Mark Mitchell

Now, back to Chris Hipkins and whether he's gone silent deliberately.

That was a sort of a well-covered story so far this year.

They have gone silent.

And they're doing it deliberately for the election.

They were looking for the government to shoot themselves in the foot and to simply keep saying they're useless, they're useless, they're useless.

And the more they could say that, the more they were hoping it would stick.

And by the time you got to election time, then, of course, they were the only alternative.

The problem being now is they're absent in the middle of a so-called crisis.

When people want debate and ideas and contribution, they are nowhere to be found.

And that is becoming a problem for them, reputationally speaking.

News next.

Mike, public service no longer underpays to the same extent.

They now are consistently being paid more, 21.4% increase over the past five years.

That's true, but you're talking about the public service in general.

I was referring to at CEO level, but it's one of those interesting... I first learnt it at Radio New Zealand many, many years ago when I was working there.

And I think it's fair, it's probably still the same, but I think it's fair to suggest on average people at Radio New Zealand as journalists were paid more than journalists in the private sector.

But no one was paid particularly well.

So in other words, broadly speaking, everyone was paid a bit more than the private sector, but nobody was right up the top.

And my reference to the CEO of the water entity.

At $645,000 to be... And I know $645,000 is a lot of money, but $645,000 to be a CEO in this country is being underpaid, and underpaid fairly dramatically was my only point.