Joyce on The Nation
The National had it première episode today, interviewing Steven Joyce. They don’t have TV3 on Bintan Island, but I have got a copy of the transcript, which is interesting:
DUNCAN I mean Phil Goff and the Labour Party attacked you this week and they quoted Groucho Marx saying ‘of you these are my principles and if you don’t like them I have others’. I mean that’s the argument about you that you don’t stand for anything except the popularity in the polls.
STEVEN Oh I don’t think that’s fair, I mean I’ve got some pretty – you know some views of my own which are built from my background and from my family background, my father was a small businessman and I started out as a small businessman, and we grew it a bit, but those things have always been in my background but at the same time politics is about actually what people want you to do, and what people are prepared to accept.
I like the “started out as a small businessman”, which is correct, and rather modest.
STEVEN Well currently the polytech sector next year will lose about 70 million dollars across the sector from what it’s had previously, so that was announced in Budget 2009, the polytechs are aware of that, they’re working through that, we’ve don’t a lot of work on polytech governance, the next couple of weeks I’ll be announcing 80 new government appointments to polytech councils, and what I’m seeing is somebody new in the portfolio, is that the people in polytechs are being very reasonable, they understand what the challenges are and certainly in this last 12 month period, 2009, they’ve responded by improving the performance of those polytechs.
Normally appointments are staggered, but of course under the new governance model, there are 80 initial appointments to be made. It will be interesting to see who gets appointed.
DUNCAN Just on to your portfolio, another portfolio KiwiRail is it true that they want about a billion dollars or perhaps more over ten years from the government?
STEVEN I think they’d take as much as we could give them.
Heh. So true.
DUNCAN Do you want KiwiRail, do you want to hang on to it?
STEVEN Oh look I think the price that was paid by the previous government, and I’ve said it before, it was nuts, it was over the top, and what we have said we’d make the best of it, it’s an asset that is a sunk economic asset for New Zealand, the options are not do something with it and watch it run down and fall to bits over time, the other option given we’ve got a lot of freight growth coming over the next 20 years, is to put some investment in, but we’ve gotta be very careful about the way we do it.
We can’t sell it, as no one would buy it!
DUNCAN We understand that Jim Bolger won’t be rolled over as the Chairman of KiwiRail from June, is that correct?
STEVEN The governance of KiwiRail is the responsibility for my good friend Mr Power, but we are looking at refreshing the governance.
DUNCAN So Jim Bolger will be removed as Chairman?
STEVEN My understanding is that we’re looking at renewing the governance but that’s for Simon to announce.
That sounds like curtains for Jim, to me.
DUNCAN Do you want to be the Prime Minister?
STEVEN No.
DUNCAN Do you want to be a Finance Minister?
STEVEN No.
Well that is pretty concise.
Then there was the panel with Stephen Parker, Deborah Hill-Cone and Vernon Small. I am glad to see that the panel on The Nation is not just talking heads like on Q+A, but actually get to interview the guest.
I also like the fact that the panelists are basically journalists or political commentators, rather than other politicians. It annoys me when I see the PM get interview on Q+A, and the co-leader of the Green Party is a panelist reviewing what he said.
I am a fan of Q+A, but have always said I don’t like the way they have done the panel.
STEVEN Well I worry about some of the level 1 to 3 courses, which are the lower level courses where perhaps as many as 100 people are enrolled at the start of the year and yet somehow at the end of the year or the end of the course there’s only 30 left, and you pay 100% up front and some institutions are brilliant with pastoral care, others see it not really as their role, i.e. you know our job is to teach them and if they don’t turn up that’s their problem, and I think we’d like to see them take a bit more interest in the pastoral care, those that aren’t doing so.
I never realised the non completion rate was so high for so many courses.
March 20th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Joyce seems to have an unlimited ability to amass a great deal of detailed information and then make sense of it all. He must work extremely hard and is a speed reader. On top of all of that he keeps a sharp eye on the politics of it all. He is in the foot steps of Jack Marshall, Bill Birch and Michael Cullen. There is a long established role for the everwhere man in NZ politics. Bill English would like the role but does not have the sure political touch that Joyce has.
March 20th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
” DUNCAN Do you want to be the Prime Minister?
STEVEN No.
DUNCAN Do you want to be a Finance Minister?
STEVEN No.”
When did they start spelling yes n o ?
March 20th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Please please make it so that Michael Cullen ends up heading KiwiRail – he said we needed it in public ownership, how could he turn down an offer to be Chairman?
March 20th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
agree tvd .. Johnboy, also agree but not questions that should be answered yes or no and burt, of yehhhhhhh.
Re the PM and FM jobs .. he has now set himself up as a potential flip flopper. The bloke is as sharp as a knife and I would suggest he would do the jobs pretty well after more time in politics.
The answer in both cases should have been something like .. “either/both jobs are real challenges that i would willingly take on IF ASKED .. I am very happy with the portfolios I have at present but who knows what may happen in the years to come”.
March 20th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
I think it’s good when a politician can give a straight no to a question. Doesn’t mean if the situation is different in the future or his ambitions change he can’t reassess and answer differently then.
March 20th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Michael Cullen for Kiwirail would be a curse; he would continually be whining that the NP were killing it by not raising taxes to pour more down the hole.
March 20th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Perhaps Grant, but it might be fun, in a karmic kind of way
March 20th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Cullen anywhere would be a curse GMM BUT as I2 says .. Karma city
March 20th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
But imagine the pleasure we could all derive from watching the sad little prick trying to balance the books.
——–Priceless!
March 20th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Johnboy said
Exactly Johnboy; and then getting his sorry backside sacked when he can’t, and Kiwirail is proven to be the lemon many of us argued that it would be when Cullen bought it. Oh, the anticipation ….
March 20th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Oh, the naming of the new Wellington trains:
“The name Matangi came from a competition run by GWRC. Over 100 entries were received, including several “Thomas” suggestions. Matangi was nominated by regular commuter Brian Bond of Linden. Matangi, Maori for wind, ”
Wind! Now that really makes you think. I would be hard pressed to come up with a better name.
March 20th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Is Stephen Parker no longer Brownlees Press Secretary? The show was decent. Its very similar to what Agenda use to be. Though its too similar to Q&A which is a problem. Where is the decent 30 minute political news then 30 minute panel talk or interview then panel talk. The problem is the panel talk lasts for five minutes at a time when a good 30 minutes would be welcome.
Also I didn’t even know the show was on till the day before when I looked at my TV Guide. They didn’t advertise the show. I shudder at how many people actually watched the show. Another problem is that where Q&A often provides meaningful news stories for One News. The Nation doesn’t seem like it will have that value for TV 3 news. Doesn’t help that Saturday is typically the wrong day for political news anyway.
March 20th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Johnboy asks:
Yeah, I LOLed too. And I heard a ghostly voice repeating over and over “I’m happy to be the Member for Tauranga”.
March 21st, 2010 at 12:05 am
I agree with gingercrush. Why is nz tv afraid of in-depth discussion on any topic? Or even medium-depth? Even a half hour is not a lot of time to really explore an issue but we’re expected to make do with 5 minutes at a time. It’s insulting.
The program seems to be an improvement on q+a but that’s not much of an achievement really.
Garner did ok but I get the feeling he’s more interested in digging for personal scandals than focusing on issues. Hard to see this becoming a hard questioning show.
And David: “The National had it première episode today”
Freudian slip?
March 21st, 2010 at 12:24 am
Saying no to a particular job does not mean he will decline it if it was offered to him. I do not think Joyce will be PM, people will not vote for a bald leader. But Deputy PM and Minister of Finance well that is a different matter.
March 21st, 2010 at 1:01 am
I dunno tvb, maybe once people have enough of Key being a fat ugly grinning airhead they’ll be able to accept Joyce as a fat ugly grinning prick who looks like he knows what he’s doing.
March 21st, 2010 at 10:16 am
“I never realised the non completion rate was so high for so many courses.”
Some first year courses for professional degrees are actually treated as a foundation year, with open entry. Students get a year to prove themselves before the cut-off into second year, which many do not make. This assures a high quality of intake into the programme – something that is difficult to judge from NCEA results alone. Students are made well aware of the competitive nature of first year, and that they may not make it into their preferred discipline at the end of it – thereby encouraging a greater effort on their part. Those that are smart enough to realise that they are not going to make it part way through the year, often withdraw in favour of other studies – but get registered as non-completion.
The other factor that produces an ‘unrealistic’ non-completion rate is how electives are handled in some institutions – e.g. in some cases if you sit, say, a 3rd year architectural history paper as part of your Art History degree, but do not do any other Architecture courses, you go into the system as a non-completion for the Architecture degree (despite having no intention to do one)…
The change in funding will mean that first year courses will need to become smaller – not a bad thing in and of itself, but as a consequence, less students will get a shot at making it through into the more popular and competitive professional degrees. Greater attention on completions and pastoral care may also have a negative effect on pass-rates, bringing the standard lower in order to attract more funding. I hope not, but in a tght funding environment policies such as this can have a hideously distortive effect.
As for pastoral care – come on, they’re supposed to be young adults. Academics are experts in their field of knowledge, not baby-sitters. And do we really want more expense spent on ‘student services’…? Those that fail should be let go to pursue more realistic goals.