Partners Life chief executive Naomi Ballantyne (left), former Labour Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas and comedian Michele A'Court. Photos / Herald montage
Partners Life chief executive Naomi Ballantyne (left), former Labour Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas and comedian Michele A'Court. Photos / Herald montage
The fourth season of the NZ Herald podcast Money Talks wrapped up last week. Hosted by NZ Herald business editor at large Liam Dann, the podcast talks to notable New Zealanders about their memories of money growing up, whether they’re any good with it, would like more of it and why it causes so many problems in society.
Here are some of the best stories from the guests this season, which have ranged from business leaders and politicians to broadcasters and comedians. All previous episodes of Money Talks - with guests like Grant Robertson, Sir John Key, Rob Fyfe, Kere Woodham, Kura Forrester, Matt Heath, Chloe Swarbrick, Brad Olsen, Jono and Ben and more - are available free to listen on iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Partners Life chief executive Naomi Ballantyne.
Partners Life founder Naomi Ballantyne - from growing up poor to selling her $1b business
After building three of the biggest insurance brands in this country and selling them all, it’s fair to say Naomi Ballantyne is financially comfortable.
Ballantyne, who started Partners Life in 2011 (after selling ClubLife to ING in 2009), sold it to Japanese life insurer Dai-ichi Life Holdings last year for around $1 billion.
But asking her about her first memories of money is revealing of a tough childhood.
“My first memories of money were not having any,” Ballantyne says.
“Mum trying to borrow money from people, having to work when we were at school, she worked while we were at home, sewing, she worked every minute she could to try and supplement Dad’s income.”
“So not having any money was my first memory of money, other people having different lunches and being able to pay for stuff at school or wearing different clothes rather than hand-me-downs.”
Ballantyne grew up in Glenfield on the North Shore in the 1960s and 1970s.
Her mum was Tongan and her dad was from Vancouver in Canada.
“Dad had a major drinking problem. Mum had a gambling problem so what money we did have was often redirected to the wrong places,” she says.
Looking back, Ballantyne credits the struggle through her early years, and the work she had to put in, as key drivers of her success.
“Most of the entrepreneurs I’ve met didn’t have backing,” she says. “They started at the bottom, they had failures. They thought they had a good idea and they ran out of money because they didn’t have the backing, so they learned the next time.
“I think in many cases successful entrepreneurs had to fight and brave their way through and bluff their way through a lot of hard stuff to get to the level of being successful.”
Sir Roger Douglas believed that giving all the money to one broadcaster was to give the broadcaster a monopoly over the funding. Photo / Paul Taylor
Sir Roger Douglas on why he’s lost faith in politicians:
Sir Roger Douglas, former Labour Finance Minister and co-founder of the Act Party, is unimpressed with modern politics.
“Look at the last 20 years, you tell me anyone, any government that’s done anything,” he says.
Douglas, now 86, probably has more right than most to make that claim, having been the key driver of an economic revolution in his four years as Finance Minister, from 1984 to 1988.
To many Kiwis it was a revolution that saved the country from bankruptcy, pulling it out of a spiral of debt and depression.
But others see the reforms - “Rogernomics”, they were dubbed - as a right-wing coup which sought to dismantle the welfare state.
Actually, Douglas wouldn’t argue with the second part of that statement.
He still advocates what some would describe as radical reform of the welfare system.
But Douglas says that back in the 80s, there was never a grand plan that he and his Labour colleagues were following.
“I think it was more organic,” he tells the Money Talks podcast. “We were faced with a problem, we needed to fix it. Had I been tribal in the sense of Labour right or wrong, I don’t think we would have necessarily done it.”
So where did the term Rogernomics come from? He laughs: “From one of you guys! The media.”
Michele A'Court started out actively rejecting the pursuit of money in her education and career choices. Photo / Frances Carter
Michele A’Court on the ‘most terrifyingly, traumatically poor’ she has ever been
A strong advocate for social justice, A’Court says she started out actively rejecting the pursuit of money in her education and career choices.
But she now sees discussing it, understanding it and shining a light on issues like how much people get paid as important for promoting a fairer working world.
“My mother would have said it was very gauche that someone would have mentioned how much they paid for a car or what their house was worth or how much money they had - [that] was completely unacceptable.
“At the same time, you knew who had money and who didn’t.”
A’Court talks about the toughest financial years in her life, having left TVNZ (where she had starred on the popular kids’ breakfast show What Now).
“The most terrifyingly, traumatically poor I’ve been would be in the late 90s, as a separated parent, living in a house with a massive mortgage as a freelancer and not quite knowing where the next mortgage payment was going to come from.”
Sharesies co-chief executive and co-founder Leighton Roberts.
Sharesies boss Leighton Roberts on how stock market investing could shift the dial on poverty:
Leighton Roberts says the social inequality he saw in the investment world was one of the driving reasons for creating Sharesies.
“The fundamental problem is that people don’t start on equal footing, right? Most New Zealanders get their financial advice from their parents, or someone close,” Roberts says.
“In fact, quite a small number of people in New Zealand actually have really good role models for that.”
Lack of education, low wages or issues like lingering fear of the stock market (after the wipeout New Zealanders endured in 1987) pushed people away from direct investment, he says.
“So we have a huge amount of people, and a huge amount of our economy, involved in housing as opposed to productive companies.
“The economics are a little bit twisted in New Zealand. I do think places are happier when there’s much more equality.
“That’s not to say I don’t think you need more wealthy people as well.
“But that’s not an ambition in itself. It’s a byproduct of something that you’ve achieved.”
When it comes to shifting the dial on poverty and inequality, Roberts says he likes ideas such as the universal basic income (UBI).
“But if we can start people young and do a much better job of giving people a platform so we’re on a much more even keel, I think that would be huge. And then things like financial education and stuff can become really, really valuable.”
As for his own wealth, Roberts says most of his money is going back into the business for now.
“I’m a pretty boring investor myself with funds and ETFs and stuff like that. But every now and again, I decide I wanna pick a company. And I give it a good crack.”
Dame Therese Walsh, Air New Zealand's chair. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Air NZ’s Dame Therese Walsh on how a Lotto win and family loss changed her life
Losing her father at just 17 shaped Air New Zealand and ASB chairwoman Dame Therese Walsh’s view on life and money.
Walsh grew up in a working-class Wellington family, one of five siblings, and money was tight.
That changed after her parents had a significant Lotto win when she was 16.
“It wasn’t millions of dollars, but it was enough to pay off the mortgage, to provide a little bit of retirement security and they had a few experiences they’d never had in their lives, like buying a new car and going to Australia on holiday,” Walsh tells the Money Talks podcast.
“Things that some people take for granted today, but were very, very special back then.”
Sadly, though, her father passed away just a year later. “My father died very suddenly at an early age. He was in his early 50s.”
While she’s always been good with money and is a trained accountant, Walsh says that changed her attitude towards spending and enjoying life.
“I’m quite conservative in the sense that I do want to have financial security. That’s really important to me. I want to be able to cover the unexpected.
“However, possibly because I did lose my father young, I do have a bit of a ‘make the most of it and you’ve gotta enjoy it’, kind of sentiment. So I am known for a little bit of spending.
“I’m certainly really clear that you have to do things when you can because you might not be able to do them later.”
Walsh doesn’t buy Lotto tickets but, asked about the idea of a Lotto-style windfall, she offers some good advice.
“I think if you were to come into money – and people come into money through inheritances and other windfalls, redundancy payments and things like that – I think, for me, it would be about being careful with that money.
Toni Street's skills as a cricketer played a part in her education, helping to set her on a path to media stardom.
Toni Street - realities of pay in women’s sport meant cricket career was “no option”
“I remember how much we were paid, and it was only for incidentals,” Street told the Money Talks podcast.
“So when I was playing for the Central District Hinds - now, I assume [players] get paid a lot more - you’d get $30 a day for your incidentals while you were away.
“That definitely influenced me, because I knew that if I kept playing cricket - and I did, I ended up playing for New Zealand A against Australia - but there was no career option, and I was very aware that I wanted to make good money. That was, that was a motivation for me,” she said.
“I wanted to be able to do the things I wanted to do in life, and it probably did deter me a wee bit. I think if I had a carrot of being able to earn some good money with cricket, I might have followed it a bit stronger.”
These days, there were more commercial pathways for sportspeople - male and female, she said.
“When I think of the generations, you know, the Dion Nash generation of cricket, they didn’t get all the IPL opportunities that our cricketers now get. It’s a shame because they were just born in the wrong era.”
As it was, Street’s skills as a cricketer did play a part in her education, helping to set her on a path to media stardom.
She received a sporting scholarship to Lincoln University’s High-Performance Centre.
“I always had in the back of my mind that journalism was something I wanted to do, but I had this opportunity to go to Lincoln and get my fees paid. So that was $15,000 to $20,000 worth of fees, and it was an opportunity that you just couldn’t pass up.”
“So, financials were definitely a motivation - to not have as big a student loan at the end of it.”
The Opportunities Party leader, Raf Manji.
The Opportunities Party leader Raf Manji on why he left the world of money markets to make a difference in politics:
Raf Manji could have been the mayor of Christchurch.
Instead, the investment banker turned community budget adviser opted to take the reins at a political party he describes as having “radical centrist” views.
The Opportunities Party (Top) leader is far from a household name outside of his hometown.
But after two terms as a popular city councillor and two decades throwing himself into community work, he is well-regarded and well-recognised in Christchurch.
That means that - even with Top looking unlikely to hit the 5 per cent threshold for list seats in Parliament - it would be foolish to rule out the possibility of Manji winning a grassroots campaign on his home turf in the Ilam electorate.
Polling around 2 per cent, an electorate win could bring Manji and at least one other Top candidate into Parliament - potentially throwing them the balance of power if the election results are as tight as current polling suggest they might be.
Opting out of the banking high life in London was something he could afford to do after investing wisely for many years.
“I got to the point where money didn’t interest me particularly,” he says. “So I left. It was a bit of a shock to people. I was only 33. I just thought there is other things I want to do in life and earning loads of money wasn’t one of them. We had enough.”
When Manji moved to Christchurch, he started working in the startup space, in environmental technology.
But he also went back to Canterbury University and did a Master’s degree in political science.
He also volunteered for Christchurch Budget services.
“That was a real wake-up call for the struggles that so many people had,” he says. “I love talking to people about and helping them with money and I love a budget and spreadsheet.”
After the earthquakes, he got involved with the Student Army and earthquake recovery. He got to know Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel - who talked him into running for local government.
“A lot of people said to me: you’re mad, no one is going to vote for you, no one knows who you are,” he recalls.
“I said, I don’t know, I’ve been living here 10 years, my children go to school here I do a lot of community work... I knew a lot of people in the community and that was enough.
“People say it to me now I’m running in national politics... you’ll never get elected, no one is going to vote for you... but they often underestimate the importance of local networks.”
Paddy Gower has been able to get to a financially secure position. Photo / Discovery
Journalist Paddy Gower on why he doesn’t drive a Porsche
“It’s not like I’m some died-in-the-wool lefty or anything like that. I’m, I’m actually not,” Paddy Gower says.
He says that through “a bit of good management and good luck” and focusing on his career, he’s been able to get to a financially secure position.
“I’m paid pretty well for what I do and I love doing what I do. It manages to bring in enough money that I don’t bankrupt myself, which, from previous iterations of my life was quite possible.
“It’s not that I’m a spendthrift,” he says. It’s not like I’ve got heaps or anything.
“People do think that because you’re on TV that you are rich.”
Gower points out that he drives a beat-up old Toyota Corolla... “with a dinged wing mirror and, quite a lot of mud and stuff in it from my dog”.
“This kid came up to me the other day and said: ‘I expected you to be driving a Porsche.’ And the kids, in particular, say, do you live in a mansion?” he says.
“I don’t drive a Porsche. I don’t live in a mansion. But people do expect you, expect you, because you’re on TV, to be really, really wealthy. I don’t know whether it’s because they link it to like movie stars or something like that, but it is just not like that.”
