- Taia nga mahi a tenei whanau. Taia nga mahi a enei hapu. Taia nga mahi a tenei iwi. Taia nga mahi a tenei hui. Kia puta whakawaho ki te ateatanga. Whano whano. Hara mai te tokio. Haumi e, hui e, taiki e. This week on The Hui ` the Finance Minister has labelled it the 'no BS Budget'. But what's in it for Maori? - This Budget is nothing but bad news. - They have no policies, zero policies, and they have no plan. - This is the trickle-down Budget. This is the no ambition Budget. This is the child poverty is actually all good Budget. - Te Pati Maori probably don't know what a Budget is or that it was on today, so we needn't worry about them. - We examine the 2025 Budget with our panellists. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2025 Tenei ka tangi ki a ratou ma kua riro atu I te rere ua o te po. Nga mate o te wa. Haere mai, haere. Tatou kei te ao marama. Tihewa mauri ora and welcome back to The Hui. Well, it was a self-described 'no BS Budget.' Just what the 'BS' stands for is still open for determination, and to help us do that and hopefully much more on Budget 2025 is our panel of experts. She is a former MP and now chair of the Tuwharetoa Iwi Partnership Board. She is, of course Louisa Wall. Louisa, tena koe. - Tena koe. - He is Professor Matt Roskruge, Director of Te Au Rangahau, Associate Dean Maori and Professor of School of Economics and Finance at Massey University. Ahorangi, tena koe. Welcome back, Matt. And also joining us now is the new political reporter/senior multimedia journalist at the press gallery in Parliament for Te Ao Maori News and Whakaata Maori, Mana Dunlop. Tena koe. - Tena koe. - Aku rangatira, nau mai. Thank you very much for joining us. Let's get into it now. How would each of you describe the Budget this year? Louisa? - Well, I know Nicola Willis said it was no BS, but from my perspective it's all BS. It's all Budget slashes, it's all backward steps. And in fact it is the emergence of the eradication of a vote, Maori appropriation. And my analysis of that backward step is actually... it's an undermining of the Treaty settlement process, from my perspective, cos we think about the Crown and the Treaty settlements and redress and actually apologising and creating a partnership that we want to have as a country moving forward. And then I think about budget allocations and vote Maori development; it reinforces those Treaty settlements. So, we saw it in the housing space with papa kainga developments, partnerships with iwi. We've seen it in the education space supporting the revitalisation of Te Reo Maori. Both those areas have been slashed in this Budget. And so, my perspective of this no BS Budget or all BS Budget is in fact, it's the beginning of the end for the Crown's relationship with Maori and it specifically being about that historical truth and reconciliation process and the pathway forward which epitomises what a partnership should be, right? - Mm. - The Crown invests, iwi invests, we invest in papa kainga housing. Our people have somewhere warm, dry, safe to build a base from. Same with Te Reo revitalisation. You have to do it systemically. And so, I think from my perspective, this reopens all those Treaty settlements. - OK. We will pick up on a lot of that I think later on as well. Professor Matt Roskruge. - Yeah, for me, it was a bleak Budget. When you look across even the economic landscape, there's not a lot of hope there. Unemployment's looking at capping out at about 5.4%. Probably means about 10%, 11% unemployment for Maori. We're seeing pretty low... Like, basically, things are bad and they're gonna stabilise at this bad level. Very little in there that looks like it's going to be good for, say, a cost of living crisis. So, the economic picture is quite bleak. Then we've got an austerity policy, although they don't like calling it austerity. - I was gonna say, they don't call it austerity. Actually, she barges against that. - So perhaps it's a restraint policy, whatever you like to call it. Ask ChatGPT what the... synonyms are. But, no. So, they're pulling back on spending. I think they said that was so they get an extra 30 basis points reduction in interest rates, which, I mean, if you're carrying a lot of debt, might be sort of helpful around the edges, but it's not likely to help middle New Zealand or Maori, for that matter. And then when we're thinking about for Maori in the Budget, it gets even bleaker still. There was just... there was nothing much there. There were further cuts, further movement of Maori money in to general pools. But... just so few new ideas and new initiatives from the government. Really, actually surprising to see such a small amount of ambition in there. - OK, I wanna come back to the surprise element for you later on. Mani Dunlop. O whakaaro? - Yeah, a little bit different, I think. You know, I was` It wasn't surprising. It was quite on-brand for this particular coalition government around the centralisation and the mainstreaming, as Kaapua Smith has already said, around how they've deprioritized hundreds of millions of dollars that were on Maori-focused initiatives ` Maori housing, Maori health, Maori education were all moved into different sorts of funds or reprioritised or re-tagged on to that more centralised approach. A narrative I haven't really been seeing as much is the massive takahi on rangatahi. This Budget really hurts young people... and it also hurts wahine Maori. You know, we look at the pay equity, pay equity and the culling of it or the halt of it for this Budget saved pretty much 51` gave the government 51% of its spending for this Budget, and who is disproportionately impacted by pay equity? It is Maori. It is Pasifika woman particularly in these workforces who are going to be impacted. So, they've taken a lot from Maori women and young Maori in order to fund this particular Budget. - Can I just pick up a point that I think was made directly to you, actually, by the now Deputy Prime Minister of the country... - Oh. - ...who said actually to mention Maori in the way that you're talking about the Budget now is actually racist. - Yeah. So, as a journalist, you know, we take particular comments from the Opposition or other political parties, and we put them to politicians for a right of reply. What I was doing was doing that to Seymour to say, 'What is your view that Labour says that they've defunded Maori or Maori-focussed initiatives 'to the dollar of $1 billion over the last two Budgets?' And that was literally the only question I put to him around that. And his argument was that that was racist. And, you know, we're seeing that narrative quite strongly around the... if it's good for all New Zealanders, it's good for Maori. But what happened to the concept that if it's good for Maori, it's good for all New Zealanders? We know Maori solutions work for Maori. We know we've seen this consistently, especially around COVID is a very clear and more recent example of that. So that's really ill-advised and not evidence-based` an evidence-based view that Maori funding doesn't, serve us. - There's a bit there for Maori funding, isn't there, Matt? - Oh, there's little sprinkles here and there, but a lot of it is just trying to` so, the government's line is, well, you know, there's a big increase in general spending, health and education perhaps, and Maori will benefit by osmosis, I guess. You know, some of that will bleed in to the Maori economy and we'll get improvements that way. I mean, I guess it ignores generations of research that have shown that Maori led-initiatives make a real difference, have better outcomes than non-Maori-led when trying to target rangatahi Maori, for example. - Yeah, and I just wanna quickly pick up on the kind of sprinkling you say, especially in the Maori development vote, it was just the Maori wardens, the Maori Women's Welfare League who got $13.2 million over or 13` about $13 million over four years. I mean, you know, not to disparage the amazing mahi that our wahine do and the Maori Women's Welfare League does, but it's a pretty low-hanging fruit to grab for this government to say, 'Hey, look, no, no, we're putting money here.' but those are... again, like you say, it's not new initiatives. - Do you think... because they got the Matatini money, was such a distraction` Like, people liked that, it caught people's attention. Do you think they were trying to repeat that sort of, 'If we put a couple of small, positive headlines in there`' - Well, it's gotta do something, right? The Minister's gotta do something. - He was, and actually I think it was specifically a New Zealand First initiative, but it is just tinkering. - Mm. - I wanted to pick up on the austerity line. Essentially, this was a business-first Budget and it was an abdication, I'm seeing it as, of government to address structural inequalities and off the back as Mani highlighted, our women who work in the care sector... - Yep. - ...you know, and we're talking about mental health workers, disability workers, our cleaners, those who work with the aged, those who work with our rangatahi. It's off the backs of those women that Seymour was celebrating their ability to give, as I said, we've all said and highlighted, nothing to our people, everything to business, but it is a playbook that is imported. I think it really does align with the Project 2025 agenda, which has been rolled out across the United States. - This is the Donald Trump agenda? - This is the Donald Trump agenda... - Right. - ...and basically it's about individualism, it's not supporting those structural deficits. So, indigenous rights, women's rights, even trans, LGBT rights, that we've become weaponized in a process that really wants to put business first. Government steps back, which is what deregulation is all about, and then it becomes survival of the fittest. - Yep. - And from my perspective, the dismantling the fabric of New Zealand. - And who survives best in that scenario? - Well, it's not us cos we've had to fight colonisation. And for me, it's neo-colonisation. - We've got a lot more to talk about. I only got through half the questions I wanted in this part. So we're gonna do more in part two. Kua puro te moko o te korero. Takua e te iwi. Taihoa ake. We have more with our panel of experts on Budget 2025 after this. - E haere tonu ana a tatou korero e ta tatou hui e paneke te tahua o te tau. We have Louisa Wall, Professor Matt Roskruge and Mani Dunlop on our panel here today. We started on pay equity and I just wanna talk about that again. Last year, Nicola Willis disestablished the pay equity task force. Apparently the process was working so well it wasn't required anymore. And now we have the reprioritisation of $3 billion a year from unpaid wahine. That supposedly helps balance the budget. What do you make of the narrative in the way in which the Minister of Finance is talking about this, Mani? - Yeah. So, watching the kind of comms cycle essentially of when they first announced it, when Brooke van Velden came out and essentially celebrating and popping champagne bottles, that they had saved the budget, that the ACT Party had saved the Budget, and then it was a quick turnaround to change the narrative. And then Seymour getting the growling from Nicola Willis around, you know, that he was wearing the ACT Party hat when he said that. The horse had already bolted in terms of... that it was women. And like we were saying before, wahine Maori, Pasifika women who were you know, paying for this Budget essentially. National tried and tried and the Minister of Finance tried to claw back on that claim to say, 'No, we just need to make sure that it's fit-for-purpose, that the law is better' despite not having a regulatory impact statement, but we'll, you know, get back into that around the impact of RSP. But, we just` They couldn't and especially even in the Budget lockup, Matt, as you would have remembered, that they were kept on getting pushed on pay equity. It just kept on just taking over, it eclipsed the budget. - Are you saying they've lost the narrative? They've lost the win on this one here? - The win on being able to say that it wasn't the thing that saved the Budget? Oh, absolutely. They tried. The horse had bolted. It was too late, especially by the time the Budget came around that they could keep arguing that, no, that wasn't the case. It didn't save the Budget. - Particularly given the fact, Louisa, I mean, E Tu calculates that the underpayment will be now 30% of core workers salaries as that an impact of this reprioritisation. That's gonna have a massive impact on wahine and whanau. Yeah. - On those families... and on those communities. But also, we're not valuing the people that are serving... - No. - ...which of those who are most vulnerable. It's actually in contempt, from my perspective, of the Supreme Court decision, which was the Christine Bartlett case, it was them that came out and said that this was a breach. Government then mobilised and actually the amendments that happened in 2020... was it 2020, Mani? - Yep. - That then gave effect to pay equity, which is a valuing of women's work, was at the heart of those structural disadvantages that I spoke to earlier. And so what's been heartening to see today, obviously, is a mobilisation by ex-parliamentarians. - Across the political spectrum. - Across the spectrum. So, big shout out to Professor Marilyn Waring for convening. There will be representatives from the Greens. So, Sue Bradford, New Zealand First, Ria Bond, National Party, Labour. So, it's wonderful to see what democracy looks like. And that's the scary thing. Like, it's ex-politicians who are now kind of highlighting to the Government what processes should look like if you're gonna make these big changes. So I look forward to people participating in that process and making submissions. - Matt, it's interesting. The Government has used a number of phrases for this Budget, right? There was a no BS Budget, then there's the balancing act that they said they've had to do, and then they said they're doing a growth Budget as well. This was meant to be a growth Budget. You were in the lockup. Do you see it as a growth Budget? - No. I really wonder which advisor came up with the idea of a growth Budget, cos there's very little in there that looks ambitious towards economic growth. So, I mean, OK, we know that we have a capital problem in New Zealand. The tax breaks for small` for businesses around Capex. Yeah, OK. The idea makes sense from an economics point of view. So, it's trying to get New Zealand companies to spend more. - This is the 20% rebate you're talking about, right? - Yep. - Where's that gonna end up? Because the Government's saying and the Minister's saying that that's going to end up equally essentially going back in to cash flow, i.e. will raise salaries and wages for those that are working. - Yeah, and it doesn't look like it. Well, I mean, we have a capital problem. We want our businesses to invest in more capital. That's really important. This might be a tool to do that, but what it looks like it's mainly going to do is probably allow some businesses to replace capital that they've been holding off over the last five years, but... - Yep. OK, what about the reintroduction of the phrase that I thought people got rid of over a long time ` means testing? You know, so we've got means testing in KiwiSaver. We've got means testing in jobseeker benefit. We've got means testing in BestStart payments now. - Yeah, and it's interesting cos the same Governments in... (STAMMERS) in opposition has argued against means testing. They've been very... they've highlighted the... the costs, regulatory costs of administering a means testing regime. And yet here they are adding these new costs. Somebody now has to go and check, right? There's a compliance cost involved. And for a government that's all about deregulation and making things simpler, they're adding complexity, adding cost and hurting people in the process. - And a lot of the means testing that that you just mentioned, Jules, is impacting on young people. You know, like, BestStart's gonna be harder for some young families. They're gonna be much worse off. But instead, you know, New Zealand First fought for gold card holders to have increased rates rebate on homes that they own. So all of those` And it's also gonna be a bit of a throwback to I'm sure we understand is when your kids turn 18, you can't just kick them out the door anymore because they're going to have less eligibility for, you know, for Government support. And so, this is` and` for Maori, that is even more so because half of our population are under 25. So the things that impact young people are going to impact Maori much more so. - Yeah. - Means testing for 18 and 19-year-olds is hard to fathom. Like, under our political system, you're an adult over the age of 18, but now we're going to say to those young people, those citizens of our country, that you're still beholden to your parents... - Mm. - ...or your parents are still responsible for looking after you. It's a really bizarre reframing of what it means to be an adult in Aotearoa New Zealand. - The other thing that I always heard from the Prime Minister when they were elected, and actually after that as well, they always used to talk about... an ad infinitum, actually, about a laser focus on the cost of living. And that was what they were gonna do in their first Budget, and that's what they said they were going to deliver with this one. Have they done that, Matt? - No. I mean, cost of living is hard to address. We've seen multiple governments try and talk about addressing cost of living, and nobody's really managed to crack that nut yet. Part of that is cos we're a small island in the middle of the Pacific and we take largely what happens overseas. So, overseas markets grow, the U.S. spends cash and we suffer the inflation consequences. But I don't see anything in this Budget that's going to address the growing material hardship. The child poverty report in the Budget showed that... that more children were entering into material hardship and other measures of poverty. I just don't know what this Budget is going to do to address the cost of living for those whanau. - The cost of living is pay equity. And that's the circular argument. The cost of living is giving people a living wage. - Well, but hang on. There's changes to Working For Families as well. Now, I know it's only $7 a week. - $14, is it? - $14 a fortnight. $7 a week. - Can't even get butter with that. - 140,000 whanau get an increase of $7 a week. That's what the Government is saying. Silence is golden. - What are you gonna buy for $7 a week? You know? And I think, again, going back to pay equity, like, that is so telling because what if they were to get the pay equity, wahine were to get the pay equity, these are choices like sending their kids to sport, giving extracurricular, you know, getting extracurricular activities for their kids. And you know, instead of focusing on the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff around youth offender reform... - Exactly. - ...you know, we're not` Yeah. Just totally... - What it proves is there is no philosophy, that they've adopted an external agenda, and all they're doing is implementing it. So you've got two dictators in Winston Peters and David Seymour and a compliant National Party, which I think they used to call that the dog wagging the tail. But you've got a head and National are the tail. - I hate to cut it off, but I've got to cos we've gotta get to a break, and then we're coming back. So, we'll hear more from our panel. He korero torangapu ano te haere ake e nga iwi. Kia ita tonu mai. - Hoki mai ano ki ta tatou hui. We have our panel here ` Louisa Wall, Professor Matt Roskruge and Mani Dunlop. So let's rip into it with more. Where did the Government stick the landing on the Budget? - Yeah, I mean, I've called it bleak. There's not much in there. It was a pretty light read. There were a couple of areas where you've gotta say there is economic need and they've worked to address that. We've got a productivity crisis or problem among our businesses in Aotearoa. The tax rebate will potentially help with getting businesses to invest more in capital. So, that makes theoretical sense. I can see what's going on there. Our health infrastructure is appalling. Like, it's a genuine emergency crisis. I don't care what you call it. You look at our hospitals, you look at our health infrastructure, it is falling apart in some cases and unfit for purpose. And the little bit of putea that's going into helping, like Palmerston North Hospital and bits and pieces. Yeah, that's desperately needed and you've gotta say a good thing. You could argue if the Defence Force, if we're going to have one, also desperately needed some cash. Maybe all the wahine that lost out in the pay equity claim can get a free ride in the helicopter they just paid for. But, yeah, that was` Defence needed that. I think it keeps the lights on there if we're gonna have it. - OK. Let's also talk about a couple of other wider political issues, if we don't mind. I'm happy for you, Mani and Louisa to both make a comment on where they stuck the landing, if you wanna mention that. But one of the big issues that has come out recently, of course, is the sanctions vetted out to the Maori Party, in particular to the co-leaders for the haka that was undertaken for, 'Stopping the vote' for the Treaty Principles Bill when that was undertaken actually a long time ago now. What are your reactions to the sanctions that they received? I mean, 21 days is a long... it's the longest penalty anyone's ever got in New Zealand Parliament. - Yeah. I mean, from my perspective, it is really the weaponization of process, and they haven't looked at it from a discrete incident perspective, from what I've read, is that it's been a culmination of the Maori Party asserting themselves in the House, which is their right as elected representatives. So, I think the House debate is going to be interesting in terms of the arguments that are placed on the table about how they came to the 21 days and seven days, because if you look at it rationally, the House allows waiata, the House allows haka. The fact that a haka was done before the vote was read, yes, minor misdemeanour, but for it to be a 21-day and a seven-day penalty, it's ridiculous. And how we do the haka, you know, this whole intimidation based on supposedly Debby firing a shot with a fake finger gun. I mean, it's ridiculous. You know, she could have been wagging her finger like the nannies do to many of us. - Yeah, she said she did. - Yeah. When they're telling us off. So I actually think this is about... going back to Agenda 2025, I'm sorry, but it's silencing of dissent based on that weaponization of a process. And this really does fall, from my perspective, on Judith Collins' head and also Winston Peters. They are the two leaders in that Privileges Committee that should have brought common sense to this whole debacle. - OK. I saw Winston Peters shaking his head and putting his head in his hand when a Minister used the C-word in Parliament. Not a lot of people were happy that another Minister drove a tractor on to Parliament grounds, and these are the sanctions the Maori Party get for a haka. Mani Dunlop? - Yeah, I mean, I think, different... I mean, on the face of it, definitely. It's hard to compare any of... well, it's easy to compare from the outside, but looking in to and to around the circumstance of, you know, when the C-word was said, that was a different sort of` it wasn't during a vote. So, there's different types of privileges or rights that you have doing that. So I mean, looking at the etymology of the word, that word that I won't say on your show. (LAUGHS) I mean, it's not a derogatory word, but however, I mean, in the same week when that was the heaviest and one of the harshest ever punishments from the Privileges Committee given to the Maori Party, it's hard to delineate or ascertain as to whether or not because they didn't participate in the process of the Privileges Committee, were they being further punished for not partaking in it? - Judith Collins said they weren't as a result of their non-participation. - I know, but I think there's been some commentary and some... some criticism of the Maori Party as to that they should have taken part in that process, because then it gives you more grounds to be able to have that argument and have that discussion of some of the main questions. - To be fair to them, they did want to participate, but they wanted to participate as a collective, and they also wanted legal representation. - Should they have participated in the debate and been in the Chamber when the Budget statement was being presented in Parliament? Given that the vote was held over so that they could participate, should they have been there then? - Well, it was their choice, but obviously they'd planned for the vote to have taken place and for them to have been suspended. - OK. - So, I don't think we can condemn them for enacting whatever their plan was, which was for Takutai, right, to be their Speaker. So, they had representation in the House. The fact they weren't there was their choice. - OK. Let's also talk about some other issues. So the first reading has passed for the Regulatory Standards Bill. It looks like the numbers are there for this to pass. The Tribunal held an urgent hearing. Actually, its recommendation was given the reasonable concerns and the lack of targeted consultation to Maori that the bill should be stopped. Where's this gonna end up? Is this gonna happen? - Well, halt and consult has been, 'Forget you, Waitangi Tribunal, we're gonna take no notice of you.' First reading's been held, now it's out for public submissions, so we all have until the 23rd of June. I would have thought everybody who submitted on the Treaty Principles Bill can just reframe that Bill, resubmit. Obviously, 300,000 submissions received. We wanna have more than that to show that actually having a Treaty that is a constitutional document, not in a Regulatory Standards Bill that is going to determine the regulations for all pieces of legislation that go through the House. I mean, this really is` That was a Trojan horse. This is really the target that we need to stop, and it's going to be very hard because it's in the Coalition agreement. - OK. Can I ask a wider question just to close? Is any of this going to matter given there's an election next year? Are people are gonna forget all of this? This budget, RSP, Treaty Principles when it comes to elections next year? Matt? - I think this Budget was designed to be forgotten. They were hoping to push it out, move on. Next year is potentially going to be a very difficult conversation between the Coalition partners. - Do you expect a lolly scramble? Cos that's what normally happens` - But how can they after they've just told us that they need to be austere? We need to live within our means. We're a household suddenly. They've just talked up a reduction in spending. A lolly scramble would be so difficult politically. - But Mani Dunlop, where do you see things sitting right now, and what the impact of that might be in an election year next year? - I think that the equity issue is going to really, really stick with them into election, because a lot of our swing voters are in that bracket of wahine, of working wahine as well. And they won't forget, especially when they're paying the bills at the end of the week. - Louisa, very quickly? - Oh, I agree. The pay equity is going to dominate politics, but it's also the people that are served by pay equity. You know, those most vulnerable and at the heart of everything that those women do, actually, is to care for our people. - I gotta leave it there. Thank you so much. Thank you all really, really very much. I really appreciate your time. We have Louisa Wall, Professor Matt Roskruge and Mani Dunlop. That is us for this week. Join us next week for another hui from us. Kia mau ki te turanga o Taputapuatea. Haumi e, hui e, taiki e. Captions by Drew Welsh. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2025 - Ko te reo te taki.