Today on Newshub Nation ` Environment Minister David Parker on the state of our rivers. The budget gave him $229 million ` will it be enough? Cracking down on booze ` four reports recommend sales be tightened, but are the Government's hands tied? And Mike Wesley-Smith investigates a taxpayer-funded employment agency that's impacting lives, but sometimes for the worse. Kia ora, good morning. I'm Simon Shepherd, and welcome to Newshub Nation. The State Services Commission will investigate Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf over claims he misled the Government and smeared the National Party. The investigation will look into what Makhlouf said publicly about the early leak of budget documents, how he advised the Finance Minister, and his decision to involve police. What's not clear is whether the investigation will impact his recent appointment as head of the Irish Central Bank. The Secondary School Teacher's Union has cancelled the limited strike action it had planned for Tuesday, this follows a full day meeting on Thursday between the Union and the Government including Education Minister Chris Hipkins. Hipkins said none of the parties will reveal anything else until the middle of next week. And commercial vessels most at risk of encountering the endangered Maui dolphins will have onboard cameras from November. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash announced $17.1 million will be spent on the camera programme over four years beginning with just 28 vessels. The Green Party says the policy is too generous with taxpayer's money and needs to be scaled up fast. It's estimated that only 63 adult Maui Dolphins remain in New Zealand waters. Well, clean, clear rivers ` one of the battlegrounds of the last election. The well-being budget earmarked $229 million to clean up our waterways, establish the Climate Change Commission and help bring sustainability to our farms. But it didn't have anything about stricter laws for those who do pollute. So I asked Environment Minister David Parker whether more regulations are being considered. Yes, you will. You'll see some regulation of some of the riskier practices that are degrading some of our estuaries, with too much sediment, sort of, clogging up all the sand and killing the shellfish, and you'll also see various other tightening of the parameters in the Freshwater National Policy Statement. OK. Let's talk about this particular package. In layman's terms, what are we going to get out of it? You get three bits. One is finishing off this regulatory work. The second is help for regional councils and farmers with quality data sets. For example, one of the tools that's used by farmers to calculate their impact on the environment is a software tool called Overseer. Everyone agrees that needs to be substantially improved, so there's about $30 million in the budget for that. Actually, it's $43 million, from what I see in the budget spreadsheet, and that's a greater amount of money being spent on that than there is on the establishment of the Climate Change Commission. It seems quite a massive amount of money. Yeah, well, these software projects are expensive, but if you want to have a... One of the strengths for the New Zealand economy is flexibility of land use, which means that you actually have to be measuring outcomes rather than inputs. If we were to go for a stricter, input-based regulatory measure, then there would be less flexibility of land use. To have the alternative, you actually need sophisticated tools like Overseer, and they're expensive. OK, they're expensive. But why should the taxpayer pay for that? Shouldn't the farmer pay for that? Well, the farmers are going to have to be paying for the cost of the fencing; they're going to have to produce farm environment plans to show that they're being careful about where the sediment comes from and where the other sources of nitrate pollution come from. We're willing to help with the use of these tools ` ` which aren't just for their benefit, of course; they're also for the benefit of the regional councils in every` But if I was in private business and I needed accounting software, I would have to pay for that. Well, that's true, and they'll still have to pay for their licence for the use of the Overseer software, but regional councils say that we, you know, they support our throwing some resource at fixing these problems, and if we don't, they won't be fixed. Part of the package is $12 million to invest in action to improve water quality in lakes, rivers and wetlands most at risk. What sort of action? Not planting trees ` there's already some support for planting trees ` but, for example, in some of these areas that are at risk, we need to re-establish wetlands that have been lost, so we're picking a few what we're calling 'exemplar' or 'at-risk' catchments, and we're focusing on those... OK. ...to stop them tipping over. Can you name some of those? Have you already chosen them? Well, no, we actually haven't finally chosen, so I'm not in a position to announce them today, but we're trying to have them geographically spread throughout the country, representative of the problems that we need to overcome, so that people can have hope that there are solutions to these problems, rather than our waterways getting worse. It really gets people upset, the state of our waterways. We've seen that` Gets me upset. Gets you upset? Well, that's great, but does $12 million seem like enough to be able to tackle this problem that everybody's really upset about, including yourself? Well, you know, you asked the point earlier, why are we subsidising a software tool? Well, actually, the general point is that we shouldn't subsidise people to stop polluting. People do not have a private property right to pollute our rivers. It's the right of you and me and our friends and families to be able to pop down at our local river in summer and put our head under without the risk of getting crook, so you shouldn't have to pay people to stop doing that. So what we're doing here is providing examples of how things can be improved rather than paying everyone to improve them. All right. Let's talk about another package there. $12 million specifically for Maori to develop unutilised and underdeveloped land. Mm. What sort of developments are you envisaging for this? Well, one of the problems that we have in New Zealand is that because of the fractionalised nature of Maori land ownership and their shortage of capital over the years, Maori disproportionately own underdeveloped land. What do you mean by 'underdeveloped' land? Well, land that's really closer to its original, native state ` you know, might not have been ploughed, hasn't been properly fenced, hasn't been developed to have productive farming outcomes. Maoridom say, 'Well, we shouldn't be frustrated in our ability to develop our land when everyone else has, just because we've now reached environmental limits.' So we're trying to find a course through this which is both fair to people with underdeveloped land and people who've already got intensively-developed land. So Maoridom have come to you and said, 'We want this. We acknowledge our land is underdeveloped, and we want to develop it'? Yes, they do. They have a development aspiration for their land, which is quite proper, and we want to help them achieve that in a way that's environmentally sustainable. OK. Let's look at farmers who already have moved towards environmentally-friendly farms. Now, they're going to get $35 million to support that. Why are you targeting people who are already doing something about it and not people who need to change? Well, there's two parts to this. If we were only to regulate and say, 'You must do this,' regulation without farm extension services would fail. We know that. Is there anything in this package, though, to encourage people to explore new farming techniques and new technologies and innovation? Partly in this, but also partly through other funds like the Provincial Growth Fund or the Venture Capital Fund that we also announced in the budget, which is encouraging investment in these new automated technologies, which will make, for example, horticulture more competitive; and I think, over time, you'll see in parts of New Zealand a return to horticulture production, to mixed cropping in a way that is not cost-competitive at the moment because of our... Good ` it's a good thing that our labour costs are high relative to low labour-cost countries, but` So you think that technology could force a change in farming practices? I think` Are you saying that we need to reduce our herd? Is that what you're saying about that? I don't say we should have a cap on dairy numbers. I do say that in some catchments that are nutrient-enriched, the answer lies in more effective forms of farming. Now, some of those farmers are already choosing to use less palm kernel ` in fact, Fonterra's forced them to. They are having healthier cows ` more output per cow, but low overall environmental impacts. You talk about regulation, and part of that is the push, for some farmers. but these farmers have built their businesses in a way that is legal, and coming within laws` Sometimes not, actually. Sometimes not? No. OK. But if you` No. We have enforcement problems; some of the rules aren't being enforced. OK, so you're going to tighten those up? Well, we're tightening the rules. We, actually, in the last budget, gave a bit more money to enforcement, and it's also true that regional councils are getting the message from their voters, saying, 'Look, we want to do better,' and they're taking more of` So how many farmers are not, you know, being legal, as you say? Well, 'too many' would be the answer, but part of the problem is that the rules aren't tight enough. I was in one of the catchments in Southland recently, and they're a group of great farmers coming together in a catchment group to try and improve outcomes, but I was a bit disturbed to learn that more than 90% of the farmers are already in compliance with the plan rules and their consent conditions, and things are still getting worse, so, plainly, some of the rules need to be tighter, as well as some better enforcement for the 10% who aren't complying. Right. So if you're going to tighten these rules for the majority, to push them that way, are you going to offer a carrot? Are you going to compensate farmers for this changing of business model? Because they're sitting there running their day-to-day business ` some of them have got a lot of high debt ` and they don't have time to think about change. Well, I think, in the vast majority of cases, people can actually make these changes and improve the profitability of the outcomes, and that's proven by the farmers who are already doing it that way, profitably. So there's no compensation for farmers? You shouldn't` No. If New Zealand took upon ourselves the obligation to compensate for polluting a river, we'd never get there. Part of the funding package that you've announced is the Emissions Trading Scheme, but agricultural emissions are still exempt from the Emissions Trading Scheme, aren't they? That's correct. So why is that? Why are you sticking with that position? Well, we're not, necessarily. I mean, those decisions haven't yet been taken finally. If the agriculture sector was brought into the ETS ` and that final decision hasn't been made for or against ` the agreement that we had with New Zealand First in our coalition agreement was that they would get 95% free allocation. So if they do come in, they get 95% of their emissions for free, but they pay for the other 5%. And so will they soon be paying 5% of emissions? Well, that final decision's not made yet. When are we going to see that decision? I would say` Well, you'll see it before the end of the year, I'd expect. So, you've committed to making rivers swimmable, but why are we still waiting for a new freshwater standard? Because the devil's in the detail. We've had groups. We've actually got four advisory groups helping with this. One is a group of regional councils; another is a group of scientific advisors; another is a group of fresh water leaders ` which includes some farming representatives, and environmental NGOs; and the fourth is a group of Maoridom, Kahui Wai Maori. The complexity that lies under these` What it is that you require of farmers to change their land-use practices is not simple. You know, we're well through that process, and I have to say it's going very, very well. But are you caught between all the stakeholders pushing for what they need, and you're going to come out with something which is a bit of a hodgepodge? Well, obviously, stakeholders on all sides push their particular barrow, but my job, and the job of the Government, is actually to make the right decision. Now, that doesn't mean compromising below environmental bottom lines, because we actually won an election on the plank that rivers should be clean enough for people to swim in in summer. Well, that's right. So let's have a bottom line now, then. I mean, can you commit, here, to an enforceable nitrate level in our fresh water that will protect and restore ecological health? Well, yes. We need it. OK. What would that level be? Well, that level, in the end, can't be set for the same for every river in the country, which means that it can't be set in its entirety by central government; it actually has to be set by regional councils. OK, I just want` Another election policy of yours in conjunction with New Zealand First is making companies of bottled water pay a royalty. Whatever happened to that? It's in process. It's the same team of people who deal with all of these water issues, and I've prioritised water quality ahead of the water-bottling royalty. Right. So it's not off the table? It's still going to happen? It's not off the table. In fact, there was a question raised at Cabinet about this just a couple of weeks ago, and I undertook to bring forward that Cabinet paper within the next month or two. You're doing some work under the Overseas Investment Act around this to see whether water can be a criteria which people can be screened on, but what about local bottlers? I mean, you just mentioned overseas bottlers and water going overseas, but should local bottlers be included in this royalty? Well, that's a question for Government to address. But where do you sit on that? Well, I sit on that that I'm part of the Government, so we'll take our decisions on that. We do think that it's fair that these commercial users of our most pristine water resource` You know, if it's clean enough to put in a bottle and sell it ` you know, it's the best water in the world ` that if they're using a public resource for private profit, then they should give something back to the public. Do you have a ballpark, I mean, in terms of cents per litre or micro-cents per litre? Well, the fundamental choice you have is whether you're recovering costs or whether you're actually charging a fee, and if you charge a fee, then there are restrictions as to who you can do it on, whether you could just do it on exporters, or whether you would have to do it to internal people as well. So it depends a bit on whether you go for everyone or just exporters as to what the level of the fee could be. Why is it so complicated? You can't just charge it per litre, then? The actual resource of water? Well, you could. You could, but... It seems crazy. You could, but for it to be a meaningful amount in terms of our international obligations under trade agreements, we would also have to apply that internally. Well, 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 Lewis Holden and John Hart, they're using the #NationNZ. Or you can email us at nation@mediaworks.co.nz. The address is on your screen right now. And if you want to take the show on the road, we're now also available in podcast form. Head to the podcast page on newshub.co.nz or just search for Newshub Nation wherever you get your podcasts. But still to come ` our experts debate New Zealand's troubled relationship with alcohol. The mental health and addiction review recommended the Government should lead on the issue, but will they? Plus ` troubled waters for Workbridge, the taxpayer-funded agency alleged to have told a disabled man he's unemployable. Welcome back. Report after report has recommended stricter alcohol regulations, the most recent being the mental health review. So why doesn't the government act? I'm joined now by Dr Nicki Jackson, Executive Director of Alcohol Healthwatch, and Robert Brewer, Chief Executive of Spirits New Zealand. Thanks for your time. Fair to say you're sort of on opposite sides of this alcohol debate, but let's start with that. So, the Mental Health Inquiry recommended stricter regulations on sale and supply. Nicki, why doesn't the government act? (SIGHS) It's not my role to comment on why the government's not acting, but the Mental Health and Addiction Inquiry made it very clear that the role of commercial interests ` alcohol companies ` have been fiercely resistant to change, and that's not just the case in New Zealand. That's international. These are global alcohol companies that are resisting strong policy. So you're talking about lobbying against government changing the laws? Is that right ` that the alcohol industry is just out there lobbying all the time for no change? Well, I mean, it's a common statement for people in Nicki's position to make, and in fact we're not against change at all. The fact of the matter is in 2012, 2013, we had the biggest change in alcohol regulation in New Zealand's history. It's been embedded in, and it's still being embedded in. What are you referring to in particular? The Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act ` the changes that happened there were fundamental and were driven off the back of the Law Commission review on alcohol. But a lot of those changes are still being embedded in. It's taking a long time, isn't it, Nicki? Absolutely, and the key recommendations from the Law Commission weren't enacted. The price, availability and marketing ` the three strongest drivers of consumption that the Law Commission recommended. And we've had subsequent reports since the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. We are still here in 2019, and we have no change. Well, I need to... just call one thing out there. And I think you said something very important, Nicki, and that is you mentioned consumption. And actually what we are talking about is harmful consumption. We're talking about consumption that is not appropriate, that society does not want. A lot of the changes that are being mooted by Nicki and actually through the Mental Health Review may indeed affect consumption, but mainly the consumption of those people who already drink moderately. All right. So you're talking about hazardous drinkers. Are they the people that we` that you believe that we should be targeting? Absolutely. OK. So the hazardous drinking levels are still very high amongst men and women, especially the 18- to 24-year-olds ` 38% for men, 25% for women. That's unacceptable, isn't it? It is unacceptable, but it is coming down, and the point that we like to make is that it is trending down. And there are plenty of studies out there that will tell us what we already know ` you drink too much, and bad things will happen, either immediately or over time. Right? That's right. But they are coming down, and so what we say is, 'Well, why are they coming down?' Surely we would want to find out why young people in particular are making better choices today than they ever have. Why are they making better choices? First and foremost, we have seen significant declines in adolescents. That is true. But while that has happened, we have had middle age and older age groups increase their drinking significantly, in some cases doubling their prevalence of hazardous drinking. And so this is going to lead to cancers; it's gonna lead to stroke, to heart disease. We've got a huge number of` three quarters of a million hazardous drinkers in this country. And the harm from drinking isn't just about hazardous drinking. Cancer begins from one drink per day. OK` That's not correct, and Nicki knows that. There is` There is` There is a... There is some evidence to suggest that if you drink too much over time that, yes, your... the rate of getting cancers does increase. But to say that it starts from one drink a day completely takes away the whole debate about risk and managing risk. OK. Well, let's` We can't resolve that one there. You're on both sides of the debate, and I don't have that detail in front of me, but what I do have is this. Alcohol is doing a lot of social harm, isn't it? Half of youth suicides ` it's linked to that. Moderate drinkers... I mean, alcohol is a factor in half of youth suicides, and police say a third of all crimes influenced by alcohol. So it's doing a lot of social harm, isn't it, Robert? Absolutely. We can't walk away from the fact that if you drink too much, bad things happen. And we absolutely... acknowledge that. It's what we do to effectively change the drinking culture to actually bring all those stats down. We've had decades of research. We know what works. We know internationally that alcohol is more affordable today than it ever has been. Availability has doubled, and communities are sick and tired of new outlets in their communities, particularly poorer communities. And marketing now through social media, it's ubiquitous. OK. That point about why is alcohol more available in the least deprived` sorry, the more deprived areas of Auckland and New Zealand ` why is that? Well, I think the focus on outlets is a really good example of where the statistics and the reality actually diverge. So, yes, I could say that, I think, 10 years ago, there were 2000 liquor licences. There are now 12,000 liquor licences. Yet, again, for youth in particular, where the main focus has been, problem drinking has fallen down, has come down. And I want to draw on... As Nicki says, the older population is going up. Which is explainable by` I explain that as, like, a generational wave of drinkers coming through society who grew up in a different frame of reference. Do you think we should just wait until the young people get older and not deal with it? I think what the government was saying out of the Mental Health Review was actually that this is not a one-size-fits-all solution to solve our hazardous drinking problems, that it is a complex... series of interventions that are required ` and not just` not just higher taxes or higher prices or ban advertising and marketing, but also an investment in social change programmes. But, look, it worked for tobacco control. We got rid of workplace smoking; we put plain packaging; we put the price up. Smoking has come down. The evidence is just as strong in alcohol. OK. Let's... All these reports that we're talking about ` four reports we're talking about ` they all point back to World Health Organisation recommendations. I want to go through those. Number one ` set a minimum price. As you've mentioned, alcohol is cheaper now ` I think the Health Protection Agency says 50% cheaper than in 1989. Should we set a minimum price? Absolutely. And it should be higher than what it is now? Absolutely. And this actually targets heavy drinkers and low-income drinkers, those that experience the disproportionate amount of harm in our country. What do you say to that? Well, I disagree, because actually, minimum prices... Scotland has just implemented a minimum price regime, and preliminary analysis shows that harmful drinking has gone up. So for the fact` How can it go up if it costs more? Because the fact of the matter is those who decide to drink hazardously are not impacted by price increases as much as you and I who drink moderately. So you're saying they'd buy it anyway? Is that right, Nicki? No. The Ministry of Justice have clearly shown in their reporting that if we increase taxes by 50%, we would see significant reductions in harmful and hazardous drinking. It would save our country over $300 million a year. Actually, the Ministry of Justice report doesn't quite say that, Nicki. For excise tax, it does. Listen, it doesn't. It absolutely does. What it says is` When it recommends, it says it does not recommend this, because actually, the evidence associated with that has not been proven. And it hasn't been proven. OK, let's go back to these World Health Organisation recommendations. Another one is 'regulate alcohol sponsorship in advertising'. Now, the alcohol industry, according to 2014 stats, spent $21 million on sponsorship of sport. Does that have a negative influence on youth? Does that set them up to be normalised to alcohol? Well, I'm sure Nicki's going to jump in here, but what I believe, of course, is that it doesn't, because the stats show that youth drinking's coming down. And the fact of the matter is if youth drinking's coming down, how can advertising and sponsorship ` which is supposed to be targeting them and, theoretically, some would say, causing them to drink more hazardously ` how come the stats are coming down? And how come we're all drinking per capita 25% less than we did back in the '80s and '90s? All right. Nicki? Look, the research is, again, clear that exposure to branding and sports sponsorship is linked to earlier onset of drinking and heavier drinking. We still have young people hazardous drinking, Robert. The guidelines in New Zealand is that young people don't drink and delay drinking as long as possible. We still have 60% of young people drinking; we've got a long way to go. The time is now for sports sponsorship. We've got a mechanism in place. We can increase an alcohol levy by about 5c on every product that you buy. We could replace sports sponsorship tomorrow. OK. So what's wrong, Robert, with whacking a bit more of a tax, bit more of an excise, on alcohol in order to buy out sports sponsorship? Nothing in principle, because` But I'll go back to the whole point that a one-size-fits-all approach ` to solving what is quite obviously some harmful drinking practices ` just doesn't work. And I'd like to come back to the World Health Organisation for a second, because I think people ` maybe conveniently ` forget that the World Health Organisation's recommendations were first promulgated to target third-world country drinking practices, not first-world, mature-market drinking practices. So are you saying that we don't have a major problem here with alcohol? No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that to overlay a set of population-wide, restrictive practices without taking into account the embedded cultural norms around alcohol is false and wrong, and I think that's what government is saying when it talks about` Is the government saying that? When the government has said, 'We're going to take the results of the mental health review and consider it further,' I believe that's what they're saying. I say they are considering it further. I don't say they're being mute on the problem. I say they're saying, 'This is far more complex.' Nicki, is the government not acting just because it's too unpopular to do anything about this? Well, in fact, that's the opposite of what the polling shows. 80% of New Zealanders want action on alcohol, and almost two thirds of New Zealanders want alcohol out of sport. So there's really strong public support for this. All right. I want to get into the culture of drinking. Now, Robert, you're saying that younger people are drinking less and there's less drinking going on overall, according to your research. But we still need to change that drinking. So what do you say would change drinking behaviour? What is the alcohol industry going to do about it? Well, I mean, interestingly, we've just completed a` a... a comprehensive set of research which has actually provided some very exciting insights into why young people are drinking less. OK. Has that been released? It hasn't. This is the first time I've talked about it today. OK. And so what does it show? Well, the key thing that it shows` Firstly, it confirms a couple of things that I know that Nicki already knows and we already know, that... And actually, you've already talked about it, Nicki ` that is we've got to provision young people today with the ability to say no to alcohol and stay off alcohol for longer. OK. So that's number one. Number two ` the importance of parental guidance. Parents out there, and me included` My boys are now in their 20s, but when they were going through their teens, they model their drinking behaviours on their parents. So what are you going to do with these findings? I mean, I understand that you may be taking these into schools. We are. How are you taking them into schools? So, I could also announce today that we've partnered with the Life Education Trust, and we're bringing into schools a comprehensive, theatre-based education programme that's being used in 30 countries around the world. And we're piloting it at the moment in Auckland schools, and we're going to roll it out nation-wide. And the alcohol industry is funding this? Funding this ` completely owned by the Life Education Trust, though. Do you think it's appropriate that the alcohol industry is going into the schools? I think it's very appropriate. I mean, this is our commitment to saying, 'This is where we see the best generational change that can be made.' Isn't that a corporate interest going in just to normalise alcohol in an educational environment? If it's in an educational environment, it just says, 'Well, alcohol's normal, then.' Listen,... if you went and saw the programme, in schools, I think you would say immediately, this has got nothing to do with glorifying or normalising or anything like that about alcohol. This is about provisioning young people to basically be able to delay the onset of their consumption or say no. And the Ministry of Education has approved that you're going in? They've certainly been consulted during its` pulling it together. Have you got a wealth of evidence to demonstrate this is effective? Not yet. So why` Yeah. Why would it be going in? Exactly. Exactly. And internationally ` we're talking about global alcohol companies here, all running the same exact Smashed project as Robert is talking about. It's about corporate social responsibility, and we've seen this more and more in the last couple of years of alcohol companies partnering with mental health organisations, with other charities, as a way to delay good policy happening. So, just finally, Nicki,... (CHUCKLES) ...why is there no action, then, on alcohol? If you think it's such a big problem and the government is talking about well-being, why are we not seeing anything? Well, we need to do what we did with tobacco, and we need to sign an agreement to prohibit talking to alcohol companies during a policymaking process. Scotland don't do it; we shouldn't be doing it either. Well, Scotland does do it and has done it and continues to do it. And Robert, you're sure that going into schools with an alcohol education programme is the appropriate thing to be doing? Yes, but it's not the only solution. And I do come back to Nicki's point ` we're not saying, 'Don't implement further regulation.' In fact, we talked to government around the change in the sale and supply of liquor laws with some strong recommendations of further regulation, which weren't picked up. So it's not about saying, 'Don't regulate,' but it's about saying, 'Don't just do that.' There's not a one-size-fits-all solution. No, we've got to send the signals. Actually, government has to send the signals first, and then the rest of us and communities can get together to support those actions. I'm going to have to leave it there. Thank you very much for your time, Nicki and, uh, Robert. OK, and we have just received a response from the health minister, David Clark, to questions about alcohol regulation. We asked how long he wanted to further consider the recommendations before acting and, given the number of reports on the subject already, what form would that consideration take? Minister Clark says the Ministry is still working through the detail. It will require careful consideration. Suicide prevention is a higher priority, and it is too early to comment. OK, coming up ` our panel will dissect the news and politics of the week. But first ` the government-funded agency that's impacting the lives of people with disabilities, but not always in a good way. Welcome back. Workbridge is the country's largest employment agency for Kiwis living with disabilities. Funded by the taxpayer, it's found jobs for almost 40,000 disabled people in the last decade. But some clients have raised concerns, including one man with cerebral palsy who says he was told by Workbridge he was unemployable. Here's Mike Wesley-Smith. Maurice Toon has been unemployed for three years. With two degrees and years of experience in digital rendering, it's been tough. We've gone out and approached housing companies, and you've had nothing so far, have you? Maurice lives with cerebral palsy and is mostly non-verbal but is assisted by support worker Lyn. I'm probably pretty bossy with him, but he does need it. (LAUGHS) Yeah. And what's your favourite dish? Pizza. (LAUGHS) Yum! Every Friday night, he has pizza. (LAUGHS) And beer. And beer. Maurice spent five years in his last job with an architectural firm doing computer rendering of properties. A beach house in Tauranga. He's kept himself busy since then, starting his own company. But business has been slow. Maurice has even offered to work for nothing, just to be able to get into the workplace and to get out and have some company. He's one of nearly 250,000 disabled people of working age without a job in New Zealand. (LAUGHS) The vast majority, like Maurice, want work. They just want the chance. It's not about the money. It is about being a part... Being a part... ...of a (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) ...of a company and society. Yeah. So last year Maurice enrolled with the organisation Workbridge, which is funded by the taxpayer through the Ministry of Social Development. Workbridge is New Zealand's largest supporting agency that works with employees with disabilities. But according to Maurice, his Workbridge experience wasn't positive. He says in 12 months he was passed between five different caseworkers and received only one job offer, which he says was unsuitable. They emailed me. They emailed him. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) Your year was up and goodbye. I was unemployable. Basically they said you were unemployable. I have never felt more... pain. Devalued. Yeah. Lyn says she attended most meetings Maurice had with Workbridge. I was extremely disappointed. I just felt that none of them took the time to find out... what Maurice was capable of. The day Maurice says he was told he was unemployable, Lyn came round to his home to find him sitting in darkness. I've never seen him so distraught. He's now on antidepressants. And... it really made him hit rock-bottom. We asked new Workbridge CEO Jonathan Mosen about Maurice being told he was unemployable. If that did happen,... I'm not happy with that. I'm told that it didn't, and I wasn't there. But what I can say as a general principle is that Workbridge should be the organisation you come to when you need someone to believe in you, no matter who you are and no matter what your disability is. Jonathan Mosen says Workbridge did secure a job offer for Maurice with a building firm. It's a good outcome that we were able to place him in a position that recognised his considerable skill and qualifications. And I think we can take some satisfaction with that. But Maurice says the employer ended the relationship because he cannot deliver the work on time with the computer equipment he had. It means he's back where he started. ...like me,... If there's no place for people like me... ...then... ...in society,... ...what is the point? Point of what, Maurice? Point of life. Point of life. Living. Point of living. Why are we here? No reason to be here. Why are we here? There's no reason to be here. It's important to note Workbridge does have success placing around 1500 disabled people in work each year. A service for which they received $11 million from MSD in 2018. But Maurice isn't the only Workbridge client for whom things have not gone smoothly. Philip Patston has run his own consultancy firm for 20 years called Diversity New Zealand. I work with people about understanding diversity... in a deeper, um, way. And I work in the area of leadership and change. He receives money through Workbridge that helps him pay his support workers. It's an annual amount of... $16,000 a year. Under his funding agreement with Workbridge, he receives a number of funded hours for his support person. But this amount was then reduced to accommodate the rise in the hourly minimum wage. They decreased my funding... um, by 30 minutes a week but they didn't have to increase the actual amount of money. To make up the shortfall, Philip has to pay the difference himself. In the end that means I subsidise that per` or I pay that person an hour more. We also spoke to Jonathan Mosen about Philip's situation. He says Workbridge should've sought additional funding for Philip from MSD. I do want to apologise to Mr Patston for that, because it must've been incredibly stressful. We are, um, putting that right, and I'm sorry that that happened. Another frustration expressed to us by people with disabilities are the same forms they say they have to repeatedly send in to agencies like Workbridge and Work and Income to access support. There's almost an` an assumption that I'm trying to rip them off. Life is difficult enough without having to play these stupid games to get support. LYN: They have to fill out the same forms to say what their disabilities are. It's, like, well, they're not going to change unless miracles do happen. What do they know... ...that I don't know. ...that you don't know. How do I overcome this? How do you overcome the disability? This woman, who we have agreed not to identify, was born with cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. I've been seen and diagnosed and confirmed by a medical professional that I'm not gonna get any better. If anything, I will get worse. So why should I have to keep justifying all this? To access the temporary additional support funding she needs from Work and Income, she says she is frequently expected to get a medical certificate from her doctor at her own expense. How many times did you estimate you've had to go to see a doctor... (LAUGHS) ...to say essentially that you have this disability? 10, 20. 20 times? Probably. And is there usually any other additional or new information? Not` Not really, no. MSD told us the way a disability affects someone can fluctuate and can also have an impact on their ability to work. They say they recognise that for some people their disability does not change and that they're working to simplify their process around that. It's a pretty crappy time, to be honest. We approached the Disability Rights Commissioner for an interview about the issues raised in this story. She declined to be interviewed, but in a statement said, 'In general... It's a conversation that we need to have ` is why do we have these low expectations of disabled people? It's 2019, for God's sake. For his part, Workbridge CEO Jonathan Mosen has only been in his job a matter of days. But already he's had Philip's funded hours restored to their original amount. I want disabled people watching this to know one thing above everything else, and that is that my team and I are gonna work tirelessly to do what we can to get you a job. I want to meet disabled people around the country in a range of forums and understand where the system is falling short. And as for Maurice, he had this message for any prospective employers who might be watching. I work really... LYN: He works really hard. He always does more than he's asked for. He's ready to go... I'm in there! ...off! (CHUCKLES) I'm in there. Up next ` our panel's views on the best and worst of our weekend politics. Plus ` if we are too late to be early adopters or late adopters, perhaps we are late followers. Where are all New Zealand's electric vehicles? Welcome back. I'm joined now by our panel ` Magic Talk host Ryan Bridge, former Act MP Heather Roy and political commentator David Slack. Thank you guys for being here. So, look, we just heard the alcohol industry say that they're going to go into schools to try and educate kids on drinking. What do you think about that, Heather? Uh, well, I think` I haven't seen the programme, so it's hard to comment specifically. But I think, actually, the tenor of that is very good. Industry is frequently, um, lampooned with the thing that they never do anything; they're just there to sell things. And if they're really... I took from that that they're going to fund the Life Education Trust but won't be involved in the content. Is it a conflict of interest, do you think, Ryan? Well, potentially. But if the Life Education Trust owns the programme, and has complete control over it, and they're in the school doing it, it's got nothing really to do ` in terms of content ` nothing to do with` no different to an advertiser on a programme like this, for example. It's not like they've got control over the content of it. So I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but I would be interested to see what the programme looks like. That's right. Yeah. And, you know, one of the concerns that the Alcohol Council had there was that it would somehow normalise drinking. Well, I think drinking's pretty damn normalised... (LAUGHS) ...in the minds of young people anyway. David, I mean, should the alcohol industry be in there? Or is it just like educating kids about drugs? I'm aware of scepticism amongst experts about the efficacy of Life Education Trust. So I'm not sure if the programme, whatever they might do with them, might necessarily be good enough. And I think there is some merit in the argument Nicki was making that this is potentially... taking` drawing some... teeth out of the... hostility they feel they might otherwise face, the liquor lobby. On the other hand, it sounded as though it's a good-faith endeavour. And I do recognise that argument that there are many different ways of going at this, and there is no one particular thing that's going to make this work. Was it` It's not just regulation that's going to solve this problem. It is a multi-faceted problem, and so you need multi-faceted solutions. But it's a multi-faceted problem that we've been talking about for a long time. Four reports now, WHO recommendations ` the government's doing nothing, Ryan. Yeah. I think we're asking the wrong question, though. We keep asking ` what regulation can we put in place to solve this problem? Um, when you look at it, the really interesting thing is that the younger generation, millennials, aren't drinking as much. They're not having as much sex. Teen pregnancies are down. OK, they are the generation of moderation. (LAUGHS) It's like` it reminds me of Saffron from Absolutely Fabulous, right? The responsible daughter. You know, out marching for climate change; Mum and Dad are sloshed at the pub. So, the question is ` what has changed? What in society has changed that's led to a decrease in consumption of alcohol by young people? But in the meantime, should we just wait for those guys to grow up and just not worry about the older people? Sorry, David. (LAUGHS) To drink themselves to death. Government hasn't done nothing. There has been significant` While I was at parliament, there were significant changes made to legislation. There was more legislation in 2012. And, you know, Ryan's right. The environment's changing, so we have to look at different solutions. And I think that, you know, if the industry is coming to the party in terms of funding but not being involved in education programmes, I think we should be saying, 'Good on them for doing that.' I think that, you know, attitudes are changing; they always change slowly. But should there not be regulation around, you know, the availability, and say, David, the price of alcohol? Which, we see, is so much cheaper these days. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there are a couple of things to consider first about this possibly false dawn of young people being` behaving better. There is a good argument that says that, actually, social media is changing the way they're behaving in the sense that they've got other ways of interacting with people; they don't need to go out quite as much as they were. So, they're just not presenting themselves for that drinking quite as often. But when they do, it is quite possible they still go at it with that binge instinct. And if they do, there's a problem. I know anecdotally from watching our teenage daughter engaging with it` (LAUGHS) Well, first of all, her and her friends scoffing at Harold the giraffe at the Life Education Trust. But secondly, they are certainly... in some ways doing the kinds of things Ryan is describing, being a little less inclined to drink quite as much, but it doesn't` in my observation, they still, at certain points, go hard at it, and nothing has moved. So hazardous drinkers ` there are a lot of young hazardous drinkers in the next age bracket up, Ryan. Yes, there are. But I do think, just coming back to, sorry, David, the issue of technology and Instagram ` like, the fact that this is the Instagram generation and their lives are essentially broadcast. And what's been broadcast is this health fad. I don't know if you've been on Instagram lately, but it's green smoothies. It's hiking up hills. You know, it's a whole new kind of... the idea of` There's no alcohol in a poke bowl. Exactly, exactly. (LAUGHS) So well-being is a fad? Well-being is a fad, and I think that, in part, is part of the answer. And this idea of replacement, not just tax, tax, tax, demonise, demonise, demonise, but encouraging exercise, encouraging alternatives to what some would consider to be unhealthy drinking. All right. I still think, though, that availability is a crucial consideration. And I think what everybody seems to agree is that stopping availability at the end of the night has been very advantageous. You know, the closing hours. That has clearly had a beneficial effect. I wanna move on to water, cos, you know, you always need water when you're talking about alcohol. (SNORTS) (LAUGHS) But this time we're talking about` Let's talk about, first ` David Parker says they won the election on a promise of cleaning up the rivers. Are they delivering, Ryan? Well, the most interesting part, I think, of` Well, there were a couple of things from that interview, but four advisory groups on water? No wonder they haven't made a decision on anything. I mean, it's like having four wives ` very complicated. (LAUGHTER) Yes, they did, in part, win an election on promising to clean up the waterways. The money that they've put into that so far... I was talking to Heather earlier about this idea that there are too many bodies involved in water in New Zealand. And I think there is some merit in going for a water commission or an overarching body here. Yes, I think they missed the boat with this budget announcement. I think that ` sorry, pardon the pun ` you know, water is a really important resource for New Zealand, whether it be safe drinking water, whether it be swimmable rivers and lakes and the sea, and how farmers use water. So what should they have done? So I think they should have a co-ordinated approach. At the moment, we've got a lot of silo thinking. Ministry of Health deals with safety; local government is heavily involved in water. But we've got 71 different TLAs doing things differently. And we've got the Ministry for the Environment. I think it is time to have a holistic approach with ministerial oversight for water as a whole. And all of these things should be being discussed together, not in isolation. Including the idea, and the promise, the election promise ` and New Zealand First is on board with this ` of having a royalty for bottled water. Now, that was a hot issue, wasn't it? So, David Parker says, look, options coming. But it seems to be complicated. Couldn't it be a simple idea, David, just to put tax on water? Well, you do have that tricky difficulty of distinguishing between people who are exporting and people who are using it here... But we're just talking about bottlers in this instance, right? Well, yeah, but how do you precisely... distinguish... I presume the reason this is taking time is precisely because they're seeing it's not as simple as it looks. Yeah. Mm. And I sympathise with that. So why isn't it as simple as it looks? You've got free trade agreements. So if you just hit the exporters, you're running into problems. So if you want to introduce a royalty, then you're going to need to hit agriculture. Winemakers use water. So then they're all going to have to be paying` Can't you just say it's going to be on bottled water, whether you're a New Zealand bottler or an international bottler? I think it's much more complex than that. And it also comes back to ownership of water, which has been a thorny issue for a very, very long time. It goes back to 2002 Local Government Act, really, where all those arguments about who owns the water started. So it's not simple. There's a whole raft of issues, and I do think that that overarching body should be looking at all of those issues together, not looking at these things in isolation. So, is it likely that they're not going to be able to deliver on this promise, Ryan? Well, what Cuba does, apparently, with their cigars, is they make you, they force you, if you export if a Cuban cigar, to have a logo that says 'Cuban cigar' on it. And they charge you for that logo. And I wondered ` and I think this is something that Gerry Brownlee of the National Party's actually spoken about before ` is whether you could have a 'made in New Zealand' water logo which you could charge for and get around all of the issues that we've just talked about. I think it's gonna take probably something elegant, a little out of the box, like that to actually get around the problem. It'll be like Fiji Water, which actually is very popular around the world. OK. (LAUGHS) All right. Well, thank you to the panel for the moment, Ryan, David and Heather. Stay with us. We will be back after the break. Welcome back. And we're back with our panel ` Magic Talk host Ryan Bridge, former Act MP Heather Roy and political commentator David Slack. Thanks for your time, guys. The budget bungle just keeps on giving. Now, more revelations from Derek Cheng in the Herald, actually, saying that the GCSB tried to intervene and say that it wasn't a hack before the press release came out. I'm getting very confused by this. Heather, what's going on? Well, it is confusing, and I think we actually do need that timeline. I think that that needs to come out before we're gonna get many answers. But something just doesn't smell right with this, for me. Departmental heads never just go out off their own bat, doing things without their minister knowing. So, um, I think that the State Services Commission enquiry's going to be revealing in part, but of course, they're not able to have any look at what ministers and their staff did and said. I think that's the key question, isn't it? So, the GCSB talks to its minister, Andrew Little, Ryan. Does`? We don't know whether Andrew Little talks to Grant Robertson or what goes on. No. You would assume that the first thing Andrew Little would do would be to pick up the phone and call Grant Robertson and say, 'Hey, look, this... this thing you're calling a hack 'is actually more of a... 'an intrusion,' you know? Someone's googling the website. Um, and so if he did do that, then why on earth did Grant Robertson issue a statement with the words 'police', 'hacking' and 'the National Party' in it? And if we find out that Andrew Little hadn't informed Grant Robertson until after the statement had gone out, why was it not immediately redacted and a new statement issued to reflect what the GCSB had told its minister and Andrew Little? And that carried on for two days. That statement stood for two days with 'National Party', 'hacking' and 'police' in it, and... Until the morning of the budget. Until the morning of the budget. And Grant Robertson, by then, by at least Wednesday, must have known that it was wrong. OK, David, is this conspiracy or confusion or just ` I don't know ` or incompetence? What struck me as it unfolded through the week was it first looked like a fog of bewilderment, because the way Gabriel Makhlouf was characterising it sounded to me as though it had been explained to him as best they could figure out what was going on, and he gave it a dramatic interpretation. He didn't actually use the word 'hack'; as Ryan rightly said, it appears later in the minister's wording. But he does... he broadly implies it. You're left thinking, 'Well, what have we got here, exactly?' because he also doesn't characterise what it is. We get clarity once the intelligent people at intelligence say, 'Oh, well, it was actually this.' Bro, that's not hacking. Yeah. (LAUGHS) And it did become a lot clearer at that point. But Ryan's absolutely right. To let those words in your statement hang there without retraction is just wrong. The most generous interpretation you can give it is, 'Well, it was so clear anyway, you could just let people draw their own conclusion,' but I don't think that's good enough. OK. So, what happens` I mean, for the players now, the State Services Commission can't investigate the ministers, and Gabriel Makhlouf is off to Ireland. Maybe. Well, maybe. Or maybe not. I just come back to` I don't think that Andrew Little wouldn't have been on the phone or up to the office of Grant Robertson immediately, and we've got a very experienced public servant who I don't believe is inclined to go off and do something off his own bat. So I think it's gonna be interesting. The other inquiry, of course, that will happen is the National Party interrogation of ministers during` in the debating chamber next week. And that might be more revealing, actually, than anything else. More may be revealed, or maybe not. Anyway, let's move on to a couple of police raids in Australia on journalists and the ABC and some other News Corp journalists. What do you make of that, Ryan? Well, one of them, as I understand, it was` there was a story about` a defence story, which when you think about leaks from defence, they can obviously be highly classified. And, so, the police wanting to find out where that information came from and to try and get that information from a journalist. I don't know what the particular rules are in Australia around protections for journalists in a case like that, but you would like to think that there would be some... (CHUCKLES) LAUGHS: Yes. ...that would stand, and, yeah. I mean, it was quite shocking to see those pictures out of Australia, police going into the ABC. It seems like a` It's an increasingly authoritarian mood there. I mean, David, you've just been in Australia. What do you think? Yeah, well, that's right. And you couple that with the way they're taking their border security laws in the last few years, and you think there is something a little uncomfortable here. There is an enduring tension always between the state and especially its most sensitive military secrets. And the rights of the citizens to be informed about what's going on and the rights of the media to inform them, and you will always have this kind of tension being tested. It feels` And I would argue that in the` in the past... the state would not, even though it had the legal right, have exercised it. What you've got here is something a little more draconian, and pretty unpalatable, I would suggest. But we've not been immune from it here either. The Nicky Hager raid ` That's true. ...the police raiding Nicky Hager's house for something like seven or eight hours. It was a hugely long time. So we've got that sort of thing that has happened here, and, you know, it's really` And he was vindicated by that. He was, and the police had to apologise. So, you know, we're not immune from it here. What worries me is we` there are national security interests that need to be taken into account. But in New Zealand we have no national security overarching agency that deals with these things. And, so, you know, it might not just happen in New Zealand` I mean, Australia, sorry. Interestingly, of course, we've also got the Burnham inquiry going right now, which is, of course, an exploration of very much the same ground that's being` was being explored by ABC about which they were being raided. So there are parallels here. I'm gonna have to leave it there. Thanks, though. Thank you very much for your time ` Heather Roy, David Slack, and Ryan Bridge from Magic Talk. OK. Well, now, climate change was meant to be` or is meant to be this government's nuclear-free moment, but there's been an obvious step it's failed to take ` transitioning the vehicle fleet to electric. It's a quick way to slash emissions. So where was it in the budget? It's a great opportunity for New Zealand to reduce our climate pollution through cleaner vehicles. There's a whole suite of options that are in front of us at the moment that we are kinda working our way through. I can't give the details of policy, but I definitely think that we'll be announcing some policies within this year. We're hoping to make some decisions in the second half of this year. You know, I've promised stakes before, and I've overshot them, so I won't say that. Before we announce new targets, we need to be sure that we have the ambitious policies, which I am very supportive of. There are things that we could do fairly quickly, but they could have a pretty negative effect on low-income households. Now, 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. When are we going to see some incentives for EVs? When are we going to see some announcement about what's gonna happen in that space? Soon. Soon, but not right now, cos it wasn't anywhere in the budget. So tune in next week for an investigation by John-Michael Swannix. But that's all from us for now. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you again next weekend. Captions by Michaela Cornelius, Alex Walker and John Gibbs. 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 NZ On Air Platinum Fund.