Good morning, and welcome to The Nation. I'm Lisa Owen. Today ` the TPP on life support. Well, it's not completely dead until it's dead. It may not come alive again, but in case it does, we have to preserve New Zealand's negotiating position. We'll hear from the Trade Minister in Vietnam about why the talks are on hold and where to from here. Then ` the new government's committed to an inquiry into abuse in state care. What will it mean for the victims? We talk to the Minister for Children. How the Housing First scheme is changing homeless people's lives. Did a karakia, welcomed my visitors, looked around and jumped up like a lunatic, like a crazy person, going, 'Yes, my house!' As the programme rolls out around the country, we look at just how effective it's been. Later ` is a zero road toll realistic? We'll talk to a Swedish expert who says it is. And we'll wrap up the week with our panel, Jonathan Milne, Maxine Gay and Ben Thomas and comedians Jeremy Corbett and Paul Ego. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 It's great to have you with us today. If you've got any feedback, do get in touch. Our details are on-screen now. And if you're on Twitter, you can follow along with our Twitter panel, communications consultant Stephanie Rodgers and former National Party staffer Neil Miller. Use the hashtag #NationNZ. Well, talks on the TPP trade agreement have broken down after Canada failed to turn up at the leaders meeting at the APEC Summit in Vietnam. Our trade minister, David Parker, says it's not clear when the negotiations will resume. I asked him why Canada had pulled out. They did have some earlier issues, none of which were especially huge and all of which seemed to have been resolved to their satisfaction, so we're not sure what the underlying issue is now. The negotiation's been postponed. We're not clear whether that's for a short period or a long period. I suppose the point I would make is that New Zealand, we thought, negotiated some good improvements in TPP 11. We'd made progress on investor-state dispute clauses and some other advances that were in New Zealand's interests, and we thought that it would've been, on that basis, a good thing to conclude. Of course, it not having been, we left with the status quo before the meeting, and nothing changes. Okay, well, before I move on to the concessions that you think you've gained, was Canada concerned over labour exemptions for Vietnam? Well, everyone was concerned if there was to be an ill-defined labour concession with Vietnam. But that issue was resolved` And is that what Vietnam was asking for, Minister? At times they were, but that issue was resolved with a transitional period for them. How long was the transitional period? That would've been resolved by the time of the final signature of the agreement. But that is now a side issue; that's not why this agreement has been postponed. So what do you think is going on with Canada? We don't know. That's an issue you'll have to put to the Canadians, because they didn't come to the final meeting and explain their position. Given that they are going to be talking to Donald Trump about the North American Trade Agreement, do you think that Mr Trump has put some pressure on Canada? Unlikely. I don't think that is the likely answer. I suppose it's possible, but there's been no hint of that. And the other party to the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico, was in the room, so I think that's an unlikely reason. So, are there issues around agriculture and dairy for Canada? Look, we're really speculating here. None of us know, so there's not much point in speculating. We don't know. Okay. So, does this mean this deal is dead in the water? The Prime Minister said that Canada had withdrawn. That was the words that she used ` withdrawn. It's over, isn't it? No, she didn't say they'd withdrawn from the negotiations; she said they had withdrawn on the day. So we really don't know. That'll become clear on the next little while. In effect, for New Zealand, the status quo remains. There are some disadvantages in that in that we don't have a free-trade agreement with Japan, whereas some other countries do, and some of our exporters to Japan suffer a disadvantage. But I don't want to overstate or catastrophise this. We're in the same position today as we were yesterday, a week ago, a year ago. In my view, the key to export growth and prosperity doesn't so much lie in free-trade agreements as it lies in investing more money in the export economy rather than in speculation in housing. But you are there trying to do a deal. You're there trying to get a deal done, and this is where the momentum is now, and you have stalled. So what is the chance that you're actually going to get this over the line? Or is it over? We don't know that. The prior government tried to get this across the line. We had some real problems. We fixed the problems in respective land sales; we made good progress on the investor-state dispute clauses; but because of the actions of another party to the agreement, it hasn't been concluded. Whether it will be resurrected, we don't yet know. So, how much of a loss is it to be at this standstill? Are you disappointed? Oh, I don't want to overstate it. Life goes on. We're in the position we were yesterday, last week, last year. As I said, I think the more important` So are you happy that it's not been signed off? No, we were ready to sign. We would prefer it to have been concluded today, but the point I'm making is that we have a number of quality free-trade agreements already in the world, and despite that, over the last 10 years of the last government, exports went down as a proportion of the economy. That proves that free-trade agreements aren't the be-all and end-all for exports. Important though they are, what is more important is that you invest your precious people, your human resources and financial capital in building points of competitive advantage to grow new exports of services and goods to the rest of the world. And what's happened today doesn't change that as being the greatest factor in the future progress of New Zealand's export economy. So if you were ready to sign, what concessions did you get around the investor-state dispute clause? We made progress in a number of areas ` both as to the scope of the ISDS clause and also some arrangements that we had outside of the agreement. It's already been in the news that we had a carve-out of Australian investment into New Zealand from those ISDS clauses, which effectively meant that 80% of the foreign direct investment into New Zealand from TPP 11 countries would not have been covered by the ISDS clauses. We had some other things that I won't go into today, but we'd made substantial progress in the short period of time that we've had to renegotiate those things. What about other areas of concern? Because that wasn't the only concern that you've expressed about this deal. I mean, Labour had a petition on its site asking people to sign up to ditch it. You raised concerns about this clause. You raised concerns about labour laws and enforcing labour laws. This wasn't just the only thing. So has everything been sorted for you? We had five issues of concern, and I'll list them all if you like. The first was that the government had to be able to preserve land asset classes, like housing, without being forced to leave them open to overseas buyers. We've actually fixed that. Since we came to government, we found a solution to that. We wanted there to be fair market access into other countries, which is another way of saying we needed decent tariff reductions into the likes of Japan. We achieved that. We wanted the protection of Pharmac. The Pharmac model had been well protected by the prior government in their negotiations. We had made further improvements in respect of some of the patient provisions, which would've been beneficial to New Zealand, so that was acceptable` What improvements? Well, I'm not going to specify all of those today, because, of course, now the negotiation is live again, and so we have to tread this line between transparency` But is it really live again, Mr Parker? Is it really live again? Well, it's not completely dead until it's dead. It may not come alive again, but in case it does, we have to preserve New Zealand's negotiating position by not putting everything into the media. Okay. And any others? So we have made progress in... Well, what have I run through? Treaty clause that was acceptable to the Waitangi Tribunal. Yeah. That was signed off. We'd protected land asset classes. We were making progress on tariffs. We thought, overall, we'd actually done a good job for New Zealand and that it was in our interests to proceed. But, of course, now the negotiation is postponed, whether it will come alive again, time will tell. Well, what do you know about what happens next? Well, we know that the officials from the different countries will meet again and have a discussion as to whether there is reasonable prospect for this agreement being resurrected or whether it is postponed indefinitely. So that will become clear over coming months. If you do not have something signed up by the time you leave there, would you concede that there is virtually zero chance of getting this over the line? There's no chance of anything being signed up before we leave here. That's off the table now. So what happens next, we don't know. It may be that other countries are no longer committed to it; it may be that negotiations continue at some later date. Are you committed to it? If Canada withdraws, are you committed to a deal that just gets an ever-diminishing number of people who are involved? Well, you know, already this agreement is much less significant for New Zealand than it was when America was to be part of it, because, of course, they're such a large economy. If different countries pull out, obviously it's a less significant agreement. There were some good points about this agreement, though. It had enforceable standards in respect of environmental and labour standards, which have never been agreed in any major agreement that New Zealand's a part of, and were better than has been seen in virtually any other agreement in the world, so the architecture of that was` So you're not prepared to walk away from it? Well, we're not prepared to say that we're walking away from it today, no. Okay. Well if this doesn't go ahead, will that mean that you are free to put your efforts into pursuing a free-trade deal with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus? We want to advance our trading relationships with that part of the world as well. The priority for me after this is the European Free Trade Agreement. And you've got no issues with those countries' human rights record, with Russia annexing Crimea, with the labour conditions in those countries? You're all fine with that? No, I didn't say that. And I said that my first priority is to proceed with a free-trade agreement with Europe if that can be attained. Europe is a country that is a high-wage economy, they are liberal democracies, they've got very similar views on environmental and labour standards, and so we think it's an important deal to try and land. And that was Trade Minister David Parker speaking to us from the APEC Summit in Vietnam. Now, the new government's committed to an inquiry into the abuse of children in state care. The move's been welcomed, but there are few details that have been released so far. So how will it all work? I'm joined now by the new Minister for Children, New Zealand First's Tracey Martin. Good morning, Minister. Morena. So, the inquiry ` what are you thinking? Will it have the power to compel witnesses? And all of these details, unfortunately, are still being worked through. So I've had two meetings with officials to clarify what are our options, what sort of inquiry will it be, will it have those sort of powers, who will we consult before we even scope out the cabinet paper, for example, to take it to cabinet. So at this stage, I can't answer that question 100%. It's on your 100 day plan. It's on the Labour Party's 100 day plan that this government will deliver, yes. Yeah, and so you're part of that. Yes, we are. So in terms of that, you're running out of time to come up with these answers, so what are you thinking, though? If not having a solid idea, do you think it would be the best-case scenario to be able to compel witnesses? It's not something that I've traversed at the moment with the officials. The major priority that we had was actually around making sure that within the 100 days, so the 4th of February is the close-off date ` 3rd, 4th of February is the close-off date that we're talking about ` that we will have in place a basis for an inquiry that will provide an opportunity for those who have been victims to come forward with comfort to be able to express their truth, to be able to be validated in that truth and to feel that they have received the justice and the validation that they need. So those are the things that have been the driving part of the conversations at this stage. Okay, because the brief is to get it set up in the 100 days. Yes, that's right. So will the inquiry have the scope to attribute blame? Well, it's one of those things. If you look at the Never Again campaign, that was never a driver. It wasn't about finding somebody or something to hang some guilt on. It was about making sure that the truth was told, that we bravely face actions that took place in this country that harmed individuals and that those individuals received an apology. But the victims want truth and accountability, so will there be accountability through this inquiry? I guess what I'm driving at is basically saying that if you put out the truth, there are going to have to be recognition by the state that this is what happened to these people and they were under the care of the state at that time. If you're asking me are there going to be people that are then going to be charged or held accountable through the justice system, I can't make that statement, because I'm not in charge of the justice system. What period will the inquiry investigate? Well, at this stage, that's part of the scoping that's being done, and I don't want to actually pre-empt that. There are at least 20 organisations that the officials are now talking to before we take a... a proposed scope to cabinet. So you mentioned an apology. There will definitely be a formal apology from the government? Again, I can't make that commitment on behalf of the government. I can tell you where I'm coming from. Yeah, tell me where you're coming from. So, where I'm coming from is if we stand in our truth and we bravely say, 'This is the reality that happened to these New Zealanders under the care of the state,' then the state has a responsibility to acknowledge that, to own it and therefore there should be an apology. But I don't speak on behalf of the whole government. That has to go to cabinet. Who do you think would be the appropriate person to make that apology, then? I don't know. I had this question asked of me on Te Karere as well. I don't know. Because I've been in the job two weeks, let's be clear. I don't know whether it would be appropriate for a minister at my level, whether it should come from the Prime Minister, whether it should even be bigger than that. What's your gut feeling? Should it be the Prime Minister? I think if we're going to take responsibility for what is actually going to come out in this inquiry, and we have a very clear idea of the sort of incidents that are going to be exposed, then it's a very, very serious` it's very serious acts that have taken place here, and I think it needs to be dealt with at the highest level. So Prime Minister, then, in your view. So do you think that you will set up some kind of independent authority, a permanent independent authority, like the IPCA, to monitor treatment of kids in care and the actions of the ministry? Is that something you would like to see? Yes, I think there is a need for that. I think it's that transparency that we're hoping to actually` Part of what Oranga Tamariki, the reason why it was set up by the previous government and part of the direction of travel it's in now is to make sure that we are more transparent, that we are working more closely with our communities, that the voice of children is heard more often. And so an independent body whereby complaints can be taken, I think, would be a really good and transparent thing. It would help both the ministry and our children. How much will is there to do that? I think there's quite strong will to do that. So you're quite confident you can get that over the line? I think` Well, I'm fairly confident about my argumentative skills, so I believe that it would be in the best interest of children. So Labour supports it, basically, is what I'm asking. At this stage, again, I haven't taken it to cabinet, but I believe the will is there to actually say there needs to be this level of transparency. Okay. Let's move on to Oranga Tamariki, or the Ministry for Children, as we're now calling it. Rebstock report has recommended that the threshold for intervening in kids' lives be lowered. So that would mean instead of working with around 20,000 kids, that they will be working with around 76,000 children. So how many more social workers do you reckon you're going to need? I don't really know, but I know that we definitely need more resourcing. I know that the workload on the front line when it was CYFS has actually been too high. I think what's probably more important is how do the social workers, once we make sure that we have the appropriate resourcing` And remember that Oranga Tamariki's been there for six months, so there's still a lot of work and a lot of mapping going on. But it's how we work with those young people has been the major driver. We spoke to Grainne Moss earlier in the year, and she said that social workers spend about only 25% of their work time face to face with children. What would your goal be in terms of that face-to-face contact, do you think? Because 25 seems low. And I suppose it depends` Okay, let me have a think about this. From the perspective of` If 25% of the time is dealt with face to face with the actual child, what is the 75%? And that would be something I need to find out. Again, job ` two weeks. But what we know is that children want to see their social workers more. So we have to lift that 25%. However, we also need to be working more closely with community. Social workers just can't do this on their own. Oranga Tamariki can't do this on their own. We've got to widen the community that we're working with. We've got to have more families come in and more New Zealanders put themselves forward to partner with us to actually assist these young people. Okay, we're almost out of time. There's a couple of things I want to get through. The pay for a social worker is between 46 and 77 grand. Do you anticipate bumping that up to keep good people? There is, I believe, already a pay claim going forward, and so there's negotiations that have to happen next year. But would you support raising? I can't make that statement, because that would influence the negotiations towards the middle of next year, and that would be irresponsible of me. So I know that it's happening, and I know there's negotiations that are going to take place. Okay, caregivers is another issue. About 50% of caregivers who take in kids are living on benefits. Is that the optimum situation? It depends what you mean by the benefit. From the perspective of I actually work quite closely with Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, so I'm not` Yeah, super's a benefit. Universal benefit. Okay, we don't call it a benefit. We call it, you know... But that's all right. So if we're talking about that, we know that there are those financial pressures there. That's why I fought to have, and got through unanimously, the Clothing Allowance Bill so that kin carers will get that clothing allowance, so we know that we need to support them financially better. Absolutely we know that to be true. It's about how do we work through that and make sure that it's practical support and financial support that goes directly to that child. So are you going to raise the amount of money that carers are paid or the allowances they get? Is that one of your goals? The allowances, certainly, it is my goal to make sure that we don't have situations where grandparents raising grandchildren, for example, who get a new baby arrive on their door in the middle of the night because it needs to be brought to a place that is safe, and they have no nappies, no cot, no anything for that child. So it's not necessarily all about raising the allowances. How do we support that child and those people that are actually stepping forward? Okay, money's tight, though. Have you guys got the money for that? Look, we've got a budget coming up, and I'm sure that we can manage what we're managing. Minister, thanks for joining me this morning. After the break ` how Housing First is moving hundreds of people off the streets and into their own homes. And later ` should we be aiming for a zero road toll? And how would we get there? Welcome back. Imagine if New Zealand could completely eradicate homelessness in just two years. One expert says it's possible thanks to a programme called Housing First, which puts people into a home as a first step. The scheme has been operating in Hamilton and Auckland and there are hopes it will go further, as Nicola Kean reports. This is Sonia, and this is her home. Six months ago, she was living in a car. That was hard to watch my son sleep in the back of the car, especially when it was raining, because it would get so muggy in the car and we'd just get really wet. All the moisture inside the car. Sonia's one of the early beneficiaries of a programme called Housing First. It set up in Auckland earlier this year, and its proponents say it has the power to end chronic homelessness in New Zealand. My talk is about work... about the last 25 years of work that I've been involved in. with people who are homeless. Launched in the United States in the 1990s, Housing First has been implemented in parts of Australia, Canada and Europe. The Housing First model works by reversing the usual sequence of housing and services that is typically offered to people who are homeless. Most programmes have taken the approach that people who are homeless need to first seek treatment or some form of psychological or physical ability... stability in order to get housed. The People's Project in Hamilton was the first in New Zealand to launch Housing First three years ago. Housing First is about giving people the keys and a place to call home and then starting to provide some of the wrap-around support. And so far it's working. In three years, the People's Project has housed almost 800 people, including 340 children. More than 80% have stayed housed. One of those is Rangitahi. What was the first thing you did when you walked through the door? I did a karakia. Welcomed my visitors. Looked around and jumped up like a lunatic, like a crazy person going, 'Yes, my house!' After being on the streets for several months, Rangitahi has now lived in her house for more than two years. She says it's been the backbone of her recovery. Made all the difference. Stability as a recovering alcoholic... and even with` even if I wasn't an alcoholic or an addict, you still need stability, and my home is my home, and I can go home. And it's a good feeling. When I pull these out... After a life in insecure housing and on the street, Betty and her dog, Duchess, have had a place to live for three years. Housing First provided not only a house, but furniture, gardening equipment, access to treatment programmes and support. You know, cos we can't speak to the WINZ or Housing New Zealand so they, um, speak on behalf of us to get a home, you see, cos it was hard to talk to the Housing New Zealand or to the real estate to ask them. And when I did ask them, they say, 'We need references.' I've never had a reference at all. The Hamilton participants are now being tracked as part of an Otago University study to measure the effectiveness of Housing First. Associate Professor Nevil Pierse is looking at how a house changes the lives of people who have been living on the street and the cost-benefit ratio of getting them into a home. People who are off sleeping on the street tend to use the two most expensive beds we have in the New Zealand system. Those are the beds in hospital and the beds in prison. They also are high-needs mental health service users. And none of these services work well when somebody is homeless. And our best guess is it's about $65,000 a year to keep somebody homeless in New Zealand. We have to address the underlying causes of this. One study in Canada found for every dollar spent on Housing First the taxpayer saved 96c. Dr Pierse believes the benefits could be higher here. And that's turning heads in Wellington. In March, the Auckland pilot programme was launched, with almost $5 million provided by the government and council. So far, 221 people have been housed. Half of those in West Auckland. And 20% in the city centre. Most of those are going into private rentals, paying a quarter of their income in rent with the rest covered by subsidies. Sonya Coop is one of the social workers at VisionWest, based in Glen Eden. We take people as they are. That's pretty much the principle, one of the principles So they don't need to sort out their drug and alcohol addictions before they can come into a house. They don't need to get their life right before we say, 'OK, right, you're sorted now. You tick the box.' It's not like that at all. After that, Coop and her team work to find a suitable house, furniture and whatever else a family needs to get settled. Sonia is one of those VisionWest has placed. Problem when they look at people like me. Even though I pay my rent and look after the house, it doesn't matter, because I'm on a benefit, and I feel like I'm discriminated against. I understand that landlords want their money (SNIFFLES) and they want people to look after their houses, and I try and do that all the time. It's why I don't understand why I ended up homeless. (SNIFFLES) Now she's in a house, Sonia is in a skills update course, applying for jobs and says she and her family are getting their lives back on track. We're working through our depression, cos we got really depressed on the streets. And anxiety. So... Yeah, depression has gotten better. My son's gotten better. He's not as depressed as he was. But different clients present different challenges. Come here. Lee-Anne has spent the last few years in and out of prison and in and out of insecure housing. She now lives in the Glen Eden bush with her dog, Ruby. Yeah, so I went to The Warehouse, got me a tent, and then, yeah, set myself up. And this is where I am, and me and Ruby, she's a beautiful dog. She's not just a dog. She's my friend, my loyal dog. And she keeps me safe in the bush here. And I know, you know, like, oh, at night, especially at night, you know. And, um, yeah, so, you know, I can't do without her. She's working with VisionWest to get counselling and get into a house. But finding a landlord who will accept the both of them has proven difficult. Yeah, so it's awful being homeless, not having a place of your own. That's what I really, really want is, you know, somebody out there to give me a chance. Our ultimate goal is to connect them into the community where they live, so, you know, obviously we don't want to be in their lives for the rest of their lives, but we want to support them until they're able to stand on their own two feet and hopefully get connected into the community. And providing that support can take years. In Hamilton, Betty and Rangitahi have found the stress of not knowing where they'll sleep each night has given way to different challenges. Yes, it's hard, cos you've gotta pay bills, you know. No one else is gonna pay it, but I'm actually glad, because this place I live in is cheap for me, it's convenient, and thanks to Work & Income, you know, they take my rent out, they take my power out. What I'm left with, I'm responsible to get my own food. Some weeks it's easy. Some weeks it ain't. That's just how life is. But both are building and rebuilding relationships. Yeah, we all share. We all help each other in our garden. We help each other when we have problems. We have dinner outside the front there. I cook the kai, and they do the cleaning. On the back of the results in Hamilton and Auckland, the previous National government pledged more than $16 million to launch Housing First in Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch. The new Housing Minister, Phil Twyford, says he's keen to expand the programme but is still working on the details. He's also previously pledged to solve homelessness in New Zealand in just two terms. But with more than 40,000 people severely housing deprived, including 4000 sleeping rough, can it be done? And how much will it cost? We ended rough sleeping in Hamilton in two years. If we really put our minds to it and went for this, in Canada, they had the vast majority gone in two years. Two years would be our challenge to end rough sleeping in New Zealand. Really? Two years nationwide? Nationwide. Nobody sleeping on the streets in New Zealand or in cars. Wow. Give us 100 million. We'll do it. (LAUGHS) Give Julie 100 million. She's already shown you how it can be done. And no matter how much it costs, for those whose lives have been turned around, it's priceless. Yes, they are my family. They're not just my family. They're the family of the Hamilton streets. That's who we are. That's who they are. Without them, who would we have? They believed in us. Not just me, but everyone else. After the break ` a Swedish expert on how to work towards a zero road toll. But first, Jeremy and Paul seem to have Winston Peters on their minds. The big question this week ` are you serious about coalition talks with someone if you've just lodged legal action with them? Yeah. It's a bit like taking out a restraining order on someone and then asking them out on a date. What will Winston achieve with this legal action? Over leaking details of his superannuation overpayment. Yeah. Winston Peters getting overpaid all that superannuation. Which the Ministry of Social Development has said was not his fault. Sure. He still did get overpaid superannuation though, didn't he? Which he paid back when he found out, so that issue has been put to bed. So why the legal action? Over the superannuation overpayment? Yeah, yeah. That legal action, yeah. Well, he feels his privacy has been breached. I mean, no politician wants the public finding out they were overpaid a benefit like superannuation. And the timing, right before an election, cynical. Especially when it's not his fault. Yeah. Paid it back as soon as he found out. Thousands of dollars in overpayments he'd received over seven years. So that issue won't see the light of day again? Well, why should it? As soon as he found out he'd been overpaid thousands of dollars of superannuation, he paid it back. And told us all straightaway about the mix up. Once someone else had leaked the information, yeah. Ahh. And who that is is what the legal action is trying to establish. Correct. It's not about Winston Peters being overpaid thousands of dollars in superannuation. For seven years. Which he paid back. As we've established. Welcome back. After years of declining, our road toll is on the way up again. 323 people have died so far this year already. Just five fewer in the whole of last year and more than in 2015. Now, Auckland council has brought a Swedish expert to New Zealand to explain a new approach Vision Zero. Dr Matts Belin joins me now. Hello. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Our deaths on the roads, fatalities, seven people die per 100,000. What do you think of that figure? Is it high? From an international perspective, it's something in the high-income countries that's quite good if you compare with the low-income countries, for example. But when Sweden adopted this Vision Zero in 1997, so we celebrated the 20th anniversary. When we started with our programme, we had around seven fatalities per 100,000, but now we have less than three. 2.7, actually. So you've managed to halve the number of people dying in fatal accidents. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So it's possible? It's possible. What would we need to do to change that number in New Zealand? Do we have to drop the speed limit? Well, it's important to see that safety's a very... you have to have a system-wide perspective on safety. When we started to work with Vision Zero in the late '90s, you start with a kind of ethical imperative that it can never be accepted that people get killed and serious injury in the traffic, but Vision Zero is also a new strategy. It differs from the traditional way that we work with safety. In the traditional approach, you tried to create the perfect human being who is doing the right thing all the time, and you put the ultimate responsibility for safety on us as individual road users. But in a Vision Zero approach, you don't think that you can create a perfect human being and you have to accept that you have young people, you have old people, you have all kinds of people using this transport system, and you have to accommodate for them because people make mistakes. So you accept that people make mistakes and instead of concentrating just on the people, you concentrate on the engineering and design more. Absolutely. That is one of the important things because you would like to control for harmful energy, for example. So we in New Zealand concentrate very much on changing drivers' behaviour, educating them about using their cell phones, about speeding, but do you think we should just accept that some people are always going to be bad drivers, some people are always going to use their phones, some people are always going to speed? Yeah, absolutely. At least, that is what our Vision Zero is about. It's a new philosophy. It's a new strategy to work with safety, and a good thing, because when it was adopted in 1997, it was only a piece of paper, you know? And implementation is a different story. But we have been able to go from an idea to implementation. So when you go to Sweden now, compare how it looked like in the late '90s and nowadays, you will see a tremendous change both in the rural areas and also in the urban areas. Let's talk about some specific things. On many New Zealand roads where we can go 100km/h, the traffic is coming at each other and there's nothing between the cars. There's no physical barrier. Under your system...? So we start with the knowledge now that if you are in a modern car and you crash with another modern car, up to 80km is quite safe, but over 80km, you will have a very steep increase of the risk to get killed or seriously injured. So that's why when we design our rural network now, if we would like higher speed than 80km, we have to do something about head-on collisions. So now we have a large programme with a large network with '2 plus 1' road where we have a middle barrier so we can allow higher speed on this road but we eliminate the head-on collisions. Those roads are now 90% safer than they used to be. What about cyclists? Should cyclists and cars ever share the road? Well, the first thing and the important thing is to separate, of course. But in an urban area, you have lots of interaction between pedestrians and cyclists and so on, and when you design the urban area, you have to consider that situation. In Sweden now, we aim for 30km in those intersections, so you will see lots of roundabouts, lots of speed bumps and that sort of thing, because we would like to make it safe for the unprotected road users. To be clear, if cyclists and cars are sharing, you would have some kind of physical separation, and in the cities, you're down to 30km/h. Yeah. At least in the conflict zones, where you're in the intersections and that sort of thing, we aim for 30km or 40km. How do drivers react to that? Because when I told the people in the studio '30km/h', they were like, 'Too slow.' Yeah. But you have to realise that if you get hit by a car in 50km, the risk that you get killed is more than 80%. If you get hit by a car in 30km, the risk is less than 10%, so it's a dramatic difference between 30km or 40km or 50km, and we, as a driver, we don't understand this, you know. You need to put lots of responsibility on us as system designers and we need to take more responsibility to make sure that we have a safe system for all road users. People listening to this, even people who think this is a good idea, will probably think, 'This sounds very expensive.' Is it? Well, it will cost money, of course, to start to design things and you have to be persistent and you have to have long-term strategies. But face it. When it comes to a rural area, for example, if you build a motorway in Sweden, it costs around one billion per saved life, so it's very expensive. One billion per saved life? Yeah, But these '2 plus 1' roads, when we started to invest in them, they cost only 30 million per saved life, so it very much depends on how you're using your resources and how you work within the transport sector, I would say. So if we were to adopt this approach in New Zealand, how long do you think it would be before we started to see a result in the number of deaths? You need to work both in the short-term and in the long-term, but the long-term starts today so that's important. But in the short-term, you probably will need lots of policing, actually, to get control of the situation. But what we have seen in Sweden now, because the growth of fatalities you see in many Western countries now because of the economic activity starts to increase again. In Sweden, due to that, we have done so much with the safe system. We don't feel the same pressure that we used to do, so it's extremely important both to work in the short-term and in the long-term perspective. It's very interesting to talk to you this morning, Dr Belin. Thanks for joining me this morning. And if you want to hear more about Vision Zero, Matts Belin will be speaking at an event in Auckland on Wednesday. After the break, our panel - Ben Thomas, Maxine Gay and Jonathan Milne. Welcome back. I'm joined now by our panel ` PR consultant Ben Thomas. Sunday Star Times editor Jonathan Milne and Maxine Gay from First Union. Good morning to you all. David Parker, Trade Minister there, he is trying hard not to say that the TPP is over, but is it, Maxine? I hope so. I would be very happy to have everybody jumping up and down on its corpse. That would be a very good thing, I would think. I'm absolutely delighted to see Justin Trudeau standing out, carving out, holding firm for Canada's position. The rumour that I have heard is that a large part of that is around the cultural carve out, around film, taking care of the French minority. So I think, 'why isn't New Zealand doing that? 'Why aren't we standing out really firm for Maori, for filmmaking? 'And if Justin Trudeau was concerned about not being able to put good, strong state support into filmmaking for the French minority in Canada, what does that mean about Te Mangai Paho? Would that mean that we would have to open that up for anyone to get involved in? Ben. Is he a hero, or is he just looking after his own political interests? I mean, he's got to keep Trump sweet. Do we think there's anything going on there? I think more important is just the old-fashioned forces of regressive-ness. The dairy lobby in Canada. Those are the positions of power that are trying to stop Canada from entering into TPP 11. There's nothing progressive about it, you know, from Trudeau's kind of left-wing... It's just to stop our milk formula. It's just to protect farming subsidies in Canada, as per usual. In terms of what Maxine was saying, as David Parker said, we actually did get a Treaty of Waitangi clause carve-out in the TPP. Labour have done a lot of good work advancing their manifesto position. The National government previously had done a lot of good work on protecting Pharmac. The Clark government had done a lot of good work... OK, so can they do CPR on this, or is it over? It's kind of like a reverse snowball, so TPP 12 is more attractive to people than TPP 11. TPP 10 will be less attractive still. Yeah. So, look, there's a lot of work to be done. What do you reckon, Jonathan? Look, David Parker was saying 'Maybe it's not quite alive; it's not quite dead.' Maxine wants to jump on its corpse. It's a zombie-deal, you know? It's sort lurching along there and no one quite knows whether it's sustainable, I think. But as Ben says, as the number diminish and as countries like Canada, and Trudeau is no hero ` walking away with no word, there's nothing heroic about that. That's abandoning the troops at the trenches. As it diminishes, it just becomes less relevant, less important, and frankly there'll be barely much point in New Zealand actually investing much energy in it. Do you think Labour will be breathing a sigh of relief that it's kind of been taken out of their hands? I do. Even though I think philosophically Arden would probably believe ` and why wouldn't she? ` that free trade raises all boats. That it is good for both the developing world and for New Zealand workers, but Labour was backing the protesters in the streets against TPP. Politically, I don't think she can come back to New Zealand with a major TPP deal. I think it's rather convenient for her that Trudeau's done this. Ben. Convenient? No. Labour did oppose the TPP back when they were still these supposed shadowy, secret negotiations, but actually a lot of those concerns were taken care of ` Pharmac, the Treaty clause. And then, as you've heard from Parker, they've made more progress still on the ISDS provisions. So no, I` Is this the idea companies can sue us if we get a bum deal? Yeah, that's right. And there were these side letters that New Zealand was entering into with Australia to kind of minimise the fallout of those. And that hasn't... I think the voting impact... But that hasn't been killed off. That hasn't been knocked out. It's only been suspended. I think what it's done is it's shown it to be what a damn shambles that it is. I mean, it would be` I would be sad but not surprised if it did actually still end up all on again. But you've got Ardern and Peters who I think are really very personally sceptical, and they simply shouldn't be caught up in this. And it is still secretive. They do need to come back. They do need to come back to New Zealand and have a proper conversation about that. The whole deal needs to be subjected to a genuine economic analysis so we can really see what are the benefits because even when the United States was in, the benefits for so infinitesimal for New Zealand that they've got to be a whole lot less now. So I think that, for me, the heroism of Trudeau is that it's caused a pause. So maybe we can all have a decent look at this. I see an eyebrow up on your left and a headshake to your right on that. (LAUGHTER) But I just wanna ask about David Parker's seeming discomfort when I mentioned that maybe they'd have more time to look at Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Do you think he's comfortable with the prospect of having to go forward with a deal with them as part of a coalition agreement? Well, I suppose I think he should be thanking the Canadians for having the guts to do what they've done, and maybe he will be uncomfortable with that, but I think they're all pretty skilled at being able to have those discussions. I think the EU will take priority so that they can play for time on doing those things. But, you see, the whole thing about the TPPA ` it was all started seven years ago, but the world and politics have moved on. There have been other elections in other countries, so it's not surprising that things are changing and they're changing all of the time. Victory for Trump, Jonathan? Oh, look, I think he's probably moved on so much he doesn't care any more. I doubt he's even paying it any attention whatsoever. It's become small and increasingly irrelevant, unfortunately ` Ben? regrettably. Not a victory for Trump. The TPP 12 would've really bolstered the United States in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of its rivalry with China. I would've thought that was something that Trump would've been keen on. I would've thought that would've been something that Winston Peters was keen on. So an own goal, then, in your view? Yeah. OK, well, we'll leave it there. Stay with us. After the break, we'll take a look at what could be making the news next week. Welcome back. You're with The Nation and our panel. We also heard from Tracey Martin, the Children's Commissioner there. The inquiry into the abuse in state care, they've put a target ` 100 days ` they need to set this up. What did you make of what she had to say, because the details, it seems, are a bit light. Yes, I think they've got a lot of work to do in a very short period of time, but I actually thought it was really quite` I was really heartened to hear Tracey this morning. I think she's very comfortable in her skin, she's very pragmatic. I think she's going to just get on and do the job. And I think this inquiry is so desperately needed. When we look` Thinking about it in relation to the other story that we had this morning around the rough sleepers and so on, one of the things that's become overwhelming is that the vast majority of people who are rough sleeping are people who have had some form of childhood trauma and a disproportionate number of those people were, in fact, have had experience of care. So these things are all completely linked. And so they're moving on to Tracey's other portfolio, where you've got Oranga Tamariki, and you've still got 5000-odd children in care. It's desperately important that we learn from what's happened in the past and make sure that we don't repeat those mistakes as we go further into the future. And the other thing that I was really heartened by her, and that was not just the use of the word 'truth' and 'accountability' but 'truth', 'accountability' and 'reconciliation'. If we simply swapped the victims of state abuse for the perpetrators, we've got to make it possible for the people who did bad things to come forward, to be held accountable but actually also assisted as well. Jonathan, she was saying she believes there should be a prime ministerial apology, you know, an apology to all these people from the top. Yeah, it almost makes you think of an end inquiry. We've already jumped to the end of it, the government's stuffed up, and there will be an apology. But, no, seriously, the stories need to be told. And there's a lot of work to be done there. I think, ultimately, she's right, it probably will have to go up to the ninth floor. Yeah. OK. Well, speaking of the Beehive, Winston Peters has launched a legal action, Ben. He's going after some senior MPs and two journos. What do you make of it? So, the Prime Minister is being very clear that this is a personal action by the deputy Prime Minister, not in his government role. In a way, I think that's the wrong emphasis, because the problem here isn't that some politicians leaked to some journalists. That's what you expect politicians to do. The real problem here is that senior civil servants leaked private information about a politician to his political opponents who were the administerial masters of the day. So what we've seen is that the public service in New Zealand has gone from being a kind of independent body that serves the public to actually turning into a bit of a` We should say that's an allegation. An allegation that civil servants` No, no. We know that chief executives under the no surprises rule gave personal information about Winston Peters to their ministers. Yes. And so` But there's an argument about whether that's a leak, though. Oh, sure, but it's absolutely improper, and under this no surprises policy that has sort of spread like a bit of a poison through the public service, this new government actually needs to stop the rot from the top and address that with the public service and not actually go one out with journalists or anything. Jonathan, what do you think about the fact that Winston Peters is after source material and information from journalists? Mm. That's easy. They won't do. Lloyd won't do it. Tim won't do it. And I've been in the situation myself. I've been summonsed to the Parliamentary select committee and grilled for an hour by the Acting Prime Minister and a bunch of others, and as journalists, we're ethically bound to protect our sources. But this is a man who's` It's not even something they have to think about. Yeah, but this is a man who's survived off tips and leaks, arguable, in his political career. Then to be going after two journalists for tips and leaks is kind of interesting. What can I say? (LAUGHS) Yeah, exactly. Speaking of shenanigans, shenanigans in the House this week. It was pretty interesting. Do you think it was a real shambles what happened with the election of the Speaker? Was it embarrassing, or was it pretty bad? I think the only people Simon Bridges impressed this week were his colleagues. I don't think anyone comes out of this covered in glory, do they? I mean, Bridges got his premeditated gotcha moment. But, you know` The public don't like it, you think? The public don't like it. But it also, like, beggars belief. Why on earth did Labour think that they`? Why on earth did they assume that they would be treated with respect? So, you know, I don't think anyone comes out of it covered in glory. We had babies in the House this week, Ben, but no Jesus and no Queen in the prayer. Babies but no Jesus, no Queen. Yes! (LAUGHS) Do you think that's a good move? It's Trevor Mallard who's done it ` taken them out of the opening prayer at Parliament. Look, I think it's important that our politicians acknowledge that there is something a bit higher than just themselves in the chamber. Whatever that is, I don't think it really matters, whether it's the Te Tiriti, the Treaty, the people of New Zealand, the Queen, the God. Whatever it is, as long as they have a reminder before they sit down that it's not just about them. Jonathan's unfurling. What do you say? (LAUGHS) The Queen, God, whatever it is! What do you reckon? Look, the` Is this a bigger move? I'm gonna claim this one as a staunch and long-time republican, let's not underplay this. This is very important. This is, in my view, a step towards deposing Her Majesty the Queen as our head of state. She's 14,000 miles or something away in Buckingham Palace. She has no relevance to us. We should have New Zealand head of state. Thank you, Trevor Mallard, for stepping in that direction. God, he's even further away. We will leave it there. I'm sure that's gonna cause controversy. Time now for a look at some of what will be making the news next week. The Prime Minister will attend the ASEAN leaders meeting in the Philippines from tomorrow. Also tomorrow, Climate Change Minister James Shaw and Pacific People's Minister Aupito William Sio will attend a global climate change meeting in Germany. And government ministers will be in Kaikoura on Wednesday to commemorate the anniversary of the earthquake. But that is all from us for now. We will see you again next weekend. Captions by Florence S Fournier, Desney Shaw and Imogen Staines. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 This programme was made with the assistance of the NZ On Air Platinum Fund.