TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:00
Speaker 1: Okay, well, as you know, Chris Bishop has, in the last half hour or so, put up a Facebook message and conceded to Ginny Anderson, and he is.
00:00:09
Speaker 2: With us now. Hi, Bish. Good afternoon.
00:00:12
Speaker 1: Mate, how are you? Have you processed this yet?
00:00:16
Speaker 2: Oh, well, I'd be lying if I said I processed it. I think it's a continual process, right? You just, you know, Saturday night was pretty rough, obviously, and, you know, I spent most of yesterday just kind of Not doing a lot, frankly. Pretty hungover, to be honest, on Sunday morning. Slept in a bit. Wasn't exactly wild to have a journalist on my door at 10 o'clock in the morning. That was pretty unpleasant. But, you know, fortunately not from Newstalk ZB. So that's good.
00:00:45
Speaker 1: I think there are some manners, as Trish Hurston said earlier, which are important. What do you think happened in the end to the National Party?
00:00:55
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, there'll be no doubt a post-mortem over the next few weeks as we all wait for the specials to come in and people have got columns to write. Sort of for others to sort of say, I guess, as of basically Saturday night, I'm no longer a sort of active participant. I think the government... We did a lot in three years, and we are doing a lot, and I think National will be returned. It'll be a different shape of government, obviously. I've just heard David talking about some of that stuff with you now. It'll be a different government, but I'm pretty confident National will be returned. And it's a government that's tackling tough issues, right, from housing, planning, infrastructure, education. Eric is doing sterling work. It's a government that is really, for the first time in a long time, grappling with some of the systemic issues that have bedevilled the New Zealand economy and society for a long time. And that sort of change that we're doing, once-in-a-generation reforms across multiple different policy areas, that is difficult. And it's particularly difficult at a time when society Frankly, the country's gone through a pretty tough period economically, right? And I don't just mean the last three years. I actually mean all the way back through COVID. You know, we had COVID. We had high spending. We had debt-fuelled inflation. We had a cost-of-living crisis. And then, of course, we've had the tariffs and the oil shocks driven by the war in Iran. So it's a very difficult time to do sustained long-term reform, which is what the government was doing. Mm-hmm.
00:02:24
Speaker 1: Do you think you've got politics out of your system or would you be up for coming back? Because you're young, you're what, 42?
00:02:28
Speaker 2: 43, 43. But you look so young for your age. Oh, I don't know about that. A number of people have said to me on the campaign, I look a lot older than 43. That's probably true. It's been a tough three years, particularly weight-wise. Oh, look, let's wait and see. You know, three years is a long way away. I think I said on my Facebook post that I think I've still got something further to give in terms of public life. But what that looks like, I don't know. So I'm not ruling it out. But, you know, it's like it's two days after the election. It's a pretty bruising loss. So let's just wait and see.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough. What about your RMA reforms? I mean, because I know that this stuff isn't just stuff that you went through, right? You really believe in the reforms and the stuff that you were doing. Are you worried about the implementation now?
00:03:15
Speaker 2: I am. I mean, we've passed the legislation, but there's a whole lot of implementation over the next three to five years to go through. Same in transport, by the way, where we've got big challenges. We've got the move to get rid of petrol tax and move to road user charges. We've got land transport pricing reform to do. We've got that infrastructure plan to implement. I mean, we've landed a plan that basically everybody agrees on, but there's a lot of implementation as part of that plan. So there's a lot to do. But, you know, there's a number of good people in the Parliament across the three parties of government. You know, obviously I've worked closely with Simon Court on infrastructure and housing and RMA reform. So there's a number of really good people, including still in the National Party. So I'm confident they'll be able to carry it through. And if there's a role I can play in helping with that, then, you know, I'm up for that because I do want to see those reforms be implemented properly. Right.
00:04:06
Speaker 1: So what's the plan? Are you just going to detox over summer, just let it go? Have a good summer.
00:04:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, my family hasn't really seen me for three years, frankly. I've been a pretty crappy husband and a pretty crappy father. And that's the job of public life. but it's just the reality, and I want to be a better dad and a better husband and see more of my kids. You know, it's early November, so we won't, you know, I'm still, it's just this weird situation where I'm still a minister through to probably early December. Caretaker role, obviously, no substantive decisions, but still stuff to do, paperwork to process. So once all that's over and done with, yeah, got the summer and I'm looking for work. So like everybody else, I've got a mortgage to pay and, you know, kids to feed.
00:04:55
Speaker 1: Well, listen, best of luck with it, Bish, and thank you for talking to us. I realise how bruising this whole thing is. Chris Bishop, outgoing MP for Hutt South.