Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald Newstalk ZB

National’s Vanessa Weenink and Labour’s Reuben Davidson joined John MacDonald to dig into the biggest political stories of the week. 

Nicola Willis believes that it is a politician's job to provide hope for their citizens, do they agree as we head towards next week’s Budget?  

Is mining on the West Coast a good idea to boost the local economy, or does there need to be more consideration of the environmental impact? 

And it looks like the first home buyers grant is set to be axed in favour of funding social housing, are people being let down? 

LISTEN ABOVE 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who would think that former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and current Finance Minister Nicola Willis could agree on anything? But it seems they do. 

Both of them think that it’s the job of politicians to give people hope. I think that’s wishful thinking on their part. 

When Grant Robertson gave his valedictory speech two months ago before leaving Parliament to become Vice-Chancellor at the University of Otago, he said: “You’ve got to give them hope”. 

He said: “That is our job in this place: to give people hope. To give hope to those who seek a better tomorrow for their families and communities, to give hope to everyone that they can be who they are and live free of discrimination, and to give hope to those who have none.” 

And then yesterday, in her pre-Budget speech, Nicola Willis said the thing New Zealanders need most right now is "hope that tomorrow will be better".  

Well I tell you what, unless Nicola Willis announces next week that the guy with the thick accent who called her on a crackly line from Nigeria saying he had $200 billion to gift to New Zealand - unless she announces that it wasn’t actually a scam and the money’s already in the bank, then don’t expect me to say today that I’m hopeful about where New Zealand is heading. 

And, as for what Grant Robertson said about it being the job of MPs to give people hope - well, that might be the theory, but we’re deluded if we expect politicians to change our worlds. 

I remember on the night of the 1984 election, and I was just about to drop out of school. I say “drop out” because, now that I look back on it, that’s what I was doing. 

I had scraped through three school certificate subjects, failed two, and the last place I wanted to be was school, especially the school I was at. So, my parents agreed to let me leave and start working at the little shop they ran in Dunedin.  

And I remember on the night of that 1984 election, we were all sitting around the TV watching David Lange make his big victory speech and I remember my mother turning around to me and saying that if Labour hadn’t won, I wouldn’t be leaving school. 

That was the hope she had that the change in government was going to make it a better place. As we know, though, that night in 1984 was the starting point in a time of significant upheaval and turmoil. 

Forty years on from then, here we are in another state of upheaval and turmoil.  

And I think Nicola Willis is dreaming if she expects us to have hope. And I think Grant Robertson was big on theory when he said it’s the job of politicians to give people hope - but he was dreaming too. 

Because what gives people hope is sentiment. Not policies, not slogans, and certainly not politicians. And anyone whose hope level is dictated by the weasel words of politicians is only setting themselves up for disappointment.  

So, on the basis of hope being based on sentiment, you’ve got to say that the sentiment right now in New Zealand is far from hopeful. 

And I’m not just basing that on how things are for me, personally, because I’m actually at a stage in life where we no longer have all the expenses that come with having kids at school. We own a house. The big $400-$500 shops at Pak ‘n’ Save only happen during the university holidays, not all the time. 

Yes, things are blimmin’ expensive and we’ve done what a lot of people seem to have been doing recently and we’ve ditched Netflix and Neon and all those things. But that’s largely because we can - not because we have to. Not because it comes down to Netflix or a loaf of bread. 

So you could say that I have more reasons than a lot of people to be hopeful. 

But I don’t. Because I’m looking at this obsession with government cost-cutting and I’m asking, ‘where’s the thinking behind it, other than simplistic numbers and percentages?”. And the answer to that, is there isn’t. 

I’m not hopeful because I look around

Mining is on the way back. 

That’s the message today from Regional Development and Resources Minister Shane Jones who is on the West coast to announce the Government's proposal to double mining exports (which are already worth $1 billion) by allowing mining in some conservation areas - not just for coal, but other minerals too. 

The Government says one of the big selling points is the number of jobs it would create. About 2,000 new jobs it reckons. And not just on the Coast, either. Because the Government thinks there are opportunities here in Canterbury too, as well as Marlborough. 

Not that the protesters, who are going to be all over this today, are buying that. They don’t want a bar of it. 

Which is the challenge we’re always going to have with something like this, isn’t it? Cover your ears, no-no-no, not interested, mining is bad, blah blah blah. 

But I tell you what, I’m willing to hear the Government out on this one. It’s not like Shane Jones is going to be telling us that it’s all-go from tomorrow, that he'll be sending the trucks in at dawn. 

What he is saying is let’s have a look at this and see if we can make it work. Let’s investigate what we’ve got under the ground and work out if we can make a go of it. And he’ll get no opposition from me on that. 

Not that a few protesters will be an issue for this particular minister. Shane Jones being Shane Jones, he’ll probably be right up for a bit of korero with the anti-mining crew. 

He might even trot out that line he used recently when he said (quote): “If there is a mining opportunity and it's impeded by a blind frog, then goodbye, Freddie.” 

So, what this is all about today isn’t just coal and gold. It’s about all the other minerals under the ground on the Coast, in Canterbury and in Marlborough, that the Government reckons could be a goldmine for the New Zealand economy. 

But, of course, what today will inevitably lead to is a battle of ideologies. It’s probably underway already, actually, which doesn’t help anyone. And it’s something I’ve seen before. 

I remember in 1999 and 2000 when I was working as a journalist and spending a lot of my time on the West Coast reporting on the stoush over the then-Labour government’s move to end native logging on Crown-owned land. 

The people on the Coast went berserk because they saw jobs and businesses going at the expense of Labour’s ideology which said taking trees away was bad. Which also put a lot of the locals up against the environmental crowd, who thought no tree should be touched. 

What kind of got lost in that row was the fact that the trees weren’t being felled with chainsaws, they were being pulled out of the ground using helicopters in a way designed to let new trees grow and to allow the forests to keep regenerating. 

But Helen Clark and Michael Cullen got their way and the native logging on Crown land came to a halt.  

What I learned from that experience is how limiting ideologies can be and I hope we don’t repeat the same mistake this time around. Because I say ‘let’s take a look, let’s see if we can get a slice of the minerals pie that Shane Jones is talking about’.  

Because who wants to be saying coulda, woulda, shoulda in a few years time about another billion dollars in earnings for our mining sector? I don’t. Do you? 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, it looks like the Government is going to ditch the First Home Buyers Scheme which gives people up to $10,000 to help get them into their first home.  

All up, it costs the Government $60 million a year. It seems that money’s going to go into social housing instead. 

And it’s tick, tick, tick from me. That’s because, even though I think there is a place for government involvement in helping people get ahead in life, buying assets is not one of them. 

I was talking to someone who was saying that the First Home Buyers Scheme can be one of the only bits of government help some people get - over and above the usual public services. That would be aside from the pension, too, of course. 

And that’s government with a small g. This person wasn’t talking about the current government. They were about the government, in general. Or taxpayer support, to put it another way. 

But what I say to that is, just because you might never be on ACC, or you might never be on the unemployment benefit, or you might never need a sickness benefit, that doesn’t mean you're owed anything. 

And you’re certainly not owed anything to help you buy your first home. 

But, of course, there will be people who will be outraged that the scheme is going. Yes, they’ll be unhappy. And that’s because home ownership has come to be seen as something of a basic human right. When it’s not. 

Having a roof over your head is a basic human right. Owning that roof, isn’t. 

Interestingly, it was a National government in the 1950s which had the thinking that living in a state house should only be for people who needed it, and not for everyone. 

So, what it did is it set an income limit and told all the so-called middle-class people that they could forget about getting a state house and started championing home ownership, instead, saying that was what New Zealand aspired to. 

And so, it did a couple of things. It said to state house tenants that if they wanted to buy the house they were in, they could. And it increased the availability of what were known as state-advanced loans to help people get into their first homes. 

Which meant, within a very short time, 34% of all home loans were from the state. And, of course, what happened was demand outstripped supply and the real estate merry-go-’round got going. 

Over the years, it wasn't just National that fuelled this obsession with home ownership. The Labour government that came in after National in 1959 allowed low-income families to have their Family Benefit paid in advance, to help them get a deposit together for a house. 

Fast-forward to 1984, and things changed a bit under David Lange’s Labour government. It deregulated the banking sector which brought more competition into banking, stopped the scheme that allowed people to put their Family Benefit towards a deposit, and started introducing market rental rates for state houses.  

And, by that time, the horse had well-and-truly bolted and home ownership was the be-all and end-all for a lot of people. As it still is today. 

But even though we have a relatively long history of governments helping people out financially if they want to buy a home —to varying degrees, certainly— it’s not a reason to keep doing it. 

And the obsession with home ownership certainly isn’t a reason to keep giving taxpayer money to people to buy houses. 

And good on the Government —or National anyway— for being true to its word and, in relation to this anyway - being true to its word and basing its housing support on need. 

Because no one needs to buy a house. They might want to, but they don’t need to. 

Unlike someone on the bones of their backside and on the edge of society, who does actually have a need. They need a roof over their head. And, if the Government is sitting there trying to work out the best way to spend $60 million - then, as far as I’m concerned, that $60 million has to go towards addressing people’s

John MacDonald was joined this morning by Chris Hipkins for their regular catchup. 

Labour's leader is warning the Government it shouldn't can a grant for first home buyers.  

An inquiry led by former PM Sir Bill English has found Kainga Ora needs to find significant savings to be financially viable.  

The Housing Minister says every programme the state housing provider runs will be checked for cost value.  

Chris Bishop won't rule out dropping first home buyer grants. 

Chris Hipkins told John MacDonald that it would be the wrong move. 

He says the scheme is a modest contribution to people being able to buy a first home and is not a big chunk of money in the budget process. 

LISTEN ABOVE 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What an absolute shambles Kāinga Ora sounds like. 

But, let’s be honest, even though the Government is making noises about what a shocker this investigation and report by Sir Bill English is - it’s probably quietly quite pleased with it, don't you think? 

And, for me, the key thing it all comes down to is how involved a government, of any persuasion, should be in providing housing for people who need help to get a roof over their head. 

Is it the Government’s job to be a developer and a landlord? Or just a landlord? 

And I think the smoke signals from Wellington are very clear in that, as far as the current government is concerned, if it could get out of building state houses it would, and it would just focus on being the owner and the landlord. 

Which is why I say I reckon it’ll be quietly pleased with what Sir Bill English has delivered in the report he’s written on his investigation into our state housing provider. 

But I think we’ll be heading down the wrong track completely if we think the best or only way to get out of the Kāinga Ora shambles is to do the old outsourcing trick. 

That’s not to say that Kāinga Ora is a poster child for state or public housing. It’s not. As Sir Bill has highlighted, it’s a shambles. Or as Sir Bill’s report said —echoed by the Housing Minister Chris Bishop yesterday— Kāinga Ora is not financially viable nor socially viable. 

Here are some numbers which show how dire things are on the financial front. 

Kāinga Ora is staring down the barrel of a $700 million annual deficit.  

Its debt level has gone through the roof. In 2018, it had $2.7 billion in debt. By 2023, that had increased to $12.3 billion in June 2023. And it’s now forecast to get up to $23 billion within four years. 

Apparently, it has had easy access to debt but has done a completely cruddy job of keeping checks on things with “insufficient focus on fiscal discipline, and low levels of accountability leading to growing annual losses.”  

What’s more, Kāinga Ora says it needs $21.4 billion in cash from the Government over the next four years, which the Housing Minister says equates to about $4,000 for every New Zealander. 

So, if Kāinga Ora was your business, you would have been shut down by the bank long before now.   

Sir Bill English’s report also has harsh things to say about how Kāinga Ora has expanded from being a state landlord to a developer and running schemes to help first-home buyers.  

And fair enough too, because that is nuts. I bet that wasn’t what Michael Joseph Savage had in mind when he opened New Zealand’s first state house in Wellington in 1937. 

David and Mary McGregor were the first people to live in that house. As well as Prime Minister Savage, 300 other people were at the opening ceremony, and they all trudged through the house in dirty shoes and eventually had to be asked to leave by the McGregors. 

And sightseers were still turning days after that, having a nosey through the windows. 

Today, there isn’t the same level of fascination with state houses. But interest in the shambles Kāinga Ora has become will be going through the roof after this report that came out yesterday. 

One of the real shockers for me, is this finding that the Board —so the people right at the top of the organisation— didn’t seem to be all that concerned about the money side of things. 

Chris Bishop said yesterday it was evident that the Board had been acting more as an advisor to management instead of governing the place and telling management what to do and what not to do. 

Example: Bill English found that in the papers prepared for the May 2023 Board meeting, there was no Statement of Financial Position. Chris Bishop sys the Board just assumed new lending of several billion dollars from the Government would be approved and didn’t even think about what they’d do if the Government said “no”. 

Again, I’ll compare it to the pr