Today on Newshub Nation, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis on his new plan to reduce the number of Maori prisoners. Green Party Leader James Shaw addressed criticism over his new Zero Carbon Bill. And we look into allegations MPI is bungling its response to the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 Kia ora, good morning. I'm Emma Jolliff. And I'm Simon Shepherd. Welcome to Newshub Nation. National is calling on the Housing Minister, Phil Twyford, to resign after he failed to commit to the government's target of building 100,000 affordable KiwiBuild homes in 10 years. Instead, they're talking of a policy reset. But there were mixed messages from the government, with Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters saying the target is easily achievable, and there could even be more than 100,000 homes built. The Prime Minister wouldn't commit to a specific number, saying just that the government's goal is to increase the number of first home buyers who can afford a home. The KiwiBuild reset is planned for June. Yes or no, will KiwiBuild deliver 100,000 homes over 10 years? That's one of many things that the KiwiBuild reset is considering. A new $27 million clean energy centre for Taranaki will focus on energy like off-shore wind, solar batteries and hydrogen, after the government last year banned new off-shore oil and gas exploration permits. An additional $20 million research fund has been set up to explore new energy technology over four years. And the government has introduced its Zero Carbon Bill, promising to make it legally binding to restrict climate change to 1.5 degrees within 30 years. It splits greenhouse gas targets, reducing biological emissions like methane by up to 47% by 2050 and carbon dioxide to net zero. Critics say the bill lacks any ability to enforce the target or punish those who don't comply. Maori make up 15% of New Zealand's population but half of our prison population. If Maori imprisonment rates matched those of non-Maori, prison numbers would drop by 44% ` more than the government's 30% reduction target. The Waitangi Tribunal found in 2017 that the government's lack of action to address that overrepresentation is a breach of its treaty obligations. Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis has just unveiled a new pathway programme to help reduce Maori reoffending, and he joins me now. Kia ora, good morning. Thanks for coming in. Morena, Simon. So the Waitangi Tribunal recommended that the government set data-driven and measureable targets for reducing Maori reoffending. So have you set that, and what is your target? Well, let me start like this, Simon, I came into politics to make a difference for our people ` our Maori people. The incarceration rate of our people is something that cannot be tolerated anymore, so what we are doing here is establishing a pathway for Maori throughout the prison system until after they've left prison. This is a part of the Wellbeing Budget that has brought together Corrections, Whanau Ora and the Ministry of Social Development. The Finance Ministers asked us to pool our resources and our skills together, so that we can give this pathway for Maori prisoners from the time they enter the prison system till well after they've left. Now, this has been based upon a visit that I made to Hawke's Bay Prison last year. We went into a unit, we were greeted with a porwhiri, we had a challenge, we had speeches, and we shared food with them. I sat down later with the prisoners, and they said, 'This is a wonderful programme, but there's only one problem.' I said, 'What's that?' They said, 'It only goes for 13 weeks.' And it was a lightbulb moment for me, and I thought, 'Well, if we can do it for 13 weeks, why can't we do it for the duration of the sentence?' Which is what you've outlined yesterday, but let's go back to that question ` are you setting a target for reducing Maori reoffending? Well, you know that we have set a target to reduce the prison population by 30% over 15 years. True, but in particular have you set a Maori target? Well, this is all part of that process. Will you be doing that? I would like to see the target down to 15% because that's the population of Maori ` in general population is 15%. That's an aspirational goal that we're heading towards. So if you've got that 15% target, you would blow away that other target of 30% reduction. As we said, you would reduce the prison population by 44%. Is that achievable? Look, Maori deserve it. Maori deserve it because what we've got now is a situation that Maoridom just cannot sustain, having our young people locked up. That's why we're targeting the hard-to-reach prisoners. People` The cohort that are 30 years and under, they're the people that are most likely to go on and re-offend. What we want to do is break the cycle of inter-generational imprisonment. I was at a prison last year where there was a man, his father and his grandfather in prison. We've got to stop that. Maoridom depends on this succeeding. So it's a 'tough nut to crack', you call it. Is this just high-security prisoners that you are targeting with this $98 million initiative? Well, that's something new. This is a systemic change. What normally happens is when prisoners enter prison they're high-security, and they have to work their way down to low-security before they get access to rehabilitation programmes. So when you say targeting high-security, is that in the initial stages? So we're targeting people` Well, as soon as they enter they're high-security. We're targeting people from the very start of their sentence, and they will be by-definition, high-security. This is a big change for Corrections. This is what I'm saying. This isn't about tinkering around the fringes and the edges. This is about systemic change. So you're targeting high-security prisoners who are just in there at the beginning, and you released this at Ngawha Prison yesterday, but the Corrections Association tells us there are only two high-security prisoners there. Why would you target that, and are you going to have to change Ngawha Prison into a more maximum security place? This is what I'm saying. This is about changing the system, and there will be changes, and Corrections understands that. This is about, actually` When I went around last year doing my engagement hui with Te Arawhiti, Maori said to me, 'Look, we're sick of the Crown coming around 'and telling us this is what you're going to do for you, this is what we're going to do, 'and you're going to love it.' Instead what we're doing is we're going out to Maori and we're saying, 'You tell us what we have to do differently.' So that our people, when they leave prison, they leave as better people. I understand it's a holistic approach, and it's a pathway. Let's get to the specifics. You're going to change Ngawha Prison ` its operating model. Yes? I have said to Corrections, we have to make systemic change here. Those sorts of decisions are the decisions that Corrections will make based on the collaboration that they have with local Maori. So will there be more high-security prisoners at Ngawha as a result of this? Oh, quite possibly, but it's not just at Ngawha. This is also at Hawke's Bay Prison. So we're starting in two prisons. We hope to extend it into ` for example ` women's prisons because we know that women, Maori women, make up over 60% of the prison population. Okay. Why not target high-security prisons like Auckland Prison, which is the only specialist security` Well, we're targeting Northland prison ` Northland Regional Correctional Facility. That was actually set up almost like a kaupapa Maori prison, but it never became that because of the numbers in the prison system going up and up and up. Now that we've reduced the prison population by some 7% in the last year, we've got greater flexibility to make changes. I'm going to come on to that in a moment, but the Corrections Association says that to be eligible for this kind of pathway, it should be earnt, it should be a privilege. Is that how it's going to work? Look, what I can tell you is that it's not a privilege to be in prison, and we have to do things differently` No, it's a punishment to be in prison. Absolutely. So they're still in prison, but we're saying that when people enter prison, through to the time that they leave, we want them to leave as better people. So the punishment is having their liberty denied, but we have to do things differently for Maori. That's why this is a systemic change. I've been challenged that on the House things that I couldn't make systemic change. This is systemic change, and it's been driven by the Wellbeing Budget. Gang members reoffend more than other prisoners. So a government briefing paper notes that Maori make up 90% of New Zealand's two biggest gangs. So how will this programme target or help gang members? This will help Maori, and actually it's not only for Maori. This is about grounding people in their language, their culture. This is about history and whakapapa. This is about bringing whanau in as well because we know that whanau ` the engagement of whanau in rehabilitation is essential. But it will make it really difficult for whanau to be involved. This is one of the changes that Corrections is going to have to grapple with. How do we actually allow whanau to be part of their loved ones rehabilitation, so that when the prisoner emerges they're not a stranger to the whanau? I understand that it's the holistic approach, but in particular, gang members are the ones who reoffend. So will there be a particular part of this programme that targets them? That would bring down the reoffending numbers. Well, gang members will be part of it. This whole programme is` So not in particular? There's just` aimed at Maori. Well, it's aimed at all people, but it's going to be based on kaupapa Maori ` Maori values, Maori history. If other people want to be involved in that, they're more than welcome. The big thing is over 50% of the people in prison are Maori. We have to do things differently, and that's why we're driving the systemic change. You already spend` Well, Corrections already spends $200 million each year on rehabilitation, but government advice that we've seen says that those programmes are less effective because of the over-crowding. So how can this pathway be any more successful given the prison system is pretty much maxed-out. Yeah, well, we've reduced the prison population by 7% in the last year, and it gives us greater flexibility to do things, but we have to do things differently. So the cost to the country is greater if we don't. So the cost of this programme, actually, is the same as having 10 lifers in prison. So there's people out there that'll be saying, 'The cost of it. The cost of it.' I'm saying, 'Well, there's some people that know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.' You have to make it effective, and you've got overcrowded prisons. I know you said it's reduced by 7%, but again, your target is supposed to be 1500 less by the end of this year. You're only halfway there at the moment, so how are you going to get there? No, I've always said that we were going to reduce the prison population by 30% over 15 years. And in fact, I expected the prison population to continue going up until our initiatives started to kick in and would take all of those 15 years to make that 30% reduction` But we can't afford for the prison population to go up anymore. We don't have the space. No, but that was the trend that was under the previous government was always going to happen. I didn't expect us to have such success so soon. I knew that we can reduce the prison population. This isn't the whole solution. This is just part of the solution, and Corrections has got many more. I keep challenging them to come up with the next initiative` You talk about your success, right? Your success in reducing? But the safe maximum capacity according to notes that we've seen ` Corrections notes ` is 9161, and we're seeing around 10,000. You're still 900 away from that. Yeah, and that's the legacy of the previous government, whose policy was, every three or four years, to build a billion dollar American style mega prison. We've said that that is not sustainable. We can't continue that. And we're doing things differently. OK, and your policy is to bring in pop-up modular prison units, and they haven't existed, they're not in place yet, are they? No, that's right, and even under the previous Government, they wouldn't exist yet. And yet, if the previous Government was still in, the population would be closer to 12,000 now. So we've averted a catastrophe. The prison population is hovering around 10,000, or is just under 10,000 on Thursday. We're making a difference in this area. It's very, very hard, it's difficult, but we're up for the challenge. One quick thing ` can you guarantee that if you're going to let prisoners out of high-security for more cell time, for rehabilitation, that prison officers are going to be safe? Can you guarantee that? Look, this isn't about letting them out of high-security, this is about managing the situation so that they're still in high-security, but they can still participate in this` And so you can guarantee the safety of the prison officers who are going to be overseeing this? Yeah, absolutely. And this is part of us working together with Corrections, working with Maori, working with the Corrections unions to make sure that we do this in a safe way. Kelvin Davis, thank you very much for your time. Kia ora. If you've got something to say about what you see on our show, let us know. We're on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. NewshubNationNz. Our Twitter panel this week is John Hart and Lewis Holden. They're using the hashtag #NationNz or you can email us at nation@mediaworks.co.nz. The address is on your screen now. And still to come ` James Shaw on whether his Zero Carbon Bill has enough teeth to create real change. Plus, economist Kate Raworth on how something called 'doughnut economics' could cure our addiction to growth. Welcome back. Critics of the government's Zero Carbon Bill introduced this week say 'it lacks teeth', with no powers of enforcement or punishment. And farmers say the methane targets are unrealistic. Minister for Climate Change James Shaw joins me now. Thank you very much for coming in, Minister. Good morning. Farmers say methane targets have tipped from 'aspirational' to 'no chance'. Have you set them up to fail? No, absolutely not. In fact, the previous Government set up a team called the Biological Emissions Reference Group, and they produced a report in October of last year that had a medium-to-high degree of confidence that they could achieve between 22% and 48%, which is almost identical to the IPCC range that we've suggested. But the IPCC scientists can't even agree on appropriate targets it seems. How can you be sure you've got the right measure? So the IPCC is` the report that came out last year had a range of scenarios, and a number of those scenarios said this is what has to happen globally with methane if you're going to stay within 1.5 degrees of global warming. And because we didn't have the consensus here in New Zealand about what it would take for New Zealand, that's why we've suggested that range, and we've set up a review immediately for the new commission to give us a more definitive response, cos we understand a range does create some uncertainty. We've heard farmers say that 5% could be realistic if best practice is used. That's a long way short, though, isn't it? What do you say to that? Well, um, they're not the only voice in the industry, and actually` Pretty important one, though. Well, they are, that's true. But, like I said, the Biological Emissions Reference Group itself said that they felt that they could do 10% in 10 years, and 22% to 48% in the out years. That does depend on some technology, but actually, a lot of the leading companies, like Fonterra and Synlait, are already getting a 10% gain on-farm just by the adoption of best practice. You mention technology ` farmers also say it is impossible to meet those targets without the technology to help them do that. How are you going to help them do that? Well, we've got some announcements that are coming up fairly soon. We understand that` In the budget? Well, I can't talk about the budget, but, you know, there will be assistance to help farmers shift and also other industries as well. You've got to remember, I mean, there's a lot of attention on the methane target, but actually, you've got industries like the steel mill, for example, that have got to get down to net-zero. Currently, technology does not exist for them to be able to do that too. So the whole point of this is that, actually, over the course of the coming 30 years, you've got to see billions of dollars of investment in research and development, new industries, new technologies and so on. And it doesn't` it's not just about farmers. It's about all of us. It's got to effect, like I said, steel, aluminium, cement, transport, I mean, virtually every part of the economy has got to see some shift. You've set up this $100 million Green Investment Fund as part of the confidence and supply with the Government ` is that going to be enough money? No, absolutely not. I mean, that is really, just, sort of an icebreaker for what's going to happen. But, if you saw, there was a press release this week from a large investors group representing billions and billions of dollars of investment in Australia and New Zealand ` they're strongly supporting the Zero Carbon Bill, because what they see, as investors, is that when you've got that long-term signal, it gives them the kind of certainty that they need to be able to deploy the kind of capital that it's going to take to shift the economy. So the Green Investment Fund is really about the Government saying, well, we've got skin in the game, and actually, there are some areas where if you structure the deal a bit differently, then actually you can start to see things happening that haven't happened before. Where is that investment fund at? Because it was announced in December. It's been set up as a company ` is that right? Where's that`? Yeah, that's right. Well, they're literally moving in to their premises in the next few weeks. So they should start to be able to start making some deployments of capital before Christmas. What about some innovation that already exists? Genetically engineered rye grass, for example, has been developed in the US, but that's been ruled out here because of our GE-free policy. Would that be revisited? Well, so there's a debate about that, which comes down to, not just the science, but also what it means in terms of brand. So, for example, in the Hawke's Bay, you've got a very strong move over there for a 100% organic, GE-free food production region, and they think that that's because they think they'll be able to get higher premiums on their product to be able to use that brand. So there is, obviously, the scientific question, but actually, you've got to balance that out against ` do consumers want that, as well? And what impact would that have on the value of the product that our farmers are producing? So is that a yes or no? No, I'm just saying, it's a reasonable debate, but it's not` you know, there is a question about the science, but actually that's not the only part of the debate. And I don't think that we're there yet in terms of where we want to land on that. I don't think that that debate's been had properly in this country yet. So farmers are feeling singled out on this with the methane. Yet you told us a year ago, the greatest gain in the shortest period of time could be made in transport, which is responsible for 40% of our emissions. When are we going to see some incentives for EVs? When are we going to see some announcements about what's going to happen in that space? Soon. (LAUGHS) Can you be a bit more specific, Minister? I'm afraid I can't. We've been waiting a long time. No, I know. Yeah, that's right. And I have to say, look, that this has been disappointing for me. I was hoping that we'd be able to move sooner on that. There are some peculiarities to do with the structure of the New Zealand vehicle market that are different from, say, Norway, which is literally one in two cars sold over in Norway now is an electric vehicle, because the structure of the incentives and everything that they've set up. But there are some complicating factors here, and it has meant that it's had to take us longer. Why are they complicating factors? Can you`? Well, because, basically, if you look in the OECD, we're a comparatively low income country in the OECD. And one of the ways that we offset the fact that we're low income is by buying cheap second-hand vehicles. And we don't have any existing emissions standards. And so there is a distributional impact, which when you're going to structure this, that you've got to be mindful of the impact on low income families. So we are committed to solving that. But it does mean that it's not as simple as doing what Norway have done with a straight subsidy on EVs upfront. The Zero Carbon Bill ` these are nationwide targets ` how will you know who's pulling their weight and who isn't? Well, we've already got a sense, you know, industry by industry, what our emissions are, because we've been reporting for 20 years on what our emissions are. We've, in fact, just released the 2017 inventory a few weeks ago to say, you know, 'Here is what our profile looks like. Here's what it means for different industries.' And so that kind of information already exists. Now, in some places, it's not terribly specific, and we've got to get a bit better about that, but we're investing in that too. New Zealand First has claimed responsibility for the Climate Change Commission having no statutory independence. Is the Green Party being an effective enough advocate in this arrangement for the environment, do you think? Yes, we are. I have to say, that when it comes down to the structure of the Commission, you know, we got a lot of feedback last year` a very strong majority of feedback in the public consultation that said that they wanted Parliament to be the final decision maker, and so that's why we opted for the Commission to have an advisory role, rather than a decision-making role. And, you know, if people have changed their minds about that, and they want it to have a decision-making role, well, they can bring that up in select committee. But it was something like 75% to 80% of public submissions wanted Parliament to have the final say in that. Just quickly on the 'toothless' criticism ` no enforcement and no punishment. What do you say to it being 'toothless'? It's not strictly no enforcement. The difficulty is actually in the timing, right? So if you had a climate change minister in the year 2050, and we don't hit our target, well, that climate change minister can't be held responsible for not hitting the target, because the decisions that meant that we didn't hit the target would've occurred a decade or two previously. So what we do have in the bill is mechanisms to make sure that those decision makers, you know, they are judicially reviewable, and there are accountability mechanisms in place. All right, we'll leave it there. James Shaw, Climate Change Minister, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. British economist Kate Raworth is set to open the Auckland Writers Festival on Monday. The author of 'Doughnut Economics' was also one of the key speakers at the government's 'Just Transition' summit in Taranaki this week. She says we must stop our addiction to growth and instead focus on thriving within our ecological boundaries. I asked her how she came up with the model. It's an economics that's fit for the 21st century, because we need to re-write economics for the times we actually live in. And it starts with the idea of a doughnut. And it sounds ridiculous, but I think this is the shape of human prosperity of this century. So imagine a doughnut ` the kind of hole in the middle. The hole in the middle is the place where people are falling short on the essentials of life. It's where people don't have the resources they need to meet their rights to food and water, healthcare, education, housing. We want nobody left in the hole. But at the same time, we can't overshoot the outer ring of the doughnut, because there we put so much pressure on this extraordinary, delicately-balanced living planet that we begin to kick our planet out of balance, and we cause climate breakdown, and we acidify the oceans and cause catastrophic loss of species. So the challenge is to leave no one in the hole, without overshooting the outer limits, to meet the needs of all people within the means of the planet. You end up with this doughnut-shaped image of 21st century prosperity, and I think this is the beginnings of a new direction we need to go in. We're already failing on both counts, aren't we? We're failing to provide people enough water, nourishment, shelter. We've already got` As you say, we've broken through these ecological boundaries ` we've got acidification, air pollution. We're failing, aren't we? At the global scale, we absolutely are failing ourselves and the planet, our living home. And I think it's partly because 20th century economics was obsessed with the idea that progress can be measured in GDP, national income, and it looked like this ever-rising line of growth rising up endlessly. But that progress that came with growing incomes, yes, for many people they had rising incomes and more material goods, but so many people have been left behind by that. When we start from the vision that the doughnut sets out, putting human rights and ecological integrity at the centre of the picture, it calls on us to reimagine what economic progress is and come up with new economic theories that are fit for our times. It's not an easy challenge. But I seriously think that this is the economic rethinking we have to do if we're going to thrive in the 21st century. Why are we so obsessed with GDP, and how do we get over that addiction? Yeah, the story of GDP is fascinating. It goes back to the US Congress in the 1930s. America could only measure its national output in terms of tons of grain and tons of steel, and they wanted to put them together, so they asked this brilliant young American economist, Simon Kuznets, could he come up with a single number? And he did. That's what we know as national income. But when he produced this number, he also came with a caveat. He said that the welfare of a nation could in no way be measured by this number, because it doesn't take account of the unpaid caring work that goes on in the household. It doesn't take account of what goes on in communities and the value created there. It just measures the flow of value. It doesn't talk about the stocks that we run down of the living world. So Kuznets saw all the problems right from the outset. But, of course, the temptation of this one single number that he offered was too great. Because growth has always been associated with more, hasn't it? Growth ` this idea of ever-rising increase ` it's a very powerful metaphor, actually, in human lives. I mean, we love to see our children grow. The first thing our kids do is crawl and stand up, right? So we see them rising and getting taller and their feet getting bigger. I have 10-year-old kids. If my children literally carried on growing forever, they wouldn't be able to sit at my kitchen table and have a meal. They would no longer literally belong in the household, but we've created economies that expect, demand and depend upon continual growth because of the design of our financial system and our political systems, and that is the economic question of our time. How can we actually turn our economies into economies that thrive whether or not they grow endlessly? We have a growing middle class. The OECD says that it will grow from three billion next year to five billion in 2030. What's that going to mean for demand for our planet's resources? So that growing global middle class is growing in the right place. It's people in the world who, until now, have not been able to meet their kids' needs for food and water and housing and healthcare and education. Every person in the world has a right to meet those needs, and we're seeing people come out of living on less than $10 a day to being just above that ` that's the bottom of the global middle class. We need to make way for countries like India and Indonesia and countries across Africa to be able to use more resources to meet people's needs, and that's why higher income countries need to rapidly cut their resource use and be far smarter to make way for others to have the basics of life. Let's take it down to a micro level. What does doughnut economics mean for the average consumer? Well, first, I think of ourselves not just as consumers, but as citizens. So, yes, we go shopping, and we buy things, but we're also interacting in our neighbourhoods and our communities. It's as much about changing our lifestyles. So, for example, in doughnut economics, we all want mobility. We all need to move around and get to places, but let's move away from the idea that that means that you have to have a car that you own that sits outside your house 22 hours a day, and then you drive it for two hours a day. What we really want is not the car, it's the mobility. But it also means changing the way we eat. Moving from meat-intensive diets to plant-based diets, because that is one of the biggest transformations any individual can make in their life ` eating a far healthier diet. Being part of an economy where we use and re-use and mend and make things ourselves. It actually brings craft and culture back into our own lives, which many people feel that they're missing. We've got the Wellbeing Budget coming up at the end of this month. Have you seen things in that that are encouraging to you? New Zealand's a really interesting pioneer of putting at the front-and-centre of national budgeting this broader dashboard perspective of wellbeing, and the Wellbeing Budget that comes through will be watched worldwide to see what does it look like when a country starts with a different paradigm, a different starting point of wellbeing and actually turns it into economic policy? So I'm looking to see ` how does that budget re-invest in restoring and regenerating the living world? How does it invest in families and communities in a way that actually prioritises human wellbeing, rather than that ever-rising line of GDP that every country until now has been addicted to? How quickly do we need to act? The IPCC says we've got 12 years to get our climate down. We've had the Zero Carbon Bill introduced this week that's going to make it legally binding to keep warming to 1.5 degrees in the next 30 years. Does that go far enough? So it's great that New Zealand is coming on-board with other countries that are leading in bringing a net-zero carbon emissions target into law. And I think we're going to see a raft of countries following behind, wishing that they had been amongst the first. It's one thing, though, to have a target for 2050 or 2040 or wherever that is ` it's still far away. What we need to see is action now. So I would be looking not just to get that long-term target in place, but what policies are going to be enacted tomorrow that actually start making that true now? All right. Kate Raworth, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Up next, we tackle the weekend politics with our panel. Plus, we look at the human cost of the government's attempts to eradicate the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis. Welcome back, I'm joined now by our panel ` Greenpeace Executive Director, Russel Norman, ProCARE's Head of Equity and Maori Health Outcomes Lance Norman, and Phil O'Reilly from business consultancy Iron Duke Partners. Thanks for your time this morning. Lance, first to you. Kelvin Davis is talking about 15% as an aspirational target for Maori in Prison ` achievable? I think it's achievable. It is aspirational. It's achievable, but you've gotta have a lot of resource put into that initiative, and you've gotta get it right, and you've gotta get it right really quickly. So it is good to have that target, but it is an aspirational target. So $98 million is the amount that they've allocated, Russel, is that enough? Look, over four years, obviously it's not very much money at all. In fact, for such a transformational objective, which I think we can all agree is important, it's a pretty small amount of money. I think one of the interesting things that I'd be interested to hear the Government talk about is what impact decriminalising cannabis would have in terms of the prison population, as well. Because that's one of the problems with the current cannabis laws ` is that a lot of people end up in the criminal system just for using cannabis. OK, but first of all, they have to address our overcrowded prisons. So how can rehabilitation work, Phil, if you can't actually service the prison population, cos it's too big. Well you've got to try some new approaches, don't you? I mean we've done some work with employers over the last year or so on whether they'd be up for employing people just out of prison, and they are. So we need to have a forecourt press on this, what we're doing right now is just absolutely outrageous. We imprison young Maori men on a per capita basis more than almost anyone else in the world. It's an incredibly high prison population, so that experimental approach is the right idea. But also, I think, thinking about how you keep young men out of prison, but then make sure they don't go back to prison. I think it needs to be a much more rounded kind of approach. OK, but Lance, I think the amount of money allocated right upfront, is that enough to actually get this underway? I don't think it is enough. Like, when we think $100 million, but you break it over four years, as Russel was saying, it's $25m a year. But it's actually not equally allocated. It's actually small front-loading in with big impact. So you'd like to see more kick-in upfront? I would've done a big upfront investment. But also it's good that we're seeing the Ministers across MSD, Whanau Ora and Corrections working together, cos it is a joint responsibility across those Ministries. And so if you can co-invest and co-design systems for our people, that's gonna be much better than having an isolated, individual focus. Let's talk about some other aspirational goals ` the Zero Carbon Bill out this week, Russel. You've called it toothless, has the Minister changed your mind? He says that future Ministers can't be held responsible if they don't meet the targets. It plainly is toothless. I mean, it's designed to be toothless. I mean, Subpart 5 of the Bill is absolutely black and white that none of it's enforceable, that Government Ministries can't be held to account if they don't abide by the targets. OK, but is this the best that the Greens could do in a coalition environment? Well, I think that that may well be the case. I mean, arguably there's a majority in Parliament between National and New Zealand First against action on climate change, and that's the problem they've got. But then they should just say that. And we shouldn't pretend that this is action on climate change when it isn't. Because, you know, I think what we need to be saying to people is it's gonna be people power that makes this happen, this bill won't achieve it, cos it can't. It's designed not to. So I think it's important not to mislead people that somehow this is action on climate change when it isn't. All right, but the farmers, clearly, are unhappy with the targets outlined in this. And they're saying they've got no chance of actually reaching these targets. Phil, what does the Government need to do to get them onboard? Invest heavily in research and development, actually. The missing link out of the other day's announcements was ` I'm pretty comfortable with the methane target. But they've got to say to farmers, 'OK, well let's invest with you on making sure you can get good cropping technologies, 'new things on that land.' That was missing, hopefully it will come later on. Politics is the art of the possible, as a matter of fact. And the big achievement of what's been done over the last few days is that you do rather have all of the parliament onboard with quite big chunks of this legislation. And you think about the long-run issues associated with climate change, that's a good thing. So I disagree with Russel that it's toothless; I think that the hearts and minds of the parliamentarians are now relatively aligned, that's a good thing, we just need to move on. Now, lastly, I think we actually need, sort of, penalties and punishments in place to whip the New Zealand public into climate change space. Well, I'd rather not have penalties, I'd rather have incentives. So, if you front-loaded tax incentives and tax credits or invested in technology, and that was front-loaded, you're more likely to get the general community to buy into it. Penalties, per the conversation on incarceration, doesn't work. Let's focus on being positive and providing good incentives, good rebates or other ways of incentivising communities to change. OK, so, Russel, it's more a case of what policy are we going to see here. You say we've just got this aspirational thing there, it's actually the nitty-gritty we have to see to make change. Yeah. And there aren't any policies in agriculture for example. In fact, the policy in agriculture is to spend one billion dollars a year to subsidise the emissions under the emissions trading scheme, agriculture doesn't pay. So there is a very big incentive, at the moment, around greenhouse gasses in the agricultural sector. And that's to increase them, because you don't have to pay for them, the taxpayer pays for the cost of agricultural emissions. So it would be great to see ` firstly, to remove the subsidy to increase emissions. That would be a great step forward. But, you know, at the end of the day, what, as Andrew Hoggard, I think from Fed Farmers said is, 'Well, we've got to reduce the size of the herd if we're gonna achieve these goals.' And, actually, he's right. Well, that's something you agree with him on. Totally, and so, both for in terms of our water policy goals, like trying to clean up our rivers, and in terms of our climate emissions, we need to be reducing the size of the herd. And yet, this Government has ruled out a nitrogen tax, it's ruled out banning synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, it's ruled out limiting the size of the herd, reducing stocking rates, it's still paying the subsidy under the ETS. So I think that we actually need the Government to have policies to reduce emissions. All right, for the panel, we'll have to leave it there for the moment. Thank you very much for your time. Pleasure. Up next, how are farmers coping as the cattle cull continues in a bid to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis. Plus, barnyard noises and MP ejections, we take a look at what happened this week in the House. Welcome back. It's the biggest biosecurity response our country has seen in decades, and we're spending millions of taxpayer dollars trying to get rid of it. So a year into the efforts to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis, how are we tracking? A Newshub Nation investigation has discovered serious issues involving animal tracing and culling and farmer welfare. Investigations reporter Michael Morrah has the story. It's a debilitating, largely hidden and incurable disease spreading across rural New Zealand. As the government pushes to rid our farms of Mycoplasma bovis, animals are being rounded up for slaughter. More than 90,000 have been culled so far. MPI has $886 million to eradicate the disease, but what about the human cost? We've got no power. On the ground, we've got no power at all. We're just along for the ride. Yeah. Sad, eh? To have this happen now it's... gutting. Yeah. MPI's mission statement to eradicate M. bovis was clear when it issued it in July last year. MPI said its eradication response would centre on the welfare of farmers, recognising the impacts on farming families and employees. But what's been the experience of those on the ground? We've heard stories of poor communication, delays in tracing high-risk animals and farmers being forced to the brink and having to sell land. It's just after seven at the milking shed at Duncan and Amanda Ferguson's farm in Oxford, about an hour from Christchurch. Push up, push up, push up, push up, push up, push up, push up. It's pretty hard milking death row cows, eh? Death row because for months they've known these animals were destined for slaughter, after MPI identified them as infected. A lot of them have got names. That's Dinky. I love those cows. Those cows are our family. She's a lovely little cow. We go to bed thinking about it, worrying about it, and we wake up and it just` For 18 months` What is it? 17 months now too long. Too long. Your drive to get out of bed's pretty hard. Today is D-Day for these animals. Push up. It's an agonising process. These cows are pregnant and need milking twice a day. (SOBS) So, so sorry. (SOBS) I'm so sorry. Guidelines for slaughter say cows should go to their nearest processer, but due to issues with space, MPI decided they would need to be taken on a five-hour trip to Blenheim. (BOTH CRYING) The couple had requested the cows were killed as soon as they arrived in Blenheim, to avoid having them languish in the concrete yard at the works. They say MPI assured them this would happen, but to be sure they follow the truck north, and soon learned the animals would not be put on grass, and the slaughter would have to wait until the morning. So this is the endless lies that we keep getting fed. Geoff Gwyn is the National Director of the M. bovis response for MPI. It's not met the promise we clearly made, and that's not good enough from my perspective. What will you do about that then? Well, ensure it doesn't happen again. And have you spoken to Duncan and Amanda about that? Uh, no. Do you have confidence, then, that it's not happening in other instances? Look, I have confidence we work hard to achieve every promise we make to farmers. So, Amanda, tell us about the significance of this herd. Back at the farm, there's another issue adding to their anxiety. Amanda took us to see cows identified as M. bovis risk animals back in December 2017. These have gone through two clear tests. 100% negative, and their notice was revoked from them and we were given the OK to be able to trade freely with them. Then, more than 15 months later, MPI changed its mind again, saying they'd need to be culled after all, regardless of the test results. You don't know what they're going to hit with you next. You actually are too scared to pick up your phone, come out of your house, because you don't know what is going to be the next email, the next phone call. The uncertainty of everything has been... The stress has been horrendous. Fortunately the animals were kept away from other herds, as if they'd been traded or mixed with other animals in the many months they were declared safe, more cows could have been infected and in turn, needlessly killed. We have made a mistake, in terms of the animals we didn't identify early enough for slaughter. So why did that mistake occur? I've apologised for that. It was human error, and I've apologised to them for that error. It sounds like incompetence. No, I don't think so, Mike. I think what it boils down to is we're working with imperfect tools. Those tools are effective enough to do our job, but what is does mean is that mistakes will occasionally be made. Further south, in the misty hills of Hakataramea Valley, in South Canterbury we met grazier, Graham Hay. Yeah, this is the last of the ones we're allowed to keep. They're some of the kids' pets and ones that we've always had. In a normal scenario, Graham would have 1600 animals grazing on his property, but most have gone to slaughter after testing positive. Pretty much the only cows left here now are his children's pets. It's always about the animals. It's always about looking after them as good as you can and doing as good a job as you can for them, so... nothing changes in that sense. But sadly, everything else here has changed significantly. He's not only lost animals and his income, he's lost his home ` land his family farmed for 98 years. It's their home. Um... Yeah, it's... Yeah, uh` Sorry. Um, yeah, it's just` It's our home. It's what we... always wanted to do. It's just what we know, and farming's always been what I wanted to do. Already under financial pressure from developing irrigation at the property, he says dealing with M. bovis has tipped him over the edge. Graham's business relied on bringing in cattle for grazing. He was locked down in 2017 on suspicion of having infected animals from another farm. When we knew about it, we effectively lost our income. The restrictions were eventually lifted, Graham then tried to start making money again by buying new stock to fatten up, only to find out a few months later that 21 of those animals were linked to a property with M. bovis. They tested negative, but MPI then told him it had found other trace animals. As time dragged on, under MPI's control, his business fell over. It was just unbelievable. Yeah, yeah... You keep thinking it's going to get better. You keep... (SIGHS) being positive that you're going to get out of this, and start a business system again. But, I mean, this is` We've been doing this for 18 months now. Graham's grandfather first came here in 1921. In the dusty sheds outside ` relics of the past. Old Clydesdale saddles, used by his ancestors to work the land almost a century ago. That's the history of this property. My father was one of the last people to give up the horse. Graham doesn't believe enough is being done to look after those affected by M. bovis, especially to compensate for projected income, like in his case. But the law, which is more than 20 years old and under review, doesn't allow for that. Compensation only covers verifiable loss. We've pretty much been chucked under the bus and backed up and over a few times just to make sure that it hurts enough. The message is ` sort out the legislation, and put proper provisions in place to look after the people who are getting really badly affected by this. In his mind, M. bovis pushed him over the edge. Do you agree with that? I'm not going to contradict Graham. Graham has ended up in a terrible place. It's not an outcome any of us wanted, and I think we've done everything we can to prevent that happening. The original source of the disease has been linked back to a farm near Winton. The worst affected areas are in the South Island, but it's spread as far north as Dargaville. MPI has said successful eradication relied on ` Stay there. That'll do. Mark Stevenson runs a sheep and beef farm near Cheviot. He says in his experience, MPI's eradication response has been slow and inaccurate. No logic or science behind some of their calls. It started with MPI identifying these bulls as trace animals, which Mark says was wrong. He says MPI was aware of the false trace but started testing anyway. Well, they were told that trace is not a trace. It doesn't exist. It's pretty poor. Well, it's bloody poor. Then MPI issued a notice to cull 153 pregnant heifers, stock valued at over $1 million. That's despite them never being near trace animals and being tested twice and cleared. Fortunately, after a lot of negotiating, Mark says the slaughter never went ahead, saving the taxpayer what would have been a big compensation bill. We've obviously listened to the case manager, and those animals weren't culled, from what I'm hearing from you. So that's the right outcome. But that was a big fight to get to that outcome. Well, I think at the end of the day, we're always receiving new information. A big part of Mark's business is his ram sale, but when MPI returned asking to do another round of testing after restrictions were lifted, he took drastic action to protect that part of his business. Got sick of it to the extent that we said that, 'How do we get rid of this affliction that is MPI?' And what did you do? We culled all the cattle we had on farm. South of Ashburton, we met Duncan Barr who feels the response to M. bovis has failed on many levels. Abysmally poor. He was notified he had animals from an infected property in May last year. An MPI investigation report shows he gave the agency names and numbers of more than a dozen other farms where suspect animals had been sent. And what happened? Nothing. They didn't follow up on the traces? No, no. That was four months ago. Why wouldn't they follow up? Incompetency. I don't know actually. Last week's meeting, I was talking to an epidemiologist from MPI there, and I was told that it was a mistake that they hadn't been done. But MPI says it's complex, and suspect farms are often prioritised differently. This diagram shows the web of traces, dozens of them linking back to the original infected property. What's the average time you're taking to track high-risk animals? Look, it's variable. In most instances we would like it to be within a month or two because we have to work our way logically through all of the high-risk traces that we're dealing with. We are catching up with the disease. We're now at a point` But it's not happening in a month or two all the time, obviously. Not all the time, no. Is that good enough? Oh, look, we continue to try and make it better. MPI says they are constantly improving their processes and eradicating the disease is something that's never been attempted. But the promise of better management has come too late for people like Graham Hay, who together with his family, are now trying to get used to the idea of farewelling the hills of Haka. I don't want to be any better off or worse off. I just want to survive. Obviously, with the signs out there, we haven't. So... yeah, I don't know. (STIRRING MUSIC) And you can see an extended cut of Michael Morrah's story on our website after the show ` newshubnation.co.nz. Stay with us. We're back after the break. Welcome back, we're back with our panel ` Russel Norman, Phil O'Reilly and Lance Norman. Thanks for your time, Phil, we saw Kate Rayworth say that we're addicted to GDP as a measure of progress. So are we still addicted or are we gonna see changes? Well, actually most economists don't just use GDP per capita growth as the target. The OECD doesn't, our Treasury doesn't, this Wellbeing Budget coming up won't. So it's entirely appropriate to use a range of targets. But to say that growth doesn't matter is simply wrong. Growth does matter, so long as it's in the context of the limits of the planet that the economists talk about. Well, that's basically what she was talking about, though. You know, this doughnut economics, that you live within the ecological boundaries. I mean, how hard is it to do that, though? Sure, we need to do that. That's what the Wellbeing Budget's all about. That's what the Treasury's Living Standards Framework is all about. But to say that growth doesn't matter is simply wrong-headed, growth does matter. It's the way we pay for things, we need to continue on with it. But we need to have a wider view of what it means. In that context, I agree with her, but to say growth doesn't matter, no, that's not right. Well, Russel, do you agree with that? Or do you think that growth should be changed to thriving as Kate Raworth said there. I think there's no doubt that GDP has become the overarching measure of economic success or failure. And, so while I agree with Phil, there are multiple other measures out there, nonetheless, GDP is the dominant measure of whether a government and an economy is being successful or not, and plainly that is extremely problematic. We cannot continue to grow our ecological footprint, the size of the dairy herd, all sorts of thing like that are causing enormous ecological harm. So, yeah, I think getting hung up on GDP is one of the problems. Yeah, but, so, you say that growth does matter, you're saying that we can't continue to grow all these kinds of things. Well, I think you need to focus on financial metrics including GDP. The interest rate is very good at the moment, unemployment rates are very low. But you have to focus on other social and education issues as well. There's no use having a lot of money in the bank when we have a high rate of family violence, we have huge incarceration in New Zealand, we have social deprivation, our mental health system isn't working. So, you know, we've gotta have a balance where we need that money to invest back in to the community. Is growth mutually exclusive to those goals? No, of course not. No, I think you can have both, yep. OK. Well, I think it can be. I mean, there's no question the way that we phrased growth in the past has been about, you know, destruction. I mean, look at what's left of the rainforest on the planet. I've been watching David Attenborough, you know, and it's like, you know, it is a massive amount of destruction as a result of this growth model. We need to change the model. Yeah, but look at climate change. You're seeing enormous amounts of money going now into new investment, new social impact investing, new green investing. That's growth, but growth of a kind that might actually help save the planet. So, I've always been a fan of growth and innovation and investment, because it can` it can destroy things, yes, but it can also grow things. You simply won't get to save the planet unless you're wealthy, and that's the conundrum that we have and that's what we need to focus on. Can we just move on to the flagship policy of Kiwibuild or 'Kiwibust.' What have people been talking about it this week. Winston Peters this week was promising more than 100,000 affordable houses, yet the Government's not committing to this policy. And so, Lance, what do you make of Winston Peters coming out and, sort of, usurping stuff like that? Well, housing is still an issue, and we should break it down to affordable housing, social housing and just housing and emergency housing as well, so` But this is a flagship issue` a flagship policy that we're talking about. Yeah, it's still an issue, and unfortunately, the policy doesn't match the actual implementation. You can actually build 100,000 houses in New Zealand, but you've just got to change the methodology and the thinking. And you've just got to get behind it. So I think the thinking is right, the implementation is completely wrong. So this reset, Phil, I mean, what would you see coming out of that if they are still going to make this goal? Well, I think what they've got to do is work much more effectively with local councils ` Auckland Council, in particular, but the other growth councils out there. They've got say that` They've got to come up with a view that it's not about housing. People don't buy a house. They buy a house to live in a community. So the whole idea of urban planning and urban development, bringing onboard the transport agencies, bringing onboard the social agencies, the hospitals, the schools to make sure that you actually build communities is what they should be doing. Now, I think they'll get there on that, but they've also just got to unleash the private sector. The idea the government's going to do this is just ridiculous. The whole of the private sector needs to do it. And they've got to overcome this little challenge they've got around the RMA. They haven't bitten that. They don't want to change it. They need to unleash the private sector in building. Is this another aspirational goal, Russel, that just can't be met? Well, it's got some interesting connections with climate change, actually. So if this reset of KiwiBuild ` is it going to consider the government's just-set targets? These aspirational targets on climate change emission reduction, right? So up till now, basically, they've been building houses as if climate change doesn't exist. There's no solar panels, there's no batteries, the insulation is as low as you're legally allowed to build ` that is the building code. So are they going to build the` Are they going to change the way they build these houses to make them consistent with these goals they've just announced, for example? But can they afford to build those houses like that and still have them affordable? Because at the moment, that's a more expensive way to build. Yes and no. I mean, when you look at, you know, passive housing, which is, you know, the highest standard of insulation, I mean, it might add some increase in price upfront, but then the long-term cost of living in those houses in terms of energy use, but also health, actually reduces the cost. When we did the home insulation scheme with National, I mean, that was a big programme ` we did $400 million ` but the ROI on it is fantastic, because all these people weren't getting sick any more and going to the public health system. So, just finally, Lance, this is a flagship policy, as we said. Is it a bad look? What's going on for them? Well, it's not a great look when you promise to build 10,000 houses a year, and you build less than 100 in year one. So it's not a good look. But as you were saying, you've just got to get private developers who can fast-track this, but also there needs to be some town planning, review of the Resource Management Act, to fast-track this. So it's doable, but doable with some changes in policy. OK, Lance Norman, Russel Norman and Phil O'Reilly ` thank you for your time. Cheers. Pleasure. Well, Speaker Trevor Mallard took no prisoners in the House this week, booting out Simon Bridges over alleged 'barnyard behaviour'. But the National leader wasn't the only one who drew the Speaker's ire. Here's what happened this week in the House. The Member early made a barnyard noise. I made no such noise, and it is entirely wrong and unfair for you as a Speaker to say that sort of unprofessional comment. The Member will leave the House. ...on the next Member's day on the 22nd of May. Leave is not going to be granted for that. I have made it absolutely clear that I am very unhappy with a Member and his approach` It's come from our constituents! The Member will leave the House. Order! Right, no, come back, please. Come back, please. The Member will resume his seat. I'm invoking Standing Order 86. I name Nick Smith for grossly disorderly conduct. And that's all from us for now. Thanks for watching. I'm Emma Jolliff. And I'm Simon Shepherd. And we'll see you again next weekend. Captions by John Gibbs, Ella Wheeler and Elizabeth Welsh. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 This programme was made with the assistance of the New Zealand on Air platinum fund.