MORENA, GOOD MORNING, AND WELCOME TO 'Q+A'. I'M GREG BOYED. TODAY ` OUR Q+A ECONOMY DEBATE; THE TWO MEN VYING TO RUN THE ECONOMY. HOW WILL THEY SPEND YOUR MONEY? HOW WILL THEY FIX THE BIG ISSUES, LIKE HOUSING AFFORDABILITY, POVERTY, A BALLOONING HEALTH BILL? POLITICAL EDITOR CORIN DANN WILL MODERATE A DEBATE BETWEEN NATIONAL'S STEVEN JOYCE AND LABOUR'S GRANT ROBERTSON. WE'LL GET ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS TOO. AND THEN JESSICA MUTCH CATCHES UP WITH HELEN CLARK AND DIRECTOR GAYLENE PRESTON TO TALK ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY 'MY YEAR WITH HELEN'; A FEW COMMENTS ON JACINDA ARDERN TOO. CAN SHE DO THIS, DO YOU THINK? OH, SURE, AND I THINK WE ARE IN DIFFERENT TIMES. CAPTIONS BY CATHERINE DE CHALAIN AND SHRUTIKA GUNANAYAGAM. CAPTIONS WERE MADE WITH THE SUPPORT OF NZ ON AIR. COPYRIGHT ABLE 2017 AND OUR PANEL IS STANDING BY TO PROVIDE ALL THE ANALYSIS YOU NEED ` POLITICAL SCIENTIST DR CLAIRE ROBINSON FROM MASSEY UNIVERSITY, EFESO COLLINS, AUCKLAND CITY COUNCILLOR, AND THOMAS PRYOR, FORMER POLITICAL STAFFER FOR NATIONAL AND IN THE UK, NOW A GOVERNMENT RELATIONS CONSULTANT. WE'LL HEAR FROM YOU SHORTLY. FIRST, HERE'S CORIN. THANKS GREG, AND GOOD MORNING TO STEVEN JOYCE AND GRANT ROBERTSON. WE'LL START TODAY WITH HOUSING AND A STORY THAT'S BECOMING TYPICAL FOR MANY YOUNG PEOPLE, WHO HAVE FOUND THEMSELVES LOCKED OUT OF THE HOUSING MARKET, PARTICULARLY AUCKLAND'S HOUSING MARKET. TAKE A LOOK AT THIS REPORT BY WHENA OWEN. NO, WE DID. NOT NOW! (CHUCKLING) EARLY EVENING IN THE AUCKLAND SUBURB OF MT ROSKILL, AND THE BARNARD FAMILY ARE SITTING DOWN TO DINNER. THEY'VE ALWAYS RENTED. BUYING A HOUSE IN AUCKLAND IS OUT OF THE QUESTION. HOUSES ROUND HERE GO FOR SORTA $800,000, $900,000, YOU KNOW, SO EVEN AROUND HERE, IT WAS JUST BE AN IMPOSSIBILITY. MARK AND BRIDGET BOTH TEACH AT TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS, ALTHOUGH NO FULL-TIME. THEY'RE COMMITTED TO COMMUNITY WORK, AND THEY FOSTER KIDS. EVEN IF BOTH OF US WORKED FULL-TIME (CLEARS THROAT) IN THE SAME JOBS, IT WOULD STILL BE INCREDIBLY CHALLENGING TO EVEN GET CLOSE. I KNOW SO MANY PEOPLE THAT WORK, YOU KNOW, THEIR GUTSES OUT, AND THEY'LL NEVER ENTER THIS DREAM. WE ALL WORK HARD. FOR ANOTHER MT ROSKILL RENTER, TEACHER AND AUCKLAND PPTA REP, MICHAEL CABRAL-TARRY, THE HOME OWNERSHIP DREAM IN AUCKLAND IS ALSO OUT OF REACH. WE ARE VERY MUCH THE DEFINITION OF MIDDLE NZ. I'M A TEACHER; MY HUSBAND'S A NURSE. FOR US TO DO IT IN AUCKLAND, WE'D BE LOOKING AT HAVING TO SAVE AND SCRIMP AND SAVE FOR 12, 15 YEARS. DO YOU WANT SOME MORE? YEAH, YOU CAN HAVE SOME MORE. HELP YOURSELF. GET IN THERE. NOW THE BARNARDS HAVE DELIBERATELY CHOSEN TO OPT OUT OF THE SO-CALLED KIWI DREAM OF HOUSE OWNERSHIP. AND IT'S BECOME A BIT OF NZ OBSESSION AROUND, YOU KNOW, 'THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO,' AND THE 'HOME & GARDEN' MAGAZINES AND 'THE BLOCK' AND ALL THAT KINDA STUFF JUST FUELS THIS; 'THIS IS THE THING YOU HAVE TO HAVE IN ORDER TO BE SUCCESSFUL,' BUT THERE ARE SO MANY OTHER WAYS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE THAT, ACTUALLY, IS A LOT MORE MEANINGFUL AND SIGNIFICANT. MICHAEL'S CONCERNED ABOUT THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF LONG-TERM RENTING. THE FUTURE, (SIGHS) I THINK IT LOOKS A BIT BLEAK, TO BE HONEST. IT'LL BE RENTING; IT WILL BE MOVING OUT OF AUCKLAND, AND IT'S GOING TO MEAN LONGER COMMUTES, MORE MOTORWAYS, AND IT'S GOING TO MEAN A LOT MORE ACCOMMODATION INSECURITY. THE CONCERN FOR A CITY LIKE AUCKLAND IS ` DO YOU END UP HAVING A MASSIVE MIDDLE MISS AND A REALLY POOR POPULATION, A REALLY WEALTHY POPULATION AND THE MIDDLE CLASS ALL DISAPPEAR TO WHERE THEY CAN FIND A HOUSE? IT'S GOOD TIME TO HAVE A CONVERSATION, 'ALL RIGHT, THIS DREAM DOESN'T WORK ANY MORE. 'IT WAS NEVER AVAILABLE TO SOME. 'NOW IT'S BECOMING LESS AVAILABLE TO A LOT. HOW DO WE CHANGE THAT?' I'm going to start first with Grant Robertson on this one. As a government's responsibility to make sure that people like that can on a home? It is certainly a responsibility to make sure that if the housing market is broken that we do something about that. I listen to that track and it makes me very sad. I think the Kiwi dream of owning your own home should be within reach of people who are in good jobs like the people in that track. The government does have a role to create the circumstances in which people can get houses. There are two parts of this equation. One as building affordable houses. The other is making sure that people's incomes rise so that they are in a position to buy. Stephen Joyce, is it frustrating when you hear stories like that? You have an economy with seven years of uninterrupted growth. And yet there is a middle that seems to feel squeezed and locked out of the housing market. It is frustrating and it is very important that we encourage home ownership. We are an unusual times in the world. Very low interest rates around the world have pushed asset prices up beyond what they should be. That makes it harder for people to get on the bottom rung of getting their first time. The answers are more supply. They are things like the LVRs. They are also giving a helping hand to people to get their deposit together for the first time. It is often the deposit that is more of an issue than the mortgage. That is why were doing that was Kiwi Saver. Can we expect to boost and that in this campaign? It's been going well and we've got 90,000 families into their first home. Will you be increasing it? House prices have flattened over the last year. I don't think it's the right thing to try to crash house prices. Grant's colleague said yesterday they'd like to see house prices down to 4 times people's income. That would be very damaging because it would halve house prices. What is your actual position on what you would like to see incomes relative to house prices? It is around 3 to 4 to 1. But Stephen is missing the fact that it is a ratio between incomes and prices. It is not about crashing house prices. We need to see incomes rise and a moderation and prices. It is going to take some time but these are big challenges. We have a housing crisis and we can't be complacent. My criticism of what the national government has done is that they have been complacent in the face of the housing crisis. We now have to take some big calls to deal with that. You talk about a target of house prices 3 to 4 times the average income. Surely the only way to achieve that is bring prices down. We want to see a much more sensible and moderate housing market. There is no one solution. We have to build affordable homes. It's also about cracking down on speculators. If someone is flipping the third or fourth property within five years of buying it they should pay tax on that. It is also about lifting incomes. None of these things happens independently but we cannot bury our heads in the sand. Is a hard target? It's what we want to achieve. How long will it take? It will take years. I can't say how many today. We have the lowest rate of homeownership in 60 years right now. The last process that helps to income ratios were at 4 to 1, interest rates were 18%. That was very troubling for people in the 70s when that was happening. The only way to crash house prices is by putting a punitive capital gains tax on them. In an Albany there about a thousand apartments being built. It has one of the most reasonable prices coming down in Auckland at the moment. We are building 100,000 houses of the next three years. I would say that we have had a problem. Without blaming anybody it happen from 2003 to 2009. I want to pick up on LVRs. Your Prime Minister this week sent a clear signal that he is quite happy to see them removed. That's not what he said. He said it to me. I've read the transcript. At some point the reserve bank will need to start thinking about the circumstances. You know very well that by uttering those words he has sent a message he has publicly said that we need to think about removing them. It's easy to put LVR's onbut you need to think about when they come off. They are supposed to be a temporary measure. We have been clear that that is not now. First-time buyers are now getting greater access to the housing market. The amount of money being borrowed and spent in housing by first-time buyers has held up. It's the investors that have dropped right away over the last year and �. Let's return to the real world. We are talking about million-dollar average house prices in Auckland. For people living and working in Auckland that is a broken market. Unless Stephen can commit to the houses being built being affordable then this will just get worse. Your hundred thousand houses figure those houses are not affordable. The average house price in Auckland is too high but it's around $800,000. I want to pick up with Grant Robertson here. We inspected some scenarios on future government and what it would mean for the economy. If we have more affordable homes on the market and crackdown on speculators, there will be some moderation of house prices. It's not going to crash the market. We have a housing crisis. The government has denied that for nine years. We have got to take some action in terms of cracking down on speculators, building more of affordable homes and getting better balance in our market. Any change of government probably has some effect on the housing market. But you need to clarify your position on a capital gains tax. Will there be a capital gains tax in the next three years? We are going into the election in wwith the policy that if you sell an investment property within five years you will pay tax on that. What we have then said is that we will have a working group that will look at getting a better balance into our tax system between how we tax assets and how we tax incomes. Just as the working group that Stephen had in 2010 didn't go back to the election and then increased GST, we will look at the outcomes of that. This is a change from Andrew little. It is, but we have a housing crisis. We will not sit on our hands for the first term of government and do nothing about that. Stephen, is it right at the moment that someone who goes to work every day, pay tax on every cent of their income, but someone who flips the property after owning it for three years doesn't pay anything on that? That's actually taxed now. If you're buying and selling houses as a profit you must pay tax. Wwe have been absolutely clear that if we ever put a capital gains tax, it would never apply to the family home. Ride around the world people do this to stop speculators in the housing market. Is also about equality? You talked about asset bubbles at the start of this interview. Incomes have not really risen. I think this is a question of being honest with New Zealand voters. We have had a situation where labour has said they will introduce a water tax. With respect, I want an answer to this question. As a fairness issue? It all depends on what it is. The vast bulk of the population who are earning wages are not seeing anywhere near the gains of those with lots of capital. In terms of capital gains tax, it depends on what it is. If it's unearned capital gain, if your house goes up in value, or your business or your farm, the taxman sends you a bill. Just about every mainstream economic organisation says that New Zealand has needed a capital gains tax for years. Yes but they wanted on the family home. They say that we should tax people on the family home aand on unearned capital gains every year. That is never going to fly. We are not proposing that. They're not telling people if they will be taxed on their business or their farm. We want to address the fact that we have a huge imbalance in our tax system between hard-working people who go to work every day and pay their taxes and people who are speculating on the property market who don't. We have been transparent about this from the very beginning. In 2015 I announced that we were going to be having this working group. What we are not prepared to do is shy away from hard issues, which is what Stephen has done for nine years. Are you saying you won't be taxing small businesses on their capital gains? We are focused on the housing market. No, I don't think it is because he is refusing to rule it out. The chances are Winston Peters will be the kingmaker in the selection. He wants to introduce a Singaporean style money policy system. Is this a good idea? This one of his bottom lines? He is serious about this. It would be bad for the New Zealand economy. It's actually undoable in a New Zealand context. He can go for that if you wants. It's certainly not our policy. We think monetary policy needs to be reviewed, but that is not part of our policy. We will pause there and return after the break. Wwelcome back to this economy debate. We did so well in terms of agreement on that last question. The TPP. The idea that we can do it without the US. New Zealand has been leading the way under this government. Would you be happy to go to APEC and sign out? Not as it currently stands. Someone who doesn't have a right to live here or who doesn't live here cannot buy an existing residential house. The biggest concern is our ability for us to manage the housing market. This is an opportunity for New Zealand to renegotiate it. The Labour Party has been proud of negotiating quality trade agreements. You're saying you were turned down the opportunity to go into this 11 country trans-Tasman partnership oon the basis of restricting foreigners buying houses? So unless you get that changed you will not go and? That has been our consistent position. We want to have good quality to wade deals that give our exporters a chance to do well overseas. Stephen, this is something your government has worked very hard on. YAG remains committed when the US is in their? This is a free trade area of the Asian Pacific region, which is very important for New Zealanders a small country. We don't have a trade deal with Japan at the moment, which puts our farmers a 50% disadvantage in terms of tariffs in the Japanese market. It's really important for us to have that opportunity. If we choose to go along with everybody else and renegotiated, the TPP will take years and years. There are plenty of countries with wish lists of things that they'd like to change. There is an opportunity for us to feel the fear and do it anyway. How does that help someone who feels like they're being locked out of the housing market in their own country and feel like they're at the whims of foreign capital coming in from overseas? The number of people from overseas by New Zealand houses and selling them is roughly 2 to 3% on each side. The net increase in overseas ownership is virtually nil. If they are wanting to buy a house in any region of New Zealand, actually the access of Hawke's Bay farmers and Otago farmers iis actually really really important for New Zealand's economic future. We want to grow New Zealand's trade access. Stephen knows that data on foreign buyers is deeply flawed. In the TPP Australia has protected for itself exactly the proposal that we are making around making sure that offshore buyers come by existing residential homes. This is not about people with wish lists. This is about us getting the same deal that Australia has. Why can't we have the same dealers Australia? Because Australia had that long prior to TPP. Why didn't we negotiate at a time? The deal states that everyone continues with their previous laws unless they change the. Grant is wrong about the impact of that. Everything about a trade deal is about what you prepared to do to get access to the markets you want. Let's move on to wages and incomes. When John Key came into the government he promised to close the wage gap between Australia and New Zealand. After-tax, the gap is shrinking. Australian inflation has been higher so the gap hasn't shrunk. That's important because it explains why were not losing 30 to 40,000 people to Australia each year. The jobs are here in the incomes are here. But you haven't close the gap. Otherwise we'd still be seeing 30 or 40,000 people going over to Australia. You had nine years to close the gap and you haven't closed it. He was are voting with their feet. They see the opportunities here. The job market has been a stellar success. The job market is going very well. Some of the statistics are true. But when you speak to every day New Zealanders they know they are working longer hours, that two thirds of them didn't get a pay increase that met the cost of inflation in the last year. The high-level numbers can sound good but the real-life experience of someone on the ground isn't good. That's why we have to have a plan to improve the value of what we do in New Zealand. That is what's going to help lift wages. We need to increase skills. It means making sure that we invest properly in research and development. Give our company some certainty with R&D credits. Does that plan still involve intensive dairy farming and tourism? It will certainly involve both of those. I want to see a better balance in the economy. I want to see has built up our ICT sector further. We can't afford to put all our eggs in one basket. The last government has been saying that. At the fastest growing industry New Zealanders our tech sector. Many of the things that Grant says he wants to do we are doing now. The increased investment in engineers and scientists that are creating these new companies. They are moving up the value chain. Frontera is often maligned but it is delivering this high-value mozzarella into the US. This is a very big beast. A lot of our food companies are doing those sorts of things. Then you have your IT companies. To achieve this you have to keep giving those companies confidence to invest and succeed. We work with New Zealand businesses small and large to keep giving them access to those markets. Dairy farming and tourism have been huge drivers. Will they continue to be the bigger earners for New Zealand? Dairy has been a shrinking proportion of our exports for three or four years. A big part of our export are other foods and tech. The future of New Zealand dairy will be high-tech precision farming. , Stephen talks a big game on productivity, but in the last four years there is been zero gains in labour productivity growth. It's all very well to say these things are happening, but unless we have a plan to do something different from where we are now, what we've seen in this area is drift. We actually need to drive through lifting skills. I just need to respond to that. New Zealand's productivity in the last eight years has grown much greater than it did in the previous eight years. But it slowed in the last four years. It has on the whole developed world. We are doing better than almost every other OECD country. I want to bring Winston Peters back into this. He seems to think that the answer is lowering our currency. What's wrong with that? That's a very short-term way of looking at that. We have to lift the value of what were doing. The reserve bank government down acknowledges that the exchange rate has been too high. Artificially lowing it is not a sustainable long-term plan. He is the evidence that the New Zealand economy at is delivering greater value. We worried about the New Zealand dollar in the early 2000's. The New Zealand dollar is now at $0.70 US. That is because our companies have done a magnificent job. But we haven't grown the exports as a percentage of the economy. You had nine years. The whole of the world has seen a slump in trade over the last few years which is now just starting to grow. Our proportion has held up a lot better than a lot of other countries. World trade has dropped. The answer is high-tech. Where does that one and � billion dollars extra come from? There has been some growth. I have never denied that there is been some growth in the economy. The issue we have is on a per person basis. You can get to go and have a look at those books. You might get to spend a surplus that he's delivered view. We have seen a massive population growth that has led to much of the growth that we have seen. We now have decide what we're going to do as a country with our prosperity. Do we want to share it fairly and make sure everybody gets chance to succeed? That's the issue the selection will come down to. It is our priority about whether we believe that everybody deserves a fair share and prosperity. That is why we are saying no to Stephen's tax cuts. Do you think there is enough money to do everything you want without having to raise the top tax rate? We'll see that on Wednesday. We put out a fiscal plan which even the taxpayers union said added up. We will lock on Wednesday and determine whether we have to do anything in that space. What will you do with the money? I will deliver on the budget 2017 which does all the things that Grant says he'd like to do. It invests in family incomes as well as everything Grant wants to do. I don't think that families on a median income should be paying $0.30 to the dollar. Grant never talks about how you encourage the economy to keep growing. I am focused on backing small, medium and large New Zealand companies tto get out there on the world stage. The option on this election seems to be more taxes on productive businesses. Capital gains tax, water taxes. Don't do those things. If you want to work with New Zealand businesses, don't reintroduce central wage bargaining. There is no corporate tax cuts on the table but I'd like to do one. We have run out of time gentleman. Thank you for your time. THANKS, CORIN. SEND US YOUR THOUGHTS. WE'RE ON TWITTER @NZQandA. YOU CAN EMAIL US AT Q+A@TVNZ.CO.NZ OR TEXT YOUR THOUGHTS AND FIRST NAME TO 2211. KEEP THEM BRIEF ` EACH TEXT COSTS 50 CENTS. WE'LL BRING IN OUR PANEL AFTER THE BREAK. LET'S BRING IN OUR PANEL ` POLITICAL SCIENTIST DR CLAIRE ROBINSON FROM MASSEY UNIVERSITY. EFESO COLLINS, AUCKLAND CITY COUNCILLOR AND LABOUR PARTY MEMBER. AND THOMAS PRYOR, FORMER POLITICAL STAFFER FOR NATIONAL AND IN THE UK, NOW A GOVERNMENT RELATIONS CONSULTANT. I will start with you. Did Grant Robertson do enough to show that he deserves the job? Steven Joyce has all the data. He is very good at counting all the facts. He has got his hands all over what has happened and where things are at in terms of the state of the economy. Grant has drive and vision, but a lot of his answers were saying that they need to wait till they are and government and then they can get working groups on. Labour is short on the detail National already has. Was there anything solid they already had? I think he had a really good performance. I think the issue, though, here is moving thiselection from hype to hope. I think the communities out south in particular are looking for messages of hope. I did not find his answers all that ambitious. Corin was asking for targets. They should be saying that they have a vision for New Zealand, and they should be driving that message forward. We know what the numbers are doing in terms of Labour. Was I do not think that was a particularly inspiring performance. I don't think many New Zealanders are going to cast their votes on what those to say. I wonder how much it will work for Labour to be talking about working groups. I think they are going to have to start laying down some hard policy positions, because if they don't, National will exploit that ruthlessly. We saw the water tax this week. They need to do a little bit better than what they are currently doing. I thought it was interesting to see them take a harder stance than they have on TPP. did it surprise you, what he said on TPP? TPP has come off the public agenda for a good year now, especially since the Trump government came in. I think that businesses, small businesses, large businesses, farmers, are still going to be backing National, and I do not think there are any thing in Labour's current policy plan that is going to appeal to nationals core base. They have to reach over international, and I do not think they are right there yet in terms of those policies. Let us talk housing. The capital's gain tax did he need to come out stronger? I do not think that they had to come out stronger. What to be able to be cutthroat, you have to be able to convince those people that they have action got a plan that they are going to build more houses. the Salvation Army has said that we are 20% lower than what we need for social housing. We need to strengthen the right of renters. Lots of people are saying that we need more housing. I think they can be a bit more inspirational in their messaging, because that is where they are going to get there voters, who actually disengage with policies in politics at the moment. From Grant Robertson's point of view, it is easier to sling mud from the sidelines. Sure. The big challenge for him now is for him to prove that he is going to be a minister of finance and waiting, he has just stopped slinging mud and sound like he has a better plan than National. The Jacinda effect has been a bit of a surprise to Labour. Grant Robertson has got to be able to say not working groups, but these are the absolute policies we are going to go with. Who knows if Grant will stay in that role? This is the closest they have been. I think the key thing that voters are now listening those who were turned off under Andrew Little are now re-engaging. To translate that into votes, I think we will need to see a slightly more inspired performance than what we have seen today. We heard job figures and population growth. Is it just hard for Steven Joyce to come up with anything fresh? It is difficult. You start to come out a bit jaded and boring. He is knowledgeable about the data, but for me, it is about making the selection one of hope. We need to give some people some hope. We need to address issues around child poverty and look at the reality of families, and then you are going to get that cut through. Grant has to look like he is ready to be the Minister of Finance. He has to get the message back on hope. I think that is what is going to bring engage voters. That is the opposite issue for National. I do not think it is going to cut it with voters. Middle New Zealand has done well for the past nine years. Unemployment is low. I do not think they are sold on that approach of do not put it all at risk. Jacinda is trying to articulate a fresh, positive vision for Labour. National needs to have a bolder approach Rather than saying that they have done a good job. Voters are probably wanting something a bit more different. That is the problem with all third term governments. After nine years, there is often not that much left in the tank. It is hard for them to look to how they can increase their votes. What they are looking at is saving it. Increasing it would defy history, but we are seeing this with the Jacinda effect, which in itself is defying history. They need to think about what is different, and unfortunately, there is not a lot. People are looking for something new, change, difference. That lies behind Labour at the moment. Without labouring the point about Jacinda, everyone is saying that she is potentially looking like the Prime Minister, what is the difference between that and Grant Robertson looking like a finance minister. Grant has been occupying that position for a while, and he is basically repeating what Labour had three weeks ago. There is nothing new to his offer. So he has not got that spark hat we have seen a Jacinda, because she is a brand-new offering, and she is going with all guns blazing. The difficulty for labourers that they have to show they have a great energise Labour, but the next layer down of the shadow cabinet is just as energised as what they need to show. Voters will be looking at is this the same Labour that they didn't like under Andrew Little or is it different? Winston Peters they all laughed off his suggestions. He is going to be a part of this election one way of the other. I thought it was good that they couldsay where they stood on Winston pe.ters I think we can play these games, because it is becoming a two-horse racewith Winston and the background. This has become a real Labour-National focus. So they are going to have to look at very carefully where they stand and work out what they are going to have to do if they are going to appease Winston or if they can form a minority without him. Up until then, no one has wanted to kick the hornets nest that is Winston Peters. Did that surprise you? Winston would have been sitting at home with a wry grin, I think, because as much as everything has changed in the last while, he is still in that position to be kingmaker, so I want to see what each Pati will won't give up. The Greens are now largely out of the equation. That for him, this has got much simpler. Wages, that was another point that Corin covered. As Steven Joyce pointed out, that the gaps are better did Grant Robertson's a new thing that make you think they have a better plan? The interesting thing was the question around Australia. Back in 2008, that was one of the really big issues. New Zealanders were leaving the country in big droves to go to Australia. The problem is now the other way round, with too many people coming in. The issue about whether we have parity with Australia is no longer an election issue at all. One of the points that came up is important to voters was interesting. The health question. Massey and stuff.Co.Nz did a survey and may and a number one issue for all voters of all ages with how. Younger voters, it is more likely to be mental health. With older it voters, it is about knee replacements and hip replacements. It is not one of those sexy election issues. Housing is an issue for the Under 35's, but not the over 40s. Labours housing policies aren't necessarily going to swing them away from National. Younger voters, we have a problem getting them to turn out. Housing is not necessarily going to be the game changer for Labour. AFTER THE BREAK, HELEN CLARK AND DOCUMENTARY DIRECTOR GAYLENE PRESTON ON THE MAKING OF 'MY YEAR WITH HELEN'. MADAM CLARK, YOU ARE VIRTUALLY A HOUSEHOLD NAME WITHIN THE UN SYSTEM. YOU COULD EVEN BE DESCRIBED AS THE ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATE. I HAVE NEVER BEEN THE ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATE FOR ANYTHING. DID ANYONE EVER SAY TO ME, 'HELEN, PLEASE COME FORWARD?' NO ONE WILL PUT A RED CARPET OUT FOR ANY OF US. YOU GOTTA KNOCK THOSE DOORS DOWN. SHE WAS TALKING TO US, NOT ABOVE US. THAT WAS A VERY GOOD SPEECH. WHAT CAN WE DO TO MAKE YOU SECRETARY GENERAL? (LAUGHTER) THERE HAVE BEEN EIGHT MEN OVER THESE LAST 70 YEARS AND THERE'S NEVER BEEN A WOMAN. 'MY YEAR WITH HELEN', THE DOCUMENTARY THAT FOLLOWED HELEN CLARK'S CAMPAIGN TO BECOME UN SECRETARY GENERAL IS SHOWING IN CINEMAS ALL OVER THE WORLD. JESSICA MUTCH CAUGHT UP WITH HELEN CLARK AND DIRECTOR GAYLENE PRESTON THIS WEEK. SHE STARTED BY ASKING GAYLENE WHY SHE WANTED TO DO THE FILM. I WANTED TO KNOW HOW CHANGE WORKED ON A GLOBAL LEVEL. YOU KNOW, HOW DO YOU MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE ` REALLY? IT DIDN'T SEEM TO BE GETTING ANY BETTER AT THE TIME, BUT HELEN WAS PRETTY CHIRPY, SO I THOUGHT, 'I'LL ASK HELEN.' (LAUGHS) HOW DID YOU APPROACH IT? SO, WE SORT OF KNEW ONE ANOTHER, BUT WE DON'T REALLY KNOW ONE ANOTHER THAT WELL SOCIALLY. WE'D RUN INTO ONE ANOTHER ON THE EDGE OF PARTIES, REALLY, WHEN YOU WERE PM. I THINK WE'RE BOTH IN THE SITUATION WHERE EVERYONE FEELS THEY KNOW ME AND EVERYONE FEELS THEY KNOW GAYLENE, SO, OF COURSE, WE FELT WE KNEW EACH OTHER. (LAUGHS) (CHUCKLES) AND I WAS MINISTER OF ARTS AND CULTURE ALL THOSE YEARS AS WELL, SO I WAS VERY CLOSE TO PEOPLE IN THE FILM SECTOR, SO OF COURSE WE KIND OF` WE KNEW EACH OTHER. AND THEN GAYLENE APPROACHED ME AND SAID SHE HAD THIS IDEA, AND I THOUGHT, 'THIS IS DANGEROUS,' BUT (LAUGHS) THE IDEA LED TO WHERE WE ARE TODAY WITH THE FILM. BECAUSE WHY DID YOU AGREE TO IT? IT'S OPENING UP QUITE A PERSONAL PART OF YOUR LIFE. WELL, FIRSTLY, GAYLENE'S PROPOSAL WAS THAT I SEEMED TO BE DOING SOME INTERESTING THINGS IN A WORLD THAT HAD A LOT OF ISSUES AND CHALLENGES AND MAYBE WE COULD FOCUS ON HOW YOU BRING ABOUT CHANGE. THAT WAS THE ORIGINAL PROPOSITION, BUT, OF COURSE, WHEN I DECLARED FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL CONTEST, IT BECAME A DIFFERENT FILM BUT STILL IN A WAY ABOUT HOW YOU CHANGE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS, AND I FELT OF COURSE THE FILM MUST GO ON. AND IN RETROSPECT ALSO, AND AT THE TIME, BECAUSE NEW ZEALAND WAS SO BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN, THE GOVERNMENT WAS BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN, THE KIWI TAXPAYER FUNDED IT, I THINK THERE'S AN OBLIGATION TO TELL THAT STORY. IT DIDN'T END IN SUCCESS, BUT PEOPLE TOOK A LOT OF PRIDE IN IT, SO THE FILM KIND OF BRINGS OUT A LOT OF ISSUES THAT I THINK NEW ZEALANDERS ARE PRETTY INTERESTED IN. DID WE GET TO SEE THE REAL HELEN CLARK IN THIS FILM? WELL, SHE'S SITTING HERE. WHO IS SHE? (BOTH LAUGH) I ASK THE QUESTION BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE A LOT OF NEW ZEALANDERS WILL FEEL LIKE THEY KNOW YOU, LIKE YOU SAID BEFORE. DO YOU THINK WE SAW A DIFFERENT LAYER TO HER? AND I ASK GAYLENE THIS QUESTION, BECAUSE YOU WERE THE OBSERVER IN THIS. YEAH. I MEAN, YOU DO A LOT OF INTERVIEWS, SO WHEN WE WERE WITH YOU, ON ONE HAND, WE KIND OF WANTED AN UPDATE ON HOW THINGS WERE, BUT WE DIDN'T WANT AN INTERVIEW, EXACTLY. SO WE WOULD JUST SET UP THE CAMERA IN A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SITUATION. I WOULD SOMETIMES SIT OVER THERE. I DON'T KNOW ` I JUST TRIED ALL SORTS OF WAYS TO SEE IF WE COULD MAKE IT MORE LIKE A CONVERSATION. WAS THAT REALLY HARD TO FRONT UP TO THE CAMERAS? HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO SAY, 'OK, RIGHT, I'M READY TO DO THIS NOW'? WELL, FIRSTLY,... FROM THE VERY FIRST BALLOTS, IT WAS PRETTY CLEAR WHERE THIS WAS LIKELY TO GO. AND SO THE REAL DECISION WAS IN EARLY AUGUST ` WHETHER TO STAY IN OR NOT, EVEN THOUGH IT LOOKED VERY, VERY CHALLENGING. AND BEING A BLOODY-MINDED PERSON, I DECIDED I WOULD STAY IN, AND THE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT BACKED THAT AND KEPT CAMPAIGNING HARD, BECAUSE I FELT THAT IF I PULL OUT, WHAT SIGNAL DOES THAT SEND TO WOMEN? CLEARLY, I COULD'VE DONE THAT JOB. (CHUCKLES) I'D BEEN A PRIME MINISTER ` I THINK A REASONABLY SUCCESSFUL ONE ` FOR NINE YEARS. I'D BEEN, IN EFFECT, NUMBER THREE IN THE UN SYSTEM. IF I COULDN'T BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY AS A CANDIDATE, WHAT WOMAN EVER COULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY? AND THERE WERE OTHER SERIOUS WOMEN CANDIDATES AS WELL WHO COULD'VE DONE THE JOB, SO BY AND LARGE, THE WOMEN STUCK IN. I THINK THERE WERE TWO WITHDRAWALS, BUT THE OTHER WOMEN CANDIDATES ALL STUCK IN TO THE END ` REALLY TO MAKE A POINT THAT WE'RE SERIOUS CANDIDATES. I WANNA ASK YOU ABOUT JACINDA ARDERN AS WELL. DO YOU SEE ANY OF YOURSELF IN HER? WELL, I THINK PEOPLE WILL MAKE OBVIOUS COMPARISONS. WE'RE BOTH OUT OF THE WAIKATO. I'M FROM THE WEST WAIKATO; SHE'S FROM THE EAST WAIKATO. WE BOTH CAME INTO PARLIAMENT REASONABLY YOUNG ` JACINDA YOUNGER THAN I WAS, BUT REASONABLY YOUNG. BOTH GOT THE LEADERSHIP POSITIONS REASONABLY YOUNG. BOTH MPS FOR MOUNT ALBERT. (CHUCKLES) SO PEOPLE WILL SEE A LOT OF SIMILARITIES. CAN SHE DO THIS, DO YOU THINK? OH, SURE. AND I THINK WE'RE IN DIFFERENT TIMES. COULD I HAVE DONE IT AT JACINDA'S AGE IN THE ERA WHEN WE AS WOMEN HADN'T CRACKED THE TOP GLASS CEILINGS? NO, I COULDN'T HAVE. BUT THESE ARE DIFFERENT TIMES. WE'VE SEEN EMMANUEL MACRON COME OUT OF NOWHERE AT 39 TO BE THE PRESIDENT OF FRANCE. WE'VE SEEN JUSTIN TRUDEAU CRUISE TO THE TOP AND BE SO SUCCESSFUL, HAVING BEEN AN ACTOR FOR YEARS, YOU KNOW ` YOUNG, CHARISMATIC GUY. SO THESE ARE DIFFERENT TIMES, AND I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE A VERY INTERESTING CAMPAIGN. AND THE EXTENDED VERSION OF JESSICA'S INTERVIEW WILL BE POSTED ONLINE STRAIGHT AFTER THIS MORNING'S PROGRAMME. IT'S DEFINITELY WORTH A WATCH. RIGHT, AFTER THE BREAK ` WE'LL WRAP UP ANOTHER FASCINATING WEEK IN POLITICS WITH THE PANEL. THEIR HITS AND MISSES ` NEXT. WE'VE GOT TIME FOR ONE PIECE OF FEEDBACK FROM NZ FIRST LEADER WINSTON PETERS. EARLIER WE ASKED BOTH LABOUR AND NATIONAL WHETHER THEY COULD ACCOMMODATE MR PETERS' PROPOSED RESERVE BANK REFORMS. BOTH SAID THEY COULDN'T, AND MR PETERS HAS RESPONDED ` VIA TEXT. CORIN LOOKS FORWARD TO HAVING YOU BACK ON THE SHOW BEFORE THE ELECTION. POLITICAL HITS AND MISSES. My head of the week is still Jacinda. That most recent poll was interesting in that it showed us that It is getting back that soft National support, And I think if she can keep doing that, It is going to be an interesting election. I think it will be a challenge for National. The miss would be Trump this week Everything you see with him is hard to believe, And I did not think it could get worse than worst week. The look on his chief of staff's face was something to behold. My head of the week is Winston Peters. He is still in the kingmaker spot, even though he's not doing much in the election campaigning. My miss of the week goes to both Chris Hipkins and Julia Bishop. I think it was completely unnecessary for Chris Hipkins to get involved. not so good for them. They might not have a parliament soon. The team I lead at Massey University, Call this tool called on the fence. It is designed to help young voters make a decision between parties. We have had 60,000 users and five days. The head is to say thank you to the political parties who engage with it. They acknowledge the importance of having young people Engage in the political forces. The miss was Charlottesville and Trump. It will be really interesting to watch now that Steve Bannon has resigned Is what damage he is going to cause to the Trump administration From outside. I don't know what more canbe done. MARAE IS NEXT. REMEMBER Q+A REPEATS TONIGHT AT 11.35 PM. THANKS FOR WATCHING AND THANKS FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS. THOSE WERE THE QUESTIONS AND THOSE WERE THE ANSWERS. THAT'S Q+A. SEE YOU NEXT SUNDAY MORNING AT 9. COPYRIGHT ABLE 2017