August 18, 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!
There's growing calls to change the working holiday age limit from 30 to 50 to boost tourism. Is this a good idea? Would you go on a working holiday in your 40s?
Volodymyr Zelenskyy - alongside a group of EU leaders - are set to meet with Donald Trump at the White House tomorrow. How do we think this meeting will go?
David Seymour reportedly asked the Ministry for Regulation to look into removing bike helmet requirements. Should we change the rules?
Will any of us be reading Grant Robertson's book?
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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 Southerby's International Realty Unique Homes
Uniquely for you.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
On the Huddle with us this evening, we have Tris Shurson, Sharson,
Willis pr and Joseph Begunni, CEO of Child Found. Hello
you guys, Hello, Hello. You into this idea? Trish, No,
you don't want to go on a working holiday in
your late forties?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Well, I mean, I think it's one of those great
headline grabbing ideas, but I'm not convinced at the age
bracket that it's been pitched to that those people are
going to want to do the kind of jobs that
would be on offer.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
No.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I I personally tend to agree, being roughly in that
age bracket.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Josie, Yeah, by that age, I don't want to go
on a working holiday. I just want to go on
a holiday. And look, I just think if you're going
to open it up to age fifty maximum, well you
might as well just have no age restrictions. I mean,
you might as well say anyone can come on a
work with you today.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Because you know what, I'll tell you what, Josie, what
the German thought would be a great hyde is if
you have like a nana O pair come and stage
your house from Germany.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah, well maybe it is, but I still think if
this is the big productivity growth plan from the government
and we're focusing on this sort of low value tourism
and I love a juicy van. This is nothing against juicy,
but you know, basically, do we really want more and
more and more backpackers coming doing working holidays and frankly
(01:24):
lowering the average wage by taking such low wage jobs
in places like Queenstown that actually lowers the average wage
across the whole of New Zealand. So it's fine. I
love it when French people come and do a working
and they quite good waiters and waitresses and so on,
and they flock to Queenstown because they want to go there.
But this is not a great growth strategy for New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
And also just bearing in mind the number of older
New Zealanders, especially right now, who are looking for work,
so there could be an issue there. And just a
personal note from me, I see the van holiday makers
and in my head, that's my worst nightmare. Making a
cup of tea on top of your duvet with that's
(02:10):
also your pantry.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
He's got your little poop pot underneath this in a
com for the for the young people. Well you do.
You have a fun time when you're young and you
can do crazy things like that. Jose, how do you
think the big meeting in the White House is going
to go overnight?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Well, you're right that the EU does need to step up,
and I think they've realized that if they're not at
the table, they're on the menu. So they've really decided
they're going to come and be Zelenski's bodyguards this time.
And great to see that. I'm sure Zelenski and all
of the seven European bodyguards he's bringing that, they've all said,
we will we do not want a pre meeting press
(02:54):
conference in the Oval Office, thank you very much. We'll
go straight into the meeting because that's, of course what
happened last time, is Lensky. Yeah, I mean, the EU
needs to do the heavy lifting. But let's not let
Trump off the hook here. I mean he has America
has walked away from forty years of protecting democracy, liberal
liberal values and the rules, and they're walking away from
(03:15):
it and leaving it up to the rest of us.
So it is it's a big hinge moment in history
for US, right, So the EU does have to step up.
I understand what you're saying, Heather, when you're calling on
the EU to do more, and they should have done
more to date. But I think they are seriously looking
at it and going, well, if America is not going
to be there, we have to step up. But they
(03:36):
want to make sure that America is on board with
whatever plan comes next, and that's the big thing. So
what's going to happen next. Well, the best case scenario,
and it doesn't sound that great, is that Russia keeps
the territory that it's already occupied, which is awful, but
it doesn't get officially recognized. Ukraine gets its security guarantees,
the sort of Article five type guarantee where the US
(04:00):
also agrees to come to its aid if it's invaded again,
and they get to join the EU and there is
no cap to them rearming or defending themselves. That's the
best case scenario. Worst case scenario is that Russia and
Putin just divide up Ukraine and then Europe really is
on the menu. Then they're at the mercy of whoever's
going to invade Europe Beyond Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Trish, what do you think the chances are that.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
This is successful, Well, I think it's fairly low. There's
two key issues here. One is that in Trump's world,
this is just another TV chapter, TV episode in his
sort of apprentice style.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
You're never I'm sure that it understands the importance, like
the historical importance of what he's doing.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, I don't know whether he doesn't understand. He certainly
doesn't really care deeply about it. So he's put aside
all of the norms of normal diplomacy. And if I
were the EU people going into this, to Josie's point,
I would stage men this to within an inch of
its life. So you go straight into the room, you
(05:04):
get down to tintax. One of the other great pieces
of advice I heard over the weekend was actually to Zolensky.
So one of the things that Putin does he is
a fantastic speaker of English, he's fluent in German. But
what he does is he always works through an interpreter,
because what that does in those big meetings is it
just slows everything down. So the advice to Zelensky was
(05:28):
use an interpreter, because you're going to be able to
slow everything down. I think it's fantastic that the EU
is going with Zelensky to support him this time, and
I think symbolically that's really really important. But there is
absolutely no way to guarantee what's happened going to happen
(05:49):
out the back of this, And one of the problems
with the Trump team. Trump won't take briefings. He isn't
properly prepared for these meetings and the groundwork that you
would normally expect going into these meetings. So normally you'd
go into these meetings, you would know what's going to happen.
And it's really the kind of symbolism in the picture
story that goes with it. No one knows with Trump's
team what on earth is going to happen.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Hang on, Josie, I just need to take a break
and I want you one quick thing afterwards. Hanging a tack.
It's called to the huddle.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
With New Zealand Southeby's International Realty, the ones for unmashed results.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Back with the huddle, Josie, what was your one quick thing?
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Just to illustrate how extraordinary this moment was, so putin
walks down, he gets the red carpet and the clap
the handshake with Trump. If he had landed in New
zeal And the flyover, the flyover one hundred countries, he
would have been arrested because there's an ICC International Criminal
Court basically a arrest at first sight ruling on him
(06:47):
because he's a war criminal. But the other thing I
quickly wanted to say was Russia is very weak at
the moment, and I think, as you say, Trump doesn't
really analyze this very politically. Russia has lost Syria, you know,
A said alas i seld Basha allah Sad. It's been
dumped or it's dumped. I ran the Gulf States are
shifting towards the US. It has an economy the size
(07:07):
of Spain. So really, you know, Trump is treating it
as if it's some sort of Cold war equal to
the US, and it isn't. So he just doesn't get
the politics well.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
But that brings us back to the theories about what
hold Putin has to hold on because Moody pictures otherwise
it just doesn't it actually doesn't make sense what's happening.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So there are some who are connected to the White
House Josie who reckon that Putin's got some Epstein files
or something like that, and he and they get together
at these meetings and he just flashes flashes Trump and
he's like, do you remember this?
Speaker 4 (07:43):
And frankly, if they were nudy pictures, we will be
relieved and breathe a sigh of relief. They're going to
be worse than that, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Mostly well, you know who knows. I mean, I love
a good conspiracy theory, so I'm deep in this one.
Do you think, Trish, that David Cymore has made the
right call leaving the bike helmets as mandatory? I do.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I went to a very interesting speech the other day
and one of the points that came out of it
was how mired in very bad old regulation New Zealander is.
But because of the slowness of our parliament and the
legislative process, and because a lot of those old regulations
will have to be removed through legislation in Parliament, it's
(08:22):
going to be years and years before we get through it.
So the reason I speak to that is I don't
think getting rid of regulations around bike helmets. If you
put if you lined up all of that regulation, that's just.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Not high on the priority lists.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
It seems to me to be ridiculous, and I think
that's the line that the new Ministry for Regulation needs
to carefully traverse. I would like to see a priority
list of legislation with a waiting about how damaging it
it is and its impact, and then to see that
list work through thoroughly. When you get random things like
(08:58):
this that don't really seem to make sense, well they're not.
They're not even low hanging fruit. I mean, they're not
even a ballble on the.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Tree, are they.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I just don't think it looks good for that ministry
and the important job it's got to do.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, so the right call then to just dump it.
What do you reckon, Josie.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yeah, they've got to pick their battles a bit better.
There's a bit too many of these sort of symbolic
gestures like taking reversing the Mary word on passports. It's
like no one was bothered about that, and no one's thinking,
oh my god, we must get rid of helmets. Although
I'm like you, Heather, as a mum, I'm strapped on
helmets to my kids when they're young, and now they're
in their twenties, I mean I virtually want them and
(09:35):
bulletproof fests like RoboCop going around. So of course, as
parents were going to do everything to keep them safe.
If they don't keep finding my iPhone on, I'm phoning
up for proof of life every day. So you could
say that if you take the helmet mandatory helmet away,
that most people will do what's safe anyway and put
the helmet on, and people who don't want to. The
(09:55):
problem you've got is e bikes, right, Are e bikes
mopeads or are they out the limescooters?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Everybody gets absolutely absolutely hammered at the weekend on them
and whoo and they have've got any helmets on? Are they?
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Yes? But enough about my son who ended up in
a scooter drunk at three am.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Well there you go, hey guys. Oh by the way,
by the way, Trisha, are you going to read Grant's book?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
I think it's one that you will not find on
my bedside table, along with Justsinda's book. I feel like
theore ones. I just sort of get them summarized from
I'll read it and tell thank you you can be
my human shield on that one.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
What about you, Joseph, I'll read the chat GPT version.
I'm just a bit sick of this sort of tendency
of politicians to publish books to tell their side of
the story, rather than it being something we're all demanding.
Oh look he was finance minister. He's got an interesting
story to tell. But you can't publish a book and
then not appear at a public royal commission in the
same Free Sister.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Thank you, Trishas and jose Spigani hudle this evening.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
For more from Heather 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 Southerby's International Realty Unique Homes
Uniquely for you.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
On the Huddle with us this evening, we have Tris Shurson, Sharson,
Willis pr and Joseph Begunni, CEO of Child Found. Hello
you guys, Hello, Hello. You into this idea? Trish, No,
you don't want to go on a working holiday in
your late forties?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Well, I mean, I think it's one of those great
headline grabbing ideas, but I'm not convinced at the age
bracket that it's been pitched to that those people are
going to want to do the kind of jobs that
would be on offer.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
No.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I I personally tend to agree, being roughly in that
age bracket.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Josie, Yeah, by that age, I don't want to go
on a working holiday. I just want to go on
a holiday. And look, I just think if you're going
to open it up to age fifty maximum, well you
might as well just have no age restrictions. I mean,
you might as well say anyone can come on a
work with you today.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Because you know what, I'll tell you what, Josie, what
the German thought would be a great hyde is if
you have like a nana O pair come and stage
your house from Germany.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah, well maybe it is, but I still think if
this is the big productivity growth plan from the government
and we're focusing on this sort of low value tourism
and I love a juicy van. This is nothing against juicy,
but you know, basically, do we really want more and
more and more backpackers coming doing working holidays and frankly
(01:24):
lowering the average wage by taking such low wage jobs
in places like Queenstown that actually lowers the average wage
across the whole of New Zealand. So it's fine. I
love it when French people come and do a working
and they quite good waiters and waitresses and so on,
and they flock to Queenstown because they want to go there.
But this is not a great growth strategy for New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
And also just bearing in mind the number of older
New Zealanders, especially right now, who are looking for work,
so there could be an issue there. And just a
personal note from me, I see the van holiday makers
and in my head, that's my worst nightmare. Making a
cup of tea on top of your duvet with that's
(02:10):
also your pantry.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
He's got your little poop pot underneath this in a
com for the for the young people. Well you do.
You have a fun time when you're young and you
can do crazy things like that. Jose, how do you
think the big meeting in the White House is going
to go overnight?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Well, you're right that the EU does need to step up,
and I think they've realized that if they're not at
the table, they're on the menu. So they've really decided
they're going to come and be Zelenski's bodyguards this time.
And great to see that. I'm sure Zelenski and all
of the seven European bodyguards he's bringing that, they've all said,
we will we do not want a pre meeting press
(02:54):
conference in the Oval Office, thank you very much. We'll
go straight into the meeting because that's, of course what
happened last time, is Lensky. Yeah, I mean, the EU
needs to do the heavy lifting. But let's not let
Trump off the hook here. I mean he has America
has walked away from forty years of protecting democracy, liberal
liberal values and the rules, and they're walking away from
(03:15):
it and leaving it up to the rest of us.
So it is it's a big hinge moment in history
for US, right, So the EU does have to step up.
I understand what you're saying, Heather, when you're calling on
the EU to do more, and they should have done
more to date. But I think they are seriously looking
at it and going, well, if America is not going
to be there, we have to step up. But they
(03:36):
want to make sure that America is on board with
whatever plan comes next, and that's the big thing. So
what's going to happen next. Well, the best case scenario,
and it doesn't sound that great, is that Russia keeps
the territory that it's already occupied, which is awful, but
it doesn't get officially recognized. Ukraine gets its security guarantees,
the sort of Article five type guarantee where the US
(04:00):
also agrees to come to its aid if it's invaded again,
and they get to join the EU and there is
no cap to them rearming or defending themselves. That's the
best case scenario. Worst case scenario is that Russia and
Putin just divide up Ukraine and then Europe really is
on the menu. Then they're at the mercy of whoever's
going to invade Europe Beyond Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Trish, what do you think the chances are that.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
This is successful, Well, I think it's fairly low. There's
two key issues here. One is that in Trump's world,
this is just another TV chapter, TV episode in his
sort of apprentice style.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
You're never I'm sure that it understands the importance, like
the historical importance of what he's doing.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, I don't know whether he doesn't understand. He certainly
doesn't really care deeply about it. So he's put aside
all of the norms of normal diplomacy. And if I
were the EU people going into this, to Josie's point,
I would stage men this to within an inch of
its life. So you go straight into the room, you
(05:04):
get down to tintax. One of the other great pieces
of advice I heard over the weekend was actually to Zolensky.
So one of the things that Putin does he is
a fantastic speaker of English, he's fluent in German. But
what he does is he always works through an interpreter,
because what that does in those big meetings is it
just slows everything down. So the advice to Zelensky was
(05:28):
use an interpreter, because you're going to be able to
slow everything down. I think it's fantastic that the EU
is going with Zelensky to support him this time, and
I think symbolically that's really really important. But there is
absolutely no way to guarantee what's happened going to happen
(05:49):
out the back of this, And one of the problems
with the Trump team. Trump won't take briefings. He isn't
properly prepared for these meetings and the groundwork that you
would normally expect going into these meetings. So normally you'd
go into these meetings, you would know what's going to happen.
And it's really the kind of symbolism in the picture
story that goes with it. No one knows with Trump's
team what on earth is going to happen.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Hang on, Josie, I just need to take a break
and I want you one quick thing afterwards. Hanging a tack.
It's called to the huddle.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
With New Zealand Southeby's International Realty, the ones for unmashed results.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Back with the huddle, Josie, what was your one quick thing?
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Just to illustrate how extraordinary this moment was, so putin
walks down, he gets the red carpet and the clap
the handshake with Trump. If he had landed in New
zeal And the flyover, the flyover one hundred countries, he
would have been arrested because there's an ICC International Criminal
Court basically a arrest at first sight ruling on him
(06:47):
because he's a war criminal. But the other thing I
quickly wanted to say was Russia is very weak at
the moment, and I think, as you say, Trump doesn't
really analyze this very politically. Russia has lost Syria, you know,
A said alas i seld Basha allah Sad. It's been
dumped or it's dumped. I ran the Gulf States are
shifting towards the US. It has an economy the size
(07:07):
of Spain. So really, you know, Trump is treating it
as if it's some sort of Cold war equal to
the US, and it isn't. So he just doesn't get
the politics well.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
But that brings us back to the theories about what
hold Putin has to hold on because Moody pictures otherwise
it just doesn't it actually doesn't make sense what's happening.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So there are some who are connected to the White
House Josie who reckon that Putin's got some Epstein files
or something like that, and he and they get together
at these meetings and he just flashes flashes Trump and
he's like, do you remember this?
Speaker 4 (07:43):
And frankly, if they were nudy pictures, we will be
relieved and breathe a sigh of relief. They're going to
be worse than that, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Mostly well, you know who knows. I mean, I love
a good conspiracy theory, so I'm deep in this one.
Do you think, Trish, that David Cymore has made the
right call leaving the bike helmets as mandatory? I do.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I went to a very interesting speech the other day
and one of the points that came out of it
was how mired in very bad old regulation New Zealander is.
But because of the slowness of our parliament and the
legislative process, and because a lot of those old regulations
will have to be removed through legislation in Parliament, it's
(08:22):
going to be years and years before we get through it.
So the reason I speak to that is I don't
think getting rid of regulations around bike helmets. If you
put if you lined up all of that regulation, that's just.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Not high on the priority lists.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
It seems to me to be ridiculous, and I think
that's the line that the new Ministry for Regulation needs
to carefully traverse. I would like to see a priority
list of legislation with a waiting about how damaging it
it is and its impact, and then to see that
list work through thoroughly. When you get random things like
(08:58):
this that don't really seem to make sense, well they're not.
They're not even low hanging fruit. I mean, they're not
even a ballble on the.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Tree, are they.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I just don't think it looks good for that ministry
and the important job it's got to do.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, so the right call then to just dump it.
What do you reckon, Josie.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yeah, they've got to pick their battles a bit better.
There's a bit too many of these sort of symbolic
gestures like taking reversing the Mary word on passports. It's
like no one was bothered about that, and no one's thinking,
oh my god, we must get rid of helmets. Although
I'm like you, Heather, as a mum, I'm strapped on
helmets to my kids when they're young, and now they're
in their twenties, I mean I virtually want them and
(09:35):
bulletproof fests like RoboCop going around. So of course, as
parents were going to do everything to keep them safe.
If they don't keep finding my iPhone on, I'm phoning
up for proof of life every day. So you could
say that if you take the helmet mandatory helmet away,
that most people will do what's safe anyway and put
the helmet on, and people who don't want to. The
(09:55):
problem you've got is e bikes, right, Are e bikes
mopeads or are they out the limescooters?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Everybody gets absolutely absolutely hammered at the weekend on them
and whoo and they have've got any helmets on? Are they?
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Yes? But enough about my son who ended up in
a scooter drunk at three am.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Well there you go, hey guys. Oh by the way,
by the way, Trisha, are you going to read Grant's book?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
I think it's one that you will not find on
my bedside table, along with Justsinda's book. I feel like
theore ones. I just sort of get them summarized from
I'll read it and tell thank you you can be
my human shield on that one.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
What about you, Joseph, I'll read the chat GPT version.
I'm just a bit sick of this sort of tendency
of politicians to publish books to tell their side of
the story, rather than it being something we're all demanding.
Oh look he was finance minister. He's got an interesting
story to tell. But you can't publish a book and
then not appear at a public royal commission in the
same Free Sister.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Thank you, Trishas and jose Spigani hudle this evening.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
For more from Heather 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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