Gregor Paul's story in this morning's Herald confirms what many suspected at the time: that TJ Perenara’s political statement before the haka, a rallying cry against the Treaty Principles Bill, had not been sanctioned by rugby officials. That many All Blacks, that many coaching staff, that many management, felt blindsided by the statement and that he spoke without the universal approval of his teammates, according to Gregor Paul’s story.  

Perenara was playing his 89th and his final test for the All Blacks in Turin last year, and before the privilege of leading the All Blacks Haka for the final time, he gave a mihi speaking for the land, the strength of independence and the Treaty. Not the most strident political message, but a political message nonetheless. And I have absolutely no problem with people having an opinion on the Treaty Principles Bill —a strong opinion— provided the opinion is sound and nuanced and not filled with hateful, abusive language. You have your opinion for and against it – absolutely fine.  

But I do think that TJ Perenara abused his position and abused the trust put in him by his teammates. You cannot lead a team haka if you don't speak for your team. If TJ had been representing New Zealand as an individual, fine. If he gave his opinion on the bill in a post-match interview, fine. But it's a shame that he put his teammates in a position of defending a political stance of his own. They might all agree with him, they might have fully supported his decision in the wording of the mihi, but he never gave them the chance to do so, according to Gregor Paul’s story. And if you cannot have a full, honest, open discussion about the Treaty Principles Bill with the band of brothers that is the All Blacks, what hope does the rest of the country bloody have?  

I think it's because if you support David Seymour's bill you run the risk of being called a racist. For the record, I don't support. I made a submission against it, but that doesn't mean I support the hijacking of the haka either.  

Although I'm not sure in this day and age the coalition of the perpetually aggrieved allows you to have a nuanced viewpoint. You can't have a ‘oh well, I think this, but I understand where you're coming from, but that's okay’. You just can't do that in this day and age among a certain group of people. Discussions quickly become partisan and reductive. Social media has become so binary – you're either for us or you're against us. The only thing that cohort seems to agree can be nonbinary and fluid is gender. Everything else you have to be one thing or the other, except for your gender. You certainly can't have fluid or nuanced discussions on race or Trump or Gaza or the Treaty Principles Bill. It's a shame.  

Perenara is passionate and committed and articulate but clearly on certain subject he feels his way is the only way. And isn't that the problem with the world right now? 

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The Government’s shaking up social housing, yesterday announcing a plan to get Kāinga Ora back on track. 

They're set to sell off high-priced homes in an effort to bring its books down, the plan including the sale of around 900 homes a year. 

The money will then go to more low-cost, denser places with greater demand, as well as more single person dwellings as opposed to larger homes.  

Kāinga Ora Board Chair Simon Moutter joined Kerre Woodham to discuss what the changes mean for the agency and for those in need of social housing.  

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We know times are tough. We know that we're in a period of rebuilding, we know that there are green shoots starting to come through. We're looking towards the end of 2025 as a time when things will turn around, when things will start to improve, and things will start to get better on a micro level in our own households, and on a macro level when it comes to the government.  

But there are still sticky times ahead, and Treasury officials have released a document warning the government that “significant reforms” or “reductions to public services” will be needed in the not-too-distant future if it sticks to its current, restricted spending track. The document on forecast sets out the difficulty the Government will have in keeping to its restrictive level of spending so it can post a surplus and rebuild the Crown balance sheet (this is what a lot of National governments have to do), while also maintaining public services at existing levels.  

In a column in the Herald, the writer says it paves the way for a 2026 election campaign which is likely to involve a battle on the issue of taxation and the role higher levels of tax might play in rebuilding the balance sheet without cutting the services. Of course we can become a richer nation, but that will take time. There are only a few ways the government can generate income, and it's mainly by taxing us. It can help businesses become more prosperous, more productive, and then it can clip the ticket on the way through but really, it's pretty limited in how it raises money. 

So each party has a very different idea on what a fair taxation system would look like. But right now, the party that actually does have the ability to do something about tax and using it as a way of attracting foreign investment into the country is looking at lowering corporate tax rates and that, of course, would be National as the senior partner in the coalition government. Finance Minister Nicola Willis was talking with Ryan Bridge on Drive last night and she said she was looking at the settings of our company tax rate and the regulations that underpin it.  

NW: Well, if you compare New Zealand with the rest of the world, we're not as competitive as we used to be. Which is to say that our corporate tax level is reasonably high when you compare it to the rest of the developed world.  

NW: So looking at that, our government says okay well, what could we do to make sure the tax settings in New Zealand are supportive of businesses wanting to invest and grow. Realising that on the other side of that, you have to pay for it. Because if we're taking in less tax then we have to find other ways of getting that money so we can invest in the things that really matter —our public services— and also ensure that we're still on track to get our budget back in balance and reduce debt over time. So, as a government, we need to work through all of those questions. But the honest answer to questions we do need to be more competitive in that area.  

RB: So you are looking at changing the corporate tax rate?  

NW: Well, there's many different ways we can approach the tax system. One thing is the corporate tax rate, but there are also tax rules that sit underneath that, and I'm actually interested in the detail of the way the whole system works, not just the headline rate.  

Yes, well I think we can say that she's looking at the lowering the corporate tax rate. And she's right, it does cost money. If you are going to take in less of the existing pie, then you'll have a reduction in income. But if the pie is bigger and bigger and bigger, you're taking less of a bigger pie, you're still going to end up with more money.  

So really the key is driving productivity, driving confidence in our businesses, attracting foreign investment, all of those things that Paul Bloxham was talking about, the HSBC Economist I spoke to last week. He was commenting on the fact that now we are at the bottom 38 out of 38 in terms of performing economies, and he said we need to do all the things that we are doing right now, that this coalition government is doing right now. Attract foreign investment, get the free trade deals going, increase productivity, limit regulations so businesses can do what they do best.  

I suppose it's a finely balanced thing. You've got to attract the foreign investment here so therefore you've got to make the corporate tax rate competitive, but when that pie is bigger and growing then we are all better off. 

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Possible corporate tax cuts could be on the way in this year's Budget. 

Nicola Willis told Ryan Bridge yesterday that our corporate tax system isn't competitive enough with other countries, hinting at potential changes. 

Christopher Luxon confirmed to Mike Hosking this morning that they're willing to make changes, and there's a lot of possible options. 

Dentons Kensington Swan Tax Partner Bruce Bernacchi told Kerre Woodham that there is an opportunity for New Zealand to bring in increased economic activity by multinationals and other wealthy investors by doing something bold.  

He says he’d like to see something a lot more bold than just dropping it down to the OECD average.  

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Any day now, counting down the seconds, the kids will be back at school if yours haven't gone already. And this year, maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed, will be the year that our education system gets back on track.

Certainly, Erica Stanford’s bigging up the new focus on structured learning. A press release out from her office says, as schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future.

A world leading education system is a key driver to economic growth. Our future playwrights and songwriters need to have a mastery of literacy and numeracy as much as our future mechanical engineers, doctors and electricians, and so on and so forth.

It's kind of a call to arms for teachers and parents from Erica Stanford.

There's also an op-ed piece from a math's and statistics teacher in the Herald this morning, Peter Wills. He says, and he's looking at the failure rates for NCEA Level 1, the news that Kiwi kids did poorly in NCEA comes as no surprise.

 Last month, NCEA results came out and we saw that in 2024 30% of students failed Level 1, slightly under a third of our kids could not pass basic numeracy and literacy tests associated with NECA Level 1. That was this 18% in 2023. Erica Stanford said the results were expected, that there’d be a high proportion of students who would not pass because they were putting in minimum standards.

Now most countries we compare ourselves to - United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, the US and Australia all have numeracy and literacy tests and these have been introduced because we know it's bad, but we need know how bad it is. 30% couldn't pass NCEA Level 1 last year.

So: If you don't have NCEA level 1, it's really difficult to get a decent job, to enter any kind of training. Just by passing NCEA Level 1 on average, a student earns $12K more a year and is significantly more likely to get a job and enter training. They’ve got more choices. You get an education, you have more choices. You don't have to be a brain surgeon you know, but you are still going to need basic numeracy, basic literacy to get any kind of job you want.

Getting students to pass the CAA S, which is the literacy and numeracy test is a top priority for schools across New Zealand, Peter Wills says. Mercifully, though he doesn't advocate dropping standards, which you can imagine other administrations might opt for to allow more young people to pass. He says maths teachers are adamant that the standard not be lowered to compensate for low pass rates.

You teach better, you teach differently. You give the kids the basic skills they need to pass. What we had before wasn't working and you know that, employers know that, parents know that.

That's why so many parents are spending thousands of dollars per child every year to shore up the gaps in their children's knowledge with private tuition, or sending them to private schools. They know the state education is, and has been, sub-standard, and it's not the fault of the teachers, it's the policy wonks in the Ministry of Education, whose half baked theories? Formulated over dinner parties in Kelburn, inexplicably and inexcusably made it into the classroom.

And for decades now our once world-famous education system has degraded to where it is now. 30% of kids last year not passing the most basic secondary school exam. So as we start the school year as we with a call to arms from Erica Stanford and structured learning is going to be the saviour – and let's hope it is.

When it comes to employers, what are you seeing coming out of our schools at the moment? According to Peter Wills, it will be seven years before we see any benefits from structured learning.

We've got concerns about our productivity, we’ve investors as you heard this morning, travelling New Zealand looking for bright young things with startup ideas. Where the hell are those bright young things going to come from if we don't embrace the structured learning and reclaim our world class education. 

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It is the end of the month. There's only 12 of them in a year. Into the first month of the year and still there are schools that are not back yet. Could someone please explain to me how it is reasonable in this day and age to have such disparate and wide-ranging start dates for the school year?  

I don't know about your particular school, or your area, but of the ones I know about, Auckland Grammar borders have been back for two weeks. That seems perfectly reasonable. Mount Albert borders have been back one night, one day, and now they're off for the weekend. Another college, one of our colleagues has a son at that college, they're not opening the gates till the 10th of February. The 10th of February. Some primary schools started back this week, our kids start back next week. But then of course, there's Waitangi Day in the middle, so that's a bit disruptive.  

No slight against the teachers. I've been helping out a bit with pickups and childminding and whenever I've gone into school to pick up the kids from their holiday programme, teachers are there getting their classrooms ready for the school year and prepping and doing what they do. But why on Earth hasn't the school year started? Why are we still prepping for a school year that is now one month gone? Most kids that I've spoken to, of numerous ages, are desperate to get back to see their mates, to learn new stuff, to play sport, to have some routine.  

And a lot of parents are coming to the end of their respective tethers too. The days of mum and dad disappearing with the family to the batch over Christmas and then mum and the kids staying down there for weeks on end, being oiled up with suntan oil and put out to fry in the sun while mum read the Jilly Cooper’s. Dad, going to work Monday to Friday, then coming back on Friday and you could hear Dad coming from miles away because they'd be towing the trailer with the Swappa Crates in the back, and they'd be clanking their way down the driveway. Those days are long gone. I'm sure some families still do that, but for most families, you have to work.  

For a lot of parents, the pay packets from the first few weeks back at work goes straight to the holiday programmes that the kids are enrolled into so parents can keep their jobs. And as for the poor parents with children at primary, intermediate, and secondary, it is absolutely impossible. There must be a really good reason, she said optimistically and perhaps naively, there must be a really good reason why school start dates are so disparate, random and arbitrary. But for the life of me, I don't know what that good reason would be.  

Do you think while the government is focused on revamping our education system and bringing some form of uniformity to what is taught and how it is taught so that it's not so random, depending on which school you go to and which part of the country, do you think while they're at it, they should be looking at standardising the start of the school year as well? I certainly do. 

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New Zealand’s “rockstar economy” seems to have become washed up. 

HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham coined the term in 2014, and in an update last week confirmed that that’s far from the case at present. 

He says that the economy had the largest decline in economic growth in the developed world last year, driven by interest rate increases in response to post-pandemic inflation. 

Bloxham joined Kerre Woodham to dig into the data, and discuss what could be done to improve the economy. 

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Some farmers are shearing back the costs with new sheep breeds. 

Meant for meat production, ‘Nudies’ are a breed of sheep that don’t grow wool, allowing farmers to cut costs as there’s no need for shearing, dagging, or crutching. 

Pierre Syben from Wairere Rams in Masterton told Kerre Woodham in his view, the industry will likely split between the people who stick with wool and those who move towards the Nudies. 

He says that hopefully as more people go into non-sheering sheep, it will lift the price of wool as at the moment, it’s a loss-making venture.  

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You may have heard, the 80’s are making a comeback. Lookout for denim on denim, bubble skirts, and asset sales. David Seymour is stepping up his campaign to sell state assets and privatise public services.  

In his State of the Nation speech last week, the ACT leader said we should be continually asking ourselves do we own the right stuff? NZ First, Labour and the Greens have all pinned their respective colours to the mast and said they are dead against the sale of any state-owned assets under their watch. NZ First and Winston Peters, of course, famously, long-standing opponent of the sale of state-owned assets. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has done what he does best and equivocated. Oh sure, I'm open to the idea, open to having a discussion, but if anything were to happen, not that I'm saying it will, but if anything were to happen, if the for sale signs were to go up, it wouldn't be until the 26th election. So, he hasn't committed either way, just waiting to see which way the wind blows.  

The fourth Labour Government was the government that really sold off the silverware. New Zealand changed fundamentally as a society as a result of the economic reforms driven by Roger Douglas and his cabinet. David Lange, he might have been the Prime Minister, but it was Roger Douglas who was the driving force behind the economic reforms. One of those within the cabinet, Richard Prebble, argues it was the right thing to do in today's Herald. He says that they had huge debt, and they had to resolve that somehow. He says New Zealand's privatisation was extraordinarily successful. The investors provided much better services and lower prices. Only profitable businesses pay company taxes. The privatized businesses are paying every year in company taxes more than they ever did in dividends. In contrast, he says, the history of state-owned enterprises retained in government ownership is abysmal. Solid energy went from a valuation of $3.5 billion. To being worthless, that it's $390 million debt. He said his office valued TVNZ in 1990 at around $2 billion, $4.3 billion in today's money. The station now runs at a loss, he says.  

Brian Gaynor argues that the asset sales were not a success, that the prime pieces of silverware were sold off and overseas investors made an absolute killing from them. There is a counter to what Richard Prebble claims. John Key brought back the prospect of state asset sales in 2010 with a deeply unpopular promise to privatise state-owned electricity companies such as Meridian. But he told Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning there are better ways to improve the economy faster than by selling off what remains of New Zealand’s state-owned assets.  

“In the scheme of things, we want the boat to go faster. There's a million things you can do, from cutting bureaucracy and taxes, and you know, making a more permissive 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 asset sales because, frankly, there ain't a hell of a lot to sell.” 

And there isn't. What would we sell? We've got Quotable Value, which David Seymour quoted as being an example. It values property, it doesn't receive any taxpayer money. But it provides a dividend of between half a million and one million a year, which is the sort of chump change that Grant Robertson used to find down the back of the couch. So that's not going to save New Zealand. Anyone interested in buying a television station? Could chuck in a video store as well as a sweetener on the deal? Anyone? No? Because that's the thing, too, for a successful state asset sale, you have to find buyers. Anyone for a couple of clapped-out ferries? Anyone? No? There’s sort of plans for a kind of port infrastructure that's really expensive and hasn't been costed properly, that we could chuck in for free. No? Nobody?  

State housing. Does the government have a responsibility to house vulnerable Kiwis? Which means owning a huge portfolio of properties and more to the point, maintaining that huge portfolio of properties. From what trades people have told us, anytime they know it's a job for Kianga Ora, everything gets inflated. The cost of the products that are going in there, the carpets, the door, the joinery, the electrics and the cost of the labour. And then, of course, there's Kainga Ora buying up houses at far more than their value and distorting the property market during the post-Covid boom. But I mean really, when you look at what's left after the fourth Labour government did the massive clean out in the 80s... Do we need to own homes to house people, or should that be left to charitable organisations and private individuals?  

I suppose the only thing left is health, maybe? Hospitals? I mean, let's face it, it is a huge cumbersome beast. With the best will in the world, the changes to the Ministry of Health and to the hospitals that it oversees as part of its job, the changes are not going to be made within the next 10 years. Bringing everything together under one roof, all of the different hospital boards merged together as one operating unit across the country. And there's no guarantee of success. Do you put health out, privatise that? Still free to the taxpayer but not governed by the government. I don't know. I think most of it's gone. I think John Key is right, there are other, better, faster ways to improve the economy. The only thing I can see, and this is just looking at it theoretically, the only thing I can see that we've got worth selling is the property portfolio and is that what we really want to do? 

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Well, I might have been swanning about on holiday for an unseemly amount of time but the Government was back at work. You have already discussed, I have no doubt the PM's reshuffle of the cabinet, specifically Dr Reti losing Health to Simeon Brown in a bid to see change happening, change happening better, and there has been much chat about getting the country moving again.  

In the last couple of days, economist Paul Bloxham, the man who coined the “rockstar economy” phrase back in 2014, confirmed what we all know: New Zealand's economy has suffered the biggest hit in the developed world. Specifically, interest rate increases in response to post-pandemic inflation had pushed the country into a recession and unemployment increased sharply across the developed world. HSBC, for whom Paul Bloxham works, estimates suggest that New Zealand's economy had the largest contraction in GDP in 2024.  

So that was all inherited issues. This government was elected to put it right. How are they going? Well, not so great. The PM was on with Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning and got a gee up from Mike. 

MH: My criticism of you is that you're too much yak and not enough do. If you don't like what the Commerce Commission is doing... 

CL: You're just all fired up because of Trump's executive orders, my friend. Because of? Yeah. 

MH: But that's what you need, exactly what you need are executive orders. You need to get a bloody marker pen and start scratching out a few signatures and doing some stuff. 

CL: And the difference between a presidential system and a parliamentary system is quite profound in that regard. 

MH: Look you and I are sick of the same things, you and I are sick of the same things. 

CL: I just say I think we've done more in a year than most governments. 

MH: But what I'm watching here is a Commerce Commission that's been looking at petrol and supermarkets and building products and everything else for eons and nothing’s happening. 

Well things are happening, but I do get Mike's frustrations. We need to do better, and we need to do better faster. The first poll of the year —a Curia-Taxpayers Union poll at that— puts Labour ahead of National for the first time since the 2023 election. And it's no good blaming the last lot this year, it's going to have to be all on National and the coalition government to get cracking.  

I'm not entirely sure the new growth plan announced a couple of days ago by Christopher Luxon in his State of the Nation speech will do the business either. Focusing on tourism is not going to lead to long-term prosperity. Being a service industry, which is ultimately what tourism is, isn't going to lead to long-term prosperity. The rest of the world is pushing back against over tourism, hell, we were pushing back against too many tourists back in 2019, so that's not going to do it.  

Foreign investment’s good, but the right sort of foreign investment is what's required. And that's a little bit more difficult to find. We don't want to become tenants in our own land and good luck getting a lot of that past NZ First. Digital nomads, sure. This is something that's long overdue. People visiting New Zealand on short stays will be allowed to work remotely for their employers back home under the digital nomad scheme launched by the government yesterday. It's a popular concept overseas and it allows visitors to travel to New Zealand while continuing to work for their offshore employer. Internationally, the Harvard International Review puts the global economic value of digital nomads at US$787 billion per year. Which is great, we'll get a tiny share of that. Is that going to fix the economy?  

You know, we have a lot to offer in this beautiful country, as you will have seen yourselves. A lot. But we need to get better, and we need to get better faster. I was listening yesterday to a young man who was 27 saying the last of his friends have left to go overseas. He’s got nobody left. He loves his job. He doesn't want to leave it, but he has no friends, they’re gone. And while I accept that this is a rite of passage and many young New Zealanders head overseas, there are a lot of people who are seeking better opportunities overseas because they are not finding them in their home country.   

We have so much to offer, but is focusing on tourism the way to go? I did like the focus on science and a knowledge-based economy. Come in Helen Clark, what happened to that knowledge-based economy? But that is where New Zealand made its name, New Zealand made its fortune was around the science. Science, scientific brains – entrepreneurs have been leading this country for such a long time, since refrigerated shipping. That's what made our fortune and that's where our fortune lies. That, I agree, is where the focus needs to be. But that takes time and I'm not entirely sure that this government has got the amount of time it needs to turn this country around. 

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There’s nothing wrong with backing yourself but, as a country, we have some pretty high and mighty ideas sometimes.   

A good example is the previous Labour government’s approach that, when it comes to tourism, we should only try to get the people with truckloads of money to come here for a holiday. What they called the “higher value tourists”.  

And I’m delighted that the Government is saying we need to get over ourselves and pretty much anyone and everyone who wants to visit from overseas is going to be welcome to come here.  

Nicola Willis, the new economic growth minister, is making the very good point that it was all very well for the previous government to think that getting the people with big money over here was the better bet. But that was no guarantee of big spending.  

She’s saying today: “I want all tourists. Because, ultimately, it’s not the government that decides how much a tourist spends when they come to New Zealand. The tourist will make that decision.”  

She says: “Our job is to make it easy for them to come in the door, easy for them to come to New Zealand. Then, when they get here, I’ve got great faith in our tourism providers that they’ll do everything they can to get as many dollars out of those back pockets as possible.”  

No arguments from me there. Because we are not Venice, we are not overrun with tourists. In fact, I would say that we’ve never been overrun with tourists, not even before Covid.  

Tell that to the bloke in Queenstown though who got into an argument with a mate of mine in a burger bar there one night.  

We were there with a whole bunch of people and this guy was telling us how much of a pain in the backside it was to have all us out-of-towners there.    

“Loopies” he called us. I remember, back in the day, the locals in Wanaka used to talk about all the “loopies” coming to visit for a holiday, as well.  

But, as my mate politely pointed out to this guy in the burger bar - no tourists, no visitors, no Queenstown. Even our lot. Who were there on the smell of an oily rag.  

Another thing too is that, if we’re totally honest with ourselves, we’re not actually that special compared to all the other countries that international tourists have the option of visiting.  

Yes, New Zealand is beautiful. And when you go to places like Glenorchy, near Queenstown, for example —which I did a few weeks back, and which is a stunning part of the country— it reminds you what a special place this is.  

But there are lots of other special and beautiful places in the world too.  

Which is why I think it’s great that the Government plans to get us off this high horse that the last government put us on when it comes to the type of people we want to try and get over here for a holiday.  

Why I think it’s great that the new thinking, is that anyone who wants to come here is welcome.    

But. And there’s always a but – actually, there are a couple of buts.  

One of them, is that tourism is not a silver bullet on its own. Because, generally, tourism jobs don’t pay all that well.   

The other but —and this is the more significant one— is that if this is the approach the Government’s going to take, it has to do more than what Nicola Willis is talking about.  

Because it’s all very well to say that it’s the Government’s job to get the tourists here and it’s the tourism operators’ job to get as much money as possible out of them once they’re here.  

But, as people in places like Franz Josef know, more visitors means more demand for basic services like public toilets and all that stuff – a demand that local councils just can’t afford to meet.  

And this is where the Government is going to have to have more skin in the game if it really wants this open-door policy to reap the economic benefits that it wants.  

So yes, ditch the pipedream that New Zealand is only a place for wealthy tourists and sell us to the world and get as many visitors here as you can.  

But don’t leave it to locals and their struggling councils to provide all the basic services and facilities that these visitors are going to need once they get here. 

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