Andrew Dickens Afternoons

I was not going to talk about dolphin-gate- but from first thing this morning, everyone was talking about it.

Sir Russell Coutts has had an epic meltdown over the cancellation of Saturday racing of his SailGP series.

He had to refund the spectator's tickets, which meant at least a third of his income went up in smoke.

Now he's belittling all New Zealand for their bureaucratic torpor that stops go-getters like him getting their way.

I would have raced. And if a foiling boat traveling at 80 kilometres an hour ran over a calving dolphin, turning it into sashimi, I could then say we learnt our lesson- and please pass the rice and the wasabi.

But I think it's important to realise how we got here.

Coutts sailed Lyttleton last year. With dolphin protocols. 1 race-day got delayed. He knew the Lyttleton problem but carried on.

This year he decided to race in Auckland. He wanted to build a stadium and hospitality on the site of a former oil and chemical storage site.

Auckland said you can't put people and food on poisoned land.

Russell said stuff you and flounced back to Lyttleton. There was no investigation of alternative Auckland sites. Or even going to Wellington.

He went back to Christchurch and signed a contract knowing all the protocols and the possibility of disruption. He knew the Lyttleton problem but carried on, hoping for the best.

When the Saturday race was delayed because of a mammal on course the telly coverage, owned by Russell, promptly played a promo praising SailGP's respect for the environment. That they were powered by nature and they look after our marine mammal buddies.

It was good press. Until the dolphin didn't move on.

Then he unleashed a spray about New Zealand holding people like him back. I don't think it's in his construction to admit he made bad choices and to assume some personal responsibility. And then he tried to make it seem like he was a victim.

I don't think this is a left versus right issue. Or a nature versus industry issue.

It was all good until Sir Russell lost some money.

So take a deep breath. Realise New Zealand loves the product. Put it on in an appropriate venue and let's move on, shall we?

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So if you've listened to me for any length of time, you'll know I respect Liam Dann very much indeed.

Liam is the Herald's Business Editor at Large. He hosts podcasts and writes stories about the business world and he's been at the NZ Herald for 21 years.

He's at pains to stress he's not an economist. He's the guy who interviews economists and then translates their technical stuff into news we can all use and we need.

He's just written a book called Barbecue Economics, which explains all this stuff for the average man and woman on the street.

He also writes a column every Sunday, and yesterday he asked the question I've been asking myself for a long time.

"Is the Government’s shock about this 'worse than expected' economy political theatre or just ignorance?"

Last August, Nicola Willis stated the cupboard was bare, and we all knew that.

They then campaigned on fixing it all up. Killing inflation. Solving the cost of living crisis. Building the missing infrastructure. And then on top of it all, giving up on $14.5 billion worth of tax revenue by giving us a tax cut.

But some of us wondered that if the cupboard was indeed bare, was all this possible or was this exaggerated rhetoric to get votes based on some magical thinking that all will be fine in the end?

Now the Finance Minister is saying the economy is worse than expected and maybe some of the policies can't happen.

I'm not sure it is worse than expected, because the government's accounts have never been secret- thanks to the Fiscal Responsibility Act introduced in 1994 to stop nasty surprises. And people were warning National of this last year.

Liam Dann reckons: "To put it generously, it looks like National was using best-case economic scenarios to justify policy promises that were marginal at best."

The question that remains is whether National knew the promises they were making were unaffordable or whether they just don't know what's going on.

Or to put it more bluntly.

Are they stupid or were they lying? And if they were exaggerating their ability to afford their policies, did they think we'd be too stupid to realise?

We all got sick and tired of the last Government gaslighting us and making promises they can't keep. I'm not going to be happy if it happens again.

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When National formed it's new government there was a snappy little phrase that supporters were fond of using.

Thank God the adults are back in charge.

Suggesting that the left wing Labour Government were naive, inefficient fools who had driven the country into the ground like a 12 year old in a ram raid.

National would lead a government run by grown ups who know what to do and how to do it and then actually DO it.

So when Christopher Luxon presented his State of the nation address yesterday, the expectation was that the grown ups were about to tell us how all our problems will be fixed.

What we got was a warning that times were going to get tough. What we got was a promise that our PM would not shy away from tough talk.  What we got was a lot of talk about beneficiaries. They were told the free ride was over. And then at the end an admission to reporters that the Government was yet to explain how it would address and finance the solutions to our woes.

We also got a lot of talk about how bad the last Government was and the implication that they were the root of the parlous state we find ourselves in.

That our water problems and our transport problems and our health problems and our labour problems and our housing problems and our energy problems and our weather problems and our farming problems and of course our economic problems all rest with one cohort of politicians who were in power from 2017 to 2023

It's that sort of blame game that got the Labour Government called childish. I would like to think that this government might have resisted that urge. To be the adults.

I think what many of us want is governance that is future focussed. That considers a time 30 years in the future when our population has doubled or even tripled.

That acknowledges that the mess we're in has taken many different governments and decades to create and will take many different governments to fix.

The most powerful part of Christopher Luxon's speech was the line that New Zealand is fragile.

We are. At a very fundamental level. And have been for a long time. And will be for a very longtime.

So the sooner the adults turn up with a real plan that we can all get behind and that will work, the better.

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So two big video interviews over the weekend.

Firstly, Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin.

Tucker said it was because no-one but him had bothered to ask which is BS. There's always people in the media claiming they're the only people holding power to account.

My feel is that Putin knew Tucker was desperate for the scoop following his embarrassing downfall at Fox, so obliged him as a useful idiot.

But that's not to denigrate the appearance. It was great to watch and listen to Putin. Know your enemy, they say, but you can't if no-one lets you hear them.

The interview was reported 2 ways. Either Putin keen for World War 3 or Putin keen to negotiate for peace.

He alluded to both things but what I took as more chilling was his half hour history lesson on the Russian/Ukraine situation. It went back centuries.

It showed his depth of feeling. Māori would understand, having such long held historical grievance. It's a depth that means he's not pulling out or pulling back. In fact, his keenness for peace negotiation only requires USA to stop funding Ukraine. He's playing a long game. This conflict will only stop when Putin has gone which is no time soon.

So the other interview was Jack Tame's conversation with Chloe Swarbrick.

It was a shocker.

Her refusal to understand how her Palestinian chants had been received was remarkable. This after mediation by the Human Rights Commission. This after Jewish members of her electorate had spoken with her.

The left are famous opponents of hate speech, but to understand if speech is offensive you need to have the empathy to understand how the offence has been taken.

Chloe seemed unable to comprehend the fear Jewish people have of that chant. She was unable to own any blame.

The rest of the interview made me feel that the fresh and intelligent woman who entered parliament has been replaced by a hard line radical informed only by her own echo chamber.

The Greens are in deep trouble. The Ghahraman resignation and forthcoming trial. James Shaw, the one calming influence, the man billed as a relationship builder, gone. The prospect of Davidson and Swarbrick ruling a radical socialist party.

The damage is already evident in the polls this weekend with the Greens dropping 4.8 per cent to sit at 9 per cent.

They're fast becoming unelectable. A socialist party that pays lip service to the environment and has forgotten about why they came into being in the first place.

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So there was a little bit of excitement yesterday as Jack Tame caught the National Party spreading misinformation on Q+A.

Chris Bishop was talking about dropping smokefree legislation and made the claim that there would only be one outlet in all of Northland.

Tame had done his research and said there was more likely going to be 35, which resulted in a classic caught out face from Chis Bishop, who stuck to his line and said he understood there was only going to be 1.

Unfortunately, Jack never asked him where that understanding came from. It came from the Prime Minister, who made the same claim earlier in the week. It was not questioned then, but there was more than enough time for the media to research it and wait for someone to use it again publicly. Which Bishop did and walked into a "gotcha" trap.

Now you've got opponents of the Government jumping up and down going on about the lying Government. Which is a wild over-exaggeration. The factoid was not crucial to their argument about black market trade and gang involvement in tobacco.

Mr Luxon did the right thing and came out and said his team made a mistake. He has urged them to fact check more before they give his Government talking points.

But it's still a thing- and a lesson not to be loose with facts.

As the Prime Minister noted last week about the Pubic Interest Journalism Fund - he stopped short of calling it bribery, but said there was a perception of it. And perceptions are dangerous. But not necessarily true.

The Prime Minister has already been caught out amplifying incorrect statistics through the campaign, so there is a perception that making up statistics is their modus operandi.

As the numbers of outlets was clearly and easily available, a perception could be made that policy is being formulated without sufficient research.

Chris Bishop used to be a tobacco industry lobbyist. Now caught using misleading statistics to support continued sales of tobacco there could be a perceptions of favour for former employers- which is a bad look.

The Prime Minister could be perceived to be in thrall of the Dairy Owners Association who have argued against prohibition, because it would wreck dairy profitability.

The Labour Government found out that perceptions stick. Considering this new Government is only a week old, they might want to learn that lesson fast.

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Congratulations to the new coalition Government, which was sworn in today by Governor General Dame Cindy Kiro.

And as our new Prime Minister says- they're ready to get stuck in.

But things are already getting better. Some say it's just because of the vibe. But don't discount plain good luck and timing.

The so-called hermit kingdom is over. As we heard a week ago, nearly a quarter of a million people chose to emigrate to New Zealand in the past year.

Today we learn tourism is up- and spending in the year to September hit $30 billion dollars.

That's up $6.6 billion on the previous year - and pretty much back to pre-Covid levels.

This while the international spend is still recovering.

As Nicola Willis finally gets her warrant to fool with the economy, the economy appears to be turning a corner.

In today's paper is a report that economists believe the Reserve Bank will not be raising interest rates anytime soon. It also reports that markets are predicting a rate cut as early as May and as many as 3 cuts through 2024. Which is great news for first-home buyers.

With all this good news, there's still one thing that bugs me about this Government and that's the disconnect that you feel when a tax cut has to be funded by a tax rise.

You'll remember that was the problem I had during the election where the tax cut for the squeezed middle was funded by a wealth tax on rich foreigners buying houses. For a Government averse to taxes, it seemed off brand.

The new version came up after the Government's surprise axing of the smokefree programme, and I say surprise because no one can find mention of it in any pre-election manifesto but axed it has been on New Zealand First and ACT's insistence.

Yesterday on Newshub Nation, Nicola Willis said extra revenue from more widespread cigarette sales would help fund tax cuts in lieu of the now-scrapped foreign buyers tax.

This was a loose thing to say prompting accusations that long-term public health had been sacrificed for a short-term cash-grab.

Which is a bad way to start a term.

It's not rocket science. If you cut a tax you cut expenditure. You don't tax a fall guy to make it work. That's inequitable.

Jack Tame asked Nicola Willis if she accepted more people would die because of cancelling the #Smokefree policy.

Willis says- "I have not seen advice or analysis of that so I am not prepared to answer that question".

FFS, this is what we can expect in the next three years.

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So, still no Government.

It's not a biggie. Remember, they only started talking after the specials were counted so it's only been a fortnight. But then again, why did they only start talking after the specials were counted? But still not a biggie. 

Meanwhile, all those getting stuck into Winston are not using their knowledge of history or politics. 

He doesn't have to be in Government. He can say no easily and then bring the Government down whenever he wants. Yes, he's the tail and National's the dog but the dog needs Winston's tail far more than Winston needs the dog. 

And when it comes to the difficulties of the negotiation, many seem to forget that Winston is an old-fashioned anti-globalist who hates immigration and the stress it puts on our infrastructure. 

They seem not to remember that it was Winston's idea to slap a foreign buyers ban in our property market. And he was part of the team that did in 2017. 

But letting foreign buyers back in is at the centre of National's tax plan. 

So they're asking New Zealand First to do an absolute U-turn in terms of policy and principles. That's a big ask. It was always going to be. It was evident weeks before the election. And Luxon has already hinted that the foreign buyers ban may stay. That's a big U-turn too. 

If there's something to criticise National for, it's dropping their 2 ticks blue campaign and letting Winston in. They have much in common but the differences are big stones in the path of coalition. 

Meanwhile, while the cat's away Wayne Brown comes out to play. National's policy of dropping the Auckland fuel tax is leading the mayor to ways to raise money to build the roads. All of a sudden congestion tax is on the fast track. 

It's proof that there is no such thing as a free tax cut. National wants to drop the tax to give Aucklanders more money in the back pocket, but as Wayne Brown points out that comes at the expense of roads. So what do you want more? Roads or tax cuts. Tax cuts or congestion taxes. 

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This is my first ZB shift since the election brought in our new Government-to-be.

And I must say it’s been the most fantastic fortnight, until we lost the Rugby World Cup final due to first half sloppiness and a trigger-happy TMO.

But we had our chances. We can’t complain. You have to play to the rules.

But really, it’s been 2 weeks of calm and confidence and a feeling of recovery and renewal after the election

Business Confidence went from a number in the 20s to a number in the 50s overnight.

Inflation came in in the 5s, despite most expectations being half a percent higher.

Credit agencies said we’re in ok shape and didn’t make our borrowing more expensive.

New Zealand came in 4th in a global tax competitiveness survey.

The real estate section in the paper suddenly doubled in size. Real estate agents starting calling telling me to invest now, because the property market is about to explode.

I even felt that crime has stopped. Just like that. Until I checked and saw there has been a ram raid. In Waihi Beach at 3.40am. 4 perps captured by police. Suddenly the cops are tough on crime.

And suddenly I realised what had changed- nothing.

What was different was no chorus of wet and whingy commentators and politicians telling anyone who was listening that this country was wrecked.

You know the mantra:

“The second to last economy in the world. Heading towards Venezuela. A crime rate to rival the most lawless areas of the world. The last bastion of communist dictatorship in the western world. Our children’s children’s children will be paying for this Government’s 6 years in charge”

It is such a relief not to hear the doomsayers yelling with their megaphones into a dark and depressing echo chamber, every day. Trying to convince us that only they know the answers and New Zealanders wouldn’t know success if it slapped us in the face and said congratulations.

I’ve always said that the country was not doing nearly as well as Labour thought it was, but it’s also not nearly as bad as National would like to have you believe.

We’ve been talked out of our mojo.

It reminds you to always be wary of politicians and their slogans. They don’t seek a legacy. Just your vote so they’ve got a job for 3 years.

So enjoy the respite from criticism of this country, because it won’t last. As soon as the specials are counted we’ll back to the race to the bottom.

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So the political party that didn’t know what it stood for anymore and offered no real future lost the election to the party that offered tax cuts that are affordable only by increasing taxes on the wealthy and then claim that we’re back on track. 

I’d argue that New Zealand is confused. 

How else can you explain a nation that just 3 years ago so gratefully gave a red tide to Labour and now switches to a blue tsunami after a thousand days? 

I think the theme of the election is more that it was time for a change than getting back on track.   

It’s been an horrific four years of pandemics, cyclones, floods, fires. On top of that some ineptitude as Labour gave us slogans rather than policies. Exactly what they criticise National for. 

It was decades worth of angst in just six years so we changed the one thing we could. 

So National get their turn. 

But the wholesale switcheroos we’ve seen in the past two elections are not a good thing for the country. 

When Labour took an outright majority in 2020 we lost some of our best National MPs. The retirement of senior MPs like Joyce and English took the wise rudders. 

Now the same thing has happened to Labour. 

The upshot is a parliament full of newbies on both sides with no real depth of experience and knowledge in governance. 

And governance is not like regular business. If you don’t believe me read Stephen Joyce’s book about his experiences as a newly minted Transport Minister.   

Yes Minister is a documentary not a comedy. 

Such dramatic flip flops smacks of a lack of core belief and that a lot of us will vote for whoever offers us the most moolah in the back pocket. 

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Well, here we are. Finally in the last week of an election campaign between the most incompetent cohort of politicians seen in a long time and wouldn't you know it, an international geo-political crisis just to accentuate that statement.

Obviously, Nanaia Mahuta sympathises with Palestinians. She feels they've been colonised the same way Maori were. That doesn't make her an anti-Semite.

BUT- you must condemn a surprise raid on civilians that killed thousands.

She didn't, while the rest of the world did. So it was left to Chris Hipkins to do the right thing.

Isn't that just like Labour. The few competent people trying to tidy up after the incompetent after yet another cock up.

So why do I think this is the most incompetent cohort of politicians? They all blow in the breeze and will say anything to get the job.

It started when Hipkins got the big job and started the bonfire of the policies, leaving me to ask whether he stood for anything at all.

Since then, he's announced more and more spending despite advice to tai hoa and pay down debt

It continued when National announced that to afford tax cuts for landlords and the middle class, they had to impose a wealth tax on rich foreigners. What a mixed up ideology.

Christopher Luxon announced he could work with Winston Peters just two weeks ago, but now he's taking out full page ads telling voters not to vote for Winston. This is a mess entirely of the leaders' own making.

Meanwhile, Winston tells the world in a debate that he doesn't support GST-free fruit and veg even though it's there on his party's website. 15 minutes later it isn't.  

As Ben Thomas said: "Imagine being in Winston's team and having to concoct and then delete whole policies in real time as he is thundering on live tv."

And now we've got National suggesting we may need a second election and Hipkins agreeing he'd rather have a second election than break his promise about not working with NZ First. So why not cancel the first election and go straight to the second? That's me being facetious.

What a mess. How can I vote for any of them?

But saying that all politicians are useless - don't vote is the sort of empty thing that Russell Brand would say.

So my final word before this election is just vote for the party that matches how your gut feels.

This is a vibe election. So just do it and we'll fix it all up on Monday.

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