Barry Soper: Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent on NZ First raising concerns over asset sales

The Prime Minister has responded to Winston Peters' fears over potential asset sales.

Chris Luxon has ruled them out this term, but is again suggesting it needs discussion.

Meanwhile, the NZ First leader has told RNZ it's a silly argument - and claimed the party will stop the country's assets from being sold.

Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper unpacked the discussions further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barry Soper, Senior political correspondence with US.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hello, Barring, good afternoon, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Okay, so asset sales already an issue.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Well, yes, it is an issue. And of course, as
soon as it came out of Chris Luxen's mouth, was
going to be an issue for the Labor Party, there
was no doubt about that. But it's coalition partner in
New Zealand. First, they're having a go as well. But
Luxon was in the house this afternoon being quizzed about
his view of basset sales, and he certainly didn't hold back.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
If you are a high function economy like Singapore, one
of the hallmarks of their success has been their asset recycling.
They're able to take government capital and redeploy it to
higher purposes that generate greater returns and greater benefits for
their people. It's pretty simple. We're going to have an
adult conversation, a serious conversation, a strategic one to say
if there is government capital or government assets that could

(00:46):
or should be recycled for greater purpose and greater benefit
for the New Zealand people. That's a legitimate question that
we should have, but we should have it without trying
to politicize it and the way the members started today.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I've got to say it's a question that wouldn't Peters.
He's certainly asking Winston no doubt about us on the
campaign trial. He took his second or his first eighteen
months and his deputy prime minister for a very good reason.
Second eighteen months now means that he can campaign taking

(01:17):
on the job of deputy prime minister. That was a
very definite move for him to give him political advantage
on Oarnzeed this morning, Peters wouldn't have a bar of
National's call for a discussion on asset sales and he
wasn't holding back on his coalition partners success.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Here he is and here they come again with the
same story. You know what the story really means because
they failed to run the economy properly. They wanted to
the assets of a time when the country was month properly,
when we were number two in the world. We've got
a situation where we haven't turned the economy around in
the way we should have as fast as we should have.
I know it can be turned around, but not what
this sort of strategy were you not actually testing the economy.
They're actually just getting rid of the assets built up

(01:56):
by our forefathers to try and balance the books. That
is an admission oftential fare before we ever start. Why
don't we fixie comya properly?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
So he's not really praising the government that he so,
how did Luxe and explain away Winston Peter's viewmint opposition
to as it sails? Well, have a listen.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has been here a long time.
He's been here almost half a century. He has a
lot of entrenched positions on lots of different things. But
he and I are very very cognizant of what our
pronouns are and they are we.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
That was quite good. I thought that that's relating of
course to Luxe and making his comment overseas. But they
had move on orders with a big thing again in
Parliament today by taking on a life of their own.
The Green's Chloe Swarbrick, she was on a bandwagon again
in parliament. She's been a bit like a crack record
over recent months, inviting the Prime Minister to take a

(02:49):
walk on the wild side with her in downtown Auckland
to see how the rough sleepers fear. Swarbrick was again
at it today asking lux And about rough sleepers, but
her question was taken over by New Zealand First Shane Jones.
Luxon was much more upfront than he was last week
about the government's plans here.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
They are.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
We want people to be able to go into the
Auckland CBD and not be intimidated. We are considering move
on orders, but we need to make sure the support
is in place so that those folk when they are
moved on, actually have somewhere to go. We don't just
move the problem around the city.

Speaker 5 (03:23):
The Honoral Change Jhones the Prime Minister. Can the Prime
Minister confirm that thousands of visitors to Queen Street fear
for their own safety and it's not purely an issue
of homelessness but potential criminality, drug taking and people defending victimhood.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yes, I can. Many Aucklanders in Auckland refuse to go
in the CBD for exactly that reason.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
The Donald Shange Jones speaker.

Speaker 5 (03:46):
In relation to job seeker supporters, the Prime Minister, where
a couple of marriages are about to become unemployed.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
You know what he's referring to their very good sense
of humor here he's got you didn't get it. He's
talking about the two Maldi MP's and they went in
their house today, I might say, and that was a
simple formality getting rid of them, that is, as Parliament
got together today. Here's a speaker, Jerry Brownley.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
I've advised by a Tiparty MARII that their parliamentary membership
has changed and that Maria Meno Carpakingi and Taku de
Peris are no longer members of Tiparty Mari for parliamentary purposes. Accordingly,
under standing at order thirty five to five, those members
from the tenth, if they've ever twenty twenty five, are
regarded as independent members for parliamentary purposes.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
We ain't heard the heart last of that one yet,
have we, because we the other two MPs that still
do belong to the Maori Party besides their co leadership,
they went in the house today either as far as
I could see, and of course neither were the two
that have been expelled from the party. So who knows

(04:56):
what these four MPs two thirds of the caucus are
planning now.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Interesting, Hey, there's a potential wrinkle in any plans to
walk a jump them, which I'm going to run through next.
Where I thought was interesting very sober senior political correspondent.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
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