But I just think, I take the argument that tying your hand behind your back to get into power in the first place is a bit silly.

Duncan, I was in Parliament.

Number three.

Hang on, hang on.

I was in Parliament for 30 years.

years, I heard a plethora of maiden speeches.

If I had a dollar for every maiden speech where people genuinely said politics needs to be cleaner and better and about ideas and not personalities and not about non-rudeness or nastiness.

And I think that's when you get, I think you go for those things when you want to get that base up.

You watch.

And I, and one of the things that went down with the audience, 'cause I, I do the, without the big PowerPoint and so on, I just say, "I'll give you the four numbers which are the number of list MPs National's got in the last four elections.

Let's go back to 2014.

They got 19 list.

Three years later, they got 15.

Three years later, they got 10.

Three years later, the last election, they got five."

Yeah.

We need more of them.

We, we got, we got taught many years ago at the first candidate school I went to, there are two really good answers you can give when you're questioned on something, yes and no.

And what you can do is add some stuff at the end of it.

Say, yes, because they've tried this in Australia and the UK and it's worked and we should be doing it.

Or you say no, because it's been a failure everywhere people have tried it, or there is evidence-

Back in the day.

Oh, look, I can tell you a quick st- it'll be really quick.

I had a friend who worked for the great Canadian ore sands company up in Fort McMurray, and when he decided to come back to New Zealand, he bought the most stunning Corvette Stingray with chrome pipes all down the side.

What's the best answer, Morris, that you could give to a really tough question? There's no doubt that we're going backwards.

Well, I was sitting in the room next door when you did that at your studio, and I thought that was the most bland answer because you can't give me an election in the history of this country where the answer to do New Zealanders feel better off than...

You could always say some do and some don't.

What you're wanting to do is the vast bulk of people are feeling better or are they feeling worse? And the answer is without doubt, and I think we covered this on your program, I think the vast bulk of New Zealanders feel worse off today than they did three years ago.

Now, National can keep that answer back and say a big chunk of all that is to do with external factors like the fuel price, like the external currencies and so on.

Many reasons why, but it's pretty much undeniable When you go out into the community, and I think we covered it on your program as well about house price being savaged and people losing so much of the wealth in their property index, that I think if I was asked the question and I was Minister of Finance, I would have said, I think the majority of people do feel worse off at this point.

And our role is to try to get them back.

Health is always the most difficult one to convince people that you, because you put more money into it every time than you do, but it seems that nothing gets better.

What about you, Maurice?

Yeah.

I'm totally in the Team National.

There are a whole range of spendings in what we call foreign aid, which you just literally cannot justify.

Certainly keep the diplomatic corps doing its role and function so that we have good relationships for trade.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise used to have an office right next to mine when I was consul general in LA.

They did phenomenal work of bringing New Zealand companies into the States, meeting up with their trading partners, getting them jobs, getting sales.

What do you think?

What about you, Morris?

Yeah, I'm totally on the team national.

There are a whole range of spendings in what we call foreign aid, which you just literally cannot justify.

Certainly we keep the diplomatic corps doing its role and function so that we have good relationships for trade.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise used to have an office right next to mine when I was Consul General in LA.

They did phenomenal work of bringing New Zealand companies into the States, meeting up with their trading partners, getting them jobs, getting sales done.

So you're not cutting any of that, and they're not.

a

Maurice, what do you make of it all?

Oh, some good and some a bit soft and some very weak.

There were things that needed action the moment this government got elected in 2023.

Things that they actually said they were going to do and I cheered them on and was delighted and excited about it.

And I thought, fantastic, a government that's going to go in and do almost the similar to the government I was part of at the beginning of the 90s and really take an axe to spending, take an axe to the debt mountain, really take the public service and bring it back to its normal levels where it should be.

And that hasn't happened.

And it's just gone on for year upon year where we're working on this, we're looking at that.

But, you know, maybe she's got a point.

Are you convinced by Barbara's assurances that the pay equity would be paid for, Maurice? Because it's a huge amount of money, man.

No. No.

No, I wasn't at all.

And it's this choices, words, but what does that mean? I can't believe that we're six weeks out and we still don't have a full fiscally costed plan from one of the major parties about what their policies and plans are.

The idea of waiting for the pre-foo is really just you make some small adjustments, but the pre-foo...

I could have pretty much written the vast bulk of these numbers in the pre-foo to within a five or so percent.

So I don't know why they've been waiting this long and what the hell it is still they're going to wait for.

What do you think, Maurice?

Are you convinced by Barbara's assurances that the pay equity would be paid for, Morris? Because it's a huge amount of money, man.

No.

No, I wasn't at all.

And it's this choices, words, but what does that mean? I can't believe that we're six weeks out and we still don't have a full fiscally costed plan from one of the major parties about what their policies and plans are.

And the idea of waiting for the pre-foo is really just you make some small adjustments.

But the pre-foo, I could have pretty much written the vast bulk of these numbers in the pre-foo to within a five or so percent.

So I don't know why they've been waiting this long and what the hell it is still they're going to wait for.

What do you think, Morris?

What's your reaction?

Well, John Key is right if he looks at historic elections.

For the first 10 MMP elections, the party vote was what mattered.

And even in their worst year, 2002, National got six more MPs from its list seats, party vote.

They got Don Brash.

They got Catherine Rich.

They got Roger Sowery.

But if there was a shift in those votes to act on New Zealand First, they could still sneak in.

Morris?

Look, I think this is just grubby stuff.

I can't stand any of these things where somebody said to me that they thought that someone had done that.

You go, hang on, hang on.

You have some substance.

You have the person either front up or whatever.

This idea of, oh, well, they can't.

But Heather, there

I think they've deeply misread this.

I don't think I could disagree with one element of what Jordan has just said.

That is exactly what's going on to 100%.

But by the way, I've had phone calls from people.

They weren't even in my dialer anymore, so that's how long ago they hadn't.

But they had my cell phone for some reason and I just got an earful.

What the bloody hell is your party? I said, well, well, well, well, I'm not.

So what's the point? And then that's respond to it by trying to be, well, look, we just like Labour.

I know two is not a pattern, but this is reinforcing beliefs, isn't it?

Well, the...

You have to have...

Um, I've said this many times, you have to have an element of both reward and fear to management contracts.

They've got to know that they have a responsibility to keep their minister well-informed.

There's got to be no surprises.

Uh, even at the early buds of something going wrong, you give them a briefing of a heads-up, "This is looking to start becoming a problem." You don't sort of hide it all, keep them in the dark.

Maurice?

I know two is not a pattern, but this is reinforcing beliefs, isn't it?

Well, the...

You have to have...

Um, I've said this many times, you have to have an element of both reward and fear to management contracts.

They've got to know that they have a responsibility to keep their minister well-informed.

There's got to be no surprises.

Uh, even at the early buds of something going wrong, you give them a briefing of a heads-up, "This is looking to start becoming a problem." You don't sort of hide it all, keep them in the dark.

Maurice?

What are you doing?

It's no different at the Mothership Auckland Council.

There is a whole series of things, like we have people sitting on the decision-making committees from Māoridom that were never elected, the Independent Māori Statutory Board.

They often have swayed the vote.

It's been, say, like 10-9 of councillors saying yes, and then the two Māori Statutory Board will vote on it and it will become 11-10-no.

And then I hear the media say, councillors voted to not do something.

He said, actually, the councillors did vote to do something, but it was changed.

But why

Mm.

I, I th- I actually think Parliament should sit for more days than it sits, uh, in a year to get through some of the work.

But look, think of the number of pieces of legislation that do go to a Select Committee and then they get changed dramatically 'cause there's things wrong with them.

They found fixes that needed to be done.

Just the other day, the move-on orders, the Select Committee have said, "No, make that, you know, 14, make it 18 or whatever, and change that amount of money and the fine to 1,000." So when you're gonna put something of this nature through, the, the fact they're banging it through under urgency just exposes yourself to enormous risks, and the minister is the person that should be holding-

Why did, why does the Waitangi Tribunal need to exist while historical claims are being settled?

Well, because they can give advice about parts of the historical claims as to whether that's right or not.

There's gotta be a lot of research into ... 'Cause people will make claims, this was stolen or this wasn't compensated for or, or this was our tribe and not that tribe, and quite a lot of research has to go in, and obviously some adjudication needed or advice.

morris confidence people people people are lacking the ability to you know they're looking for confidence they're looking for markers right you've got an election coming up so there's another negative an election then you've got the possible change of government negotiation so you've got the christmas so you're all this dead economic time when is the boom time when's the boost see that this is this is why it's problem for me

It's lasted much longer than anyone expected, in my view, in terms of the depressing figures, where we are.

COVID came out of it, thought we'd be coming back.

Cost of living.

But let me tell you, one of the things that I'm, hopefully the current government will start to put some focus on.

Cost of living is not actually an individual thing.

It's the difference between your income and your expenditure.

Brownlee, Willis, Bishop,

Right, Morris, what do you think?

Look, I think government ministers have got a right to make a... comment about Air New Zealand's performance because they're the biggest shareholder and Minister of Finance should have probably been saying so but I think the Prime Minister should have been a bit more wary because I see the Pratt & Whitney 1100 engines that have caused their problems on the A320s but also the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines on the 707 Dreamliners where they've had a dreadful problem with maintenance and there's insufficient spare engines to make the planes available they were both bought during the watch while Christopher Luxon was Chief Executive So you've always got to ask, why is Air New Zealand not doing as well as any of the other comparable airlines? And one of those things can be they bought the wrong engines.

But whatever goes wrong cannot possibly be worse than the situation the netball is in right now, surely, right?

You'd have to think so.

Look, all powder their arm.

Fantastic.

Private sector people, I love them.

They take risks with their own money.

Right, Morris, what do you think?

Look, I think government ministers have got a right to make a... comment about Air New Zealand's performance because they're the biggest shareholder and Minister of Finance should have probably been saying so.

But I think the Prime Minister should have been a bit more wary because I see the Pratt & Whitney 1100 engines that have caused their problems on the A320s.

But also the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines on the 707 Dreamliners where they've had a dreadful problem with maintenance and there's insufficient spare engines to make the planes available.

They were both bought during the watch while Christopher Luxon was Chief Executive.

So you've always got to ask, why is Air New Zealand not doing as well as any of the other comparable airlines? And one of those things can be they bought the wrong engines.

But whatever goes wrong cannot possibly be worse than the situation the netball is in right now, surely, right?

You'd have to think so.

[laughs]

Front it on the one thing that matters to people, what's gonna be left in their wallet at the end of each week, and that's taxation right now.

They, they haven't done a great job of so- solving the cost of living crisis, but they can do a great job of saying, "Well, whatever you get in your wallet, we'll let you keep, rather than n- nicking it for government spending." And, uh, it looks like it's just every statement.

If you hear National MPs now, every time they're asked something about, "What did you think of the, uh, quality of the water in Lake Dunstan?" It's, "What we're saying is we'll only have no taxes and no tax increases across the board."

Do Morris, do they look at Hipkins and that crew now and think, "They're us"?

No, I think it just becomes a ...

It's bred into them.

They grow up with it.

It's also only saving us, Maurice, $34 a year on average, which doesn't sound like a lot, does it?

No.

Look, look, Heather, I'm, I'm in total sort of support of the principle of trying to put a, a, a limit on rates, but you've got a whole lot of external factors that we don't have a say over.

Government keeps passing stupid legislation which force the...

the Waste Minimization Act, forced these green food scraps bins.

Nobody in my street, no one uses them.

I can... you straight out the street and you'll be fine, 10%, maybe 15 using them, but we all have to pay it, and when your rates bill comes, you'll see the food scraps bin.

Are you?

Maurice, this is, this is election night stuff

... that's Saint Larke, and over here, I don't know whether you can see all that, but in that red box, Saint Larke is your total vote divided by two seats plus one.

So every time you win a seat ...

So when you go to the very first one, say these were Nationals in the yellow box, those are the votes they got.

It takes the biggest one, decides National gets the first seat, and then it divides that by two plus one, 'cause they've won one seat plus one, so their number now goes down to 350.

Who's now got the biggest number?

Oh, goodness me.

What the, what the numbers coming in during the night, this calculated, but you can override it by hand.

What do you think, Maurice?

I, I totally agree with you.

Many years ago, I got so sick of, uh, very, very wealthy people saying, "Oh, I'd be prepared to pay more in tax." I got onto my desktop publisher, made up a form where you could fill it out, put your name, your tax account and so on, and make a contribution to the IRD of whatever you wanted.

And I ch- and I did, I handed them out at meetings, and I did check many years later, and as far as I could tell, no one ever voluntarily paid More tax.

So it does piss me off a bit when rich people say, "Oh, we should be paying more in tax." Well, they can.

Mm, yeah, okay.

Well, well, the, I've, I've got contrary numbers, so Treasury will produce every year the amount of income tax that comes from the various income brackets, and if you take all of the income that comes from the higher income brackets, it's su- substantially more than they represent as a percentage of the population.

And then if you take the transfers back, the Working for Families that goes back to people at the bottom end and other welfare payments, it's something like huge percentage of the tax in New Zealand is paid by a very small percentage of people at the higher income bracket.

What do you think, Maurice?

I, I totally agree with you.

Many years ago I got so sick of, uh, very, very wealthy people saying, "Oh, I'd be prepared to pay more in tax." So I got onto my desktop publisher, made up a form where you could fill it out, put your name, your tax account and so on, and make a contribution to the IRD of whatever you wanted.

And I ch- and I did, I handed them out at meetings, and I did check many years later, and as far as I could tell, no one ever voluntarily paid more tax.

So it does piss me off a bit when rich people say, "Oh, we should be paying more in tax." Well, they can.

Mm, yeah, okay.

Well, well, the, I've, I've got contrary numbers, so Treasury will produce every year the amount of income tax that comes from the various income brackets, and if you take all of the income that comes from the higher income brackets, it's su- substantially more than they represent as a percentage of the population.

And then if you take the transfers back, the Working for Families that goes back to people at the bottom end and other welfare payments, it's something like huge percentage of the tax in New Zealand is paid by a very small percentage of people at the higher income bracket.

Yeah.

Because in the military, if you make a decision that, '0600 hours, we're going over the top of the trenches and we're charging the machine gun, uh, pillbox, and we're gonna take it out 'cause it's killing all our soldiers,' then at 0600 hours, you leap out of that trench and you all race across no man's land shooting and fight, and you take out the pillbox.

You don't end up, as you do in the political wheel, get halfway across no man's land and turn around and find-

Yeah.

And your question is so right, Duncan.

If you come into office with the other side so discredited and so hopeless, and you've made a whole lot of commitments to do some hard-nosed stuff to put the pace back on track, y- you lose them.

And you don't do it, no wonder now there is just this shattered voter electorate sitting out there going, "I don't even know what to do next."