Latest / Best of Business / Barry Soper: Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent on the Reserve Bank keeping the OCR on hold at 2.75 percent

Transcript

Barry Soper: Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent on the Reserve Bank keeping the OCR on hold at 2.75 percent · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZB. Follow this
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: We have Barry Sober, Senior Political Correspondent.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Hello, Barry. Good afternoon, Heather. You know, I'd forgotten all
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: about that BYD telling the sunroof to close.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: As you should have.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: And this from a woman who talked about a strange
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: ceremony with juniper berries, made her children last night witch's fingers. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Think on that one. That needs explaining.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Once again, it proves that apparently all dads are just
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: lame when they tell stories. They are all just lame
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: dad jokes. Hey, the OCR. I mean, I see some
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: people have automatically reached to the conclusion that the OCR
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: was held today because the election is looming. But that's
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: a bridge too far, isn't it?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what a lot of commentators were saying. And
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: in fact, there's no requirement at all on the Reserve
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Bank Monetary Committee website to take any account of any election.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Or anything outside the bank's gamut.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: No, of course they shouldn't. Of course, the politics in
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: this can't be missed. The official cash rate, according to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Nicola Willis, reminded people that under Labour, it's at 2.75%
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: held today, and under Labour... was double that, 5.5%. And
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: she said what that meant was that a family taking
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: out a $ 500, 000 mortgage today would be about $ 250 a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: fortnight or almost $ 6, 600 a year better off. And that's true.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: It was interesting, Anna Bremen was asked today whether this
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: would see a drop in interest rates. Unlikely, she indicated,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: and did say that there would be probably a couple of, well,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: it'll be one in December, and the one after that
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: will be increased as well. If you look at the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: would-be finance minister, though, Chloe Swarbrick, she said the Reserve
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Bank's acknowledgement that high inflation is driven by our economy's
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: exposure to fossil fuels, which is quite true, of course.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: The Price of oil is dreadful at the moment. She
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: said the Reserve Bank know that higher mortgage rates can't
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Only a responsible government can
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: do something about our exposure to imported fuel. I mean, honestly,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: what do you say to that?
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Now the Opportunity Party's a bit weird
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: at the minute, isn't it?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: It's interesting because the heat is now being applied, no
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: doubt about it. And I think it comes, it all
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: stems from last week's appearance by Kule Wong in the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: minor leaders debate. Essentially, you saw the one news variant
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: poll out last night. For the third poll in a row,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: they've dropped. They're now down to 6%, very close to
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: that 5% threshold. And today, funnily enough, Erica Stanford has
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: come out and she's totally backed Christopher Luxon's decision to
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: rule the party out, not once, but dozens of times,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: saying that she doesn't believe opportunity would make it over
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the 5% threshold. And she indicated that that is what
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the private polling of the National Party is showing. And
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I think it probably is. She said she doesn't know
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: anymore what the Opportunity Party stands for. And once they
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: drop those bottom lines... I think, you know, like I've said,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: it's something of a powderpuff party now. And if you
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: listen to Winston Peters, he's a bit more direct. He
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: says that they long ago ruled out working with this
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: bunch of pinko communists. And now Quile Wong is apparently
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: considering whether she would work with Winston Peters in any government. Well,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: if she closes the door to that, of course, she
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: closes to a centre-right government.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Right, so this is the problem with Opportunity, is at
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: the start, they clearly looked like a left-wing party with
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: those big ideas like the land tax.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: And the UBI. And you knew what they... You might
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: not like it, but you knew what they stood for.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: It was at least attracting an audience of lefties. Then
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: they watered it down and went vanilla and looked like
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: they were cozying up to National. Now they're talking about
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: ruling out one of National's coalition partners, which means they're
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: essentially ruling out working with National again. So what in
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: God's name are they actually doing?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Well, what it shows is total inexperience in politics. When
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: you apply for a job, as Kulawong did, and you
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: got it less than a year ago, I might add,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: she got the job as leader of this party. which
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: is run by their governing council anyway.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I don't believe that she's making all of these decisions
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: by herself. She's got advisors who've got reasonable political experience.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: But I mean, this feels a little bit like they
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: are looking at the polls and panicking.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think so. You know, and wouldn't you be?
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they were up around 8% a
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago and looking quite comfortable. Now they've
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: dropped way back. And I think the more they appear,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the more they're questioned. I don't know whether you've had
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: her on your programme for a while, Heather, but I
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: would like to see her being questioned on this programme.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Now, you made mention of something going back to the leaders'
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: debate last week.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: What was that? Oh, yes. She was, to me, flummoxed
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: in a number of areas. Oh, I see.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Not a good performance.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: No, she didn't make a great performance at all.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Barry, thanks very much. Appreciate it. Barry Soper, senior
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: political correspondent.