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Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB Political Editor on Trade Minister Todd McClay making a fifth trip to India in nine months · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Z B Political editor Jason Walls. Because our Trade Minister,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Todd McClay, I asked you before the break, he's visiting
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: India this week. How many times do you think he
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: has met face to face with the Indian Commerce minister
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  Speaker 1: in the last nine months. I know you'd probably say
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  Speaker 1: once or twice, maybe five times. Apparently, yes, and he's
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  Speaker 1: going to do it again. They're talking forestry, agriculture and
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  Speaker 1: of course trade between our two countries. Luxon wants an
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  Speaker 1: FTA with India within the next will within this term. Basically.
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  Speaker 1: Jason Wallves is with US Live this morning. Jason, good morning, Good.
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  Speaker 2: Morning, Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, this seems like an awful lot of meetings. Is
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  Speaker 1: this part of the drive to get this FTA? Do
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  Speaker 1: you Reckon?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely? I mean Chris Luxon has made absolutely no
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  Speaker 2: secret of his desire to get a free trade agreement
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  Speaker 2: with India. But it's not something that New Zealand is
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  Speaker 2: just deciding to do now. They've been trying to push
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  Speaker 2: for this for a long time. In fact, I remember
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  Speaker 2: when I was a CUB reporter interviewing Todd McLay last
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  Speaker 2: time he was Trade minister in the last National government
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  Speaker 2: about his desire to get a free traded agreement with India,
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  Speaker 2: and he said that he was really pushing to do so,
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  Speaker 2: and then I've interviewed various different trade ministers from labor
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  Speaker 2: to try and do it. It's all well and good
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  Speaker 2: to say it, but getting a free traded deement agreement
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  Speaker 2: with India is tough because of the dairy component as well,
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  Speaker 2: and a lot of other countries will struggled with that.
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  Speaker 2: So although Todd McLay has met with his count five
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  Speaker 2: times this year, I think that he's still going to
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  Speaker 2: face quite a few obstacles actually getting a deal over
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  Speaker 2: the line.
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  Speaker 1: And there's a difference between a deal like excess and
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  Speaker 1: fear access. Right do they have has lucks and sit
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  Speaker 1: bottom lines on this? Because the Aussies have got about
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  Speaker 1: eighty five percent of exports terror free. Have we have
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  Speaker 1: we quantified the quality of the deal that we're wanting.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I don't think Luxeon's got into those sorts of details, yes,
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  Speaker 2: and I think he's really just wanting to get his
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  Speaker 2: foot in the door before actually getting in and quantifying
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  Speaker 2: some of those more finer details. But just any sort
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  Speaker 2: of better access into that market will be extremely helpful
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  Speaker 2: for new Zealand. I mean, they don't need to tell
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  Speaker 2: you the size of the Indian market, which is exactly
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  Speaker 2: why Chris lucksm has put so much emphasis on that.
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  Speaker 2: I mean that was the Indian president, that was just
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  Speaker 2: in New Zealand last week in the Prime Minister was saying,
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  Speaker 2: that's just another example of how our two countries have
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  Speaker 2: this growing and burdening and growing relationships. So he'll be
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  Speaker 2: hoping that this meeting with Todd Clay and Todd McLay
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  Speaker 2: coming this week will be bearing fruit so that we
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  Speaker 2: can go forward and actually get something on the dotted line.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Hey, very quickly the ICR announcement this week.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously everybody is waiting with baited breath, but no one
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  Speaker 1: more perhaps than the government because I mean they can't
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  Speaker 1: tell them they want the cuts, but boy, it would
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  Speaker 1: help them if it happened, right.
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  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. I mean they can cut as many taxes
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  Speaker 2: as they can, they can cut taxes until they're blue
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  Speaker 2: in the face, but at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 2: if mortgage rates aren't coming down, it's a problem for
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  Speaker 2: them because people won't be getting the impact of that
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  Speaker 2: tax relief because it'll be swallowed up by interest rates,
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  Speaker 2: so they'll be absolutely wanting to see that rate come down.
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  Speaker 2: And Nikola Willis has made no secret of the fact
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  Speaker 2: that she wants to see the ocr fall. However, as
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  Speaker 2: you say, she can't explicitly say that no matter that.
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  Speaker 2: I think that Adrian Orr will be feeling an enormous
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  Speaker 2: amount of pressure from the ninth floor, the eighth floor
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  Speaker 2: of the beehive to start cutting those rates, but as
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  Speaker 2: you say, he's completely independent, so he can do what
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  Speaker 2: he wants.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks Jason, Jason Wall's News Talk zed B political editor.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: For more from News Talk ZEDB, listen live on air
• 3:37
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• 3:40
  Speaker 1: go with our podcast on iHeartRadio.