Heather du Plessis-Allan

Yeah, Laura, thanks very much for talking us through it.

The Trump administration is threatening new tariffs on more than 50 countries, and that includes New Zealand.

The levy's proposed at 12.5%, which is higher than the 10% we are currently paying.

It's being justified on the grounds that we are not doing enough to stop forced labour.

Todd McClay is the Trade Minister and is with us.

Morning, Todd.

Did you see this coming?

Okay, so is this a case of we get rid of one tariff, we fight it off, and another one will just pop up with some other reason for it?

Can we fight this one off?

Is it even worth us fighting it off, Todd, if they're just going to come up with some other thing?

It does feel that way.

Todd, thank you very much for talking to us and enjoy Paris.

Credit to Simon Watts.

Some time ago he told me he was going to do something to stop the councils like the Far North District Council putting 10 iwi representatives, not elected by ratepayers, on a committee with six councillors who were elected with full voting rights, thereby outnumbering the elected folk.

So I sent him a text a couple of weeks ago asking him when I should check back in with him to see what he was going to do.

He responded, asked me to give him two weeks.

Two weeks ran out yesterday.

Yesterday is when he announced that he would be changing the law to take those voting rights away from the unelected representatives on council.

Now, this has become something of a race relations issue because the greatest number of unelected members that get attention are Maori.

There are iwi reps, there are mana whenua reps and so on.