Panel response to Guyon Espiner's interview with John Key.
PAUL HOLMES So National's plans for the year, what John Key has called his government's crucial year of action, we go to the panel. We'd better deal with the uranium shares. Should the Prime Minister of New Zealand a nuclear free country, be the owner of however amount he's got of them at 13 cents, not very good shares by the sounds of things, should he be the owner of uranium mining shares.
JON JOHANNSON - Political Analyst Well I mean he's got a blind trust right, so you know you'd like to think that he hasn't got a clue what is included in his portfolio these days, but I think the wider question here is really about the use of overseas companies you know that may come in and do mining and that, and whether in fact a lot of this mineral wealth - you know the wealth could get repatriated with us just sort of clipping the ticket.
PAUL Well yes but the uranium shares, you know is it a bother?
PHIL O'REILLY - Business New Zealand That was a sideshow, so really the issue here is how are we gonna make sure that the economy's more successful.
PAUL Fair enough and we'll get on to that very shortly, Uranium shares bothers you?
MAXINE GAY - National Distribution Union Yes of course it does, he shouldn't have them, nobody should have them.
PAUL Alright let's talk about the tax cuts he's talking about, here's what the Prime Minister said.
John Key: "From middle to higher New Zealand in my view on a straight GST income split they'll be much better off, or they'll be better off or much better off. Lower income New Zealanders, those between 0 and $14,000 won't be worse off they'll be a little bit better off but not a lot better off because they don't pay a lot of tax there."
PAUL So I mean that is the question Maxine isn't it, that the more tax you pay, when we get tax reductions, you know you're gonna get a better reduction.
MAXINE The Prime Minister is attempting to sell the biggest tax increase in 20 years.
PAUL He says that's nonsense Maxine.
MAXINE Well I want to dispute.
PAUL He's talking about tax cuts Maxine, how can you say that's an increase.
MAXINE He's talking about increase in consumption tax by 20%, so it's very difficult to see how low income people who spend 60% of their income staying alive, getting to and from work, can be compensated, so a 20% increase in consumption tax by personal income tax reduction, the money has to come from somewhere.
PAUL You're saying there's no way they can balance the GST rise against reduction for low income earners.
MAXINE Absolutely there is no way, the money has to come somewhere, it's in order to give a significant and spectacular decrease in tax to the upper income earners.
PAUL Why would he want to do that, well he wants to keep graduates here for a start. Phil O'Reilly what do you think?
PHIL This isn't just upper income, this is plumbers we're talking about, this is everybody above 70Ks on the top row, that includes many of Maxine's members I suspect so this is really about getting some fairness in the tax system.
MAXINE When Phil O'Reilly and the Prime Minister talk about wanting to do something for the workers I think it's time for the workers to be afraid, very very afraid.
PHIL The Prime Minister's also said that he's gonna look after the less well off, he made that point again this morning. Now, the truth will be in the pudding of course, and one of the political difficulties he's got is the people like us who are gonna double guess him for the next few months trying to work out what he really means, and I saw Guyon doing that today, but this is not just about the so-called rich listers, this is about plumbers and electricians all the rest, that go to Australia and don't then deliver quality jobs in New Zealand.
PAUL Well of course it's the Rich List he's attacking is not paying what they really ought to be paying in terms of tax, and I mean Maxine go to the speech and you will see nothing but the word fairness written all the way through it.
MAXINE That argument says that if we reduce the top rate people will pay it more, that's akin to saying if we reduce the price of cars, car conversions won't happen any more. I mean that's a nonsense, it's a complete nonsense.
JON I agree with Phil about the second guessing business, but I walked out of that speech on Tuesday and my comment to my colleague was, that sounded like an opening bid to me, and I think he wants us to discuss this and debate this, and there's gonna be a hell of a lot of polling done by the ninth floor to find out what is actual political - you know what he's gonna be able to sell.
PAUL Jon in that first part of the speech he painted a picture of what that achieved last year, 11,805 more elective operations, the P crack down, Plunket Line 24 hours and so on, this kinda stuff. There's a perception they didn't do a lot last year, why is that?
JON Well I think it really emanated from the budget in the fact that you know he didn't do a big stimulus as was done in elsewhere, and I think that fuelled the perception that pretty much it was a status quo government, and I think that's probably got to the Prime Minister and why you know in many respects this is a very elaborately constructed continuation of last year's sort of policy programme.
PAUL What do you think on the business of perhaps if people don't really look for a job Maxine after a year, well maybe they shouldn't be getting the benefit, maybe that's not fair to their fellow citizens. I take it you would fundamentally disagree with that.
MAXINE Well that's disgraceful, it's completely disgraceful, we have 7.3% unemployment and we've already had the Prime Minister's own admission that there are insufficient jobs, where's the investment strategy that's supposed to sit behind all this, where's the industry policy that's supposed to sit behind it.
PHIL He actually points to some of that in his speech as a matter of fact, but the media just didn't cover any of that kind of industrial policy sort of stuff. The point I'd make is, I'd agree with Maxine a little bit on this, you need to be very careful about having a one size fits all welfare policy, just because someone's been on the dole for a year doesn't necessarily mean that they haven't been trying, but if they haven't been trying then I think the system needs to get quite ....
JON Then but you still have the problem, okay you chop a benefit at the end of the year, then what?
PAUL And at the moment we've got 72,000 what people between 18 and 24 not in training, not in work, and of course the longer you're unemployed I spose the harder it is to get a job.
MAXINE And the effect of what has been talked about today will simply increase the inequality in society and all of the problems that come with that.
PAUL Yes he was hardly the Dark Lord of Mordor on this was he?
MAXINE Well people opposed to mining might think he is, what are we going to do...
JON My thoughts from this money-go-round really is that okay it's revenue neutral, so we're still gonna have a deficit problem and it's gonna be some years before they're chipping away at the public sector is going to make any dint on that. So you know I think they're entitled to re-engineer the tax system to make it cleaner, but I just - I think some of the assumptions there are heroic about over like the depreciation, whether they're actually going to get this 1.5 billion back, because these people can restructure their affairs.
PAUL Well we see there is much restructuring and thinking through by the government to be done before May of course.
