Kiwiblog

This is a few days old now, but the Gordon Campbell interview with Phil Goff is worth a read. Some extracts:

Hang around in the leadership of National or Labour long enough, and chances are you will become Prime Minister. Don Brash, Bill English, Jim McLay, John Marshall – in the last 40 years, you can count on one hand the major party leaders who haven’t ended up running the country, and they’ve all been Tories.

History then, would seem to be on Phil Goff’s side. Yet despite his long ascent – he was a Cabinet Minister eleven years before John Key joined Merrill Lynch – the public still seems to lack a strong sense of his identity.

That is an interesting comparison – a Minister 11 years before Key started work at Merrill Lynch. Goff by 2011 will have spent 75% of his post univerisyt life as an MP.

The point Campbell makes about not having a strong sense of Goff’s identity is basically the same as I made a few weeks ago – people want to know more about who Phill Goff is, and what he believes in.

Only part of this (admitted) image deficit can be attributed to the daisy chain of personas that Goff has gone through, each one with indefatigible sincerity, on his way to the top. From student radical to fervent Rogernome to faithful lieutenant of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen, Goff has been a fount of boundless, and fairly imposing, pragmatism. He just never stops.

Goff voted to lower the top tax rate from 66c to 33c and then to increase it again to 39c. What does he really think the top tax rate should be?

Campbell: If you’re not an ideologue, people can still validly say that you’re something of a chameleon. You were a student radical, you became an enthusiastic Roger Douglas supporter, and now you’re mainstream centre left. Does Phil Goff have an identity problem ?

Goff : No. Was it Keynes who said that when accused of changing his position he said ‘Yes, the facts disproved what I used to do, so I changed my mind.’ What do you do ? I think that’s a very appropriate response. My value system, I don’t think, has changed a great deal. Go back and read my Youth Reports, as president of the Labour Youth Movement, to conference.

A chocolate fish for the reader who can find and send me those reports!

Yeah, I’ve changed some of my ideas. Muldoon helped me a lot. He changed my idea of wage/price/rent/profit fixing, rather than allowing the market to determine these things. And protectionism. I don’t believe those things as a means to an end anymore. I also believe that in the current crisis the concept of the self regulating market – which I have never promoted as a concept, myself – has equally been disproved. The truth lies somewhere in between. I believe in the market mechanism, but I don’t believe the market mechanism provides fairness, as an outcome. Nor does the unregulated market always provide the outcome you’re looking for

Nice that Muldoon was good for something.

Campbell : So back then, where were you when it came to the December 17, 1987 package that caused such a ruckus in the Lange government ?

Goff : I wasn’t in the notorious photo, you might recall. I was pretty much focussed on the portfolio responsibilities I had.

Avoiding the question of how he voted in Cabinet on it.

Campbell : So to be clear – on the social outcomes, you thought that Douglas was wrong ?

Goff : I have never wavered from my view – and I ended up as Minister of Education, inheriting Lange’s portfolio, ironically – or from Fraser’s view, that the goal of your education system is to ensure that every child, regardless of what part of the society he or she comes from, can achieve to their full potential.

This is from the Education Minister who introduced non-trivial tertiary fees for students?

Campbell : So in what ways would a Goff government differ fom what we got from the last Labour government? Presumably. it would be more than Helenism with a Y chromosome.

Goff : I was entirely comfortable with what the last Labour government did. As I say, there were a number of things with political implications that we misread. I think we misread what the impact of section 59 would be. It wasn’t that the decision was wrong – it was that decision was always liable to be heavily exploited [to argue] that this is a nanny state government. I’m not sure that the positives we created…(pauses) I voted for the change, and don’t apologise for voting for that change. It has not done what the opponents of it said it would do.

In other words, we did nothing wrong.

Tags: Gordon Campbell, Phil Goff

I’ve spent a bit of time discussing parts of the Royal Commission report that are not that flash (I should note I am a strong supporter of the overall direction of one Council and an elected Mayor with enhanced powers), so here is where I spell out what I would do.

First of all I would scrap the at large seats, or at least reduce their number. Ten at large seats is a huge amount and what it means is that you may have say 50 people standing for 10 positions, and in that scenario it becomes name recognition only – not informed decision making.

It also means that an area such as Manukau could end up with only 2 Councillors out of 23, despite being 30% of the Region.

Plus it will be confusing to have people vote for three sets of Councillors – local Councillors, ward Councillors on Auckland Council and at large Councillors on Auckland Council.

No Right Turn has a model that works well with no at large, and 1 to 6 Councillors per ward, which has equality of representation.

My second decision would be to have local Council boundaries and Ward boundaries the same. The Royal Commission allows them to be different which is confusing.

My third decision would be to have more, yet smaller, local Councils (and in fact don’t call them Councils as that confuses them with the Auckland Council, so I will call them Local Boards).

The local boards should be small enough to not need further wards underneath them. I quite like the 11 council/board option in the RC report.

If you had 11 smaller boards and wards, then each of them could elect two Councillors each (if their boundaries were adjusted so populations were similar enough) to the Auckland Council. And each of them would have perhaps just half a dozen members.

Finally you have the Maori reps. Putting aside my personal views that long-term these take us down the wrong path, I think it is inevitable the Council will have some as they have been recommended. But under the current proposal, their number is way too high as you have one per 30,000 residents compared to one per 120,000 in the main wards.

However if one gets rid of the at large seats, then the correct number of Maori seats would be around 1.5 – so say two Councillors elected off the Maori roll. I don’t think mana whenua should directly appoint a Councillor, but can live with a Maori roll election as we do have the precedent.

So in total my principles would be:

1. Abolish at large Councillors
2. Ward boundaries for Auckland Council should match local Council/Board boundaries
3. Have more, smaller local Councils/Boards
4. Have local Councils/Boards small enough so that they in turn do not need another set of wards beneath them
5. Have a Maori roll ward with one or two Crs, but do not have direct appointment by mana whenua

As I said I am supportive of most of the Royal Commission’s recommendations, but the representation model they have devised is one that can be improved upon – in my opinion.

Tags: Auckland, Gordon Campbell, Local Body Politics, No Right Turn, Royal Commission on Auckland

Last week I set up an online survey for MPs, asking them to rate various media organisations and senior gallery journalists on a scale of 0 to 10. Just under one quarter of MPs responded, and the results are shown below.

As the media often rate how well MPs are doing, I thought it appropriate to reverse this and ask the questions in reverse. The media are a hugely powerful filter, and it is appropriate (in my opinion) to have some focus on how well they are perceived to be performing.

The questions were:

1. For each media organisation please give them a rating from 0 to 10 for how well you think they do in their parliamentary reporting. This should take account of all relevant factors – accuracy, fairness, thoroughness, relevance, substance etc.
2. Now for some individual senior members of the press gallery, please rate from 0 to 10 how well you think they perform at proving fair, accurate, unbiased and informative reporting on Parliament. You can skip any that you do not feel able to rate.
3. Finally can you indicate your party grouping as National, Labour or Other. Your individual identity is not sought by us, and we have no way or interest in identifying individual respondents. However we would like to summarise results for all MPs and by the three groupings to see if they vary by party grouping.

It is important that these be read in context, so make the following points:

1. This is the opinion of MPs only. It does not set out to be an objective rating, and should not be seen as such.
2. MPs get reported on by the gallery. While this makes them the group of NZers potentially best able to have an informed opinion on the media (which is why I surveyed them), it also gives them a conflict of interest. MPs may score journalists lowly due to personal run ins with them, or the fact they are too good at their job! This should be borne in mind.
3. I only e-mailed the survey to the 121 MPs, but it is possible that one or more responses was filled in by a staff member who has access to the MPs mailbox. I think this is unlikely, as most staff are very professional. However MPs were not required to prove their identity to vote, as confidentiality of individual responses was important. You need to know the Survey URL to be able to vote.
4. National MPs made up 43% of responses, slightly above their numbers in Parliament. Minor Party MPs were also slightly over-represented, Labour MPs under-represented and some MPs did not give a party identification.

Media	Mean	Median	Mode	Minimum	Maximum	Range
NZ Press Assn	6.1	6	6	4	9	5
Newsroom	5.8	6	5	1	10	9
Trans-Tasman	5.5	6	6	0	8	8
NZ Herald	5.3	6	6	0	8	8
Scoop	5.2	5	5	0	10	10
Newstalk ZB	5.1	6	7	1	8	7
Listener	5.0	5	3	1	8	7
NBR	4.9	4	4	1	8	7
Radio NZ	4.8	6	3	1	9	8
Radio Live	4.4	5	1	1	8	7
Sky/Prime News	4.3	5	5	0	7	7
The Press	4.2	5	1	1	7	6
TV Three	4.1	5	6	0	8	8
Dominion Post	4.1	4.5	1	1	7	6
TV One	3.9	5	5	0	6	6
Maori TV	3.7	4	5	0	6	6
Herald on Sunday	3.5	3.5	7	0	7	7
Sunday Star-Times	2.7	3	3	0	5	5

NZ Press Association tops the rankings with a mean or average 6.1 rating – and received no very low ratings from anyone. The two Internet agencies were in the top five, indicating MPs like the fact their releases are carried in full. Trans-Tasman also does well.

Television generally gets ranked lowly with all four stations in the bottom half. Sky News actually ranks highest.

Radio is middle of the field with NewstalkZB being the highest ranked radio broadcaster.

The newspapers range the spectrum. The NZ Herald is up at 5.3, Press at 4.2 and Dom Post at 4.1. I would have them all higher, but this is a survey of MPs, not of my views.

Now the sample sizes are of course very small (but of a limited population) but let us look at how National MPs ranked media compared to all the other MPs:

Media	All Mean	Nats Mean	Others Mean	Difference
TV One	3.9	6.3	2.2	4.2
TV Three	4.1	6.2	2.6	3.6
Maori TV	3.7	5.2	2.5	2.7
Sky/Prime News	4.3	5.5	3.3	2.2
Sunday Star-Times	2.7	3.5	2.1	1.4
Radio Live	4.4	4.8	4.2	0.6
Radio NZ	4.8	5.0	4.6	0.4
Dominion Post	4.1	4.2	4.0	0.2
Herald on Sunday	3.5	3.5	3.5	0.0
Newstalk ZB	5.1	4.8	5.4	-0.6
The Press	4.2	3.8	4.6	-0.8
NZ Herald	5.3	4.2	6.1	-1.9
NBR	4.9	3.3	6.1	-2.8
Listener	5.0	3.3	6.3	-3.0
NZ Press Assn	6.1	4.3	7.4	-3.1
Trans-Tasman	5.5	3.3	7.1	-3.8
Scoop	5.2	2.8	7.0	-4.2
Newsroom	5.8	3.0	8.0	-5.0

National MPs ranked the four TV channels much higher than other MPs did. Maybe this is minor parties upset that they do not get on TV much?

Despite the generally accepted lean to the left of Radio NZ, National MPs ranked Radio NZ higher than other MPs did. And while some on the left attack the NZ Herald at favouring National, National MPs actually ranked them lower than other MPs did. The Listener and NBR also get accused of leaning right, but again get ranked lower by National MPs.

The Nat MPs also rated the online media very lowly.

Now the journalists. I decided not to list all members of the press gallery, but only those who are relatively senior, and are more likely to have a reasonable number of MPs have formed opinions about them. Looking back I could have included more.

If any journalist is unhappy about being missed out, happy to include you next year. Now again it is worth remembering these are only the opinions of those MPs who responded to my survey – it is not an objective rating.

Journalist	Mean	Median	Mode	Minimum	Maximum	Range
John Armstrong (NZH)	6.4	7	2	2	10	8
Peter Wilson (NZPA)	5.8	5	5	3	8	5
Audrey Young (NZH)	5.7	6.5	7	0	10	10
Ian Templeton (TT)	5.6	7	7	0	9	9
Jane Clifton (Listener)	5.6	6	6	2	9	7
Barry Soper (Sky & ZB)	4.9	5.5	7	1	9	8
Ian Llewellyn (NZPA)	4.9	5	5	1	8	7
Vernon Small (DP)	4.6	5	6	1	8	7
Colin Espiner (Press)	4.5	5	6	0	8	8
Guyon Espiner (TV1)	4.4	5.5	7	0	7	7
Tim Donoghue (DP)	4.1	4.5	2	1	9	8
Brent Edwards (RNZ)	4.1	4	4	0	7	7
Tracy Watkins (DP)	3.8	4.5	6	0	7	7
Duncan Garner (TV3)	3.7	3.5	3	0	8	8
Gordon Campbell (Scoop)	3.6	5	5	0	7	7
Ruth Laugeson (SST)	2.7	2.5	2	0	6	6

John Armstrong tops the ratings, followed by the NZPA Political Editor Peter Wilson. Generally MPs ranked journalists slightly higher than media organisations. As can be seen by the minimum ratings showing, some MPs were very harsh handing out zeroes. Did WInston multiple vote? (Note I have no idea if Winston did vote)

And once again we compare responses between National MPs and other MPs.

Journalist	All Mean	Nats Mean	Others Mean	Difference
Laugeson	2.7	4.2	1.6	2.6
Clifton	5.6	7.0	4.5	2.5
Soper	4.9	6.2	4.0	2.2
Campbell	3.6	4.8	2.8	2.0
Edwards	4.1	4.8	3.5	1.3
Llewellyn	4.9	5.2	4.7	0.5
Young	5.7	6.0	5.5	0.5
Garner	3.7	3.5	3.9	-0.4
Espiner G	4.4	4.2	4.6	-0.4
Wilson	5.8	5.5	6.0	-0.5
Armstrong	6.4	6.0	6.8	-0.8
Watkins	3.8	3.0	4.4	-1.4
Donoghue	4.1	3.2	4.9	-1.7
Small	4.6	3.2	5.6	-2.4
Espiner C	4.5	2.8	5.8	-3.0
Templeton	5.6	1.8	8.5	-6.7

Again very interesting. The SST is generally seen as hostile to National, but Ruth Laugeson is ranked much higher by National MPs, than by other MPs. Likewise the Gordon Campbell and Brent Edwards (both left leaning) are ranked higher by National MPs than other MPs.

Also for some reasons National MPs ranked Ian Templeton very lowly. Maybe they don’t like his weekly chats with Clark and Key, ignoring the lesser MPs?

Tags: Audrey Young, Barry Soper, Brent Edwards, Colin Espiner, Duncan Garner, Gordon Campbell, Guyon Espiner, Herald on Sunday, Ian Llewellyn, Ian Templeton, Jane Clifton, John Armstrong, Maori TV, Media, NBR, Newsroom, NewstalkZB, NZ Herald, NZPA, Parliament, Peter Wilson, Prime TV, Radio Live, Radio NZ, Ruth Laugeson, Scoop, Sky TV, SST, The Listener, The Press, Tim Donoghue, Tracy Watkins, trans-Tasman, TV3, Vernon Small

Some good analysis from Gordon Campbell at Scoop:

With hindsight – or even you’d think, with foresight – it was not a great idea for Michael Cullen to be leading the Labour bloc’s attempt to dent Owen Glenn’s testimony to the privileges committee. It only made Cullen, Russell Fairbrother, and Paul Swain look like they were doing legal work for Winston Peters pro bono, by challenging Glenn’s powers of recall. That is not the position the Clark government should be taking, right now.

Yes the pro bono legal team for Peters, I like it.

Wheeling up Cullen, Labour’s big gun and deputy chair of the privileges committee for the task of trying to trip up Glenn’s recall and command of detail only had a vague chance of triggering a meltdown – or boilover – from the billionaire witness. Tackling Glenn about who phoned who and spoke to whom back in 2005 also never looked like overturning the basic issue of whether Peters had gone out actively soliciting the money. The Labour effort just looked like nitpicking, or worse.

Cullen spent minutes obsessed over whether Glenn called Peters back or Peters called again in relation to an earlier phone call (not the one that triggered the donation).

Being faithful to the laws of natural justice and due process is all very well. Yet the government’s fidelity to Peters is starting to look suicidal and willful. Leave it too late – and we have probably gone past that point already – and sacking Peters will just look like rats leaving a sinking ship.

The Government could have established the truth about this issue many months ago. They have no one to blame for dragging it out, but themselves.

That was why the Glenn appearance in person, was so crucial. Before then, there was still an outside chance that the committee could be plausibly uncertain on the issue of credibility between Peters and Glenn. If so, the committee’s findings would have split along party lines – thus leaving Peters an escape route with the voters. Not any more. The balance of credibility has tilted decisively, in Glenn’s favour.

Yep. Even Helen is backing away her preposterous “innocent explanation” stance.

Barring miracles from Peters in his rebuttal testimony tonight, this episode is all but over. What Glenn produced was a timeline fleshed out by email and telephone records. While those records were incomplete on certain fine points – as in, was it Peters ‘or someone from New Zealand First’ who contacted Glenn in late November 2005 ? But from then on through the crucial period in December 2005, Glenn’s oral evidence and supportive email/telephone records were credible, and utterly damning to Peters.

Yep.

By way of collateral damage, the Glenn testimony has heightened the prospect of Clark being asked to appear before the privileges committee.

She should be asked to appear, so she can testify whether or not Mike Williams had any discussions with her at all in 2005 over the desirability of Owen Glenn helping out NZ First and/or Winston Peters.

The Glenn testimony also achieved what the partisan politicking by National could not do. It has linked the Peters affair to Labour in detail and in spirit, and has made the government’s behaviour towards one of its main party donors look desperately shabby. As Glenn told John Campbell on TV3, these are not the sort of people you’d want alongside you in the trenches. Because they would push you out.

And probably gnaw on your bones afterwards!

In December 2005, Williams may have given a green light for the donation only in general terms, and was almost certainly not privy to the subsequent transaction – but this happened in circumstances where he would have been fairly sure the transaction would proceed The nature of the nine floor gossip mill also makes it inconceivable that the upper echelons of the government’s parliamentary wing would not have subsequently known informally about the Glenn donation to Peters …

Of course. Williams hold back on details of donors to Labour, but something affecting a parliamentary partner would be notified to the leadership.

… the subsequent tactical choice by Labour to try and denigrate Glenn is unfortunately, all too typical. Someone, someday may make a list of the people the Labour government has abandoned over the course of this decade in the name of expediency, and its own survival. Karmically, one of those people who was being fitted for the dud parachute has now struck back. Winston, barring miracles, will be the next to be jettisoned.

That would be a long list.

Tags: Gordon Campbell, Michael Cullen, Mike Williams, Owen Glenn, Scoop, Winston First

I’m actually supportive of most aspects of the Government’s Immigration Bill. The current system is explited by lawyers so that simple cases takes the best part of a decade to resolve.

However there are some worrying aspects, ably covered by Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn and Gordon Campbell at Scoop.

In a welcome move, the Immigration Bill does enshrine various UN conventions – including the Convention Against Torture – in our domestic law. However, in my earlier post, I outlined how the Immigration Bill violates key provisions of that same UN Convention Against Torture – by, for instance requiring ( see clause 122b ) an asylum seeker to prove they would face a worse risk of torture if returned home, than would be usual in their country.

The test should not (and is not under the UN convention) a worse risk of torture than other citizens, but whether there is any significant risk at all.

Ironically it means the more despotic a regime is, the more easily one could deport people back there as if they torture and maim everyone with impunity then you are at no worse risk.

I am sure that this clause will be changed, but you do have to worry about how it got in there in the first place.

Tags: Gordon Campbell, immigration, No Right Turn, Scoop, torture

Gordon Campbell looks at National policies and has many legitimate questions about them. He may or should regret this line though:

In Ryall’s opinion, money isn’t the main issue anymore in health care – its more about the cultivation of fruitful and personally fulfilling caring, on current rations. “Money talks, but it is not the only, or even the prime, motivator.” Lean thinking, Ryall concludes, is bringing nurses at Middlemore hospital back to the bedside, and lean thinking is allowing them to do what they had trained to do. “They’re happier, enjoying work and doing more.” Truly, as the sign used to say over the gateway to Dachau concentration camp, work will make you free.

That goes beyond tacky.

Frog blogs (?in support) of a James Hansen who is trying to prosecute CEOs of large oil companies for “crimes against humanity and nature”. And their crimes:

Undermining public understanding about global warming

Is that not the most scary thing you have read? This mad bastard wants to lock up or execute people (normal punishment for crimes against humanity) because they disagree with him on global warming. There are fanatics and there are eco-fascists.

Frog doesn’t offer a view as to whether the Greens support jailing and execution of climate change sceptics.

Whale Oil is detecting some photoshopping amongst Labour.

No Minister notes the irony hypocrisy in the following sentence:

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Winston Peters, said it was of “grave concern” that Shameem and the military were using what appeared to be hacked private emails.

Truly no shame.

Paul Walker looks at some research on campaign finance reform, and how mostly it benefits incumbents.

Tags: Brian Kelly, eco-fascism, Frog Blog, Gordon Campbell, hypocrisy, Labour, National, Paul Walker, political finance, Whale Oil, Winston First

Scoop’s Gordon Campbell continues his series of interviews with party leaders. This one is with Peter Dunne.

Campbell: The evidence for the prosecution would be the story that you started reading Hansard when you were twelve –

Dunne : Fourteen.

Good God, I didn’t start until university!

Campbell: Do you think any of the Christian-based parties will cross the 5 % threshold this year?

Dunne : No. United Future is not in that camp, not any more.

Campbell: You’ve been through your prayer meeting phase ?

Dunne : Well, we were never really in it. I certainly wasn’t. But we had some people who imagined that United Future could become New Zealand’s version of the Taliban.

Harsh rhetoric, but similar to what Mark Blumsky said, based on his experiences there also.

Dunne: Yes, and my own view is, that in today’s circumstances for a whole variety of reasons, technology being amongst them, the procedure of a woman, her doctor and two certifying consultants is somewhat cumbersome. I think probably, you should be looking at the woman, her doctor and informed consent. I have a very strong view that – and I appreciate the moral issue involved here – but the moral issue is actually the individual’s morals. I don’t think it’s a matter of the state imposing a moral code. I mean, there is a moral dimension as to whether you should have an abortion and that issue is still there – but that’s not a call that the state should be seeking to make on behalf of the people involved.

A pretty sensible view in my opinion.

Campbell: You’ve governed with Roger Douglas before. Would you like to again?

Dunne : No.

Campbell: Why not?

Dunne : Roger was dynamic to work with in the circumstances of the 1980s, which was big ideas, bold change et etc. The problem with Roger and the whole Act Party is that they’re trapped in a time warp, at the point when Roger was sacked. The world has moved on. The implicit mantra is that if we all went back to 1987 and picked up where we left off, things would be different. Its rubbish.

ACT people won’t like this, but Dunne does have a point here. There is sometimes a lack of reality about where NZ is at today, as compared to 20 years ago. The sense of crisis of the 1980s is not the same challenges we face today.

Campbell: If the Emissions Trading Scheme involves any extra costs whatsoever to taxpayers, would you oppose it?

Dunne : I want to know what those extra costs are, for a start.

Campbell: Understood. But from your statements, it sounds as if there is anything at all extra on household costs. you will oppose –

Dunne : If there’s anything extra that is not properly compensated then yes, we would oppose it.

Pretty clear.

Campbell: Is there one thing left that you want to achieve before you leave Parliament ?

Dunne : My personal biggest ambition in whatever time remains to me is the whole question of national identity, constitutional change and the path towards a republic. On the weekend I set out a timetable by which we could, if not get there, at last resolve the issues…. by 2017.

And that would be good. Labour’s shattering on the constitutional conventions over electoral law have pushed me 100% towards supporting a written constitution, to safeguard fundamental rights.

Tags: Gordon Campbell, Peter Dunne, Scoop

Scoop has an in depth interview with Rodney Hide. This is what I like about online media – one can see a full transcript. Some interesting extracts:

Campbell : So you consider yourself a libertarian?

Hide : Yeah.

Campbell : But you don’t regard taxation, in principle, as theft ?

Hide : I don’t see that argument helps. Saying that something is theft. Because technically. it isn’t. I understand that taxation is a compulsory taking – but its not theft in the sense that…however you look at it, Parliament has made it legal. It doesn’t make it right.

Campbell : So it is wrong in principle, but OK in law?

Hide : Having excessive tax of course is wrong in principle. But I don’t think saying that taxation is theft is correct. Our definition in New Zealand of what is theft is : what is against the law. And amazingly, our Parliament makes…you know, tax legal. I don’t think its on the cards that we could live in a totally voluntary society, where there is no tax.

Don’t tell Lindsay Perigo that Rodney called himself a libertarian, but I think he gets it right when he says some tax is okay, but excessive taxation is wrong. Taxation is a privilege, not a right!

Campbell : I’ll re-phrase. Do you see human beings as being responsible for the global warming that the IPCC sees as occurring right now ?

Hide : OK, that’s a better question. Um… whether its anthropogenic. I think there is an influence. I think its arguable how much. And that’s not clear. We do not know the exact influence that humans have had on the world’s climate. It requires a theoretical understanding largely based on models. If we accept the IPCC – which isn’t a bad starting point, right? The political question is what then do we do? I think that has two components. The first is that we have to worry seriously about our trade, and our international standing because we could find ourselves very easily shut out of the world. Which would be horrific. So we’ve got to be, to use the phrase, ‘ global citizens’ on this one. I think Kyoto One was a mistake.

It is worth reading the full exchange. Like the religion it has become, Rodney was asked if he “believes” in global warming. He refused to play ball and kept pointing out the wrong questions were being asked until a sensible question was asked.

Campbell : Some people use private schools and healthcare. Would Act give them a tax break for doing so, and why?

Hide : Better than that, we would actually provide the full amount for everyone. So we think the state shouldn’t have a preference for state schools over private schools. So we think we should fund every child and that means essentially a scholarship for every child. So those who are already sending their child to an independent school would basically receive the money they are saving today, by sending their children there. Parents currently sending their children to a state school would have the option of sending their child to an independent school, without the financial burden that’s there at present.

Campbell : Isn’t that just education vouchers by another name?

Hide : Sure.

Nice to see an MP not try and do an Orwellian spin.

Campbell : Can you tell me exactly how educational vouchers would lift everyone’s boat, and raise educational outcomes nationwide?

Hide : Sure. This is the experience since 1992 in Sweden. Which is hardly a shining bastion of libertarianism. Or freedom. But they adopted Act’s policy in 1992. To show you how effective its been, all the political parties in their Parliament now support it. The only party to oppose it are the former Communists. Why they found was…only a small percentage, and I forget the number of students, took advantage of the opportunity to shift schools, But as soon as schools were in danger of losing their roll, they actually lifted their game and they took parents seriously.

Where new schools most appeared were in the disadvantaged areas – most obviously amongst the new immigrant areas. Which is quite logical. Where people are sort of well off, well heeled and well incomed even within the state school system they get schools that are, you know, good. Where you find poor areas you find it harder to maintain even a decent state school, And where you have minority cultural groups that don’t necessarily reflect their requirements for education….and so, that’s what happened in Sweden.

This hits the nail on the road. When you get stronger incentives to perform, then performance lifts. Anyone who argues that incentives don’t influence behaviour, has little experience outside a textbook.

Campbell : Could you clarify for me – is Sir Roger intimating to you that he’d like to be in an electable position on the party list?

Hide : Yes.

Campbell : So one could expect him to be two or three – not nine or ten?

Hide :Well, I’m thinking and not because I disrespect Roger…but I’m thinking five or six. Because I want people…if they want Roger in Parliament, to vote for the party. And I also want Roger to come back into Parliament and have some influence. And that requires we get more MPs. But that will be a decision for Sir Roger, and for other members in the board, not for the leader to dictate the list.

I have long suspected he would be placed at around No 6, to encourage people to give ACT 5%. Whether they will, is quite another matter.

Tags: ACT, Climate Change, Gordon Campbell, libertarianism, Rodney Hide, Roger Douglas, Scoop, vouchers

Gordon Campbell, a former Listener journalist, writes on Scoop about Pamela Stirling’s description of the “old” Listener as “the house journal of the Alliance Party”. I comment on his comments:

It is not the first time the former Listener as ‘house journal of the Alliance Party’ line has been floated by Stirling. Whether this is the intention or not, the effect is to portray her tenure as having more journalistic integrity than her predecessors, and her staff as being more professional than staff in the past.

I don’t see her comments as meaning a lack of integrity or professionalism. I see it as a comment on the lack of diversity of views the Listener used to have. Just as the NBR doesn’t exactly have a lot of articles promoting higher taxes either. A magazine can have an ideological bent but still be ethical and professional – look at the UK newspapers. The problem comes when a publication has an ideological bent but tries and denies it.

The reality is that the Listener was never the sort of doctrinaire publication that the “Alliance house journal” jibe would suggest. Its spirit was liberal, compassionate and contrarian. The voice it had in our national debate was alternative in the best sense, of standing apart from the mainstream and analyzing it critically. It was that contrarian spirit that saw the Listener endorse MMP, and run fair and balanced profiles of Roger Kerr, Lindsay Perigo, Winston Peters and other polarising figures in its pages.

Of course the Listener in the past has had fair and balanced ((c) Fox News) features. But overall it was very predictably leftwing. The test I used to apply to it was whether I could accurately predict the substance of a story based on just knowing the topic off the cover. And 95% of the time I could – it was almost without fail the left liberal view of the world.

This was in marked contrast to say North & South where I could see they were covering a topic, but never really know what sort of position or angle they would take on it, until I had actually read it.

Now I have no problem with any publication (so long as not state funded) having an ideological leaning. But to try and argue that no such leaning existed, does people a disservice.

In my experience, we at the Listener tended to have a healthy skepticism towards everyone – including Labour when in power in the 80s ( the Listener invented the term ‘Rogernomics’ and it wasn’t meant as flattery) National in the 90s, and Labour again early this decade. Consistently, the Listener bit the hand of power, and would then explain in 2,500 reasoned words why it felt the need to do so.

It is true that the Listener has railed against every Government from the 1980s onwards – but almost always for not being left wing enough. I don’t recall any articles complaining about the killing off of choice in accident compensation, or complaining about making union membership compulsory for employees who want a collective contract. Just being critical of both National and Labour Governments does not mean you are not free of ideological slant.

What the Listener used to stand for was intellectual depth, critical analysis of the left and the right, good arts pages and Bradford’s Hollywood. It was a great ragbag of a read. Again, I beg to differ with Stirling – the current Listener seems anything but diverse. It exhibits instead an increasingly narrow fixation on the lifestyle choices and social anxieties of a baby boomer elite. Someone recently suggested to me that a typical Listener cover story nowadays would run something along the lines of “Is Your House Making You Fat?”

Here Campbell is on stronger grounds. I do find the Listener pretty trite at times, but this tendency pre-dates Stirling to be fair. Around seven or eight years ago I decided to keep getting the Listener mainly for its columnists, having gone off their features as often superficial. Sadly it is not only the Listener going this way – Metro and North & South are now pale shadows of their former glory.

Tags: Gordon Campbell, Pamela Stirling, The Listener