April 13, 2025 • 6 mins
The soon-to-be Deputy Prime Minister talks trade, Trump, inflation and Willie Jackson. Plus, is he going to vacate the “naughty chair” on May 31?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
David Seymour is the act party leader. Come the thirty
first of May, he'll be the deputy prime Minister. Today
we're going to talk about trade, the treaty, inflation and
Willie Jackson. I'm not quite sure how we tie all
that in, but I want to start with the deputy
prime minister position. David Seymour has Winston already started jostling
for petition for positions? Should I say condemning hysterical language
(00:23):
to quote him are used by Luxon and Trump trade
tariff talks or is this just a beat up by
the media.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, I don't have a good idea of what is
going on with the two of them. They're The only
thing I would say is that it's generally accepted and
respected that the Prime Minister is always the de facto
foreign minister. And when it comes to relationships with other countries,
(00:54):
whatever differences we may have within New zealand And, I
think we should have more debate about mature of our country,
but that's internal. When we're front up to the rest
of the world, doesn't matter if your national labor communist
at party, We're all on Team New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I thought you were suggesting the act Party was Communist
there for a moment, David, I may have misardd you.
Now is this all about you? You being a naughty
boy in your eighteen months as not being Deputy PM,
annoying the hell out of the Prime Minister with your
Treaty's Principal's Bill. And now that Winston's nearly finished and
he's been on his best behavior and everyone universally is
(01:34):
saying he's done a good job as our trade minister,
Is Winston going to be the naughty boy?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, he's not the Trade Minister, as the Foreign Affairs
sorry minister. And you know, I think it's a shame
that people say that because the Treaty Principal's Bill, you know,
putting to the heart of our country's constitution. Are we equal?
Are we not? To have that dismissed as being quote
unquote I think is really a sign of why we
(02:03):
find it so hard to solve problems in this country.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
David, you had three hundred thousand submissions. The previous record
was one hundred ninety percent opposing it. And I know
that you're appeasing your constituency, but sometimes are sleeping dog's
best left to lie?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No? But a couple of things. First of all, anyone
who thinks select committee submissions are an indicator of public
opinion need only look at the end of life choice
or abortion. In both cases, ninety percent of submissions were opposed,
and yet the public overwhelmingly supported those law changes. Why
is that happening, Because whenever you put up an issue,
(02:43):
people come and object. If they don't like it, they're
less likely to submit on something that they actually support.
That's just a fact of life. Well, the number that's
submitted on treaty principle, I think shows that people do
know the question of what our treaty means matters to
our country. If you want to be able to do
resource consents, run local government, do education and health, everything
(03:07):
is harder when we're constantly divided by when our ancestors
arrive so far from being naughty or annoying, it's extra
cabas everyone has to have right over to be able
to us.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I'm over the Treaty Principal's bill. Now a poll out
suggesting something that we already knew. The cost of living
is still the biggest concern in this country. Supposedly, new
data due out this week will show inflation has risen
for the first time in about two or three years.
But there is a solution, David Seamour, It's sitting right
(03:39):
in front of your nose, and Willie Jackson was smart
enough to realize this. All you need to do is
take the gst off meat.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well we're I mean, first of all, I'm a big
fan of GDP Live. If you haven't checked it out,
try googling it. It's a guy called Christof Schumacher at
MESSI and he takes real time data every day from
a whole lot of businesses to get a sense of
where GDP and inflation are at. Rather than waiting three
(04:10):
months but Statistics New Zealand to tell us what it
was doing two months ago, you can get it in
real time, so GDP Live And unfortunately I just looked
at it before this interview and November inflation was down
to two point zero three. Now it's up to two
point four two according to this very precise real time measures.
So that would tell you that, you know, when Stats
(04:31):
New Zealand gets around to it day two, are going
to say GDP sorry, inflation has started rising again. And
that is a real concern. There's no question that people
have been doing it tough for a long time. We
crushed inflation, doown to two point two in the official record,
ps to have gotten a new lease of life. All
I can say is that you know, there's things you
(04:52):
can control, there's things you can't. We can't control the Americans,
we can't control global trade. What we can control is
red tape and government waste and spend. So all Act
brings to the table is less red tape and less
the government waste, freese people up to be productive now
when you and that means you got more goods for
the amount of money, and that means slower prices and
(05:13):
better lives. So that's all we can do, and that's
exactly what we are doing right across the board. I
won't give you a whole gamut of red tape cutting
we're doing, but you know, people know it's a lot.
When it comes to Willie Jackson, I mean, what can
you say? I mean, this guy you know at texts
me all the time, but he never fronted up to
debate me when TV three offered him the chance to
(05:35):
debate me on treaty principles. He had a whole year
to ask me questions about it. In the house. He
asked me one question and he got annihilated so bad
that when we put it on YouTube, eighty thousand people
watched him get annihilated asking me a question. Now he
pops up saying he wants to take GST off meat. Well,
here's a few things. One is that the GST savings
(05:56):
will go probably about half maybe more to the super
markets who are selling it, rather than to the consumer.
The money that gets saved by the consumer, we'll get
mostly to people buying I Philip's, not to people buying mints,
because they'll get a bigger GST discount. It's a dream
for a tax account, and it's not a dream for
(06:16):
if you got to pay them in The people paying
them will be the consumer. So it's just about impossible
to think of a stupid or more complicated, less effective
policy than GST off meat if you want to help
struggling families. However, it's just about impossible to think of
a stupider politician than will they.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Get Oh right, we'll leave it at that. David Seymour
in the naughty chair, but he's about to move to
the responsible chair at the end of May. Thanks for
your time on the country David, no worries, Jane
David Seymour is the act party leader. Come the thirty
first of May, he'll be the deputy prime Minister. Today
we're going to talk about trade, the treaty, inflation and
Willie Jackson. I'm not quite sure how we tie all
that in, but I want to start with the deputy
prime minister position. David Seymour has Winston already started jostling
for petition for positions? Should I say condemning hysterical language
(00:23):
to quote him are used by Luxon and Trump trade
tariff talks or is this just a beat up by
the media.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, I don't have a good idea of what is
going on with the two of them. They're The only
thing I would say is that it's generally accepted and
respected that the Prime Minister is always the de facto
foreign minister. And when it comes to relationships with other countries,
(00:54):
whatever differences we may have within New zealand And, I
think we should have more debate about mature of our country,
but that's internal. When we're front up to the rest
of the world, doesn't matter if your national labor communist
at party, We're all on Team New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I thought you were suggesting the act Party was Communist
there for a moment, David, I may have misardd you.
Now is this all about you? You being a naughty
boy in your eighteen months as not being Deputy PM,
annoying the hell out of the Prime Minister with your
Treaty's Principal's Bill. And now that Winston's nearly finished and
he's been on his best behavior and everyone universally is
(01:34):
saying he's done a good job as our trade minister,
Is Winston going to be the naughty boy?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, he's not the Trade Minister, as the Foreign Affairs
sorry minister. And you know, I think it's a shame
that people say that because the Treaty Principal's Bill, you know,
putting to the heart of our country's constitution. Are we equal?
Are we not? To have that dismissed as being quote
unquote I think is really a sign of why we
(02:03):
find it so hard to solve problems in this country.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
David, you had three hundred thousand submissions. The previous record
was one hundred ninety percent opposing it. And I know
that you're appeasing your constituency, but sometimes are sleeping dog's
best left to lie?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No? But a couple of things. First of all, anyone
who thinks select committee submissions are an indicator of public
opinion need only look at the end of life choice
or abortion. In both cases, ninety percent of submissions were opposed,
and yet the public overwhelmingly supported those law changes. Why
is that happening, Because whenever you put up an issue,
(02:43):
people come and object. If they don't like it, they're
less likely to submit on something that they actually support.
That's just a fact of life. Well, the number that's
submitted on treaty principle, I think shows that people do
know the question of what our treaty means matters to
our country. If you want to be able to do
resource consents, run local government, do education and health, everything
(03:07):
is harder when we're constantly divided by when our ancestors
arrive so far from being naughty or annoying, it's extra
cabas everyone has to have right over to be able
to us.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I'm over the Treaty Principal's bill. Now a poll out
suggesting something that we already knew. The cost of living
is still the biggest concern in this country. Supposedly, new
data due out this week will show inflation has risen
for the first time in about two or three years.
But there is a solution, David Seamour, It's sitting right
(03:39):
in front of your nose, and Willie Jackson was smart
enough to realize this. All you need to do is
take the gst off meat.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well we're I mean, first of all, I'm a big
fan of GDP Live. If you haven't checked it out,
try googling it. It's a guy called Christof Schumacher at
MESSI and he takes real time data every day from
a whole lot of businesses to get a sense of
where GDP and inflation are at. Rather than waiting three
(04:10):
months but Statistics New Zealand to tell us what it
was doing two months ago, you can get it in
real time, so GDP Live And unfortunately I just looked
at it before this interview and November inflation was down
to two point zero three. Now it's up to two
point four two according to this very precise real time measures.
So that would tell you that, you know, when Stats
(04:31):
New Zealand gets around to it day two, are going
to say GDP sorry, inflation has started rising again. And
that is a real concern. There's no question that people
have been doing it tough for a long time. We
crushed inflation, doown to two point two in the official record,
ps to have gotten a new lease of life. All
I can say is that you know, there's things you
(04:52):
can control, there's things you can't. We can't control the Americans,
we can't control global trade. What we can control is
red tape and government waste and spend. So all Act
brings to the table is less red tape and less
the government waste, freese people up to be productive now
when you and that means you got more goods for
the amount of money, and that means slower prices and
(05:13):
better lives. So that's all we can do, and that's
exactly what we are doing right across the board. I
won't give you a whole gamut of red tape cutting
we're doing, but you know, people know it's a lot.
When it comes to Willie Jackson, I mean, what can
you say? I mean, this guy you know at texts
me all the time, but he never fronted up to
debate me when TV three offered him the chance to
(05:35):
debate me on treaty principles. He had a whole year
to ask me questions about it. In the house. He
asked me one question and he got annihilated so bad
that when we put it on YouTube, eighty thousand people
watched him get annihilated asking me a question. Now he
pops up saying he wants to take GST off meat. Well,
here's a few things. One is that the GST savings
(05:56):
will go probably about half maybe more to the super
markets who are selling it, rather than to the consumer.
The money that gets saved by the consumer, we'll get
mostly to people buying I Philip's, not to people buying mints,
because they'll get a bigger GST discount. It's a dream
for a tax account, and it's not a dream for
(06:16):
if you got to pay them in The people paying
them will be the consumer. So it's just about impossible
to think of a stupid or more complicated, less effective
policy than GST off meat if you want to help
struggling families. However, it's just about impossible to think of
a stupider politician than will they.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Get Oh right, we'll leave it at that. David Seymour
in the naughty chair, but he's about to move to
the responsible chair at the end of May. Thanks for
your time on the country David, no worries, Jane
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!