are
involved in finance, why do they not have the courage
with the economy that Erica Stanford has with education.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, and I would put Chris Bishop in there for
getting rid of road taxes. There's a whole bunch of
things that he's done. I think part of the problem
is that the economy is in a resetting mode. You know,
we've had high inflation. You could argue the government, and
I do that they shouldn't have done a tax cut
when they first came in because that slowed down the
recovery because the only way you do it.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Is tinkering theme and when this doesn't work, n cechs
all gone, Yeah, that's massive.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Why But hold on one thing though, hold on Trish's
one thing though that I think is really important. It's
a Treasury report that said that people's wages compared to
the cost of living are now back to twenty twenty levels.
So that's the major problem that the government has is
that they've got.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
They've got a thousand, they've got myriad problems in the economy.
What were you going to say, trash.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
I was going to say, and to deal with that again,
just you know, really lifting this back up. I think
the the other missing parts that some of those big
transformational reforming governments had. Number one is strategic clarity. They
didn't drift. They came into offer and they had a
clear theory of the problem, a coherent set of solutions,
(08:59):
and the polite of Erica, the political will to execute
just like Erica Stanford can.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
I We're getting I'm excited.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
And the second one is political courage. So as an example,
if you think of Roger Douglas, he was willing to
make unpopular decisions in pursuit of what he saw was
in the national interest. Yes, and they he had to
resist intense pressure on that, and in my view, that
is what we're missing at the moment as well. You
(09:31):
have to govern for future current but future generations, and
if you were just governing based on focus grouping, you
are not going to tackle the really big problem.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
And a big example of that on the Labour side
would of course be Michael Joseph Savage right where you know,
you had a whole state house building building program, you
had a whole welfare state setup that we still have
today and that has bipart of.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Current fort right courage.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
But yeah, but I would also as another exc and
I would use David Seymour, you know, attacking his own government,
taking national for not being bold enough around reforms of
the public sector. And you'd have to say, Nashville came
in and went, right, we're going to fire a whole
lot of public servants. Well, you know, tough on them,
but it's also the easy bit politically to reduce numbers.
But what you have to do is exactly what Trisha's saying,
(10:19):
is thinking, what is the public service for? Why has
it not been.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Able to deliver good policy?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Why hasn't it been able to implement quickly urgently and
to do those things? You need to completely rethink the
public sector. Yes, divide implementation srategy Right. Thank you, ladies,
it's wonderful to talk to the pair of you. Really appreciated.
Joseph Gani, Trishurson, our hut all this evening.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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