CSB - Demelza Jackson - Political Reporter

- The Government books have sunk further into the red. 
- The Prime Minister is attending the East Asia Summit in Laos, AND the latest on the HMNZS Manawanui sinking. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Is the Country Sport Breakfast with Brian Kelly on Gold Sport.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
News Dogs there bees political reporter to Melsa Jackson must
have drawn the short straw, would this one and get
to stay home not going to Laos for the East
Asia Summit. De Melza joins us this morning.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Morning to Melsa, good morning and happy Friday.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, happy Friday year you missed out on the trip
to Laos.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
I did miss out, but we have the wonderful Sophie Trigger.
They're doing an amazing job. So I'll suck this one
up and put my name forward for the next one.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Maybe, Yeah, excellent. He's getting around a bit lately. We'll
talk about that in just a couple of moments. But
let's touch on what happened yesterday when the government books
were opened and we've sunk further in the red.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yes, so Treasury released these documents which reveal how the
Crown accounts fared in the year to Joan. I had
the very fortunate opportunity to troll through them and in
the words of the Finance Minister, the books are not
in great shape. So the government deficit has grown by

(01:02):
three point four billion dollars, which means it now sits
at a whopping twelve point nine billion dollars. Where that
money has gone is interesting. One major cost that stuck
out to me is ACC spending far more on paying
out claims than it's making in levees, to the tune

(01:23):
of four billion dollars. Huge number there. Big spending has
also gone towards benefits, supranuation and probably very unsurprisingly health
New Zealand, which we've seen in the media a lot
this year over concerns about its financial management. Now all
of this adds up to one big, expensive problem, which

(01:45):
is that debt has grown by twenty billion dollars. Minister
Nichola Willis has been quick to point out the coalition
only entered government halfway through the financial year we're talking about,
so she's sort of laying the blame at labor's feet.
But she says the new regime has done what it
can during this time and that its measures have saved

(02:07):
more than a billion dollars on what that deficit would
have been. So the next time that we will have
a bit of a chance to get a peek on
how things are tracking and sort of find out how
well the government is doing will be December seventeen when
we get the heartily update on the treasury.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
All right, we'll wait and see what happens on that one.
All right. The Prime Minister, he's at the East Asia
Summit in Laos with all the big countries there, isn't
he Yes, he.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Is some big attendees there for him to do some
diplomatic feed datting with. We have leaders from across the
Indo Pacific and some superpowers like Russia, China and the US.
And overnight he's actually already managed to clinch a win
for New Zealand despite today's sort of being the first
day of the summit for him. He's gotten an official

(02:59):
invitation to visit India from their Prime Minister Narendra Modi
after a face to face overnight. This is a really
significant milestone because as we know the government is trying
to woo India into a free trade agreement, which National
campaigned on, but until now LUXM has only managed to
speak with Mody over the phone. Trade experts have repeatedly

(03:23):
said that the steal might be quite hard to pull
off because India is very protective over its businesses, particularly
dairy and agriculture, which we know is a massive sector
for US, but lucksm says this is all about building
that rapport and he's been quite careful not to say
when we might expect a deal. But in a statement

(03:44):
after the meeting, the Indian government says there is strong
momentum for this relationship and we'll get a press conference
from LUXLM later on today, so we might look forward
to hearing more about what the pair talked about and
Mody's invitation.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Totally positive news on that front. And this time last
week when we spoke, we had no idea that we
were going to lose a one hundred million dollar naval ship,
and boy that what is the latest on that.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
I know we were talking about costs and this is
going to really add to that problem. Away from the
cost issue, though, we had sort of surprisingly, the Defense
mister come out yesterday with a very stern message about
sexism after that ship sunk. The Minister says that the
commander of the ship, Captain Yvonne Gray, has been subjected

(04:34):
to misogynistic online harassment and there are reports women in
uniform are being abused on the street. Colins says this
is appalling and she's dubbed these harasses armchair admirals. She says,
these people who will never have to make life or
death decisions for subordinates, and she's calling on New Zealanders

(04:57):
to do better. Next steps is that Court of Inquiry
investigation that Collins says. The one thing we know did
not cause the incident is the gender of the ship's captain.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I love that description arm chair admiral.
She's very good on that one, wasn't she.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, she was. I think it really describes that way
that people kind of sit back on the internet and
you know, to say that they have this expertise, all
this advice. Meanwhile, this has been a pretty terrible situation.
We've got a captain there who's had more than twenty
years of military experience, and Minister Collins says it was

(05:36):
really a triumph that she was able to do that
evacuation and effectively save lives.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Absolutely absolutely, Demelsa, thank you so much for joining us. Well,
we'll catch up with the latest next week.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Take care.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Jamelsa Jackson joining US News Talk Gaz'd be political reporter
out of Parliament