The topic of New Zealand-owned banks is arising again, with NZ First pitching to buy back BNZ to bolster competition. 

Kiwibank is already New Zealand-owned, but only holds a little over 6% of the lending market, raising the question – how much do Kiwis actually care about backing a Kiwi bank? 

Kiwibank CEO Steve Jurkovich told Kerre Woodham that they've been in operation for much less time than some of those bigger banks —around 25 years compared to over 150— so they've had less time and capital to grow. 

Jurkovich told Woodham they could always be bigger and have more impact, but over the last few years they've been growing pretty strongly. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

The topic of New Zealand-owned banks is arising again, with NZ First pitching to buy back BNZ to bolster competition.&nbsp;
Kiwibank is already New Zealand-owned, but only holds a little over 6% of the lending market, raising the question – how much do Kiwis actually care about backing a Kiwi bank?&nbsp;
Kiwibank CEO Steve Jurkovich told Kerre Woodham that they've been in operation for much less time than some of those bigger banks —around 25 years compared to over 150— so they've had less time and capital to grow.&nbsp;
Jurkovich told Woodham they could always be bigger and have more impact, but over the last few years they've been growing pretty strongly.&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

Join Kerre Woodham one of New Zealand’s best loved personalities as she dishes up a bold, sharp and energetic show Monday to Friday 9am-12md on Newstalk ZB. News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle and entertainment – we’ve got your morning listening covered.

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Steve Jurkovich: Kiwibank CEO on their position in the market, banking competition, New Zealand-owned banks

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/172585b2-05f7-4434-b5df-b4d70009b1da/transcript

Finally, after much hinting and promising and ooh, winking and teasing, Labour's revealed how it will fund the core pay equity policy it has been promising for the past three years.

Except that they didn't.

"In terms of being able to pay for pay equity, you'll see there's plenty of headroom within the fiscal plan that we've released today. We have a $10 billion unallocated amount of headroom. We've got multi billion dollars for health cost pressures and many of the pay equity claims are within the health system. So we're confident we will be able to meet the costs of pay equity within the flexibility that we've built into the plan."

That was Chris Hipkins at the launch yesterday. So under a Labour coalition Government from the 1st of January 2027, care and support workers, who are the ones who kicked off the whole pay equity drive and who are the first to have had their claim settled, would receive an immediate pay rise of $4 an hour.

That's $2.5 billion right there. But there is no mention of how the 33 other settlements waiting in the wings will be settled.

There was an allusion to the fact that the midwives and those associated with the health sector who have their pay equity claims waiting to be settled, that might be accounted for within the health budget, but not really because further along in the fiscal plan, Labour stayed pretty close to the National Government's party line. 

So the surplus is going to arrive in the exact same year as National promised it would. Core crown spending would continue to drop relative to the rest of the economy.

It would be slightly higher than National spending, but not much. And when it comes to health, cost pressures in health are forecast to be the same under both National and Labour and the narrow budget operating allowance is exactly the same.

When he says that they're going to be able to settle the healthcare workers' equity claims and he said, oh well and that will come in under health, well not really because if they're saying that they think that the cost pressures will be the same, that's if you don't take the pay equity claims into account.

That really is become an albatross around their necks. They have been promising this for three years. They excoriated the coalition Government for not settling the claims.

But I still can't see it myself. I mean, you might be able to. Chris Hipkins said, look, we've got $10 billion to play with and that came from PREFU and that's what the coalition Government said is around. But that will be it.

If you lead a Labour led coalition, there might just be the ability to settle equity claims, but there'll be nothing else. No money for anything else at all. And that includes anything that the coalition partners might want to spend on.

All very well and good to say - we're Labour and this is what we're going to spend every spare cent on. We're going to die on this hill. And that's fine. That's Labour's choice and that's the people who vote for them, that's their choice and that's great.

But what about the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and possibly the Opportunity party? I mean, the Opportunity party's not asking for much, just get us into Parliament please, anything.

But the Greens have got a shopping list and I can't imagine savvy political operators like Chlöe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson saying, oh yeah okay, no you settle those claims, that's absolutely fine.

Barbara Edmonds, Labour's finance spokesperson, says just because Treasury has costed pay equity claims at around $13 billion and rising, it doesn't mean that's what the bill will be.

She says it's all about negotiation and Labour's fiscal plan is credible because as she told Mike Hosking this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast, she knows her stuff.

"I'm absolutely credible. You've asked me a whole bunch of questions and I've answered them every single one. I'm absolutely credible. This is not my first rodeo, as another politician would say. This is my 17th budget I've had to analyse. I've been in tax for over 10 years. I know my stuff and this is why our fiscal plan is credible."

Well yeah, I mean she has got a great track record, but she can't sit there spinning and weaving and making gold out of straw, can she?  

If you've been taking an interest in politics, you'll have heard Labour's announcement over the weekend. Do you think it adds up? Nicola Willis doesn't, in a stunning revelation.

She says the release of the plan over the weekend was an opportunity for Chris Hipkins and Barbara Edmonds to make Labour's numbers add up and they've failed. She says far worse than anyone could have expected.

She says Labour says the rest of the money to fully restore the previous pay equity scheme will come from cost pressure funding. 

If that's true, she says, that would mean taking almost every dollar of unallocated funding for the next four budgets, which will mean nothing for schools, police, prisons, defence and other frontline social services. So who do you believe?

Labour says they won't be putting up any taxes other than the ones they've already stated. Where's the money going to come from?

I'm sure Barbara Edmonds is a very savvy negotiator. I'm not entirely sure she can negotiate $13 billion and rising down to three or four billion. And even then it's still not much to come and go on.

If you are big on pay equity, do you believe in it sufficiently to have every last spare cent that the Government has spent on it? Is that how important it is to you?

LISTEN ABOVE

Finally, after much hinting and promising and ooh, winking and teasing, Labour's revealed how it will fund the core pay equity policy it has been promising for the past three years.
Except that they didn't.
"In terms of being able to pay for pay equity, you'll see there's plenty of headroom within the fiscal plan that we've released today. We have a $10 billion unallocated amount of headroom. We've got multi billion dollars for health cost pressures and many of the pay equity claims are within the health system. So we're confident we will be able to meet the costs of pay equity within the flexibility that we've built into the plan."
That was Chris Hipkins at the launch yesterday. So under a Labour coalition Government from the 1st of January 2027, care and support workers, who are the ones who kicked off the whole pay equity drive and who are the first to have had their claim settled, would receive an immediate pay rise of $4 an hour.
That's $2.5 billion right there. But there is no mention of how the 33 other settlements waiting in the wings will be settled.
There was an allusion to the fact that the midwives and those associated with the health sector who have their pay equity claims waiting to be settled, that might be accounted for within the health budget, but not really because further along in the fiscal plan, Labour stayed pretty close to the National Government's party line.&nbsp;
So the surplus is going to arrive in the exact same year as National promised it would. Core crown spending would continue to drop relative to the rest of the economy.
It would be slightly higher than National spending, but not much. And when it comes to health, cost pressures in health are forecast to be the same under both National and Labour and the narrow budget operating allowance is exactly the same.
When he says that they're going to be able to settle the healthcare workers' equity claims and he said, oh well and that will come in under health, well not really because if they're saying that they think that the cost pressures will be the same, that's if you don't take the pay equity claims into account.
That really is become an albatross around their necks. They have been promising this for three years. They excoriated the coalition Government for not settling the claims.
But I still can't see it myself. I mean, you might be able to. Chris Hipkins said, look, we've got $10 billion to play with and that came from PREFU and that's what the coalition Government said is around. But that will be it.
If you lead a Labour led coalition, there might just be the ability to settle equity claims, but there'll be nothing else. No money for anything else at all. And that includes anything that the coalition partners might want to spend on.
All very well and good to say - we're Labour and this is what we're going to spend every spare cent on. We're going to die on this hill. And that's fine. That's Labour's choice and that's the people who vote for them, that's their choice and that's great.
But what about the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and possibly the Opportunity party? I mean, the Opportunity party's not asking for much, just get us into Parliament please, anything.
But the Greens have got a shopping list and I can't imagine savvy political operators like Chlöe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson saying, oh yeah okay, no you settle those claims, that's absolutely fine.
Barbara Edmonds, Labour's finance spokesperson, says just because Treasury has costed pay equity claims at around $13 billion and rising, it doesn't mean that's what the bill will be.
She says it's all about negotiation and Labour's fiscal plan is credible because as she told Mike Hosking this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast, she knows her stuff.
"I'm absolutely credible. You've asked me a whole bunch of questions and I've answered them every single one. I'm absolutely credible. This is not my first rodeo, as another politician would say. This is my 17th budget I've had to analyse. I've been in tax for over 10 years. I know my stuff and this is why our fiscal plan is credible."
Well yeah, I mean she has got a great track record, but she can't sit there spinning and weaving and making gold out of straw, can she? &nbsp;
If you've been taking an interest in politics, you'll have heard Labour's announcement over the weekend. Do you think it adds up? Nicola Willis doesn't, in a stunning revelation.
She says the release of the plan over the weekend was an opportunity for Chris Hipkins and Barbara Edmonds to make Labour's numbers add up and they've failed. She says far worse than anyone could have expected.
She says Labour says the rest of the money to fully restore the previous pay equity scheme will come from cost pressure funding.&nbsp;
If that's true, she says, that would mean taking almost every dollar of unallocated funding for the next four budgets, which will mean nothing for schools, police, prisons, defence and other frontline social services. So who do you believe?
Labour says they won't be putting up any taxes other than the ones they've already stated. Where's the money going to come from?
I'm sure Barbara Edmonds is a very savvy negotiator. I'm not entirely sure she can negotiate $13 billion and rising down to three or four billion. And even then it's still not much to come and go on.
If you are big on pay equity, do you believe in it sufficiently to have every last spare cent that the Government has spent on it? Is that how important it is to you?
LISTEN ABOVE

Kerre Woodham: Where is Labour's pay equity funding actually going to come from?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/44431693-ac0b-4ab8-b475-b4d9016f9a5f/transcript

I talked about accountability this time last month, specifically about MBIE boss Nick Blakely. You'll remember that the Privileges Committee found Blakely and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald deliberately misled —what you and I know as lying— Parliament. The Privileges Committee said their conduct was an insult to the public service, and yet who's the current head of MBIE? Nick Blakely. Doesn't seem to have bothered him. Sure Alison McDonald's gone on to a nice board somewhere. She won't be locked up at home, covered in sackcloth and ashes, rueing and repenting. 

Now we have the Greater Wellington Regional Council filing charges against the Wellington City Council and Wellington Water for the catastrophic failure of the Moa Point wastewater plant, with the Wellington City Council and Wellington Water facing $100 million fines if the prosecutions are successful. And in the same week, we have the CEO of Tauranga City Council, Marty Grenfell, resigning after the deadly landslide at Mount Maunganui. A report found that the council had been warned repeatedly over many years that there was a risk of landslides to those staying at the Mount Maunganui Holiday Park at the base of the mount, and yet the reports were shelved, never read, didn't go to the right people, whatever. 

Right up until a matter of months ago, there were reports warning of the dangers. Systemic failure at the council, and the guy in charge, Marty Grenfell, initially says he's staying, he's not resigning. Hell no. No, the buck does not stop with the top guy. No, he's staying because it wasn't his fault and he's the best person to fix the systemic failures at the council. Then all of a sudden, after a closed door meeting earlier this week, he's resigned and his last day's today. 

Now you cannot tell me that that man had an epiphany and a sudden attack of moral conscience. "Oh no, hang on a minute, the reason I get the big bucks is because the buck does stop with me. I was in charge when the latest reports came out warning of the failures. Maybe I should resign." No. He would have been persuaded to go and part of that persuasion would have been a golden handshake. Now I don't know if that's true, nobody's talking. Feel free to ring up and prove me wrong and say, "No, Kerre, incorrect. He did not get a golden handshake and a payout." But I reckon he would. 

You and I know, this is the thing about getting old, you're supposed to know stuff, but the older I get, the more confused I seem to be becoming. Because you and I know that when we stuff up, if our careless actions or our lack of due diligence, even just a moment's inattention, results in death or damage or environmental disaster, by crikey we're held accountable. Our names become public, we're dragged through the courts, we're financially ruined, in the worst cases we go to jail. 

But these guys, they keep their jobs, Nick Blakely, or they're paid a fortune to leave, I strongly suspect Marty Grenfell. And if we want to see any organisation taken to court, as you would, say, a big private company that was spilling waste into the river or the sea, then they would be prosecuted. The taxpayer would prosecute them and they, as the private company, would have to pay monumental fines. But in this case, if we want to see people who've made the most appalling errors that have resulted in a loss of life degradation of the environment on a massive scale, we have to not only fix the damage they've caused as ratepayers and taxpayers where we can, we then have to pay to prosecute them through the courts and if we're successful, we end up paying the fine. 

How does that work? There has got to be a system somewhere on this silly spinning rock that we call planet Earth, there has got to be somewhere where there is a structure by which public servants can be held personally liable. If you can have the CEO of the Ports of Auckland held personally responsible for the deaths of those on his watch, can we not have individuals who get paid the big money because they are responsible for these big organisations? Can they not be held personally responsible too? That only seems fair. How is it that as ratepayers, taxpayers, private individuals, we're held accountable, we've got our heels held to the fire, these guys either stay in their job, Nick Blakely, walk away with wads of cash, pick a CEO any CEO after systemic failure of the organisations they've run, or you've got something like Moa Point and we pay and we pay and we pay and they never do. 

I talked about accountability this time last month, specifically about MBIE boss Nick Blakely. You'll remember that the Privileges Committee found Blakely and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald deliberately misled —what you and I know as lying— Parliament. The Privileges Committee said their conduct was an insult to the public service, and yet who's the current head of MBIE? Nick Blakely. Doesn't seem to have bothered him. Sure Alison McDonald's gone on to a nice board somewhere. She won't be locked up at home, covered in sackcloth and ashes, rueing and repenting.&nbsp;
Now we have the Greater Wellington Regional Council filing charges against the Wellington City Council and Wellington Water for the catastrophic failure of the Moa Point wastewater plant, with the Wellington City Council and Wellington Water facing $100 million fines if the prosecutions are successful. And in the same week, we have the CEO of Tauranga City Council, Marty Grenfell, resigning after the deadly landslide at Mount Maunganui. A report found that the council had been warned repeatedly over many years that there was a risk of landslides to those staying at the Mount Maunganui Holiday Park at the base of the mount, and yet the reports were shelved, never read, didn't go to the right people, whatever.&nbsp;
Right up until a matter of months ago, there were reports warning of the dangers. Systemic failure at the council, and the guy in charge, Marty Grenfell, initially says he's staying, he's not resigning. Hell no. No, the buck does not stop with the top guy. No, he's staying because it wasn't his fault and he's the best person to fix the systemic failures at the council. Then all of a sudden, after a closed door meeting earlier this week, he's resigned and his last day's today.&nbsp;
Now you cannot tell me that that man had an epiphany and a sudden attack of moral conscience. "Oh no, hang on a minute, the reason I get the big bucks is because the buck does stop with me. I was in charge when the latest reports came out warning of the failures. Maybe I should resign." No. He would have been persuaded to go and part of that persuasion would have been a golden handshake. Now I don't know if that's true, nobody's talking. Feel free to ring up and prove me wrong and say, "No, Kerre, incorrect. He did not get a golden handshake and a payout." But I reckon he would.&nbsp;
You and I know, this is the thing about getting old, you're supposed to know stuff, but the older I get, the more confused I seem to be becoming. Because you and I know that when we stuff up, if our careless actions or our lack of due diligence, even just a moment's inattention, results in death or damage or environmental disaster, by crikey we're held accountable. Our names become public, we're dragged through the courts, we're financially ruined, in the worst cases we go to jail.&nbsp;
But these guys, they keep their jobs, Nick Blakely, or they're paid a fortune to leave, I strongly suspect Marty Grenfell. And if we want to see any organisation taken to court, as you would, say, a big private company that was spilling waste into the river or the sea, then they would be prosecuted. The taxpayer would prosecute them and they, as the private company, would have to pay monumental fines. But in this case, if we want to see people who've made the most appalling errors that have resulted in a loss of life degradation of the environment on a massive scale, we have to not only fix the damage they've caused as ratepayers and taxpayers where we can, we then have to pay to prosecute them through the courts and if we're successful, we end up paying the fine.&nbsp;
How does that work? There has got to be a system somewhere on this silly spinning rock that we call planet Earth, there has got to be somewhere where there is a structure by which public servants can be held personally liable. If you can have the CEO of the Ports of Auckland held personally responsible for the deaths of those on his watch, can we not have individuals who get paid the big money because they are responsible for these big organisations? Can they not be held personally responsible too? That only seems fair. How is it that as ratepayers, taxpayers, private individuals, we're held accountable, we've got our heels held to the fire, these guys either stay in their job, Nick Blakely, walk away with wads of cash, pick a CEO any CEO after systemic failure of the organisations they've run, or you've got something like Moa Point and we pay and we pay and we pay and they never do.&nbsp;

Kerre Woodham: There must be a way to keep public servants accountable

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/c6cc3081-b764-4235-acb1-b4d60189a8b7/transcript

How big is his hole? Nicola Willis was asking Grant Robertson back in 2023, where are you going to find the money to fill that Government's financial fiscal hole? And now yesterday, she says that Labour has another fiscal hole to fill and it's a beauty. She told us yesterday when she was a guest in studio that there is no way Labour can afford to fund their pay equity promises, far less many of the other promises they're making to voters. Labour in response has said, well just taihoa, all will be revealed when our fiscal plan is produced sometime soon.  

Now some of this is electioneering and there's a surprise given we're in the middle of an election campaign. For example, National says that Labour's promise to fund public transport for many parts of the country, up to a certain point, will come out of the Crown balance sheet. Labour says absolutely not, they'll take the money from the Land Transport Fund. They won't pay for something that's been promised out of the Land Transport Fund. They won't pay for that, they'll pay for their public transport fares. It's called reprioritisation – the money does exist for the public transport fares, they just won't pay for something else. Some of the funding though is a mystery. I have no idea where they think they're going to get 11, 13, 14 and counting billion dollars for pay equity. Chris Hipkins, opposition leader, is adamant the money can be found within the budget as he told Mike Hosking yesterday. 

CH: We're going to set out in our plan, you know, we're going to demonstrate in our fiscal plan, you know, when we set out our breakdown of numbers that we have room there to pay for pay equity. What I said yesterday, and you know, there's a bit of divining tea leaves has been going on here, is that we're not going to have a specific line item, but the, our fiscal plan will clearly demonstrate that there is money in there to be able to meet the cost of pay equity. 

MH: So why isn't it a line item? 

CH: Because you don't basically, when you're going through a bargaining process, you don't tell the other side what's in the envelope. And you know, we wouldn't do that with any other process of bargaining. We've never done that with pay equity. The Crown has never put a line item in the budget that said here's how much we're setting aside for pay equity, but it has been there. And our fiscal plan will be the same. 

MH: It'll be about $12 or $13 billion. Is that fair though? Within that ballpark, that's what we're dealing with. 

CH: We certainly expect it to be a big number. 

Yeah, so it's going to be a big number. If it's coming from the budget, that's 13, 14, 15, whatever billion —billion, not million— that won't be spent on something else. And I don't know that there's that much wiggle room. The free doctors visits aren't going to be funded by a capital gains tax, I think surely even Labour's accepted that, given that Treasury forecasts house prices not going up anytime soon. Something else will have to be cut to fund those. Nicola Willis has accused Labour of fiscal fraud, but until Labour finally comes up with their fiscal plan, it's a bit like waiting for Keri Hulme to come up with a sequel to The Bone People. You should, I suppose, give them the benefit of the doubt. But do you believe it is in any way possible for any party to find —let's be generous— $10 billion from the budget without ripping the guts out of the essentials and without undoing the hard work that we have endured over the past three years? Where the hell do you imagine it's going to come from? 

How big is his hole? Nicola Willis was asking Grant Robertson back in 2023, where are you going to find the money to fill that Government's financial fiscal hole? And now yesterday, she says that Labour has another fiscal hole to fill and it's a beauty. She told us yesterday when she was a guest in studio that there is no way Labour can afford to fund their pay equity promises, far less many of the other promises they're making to voters. Labour in response has said, well just taihoa, all will be revealed when our fiscal plan is produced sometime soon. &nbsp;
Now some of this is electioneering and there's a surprise given we're in the middle of an election campaign. For example, National says that Labour's promise to fund public transport for many parts of the country, up to a certain point, will come out of the Crown balance sheet. Labour says absolutely not, they'll take the money from the Land Transport Fund. They won't pay for something that's been promised out of the Land Transport Fund. They won't pay for that, they'll pay for their public transport fares. It's called reprioritisation – the money does exist for the public transport fares, they just won't pay for something else. Some of the funding though is a mystery. I have no idea where they think they're going to get 11, 13, 14 and counting billion dollars for pay equity. Chris Hipkins, opposition leader, is adamant the money can be found within the budget as he told Mike Hosking yesterday.&nbsp;
CH: We're going to set out in our plan, you know, we're going to demonstrate in our fiscal plan, you know, when we set out our breakdown of numbers that we have room there to pay for pay equity. What I said yesterday, and you know, there's a bit of divining tea leaves has been going on here, is that we're not going to have a specific line item, but the, our fiscal plan will clearly demonstrate that there is money in there to be able to meet the cost of pay equity.&nbsp;
MH: So why isn't it a line item?&nbsp;
CH: Because you don't basically, when you're going through a bargaining process, you don't tell the other side what's in the envelope. And you know, we wouldn't do that with any other process of bargaining. We've never done that with pay equity. The Crown has never put a line item in the budget that said here's how much we're setting aside for pay equity, but it has been there. And our fiscal plan will be the same.&nbsp;
MH: It'll be about $12 or $13 billion. Is that fair though? Within that ballpark, that's what we're dealing with.&nbsp;
CH: We certainly expect it to be a big number.&nbsp;
Yeah, so it's going to be a big number. If it's coming from the budget, that's 13, 14, 15, whatever billion —billion, not million— that won't be spent on something else. And I don't know that there's that much wiggle room. The free doctors visits aren't going to be funded by a capital gains tax, I think surely even Labour's accepted that, given that Treasury forecasts house prices not going up anytime soon. Something else will have to be cut to fund those. Nicola Willis has accused Labour of fiscal fraud, but until Labour finally comes up with their fiscal plan, it's a bit like waiting for Keri Hulme to come up with a sequel to The Bone People. You should, I suppose, give them the benefit of the doubt. But do you believe it is in any way possible for any party to find —let's be generous— $10 billion from the budget without ripping the guts out of the essentials and without undoing the hard work that we have endured over the past three years? Where the hell do you imagine it's going to come from?&nbsp;

Kerre Woodham: Just how big is Labour's fiscal hole?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/4e64211a-3ff3-482a-bbf9-b4d5018ad596/transcript

Steve Jurkovich: Kiwibank CEO on their position in the market, banking competition, New Zealand-owned banks

In 1 playlist(s)

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Social links

Follow podcast

Recent clips