On The Nation: Election Debate
Headlines:
James Shaw announced that in its first 100 days in Government the Green Party would pass the Zero Carbon Act, which will mean a legally binding target of being a net zero carbon economy by the year 2050, and a detailed plan from the Government about how it will meet that target.

ACT leader David Seymour has categorically ruled out working with or supporting any Government that includes New Zealand First.

Seymour says more than 60,000 beneficiaries would go onto ‘income management’ if he had his way, because they have been on the jobseeker benefit for more than three years, or a solo parent benefit for more than five years.

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira has come out in support of boot camps. But he says his would be very different from what National is proposing.

Lisa Owen: All these leaders want to influence the next government, but first they have to survive this election. So let’s meet the leaders. David Seymour from the ACT Party.
David Seymour: Good morning.
Marama Fox from the Maori Party.
Marama Fox: Hello to my babies watching at home.
Gareth Morgan from the Opportunities Party.
Morgan: Morning.
Hone Harawira from Mana.
Hone Harawira: Kia ora koutou katoa.
And James Shaw from the Green Party.
James Shaw: Kia ora. Good morning.
Good morning to you all. Let’s get started. Mr Shaw, a couple of recent polls put your party at under the 5% mark. Tell me, if you could have a do-over, would you ditch Metiria Turei’s benefit speech?
Shaw: No, absolutely not. We opened up a conversation around poverty that New Zealand politicians have been afraid to get into, and now that is one of the key issues of this election. I think that people are really waking up to the fact that we do have severe poverty in New Zealand, and it is time to do something about it.
All right. Mr Seymour, you want to get five ACT MPs, but you’re polling, what, 0.6% in a recent Reid Research poll. So do you think dropping the F-bomb this week got you any more MPs?
Seymour: Well, it certainly captured the mood in that room, and you heard it from the laughter and the applause from the audience who don’t want New Zealand First holding the balance of power and raiding people’s KiwiSaver schemes by billions of dollars. But that’s actually on offer in this election, and you wouldn’t have me here debating if you didn’t think voters wouldn’t shift their vote to ACT in response to those sorts of threats from the left.
You’re all about personal responsibility. So if you don’t get five MPs, are you going to resign?
Seymour: Oh, we’ll just see what we come in at. And the fact of the matter is I’m the only person on this stage who represents an electorate, who’s well ahead in that electorate and will be back in parliament after this election. You can’t say that for the Greens.
All right. Mr Harawira. Mr Harawira, your chances rest on taking out Kelvin Davis in Te Tai Tokerau. Now, you’re selling a two-for-one deal. That’s a bit desperate, isn’t it?
Harawira: Actually, I’m not selling a two-for-one deal. Rawiri Paratene from the Green Party is selling a two-for-one deal. Lance O’Sullivan, New Zealander of the Year, is selling a two-for-one deal. Tame Iti, nationally known activist, is promoting the two-for-one deal.
Mr Davis says it’s quality over quantity.
The people of Tai Tokerau want to have two MPs for the price of one, so it’s an intelligent choice. The only problem is the other person isn’t intelligent enough to see the deal.
All right. Mr Morgan, your party is on 2% now. It’s been that way for a couple of months. Pretty impressive for a first-timer. But have you made a rookie mistake not standing a high-profile candidate in a winnable electorate?
Morgan: No, I don’t think so.
Seymour: There weren’t any winnable electorates for you, mate. That’s the problem.
Morgan: You want to continue, David? And I’ll come in behind you.
Seymour: No, you go.
You’ve had your chance, Mr Seymour.
Fox: All right, boys. Calm down.
Morgan: We’re selling policy here — just best practice, consensus of the policy research and advisory community in New Zealand. That’s what we’re doing. So we stand or fall on policy, and New Zealanders will either say, “Yes, the quality is fine. Let’s get them in there, and let’s keep the other guys, you know, going forward,” or they won’t. All I can do is just sell the message. That’s what I’m doing.
All right. Marama Fox, your party’s hopes are riding on Te Ururoa Flavell keeping his seat.
Fox: That’s not true.
The only available poll has a very tight race there. And in your electorate, the electorate you’re standing in, Labour has a significant majority. Is this the death knell for the Maori Party?
Fox: Absolutely not. We’re the party of the future. This country’s had enough of a red and blue bus that has been here for 100 years. Under their policies and the system of government that have controlled this country for all of that time, Maori are at the bottom of every disparaging statistic — so are Pacifica — and we are over that. We’re saying, “Come on our bus because, actually, celebrating New Zealand’s diversity and our uniqueness is a good thing, and that’s unifying for our nation. So I don’t want to jump on their bus. I’m telling them to come jump on our bus because we’re the party for the future.
All right. Let’s talk about some of your policies. Mr Morgan, you want to tax assets, including the family home. I’m just wondering how a working-class person or a pensioner who’s worked their whole life for that asset who may be cash poor— How are they going to pay that tax?
Morgan: Well, pensioners are easy. They’re excused from cash flow impact till they die. It’s called an estate duty.
So what that means, Mr Morgan, just to be clear because this is really important, you’re expecting pensioners to take a reverse mortgage with the IRD, aren’t you, for that money?
Morgan: Well, it’s an estate duty the same as most conventional western economies. So you know. We used to have one, actually, before the flat earth boys arrived in 1984. So it’s New Zealand that’s actually out of step here. 80% of people in New Zealand will be better off. 100% will be better off eventually as the money, instead of going into property, goes into businesses, mainly people’s own businesses. It’s a no-brainer. It is the advice given by the last two tax working groups, which politicians from both sides have refused to ignore, and the consequences being house prices have gone from three times the average wage to 10. So I’m just trying to get them back on track. And I noticed that Labour is saying they’re going to have a third tax working group.
Fox: They’re taxing everything, aren’t they?
Morgan: The problem is the politicians here, not the tax advice. The tax advice has been around for years.
All right. Well, let’s bring Mr Seymour in on this conversation, because that policy probably makes your blood run cold, does it, Mr Seymour? You want 25% top tax rate…
Shaw: Blood’s pretty cold to start with.
…and a 25% rate for companies. That’s going to carve out $5 billion out of revenue. So how are we going to pay for the stuff that we need?
Seymour: Well, first of all, James Shaw, you’re talking about my blood running cold, mate. You’re not the Green Party leader anymore; you’re the Green Party’s undertaker, and there’s a good chance you’ll be gone after the election. And as for Gareth Morgan saying that this is all evidence-based and clever, there’s nothing evidence-based and clever about taxing one group of people and giving money to another group that you think might vote for you. That’s not original. That’s what everyone else does.
How are you going to pay for everything, Mr Seymour?
Seymour: Come back to ACT’s tax policy. The current government is running $20 billion of surplus in the coming four years. Now, the ACT Party says if you take something off somebody that’s not yours, you should give it back. And we could give that money back without cutting any spending and have a top tax rate of 25 cents in the dollar, and that would make our economy go, “That’s fair.” But not only would we not cut any spending, that allows for $14 billion more spending in the next four years. That means that we give people back the money that they have earned.
Morgan: My tax—
Fox: No, no, no, you had your turn.
Morgan: My tax rate’s 10—
Fox: No, you had your turn. Lisa.
Morgan: His is 25, and he says that’s fair.
Don’t talk over each other, please. One at a time.
Fox: So, by his logic, if you take something off somebody, you have to give it back. We should give all of Aotearoa back to Maori, including the waters, foreshore and seabed, and then see where we get.
I’m coming to Mr Shaw. Mr Shaw, you want a top personal tax rate 40% over 150 grand. Labour has ruled out raising taxes. The books were opened this week. Money is really tight. So if Labour could only afford to pick one of your policies, what’s your favourite child?
Shaw: What we’ve said is that our three priorities at this election are ensuring—
I’m asking you for your top priority, your number one policy. You only get one choice.
Shaw: Okay, if I had one choice, in the first 100 days, the first thing that I would do would be to pass the Zero Carbon Act, so that would make it legally binding that New Zealand would be a net zero carbon economy by the year 2050. That would reorganise all of our efforts around the economy into a high-value, clean-tech, high-wage economy, and it would ensure New Zealand is a leader in the fight against climate change worldwide.
So a carbon tax. Are you still going to charge, as it was, 25 bucks a ton for everybody, except for farmers, who get a half-price deal?
Shaw: No. We’re actually going to release that closer to the election.
No, I’m asking you now.
Shaw: But what we are saying is that our overriding priority is to ensure that New Zealand is a zero-carbon economy by the year 2050.
Are farmers going to get cut-price deal, Mr Shaw?
Shaw: We do have to have a proper price on emissions. We’ve had an emissions trading scheme that’s completely busted. Emissions have risen 21% under this Government. It actually rose 17.5% under the last Labour Government.
Last chance – are farmers going to get a cut-price deal, Mr Shaw, and if so, how long for?
Shaw: So what we’re going to do is we’re going to have clean energy by 2030, 100% renewable energy by 2030.
That’s not my question, Mr Shaw. Are farmers going to get a cut-price deal, and how long for?
Shaw: Farmers are going to be brought into a proper price on emissions.
Same price as everybody else from the get-go?
Shaw: Otherwise, emissions will continue to rise, as they have done under the last National Government and the last Labour Government.
Okay, so you don’t want to answer that one. All right. Mr Harawira, you’ve said that you’ve got no problem taxing the hell out of rich people to pay for social services.
Harawira: The funny thing is neither does Gareth, neither does Marama, neither does James. It’s a good idea.
So you want 10,000 new social houses a year, 10,000 new state houses a year?
Harawira: Yeah.
How much do you think that’s going to cost? What’s your budget for that? And what will your top personal tax rate be?
Harawira: You know what, first of all, I think we have to stop thinking of things in terms of the cost.
You’ve got to pay for them somehow, though, don’t you?
Harawira: Seriously, feed the kids. Are you asking me to put a value on that, a price on that? Is that what this society wants – to say, ‘Let’s keep our troops in Afghanistan, and never mind the kids’? Seriously, we’ve got to think about the basics in life, eh. Feeding the kids is not about ‘how much does it cost?’ It’s about recognising that it’s our responsibility as a society to ensure that those most vulnerable are well looked after. That applies to you. That applies to our children. That applies also to housing. That’s why our focus is on housing those in low-income families.
Okay, so, Mr Harawira, you don’t know—?
Harawira: No, hang on, hang on. I have to separate it out.
No, no. You’ve had a fair amount of time.
Harawira: National and Labour are talking about 10,000 affordable houses. But those affordable— Nobody that I know of in my electorate can afford those houses.
So you don’t know how much your policy would cost? Is that what you’re telling me?
Harawira: I can tell you this –
Okay, so you don’t know.
Harawira: …it’s cheaper right now, Lisa, to do it now than the cost of all the—
Seymour: His answer, Lisa, is—
Marama. Marama Fox. No, no. It’s Marama Fox’s turn. The Maori Party wants to take GST off all food. Have you done costings on that?
Fox: Sorry, Lisa, let’s just correct you there. It’s GST off primary produce food. So it’s healthy food. It’s fruit, vegetables, that type of thing.
So how much is that going to cost, and what are you prepared to cut in order to afford that?
Fox: It is going to cost us the benefit of having healthy families who can afford to have vegetables in their home instead of fish and chips and fizzy.
So you don’t know how much your policy’s going to cost either?
Fox: Lisa, you asked James a question about what his number one priority would be. I’ve had that opportunity in the Maori Party, when I got to put up my very first budget bid, when I could only have one. It is about saving the lives of our children. I don’t care how much it costs, just quietly. Take GST off healthy produce food.
So, you still have to make priorities.
Fox: That is a priority. The other priority is suicide prevention in this country.
So are you prepared to go into debt in order to fund your priorities?
Fox: Wait, Lisa, they just announced a $4 billion surplus in this country, and they say, ‘Where should we put it?’ Put it with the children. Save their lives. We need to make sure that the money goes into suicide prevention, into counselling, into mental health, and into healthy food for our families. There’s enough money there. They opened the books. Do it. Make it happen. Make it Maori.
Seymour: This just shows what’s at stake this election. None of these guys know what any of their policies cost. And that’s the problem that all socialists have, is that they eventually run out of other people’s money. These guys want sugar taxes, petrol taxes, income taxes, capital taxes, tax on your house.
Harawira: I don’t.
Seymour: These, if you try to sit, they’ll tax the seat. If you try to walk, then they’re going to tax your feet.
Shaw: Lisa, I’ve got to call him out.
Right of reply to Mr Shaw.
Fox: Why don’t we talk to the people in your electorate who are struggling on the breadline?
One at a time. One at a time, please.
Seymour: There actually are a few.
Fox: I know.
Shaw: When he says that none of us know what our policies cost, that is completely incorrect. We’ve costed all of our policies, and we get them externally verified by economic agencies like NZIER and BERL and Economic Research Ltd and so on.
And I think Mr Morgan’s got something to say about that too.
Morgan: I actually know a little bit about economics and tax, right. The problem with Seymour, right, is that all tax is theft. This is a neo-lib in raw form, here. He’s pulling up the ladder, Jack. The rest of you can get stuffed. That is David Seymour. That’s what you’re dealing with. That’s why he’s 0.6 going to zero.
Seymour: And that’s why we’re arguing for the government to spend $80 billion a year under ACT’s budget.
Fox: David, the only way you’re in your seat is because National sat their man down.
Seymour: The fact of the matter is that the Government— That’s right. And, Marama, that’s why every single vote for ACT counts towards getting extra MPs in Parliament. Unlike you, who may lose Waiariki and end up out of Parliament.
Fox: Neo-libs.
Seymour: Now, can I go back to what Mr Morgan’s saying—?
No, you can’t. You’ve had your say, Mr Seymour.
Seymour: Now, hang on a second. The Government spends $17,000 on every single New Zealander.
Okay, we’re heading into a break shortly, Mr Seymour. So just a quick round of questions before we go to the break. Mr Morgan, are you a feminist?
Morgan: Yeah, definitely.
Do you believe that, Marama?
Morgan: Absolutely. But hang on. Let me explain last week. Let me explain this.
No, no time for explaining.
Morgan: Hang on a minute. So on your network, right, on RadioLIVE—
You’ve got five seconds, Mr Morgan.
Morgan: Yeah. We had a woman and a guy five days before me talking about this known problem. I say it, and all the, what do you call them, femo-fascists come out and say—
All right.
Morgan: Hang on.
Okay. No, no. Mr Harawira? No, no, you’ve had an opportunity.
Morgan: ‘No, you can’t say it, Gareth, because you’re a guy.’ No, no, you asked the question.
I want to ask Mr Harawira before the break. Are you a feminist?
Morgan: That’s crap, man.
Are you a feminist, Mr Harawira?
Harawira: Look, I’m the son of Titewhai Harawira. I’m the husband of Hilda Harawira. I’m the father of Te Whenua Harawira. And I’m the grandfather of Maioha Harawira.
I take that as a yes.
Harawira: With all of that power around me, I’m a positive and upstanding Maori gentleman.
Fox: Am I a feminist?
All right. What about Mr Seymour? Are you a feminist?
Seymour: Oh, absolutely. But I’m the sort of feminist that says that we should be making everyone equal, not dragging people down, and sometimes too much of feminism is about dragging men down. It should be about everybody being equal.
All right.
Fox: Says a man. Wait, wait, Lisa, Lisa.
No, no, sorry. Mrs Fox, I’ll come back to you. We’ve got to go to a break. We’ll be back shortly with more.

Welcome back. You’re with The Nation and our multi-party debate. Before we went to the break, Marama Fox, you’ve got five seconds on feminism. Go.
Fox: I’m a feminist, and the ultimate form of feminism is that you can stay home and be a stay-home mum if you want, and that’s okay. Women can rule the world, top or bottom. Thank you very much.
All right. Mr Morgan. I want to read you a quote, Mr Morgan. It’s about global warming. ‘A part of it is probably man-made, but I am sceptical about the degree to which it is dangerous. New Zealand is very much a passenger. We can’t have any influence on outcomes. We’ll know over time whether we need to act with urgency.’ Are those the words of a climate change denier, and what would you say to that person?
Morgan: I would that times— That’s probably old, I’m not sure, but time’s moved on and the balance evidence — that’s why I wrote a book on this, but the balance of evidence is that it is anthropogenic, actually. So if you’re trying to minimise risk, you deal with emissions. I think, on climate for New Zealand, actually, the big issue, because we are small — doesn’t mean to say that we shouldn’t be responsible — but by far the biggest issue here is that we are doing nothing about adaptation. You know, you go to south Dunedin, and you talk to those people about their houses, and the mayor, David Cull, and those people say to you, ‘There’s no direction coming from the government as to who should be paying what to save this part of Dunedin.’ You know, how much should the local authority pay, how much should the government pay, how much should the people self-insure? That’s the problem, is a lack of strategy.
You made the comment that you thought that might be an old quote. Well, actually, it’s Mr Seymour’s quote, and it’s from his book that’s only just been published.
Morgan: Well, as I said, time has moved on.
Fox: I’ll have that same copy now, thank you, David. ‘Time’s moved on.’
So, Mr Seymour, are you a climate change denier, and do you seriously think that there is no danger in climate change to us?
Seymour: Well, you’ve just read my quote, and clearly, I accept that there is danger. I think we need to get away from, you know, denial or believer. This is not Christianity or Islam or Buddhism — it’s not a religion, it’s science. And what the Act Party says is that climate change is happening, and it is to a large extent man-made, and we have a responsibility to do something about it. And just once, I’m going to agree with James Shaw that the emissions trading scheme has been a bureaucratic rort, and what would be better is to have a simple, flat carbon tax that spreads the load evenly. Where, exactly, we put the level of that tax is a debate that New Zealanders have to have about how much are you prepared to give up to fight this global problem? And I think that if we got to a carbon tax and an agreement that it would be flat and fair, we’d be in a much better space than we are now where it’s always an argument about who’s in, who’s out, what’s in, what’s out.
Let’s bring Mr Shaw in. An endorsement from Act.
Shaw: Well, it’s going to make it pretty easy for us to pass that zero-carbon act in our first 100 days, then, if we’ve got that level of credit with the house.
Seymour: If you’re in parliament.
All right. Jacinda Ardern has said that climate change is her generation’s nuclear-free moment, and she is committing to clean rivers and to charging for water to pay for that. So why do Green voters need you when they can get all of that from Labour?
Shaw: The emissions rose 17.5% under the last Labour government. They rose 21% under the last National government. If you want to do something about climate change, you have to look at the Green Party, who for the last 28 years and the last 18 years that we’ve been in parliament, have consistently lead on this, year in, year out.
Fox: Except you’ve never been in government.
Shaw: Governments come, governments go. Leaders come, leaders go.
Fox: They never get a chance to do anything.
Shaw: We have always consistently lead of this, and our track record, I think, would indicate why people see that we need to be at the heart of the next Labour-led government in order to make that happen.
Fox: They threw you under the bus, though.
Well, Mrs Fox, you’ve said that Maori have water rights that amount to ownership.
Fox: No, the Waitangi Tribunal said that.
As one of those owners, should commercial users, including farmers, pay for water? And how much should they pay?
Fox: Anybody that makes profit off the free water that they get in this country is benefitting from corporate welfare. And then when they pollute the rivers, and we spend the tax dollar to clean it up, they are now committing benefit fraud. This country’s corporations need to pay for the resource that they use, like every other resource, and then they’d look after it, because then it would have value to them.
Okay, so you’ve said anyone profiting from the use of water should pay.
Fox: Yes.
So farmers profit from their product, which uses water, so farmers should pay.
Fox: Absolutely. And so do wine makers and so do dairyers. The thing is it’s a community conversation that communities need to have, because the first thing we need to do is make sure that there is clean drinking water coming out of the taps in our homes.
So how much should they pay? Labour says 1 to 2 cents a thousand litres. What do you say?
Fox: It’ll be somewhere in there. It’s definitely not 10 cents, that’s ridiculous. You’d drive everybody into bankruptcy, and it would be negative fiscal motivation. No, I get it.
You agree with Labour — 1 to 2 cents?
Fox: I get it, but if they pay for the resource, then they will look after the resource and value it. At the moment, they throw it away. Look, just let me give you an example. In Bridge Pa, five minutes down the road from Hastings, you have no fresh, clean water.
No, Mrs Fox. Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but this is really important. 1 to 2 cents is what you’re saying. So you agree with Labour? 1 to 2 cents?
Fox: No, no, no. About 0.001 cent.
Okay, so less than a cent, you’re saying.
Fox: But something because it takes 900 litres to make wine and 400 litres to make milk, and then we dehydrate it and chuck it in a can and throw it overseas.
It’s Mr Harawira’s turn, now. Mr Harawira, you would like farming cleaned up, so do you think that we’ve come to the point where we should cap the number of dairy cows in this country? Have we reached peak cow? Do we need to reduce the national herd?
Harawira: Look, just getting back to the water and the way in which farming uses water. I think— I operate off the basis similar to the Maori Party from the line that Moana Jackson gave us, which is that every tribe has a river. That’s a polite way of saying that all Maori are connected to the water in their communities.
Fox: Kia ora.
Harawira: For us, in Mana, and for the Maori Party, that equates to Maori ownership of water. That doesn’t meant to say that we have it and therefore everybody else must pay. The first thing we must do is then work with our communities to ensure that the quality of that resource is going to be there forever. That’s the first thing.
Fox: Kia ora.
Harawira: Second thing is — and Marama picked up on this — we have to make sure that the second priority is that everybody in the country has access to clean drinking water, all day, every day. And the third thing is we make all of those rich pricks who have been ripping it off for so long start paying for it.
How much? What would you set the price at?
Harawira: Well, I mean, it’s not a—
No, no. How much would you set the price at?
Harawira: Look, I live in Kaitaia right now, actually, Lisa. I don’t have the capacity to do all this kind of analysis.
All right.
Harawira: But I do know that overseas companies that are taking our water offshore and paying piss-all here and making bucket-loads over there should be stopped tomorrow.
Fox: And the people in your area have to buy their water. The people in his area have to buy their water to drink when the wells run dry. That’s the point.
I want to move on now to welfare. Mr Seymour, let’s talk about this because I’m wondering — do you think there should be a limit on the number of children that you can have while you’re on a benefit?
Seymour: No, of course there shouldn’t be a limit. We don’t want the state controlling people’s reproduction — that’s disgusting. But what we do need to say—
You want to take control away from them.
Seymour: What we do need to say is that we have a crisis in this country where one in five children are born into a family dependent on a benefit. And for all those people who wait, save and sacrifice before they have kids, that is an outrage and the biggest driver of child poverty in this country.
Okay.
Seymour: What the Act Party says is that there should always be a safety net for people whose partner’s abusive or runs out on them or any number of circumstances that can leave you without income and with children. But if you keep having children while you’re on a benefit, then we’re going to give income management, we’re going to pay your rent, pay your power, pay your groceries so that the kids get the benefit of those resources and we break the cycle of child poverty in this country.
Before I move on from you, you want to have a maximum of three years on the benefit – a lifetime maximum – three years on the benefit for jobseekers, five years for a single parent allowance. So do you know how many people that will involve kicking off the benefit?
Seymour: At any given time, it varies. I don’t know the exact number today, Lisa, but let me just clarify that we are not kicking—
I’ll tell you how many, Mr Seymour – 60,000 people. That’s 60,000 people who’ve had consecutive number of years, so it’s more than 60,000. What are you going to do with them?
Seymour: I think the fact we’ve had 60,000 people on a benefit for more than three years in their life is a scandal in itself, but what I’d say is you’ve actually—
All right.
Seymour: No, Lisa, you’ve misunderstood my policy. Our policy is not to kick people off the benefit. We put people on income management – means that we pay your rent, we pay your power, we pay your groceries,...
Fox: Sounds like a benefit to me.
Seymour: …so the resources are not served up in cash forever. It’s not a hammock; it’s a safety net that means people get the resources they need to avoid poverty, but you don’t get payment for being on a benefit.
Fox: David, it’s a benefit.
Mr Harawira, what do you think about what Mr Seymour is saying? There are 10,000 people on a jobseeker’s benefit at the moment who have been looking for a job for 10 consecutive years and receiving that payment. So do you think that’s right?
Harawira: No, I don’t. But Mana’s solution is a simple one. 20, 30 years ago, we had community employment projects so that nobody was doing nothing, everybody was working, even those who were receiving the benefit from the government. And we would support going back to those kind of projects where you’ve got people fixing maraes, doing up old-people’s homes, helping at schools to do up fences, cover books, all of that kind of stuff so that people are actively engaged in rebuilding their community.
Seymour: But, Hone, they’re getting money now. Why can’t they do that now? If they’re getting the money, why don’t they fix the marae now?
Fox: They do, actually.
Seymour: Well, then his policy’s not needed.
Harawira: …rebuilding the community in formal community employment programmes if at such time that the private sector’s ready to offer those jobs. Right now, they don’t have those jobs, so the government has a responsibility to make sure that people get the benefit they need but they also contribute back to society through community action.
Let’s bring Mr Morgan in. You want a universal allowance—
Harawira: You can talk if you want to, man.
You want a universal allowance. So you’re going to pay a certain amount of people money to do nothing?
Morgan: Yeah, like we do pensioners at the moment, you mean? Is that what you’re saying?
Seymour: That’s because older people can’t work. It’s called ageing.
Morgan: Hang on, Seymour. Oh God.
Let Mr Morgan have his opportunity. Mr Morgan?
Morgan: The whole issue is we’re trying to run a taxed and targeted welfare system that was designed in the ‘50s and ‘60s…
Fox: Kia ora.
Morgan: …for a world of full employment and high and rising wages. The world has changed.
Fox: Yes.
Morgan: You know, this is why people like Zuckerberg and Musk and that are screaming at these governments to move to a UBI as fast as possible, because they are going to destroy jobs on a scale that you can’t even imagine – no bus drivers, no taxi drivers, no couriers, no shop assistants needed. So, I mean, from an economist point of view, this is nirvana. One machine does all the work. It’s incredible. The issue is how do you get the income from the owner of the machine to everybody who’s surfing, apparently? The answer is a UBI. So we have to step towards a UBI and design a tax and welfare system to actually support it.
Seymour: Yes, but we don’t live in that world right now.
Morgan: And we’re not paying another— We do work in that world. You go and tell all the people who are on Working For Families at bugger-all bloody wages that it’s just an unfortunate cycle, Seymour.
Seymour: We have record employment in New Zealand.
All right. I want to talk about a different kind of welfare – what some people would call corporate welfare. Listen carefully. I want you to raise your hands if you think it is wrong that $300 million was put aside in the budget to give tax breaks to foreign film producers. Is that corporate welfare?
Morgan: Yeah.
Okay. Who with their hands up would commit to canning it, then?
Harawira: Yeah, I would.
You would can it?
Harawira: Tomorrow. Tomorrow.
Mr Shaw wouldn’t.
Harawira: I mean, seriously, the theory of corporate welfare, in an environment, in a world where 1% of this country owns 50% of the wealth, sucks. We need to be putting the money that these people are generating on the financial markets and putting them back to where the people most need it to lift them out of poverty so everybody’s contributing to a positive society.
We’re running out of time, but I want to ask Mr Shaw – you didn’t put your hand up to can it.
Shaw: It’s a busted system, a lot like the way that the international tax system works so that companies don’t have to pay tax in different countries. So you’ve got a race to the bottom. So New Zealand is caught in this global marketplace where everybody else is also providing tax breaks to get films made in their countries, right? So one of the things that we need to do is to go to all of those other countries and say, ‘Look, we are all on a race to the bottom. We are all putting taxpayer money into getting these companies here. Why don’t we all stop it?’ And the vehicle for that is the OECD, just like we did around foreign trusts and around insurance.
Fox: But, Lisa, we’ve got—
Mr Fox, this is—We’re going—
Fox: You’ve not asked me anything.
I’m coming to ask you something now. We’re going into a break, and I’m going to give you each five seconds to give a message, deliver a message to an absent friend—
Fox: I’ll take my five seconds.
…a message to an absent friend – either Peter Dunne or Mr Peters. Take your choice. Marama Fox, your message to an absent friend.
E koro Winitana—Where’s the camera? This one? E koro Winitana, please don’t leave your values under the mat when you walk into the house with your friends. The Maori seats are here to stay. The Maori language is here to stay. The Treaty of Waitangi is here to stay; it is the foundation of our nation. I’m sorry you’re not here, but if those are your views, then I’m happy that you may not be in Parliament when we come back.
Mr Morgan.
Morgan: I think…
Quickly. You’ve only got a few seconds.
Morgan: I think this is the year that both Peters should lose—should leave Parliament.
All right. Mr Seymour?
Seymour: Winston Peters, you’ve had your time, mate. You’re this country’s best Opposition politician and the worst governing politician, sacked three times from three different cabinets by three different prime ministers, under investigation from the Serious Fraud Office. You’re a crook – a charismatic crook, perhaps, but a crook all the same.
Your five seconds is up. Mr Shaw, your message. Your message, Mr Shaw.
Shaw: I tell you, I am actually more interested in debating Bill English, to tell you the truth. I would like the opportunity to talk to the Prime Minister about the country that he has run over the course of the last nine years – first as Finance Minister and now as Prime Minister…
So head-to-head Maori Party—
Shaw: …and about having the 14% of people who were below the poverty line when they came to office and the 14% of people below the line today. That’s who I want to debate.
Your time’s up, Mr Shaw. Mr Harawira, you’re taking us to the break. Make it brief. Your message to an absent friend.
Harawira: Tuatahi, tautoko enei korero a Marama. Tuarua, mi mihi atu ki taku tuahine, kore tae te haere mai tenei ra he tautoko i a James ko Metiria, aroha mau ki i ia, kore tae te haere mai. Nga takahi to nga mana, nga mea tuaki tona whanau. Mihi atu ki a koe, Metiria, ha koa ki a koe, ki mohio a koe, he konei ki a Maori hei tatuoko ra.
All right. We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go to a break. We’ll be back. Do stay with us.
Mrs Fox, the Maori Party wants a living wage for all workers. So that means going up from $15.75 an hour to $19.80. How many jobs are going to go as a result of that, and how much is it going to cost?
Fox: Look, I sat down with a very generous grower from the Hawkes Bay for lunch yesterday — John Bostock. He already pays a living wage because he knows that this is what people need in order to feed their families. He also provides lunch for all of his staff. He takes in people who’ve come out of prison. He makes sure that they get support. That’s good social entrepreneurship. And if there were more people like him around this nation, we wouldn’t even be having this debate. We have to carefully let it rise and get it to a living wage, and once we’re there, index it to the median wage, just like the pension, and let it continue to meet the cost of living.
OK. Some New Zealand research indicates— Some local research indicates that you could potentially lose 26,500 jobs and it will cost the government $500 million to pay that extra wage to state workers.
Fox: That’s less than 20% of their current surplus, isn’t it? The thing is, Lisa, we don’t want to be stupid about it. We’re not just going to go, “Here we are today. Let’s bang it up here tomorrow.” We need to get it up there quickly and carefully so that we don’t lose those jobs — and invest in our young people, more Pacific and Maori trade training positions, invest in the community work programmes, as Hone has pointed out, so that we have trained, skilled people ready for the jobs that are in this country now.
All right. Mr Harawira, I want to talk a bit about justice and rehabilitation. National wants boot camps.
Harawira: You told me immigration.
We’ll get to immigration. We will get to immigration. So, National wants boot camps, right? The Maori Party has said that they’re an attack on Maori and Pacifica youth. You used to be keen on boot camps. Are you still keen on boot camps?
Harawira: Sure. Not the boot camps that the National Party’s talking about. That’s the kind of Nazi-style stuff where it’s like prison; you put them in at level 1, and they come out level 5 criminals. That’s what National’s proposing. That’s dumb.
So what would yours look like?
Harawira: But the opportunity for young Maori and young Pacifica to come into a positive and disciplined environment gives them a chance to snap a connection with a bad life. The problem comes when they come out — what happens? Now, I’ve been working on a project up north, exactly one of these sorts of projects, with the mayor of the Far North District Council, with some forestry crews, with some carbon farming crews, the orchardist out on the eastern side with some Maori construction crews here, and I said, “Look, if we get these guys away on a LSV course for six weeks, are you prepared to come and see them all when they come back to offer them jobs?” They were as happy as.
So limited service course — a military-style—
Harawira: No, all it is is the opportunity to take them out of an environment where they are not growing, give them a chance to clean themselves up, come back home, see what’s possible and step up to that. They can’t. They’re living always in poverty.
Shaw: Lisa.
All right. OK. Mr Shaw?
Shaw: Hone mentioned tree planting. So Denmark has actually discovered that planting trees is the most therapeutic activity that you can give to prisoners. So we have a tremendous opportunity, given that we need to plant about 1.8 million hectares of trees over the course of the next 30 years in order to meet our carbon obligations, that, actually, we could get young people involved in that activity as well as the current prison population.
Harawira: Good deal. Good deal.
I saw an eyebrow go up on this side of the room. Mr Seymour, TOP wants to get rid of ACT’s three strikes legislation.
Fox: Yes, please.
And they want to loosen bail conditions, the Bail Act, and review the Parole Act.
Fox: Yes, thank you.
They also want to lower the prison population by about 40%. Now, that sounds like cost-effective governance, putting money into rehabilitation, cutting red tape. Those are all the things that you like, isn’t it?
Seymour: Oh yeah. Look, we could save $1 billion a year just by letting all the prisoners out straight away, but we’re not going to do that because that would be stupid.
That’s not what they’re suggesting.
Seymour: The ACT Party has put three strikes into law, and it’s taken the worst offenders off the street, and that’s what New Zealanders wanted, and we’ve delivered. But it’s not good enough just to be tough on crime. We need to be smart on crime.
Fox: No it hasn’t. It’s filled our prisons to overflowing, and it’s turning our young people into hardened criminals.
Seymour: And the ACT Party’s policy…
Fox: Is not smart.
Seymour: …is that if you learn to read in prison, we take six weeks a year off your sentence. Now, that is smart. The Howard League agree.
Fox: They should have learned to read at school.
Seymour: The Sensible Sentencing Trust agree. The Labour Party and the National Party agree with our policy of rewarding self-improvement in prisons — tough on crime and smart on crime.
OK. And Mr Seymour would also like to bring in three strikes for burglary. Mr Morgan, what’s your response?
Morgan: There’s no link between the rate of crime and the rate of imprisonment. It’s completely driven, the rate of imprisonment. We are now second in the western rich countries in terms of rate of incarceration — 210 people per 100,000 as opposed to the OECD.
Fox: 72% Maori youth.
Morgan: Average of 114. The main drive of the incarceration rates is the legislation that has basically arisen from political pressure from the ‘Senseless’ Sentencing Trust.
Fox: Thank you.
Morgan: And the best example of that is the Bail Amendment Act of 2013 that we have to appeal. So, you know, to make the link between crime and imprisonment, you have to be very careful. What we do know with imprisonment is that once you age adjustment, the recidivation rate is about 100%. So it has no corrections at all at the corrections department, all right?
Seymour: And that’s why we have Learn to Read in Prison. But I can tell Mr Morgan there is a connection between imprisonment and crime. It’s hard to commit a crime in prison.
One at a time. Mr Seymour, you had—
Fox: When the justice system is racist, David, you’re just penalising Maori and Pacifica over and over again. When Maori are incarcerated — 27 times more likely for the same crime than non-Maori — then we are putting and locking away our people in a racist system, and you say, “Bang. Sorry about it.”
Seymour: And I address that in chapter 11 in my book.
Morgan: It’s completely racist.
Someone just brought up racism then, Mr Shaw. You ditched your immigration policy because you felt that it was…
Fox: Bigoted.
Bigoted and racist. So do you have one now? Do you have an immigration policy now? Can you share it with us?
Shaw: Yes. I want to live in a country that welcomes people here not because they’re economic units to be exploited and not because we want to close the doors because we see them as economic threats to us, but because they’re people who want to come here for a better opportunity and a better start in life, just like all of our ancestors did. And pretty much every single other party treats immigrants like some kind of economic unit, either there to be exploited or as a threat. And my point in this whole debate around immigration is that we’re getting very concerned that the whole immigration policy debate’s being captured by the xenophobes and the racists.
Seymour: Including your party.
Shaw: And immigrants are being used as scapegoats for all of our—
Seymour: The ACT Party’s the only party on the stage that hasn’t practiced xenophobia in the last three years.
Fox: No, it’s not.
Mr Seymour. I’m talking now, Mr Seymour.
Seymour: It’s true.
Can you tell me what level of immigration do you think your policy would need? Because about 73,000 net immigration at the moment, and Labour’s aiming for around 50,000. Where would you be?
Shaw: Well, this is my problem — is that the moment you put an arbitrary number on it, you immediately devolve into this xenophobic debate that’s been dominated by the New Zealand First Party for the last 30 years— the last 25 years.
So you’re not prepared to put a number on it? OK.
Shaw: And what we need is to actually elevate it out of that and say, “Well, before we start talking about that, why don’t we have a conversation around the values and principles that underlie our immigration policy, because in the absence of that, everything comes down to the same old debate.”
OK. I want to move on to Mr Harawira. Mr Harawira, you have high unemployment rates in Northland; a high percentage of people on benefits compared to other parts of the country. Are your supporters concerned about immigration level? What do they say to you about that, and job opportunities?
Harawira: First of all, the unemployment in the north has nothing to do with immigration. It has to do with a system of government that has stripped our territory of its assets — the forestry, the freezing works, the rail, New Zealand Post, the power board. They’ve gutted all of those. That’s where the unemployment has come from. It’s got nothing to do with immigration. Mana’s immigration policy is separate to that completely, and it’s based on the philosophy that, first of all, hello? We are in the Pacific. We are a Pacific nation.
Fox: Kia ora.
Harawira: That’s the first thing we are.
You actually want immigrants to come to the regions, don’t you, for 10 years? For 10 years, you’d like them to be directed—
Harawira: Where did you see that one?
On your website, Mr Harawira.
Harawira: Oh no. Sorry, that’s not our policy. You haven’t actually read our policy.
I have.
Harawira: Our policy’s not based on that. Our policy is based on the fact that, first of all, we are a Pacific nation. Secondly, if white Australian’s can have free entry and free exit, how come our Pacific Island relations can’t?
Fox: Kia ora.
I wasn’t talking about white Australians when I said that, Mr Harawira.
Harawira: Thirdly, if white Australians can come here and work, take their pensions home, why can’t our Pacific Island relations?
Seymour: Can we talk about housing, a wide issue of the election?
Fox: Can you stop trying to hijack?
Harawira: And fourthly, if we’re going to have refugees, let’s start with the refugees from climate change right here in the Pacific.
Fox: That’s right.
We need to move on. All right, Mr Seymour, you’ve ruled out Winston Peters as a— well, you’ve described him as ‘New Zealand’s longest-serving beneficiary. Our most expensive politician’, you say, and you have said no way will you work with him. So I want a brief answer here — be clear about this — are you ruling yourself out of supporting any coalition or any confidence in supply arrangements that will include New Zealand First in any way? Is that no on the cards for you.
Seymour: That’s a no.
No Winston Peters — no how, no way.
Seymour: No.
All right. You say no Winston Peters either, don’t you, Mr Morgan?
Fox: You’re skipping me.
Morgan: I mean, we’ve only got the one bottom line and that is that, you know, anybody who’s trying to get rid of these Maori seats, we will not work with. So that rules out Winston, but it doesn’t actually rule out Shane. Go figure that.
Okay. All right. Mrs Fox, you say that you know that your supporters skew left and that they might be happier if you went with Labour rather than National. Is that more likely to happen this time around, do you think?
Fox: Oh, we need to see where the numbers fall at the end of the day. And while the Jacinda Effect may be having a bit of a rise in the polls, I think sometimes if you scratch the surface, there’s not a lot of depth, at the moment. We’re waiting to see the figures on those policies, and we want to know what’s coming. We’re very wary of either of these two governments because they both mucked us around for 150 years.
But is there an equal chance that you could go with Labour and an equal chance that you could go with National?
Fox: Yes, there is. Here’s what you do — join the Maori Party because our membership decide. We go back to them; we ask them. If you want to help choose who’s going to run this country, come join the Maori Party and put your vote there.
All right, because your co-leader, Te Ururoa Flavell, repeatedly says Labour throws Maori under the bus.
Fox: That’s right.
And he seems to have a harder line than you on Labour. Are you at odds with him about who you could work with?
Fox: We’re never at odds. Whether it be by my mouth or his, it is the same, Lisa.
All right. Mr Harawira—
Seymour: Lisa, can we talk about housing? It’s the number one issue in this election and we still haven’t dealt with it.
Mr Harawira, you have a deal with the Maori Party, but it doesn’t last after the election.
Fox: Stop yelling at the presenter.
Seymour: No. It’s an important issue.
Your deal with the Maori Party doesn’t last after the election, Mr Harawira. So, if you get in, you’re a free agent. Could you team up with the foreshore and seabed team, aka Labour?
Hawawira: Or aka National.
Yep. Could you?
Harawira: They’ve both done the same damage. Look—
Well, could you?
Harawira: I don’t even have to look at—
It’s a genuine question.
Harawira: I don’t even have to look to Marama to say that our kaupapa is based on that relationship building Mana Maori Motuhake.
Fox: Kia ora.
Harawira: Now, if we go in as a strong bloc, there’s odds-on that we are going to have a say in who’s going to be the next government. That’s where I want to be. That’s where the Maori Party wants to be,…
Preference for the blue team or the red team?
…and that’s where Mana Maori Motuhake deserves to be in this country.
Fox: Our membership choose.
Do you have a preference for the blue team or the red team?
Shaw: he has a preference for the green team.
Harawira: (LAUGHS) You’re not supposed to tell people that, James.
Well, seeing as you worked your way into that conversation, Mr Shaw, have the Greens made a mistake ruling out working with National?
Fox: Yeah.
Wasn’t your party supposed to transcend left and right when it was first set up?
Shaw: The vast majority of voters want to know – are they voting for the status quo, or are they voting for change? And we felt it was only fair to voters who want to know which way their vote is going to count that we would say we’re with the parties of change. And we are one of only two parties who have said that we’re committed to changing the government.
You don’t think it’s a mistake, even though Labour is now cannibalising your vote?
Fox: That’s right.
Shaw: Look, if you want a progressive, Labour-led government, the Green Party has to be at the heart of that government because they won’t be able to govern without us. And if it’s a Labour-New Zealand First government, that is not a progressive government, so if you want a progressive government, you’ve got to give your party vote to the Green Party.
Are you in a quiet war with your MoU partners at the moment?
Shaw: No. No.
It’s all good?
Shaw: Yeah, it’s all good.
All right.
Shaw: See, here’s the thing.
Okay, we’ve got to wrap it up.
Shaw: Lisa, no other political party has committed to changing the government.
All right, I’m going to give you a quick whip-around here. I want you to name the one person on this stage that you’re prepared to work with – the person that you would choose first to work with. Mr Seymour.
Seymour: Marama Fox.
Mrs Fox.
Fox: Hone Harawira.
Mr Morgan.
Morgan: I’m having two – these two.
Mr Harawira.
Harawira: I’m having everybody but the guy over there.
All right.
Seymour: My best endorsement yet.
Mr Shaw. Last word to Mr Shaw.
Shaw: Marama and the Maori Party.
All right. Thank you all for joining us this morning. Stay with us. We will be back after the break.

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