Tuesday 19th April, 2011

TRANSCRIPT: Labour Leader, Phil Goff interviewed on TV ONE’s Breakfast at 7:20am this morning.

The full length video interview can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/Breakfast

PHIL GOFF interviewed by PETRA BAGUST

Petra: New Zealand's inflation rate has hit a two and a half year high on the back of rising petrol, food, and alcohol prices. So is there anything the government can do about it? Also up for discussion some pretty major changes being considered to tighten up the current student loan scheme for his take on all of this and more. I'm joined by Labour Leader Phil Goff. Good morning, the Prime Minister says there is little the government can do about inflation, is that true?

Phil: Good morning Petra. Well you know this time three years ago John Key was saying to Helen Clark in the House why aren’t you doing something about petrol and dairy prices. So it's amazing how things change. Look there are things that the government could do. One of them would have been not to put GST up. Could you think of the worse time to put GST up when already the cost of everything is going up, and low and middle income people are being hurt?

Petra: But it's been done and they're not gonna backtrack, so what could they do going forward.

Phil: But there are other things too that the government are directly involved with. If you look at those figures from yesterday, one of the biggest increases in prices was in early childhood education. You know you were talking to Paula Bennett before about how important it is to give children a good start, yes in early childhood education prices went up almost by 12% directly as a result of government charges, and the Prime Minister's promised us that those charges weren’t going to have any impact on parents. Clearly they have.

Petra: They have, I've talked to parents. What would Labour do if you were in government?

Phil: Well Labour had a situation where we tried to give affordable and accessible early childhood education to everyone, and that’s what we've gotta get back to. If we don’t lay the foundations so every one of our kids get a good start in life, we don’t pay for that just over the next year, we pay for that right throughout that child's education and their working life. So you’ve got to get your priorities right. You know what's really upsetting is that while prices have gone up so much the Statistics New Zealand Department said the median income in New Zealand had actually fallen over that period of time. So you can see how much people are squeezed by the fact that the things that are going up in price Petra are the basic necessities. You can't do without food, you can't do without milk and cheese, you can't do without power and petrol, you can't do without education. Those are the things that are hammering people.

Petra: But what would Labour do differently?

Phil: Oh look there are a number of things that we would do. I mean the very first thing that we would do is take the full 15% of GST off fresh fruit and vegetables. We've had report after report about how people aren’t eating healthy food because it's much cheaper to eat fast foods. You’ve gotta give people the ability and the incentive to buy good food, and taking the GST off fresh fruit and vegetables would be a really good start.

Petra: It is a good idea Phil, but practically everybody says it's too difficult, how can you make something like that work?

Phil: It's not too difficult because every country in the world just about does it. New Zealand must be about one of the only countries in the world that puts taxes on healthy foods in that way, and when the University of Auckland did a study into nutrition and the fact that one in four of our children going into school are already suffering from being obese, it said the best thing the government could do was do something to bring down the cost of healthy foods, and there you are, that’s what we're proposing with taking the15% GST off fresh fruit and vegetables, great for family budgets but also great for producing a healthier country.

Petra: Okay focusing on children, the green paper that’s being done by the government on children, will you work with the government on that to help?

Phil: Oh look I think that all politicians should have a common interest in protecting our youngest and most vulnerable children, and it is a disgrace that in this the country that we like to think as being the best country in the world to raise our kids, 20,000 children each year are being abused and neglected. We've offered a bipartisan policy to the government, I hope they take that up, and I hope as the Minister said they do listen to what we're saying on that.

Petra: And Phil what are you gonna do about those polls because really more bad news?

Phil: Focus on the issues. You know yesterday focusing on the rising cost of living, but also one other factor. Down in Christchurch talking about the fact that while we've got nine thousand young people 18 to 24, unemployed, we've not got one extra training position to cope with the huge demand for rebuilding the city, the need for skilled workers. We've gotta match the people who are out of work with skill training programmes so the Cantabrians can rebuild their own city, and so far I was just astounded to hear from the head of the new CERA group that there are no plans in place for upskilling, there are no additional people being put into training, and John Key says we can bring people from around the world. Let's get the Christchurch people employed first.

Petra: Phil Goff Labour Leader, thanks for joining us this morning.

ENDS

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