January 28, 2025 • 9 mins
Sir John Key doubts asset sales would achieve much.
The former Prime Minister says cutting bureaucracy and allowing better foreign investment would have more of an impact.
National says it may campaign on state-owned asset sales next election, a policy New Zealand First is dead against, while ACT's floating privatisation of health and education.
Key told Mike Hosking people are opposed because of what he thinks is ideological mumbo jumbo.
He says they just want to say everything is fantastic when its run by the state and you can't trust the private sector, but most things are done by the private sector already.
Sir John Key says there's nothing much left to sell, anyway.
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 (00:00):
It started last week with David Seymore State of the
Nation's speech, and now is back in a back to
the future sort of way, we're suddenly debating potential asset
sales all over again. National may or may not go
into the next election, presumably along with act on a
platform of selling off some of the state. Excuse me,
silver Web. Last time we did this, of course, was
under John Key, who is with us. Very good morning
(00:21):
to you, Morning Mite. I'm kind of reluctant to even
talk about this. Don't we have a bigger fish to
fry in this country at the moment.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'd probably say is look in the scheme of things,
we want the boat to go faster. There's a million
things you can do from canning, bureaucracy and Texas and
you know, making it more from the society, better foreign investment,
all those kinds of things. If you want my view,
they'll make the boat go a lot faster than a
few ys it sells, because frankly, there ain't a hell
of a lot to sell.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Good. I'm glad you said that, because I was trying
to work out what we would sell. Somebody says Land Corp.
But I mean beyond that, what's left of genuine value.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, unless you went down and we sold center of
the gen Taylor's, you know, the contacts and Genesis and
that sort of stuff. So unless you actually sold out
the balance of that, I'm not really sure what's around.
I mean, the certain assets you wouldn't sell Transpowers one
of them, just because it's the national grid. There's some things,
as you identify the think in your minute this morning,
(01:18):
like you know Tip New Zealand, where you know, yeah,
maybe one day it was with the billion, but now
you almost paying someone to take it off your hand.
So there's no real money. The elen length, I don't
even know look at something. But I mean the blunt
reality with the thing was that it was it was
designed actually to be farmer for for ballot farmers, and
(01:39):
and you know I didn't really count as a state
asset in the same way that you would say Gen Taylor.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So what would if Nationally enters the contest next year
looking to sell Is it selling for money or is
it selling for ideology? In other words, when we get
rid of it, we can it will be run better.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, I think you just look at the whole principle
of why you do it. I mean, why are people opposed,
in my opinion, ideological mumbo jumbo. You know, they just
want to sit there and tell you everything's fantastic when
it's run by the state and you can't trust the
private sector. But ninety percent of what we do is
done by the private sector, probably a lot more than that.
So I don't see why we can't trust a few
things here. Secondly, why wouldn't you recycle your balance sheet?
(02:22):
To me, if you're a householder, the house you buy
it thirty is often very different to the one you
buy at forty five and the one you buy at
seventy five. Why because your lifestyle changes, So you don't
go there and buy the first little unit you buy
at thirty and say that's going to be the thing
I'm going to want to raise my family because not
big enough's not for purpose. Well, the government's no different fairly,
(02:43):
you know, in the bureaucracy you are paid to say no,
wherea isn't. It's paid to say yes because yes is
what makes them again the performance better. But why there's
risks in the pub And I think the one thing
that PEO will sort of well, you know most of
us have Q we save everybody's involved in acc in
(03:04):
New Zealand super where there's guy's going to put their money.
You know, if you don't want to give them any
assets to invest them, they're going to have to invest
in Australian roads, in Australian assets, you know. So it
doesn't making sense really to stop them.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
What about things like qe we Rail. This person in
the herall this morning from Richard Prebble, of course, was
in charge of selling ke We Rail in the first place.
So sold it off, didn't go well, brought it back
isn't going well. So is government owning stuff a bad thing?
Or is it? Is it it's site or business specific?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, I think it's a site specific. I mean, look,
it may have changed, and I could be well and
truly the other day. But I'll tell you when I
was pronounced and we used to look at q rail
and all have, you know, the executives and stuff in
our office. I'll tell you now the main trenk mine
made money. You can't make money on rail for a
for something that you can do that's prety much under
(03:53):
one hundred kill mees like you need distance. So it
worked for the Golden Triangle down to tower on the
in land portal, that sort of stuff. It works along
the main line and everything else doesn't make money. So
if you were selling it, the question would be and
by the way, the state is those assets are saw,
as I understand it, pretty ropey, so there'd be a
(04:14):
huge amount of investment. I'm not sure what cash you'd get,
so if you did sell parts of it or soul
that you'd be really in the camp of saying I
think someone else will run it better. And there's nothing
actually wrong with saying someone else could own an asset
that you still might cross subsidized. I mean, well this
a while I look at it. If I needed a
(04:34):
major health procedure this afternoon, frankly, I don't care who
owns that. I don't care it's the private sector. I
don't care it's the public sector. I tell what I
care about the surgeons and medical professionals that are around me, right,
and that they have the drugs that I need for
that procedure. That's what I care about. What the actual
ownership of the bricks and water exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
What's your vibe on mood? How much political capital do
you think gets spent if it gets spent next year.
Are we still angsty about this or not?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, because I think the people that are opposed are
sort of disposed to everything really in a lot of ways.
I mean they've been fed aligned that they all have
to pay a lot more and that it will be
sold offshore and that won't work. And it's like the
same argument around foreign investments, the same answer around it.
You know, so many of these things, more tourists coming,
more people coming to work in New Zealand. I'll tell
(05:26):
you a little interesting thing, right, You've been talking about
DTZ recently and I mess It talked about you know
chet GPT this to go on to chet GPT. Here's
a cluin and say how do I get rich? Here's
the answer, earn more, spend less. Well, last time, a
lot all the people that are opposed and most of
those things that will make the vote go faster do
(05:46):
not want to spend less because that means the provision
of poorer public services. So the answer is we have
to earn more. And I think for Chris and the government,
I think he's on absolutely track. He's talking about economic
growth because in the end, we all want a higher
standard of living. To do that we have to earn more,
(06:07):
and I just go back to what it was used
to saving us PM. You know, we're a little country.
We're at the bottom of the world. No one knows
what's a living So we better start being more attractive,
more permissive, more more a better place to do business.
And when we do that, there's so many people that
want to do things in our country, and we shouldn't
be afraid of that because honestly, they make a massive
(06:27):
difference to the economic growth and therefore the tax revenue
and the you know, the beneficial things that you get
from all that.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
And on that note, how much energy if you had
Winston alongside you're running the place right now, would you
put him too trying to twist his on foreign house investment?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Foreign house investment? Definitely, because I think again that's sort
of crazy. I mean, look, when I was around, not
necessarily well known that, but I pushed quite hard for
a stamp duty, a foreign a foreign buyers stamp duty.
And the reason being I used to say to our
guys that one day we'll lose an election and if
we don't, they'll put a foreign buyers ben And that's
(07:04):
exactly what's happened. And it did. Look, we had the
fastest writing House Brothers in the New Zealand history. Here's a
clear of what makes House Brothers go up low interest rates.
You know, it's not it's not basically the fact that
someone who lives in Manhattan might be to go and
buy the odd house in New Zealand. I think. And
if you want to attract people to New Zealand and
(07:24):
would you migrate to New Zealand if I said you are,
by the way for a quite a period of time
you can't buy house or well, that is way more
important in my mind than something like, you know, can
I hock off a bit of q rail for which
I'll get nothing for it?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Then why can't Peter's understand that, Given he's out in
the world as foreign minister, and I think most people
see him as a successful foreign minister. Given that message
to the world, why can't Why does he then come
back home and go, no, you can't buy house.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Look, I think it's just that a logicul doo that says, essentially,
you know, foreign foreign and foreign engagement is bad. I
know that sense weird as a foreign minister, but in
an economic sense, he hasn't changed that's been New Zealand's
first philosophy for or thirty or forty years. Are basically
pretty much opposed to all of those things, asset sales,
(08:23):
foreign investments, all of this. But you know, it is
a very very It might work under Donald Trump's will. Weirdly,
it works because it works better because you've got such
an enormous enclosed economy that's got two hundred and thirty millions. Basically,
you know, middle income seeds, the wealthiest people are out
(08:45):
and they drive that economic growth. But in the New
Zealand context, we don't have that. So the only way
we really succeed grow and prosper is when we have
other middle income consumers doing things with us and high
income consumers. And part of that is said, buy a house.
And I mean, look, I understand that, but honestly have
(09:05):
to Tari to you have a lot. You know, in
Tiari there's just dozens now of these teen twenty to
thirty million dollar houses being built. They have provided enormous
work for the people of fromong A Fire and the
surrounding area. We are so much better off for having
those assets, you know. And so foreigners and foreigners often
(09:26):
very often they're Americans and Australians who are very philanthropic.
They give away a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Exactly right, good and so I appreciate it as always
to John Key, can you please stop texting saying John Key?
What a breath of fresh year? God, I miss John Key.
Text machines are burning, Burning up.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news Talks it'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
It started last week with David Seymore State of the
Nation's speech, and now is back in a back to
the future sort of way, we're suddenly debating potential asset
sales all over again. National may or may not go
into the next election, presumably along with act on a
platform of selling off some of the state. Excuse me,
silver Web. Last time we did this, of course, was
under John Key, who is with us. Very good morning
(00:21):
to you, Morning Mite. I'm kind of reluctant to even
talk about this. Don't we have a bigger fish to
fry in this country at the moment.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'd probably say is look in the scheme of things,
we want the boat to go faster. There's a million
things you can do from canning, bureaucracy and Texas and
you know, making it more from the society, better foreign investment,
all those kinds of things. If you want my view,
they'll make the boat go a lot faster than a
few ys it sells, because frankly, there ain't a hell
of a lot to sell.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Good. I'm glad you said that, because I was trying
to work out what we would sell. Somebody says Land Corp.
But I mean beyond that, what's left of genuine value.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, unless you went down and we sold center of
the gen Taylor's, you know, the contacts and Genesis and
that sort of stuff. So unless you actually sold out
the balance of that, I'm not really sure what's around.
I mean, the certain assets you wouldn't sell Transpowers one
of them, just because it's the national grid. There's some things,
as you identify the think in your minute this morning,
(01:18):
like you know Tip New Zealand, where you know, yeah,
maybe one day it was with the billion, but now
you almost paying someone to take it off your hand.
So there's no real money. The elen length, I don't
even know look at something. But I mean the blunt
reality with the thing was that it was it was
designed actually to be farmer for for ballot farmers, and
(01:39):
and you know I didn't really count as a state
asset in the same way that you would say Gen Taylor.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So what would if Nationally enters the contest next year
looking to sell Is it selling for money or is
it selling for ideology? In other words, when we get
rid of it, we can it will be run better.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, I think you just look at the whole principle
of why you do it. I mean, why are people opposed,
in my opinion, ideological mumbo jumbo. You know, they just
want to sit there and tell you everything's fantastic when
it's run by the state and you can't trust the
private sector. But ninety percent of what we do is
done by the private sector, probably a lot more than that.
So I don't see why we can't trust a few
things here. Secondly, why wouldn't you recycle your balance sheet?
(02:22):
To me, if you're a householder, the house you buy
it thirty is often very different to the one you
buy at forty five and the one you buy at
seventy five. Why because your lifestyle changes, So you don't
go there and buy the first little unit you buy
at thirty and say that's going to be the thing
I'm going to want to raise my family because not
big enough's not for purpose. Well, the government's no different fairly,
(02:43):
you know, in the bureaucracy you are paid to say no,
wherea isn't. It's paid to say yes because yes is
what makes them again the performance better. But why there's
risks in the pub And I think the one thing
that PEO will sort of well, you know most of
us have Q we save everybody's involved in acc in
(03:04):
New Zealand super where there's guy's going to put their money.
You know, if you don't want to give them any
assets to invest them, they're going to have to invest
in Australian roads, in Australian assets, you know. So it
doesn't making sense really to stop them.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
What about things like qe we Rail. This person in
the herall this morning from Richard Prebble, of course, was
in charge of selling ke We Rail in the first place.
So sold it off, didn't go well, brought it back
isn't going well. So is government owning stuff a bad thing?
Or is it? Is it it's site or business specific?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, I think it's a site specific. I mean, look,
it may have changed, and I could be well and
truly the other day. But I'll tell you when I
was pronounced and we used to look at q rail
and all have, you know, the executives and stuff in
our office. I'll tell you now the main trenk mine
made money. You can't make money on rail for a
for something that you can do that's prety much under
(03:53):
one hundred kill mees like you need distance. So it
worked for the Golden Triangle down to tower on the
in land portal, that sort of stuff. It works along
the main line and everything else doesn't make money. So
if you were selling it, the question would be and
by the way, the state is those assets are saw,
as I understand it, pretty ropey, so there'd be a
(04:14):
huge amount of investment. I'm not sure what cash you'd get,
so if you did sell parts of it or soul
that you'd be really in the camp of saying I
think someone else will run it better. And there's nothing
actually wrong with saying someone else could own an asset
that you still might cross subsidized. I mean, well this
a while I look at it. If I needed a
(04:34):
major health procedure this afternoon, frankly, I don't care who
owns that. I don't care it's the private sector. I
don't care it's the public sector. I tell what I
care about the surgeons and medical professionals that are around me, right,
and that they have the drugs that I need for
that procedure. That's what I care about. What the actual
ownership of the bricks and water exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
What's your vibe on mood? How much political capital do
you think gets spent if it gets spent next year.
Are we still angsty about this or not?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, because I think the people that are opposed are
sort of disposed to everything really in a lot of ways.
I mean they've been fed aligned that they all have
to pay a lot more and that it will be
sold offshore and that won't work. And it's like the
same argument around foreign investments, the same answer around it.
You know, so many of these things, more tourists coming,
more people coming to work in New Zealand. I'll tell
(05:26):
you a little interesting thing, right, You've been talking about
DTZ recently and I mess It talked about you know
chet GPT this to go on to chet GPT. Here's
a cluin and say how do I get rich? Here's
the answer, earn more, spend less. Well, last time, a
lot all the people that are opposed and most of
those things that will make the vote go faster do
(05:46):
not want to spend less because that means the provision
of poorer public services. So the answer is we have
to earn more. And I think for Chris and the government,
I think he's on absolutely track. He's talking about economic
growth because in the end, we all want a higher
standard of living. To do that we have to earn more,
(06:07):
and I just go back to what it was used
to saving us PM. You know, we're a little country.
We're at the bottom of the world. No one knows
what's a living So we better start being more attractive,
more permissive, more more a better place to do business.
And when we do that, there's so many people that
want to do things in our country, and we shouldn't
be afraid of that because honestly, they make a massive
(06:27):
difference to the economic growth and therefore the tax revenue
and the you know, the beneficial things that you get
from all that.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
And on that note, how much energy if you had
Winston alongside you're running the place right now, would you
put him too trying to twist his on foreign house investment?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Foreign house investment? Definitely, because I think again that's sort
of crazy. I mean, look, when I was around, not
necessarily well known that, but I pushed quite hard for
a stamp duty, a foreign a foreign buyers stamp duty.
And the reason being I used to say to our
guys that one day we'll lose an election and if
we don't, they'll put a foreign buyers ben And that's
(07:04):
exactly what's happened. And it did. Look, we had the
fastest writing House Brothers in the New Zealand history. Here's a
clear of what makes House Brothers go up low interest rates.
You know, it's not it's not basically the fact that
someone who lives in Manhattan might be to go and
buy the odd house in New Zealand. I think. And
if you want to attract people to New Zealand and
(07:24):
would you migrate to New Zealand if I said you are,
by the way for a quite a period of time
you can't buy house or well, that is way more
important in my mind than something like, you know, can
I hock off a bit of q rail for which
I'll get nothing for it?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Then why can't Peter's understand that, Given he's out in
the world as foreign minister, and I think most people
see him as a successful foreign minister. Given that message
to the world, why can't Why does he then come
back home and go, no, you can't buy house.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Look, I think it's just that a logicul doo that says, essentially,
you know, foreign foreign and foreign engagement is bad. I
know that sense weird as a foreign minister, but in
an economic sense, he hasn't changed that's been New Zealand's
first philosophy for or thirty or forty years. Are basically
pretty much opposed to all of those things, asset sales,
(08:23):
foreign investments, all of this. But you know, it is
a very very It might work under Donald Trump's will. Weirdly,
it works because it works better because you've got such
an enormous enclosed economy that's got two hundred and thirty millions. Basically,
you know, middle income seeds, the wealthiest people are out
(08:45):
and they drive that economic growth. But in the New
Zealand context, we don't have that. So the only way
we really succeed grow and prosper is when we have
other middle income consumers doing things with us and high
income consumers. And part of that is said, buy a house.
And I mean, look, I understand that, but honestly have
(09:05):
to Tari to you have a lot. You know, in
Tiari there's just dozens now of these teen twenty to
thirty million dollar houses being built. They have provided enormous
work for the people of fromong A Fire and the
surrounding area. We are so much better off for having
those assets, you know. And so foreigners and foreigners often
(09:26):
very often they're Americans and Australians who are very philanthropic.
They give away a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Exactly right, good and so I appreciate it as always
to John Key, can you please stop texting saying John Key?
What a breath of fresh year? God, I miss John Key.
Text machines are burning, Burning up.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news Talks it'd be from six 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
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.