Agenda Interviews Mallard: Americas Cup + Trade

The Government will make an early decision on its funding of future America’s Cup campaigns.

Sport and Recreation Minister Trevor Mallard said on TV One’s “Agenda” the Government would consider its continuation of financial support immediately after the America’s Cup winner is decided.

“The Government is going to consider the whole question of money for another challenge very soon after the end of the cup”.

Asked if the Government would consider funding another campaign even if New Zealand didn’t win this time, Mr. Mallard said: I'm not speculating on that, that’s a question that we'll consider every carefully immediate afterwards.

“Agenda” presenter, Lisa Owen suggested that sounded like no.

“It might sound like no to you, but what I said was that we'd consider it immediate afterwards,” replied Mr Mallard.

The Minister also said he was confident that if New Zealand won the cup, then the defence would be in Auckland.

“Part of the contractual arrangements are that the Americas Cup be held in New Zealand, that was part of the original contract that the government had with Team New Zealand and it was the basis of our investment, so if we win then the Americas Cup will be held there,” he said.

However he also hinted that some of the pre race “Acts” could even stay in Valencia “partly as an effort of financing the cup, but also to give New Zealand profile.”

“I mean if we could repeat some of this exercise, running it from New Zealand rather than having a Swiss group doing it we could get even better profile than we have today.”

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS

AGENDA Interviews Trevor Mallard on Team NZ & Trade (Transcript)

Presented by Lisa Owen

©FRONT PAGE LTD 2007 BUT MAY BE USED PROVIDED ATTRIBUTION IS MADE TO TVONE AND “AGENDA”

THE AMERICAS CUP

Getting down to business

LISA Earlier this month Minister for Economic Development Trevor Mallard visited Australia to help promote an even closer economic relationship between the two countries. Trade is also on the agenda in Spain where Mallard is currently lending his support to Team New Zealand in the Americas Cup. I spoke with Trevor Mallard in Valencia last night and began by asking the Minister whether he was surprised that Team New Zealand have come this far.

TREVOR MALLARD – Minister for Sport and Recreation

I suppose we dreamed that they would but I think it's certainly gone beyond our expectations.

LISA So have you got the staff from Trade and Enterprise New Zealand there to deal with any interest in New Zealand because we've been told that they were focusing on the Louis Vuitton?

TREVOR There was a lot of focus on Louis Vuitton because we knew that we'd be in there, I think there was an expectation a real hope that we'd get to the semi finals and a wish for the finals, so a lot of the big hosting programmes were done during that period. There is a lot of hosting still going on but they tend to be now some of the smaller groups, some of the strategic partners who were always going to come down they were always going to be interested whether or not New Zealand is there, the fact that we're in the cup means of course it's much greater value being around Team New Zealand.

LISA So in that case are we getting what we should be getting out of this experience in terms of business opportunities?

TREVOR We've got a lot of people working really hard with some high net worth companies, with some individuals who are strategic partners and that’s happening every day out on the water.

LISA So how much of a return are you expecting on this, 34 million dollars is a big investment.

TREVOR It's a really big investment but I think you’ve got to look at it net. Some stage in May Team New Zealand have paid 22 million dollars in PAYE, obviously they’ve got more to come in yet, their contractors have been paying PAYE as well and so we've got pretty much the money back through the tax system, a lot of this is bonus and I think it's really profiled New Zealand brilliantly.

LISA So given that will you follow in Toyota's footsteps and give a commitment regardless of whether we win or not to stump up with some money for next time?

TREVOR Not on the programme now Lisa, we've got processes in place for considering the question and we will do that very quickly at the end of the Americas Cup.

LISA So when do you think – when? If you wake upon Monday and they are holding the cup high above their heads will you be able to make an instant decision?

TREVOR Yes.

LISA And if they're not holding that cup up high?

TREVOR We'll be able to make a very quick decision then too.

LISA Tell me what happens if it doesn’t come back to New Zealand, if we were to win yet the race wasn’t going to be hosted in New Zealand, what would that mean?

TREVOR Part of the contractual arrangements are that the Americas Cup be held in New Zealand, that was part of the original contract that the government had with Team New Zealand and it was the basis of our investment, so if we win then the Americas Cup will be held there. That’s not to say that a couple of the acts, the pre regattas could well be held in Europe or in Dubai partly as an effort of financing the cup, but also to give New Zealand profile over here. I mean if we could repeat some of this exercise, running it from New Zealand rather than having a Swiss group doing it we could get even better profile than we have today.

LISA Valencia obviously before this you were in Australia, it was a trade mission with the Prime Minister, she was there so why did you need to be there was it a bit of a junket?

TREVOR Oh no. no it wasn’t a junket at all, Helen did quite a lot of work outside the mission, she did political work with their Prime Ministers and a number of other leaders and I stayed with the mission right through and it was very useful for me to see them at work to go to a lot of their individual meetings. Ministers in Australia I think are sort of slightly more highly regarded than they are in New Zealand, I was able to open some doors but also to get some feedback from the New Zealand companies as to some of the things that we could do to help them.

LISA So what did you achieve in reality in real terms?

TREVOR Well quite a long list of work to do around entry to Australia, some work for Trade and Enterprise to do, some work for some of our biosecurity people to do, some things around customs clearance to do, but also I think a better understanding for me of the Australian defence industry, the Australian mining industry our biotech relationships and Melbourne and food which you know there is an enormous potential, Victoria leads Australia in food and if we can avail ourselves of the opportunities that are opening up there I think our exports can be much higher value than they currently are.

CLOSER ECONOMIC RELATIONS

Doing business with Australia

LISA So what you're talking about there is this move towards a single economic market, wouldn’t that logically mean then moving towards a single tax regime between the two countries?

TREVOR MALLARD – Minister for Economic Development

Well just moving back I don’t actually think it does mean a single economic market, I mean clearly we are getting closer and closer with Australia as a whole but the whole emphasis of this mission was that the economies are actually in states, I mean we were focusing on Victoria with one group of people, we were focusing on New South Wales with another, and Queensland with a third, and we had horses for courses, and the states are very different, you wouldn’t dot the sort of food work in Brisbane that you did in Victoria, so I think part of the learnings from the mission for me was that you treat Australia as states rather than as a whole for the vast majority of this work. On the question of a tax rate I just don’t think New Zealanders would take a capital gains tax of the sort that’s in Australia so it's just not politically acceptable in New Zealand.

LISA But they might take some of the personal tax rates that Australians have got, what about that?

TREVOR Oh you're suggesting that we should sort of pick the nice bits of the Australian tax system but not the bit that raises the revenue? See that’s just not a realistic approach to take, and I think if you were having a common taxation system which I don’t support you'd have to take the whole package, you'd have to have the stamp duties when you sell your house, you'd have to have the capital gains tax, you'd have to have the much higher rate on higher incomes than we do, and to get that package you'd have to have the 9% employer contributions to superannuation and so it's a big change in the package and I think it's one that would be very hard to sell politically in New Zealand.

LISA Look exporters, if you asked any exporter probably their main concern that they would raise is the value of the Kiwi dollar, it's gone over 77 US cents this week and rising as we speak. Why aren’t you addressing that head on instead of being head on over in Australia pressing the flesh?

TREVOR Well I'm not sure about how an Associate Minister of Finance addresses the currency head on, I mean there is no doubt that it's high, there's no doubt that for a lot of exporters it is causing them trouble. There are some exporters that are surviving very well at the moment clearly dairy forestry are doing well notwithstanding the dollar, and there are some positive side effects of the high dollar, for example when I was there a number of the people who were exporting were at the same time importing a lot of machinery in order to make their businesses more productive, you know they're upscaling their business, they’ve gotta have quite a big capital investment regime and if the machinery's coming in from offshore then actually having a high dollar is better, so if we are going for more productivity, higher wages, higher value economy as we transition then having a high dollar is better for those companies, but clearly it does have to come down at some stage and I think there'll be some international speculators who are caught.

LISA Look on a different topic you would have heard that the rules are being tightening in terms of the use of pictures that are shot in parliament of MPs, we're not allowed to satirise you, what could we the media do that is perhaps worse than some of the behaviour that has been exhibited by say yourself and your colleagues in the House?

TREVOR Well I don’t think you could do much that’s worse actually, I mean I think just straight faithful reporting of what we do might be regarded by some people at satirical but it wouldn’t breach the rules.

LISA Alright now I just want to take you back to Valencia for a second, can you just give us a clear indication, if we lose this will the government still consider giving money for another challenge?

TREVOR The government's going to consider the whole question of money for another challenge very soon after the end of the cup.

LISA Is it likely that you would stump up some money even if we lost?

TREVOR Lisa I'm not speculating on that, that’s a question that we'll consider every carefully immediate afterwards.

LISA That sounds like no.

TREVOR It might sound like no to you, but what I said was that we'd consider it immediate afterwards.

LISA Alright thank you very much, Trevor Mallard in Valencia.

DEALING WITH GANGS

What's the answer?

LISA Gangs in the underclass are back in the political debate. Maori Leader Tariana Turia says the country has got itself into a moral panic over gangs, meanwhile National is focusing its welfare policies on what it calls our underclass. Judith Collins is National spokeswoman on Welfare and Pita Sharples is the Co Leader of the Maori Party, they join me now. If I can go to you first Mr Sharples, is there moral panic over gangs?

PITA SHARPLES – Co Leader, Maori Party

Oh very definitely, you’ve got people saying ban them, ban their patches, destroy them, get rid of them, all that kinda thing. We worked with them in the 70s and we moved them from hitting killing each other into work, just by sitting down and giving them the opportunity to be involved and I believe that’s the solution now. We're working with them in the same direction now in terms of peace and stopping the youth gangs from fighting and they're coming to the party they really are. We had a meeting just last week, Black Power came from Taranaki, Wanganui, Tuwharetoa, Hastings, Northland, Auckland and Rotorua, they came to that meeting and put their submission down to us about how they might work for peace.

LISA How can you say that though when we have a dead toddler in Wanganui, and just this week we had gangs going head to head in Whakatane when one of them was lying in the mortuary, one of their members was lying in the mortuary?

PITA Right, you’ve named the two areas where the conflict still is going on and there's one other, but by and large the gangs, well all except those three areas are at peace with each other and meeting together, and when they do things like that they're gonna be locked up, they’re gonna be pursued, whether it's drugs, killing, hitting, disturbing the peace, frightening people, they've gotta be taken into custody.

LISA So how do you get this socalled revolution of the heart that Tariana was talking about?

PITA I think we've just gotta keep working at it and I think the Mongrel Mob have made great step, good projects, they’ve got young people working, the Black Power are looking at how they can retain their identity as a group but move into perhaps education and into non violent community activities.

LISA So taking responsibility for themselves?

PITA Exactly and that’s how you get progress by enabling people to take responsibility for themselves.

LISA Let's bring Judith Collins in here because personal responsibility is obviously something that the National Party is interested in. Would you like to respond to Pita Sharples?

JUDITH COLLINS – National MP

Yes, one of the points that Pita's making is that just because a group of people put themselves together wear strange colours and call themselves a gang doesn’t necessarily make them evil. What is wrong is when they conduct criminal activities, and it's not just the fighting that I think's a concern it's the fact that the running with drugs in this country, illegal drugs, that they run protection units, that basically they do kill people occasionally, and I think that’s the problem it's not the gang itself it's the activity that’s the real problem, but I think he's right. When you get people into work, when you get them actually contributing to society being part of it, being part of the community, that’s got to be the solution, and we'll never get everybody involved but we can start and we can get more people involved, and we can't just say it's too hard so we won't try.

LISA You mentioned getting people into work, obviously again National's saying it wants to reduce the numbers of people on benefits and get people paying, financially supporting their own children. You’ve raised an issue of DNA testing for fathers who deny paternity, what is your idea there?

JUDITH Well one of my concerns is that we've got for instance about 13,000 mothers on the Domestic Purposes Benefit who do not name the father of their child. We also have a whole lot of fathers who don’t pay for their children now, even though they are named as the father, and they say that they are not the father, and they say you know we can't force a DNA test. Well my view is why don’t we do it in those cases, why don’t we make it available for people if they genuinely believe that there is an issue about their parenthood and take away that excuse, because at the moment we've got over one billion dollars worth of child support debt owed by mostly errant fathers.

LISA So are you suggesting compulsory, to legislate DNA testing?

JUDITH No I'm not actually suggesting that at the moment, what I am suggesting is that we actually make it easier for people to be able to check that out, and I think once we – I'd rather have more of these moves taken on a voluntary basis so that people aren’t in fact being compulsorily DNA tested.

LISA but if they're not going to voluntarily pay for their child what makes you think they're voluntarily going to turn up for a DNA test?

JUDITH Well in which case they can compulsorily pay for their child, so that’s important, I mean we already have child support payment in place right now, rules, but unfortunately they're breached.

LISA So how do you make them pay, 15% of them are overseas?

JUDITH Oh yes well just the same way as you and I pay our taxes, it's exactly the same situation, the IRD currently collects the child support payment, it seems to be the only thing IRD collects that nobody takes any notice of, whether or not it's collected or not, and as for those who are skipping over to Australia and elsewhere, we can stop them at the border. Right now the IRD can actually issue or get warrants issued for these people to be arrested for non payment of child support, the fact is they only do that once or twice a year.

LISA Pita Sharples what do you think? DNA testing?

PITA I would have trouble with the DNA testing in terms of people's rights, but…

JUDITH It's voluntary.

PITA Well yeah if it voluntary it's fine, but you know it's about enabling people and educating people, because I believe that whole area of taking responsibility in the community is something that we have to do whether it's owning up to being a father or whether it's these ideas of breakfast for school children, that’s alright in the short term but you really want to be educating the family that breakfast is important. So yeah I'd be more into educating.

LISA Well let's bring in Gavin Ellis here, he's interested in the gang issue.

GAVIN ELLIS – Former Editor, New Zealand Herald

Yeah, I agree that banning is not really an option, I think that banning would simply increase the criminality, but there has to be some sort of accord that takes gangs away from criminal behaviour, in particular the pernicious trade in P, so it would require an accord of some sort to move it forward. We really do have two rather imbalanced….

PITA We've begun that accord, we've had seminars with the major gangs and the women members and most of the chapter leaders have come on board, and they themselves now hold seminars amongst themselves about the dangers of P and the alternatives and things like this. But what you have in gangs, and this is unfortunate, they do not control all their members, they say well what they do is outside, in fact I know one gang that’s finally moved to bring some control over a couple of its members big time, whereas usually they just say well that’s not the gang that’s that person. So until we get that then we're not going to get real cement on this thing.

GAVIN I agree that talking to each other is the best way forward but I do wonder whether at the end of the day we can reasonably expect groups that make huge amounts of money out of criminal activity to simply turn their back on it, what's the incentive for them to do that?

PITA Well I'd just like to say that we have to look beyond gangs as well for P. P is now so easy to make that you're getting the average little family over there doing it and there's people all over the place pushing P, and you’ve gotta look at what the precursors and stuff that’s being imported and things, so it's got beyond just the gangs now just doing this stuff, not to belittle them.

LISA Let's bring Bryce in here.

BRYCE JOHNS – Editor, Waikato Times

Yeah Dr Sharples I was wondering if you had a membership form for one of the gangs on you because you're making them sound thoroughly like nice guys and I'm thinking about joining up. I think there's rose tinted glasses here big time. Why is it that in the streets of Hamilton at one two in the morning we've got the Bloods and the Crypts being trained by major gangs, we can't walk the streets in parts of the city.

PITA No you're wrong, you're quite wrong.

BRYCE Well I'm not wrong, that’s what the Police believe. Police have formed special teams to tackle these gangs to stop them getting into the major units, burglaries we're doing a hundred and something burglaries a week at the moment which they're linking back to not just Black Power and Mongrel Mob but other gangs, there isn't just two or three pressure points in this country, there are massive pressure points and not a lot's being done.

PITA A lot of work's being done by the gangs to dismantle the Bloods and the Crypts who are LA style gangs and not the usual ones over here, plus the kiddy gangs that form in the street, we gave a group of mixed gangs a list of 85 leaders and they went out and took their own and said this has gotta stop. So you know you can say that’s happening one way cos you’ve heard it from the Police, there's no rose tinted glasses here, this is hard on work.

JUDITH Yeah I just think you know look why do people join gangs, and they join them young and they join them – they don’t have good father figures, they don’t have any structure at home, they don’t have any hope in school, they don’t have any hope other than wanting to belong to something that actually wants them.

LISA So your solution is what Judith Collins?

JUDITH Well I haven’t got the silver bullet unfortunately but I do have one of the solutions is that we have to take parenting seriously and that we have to expect our fathers to be good fathers and to be there for their kids, whether they're still with mum or not they’ve still gotta be there for their kids and they’ve gotta stop ignoring that and expecting their children to be part of a gang to get their parenting from, I mean that’s just disgusting what's happening to some of our little kids and Pita's seen it, I've seen it, we've all seen it, little kids wandering around you know in colours, certain colours to show which gang they're with. Now those little kids we're writing them off if we don’t do something about it and we've got you know men stand up and say oh you know I'm staunch because I'm part of a gang you know I'm part of this, that’s their father figure, that’s their father figure not their real father, and we've got fathers who don’t want to take responsibility who are quite happy to skip off to Australia and say oh well not my problem.

PITA I agree entirely with what Judith just said and I think we should invest in communities. There are certain communities who lack – don’t enjoy the facilities that most of us do, and so there's a lot of time on their hands, there's resources needed to go in there, there's education needed to be stepped up, teachers drive in teach and drive out, now the glue for the community is missing and that’s what we need.

GAVIN We also need to bring in a measure of compulsion. Women don’t have an option, they have to look after their children, it's the fathers who disappear, not the mothers, so let's get some compulsion back in this.

LISA Thank you for joining us this morning Pita Sharples and Judith Collins.

FINAL THOUGHTS – GUEST COMMENTATORS

LISA Well Bryce you don’t necessarily share enthusiasm for us funding the Americas Cup?

BRYCE Yes, no I'm a big fan of the cup when we're doing so well but you know listening to Mr Mallard earlier I've got some severe worries on that one. It seemed to me he was basically scratching for justification of that 34 million dollars and saying that look we've had 22 million dollars of that back in PAYE, well if they'd bought any other business they'd have got PAYE back, if they'd invested it in the share market they'd have got money back, and it's a very poor argument and no logic at all in my view that they're using that as justification for us spending 34 million dollars. Essentially he's opened really the door there for some debate on this and I hope that the public of the country take him up on it because the question is, should we be putting money into sports where essentially someone's trying to make a profit at the end of the day, and it opens a Pandora's box, we've seen in the last year that they’ve funded A1GP at Taupo, I can tell you that Hamilton's got a very strong case now for funding of the V8 Supercars, now that’s about guys running a business trying to make a profit, now why would we put taxpayer dollars into something like that.

LISA But you could say that of almost all professional sports these days.

BRYCE Yeah well exactly right and should we be funding it you know as a taxpayer, I'm against it, and I think they’ve got some very fuzzy logic around the reasons for doing it.

GAVIN Professional sport should be just that, professional, it shouldn’t require government backing. Look if we win it shouldn’t need any government input, the sponsorship should be there. If we lose how many challenges do we have to make before we say well this is not really something the government should be funding.

LISA But governments all round the world put money into Formula 1.

BRYCE Yeah well why don’t we do that, why yachting? They're gambling 34 million bucks that says hey we'll win this thing and we'll have huge spinoffs for Auckland and the country and if we win yeah the gamble's worth it, if we lose we've gotta find justification like PAYE for spending that 34 million.

LISA Let's talk about some of the issues that were raised by Pita Sharples and Judith Collins. You were saying just as we went out there compulsion for fathers who won't take responsibility for their kids – how?

GAVIN I think that you know Judith Collins was talking about DNA testing, if there is contested paternity I would say make it compulsory, but I think that we have to go a step back from that, indeed back beyond conception. We've really got to make education in this area compulsory and compelling.

LISA Parenting or pregnancy, or both?

GAVIN Both. Pregnancy we have to not only address the issue of contraception but to try to get over with certain teenage groups the idea that motherhood is a right of passage. Now in some groups you have to have a baby to have status, we've got to get over that, we've got to teach them about contraception but also make sure that it's used. It's silly to say stop them having sex, I don’t think that that’s likely to happen.

LISA Bryce, would it work?

BRYCE Well I think that’s going on to a degree now in schools, it's been some years since I've been in a school but from what I hear that sort of education is very strong out there and I know that groups like Plunket and things are more in your face than they’ve probably ever been with parenting things. It's worthy initiatives and I think the more we can get that sort of stuff going the better.

GAVIN Something's not working is it, because we still have very very high pregnancy rates.

LISA Second highest pregnancy in teenagers in the OECD I think, and at the other end of the spectrum when we have Pita Sharples talking about gangs there, you still think that he's got the rose coloured glasses on don’t you, based on your local experience?

BRYCE Yeah and I think if you ask any man on the street this is an issue that I guess the National Party's trying to tap into quite well because they know there's a groundswell of opposition to gangs, and we've had to have Police in my city of Hamilton earlier in the year, form target groups to look at the Bloods and the Crypts, they’ll go and get these guys off the street and take them home. Now specially planned Police initiative to try and lower the offending rates and there does have to be a measure of punitive action to lower the offending and it's not just two or three pressure point areas there are major pressure point areas.

GAVIN Yeah I would agree, I mean I do think that if the gangs could be moved away from criminality then they could have a positive role, but that is a fond hope and not more than a fond hope. We have in Auckland, in Mt Roskill for example, a burgeoning youth gang problem. That is a bomb waiting to go off. Now I don’t see enough being done to stamp out this sort of phenomenon which has got to be a recruitment ground for criminality whether it's in a gang or individually, it just has got to be stamped on.

LISA Thank you very much for joining us this morning.

ENDS

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