Q+A: Opposition Parties interviewed by Jessica Mutch
Greens, Labour will work together despite differences over ‘sugar hit’ budget
Labour and the Greens say they’re still committed to changing the government at this year’s election even though they
held differing views on the Government’s budget this week.
Speaking on TVNZ’s Q+A this morning, Greens co-leader James Shaw explained to Jessica Mutch that his party felt it had
to support National’s budget this week.
“They’ve come way too late to the party, and they’re totally under delivering. But the package they introduced last week
will lift about 35,000 to 50,000 children above the OECD poverty line. We would do it a lot differently, we would do it
a lot faster, and we wouldn’t wait eight years of government before we introduced it,” Mr Shaw said.
Labour Finance spokesperson Grant Robertson said that although his party voted against the budget, it didn’t alter the
fact that Labour and the Greens would work together in the lead up to the September 23 election.
“A particular vote in parliament is what it is. Both parties have been clear on why they took their positions. But we
are committed to changing the government,” he said.
Although New Zealand First voted to support the budget on Thursday night leader Winston Peters described the
government’s budget as “disastrous”.
END
Q + A
Episode 1712
WINSTON PETERS
Interviewed by JESSICA MUTCH
JESSICAWelcome back, and joining me now is Winston Peters, the leader of New Zealand First. I want to start off by asking you -
the budget that was delivered this week, what would you have done differently?
WINSTONA whole lot of things. I’d have faced up to the fact that New Zealanders need to hear the truth about our lack of
productivity, our low wage structure, things like research and development are woeful. There’s no export strategy. In
fact, there is a decline against GDP. There are probably, you know, 30 things. But to focus on things that really
matter, tell them the truth of what mass immigration has cost. And the huge tension on infrastructure and all public
expenditure, rather than saying stupidly, ‘It’s all good for you’ and somehow believe that if you repeat it enough
times, it will all be regardless true. This was a breathtaking budget, really – breathtaking in its lack of reality and
in rhetoric. But as for the substance, he ended up saying today what Muldoon said in 1972, ‘You can’t get anything off
them’ - that’s the opposition parties – ‘cos I’ve spent it all.’ That’s how modern he is.
JESSICADid he have his campaigner’s hat on? Was that the problem? And hasn’t he delivered a budget that will be easy to campaign on
for his MPs?
WINSTONI’m glad you said that. The last time he was out on the campaign was in Northland, where he made countless
infrastructural claims, none of which have been fulfilled – not the superhighway, not the cell-tower coverage, not one
of the bridges, not one of anything’s been built, and he’s now doing it again. So with greatest respect to all of you,
he is not going to be a successful campaign manager in 2017.
JESSICAIs this a sugar-hit budget, as Labour and the Greens called it, and will people be able to see through that, do you
think?
WINSTONWell, look, why don’t we look at what’s wrong here? First of all, if you’re looking about the size of our economy as we
should have with our resources, with research and development and smart tax policies to add value and compete with
Australia, which is taking its corporate tax down to 25, we’re staying around static with no idea what they’re going to
go now, it was a seriously bad budget. I’m not moaning about all the inducements and the lollies and things like that;
their recognition of economic failure, that people aren’t earning enough.
JESSICAWe’re subsidising wages and rent, effectively, aren’t we?
WINSTONThat’s right. But, you know, people forget that was- When Rogernomics came in 1984, as it started to fail, that’s when
support for families started going through the roof and dragging people into high debt, the consequences. But if they
want decent wages; if things were affordable; if we didn’t have, for example, a housing crisis which extends to students
at university today, you’re going to pay three times as much as your parents did for a house. It’s all these things that
are disguised. Now, I do agree with the last two people on your programme, with respect to one thing – I see a lot of
New Zealanders gravely concerned with what I call wealthy and middle class and comfortable, and they begin to see the
ramifications for their children and grandchildren and are deeply disquietened. And then out in provincial regional New
Zealand, they know one thing with this budget – there’s nothing for them at all.
JESSICASo, if you were to become finance minister, what would be your first priority? Would it be around immigration and
where you balance that?
WINSTONThe first thing is that you cannot- Which country in the world is going ahead with mass immigration on a level that
we’ve got and mass immigration of low-skilled people? I’m not knocking these people; I can understand why they want to
come to New Zealand. Half the world’s a hell hole. But most of them are economic refugees, and when you have that sort
of structure where you’ve not got productivity as a consequence, cos you haven’t got the–
JESSICAThe government has made changes around that, though.
WINSTONLet me finish. Look, Switzerland, Norway, these countries take top quality immigrants, and that’s what’s critical. We’re
taking the wrong end of far too many, all of whom need a house. And guess what their solution is now to that crisis?
‘We’ll bring in some more to build houses.’ Now, frankly the National Party’s statement on housing was appalling. They
are not going to the do the job; they’ve got no idea, unless they intend to claim to take half the parks in Auckland
like Pt England and start building on that. So, all in all, I’m using my experience now, and I think it’s a disastrous
budget for National, and there’s overtones of racism and–
JESSICAIn what way racism?
WINSTONWell, they’ve got a special programme for Maori. The last outing and last two budgets for Maori housing, with all those
millions, guess how many houses they built. 11 – at $2.8 million a year for each house. And not in Paritai Drive or
Remuera; no, just somewhere around New Zealand. It’s this gross waste of what I call the Maori brown table in the name
of Maori who are suffering all over this country.
JESSICAThe government has made changes to immigration, though. Obviously, it doesn’t go far enough, as far as you’re concerned.
Do you think that that would change things dramatically?
WINSTONI can’t believe you’re asking Winston Peters of New Zealand First that question.
JESSICAWhy not?
WINSTONAfter all these years, the mornings that we have given to you, have come to fruition, and you’ve asked me that question?
They’ve made countless changes. They made changes last October. They’ve made tweaks and changes every year for the last
eight, nine years, and none of them were designed to have the effect of cutting back mass immigration, because this
government’s economic policy – and sadly the last one as well, because Helen Clarke was bringing in 50,000 net, when the
Australians were taking 80,000 net.
JESSICANow it’s 70,000.
WINSTONNow 72,000 net, and no chance of turning that back with all these tweaks. Their whole economic premise is predicated on
mass immigration. This is a drug they can’t get off. For the umpteenth time, for TV 1’s sake and this campaign that’s
coming, just tell the people the truth.
JESSICAWhat’s your number one message to people looking at this budget? What would you like to remind them of if they’re
watching this morning?
WINSTONI’d like to remind them of the countless pages and the rhetoric that’s behind something that you don’t get until 10
months’ time. In short, he’s standing there, saying, ‘You only get this if we win the election.’ And I think hundreds of
thousands of people are going to be changing their vote on this for a whole lot of reasons. The big issues in this
campaign that is coming are not in this budget.
JESSICAThank you very much for your time this morning. We really appreciate it.
WINSTONThank you.
Transcript provided by Able. www.able.co.nz
Q + A
Episode 1712
GRANT ROBERTSON AND JAMES SHAW
Interviewed by JESSICA MUTCH
JESSICAGrant Robertson and Green Party co-leader James Shaw. Thank you very much for being with us this morning.
GRANTMorning, Jess.
JESSICAI’ll start off by pronouncing your party right. That’d be a good sign.
GRANTThat’s okay.
JESSICAI want to start off by asking you – you want to be finance minister in four months’ time. What kind of a budget would
you deliver that’s different to what Steven Joyce delivered this week?
GRANTWell, it would be focused on getting some solutions to the big problems that are facing New Zealand. This budget had
almost nothing about fixing the housing crisis. Having an accommodation supplement increase is the classic ambulance at
the bottom of the cliff. We’ve got to be building thousands more affordable homes – that’s what Labour’s Kiwibuild
plan’s about. We’ve got to be cracking down on the speculators. We’ve got to be getting social housing right; I didn’t
see any of that in this budget. That would be core. Also in the health sector. You know, once again, the budget didn’t
keep up for standing still, just for inflation and population increase, so we’ve got to get that right. And then in
education you know, there was no vision in this budget for a world where technology is changing everything that we do,
and we need our education system to be firing. Schools got a 1% increase in funding; that’s not even enough to pay their
new power bill. So our focus is on solutions, not sugar hits. That’s what we’ll be doing in a budget that I put forward.
JESSICAJames, you also want to be part of the next budget that’s delivered. What would you be pushing to see happen?
JAMESWell, some of the things that we were really disappointed about in this budget were that conservation funding was cut
yet again. The fact that we’ve only got $4 million for climate change, which is less than the census; we’re so far off
track on that front. And we would’ve designed a family support package that actually would have delivered for low income
families, not tied to an income tax cut for high income earners.
JESSICABut yet you voted for the budget.
JAMESNo, we didn’t vote for the budget. The budget debate starts next week. We voted for a package that includes Working For
Families reforms and improvement to the accommodation supplement and the family tax credit, and that will have an effect
on some people who are at the bottom there.
JESSICABut you supported it in the House on Thursday.
JAMESYeah. But we’ve been beating National with a big stick for many, many years, right, and they’ve come way too late to the
party, and they’re totally under delivering. But the package they introduced last week will lift about 35,000 to 50,000
children above the OECD poverty line. We would do it a lot differently, we would do it a lot faster, and we wouldn’t
wait eight years of government before we introduced it. But given that, we felt we had to.
JESSICAWhy did you do that? That’s got to be annoying for Labour.
JAMESWell, like I said, it was a line call. We came down on one side of the line, and Labour came down on the other. But we
actually vote- This is the nature of MMP, right, is that different parties vote on different things all the time.
Sometimes Labour votes with the government; vote against it. Sometimes it’s the other way round. On this one, given the
opportunity to support a package that included improvements toWorking For Families, to the accommodation allowance, to
the family tax credit, given that we’ve been campaigning on that, given that ending child poverty has been one of the
highest priorities for the Green Party for many years, we felt we had to.
JESSICAGrant, how frustrating was it for you?
GRANTOh, not frustrating at all. Our position on the legislation was very clear. It was about tax cuts where I get 20 times
the benefit of the person who cleans my office. We’re not going to support that. We were very clear about that. And, you
know, for us, even though there might have been some good in the Working For Families changes, they’re only about one
seventh of the government’s package. The tax cuts were five sevenths.
JESSICAHas this distracted from you being able to get that message across by critiquing the budget? And has that been annoying?
GRANTNo. I don’t think it has distracted at all. I don’t think many New Zealanders are interested in the political tactics of
voting in Parliament. What they’re interested in is whether or not this budget’s going to benefit them. And I think you
know they’ll say, ‘Great, 20 bucks a week. That sounds good.’ But the New Zealanders that I talk to around the country
also worry about the costs of going to the doctor; they also worry about the fact that their early childhood education
centre’s having to charge them more fees. They’re the things people worry about, and I get the feeling that the sugar
hit won’t last. It doesn’t actually get into anyone’s pockets for 40-odd weeks, and New Zealanders consistently want
better health, better education, better housing, and that’s what we’re delivering.
JESSICABut people do care about how you are going to work after the election, and this MOU was meant to demonstrate that. Why
have that in this kind of situation if we’re not seeing it work?
GRANTMOU is about changing the government, and we’re absolutely committed to changing the government to a government that
actually has solutions and has a vision for a future with higher wage jobs where New Zealanders can live the lives that
they dream about. That’s what we’re committed to. A particular vote in parliament is what it is. Both parties have been
clear on why they took their positions. But we are committed to changing the government.
JESSICAWhy have the MOU if it’s not for people be able to see how you would work after–?
GRANTI’ll give you an example. James and I produce a set of budget responsibility rules which give the framework that we’ll
work in which gives New Zealanders the assurance that we’re going to be careful with our spending, but we’re not going
to let people live in cars and garages you know. We’re going to make sure we do run sustainable surpluses once we’ve
dealt with things like paying into the Super fund. So that’s the framework. Individual decisions within that, we’re
separate parties. But there is an alternative government; we’ve been clear about that.
JAMESYeah, look, I mean the vast majority of voters want to know – are they voting for the status quo, or are they voting for
change? And we want to be really clear with the voters that we’re the parties of change and not for the status quo. And
so that’s what the election campaign is all about. We’re going to put out our respective stalls, and by the time the
election rolls around, I think voters are going to be very clear what they’re going to get under the status quo versus
what they’re going to get under a Labour-Green government.
JESSICADid you talk about your response to the budget beforehand? Did you talk about a strategy, or is that not how this works?
GRANTEach party is individual. Each party takes its own positions. We’ve got an agreement to work together to change the
government. We’ve got a framework, but there are a lot of individual decisions that get made, and from the Labour Party
perspective, we’ve been very clear. This budget shouldn’t have been about giving me a tax cut. This budget should’ve
been about making sure that we have a plan for the future, an economy that’s going to go ‘exciting jobs’ and improve our
productivity. Kerry is absolutely right. We have the fourth lowest labour productivity in the world. We need to be
investing in getting capital to small businesses; nothing for small business in this budget. We need to be investing in
the skills for the future of work, and we need to be getting our research and development spending up. That was silent
in the budget, because Steven Joyce is not only that finance minister; he’s National’s campaign manager, and it’s a weak
budget because of that.
JESSICAIn terms of the budget as a whole, there have been some commentators that have talked about it as Labour lite. How do
you respond to that? Do you agree that perhaps he’s listening to some of your suggestions?
GRANTWell, it’s certainly lite. I’ll give him that.
JESSICADoes it go into your territory, though?
GRANTNot particularly, because our territory is actually about getting the health, education and housing systems right, and
it completely fails in that regard. Look, I think New Zealanders, when they look at this, I give them some credit. They
know that that sugar hit of the little tax cut isn’t necessarily going to be the thing that’s going to improve their
kids’ education or make sure that their neighbours are housed. They know that.
JESSICA But it’s hard for people, when they think, ‘Ooh, actually, I’m going to be
$100 better off under this. That’s got to matter for some people, doesn’t
it?
GRANT No, Jess, if you’re an Aucklander, your rent’s gone up by more than
$100 a week.
JESSICABut it’s hard to see past that sugar hit, isn’t it?
GRANT I give New Zealanders a lot of credit here. And the message I get as I
go around New Zealand – and it was in a survey last week – most New
Zealanders actually realise the priorities that we’ve got. And while it sounds good and there might be an initial
little, ‘Hey, that’s great,’ they’ll think about it, and they’ll see that isn’t the way forward for New Zealand.
JESSICAWhat are your thoughts, James?
JAMES No, I completely agree. We spent a lot of time on the road, and there is
no appetite amongst people who are on high incomes for a tax cut.
Everyone who’s there is sitting there thinking, ‘Okay, I’m feeling pretty
good about my circumstances, but I’m deeply worried about the
direction of the country. I’m really worried that we’re leaving a lot of
people behind.’ And that’s pretty clear that that’s going to continue under this National Government. ‘Really, really
worried about the state of our waterways in this country. Really worried about the housing crisis and the fact that that
isn’t being addressed at all.’ And those are all things that we have a commitment to change. Those are the big, hard
problems that Steven Joyce keeps kicking down for future
governments to deal with, and we’ll be prepared to deal with them.
JESSICA Do you think that this budget is going to make it easy for you to
campaign over the next four months? Are there lots of things for you to
hit?
GRANT Absolutely. Absolutely. Where is the solution to the housing
crisis in this budget?
JESSICA They did do a pre-budget announcement on that with 34,000
houses.
GRANT And you know what? In the budget, they’re going to deliver
1,200 homes, when there’s a thousand, tens of thousands shortage.
JESSICA It is a bit unfair to say they didn’t address it, even if you don’t
think it’s enough.
GRANTIt was completely inadequate. It doesn’t even get close to fixing it. And this is how embarrassed National were about
that. On budget day, the biggest issue facing New Zealand, they barely spoke about it. They hid their announcement when
Bill English was off in Japan. They’re embarrassed about the housing crisis, because they’ve perpetuated it. We’ve got
the plan to start solving it.
JESSICAWere you surprised at that as well, with the housing side of it?
JAMESI was surprised that on budget day that they didn’t say a great deal about it. But Grant’s absolutely right – I mean,
they won’t actually do what it takes to actually fix the really big, hard structural problems in the New Zealand
economy. Housing is one. Climate change is another. Our waterways are another. The fact that we’re having to provide
wage subsidies and rent subsidies to people who are on low incomes rather than deal with the fact that they’re actually
on low incomes.
JESSICAAnd do you think that sticks in Steven Joyce’s craw? Do you think that’s hard for him to swallow?
GRANTRemember that John Key called Working For Families ‘Communism By Stealth.’
JESSICAI know. I put that to him.
GRANTAnd I think Steven Joyce, again, he’s here as the campaign manager, but I don’t think he’s got it right this time. I
actually think that New Zealanders have seen too much of the homelessness crisis. They don’t like seeing their fellow
New Zealanders living in cars and garages; they want that solved. And the absence of that plan leaves us a huge amount
of room in this election campaign. And I actually think this budget will fizz. And I think New Zealanders will come back
to the core of a good health system, schools that work for them and their kids for the future and getting that housing
right.
JESSICASo just your final appeal is for New Zealanders to look past that little personal benefit, that sugar hit, as you called
it?
GRANTYeah. Look, it is a sugar hit, and it’s not a solution to the problems we’ve got. But even more than that, it’s not a
vision for the future. It’s not a vision for, you know, a country where parents will look and say, ‘Look, there’s the
future of my kids. There’s an education system that’s going to allow them to grasp the new technology, start their own
business’ – none of that in this budget.
JESSICAAnd I’m sure you’ll be hoping to deliver the next one next year. Thank you both very much for your time this morning.
Really appreciate it.
JAMESThank you.
GRANTThanks.
Transcript provided by Able. www.able.co.nz