 The Huddle with corporate cars delivering affordable luxury European vehicles nationwide. It is now 20-6, Josie Pagani is with us. Hello Josie. Hi Larry. Cameron Slater not quite set for a start Josie, so yes he is, here he is, just hold on. And Cameron Slater from Whale Oil has turned up, hello Cam. Hi Larry, how are you? Josie, Malaysia Airlines MH370 going missing, crashed, plane broke up, terrorism attack, we just don't know and it's all a mystery, what's your take on this? Well that's the thing, no one seems to have any new information, so we're all just grasping at straws literally and the biggest straw that we've got to grasp is these supposedly four false passports, at least two we know for certain. And it does seem extraordinary doesn't it, I know you've been saying this but the fact that we go through all this airline security, you take your shoes off, you get your nail scissors confiscated, constantly upending your makeup bag and yet you can get on a plane with a false passport that's not referenced checked with Interpol's list of, what was it, a billion passports last year I think Larry that were on Interpol's list. No no, it was about 39 minutes, around 40 million Cameron, I think that seems to be a very concerning issue and from what we can make out immigration here is not connected to that database, I mean they haven't told us they're connected, so what do you make of it all? Well the thing with the aircraft, these 777s have been around for a long time, I think this actual airframe is about 11 years old in this case, is not likely to have a catastrophic era at two hours into a flight, that's cruise time, even if engines fail you've got time to make calls and do those sort of those things before the plane falls into the water, so it's suggested it's some sort of massive catastrophic failure that didn't allow the crew to make calls, that then coupled with the false passport starts thinking like it's some sort of calculated terror act or something like that, but again no one's claimed any responsibility, terrorists usually like to Skype about these things. Yes, if it was a terrorist attack you want the links to be found, so the other option I suppose is that it's illegal immigrants who are using these stolen passports trying to, and I mean Southeast Asia is known to be the biggest booming market for stolen passports. They don't tend to blow up planes with themselves on it though. No, there is one President Kam of, I think it was in 2009, the Air New Zealand flight that crashed tragically and many people were killed then, that was mechanical failure and that was... Yes I know, but it was also on approach to landing and those... That's when these catastrophic things happen in approaches to landing while taking off. What's so interesting about it was that it was in cruise mode which is, as you say, very unlikely and also what happened was that it took months and months to find the debris and I think a year before they found the black box or the data. One thing people haven't been asking about is whether or not it's a missile strike and of course they're flying over a hotly contested South China Sea and the area that's in dispute with China and Vietnam and Indonesia and the Philippines all disputing that particular area. It is possible... Well actually, it's interesting you should say that because I think it was in the 1980s, wasn't it, where the US accidentally shot down an Iran air flight and again, 290 people were killed. When the Russians of course shot down the Korean air flight as well. Yes, yes, so that has happened, these things have happened. But the weather was good, so it's not the weather that was apparently blue skies. It seems unlikely it's a mechanical failure, but you just don't know. Alright, we'll come back in a moment to Joseph Begani, Cameron Slater with me, News Talks at B, it is now 16 to 6. It's election year and it's Larry Williams drive with ANZ, the bank with more local experts on News Talks at B. Cameron Slater and Joseph Begani on the Huddle, Cameron issue number two election date is September 20 earlier rather than later for obvious reasons. What do you see? Well, I think John Key's been quite cunning about this. He's picked a date that allows the government to be formed in time for the G20. Or G21 as people are liking to call it. But more importantly in the key date here is Parliament Rises on July 31st. Now what that signals is that National is planning on running basically a long campaign. It's not going to be a six week or a four week campaign. It's going to run from July 31 right through to September 20. And I think that they will basically grind down and wear down the Labour Party over that time just because they can. I think it makes sense to, I like this tradition of letting people know early as early as possible. And it makes sense from National's point of view to call the election this week. It's been a bad week for Labour. And September the 20th. Again, I agree that John Key today talked about a September to September cycle which does actually make sense as Cam said. So I think look it's better that we all know we can all plan. We can plan our holidays to go way after the election. You get through it. Cameron the other thing is state funding of political parties seems to have read its head again. Labour seems to be angling for this. What do you see in this? They have seen, as when my father was the president he used to constantly battle off with the president of the Labour Party who tried to always do cozy deals with national, get the two biggest parties to agree to state funding of political parties. It's always been Labour's dream to have such a thing. And I think that they've been milking this donations and alleged scandals of drinking milk and all of that. It's designed purely for them to continue that narrative that we should have state funding of political parties. And all that does is protect incumbency and it rewards the existing parties that are in Parliament. And it's bad enough we're funding their media budgets for elections. I just think it needs to be opposed at every step. I actually think we've got the right balance as it exists now. We've been mixed in New Zealand. So the taxpayer funds political parties in Parliament, funds their research. They can phone the Parliamentary Library, funds their activities to go and talk to journalists or go out and meet people and front the public. I think that's all very healthy in a democracy and funding broadcasting too. But it expects parties to go out and win support the hard way and raise your own money. So I think it's a good mix and I don't think we should go about changing it. That's interesting because I just don't think taxpayers should be paying for political parties. I just don't think it's on. I want my tax dollars came from the Green Party. Part of it. I just think you get a balance where you're right. You have to go out and actually win support. So you have to go out and this has all come about because of the Antoine dinner fundraising that John Key had and people paid $5,000 for tickets. And Labour does the same sort of thing. That's right, they have fundraising. Parties have to do it the hard way and that's good. But if your funding think really important stuff like the ability for political parties to do research in Parliament or to pay for air fares to go in front public and actually go eyeball to eyeball with the public, I think that's healthy in a democracy. I think what is outrageous though, Josie, is that the only parties that are allowed to have any allocation for broadcasting are essentially existing parties and there's no ability for a new party and Kim.com is going to find us out very quickly. There's no ability for a new party to purchase broadcasting time on television or on radio that's tightly controlled. Kim.com has paid for his own adverts and we've all seen the back of the bus and TV stuff. If you can go out and raise the money, then go for it. But otherwise, the taxpayer will pay for election advertising. I don't believe we should. You should be able to buy whatever ads you want. But then you get people like .com dominating the advertising cycle. Yeah, but if they've got some ideas, it doesn't matter because some ideas are dumb ideas, no matter how good your advertising is. But if you've got money, doesn't matter how good your ideas are, you'll be on air all the time. I think this is a fair balance. I think we've got it right. I think, you know, if the balance is better and it's worth protecting. Thank you, Josie, and thank you, Cameron. That is Cameron Slater and Josie Pagani on the huddle. We have some sport in just a moment. It's now 9 to 6.