{"id":178291,"date":"2025-12-11T02:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/178291\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T02:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:53:08","slug":"clowns-to-the-left-of-me-jokers-to-the-right-nicola-willis-hits-back-as-debate-reaches-deadlock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/178291\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right\u2019: Nicola Willis hits back as debate reaches deadlock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neither Willis nor Richardson can agree on a forum for the debate. In a statement, Richardson said she favoured a debate hosted by Newstalk ZB (a station owned by NZME, which also owns the Herald).<\/p>\n

\u201cEnough with the dilly-dallying. You laid down the gauntlet with \u2018anytime, any place\u2019 and we have come back with the offer. Take it or leave it,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n

Willis favours a debate in Parliament\u2019s Legislative Council Chamber, the old Upper House, which all media could livestream and report on. The debate would be moderated by Toby Manhire, editor-at-large at The Spinoff.<\/p>\n

Manhire recently released Juggernaut 2, a podcast detailing the history of the Fourth National Government, in which Richardson served as Minister of Finance. Richardson participated in that podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had huge interest from virtually all mainstream media platforms. I want everyone to get a fair shot, so our proposal is he hold it here next week so members of the press gallery can attend,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n

She said she wanted the debate to be held after the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update (Hyefu)<\/a>, the latest Treasury forecasts, which will be released on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we can get on and make the debate happen,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n

Richardson said she will not agree to this option.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know you\u2019re trying to negotiate with a taxpayer-funded, left-wing website, when the offer on the table is the largest broadcast audience in New Zealand, Newstalk ZB Breakfast,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Spinoff is not taxpayer-funded, but has received funding from taxpayer-funded journalism programmes. NZME, the owner of Newstalk ZB, also received money from those programmes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpending as a proportion of GDP [gross domestic product] has been lower under our Government than under the last,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n

Core Crown expenses were 31.8% of GDP in the year to June 2023. However, Labour\u2019s last Budget was for the year ended June 2024, when the same figure was 33%.<\/p>\n

This falls to 32.7% for expenses in the year to June 2025, Willis\u2019 first Budget, and is forecast to rise slightly in the coming year to 32.9% before falling to 32.1% in 2027, which would be the last Budget of this Parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neither Willis nor Richardson can agree on a forum for the debate. In a statement, Richardson said she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9092,806,3110,89,1863,5432,18463,49780,4101,16843,246,37078,18940,2740,4508,113991,101,14909,6722,32033,3927,111,43,139,20484,69,1118,113993,3109,32258,30618,24365,9979,6624,50358,2552,223,61,113992,792],"class_list":["post-178291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-against","tag-as","tag-association","tag-attack","tag-back","tag-between","tag-clowns","tag-deadlock","tag-debate","tag-false","tag-finance","tag-fiscal","tag-flag","tag-former","tag-hits","tag-jokers","tag-left","tag-me","tag-minister","tag-moved","tag-movement","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nicola","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-pincer","tag-public","tag-reaches","tag-reputation","tag-richardson","tag-right","tag-ruth","tag-scheduled","tag-service","tag-the","tag-to","tag-unfazed","tag-willis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}