Avsnitt
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Is the Israeli government committing genocide in Gaza? What should we be doing to assist Ukraine? What’s gone wrong with the New Zealand- Cook Islands relatiomship ? Should we be a neutral country? And what do we need to know about Pacific politics and environmental issues?
In this wide ranging and engaging conversation Green Party Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono, speaks candidly about these issues and more.
He is the Greens first Pasifika MP, who also holds their portfolios for Defence and Disarmament,National Security and Intelligence, Oceans and Fisheries, Pacific Peoples, Space,Veterans and Workplace Relations and Safety.
You can find out more about Teanau Tuiono and his political views here:
https://www.greens.org.nz/teanau_tuiono
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Last Friday I had the pleasure of talking with Sir Graeme Dingle and Lady Dingle - Jo-anne Wilkinson (pictured) who started the Graeme Dingle Foundation 30 years ago with the aim of improving the lives of young New Zealanders and helping them realise their full potential.
The Foundation works with Aotearoa New Zealand’s tamariki and rangatahi at different life stages through schools and communities, delivering life enhancing programmes that have now involved over 30,000 young people in 10 regions across the country.
One of the things that makes the Graeme Dingle Foundation special is their focus on being the fence at the top of the cliff, not the ambulance waiting at the bottom. They believe that prevention is better than cure, and their programmes are designed to empower youth to make positive choices and develop healthy habits early on in life.
While we talk about the work of the foundation in this podcast, much of our conversation is about a rugged 1200 km journey Sir Graeme undertook with six violent offenders back in 1988 and Jo- anne and Graeme’s views about how military-style Boot camps are not the way to help young people develop the resilience they need to turn their lives around.
You can find out more about the inspiring work of The Graeme Dingle Foundation here:
https://dinglefoundation.org.nz
Sir Graeme Dingle is a New Zealand outdoor adventurer and mountaineer. In 1968, Dingle and Murray Jones were the first to climb all six major European north faces and the Bonati pillar, including Eiger and Matterhorn in one season.He has achieved over 200 mountaineering and adventure firsts worldwide, including first ascents of mountains and faces in the Himalayas, the Andes, and in New Zealand.Dingle made the first traverse of the Himalayas, a distance of some 5000 km, in 265 days. He has made a 28,000 km traverse of the Arctic, the first winter traverse of the Southern Alps taking 100 days, and the first transit of the Northwest Passage by snow machine.
This interview has been made free to listen to thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers who support my independent public journalism.
For $10 a month including GST ( less than a cup of coffee a week) you can not only gain full access to all my paywalled fourth estate articles and podcasts, but get to comment in a chatroom full of thoughtful Kiwis who care about our country and where it is going.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Monday Is Hope Day
Do you think everyone should be able to access free dental care?
I do.
It has always seemed ridiculous to me that if something goes wrong with any other part of your body you can get help through our public health system - but not teeth.
Well, this week’s Monday Is Hope Day story is about Action Station’s campaign to do something about the bad teeth situation and are calling on the Government to bring universal dental care into the public healthcare system to make it free for all.
For a start they are close to getting their target of 20,000 signature on their petition which you can sign here :
https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/make-dental-care-free-for-all-nz
But wait! There’s more!
Last Friday I spoke with Hana Pilkinton- Ching who is one of the campaign organisers and starting next Monday they are taking Dental Care For All on the road.
They will be heading all over the motu from August to October this year to hold dozens of Dental for All community events. From panel discussions, to market stalls, to free dental days and more. You can find the details on their website:
https://www.dentalforall.nz
Their first roadshow trip is in August, heading up the West Coast of the North Island from Te Whanganui a Tara and wrapping up with events in Kirkiriroa and Rotorua.
Check out the Dental for All Roadshow calendar (or Facebook events) for event details. It would be great if you could tell them if you’re planning to attend.
To keep in the loop about their second and third roadshow trips, make sure you’re signed up for updates — because more info coming soon!
People like Hana and organisations like Action Station remind me that despite the self centred policies coming out of the Beehive , there are lots of good people in our country doing good things to make life better for all of us - and in that, there is hope!
This interview has been made free to listen to thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers who support my independent public journalism.
For $10 a month including GST ( less than a cup of coffee a week) you can not only gain full access to all my paywalled fourth estate articles and podcasts, but get to comment in a chatroom full of thoughtful Kiwis who care about our country and where it is going.
I post something everyday and all subscriptions go to meet production costs .
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The Sunday Long Read and Listen
I had the very enjoyable experience of interviewing Chlöe Swarbrick last Thursday. I’d never met or spoken with Chlöe before and I was taken by how the MP for Central Auckland and Co-Leader of the Greens, has carefully thought through in detail big issues such as What is the role of government in the economy? and How can we pay for better housing, healthcare, education and all the other things people in our society need ?
Authenticity comes from knowing who you are and what you believe. Authenticity comes from walking the talk.And authenticity, born of social conscience, is as freshing as it is inspiring.
So, if you are in need of a little hope for the future,you might like to find 25 minutes today to listen to the very authentic Chlöe Swarbrick.
Or, you may prefer to read the transcription.
Please share and restack posts you find useful. Thank you
This interview has been made free to listen to thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers who support my independent public journalism.
For $10 a month including GST ( less than a cup of coffee a week) you can not only gain full access to all my paywalled fourth estate articles and podcasts, but get to comment in a chatroom full of thoughtful Kiwis who care about our country and where it is going.
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TRANSCRIPTION
Hello, I'm Bryan Bruce and welcome to Head to Head
My guest today is the co-leader of the Green Party and MP for Auckland Central, Chloe Swalbrick.
Kia ora, Chloe.
Chlöe :Kia ora, thank you for having me.
Bryan :You've been an MP for nine years now, is it? Since 2017?
Chlöe : Nearly nine years.
Bryan: A lot of people will know your name, but not much about your background.Just fill me in a little bit about where you grew up, how you got interested in politics.
Chlöe : Yeah, how long have we got? (laughs)
So I grew up all over kind of central, south central Taumaki Makaurau, Auckland. So me and my little sister were trying to count up the number of rental properties that we lived in the other day, but couldn't, a few dozen. But long story short, you know,
I spent a lot of time with my dad and in those conversations, what some would call arguments as I was growing up. I learned a lot about how you can flesh out your worldview by trying your best to understand other people and their perspectives. As my old man used to always say, different people see different things differently.
I later went to uni, did one of my undergrad degrees in philosophy and realized my old man was not Socrates, did not come up with the idea of subjectivity. ( laughs)
But, you know, in doing so, I guess that's part of the intellectual framework or ideological framework that I approach things with, where I'm just, obviously very clear about where my views and values have landed, but I'm fundamentally interested in understanding other people's points of view, because otherwise you can't move forward.
So yeah, I then went on to study my law degree. While I was at university, I spent about four and a half years at 95 BFM, number one alternative radio station in Auckland, where I thought that I might actually eventually become a journalist because I was really interested in, again, trying to understand the shape of the world, the motivations of different players and that. And I was consistently interviewing these community leaders and researchers and people who had dedicated their lives to solving and understanding these problems…and then the politicians!!
And I did not understand that the massive gap between the reality of what people were saying on the ground and then what the politicians were coming to the table with, let alone the gap between what politicians said and what they did. So all of that was bubbling away in the background as I also got involved in running a few different small businesses with my former partner- Alex.
We were involved in producing menswear clothing for a little while, we ran a bunch of events,particularly in arts and culture and nightlife across Tamaki Makaurau,particularly in the central city.
And up until the point that I was elected, I was running a little art gallery, coffee and donut shop on Mount Eden Road next to the Crystal Palace.
So that's, I guess, a bit of a grab bag of all the things that I'd been doing,
How I got involved in politics is I was interviewing the kind of top four candidates as prescribed by the mainstream media for the Auckland Mayoralty in 2016, and I was just really frustrated by the fact that I didn't feel as though they were addressing issues that mattered to me or to my community or to my friends.
At the same time, we were sitting in the context of the brain drain, you know, with the former national government, and I was watching a bunch of my mates who are incredibly talented all go offshore for a lower cost of living and a higher quality of life, and I just kind of had to go and say, stay and fight, you cowards. You know, I love this city and I love this country and nothing changes if nothing changes!
So, yeah, I was complaining about this to my producer at the time and she said,just shut up while we go and do something about it.
So I Googled how to become the mayor of Auckland. And it turns out there's three barriers.
You need $200 for administrative fees.
You need two people to nominate you, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with local government elections -t here's some interesting characters, but those two nominators are probably the sanity bar.
And you had to be over the age of 18.
And I was 22 at the time, which became kind of my defining feature.But I just, was really conscious of how I wanted to try and model the kind of politics that I felt was missing.
So I never pretended to have all of the answers. Obviously, I was 22 years old. But also I think any politician who stands in front of people and says that they know everything is either lying to people or completely lacking self-awareness, and I'm not sure which is worse.
Which brings me back to the point that I was making earlier about the approach that I take to trying to solve problems, which is understanding how we got here and how everybody thinks about the issue.
Bryan : Let's get on to politics and economics.
I mean, I grew up in what I call the We Society. I was a poor kid. I got a free education right up to and including university and I'm able to talk to you today because, you know, I got the break.
And then in 1984, I think about 10 years before you were even born, we switched to what I call the Me society with neoliberalism - the idea that government ought not to be involved in the marketplace.
Whereas in the society I grew up in, we understood that the The State meant all of us and that the government really ought to be involved in the marketplace.
What do you think is the role that government should play in the marketplace.
Chlöe: I think that if we take a step back and ask ourselves what the government is and what parliament is and what it's supposed to be, then we actually get a far better insight.
So I think part of the problem is that right now we tend to conceptualise of government as a sector, like business or like civil society, as opposed to what I believe it's supposed to be as far as the democratic ideal goes, which is simply the manifestation of the will of the people, of all of us.
And if we take that really pure version of democracy about how we allocate our resources,
which, again, is actually a point that I often kind of try and unpack for people because there's a tendency to present politics as though it's really complicated but, you know, sure,it's imbued in jargon and all of this other gatekeeping terminology, but at the end of the day,all politics really is, it's about power, it's about resources, and it's about who gets to make decisions that saturate and shape our daily lives.
So when we understand that context, to your question of what the role is that the government or the state should play in the economy per se, well,I'd say that it should ensure that everybody has their basic needs met so that they are able to participate in this thing that we call democracy.
Otherwise, we experience the decline of said democracy like we are at the moment.And to give some colour to that statement, you know, we've experienced not just,you know, obviously the last 40 years or the last four decades of kind of trickle-down economics, and I think very much Margaret Thatcher encapsulated it best in terms of that project when she said that there is no such thing as society, there is nearly individual men and women. by which I think she lifted the lid on the fact that the neoliberal economic project, which individuated people and forced them into competition for basic needs and basic survival, was very much not only an economic project, but one that had substantive cultural ramifications.
So, you know, this is where when we think about how at hyperspeed over the last 18 months as this government has been demonstrating what cronyism looks like in practice,setting up not only a two-track economy where they preach growth, growth, growth, but that growth seems to only be in the form of profits for the supermarket banking and electricity sector while regular people are suffering because that profit is the cost of living for regular people.
We're now also seeing that manifest in a two-track democracy because those who canafford it get special access, whereas regular people are now also explicitly, as of this last week, going to have their voting rights suppressed.
So I think it's impossible to see the economy as this kind of walled-off, pseudo-natural thing, which obviously more right-wing economists want us to see it as,it's simply an area of public policy and that's where,as we've released our green budget and fiscal strategy, and we've been touring around the country trying to unpack these seemingly mystical concepts for regular New Zealanders for whom we think that the economy and our democracy should actually serve,
It's been really interesting asking people what they think the economy is, which we have done at many of these public meetings. And the first kind of few things that are thrown back at me are always ideas of the cost of living, always ideas of profit and, you know, unemployment or GDP or whatever else.
And I kind of have to say to people, well actually, again,mif we boil it all down at a basic level, all the economy is, is you and me and us and the stuff that we create and the planet that we live on..and the rules that we put in place in order to try and govern those relationships.
And those rules are man-made. They're all made up. They can change when they don't work for the majority of us because we don't live in a game of monopoly.
Those rules can and should change when they're not working for us.
So yeah, that's what I think that the role of the state is to ensure that everybody has their basic needs met. And I think that that's a pretty common sense proposition.
Bryan: When I look at a budget, what I'm looking at, I think, are a whole lot of moral decisions. They're not necessarily divine economic decisions- You have to do it this way.
There are moral decisions. If we decide that we're going to spend more money on children than we are on defence, then that's a moral decision.
Talk to me about the green budget. What are your top priorities for the next election
Chlöe:Yeah, so our top priority is, in a nutshell,stepping back to ensure that everybody's basic needs are met and that our planet islooked after because we believe that the economy has very clearly been geared,as Jeanette Fitzsimmons actually said back in the day,towards the exploitation of people and planet.
We can flip that on its head and ensure that this economy, this set of rules that we have made up, is instead geared towards the well-being and the health of people and planet.
So the basic things that we've got in our budget is obviously very clearly tax reform, which will allow us to unlock the resources which are currently being bound up and
not only unproductive uses, but also set in such a way that things are so deeply unfair where the wealthiest 311 households in this country pay half the effective tax rate of the Average New Zealander.
Our firefighters and nurses and teachers who go to work every single day to actually build this country and ensure that it functions. And in unlocking those resources and in using debt more productively and actually, again, in a more common sense way, i.e. the opposite of the paying for tax cuts, which this government is doing, which has created no jobs and is not adding to productivity.
Then we can pay for those universal basic services like free GPs for everybody, free dentistry, free early childhood education. We can rapidly lower climate changing emissions. We can create a ministry of green works and guarantee 40,000 sustainable good green jobs, particularly to revitalize rural Aotearoa.
So we're trying to paint a picture for people, obviously fully costed and evidence-based, of the world that we can move towards. And this actually strikes a really important chord for me because, you know, I've been in so many hui, particularly with working people over the last 18 months who are just so fatigued and so exhausted by this government's death by a thousand tax cuts approach that they've resigned themselves and they've switched off and they feel powerless.
So I've taken it upon myself to ask these rooms of people, oftentimes hundreds of people in these rooms, “Who here is excited about the future?”
And in a sea of hundreds of people, oftentimes fewer than half a dozen will put their hand up. And I'll say, you know, Ete Whanau, this is our problem definition.
Right now, so many of us are so exhausted, so backed into our corner that people are primed to come out swinging basically on the end defense of the status quo because that's all that we can kind of see ahead for us.
But what if we were instead to become unified around something so much bigger tofind those threads of solidarity, which historically have allowed people to unify across these far bigger purposes than just individual needs of individual communities, the kinds of things that actually build societies.
And that's where I find the thread of hope.
Bryan : Okay, fairer taxation. What would you do to our taxation system?
Chlöe: So we've got a number of proposals in our green budget,and I want to be really clear here that the purpose of showing our hand and kind of flying the flag for all of these different policy proposals is so that we buy the very overdue public debate about what meaningful tax reform looks like in this country.
So as context, we're obviously the only country in the OECD that does not have any form of kind of intentionally redistributive tax policy in terms of a wealth tax, stamp duty, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, or otherwise.
We are an outlier internationally, and as you will well know, Bryan, many political parties, particularly those who deem themselves of the so-called illusory centre, are just unwilling to engage in the terms of this debate to the detriment of unlocking the resources necessary to build the productive, modern country that all New Zealanders deserve.
So the proposals that we put on the table are a suite of income tax reforms that would see 91% of New Zealanders paying less income tax.
How we help, to afford that is through a shifting of the tax burden. So that shifting of the tax burden would include a wealth tax on the wealthiest 3% in this country. We have also proposed an inheritance tax for those who, are inheriting in excess of a million dollars.
And again, this is pretty normal stuff internationally. And also a trust tax, again, for sake of floating the argument,because I think you'll be aware that we don't have a heck of a lot of transparency with regard to how trusts currently operate in this country.
And we'll probably have more to say about that in the not too distant future Obviously, our former Minister of Revenue did some good mahi in that space.
And then finally, we've also got a private jet tax which is a bit more of a thought provocation,I think, for people because the amount of revenue that we would generate from that,if I recall correctly off the top of my head,is only about $25 million per annum. But it is just one of those prompts to basically say it is rather bizarre that at this point in the climate and biodiversity crises,we are still seeing regular people being pushed into making decisions to not useplastic straws while billionaires are burning carbon at a rate of knots.:
So, yeah, it's just a little bit more fairness.
Bryan: One of the things that you raised earlier in this conversation was that you got upset by seeing your talented friends go overseas.We're seeing that now.We're seeing plane loads of talented New Zealanders disappearing to.Australia and what have you.
And that is a consequence of how we're running our country. I mean, economics is tied up with the environment, it’s tied up with how we see ourselves as a nation, what we think we believe we're about and those sorts of things.
Do we need to see a moral shift in our society before some of the things that you're hopeful of bringing in can actually happen?
Chlöe : So I have a very, very strong view, which might not surprise you, that the majority of New Zealanders care about each other on the planet that we live on, which then prompts the question of, well, what the hell is the barrier to politicians who are supposed to represent those regular New Zealanders actually implementing policies that are wildly popular?
Because I find it really interesting whenever we float the ideas of our tax reform,for example,the wealth tax, that we're constantly under attack.Yet if you look at all of the polling data, this stuff resonates.I t's wildly popular with the New Zealand public.
So in fact, the barrier, I think, is more so the so-called received wisdom of the commentariat and of the mainstream of politicians.Which then begs the question of who is influencing that landscape?
And this is where I think that we also need to be honest about who really gets disproportionate say in the way that we run this thing that we call our economy andin our democracy.
And yeahthe honest answer to that is those at the top are getting disproportionate influence over the way that things are working at the moment.And to that effect, you know, we are seeing worse and worse outcomes for regular people. And I'm really encouraged not only by you know, the popping up of some amazing advocacy locally through Tax Justice Aotearoa,but there's some amazing stuff happening internationally as well, particularly in the UK at the moment.
Of course it's not going to be easy of course it's not going to be easy to radically transform our tax system but radical by definition just means to grab the problem at its root and just because something may be challenging to change or to create doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it.
So I feel very much that we are, if we're to reflect on,just the socioeconomic political history of even this country, we realize that every 40 or so years we have a form of economic transformation, as you alluded to in the 30s and 40s after world wars and the Great Depression and the advent of the welfare state.public health care, public education, public housing, all of these things that were previously thought of as totally impossible, happening and being paid for by higher taxes on those who had profited handsomely during a time of hardship for many.
In the 80s and 90s through to this day, we've seen that social safety net shredded and we're grappling with the consequences of that.
So, 41 years on from 1984 I do think that we are standing on the precipice, at the moment in which everything could change quite quickly.
Bryan: I do think that we are at a moment.
I remember making a couple of documentaries..one was Inside Child Poverty in 2011, and I finished it by saying that poverty was not a PC word - that people didn't want to talk about.
And then it all broke loose, but now we've got a piece of legislation that recognises and says we should measure it.
And then I went and revisited it 10 years later with Child Poverty Revisited, and I finished that one by saying the un-PC word to talk about now is Wealth!
But I find that people are actually now talking about wealth and the problem of wealth. And they're worried about their families going overseas and all of that. And I think we are at this moment.
And the question is, how can we capitalize on it?
Because I had some hopes for COVID.
There was that moment when we were talking about, the team of five million or something and people were walking around the streets and talking to each other.
And then as soon as it was over, they couldn't wait to get their McDonald's and get back to life as how it used to be, as far as they were concerned.
And a lot of people made money during COVID by doing up their houses and pushing up house prices and stuff.
So I know that you have hopes for it.
How realistic do you think this is that we are at this moment and things could change?
Chlöe :Yeah, I think you raise a really good point regarding COVID because I had very similar hopes.You know, the pandemic was a portal and could have offered us an insight into the world that we could have.
I was reflecting on the fact at that point in time and actually wrote about it in my regular Herald column that all of these things that we were told for so long were economically or politically or fiscally impossible, whether it be flexible working arrangements for single parents and people with disabilities or direct payments to people who needed it or rent freezers.
All of these things happened virtually overnight, which exposed that they were always simply a matter of political willpower.
You also flag, in part, the unconventional monetary policy that rolled out during that time. And I think that it's worthwhile taking a second to just unpack that because weknow that at the end of 2019, start of 2020, before the pandemic hit our shores,that we were looking at potentially approaching 0% with regard to the OCR interest rates.
So we were looking at, or rather the Reserve Bank and Treasury were looking at the efficacy of monetary policy in an environment like that,and it was really interesting because prior to the pandemic treasury and rbnz issued a paper to grant robertson then moff saying if we were to roll out unconventional monetary policy the likes of the large-scale asset program which obviously did roll out then you know we would basically see an increase in what they call distributional impacts i.e inequality and fiscal policy i.e the tax and spend that only government has control over given that monetary policy is a blunt instrument
But that fiscal policy, those political decisions, would have to mitigate the inequality that would be caused through that unconventional monetary policy.And if you look back at the questions that I asked and the briefings and the hearings that I tried to get during that 2020 to 23 term,
You will find me on the record.Actually,I would say very strongly the antithesis to what Nicola Willis was doing from that side of the opposition. You know, I actually had a question that I asked Grant in Finance and Expenditures Select Committee as to whether he considered himself a compassionate conservative because of the way that I saw that fiscal strategy was rolling out. where we were pretending as though monetary policy was this mystical thing that we somehow had no control over and that the government didn't seemingly have any ability to mitigate against or to redistribute where those gains were aggregating at the top of the pecking order.
So I think it's just a really important first point that we actually have a trackrecord of trying to, throughout the COVID period,address and arrest that widening of inequality, which was the consequence of intentional political decisions.
So where that leaves us,Bryan,is I think people,just in terms of my honest analysis of things,over the last six years, people were promised transformation and largely delivered tinkering.
I think that the unfortunate byproduct of that is that so many people are really anxious about promises of transformation and they just want the basics to be met in terms of providing for their families and getting a sense of stability.
You know, my younger sister,for example, who has two young children, couldn't care less about what I do for a job.But early childhood education and the cost of it, which is effectively the equivalent of her rent each week,is the thing that has radicalised her.
So for so many New Zealanders, this point of the cost of living and connecting the dots to how that is driven bymerciless profiteering from large corporations is, I think,going to be the thing that helps them to understand that politics belongs to those who turn up.:
And that's where we are going to have to do a lot of work on the ground, which we are currently doing, to help people understand that better is possible if regular people realize their power and unify on that basis. Well, what I hope COVID taught people was that my well-being depends on your well-being.
Bryan : And the other thing I think people are beginning to realise is that big money and big corporations have got control of our democracy and we have to do something about that.
Chloe, it's been lovely to talk with you this morning.I hope we can do this again because there's so much more that I'd like to talk with you about.
I know that your time's limited.Thank you so much for joining with me.
Chlöe : No, thank you so much, Brian.I think, as you say, so much more we could unpack. So let's do a four-hour one next time! (laughs). See you later, mate!
Bryan: Okay, bye-bye. Thank you.
This interview has been made free to listen to thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers who support my independent public journalism.
For $10 a month including GST ( less than a cup of coffee a week) you can not only gain full access to all my paywalled fourth estate articles and podcasts, but get to comment in a chatroom full of thoughtful Kiwis who care about our country and where it is going.
I post something everyday and all subscriptions go to meet production costs .
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe -
As part of my Head2Head series I have been interviewing politicians to find out a little about who they are,why thet got into politics, and what they believe.
In this episode I meet Vanushi Walters who is Labour’s Shadow Attorney- General and an Associate Spokesperon on Foreign Affairs .
We discuss the threats to our rule of law and our democracy by legislation that has been brought before the House in recent times, and what New Zealand could be doing about the terrible events in Gaza and Ukraine.
This interview has been made free to view thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers who support my independent public journalism.
For $10 a month including GST ( less than a cup of coffee a week) you can not only gain full access to all my paywalled fourth estate articles and podcasts, but get to comment in a chatroom of thoughtful Kiwis who care about our country and where it is going.
I post something everyday and all subscriptions go to meet production costs .
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe -
Bryan Bruce catches up with Dr Ganesh Ahirao, former BERL Research Director and Chair of the now disestablished Productivity Commission , to talk about the direction and purpose of our Economy, privatisation concerns for our Public Health System and why Early Childhood Education is much more than baby sitting.
This interview has been made free to listen to thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers who support my independent public journalism.
For $10 a month including GST ( less than a cup of coffee a week) you can not only gain full access to all my paywalled fourth estate articles and podcasts, but get to comment in a chatroom of thoughtful Kiwis who care about our country and where it is going.
Please restack and share posts you think are worthwhile as it all helps to build readership.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bryanbruce.substack.com/subscribe -
The Sunday Long Read gives way this week to a Sunday Long Watch and Long Listen.
Last week I had the privilege of interviewing two Jesus and 1st Century historians – Professors Joan Taylor, currently in Wellington, and Prof. Helen Bond at the University of Edinburgh, who jointly authored and presented the BBC Channel 4 documentary Jesus’ Female Disciples and the book Women Remembered about Jesus’ Female Disciples.
Because the history of Christianity was written by men, the two scholars argue, the importance and contribution of the women to the spread of the Jesus message has been largely overlooked - women who preached, healed, baptised and even bankrolled the movement.
You can find their documentary JESUS’ FEMALE DISCIPLES here:
The Head2Head series is made possible and freely available thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers. Please consider supporting my public journalism work by becoming one of them. I publish something everyday mostly on social, political, climate and life challenging issues.
For $10 a month (including GST) you can gain access to all premium posts and comment in the chat room..
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Today I am catching up with Blake Forbes and Paul Barlow
Blake has a disability. He has spastic cerebral palsy with mild autism and ADHD, but that hasn’t stopped him running a very effective interview podcast called BFG (short for Blake Forbes Gentle) which he produces with co-host Paul Barlow .
Paul has a media background and, in addition to working with Blake, runs his own podcast show entitled Paul The Other One.
Blake has become an effective advocate for people with disabilities and at the moment is rightly concerned about the loss of respite funding for care givers.
And Paul is into anyalizing the Local Body elections.
Kia kaha Blake and Paul .Thank you for a very enjoyable and informative conversation.
If you want to check out Blake’s Channel you can find it here:
https://www.youtube.com/@thebfgpodcast
Paul’s personal channel Paul The Other One is here:
https://www.youtube.com/@Paul...theotherone
Paul is a former political commentator with a background in media studies and pop culture, and has over 35000 followers of his content from across Aotearoa.
This content is also available in video formats on Tik Tok, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram as well as audio versions from wherever you get your Podcasts.
Thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers who help fund my Head2Head interviews are free to access. Please consider supporting my public journalism work by becoming a paid subscriber for $10 a month (including GST) as only paid subscribers can comment in the chat room.
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Part of my job as a public interest journalist and documentary maker is to give a voice to people in our community who find it difficult to be heard.
Disability access to houses and public buildings is one of those issues that doesn’t get enough attention in Aotearoa New Zealand, and as advocate Nick Ruane points out in today’s interview, any of us can find ourselves having to use a wheel chair as a result of an accident or illness or simply because of mobility problems associated with aging.
Accessing public spaces is something we recognise by law as a right everyone should have - a right that is embedded, for example, in The New Zealand Building Code.
These regulations, however, don’t apply to the buildings we inhabit most each day - our private homes or rental accommodation. This is a much greyer area where voluntary accessibility is encouraged and, in some cases, incentivised, but not compulsory.
Private landlords, for example, are not legally required to provide no-step entries, wide doors, accessible bathrooms or even lever handles instead of knobs.
There is however government support for modifying existing homes to accommodate people with disabilities, including the Ministry of Health’s Housing Modification Service, which provides funding for necessary changes such as ramps, stair lifts, and accessible bathrooms.
You can find out about what is available and may be possible here:
https://www.govt.nz/browse/health/help-in-your-home/modifying-your-house/#825
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As regular readers will know, Monday on my Susbstack is Hope day, and for over 30 years Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has been bringing hope to children living in our most deprived homes, by fighting for their rights to food, housing, health and education.
They are an independent, registered charity, that since its inception has been working to eliminate child poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand through research, education and advocacy
Here’s their website.
https://www.cpag.org.nz
As their name suggests CPAG has been a driving force in getting the idea that there is such a thing as child poverty accepted, to the point where in 2018 The Child Poverty Reduction Act was passed, which set up a framework for measuring and reporting on it.
So when CPAG’s Executive Officer Sarita Divis received an invitation to a Child Poverty Reduction Summit, hosted by Ministry Of Social Development at Parliament Buildings. she was looking forward to hearing what initiatives the National/ACT/NZ First coalition government were going to announce.
In this episode of Head2Head Sarita not only describes her disappointment after attending the event - in which the assembled charities were told the onus would be on communities to look after the vulnerable - but points up some solutions we need to put in place at government level to ensure the well-being of all our children.
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The dull sounding Regulatory Standards Bill presents one of the gravest threats to our democratic way of life to ever come before our parliament. It is a Trogan Horse bill that pretends to be about transparency, but is in fact a power grab on behalf of David Setmours Corporate masters, and if passed, will achieve what he and his ACT party failed to foist on us with his defeated Treaty Principles Bill.
In this episode of Head2Head Greens Co-Leader Marama Davidson explains why it is such a dangerous piece of proposed legislation and what we can do to stop it.
It is important to deluge the Select Committee with submissions which close in just 3 days time at 1pm on the 23rd of June . Here is the link:
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/make-a-submission/document/54SCFIN_SCF_E22299B3-B67B-4F74-023D-08DD9688D2C5/regulatory-standards-bill
If you are thinking about how and what to write, please refer to my Long Read of last Sunday and you will get lots of information there is you scroll down to the bottom. (Just click on the link below)
Please share and restack this post with friends and whanau. It is very important that we kill this bill. Thank you.
Recording interviews like this one is made possible by the generosity of my paid subscribers. If you are receiving this post for free, please consider supporting my public journalism by upgrading to paid status.
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Last Monday I wrote a Hope post about two independent film makers who are trying to crowd fund the money to finish their self- funded feature film 1978 .
They need $15,000 to do the post production and finish their film so it can be shown in cinemas up and down the country. As I write they have reached $10,834 on the Arts Foundation Boosted site. If they reach their target in the next 7 days they get the money. If they don’t they get nothing.
Cruel, I reckon.
But there it is.
Yesterday I spoke with Director Isaac Lee and Co -Director April Phillips about their quintessential Kiwi film - where the idea came from, the struggles they have had to shoot their feature length film which has now been edited and just needs some post production polishing before it gets released for the big screens around our country.
Do have a listen to the interview and if you can afford something to help them out please do. Every bit helps.
Thank you to everyone who has chipped in so far.
As you will hear in the interview they really appreciate your support.
Here’s the link
https://www.thearts.co.nz/boosted/projects/post-production-1978
Here is their website
https://www.1978.co.nz
And their Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/1978NZ
Let’s help make their inspiring 1978 film happen!
Thanks
Bryan
Please share this post with whanau and friends.
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Dr. Ganesh Nana is one of New Zealand’s most distinguished economists who has dedicated his career to addressing complex economic challenges.
He was formerly BERL Research Director and Chair of the Productivity Commission Te Kōmihana Whai Hua o Aotearoa leveraging his expertise to advocate for equitable policy reforms until the Commission was shut down by Finance Minister Nicola Wills who refused even to meet with them.
Which was short sighted to say the least, because increasing productivity is one of the secrets to growing our economy. If productivity is not increasing it affects our standard of living.
So I caught up with Ganesh this week to ask him to explain why our productivity is not increasing as much as it should, and it wasn’t long before we got on to the topic of what an economy is for away.
Head2Head is made possible thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers. If you are receiving this post for free, please consider upgrading to paid. $9 a month (less than a cup of coffee each week) will not only give you access to all my documentaries and premium posts, you will get to join a group of New Zealanders in our chatroom who comment on posts and discuss the issues that are important to all us who want to live in a fairer,more democratic society.
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Who am I? What do I stand for and believe? What is the purpose of my life? are all questions any thinking person will ask themselves at some point in their life’s journey.
Am I happy living up to the image others have defined for me? Or am I unhappy because I am not being true to myself - what psychologists call being “ authentic”?
Harold Hillman Ph.D, the author of Passion and Purpose, was married with two daughters and had a successful career as an officer in the US Air Force when, at the age of 42, he found himself having to face up to the fact that he was gay, and that for all his adult life he had been living a lie.
How he reassessed his purpose in life, is something he shares in his latest book Passion and Purpose - Leading and Living Life with Greater Fulfillment - and also with me in today’s interview.
I must admt that when I was first sent Harold’s self-help book to review I thought his publicist had made a mistake. After all, I’m the guy who is constantly calling out our ME centred society and wanting us to develop the kind of WE society that allows every child to thrive and the best that they can be.
But then, as I began to read Passion and Purpose, it dawned on me that there is a difference between being selfish and being self-aware and how being true to yourself can help you become true to others -especially if you develop empathy for others, as part of your self definition.
The relationship between the individual and society is complex. Our family, friends, society as a whole, present us with definitions of who we are and what is expected of us that can sometimes cause tensions within us if it conflicts with how you see ourselves.
You may have wanted to go to Art School, for example, but the Careers Advisor said “You’re good a numbers kid you should be an accountant.” So that’s what you are and now at age 40, you maybe wondering why you are not happy.
So, I think that for anyone trying to assess who they are and what matters to them, at any age, Hillman’s book is a worthwhile read, especially as he gives practical thought- provoking excercises at the end of each chapter to help his reader figure out their passion and purpose in life.
In Hamlet Act 1, Scene 3, Shakespeare has Poloius give Laertes, his son who is leaving home, the sage advice ”And above all, to thine own self be true.”
In 2025 Laertes might ask, “How do I do that Dad?” and Polonius might say “ Here, take this copy of Passion and Purpose. You might find it useful.”
Enjoy the interview.
You can purchase a copy of Harold’s book here:
https://www.sigmoidcurve.co.nz/collections/guides/products/passion-purpose-leading-and-living-life-with-greater-fulfilment-available-from-30-april-2025
(Because of the way Substack works you may have to copy and paste this link into you browser.)
Head2Head is made possible thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers. If you are receiving this post for free, please consider upgrading to paid. $9 a month (less than a cup of coffee each week) will not only give you access to all my documentaries and premium posts, you will get to join a group of New Zealanders in our chatroom who comment on posts and discuss the issues that are important to all us who want to live in a fairer,more democratic society.
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Peter Bruce - Iri is a climate activist based in Whangarei who has written a quite remarkable book about the important role plants play in cooling our planet.
He says we humans have degraded about half of the vegetation of land and oceans and thereby destabilising the climate and warming the planet.
His message is that by stopping this destruction, revegetating as much as possible, regenerating soils and the water cycle, and eliminating our use of fossil fuels we can heal the climate sooner than we might might think.
I talk with him about his very readable book and his idea that we can use plants to heal the climate. I particularly like the practical advice on what you and I can do to help fix the climate mess we have created.( My favourite is not mowing the lawn!)
Head2Head is made possible thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers. If you are receiving this post for free, please consider upgrading to paid. For $9 a month (less than a cup of coffee each week) will not only give you access to all my documentaries and premium posts, you will get to join a group of New Zealanders in our chatroom who comment on posts and discuss the issues that are important to all us who want to live in a fairer,more democratic society.
Please restack and share posts you find worthwhile as it all helps to build readership.
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Dr Gary Payinda is an outspoken Emergency Medical Specialist based in Northland
In this Head2Head interview he spells out why patients are waiting so long to see a doctor in our overcrowded hospitals, and hundreds of thousands of us are on waiting lists for surgery.
And what is the root cause of the problem?
Answer - a political ideology that panders to the wealthy few at the expense of the many, by cutting taxes and privatising essential services that should remain the collective responsibility of government.
For make no mistake, the agenda of the present coalition government is to privatise our public health system - and the sly way they are doing it , the speed at which they are doing it, and the impact it is having on our lives and society, is all made clear in this conversation.
But this interview is no hand- wringing excercise.
Near the end of our conversation we talk about what you and I can do to actively protest this assault on our hard- won public health system.
We have to make the invisible,visible.
So please listen to Gary’s frontline description of what is happening in our health system and stay tuned for action points, in the coming days, weeks and months that we can all take to turn this dire situation around .
You can find more of Dr Payinda’s writing here:
Head2Head is made possible thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers. If you are receiving this post for free, please consider upgrading to paid. For $9 a month (less than a cup of coffee each week) will not only give you access to all my documentaries and premium posts, you will get to join a group of New Zealanders in our chatroom who comment on posts and discuss the issues that are important to all us who want to live in a fairer,more democratic society.
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Melanie Nelson has been deep diving into David Seymour’s very dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill and reveals how its real aim is to embed ACT’s libertarian agenda into our legislative process to the detriment of the public good.
You can find out more about Melanie and her highly researched writing here:
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I attended The Child Poverty Post Budget Hui yesterday and managed to catch up with economist Bernard Hickey for his take on the 2025 Willis budget. He is so informed and such a good communicator. If you don’t read or listen to any other analysis make sure you listen to his one.
Please take 20 minutes to understand that we don’t have a debt problem. What we have is an ideology problem.
The quote of the day, for me, came from a young speaker from Kelston Boys High School.
He framed robbing women of pay equity in terms of mothers who are struggling to pay the bills while striving to give their kids a better chance in life. He put it poignantly:
“You can’t put down mothers and expect their children to rise up and do well.”
Such insight from a such a young man. It took my breath away.
If you are receiving this post for free, please consider upgrading to paid. For $9 a month (less than a cup of coffee each week) will not only give you access to all my documentaries and premium posts, you will get to join a group of New Zealanders in our chatroom who comment on posts and discuss the issues that are important to all us who want to live in a fairer,more democratic society.
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We live in a world where social media is expanding exponentially and dominated by tech giants such as Facebook, Google or X, who collect your data in order to exploit it. Which is why New Zealand developer Selwyn Manning has created PodTalk.live a community platform for Kiwis, like you and I, to allow us to talk with each other in a safe internet environment.
I recently spoke with Selwyn about his new platform because I’m interested in promoting local solutions that help us claw back control of our lives from the huge Multinational Corporations.
To give you a bit of background about Selwyn; among his many accomplishments he has a Masters Degree in Communication Studies with Honours from AUT University, and was editor, director, and former chair of the board of directors of Scoop Media Ltd. He was appointed as establishment chair of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre (2007-2009), and chair of AUT University’s school of communications Industry Advisory Board (2012-2013),
These days Selwyn provides analysis, assessment, and evaluation of the political environment specific to New Zealand, Australia, the economies and island states of the Asia-Pacific region with a specialisation in the analysis of geopolitics, cyber-security, and, intelligence issues.
He is the author of the book: I Almost Forgot About The Moon – the disinformation campaign against Ahmed Zaoui, and director of the documentaries Morality Of Argument – sustaining a state of being nuclear free, and, Behind The Shroud – juxtapositioning the frailties of intelligence and trade craft.
His work has caused ministerial inquiry, legislative and regulatory change, and has been the foundation of Parliamentary debate.
So Selwyn Manning is a trusted name, and if you are interested in the safe online discussion space he has created, please go to the url PodTalk.Live , register for free, and check it out.
( Please note I am not profiting from Podtalk.live or promoting it for money. I am simply recommending that you check out a clever Kiwi .)
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THE SUNDAY LONG READ (OR LISTEN ).
It’s time to face the fact that our superannuation scheme is unsustainable. So what could we do to fix it? Associate Professor Susan St John has a viable answer. Listen to the podcast or read the transcription below.
Bryan:
Hello I’m Bryan Bruce, welcome to Head2Head. Today I’m catching up with economist Susan St John who is an Associate Professor at Auckland University, a founding member of the Child Poverty Action Group here in New Zealand, but these days is engaged and work nearer the end of life than at the beginning . Welcome to my aging world Susan!
Susan:
Welcome to you! (laughs)
Bryan
We've got rising costs of aged healthcare and superannuation and we need to be deciding what we're going to do about that because the costs are fast becoming unsustainable. Talk me through this problem. How did we get here and what do you suggest we do about superannuation?
Susan:
Yes, well you're right. As we look out we see that the costs for healthcare and for pensions are going to rise very steeply and they're doing that at the expense of other things. So if we think about The Welfare System as a whole, and the money that we've got to spend on all parts of the demographic spread, we're spending an inordinate amount at the top end without any questioning of it. And in the meantime what's happening is that what we're doing for working aged, and for children, has become incredibly mean, and less satisfactory over time and is getting worse. So it's contributing to the wealth divide that we're seeing emerging very sharply in New Zealand.
Bryan:
Thanks to the neoliberalism and the economic reforms of the 1980s and all of that ! So, we're here now. You did a working paper just recently on Superannuation as a basic income, universal basic income treated as a grant. Why should we change to that kind of system?
Susan:
Well there's some very good things about New Zealand Super. Of course it is going to be too costly and we'll have to do something about it, but the tools that we have to do some changes to Super are limited and they've got enormous costs. So we can talk about raising the age of eligibility and that's going to impact on an awful lot of low income people and disproportionately on Māori and Pasifika and so on, and it's not a quick fix. And we can talk about lowering the level of it and it's just going to create more poverty and we're seeing poverty emerge amongst the older age group now.
So what else is there? It's some sort of surcharge, basically an income test which would have the effect of clawing back from the very top end where superannuation is a drop in the bucket, it doesn't matter in terms of well-being or anything else at that end, and there's potential to save significant amounts of money and to do some very useful things with that money.
The idea of paying a grant is because we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want to retain the very best aspects of New Zealand's Super so everyone is entitled to this basic income. It's an opt in. It’s like it is at the moment and if you opt in you get this grant, and for a person that would be about $21,000 as a nontaxable grant equal to what they would get today; and then the counter to that is that if you have opted to take that, your other income is taxed on a separate text scale and the way that is designed determines how quickly you can claw back that $21,000.
Bryan:
OK, so the wealthier you are and the more money you make the less you become eligible for this grant?
Susan:
No you’d be eligible for it in full that's thing. It is a basic income, it's there for everyone now you don't have to opt in and many people might think, by the time I pay this extra tax I may as well not bother, and particularly people in well paid jobs at 65 might defer their application, it's still there if they want it. The point of a basic income is it’s there if your circumstances change, it is an unconditional income there to support you
Bryan:
So it's not means testing necessarily?
Susan:
It's a form of means testing as a broad term, which includes asset testing. It’s the sort of thing they do in Australia, and when you look at the draconian sort of means test they have on their age pension New Zealanders wouldn't have a bar of it . We want something more moderate I suggest. We did use the wealth surcharge and it operated for 13 years, and this idea is somewhat similar, in that if you have a lot of other income you pay a higher rate of tax.
Bryan:
You sometimes hear politicians say, “We're just going to have to raise the age at which you get the pension.” What's wrong with that?
Susan:
Well you hit the wrong groups. You have to really ask yourself what is the problem we're trying to address? And the problem is, of course, that people who are in well paid jobs and maybe millionaires can get it at 65. But if we address that problem by raising the age for everybody then you capture multiple people who are in no position to wait longer and will run through the few assets that they have by the time they qualify at the higher age.
Bryan:
I'm a fan for what you're doing and what you're suggesting because we have multiple problems associated with Superannuation, not the least of which is that some people at 65 are still doing their jobs, they're still fit they are still engaged, and other people by 65 are absolutely done in, particularly if they've been doing heavy labouring jobs and things like that. So would you look at the age as well of getting a universal benefit like this?
Susan:
Well who knows ? As time evolves it might be that we slightly raise the age it's not a good way of doing something immediately you have to have a long lead in time you can't do it overnight. You raise it very slowly so the payoffs are not going to be till a long time in the future and it's not really addressing the problem that we have at the moment.
We're paying far too much of our welfare budget into the top end of superannuation and far too little at the lower end, and particularly thinking not just of those on benefits but also low income families struggling in this dreadful low wage economy .
Bryan:
It's true of a lot of things that I've looked at over the years that we spend a lot of money further down the track. For example we spend a lot of money on later education which is good, but we don't spend anywhere near that amount at the beginning of life and the first 5 years when you're actually learning vast amounts of stuff proportionately to what you'll learn later on, so it's all inverse spending. Is this ignorance or is it because as you get older you get more power to control these things?
Susan:
Well I think it just goes back to our adoption of the neoliberal model and how ingrained it's become and how it's actually captured hearts and minds which was what Ruth Richardson always wanted to do, and it's very hard now to challenge that. But challenge we must! I listened to your interview this morning about compassionate economies, we've got to start changing our narrative.
Bryan:
I'm wondering, are we ready for a universal benefit system?
Susan:
Well we've got it already. At the moment everyone at 65, bar a few exceptions, is entitled at 65 to have New Zealand Superannuation if they satisfy the residency tests and so forth. That's a universal payment, so it’s already there with a degree of income testing built in. So if you're on a 39% tax rate you get about 70% of what you get if you're on just a primary tax rate.
Bryan:
You said earlier we just can't change all of this overnight. Donald Trump can! He just changed the world economy overnight. Changed tariffs overnight!
Just looking at the world economy and the disarray it currently is in,and thinking about the upcoming budget, what are your thoughts about where the budget should be? What we should be thinking about? What we should be spending on? And where do you think Nicola Willis’ head is on these matters?
Susan:
Well I don't know why anyone is surprised with what we’re actually seeing with economic outcomes than has been predicted, and what we're going to see is a further acknowledgement of that in the budget. But unfortunately, we are not going to see a change from the kind of contractionary policies that have impacted on the poorest. I know what you're saying about the global situation but just to think of what we're doing to ourselves in New Zealand.
We should not be doing the kind of policy changes that the government has been doing and has promised to reinforce in this budget because they are making the recession worse, and it's very clear that they're not going to solve the deficit problem either. Because obviously when the economy goes into recession you're paying out more on benefits and you're getting in less tax and the and the deficit gets bigger. They're reinforcing that process.
Bryan:
I mean we know that austerity doesn't work! So why is this government pursuing it? Is it because it benefits the few wealthy the expense of the many ? What is the rationale here Susan?
Susan:
Well I've puzzled about this, but the rationale seems to be that if you squeeze the public sector and you cut back on government role in the economy, then somehow you make space for the flourishing of the private sector, and you rely on monetary policy and low interest rates to give a boost to investment and new jobs in the private sector.
Whereas what we really need are jobs that are funded collectively, the labour intensive jobs. Fund health and education and in the welfare sector itself.They are the ones that we need to be supporting and using to enhance overall well-being of people for goodness sake; and not expect that somehow somebody out there is going to build a better mouse trap or something and suddenly a business will grow and it'll be the marvelous saviour of everything because it won't.
Bryan:
You mentioned you listened to my interview with Liz Grant and Katherine Trebeck this morning, and I found myself saying in that interview that I had a bit of an epiphany moment a couple of weeks ago when I interviewed Professor Richard Wolff and he started to talk about the Mondragon Corporation.
I remembered that and I thought “Yeah I'm sick of telling people that one in five of our children probably aren't going to be guaranteed of a decent meal tonight'“, and of all of these things that you know so well about our poverty kind of situations Susan. I need to do something practical and so now I'm looking at seeing how I can get involved in challenging the supermarket duopoly.
It's a big task but I think we can do it through the cooperative stores model which we see in Italy and France Scotland and about 100 other countries, in which the community owns the food chain. I think, somehow, we need to move towards that, as an ongoing model. It's not going to be easy, we need to find people who are willing to do this, and we're going to have to get advice from overseas, but I think we need to be working more cooperatively generally rather than competitively. Because that is, if you like, the poverty of the neoliberal model, the politics of selfishness and the economics of selfishness. We're seeing how that is actually causing us so many difficulties. Have you done any work on the cooperative space?
Susan:
No I haven't, and what I would say I totally support the way that you're going about raising the level of awareness of alternative models, and cooperative models are very very fruitful, but I'd like to say that we mustn't forget that if we're going to have an expansion of economic activity like that, it needs to be underpinned by good policies for working people who are going to be in those cooperatives and I'm thinking here about the invisibility of what happens when low income people earn some extra money and try and get ahead.
They not only face our ordinary tax which is high but on top of that the extra dollar means that they lose $0.27 of working for families, they'd possibly lose $0.25 out of their accommodation supplement another $0.12 out of this student loan and they get left with very little. And unless we address this problem I don't think we're going to get the kind of flourishing that that you and I would like to see in the private sector.
Bryan:
Why do you think we beat people down like this who are trying? Where does this come from?
Susan:
Well it's deeply contradictory because the philosophy has always been told to workers the way out of poverty is to work, how you get social inclusion, all of that. And yet the way that they target assistance only on the poor and therefore when you have extra money it has to be withdrawn, has this effect of creating enormous work disincentives and discouragement.
So I what I would like to see is some political figure get hold of this. And if we look at what they've already said for this budget they're doing stupid, mean, petty things like holding the threshold for student loan repayment at $24,100, not adjusting it even for inflation. So over time this system is having an even bigger bite on the working poor .
Bryan
So if you've got a student loan and you've got your degree, what are you going to do? You're going to go to Australia aren't you?
Susan:
Oh yeah. Why would you stay here why would you stay, why not? I mean they don't they don't repay student loans from $24,000 right ? It's right up there. I can't remember I think it's about $80,000 and it's the same with Working for Families - the fixed threshold is $42,700 and you start to lose it at 27% ! That is draconian and that threshold is not being adjusted and no aspect of working for families is being adjusted in this budget .
Bryan:
Can I suggest it's because both of the major parties are disconnected from the reality of life for most people. I'm going to express my own opinion here, that the way I see Labour is being sort of soft neoliberalism and National coalition are hard neoliberal, but they're both neoliberal. They're both don't think that the government should be involved in the marketplace. What do you think the role of government should be?
Susan :
Well just to narrow that question and just think about The Welfare System for a moment. You're right that both Labour and National are very closely aligned and you go back to the 2007 amendment to the Social Security Act which enshrined the role of paid work as the purpose of our social welfare system. Paid workers are mentioned nine times in the purpose and principles section. Labour did that, and it paved the way for National to do all sorts of draconian things when it got in. And then when Labour got back in, in 2017, the first thing it should have done was to own that mistake of that amendment and to change the purpose and principles to once again put people at the centre, to be about belonging participation that all are able to have a flourishing life - that kind of thing - and to take out that emphasis on paid. They didn't change it and and they spent their political capital basically and lost the election, as we know, without having done that fundamental thing .
Bryan:
What does “Work” mean anyway? Our society actually depends on unpaid work far more than paid work. So how do we reward unpaid work that is valuable to our community? We have to have that conversation too.
Susan
We should look at New Zealand Super and see how well we do that, because you can have New Zealand Super and spend 40 hours a week doing voluntary work, valuable voluntary work, and it's fantastic. It gives people an opportunity to take a second go at life to explore new possibilities to contribute in new ways and we need to be thinking along those lines in the 21st century
Bryan:
It's amazing the number of people I know who reach retirement which used to mean , you know, playing golf or gardening or something, but they're all doing other work now. They're in Citizens Advice they are in various voluntary organisations that look after kids, and there is value in that.
And that's something we need to think about when we're going, “ Alright what how we're going to reform superannuation?” In many ways we really have to think about how we're going to reshape our society. What are we about as a people? What do we believe? And how are we going to go forward together? This is part of that isn't it Susan when looking at the idea of a universal benefit?
Susan:
Well it's certainly appreciating what we have in place already and we don't want that to be undermined and is one of the reasons why I would strongly advocate against raising the age of eligibility for New Zealand Super. Let's have a look and see how it works, it's a basic income and let's extend it to other groups maybe people in their late 50s and 60s who are on the supported living payment and it could go on to this basic benefit and be able to supplement that without all these clawbacks and draconian fronting up to WINZ every week kind of policies we have in place.
Bryan:
You were talking about hopefully finding a politician who would speak up for these things. Wealth is a word that is now not a PC word to talk about because Labour is even struggling with whether in fact it might introduce a Capital Gains tax idea again. So we've got a long journey here haven't we? If we're not even prepared to look at taxing wealth that is gained through no effort of your own but simply through your assets ,we've got a long journey here to go.
Susan:
Yes and we've got to start it otherwise we're going to end up in a very divided country with third world type conditions at the lower end we're already seeing some very worrying things in the welfare sector and amongst low income working people and people have some people have lost hope.
Bryan:
Hope! That's it isn't it that word hope people have to have hope, and I don't think it's any accident that we have probably still the highest youth suicide rate in the developed world, and we need to look at that.
Susan:
Yeah it's very serious indeed and we've got to have this dialogue about growth, growth, growth changed, because yes what are we growing you know more consumption and growth for what ?
Bryan:
Yes,growth for what?
Susan, as always it has been thought provoking to talk with you. You are ahead of your time on some of this I have to say, but it's important to be ahead of your time and I thank you for it.
Susan:
Thank you very much for having me and for the work you are doing Bryan.
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