a “false flag”<\/a> operation aimed at making Willis appear more moderate.<\/p>\nBut after Willis said she was happy to debate “anytime, anywhere”, the debate going ahead may depend on whether the pair can agree on a time and a place.<\/p>\n
“My proposal is that we hold it here at Parliament next week,” Willis told reporters on Thursday when heading into Question Time, “and that we do do it after the half-year update as Richardson has suggested”.<\/p>\n
She said that was so that all media could attend.<\/p>\n
“I’m an equal-opportunity person, I think it’s fair that all of your journalists get a go at recording the debate so that as many New Zealanders as possible can listen to it.”<\/p>\n
Minutes later, Richardson put out a media release giving Willis an ultimatum to agree by 5pm to debate her on Newstalk ZB\/Herald Now.<\/p>\n
“Enough with the dilly-dallying. You laid down the gauntlet with ‘any time , any place’, and we have come back with the offer. Take it or leave it.<\/p>\n
“We know you’re trying to negotiate with a taxpayer-funded, left-wing website – when the offer on the table is the largest broadcast audience in New Zealand … you have until 5pm or we’re out.”<\/p>\n
Willis later said she had already booked the Legislative Council Chamber for the debate, and Richardson was “trying to get out of it, obviously”.<\/p>\n
“Her first reaction was to say no … she then obviously got talked into it by someone else, and now they’re finding a way to back out. That’s okay, I want to have the debate, let’s have the debate here at Parliament, neutral turf.”<\/p>\n
Asked who the moderator could be, Willis said she would not want to preference one outlet over another but Spinoff editor-at-large Toby Manhire had recently done a substantive series on the Fourth National Government, including interviews with Richardson.<\/p>\n
“I know she was very happy to sit down with him for extensive interviews, so perhaps he would be a neutral offer.”<\/p>\n
The Spinoff could be the “taxpayer-funded, left-wing website” Richardson had been referring to.<\/p>\n
“The emcee of a debate should be neutral, and it should be equal opportunity to all media outlets. So let’s do it fairly, let’s do it soon, I want to do it next week, as soon as possible suits me,” Willis said.<\/p>\n
“Let’s get beyond the fudge boxes, shall we?”<\/p>\n
The dispute over a venue came after the TPU sent fudge out to newsrooms across the country, insinuating Willis was “fudging” the numbers.<\/p>\n
Willis denied that outright.<\/p>\n
“Not at all, the numbers are all set out very clearly and we will update them again next week. We do full revelation of the numbers,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The simple fact is that spending as a proportion of GDP has been lower under our government than it was under the last because of the significant fiscal savings that we’ve made, $43 billion of savings so far.”<\/p>\n
Asked about the fudge, she said that if the TPU spent as much time on savings ideas as they did on fudge design, they could make a useful contribution to public debate.<\/p>\n
“We reduced spending as a proportion of the economy. We also, I’d point out to the Taxpayers’ Union, reduced taxes – not only for all working New Zealanders but for businesses making investments in growth.”<\/p>\n
She noted parties on the left were proposing more tax, with Labour advocating for a capital gains tax and the Greens and Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori calling for a wealth tax.<\/p>\n
Asked about the PSA’s claim about the debate being a stunt, Willis replied: “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. I’m stuck in the middle and that’s where New Zealand is too.”<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finance Minister Nicola Willis (left) has challenged her predecessor Ruth Richardson. Photo: RNZ\/Reece Baker\/Supplied The debate over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-178339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178339","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=178339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}