Labour Leader Chris Hipkins joined John MacDonald for their regular catchup.
On today’s agenda:
Andrew Bayly is in hot water for his “offensive comments” during a Ministerial visit – what are his party’s thoughts on the situation? Is it time to have central government reporting on local councils to mitigate the chances of what’s happening in Wellington? And, has David Seymour hit the bullseye with his new school lunch plan?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Morning's Podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk ZB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning to Chris Hipkins, opposition leader in Labor leader.
Chris sippinsons, I don't know why I'm finding it weird
just then saying your name then, Chris. But gooday, good a,
how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
John? Very good to talk to you, right.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Got an in depth question. You know when you gave
Stuart Nash the flick? It was last year, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Indeed? Yep?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Did you tell him to off?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I certainly didn't. But I mean I think you can
contrast that with the current situation.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'll get I'll get to that. Did he tell you
to f off?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
No, he didn't. Actually, and Stuart was very dignified and
he did what Andrew Bailey hasn't done, which is he
acknowledged that he'd done something wrong. He acknowledged that his
position was untenable and he knew that he had to go.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Do you accept Andrew Bailey's statement that he didn't swear
to that worker.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Look, I don't think the worker will have lied. So
I've read the letter several times and it seems to
me very genuine and it seems that you know, thankfully,
If I had to pick someone's word to trust right now,
it would be the workers rather than Andrew Bailey.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Was a letter addressed to you personally.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
No, it was sent to a number of MPs, including
Carmel Sepaloni, and I believe the Greens and the Marti
Party also got it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
What did you do about it? What did you guys
do about it when you got it?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Well, we didn't actually receive it until after the Prime
Minister's officer had already replied to it. And there's been
a bit of doing and throwing about how that actually happened.
That would appear that there were multiple versions of the letter.
In the version that came to the opposition parties got
captured by Parliament's spam filter, whereas it didn't seem to
be captured by the spam filter when it went to
(01:59):
the Prime Minister's office. And that seems somewhat odd. And
so we're still trying to figure out exactly what happened there.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Are you still saying that you reckon there was some
interference in the system.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
No, and I've never said that. I believe that there's
some interference in the system. I'm saying that there's something
going on with our I system, that the Prime Minister's
office were able to receive this letter but we weren't,
and that they were able to reply to a message
that apparently got caught by the spam filters when it
was sent to us but not to him. So I
think we need to figure out what happened there. But
(02:31):
I'm not alleging anything improper, but it does seem strange
that we were sort of prevented from getting the message
but they weren't.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
When will you guys drop this one? What will be
enough for you guys to drop it?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Well? I think we need to see some action from
the Prime Minister on this. I mean Andrew Bailey, I
think really let everybody down. The idea that the government
minister would call someone a loser, would effectively harass them
for not going drinking with them in their workplace, not once,
but three times. I think that is a statue star.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
All right, let's look at the same situation, not just
in Wellington at the moment. But we've been discussing on
the show this morning whether or not local government needs
a system similar to what we have in schools with
inspectors going around and making sure that things are particularly book.
Do you think this sort of system would work well
and is needed in local government?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I think we need to do something about local governments.
I mean, local government in New Zealand is not functioning
in the way that we need it to. For a
Local Government secret itself did a review last year and
presented those findings to the government, and the current government
has said that they're just going to ignore them and
forget it ever happened. Actually, I think now would be
a good time for central and local government to sit
down and say there are problems with our local government system.
(03:44):
I think we do need to change it, and now
would be a good time to have that conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, what would that mean though, because it's easy to
say that sort of stuff, but it's pretty planned.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I think we've got to look at a range of issues.
We've going to look at how many councils that we've gotten,
whether we've got the right number of councils. I think
we need to look again at how councils get funded
because at the moment their funding either comes from buy
and largely fundings either coming from rates or from debt,
and of course the debt is serviced by the rates,
So it all comes back to rates, and I don't
(04:16):
know that that's a sustainable way for councils to do
everything that they need to do in the coming decades
to catch up with the infrastructure deficits that we've got
across the whole country. Those are two areas where where
we should actually sit down with them and have, you know,
and look at how what the alternatives might look like.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Would you like the idea of inspectors going around because
I would.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I'm certainly not opposed to us having some you know,
some different accountability mechanisms for councils. But we've also got
to remember that councils are elected by their local communities.
They're not They don't report to central government. They report
to their local communities.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You so you support what's happening in Wellington.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I mean, I think Wellington frankly that the council they
haven't done a particularly good job in recent years. But
I think the ultimate sanction, so that's it's the local voters.
There's a local government election next year and they can
vote more different councilors if they if they are dissatisfied
with the performance of the current Council.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
How surprised are you that, even after the government vowing
cutbacks in the public sector, that there was still a
huge amount of money being spent on consultants.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I'm not surprised by us, to be honest, and I
do think we need to differentiate some of these conversations.
So if you look at Crown Law, for example, haven't
got to the bottom of that yet. But if that
means that they're engaging more lawyers, because you know, by
and large that's the way Crown Law operates. They engage
law firms to do a lot of their work for them,
And if that's because they're prosecuting more cases and they're
(05:46):
defending more cases, then that would be justified. On the
other hand, government deparmers using consultants and contractors instead of
using their in house expertise to do basic work that
needs to be done. I don't think we should be
using consultants and contractors to that. So I don't think
you can have sort of I don't think.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
That was happening. That was happening. That was happening under
your gun, though, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
We said we wanted to reduce the reliance on consultants
and contractors. But that's not across the board because in
some areas you actually if you want to do more things,
you need to use them. So it's take it. If
you need to replace an IT system. Government departments aren't
going to have the capability in the house to do that.
They're typically going to contract it in. It'll be contracted
in for a fixed time and then it will leave again,
(06:30):
and that's a justified use. On the other hand, contracting
people and to do day to day work isn't what
government departments should be doing.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
All right, let's wrap up on the school lunches. There
down to three dollars saving one hundred and thirty million
bucks a year. Yet do you guys put out a
release saying government cut school lunches even further? When will
you be happy on this one?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Look, I want to hear from schools. The schools themselves
have been saying that they don't believe that this lunch
program is going to be workable because it's too cheap. Basically,
they're saying that you can feed the kids, but for
some of these kids that's their main meal for the day,
or less than the price of a cup of coffee.
I think schools are rights to be concerned about that.
You know, they're actually transferring a lot of the cost
(07:11):
of running the school lunches program onto schools, and they're
not increasing school funding to compensate for that.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
You've got any concerns about the outfit doing it that's
been hired to.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Do it, not necessarily. But the thing is if at
the moment, the school lunch's program relies on in many
cases on schools producing the lunches themselves, so they employ
people to produce the lunch within school, that means they're
serving it to the kids, that means they're doing all
the dishes, they're doing all of that. Basically, my understanding
is that schools are now basically going to be curied
out lunch lunches. The school will then have to do
(07:39):
all of that part of it, and they will have
to meet the cost of doing that part.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Of it, and that's where the savings come from, is it?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Well, I am concerned that basically there is going to
be a transfer of costs away from the lunch's program
and onto the schools, and so we're keen to hear
from schools about how they're going to actually do that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
All right, But the top line as you think they're
being stringy with three bucks a lunch, so you're saying.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Look, frankly, i'd struggle to do my kids to lunch
box for three backs a day. It generally costs more
than this.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Thanks, good time, mate, we'll talk in a fortnite. It
could relant receipts labor leader and opposition leader.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
For more from Caterbory Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
to news talks It'd be christ Church from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Canterbury Morning's Podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk ZB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning to Chris Hipkins, opposition leader in Labor leader.
Chris sippinsons, I don't know why I'm finding it weird
just then saying your name then, Chris. But gooday, good a,
how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
John? Very good to talk to you, right.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Got an in depth question. You know when you gave
Stuart Nash the flick? It was last year, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Indeed? Yep?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Did you tell him to off?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I certainly didn't. But I mean I think you can
contrast that with the current situation.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'll get I'll get to that. Did he tell you
to f off?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
No, he didn't. Actually, and Stuart was very dignified and
he did what Andrew Bailey hasn't done, which is he
acknowledged that he'd done something wrong. He acknowledged that his
position was untenable and he knew that he had to go.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Do you accept Andrew Bailey's statement that he didn't swear
to that worker.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Look, I don't think the worker will have lied. So
I've read the letter several times and it seems to
me very genuine and it seems that you know, thankfully,
If I had to pick someone's word to trust right now,
it would be the workers rather than Andrew Bailey.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Was a letter addressed to you personally.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
No, it was sent to a number of MPs, including
Carmel Sepaloni, and I believe the Greens and the Marti
Party also got it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
What did you do about it? What did you guys
do about it when you got it?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Well, we didn't actually receive it until after the Prime
Minister's officer had already replied to it. And there's been
a bit of doing and throwing about how that actually happened.
That would appear that there were multiple versions of the letter.
In the version that came to the opposition parties got
captured by Parliament's spam filter, whereas it didn't seem to
be captured by the spam filter when it went to
(01:59):
the Prime Minister's office. And that seems somewhat odd. And
so we're still trying to figure out exactly what happened there.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Are you still saying that you reckon there was some
interference in the system.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
No, and I've never said that. I believe that there's
some interference in the system. I'm saying that there's something
going on with our I system, that the Prime Minister's
office were able to receive this letter but we weren't,
and that they were able to reply to a message
that apparently got caught by the spam filters when it
was sent to us but not to him. So I
think we need to figure out what happened there. But
(02:31):
I'm not alleging anything improper, but it does seem strange
that we were sort of prevented from getting the message
but they weren't.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
When will you guys drop this one? What will be
enough for you guys to drop it?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Well? I think we need to see some action from
the Prime Minister on this. I mean Andrew Bailey, I
think really let everybody down. The idea that the government
minister would call someone a loser, would effectively harass them
for not going drinking with them in their workplace, not once,
but three times. I think that is a statue star.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
All right, let's look at the same situation, not just
in Wellington at the moment. But we've been discussing on
the show this morning whether or not local government needs
a system similar to what we have in schools with
inspectors going around and making sure that things are particularly book.
Do you think this sort of system would work well
and is needed in local government?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I think we need to do something about local governments.
I mean, local government in New Zealand is not functioning
in the way that we need it to. For a
Local Government secret itself did a review last year and
presented those findings to the government, and the current government
has said that they're just going to ignore them and
forget it ever happened. Actually, I think now would be
a good time for central and local government to sit
down and say there are problems with our local government system.
(03:44):
I think we do need to change it, and now
would be a good time to have that conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, what would that mean though, because it's easy to
say that sort of stuff, but it's pretty planned.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I think we've got to look at a range of issues.
We've going to look at how many councils that we've gotten,
whether we've got the right number of councils. I think
we need to look again at how councils get funded
because at the moment their funding either comes from buy
and largely fundings either coming from rates or from debt,
and of course the debt is serviced by the rates,
So it all comes back to rates, and I don't
(04:16):
know that that's a sustainable way for councils to do
everything that they need to do in the coming decades
to catch up with the infrastructure deficits that we've got
across the whole country. Those are two areas where where
we should actually sit down with them and have, you know,
and look at how what the alternatives might look like.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Would you like the idea of inspectors going around because
I would.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I'm certainly not opposed to us having some you know,
some different accountability mechanisms for councils. But we've also got
to remember that councils are elected by their local communities.
They're not They don't report to central government. They report
to their local communities.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You so you support what's happening in Wellington.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I mean, I think Wellington frankly that the council they
haven't done a particularly good job in recent years. But
I think the ultimate sanction, so that's it's the local voters.
There's a local government election next year and they can
vote more different councilors if they if they are dissatisfied
with the performance of the current Council.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
How surprised are you that, even after the government vowing
cutbacks in the public sector, that there was still a
huge amount of money being spent on consultants.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I'm not surprised by us, to be honest, and I
do think we need to differentiate some of these conversations.
So if you look at Crown Law, for example, haven't
got to the bottom of that yet. But if that
means that they're engaging more lawyers, because you know, by
and large that's the way Crown Law operates. They engage
law firms to do a lot of their work for them,
And if that's because they're prosecuting more cases and they're
(05:46):
defending more cases, then that would be justified. On the
other hand, government deparmers using consultants and contractors instead of
using their in house expertise to do basic work that
needs to be done. I don't think we should be
using consultants and contractors to that. So I don't think
you can have sort of I don't think.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
That was happening. That was happening. That was happening under
your gun, though, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
We said we wanted to reduce the reliance on consultants
and contractors. But that's not across the board because in
some areas you actually if you want to do more things,
you need to use them. So it's take it. If
you need to replace an IT system. Government departments aren't
going to have the capability in the house to do that.
They're typically going to contract it in. It'll be contracted
in for a fixed time and then it will leave again,
(06:30):
and that's a justified use. On the other hand, contracting
people and to do day to day work isn't what
government departments should be doing.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
All right, let's wrap up on the school lunches. There
down to three dollars saving one hundred and thirty million
bucks a year. Yet do you guys put out a
release saying government cut school lunches even further? When will
you be happy on this one?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Look, I want to hear from schools. The schools themselves
have been saying that they don't believe that this lunch
program is going to be workable because it's too cheap. Basically,
they're saying that you can feed the kids, but for
some of these kids that's their main meal for the day,
or less than the price of a cup of coffee.
I think schools are rights to be concerned about that.
You know, they're actually transferring a lot of the cost
(07:11):
of running the school lunches program onto schools, and they're
not increasing school funding to compensate for that.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
You've got any concerns about the outfit doing it that's
been hired to.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Do it, not necessarily. But the thing is if at
the moment, the school lunch's program relies on in many
cases on schools producing the lunches themselves, so they employ
people to produce the lunch within school, that means they're
serving it to the kids, that means they're doing all
the dishes, they're doing all of that. Basically, my understanding
is that schools are now basically going to be curied
out lunch lunches. The school will then have to do
(07:39):
all of that part of it, and they will have
to meet the cost of doing that part.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Of it, and that's where the savings come from, is it?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Well, I am concerned that basically there is going to
be a transfer of costs away from the lunch's program
and onto the schools, and so we're keen to hear
from schools about how they're going to actually do that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
All right, But the top line as you think they're
being stringy with three bucks a lunch, so you're saying.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Look, frankly, i'd struggle to do my kids to lunch
box for three backs a day. It generally costs more
than this.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Thanks, good time, mate, we'll talk in a fortnite. It
could relant receipts labor leader and opposition leader.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
For more from Caterbory Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
to news talks It'd be christ Church from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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