Prime Minister Christopher Luxon sat down with Jack Tame on TVNZ's Q&A programme over the weekend - and by Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls' count, Luxon uttered the phrase "what I'd say to you is" 21 times - and often struggled to answer Tame's direct questions.
"I'm not surprised he said it so many times, it was one of the worst interviews I've ever seen with a Prime Minister."
Also, the Labour Party held their annual conference in Christchurch this weekend. What came out of it?
Walls joined Nick Mills for the Beehive Buzz.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talk, said B direct from News Talks Edb's
team at parliaments, the Bee High Buzzy.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Joining us for the Bee Hyph Buzzers news Talk, said
be Political editor Jason Walls.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Good morning, Jason, Oh, good morning, Neck. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I'm great? But look what I would say to you
is no, no, no, no, no, Jason.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
What I would say to you is, well, Nick, what
I would say to you is what honestly well, what
I would say to you is that I know exactly
what you're referencing.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
You're referencing the Prime Minister's interview on Q and A yesterday.
I've done the maps. Would you like to guess how
many times? The right Honorable Christopher Luxon said the phrase
what I say to you is in the course of
his thirty more minute interview.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yes, I know that because I watched it. I was
like intrigued, and I watched it a second time with
an adult family member. I said, what did you make
of that? And they looked at me and said, look,
that's what I would say to you is And I went,
oh my gosh. So it's got to be six or
seven times. If someone else repeats it, doesn't.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It six or seven times, as rookie numbers, Nick, twenty
one times he said that phrase.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
No.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Twenty I went through and countered that. I mean, listen,
I only started counting two minutes in, so I need
to go back and actually watch the first two minutes
because I thought to myself at that point, Gee, he
said it a lot. But yeah, no, he said it
twenty one. Well, technically he said it twenty and a
half times. He said it one time. He only got
halfway through before Jack Chamee interrupted him and quite rightly actually,
and got him back on track. But you know, it's
(01:39):
Christopher Luxen's tech. You know, everybody has sort of a
phrase that they come back to, and for me, it's
the word obviously. It's the way I will be explaining things,
and then I'll say the word obviously, and that's my tech.
And you can hear people like John t He used
to say things like, well at the end of the day,
so everybody has one, but Christopher Luxeen's is just so
forthright and so front and center. And I'll tell you
(02:01):
what it is, Nick. It is when he gets veered
off track, when he's off his talking points, he says
this line because it's a way of his brain sort
of rebooting. It's like a lot of people say, um,
it's while they're thinking, and this is what he's trained
himself and saying. And I'm not surprised that he said
it so many times because it was one of the
worst interviews I've ever seen, was the Prime Minister. I mean,
(02:21):
I'm not sure what you thought of it. You said
you saw it a couple of times, but I thought
that it was horrific.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, and I thought it was horrific. And I thought,
you know what scared me a little bit as I thought,
for the first time ever, he didn't look like a
prime minister. He didn't.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
He looked like an opposite. Yeah, he looked like a
leader of the opposition. I agree with you.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah. And the back, the shot from behind, you know
with this, I mean, he's not the prettiest guy in
the world. And the shot, the camera shot from the
behind his back of his head. You know, for a
couple of times I had to stop myself saying, this
looks like shit getting interview. You know, it wasn't It
wasn't pretty.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
The thing about it. That I thought was that he
should be prepared for the stuff about the business, he
should be prepared about the economic questions because that is
essentially his bread and butter. But it sounded like he
was just leaning on being able to wing it just
a little bit too much. Started with a lot of
questions about economic growth, where it was put to him
that New Zealand's economic growth actually is not as good
(03:14):
as other countries in the world. In fact, it's a
lot worse. And his answer was, and this was a
key theme of the interview, with to blame the last government.
Now I'm not saying that that's wrong. Of course, there
is a lot that you can throw under the foot
of the last government and say that it's your fault
for a number of these things, especially when it comes
to the economy. The problem is when it becomes your
(03:34):
default answer, you tend to sound a little bit whiny,
just blaming the last guys for everything, and you need
to use it in reserve and have a really, really good,
coherent argument as to why it was the last people's fault.
And I think that there is. I mean, he went
on later to talk about race relations, and I mean,
this could be my controversial take of it. I think
that when he talked about Marty crime relations was probably
(03:54):
where he was at his strongest in the interview, because
he copped it. Instead of course, things are worse now
than there were a year ago. You'd have to be
nuts to say that it wasn't after you had ahkoy
of forty two thousand people outside Parliament alone. But when
it came to the questions about the economy, it was
too often he was blaming the last government. And what
the other thing is that he likes to when we
get them in small doses, we get him for one
(04:16):
or two questions each, maybe a couple of times a
week or on morning radio. When he has these sort
of conversations, he runs down the clock by saying bringing
it back to inflation and saying, well, inflation is lower.
That means that your mortgage rates are lower, and that
means that this government is doing it better for the
New Zealand is which you know, lower mortgage rates are
something that's tangible and economic growth really isn't. So he's
(04:39):
right to keep coming back to this. But the problem
is Jack Chaang just wouldn't let him off the hook
when it came to this question about growth and also
with inflation, which technically it isn't just the government doing this.
I mean there's more important that in terms of the
imported inflation that is much lower than the tradable inflation
within New Zealand, which means that it's the Frankly, the
(05:00):
fact that petrol prices are coming down is doing more
to alleviate your mortgage rates than the government.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, I've got to say that's too nil to Jack Tame,
Winston Peters and Christopher Luxe. I think he won both
those games handsomely, and I think that it showed has
I don't know, he's just come of age, brilliant, brilliant interviewer.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Let's talk about it, labor very quickly. What it alshow
shows is that politicians in this country have become far
too complacent. And because we have such a lack of
long form interviews these days, it's often just a couple
of questions on the tile tiles or some afternoon or
morning radio shows, it means that a lot of them
can't hold their own in these big, long interviews. I mean,
(05:39):
gone are the days where John Key, or even to
her credit, just Sinda or Durn we're able to hold
their own quite well within thirty minutest falling apart.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Hey, Jason, you've got one and a half minutes to
tell me what you thought of the Labor and your
conference over the weekend.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Oh, you know, I think, I mean, we could talk
about Orcust and the fact that they want to stay
away from it. No one really cares about that. It's
I mean, it's an interesting and significant development fact that
the fact that Labor says that they're going to walk
away from that, but normal New Zealanders don't really care
about that. There's the duneedon hospital announcement in terms of
they're going to go Basically, they're going to do exactly
what they said that they were going to do before
(06:15):
the election, which is admirable for them. I don't know
where they're going to find them money for it, because
they were the ones that blew it out in the
first place. The things that people care about is the
fact that they're going forward with work on a capital
gains tax and that is going to be taken to
the next AGM ahead of the election, and that is
the thing that is going to be make or breaks
for the Labor Party. So I'm not surprised to see
them going forward with it, but I think they're really
(06:36):
going to pay for it at the polls.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Always a pleasure, Jays, Thank you very much, have a
great week in parliament. It's Jason Walls, News Talks, MB's
political editor.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to News Talks they'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talk, said B direct from News Talks Edb's
team at parliaments, the Bee High Buzzy.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Joining us for the Bee Hyph Buzzers news Talk, said
be Political editor Jason Walls.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Good morning, Jason, Oh, good morning, Neck. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I'm great? But look what I would say to you
is no, no, no, no, no, Jason.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
What I would say to you is, well, Nick, what
I would say to you is what honestly well, what
I would say to you is that I know exactly
what you're referencing.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
You're referencing the Prime Minister's interview on Q and A yesterday.
I've done the maps. Would you like to guess how
many times? The right Honorable Christopher Luxon said the phrase
what I say to you is in the course of
his thirty more minute interview.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yes, I know that because I watched it. I was
like intrigued, and I watched it a second time with
an adult family member. I said, what did you make
of that? And they looked at me and said, look,
that's what I would say to you is And I went,
oh my gosh. So it's got to be six or
seven times. If someone else repeats it, doesn't.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It six or seven times, as rookie numbers, Nick, twenty
one times he said that phrase.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
No.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Twenty I went through and countered that. I mean, listen,
I only started counting two minutes in, so I need
to go back and actually watch the first two minutes
because I thought to myself at that point, Gee, he
said it a lot. But yeah, no, he said it
twenty one. Well, technically he said it twenty and a
half times. He said it one time. He only got
halfway through before Jack Chamee interrupted him and quite rightly actually,
and got him back on track. But you know, it's
(01:39):
Christopher Luxen's tech. You know, everybody has sort of a
phrase that they come back to, and for me, it's
the word obviously. It's the way I will be explaining things,
and then I'll say the word obviously, and that's my tech.
And you can hear people like John t He used
to say things like, well at the end of the day,
so everybody has one, but Christopher Luxeen's is just so
forthright and so front and center. And I'll tell you
(02:01):
what it is, Nick. It is when he gets veered
off track, when he's off his talking points, he says
this line because it's a way of his brain sort
of rebooting. It's like a lot of people say, um,
it's while they're thinking, and this is what he's trained
himself and saying. And I'm not surprised that he said
it so many times because it was one of the
worst interviews I've ever seen, was the Prime Minister. I mean,
(02:21):
I'm not sure what you thought of it. You said
you saw it a couple of times, but I thought
that it was horrific.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, and I thought it was horrific. And I thought,
you know what scared me a little bit as I thought,
for the first time ever, he didn't look like a
prime minister. He didn't.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
He looked like an opposite. Yeah, he looked like a
leader of the opposition. I agree with you.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah. And the back, the shot from behind, you know
with this, I mean, he's not the prettiest guy in
the world. And the shot, the camera shot from the
behind his back of his head. You know, for a
couple of times I had to stop myself saying, this
looks like shit getting interview. You know, it wasn't It
wasn't pretty.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
The thing about it. That I thought was that he
should be prepared for the stuff about the business, he
should be prepared about the economic questions because that is
essentially his bread and butter. But it sounded like he
was just leaning on being able to wing it just
a little bit too much. Started with a lot of
questions about economic growth, where it was put to him
that New Zealand's economic growth actually is not as good
(03:14):
as other countries in the world. In fact, it's a
lot worse. And his answer was, and this was a
key theme of the interview, with to blame the last government.
Now I'm not saying that that's wrong. Of course, there
is a lot that you can throw under the foot
of the last government and say that it's your fault
for a number of these things, especially when it comes
to the economy. The problem is when it becomes your
(03:34):
default answer, you tend to sound a little bit whiny,
just blaming the last guys for everything, and you need
to use it in reserve and have a really, really good,
coherent argument as to why it was the last people's fault.
And I think that there is. I mean, he went
on later to talk about race relations, and I mean,
this could be my controversial take of it. I think
that when he talked about Marty crime relations was probably
(03:54):
where he was at his strongest in the interview, because
he copped it. Instead of course, things are worse now
than there were a year ago. You'd have to be
nuts to say that it wasn't after you had ahkoy
of forty two thousand people outside Parliament alone. But when
it came to the questions about the economy, it was
too often he was blaming the last government. And what
the other thing is that he likes to when we
get them in small doses, we get him for one
(04:16):
or two questions each, maybe a couple of times a
week or on morning radio. When he has these sort
of conversations, he runs down the clock by saying bringing
it back to inflation and saying, well, inflation is lower.
That means that your mortgage rates are lower, and that
means that this government is doing it better for the
New Zealand is which you know, lower mortgage rates are
something that's tangible and economic growth really isn't. So he's
(04:39):
right to keep coming back to this. But the problem
is Jack Chaang just wouldn't let him off the hook
when it came to this question about growth and also
with inflation, which technically it isn't just the government doing this.
I mean there's more important that in terms of the
imported inflation that is much lower than the tradable inflation
within New Zealand, which means that it's the Frankly, the
(05:00):
fact that petrol prices are coming down is doing more
to alleviate your mortgage rates than the government.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, I've got to say that's too nil to Jack Tame,
Winston Peters and Christopher Luxe. I think he won both
those games handsomely, and I think that it showed has
I don't know, he's just come of age, brilliant, brilliant interviewer.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Let's talk about it, labor very quickly. What it alshow
shows is that politicians in this country have become far
too complacent. And because we have such a lack of
long form interviews these days, it's often just a couple
of questions on the tile tiles or some afternoon or
morning radio shows, it means that a lot of them
can't hold their own in these big, long interviews. I mean,
(05:39):
gone are the days where John Key, or even to
her credit, just Sinda or Durn we're able to hold
their own quite well within thirty minutest falling apart.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Hey, Jason, you've got one and a half minutes to
tell me what you thought of the Labor and your
conference over the weekend.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Oh, you know, I think, I mean, we could talk
about Orcust and the fact that they want to stay
away from it. No one really cares about that. It's
I mean, it's an interesting and significant development fact that
the fact that Labor says that they're going to walk
away from that, but normal New Zealanders don't really care
about that. There's the duneedon hospital announcement in terms of
they're going to go Basically, they're going to do exactly
what they said that they were going to do before
(06:15):
the election, which is admirable for them. I don't know
where they're going to find them money for it, because
they were the ones that blew it out in the
first place. The things that people care about is the
fact that they're going forward with work on a capital
gains tax and that is going to be taken to
the next AGM ahead of the election, and that is
the thing that is going to be make or breaks
for the Labor Party. So I'm not surprised to see
them going forward with it, but I think they're really
(06:36):
going to pay for it at the polls.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Always a pleasure, Jays, Thank you very much, have a
great week in parliament. It's Jason Walls, News Talks, MB's
political editor.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to News Talks they'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.