Ruth Richardson: Former Finance Minister disagrees with calls for Nicola Willis to resign

Ruth Richardson does not want to see Nicola Willis resign.

But the Former Finance Minister is calling on the current Minister to take a chainsaw to certain areas of spending.

Recent GDP numbers have shown a worse-than expected economic picture - with a 0.9 percent dip in the June quarter.

Ex Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas is calling for the Minister's resignation.

But Richardson says Superannuation's unsustainable and a bloated public service.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There is significant pressure on Nikola Willis following yesterday's GDP bombshell.
Former Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas has called for her
resignation after the economy contracted zero point nine percent in
the second quarter of the year, and now another finance minister,
Ruth Richardson. Former Finance Minister Ruth Richardson says that the
government needs a drastic change in direction and Ruth is
with us high Ruth far a goodedening before we get

(00:21):
to what you want in terms of the direction of
the government. Do you think Nikola Willis should resign?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
No, Look, I don't think playing the resignation game is
going to get us anywhere. What we need to concentrate
on is the quality of the policy, setting what's working
and what's not, and advocating the kinds of policies that
can snap us out of this dreadful position that we're
in a flatlining economy and a rising unemployment.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Okay, so what do you want to see?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, what I want to see is bold and decisive action.
It's clear that big government's got its throat on the economy.
It's stifling the hell out of the productive sector. The
government needs to put its house in order, stop racking
up debt, getting serious about controlling its spending, and more importantly,
getting serious about delivering on the kind of important commitments

(01:16):
that were made to New Zealand. You know, we're living
in an era where the government mantra is let's go
for growth. Well, it's clear that the current formula is
not working. On what I'm advocating are policies that would
give us a serious shot at going for growth. I
know it because I've had to do it before. Like what, Well,

(01:36):
we've got public spending is completely out of control. Even
if we were to wind back the level of public
spending to that that occurred pro the COVID era, we'd
be in better shape. If we wind back public debt
to below thirty percent of GDP as opposed to heading
for fifty percent of GDP, we'd have more money to
spend on things that matter to us rather than debt servicing.

(02:00):
We're in a terrible spiral and we've got to snap
out of it, and that we're not going to snap
out of it by making heroic assumptions that we're going
to grow our way out of it. That's clearly not working.
We need to take bold policy strokes in order to
basically unleash the potential that the New Zealand economy has.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Okay, so what would you cut?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, for a start, it's clear that superinnuation setting is
completely unsustainable and the government should quick smart announce that
we are going to in relatively short order, Ei did
it every six months, wrote the age of eligibility rose
from sixty to sixty five. We ought to start down

(02:44):
that path. We ought to control the level of public servants.
I mean, we've got a very bloated public he back,
what is this? I mean, you would get the government
into a position where it's living within its means. We're overspending.
We're overspending and therefore we need to take the kind

(03:06):
of decisions around what is the level of public expenditure
that's consistent with the growth that we want and the
public services that we want to fund. Would you fund that?

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Would you cut the public servants back to twenty seventeen
when I do In took over. So that's a cut
of what maybe fourteen thousand or something like that. Would
you do?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, that's a pretty good place to start. I mean,
and as we've shown, you look at the Ministry Education.
She has been saying we need value for money. That's
where we need to start. The idea that you're going
to get better education by throwing more money at it.
It's clearly not the case. You need fundamental reform so
that we get better value for money for the public

(03:45):
expenditure that is deployed in the important area. So we've
got a quantity problem too much, and we've got a
quality problem too little.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, Ruth, it's good to talk to you. Thank you
very much for your time. Ruth Richards and former financement
is to also chair of the Taxpayers Union. For more
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