Labour's leader says the US tariffs on New Zealand aren't justified in a retaliatory sense.
A US chart states New Zealand imposes 20% tariffs on US imports, and Chris Hipkins is wondering if this includes GST, which isn't a tariff.
He told Kerre Woodham New Zealand's one of the world's lowest no-tariff countries.
Hipkins also says New Zealand won’t just be impacted by the tariffs directly imposed on us, but we could be hit harder by indirect knock-on effects from the higher amounts Trump is imposing on other countries.
The Labour leader says the party’s learned from its last stint in Government.
Hipkins says the Labour Government tried to do too many things at once, preventing them from doing many things well enough.
He says watching the current Government has made him reflect on another lesson.
Hipkins told Woodham the Government had also spent too much consulting and asking people what they thought, and sometimes people just want them to get on with it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerry Wood and Mornings podcast from
News Talks EDB News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
He'd be indeed, I'm for a first of our quarterly
catch ups with labor leader Chris Hopkins here for an hour.
If you have any questions for the leader of the opposition,
text them through Thank you to the five or six
who have already done so, or you can call in.
Helen is standing by, refreshed cup of tea in hand,
ready to go to take your calls. On eight hundred
(00:34):
eighty ten eighty, I'll get us started. Good morning to you, Chris.
How are you well? I'm well? Thank you. What about
the Trump Liberation Day ten percent imposition of tariff's on
New Zealand? Goods?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, I mean I've only just seen the headlines of that,
so i haven't had a chance to study the details.
It's not going to be great for New Zealand overall,
although you know, the direct impact of it probably won't
be as as great as the indirect impact. So speaking
to some exporters the other day who don't export a
lot to the US, but what they're concerned about is
that Trump's tariffs will dampen international demand in other countries
(01:09):
that they do export to, so you could see a
sort of a global knock on effect of Trump's tariffs.
So if in China, for example, if you're exporting to
China and your market demand decreases by twenty percent because
of the flow and effect of Trump's tariffs, that there's
actually a big thing for New Zealand exporters, though it's
not directly related to what Trump is doing, and so
that is a concern for our exporters. I mean, I
(01:31):
think you know our we can hand on heart say
that these aren't justified as in a retaliat tree sense.
You know, New Zealand has some of the we're one
of the lowest no tariff countries in the world.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well that's what I heard in the Leader. But on
his chart that's been reposted on x so it must
be true he says that we impose twenty percent tariffs on.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I'd struggle to figure out how they could do that,
I mean, unless they're including GST and something else. But
of course GST is not a tariff because it applies
to everything. So it applies to a New Zealand manufactured
good as equally as it applies to an imported.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
One, so ground zero for free trade.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
We totally are. I mean, to some extent, you could
say that over the last forty years we've given up
more than we've gained to some extent, and we made
you know, some other countries and free trade negotiations actually
held out more than New Zealand did in order to
have things to trade with, whereas we were sort of like, well,
we're just going to give everyone terror free access and
now how about your reciprocated and so you know, I
(02:32):
think they haven't really got a justification of saying it's
retaliatory because US export is trying to get into New
Zealand to find no barriers at all.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Really, yeah, it's all very odd, isn't it. I mean,
I doubt you could have managed any It's just sitting
back and waiting, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Be well?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I think, I mean, if you look at the Australians,
the Australian government has over the last twenty years had
a much much closer government to government relationship across successive
governments with the Americans. And if they can't get any
concessions on it, I don't think New Zealand was going
to be able to get any concessions on it.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
In fact, they got named and chained.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Indeed, now so many questions on this particular one asked
Chris Hipkins iFeel working with the TI who can't even
obey the rules of Parliament, the Greens who want to
abolish the police Morena, says Carmel. I have a question
for Chris, given the spate of scandal's rests best setting
the Greens and TEI, does he still see them as
(03:29):
suitable coalition partners? Does he concede that both of these
parties have moved so far from center they're realistically only
secure votes from the fringes of society. There's many more
along those lines. Man, I bet you're glad you're not
in government right now.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I mean it's interesting. I think this is actually going
to get harder and harder in the MMP environment that
we've got at the moment, because the reality is, barwring
one election, which was the COVID election in twenty twenty,
no government has ever ended up with a majority under MMP,
So you do end up having to have working relationships
with other parties. I think, you know, and I've said
that before the election, will set out you know, these
(04:04):
are the parties we think we can work with. These
are the areas we have a policy in comment. But
also I think we've got to set out some bottom
lines as well. So you've got to be able to
willing to say, look, that's an area that they might
be promoting, but we're not willing to do it. And
if I have a criticism of Christoph Luxen and the
current government is I think he let ACT in New
Zealand first get too much out of the coalition negotiations
when he should have said, look, we are the biggest
(04:25):
party here. National got what thirty seven percent of the
vote and Actor got eight percent, and you Act seem
to have a disproportionate influence over the government. And I
do think an MMP people expect you to compromise and
work together, but that doesn't mean that you should give
away everything to parties that actually only attract quite a
minority of support. So that's my starting point for this
(04:46):
kind of discussion about to Party, Maori and the Greens.
There are areas which I strongly disagree with them on.
You know, like I totally disagreed with Tamoth of Paul's
comments on the police.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Qu interestingly, forty eight hours later they're going to the
police because of the threats to one of their MPs.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yes, I mean I disagreed with them on that. You know,
I do think the communities feel safer when they have
a visible police presence on the beat. I think, you know,
I've spoken to a lot of those small retail businesses
who have been the victims of retail crime, and people
shouldn't feel unsafe standing behind their shop counter, you know,
and having police walking up and down the street actually
(05:22):
helps them. It makes them feel safer and that is
a good thing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So that's a national policy you would maintain.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, well, I mean it's something that as Minister of
Police I talked to the police about.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
You're a minister of everything, so there were so.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Many police I was only Minister of Police for about
six months because then I became Prime Minister. But I
talked to them about increasing their visible police presence. It's
one of it's a tricky zone though, because police determined
that not us. You know, the Police Commissioner has independence
from ministers.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
And.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
We've seen changes in directions.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
I think the National Parties Mark which was probably leaned
more heavily into that police operational area than I than
I did well, thank Eaven. But I don't disagree with it.
I mean, I think that while police should be in
and I think they also have a responsibility to be visible,
you know, I think. And also for those who say,
you know, there are communities in New Zealand wore suspicious
(06:15):
of the police, I get that, but actually police, in
my view, community policing is one of the ways you
overcome that because when you've got the police out there
engaging with people, they have less reason to be suspicious of.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Them exactly, and they're representative of communities. There's been a
huge emphasis over i'd say the last two decades to
have the police represent the communities they serve.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
And that last couple of years we're in government. I
attended maybe six or seven police graduation ceremonies, you know,
new police joining the beat, and man, I sort of
I attended them and thought, this is so different to
what it must have looked like thirty years ago, because
those graduation ceremonies, the police coming onto the beat genuinely
reflect the communities that they serve. There's more women, you know,
(06:55):
it's no longer all you know, six foot high buff
white guys. You know, it's a very cross broad cross
section of New Zealand who are on the front lines
of policing. And I think again that they're not there yet.
You know, it's not perfect yet. This police have still
got work to do. But man, it's a different organization
to what it would have been twenty or thirty years ago.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Oh yeah, I would say thirty odd years ago. We
have a question from Andy. Good morning to you moment morning.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
Do you think we should expel the Russian ambassador?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Thanks? Andy, that's a question that I get asked quite
a bit. No, I don't, not because I endorse Russia.
I'd strongly disagree with Russia, but because I think that
the solution here is always going to involve talking. It's
always going to involve some diplomacy, and I think once
you expel the ambassador, you have no channel of communication
left at that point. So I think we need to
(07:51):
be able to convey to the Kremlin that we strongly
disagree with what they're doing, and if we expelled the ambassador,
we wouldn't be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
There we go, Thank you very much. We'll take a break,
look forward to your questions for the leader of the opposition.
He'll be in studio for the next forty five minutes.
News Talk said, be people feel I haven't done my job.
They're saying, what's the answer, would you work with Tapati
Maori or not?
Speaker 3 (08:12):
I just said, I haven't made a decision on that,
but we will. When you said that, yeah, we haven't
made a decision on that, but we will before the election,
so people will know that before the election.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Are they going to have to lift their game a bit?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I think all of the parties in Parliament frankly need
to lift their game in gym's of conduct. At the moment,
I think New Zealand politics, like politics around the world's
in a pretty ugly space. I think everybody needs to
grow up, stop shouting at each other quite so much,
and try and find some reasonable common ground.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Mind you of parliaments supposed to be reflective of the community,
like the police. Then that's what we're doing. We're shouting
at each other without listening.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, and I actually think there's a lot of people
who are getting a bit tired, you know, very weary
of that. And I think I think it is time
for US politicians to show some leadership there and say Look,
you can actually have a civilized conversation with someone who
you disagree with.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, And will you find that in the valedictory speeches, Yeah,
where all of a sudden you find out that James
Shaw's great mate was Todd Muller.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
You know, well, I see, I saw Todd Mlake yesterday
day before yesterday, and him and I used to get
on like a house on fire. We would send text
messages across the debating chamber from each other after ripping
into each other in the debating chamber, you know. And
he's someone I respect enormously, and I really respect what
he did too, by the way, I thought there was
incredibly brave, the way he sort of stood up and
spoke about, you know, what had happened to him and
(09:25):
how he felt about it. And I told him that
at the time, and I've told him that ever since
as well. You can do that, You can actually have
a really good and passionate argument with someone and then
still go and talk about something completely different later on
and still be friends with them.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That's what it used to be like, didn't it. Oh
my god, Anthony, you be the spokesperson for the many
people who have sent in texts. This one issue drives
me balmy off you go, hi hi.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
So given the tragic state of the musment schools program, lateness,
low quality and unadvertising, and the news of pay doing
companies folding, what is the definition of a woman?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I think school lunches was what you were asking about,
and I've got so many, so many texts on that,
the bloody school lunches. Do you regret bringing this in
in the first place. I'm not providing secure funding for
it for the future.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
No, I mean we'd said that we were going to,
you know, we had indicated in the election manifesto how
we were going to baseline the funding for the school
lunches program. But the thing about it is it needs
to be done Like I just think the mass produced
models flawed because you remove the flexibility, you remove the
localness of it, you remove the fresh nature of it.
(10:45):
And you know, we had a lot of local catering companies,
you know, the local cafe, small businesses doing lunches, and
it meant that if there were problems, the school could
get on the phone, talk to someone and it could
be sorted out pretty quickly. I saw the polls, you know,
Arin's end did that poll yesterday, which is you know
who's responsible for lunches? And the vast majority of cases
the public are right. It is a parent's responsibility to
(11:07):
produce a lunch for their kids. I do my kids
lunch box every morning, get out of bed and do
that and try bettle with the trying to make it
interesting for them so that they're actually going to eat
it and it's not just going to come home and
go in the bin at the end of the day. So,
you know, I think then the vast majority of parents
do that. We've got to recognize that there are kids
showing up in schools who don't have lunch, and we can,
(11:29):
at a point of principle say where you can go
hungry all day, who suffers from that? It's the kids,
It's not the parents. So I think feeding those kids
so that they can actually focus on their education is
the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
When did the Ministry of Health hijacket and say this
is the one opportunity we get to get calories and
food into kids, because I think, excuse me, when you
started off, you thought it was going to be like
Christopher Luxon said, and Marmt's sandwich and an apple and
a yogurt. All of a sudden it becomes the one
main meal of the day. And I don't think people
(11:59):
thought that's what they were buying into when I agreed
to a school lunch and thought it was a great idea,
That's what I thought they'd get a school lunch, not
suddenly have it. We're going to introduce vegetables and chickpeas
and the children are going to like it. Suddenly became
bigger than being her.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I think for me, the sort of the key test
was are kids eating it?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And they weren't? And well, no they were. There was
a hell of a lot of wastage long before national
came out.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
It was about six percent. It was recorded, and it did.
It started higher, but they got it down. And one
of the ways they got it down was they looked at, well,
what's the food the kids are eating, and what's the
food that they're not eating, and stop doing the stuff
that they're not eating, and do more of the stuff
that they are eating. So I remember visiting a primary
school out in Cannon's Creek and Potty Door where they
had this attendance problem with the kids on a Friday,
(12:45):
but they worked out the kids' favorite school lunch was
lasagna and garlic bread. So they started surfing lasagna and
garlic bread every Friday, and suddenly all the kids started
showing up to school on a Friday. So I think
that those are the sorts of bits of flexibility that
we've lost from the lunch's program, where there are spin
off benefits, you know, to the school in terms of attendance, And.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Do you think it should be a lunch or the
one main meal of day. And also what happens during
school holidays.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Well, it was it was a mix. You know, some
days kids would get bread, rolls and sandwiches and other
days they'd get a hot meal. Ultimately, I think you
want you want to do what's most cost effective. Now,
what David Seymour's showing is that there's probably you could
you could scrape a margin out of it. You know,
maybe it's not the seven dollars or nearly eight dollars
a day, maybe it's more like six dollars a day.
(13:31):
But I think three dollars a day is too low.
So I think there might be somewhere you can find
in the middle where you can bring the cost down
by moving to simpler lunches. And simpler menus and whatever.
But I think they've gone too far to the other extreme.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
But again, what why would what happens during the school holidays.
If it's essential that these kids are fed, why then
is it not open during the school holidays so they
do get fed? If it's that important to feed them.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Well, if you talk to the community organizations like the
food banks and stuff, they'll say they end up picking
up a lot of the slack over the school holidays.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Sadly, Yeah, so that means the parents have to make
the lunches if they go to the food bank.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, there are other community initiatives, you know where where
they're preparing meals. Some of the churches, for example, do
lunch programs and so on. And it's look, it's sad
that we're in this situation and that that's where what
where society has got to And of course we've got
to deal with that. But in the short term, I'd
also just want kids to have food so that they
(14:30):
can focus on learning.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
News Talk said, be indeed, Matt, you have a question
about rentals. Good morning to you.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
Yeah, today, I just wanted to know if you're to
get them again when you go back to your old
taxation policies of texting people with rentals that aren't actually
making income out of it. I've got a rental from
one hundred percent lending on it, and yet under your
policy you would have taxed me on the income even
though all the income beat to the bank and revaching
(15:00):
that's not making any money at all.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, So we haven't set that set out our policy
on interest deductiville, see, which I think is the issue
that you're asking specifically about. We haven't set out our
policy on that, and I think that that will depend
a lot on where we get to on other aspects
of tax policy, because those do things. Those things do
link up. So we're working through that now. I'm not
dodging a question. There's a totally fair and legitimate question
(15:24):
for you want the answer to. I just don't have
the answer yet. But we'll try and set that out
this year so that people have got a year to
question us on it before the election.
Speaker 7 (15:33):
Yeah, because I'm an example where what my rentals a
year are the tennifishery and appeal to get in a
new back old sell it and then you'd have a
tenip issue were looking for a house.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, and Look, we know we've got issues around making
sure we've got enough affordable rentals for those who need them,
So that is certainly one of the things that we're
looking at as we work through the tax policy. We
don't want to disincentivize landlords from building new rental houses.
In fact, we want to encourage more of that, so
we're working through all that at the moment.
Speaker 7 (16:04):
Why would What I understand is why would you tax
someone that's actually not making money that all that money
is going to the bank. Well, I don't make a
cent off I access to stop it up.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Well, it's not so much taxing, it's the interest deductibility
is reducing your tax in other areas rather than necessarily
the tax on the rental property.
Speaker 7 (16:25):
So under your under had the way you guys had
it speed up, all was actually I would have been
paying tax on the income coming from it. But it
was an income because it went to the bank because
I was one hundred percent landing on it, right, Yeah,
So the interest was hired and I had to do
repayments as well, So not only cost me turn it
all as a week, I also would have had to
(16:46):
pay tax on that on the rental income because it
was an income if you know what I mean, it
was going to the bank.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, I understand what you're saying. And as I said,
those are the sorts of things we're working through at
the moment as we figure out the tax policy for
the next election. We do you know, I do think
that we need to have a change in the way
our tax system operates. We tax salary and wager and
is disproportionately compared to other countries that we compare ourselves to.
But I'm not going to say that we got everything
(17:14):
right last time we're in government and we go back
to doing exactly what we were doing last time, because
I don't think we got it all right. And so
you know, we'll have a different text policy over the
next year that people will see before the election.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Thank you very much, Matt, Leader of the Opposition, Leader
of Labor, Chris Hipkins in the studio quickie for you
a question, becass Hipkins, Are you going to bring back
gang patches?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
No? And you know, I think it's one of those
things where it hasn't ultimately changed the nature of gang activity.
Gang business is still booming. They're still selling more methan
fettermine than ever, but what it has done is people
feel a bit safer with not seeing gang patch gang
members walking down the street. So no, absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well, it was the posturing that got me.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
That's right, and you know it has gangs are still booming,
you know they're still doing the great business. But if
people feel more comfortable not seeing gang patches on the street,
fair enough.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
What does Lay have planned in terms of reforming the
grocery sector? Because you started it off when you're in government.
A lot of talk from Arena Williams on social media
about what the current government aren't doing, what will Labor
do to get this under control and why wasn't enough
done last term? It's from tour and Jamie.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
It's a big decision to go in and break up duopoly,
you know, break up private businesses effectively. But what I've
said to the current government, to Nikola Willison the National
Party is if you're interested in doing this, the best
thing to do would be to have Labor and National
agree on a path of action so that their certainty,
so that it doesn't matter who the government is. The
New Zealand government has under either Labor National has taken
(18:45):
a position that this is what we need to do
to get competition into the grocery sector. So I've said
to her that we will be very pragmatic about this,
but if she wants to do something bold, come and
talk to us, because I think a bold action like that,
because it would be a pretty big thing, and it
would be pretty bold to break up the companies. If
they want to do something like that and they want
to get some you know, a supermajority in Parliament to
(19:07):
do it, come and talk to us, because we were
open to giving them the numbers to have a supermajority
for that.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Mohammed, good morning to you.
Speaker 8 (19:16):
Good morning for how are you good.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
You're talking to Chris Hopkins. Do you have a question?
Speaker 8 (19:24):
Good morning, how are you?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
I'm very good, thank you, how are you good?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Good?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Hey.
Speaker 8 (19:28):
I'm pulling from Wanganuish. My name is Mohammad, and I
have a few questions for you. But the first one
is regarding the Nelson Hospital. What's going on there? What's
different would the NET, the Labor Party they've done to
resolve these issues?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, I think one of the big issues that's facing
Nelson Hospital, like a lot of hospitals around the country,
is that they've just got a shortage of staff. So
the current there's been a recruitment freeze, although the government,
you know, to the government deny there is a recruitment freeze,
but they basically said stop hiring people, and that's really
affected a lot of the frontline hospital services. We actually
(20:08):
just need more medical professionals in our hospitals. In the
case of Nelson Hospital, I think we need to go
further than that. Nelson Hospital actually needs a complete rebuild.
It's a very rundown hospital and it just Nelson's really growing.
It's just not big enough for the population of Nelson.
So then there's two things in Nelson. They need a
new hospital and they need to have they need to
be able to recruit the staff that they need to
(20:29):
deliver those frontline health services.
Speaker 8 (20:33):
Okay, totally agree with you on that one. Okay. On
the other hand, like you said, we need more saying
the stuff, more experienced stuff in the front life. So
in Wanga luis these some issues going on there that
people the senior staff, senior members of the human resource
(20:54):
and the other staff members who are white senior they
are doing the objects. They are trying to get DODO
staff who are experienced, who are about experience and they
are saying that they are competed.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
What do you single the Yeah, I think one of
the risks and health at the moment is you get
a lot of discussion about frontline versus back office, and
actually health is a really good example of your frontline
doctors and nurses need good back office staff if they're
going to deliver good care for patients. I'd rather them
being out and about on the wards and so on
dealing with patients than sitting at a desk filing paperwork
(21:35):
and all of that sort of thing. So, you know,
good administrative support in hospitals is really important, and I
do worry that those are a lot of the jobs
that are being cut at the moment and that patient
care will actually be compromised as a result of that.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Anna says, could you ask Chris Hipkins why complaints about
issues at Nelson Hospital were raised in twenty eighteen according
to the tv I report last night. But we're ignored
by the government.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I don't. I mean, look, I haven't had a chance
to go back and look at the exact nature of
the complaints.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
You a Minister of Health for a while, yeah, for.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Six months in twenty twenty, But I don't know. I
don't have the details of those. I'm certain they wouldn't
have been ignored. But clearly these problems, in fairness to
the current government, Clearly these problems haven't just appeared immediately.
They've gotten worse, they've gotten to crisis point. But I
think what we'll find across the health system is a
lot of these problems have been building up for quite
a long time. They have, like but I'm not talking
(22:32):
I'm not talking sixty years, I'm.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Talking about decades.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
These problems have been building for a long time.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And why was nothing Why was a line not drawn
in the sand when you were government?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Well there was. That's one of the reasons we did
the restructuring of the health system because it just isn't
sustainable in the format that it was, in the form
that it was before.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Sure, but you know it was a time post COVID
where they'd have been absolutely battered a.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Had But also we need to do things differently. So
if we want to have an equal standard of healthcare
wherever you're living in the country, the previous model of
twenty dhb's doing different things wasn't going to deliver there.
And I think we've also got to get real. We're
only a country of five million people. Every hospital can't
provide every specialist service. So you need our hospitals to
(23:18):
operate as one network of hospitals. And if that means
you need to move around the country to get the
best specialist care that you need for whatever the health
condition you have is, we have to be realistic that
that's probably what's going to have to happen. And so
having one, you know, really high quality health system is
way better for the country than having twenty that are
struggling to do what they need to do.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
When will you release policy, because right now it works
for you just not being the government, and you know
that happens with opposition parties. Just not being the government
is enough to get votes. But you're going to have
to put, you know, your money where your mouth is eventually.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah, we've started to release sort of in a high level,
modest sense, some early indications of policy. In my State
of the Nation speech, i said, jobs, health, and homes
are going to be the three focal points for us
in terms of the policy that we are talking about.
We've released some small policy in indicating areas where we
will do things differently to the current government. But I
(24:16):
also don't want to just start releasing policy that says, well,
we're just going to reverse everything that they have been doing,
because that's what they did when we're in government and
look where that's led us. I think that kind of
backwards flip flopping is just not going to lead the
country forward. So there are limits to it how much
policy you can do if your future focused. With a
year and a half still to run before the election,
we've still got government, two government budgets to go through
(24:39):
and a lot can change in that time. And what
I don't want to do is release something that says, look,
Labour's going to do this, only to find when we
get into the election campaign we can't do the thing
that we said we were going to do because maybe
the country country can't afford it, or maybe the issue's
gone away and been replaced by a bigger issue. So
it is difficult, but we'll see more policy for us
from us this year. We're not just going to leave
(25:01):
it all to the election campaign.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Ray, good morning to you. You have a question on policy.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Good morning, Kerry, Good morning, Chris, good morning. So my
question is why and what has changed? Like I feel
that you have burned a lot of the policies which
you were part of creating, specifically unemployment, insurance, co governance.
You're bringing back the couple games, tax discussion. Why why
(25:29):
has this changed? You had a different stance on this
when you were in government with the Disinderadournant led government.
Why has some things changed?
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Well, I think two things. One is I'm not just
under dun so you know, I'm a different leader with
different priorities. But the second is we lost, and you know,
I think when you lose, you have to recognize that
that means that people didn't want what you were offering,
and so our values as a party haven't changed, but
we have to accept that the policies that we were
pursuing weren't attracting the support of the majority of New Zealanders.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
What was your biggest learning from that time in government?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
There were quite a few. I'd say, we're doing trying
to do too many different things all at once, and
I think we didn't have enough sense of priority. So
we were doing a lot of things not well enough
because we were trying to do too much at the
same time. So I think that was probably one of
the big lessons. The other is, you know and watching
this government, we have to reflect on this. We're probably
(26:25):
over consulted. I think sometimes we spent a lot of
time consulting and asking people what they thought about things,
when sometimes actually the people just want government to get
on with it. So I think those were two clear
lessons that we've taken from our last six years in government.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Thank you. Ray News Talk said be carbon credits question
on that, Oliver.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Yeah, Hikiri and Hi Chris. My question is what's the
carbon credit credits scheme? At a moment, We'll obviously currently
planting pine trees, which is quite a short term solution,
because in order to question a carbon long term you
need to have a filus which does and all diet once.
(27:07):
Because trees are actually able to transfer carbon from them
to another tree near them when they die, they're actually
kind of the long con solution. But at the moment,
we're currently obviously planting pines which have a short lifespan
and all die at the same time, so in the
(27:29):
long run it's not going to actually benefit the se
crustation of carbon. And on top of that, whilst planting
times to squish the carbon. On the other side of it,
we're spending huge amounts of money trying to get rid
of wild in time, so we're kind of wrestling ourselves
in a way. So it's just wondering if you, as
(27:50):
a government would look at making the credit to scheme
required to be planting natives and a forest which would
last longer.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, you've raised a bunch of really important issues, and
I'll try and keep it as simple as I can.
I don't. I don't think we can plant our way
out of our climate change of obligations. There simply wouldn't
be enough pine trees. You know, we couldn't plant enough
pine trees to do that, So we actually have to
reduce our emissions. And I don't think the emissions trading
scheme is working as it was intended and encouraging you know,
(28:23):
sheep and beef farmers to convert their paddocks into pine
tree plantations. I don't think that's in the country's best
long term interests. So I think we do need to
do something different. We need to encourage more native forest planting.
But also we shouldn't be turning productive farmland all into
into forestry plantation.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And if there are too many rules and regulations for
farmers to feel they can make a go of it.
What else are they going They're going to sell up.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
It's not so much about the rules and regulations, it's
just the economics of it. At the moment, the way
the ETS works, it's incentivizing them to do that. And
I think we do need to change that because we
still we still need our farms, and it's It's another
example of where I worry a bit about where some
of the r m A reformers going because government saying
property rights are first and foremost going to be at
(29:10):
the center, and if you own the land, you can
do whatever you want with it. I'm not sure that
were within reason. It's on that, but I'm not sure
we want all of our sheep and beef farmers saying, well,
my private property rights, my private property are can turn
into forestry if I want to. I don't think that
we want to say that that's what they should be
able to do. I think there's got to be limits
(29:30):
to that, and so I think these are the sorts
of things that we're going to have to work through.
But I don't think it's in the country's long term
interest to turn all our cheap and beef farms into
pine plantations.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, without the farmers would have been in deep deep
stock over the last few years, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
But also you know farming, you know, cheap and bee farms,
dairy farms orchards. They create much more work than pine trees.
Do you know you plant a pine tree, there's no
next to no work associated with that for the next
twenty years until you actually come to millet. And then
if all you're doing is chopping it down and exporting
the raw log, there's not a lot of employment in
that area. So we do have to think about the
(30:07):
fact that we still want people to have jobs in
the primary sector.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Hi, Kerrie Chris. I'm enjoying the change in rhetoric from Chris. However,
I'm nervous that if you get back into power, you'll
go back to the Maya left extreme that we saw
under your previous time in government. What assurance can you
give us your return to left of center and once
again respect our money as previous labor governments have done.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
What I tried to do when I took over from
Jacinda was get back to the basics of what labour
stands for, and it's what I set out in my
State of the Nation speech, So jobs, health homes really
important kind of core territory for labor, and that's what
I want to see us focused on. Things like the
environment feed through all of that. But those are the
areas where I do want to see labor really coming
(30:50):
up with some new ideas, which is what we're working
on at the moment. But also, Kerrie and you were
just talking about this in the break, we weren't as
well prepared for being in government in twenty seventeen as
we needed to be.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Do you have any It just rips my night every
time I think about that, because you had nine years
and taxpayers we're paying the salary of the opposition MPs,
and you weren't ready.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
And someone more prepared than others. But and I think
I was more prepared than some of the others. But
I'm determined as a leader of the party that next
time around our MPs will all be ready. You know,
we're doing a lot of professional development with our team,
you know, getting getting external people in to work on
professional development with the team, spending a lot of time
working on One of the reasons you're not hearing us
(31:32):
talking about policy now is because I don't want to
go out there with some hare brain policy ideas that
turn around an eighteen months time and just fall over
because they weren't properly thought through. I want to know
millions of tax payers and cost more than expected and
all of that stuff. I want to know when we
announce a policy, we've worked through the detail of it,
we know that it's going to work, we know how
much it's going to cost, and also we know that
we can actually deliver it. Because I think this government
(31:55):
to some extentder as bad as our government was in
promising things which they haven't been able to deliver, and
I think we've got to restore faith in democratic government
by promising stuff that we can ext deliver.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
On news Talk said big gosh. That went quickly. A
lot of questions texts around the idea of a grand coalition.
National and Labor seem to be the parties that represent
where New Zealanders want to be. The minor parties are
getting more extreme. The Marti Party of today is not
the Mali Party of yesterday, as always been fairly you know,
(32:28):
to the right of Attilabat, But can you ever foresee
a grand coalition? They've just you've got more in common
you than you haven't.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
They've just done one in Germany. But I think the
risk of that, as we've seen in Germany, is it
just allows the extremes to grow, So the extremes actually
get stronger when there isn't competition in the in the
sort of the center, if you like. So I think
it's important that Labor and National continue to provide an
alternative view of things. But what I've tried to do
(32:57):
in the last couple of months because I recognize that
I think people want to see some sensible, moderate politics.
As I've tried to say to the government, Look in
areas where we are close, let's talk, and by the
government actually mean the National Party, do talk to us.
So areas like supermarket competition. I just mentioned that before
on Rima reform. I just don't think that we can
(33:19):
have this constant ping pong where each government comes in
and repeals the changes done by the previous one. And
so I've said to them, look, we will set out
you come and talk to us, and we will set
out where we disagree and where we agree, and let's
try and find something that will be a bit more enduring.
I'm not saying that we won't say that we're going
to amend things when we're in government, but at least
if we can be clear on that, everyone will have
(33:39):
a bit more certainty.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
And like the infrastructure plan, having an agreement about the
ten main things and then you've got a little bit
of a kitty where you can do pet projects I
think your parties can do.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I think the thing on infrastructure is we've got to
think the longer term. Changing short term priorities is what
kills the economy because all of the businesses just run
out of work very quickly. Changing long term priorities fine,
but let's not change the short term one. So what
I said is if this government commit to short term
projects it's already underway. We're not going to stop it
just because we would have chosen something different, because it'll
(34:11):
put people out of work. I think the other point
this on the MMP politics Grand Coalition conversation though, is
I think people are a bit fed up of the
tail waking the dog stuff with.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Would you say no to forming a government if it
depended on to party Marty, because all the numbers of
you forming a government in the polls at the moment
have you needing TA party, Marie, would you walk away?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I'm not. I mean I wouldn't. We do have to
be responsible. I don't think you should collapse, you know,
the parliament and go through a constant cycle of elections.
But I think you've got to have bottom lines, You've
got to have things that you can say, look, we're
just not going to do that.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Chris Hopkins, leader of the Opposition, Leader of Labor leaving
with Golden Horse and maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Maybe tomorrow, We'll see maybe eighteen months from now, carey maybe.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news Talks. It'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Kerry Wood and Mornings podcast from
News Talks EDB News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
He'd be indeed, I'm for a first of our quarterly
catch ups with labor leader Chris Hopkins here for an hour.
If you have any questions for the leader of the opposition,
text them through Thank you to the five or six
who have already done so, or you can call in.
Helen is standing by, refreshed cup of tea in hand,
ready to go to take your calls. On eight hundred
(00:34):
eighty ten eighty, I'll get us started. Good morning to you, Chris.
How are you well? I'm well? Thank you. What about
the Trump Liberation Day ten percent imposition of tariff's on
New Zealand? Goods?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, I mean I've only just seen the headlines of that,
so i haven't had a chance to study the details.
It's not going to be great for New Zealand overall,
although you know, the direct impact of it probably won't
be as as great as the indirect impact. So speaking
to some exporters the other day who don't export a
lot to the US, but what they're concerned about is
that Trump's tariffs will dampen international demand in other countries
(01:09):
that they do export to, so you could see a
sort of a global knock on effect of Trump's tariffs.
So if in China, for example, if you're exporting to
China and your market demand decreases by twenty percent because
of the flow and effect of Trump's tariffs, that there's
actually a big thing for New Zealand exporters, though it's
not directly related to what Trump is doing, and so
that is a concern for our exporters. I mean, I
(01:31):
think you know our we can hand on heart say
that these aren't justified as in a retaliat tree sense.
You know, New Zealand has some of the we're one
of the lowest no tariff countries in the world.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well that's what I heard in the Leader. But on
his chart that's been reposted on x so it must
be true he says that we impose twenty percent tariffs on.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I'd struggle to figure out how they could do that,
I mean, unless they're including GST and something else. But
of course GST is not a tariff because it applies
to everything. So it applies to a New Zealand manufactured
good as equally as it applies to an imported.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
One, so ground zero for free trade.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
We totally are. I mean, to some extent, you could
say that over the last forty years we've given up
more than we've gained to some extent, and we made
you know, some other countries and free trade negotiations actually
held out more than New Zealand did in order to
have things to trade with, whereas we were sort of like, well,
we're just going to give everyone terror free access and
now how about your reciprocated and so you know, I
(02:32):
think they haven't really got a justification of saying it's
retaliatory because US export is trying to get into New
Zealand to find no barriers at all.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Really, yeah, it's all very odd, isn't it. I mean,
I doubt you could have managed any It's just sitting
back and waiting, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Be well?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I think, I mean, if you look at the Australians,
the Australian government has over the last twenty years had
a much much closer government to government relationship across successive
governments with the Americans. And if they can't get any
concessions on it, I don't think New Zealand was going
to be able to get any concessions on it.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
In fact, they got named and chained.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Indeed, now so many questions on this particular one asked
Chris Hipkins iFeel working with the TI who can't even
obey the rules of Parliament, the Greens who want to
abolish the police Morena, says Carmel. I have a question
for Chris, given the spate of scandal's rests best setting
the Greens and TEI, does he still see them as
(03:29):
suitable coalition partners? Does he concede that both of these
parties have moved so far from center they're realistically only
secure votes from the fringes of society. There's many more
along those lines. Man, I bet you're glad you're not
in government right now.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I mean it's interesting. I think this is actually going
to get harder and harder in the MMP environment that
we've got at the moment, because the reality is, barwring
one election, which was the COVID election in twenty twenty,
no government has ever ended up with a majority under MMP,
So you do end up having to have working relationships
with other parties. I think, you know, and I've said
that before the election, will set out you know, these
(04:04):
are the parties we think we can work with. These
are the areas we have a policy in comment. But
also I think we've got to set out some bottom
lines as well. So you've got to be able to
willing to say, look, that's an area that they might
be promoting, but we're not willing to do it. And
if I have a criticism of Christoph Luxen and the
current government is I think he let ACT in New
Zealand first get too much out of the coalition negotiations
when he should have said, look, we are the biggest
(04:25):
party here. National got what thirty seven percent of the
vote and Actor got eight percent, and you Act seem
to have a disproportionate influence over the government. And I
do think an MMP people expect you to compromise and
work together, but that doesn't mean that you should give
away everything to parties that actually only attract quite a
minority of support. So that's my starting point for this
(04:46):
kind of discussion about to Party, Maori and the Greens.
There are areas which I strongly disagree with them on.
You know, like I totally disagreed with Tamoth of Paul's
comments on the police.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Qu interestingly, forty eight hours later they're going to the
police because of the threats to one of their MPs.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yes, I mean I disagreed with them on that. You know,
I do think the communities feel safer when they have
a visible police presence on the beat. I think, you know,
I've spoken to a lot of those small retail businesses
who have been the victims of retail crime, and people
shouldn't feel unsafe standing behind their shop counter, you know,
and having police walking up and down the street actually
(05:22):
helps them. It makes them feel safer and that is
a good thing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So that's a national policy you would maintain.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, well, I mean it's something that as Minister of
Police I talked to the police about.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
You're a minister of everything, so there were so.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Many police I was only Minister of Police for about
six months because then I became Prime Minister. But I
talked to them about increasing their visible police presence. It's
one of it's a tricky zone though, because police determined
that not us. You know, the Police Commissioner has independence
from ministers.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
And.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
We've seen changes in directions.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
I think the National Parties Mark which was probably leaned
more heavily into that police operational area than I than
I did well, thank Eaven. But I don't disagree with it.
I mean, I think that while police should be in
and I think they also have a responsibility to be visible,
you know, I think. And also for those who say,
you know, there are communities in New Zealand wore suspicious
(06:15):
of the police, I get that, but actually police, in
my view, community policing is one of the ways you
overcome that because when you've got the police out there
engaging with people, they have less reason to be suspicious of.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Them exactly, and they're representative of communities. There's been a
huge emphasis over i'd say the last two decades to
have the police represent the communities they serve.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
And that last couple of years we're in government. I
attended maybe six or seven police graduation ceremonies, you know,
new police joining the beat, and man, I sort of
I attended them and thought, this is so different to
what it must have looked like thirty years ago, because
those graduation ceremonies, the police coming onto the beat genuinely
reflect the communities that they serve. There's more women, you know,
(06:55):
it's no longer all you know, six foot high buff
white guys. You know, it's a very cross broad cross
section of New Zealand who are on the front lines
of policing. And I think again that they're not there yet.
You know, it's not perfect yet. This police have still
got work to do. But man, it's a different organization
to what it would have been twenty or thirty years ago.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Oh yeah, I would say thirty odd years ago. We
have a question from Andy. Good morning to you moment morning.
Speaker 6 (07:25):
Do you think we should expel the Russian ambassador?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Thanks? Andy, that's a question that I get asked quite
a bit. No, I don't, not because I endorse Russia.
I'd strongly disagree with Russia, but because I think that
the solution here is always going to involve talking. It's
always going to involve some diplomacy, and I think once
you expel the ambassador, you have no channel of communication
left at that point. So I think we need to
(07:51):
be able to convey to the Kremlin that we strongly
disagree with what they're doing, and if we expelled the ambassador,
we wouldn't be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
There we go, Thank you very much. We'll take a break,
look forward to your questions for the leader of the opposition.
He'll be in studio for the next forty five minutes.
News Talk said, be people feel I haven't done my job.
They're saying, what's the answer, would you work with Tapati
Maori or not?
Speaker 3 (08:12):
I just said, I haven't made a decision on that,
but we will. When you said that, yeah, we haven't
made a decision on that, but we will before the election,
so people will know that before the election.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Are they going to have to lift their game a bit?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I think all of the parties in Parliament frankly need
to lift their game in gym's of conduct. At the moment,
I think New Zealand politics, like politics around the world's
in a pretty ugly space. I think everybody needs to
grow up, stop shouting at each other quite so much,
and try and find some reasonable common ground.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Mind you of parliaments supposed to be reflective of the community,
like the police. Then that's what we're doing. We're shouting
at each other without listening.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, and I actually think there's a lot of people
who are getting a bit tired, you know, very weary
of that. And I think I think it is time
for US politicians to show some leadership there and say Look,
you can actually have a civilized conversation with someone who
you disagree with.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, And will you find that in the valedictory speeches, Yeah,
where all of a sudden you find out that James
Shaw's great mate was Todd Muller.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
You know, well, I see, I saw Todd Mlake yesterday
day before yesterday, and him and I used to get
on like a house on fire. We would send text
messages across the debating chamber from each other after ripping
into each other in the debating chamber, you know. And
he's someone I respect enormously, and I really respect what
he did too, by the way, I thought there was
incredibly brave, the way he sort of stood up and
spoke about, you know, what had happened to him and
(09:25):
how he felt about it. And I told him that
at the time, and I've told him that ever since
as well. You can do that, You can actually have
a really good and passionate argument with someone and then
still go and talk about something completely different later on
and still be friends with them.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That's what it used to be like, didn't it. Oh
my god, Anthony, you be the spokesperson for the many
people who have sent in texts. This one issue drives
me balmy off you go, hi hi.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
So given the tragic state of the musment schools program, lateness,
low quality and unadvertising, and the news of pay doing
companies folding, what is the definition of a woman?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I think school lunches was what you were asking about,
and I've got so many, so many texts on that,
the bloody school lunches. Do you regret bringing this in
in the first place. I'm not providing secure funding for
it for the future.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
No, I mean we'd said that we were going to,
you know, we had indicated in the election manifesto how
we were going to baseline the funding for the school
lunches program. But the thing about it is it needs
to be done Like I just think the mass produced
models flawed because you remove the flexibility, you remove the
localness of it, you remove the fresh nature of it.
(10:45):
And you know, we had a lot of local catering companies,
you know, the local cafe, small businesses doing lunches, and
it meant that if there were problems, the school could
get on the phone, talk to someone and it could
be sorted out pretty quickly. I saw the polls, you know,
Arin's end did that poll yesterday, which is you know
who's responsible for lunches? And the vast majority of cases
the public are right. It is a parent's responsibility to
(11:07):
produce a lunch for their kids. I do my kids
lunch box every morning, get out of bed and do
that and try bettle with the trying to make it
interesting for them so that they're actually going to eat
it and it's not just going to come home and
go in the bin at the end of the day. So,
you know, I think then the vast majority of parents
do that. We've got to recognize that there are kids
showing up in schools who don't have lunch, and we can,
(11:29):
at a point of principle say where you can go
hungry all day, who suffers from that? It's the kids,
It's not the parents. So I think feeding those kids
so that they can actually focus on their education is
the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
When did the Ministry of Health hijacket and say this
is the one opportunity we get to get calories and
food into kids, because I think, excuse me, when you
started off, you thought it was going to be like
Christopher Luxon said, and Marmt's sandwich and an apple and
a yogurt. All of a sudden it becomes the one
main meal of the day. And I don't think people
(11:59):
thought that's what they were buying into when I agreed
to a school lunch and thought it was a great idea,
That's what I thought they'd get a school lunch, not
suddenly have it. We're going to introduce vegetables and chickpeas
and the children are going to like it. Suddenly became
bigger than being her.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I think for me, the sort of the key test
was are kids eating it?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And they weren't? And well, no they were. There was
a hell of a lot of wastage long before national
came out.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
It was about six percent. It was recorded, and it did.
It started higher, but they got it down. And one
of the ways they got it down was they looked at, well,
what's the food the kids are eating, and what's the
food that they're not eating, and stop doing the stuff
that they're not eating, and do more of the stuff
that they are eating. So I remember visiting a primary
school out in Cannon's Creek and Potty Door where they
had this attendance problem with the kids on a Friday,
(12:45):
but they worked out the kids' favorite school lunch was
lasagna and garlic bread. So they started surfing lasagna and
garlic bread every Friday, and suddenly all the kids started
showing up to school on a Friday. So I think
that those are the sorts of bits of flexibility that
we've lost from the lunch's program, where there are spin
off benefits, you know, to the school in terms of attendance, And.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Do you think it should be a lunch or the
one main meal of day. And also what happens during
school holidays.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Well, it was it was a mix. You know, some
days kids would get bread, rolls and sandwiches and other
days they'd get a hot meal. Ultimately, I think you
want you want to do what's most cost effective. Now,
what David Seymour's showing is that there's probably you could
you could scrape a margin out of it. You know,
maybe it's not the seven dollars or nearly eight dollars
a day, maybe it's more like six dollars a day.
(13:31):
But I think three dollars a day is too low.
So I think there might be somewhere you can find
in the middle where you can bring the cost down
by moving to simpler lunches. And simpler menus and whatever.
But I think they've gone too far to the other extreme.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
But again, what why would what happens during the school holidays.
If it's essential that these kids are fed, why then
is it not open during the school holidays so they
do get fed? If it's that important to feed them.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Well, if you talk to the community organizations like the
food banks and stuff, they'll say they end up picking
up a lot of the slack over the school holidays.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Sadly, Yeah, so that means the parents have to make
the lunches if they go to the food bank.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, there are other community initiatives, you know where where
they're preparing meals. Some of the churches, for example, do
lunch programs and so on. And it's look, it's sad
that we're in this situation and that that's where what
where society has got to And of course we've got
to deal with that. But in the short term, I'd
also just want kids to have food so that they
(14:30):
can focus on learning.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
News Talk said, be indeed, Matt, you have a question
about rentals. Good morning to you.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
Yeah, today, I just wanted to know if you're to
get them again when you go back to your old
taxation policies of texting people with rentals that aren't actually
making income out of it. I've got a rental from
one hundred percent lending on it, and yet under your
policy you would have taxed me on the income even
though all the income beat to the bank and revaching
(15:00):
that's not making any money at all.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, So we haven't set that set out our policy
on interest deductiville, see, which I think is the issue
that you're asking specifically about. We haven't set out our
policy on that, and I think that that will depend
a lot on where we get to on other aspects
of tax policy, because those do things. Those things do
link up. So we're working through that now. I'm not
dodging a question. There's a totally fair and legitimate question
(15:24):
for you want the answer to. I just don't have
the answer yet. But we'll try and set that out
this year so that people have got a year to
question us on it before the election.
Speaker 7 (15:33):
Yeah, because I'm an example where what my rentals a
year are the tennifishery and appeal to get in a
new back old sell it and then you'd have a
tenip issue were looking for a house.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, and Look, we know we've got issues around making
sure we've got enough affordable rentals for those who need them,
So that is certainly one of the things that we're
looking at as we work through the tax policy. We
don't want to disincentivize landlords from building new rental houses.
In fact, we want to encourage more of that, so
we're working through all that at the moment.
Speaker 7 (16:04):
Why would What I understand is why would you tax
someone that's actually not making money that all that money
is going to the bank. Well, I don't make a
cent off I access to stop it up.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Well, it's not so much taxing, it's the interest deductibility
is reducing your tax in other areas rather than necessarily
the tax on the rental property.
Speaker 7 (16:25):
So under your under had the way you guys had
it speed up, all was actually I would have been
paying tax on the income coming from it. But it
was an income because it went to the bank because
I was one hundred percent landing on it, right, Yeah,
So the interest was hired and I had to do
repayments as well, So not only cost me turn it
all as a week, I also would have had to
(16:46):
pay tax on that on the rental income because it
was an income if you know what I mean, it
was going to the bank.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, I understand what you're saying. And as I said,
those are the sorts of things we're working through at
the moment as we figure out the tax policy for
the next election. We do you know, I do think
that we need to have a change in the way
our tax system operates. We tax salary and wager and
is disproportionately compared to other countries that we compare ourselves to.
But I'm not going to say that we got everything
(17:14):
right last time we're in government and we go back
to doing exactly what we were doing last time, because
I don't think we got it all right. And so
you know, we'll have a different text policy over the
next year that people will see before the election.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Thank you very much, Matt, Leader of the Opposition, Leader
of Labor, Chris Hipkins in the studio quickie for you
a question, becass Hipkins, Are you going to bring back
gang patches?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
No? And you know, I think it's one of those
things where it hasn't ultimately changed the nature of gang activity.
Gang business is still booming. They're still selling more methan
fettermine than ever, but what it has done is people
feel a bit safer with not seeing gang patch gang
members walking down the street. So no, absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well, it was the posturing that got me.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
That's right, and you know it has gangs are still booming,
you know they're still doing the great business. But if
people feel more comfortable not seeing gang patches on the street,
fair enough.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
What does Lay have planned in terms of reforming the
grocery sector? Because you started it off when you're in government.
A lot of talk from Arena Williams on social media
about what the current government aren't doing, what will Labor
do to get this under control and why wasn't enough
done last term? It's from tour and Jamie.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
It's a big decision to go in and break up duopoly,
you know, break up private businesses effectively. But what I've
said to the current government, to Nikola Willison the National
Party is if you're interested in doing this, the best
thing to do would be to have Labor and National
agree on a path of action so that their certainty,
so that it doesn't matter who the government is. The
New Zealand government has under either Labor National has taken
(18:45):
a position that this is what we need to do
to get competition into the grocery sector. So I've said
to her that we will be very pragmatic about this,
but if she wants to do something bold, come and
talk to us, because I think a bold action like that,
because it would be a pretty big thing, and it
would be pretty bold to break up the companies. If
they want to do something like that and they want
to get some you know, a supermajority in Parliament to
(19:07):
do it, come and talk to us, because we were
open to giving them the numbers to have a supermajority
for that.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Mohammed, good morning to you.
Speaker 8 (19:16):
Good morning for how are you good.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
You're talking to Chris Hopkins. Do you have a question?
Speaker 8 (19:24):
Good morning, how are you?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
I'm very good, thank you, how are you good?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Good?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Hey.
Speaker 8 (19:28):
I'm pulling from Wanganuish. My name is Mohammad, and I
have a few questions for you. But the first one
is regarding the Nelson Hospital. What's going on there? What's
different would the NET, the Labor Party they've done to
resolve these issues?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, I think one of the big issues that's facing
Nelson Hospital, like a lot of hospitals around the country,
is that they've just got a shortage of staff. So
the current there's been a recruitment freeze, although the government,
you know, to the government deny there is a recruitment freeze,
but they basically said stop hiring people, and that's really
affected a lot of the frontline hospital services. We actually
(20:08):
just need more medical professionals in our hospitals. In the
case of Nelson Hospital, I think we need to go
further than that. Nelson Hospital actually needs a complete rebuild.
It's a very rundown hospital and it just Nelson's really growing.
It's just not big enough for the population of Nelson.
So then there's two things in Nelson. They need a
new hospital and they need to have they need to
be able to recruit the staff that they need to
(20:29):
deliver those frontline health services.
Speaker 8 (20:33):
Okay, totally agree with you on that one. Okay. On
the other hand, like you said, we need more saying
the stuff, more experienced stuff in the front life. So
in Wanga luis these some issues going on there that
people the senior staff, senior members of the human resource
(20:54):
and the other staff members who are white senior they
are doing the objects. They are trying to get DODO
staff who are experienced, who are about experience and they
are saying that they are competed.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
What do you single the Yeah, I think one of
the risks and health at the moment is you get
a lot of discussion about frontline versus back office, and
actually health is a really good example of your frontline
doctors and nurses need good back office staff if they're
going to deliver good care for patients. I'd rather them
being out and about on the wards and so on
dealing with patients than sitting at a desk filing paperwork
(21:35):
and all of that sort of thing. So, you know,
good administrative support in hospitals is really important, and I
do worry that those are a lot of the jobs
that are being cut at the moment and that patient
care will actually be compromised as a result of that.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Anna says, could you ask Chris Hipkins why complaints about
issues at Nelson Hospital were raised in twenty eighteen according
to the tv I report last night. But we're ignored
by the government.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I don't. I mean, look, I haven't had a chance
to go back and look at the exact nature of
the complaints.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
You a Minister of Health for a while, yeah, for.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Six months in twenty twenty, But I don't know. I
don't have the details of those. I'm certain they wouldn't
have been ignored. But clearly these problems, in fairness to
the current government, Clearly these problems haven't just appeared immediately.
They've gotten worse, they've gotten to crisis point. But I
think what we'll find across the health system is a
lot of these problems have been building up for quite
a long time. They have, like but I'm not talking
(22:32):
I'm not talking sixty years, I'm.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Talking about decades.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
These problems have been building for a long time.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And why was nothing Why was a line not drawn
in the sand when you were government?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Well there was. That's one of the reasons we did
the restructuring of the health system because it just isn't
sustainable in the format that it was, in the form
that it was before.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Sure, but you know it was a time post COVID
where they'd have been absolutely battered a.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Had But also we need to do things differently. So
if we want to have an equal standard of healthcare
wherever you're living in the country, the previous model of
twenty dhb's doing different things wasn't going to deliver there.
And I think we've also got to get real. We're
only a country of five million people. Every hospital can't
provide every specialist service. So you need our hospitals to
(23:18):
operate as one network of hospitals. And if that means
you need to move around the country to get the
best specialist care that you need for whatever the health
condition you have is, we have to be realistic that
that's probably what's going to have to happen. And so
having one, you know, really high quality health system is
way better for the country than having twenty that are
struggling to do what they need to do.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
When will you release policy, because right now it works
for you just not being the government, and you know
that happens with opposition parties. Just not being the government
is enough to get votes. But you're going to have
to put, you know, your money where your mouth is eventually.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah, we've started to release sort of in a high level,
modest sense, some early indications of policy. In my State
of the Nation speech, i said, jobs, health, and homes
are going to be the three focal points for us
in terms of the policy that we are talking about.
We've released some small policy in indicating areas where we
will do things differently to the current government. But I
(24:16):
also don't want to just start releasing policy that says, well,
we're just going to reverse everything that they have been doing,
because that's what they did when we're in government and
look where that's led us. I think that kind of
backwards flip flopping is just not going to lead the
country forward. So there are limits to it how much
policy you can do if your future focused. With a
year and a half still to run before the election,
we've still got government, two government budgets to go through
(24:39):
and a lot can change in that time. And what
I don't want to do is release something that says, look,
Labour's going to do this, only to find when we
get into the election campaign we can't do the thing
that we said we were going to do because maybe
the country country can't afford it, or maybe the issue's
gone away and been replaced by a bigger issue. So
it is difficult, but we'll see more policy for us
from us this year. We're not just going to leave
(25:01):
it all to the election campaign.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Ray, good morning to you. You have a question on policy.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Good morning, Kerry, Good morning, Chris, good morning. So my
question is why and what has changed? Like I feel
that you have burned a lot of the policies which
you were part of creating, specifically unemployment, insurance, co governance.
You're bringing back the couple games, tax discussion. Why why
(25:29):
has this changed? You had a different stance on this
when you were in government with the Disinderadournant led government.
Why has some things changed?
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Well, I think two things. One is I'm not just
under dun so you know, I'm a different leader with
different priorities. But the second is we lost, and you know,
I think when you lose, you have to recognize that
that means that people didn't want what you were offering,
and so our values as a party haven't changed, but
we have to accept that the policies that we were
pursuing weren't attracting the support of the majority of New Zealanders.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
What was your biggest learning from that time in government?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
There were quite a few. I'd say, we're doing trying
to do too many different things all at once, and
I think we didn't have enough sense of priority. So
we were doing a lot of things not well enough
because we were trying to do too much at the
same time. So I think that was probably one of
the big lessons. The other is, you know and watching
this government, we have to reflect on this. We're probably
(26:25):
over consulted. I think sometimes we spent a lot of
time consulting and asking people what they thought about things,
when sometimes actually the people just want government to get
on with it. So I think those were two clear
lessons that we've taken from our last six years in government.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Thank you. Ray News Talk said be carbon credits question
on that, Oliver.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Yeah, Hikiri and Hi Chris. My question is what's the
carbon credit credits scheme? At a moment, We'll obviously currently
planting pine trees, which is quite a short term solution,
because in order to question a carbon long term you
need to have a filus which does and all diet once.
(27:07):
Because trees are actually able to transfer carbon from them
to another tree near them when they die, they're actually
kind of the long con solution. But at the moment,
we're currently obviously planting pines which have a short lifespan
and all die at the same time, so in the
(27:29):
long run it's not going to actually benefit the se
crustation of carbon. And on top of that, whilst planting
times to squish the carbon. On the other side of it,
we're spending huge amounts of money trying to get rid
of wild in time, so we're kind of wrestling ourselves
in a way. So it's just wondering if you, as
(27:50):
a government would look at making the credit to scheme
required to be planting natives and a forest which would
last longer.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, you've raised a bunch of really important issues, and
I'll try and keep it as simple as I can.
I don't. I don't think we can plant our way
out of our climate change of obligations. There simply wouldn't
be enough pine trees. You know, we couldn't plant enough
pine trees to do that, So we actually have to
reduce our emissions. And I don't think the emissions trading
scheme is working as it was intended and encouraging you know,
(28:23):
sheep and beef farmers to convert their paddocks into pine
tree plantations. I don't think that's in the country's best
long term interests. So I think we do need to
do something different. We need to encourage more native forest planting.
But also we shouldn't be turning productive farmland all into
into forestry plantation.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And if there are too many rules and regulations for
farmers to feel they can make a go of it.
What else are they going They're going to sell up.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
It's not so much about the rules and regulations, it's
just the economics of it. At the moment, the way
the ETS works, it's incentivizing them to do that. And
I think we do need to change that because we
still we still need our farms, and it's It's another
example of where I worry a bit about where some
of the r m A reformers going because government saying
property rights are first and foremost going to be at
(29:10):
the center, and if you own the land, you can
do whatever you want with it. I'm not sure that
were within reason. It's on that, but I'm not sure
we want all of our sheep and beef farmers saying, well,
my private property rights, my private property are can turn
into forestry if I want to. I don't think that
we want to say that that's what they should be
able to do. I think there's got to be limits
(29:30):
to that, and so I think these are the sorts
of things that we're going to have to work through.
But I don't think it's in the country's long term
interest to turn all our cheap and beef farms into
pine plantations.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, without the farmers would have been in deep deep
stock over the last few years, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
But also you know farming, you know, cheap and bee farms,
dairy farms orchards. They create much more work than pine trees.
Do you know you plant a pine tree, there's no
next to no work associated with that for the next
twenty years until you actually come to millet. And then
if all you're doing is chopping it down and exporting
the raw log, there's not a lot of employment in
that area. So we do have to think about the
(30:07):
fact that we still want people to have jobs in
the primary sector.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Hi, Kerrie Chris. I'm enjoying the change in rhetoric from Chris. However,
I'm nervous that if you get back into power, you'll
go back to the Maya left extreme that we saw
under your previous time in government. What assurance can you
give us your return to left of center and once
again respect our money as previous labor governments have done.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
What I tried to do when I took over from
Jacinda was get back to the basics of what labour
stands for, and it's what I set out in my
State of the Nation speech, So jobs, health homes really
important kind of core territory for labor, and that's what
I want to see us focused on. Things like the
environment feed through all of that. But those are the
areas where I do want to see labor really coming
(30:50):
up with some new ideas, which is what we're working
on at the moment. But also, Kerrie and you were
just talking about this in the break, we weren't as
well prepared for being in government in twenty seventeen as
we needed to be.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Do you have any It just rips my night every
time I think about that, because you had nine years
and taxpayers we're paying the salary of the opposition MPs,
and you weren't ready.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
And someone more prepared than others. But and I think
I was more prepared than some of the others. But
I'm determined as a leader of the party that next
time around our MPs will all be ready. You know,
we're doing a lot of professional development with our team,
you know, getting getting external people in to work on
professional development with the team, spending a lot of time
working on One of the reasons you're not hearing us
(31:32):
talking about policy now is because I don't want to
go out there with some hare brain policy ideas that
turn around an eighteen months time and just fall over
because they weren't properly thought through. I want to know
millions of tax payers and cost more than expected and
all of that stuff. I want to know when we
announce a policy, we've worked through the detail of it,
we know that it's going to work, we know how
much it's going to cost, and also we know that
we can actually deliver it. Because I think this government
(31:55):
to some extentder as bad as our government was in
promising things which they haven't been able to deliver, and
I think we've got to restore faith in democratic government
by promising stuff that we can ext deliver.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
On news Talk said big gosh. That went quickly. A
lot of questions texts around the idea of a grand coalition.
National and Labor seem to be the parties that represent
where New Zealanders want to be. The minor parties are
getting more extreme. The Marti Party of today is not
the Mali Party of yesterday, as always been fairly you know,
(32:28):
to the right of Attilabat, But can you ever foresee
a grand coalition? They've just you've got more in common
you than you haven't.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
They've just done one in Germany. But I think the
risk of that, as we've seen in Germany, is it
just allows the extremes to grow, So the extremes actually
get stronger when there isn't competition in the in the
sort of the center, if you like. So I think
it's important that Labor and National continue to provide an
alternative view of things. But what I've tried to do
(32:57):
in the last couple of months because I recognize that
I think people want to see some sensible, moderate politics.
As I've tried to say to the government, Look in
areas where we are close, let's talk, and by the
government actually mean the National Party, do talk to us.
So areas like supermarket competition. I just mentioned that before
on Rima reform. I just don't think that we can
(33:19):
have this constant ping pong where each government comes in
and repeals the changes done by the previous one. And
so I've said to them, look, we will set out
you come and talk to us, and we will set
out where we disagree and where we agree, and let's
try and find something that will be a bit more enduring.
I'm not saying that we won't say that we're going
to amend things when we're in government, but at least
if we can be clear on that, everyone will have
(33:39):
a bit more certainty.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
And like the infrastructure plan, having an agreement about the
ten main things and then you've got a little bit
of a kitty where you can do pet projects I
think your parties can do.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I think the thing on infrastructure is we've got to
think the longer term. Changing short term priorities is what
kills the economy because all of the businesses just run
out of work very quickly. Changing long term priorities fine,
but let's not change the short term one. So what
I said is if this government commit to short term
projects it's already underway. We're not going to stop it
just because we would have chosen something different, because it'll
(34:11):
put people out of work. I think the other point
this on the MMP politics Grand Coalition conversation though, is
I think people are a bit fed up of the
tail waking the dog stuff with.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Would you say no to forming a government if it
depended on to party Marty, because all the numbers of
you forming a government in the polls at the moment
have you needing TA party, Marie, would you walk away?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I'm not. I mean I wouldn't. We do have to
be responsible. I don't think you should collapse, you know,
the parliament and go through a constant cycle of elections.
But I think you've got to have bottom lines, You've
got to have things that you can say, look, we're
just not going to do that.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Chris Hopkins, leader of the Opposition, Leader of Labor leaving
with Golden Horse and maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Maybe tomorrow, We'll see maybe eighteen months from now, carey maybe.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news Talks. It'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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