Nine billion dollars a year. $750 million a month. Or $24 million a day.

That’s how much interest we are currently paying on government debt. Just the interest.

But, despite that, the Government thinks it’s a good idea to borrow more money to cover the cost of the revenue it’s not going to get because of the fuel tax freeze.

The Transport Minister has confirmed that more money is going to have to be bow-wowed. Because the Government’s books are in deficit.

Chris Bishop says borrowing is the only way to do it, given the state of the country’s finances.

Which comes at a time when we are spending $9 billion a year just paying the interest on government debt.

It is nothing short of lunacy.

I’m not against governments borrowing money. But it has to be money for essential things like infrastructure.

If we have to, borrow money to build roads. If we have to, borrow money to build hospitals.

But don’t go borrowing money because you’ve decided, for whatever reason, to deny yourself revenue because of this political paranoia about taxation.

Politicians go on all the time about the Government having to run the books just like you and I run our household budgets.

So sticking with that analogy, what the Government’s doing with this plan to borrow money to pay for its decision to play politics with taxation is like someone getting a loan from the bank to pay for the kids’ pocket money.

The kids are happy but, because the money has to be paid back with interest, they struggle to pay the powerbill during winter.

Sounds nuts? That’s exactly what the Government is doing with its borrowing to pay for less tax revenue. It’s exactly what Labour did too.

Remembering that the long-term picture when it comes to government debt isn’t pretty. We’re heading for a situation in the next few decades where government debt will be 180 percent of GDP.

Yet, these politicians in Labour and National, claim to be the ones who know what it takes to run the economy. And they think more debt is the answer. Do me a favour.

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Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins is waiting for the Government to release its pre-election fiscal update before explaining how Labour would fund a freeze to fuel taxes over the next three years.

Speaking to Canterbury Mornings, Hipkins said Labour would need to wait until the government's books were opened to determine how it would fund the election promise, but he backed the party's plan to ease petrol costs for Kiwis.

"What I'm being really clear about is that we're not going to ask New Zealanders in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis to pay another 25 cents a litre every time they fill up the car."

Hipkins also discussed Labour's policy to guarantee jobs for all graduate nurses, the latest Roy Morgan poll numbers, and the Paris Agreement, which currently divides the coalition government.

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You know how we’ve been saying for ages how much of a problem e-scooters, in particular, are?

How we’ve been saying for ages that, in the wrong hands, they’re death traps? How we’ve said all that, but we’ve done absolutely nothing about it?

I reckon we need to be looking at what they’re doing over in Queensland right now. And I think we should do the same.

Because, as of this week, Queensland is the first state in Australia - and one of the very, very few jurisdictions anywhere in the world - to set age limits and licensing requirements for e-bike and e-scooter riders.

Which is a brilliant move.

As of this week, in Queensland, anyone wanting to ride an e-scooter or e-bike on their own needs to be 16 and, at the very least, have a learners driver’s licence.

As of this week, in Queensland, there is a new speed limit for e-scooters - 12 kilometres per hour near pedestrians.

And because people will now need at least their learners licence to use these things in public, the police in Queensland have a lot more power to intervene when someone’s being a muppet.

So, when they’re breaking the speed limit, the cops can now stop them and fine them.

If they’re under-16 or if they don’t have a licence, the cops can ping them.

If they’re riding an e-scooter or an e-bike drunk, they can be done for it.

What’s more, the parents of any kids in Queensland caught breaking these new rules can be fined.

They’re doing this over there because people have had a gutsful of e-scooters, e-bikes and those electric dirt bikes.

But we have too, haven’t we? And we’re not imagining how much of a problem they’ve become. Especially the e-scooters.

Between 2022 and January this year, ACC claims for e-scooter crashes totalled $49,580,000. On average, that’s $12.5 million a year.

What you don’t get from those figures is the ongoing consequences of those injuries.

The numbers show too why what Australia is doing with its age limit makes sense and why we need to do the same here.

Over the last two years, there have been 3,090 e-scooter ACC claims from teenagers. Last year, here in New Zealand, 10-to-19-year-olds were the most crash-prone e-scooter riders.

You might have noticed that I said crash-prone, not accident-prone. Because most e-scooter injuries are avoidable. They’re not accidents.

That’s because of the way people use these things. Especially, the hire scooters.

Which, by the way, do require people to verify that they’re over 18 before using them. But we know that a lot of kids just use their parents' details to get around that.

Besides which, putting it on the scooter operators makes no sense. Which is why I think it would be an absolutely no-brainer to do what they’re doing in Queensland.

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Selwyn Mayor Lydia Gliddon joined John in the studio for their regular catchup.

They discussed the key issues facing the district, including managing fast-track developments, the council's amalgamation plans, and proposals to reduce speed limits on sections of Leeston Road from 100km/h, which have faced significant opposition from local residents.

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Instead of cracking down on New Zealanders with student debt living overseas, we should be making things easier for them. Especially, if we want them to come back.

Tell that to the National Party, though. Which has announced that, if it forms the next government, it will be going after graduates overseas with student loans and doing nothing about it.

The ones who account for 93 percent of the student debt that needs to be paid back.

National is promising to make life a bit easier for graduates living here. Giving them more time to pay off their loan with lower repayment rates.

But the ones overseas will face higher interest and tougher penalties if they don’t pay it back when they should.

Which makes no sense to me. Especially, if we want to get these people back to New Zealand.

How the system works, is that anyone with a student loan who moves to another country gets hit with interest. Which means more debt to pay-off.

If you’ve graduated and you’ve got a student loan to pay off and you’re in New Zealand, no interest. But the minute you go overseas to live, the interest starts getting added. And you’re expected to make two lump-sum payments every year.

Not everyone does, though. And these are the ones National has in its sights.

With Nicola Willis saying the taxpayer has subsidised their education and, if they choose not to use their skills to contribute to New Zealand society, then two things are needed: they need to pay more for the privilege of the taxpayer subsidising them and there needs to be consequences if they don’t follow the rules.

I agree there needs to be consequences for not paying it back. Because a loan is a loan. But what National is proposing isn’t the answer.

Because this so-called crackdown won’t do anything for the New Zealanders overseas who are way behind in their student loan payments and are too scared to set foot here because they think they’ll be arrested at the border.

It’s crazy to get all hardcore on it when some people are already too scared to come back.

The thing is, too, it’s all very well going overseas. But that doesn’t mean people walk into well-paying jobs. The grass doesn’t always turn out to be greener.

Which is why I think a much better approach would be to be a bit flexible with these people.

What would be wrong, for example, with IRD talking to them and seeing if they might qualify for some grace on the basis of hardship? Or agreeing to letting them come back, pay a few hundred bucks for a start and see how it goes.

I wouldn’t have any problem with that. Because what would you rather have? These people stuck overseas owing all this money? Or would you rather they were here using their skills and knowledge and making a genuine contribution to the country?

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Anyone celebrating that ruling by MBIE last week about one apartment in central Christchurch not being suitable for Airbnb accommodation needs to put the bubbly back on the ice.

Because this Air BnB scourge in Christchurch isn’t going away anytime soon. With a block of 24 new apartments, on Madras Street in the East Frame area of central Christchurch, that was supposed to be used for residential housing, being sold to one Airbnb operator.

The sale hasn’t happened yet. But the crowd building the apartments, Fletcher Living, is looking for an investor to buy the three-storey block holus-bolus. The price for all 24 apartments is thought to be somewhere between $12 million and $15 million.

Which is a price bracket that would enable an investor from overseas to buy it.

What really sticks in my claw, is that this development is happening in what became known as the East Frame area after the earthquakes. Which was a key development designed to get more people living in the central city.

Not having a one-night holiday in the central city. Living in the central city.

The specific area where this development is happening is on land bought by the Crown after the quakes, on Madras Street, near the Margaret Mahy Playground.

A local lobby group isn’t happy that people won’t be able to buy the apartments to live in, saying it would be better than having them sitting empty most of the time.

Would it ever.

A nearby resident is saying today too that this bulk sale of these 24 apartments is “outrageous” and will only make the area feel more lonely for people, like her, who live in the area.

People who have been saying for some time now that they’re finding themselves living in ghost neighbourhoods, with all these Airbnbs around them.

In one new development, residents say about 80 percent of the places have become Airbnb-type properties.

At another one, on the corner of Kilmore and Manchester Streets, there are 25 new townhouses and the people living there reckon only four of them appear to be occupied by long-term residents.

Which has them feeling like they’re living in a “pretend neighbourhood”. And they’re not imagining it.

We found out recently that, in the last year, 484 new homes were built in the central city, but the number of people living permanently in the area in that same period has only increased by 50.

That’s less than 1 percent growth in the number of people living in the centre of town. Which isn’t going to improve with Fletcher Living now selling what is effectively going to be a 24-room virtual hotel.

Councillor Yani Johanson says: “How do you build communities when you’ve got so much short-stay accommodation?”

The answer to that is, you don’t.

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Local broadcasting legend Barry Corbett joined John MacDonald to look back on his time as the breakfast host on 3ZB and Newstalk ZB as the station turns 100 years old.

Barry was the breakfast host on 3ZB and Newstalk ZB from 1981 to 1998. He then took his hand to local politics as a Christchurch City Councillor and is now a part-time tram driver across the CBD.

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National's Matt Doocey and Labour's Duncan Webb joined John MacDonald for Politics Friday this week.

They covered some of the biggest issues of the week, from the Government's plan to cap council rates, if trust in the public service has dwindled after the MBIE officials were found to mislead parliament, and the tax talk from both sides of the aisle.

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