 The huddle with paperplusoffice.co.nz, your local office supplies specialist, now open for business. I'm the huddleist Monday evening, David Farrah from KiwiBlog.co.nz, hello David. And Cameron Slater from wileoil.co.nz and editor of The Truth, hello Cam. Hey Larry. David, first to you, the Prince of Wales, should I say Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, Kimmilla in the country for a brief visit, I think it's just under a week. Some focus has been on the hairdresser tagging along, the tax pass paying for all of this. The visit will not be cheap, Papua New Guinea I think was near enough to five million for three days. What do you make of these visits, do you support these royal visits, I mean the cost, that's just part of the deal isn't it? Well, if you keep with the monarchy it is part of the deal when you have to accept they come over from time to time, but I think really it just shows how ridiculous it is that we are part of the monarchy, we have a perfectly good Governor-General, lovely man who I think is widely respected, we don't have to pay for a hairdresser to follow him about everywhere, so effectively the Governor-General is a head of state, we just have this sort of attachment that we haven't yet shaken. Right, and whether it's of any relevance to this country in 2012 at all right now, what do you see in it Cameron? Well, I'm a Republican but I've always said to David privately that I'll only support a Republic when two people have passed on, the first is Helen Clark and the second is Jim Bolger, because both of them would want to line up and want to be the president and you know you think that it's expensive paying for a hairdresser, I can tell you that having an office of a president will be a whole lot more expensive. Yeah, but if it wasn't Helen Clark or Jim Bolger would be somebody else Cameron, there will always be somebody else coming along. You see that's the thing though David, isn't it? It becomes political, that's the problem. Yeah, my solution to that is if we move to Republic one day is you require not just a majority in Parliament but what they call a supermajority, say three quarters, which means that you won't get politicians because there has to be someone who would be susceptible to at least the two major parties. So I agree with Cam's worry about certain people becoming president, but I think you can look at other countries around the world and see that you can avoid that. I reckon we've got a cheap deal as it is. Paying for hairdressers is nothing. The more worrying thing is like the World Cup, Len Brown couldn't organise the trains, this time he couldn't organise the weather. OK, yeah I look at them and look I don't dislike the Royals at all, I'm more of a Republican I think, but you know I look at that lifestyle. Would you want that seriously? Would you want to have to do that, the smile and wave, the endless functions that you've got to be polite? I think it's about being miserable. On a personal level, they're very hardworking, very dedicated to their jobs. Yeah. Queen especially, you cannot criticise her performance. I think the debate is about what's best in New Zealand, which can be very different to what's best for the United Kingdom. And we do have to have our own Royal Family though, maybe Pippa Middleton could come down and become Queen. We'll come back in just a moment. David Farah, Cameron Slater, it's coming up 15 to 6. Drive with the Business Banking Specialists at Westpac. Back on the huddle with David Farah and Cameron Slater. Issue number two, Cameron, pressure appears to be mounting on David Shearer ahead of the Labour Party's conference this weekend. Looks like his days are numbered. What do you think? I think his days are numbered. My Labour sources have been whispering for a little while yet. I know David Shearer has denied that he's had the delegation for want of a better term, having a little chat about his future. I know that that actually did happen. I know when that happened. The only thing that's disappointing for me is that they don't seem to have the courage to actually want to get into the blood and guts. And they seem to be a bit squeamish and they should just get on with it, because politics is all about blood and guts and we want to see some. Right, they want him to step down rather than... Yeah, I think they're trying to... Or be rolled. An easy way out, something... What I've heard is an offer of education portfolio. He was a former teacher himself, and he did that. I think David will probably correct me. I think he was an education spokesman at one stage. It's a gracious way to exit, but very definitely there's two factions that are angling. The thinking is that they've got to get him gone, basically, before the conference, because after the conference, the membership will be locking in behind Cunliffe and they'll have a larger say in who chooses the leader. So... What are you seeing then, David? What are your sources telling you? Well, not what I'm seeing is a quite extraordinary destabilisation campaign for their annual conferences this weekend. This is normally your best chance for a great weekend of publicity, because it's all your MPs talking about what the government's done wrong, what their policy's been released, et cetera. And people have chosen to go out there and not see how he does at conference, and then if he doesn't do well, say, maybe we need a change. But you've seen half a dozen people come out over the last two days, all saying, he must go, he must go now. That is a destabilisation campaign, as Kim said. I think they want him. He's a very decent man, and I think they want him to get so sick of this or just throw the towel. But Labor knows, don't they, Cam, that they would have a better chance with somebody else, either Robertson or Cunnliffe, or whoever? I'm not sure that they do. If you have a look at Robertson, if he takes over the leadership, then very clearly the Labor Party, and the caucus is signalling that the Labor Party has come now to represent the fact that they're the party workers' party, rather than the workers' party. If you have Cunnliffe, then you have, again, you've got a major problem there, in most of the caucus, just like David Cunnliffe, although the activists out there, the more rabid left-wing activists out there, would see that as a massive lurch to the left and the increase in union power. And the sad reality of what we're seeing here is that the Labor Party is just so far out of touch with middle New Zealand that even in their leadership battles, they're stuck. Thank you. Got to go. Cameron Slater and David Farah on the huddle. And these talks, it'd be, it's now 10 to 6.