Andrew Dickens Afternoons

I want to start the show with tributes to 3 people.

The first is Brooke Graham. My neighbour and friend from the Coromandel who died recently at the age of just 42 from brain cancer.  A fast death inside 9 weeks but slow enough for her to make plans for her 10 year old daughter and her husband. Hers was a death of great grace and I am immensely sad. So to Carrick and MacKenzie, here's to your amazing wife and mother.

Then there's Simon Barnett and his support of his wife, Jodi over the past 6 years in her fight against brain cancer as well. This was featured in the Weekend Herald on Saturday. Of course all of us here have on the afternoon show have known what Simon and his family have been going through. His strength, courage and love while still working this demanding job is amazing. It's good that you now know.

And finally I want to acknowledge Richie Poulton, the director of the Dunedin study who passed away yesterday at the age of 61, again of cancer.

Richie and I were at Auckland Grammar together. In the same cohort were people like Martin Crowe and Grant Fox and business people Ian Narev and Simon Herbert. But Richie is the best of all of us. At school he was smart and sporty.  I knew him as a nice bloke and a very good cricketer. I had no idea of the greatness within him. He was featured last night on the Sunday programme. It was a heart-breaking watch.

Now, if you don't know, the Dunedin Study is a research programme that has followed the progress of 1,000 children born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1972-73, from birth to midlife.

Over 1300 papers have been published about how your environment and upbringing influences your situation. It's world famous, as is Richie.

Last night, John Campbell asked him what the greatest finding was. Richie said poverty. He said you can't undo what happens in childhood.

In 2016 the Dunedin Study published a paper called "Childhood disadvantage strongly predicts costly adult life-course outcomes".

It found that nearly 80 percent of adult economic burden can be attributed to just 20 percent of the study members.

The researchers determined that this “high cost” group accounted for 81 percent of criminal convictions, 66 percent of welfare benefits, 78 per cent of prescription fills and 40 percent of excess obese kilograms.

Professor Poulton says that they also found that members of this group can be identified with high accuracy when as young as 3. Target these guys and you solve a lot of problems.

But as he said last night no-one has talked about poverty in this election campaign.

Labour made it their core goal over the past 6 years, and yet all they've done is throw money at all beneficiaries. And National doesn't utter the p word at all. It was- cut benefits and belief it can stem criminality with longer sentences.

Yet back in 2017, Bill English quoted the 2016 study and talked about social investment. If we can identify the truly vulnerable, why don't we help them, and just them. National has abandoned all that work it did 6 years ago and I have no idea why.

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What a funny old week it's been listening to the media and the Government howling for National's costings on their foreign house buyers tax and National's refusal to release them.

Personally I don't give a flying fig on the costings.

It seems perfectly obvious that National will not raise the money it says it will because that would take a record level of overseas sales.

And National doesn't care. The overseas buyers tax is a sideshow. They are committed to tax cuts. That's their thing. That's non negotiable. They will happen.

So if they can't subsidise the cuts with the new tax what could they do?  Either borrow more or cut Government spending. Cutting services will make their coalition partner happier, so what do you think will happen?

The overseas buyers tax seems like a strange one for a so called right wing neo-liberal globalist party to propose. One that says it's committed to fighting inflation.

In essence it's a wealth tax. "You can afford a $2 million dollar house. Great we'll have another $300,000 bucks in tax thanks, you rich prick." I guess it's OK to tax the wealthy if they're foreign. That $300,000 is another incentive for foreign buyers to find places without the tax because they don't like tax either, so that's another blow to National's optimistic projections.

The opening of the market is another strange call in a time of inflation. It will mean more buyers and therefore higher prices which all contribute to inflation.

If the market picks up steam because of the foreign buyers, then the wealthy with property will have more capital to borrow against to spend on their next overseas trip or car or new kitchen. Again spurring on inflation.

Houses will get more expensive freezing out first home buyers. That's headline news and more inflation.

Meanwhile, National is squirting $2 billion into consumers back pockets, will also spur inflation.

In fact, when you look at National's suite of policies, they're all stimulatory, which is not the thing you do in a high inflation environment with historically high house prices. Margaret Thatcher would be having kittens. It's no wonder some true neo-liberals call National Labour-lite.

At the end of the day, I don't know why National is so wedded to the tax cuts other than they're an easy sell to house owners.

Why couldn't they just cut the wasteful spending and delay the tax bracket changes until we're better placed to wear them?

Cut all the wasteful spending and then spend the savings on stuff we really need. Like doctors, hospitals, water pipes, roads and public transport.

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What a wild and woolly weekend on the hustings.

Christopher Luxon turns up on Q&A to talk about National's policies.

First up, he promises to close Rotorua's emergency housing motels and kick any troublesome Kainga Ora social housing tenants out.

Obviously, this is great news for law abiding Rotorua residents and New Zealanders suffering from the neighbours from hell.

But he forgot that people ask follow up questions. Like, so where do you put these people? To which he has no answer.

This is not good.  Don't take my word for it. Avowed right winger Ashley Church was on Early Edition said this went too far. The State is the landlord of last resort, blah blah blah blah.

The social housing and the motels were a bad answer to a bad problem.  Get rid of them and all you have is a badder problem getting worse. And if you think feral's behaviours are bad in a state house you wait until they live in a car. Luxon offered nothing.

Then he said their housing policies would provide downward pressure on rents. Of course, we all know he's a landlord so Tame asked the obvious question, "So will you reduce rents for your tenants in this new environment?". What followed was a stammering exercise.  Claire Trevett describes it as a rookie MP in an interview with no answers.

Here's the thing, he's auditioning for the top job in the nation. If he can't stand up to Jack Tame, what's going to happen when Xi Jinping starts asking some hard house tax questions? What's going to happen in the leader's debates?

The reason this is a concern is because Labour really does seem like the Walking Dead. Fresh from their spectacular second term implosion and the loss of cabinet Minister after Cabinet Minister. After 6 years of failed promise after failed promise. With Hipkins seeming to be low on energy and new ideas and only bursting into life slagging the opposition. With all the other Labour MPs existing in radio silence either because  they've been muted or they've got nothing to say. After all that, National should be romping home.

It should be like shooting fish in a barrel. Instead, Christopher Luxon just shoots himself in the foot. Time and time again.

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So we're off and running with an election 40-odd days away and both parties promising the world.

Labour is out of the gate with their policy of free dental care for the under 30s.

A policy they, themselves, said was unachievable just a month ago. A policy that needs more dentists, but we only train 60 a year and it takes 6 years for them to be in the workforce. Everything is against this policy and Labour knows it, which is why they won't even try to do it until 2026, and only if they get back in.

It's almost as if Labour doesn't get what's driven the electorate off them over the past 3 years. Pie in the sky word salads that are barely possible if not impossible. They were given an incredible mandate just to repair what pandemic lockdowns did to us but instead, they started chasing unicorns.

My pet peeve is the Light Rail that might bother some shop owners, so they thought- let's just stick it underground at eye-watering cost. And you want us to take you seriously.

To win, National just needs to seem capable and the first reactions to their near $15 billion in tax cuts seemed favourable. But that is waning.

On Friday, Matthew Hooten rubbished it and called it cynical. On Saturday, tax experts said it breaks tax treaties overseas. On Sunday, even Heather du Plessis-Allan was saying the foreign house buyers sales tax figures were ludicrous, and they are.

Nearly $900 million of tax cuts are dependent on foreign buyers suddenly buying half of all the $2 million dollar plus houses available. It's starting to have that "made up a month ago and costed on the back of an envelope" feel.

Meanwhile, a question they've never answered is whether spraying nearly $15 billion into the money market will be inflationary. So tax cuts are inflationary because they increase the money supply the same way money printing and borrowing does. They need to be timed very carefully.

The only way they would not be inflationary is if you reduce Government spending by the amount you're giving back in tax cuts so that spending is net zero. But they're not doing that, which is why they've invented the foreign buyer tax and casino tax.

And the other problem is productivity. We're running at nearly full capacity. Look at our participation rates and particularly the food price index. There's no room for job growth to drive prices lower. Meanwhile, giving the people more money means you give the people the ability to afford higher tomato prices and inflation carries on and becomes embedded even if you do slash Government spending.

National is running on the promise of being prudent financial managers. A prudent manager would bring in the bracket changes when inflation has abated. But they're not.

To that end, National shows themselves to be just as hostage to ideology as Labour is. Just promise tax cuts. it always works.

A letter to the editor on Sunday called National and Labour Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumber, and said give your vote to someone else. However, the other parties seem like Tweedle-Dumbest.

So as I've been saying all year. New Zealand deserves some smart leadership but no one is offering it.

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So last week we lost Sir Michael Parkinson, the great interviewer. His son interviewed in the weekend saying his father was proud of his working-class roots but hated politics. While he hated politics but loved policy. He thought most of politics was just an act, but policies are actions. 

I thought about that watching the corny play that was acted out over the weekend. Hipkins ruled out Peters even though Peters had ruled out Hipkins ages ago. Then Dunne says great politics and that it snookers Luxon, but Luxon comes back and says he's not thinking about Peters at all. 

Honestly. So much hot air over almost nothing. 

Then Chippy calls National, ACT, New Zealand First a coalition of cuts, chaos, and confusion. 

Virtually the same thing that Luxon has been saying all year. Could you be any more insipid? 

I said last week that I fail to comprehend what Chris Hipkins actually stands for anymore, and there's more proof. 

Then we have Paul Henry in the paper on Sunday. John Key's bestie and former National party candidate. 

He’s seen no evidence that if a new government is elected in October, things will “dramatically” change. 

He says National are paralysed with the fear of dramatically committing themselves to anything and that Luxon is too obsessed with not screwing things up, and not screwing things up is not success. 

And he's right. National's policy planks seem to be just removing anything Labour has done and throwing tax cuts at the cost of living which is like using gasoline to put out a fire. 

There's a lack of a vision thing in our major parties, and when they do have a vision then they fail to realise it. 

The National Party's policy on cancer drug funding last week was the closest to vision we've had from them in years, but they didn't sell it very well. 

It's a return to Bill English's social investment philosophy. Using the Community Card to target help those who really need it rather than splashing cash around universally on prescriptions for everyone including the rich. 

At the moment all the politicians in all the parties seem either misguided, . 

It's time the politicians figure out what they stand for. Stop complaining that New Zealand's lost its mojo and ambition and get some yourself. 

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So the World Cup has finished it' stellar month downunder with a victory for Spain.

Who, I hope, took the time to thank Palmerston North for the city's contribution towards their success.  After all one would presume that if the team was so bored with the Palmie nightlife then they'd be getting good sleep and spending plenty of time practicing and improving their game during the day.

And that is the magic of this World Cup. That New Zealand was so significantly and visibly involved.

We hosted half the draw in a tournament whose ratings far exceeded anything we've hosted before. Bigger than a Rugby World Cup, bigger than the America's Cup, bigger than a Commonwealth Games. 2 billion pairs of eyes watched us. Despite what negative columnists wrote about our domestic problems being visible to the world I can assure you that was not the case. We looked great. And if a fraction of those people decide to visit us in the future that's a win.

The monetary benefit is still to be calculated but it's fair to say the whole thing was an unqualified success and we owe it to public servants from the council and the government who oiled the wheels in the first place.

Some of the workers at Tataki Auckland Unlimited had been working for 15 years to convince FIFA that we were up to the task. They had to battle against super powers like England and Germany who were against us co-hosting. But they got there.

But those are the people who are currently under threat. Wayne Brown wants his civil service to return to rubbish bins and water and no more. 200 jobs are going at Tataki Auckland Unlimited. It's the sort of short sighted populist policy that is alarming Auckland businesses who understand that nothing happens without incentives, which they told the Mayor back in May.

It's why Coldplay is playing Perth and Taylor Swift is playing Sydney and Melbourne but neither are playing New Zealand. The cities and the country cut them a deal.

ACT's David Seymour is waging the same fatwa against public servants which he continued this morning. Now while I have no problem with KPI targets I do have a problem with his belief that this country can survive his drastic cuts to the public workforce.  

A few months ago Mr Seymour said he could cut $1 billion out of the public sector in a week. He went further reckoning he could cut $38 billion out of the annual bill. He particularly dislikes event incentives and sweetheart deals for things like films and Research and Development, calling them corporate welfare. He wants to eviscerate Stephen Joyce's innovation, MBIE.  

He believes business initiatives should stand on their own feet. But he ignores the fact that without public money some of things wouldn't even be able to crawl.

The sort of cost cutting Mr Seymour is suggesting would also provoke an enormous austerity and impact the whole economy. Public servants buy goods and services from the private sector. But they don't if they're unemployed.

But it's a popular policy. He's exploiting an embedded dislike of public servants that has been stoked along by small government capitalists for decades now. The belief that all public servants are bad wastes of money and stuff would happen without them.

Stuff would happen but not at the scale we've enjoyed lately. After all what business is prepared to throw 15 years of effort and incentive at an event that might not even happen?

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So Chris Hipkins’ big roll of the dice has happened. Two months out from the election. 61 days if you're counting

GST comes off fruit and veg, Working For Families gets even more money and higher thresholds. It's a 2 billion dollar giveaway for poor vegetarians and breeders. The rest of the poor are left out.

And this is it. The economic situation, both local and global, preclude any more big spend ups. We've heard Grant Robertson say that. But we've also heard Grant Robertson say many other things only to be guzumped by political expediency, so who knows?

So will this do the trick?

I don't think so. Nicola Willis got the GST debate out early stealing its power. Meanwhile, the increase in In Work Tax Credits and Working For Families cash is being largely ignored as it benefits only 160,000 families. Still a big number but not big enough. There's a lot of other poor people getting nothing

And it's very hard to vote for Labour in 2023 after their six years in power, for two main reasons.

I'm reading a book by Dylan Jones, the former GQ editor. It's all about the Nineties. Cool Britannia, Britpop, Young British Artists and politics. New Labour. Tony Blair and the Third Way.

In it he talks to a former advisor to Gordon Brown who pointed out that New Labour became more obsessed with the presentation of an idea than the idea itself. The catchy phrase. The snappy nonsensical slogan. It killed them.

The same malaise has befallen New Zealand's Labour since they came to power. 100,000 Kiwibuild houses.

Light rail by 2021 was incredible. They seemed to have no idea how long it takes to build a piece of kit like that. Or The Road to Zero, which fails because unless you hit zero, which we won't, then the policy fails. It's in the name.

This is not to say this government has achieved nothing at all, which is a common complaint. They have achieved a lot but even they seem unaware of exactly what it was.

And secondly, the problem with Tony Blair became that nobody knew who he was, or where he came from, or what he stood for. Unlike his predecessor John Smith, a campaigner for the working class, Tony was just a kinder Thatcher or a more interesting John Major. But at the end of the day, you just didn't know what he was about. Other than lying about Weapons of Mass Destruction on behalf of the Americans

And that's what's happened to Chris Hipkins. He's rolled back so many policies he has nothing left except a desperate desire to keep the right form having a crack, and that's not enough. What does he stand for other than sausage rolls and Barkers suits?

But you can have the same criticism of Chris Luxon and the right, who are running on a campaign of repealing everything Labour has done and then giving you an inflationary tax cut.

One of the slogans in play this election is Let's Take Our Country back.

It's slightly depressing that six years after being promised a transformative government we've ended out with all our politicians promising a return to the policy settings of seven years ago. As if nothing has changed in the world in nearly a decade.

When we ask whether New Zealand has lost its mojo and its ambition, should we really be starting with our politicians who seem to be content competing in a lightweight personality poll?

And mistrust of the cynicism of politicians who will say anything to get a vote is at its peak. With our leading party polling just 34% right now you have to ask if they will really have any mandate at all come October.

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Infrastructure is hogging the headlines as Labour and National push separate priorities.

Unfortunately both priorities are pressing. But this is the New Zealand way. We ration our spending which invariably means everything costs more and happens too late.

But there is a much criticised piece of infrastructure that is currently working very well.

I'm talking about Eden Park which is taking a starring turn at the Women's World Cup.

The weekend game of Spain versus Switzerland saw a new record for a football match in New Zealand. 43,217 spectators for a game that featured no New Zealanders. It's the third time the record has been set in the tournament as the audience enjoys the experience enough to go multiple times.

Now where I live has been the base for a number of travelling supporters of teams and I have taken the time to have a chat to them about their experience.

The love the stadium. They say it's quirky and has character and they are aware of the venue's history. They're a little surprised at the the lack of rooves but that is also a part of its charm.

They've been impressed how quickly the stadium empties and how easy it was to train back to the city.

Back in the city they've loved our restaurants. One couple I talked to from New York couldn't believe the quality of their meals and their prices compared to restaurants back home.

A family from Arkansas raved to me about the Commercial Bay food hall, saying how quick and cheap and good the meals were for a family.

They've also used the fan zone a lot, which is right beside the construction site where 2 people were shot dead at the start of the tournament. When I asked them if they had seen anything scary they said no.

In fact, everyone commented on how nice New Zealanders are and how many people had gone out of their way to help and talk to them.

It's worth remembering that the USA team alone brought 15,000 supporters with them, and so far I've yet to find a supporter who will not go home and rave about our country. Meanwhile their boost to the local economy has been very welcome.

All this stands in direct contrast to many New Zealanders who believe that we've lost our mojo and our ambition and we are becoming the laughing stock of the world.

We're halfway through and the Women's World Cup is proving to be an outstanding success on a global scale. Well done. Let's bid for the men's event, shall we?

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The media seems to be writing to a theme and the theme is "Rats leaving the sinking ship".

Over the past few weeks there have been a string of stories about high profile and high net wealth New Zealanders leaving New Zealand because the place has apparently lost its vibe and energy. It's election year and a tactic to get rid of the Government is to prove that the country has gone to wrack and ruin

I hate the tactic. It's like we had to burn the village to save it.

Marc Ellis kicked it off. He made his fortune in professional sport, the media and the orange juice business. He's semi retired. He's relocating to Puglia in Italy where the property prices are cheap as chips, unlike New Zealand.

He's right on that. Puglia is the heel of the boot of Italy. Its main industry is olive oil, that has seen technology strip the work force so there are empty houses galore in an area with loads of beaches. He's a rich man going to live in a poor place

Also remember that Italy's tax rates are higher. Its GDP growth is slower. Central Government debt is 4 times higher per capita and the mafia still pull the strings.

But despite all that he still thinks it's better than New Zealand

I found the whole thing a bit disingenuous. He's got an Italian wife and Italian kids and they want to spend some time learning the language and seeing her family. It makes sense that they'd want to go home. But I don't see why he had to kick the country that made his fame and fortune as he went out the door.

Ben Cook the property developer made the same headlines. He' selling up his 100 million dollar property portfolio and moving to Australia, prompting headlines suggesting New Zealand is rubbish. But Ben Cook said he just likes Sydney now his kids are grown up and he still loves New Zealand and that it's the best place for lifestyle and the outdoors.

I think it's great for the country that Ben Cook is selling up. It gives a new generation a chance at the assets and to move forward. People who have had success in New Zealand are keen to have a crack at bigger markets. That's what made them rich in the first place

And finally there's Tamzyn Adding who's taking her design business to Brisbane. But her reasons were different. She doesn't blame the government. She blames business people. She reckons she's landed more work in Brisbane in 5 weeks than she got in 5 years in New Zealand because the business people have a better attitude.

She calls New Zealand an old boys club where no-one wants to try something new. She's sick of business people constantly bagging the country and creating a toxic environment.

And there's the nub of it. We've gone to sleep and prefer moaning about it rather than doing something about it. The Koru Club is one big depression party with everyone moaning about how bad we are and making empty threats to leave the country if Labour gets back in again.

We're not nearly as bad as so many make us out to be, but then again we're not nearly as good as Labour pretends we are. But let's all be a little positive.

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Well didn't Kiri Allan throw the cat amongst the pigeons last night.

Driving along Evans Bay parade, the windy road on the East side of the bay that is used as a route out of Wellington, the Justice Minister hit a car. The cops turned up.  It turns out she's been drinking.  She refuses to accompany a police officer so she's hauled off to the police station to sit on a naughty chair until the early hours of the morning.

She's the Justice Minister. She's been detained by the police. The Number 1 thing not to do in that job.

She had returned a breath test over the legal limit but at a level considered an infringement offence and police will not press charges in relation to that.

She was described as being very distressed

So she quits her ministries and then the Prime Minister starts blaming her mental health. Just a few days after assuring us that her mental health was good enough to continue in her job.

None of this is good.  None of this shows an ability to deal with stress and responsibility.  All of this smacks of a government just holding on by the skin of it's teeth.

And the whole year has been like this. An inability to handle the basics.  All Michael Wood had to do was employ an accountant to sort out his affairs.  All Stewart Nash had to do was not email cabinet deliberations.  All Kiri had to do was call an Uber.

Simple mistakes by supposedly smart people.

And now we have 5 more parliamentary weeks left and the Labour Party has created a rod for it's own back.  3 years ago they had the most decisive parliamentary win in MMP history. 65 MPs on the government benches and yet the big jobs have been shared amongst a small coterie of politicians. There's been no future planning, there's been no blooding of new talent.

We need a new Justice Minister. we need a new conservation minister, we need a new emergency management Minister in a time when emergencies seem to be coming at us left, right and centre. Who will Hipkins turn to?

And while he doesn't need to should he call an snap election?  I mean, things are not going to get any better for this Labour Government. The opposition parties will get their guns in a row and the next 3 months will be a horror show

You can almost hear an echo of the time when Muldoon called a snap election when half cut.  When challenged that it didn't give his party time to prepare, Muldoon replied it didn't give his opponents time to prepare either.

Whatever happens Chris Hipkins is a lame turkey right now, waiting for Christmas

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