Good morning, and welcome to the Nation. I'm Lisa Owen. Today ` can labour keep the upper hand in the Maori seats? Labour's Maori Campaign Director, Willie Jackson is in the studio to talk election strategy and what the priorities are for the Maori caucus. Is Britain doing enough to uncover who is funding terrorism? I think the way to go is to get all these countries to focus on what they're doing, to accept what they're doing and to have a, uh... an international and internationally supported way of monitoring it. And we ask Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson why Britain is selling the weapons Saudi Arabia's used to kill thousands of civilians. We look at the tweaks the government's made to its immigration policy. So, the feedback, it was pretty clear. Governments just don't really listen, and finally they have. So has it made the right move? We'll hear from the Labour Party and the Employers and Manufacturers Association. And we'll wrap up the week with our panel, Jon Johansson, Susie Ferguson and Ben Thomas, and comedians Jeremy Corbett and Paul Ego. Copyright Able 2017 It's great to have you with us today. We do love hearing from you, so get in touch. Our details are on screen now. And if you're on Twitter, follow along with our Twitter panel, blogger John Palethorpe and social commentator Bevan Chuang. You can follow along on #NationNZ. Well, Labour launches its Maori campaign this weekend, looking to retain its Maori seats as well as bring in some new blood off the party list. But with the party's polls in a slump, how optimistic are they? Labour's Maori Campaign Director, Willie Jackson, joins me now. Good morning. Kia ora. Kia ora, Lisa. Your job is to get Maori MPs elected, but, actually, you're number 21 on the party list, so it's actually in your best interests that not all of them do get elected. So how does that keep you honest? (LAUGHS) No, no, well, my absolute priority is to get them elected. If I get in, well, then that's fine. I don't know what your last poll said. Did I get in on the last poll? I'm not sure. So you're not the priority? You'd take one for the team? No, no, I'm not the priority. Absolutely, because I want to see a strong Maori presence ` a Maori Labour Party presence ` in those seats. And, look, I think I think I should get in, because the polls might say one thing, but we've got eight weeks to go, and I'm sure we're going to get 32%, 33%, 35%. Because at the moment, you'd be hanging on a ledge at number 21 on the list. But that's okay. I've been in Parliament before. If I don't get in, such is life. You know? So it's a possibility you won't, you think, on your current polling? Oh, current polling suggests not, right? But the polling in the Maori seats tell us that we're going very well. I think we could be looking at a sweep of the seven Maori seats. Okay. So you're polling in the Maori seats, are you? We're polling in the Maori seats. We're going pretty well, and we've got some` So what's pretty well? Let's be a bit more specific. How many do you expect to win? Uh, probably all seven. I expect to win six, but I wouldn't be surprised if we took the whole seven. So the one that you're, kind of, not so 100% on? Well, obviously, you've got the` Waiariki? You've got the Minister of Maori Affairs down there in the Waiariki, so it's always hard to take out an incumbent; anyone will tell you that. However, he's a minister under a lot of pressure. He's in an area that's suffering. They've had a Maori housing policy out, and they've got some funding for Maori housing. Sadly for him, he didn't get one new house built in Rotorua, and so we've got an excellent candidate down there in Tamati Coffey, who's really applying the pressure. So if you're polling and you're thinking that you're going to win them all, what are your polls telling you about Waiariki, then? They're telling us that we're... (SIGHS) Well, there's a couple of polls out, but` Come on. What are they telling you? Well, you know, I've got a couple of other programmes I'm going on, so we're going to talk about` You brought it up. You brought it up. You opened Pandora's box here. It's very close. Look, I think we're within` So, what? 1%? 2%? 5%? Between 1% and 6%, I think. It's within that. 6% is a lot. 1% not so much. Which end of the scale are you on? There's a couple of polls out. Couple of polls out. One's talking about 1%. Another poll that Farrar's done ` Kiwiblog ` I think is about 5% or 6%. But the 1% poll, is that your own polling? Yeah. There's a lot of legitimacy in our own polling; just ask Paddy Gower that. Hang on, Mr Jackson. The 1%, is that in your internal polling? You think there's only 1% in Waiariki? I've got to have a look at that. I'm not quite sure. I'm not quite sure, but it's pretty close, but you` Well, so` Hang on. You don't want to be rubbishing internal polls. Youse jump on them as soon as we go down. I'm not; I'm asking you if your poll is the 1% poll. We` Hang on. So, basically, then you are predicting the end of the Maori Party. I think it could be very close to the end for the Maori Party if Te Ururoa doesn't win Waiariki. You know, that'd be sad for a lot of people if that happens, but that's the game we're in, you know? This is the game we're in. We're in to sort of knock each other out. Nothing personal. Te Ururoa and Marama Fox have done their best in terms of advocating for our people, no doubt about that, but they're with a National government that doesn't prioritise people ` Maori, working-class people. It kind of does sound a little bit personal, because at every opportunity the Maori Party gets, they want to say that Labour throws Maori under the bus, that Andrew Little doesn't know what 'kaupapa Maori' means. So why do they hate you so much? Well, no, I don't think that's personal from them, and it's certainly not personal from me. I think they're talking about the party; they're not talking about individuals. No, what they're trying to do is survive. They talk a load of nonsense. They start spinning nonsense with regards to that. So you think they're fighting for their life? 'Course they're fighting for their lives. If Te Ururoa doesn't get in, they're gone, and there's a real chance that he won't get in. Look, I say, sadly, they've been selling us out a bit in the last year of two. The funding they got in terms of the budget was a disgrace ` less than 1% of funding from the National Party government. It's more than what the Labour budget got in the budget, isn't it, though? That's their whole point ` they're at the table; they're getting funding. No, it's not a very good point, because I think Bill would've given 1% in his sleep. It wouldn't have mattered if there had been a party at the table or not. To get the sort of funding they got for Whanau Ora is an insult to our Whanau Ora providers. It's just disgraceful. We're doing the busin` Look, can I just say the Whanau Ora policy that Tariana Turia came out with ` brilliant. I roll it out. They're getting more money for Maori than you are, because they are at the table. You don't have to be a genius to know that. When you're in opposition, you don't get any money. We all know that. Precisely. That's the point. But they should be getting four, five times more than what they're getting. Look, they're getting peanuts. They're getting crumbs. They haven't even put one house in the Waiariki. Let's talk about you, though. Labour and the Maori seats. Aren't you worried that your friends in the Green Party could split the vote in some of those seats? I'm having a talk to them now. I'm talking to some of the individuals in the Green Party. What are you saying to them about that, then? That we should work together and we should do a deal because the reality is the Greens are just talking about the party vote, aren't they? Our Maori MPs went off the list and they're looking at just winning their seats, so` Are they open to this? Well, I've talked to two or three candidates. I can't name those candidates` Auckland ` Tamariki` uh, Tamaki Makaurau ` is one of the ones where you could potentially be in strife with splitting the vote there. Well, she's quite popular, hasn't she, Marama Davidson? So... High profile. So is that one of the seats that you're talking about? Well, I can't divulge the type of conversations we're having, but, obviously, the Greens should work with us. They haven't ruled it out, though, Mr Jackson? They certainly haven't. Talking with different candidates, no, they haven't worked it out because they are very clear they just want the list vote. I get that. So, in some seats, would your ideal scenario be, before the election, that you will do what Bill English did this week and say, 'In this electorate, can you please vote for this candidate?' You want an endorsement from the Greens in some of the Maori seats? Absolutely. I have talked to one or two of them, and we're working this through because, surely, you don't want to put the Maori Party candidate back in who will be jumping up and down trying to deal` Is that a dirty deal, Mr Jackson? No, that's what you call a New Zealand political deal that your prime minister is doing every single day and that most politicians do. So, you know, National's been doing it in Ohariu forever, and National's going to try to do it again in the Epsom electorate. Well, you raised the issue of the Maori MPs coming off the list. How involved were you in that decision? Not at all. Well, how come? Not at all. Aren't you, like, the strategist`? No. No. They asked me to do that after they made those decisions. Oh, after the list came out? The consolation prize? No. No. So that decision was made, in terms of the campaign director, a month before the list came out. But they made their decisions with regards to coming off the list, and I was surprised. I was surprised. Do you agree with it? I thought it was... 'Good on them.' I thought it was terrific what they did. It was a principled decision that they made in terms of coming off the list, and the whole idea was to come off the list so that more Maori could come through. All right. We've got a bit to get through, so I wanted to just talk to you about, quickly, charter schools. You're involved with them. Kelvin Davis is supportive of them, but the fact is Labour's policy is no charter schools. So you're on a hiding to nothing with that one, aren't you? Not at all, because Labour has said they'll support successful schools. Our schools are very successful` No charter schools. Yeah. Yeah. No, but` I've got the policy right here. Do you want me to read it to you? READS: Repeal the legislation allowing for charter schools. No charter schools. Yeah, well, you mightn't have heard the other part that they've spoken to us about, which is if your school's doing well, if you've got qualified teachers, if you're adhering to the rules, there shouldn't be any problems whatsoever. But that's not the policy. The policy is no charter schools. But we support the policy. We support the policy. Are you just going to call it something else? They can call it whatever they like, but myself, Kelvin Davis and Peeni Henare will never walk away from our kids, and we'll work with any government that will support our kids in terms of advancing. Labour's going to backtrack on the charter schools`? No. Labour's not going to backtrack at all. Labour is saying we don't want a charter-school policy in that's very similar to America. They don't want a policy in where big companies can come in and run schools in terms of profits. Show me a charter school that's run by McDonald's, Nike or a big American corporate here in New Zealand. Well, no. What I'm saying, here in New Zealand, they'll support schools like ours, who are run by social providers who live off the smell of an oily rag. No, they won't. Their policy is no charter schools. There's no exceptions. There's no buts. There's no maybes. No charter schools. Have you not been watching the news? Maybe you're watching the wrong news. Andrew Little's been very clear. 'If your school's doing well, if your school's successful, 'if your school's advancing Maori aspirations, we'll find a way to accommodate it.' I think that's pretty clear. Let's talk about Metiria Turei, because everyone's been talking about Metiria Turei. Are you OK with her committing benefit fraud? Is it OK to pinch money from the taxpayers and other beneficiaries? At a personal level... From a personal perspective, I could do nothing but support Metiria, because I represent beneficiaries and I've represented them for years and years. Her actions? Are you OK with those? Well, it's not about being OK. It's about understanding what she did and I understand` I'm asking you a specific question. We can talk about whether beneficiaries get enough money on one hand. I'm asking you ` is it OK to break the law? Of course it's not OK to break the law. Of course not. But I still have a lot of sympathy for what she went through at the time, and I understand the plight of our people, and I understand that we had a National government at the time that was bashing beneficiaries. That there is no doubt about. So how worried are you that her admission of a fraud is damaging to Labour's brand because you're a package deal? We're a package deal, and we need to work together. She's probably got as many supporters as she's got detractors, so I'm not worried about Labour. It's the Greens. They need to worry about their own strategies. Yeah, but it could have an influence on people who vote for you. It could have an influence. I mean, Winston, at the moment, is stealing some of our votes, you know. People need to understand that a vote for Winston looks like it's going to be a vote for National. He seems to be gravitating, going down that track. Well, hang on a minute. He's saying he's leaving his doors open. If your internal polling is right, which you'd like to think it's right in the Maori seats, so let's assume it's right across the board. If it's right, Winston is above the Greens, so does that make them a potential senior coalition partner above the Greens if you get together to form a government? Well, no, because we have an MoU with the Greens` Yes, but it only lasts until election night. Yeah, well, we'll just see how Winston goes. He's been a bit out of hand in the last couple of weeks, you know. You know, you've got him... And Shane Jones wants to nuke all his nephews up north. If he gets more at the polls than the Greens, then that would make him the senior coalition partner with you, wouldn't it? Well, we'll see what happens after election day. Is he good for Maori? Well, getting rid of the Maori seats is not good for Maori. But is Winston good for Maori? Well, he gets a bit of Maori support, right? Yeah, well, you raise that, cos the Greens are currently trying to scare voters when it comes to Winston Peters, but here's the thing ` Maori voters do like Winston. If you look in the Maori seats, New Zealand First is the third most popular party behind Labour and the Maori Parties. So should you have done an MoU with Winston Peters? The problem with Winston, you don't know where he is sometimes. You know, you've got to remember, he started his political career in the Maori seats. Then he had all the Maori seats, so he was backing the Maori seats. Now today, he's not backing the Maori seats. He was the minister of Maori affairs. Now he thinks Maori Affairs is a waste of time. It depends what week it is with Winston. If we get him on the right week, we probably could do a deal. We're out of time, but your party is polling sub 30 pretty regularly, so is this the life time we're going to see you or`? Well, no, I'm available again next week, if you like. I can come in again and tell you all about the Maori campaign tomorrow. Well, nice to talk to you, Willie Jackson. After the break, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Brexit, the Kiwi OE and arms sales to Saudi Arabia. And later ` have the government's latest changes to immigration made things better or worse? We'll hear from employers and the Labour Party. Welcome back. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has been in New Zealand for talks on trade and security and, of course, to check out the scenery. And while most Kiwis just want to know if we can get a good deal on OEs and dairy exports, Britain has a lot of its own issues to deal with. I sat down with Boris Johnson in Wellington earlier this week. Well, shall we start with Brexit? You've had a referendum; you've had a general election. It's going to be a long process, but just for the record, is it absolutely going to happen? You're out? Yes. Yes. Yes, it is, and it will be a great thing, and it will go... well. And, of course will be... There's a negotiation that's got to take place, and we're confident we can do a deal that's in our interests but also in the interests of our friends and partners across the Channel in Europe. It's got to work for them. They're huge exporters to the UK. We want something that will be really positive for both sides. We want a strong EU, strong UK, deep and special partnership between them, and what that gives us the freedom to do is think again about our global role and how we can re-engage with partners around the world, such as New Zealand. Yeah, your friends further afield. So New Zealand, obviously, would be keen for a trade deal. We have an arrangement with the EU, but Britain is the most important to us; the UK is most important in terms of trade. So you can't do a deal with us until you're totally out of Brexit,... That's correct. ...so how far off is it going to be, realistically, for us? Well, you're absolutely right that we can't sign anything ` you know, we can't ink anything in ` because we've got a duty to honour our obligations to the rest of the EU as long as we're in the EU, and, clearly, it would start contaminating the negotiations if we began actively discussing, negotiating in parallel with other friends at the same time. But we can certainly start to look at the broad shape of a deal where the opportunities are for both sides. So realistically, though ` realistically ` when do you think something like that would be signed and sealed, from our point of view? As soon as possible after 2019. I can't give you a time or a date, but you can't ink it in, you can't do anything like that until after we've left the EU. But what you're saying is that we could be ready to go. But we could be ready to go, and so we've set up all sorts of... There's already working groups who are looking at it. I think we've actually hired some of your trade negotiators to help us through the whole process, because New Zealand, as I'm sure you're aware, has a formidable reputation around the world for trade negotiations. Mm. And the other thing, obviously, we're interested in is this idea of a Commonwealth visa. But again, you would have to wait for Brexit to be signed, sealed and delivered, wouldn't you? And you've said that nobody's going to be any worse off with arrangements that are made, but we're a special friend, aren't we? You are. Are we going to be`? We love New Zealand. We love Kiwis coming to` Right. So are we going to be better off under some kind of Commonwealth visa? Well, I don't want to, uh, pre-empt what we're going to` where we're going to. Give us a little teaser. Well, what I've got` Obviously, there's a couple of points to make. First of all, the arrangements that we have at the moment with New Zealand ` in spite of some glitch that there has been on visas, for which I apologise ` I think are pretty good. As I understand it, we have Ancestry visas; we have overseas experience for young people. We are pretty much open to talent from New Zealand that wants to come to the UK, and, I want to stress, we want it to come. We are gluttons for New Zealand talent, and... we also have an obligation to come out of the EU in a sensible way and take back control of our borders and our whole immigration system. So that will give us the opportunity to think again about our relations with other partners. How exactly, whether that produces what you describe as a Commonwealth visa or whatever, it is too early to say, but we want to have something that is very friendly for New Zealand. So not worse off, but you can't give us a cast-iron guarantee that we'd be better off? You know, I just don't know` I don't want to give a cast-iron` I don't want to... Obviously, there's going to be a trade negotiation, by the way, in which I would think that the question of movement of people, from my experience, will be one of the issues. Once of the most flattering things about being British is how much people seem to want to come to our country. Virtually everywhere I go, that's the number-one thing they want to do. But, hang on, let me get this right. Irrespective of any trade negotiation we do with New Zealand, we will also want to be open and receptive. OK. Let's look further afield. The UK ` terrorism has been in the minds of many people with what's happened in Manchester and London, and on the bigger issue of supporting terrorism and states that support terrorism, I want to ask you if you think it is OK that the UK sells billions of dollars' worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, which has killed many thousands of civilians. Well, a couple of points sort of wrapped up together. It is certainly true that we're all engaged in a struggle against terrorism, and although, thank heavens, New Zealand hasn't experienced anything of the kind here, we are very grateful for the cooperation that we get with New Zealand intelligence services in the work that we do together in that struggle ` first point to make. But the second thing is, look, on Saudi Arabia and the UK arms exports generally, we have one of the toughest regimes in the world when it comes to the application of the consolidated guidance into breaches of international humanitarian law. We look very carefully at all the contracts, all the use of the weaponry that is supplied by the UK, in a way, I think, with a kind of punctiliousness that I don't think any other country does. You may know that we just had a court case,... I do know, yeah. ...in which the government was judicially reviewed by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade group ` quite properly wanting to investigate this question about whether we had fulfilled our legal obligations to Parliament and to the country in issuing those arms exports certificates. And the courts found that we had. But I just` I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we've got limited time, and I think it's really important we get through this. So, yes, you're right; court absolutely said that you'd stuck by the legal letter of the law, but I'm asking you how comfortable you are with this and how much collateral damage you are prepared to stomach in Yemen, where these weapons are being used. I think on what's happening in Yemen, you mustn't forget that there was a coup by the Houthis that got rid of the legitimate government of Yemen. They've been, actually, launching missiles at Saudi Arabian territory. There is a very serious problem in Yemen. Now, no one is going to dispute that it is an appalling conflict and that we want it to end and we share your views and the views of millions of people around the world who are appalled by the humanitarian suffering. But does that justify selling arms to Saudi Arabia, which the UN says, in I think it was 2015, is responsible for 60% of child deaths in Yemen? And you would've seen the pictures. There's 17 million people there who are on the verge of starvation,... Yes. Yes. ...and there are many schools and hospitals that have been bombed, and you're supplying Saudi with these weapons. Are you comfortable with that? I think the point I would make` From an ethical or moral point of view. Put legal to one side. I think the argument` Yes, I am. The argument I would make is that` Sorry, you said you are comfortable with that? The argument I would make is that we do go through these procedures that are extremely punctilious, and in terms of breaches of international humanitarian law, involved in the use of UK-supplied weaponry, we are very, very scrupulous, and, as I say, the court has recently found in our favour. But there's a bigger political point, which is that if we disengage, if we just boycotted Saudi Arabia, if we pushed Saudi Arabia away and we said... That would in no way disrupt the flow of arms to Saudi Arabia, by the way ` that's an important point. But it would also mean that there was no longer any means by which the UK could exercise the pressure that it currently does on Saudi Arabia to behave in its military actions in a way that is compatible with international humanitarian law; we would be vacating that role. We would be stepping back, and I have to say that I don't believe for a minute it would do anything to` by doing so, I think it would, if anything, intensify the suffering that is going on in that area. So what we want to see is a political solution. We want to... Well, your prime minister` ...and we hope very much that the Houthis will see sense, will follow the road map that has been laid out, will come to an accommodation with the... what was the legitimate government of Yemen and come up with a new constitutional arrangement. That is the way forward for the people of Yemen, but` Your prime minister has been talking about having what she describes as uncomfortable and potentially embarrassing conversations with people over terrorism. And to start that conversation, couldn't you be having a conversation like that with Saudi Arabia by simply, for example, releasing a report that your own country has at the moment about the funding for terrorism? Because the suggestion has been that Saudi Arabia is putting huge amounts of money into funding terrorism offshore. So this does come back to your country, so why not start that conversation and make those documents public? You're making a very good point about the funding of terror by countries in the Middle East generally, including in the Gulf region, and you may know that there's a row going on now between Saudi Arabia and Qatar about Qataris' alleged funding of terrorist groups. And as you rightly say, there have been suggestions that Saudi actors have been involved in funding extremist madrasas and so on and so forth. Everybody knows that's been going on. The answer, I think, is for the whole of the Gulf region to take a long hard look at themselves and to work on what was called the Riyadh Agreement of 2014 and to have a serious, internationally based means of monitoring the financing of terror. And that is what we would like to establish, and... We're running out of time, so just want to put it to you` ...it could be done between all the key parties in the Gulf, and I think that international observers would be absolutely essential. There's two issues ` the supply of the weapons and funding of terrorism. So on the supply of weapons, your critics would say, 'You should just stop doing it. It's immoral and unethical.' Well, I think I've given you an answer to that. Mm-hm. On the funding of terrorism, which is an entirely separate thing, I think the way to go is to get all these countries to focus on what they're doing, to accept what they're doing and to have an international, an internationally supported way of monitoring it, whether it's through the GCC or the World Bank or some institution that looks at what is happening, looks at the flows of finance from the Gulf to terrorist groups. So why not put that information out there that's in the report? Why not put the information out there as to what Saudi's involvement is in funding? Why not do that? Well, because, as far as I know, that report was never intended to be made public, and I think there's some misunderstanding about what is actually in that so-called report. But what I'm not going to deny for a second is that there are concerns in the UK, in New Zealand, around the world about funding for terrorist groups that comes from Gulf countries, whether it's from religious actors or private individuals or whoever. We need to look at what is happening there, and we need to crack down on it. And so that is, I think, the solution to the current dispute in the Gulf. And after the break ` has the government gone far enough with its latest changes to immigration rules? But first Jeremy and Paul have their own take on Boris Johnson. The big question this week ` is Winston Peters right? Not usually. Is Te Ururoa Flavell hiding behind the Maori language by only speaking te reo in Parliament? Well, if Winston gets his way and bans all immigrants, Maori will be the only language spoken in Parliament. Good point, Paul. Boris Johnson ` can he tell the difference between a hongi and a headbutt? Well, to be fair, the first hongi he witnessed was between Winston and Flavell, so it's kind of hard to tell. Would be hard to tell. But Boris seducing us with his promises, his wit and his fancy words, in turn being seduced by this mind-numbingly beautiful country. Yeah, bear in mind he did talk to Maggie Barry and a tuatara, so the numbness was probably overwhelming. Probably. And finally, should we be taking a closer look at local billboards? Can't say you're the local MP if you're not. Well, that's true. I'm not the local MP, and I don't want people to vote for me. Strong message, Paul. You might get in. That'd be of no benefit to anyone. Good on you. Mention the benefit early. Yeah, best to be transparent about these things. Oh, speaking of which, do we let transparents in our military? Not sure. I think homo sapiens are fine. Ew. Welcome back. National has backtracked this week on its plans to put the lid on immigration after pressure from employers. There are still calls to restrict the record numbers coming into the country, but with immigration underpinning economic growth, can we afford to close the door? Well, we invited immigration minister Michael Woodhouse on to the programme to talk about the changes. He declined. So I'm joined now by Labour's immigration spokesman Iain Lees-Galloway and Kim Campbell from the Employers and Manufacturers Association. Good morning to you both. Morning. Mr Campbell, if I can come to you first. National's tweaked its immigration tweak, so it's lowered that wage benchmark for skilled immigrants from about 49,000 to 41,500. Has that gone far enough for employers, do you think? Dunno! Had to do something. So, um, everybody agreed there needed to be some adjustments to the settings. In our view, they'd gone a bit far and people were screaming. In our employer surveys, people were saying they couldn't get the people they needed in certain places. Yeah. What were those surveys telling you? Well, everyone... Pretty much everyone employing anywhere, it was across the board. You couldn't even isolate any particular profession; whether it was bakers or lab technicians or whether it was even sales managers. People were struggling getting people. So, how do you put a filter on all those people who want to come and live in New Zealand. Using an income gap is one way to do it whether the number's right to get the numbers you want. You only know when you've done it. What's your gut feeling about that number? I think it's about right. We've never been in favour of just bringing in the minimum-wage people unless it's, perhaps, seasonal workers for picking fruit and so on. There's a little bit of confusion about whether shift allowances are included in the pay rates and so on. But I think the settings are going to be about right. But we had to do something. Let's bring Mr Lees-Galloway in here because Labour would like to pull the cap down on immigration even more. About up to 30,000 people fewer. So you're just going to make Mr Campbell ` the people he represents ` you're just going to make it harder for them, aren't you, given what he's saying about the survey? First of all, can I say, I think National's policy on this is just bad policy, and tweaking the threshold and coming up with a new arbitrary threshold, I don't think is actually going to solve any of the concerns that people have about immigration. And I think it's instructive that the Minister isn't here today. National has failed to engage in the immigration debate, and they rolled this policy out without consulting with people like Kim or the Federated Farmers, without actually thinking it through properly, because they hadn't done the homework before they rolled it out. So it's just a bad policy. Using salary threshold as a proxy for skill is a poor policy. We have just had` Let's look at your policy, though, because you want to bring it down. You want to bring the lid down even further. Isn't that going to create more problems? We've got a far more nuanced approach to this than National's. My big criticism of National's approach is it's a one-size-fits-all approach. We have quite different issues in Auckland and the rest of the country. So in Auckland we have rapid population growth. The latest immigration figures show that there's been a 15% increase in the number of people settling in Auckland over the last year. That's having an impact on housing. It's having an impact on transport. It's having an impact on hospitals and schools. But in the regions, as I'm sure Kim will agree with me, we've got employers who do need skilled labour. So that's why we've come up with our regional visas approach ` to regionalise the skill shortage lists and encourage migrants to move to the regions in New Zealand rather than settling in Auckland. Is that the answer, Mr Campbell? With the greatest respect to Labour, in many ways we agree that we need immigration, which is a good thing, so we're really arguing about how you go about putting the filters on. How many and who is what you're arguing. Yeah. How many and who. The fact is you can tell... Think of something like farming. They're actually not paying particularly low wages, and so we know we need people to help people on the farms. Bakers ` it doesn't matter what you pay them, there are no trained bakers, right. You've got to bring them in. So arbitrarily setting a figure, and I think the 30,000 is too low, you'll stall the economy. And so all the wonderful growth that we're enjoying will disappear. I think we're very lucky to be in a position when we are` These are growth problems, and I think we've got to find our way through them, and I don't think that the arbitrary plan that Mr Galloway's got in mind will actually particularly work. We do have to find our way through those growth problems, and that's why we have always talked about needing to take a breather. We're particularly talking about Auckland. And we need to get on with investing in infrastructure. Our KiwiBuild programme is about building 100,000 homes across the country. Well, how are you going to build those without people? Because we're not going to stop the people that we need. Where there is a genuine skill shortage, that's` But you'll need 100,000 people to build 100,000 homes. That's my problem. And that is actually where we've got to focus our attention ` genuine skill shortages. So where genuine skill shortages exist, we should fill those where we need to with migrant workers, absolutely. But unfortunately our immigration system is being used to prop up the economy. All our economic growth is based on population growth. That's not making people better off in real terms. That's not making people better off as individuals. It's just growing the size of the economy. OK. Fair point, though, Mr Campbell, isn't it, that immigration, population growth is underpinning our economic growth. That's not entirely correct. GDP growth per capita is 0.5%. Yeah, but look at the way we're recalibrating the economy. The service sector is growing enormously, particularly through education and tourism. But we're also seeing the emergence of a tech sector which we didn't even have 10 years ago. And these are highly skilled people. A large percentage of our foreign exchange earning is now coming from consultancy and all sorts of things which are weightless exports, and they are skilled people. They are high-wage people. And then tourism, of course, which mops up a lot of people, is mopping up people at the lower end. I'd argue that we need to do a lot more to add value to the economy. We need a lot more investment in productive enterprise. But in the meantime I'll bank what we've got. And the fact is we're now able to build infrastructure and so on. And, remember, infrastructure uses a lot of local materials, and that drives our manufacturing businesses. Mr Lees-Galloway, the thing is you are saying that our growth is underpinned by this, so again we come back to the same thing. If you turn that tap down, you are forgoing that growth. As long as we carry on relying on migrant workers coming and working in minimum-wage jobs, we are not going to have the impetus our economy needs to become more productive. We need to make some changes to actually` How do you plug the gap in the meantime, though, in terms of earnings? There are skill shortages. There are absolutely genuine skill shortages particularly across the regions. We want to continue filling those. But do we need tens of thousands of students studying at low-quality, low-skill levels who then go on into minimum wage jobs that we could be training New Zealanders to do? And that's the big thing that we haven't talked about is that, sure, in the short term, there's a lot of roles that we'll need to fill with migrant workers, but, actually, we have not had the investment from the government in getting those 90,000 young people, who are not in work and not in training, skilled up so that they can fill jobs in the New Zealand economy. Look at these numbers. 72% of employers ` our survey ` find it difficult to recruit staff. 56% say ageing is a problem; in other words, baby boomers retiring. Ageing population. Yeah, ageing population. And leaving gaps all over the place. But Mr Lees-Galloway raises an important issue here, because your critics would say that you're using immigrants to keep wages down, supress wage growth. You want cheap labour. You're using it to fuel cheap labour. That's not correct at all. Bear in mind there's two parts to this. One of the reasons why we've got some growth in the economy is we've got some flexibility in our economy. It means that businesses can adjust to the changes. And staying competitive is the second part of it. In the end, you can nominally put up all the wages you want to, but if it puts people out of business, they lose their customers, then we've got nothing to fight over anyway. I think businesses that are exploiting migrant workers ` who don't pay them the minimum wage, that don't pay them holiday pay, that don't pay them for all the hours that they work, that put them in substandard work conditions ` maybe some of them should go out of business. We need good-quality employers, and we should not bring migrants into the country to be exploited. Who sponsored the Migrant Exploitation Act? It was us. And to his very great credit, the late Peter Conway, he and I together went to the minister Simon Bridges. Within months, we had legislation in place. We agreed that the exploitation of migrant workers was unacceptable, it was non-competitive and wrong. So there's no` And yet it carries on. I was in the Bay of Plenty last week, the day after an article came out showing that the majority of employers that had been inspected in the kiwi-fruit industry were exploiting their migrant workers. It's shameful. It is shameful, and it carries on, and we have got to put a stop to it. In saying that, Mr Lees-Galloway, there is an example. Chris Lewis from Federated Farmers, he talked about having a job ` basic farm-assistance job ` 55K ` 55,000. Plus housing. Plus housing. That's well above the minimum wage. So, you know, it's not just low-skilled jobs. Where is he? He is down south... Ah. ...and he said he only had two Kiwis apply for the job. Out of 50 applicants, 48 of those were immigrants. I know that in Southland, in particular, they are really struggling to hold on to their young people, and I know that` yeah, farm workers, for instance... I think if you had a regional skills list that applied to Southland, I think you could make a very strong case for putting some farm work on a regional skills list. So I think we've got a solution for that gentleman. National doesn't. National has not thought this through. Let's wait. I think we need to see if the policy actually starts to work properly, and we mustn't ignore the fact ` and I'm obliged to say this ` that we have a serious problem in our community with drugs. And is that why you're saying that Kiwi workers aren't taking these jobs? It's only part of it, but it sits under there. We know for a fact that when an employer says, 'Well, there's a job here for you. Come to the interview, 'but you will have a drug test,' they don't show up. And it happens all over the country. And our survey shows that 58% of employers in the last year have had disciplinary action with staff relating to drugs at work. I think it's a sorry indictment on the National government that this has become such a prevalent problem under their watch. Why do people self-medicate with drugs? Why do people turn to drugs to escape the life that they're in? Because they're at the margins, they're` You don't seriously think that drugs are specific to the National government, do you? This problem of not being able to get young people into work because so many of them are supposedly on drugs, this is a problem that has developed, that's been talked about` It isn't just young people. ...that's been talked about` Well, according to Bill English, it is. But, yeah, this is something which has been talked about a lot over the last three, four, five years. This has grown under the National government. We're almost out of time. Mr Campbell, I want to ask you before you go. Do you think there is a racist element to this immigration debate and calls for crackdown? First of all, I hope it isn't, and, certainly, it depends` It's not a crackdown at all. It's obviously a concern of the community that if you can't have houses and provide roads and pipes and everything, then you have to, you know, 'control the growth', I think is the term. And certainly among our members, they want the immigration. And if you look at the workplaces, which are highly diverse and highly productive ` even our place ` 26 ethnicities among 75 employers in one building ` it works wonderfully. So I don't believe there is. If it is, then it's shameful. All right. We need to leave it there. Nice to talk to you both. We'll talk more about this issue after the break with our panel: Jon Johansson, Susie Ferguson and Ben Thomas. Welcome back. I'm joined now by our panel ` Jon Johansson from Victoria University, Morning Report presenter Susie Ferguson, and PR consultant Ben Thomas. Good morning to you all. Willie Jackson, we heard from him. The Maori strategists for the Labour Party, he reckon they're gonna get all of those Maori seats cos his polling tells him that even in Waiariki, where the Maori Party holds that seat ` Te Ururoa Flavell ` that they're on his heels. Ben, what do you reckon? I think that the Labour Party needs to provide its chief Maori strategist with some better information. My understanding of the polling in Waiariki is that Tamati Coffey for Labour is not even within cooee of Te Ururoa Flavell, and, actually, things are tightening up in a lot of those Maori electorates, even the ones that are traditionally safer like Ikaroa-Rawhiti. Yeah, because that would essentially mean if the was right and they did get a clean sweep, that would be the death of the Maori Party, eh, Susie? It would be the death of the Maori Party. I'm not sure that's going to be seen at this election, by the sounds of things. I think there's still an awful long way to go there, and, as Ben was saying, it doesn't sound like the races are actually as close as some of those polls would be seeming to predict at this stage. Yeah. But Willie Jackson is talking about a strategic move there with the Green Party, cos the Green Party has got some quite well-known candidates in the Maori seats. What did you make of that, Jon? Well, this is going to be an election where I think we're going to see a ramped up level of deal making and strategic deal making in all the seats, because the margins are so very close. That can lead to very disparate types of governments that finally emerge. So we're going to see much more of this. I mean, I personally think that the Maori seats, that Labour is in a very strong position to keep what they have. Whether they can get that seventh seat, who knows. But you've got to look at it from the perspective` Do you think they're strong for six, though? Well, I really do, because if you just look at the cycle of our politics, we now have a three-term National government seeking a fourth, and the one point that Willie, that I picked up on that I think he's bang on is the funding hasn't followed the idea of whanau ora, so, you know, Maori are gonna sit back and say, 'OK, 'we've had nine years of this. Is this the direction that we still want to travel?' It's hard to think that there's going to be fresher enthusiasm for the Maori Party as a vehicle after this time and that relationship with National. In terms of the Greens, I mean, one of the electorates, there was Tamaki Makaurau, you've got Marama Davidson, who's got quite a high profile, and she's with the Greens. And then, obviously, they're going to be in there against their potential coalition partners with Peeni Henare. Do you think it's a sensible thing what he's talking about in terms of their strategy, Susie? In terms of Labour strategy, I can see why it is appealing to them. The difficulty there is for the Greens, I think it's going to be very hard for them to be throwing candidates like Marama Davidson under the bus. I don't think that's going to sit very happily with them. So that's the danger, and, I guess, to some extent, the Greens will maybe feel they've already made some concessions to Labour, for example, in Ohariu. So how far down that road do they want to go? I mean, Marama Davidson could only ever be a spoiler in Tamaki Makaurau. That's exactly right. She could send votes from them. Yeah, and that is one of those seats where, actually, if you look at the combined Mana and Maori Party vote, you could actually see a change of seat there. I'm not sure that that will happen. I don't know if Shane Taurima is the right candidate there. I would've liked to have seen, say, somebody like Marama Fox stand in that electorate. She's got a strong urban Maori appeal. But it's the look of it as well. And that's the difficulty that Labour and the Greens are gonna have to walk that very fine line. About not having a single identity, you mean? Merging more closer together? Hey, we talked about with him Winston Peters there, you know, and he was kind of hedging bets but said he's not going to be good for Maori because he wants a referendum on the Maori seats. But when you look in those Maori electorates, it's the third most popular party vote goes to Winston Peters. Yep. And I don't imagine that that's going to be any different this election as well, Maori seats policy notwithstanding, because they recognise in Winston an alternative champion and somebody that they are familiar with and who feels, for a lot of Maori, as a natural part of their whanau. So strategically, should Labour be getting a bit closer to Winston if they want to get their seven seats? Strategically, I'm not sure that Labour can try to get any closer to Winston... What Labour needs is votes from Winston. ...in terms of ignoring borderline racist immigration pronouncements in terms of their kind of tolerance for Winston saying that Andrew Little might not be in Parliament and can't call himself the leader of the Opposition. I don't think Labour can do too much more to signal their intention to New Zealand First. Well, speaking about allegations of racist policy, the Metiria Turei, obviously, issue has carried on. Do you think Labour will be concerned about what influence that might be having on their votes? Susie, what do you reckon? Yeah, I think they will be. I think the Metiria Turei situation is something that a lot of people in different situations hear in very different ways. And for some people, it will make them think, 'This is really good. She's being authentic. 'She's telling the truth. This is not something we hear from politicians very often.' How well does it go down with people who are doing it hard in low-paying jobs, working their backsides off, to hear that someone else who's now in Parliament was on the make? Yeah, I mean, glib urban liberals like me who might be considering voting for the Green Party have embraced this a sort of empathy test and also because they do a bit of soft rorting with student loan, student allowances at university. But they're all naturally Greens voters. With Labour, you've got actual working class voters, people who are proud of working hard and providing for their families and not going on welfare, and I think that this will actually hurt them because of the association with the Greens. Jon? The key thing here is Labour's weakness, isn't it? You could easily read this as a sign that Labour` sorry, the Greens as well as New Zealand First understand where they are going to grow their vote share from in this election and are both having a good go at it. Hey, just before we go, cos we're almost out of time, Labour's polling sub 30 regularly, so, you know, Willie, are we gonna see him back or not? What's your call? Well, I was actually saying to Willie in the green room that the thing I thought Labour had most going for it is that expectations of their performance are so low, there's a good chance they'll beat them. Ben, yes or no ` is he coming back into Parliament? They are a fallen kingdom. Their challenge right now is to avoid just an absolute crash off the cliff before the election day. All right, we'll leave it there with that dramatic out. Stick around. After the break, we find out what could make the headlines next week. Welcome back. You're with The Nation and our panel. Well, this week, we had a clear indicator from the Prime Minister about who his buddies would be in a post-election coalition deal. Do you think it was more explicit than it has been in previous years, John? Or what did you think of the tone of it? Well, it's bloody refreshing that it's not round some cafe in one of these edifying displays of God knows what. But I thought this was an important announcement, because this far out from the election, the two most likely outcomes, I think, are the status quo, which is exactly what Bill English has made a strong call for this week, is, 'I want retention of the status quo. Give me my rats and mice, and then let us run the show,' versus a modified status quo, which is where the public says, 'You've had nine years, and in some areas that are important to us, 'your rhetoric outstrips your performance,' of which, you know, we had that conversation today about immigration is a good example of that. And the modified status quo, of course, is National paired with Winston Peters and New Zealand First. So I think the battle lines are very much drawn now by Bill English. This is what the government wants the voters to send back to the new Parliament ` this same arrangement. But it's far more problematic, I think, this time than in previous elections. Susie, Peter Dunne ` would he have breathed a sigh of relief to get such a ringing endorsement? Did he need the help? Because, arguably, David Seymour wants to say that he doesn't need it. Yeah, David Seymour very keen to say he doesn't really need the help, and he probably needs the help a lot less than Peter Dunne does. I think Peter Dunne does need the help, and certainly some of the polling seems to show that Greg O'Connor is doing pretty well in Ohariu, which is the problem there for Peter Dunne, so he'll be very pleased to get that endorsement. The difficulty here, I suppose, for Bill English ` he's trying to make the case, as Jon's saying, very clearly to say, 'Keep us where we are,' and Bill English, really, trying to do everything that he can to avoid Winston Peters and New Zealand First. Is it going to be enough? And the question is ` will he then end up in a situation where he has to go with New Zealand First because he won't have enough with Act and United Future and David Seymour saying he` pretty much ruling out working in a coalition that includes New Zealand First? Which does lead to this desperation in those electoral contests that we haven't seen for a few elections, which is going to be very interesting. Ben? Yeah, I'll be doing a little bit of work for Act before the election, so just, you know... You don't wanna get too deep into it? I don't wanna get too deep into it, but I think that there is a real issue for these parties and for National. National's clear preference is the status quo, but they are going to need resurgences from both the Maori Party and Act and for Peter Dunne to hold that seat, and that hasn't been looking particularly likely. You raise the Maori Party. Would they be happy to be endorsed by the Prime Minister and the National Party as such? Well, after nine years, I think mixed feelings about that, right? Because, like, they are not going to be an ongoing viable party unless they can operate in the cartilage between Labour and National. And so they actually need at some point to be able to demonstrate` And when Tariana Turia left, that was actually, I think, a blessing for the Maori Party, because she was a real impediment to them ever working with Labour. So I think you're going to see more and more nuance in their position, because otherwise, if they're just the regime-support party, like the Act Party is and like how Peter Dunne has been, well, then they're too closely attached to the mother ship of National. And I don't think that's a fair portrayal of how the Maori Party has worked in government, but at the same time, it is clearly the biggest bone of contention for their voter base that they are seen as a National, kind of, sidecar. So I think it is a bit of a mixed blessing. Let's move on to the hot-button issue of immigration. There we had Kim Campbell of Employers and Manufacturers there and Iain Lees-Galloway. You know, on the one hand, Labour wants to bring the lid down on immigration but says it wants a higher quality of immigrant. And then you had Kim Campbell saying, 'We need these people. Our workers are cr` 'Our employers are crying out for these workers.' Where's the solution there with that one, Susie? (SIGHS) Where's the solution? Well, it's not quite clear to me why some of these jobs are not being taken by people who are already in the country. We've heard talk this week of jobs of, what, $55,000 plus a house. Why is it that it's so hard to employ a local worker? And Kim Campbell was very much trying to say it's all about drugs. The difficulty for Labour, though, here is so much growth has been driven by immigration, and it's not clear what the Labour government would do to bring that in if they pull the lid down on it. Yeah. Well, when National put out their proposals for consultation, they quickly ran into that, kind of, reality gap, which is this desire to be seen to be doing something about record immigration numbers, which there is disquiet about in the electorate, but then the actual people that you need to fill these jobs in areas of the economy that are growing. Now, part of the problem is that those are things like tourism, the service sector, like Kim Campbell was talking about. And these are not high-value jobs. We are creating jobs, you know, trying to get rich off tips from American and Chinese tourists. Mm. Jon, before we go, I just really briefly` We're running out of time. Boris Johnson. Man, he's larger than life, isn't he? Doesn't wanna answer a question but larger than life. Well, I'm sure it takes a great deal of time, effort and money to keep Boris looking scruffy. (LAUGHTER) He has that quality that always used to be said about Lange ` that, you know, when you listen to him, you're moved by him, you laugh along with him, you feel the ravages of the moment that he describes so vividly, and then you realise that the man has said absolutely nothing, and that was a fantastic example, I think,... (LAUGHTER) ...that there is no more 'Great' in Britain, there is barely a 'United' in Kingdom, and they send this man over here,... We're gonna have to` ...in a reverse of the 1960s, now begging the Commonwealth to help. We will leave it there. Time now for a very quick look at what will be making the news next week. The National Party releases its party list today; NZEI launches a campaign to put children at the heart of the election ` that's tomorrow; and the Household Labour Force Survey comes out on Wednesday; and Labour unveils its transport policy on Thursday. But that's all from us for now. We will catch you again next weekend. Captions by Imogen Staines, Desney Shaw and Anne Langford. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017