This is a University of Otago podcast. Hello and welcome to Otago University Vote Chat 2011. Vote Chat is a series of conversations with politicians coming on campus to tell us why we should vote for them and tell us a bit about their backgrounds, their personal ideologies, politics, etc. We're filming this at the Media Production Studios on campus in front of a live audience. So we're trying to do things a bit differently. This is being live streamed out on the internet. It's also being filmed for YouTube, where people can watch it there, also for downloading as a podcast on iTunes. And of course, we're doing it on the Twitter sphere as well. We've got an official Otago University politics department, Twitter in the audience, speaking basically for our guest today. But if anyone wants to ask questions from within the room or the wider Twitter sphere, they can do so using the hashtag ouvotechat2011. Okay, so today we've got someone who's fast rising up the ranks of the National Party, sort of talked about as maybe even a future National Party leader or maybe Prime Minister. He's suddenly got an impressive career already, even though he's only about 35. He has got a politics degree and a law degree, and he has worked as a litigation lawyer for Kensington Swan. He's been a senior crown prosecutor in the district in high courts. He's even studied at Oxford University London School of Economics and worked briefly, I think, at the British Parliament. But now he is MP on his own, we're not on his own, but on his own right, and the New Zealand Parliament, and he's MP for Taronga Simon Bridges. Welcome Simon. Good afternoon, good to be here. Okay, firstly, it's great to have you here, but you shouldn't really be here. Yeah, great. Well, shouldn't you be in Taronga? It looks like getting all off the beaches or getting all off the beach. I don't know why you say that, because I did have some pangs of guilt in Michael and I, I talked about whether I should be here. But actually, we two weeks on, and I don't want to underplay the seriousness of what's happening in Taronga. It is very serious, right? And the boats in a precurious situation, they are getting all off at the moment. But there's also a sense with which actually, and I've thought a lot about this and talked with a lot of people in Taronga, life has to go on. And actually, one of the marketing campaigns I think that will come out of the Chamber of Commerce and so on is that it is business as usual. We're open for business. Because for most people, in terms of their jobs, tourism will be affected, some it's fisheries, but we've got to get on with this. So it's just kind of like a voter confidence in Taronga that you're getting away from there because the situation's being handled and... Look to some extent. I mean, you just want to hold that in sunny Dunedin. I've been going on to Michael Woodhouse many times, mate. This is not sunny, eh? And it's quite cold, but that's okay. Now, it's good to be here. It's okay, very good. But your government has stuffed up, isn't it? I've dropped the ball on this one. I mean, isn't it a big problem in your election campaign at the moment that this is coming there? I mean, in terms of the politics, I've deliberately tried not to think about it in that sense, right? Because I just think we've got to do what's right. We've got to follow the expert views and get on with doing the right thing. My personal view on the politics of this at a local level is look, those people who want to see national, where's the Saviors, who've done everything right, will still see it that way. Those who think, you know, are right, they're all bad, will still see it that way. Right. So why don't actually see it as a change or any different? Yeah, but there's a lot of undecided voters at the moment who are looking for a government of competency. And this government has been very strong on competency. I think, you know, a perception of competency. But now that is being eroded by things like this, and a few other, you know, credit downgrades and so forth. So isn't that going to kind of all compound and lead to this idea that maybe you guys aren't as smart as you? Look, I think we are. I certainly accept your point that look, in perception terms, the way some elements of the media have played it out, there is that. But I mean, I can tell you just from my personal experience of this crisis, if you like. From the day it happened, we were on to it. I was talking with Stephen Joyce. Things were happening. Actually, people from Maritime New Zealand were on the vessel doing things. So I'm convinced in my own mind, nothing could have been done quicker than it has been. So take us back to the day that it all unfolded. It was early in the morning, wasn't it on Wednesday, Sunday, and Sunday? To AM. So how did it unfold for you? So I was still sleeping, but look, I'm rooted out in the morning. And had conversations with Stephen Joyce about it with Tony Rob. You weren't in the electorate at that stage, or were you? No, we were in Parliament. So this was the last week of Parliament. Oh, yes, yes. So Wednesday, one more day of Parliament. He'd been having briefings from Maritime New Zealand. We were all very clear on the seriousness. We were also very clear that the exports, but it's new what they were doing. And we're doing everything they absolutely could. They had the resources they needed. Now, it's frustrating, right? And if you look at my electorate, it's a bit like the grieving process. I think people on the ground, me included, have gone through every aspect of Greece, anger, frustration, actually now, probably to a point of kind of, we are where we are and we've got to get on with it. But you must be a bit frightened by this anger, because I think there is. Yeah, it's still anger out there. It hasn't actually gone on to any other stages for some people. And they'll be angry at you guys. There's pressure to stay, isn't there? I don't think so. And I'm not just saying that you look in terms of, I mean, we've had a number of public meetings. Right? So let me run you through that. First public meeting, I cheered at Toronto Boys College, looked 400 people capacity. They were protesting. I mean, first question that I took was from Mike Smith, of course, Maori activist. You know, angry, had a green piece perspective. So a sort of a difference in dichotomy there, if you like, between locals and actually out of town is coming in with your agree. Anger, now, this week, I've had public meetings again, we're down to 20, 30 people coming to those. Because I think, actually, the information is really stepped up. People have understood the complexity of this. Okay. They've understood that things are being done. Okay, what about the arguments that the shipping industry is to deregulated? We're letting in these foreign flag ships. And, you know, this was an accident waiting to happen in all the clichés. Is there anything on that? Yeah, look, frankly, I don't know. Right, I don't know. I would never, I'm not a maritime expert. I don't claim to understand all these flags of convenience type arguments. What I do think is there's no question. We're going to need to have some kind of, whether it's a royal commission or what it is. In Choiry, we, yeah, these hard questions answered. I certainly don't go along with the line that look, somehow what has happened with a container ship carrying meat and, you know, wine and so on, somehow that flows on to royal exploration. I don't buy that. But in terms of those other sort of hard questions you've asked, yeah, we need to ask and answer them. Okay. I mean, this does change politics to some degree, whether we like it or not. And there might be some beneficiaries from this political scene. What about the Greens? Do you think they're going to get any sort of movement out of this? Not certainly. I've seen Green MPs, who at personal level, I get on well with, in Toronto. In Toronto, you know, every day there's been a seems to be a different group there. So you have been there. Is that, is that grandstanding or do you think that's opportunism? I'm just interested in this sort of balance. Yeah. Should MPs be there doing stuff or is it, you know, is it sort of getting into election airing in your view? I look, I certainly don't criticise them for being there. I think where you've got a party, where Greenists use C2B, your top priority. If they work there, look, that would be a bit stranger. I mean, this is an environment to let you. So I accept that, whether it's grandstanding, look, other people can judge that. I certainly, in my household, we got a pamphlet from the Greens a few days afterwards. And so I think there is that political aspect there, but look good on them. I don't criticise them for being at Toronto. I have a question about this. You said, you dismissed before the argument that, like, the flow on, you know, the people talking about this and then comparing to DECC, oil exploration and things like. The National Party seemed to be really trying to distance that. But I mean, they're both oil and it's both the ocean and the idea that they're not the same as kind of... Well, let me run you through that. I hear that. And I also understand why this is so sort of viscerally emotional for people, right? And look, there's no question, it's a serious situation, 350 tonnes, or thereabouts have come off of oil. But I think, you know, what you've got here ultimately is a container ship that has oil on it for fuel. And actually the way our cars do. And so many other things probably in this room, I mean, rear-earth, medals and the cameras and so on. So I do think there is a distinction between saying, here is, actually, before this disaster, most of us would have said a really environmental way to get goods from one place to another in a vessel, to jump into the conclusion that somehow oil exploration is linked in with this. I don't... It's more like a capacity to deal with an accident though. That's the argument. Like, the people criticizing the argument make that argument. But what the Green Party and Greenpeace are actually saying is that the point is that we don't, as a nation, have a capacity to deal with the kind of gulf situation, or even, well, this situation. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah. I mean, there are a number of things about that. Again, I understand the point, and it probably is, not probably, it's definitely something that some kind of inquiry should be looking at in the fullness of time. But on that point, you know, what I'm led to believe is the last time we had something that came close to this, was 10 years ago, as a country, actually, it was very different. This has been scaled up to a nine out of 10 complexity kind of a scenario. I don't think it's reasonable to expect that we suddenly have the experts on hand in New Zealand to be dealing with these things sort of the first hour, right? Who are just going to get on and understand the complexity of this. Look, we're just not going to, actually. Okay, the only more opinions or questions before we move on. I mean, I think we probably will come back to room.