May 4, 2025 • 41 mins
Research by Shamubeel Eaqub finds only 32% of New Zealanders are satisfied with their financial situation, compared to 60% of Australians.
He finds higher wages and a more solid retirement plan relieves financial stress for Australians - but how can Kiwis take control of their finances to ease their worries?
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
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Exton to da watching, drinking through little Classia and enough
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enough brandle for your.
Speaker 6 (01:09):
Yes, and welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beveridge.
Just in case you have missed any of the previous hours,
fascinating discussion about nutrition with Clear Turnbull. Normally we get
sort of off the topic. We were talking about supplements
and what's worth taking, and actually some really excellent calls
and some great advice from Claire. So if you have
missed any of the previous hours, go and look for
(01:31):
the Weekend Collective on iHeartRadio or at newstalks ab dot
co dot nz and also Politics centri We had a
chat with Judith Collins about the new two billion dollars
the Defense fort spend on some new helicopters which has
been announced, and a great chat also with ABC's reporter
Sam Emery. He's in Australia and on the Albanese victory
(01:52):
in the Australian election. But right now this is a
Smart Money and it seems strange to introduce our next
guests as a new guest because they're not new to
the media, because actually he's probably the first economist I
listened to when it came to working at News Talk ZB.
It was one of the voices who was regularly heard
(02:13):
through his various roles that he's fulfilled. But he's new
for Smart Money and his name is Schamma Bill Yakub
and he's with me right now, Schambille.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
Gooday.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
And of course you are at chief economist at Simplicity.
But you've you've been at some interesting jobs. Where was
the one where you got where there was one where
you were quite currently sought out for comments or have
you always been sought out pretty much from the word go.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Well, I've been pretty privileged, but I did quite a
lot when I was at godm in Sachs. Yeah, that
was quite quite a prominent role. And then I was
at ends of day where we got to speak about
a whole bunch of different issues, including public policy. And
I did a little bit less in my last job,
but this one sort of getting back into it.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
And so you are now the chief economist at Simplicity.
So I guess what's one of the key aspects of
your job at Simplicity.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Well, the big job at Simplicity, because we're a qvserver provider,
is really to kind of how do we improve qserver
policy in New Zealand because we know that New Zealand
has some big pressures when it comes to money, particularly
public finances, so we really want to make sure that
our pension policy is as good as it can be
so that New Zealanders are well prepared regardless of what
(03:24):
happens to the politics.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
As as soon as you say that, I just think
of the current landscape, not really so much domestically, but internationally.
What's it like tracking economics right now in the wake
of all sorts of things. We've got the conflict in Ukraine,
and you know, we have Middle East which is unstable,
but that seems to be the least of it we've got.
It's not the topic of conversation. I'm going to tell
(03:48):
you what the topic is everyone, if you're listening, and
just to tack, but just to get your guard your
feelings around tracking, you know, the Trump presidency, which is unpredictable,
one might barely say I think, we'd.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Think absolutely and I think actually the politics does matter
because I think what we're going to talk about today
is underpinned by this conversation with politics. The reason I
say that is when we look at what's happening at politics,
whether it's Trump, Brexit, or the rise of the fire
right in Europe, the common theme underneath that is this
discontent within these countries. People are angry, they feel like
(04:22):
they're not getting ahead, and that's why we seeing this
kind of volatility in politics. The uncertainty in politics is
a reflection of poverty and inequality and anger and discontent.
So these things are not unrelated things. It is fascinating
to ben economists at this point in time because politics
matters a great deal for economics.
Speaker 6 (04:42):
Has it always mattered a great deal or does it
come in and out of the picture in terms of significance.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
It's always been important, but it's generally been more stable
and predictable. What it has become is extremely unpredictable, extremely variable.
And that is gary right. All the things would take
for granted that these kinds of policies would be stable,
that governments would kind of play along these broad guardrails.
Those guardrails have been completely removed. We're seeing this kind
(05:10):
of very extraordinary policies. You know, you think about the
policies from Trump. These are really extraordinary things, and nobody
thought this would be possible. And the reality is that
if you think about what causes prosperity, what really causes
prosperity in the nation, it's a few different things. One
is luck, we can't make that. The other three are geography,
(05:31):
it's institutions, right, It's those kinds of things that really
kind of it gives you the ability to kind of
do things right. And so the frightening thing for me
right now is that the politics and the institutions, which
is just so critical, they seem to be fraying because
we don't trust each other and we'd rather be engaging
in this kind of very volatile, ideological but divisive politics.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
We're going to dig into a little bit more about
some work that Shammobil has done with the Helen Clarke
Foundation on social cohesion. But one of the things that's
come out of it for you while you're listening is
that part of the big body of work that's been
done on this is found that only thirty two percent
of New Zealanders was satisfied with their financial situation. And
(06:17):
the simple question is so, by the way, by way
of comparison, sixty percent in Australia are satisfied, So we
are slightly only just slightly over half of us compared
to the number in Australia are satisfied with where we're
at with our financial situation. The question I've got for
you if you're listening is are you one of them?
(06:40):
But and if not, what would it take for you
to be satisfied? What are the things, what are the
boxes that would need to be ticked in your financial
outlook that would make you think, you know what, I've
got enough? Because as we know, with as human beings,
we shift the goalposts. Once you can pay your mortgage
and you think, oh, I'm good, I'm going to play
this off by the time I'm sixty, then you decide, Well,
hang on a minute, I've never taken the family for
(07:01):
that holiday, i haven't got this car, or maybe I
want a bigger house. Financial expectations shift, So for you,
what would it take for you to be happy with
your financial situation? And that is a remarkable number in Australia.
In fact, I'll put it to you now Showmabil that
I reckon. The reason Australias are sixty percent satisfied. This
(07:22):
is a guess because I haven't read all the report
and everything. Is because they have a better retirement setup
and they know that when they get older because of
the contributions to their superannuation, they are light years ahead
of us, and I think that is a huge part
of it. Is that a good guess or not?
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Yeah, it's two things. One is they actually earn a
lot more than us, so on average that they're earned
a third more than us, and their cost of living
is comparable. But essentially there's a little bit left or
more left over at the end of the week than
there is in New Zealand, nou And the other part
is their retirement savings, which does make a huge difference
for people because you can be much more confident about
(08:02):
your long term future. It is both of those things,
and it's really annoying because New Zealand is totally capable
of shifting its pension system to be just as good
as Australia is in a very short period of time
if we want to.
Speaker 6 (08:16):
That's a big call too, because there's something about the
we couldn't just jump up and go right, we're going
to make employee employer contributions. What are they heading up
to in Australia they're ten, twelve, twelve and a half.
Because that is that's a lot of money that's suddenly
got to employers have to find it or employees have
to accept maybe a bit of a I don't know
(08:38):
how you reckon that could happen quickly.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
It could, and in Australia they've done it relatively quickly.
In the scheme of these kinds of things over a
kind of period of ten years, so you don't you
don't want to shift anything like this, Like pension things
are long term, right, so you've got time on your side.
So over a period of ten years you can absolutely
shift these things in the right direction. But what's really
important with this stuff is the language matters. So there
(09:01):
is no such thing as an employer contribution. What there
is is a contribution that's mandatory and a contribution that's
voluntary right in Australia, and these labels make it difficult
because it feels like somehow you're taking money from the
employers to give to the impacts that they don't deserve.
But the reality of the situation is that where there
is compulsory contribution, essentially it kind of gets reflected in
(09:22):
total rem of a person.
Speaker 6 (09:24):
Actually, I'm trying to remember because I was worked in
Australia for a while and I just remember there was
a certain it wasn't very much at the time, although
cumulative interest wise, I should have continued to contribute to it.
But anyway, hindsight's a great thing. But I seem to
remember it was just something that was taken out of
whatever my contract was. It wasn't on top of anything.
(09:45):
So if my salary, I'm not going to say what
it was, but let's pretend it was ten dollars, then
I think probably fifty cents was probably taken out and
I didn't even miss it.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
So in Australia, usually the way their advertised jobs is
you'll get your base pay plus super so it's always
on top. So essentially, you know that part is given
what is the base pay that you were going to
kind of negotiate on and so that's quite nice, and
you know, I think that's what we need to move
towards in some point in time. But it's not just
about retirement servings. There's also just more poverty in New Zealand.
(10:18):
So the people who are doing a tough is probably
a bigger group. So in Australia, you know, they found
when they did the comparable survey, they found about twelve
percent of people were going hungry some of the time
because they didn't have enough money. That's still a lot.
In New Zealand, it was.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
A quarter craky. So well let's talk about that. So
the question, view is for those who are listening, is
so thirty two percent of New Zealanders were satisfied with
their financial situation. I guess the question, the simple question
for you is are you? If not, why not? But
actually what would it take for you to feel financially satisfied?
(10:56):
What do we mean? Now? I should say that that
reference has come out of as part of the report
that Helen clark Foundation's done it's called New Zealand Social
Cohesion twenty twenty four. Tell us there's a lot to
get I think there's a lot to get in here
because it touches on so well all aspects of New
(11:17):
Zealand life in a way. But what was your involvement
with this report? Because it's the Tyndall Foundation, nets Safe,
J McKenzie Trust, Helen Light Foundation, Jakob and Yakob, which
is you and your wife's company, Talbot Mills Research. Tell
us about the report.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
So this was kind of my gift to New Zealand.
So when I saw the politics in terms of what's
going in the US Europe, I wanted to understand why
is it that people are so angry? And there was
some really good work done in the UK that looked
at the state of social cohesion and they said, look,
one of the big problems with this is we don't
know where we are, we don't measure it. But there
(11:54):
is one country that does it really well, and that's Australia.
So I said, why don't we replicate that in New
Zealand to get a sense of how we are tracking,
because it's important to understand what the state of it is.
So then we can see where going. So that's the
reason for doing this piece of work. And so it
was done with the funding from those trusts, those philanthropies,
and it was really great because it keeps it independent
(12:14):
in those kinds of things. Essentially, what we found was
we are less cohesive than Australia in that we are
more divided, we're more angry, we are more disillusioned. And
if we look at the reasons why, the biggest reason
and the biggest source of division is between those people
who have and those who do not. So income equality,
poverty is one of the biggest kind of differentiators of
(12:37):
where people have big differences in perceptions of whether life
is fair, where the life is good, whether we can
trust trust politicians, whether we can trust politics, or course
all those kinds of things. And it's not so much
that it's saying anything new. What it tells us is
that there are some common reasons why New Zealand seems divided,
(12:57):
and when we are divided, it's really hard for us
to make those long term decisions to be able to
do things together. And the reality is that New zion
is actually a really blessed country. We're relatively small we're
relatively rich. If you wanted to get ahead and do things,
we could. But when we're not together, it makes it
very hard for us to take advantage of those opportunities
that in front of us. So I feel like we're
(13:19):
kind of squandering this ability to kind of do much
more for New Zealand because we are kind of angry
with each other.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
As you were saying that, I was thinking, is it
a free dag song? Going back? As you don't know
how lucky we are?
Speaker 4 (13:30):
It is true?
Speaker 6 (13:32):
Is that the case? We actually just don't know how
lucky we are. We look at ourselves and we focus
on we're not actually accentuating the positive. Are we?
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Well?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
New Zealand is a beautiful country. It's an extraordinary place
to live, and I absolutely except that it's not true
for everyone. But there is so much good in this country,
and I think we have to learn how to celebrate it.
But also when we find that there are people who
can't see it, we have to be able to give
them some ability to kind of go express those views,
but also do something about it.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
So why given, why are we so socially non cohesive?
And by the way I misdescribed the report of course,
because I saw those as I read the forward properly,
I mean pretty much it as you've written it with
the support of all these organizations.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah, well, look, it's my piece of work, and mainly
because the reason I wanted to do this piece of
work was again it's my gift to New Zealand in
the sense that I don't think it's okay for us
to just not know where we are. The fact that
some people feel angry and dissolution is something we should
understand and do something about it. So it's a call
to action. As an economist, I can't fix these things myself,
but what we can do is put a spotlight on
(14:37):
the issues and have this conversations. And one of the
things that we find, of course is when people are
financially dissatisfied, it's really hard to find the headroom to
be able to do these other things.
Speaker 6 (14:48):
And that's true, right, yeah, I mean is it financial?
I mean, what are you It's difficult to sum things up,
of course, because we are. Life is complex and the
causes of a happiness of multitudinous. But how big a
factor is financial security in our social cohesiveness?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
It was probably the biggest factor where we saw the
polarization being the strongest. So if you're poor, if you're hungry,
if you're not feeling comfortable in your financial situation, you're
far more likely to feel lonely, far more likely to
feel like politicians are not good for you, that politics
is not good. But also just less trust in everybody.
So it's kind of this weird thing where you know,
(15:30):
when you're living in kind of these under pressure things,
it's really hard for you to engage in society as
a fully participating thing. But it's also not just people
who are in the welfare or whatever. Right, It's not
like as if a small minority of New Zealanders. This
is like two thirds of New Zealanders who are saying
things are quite tough. That's a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
Is this a recent thing that do you think has
been gradually sneaking up on us?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I think it's a little bit cyclical in that the
last couple of years have been really tough, right, the
cost of living crisis, job losses rise, and interest rates
these things have really hurt people pretty pretty bad. But
also there has been this kind of this I guess,
this entrenched inequality in New Zealand where it feels like
it's just getting harder to get a hit. You know,
the idea that you can work hard and you can
(16:17):
get a hit. Lots of people work hard, but not
everybody gets ahead. And for a lot of people that's
the experience, not just in my server. There was a
really great piece of work done by IPSOS last year
that looked at, you know, different generations and asked them
what do you think about hard work and whether it
will give you a successful life? And what they found
was older people thought that New Zealand was still a
(16:40):
land of opportunity. If you just worked hard, you'd get ahead.
Younger people did not believe that.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
What do they believe?
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Well, not only do there, it's not just their perception.
Their experience is that you can work bloody hard, but
you can't get a hit.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
Why is that? Why do they feel that way?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Do you think?
Speaker 8 (16:55):
Well?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
I think part of the reason is a lot of
the things that were available to my generation or the
pregenerations before me. It was relatively easy to be able
to get a job, a good job, career progression, being
able to buy your own home. All those kinds of
things where possible. It's getting much harder for younger generation.
It's just it's true, and I think a lot of
(17:16):
the frivolities of life are much cheaper and much more
easily available. We can all have smartphones and we can
all be on social media, but we can't have a home.
We can't afford to get those big things in life
settled in.
Speaker 9 (17:29):
Is there?
Speaker 6 (17:30):
Do we have unrealistic expectations as well? I mean you
look back at look there's always generational differences, but you
look at the post war generations and I don't know
what the happiest time in New Zealand was, but I
think we've had some times where people, well, that must
have been relieved World War II was over in the
fifties or what of it. We didn't have rampant consumerism,
we didn't have social media. I guess is always these
(17:55):
comparisons being made readily literally twenty four to seven. But
do you think I mean, let's a bit like that song.
We don't know how lucky we are? Have we have
we redefined what it is to be happy in a
way that's not helping us.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Look, I think there's an element of that, So there's
a cultural element to that. But it's also true that
the basics of life, we're relatively speaking more affordable. So
when it came to the food, the shelter, those you know,
if you think about the mass yeah, the massile hierarchy
of needs, those basics of life were far more accessible
and affordable. Maybe not as good, but it was still affordable.
(18:30):
I think because those things have become so much less affordable.
I was looking at the numbers for housing just before
because I'm doing a presentation next week, and something like
forty percent of mortgage holders are stressed, but they're spending
more than forty percent around of their income on mortgages.
Eighty percent of renters get some form of housing subsidy
eighty percent, So, you know, I don't think this is
(18:52):
kind of like what it was like post war New Zealand.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
Can you dig into that eighty percent figure for me?
Eighty percent of renters get some sort of subsidy.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Accommodation supplement, temporary support, income, relative rent subsidies, you name it.
There is a range of housing subsidies that are there
in New Zealand.
Speaker 9 (19:12):
You know.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
So we spend something like close to five billion dollars
a year on housing subsidies in New Zealand today.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
Hmmm, gosh, this the hell of life to write back
here I eight hundred eighty t and eighty. You can
dig into the simple question as to what would it
take for you to be financially satisfied with your financial situation,
but also your reaction to what shammer Bille is talking
about with our lack of social cohesiveness and how things
(19:40):
you know, I don't know. I'm trying to sum it
up in one sentence, but I think we'll just ask
for your reactions on I eight hundred eighty t and
eighty text nine nine two because we have to take
a break right now because time is flying. It's twenty
six and a half past five news talks. You'd be back,
and I take.
Speaker 10 (20:00):
I was speaking to a mad of mine just the
other day. I'd like all rus Byler's actually who lives
on our lay. He's been away on around the world,
a army due for a year more or less, I said,
describe a global possession brute. He said, Fred, it's a mess.
We don't know how we are in this country.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Lucky.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
It's welcome back to smart Money. My guest is Chamobil Yakub.
He is the author. Well, he and his wife. I
believe Yakub and Yakub have written this report for the
Social Social Cohesion for the Helen Clark Foundation, and we're
having a chat about what is it, you know, the
lack of cohesion we have in New Zealand, and a
lot of it's tied to money. I think I've thrown
(20:44):
at the question that one of the findings is that
only thirty two percent of New Zealanders was satisfied with
their financial situation. The question is what would it take
for you to be satisfied? The broader question schommer Bill
is actually I think what would it take for us
to be more prosperous as an ancient nation? Because in
the end, I don't want to talk about trickle down economics,
but a more prosperous nation seems to be the broad
(21:05):
the broad brushstroke.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Is it or not? Absolutely? I think prosperity is critical
and fundamentally when I talk about prosperity, I mean more
New Zealand is being better off and because we have
to give people the financial resources so then we can
do not just the money stuff, but all the other
things in life that are good. Money is a necessity,
but it's not enough, so to my mind. You know,
social cohesion is related to prosperity, but it's all the
(21:29):
other bits of life that also makes it a rich experience.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
Okay, let's take some calls well and look, it's it's
a wide ranging conversation and I think it's it's important
for us to have them because it consider it helps
us consider what we really want New Zealand to look
like now and in the future. Eight hundred and eighty
ten eighty murray, Hello.
Speaker 11 (21:48):
Yeah good, how are you good?
Speaker 6 (21:49):
Thanks?
Speaker 11 (21:51):
So long been the belief of mine that one of
the biggest problems with New Zealand is actually going back
to what New zealand and four three sorry when Working
for Families was brought, which basically took away from employees
the requirement to actually pay people are living income and
(22:13):
put the onus on the government to top people up,
especially families. But that meant that non family people didn't
get the increases in income that they should have as
well because there was no top up for them. And
as a result of the government taking over the responsibility
(22:36):
of making sure people had enough money, there has been
less and less increase in productivity for New Zealand because
employers haven't had to worry about paying people a decent
income for a decent standard of living because the government
takes care of it, accommodation supplements, working for families, temporary
additional support, and so our economy has not grown at
(22:59):
the rate it should other than through immigration. And so
that's why we and two percent less in Australia yea.
And that's why thirty two percent of us so are
happy with their financial situation and twenty five percent of
us go without food?
Speaker 6 (23:15):
Shoo beer or what do you reckon? Actually? Can I
paraphrase that? Do you think also, Murray? That with working
for families this is shooting from the hip for me
because I'm no economist, but I don't like the idea
of people being beneficiaries, and the working for families turned
so much of New Zealand to beneficiaries. I just wonder
if there's some sort of message from I don't know
(23:35):
that we've become less seed of our own pants and
more looking to the government for all our answers, and
I always think that's a short path to hell. Anyway,
I'm not sure if that represents Murray's position, but between
the two of us, what do you reckon.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
So I guess when you have welfare policies, that's quite
often where the distortion becomes right that because you say
government's going to step in and take care of this
particular thing, there is a consequence, and quite often these
kinds of things do have consequences. I think it's okay
to say, when you've got children, we want to make
sure children are growing up in happy families and those
kinds of things, but we also have to make sure
(24:12):
that we're doing the other bits right, to make sure
that our businesses are competitive, that they're growing strongly, that
we have access to skills, those kinds of things. I
think economies are far too complex to say it's just
this one particular policy that's the problem. You know, we
were talking in the break term that in a New
Zealand's obsess with property is one of those problems that
we choose to invest in spying second hand houses from
(24:34):
each other rather than investing in businesses. That's a problem.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
Why do we do that? Though, because I can answer
my own question, because people making at certain times are
killing and leveraging and boom where.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
You go, Yeah, there's a whole bunch of reasons for that.
And I guess to answer Mary's question, I guess the
problem with these kinds of conversations if we look to
just one problem, I think we lose sight of the
fact that there are so many things we haven't been
doing quite right in New Zealand when it comes to
our issues of productivity. And you know, we still have
a Productivity Commission that was set up to try and
answer this question. But to my mind, the fundamental problem
(25:10):
is we think government is here to kind of take
care of all these problems. They can't. It's not possible
for the government to take care of everything. But we've
lost sight of this more fundamental things around how do
we create enough money and investment in growing our businesses
so that our businesses are creating the jobs and the
incomes and the prosperity, because that's really the lifeblood of
(25:31):
an economy, and I think we've lost sight of that.
So it feels like there's a lot of conversation about stuff,
but we don't really talk about how do we get bigger, faster,
you know, stronger businesses. It's always it's the margins, right.
Businesses don't really come into the dominant frame of conversation.
I want us to talk about capital. I want us
to talk about competition. I want us to talk about productivity.
(25:52):
And over the last ten years, New Zealand's had almost
no productivity growth.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
Why what is that? I mean, many people are dying
to jump on and tell you who's responsible for all
that's right.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
There's always an easy answer, but it's not right and
I think this is the problem. New Zealand's productivity performance
has been quite low computer peers for a number of decades.
And part of that, at least from my kind of
current job and a QI severy perspective, is we're not
investing enough money into our businesses. So yes, I think
it's important that we get all the sitting right settings right,
(26:22):
but when it comes to actually powering up our economy,
we do have to make our businesses bigger, using the
best technology that's available, and investing in our people so
they have the best skills to be able to do that. Now,
those things are easy to say but hard to do.
Speaker 6 (26:37):
Actually, just bring Murray back and anything else you want
to follow up with their Murray.
Speaker 11 (26:42):
Well, just that you know, if you actually you know,
did away with working for families over a period of
time and repaid the back so that companies had to
increase their their pay and you know, maybe paid lower
tax as a result for a while, so that could
(27:03):
invest that money into the business to grow the business.
I mean at the moment where we're where we're going
down a path where more and more people need more
and more top ups, and that's not sustainable now or
in the future. So someone needs to push a button,
do a bit of a reset, and you know, we
need to actually get on a path where we can
(27:23):
actually grow without the government having to come up with
one hundred and fifty billion dollars a year to keep
New Zealand going because it's not sustainable.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Okay, cheers, Mark, thanks for your call. Actually, how I
do get the feeling that we did go through a
phase where there was a lot more interest in an
investment from overseas and bringing money in. I don't know
whether it was tied and with that famous quote of
the rockstar economy, but how hard should we be trying
to bring in overseas more and more overseas investments? Because
(27:55):
if I do talk back on this, there are some
people who on one side of the political spectrum, we
think that foreign money coming into invest in New Zealand
is the devil.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Well, I don't think it's the devil, nor is it
the full answer. We actually have lots of really great
businesses in New Zealand, and we need to be moving
from saying that all the answers exist overseas and there
are no good answers in New Zealand. We've got to
back ourselves, and that backing ourselves actually means how do
we take many of our successful small businesses and make
the medium businesses and those medium businesses into large businesses.
(28:26):
That's what we're not doing enough of. What I find
in the productivity data is that we're very productive at
the small end, very productive at the big end, but
we suck in the middle.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Ah, well it's the middle. How BIG's the middle?
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Well, it's kind of that, you know, twenty two hundred
and it's quite a big chuck. That's where most of
our businesses are. But it's almost this value of death
because what happens is you're kind of big enough that
you need all the machinery of a big business, but
you don't get any of the benefits the economies of
scale of a big business, whereas when you're small, you
don't need a manager and HR and all those kinds
of things. You don't have a big system. So it's
(28:59):
kind of this weird thing where because country is quite small,
we tend to have this kind of proliferation of successful
small businesses and very large businesses. But if you look
at the core of productivity growth in Pressley, the US
or even Australia, it is really those middle businesses that
are really kicking out of the park as well. So
where we're going wrong, well, it is very much that
story about how do we give people the ability to
(29:21):
move from being medium to large? And I think where
we're going wrong is the market size is not big enough.
So New Zealand is quite small and if you want
to shift from that medium to large, you need to
make big investments in yourselves and that's really hard to do.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
We've got to take a break. Coross of times flying
with us. It's twenty one minutes to Sex News Talks.
He'd be if you'd like to give us a call.
We'd love to hear from your eight one hundred and
eight ten eighty, either your response to what Shammobil is
talking about right now, or even just what it'd take
for you to feel like you're a little bit more
prosperous and we'll be looking back in just a moment.
All right, welcome back to Smart Money on the Weekend,
(29:59):
collecting my guest as Chamobil Yaka.
Speaker 9 (30:00):
But he is.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
Partner with his wife, the author of the social care
report that it is sitting under the umbrella of the
hell and Clark Foundation. We're talking about what would take
for us to be more prosperous. The conversation has evolved
and all of a sudden that the lines have lit up.
So you know what, We're going to just take some
calls and we're going to see how many we can
get through before we wrap the show up. And then
we'll just have to have Schommer Bill back at some stage.
(30:22):
I think, won't we Shu A bill would be delated?
Good stuff? Right, let's go, David, what do you reckon?
Speaker 9 (30:29):
Hi?
Speaker 8 (30:29):
I think you guys are saying a lot of right things,
for particular about the Australian retirement program, and we should
do that in New Zealand. But retirement is a long
way away. There's a key factor that hasn't been addressed
during your lifetime is a cost of housing in New Zealand.
(30:50):
It's utterly ridiculous and that's part of the reason why
the Aussies are so happy, because they can get their
own homes that much less cost and much smaller proportion
of their income. And that is a massive streets In
New Zealand. It's causing two families of the bost husband
(31:13):
and wife have got to work. Yeah, you got to
go into baby care and all that sort of thing.
Massive streets.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
Okay, let's hand it out with Shama Beer because I
think I think, David, you're maybe ignoring the cost of
property in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. But what do we reckon,
Shama Beer.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Yeah, look, housing is slightly less expensive in Australia, but
it's still quite expensive. And you're absolutely right though that
housing is probably one of the dominant drivers of why
people are doing it tough financially. So my wife and
I wrote a book called Generation Rented But ten years Ago,
which is really around not only just what the problem is,
but what can we do to fix it. The good
news in New Zealand is that while we still have problems,
(31:51):
the policy progress in the last ten years has been
exceptional under both the last government and the current government,
with bish with Chris Bishop. I shouldn't be so flippant
with his name. But the reality is that we are
making really good progress.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
That there is a problem, but we're making really good progress,
and I feel so good about that.
Speaker 6 (32:08):
That's why it's actually it's so surprising when I heard
Chris Bership talking about his determination to bill bill bill build,
because it didn't sound very friendly to some of his
voting base who want to buy by by sell sell
sell houses. But he's really really driving hard on making
housing affordable, isn't he.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Look, I think it's absolutely spectacular. I think the amount
of effort and commitment that there is from this government
and the last government, and I think from future governments
to solve this housing crisis in his yunder is really good.
But you know, the question is absolutely right in that
this is a big problem and that's why we need
to get on top of it because it will make
things better. For war News yonders right.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
It takes some more course, and the calls are We're
crammed with calls, and I guess that's the thing. You
listen to these things and you sudden worts, hang on
a minute, we're onto something here, so we will continue
this conversation another time as well. Let's go to Peter
get A.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Here. You guy, guys, I look you on bringing you
up from Brisbane. I just wanted to say, you know,
the good times and the bad times. Well put it
this way that when like I'm sixty six now and
the old man and old lady had dead now, but
we had a house in Mount Roskoll. It was a
stayed home. The old man went to work, Mum stayed
at home, she looked after her kids, and everything was affordable.
(33:18):
The whole row of our street was all young, young
people that had recently been married, it was, and people
were getting their own homes. And like I say, the
affordability was fantastic. And I mean I hear these people
that ring up and they go, oh but they never had.
(33:39):
We had to pay off a washing machine and we
had to pay off at TV. Yeah, these days you
can go and buy three or four TVs or washing machines,
you know. And look that guy there that said about
super Angio. There's a lot of guys I know over
here that have got nothing as far as superannuation is concerned,
(34:00):
because most of their lives they've worked as Subby's and
if you work as a subby you are you have
to look after your own superinnuation. It's up to you
to make sure you've got your supernuation sorted out. There's
a lot of guys, and there's a mains test over here.
Would you guys get your pinching? Do you get your pinching?
(34:22):
Doesn't matter how many hells you've got over here, there's
a means test. So okay, look anyway, I'll sort of
sign I'll see you.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
Thanks, thanks for for any comment on that.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Some evil look. I think we have to move towards
the more Australian model in that we do have to
encourage people to save. They haven't got it all right.
I think when it comes to particularly the self employed,
they are still doing it pretty tough. But because they're
super is means tested. It means that people are really
motivated to say for their retirement. As a result, their
public pension cost as a share of the economy is falling.
It's the only country, pretty much in the obvious city
(34:57):
with an aging population that's actually got its aging population
problem under control.
Speaker 6 (35:02):
Right, Let's carry on, Colin, get ou.
Speaker 7 (35:06):
Yeah, hi am actually on one of those sob he's
and I wasn't able to. I've retired now, but I'm
still working. I'm nearly seventy, but I wasn't able to
save for retirement because I was a subcontractor and it
has left up to you after I left my job
in Shell, you know. Yeah, but you know I used
(35:27):
to be like, I just want to talk about the
investment thing. Everything you do in New Zealand, the government
is trying to kill it off.
Speaker 9 (35:36):
Right.
Speaker 7 (35:37):
If you've got a house and you want to rent
it out, they want to They want to make the
interest that you pay and they and the maintenance that
you do on the house all non tax deductible, which
is which is bullshit, isn't it. I mean, at the
end of the day, it all costs you to do
those things. And like in Australia, I disagree with that
(35:58):
guy that says.
Speaker 6 (35:59):
I think I come back now, So that's a couple
of bullshits. So I think we're a really out there colin.
But just whatever you as response, Actually that's not quite right.
Maintenance costs aye text deductible.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Yeah, and interest wasn't for the short period of time.
But it's come back now and that's a good thing,
and I think the reality is that we have to
treat these things as businesses, and businesses have come with
rights and responsibilities. We need to get those that balance right.
And I think that's that's always been the challenge, is
if you don't have good policy making that's long term,
you get this knee jerk reactions. And I think that's
what we see in politics, knee jerk stuff that's very
(36:30):
much the stuff of envy and a reversal this kind
of controls that policy is very disruptive.
Speaker 6 (36:35):
Yeah, right, let's take one more call. Here we go
paid to get.
Speaker 9 (36:38):
Thank you very much. I think there's two problems with
New Zealand. Firstly, there's too much foreign ownership and the
money has been drained there, such as the bank and
the insurance company and all the manufactured goods it's coming
from China. Were paid about three dollars an hour, and
(37:00):
you know it's very very poor wages, but well that's
what New Zealanders. Can't make any money.
Speaker 6 (37:06):
M Well, we're not going to change that in a hurry,
are we, because we do get our goods. Imagine paying
It's like the joke in America at the moment if
Americans had to make iPhones, they'd be about five grand
grand apiece. What's your response to that name? Shummaville?
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Look, and I think this is the discontent of globalization.
We like the benefit of cheap stuff, but we don't
like the cost of not having those previously relatively well
paid jobs for people with relatively limited skills. And I
think therein lies the challenges. How do you find that
happy balance? And the answer is not that we have
we can go back to the nineteen fifties or sixties.
The answer is how can we upscull our people so
(37:40):
they're able to get the jobs that they're actually capable
of doing. And I think it's that bit of the
growth and investment that I was talking about is if
we want prosperity in New Zealand, it doesn't lie in
nineteen sixty it lies in what it comes in front
and New Zealand is entirely capable of the stuff. We
have a country full of young, smart, educated people, but
I don't think we're making the most of them.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
Okay uh one, says sang On. I think I'm just
quickly says What you need to realize is that all
our systems are hopelessly corrupt at a fundamental level, that
it's not just a matter of putting lipstick on a
pig where at the stage of giving it botox, collagen,
injections of pedicure and implants, when what it really needs
(38:23):
is sorry, this text has suddenly disappeared on me. Hang
on a second, I need to what it really needs
is roasting. I don't know anyway, but this text is
just saying we've got a long way to go to
sort these problems out.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
And I think that's kind of what we're trying to
describe in the Social Cohesion survey is when we're not
together as a country, it's hard for us to go
what is it that we really want to do? And
then the business of government can try and do that.
At the moment, the business of government is kind of
this ad hockery, right, It's moving from one extreme to
the other, and it feels like it's not really serving
(38:59):
anybody's greater purpose. So therein lies the big challenge. How
can we have this conversation that lets us actually do
things that the New Zealanders want and I think a
lot of New Zealanders want the same thing.
Speaker 6 (39:08):
Right, We're going to take a break back in just
a moment. It's eight minutes to sex News Talks. He'd
been Yes, welcome back, Gosh, time flies this album. My
guest is Chammabil Yaka, but first time with us of course,
a familiar name to most New Zealander, I would say
for his work over the years. But the Report on
Enzied Social Cohesion twenty twenty four, it's under the auspices
of the Hell and Plak Foundation. It was written by
(39:30):
Yakub and Yaka, which is Chamma Bill and his wife
looking at the well, basically looking at all aspects of
New Zealand life and our social cohesion. But I just
want to tie in a text on this one Shama Bill.
It says, on our prosperity et cetera, don't forget the
tall poppy syndrome. Once you become big and successful. The
government believes there's not enough competition in this small country
(39:50):
in your public enemy number one, And I just want
to tie that into is it how much cultural changes
needed in our outlook on success and prosperity and how
much is that a problem in terms of tig it
into this report In the one minute we've got lift.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
Sorry, it's everything right if you think about the fundamental
drivers of prosperity is geography, culture and institution, and culture
is really what drives everything. If we can't celebrate and
drive prosperity, if we don't want to be successful, then
nothing's going to work. And we have to do it together.
And we have to want to be successful because I
(40:27):
absolute truly believe New Zealand has all the ingredients to
be extraordinary successful.
Speaker 6 (40:32):
Well, you know what, we're gonna have to get you
back and talk about that. I think we'll have to
get you back more regularly. I think, well, what I
mean more regularly. This is your first time, so we'll
have to get you back again, and then we'll talk
about the regular thing. Hey, thanks so much for your time.
Shoo Bill And if people want to download a copy
of this, will get ahold of a copy of the report,
where would they go?
Speaker 4 (40:46):
Just to the Hell and Clack Foundation website.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
Okay, so go to the head and Clack Foundation website
now and check it out. Thanks so much for your time,
Thanks to my producer, Tyre Roberts, and we'll look forward
to your company same time next weekend. Check out the
podcast we Can Collective on iHeartRadio and enjoy the rest
of your Sunday.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Catch you soon.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talk ZEDB weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It be nice.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Do you love me? Every I owes the sweet like
EISOD so you can sleep. We don't know the Stammies episode.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Little Doubt.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Lamentingle, so you can sleep. We don't know the stammesepisode.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
I can't relate to desperation Mike usiting our own vacation.
And I've got this one boy. Anyone stopped calling when
I went this way?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And no God so bad.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Exton to da watching, drinking through little Classia and enough
perfuming afoa, yes I know nothing, to a coffee for touch,
enough brandle for your.
Speaker 6 (01:09):
Yes, and welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beveridge.
Just in case you have missed any of the previous hours,
fascinating discussion about nutrition with Clear Turnbull. Normally we get
sort of off the topic. We were talking about supplements
and what's worth taking, and actually some really excellent calls
and some great advice from Claire. So if you have
missed any of the previous hours, go and look for
(01:31):
the Weekend Collective on iHeartRadio or at newstalks ab dot
co dot nz and also Politics centri We had a
chat with Judith Collins about the new two billion dollars
the Defense fort spend on some new helicopters which has
been announced, and a great chat also with ABC's reporter
Sam Emery. He's in Australia and on the Albanese victory
(01:52):
in the Australian election. But right now this is a
Smart Money and it seems strange to introduce our next
guests as a new guest because they're not new to
the media, because actually he's probably the first economist I
listened to when it came to working at News Talk ZB.
It was one of the voices who was regularly heard
(02:13):
through his various roles that he's fulfilled. But he's new
for Smart Money and his name is Schamma Bill Yakub
and he's with me right now, Schambille.
Speaker 7 (02:22):
Gooday.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
And of course you are at chief economist at Simplicity.
But you've you've been at some interesting jobs. Where was
the one where you got where there was one where
you were quite currently sought out for comments or have
you always been sought out pretty much from the word go.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Well, I've been pretty privileged, but I did quite a
lot when I was at godm in Sachs. Yeah, that
was quite quite a prominent role. And then I was
at ends of day where we got to speak about
a whole bunch of different issues, including public policy. And
I did a little bit less in my last job,
but this one sort of getting back into it.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
And so you are now the chief economist at Simplicity.
So I guess what's one of the key aspects of
your job at Simplicity.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Well, the big job at Simplicity, because we're a qvserver provider,
is really to kind of how do we improve qserver
policy in New Zealand because we know that New Zealand
has some big pressures when it comes to money, particularly
public finances, so we really want to make sure that
our pension policy is as good as it can be
so that New Zealanders are well prepared regardless of what
(03:24):
happens to the politics.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
As as soon as you say that, I just think
of the current landscape, not really so much domestically, but internationally.
What's it like tracking economics right now in the wake
of all sorts of things. We've got the conflict in Ukraine,
and you know, we have Middle East which is unstable,
but that seems to be the least of it we've got.
It's not the topic of conversation. I'm going to tell
(03:48):
you what the topic is everyone, if you're listening, and
just to tack, but just to get your guard your
feelings around tracking, you know, the Trump presidency, which is unpredictable,
one might barely say I think, we'd.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Think absolutely and I think actually the politics does matter
because I think what we're going to talk about today
is underpinned by this conversation with politics. The reason I
say that is when we look at what's happening at politics,
whether it's Trump, Brexit, or the rise of the fire
right in Europe, the common theme underneath that is this
discontent within these countries. People are angry, they feel like
(04:22):
they're not getting ahead, and that's why we seeing this
kind of volatility in politics. The uncertainty in politics is
a reflection of poverty and inequality and anger and discontent.
So these things are not unrelated things. It is fascinating
to ben economists at this point in time because politics
matters a great deal for economics.
Speaker 6 (04:42):
Has it always mattered a great deal or does it
come in and out of the picture in terms of significance.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
It's always been important, but it's generally been more stable
and predictable. What it has become is extremely unpredictable, extremely variable.
And that is gary right. All the things would take
for granted that these kinds of policies would be stable,
that governments would kind of play along these broad guardrails.
Those guardrails have been completely removed. We're seeing this kind
(05:10):
of very extraordinary policies. You know, you think about the
policies from Trump. These are really extraordinary things, and nobody
thought this would be possible. And the reality is that
if you think about what causes prosperity, what really causes
prosperity in the nation, it's a few different things. One
is luck, we can't make that. The other three are geography,
(05:31):
it's institutions, right, It's those kinds of things that really
kind of it gives you the ability to kind of
do things right. And so the frightening thing for me
right now is that the politics and the institutions, which
is just so critical, they seem to be fraying because
we don't trust each other and we'd rather be engaging
in this kind of very volatile, ideological but divisive politics.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
We're going to dig into a little bit more about
some work that Shammobil has done with the Helen Clarke
Foundation on social cohesion. But one of the things that's
come out of it for you while you're listening is
that part of the big body of work that's been
done on this is found that only thirty two percent
of New Zealanders was satisfied with their financial situation. And
(06:17):
the simple question is so, by the way, by way
of comparison, sixty percent in Australia are satisfied, So we
are slightly only just slightly over half of us compared
to the number in Australia are satisfied with where we're
at with our financial situation. The question I've got for
you if you're listening is are you one of them?
(06:40):
But and if not, what would it take for you
to be satisfied? What are the things, what are the
boxes that would need to be ticked in your financial
outlook that would make you think, you know what, I've
got enough? Because as we know, with as human beings,
we shift the goalposts. Once you can pay your mortgage
and you think, oh, I'm good, I'm going to play
this off by the time I'm sixty, then you decide, Well,
hang on a minute, I've never taken the family for
(07:01):
that holiday, i haven't got this car, or maybe I
want a bigger house. Financial expectations shift, So for you,
what would it take for you to be happy with
your financial situation? And that is a remarkable number in Australia.
In fact, I'll put it to you now Showmabil that
I reckon. The reason Australias are sixty percent satisfied. This
(07:22):
is a guess because I haven't read all the report
and everything. Is because they have a better retirement setup
and they know that when they get older because of
the contributions to their superannuation, they are light years ahead
of us, and I think that is a huge part
of it. Is that a good guess or not?
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Yeah, it's two things. One is they actually earn a
lot more than us, so on average that they're earned
a third more than us, and their cost of living
is comparable. But essentially there's a little bit left or
more left over at the end of the week than
there is in New Zealand, nou And the other part
is their retirement savings, which does make a huge difference
for people because you can be much more confident about
(08:02):
your long term future. It is both of those things,
and it's really annoying because New Zealand is totally capable
of shifting its pension system to be just as good
as Australia is in a very short period of time
if we want to.
Speaker 6 (08:16):
That's a big call too, because there's something about the
we couldn't just jump up and go right, we're going
to make employee employer contributions. What are they heading up
to in Australia they're ten, twelve, twelve and a half.
Because that is that's a lot of money that's suddenly
got to employers have to find it or employees have
to accept maybe a bit of a I don't know
(08:38):
how you reckon that could happen quickly.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
It could, and in Australia they've done it relatively quickly.
In the scheme of these kinds of things over a
kind of period of ten years, so you don't you
don't want to shift anything like this, Like pension things
are long term, right, so you've got time on your side.
So over a period of ten years you can absolutely
shift these things in the right direction. But what's really
important with this stuff is the language matters. So there
(09:01):
is no such thing as an employer contribution. What there
is is a contribution that's mandatory and a contribution that's
voluntary right in Australia, and these labels make it difficult
because it feels like somehow you're taking money from the
employers to give to the impacts that they don't deserve.
But the reality of the situation is that where there
is compulsory contribution, essentially it kind of gets reflected in
(09:22):
total rem of a person.
Speaker 6 (09:24):
Actually, I'm trying to remember because I was worked in
Australia for a while and I just remember there was
a certain it wasn't very much at the time, although
cumulative interest wise, I should have continued to contribute to it.
But anyway, hindsight's a great thing. But I seem to
remember it was just something that was taken out of
whatever my contract was. It wasn't on top of anything.
(09:45):
So if my salary, I'm not going to say what
it was, but let's pretend it was ten dollars, then
I think probably fifty cents was probably taken out and
I didn't even miss it.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
So in Australia, usually the way their advertised jobs is
you'll get your base pay plus super so it's always
on top. So essentially, you know that part is given
what is the base pay that you were going to
kind of negotiate on and so that's quite nice, and
you know, I think that's what we need to move
towards in some point in time. But it's not just
about retirement servings. There's also just more poverty in New Zealand.
(10:18):
So the people who are doing a tough is probably
a bigger group. So in Australia, you know, they found
when they did the comparable survey, they found about twelve
percent of people were going hungry some of the time
because they didn't have enough money. That's still a lot.
In New Zealand, it was.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
A quarter craky. So well let's talk about that. So
the question, view is for those who are listening, is
so thirty two percent of New Zealanders were satisfied with
their financial situation. I guess the question, the simple question
for you is are you? If not, why not? But
actually what would it take for you to feel financially satisfied?
(10:56):
What do we mean? Now? I should say that that
reference has come out of as part of the report
that Helen clark Foundation's done it's called New Zealand Social
Cohesion twenty twenty four. Tell us there's a lot to
get I think there's a lot to get in here
because it touches on so well all aspects of New
(11:17):
Zealand life in a way. But what was your involvement
with this report? Because it's the Tyndall Foundation, nets Safe,
J McKenzie Trust, Helen Light Foundation, Jakob and Yakob, which
is you and your wife's company, Talbot Mills Research. Tell
us about the report.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
So this was kind of my gift to New Zealand.
So when I saw the politics in terms of what's
going in the US Europe, I wanted to understand why
is it that people are so angry? And there was
some really good work done in the UK that looked
at the state of social cohesion and they said, look,
one of the big problems with this is we don't
know where we are, we don't measure it. But there
(11:54):
is one country that does it really well, and that's Australia.
So I said, why don't we replicate that in New
Zealand to get a sense of how we are tracking,
because it's important to understand what the state of it is.
So then we can see where going. So that's the
reason for doing this piece of work. And so it
was done with the funding from those trusts, those philanthropies,
and it was really great because it keeps it independent
(12:14):
in those kinds of things. Essentially, what we found was
we are less cohesive than Australia in that we are
more divided, we're more angry, we are more disillusioned. And
if we look at the reasons why, the biggest reason
and the biggest source of division is between those people
who have and those who do not. So income equality,
poverty is one of the biggest kind of differentiators of
(12:37):
where people have big differences in perceptions of whether life
is fair, where the life is good, whether we can
trust trust politicians, whether we can trust politics, or course
all those kinds of things. And it's not so much
that it's saying anything new. What it tells us is
that there are some common reasons why New Zealand seems divided,
(12:57):
and when we are divided, it's really hard for us
to make those long term decisions to be able to
do things together. And the reality is that New zion
is actually a really blessed country. We're relatively small we're
relatively rich. If you wanted to get ahead and do things,
we could. But when we're not together, it makes it
very hard for us to take advantage of those opportunities
that in front of us. So I feel like we're
(13:19):
kind of squandering this ability to kind of do much
more for New Zealand because we are kind of angry
with each other.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
As you were saying that, I was thinking, is it
a free dag song? Going back? As you don't know
how lucky we are?
Speaker 4 (13:30):
It is true?
Speaker 6 (13:32):
Is that the case? We actually just don't know how
lucky we are. We look at ourselves and we focus
on we're not actually accentuating the positive. Are we?
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Well?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
New Zealand is a beautiful country. It's an extraordinary place
to live, and I absolutely except that it's not true
for everyone. But there is so much good in this country,
and I think we have to learn how to celebrate it.
But also when we find that there are people who
can't see it, we have to be able to give
them some ability to kind of go express those views,
but also do something about it.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
So why given, why are we so socially non cohesive?
And by the way I misdescribed the report of course,
because I saw those as I read the forward properly,
I mean pretty much it as you've written it with
the support of all these organizations.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah, well, look, it's my piece of work, and mainly
because the reason I wanted to do this piece of
work was again it's my gift to New Zealand in
the sense that I don't think it's okay for us
to just not know where we are. The fact that
some people feel angry and dissolution is something we should
understand and do something about it. So it's a call
to action. As an economist, I can't fix these things myself,
but what we can do is put a spotlight on
(14:37):
the issues and have this conversations. And one of the
things that we find, of course is when people are
financially dissatisfied, it's really hard to find the headroom to
be able to do these other things.
Speaker 6 (14:48):
And that's true, right, yeah, I mean is it financial?
I mean, what are you It's difficult to sum things up,
of course, because we are. Life is complex and the
causes of a happiness of multitudinous. But how big a
factor is financial security in our social cohesiveness?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
It was probably the biggest factor where we saw the
polarization being the strongest. So if you're poor, if you're hungry,
if you're not feeling comfortable in your financial situation, you're
far more likely to feel lonely, far more likely to
feel like politicians are not good for you, that politics
is not good. But also just less trust in everybody.
So it's kind of this weird thing where you know,
(15:30):
when you're living in kind of these under pressure things,
it's really hard for you to engage in society as
a fully participating thing. But it's also not just people
who are in the welfare or whatever. Right, It's not
like as if a small minority of New Zealanders. This
is like two thirds of New Zealanders who are saying
things are quite tough. That's a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
Is this a recent thing that do you think has
been gradually sneaking up on us?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I think it's a little bit cyclical in that the
last couple of years have been really tough, right, the
cost of living crisis, job losses rise, and interest rates
these things have really hurt people pretty pretty bad. But
also there has been this kind of this I guess,
this entrenched inequality in New Zealand where it feels like
it's just getting harder to get a hit. You know,
the idea that you can work hard and you can
(16:17):
get a hit. Lots of people work hard, but not
everybody gets ahead. And for a lot of people that's
the experience, not just in my server. There was a
really great piece of work done by IPSOS last year
that looked at, you know, different generations and asked them
what do you think about hard work and whether it
will give you a successful life? And what they found
was older people thought that New Zealand was still a
(16:40):
land of opportunity. If you just worked hard, you'd get ahead.
Younger people did not believe that.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
What do they believe?
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Well, not only do there, it's not just their perception.
Their experience is that you can work bloody hard, but
you can't get a hit.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
Why is that? Why do they feel that way?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Do you think?
Speaker 8 (16:55):
Well?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
I think part of the reason is a lot of
the things that were available to my generation or the
pregenerations before me. It was relatively easy to be able
to get a job, a good job, career progression, being
able to buy your own home. All those kinds of
things where possible. It's getting much harder for younger generation.
It's just it's true, and I think a lot of
(17:16):
the frivolities of life are much cheaper and much more
easily available. We can all have smartphones and we can
all be on social media, but we can't have a home.
We can't afford to get those big things in life
settled in.
Speaker 9 (17:29):
Is there?
Speaker 6 (17:30):
Do we have unrealistic expectations as well? I mean you
look back at look there's always generational differences, but you
look at the post war generations and I don't know
what the happiest time in New Zealand was, but I
think we've had some times where people, well, that must
have been relieved World War II was over in the
fifties or what of it. We didn't have rampant consumerism,
we didn't have social media. I guess is always these
(17:55):
comparisons being made readily literally twenty four to seven. But
do you think I mean, let's a bit like that song.
We don't know how lucky we are? Have we have
we redefined what it is to be happy in a
way that's not helping us.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Look, I think there's an element of that, So there's
a cultural element to that. But it's also true that
the basics of life, we're relatively speaking more affordable. So
when it came to the food, the shelter, those you know,
if you think about the mass yeah, the massile hierarchy
of needs, those basics of life were far more accessible
and affordable. Maybe not as good, but it was still affordable.
(18:30):
I think because those things have become so much less affordable.
I was looking at the numbers for housing just before
because I'm doing a presentation next week, and something like
forty percent of mortgage holders are stressed, but they're spending
more than forty percent around of their income on mortgages.
Eighty percent of renters get some form of housing subsidy
eighty percent, So, you know, I don't think this is
(18:52):
kind of like what it was like post war New Zealand.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
Can you dig into that eighty percent figure for me?
Eighty percent of renters get some sort of subsidy.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Accommodation supplement, temporary support, income, relative rent subsidies, you name it.
There is a range of housing subsidies that are there
in New Zealand.
Speaker 9 (19:12):
You know.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
So we spend something like close to five billion dollars
a year on housing subsidies in New Zealand today.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
Hmmm, gosh, this the hell of life to write back
here I eight hundred eighty t and eighty. You can
dig into the simple question as to what would it
take for you to be financially satisfied with your financial situation,
but also your reaction to what shammer Bille is talking
about with our lack of social cohesiveness and how things
(19:40):
you know, I don't know. I'm trying to sum it
up in one sentence, but I think we'll just ask
for your reactions on I eight hundred eighty t and
eighty text nine nine two because we have to take
a break right now because time is flying. It's twenty
six and a half past five news talks. You'd be back,
and I take.
Speaker 10 (20:00):
I was speaking to a mad of mine just the
other day. I'd like all rus Byler's actually who lives
on our lay. He's been away on around the world,
a army due for a year more or less, I said,
describe a global possession brute. He said, Fred, it's a mess.
We don't know how we are in this country.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Lucky.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
It's welcome back to smart Money. My guest is Chamobil Yakub.
He is the author. Well, he and his wife. I
believe Yakub and Yakub have written this report for the
Social Social Cohesion for the Helen Clark Foundation, and we're
having a chat about what is it, you know, the
lack of cohesion we have in New Zealand, and a
lot of it's tied to money. I think I've thrown
(20:44):
at the question that one of the findings is that
only thirty two percent of New Zealanders was satisfied with
their financial situation. The question is what would it take
for you to be satisfied? The broader question schommer Bill
is actually I think what would it take for us
to be more prosperous as an ancient nation? Because in
the end, I don't want to talk about trickle down economics,
but a more prosperous nation seems to be the broad
(21:05):
the broad brushstroke.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Is it or not? Absolutely? I think prosperity is critical
and fundamentally when I talk about prosperity, I mean more
New Zealand is being better off and because we have
to give people the financial resources so then we can
do not just the money stuff, but all the other
things in life that are good. Money is a necessity,
but it's not enough, so to my mind. You know,
social cohesion is related to prosperity, but it's all the
(21:29):
other bits of life that also makes it a rich experience.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
Okay, let's take some calls well and look, it's it's
a wide ranging conversation and I think it's it's important
for us to have them because it consider it helps
us consider what we really want New Zealand to look
like now and in the future. Eight hundred and eighty
ten eighty murray, Hello.
Speaker 11 (21:48):
Yeah good, how are you good?
Speaker 6 (21:49):
Thanks?
Speaker 11 (21:51):
So long been the belief of mine that one of
the biggest problems with New Zealand is actually going back
to what New zealand and four three sorry when Working
for Families was brought, which basically took away from employees
the requirement to actually pay people are living income and
(22:13):
put the onus on the government to top people up,
especially families. But that meant that non family people didn't
get the increases in income that they should have as
well because there was no top up for them. And
as a result of the government taking over the responsibility
(22:36):
of making sure people had enough money, there has been
less and less increase in productivity for New Zealand because
employers haven't had to worry about paying people a decent
income for a decent standard of living because the government
takes care of it, accommodation supplements, working for families, temporary
additional support, and so our economy has not grown at
(22:59):
the rate it should other than through immigration. And so
that's why we and two percent less in Australia yea.
And that's why thirty two percent of us so are
happy with their financial situation and twenty five percent of
us go without food?
Speaker 6 (23:15):
Shoo beer or what do you reckon? Actually? Can I
paraphrase that? Do you think also, Murray? That with working
for families this is shooting from the hip for me
because I'm no economist, but I don't like the idea
of people being beneficiaries, and the working for families turned
so much of New Zealand to beneficiaries. I just wonder
if there's some sort of message from I don't know
(23:35):
that we've become less seed of our own pants and
more looking to the government for all our answers, and
I always think that's a short path to hell. Anyway,
I'm not sure if that represents Murray's position, but between
the two of us, what do you reckon.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
So I guess when you have welfare policies, that's quite
often where the distortion becomes right that because you say
government's going to step in and take care of this
particular thing, there is a consequence, and quite often these
kinds of things do have consequences. I think it's okay
to say, when you've got children, we want to make
sure children are growing up in happy families and those
kinds of things, but we also have to make sure
(24:12):
that we're doing the other bits right, to make sure
that our businesses are competitive, that they're growing strongly, that
we have access to skills, those kinds of things. I
think economies are far too complex to say it's just
this one particular policy that's the problem. You know, we
were talking in the break term that in a New
Zealand's obsess with property is one of those problems that
we choose to invest in spying second hand houses from
(24:34):
each other rather than investing in businesses. That's a problem.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
Why do we do that? Though, because I can answer
my own question, because people making at certain times are
killing and leveraging and boom where.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
You go, Yeah, there's a whole bunch of reasons for that.
And I guess to answer Mary's question, I guess the
problem with these kinds of conversations if we look to
just one problem, I think we lose sight of the
fact that there are so many things we haven't been
doing quite right in New Zealand when it comes to
our issues of productivity. And you know, we still have
a Productivity Commission that was set up to try and
answer this question. But to my mind, the fundamental problem
(25:10):
is we think government is here to kind of take
care of all these problems. They can't. It's not possible
for the government to take care of everything. But we've
lost sight of this more fundamental things around how do
we create enough money and investment in growing our businesses
so that our businesses are creating the jobs and the
incomes and the prosperity, because that's really the lifeblood of
(25:31):
an economy, and I think we've lost sight of that.
So it feels like there's a lot of conversation about stuff,
but we don't really talk about how do we get bigger, faster,
you know, stronger businesses. It's always it's the margins, right.
Businesses don't really come into the dominant frame of conversation.
I want us to talk about capital. I want us
to talk about competition. I want us to talk about productivity.
(25:52):
And over the last ten years, New Zealand's had almost
no productivity growth.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
Why what is that? I mean, many people are dying
to jump on and tell you who's responsible for all
that's right.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
There's always an easy answer, but it's not right and
I think this is the problem. New Zealand's productivity performance
has been quite low computer peers for a number of decades.
And part of that, at least from my kind of
current job and a QI severy perspective, is we're not
investing enough money into our businesses. So yes, I think
it's important that we get all the sitting right settings right,
(26:22):
but when it comes to actually powering up our economy,
we do have to make our businesses bigger, using the
best technology that's available, and investing in our people so
they have the best skills to be able to do that. Now,
those things are easy to say but hard to do.
Speaker 6 (26:37):
Actually, just bring Murray back and anything else you want
to follow up with their Murray.
Speaker 11 (26:42):
Well, just that you know, if you actually you know,
did away with working for families over a period of
time and repaid the back so that companies had to
increase their their pay and you know, maybe paid lower
tax as a result for a while, so that could
(27:03):
invest that money into the business to grow the business.
I mean at the moment where we're where we're going
down a path where more and more people need more
and more top ups, and that's not sustainable now or
in the future. So someone needs to push a button,
do a bit of a reset, and you know, we
need to actually get on a path where we can
(27:23):
actually grow without the government having to come up with
one hundred and fifty billion dollars a year to keep
New Zealand going because it's not sustainable.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Okay, cheers, Mark, thanks for your call. Actually, how I
do get the feeling that we did go through a
phase where there was a lot more interest in an
investment from overseas and bringing money in. I don't know
whether it was tied and with that famous quote of
the rockstar economy, but how hard should we be trying
to bring in overseas more and more overseas investments? Because
(27:55):
if I do talk back on this, there are some
people who on one side of the political spectrum, we
think that foreign money coming into invest in New Zealand
is the devil.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Well, I don't think it's the devil, nor is it
the full answer. We actually have lots of really great
businesses in New Zealand, and we need to be moving
from saying that all the answers exist overseas and there
are no good answers in New Zealand. We've got to
back ourselves, and that backing ourselves actually means how do
we take many of our successful small businesses and make
the medium businesses and those medium businesses into large businesses.
(28:26):
That's what we're not doing enough of. What I find
in the productivity data is that we're very productive at
the small end, very productive at the big end, but
we suck in the middle.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Ah, well it's the middle. How BIG's the middle?
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Well, it's kind of that, you know, twenty two hundred
and it's quite a big chuck. That's where most of
our businesses are. But it's almost this value of death
because what happens is you're kind of big enough that
you need all the machinery of a big business, but
you don't get any of the benefits the economies of
scale of a big business, whereas when you're small, you
don't need a manager and HR and all those kinds
of things. You don't have a big system. So it's
(28:59):
kind of this weird thing where because country is quite small,
we tend to have this kind of proliferation of successful
small businesses and very large businesses. But if you look
at the core of productivity growth in Pressley, the US
or even Australia, it is really those middle businesses that
are really kicking out of the park as well. So
where we're going wrong, well, it is very much that
story about how do we give people the ability to
(29:21):
move from being medium to large? And I think where
we're going wrong is the market size is not big enough.
So New Zealand is quite small and if you want
to shift from that medium to large, you need to
make big investments in yourselves and that's really hard to do.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
We've got to take a break. Coross of times flying
with us. It's twenty one minutes to Sex News Talks.
He'd be if you'd like to give us a call.
We'd love to hear from your eight one hundred and
eight ten eighty, either your response to what Shammobil is
talking about right now, or even just what it'd take
for you to feel like you're a little bit more
prosperous and we'll be looking back in just a moment.
All right, welcome back to Smart Money on the Weekend,
(29:59):
collecting my guest as Chamobil Yaka.
Speaker 9 (30:00):
But he is.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
Partner with his wife, the author of the social care
report that it is sitting under the umbrella of the
hell and Clark Foundation. We're talking about what would take
for us to be more prosperous. The conversation has evolved
and all of a sudden that the lines have lit up.
So you know what, We're going to just take some
calls and we're going to see how many we can
get through before we wrap the show up. And then
we'll just have to have Schommer Bill back at some stage.
(30:22):
I think, won't we Shu A bill would be delated?
Good stuff? Right, let's go, David, what do you reckon?
Speaker 9 (30:29):
Hi?
Speaker 8 (30:29):
I think you guys are saying a lot of right things,
for particular about the Australian retirement program, and we should
do that in New Zealand. But retirement is a long
way away. There's a key factor that hasn't been addressed
during your lifetime is a cost of housing in New Zealand.
(30:50):
It's utterly ridiculous and that's part of the reason why
the Aussies are so happy, because they can get their
own homes that much less cost and much smaller proportion
of their income. And that is a massive streets In
New Zealand. It's causing two families of the bost husband
(31:13):
and wife have got to work. Yeah, you got to
go into baby care and all that sort of thing.
Massive streets.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
Okay, let's hand it out with Shama Beer because I
think I think, David, you're maybe ignoring the cost of
property in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. But what do we reckon,
Shama Beer.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Yeah, look, housing is slightly less expensive in Australia, but
it's still quite expensive. And you're absolutely right though that
housing is probably one of the dominant drivers of why
people are doing it tough financially. So my wife and
I wrote a book called Generation Rented But ten years Ago,
which is really around not only just what the problem is,
but what can we do to fix it. The good
news in New Zealand is that while we still have problems,
(31:51):
the policy progress in the last ten years has been
exceptional under both the last government and the current government,
with bish with Chris Bishop. I shouldn't be so flippant
with his name. But the reality is that we are
making really good progress.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
That there is a problem, but we're making really good progress,
and I feel so good about that.
Speaker 6 (32:08):
That's why it's actually it's so surprising when I heard
Chris Bership talking about his determination to bill bill bill build,
because it didn't sound very friendly to some of his
voting base who want to buy by by sell sell
sell houses. But he's really really driving hard on making
housing affordable, isn't he.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Look, I think it's absolutely spectacular. I think the amount
of effort and commitment that there is from this government
and the last government, and I think from future governments
to solve this housing crisis in his yunder is really good.
But you know, the question is absolutely right in that
this is a big problem and that's why we need
to get on top of it because it will make
things better. For war News yonders right.
Speaker 6 (32:42):
It takes some more course, and the calls are We're
crammed with calls, and I guess that's the thing. You
listen to these things and you sudden worts, hang on
a minute, we're onto something here, so we will continue
this conversation another time as well. Let's go to Peter
get A.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Here. You guy, guys, I look you on bringing you
up from Brisbane. I just wanted to say, you know,
the good times and the bad times. Well put it
this way that when like I'm sixty six now and
the old man and old lady had dead now, but
we had a house in Mount Roskoll. It was a
stayed home. The old man went to work, Mum stayed
at home, she looked after her kids, and everything was affordable.
(33:18):
The whole row of our street was all young, young
people that had recently been married, it was, and people
were getting their own homes. And like I say, the
affordability was fantastic. And I mean I hear these people
that ring up and they go, oh but they never had.
(33:39):
We had to pay off a washing machine and we
had to pay off at TV. Yeah, these days you
can go and buy three or four TVs or washing machines,
you know. And look that guy there that said about
super Angio. There's a lot of guys I know over
here that have got nothing as far as superannuation is concerned,
(34:00):
because most of their lives they've worked as Subby's and
if you work as a subby you are you have
to look after your own superinnuation. It's up to you
to make sure you've got your supernuation sorted out. There's
a lot of guys, and there's a mains test over here.
Would you guys get your pinching? Do you get your pinching?
(34:22):
Doesn't matter how many hells you've got over here, there's
a means test. So okay, look anyway, I'll sort of
sign I'll see you.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
Thanks, thanks for for any comment on that.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Some evil look. I think we have to move towards
the more Australian model in that we do have to
encourage people to save. They haven't got it all right.
I think when it comes to particularly the self employed,
they are still doing it pretty tough. But because they're
super is means tested. It means that people are really
motivated to say for their retirement. As a result, their
public pension cost as a share of the economy is falling.
It's the only country, pretty much in the obvious city
(34:57):
with an aging population that's actually got its aging population
problem under control.
Speaker 6 (35:02):
Right, Let's carry on, Colin, get ou.
Speaker 7 (35:06):
Yeah, hi am actually on one of those sob he's
and I wasn't able to. I've retired now, but I'm
still working. I'm nearly seventy, but I wasn't able to
save for retirement because I was a subcontractor and it
has left up to you after I left my job
in Shell, you know. Yeah, but you know I used
(35:27):
to be like, I just want to talk about the
investment thing. Everything you do in New Zealand, the government
is trying to kill it off.
Speaker 9 (35:36):
Right.
Speaker 7 (35:37):
If you've got a house and you want to rent
it out, they want to They want to make the
interest that you pay and they and the maintenance that
you do on the house all non tax deductible, which
is which is bullshit, isn't it. I mean, at the
end of the day, it all costs you to do
those things. And like in Australia, I disagree with that
(35:58):
guy that says.
Speaker 6 (35:59):
I think I come back now, So that's a couple
of bullshits. So I think we're a really out there colin.
But just whatever you as response, Actually that's not quite right.
Maintenance costs aye text deductible.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Yeah, and interest wasn't for the short period of time.
But it's come back now and that's a good thing,
and I think the reality is that we have to
treat these things as businesses, and businesses have come with
rights and responsibilities. We need to get those that balance right.
And I think that's that's always been the challenge, is
if you don't have good policy making that's long term,
you get this knee jerk reactions. And I think that's
what we see in politics, knee jerk stuff that's very
(36:30):
much the stuff of envy and a reversal this kind
of controls that policy is very disruptive.
Speaker 6 (36:35):
Yeah, right, let's take one more call. Here we go
paid to get.
Speaker 9 (36:38):
Thank you very much. I think there's two problems with
New Zealand. Firstly, there's too much foreign ownership and the
money has been drained there, such as the bank and
the insurance company and all the manufactured goods it's coming
from China. Were paid about three dollars an hour, and
(37:00):
you know it's very very poor wages, but well that's
what New Zealanders. Can't make any money.
Speaker 6 (37:06):
M Well, we're not going to change that in a hurry,
are we, because we do get our goods. Imagine paying
It's like the joke in America at the moment if
Americans had to make iPhones, they'd be about five grand
grand apiece. What's your response to that name? Shummaville?
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Look, and I think this is the discontent of globalization.
We like the benefit of cheap stuff, but we don't
like the cost of not having those previously relatively well
paid jobs for people with relatively limited skills. And I
think therein lies the challenges. How do you find that
happy balance? And the answer is not that we have
we can go back to the nineteen fifties or sixties.
The answer is how can we upscull our people so
(37:40):
they're able to get the jobs that they're actually capable
of doing. And I think it's that bit of the
growth and investment that I was talking about is if
we want prosperity in New Zealand, it doesn't lie in
nineteen sixty it lies in what it comes in front
and New Zealand is entirely capable of the stuff. We
have a country full of young, smart, educated people, but
I don't think we're making the most of them.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
Okay uh one, says sang On. I think I'm just
quickly says What you need to realize is that all
our systems are hopelessly corrupt at a fundamental level, that
it's not just a matter of putting lipstick on a
pig where at the stage of giving it botox, collagen,
injections of pedicure and implants, when what it really needs
(38:23):
is sorry, this text has suddenly disappeared on me. Hang
on a second, I need to what it really needs
is roasting. I don't know anyway, but this text is
just saying we've got a long way to go to
sort these problems out.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
And I think that's kind of what we're trying to
describe in the Social Cohesion survey is when we're not
together as a country, it's hard for us to go
what is it that we really want to do? And
then the business of government can try and do that.
At the moment, the business of government is kind of
this ad hockery, right, It's moving from one extreme to
the other, and it feels like it's not really serving
(38:59):
anybody's greater purpose. So therein lies the big challenge. How
can we have this conversation that lets us actually do
things that the New Zealanders want and I think a
lot of New Zealanders want the same thing.
Speaker 6 (39:08):
Right, We're going to take a break back in just
a moment. It's eight minutes to sex News Talks. He'd
been Yes, welcome back, Gosh, time flies this album. My
guest is Chammabil Yaka, but first time with us of course,
a familiar name to most New Zealander, I would say
for his work over the years. But the Report on
Enzied Social Cohesion twenty twenty four, it's under the auspices
of the Hell and Plak Foundation. It was written by
(39:30):
Yakub and Yaka, which is Chamma Bill and his wife
looking at the well, basically looking at all aspects of
New Zealand life and our social cohesion. But I just
want to tie in a text on this one Shama Bill.
It says, on our prosperity et cetera, don't forget the
tall poppy syndrome. Once you become big and successful. The
government believes there's not enough competition in this small country
(39:50):
in your public enemy number one, And I just want
to tie that into is it how much cultural changes
needed in our outlook on success and prosperity and how
much is that a problem in terms of tig it
into this report In the one minute we've got lift.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
Sorry, it's everything right if you think about the fundamental
drivers of prosperity is geography, culture and institution, and culture
is really what drives everything. If we can't celebrate and
drive prosperity, if we don't want to be successful, then
nothing's going to work. And we have to do it together.
And we have to want to be successful because I
(40:27):
absolute truly believe New Zealand has all the ingredients to
be extraordinary successful.
Speaker 6 (40:32):
Well, you know what, we're gonna have to get you
back and talk about that. I think we'll have to
get you back more regularly. I think, well, what I
mean more regularly. This is your first time, so we'll
have to get you back again, and then we'll talk
about the regular thing. Hey, thanks so much for your time.
Shoo Bill And if people want to download a copy
of this, will get ahold of a copy of the report,
where would they go?
Speaker 4 (40:46):
Just to the Hell and Clack Foundation website.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
Okay, so go to the head and Clack Foundation website
now and check it out. Thanks so much for your time,
Thanks to my producer, Tyre Roberts, and we'll look forward
to your company same time next weekend. Check out the
podcast we Can Collective on iHeartRadio and enjoy the rest
of your Sunday.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Catch you soon.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talk ZEDB weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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