Latest news with #Q+A
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Stan Grant launches an explosive attack on the ABC
Stan Grant has revealed his deep 'sadness' over how the ABC failed in its 'duty of care' to him when he and his family were the target of relentless racist abuse and death threats. The veteran broadcaster and journalist also shared his thoughts on the failure of the Voice referendum, the future of treaties in Australia and the recent boing of the Welcome to Country ceremony at the Melbourne ANZAC Day dawn service in a wide-ranging and nuanced interview with TVNZ's Jack Tame. Grant, 61, quit his role as host of the ABC's Q+A in May 2023 after being subjected to 'relentless racial filth'. In a parting shot, he accused the ABC of 'institutional failure' over how he was treated when he was being bombarded with abuse during the Voice referendum. 'I became a target, my family became a target and the level of abuse just grew louder and louder and louder,' he said. 'Being misrepresented, hateful comments made to me, my wife, my children, my parents. And death threats against us. And a person arrested and charged. 'And throughout it all, I have to say with some sadness, a failure on the part of my employer to handle that and to be able to show proper duty of care to someone in my position who was exposed in ways that I couldn't control.' Grant said his decision to quit was to protect his family and his own sanity. But he insisted he held no one at the ABC personally responsible. 'I didn't feel protected and supported as I should have done with my employer. I don't necessarily blame them,' he added. 'I think they were swimming in waters that were far too deep for them.' After leaving the ABC, Grant said he retreated into Yindyamarra, an Aboriginal philosophy encompassing respect and sitting in silence as a way of trying to understand others and the world around you. The period of deep contemplation allowed him to change how he viewed the failure of the Voice referendum. 'There was something existential about this vote for us as Aboriginal people,' he said. 'It wasn't just a constitutional amendment, it felt like a vote on us. Inevitably, it does. 'We live in a country where we are three percent of the population. We are the most disadvantaged people, we are the most impoverished, we are the most imprisoned. 'We come out of very hard history. And that's almost unknowable to many Australians because Australia is a postcard, and it's beautiful, and it's rich and it's successful, and it's multicultural and it's peaceful. And they're phenomenal achievements.' He said he now saw the Voice as a a 'political failure, rather than a moral failure'. Grant also praised New Zealand for its approach to reconciliation with the Maori people. 'It's interesting being in New Zealand and the ease people move in out of the shared space. 'You know that you are in a place that is founded on something that is very vertical, very deep and very shared - contested, yes and not evenly distributed - and I think the treaty goes a long way to that,' he said. He was referencing the Treaty of Waitangi, the foundational document in New Zealand's history which established a relationship between the Maori and the British Crown. 'Australia doesn't have that. We don't have treaties. We don't have a constitutional recognition,' Grant said. 'There is still the overhang of Terra Nullius (meaning 'nobody's land' in Latin) that it was claimed because we simply weren't there in a legal sense. They are existential wounds that we have no dealt with.' Grant said that he was faced with a choice between having to 'imagine the Australia that I want or live in the Australia that I have'. 'To imagine a treaty, the likes of which you have here (in New Zealand), in the Australian context is just not possible. We are not made that way.' 'I navigate this now as more of a question of The Voice being a political failure rather than a moral failure.' Grant was also asked about the ugly scenes during the ANZAC Day dawn service in Melbourne where the air of reverence was broken during Bunurong elder Mark Brown's Welcome to Country, when loud heckles and boos threatened to drown him out. 'The wonderful thing about that is that the people who applauded the welcome and showed respect, far outweighed the small number of neo-Nazis, which is what they are, who had booed that Welcome,' Grant said. He said his immediate, gut reaction was to think 'Australia hates us' but his considered response allowed him to realise those who opposed the booing far outweighed the minority who were doing it. But he criticised Peter Dutton for trying to score political points by seizing on the national discussion to say he thought Welcome to Country ceremonies were sometimes 'overdone'. He accused the former Opposition Leader of a 'moral failure'. To take that and land that in the midst of a culture war where once again Aboriginal people were a political football and it backfired.' He added: 'The conservative side of politics sought to inflict a moral injury out of what was a very hateful act from a very small number of people.' Grant went further, claiming that opposition and criticism of Welcome to Country ceremonies was actually a 'failure of Conservatism'. 'What deeper conservative tradition could there be than a Welcome to Country that is thousands of years old? That is joined with an ANZAC service that is a solemn acknowledgment of sacrifice for the greater good,' he said. 'And to put those two beautiful traditions together creates a sacred space that we can all share in and any decent conservatism would seek to preserve that as a common good.' Grant also turned his sights on the media in general, which he claims is responsible for 'generating conflict and polarising debate'. 'I really had to confront what I was doing and what I saw, I thought, in the complicity of media in the conflicts of our age,' he said of his decision to quit the public broadcaster. 'I started to see that the media in many ways was the poison in the bloodstream of our society.' Since he quit the ABC two years ago, Grant has written a book about the failure of the Voice called Murriyang: Song of Time and has served as the Vice Chancellor's Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University.
1News
24-05-2025
- Health
- 1News
Budget 2025: Kiwis to get 12-month medicine prescriptions
Kiwis will soon be able to get 12-month prescriptions for medicines, Health Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Health Minister David Seymour revealed as part of today's Budget. Currently, doctors and prescribers can write scripts for most medicines only for a maximum of three months, meaning patients must pay their GP for a follow-up appointment or to issue a repeat. 'This creates unnecessary barriers for patients on stable, long-term medications like asthma inhalers, insulin for diabetes, and blood pressure tablets. It means added costs for patients and more paperwork for health professionals, taking time away from patients with more urgent or complex needs,' Brown said. Follow live coverage of the Budget on and TVNZ1's Q+A Special from 2pm. 'From the first quarter of 2026, prescribers will be able to issue prescriptions for up to 12 months if it is clinically appropriate and safe to do so. 'While patients will still collect their medication from a pharmacy every three months, they will no longer need to return to their doctor for a new prescription each time.' It could potentially save patients up to $105 a year in GP fees, Brown said. Budget 2025 has allocated $91 million over four years to support the change – covering the cost of the extra medicine that is expected to be dispensed. Seymour said the change was 'just common sense'. 'I'm pleased to see the Government's responsiveness to the voices of patients and their families by expanding access to more medicines for more groups. This decision reflects our commitment to a more adaptable and patient-centred approach.'
1News
18-05-2025
- Business
- 1News
Global shockwaves put Nicola Willis' Budget 2025 in a vice
Instability around the world is making decision-making even harder for our politicians, University of Waikato researchers say. This year's budget will be one of the tightest in a decade, with the New Zealand government halving its operating allowance – the new money it has available to spend – from NZ$2.4 billion to $1.3 billion. The cut reflects weaker than expected growth owing to global economic turmoil. It also highlights just how difficult it is to predict what is going to happen when it comes to the economy. Economies are dynamic systems where relationships between variables shift. Even the current state of the economy is uncertain due to data revisions and lags in reporting. Despite this uncertainty, governments have to assume paths for revenue and expenditure to make meaningful plans. Full coverage of the Budget on and on TVNZ1's Q+A Special from 2pm on Thursday. Based on the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU 2023), the National Party announced plans to achieve an operating surplus in the year ending June 2027 during the 2023 election campaign. As forecasts changed, so did those plans. By the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU 2024), released in December 2024, the goal of an operating surplus had been pushed back to 2029. Nominal gross domestic product (GDP) measures the value of goods and services produced within a country during a specific period. It is a key determinant of tax revenue. Real GDP measures the volume of output of the New Zealand economy. Ultimately, the 2027 nominal GDP forecast at the half-year update was weaker than expected. This weakness was driven by lower than expected output, not by changes in prices. The 2027 forecast tax revenue fell even more sharply than the nominal GDP forecast. This was in part due to the government's personal income tax cuts which have been costed at $3.7 billion a year. We're likely to see further downward revisions in economic growth. The Treasury has already lowered its economic growth forecasts for 2025 and 2026, in part due to the expected impact of global tariffs. While the direct effects of the tariffs on New Zealand may be limited, the indirect effects – particularly through increased global economic uncertainty – are likely to be substantial. Swarbrick pressed on Greens' alternative budget by Jack Tame - watch on TVNZ+ Research has shown that United States-based uncertainty spills over into the New Zealand economy by making firms more pessimistic about the future. This pessimism leads to firms delaying investment, ultimately reducing potential output in the future. Potential output is important as it represents the economy's capacity to grow without generating inflation. Potential GDP is affected by productivity, which has also been weaker than expected and one of the reasons Treasury lowered its forecasts after the pre-election fiscal update. New Zealand is running a structural budget deficit. That means the government is spending more than it earns, even accounting for the fact that governments automatically spend more and tax less in economic downturns. These deficits add to government debt, which can limit future spending and taxation choices. High debt can also hamper the government's ability to assist in counteracting the next downturn if the Reserve Bank's official cash rate is already near zero. It can also limit the ability of the government to respond to external shocks such as disasters or extreme weather events. These concerns are possibly behind the government's goal of returning to surplus by 2029. But there are counter-arguments. With pressing needs in many areas, some argue the government should be spending more now to boost productivity and growth. These contrasting views reflect a legitimate debate about values and priorities. Still, one point is clear: weaker than expected economic growth since the pre-election update has made the trade-offs between present and future fiscal choices more acute. The takeaway is that economic growth is essential for expanding the resources available to both households and governments. This is so they can spend money on things they deem important both now and in the future. A growing economy is not just about producing more for prestige – it's about creating the economic and fiscal resources to improve lives both now and in the future. University of Waikato authors: Michael Ryan, Lecturer in Economics, and Michael P. Cameron, Professor of Economics. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.
1News
04-05-2025
- Health
- 1News
Public service boss: Sector 'not as politicised' as some say
The public service boss says his sector is "not as politicised as some would have you believe", even amid significant change in its senior ranks and politicians' commentary. Sir Brian Roche, who was appointed as Public Service Commissioner in November last year, told Q+A public servants are "very neutral". "[Politicisation of the public service] is something we have to remain alert to. But I don't see any particular examples of it at all," he said. "I think the public deserves to know that they have an independent group of people who serve the government of the day." Sir Brian had criticised a health official in the past for using the word "crap" to describe the advice Associate Health Minister Casey Costello used to grant tax cuts for heated tobacco products. The Government is currently considering changes to the Public Service Act, as part of the National and ACT coalition agreement. The reforms are expected to "clarify the role of the public service" and "reinforce the principle of merit-based appointments". When asked in February if the changes could include politicians being able to directly appoint public service chief executives, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had not immediately ruled it out. Labour said the idea risked politicising the public service. Sir Brian said ministers had "significant say already" over these appointments because they signed off on job descriptions and got to see the long and shortlists of possible public sector leaders. He said these powers, as they stood, were sufficient. When asked what would happen to perceptions about neutrality if politicians were given greater powers over candidates, Sir Brian said there was only one case in the early 1990s he was aware of where someone was removed from consideration. "We avoid those situations." All appointments were already merit-based and "that has never changed", he added. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters suggested in March diversity quotas were affecting the public service. Public Service Minister Judith Collins said she was not aware of any. When asked if public chief executives were too easily reappointed, Sir Brian said: "I think there has been a little bit of experience — before I got there, by the way — of people being rotated through jobs without perhaps due scrutiny." "That's going to be addressed in the changes to the [Public Service] Act where, after a five-year term or a three-year term, there is a process where people get re-scrutinised and compared to the market. "I think that's healthy for them, and it's healthy for the system." Since early January 2024, at least eight public sector chief executives under the Public Service Commissioner's direct purview had left their roles. Sir Brian said that number was not "abnormally high". "I think it reflects contractual cycles and change." One chief executive had sighted health reasons for their departure: Oranga Tamariki's Chappie Te Kani. Audrey Sonerson resigned as boss of the Ministry of Transport after her appointment as Director-General of Health, while Chris Seed of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had chosen to retire. Seed is now in the UK as Acting High Commissioner, after Phil Goff's sacking. Treasury's Caralee McLiesh and Ministry of Education's Iona Holsted did not seek reappointment, both saying last year it was their decision to leave. In December, Andrew Crisp finished up at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development after six years to take up a role with IHC. Health NZ's Diana Sarfati resigned suddenly in February this year, less than halfway through her five-year term. She said it was "time to allow someone new to take up the mantle". Meanwhile, Stats NZ chief executive Mark Sowden chose not seek re-appointment after the release of a scathing Public Service Commission report. It found Stats NZ had insufficient privacy safeguards when it contracted Manurewa Marae to collect Census data. That inquiry was launched after allegations Census and Covid-19 vaccination data collected at the marae was misused for Te Pāti Māori's election campaign. Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of NZ on Air.
Daily Mail
03-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Aussies borrowers put on alert as the Greens unveil plans to force Labor to scrap a key promise to voters
unveil plans to force Labor to scrap negative gearing in a hung parliament. While house prices are surging in most capital cities, they fell by two per cent in Melbourne in the year to April as the Victorian government's $975 land tax on investors turned off potential landlords. Australian house prices fell from 2017 to 2019 when the banking regulator cracked down on interest-only loans. A hung parliament could spark another property market downturn should Labor break an election promise and scrap negative gearing for future purchases of investment properties. Greens leader Adam Bandt has signalled his party would force Labor to tighten negative gearing and scrap the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount should it be forced into a minority government to stay in power. 'As we sit here today, Labor and Liberal are giving $180billion in tax handouts to wealthy property investors,' he told the ABC's Q+A program on Monday night. 'What that means is a first-home buyer turns up to an auction with all their savings, and they bid as much as they can. 'A wealthy property investor who might have five homes is next to them, they can just keep bidding the price up and up and up knowing they've got a big, fat cheque from Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton in their pocket to write it off as a tax loss.' CoreLogic's head of research Eliza Owen has modelled what would happen if property prices fell, without referencing any particular election policy. She found that even with a double-digit fall, most home owners would still be making a capital gain compared with what they paid for a property. 'Even if national home values were to fall by 10 per cent, most homeowners would remain in a strong equity position,' Ms Owen said. She cited Reserve Bank figures showing just one per cent of mortgages are in negative equity, where the debt is greater than the value of the home a borrower is paying off. 'This is in part due to high home values. But, as noted in their latest financial stability review, "even when faced with a severe 30 per cent decline in housing prices, around nine in 10 mortgages would still have positive equity",' Ms Owen said. The Greens want to restrict negative gearing to one property but only for an existing investor as it banned the tax breaks for future purchases of investment properties. 'We need to wind that back in a way that is fair to the mum-and-dad investors, who might have got one additional property that they're using for their retirement,' he said. 'Like, they're not the ones who are out there trying to screw the system. But if you've already got five houses, the federal government should not be giving you a subsidy to go and buy your sixth while people are struggling to get their first.' Mr Bandt exaggerated the amount negative gearing and the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount is costing the Budget in foregone revenue. He claimed it was $180billion but Parliamentary Budget Office figures provided to the Greens showed the tax concessions for property investors were projected to cost $170.9billion over the next 10 financial years. The tax deductions for rental losses and the capital gains tax discount cost $89.11billion during the previous 10 financial year. Labor dumped its plans to scrap negative gearing for future purchases of existing homes after losing the 2019 election with a plan to also halve the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount to 25 per cent. The banks won't lend someone more than 5.2 times their income under the Reserve Bank's existing 4.1 per cent cash rate. House prices surged in the early 2000s, vastly outpacing wages growth, after former Liberal prime minister John Howard introduced a 50 per cent capital gains tax discount in 1999.
