Ai As Public Service Distraction

And what it's led to, of course, is um a lot of uh attention being paid to Winston Peters, because you'll remember uh when the uh last uh Razor Gang took to the public service, 6.4%. I think they wanted savings uh from the uh public wage bill. Winston Peters was exempt from that in foreign affairs. And Winston has always, when he's foreign affairs under Helen Clark, he also he got a big boost to foreign affairs. That's why foreign affairs love him. But he is very good at that job, but nobody would deny that. And he's always argued that we should be well represented overseas, and I don't think anybody would argue with that either. But um uh what Willis uh was saying, uh, and not really opposing Winston's view, but saying uh maybe not this side of the election. Well, none of the big cuts will come the side of the election anyway. It'll be the other side. Well, it'll be three years away. Well, indeed. So it's a it's a slow uh train, this one actually. Uh, she's in some cases both MFAT staff and her, for example, could start uh flying cattle class and uh not business. Well, I don't know whether that's gonna save a lot of money and and it's it won't save a lot in terms of prestige either. I mean, I think a cabinet minister should be flying business class, in my view, and probably some people are saying, why shouldn't they just be like us? Well, they're like a cheap executive of a pretty big company. Um so uh she said that the two ministers that's her and Winston have had extensive debates about uh M Going's uh uh MFAT's ongoing funding. Um she says she always wants to communicate with Winston, the finance minister, she was being quizzed in Labour this uh by Labour this afternoon by her opposite member, Barbara Edam Edmonds about what would appear to be contradictory statements coming from uh Winston Pizza and her over MPFT funding. Uh not so says uh Willis.