DUNCAN I'm Duncan Garner and this morning I'm joined by Steven Joyce, National's Minister of Transport, Communication, Tertiary Education, let's face it Minister of everything as the panel's quite rightly pointed out this morning Steven, welcome along.
Let's just have a look at your role in the election, this was election night 2008.
John Key: 'He rang me every morning at six o'clock, he was up at 4.30 in the morning, he read every newspaper from cover to cover, Steven Joyce you ran a great campaign mate.'
DUNCAN I mean Steven, John Key seriously rates you, I mean you're a first term Minister, tell us about your relationship with John Key, you look like you're good mates.
STEVEN JOYCE – National Minister
Oh we get on pretty well, I mean if you talk to the guy before six o'clock in the morning for seven or eight weeks you know you have to get to know him, but I've known John since he was first elected in 2002, I came on just after that to do the review of the National Party, and got to know him over those times. I've always been impressed with him, I remember probably particularly in the 2005 campaign around the tax policy and just what a good operator he was and how relaxed he could be in the eye of the storm.
DUNCAN But he's really put you in the middle of this because a number of press secretaries I spoke to around parliament this week described you as Mr 1.5, your just in behind the Prime Minister effectively in terms of your influence.
STEVEN Oh I think that’s a bit of an overstatement, there's a whole bunch of us around the PM I think one of his real strengths is that he is actually able to run a team and run a team well, so I don’t think anybody – he's his own person first of all, and secondly there's a stack of people in Cabinet who are constantly checked for advice and comment and we've all got different perspectives because we all come from different backgrounds.
DUNCAN I mean Phil Goff and the Labour Party attacked you this week and they quoted Groucho Marx saying 'of you these are my principles and if you don’t like them I have others'. I mean that’s the argument about you that you don’t stand for anything except the popularity in the polls.
STEVEN Oh I don’t think that’s fair, I mean I've got some pretty – you know some views of my own which are built from my background and from my family background, my father was a small businessman and I started out as a small businessman, and we grew it a bit, but those things have always been in my background but at the same time politics is about actually what people want you to do, and what people are prepared to accept.
DUNCAN But before John Key of course you were loyal to Bill English, I just want you to have a look at this on his leadership 2003, you said 'I think Bill's a great guy, he's intelligent, he has a real thing about caring for his country, he thinks things through he's got all the attributes'. I mean what is it that Key's got that quite clearly Bill English hasn’t?
STEVEN Oh look they're just different people, and I think when you actually spend a bit of time close to them and of course the other one I worked for was Don Brash as well in 2005. nobody gets into those roles without being pretty damn good at what they do.
DUNCAN But Key's better than English isn't he?
STEVEN Well he's obviously more successful than Bill in that respect, but I have respect for both of them and certainly working with Bill I mean he's a guy that is so into the policy and understands the building, he's a huge institutional knowledge for us.
DUNCAN I just want you to look at economic goals and John Key said, and I want you to have a look at this, 'I don’t want our talented young people leaving permanently for Australia, the US, Europe or Asian, because they feel they have to go overseas to better themselves.' What are you specifically doing in your roles to make sure that people stay here – some specifics?
STEVEN Okay there's a number of things, firstly getting the transport infrastructure sorted that’s really important, and in our case in New Zealand it's predominantly roading, because we're a predominantly roading based nation and we can't change that in five minutes flat, so there's a lot of improvements to be done there, so that when people are trying to get around our big cities and actually do their jobs, that they can, and that lifts the productivity and growth right across those. Then there's the Broadband stuff which is really important, that we turn what is effectively a disadvantage of distance into an advantage for us.
DUNCAN I want to get into Broadband, is it still your goal to provide New Zealanders with ultra fast Broadband?
STEVEN Absolutely.
DUNCAN When's it gonna happen?
STEVEN We're making good progress actually, we have Crown Fibre Holdings up, they're doing the beauty contest of all the aspirants at the moment.
DUNCAN Anyone more attractive than the other at the moment?
STEVEN Well I'll have to ask them but they're doing the job particularly because I think it's appropriate that politicians don’t make those calls, because it's very easy in the heat of politics to take positions in favour or against a particular organisation.
DUNCAN I want you to look at these numbers because in Australia this week, it was rolled out in Tasmania, and if you have a look at this $160 a month for a fast Broadband, for a slower option $49. New Zealanders don’t know how expensive this is going to become do they?
STEVEN Well actually I don’t know, to be fair those numbers are Australian numbers and Tasmania has unique aspects to it, so I wouldn’t for a moment compare them with what ours would be.
DUNCAN So ours would be cheaper than that?
STEVEN It's too early for me to say that.
DUNCAN But that’s what we're looking at though isn't it, it's expensive, New Zealanders don’t know that yet do they?
STEVEN Oh look there's lots of costs around Broadband, but obviously Crown Fibre Holdings and its partners will be wanting to have entry level Broadband for a 100 megs which is achievable for people, and I know that they're very focused on that.
DUNCAN Achievable but expensive, there's installation costs as well, a thousand dollars is being quoted in some places.
STEVEN Well there's all sorts of combinations you could come up with in terms of installation and costs, and what they will be very focused on when they work with their partners, is doing something which is reasonable and achievable and people will actually be interested in buying. Don’t forget of course if you take digital television, before it came along nobody was prepared to pay 80 bucks a months for TV and now they are.
DUNCAN Just quickly, mobile termination rates, are you unhappy, will you regulate?
STEVEN I'm not making any calls at this point, I've been given advice I'm expecting more advice from officials, we've now had the period where people get to make submissions on what's sitting on the table currently, and you know in terms of the Commission's recommendations.
DUNCAN Well you just have a look at this voluntary agreement at the moment up here, if the company's get the rates up to 6 cents a minute in 2014 – I know this is very complicated – and then if you go right down to 4 cents a minute if you regulate, I mean it's obvious you should effectively regulate isn't it because there's no competition?
STEVEN Well look there's all sorts of things to be taken into account and of course the Commission has come out the other way from what you’ve just said, but I tell you what I won't be doing and that’s making a call, with the greatest respect, on your programme this morning.
DUNCAN Yeah that’s right, but are you against regulation in this, as a principle?
STEVEN No I'm not against a regulation in this, I've gotta sit down and make a call, and I'll do that as I've said in the media once before, quietly and in full consideration of all the options. We've had history in New Zealand in the past of the odd Communications Minister offering too many opinions before they’ve made one of these decisions, and ultimately they had to recluse themselves from those decisions, I don’t plan to do that.
DUNCAN But as Deborah Hill Cone pointed out in the panel earlier, you have an option here, as Chris Barton also pointed out in the Herald, you can either be Minister with some metal, or a spineless jellyfish, which one are you going to be?
STEVEN I think as I've said in the Herald myself, I get the 360 degrees advice, Chris has in the Herald mentioned the spineless jellyfish, I'm certain that all over there's advice in terms of which way it should go, but it won't just be about being popular, it'll be about making the right decision for the industry and for New Zealand.
DUNCAN One of your other big portfolios of course is tertiary education which you took off Anne Tolley who wasn’t doing a great job in that, which is why you picked it up.
STEVEN I think that’s a little unfair.
DUNCAN Well okay you picked up the role anyway. What is the problem, what's wrong with the tertiary education sector?
STEVEN Well it's not massively broken, we spend a huge amount in tertiary education in this country, well above the OECD average and more than Australia does, as a proportion of our total economy, so we are big spenders in tertiary education, and there are some issues in that, there are some areas of low course completions, we have a big part of it is in the student support area, which is slightly unusual, but actually not completely unusual compared to Australia. So there's some unique aspects of our system, but there's definitely room to improve the outcomes for students and for the country, in terms of ensuring more people pass more courses and quality more, and my challenge is to do that without any more money.
DUNCAN But are there too many polytechs, we have 20 of them here, Australia has less than half a dozen. I understand that you're going to pull some money even from the polytech sector.
STEVEN Well the budget last year pointed out that there was a lot of funds coming to an end and we wouldn’t be replacing them, these are funds that were set up under the previous government for either capability or supporting change, and the numbers were up around 20 or 30 million a year.
DUNCAN How much are you talking about pulling from them?
STEVEN Well currently the polytech sector next year will lose about 70 million dollars across the sector from what it's had previously, so that was announced in Budget 2009, the polytechs are aware of that, they're working through that, we've don’t a lot of work on polytech governance, the next couple of weeks I'll be announcing 80 new government appointments to polytech councils, and what I'm seeing is somebody new in the portfolio, is that the people in polytechs are being very reasonable, they understand what the challenges are and certainly in this last 12 month period, 2009, they’ve responded by improving the performance of those polytechs.
DUNCAN You've also had a go at student loans as well, what are you going to do, are you going to effectively kick students out of university if they keep failing and they won't get access to student loans, because that’s the indication you’ve given isn't it?
STEVEN Well the challenge with student loans is that the incentives have changed. Since the interest has been taken away and we've all bought into that, the interest has been removed, therefore some of the incentives are not quite as they were, so when you had to pay interest ...
DUNCAN Are you going to kick them out of university?
STEVEN What we are going to do is we are going to put some borders around academic progress, because there's no point students going for a long time at university or polytech building up quite a loan and not walking away at the end of it with any sort of qualification, it's not good for the country as well, and the country's putting a lot of money into these students.
DUNCAN Just on to your portfolio, another portfolio KiwiRail is it true that they want about a billion dollars or perhaps more over ten years from the government?
STEVEN I think they'd take as much as we could give them.
DUNCAN How much will you give them?
STEVEN We're working through that at the moment, what we've said is that we'd make the best of it, but let's be not mistake...
DUNCAN Do you want KiwiRail, do you want to hang on to it?
STEVEN Oh look I think the price that was paid by the previous government, and I've said it before, it was nuts, it was over the top, and what we have said we'd make the best of it, it's an asset that is a sunk economic asset for New Zealand, the options are not do something with it and watch it run down and fall to bits over time, the other option given we've got a lot of freight growth coming over the next 20 years, is to put some investment in, but we've gotta be very careful about the way we do it.
DUNCAN We understand that Jim Bolger won't be rolled over as the Chairman of KiwiRail from June, is that correct?
STEVEN The governance of KiwiRail is the responsibility for my good friend Mr Power, but we are looking at refreshing the governance.
DUNCAN So Jim Bolger will be removed as Chairman?
STEVEN My understanding is that we're looking at renewing the governance but that’s for Simon to announce.
DUNCAN Hasn’t the decision already been made behind the scenes?
STEVEN Well there's been no announcement at this point as to whether Jim goes or whether he's replaced.
DUNCAN Is it incorrect?
STEVEN Is it incorrect what?
DUNCAN Is the speculation incorrect that he will be removed as Chairman in June?
STEVEN I'm just not making that announcement today, that’s for Mr Power to do.
DUNCAN I just want to finish on the fact you have so many portfolios, firstly that Super Gold Card, was it the fact that you had too much on that you made that mistake?
STEVEN No, I don’t think so, I think slightly naïveté on my part I gave an inch and a few people in know, you included, took a mile, and sort of expanded it hugely, which was fair enough.
DUNCAN Very fairly I thought.
STEVEN Well yes of course, and so my job – it was sending the wrong signals, it was never the intention to actually change the eligibility for superannuitants, but it was loosely written in the press release, so I take full responsibility for that, and we changed and fixed it the next day.
DUNCAN I just want to quickly talk about your future, I mean you're only 46, despite the Herald saying you looked a bit older.
STEVEN Well I dunno, what do you think?
DUNCAN Entirely unfair – um slightly – I just want to put this to you, if you just have a look at this on this screen here, it's from what you told the Massey Student Magazine this month, there's a good principle in student radio that if you hang around you'll get a bigger job each time, which has turned out to be true with most things in life. You're still a young man.
STEVEN Mm.
DUNCAN Do you want to be the Prime Minister?
STEVEN No.
DUNCAN Do you want to be a Finance Minister?
STEVEN No.
DUNCAN You don’t want to be the Finance Minister?
STEVEN I'm very happy being what I'm being. I mean those two are very big jobs, I mean I'm a person that since my radio days try to have a bit of balance in my life, I don’t say it's a struggle when you're being a Cabinet Minister, it's very very full on, and I just respect anybody who's prepared to step up and be Prime Minister, I think people don’t understand exactly how much, no matter which side of the house they're on, how much these people give up completely their own lives, so I'm just happy helping where I can, and putting some good work in for the country, that’s why I'm here.
DUNCAN But you’re effectively giving up your life being Minister of everything, right behind John Key and Bill English. If John Key came to you and said Steven I need you to be the Finance Minister, we're refreshing our Cabinet, I'm talking in years to come, I'm not talking you know the next year, would you say I'm absolutely not interested, it told Duncan on The Nation I didn’t want it.
STEVEN Yeah yes Duncan's running my career. Look I'm relaxed about whatever role the Prime Minister chooses to give me but truly I don’t – all the roles I've been given, I would never have said before I came in that the tertiary education was gonna be the thing that I'd be in, but it's fascinating and just having that responsibility which I'm very conscious of when you walk in new to a portfolio, and there's a whole lot of people have been working in the sector and giving their lives to it for a long time, that you’ve just gotta take care and you just take responsibility you're given and you look after it.
DUNCAN Alright Steven, thanks for coming in, I hope we will have you back cos you’ve got a lot of portfolios, we've got 36 programmes so perhaps we'll see you at the end of the year as well. Thank you very much.