Good morning and welcome to The Nation. I'm Lisa Owen. Today ` Andrew Little's new lease on life. He gave up the Labour leadership, but it paid off. We'll ask him about his plans in justice and treaty negotiations. When is a rates rise not a rates rise? I've absolutely kept my promise ` 2.5% average rate increase, the removal of the interim transport levy, and a regional fuel tax. That's what I campaigned on. That's what I've delivered. So why are Aucklanders going to be paying a lot more money to the council? I'll ask Mayor Phil Goff. Then ` Auckland has our biggest homeless population but no night shelter. Nobody should feel as if they do not have a shelter. It's a basic value of New Zealanders. I don't want to be out here. I'd rather be in a house, to be honest. If we spend millions and millions of dollars developing the waterfront for the America's Cup and for the richer part of society, you can surely spare a few of those millions to help the poor. We meet some of those trying to set up a safe alternative to sleeping on the streets. And we'll wrap up the week with our panel ` Damian Light, Heather Roy, and Toby Manhire ` and comedians Jeremy Corbett and Paul Ego. Copyright Able 2017 It's great to have you with us today. If you'd like to get in touch, our details are on-screen now, or you can follow along with our Twitter panel ` former mayoral candidate Mark Thomas and Action Station's Laura Rapira. Use the hashtag #nationnz. Andrew Little has had a bigger year than most. He started 2017 as Labour's leader, hoping that John Key's departure could leave the door open for him to win the election, but as his polling dropped lower and his new deputy's went higher, he made what could turn out to be his bravest and best political decision. It resulted in his position as a senior government minister with a bunch of hefty portfolios. Andrew Little joins me now. Good morning, Minister. Good morning, Lisa. As part of the Justice and Corrections portfolios, Labour wants to lower the prison population ` 30% over 15 years. But given all the projections ` our growing population, all the rest of it ` the only way it seems that you might be able to achieve that is by letting a bunch of people out. So are you going to do that? No, and we're going to approach this very sensibly. We've come into office and we've been faced with these projections that show that if we do nothing, then the prison population will increase by roughly 50% over the next 10 years alone, so going from just over 10,500 now to nearly 15,000 by 2028, so we have to do something. When we look at what some of the problems are, you've got people who, but for doing addiction courses or counselling in prison, would be eligible for parole. They can't get the courses because they're not resourced to provide them, and so those people don't get parole. They could be out doing productive, constructive things, but they're banged up in prison. We've got another problem too, which is the number of people who are in prison with mental health problems, with literacy problems that aren't getting the support to overcome those issues. They could, with the support and help, be released once they've been through those sorts of remedial measures, and we can reduce the prison population. It's actually not that hard if we choose to resource it properly. OK. So do you think that everybody in jail currently should be in jail? Look, there are going to be hardened criminals who are a threat and a risk to society; they should be there for their criminal offending. There's a whole chunk of other people we know who are there because of other circumstances that have driven their criminal offending that, with a bit of help ` mental health issues, addiction counselling, literacy issues, other personal issues ` if they were properly assisted, helped, got over their problems and prepared for re-entry back into society, A) we can avoid their reoffending; B) we can set them up as productive citizens again. So in Labour's policy during the campaign, which is still up online, it says, 'For less serious offending where alternatives to prison should be available, 'short-term prison sentences are still too common.' So are judges being too conservative with their sentencing and risk-averse in sending some people to jail that, in your view, shouldn't be going? Well, our sentencing laws dictate the factors they have to take into account, and they're doing that, and they're sentencing more people to prison. I think what's happening is we're not only sending more people to prison; we're sending them there for longer, so their sentences actually being served are longer. And even though people will hit their parole eligibility date, because they haven't done things that the court expects them to do and their parole board expects them to do, they can't be released, so they're serving way beyond their parole eligibility date because the resources aren't there to do those remedial things. If we can resource some of that stuff more effectively, we can actually get more people out in a better state and less likely to reoffend. All the ministry advice says part of the reason you've got this great big bottleneck in the prison is bail ` bail was tightened up. Kelvin Davis has said that he thinks you need to look at the bail laws. Are you going to do that? Well, we need to look at the way bail is being handled and managed both by the courts and by the prison system. Whether or not the laws need to change, I think, you know, we can have a look at that. I suspect it's more about the way it's being applied and enforced as opposed to whether there's a problem with the law. What do you mean by that? They're being too conservative in denying people bail? Yeah, I mean, there has been public outcry about people who have committed an offence, been charged, they've been let go on bail and remanded at large and then they reoffend, and I think the public expectation is we've got to tighten up on that, so we've done the tightening up. I think what's happened is that we have now remanded in prison a whole bunch of people whose risk or threat to society actually isn't that great. The other problem we've now got is` So hang on. Sorry, Minister. That means you're looking to change that, then; you do think that some people are unnecessarily denied bail, then. Whether or not you have to change the law, I'm not convinced we do, but what we do have to do is get some consistency in those decisions. Here's another` You need to change attitudes, then. If you're saying that some people shouldn't be, you need to change the way that judges are administering the bail law if you think there are some people in there who should be allowed out, that they're not that much of a risk, as you just said. Yeah, I think you need some consistency. I know the last` well, the previous Labour government had at the end of its term put in place a sentencing council, which was all about getting some consistency in the decisions that judges make across all the different regions and courthouses. The National government, freshly elected, abandoned that. There is a real merit, I think, to now reconsider putting that sentencing council in place so we get that consistency, because here's the problem with` Well, that` Hang on. Sorry. That suggests that there's inconsistency, so some judges are being harsher with sentencing and harsher with bail conditions than other judges. I think when we make these laws and we narrow the discretion of judges, different judges are going to apply it in different ways. That's just natural, because there aren't many guidelines established about how you actually apply it in practice. I think the benefit of a sentencing council is that you start to actually get some consistency in those decisions. No question, safety of the community is first, but we've got to make sure that if we put people in prison for having been charged and not yet convicted of a crime, we've got to be reasonable about it. One of the problems we've got at the moment, I get letters from families of people who are in prison, they might have been charged and remanded in prison, say, March, April this year, and their trial isn't until halfway through next year or, in fact, one case I had wasn't until September next year. So 15 months in jail. They haven't even been convicted of the crime yet. So I think we've got to make sure that we get that balance between community safety and, you know, the real threat that prisoner might pose or offender might pose. In an ideal world, there'd be fewer people remanded in jail awaiting their day in court? Yeah, or certainly not being held for 15 months before they actually get in front of a judge and decide whether or not they're guilty of that particular offence. So how do you speed that pipeline up? Public Defence Service, then, who deals with a lot of these people, are you going to give them another chunk of money? Well, the Public Defence Service are doing a pretty spectacular job at the moment. They've got roughly 50% of the cases going to court. But everybody is working within the law as it is at the moment. But without some kind of consistency and guidelines that a sentencing council might provide, they're doing the best they can, but what we are seeing is this sort of divide opening up between different judges, different courthouses, different parts of the country about how some of those laws are being applied. Some judges aren't doing their job properly? No, I think all the judges are doing a fantastic job. They do the job with the law that they've got. They interpret it the way that they see it. But I think it sometimes benefits from, particularly with the district court, which is, frankly, processing hundreds of cases a week across dozens and dozens of judges, getting some consistency and some guidelines would be very helpful. OK, so, the National government had a target of lowering Maori offending 25% by 2025. Are you going to keep that? Well, we certainly want to reduce offending across the board. That's why we` But the Waitangi Tribunal has ruled on this and said not enough attention's been paid to this particular aspect. Are you going to keep that target, or are you going to go better? Yeah, we have, and we've said that within reducing the prison population by 30%, we've got to fix that overrepresentation of Maori in prison too. So you do that with a strategy that deals with the way we police, actually having a police force that is equipped and resourced to do the good-quality community policing, getting into those communities and actually working with particularly young people to get them off the offending track and then working with the way the corrections system deals with people to stop the reoffending. Yeah. I understand the philosophy, but will you actually have a hard, fast number that you're trying to reach? 25% by 2025 was National's ` a reduction. Yeah, so we've got the overarching one about the 30% prison population. Yeah, but for Maori. So what sits under that will be a bunch of other targets. As we start to work up a plan to deal with that, then we'll have a bunch of other targets that are about reducing offending. So you will have a specific target for Maori; you just don't know what it is at the moment? Yeah, I think we've set the overall target ` the 30% reduction in the prison population in 15 years. As we start to put that strategy together, because we've, frankly, been blindsided by some of the figures that we've seen, the projections for the growth of the prison population if we do nothing else. So we want to make sure that what we do to achieve that target is going to have a meaningful effect. So you're undertaking to have a target for Maori, but you just haven't determined it yet? We will have a strategy that will deal with criminal offending overall. It will deal with the different prison populations ` Maori prison population, Maori offending population. There is a growing number of iwi who want to be involved in that project. We got to draw all of that together. I'm still not clear, Minister. Can you just answer this directly? Will there be, actually, a reduction number for Maori offending, like National's number. Lowering it by 25% was their number. Will you have an actual number? When you put together a strategy, you put up milestones, and you have those numbers. But we've got to do the strategic work with the numbers that we now know informed by the official` I'll take it as a yes, but you just don't have it yet. OK. All right, Labour in coalition government is going to boost the number of police officers by 1800. So what effect do you think that's going to have on the prison population? Well, it should reduce it, because what the benefit of good, effective policing does and well-resourced policing is that they're a deterrent to offending, because those police officers are in the community, they know the families that are troubled and need help and they can steer focus away from a life of offending. And where there is offending, their presence and their knowledge of the communities means they can intervene to stop the more serious offending. Yeah, but it doesn't work like that, because the Ministry of Justice's own advice in 2016 to the government when they were going to increase by 1000 police officers, it's estimated that will increase the prison population by 400, and that's 1000 cops; you're talking about 1800. So you're closer to the 350 mark. It actually has reverse effect. Well, I know that the officials do have this view that` It's not just them. JustSpeak also has the same view. Research that they have seen suggests it bumps up the prison population. Understand that. And there is that view, and it's a bit like for a hammer, every problem is a nail. For police, every problem is something that needs an arrest and a charge. That is not the type of policing that we are buying into with these additional police officers we want to add to the force. Conversations that Stuart Nash is having with the commissioner of police is all about a style of policing that is a deterrent to offending and early intervention that's going to reduce offending and therefore reduce the prison population. OK. Let's move on to one of your other portfolios. You're about to have your second hui with Ngapuhi over their treaty settlement. Will you settle with the iwi as a whole, or will you consider going hapu by hapu? The government has set up a negotiation for a settlement that is iwi wide. The Waitangi Tribunal has said in the mandate that the Crown has now recognised it doesn't pay enough respect to hapu. So the effort I'm putting in at the moment is to get round hapu or taiwhenua, groupings of hapu, to talk about how we make sure that their ambitions and aspirations are properly reflected both in the negotiations and in any settlement. So it is about doing both. I'm confident that we can do both. Could it be a two-tier deal, then? You settle with the iwi for reparations, and then you negotiate with each hapu for other things, like intellectual property and stuff like that? I wouldn't dare start the negotiations with Ngapuhi on this TV programme without having done the spadework first. And that is about getting out. I think what I bring to the role at the moment with a change of government is a fresh pair of eyes, fresh pair of ears, getting out, listening and talking. That's what I wanted to do, and then at some point, there is going to be engagement about setting up a structure for negotiations, getting to a settlement and hopefully do amazing things. Well, last time you were in that seat, you were here as Labour leader. Is it that long ago? Yep. And you actually look like a weight's been lifted off your shoulders. Why's that? Has it? Well, I assumed a lot more responsibilities and serious responsibilities; I'm a minister of the Crown now and thoroughly enjoying it. It's been a fascinating year, but I am feeling very good about the responsibilities that Jacinda Ardern has reposed in me and absolutely enjoying being part of this amazing government. Is the job that you've got now in some ways better than the one that you had? No, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute as leader of the opposition, and I'm sorry it didn't tell, it didn't show. That's a fascinating job in itself, and, look, what's happened has happened. I stand by every judgement I made about it. I'm thrilled that Labour is leading this new government, a genuine MMP government with New Zealand First and the Greens. We've got a great programme ahead of us and great ambitions for this government and for New Zealand, and I'm thrilled to be part of that. So did you win the election for Labour by making that big decision and stepping down? Look, there'll be people with more letters after their name than I have that'll pore of this. I want to know what you think. I want to know what you think. Well, I think` If you're honest about it. If you look at what happened and Jacinda's leadership and what she was able to do within days of me stepping down gave an amazing boost to the Labour Party, she led a blinder of a campaign, and she got us over the line, and because of her political skills after the election, had the personality and the intellectual skills to weave together the coalition government that we've got now. But if you hadn't sacrificed your own leadership, she wouldn't have had that opportunity. So are you the hero in this? Look, I have a very simple philosophy when I think about my role in anything. It's not all about me. I'm part of a team. I'm part of a group. I've had one principal ambition, and that is for Labour to lead the government. I'm very glad that we are. I'm very glad that someone with the skills and talents as Jacinda is leading this government, and this is a government that's going to do amazing things. Thanks for joining us this morning, Andrew Little, the minister for almost everything. Well, later in the programme, Mayor Phil Goff joins me to talk about why some Aucklanders could be paying much higher rates. And after the break, our biggest city with our biggest homeless population doesn't have a night shelter. We meet some of those working to change that. So why are Aucklanders going to be paying a lot more money to the council? I'll ask Mayor Phil Goff. Welcome back. As the housing crisis worsens and homelessness becomes more of an issue in our cities, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Rotorua and Tauranga have all established night shelters. However, Auckland, which has the biggest population of inner-city homeless doesn't have one. Mike Wesley-Smith reports on a campaign to change that. (RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS' 'UNDER THE BRIDGE') In the land of the long wait for a Louis Vuitton bag, 22-year-old Alex quietly waits for shelter. Visibly invisible. How long have you been living on the street? About half a year. Probably eight months. I lost my job. Welcome to Auckland 2017. The city of Prada and the poor. Drugs took over my life. That's why I'm out here. Dior and the destitute. What types of things happen? Kicked in the head while they're asleep. Swarovski and solitude. I've been living on the street roughly for five years. And indifference and the indigent. I get scared sleeping on Queen St. I'd rather sleep in a shelter, to be honest. She's just one of the almost 200 New Zealanders living without shelter within a 3km radius of the Sky Tower. Each with their own story. Each an unscripted deviation from the popular stereotype. I was working for, um... for the Sallies over in Glenfield. I was a counsellor. And then I found out that my wife was cheating on me, so I left her and the kids at my house and just started again and came out here. Haven't been back, you know. They are people Te Rangimarie Charitable Trust worker Michelle Kidd has got to know and love in her decades helping the homeless. She is leading the charge to get Auckland a night shelter. In the last five years, um, the explosion of homelessness in Auckland has meant that there is nowhere to go for any one of our people. You might recognise Michelle. We've previously featured her tireless work to help those in need. Kia ora. Good morning. Good morning. Good to see you. Like her weekly trip to The Warehouse to buy supplies for the homeless. I'm known as 'the bargain hunter'. (LAUGHS) Michelle has pushed for a night shelter since the last one closed in 2012. In the meantime, she is doing what she can to deliver dignity in other ways. And as we headed back to Michelle's office at the Auckland District Court,... Kia ora. Good to see you again. ...we came across Michelle's good friend Lucky, who's lived homeless for many years. Does she do a good job, Lucky? Yeah, she does. (LAUGHS) He's not going to tell you anything else, eh. Lucky had come to collect bags of food Michelle has arranged for people living homeless in the CBD. Because I'm Maori, I have to share with these, uh, streeties. Whanau comes first. I like to help them. A job he does with a lot of heart and a lot of happy customers. They're gonna put you on TV. Oh, on TV! But while Michelle can help feed these people, it's a roof over their head that she desperately wants. Nobody should feel as if they do not have a shelter. It's a basic value of New Zealanders. So last year Michelle wrote an open letter in the local newspaper to city leaders, pleading for a night shelter. I wrote it out of absolute desperation, because I really wanted our homeless people to have a voice. A voice that seemingly went unheard, except for an Auckland man Michelle had never met who read her letter. Yeah, look, I'm just a guy that found out that Auckland doesn't have a night shelter and thought, 'Well, you know, someone's gotta do something about it, right?' But then I got a phone call to say, 'I'd like to come and speak with you.' And she convinced me to lead this little exercise. Since that conversation last year, Brendan and Michelle have drawn up plans for a night shelter with a hundred beds for Auckland. They want it run by a charitable trust and hope the council will back it. So, our policy will be that it's a free service. We're not expecting people to pay. Brendan estimates that fitting out a building to act as a shelter would cost around $1 million. with an annual running cost of about 1.5 million. But it could also save money in the long run. There's certainly an offset. There's a benefit. It's estimated a homeless person can cost around $65,000 a year in terms of the social services they use. One such US study measured the use of services by homeless people one year before and one year after they were housed. It found their cost to the health care system decreased by 59%; the cost to police services by 66%; and incarceration costs decreased by 62%. But this isn't about saving money. You know, that's certainly an aside, but this is about, you know, just doing something decent and right. Because all too often what is decent and right on the streets of Auckland disappears with the light. If you're by yourself, then... best to stay in the light. Yeah. Don't go down dark alleys. Is it common for people to be assaulted or...? Yeah, very common. We've got an 86-year-old lady out here. Really? Yeah. An 86-year-old, and we're thinking, 'What's she doing out here?' When you speak with the homeless, you realise that walking on the streets is a different thing entirely to calling them home. Steve Linder is the older brother of Edwin Linder, who lived homeless on Auckland streets. A trajectory set in motion after Edwin was left brain damaged and disabled after a brutal assault in 2001. Being vulnerable like that, of course he's unable to defend himself either verbally or physically, he's not able to explain anything or say anything to a person. Despite the best efforts of Steve and other family, Edwin ended up living without shelter. Extremely vulnerable, and, um, his good nature left him a little bit gullible too. The family of a homeless Auckland man whose death has now been treated as a homicide say he'll be sorely missed. He'd found himself a little corner to sleep in, and the attack took place there. Basically, I guess, others wanting to sleep there. What difference do you think a fully safe, functioning night shelter might've had? I might still have my brother. That's the bottom line, isn't it? I might still have my brother. Brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers. They've all died ultimately waiting to find a safe place to sleep. In 2017, that still means a doorway, under a bridge or a public park. (PHONE VIBRATES) The text I received that night was from Rim, the man who made headlines last year articulating the plight of families living in cars on The Nation. It's been coming for a while, but why is it happening? I'd interviewed him in 2016 in Bruce Pulman park. I found him there again in 2017. So, they'll get security come in and move everybody on. Whoever doesn't go, that's when the police and tow trucks will come in. Since I'd last met Rim, he'd been made redundant from his job. He was heading down country to stay with family but not before staging a protest at the expulsion of old friends. Now we're just gonna all lose each other. It's heartbreaking, actually. It's the end of an era for people round here. It's gonna be something that they're gonna eventually see that we weren't doing no harm. It's just to shame them. Yeah. Then the park security guards arrived, not to help out but to shut out. I don't blame them. They're just getting paid to do a job. You know, what can we do? We're homeless. We don't have the money to fight this. We're refugees in our own country. Everyone's been moved on. Where to? We don't know. But what's questionable about what we witnessed is that it's the council's own advice on homelessness that says moving people on just exacerbates the problem. It's an approach officials describe as being inappropriate, expensive and futile. The council owns the park but leases it to the Bruce Pulman Trust, whose security shut the entrances. The council did, though, provide this response. I don't want to be out here. I'd rather be in a house, to be honest. Without compassion, what have we got as a city? You can spend millions and millions of dollars developing the waterfront for the America's Cup and for the richer part of society; you can surely spare a few of those millions to help the poor. The reason why people come on the street cos they've got problems at home. There's problems at home. Otherwise they wouldn't be here. Because in the end, they don't necessarily want to be saved. They just want shelter. It says, 'My struggle is real. We're not invisible. 'We're all humans.' After the break, we'll ask Auckland mayor Phil Goff what his council could do to support plans for a night shelter. But first, Jeremy and Paul are looking back on the political highlights of 2017. Yes, welcome to the 2017 big recap show. Let's look back at what our politicians have achieved this year, Paul. January? Well, they don't start work till February. February, and a young Jacinda Ardern just squeezes in by a landslide to win Mt Albert. Yes, she probably thought, 'This is the best thing that's ever gonna happen to me.' March ` the Whanganui River becomes a person. Yes, and probably thought, 'This is the best thing that's ever gonna happen to me.' John Key left Parliament and had to become a real person. Mm. So let's move to April now. Oh, spaghetti pizza. Yeah. May? Ooh, walk-run. True. How is Bill English still not Prime Minister? Don't know. Such a cool dude. June ` John Key becomes Sir John Key. Mm, so not an actual person for long, then. No, he wasn't. Our Team New Zealand sailors win the America's Cup. Yes, and we thought, 'This'll be great for Auckland. Surely they'll hold the next one here.' Yeah, why wouldn't they, as long as we don't have to pay anything. Actually, Jeremy, June was also the Todd Barclay saga. Oh, how'd you remember that, Paul? Well done. I record everything. Ah, good stuff. Well, time to stop recording this now. Join us next week for July to December. Oh, certainly my favourite months on the firemen calendar. So why are Aucklanders going to be paying a lot more money to the council? I'll ask Mayor Phil Goff. Welcome back. Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has been under fire this week after he presented a proposed 10-year budget that includes a number of new rates. He had proposed a maximum average rates rise of 2.5%. I spoke to him just before we came on air this morning. Well talk about rates in a minute, but let's talk about homelessness first. Auckland has the biggest homeless population in the country. Can you see a need for a night shelter? Well, I've talked to most of the groups that work with the homeless, and they tell me, No. Don't give us short-term solutions that don't take people anywhere. Get in behind Housing First, as you're doing. Let's look at permanent solutions. Lets get people off the street into houses of their own, but don't just give them houses. Give them the wraparound services that deal with all of the problems in their lives that led them to becoming homeless in the first place.' That's the advice I'm following. It's very strong advice. We will promote Housing First. It's proven to be effective, and I'm working with ministers right now to see how we can ramp up what we're doing in this area. So no help then from the Council in respect of the homeless...? A lot of help from the Council... On the homeless shelter, I mean. You know, no money. No help. No building or anything like that. We've put quite a lot of money a couple of million dollars ` into the James Liston Hostel, which is a short-term accommodation facility, but everything I'm told by the housing group's 'Please, get behind Housing First.' We've housed 221 people since we began that programme ` just six months ago ` people and children. We want to ramp up. We'll get to 437, which is the target, by the end of next year. I want to do even better than that. I think that we can actually help hundreds and hundreds more people, and the government has indicated that they're interested in this problem, and they will help. OK. Lets move on to your 10-year plan, your budget. You promised a 2.5% general rates increase. You add up all the levies or the special rates ` whatever you want to call them ` and it's more than 6%, so some people will think you have lied to them. Did you lie? That's not true. I promised 2.5. Actually, the average ratepayer in Auckland ` that's a person with a home that's worth just over a million dollars ` will get a net increase in their rates in July next year of 1.4%, and given that other cities that are big-growth cities around the North Island, are charging double-figure rate increases, we've done remarkably well. Yeah, but you're kind of skewing the pitch a little bit because you're taking out the interim transport levy because you say there's a regional fuel tax. Lets put that to one side because they cancel each other out in essence. You're taking one and getting... No. One's rates and one's not. But it's a fee. You've got a 2.8% water quality levy, basically. If people choose to support that, and they will have that choice to give us that feedback. This is a consultation process. But this is your preferred option. Absolutely, because you and I want our kids to go to beaches that are safe and healthy to swim in, and we want to stop pouring our sewerage into the harbours, and I think most Aucklanders want to do that, and that's why I think they will support that targeted rate. Lets just go through the numbers then. 2.8% on the water quality, 0.9% on the levy, and a promised cap of 2.5% on general rates. You add those up to, what, 6.2%. Yeah, but you take off the 4.8% which was the interim transport levy and you come to 1.4. What people... But they're still going to be paying a petrol tax though, aren't they? No, no, no. Lisa. Yeah, of course, and I promised that, and I promised that in this studio to you last year during the campaign. I said I would keep average general rates at 2.5%, but there would be a regional fuel tax. Id push for that because I didn't think it was right that a pensioner out in the suburbs that hardly used the transport system paid the same as a big corporate with a fleet of trucks 24/7 on the road. We've done away with the inequitable interim transport levy. That's $114 on your rates and on low-income people's rates, and we've replaced it with ` or we will replace it ` with a fuel tax that will depend on how often you use the roads. It's user pays, and it makes sense. It's much fairer. Couldn't you have been clearer about this, though, and say...? I was absolutely clear about it, and in this studio to you, Lisa. No. Not about the exact numbers about the principle, yes ` but about the exact numbers, because you can move these numbers around how you like. Some people will look at this and say they're getting a 6.2% increase. Yeah, but they're not. They're not. When they pay their... So you feel you've absolutely told the truth? Look, and I've set it out. You couldn't have set it out more clearly than I have in my mayoral proposal where I set it out ` how much you'll pay a week, how much you'll pay a year, what the percentage is, and how we arrive at that total. For the person with the average-priced home in Auckland, when they go to pay their rates after July next year, if this proposal is accepted, their rate bill next year will be 1.4% higher than it was this year. They will be paying a fuel levy. They know why they're paying that. We've got gridlock on the roads. I can do nothing about it, if that's what you'd prefer me to do, or I can try to put more money into investment in our infrastructure, and that's what we're doing. Well be putting $11 billion into transport infrastructure in the next 10 years, but most importantly ` and I want to come back to the point you raised before ` we will be cleaning up our waterways after a century of every time it rains, the wastewater overflowing into our streams and our harbours. We will do something to cut that overflow by more than 80%. I think Aucklanders will embrace that idea and that proposal. They want something done about it. So the regional fuel tax ` do you see that as a temporary measure, or do you think that will be there forever? It wont be there forever. Give us 10 years, and most of us, like I am, will be driving electric cars, so a fuel tax is not going to be a long-term proposal. Do you have an idea in your head of a timeframe? I hope that it stays there until the government and the council come up with an alternative proposal which'll be around demand management. The last government was talking to me about... Congestion charging. A congestion charge. The new government has said, Look, we've got to have some sort of demand management road pricing ` smarter road pricing.' Well do that, just as London, Stockholm, Singapore and other places have done. So in terms of congestion charging, are you thinking that congestion charging will be a replacement for the fuel tax or will be on top of the fuel tax? Oh, I'm not sure yet. It's some years off. It's possible that there could be both ` a congestion charge and a fuel tax. I think you'll see the removal of a fuel tax because it will no longer be relevant because more and more people will be travelling in electric-powered cars. Yeah, OK. But conceivably, we could still have a fuel tax and a congestion charge. Look, this is a decision that's probably four or five years out. I don't know yet. I don't imagine that there'll be the two of them. I think you'll simply have a form of smarter road pricing that takes into account how often you drive and what times of the day you drive to try to reduce congestion by managing demand. We know that Phil Twyford, when he came in, when we last saw him, he said he was expecting the previous government's advice on congestion charging to come across his desk. Have you seen that yet? Yeah. Look, we've got a working party. What did it recommend? What did it recommend, Mr Goff? It hasn't reported yet. We've got a working party that is looking at how smarter road pricing works around the world and how it might best be adapted to Auckland. Yeah, and I get that, but the advice that the previous government had asked for, you've seen it? Oh, they were in favour of it. I talked... And what timeframe did they favour in that advice that came back? My timeframe ` I said, look, Singapore has introduced` They're wanting the latest GPS-type congestion charge. It's taken them some years. Were not going to go into technology that's not yet proven. I think personally it'll be four or five years off. But what was the advice? In that government advice, what did they recommend? No, they haven't reported yet. All I'm saying is that the ministers in the last government were in favour of it and I suspect that the ministers in the new government will be in favour of it, because it makes sense. Where does all of this leave the Auckland Transport Alignment Project? Because you'd agreed on the long-term projects, and when we spoke last time, you said it was all up for renegotiation. But is that dead in the water now? No, no, it's absolutely not dead in the water. You have to have a system where council and the government are working together to deal with congestion problems that are costing this country ` not just our city, this country ` $2 billion a year, so what the new government has said ` we've got some different priorities. We don't want to do the East West project in the way that it was set up. That was $1.8 billion. What we want to do is bring forward things like light rail, more busways, more mass transit. Yeah, and those are the bits we know about, so what about the bits that we don't know about? Are you still talking about that? What's happening with Penlink and the second harbour crossing? We've got a programme to work with government over the next three months. They will issue a government policy statement, we'll have a regional land transport plan, and well have a new ATAP alignment, but it will be worked and negotiated together because we need to align what council is doing with what government is doing; the old system didn't make sense, where the two were at odds and nothing happened. We've got a massive problem in congestion. You know that and I know that; we drive on the Auckland roads. We've got to deal to it, and the regional fuel tax will help us do that, but we need the ATAP programme to be finalised, and I'm hoping that that will be done by the end of the first quarter of next year. Were running out of time, and there's a couple of things I want to get to quickly. The $7 billion shortfall ` do you know where that's coming from yet? The $6 billion. $5.9, actually. It's a shedload of money. Yeah, we didn't work it out with the last government. They were coy about talking about it before the election, which I understand. But we need to negotiate that. My position is, look, every dollar that we get out of the regional fuel tax will be hypothecated to transport. That means we're not going to spend it on other things. It's solely on transport, and we want that to be our contribution. But the point is you still don't know how much the government's giving you? No, no, because they haven't got to that point yet. They've been in office a matter of weeks, not years. Well, given that you have got shortfalls and, you know, you can only spend a dollar once, there's all this talk about the America's Cup. The hosting fee ` who should pay that? Are we going to pay that as Auckland ratepayers? No. I've been pretty adamant about that. Absolutely not? Categorical assurance from you? Well, let me explain it, please. First of all, we will put money into infrastructure. What I've said to Team New Zealand is, 'You need a base for your syndicates. We will make sure you have the land space and the water space to enable you to host a successful cup in Auckland.' And that's what we'll do. Well actually do something beyond that; we'll bring forward some of the infrastructure spend in the centre city and the waterfront area that we were going to spend on anyway, but well bring it forward, so that is another cost on us. Am I going to compete with so each either the Russian mafia in that city and the Middle East, Abu Dhabi, to pay $116 million? Not on your life. So that's got to come from the government? Well, I don't think the government will want to pay that money. So who's going to pay it, then? Well, I don't mind Team New Zealand having a go at it. The truth is... You could lose this over that, though. You could lose it over that. Well, I'm sorry. There is a bottom line for us. I'm the guardian of your money and the ratepayers' money, and I don't have $116 million or anything like that or anything a fraction of that to throw at it. So you are prepared to lose it if it does come down to someone having to stump up that money and the governments not going to do it? If the demand was we had to put another $116 million in of the ratepayers' money, my answer is no, we wont do that. Do I think Team New Zealand will walk away from Auckland? I don't think so. We've got the best harbour in the world to do this. They are patriotic New Zealanders. They want to have the cup here. So does that include the hosting fee too? No way, no how will you pay the hosting fee. Look, there'll be a negotiation, but I don't have the money. It's not my money; it's your money, and I'm not prepared to spend money on a hosting agreement. That is not part of the deal. The deal is to provide the infrastructure. Well, that's a definitive no, then, if you're saying that you're not going to go to the ratepayers and ask them for it and you've got no magic pot of money. That's no to the hosting fee. I cant spend money that we don't have, and I'm not intending to, and that would not be my top priority when I've got huge priorities right across the city on behalf of Aucklanders. And that's what Aucklanders tell me ` 'We want the cup here. We really want to host the cup.' I want to host the cup. We will pay a fair share to the infrastructure. I'm not up for hosting agreement fees that were never paid in 1999 and weren't paid in 2003. I don't believe they should be paid this time. That's pretty clear. Thanks for joining me, Mayor. Thank you. Thanks, Lisa. Appreciate your time. Stick around. After the break, our panel ` Damian Light, Heather Roy and Toby Manhire. Welcome back. I'm joined now by our panel ` former United Future leader Damian Light, and former ACT MP Heather Roy, and senior editor at The Spinoff Toby Manhire. Good morning to you all. We got to hear from Andrew Little this morning in his capacity as the courts minister and the justice minister and the treaty negotiations minister and a whole lot of other portfolios as well. 30% is what he's aiming for, Heather, to drop the prison population. 30% in 15 years. Is that a realistic goal? Well, it's a pretty big goal. It's a high target. And I don't know. I mean, listening to Andrew, he's saying all the right things. To be fair, we've actually heard these from a lot of people in the past. And how do you actually tackle what's often is seen as a really intractable problem. So you've got youth offending. He didn't really talk about that, but no facilities to put youth offenders. We do our young people a huge disservice by sending them to prison to teach them to be hardened criminals. You've got people who do silly things and then you've got that group that he talked about that really do need to be incarcerated for the safety of` of society, I suppose. He also talked about mental illness, and I was really pleased to hear him talk about that. And we're not talking about single-agency issues here. There's lots and lots of things that impact on Corrections and putting people away when they've done something wrong, and mental illness is a huge one. It used to be that over 15% of people in prisons actually had a mental illness that, if it was treated, they wouldn't be there, so we need to get on top of those things too. If he can bring all of that together and tackle it, then there is a hope of getting it down, but to 30%? That's a big call. Damian, I asked him about the bail laws there, and obviously Kelvin Davis has raised it before. He seemed to be indicating that judges were being overcautious applying bail laws, meaning that a number of people were turned down for bail; they sit in jail waiting for their court date, and he was saying some of them are waiting for 15, 18 months, and that's unacceptable. How does that message play politically? Because there was a lot of public outcry about too many people getting bail before. Has the pendulum gone in the opposite direction? Are we chucking too many in jail while they wait for their court cases? Yeah, I think that's the argument, and that's the cases we made. I think that example of the 15, 18 months people waiting is crazy. But I think one of the things was missing from it is that we need to speed up the court process so that people are actually getting to have their day in court faster. And that, I think, is the bit that's missing. I mean, there are definitely people, probably, who are remanded on bail who probably shouldn't be, but there are also cases of people who have been let out and then they've committed heinous crimes, killed people, so we don't want it to swing too far the other way either. But I think if you speed up the process and have their day in court we can actually have justice served, and then they can either go to prison or they can be let free as innocent, and that's the bit I think is missing, and that's the bit I think they should be focusing on as well. Toby, already Amy Adams has been on the Twitter ` used to be the justice minister, obviously ` says, 'Blaming judges for not applying the laws well ` 'extraordinary comments from Andrew Little.' He was obviously trying to be very diplomatic in what he was saying, but he was clear there needs to be a review, he said, of consistency of sentencing and application of bail laws. Yeah, you could say that was implicit that there was some criticism there of the judges. And I don't know. I mean, clearly there is good reason to try and get some consistency across the board. Whether or not that sentencing board is the answer to it, I don't know. On the whole, there's a lot of ambition there, the philosophy is there, but at the moment there doesn't quite seem to be a plan. They've only been in government 10 minutes, so let's give them a chance. But they've been in opposition nine years. (LAUGHTER) There's not really a plan to join all those dots, I think. No, because when I asked him about whether he was going to keep a target for reducing Maori reoffending, it took a long time to say, 'Yes, but we haven't got one yet.' Yeah. And I don't know how much tension there is there between Andrew Little and Kelvin Davis because Kelvin Davis has slightly more radical ideas about the way to fix that really massive institutional problem in the New Zealand justice corrections system. One of the things that did work really well and where Maori from outside the Corrections area were having a lot of input was when we had the private prison at Mt Eden, and there were a group of five iwi and also some Pacific Island interaction there too to take a guardianship role of those who were there. That sort of went when the private prison went. And, look, if we're ever going to tackle this, we've got to rehabilitate people really well too and they have to have really good robust support from the communities that they live in. Serco's private prison operation of Mt Eden wasn't exactly a success, though. No, it was the group before Serco that were actually doing that. You're talking about the programme, not the operators of the prison. Yes, exactly right. Maybe transplant the programme somewhere. Damian, you were going to say...? I was just going to say I wonder how much of Andrew Little's hesitance to go too far on it is in relation to their coalition party, because New Zealand First has been very much tough on crime, 'We need to get tough on more policemen,' all that kind of stuff, and Labour has been less so, but now they've got to work with New Zealand First; they've got to keep them happy. Keep the peace. They've got three years. I wonder how much of that is New Zealand First sort of holding them back a little bit. He seems very relaxed now that he's not in the leadership, Damian. Can you relate to that? Yeah, it looks like a weight's been lifted off his shoulders, like you said. He seems much happier. I think his thing now is he had a good go at the leadership. Obviously it didn't work out. I think he made a bold and quite a brave decision to resign, especially late in the piece. But I think he's enjoying it. It looks like he's got some things he can do. He feels like he's adding some value, he's achieving some things. I can absolutely relate to that. They got the timing just right, didn't they? They did, yeah. If only Peter Dunne had done a similar thing two months out, then you could be the prime minister. (LAUGHTER) Yeah, well, there you go. Next time. Toby, I think the interesting thing with him, though, is he still won't own that he was kind of potentially the hero in that scenario. He can't say straight out, 'I made a great decision, yes. It worked out really well.' Yeah, and you even asked him, I think, 'in some ways'; you gave him an opportunity to say, 'Sure in some ways it was a good` very kind of holding the line', you know. He is, but he's naturally modest. That's just the way he is. And that's part of his success, I think. He did the right thing at the right time. For the Labour Party, he's the unsung hero of their success, and he's the minister so far who has stepped up and is really starting to make some traction, I think. He's going to be a good minister. And that grin at the end. He's comfortable now where he is. Yeah. Phil Goff ` we had him on talking about the rates there. He was very strident at the end of the interview about not paying hosting rights for the America's Cup. He's prepared to lose it rather than pay up; he doesn't have the money. Should the government pay up? What should happen? Well, I'm glad you held his feet to the fire over that because the accommodation they found last week was much cleaner than many expected. We expected more of a fight over that. But you don't want to see this kind of endless leaking of money out towards a project. I don't know. I mean, ugh, it's a boat race. They're going to always want more money. I think he's right to be fiscally responsible. These events come along, and if the money is spent on those ` from, you know, the Auckland ratepayer is paying that ` then there are other projects that can't be done that might have greater importance for the city long-term, so he's right to be. I think the government does have a role, and if this particular government could get over its philosophical objection to private-public partnerships, then a lot could be done in that space. All right. We've got to go to a break. Stick around. After the break, we'll look at some of the things that could be making news next week. Welcome back. You're with The Nation and our panel. There's a few other interesting things that were happening in politics this week. And one that got a lot of press play was Golriz Ghahraman, who has worked as a lawyer prosecuting and, it turns out, defending war criminals. And this caused a bit of a stink. Do you think it was a storm in a teacup, Toby, or was there some real issue? Uh, yeah, mostly. The two main charges were, one, over whether or not it's ethically defensible to defend people accused of war crimes, and pretty much everyone agrees that, yes, that's part of human rights, that's part of human rights, and the Criminal Bar Association and the Law Society have come to her defence on that. The other part of it is whether there was a cover-up, and on that charge too, Ghahraman was talking to journalists about it openly, volunteering this information, so the idea that she was trying to supress this... Though, the one bit on which they do hang a little is that on the Green website it had kind of given a false impression, and that's because we all want everyone to be heroes, but it feels like a slightly wild overreaction. What did you think, Damian? James Shaw did misspeak. In one of her speeches he did talk about her being a prosecutor. And he's admitted that it was a misunderstanding and he misspoke, which I thought was quite brave of him, really. You know, politicians admitting they're wrong and saying, you know, 'This was my mistake. Sorry for it.' We should, you know, be happy with that kind of thing. We should encourage that. There is an issue, though. You do need to be upfront. These things always find you out, and she was a bit disingenuous. You know, being a prosecutor's a nice fuzzy thing, and being a defender of somebody who's done terrible things isn't so good, and people do punish that sort of disingenuity. But she's a new, inexperienced MP, and she has to decide, actually, whether she wants to go down in history as the refugee MP or whether she's now got a position where she can make a difference to New Zealanders and forge ahead with that, and I think that that, actually, is something she needs to think carefully about about how she wants to become known. And I didn't think that James Shaw needed to apologise. It would be better, actually, had she, 'Look, I'm sorry if people were confused about that. 'That was never our intention, and this is what I want to do going forward.' It would've been a much better way to handle it. Is this really what the Green Party wanted people to remember being for this week? OK, so transparency is another issue. This coalition document that exists that we haven't been able to see yet because Jacinda Ardern reckons it's not an official document, and also we haven't seen any briefings to incoming ministers, which are the documents that are prepared for them. This government said it was going to be a transparent government, Toby. Yeah, Claire Curran was in the House this week saying they were going to be the most transparent government of all time, and, you know, the benches opposite were laughing, you know, genuinely, rather than performatively, because, you know, just this week you've got this 38-page coalition agreement, notes, whatever shrunk to 33 pages. Soon they're gonna write it on a grain of rice and stick it away` I'd love to know what font decreases it by that amount. Yeah, well, the discussion of typography in Parliament has been second to none. But it is problematic for them. They're vulnerable on this, you know, because you can't go around saying that you're going to be this wonderful, transparent government. We need to see it now. We need to see reform of the OIA process in law. We need to see pre-emptive release as much as possible, because otherwise they're really risking` Well, the briefing to incoming ministers, it's become a tradition now that they always go up on websites and are publically available. Why would you have a stoush over something so unnecessary? Yeah, I mean, they're going to release it. It's about timing, though, yeah. So, Damian, do you think we should get a gander at this 'non-coalition coalition' document? Yeah, well, initially, I thought, 'Oh, I couldn't care less,' but the less they wanted to release it, the more I wanted to know what was on it. What have they got on it? What does it say? Everybody wants to know now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's given birth to these theories and reports that it might contain this clause that Winston Peters will step in if for some reason Jacinda Ardern is incapacitated. And, you know, that seems fanciful, but, you know, yeah, exactly, tell us either way. And initially Winston was happy to release it, so something's changed there. What is it? Hey, speaking of Winston Peters, a little spat has exploded when Susan Devoy has said that he apparently called her fat, and this is in an encounter or speech almost 30 years ago. What's going on here do you think, Heather? I don't know. It's hard to fathom, isn't it? But never, ever comment on a woman's weight. That's the lesson, isn't it? Yeah, because they don't forget. Even that far on. Yeah, 30... He denied it. He said... He said that her memory is faulty, but 30 years on from now, he'll deny that he said her memory was faulty, when he's still Deputy Prime Minister. What he's claiming now is, he's saying, 'I didn't say she was fat; I said she wasn't fit.' Which I think is like mincing words, really. And then wouldn't explain what he meant by it. Yeah, which is kind of an admission without actually saying it. Yeah. He meant it. And in the perfect set this week also, the water tax. It appears that this plan to tax foreign water exporters ` to put a levy on that ` is not possible. That's the advice because of free trade agreements. Winston Peters sort of went, 'Eh, who cares?' and David Parker said, 'Mm, we're going to have to look at this.' Is this an example of when you promise stuff in a coalition agreement, when you come down to the nitty-gritty, it doesn't always work? Yeah, this is how it works. You've got two parties. One is the Deputy Prime Minister who's going out and saying contradictory things to a senior minister in the leading party of government. And it's probably quite a useful little test case for them to go, 'How are we going to manage this?' That's the challenge ` how do you manage that? And there's going to be a lot more fo that to come. Three parties who disagree ` sometimes are polar opposites in some issues ` how that's going to be managed is a real challenge particularly for Labour. Damian, do they need to get their stories straight in public? Yeah, they absolutely do. And this is not even a controversial one. Wait until they hit immigration ` some of the ones that there are differences between the Greens and New Zealand First ` Labour is going to really have to get their game on if they're going to try and keep it together. So, first month they're already starting to hit some wobbles, which is a concern for them. Keep watching. All right. Thanks for that. Here are some of the things that could be making the news next week. Quotable Valuation releases its House Price Index on Wednesday. On Thursday, the office of the Children's Commission puts out its annual Child Poverty Monitor. And the second part of a report into the Hastings water contamination scare is going to be released on Friday. But that's all from us for now. We will catch you again next weekend. See you then. Captions by Madison Batten, Florence S. Fournier and Desney Shaw. 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.