Kiwiblog

From Q&A today:

JIM: Ha-ha. Well, I’ve had a bit of experience winning electorates and any analysis of the election result last time would show that the National Party is not as secure as commentators think. For example, they have nine electorate seats that come within a two party swing of less than 3%, now that is relatively easily won in a contest like this. And you only need Wigram on top of that and one more seat for Labour to hold more electorate seats in Parliament than National. I don’t think that’s a common understanding of the election system at the moment.

PAUL: No, let’s be clear about that. National have nine seats and was left with less than a 2000 majority.

JIM: that’s right, that’s less than 2000 votes.

But Jim is wrong. National has only seven, not nine seats, with a sub 2000 majority. They are (in order) New Plymouth, Waitakere, West Coast-Tasman, Otaki, Auckland Central, Hamilton West and Maungakiekie.

The eight most marginal seat for National is Rotorua which has a 5,065 majority – that is larger than Anderton’s own majority of 4,767.

His adding his seat to Labour’s total is silly also, as one could add ACT’s to National. National has 41 seats and Labour 21. For them to get more electorate seats they need to win 11 seats. The 11th most marginal seat for National is Taupo with a 6,445 majority.

PAUL: but to change the government the Nats have to lose 4,000 votes in each electorate is what you also told them, then it starts to look a bit harder doesn’t it?

JIM: No, well that’s the total, but actually on a two party swing National only have to lose 1900 votes and Labour gain 1900 votes so that’s not as big an order as it looks in the first instance. Look, Paul, all I’m saying to you is that I ran an election in 1981 with Bill Rowling where the Labour caucus had a coup against Bill Rowling in the middle of an election campaign and we still ended up winning more votes than National but we lost the election because there was no proportional representation system then.

Jim again gets it wrong. The attempted “fish and chips” coup against Rowling was in December 1980. The election was in November 1981.

PAUL: But essentially you have come home haven’t you, Progressives can now joined the Labour Party as well as the Progressives and Progressives are not going to stand in Constituency seats in the next election.

JIM: No, they’re not going to stand as a List but we can stand in constituents like mine for example.

Great strategy. Split the centre-left vote to make it easier for National candidates. Thanks Jim.

PAUL: But with Progressives now being able to join the Labour party, essentially you’ve rolled over haven’t you, I mean it’s the beginning of the end for the Progressives. The only reason the Progressives still exists, or are going to continue to exist can I suggest to you is that the public pays the party $164,000 of taxpayers money for the Party expenses and you get $13,000 more for being the leader. Isn’t that the only reason for the continuation of the Progressives?

JIM: No, you’re absolutely wrong Paul. The Government or the Parliamentary Services Commission pays no money for the Party, the Progressives pay their own money, and the money that’s paid to me as an Electorate MP and as Leader of the Progressives in parliament is for Parliamentary purposes, that’s for the work that I do, I have 1500 constituents coming through my electorate office each year and we help them sometimes in matters of life and death – and it’s a privilege to do so – and that’s why my electorate office is funded and why my parliamentary office is funded.

But the point Anderton passes over is his funding is enhanced because of the convenient fiction that he is a party leader.

JIM: That’s rubbish. I continue because people in Sydenham have voted for me for 25 years, I probably hold the Guinness Book of Records for representing the largest number of parties in the same electorate, increasing my majorities most of the time. The people of Sydenham have the right to say that and that’s what they’ve been saying.

1996: 10,039
1999: 9,885
2002: 3,176
2005: 8,548
2008: 4,767

Again Jim is wrong. And when he waka jumped from the Alliance in 2002, his majority took a big hit.

The Sunday News reports:

SECRET documents suggest that former Labour Party president Mike Williams got the $100,000-plus a year job heading the anti-P Stellar Trust mainly because he is mates with Paul Holmes.

“Clearly there are some risks with the Williams appointment,” reads a confidential paper from the Trust’s board.

“There may well be other candidates in the marketplace who may be capable of doing a better job as CEO and chief fundraiser, however if we go that route we will very likely not have Holmes’ involvement,” it continues.

It is no secret that Holmes and Williams are close mates, so this is little surprise.

The document, dated August 2, adds: “Our recommendation therefore is to offer the CEO role to Mike Williams, but to give ourselves the ability to review the situation after say six months, subject to the constraints of current employment law.

“If he has not succeeded in raising significant sums in that time, there will not be enough funding for his continuing salary, so he does have an incentive to succeed.”

I am no fan of Williams, but to be fair to him he seemed to be reasonably proficient in fundraising for Labour.

But Williams’s appointment has led to high profile, anti-P crusader Mike Sabin and his group MethCon withdrawing their support for the Stellar Trust.

He sent an email to the board on August 10 which read: “It is with some regret I wish to advise that I am unable to reconcile my concerns about the appointment of Mike Williams to the position of CEO to the trust. I believe this is a high risk appointment that will be very polarising given the political overtones.”

It is understood that Sabin, a former drug squad detective, believed Labour approached the P epidemic with a polarising “harm minimisation” approach, treating it as a public health and welfare issue rather than a public order problem.

Sabin may well be right, but really I wouldn’t hld the former party president responsible for what the parliamentary wing or Ministers decided.

The Stellar Trust board’s confidential August 2 paper also revealed there was a concern about how Williams’ appointment would be accepted by the National Government.

After last year’s election, Williams left Labour’s engine-room following a series of controversial media reports, including how he flew to Australia seeking dirt on John Key.

The Trust’s reservations were passed on to Holmes, regarded as the public face of Stellar.

The broadcaster sought the Prime Minister’s views.

Key last night confirmed a call between himself and Holmes on July 26.

“I’ve moved on and I’m not a person who holds grudges.

“If Mike is prepared to spend his time trying to combat P, given the devastation that drug is causing, then I’m happy to work with him,” he told Sunday News.

Could you imagine Helen Clark saying the same thing about someone who had flown to another country in a (failed) attempt to smear her as a criminal fraudster?

Paul Holmes in his HoS column rates the performance to dates of the senior MPs. I list them below by rating:

10/10

John Key

Lockwood Smith

9/10

Tariana Turia

Pita Sharples

Judith Collins

Annette King

Simon Power

David Cunliffe

8/10

Rodney Hide

Russel Norman

Paula Bennett

Bill English

Gerry Brownlee

7/10

Phil Goff

Normally 7/10 would be a good rating, but not so much when everyone else is rated 8/10 or higher.

The Sunday papers have two articles on the troubles of high profile Aucklanders.

The HOS reports Millie Holmes is back in court again:

Elder, 20, spent two nights in police cells last weekend after she was caught by a security guard at the Farmers store in Papakura with a scarf it is claimed she had shoplifted.

Police have also laid three new drugs charges against her – two of procuring and possessing methamphetamine and one of possession of cannabis.

Elder appeared in the Papakura District Court last Monday and is to reappear on May 19, two days before her 21st birthday.

That is sad enough. Her 21st should be one of the best times of her life, and instead she will be facing possible prison time for her latest alleged offending.

She was bailed to a Swanson, West Auckland, address, the home of Headhunter gang member Chris Morris, the father of Elder’s boyfriend Connor, a Headhunters prospect.

And most disturbingly, she is choosing to be bailed to a gang home, instead of her parents. You really have to feel for her parents – Paul and Hine. It must be your worst nightmare.

In the SST, they reveal:

ONE OF Auckland’s worst taggers is the son of millionaire former Fonterra boss Craig Norgate. The Sunday Star-Times has learned that Dylan Norgate, 19, is behind the notorious SPEKT tag which has been daubed across buildings in East Auckland, including Mission Bay, where his parents live in a house valued at $7 million.

Norgate, an old boy of exclusive King’s College, brags about his activities on his Bebo website, which is titled “F… the police” and features photographs of his tags at different locations, including shops in Mission Bay. The website also features pictures of a nun smoking a bong and is full of gangsta rap-style rants about women and the police.

Not just a criminal, but also terminally stupid it seems.

Hegarty said Norgate’s only bail condition was to reside at Lorne St, downtown Auckland, but the Star-Times understands he is living in Christchurch where he attends university. It is unclear if his bail conditions have been altered to take this into account.

He’s a tagger – and at university??

Again you just have to feel for the parents.

Some interesting parts to the Clark and Davis interview on Q&A. I do have to say though that I hope it will not become a permanent feature having an MPs partner on with them.

PAUL Exciting times. Looking back, what was the biggest mistake you made as Prime Minister, I’m sure you’re not gonna tell me your biggest mistake, can I change the question. What is the thing that you did which if you looked back you might do differently?

HELEN No I wouldn’t even go there because I never look back, that’s part of my style, I know journalists often got fed up with me saying move on move on, but I do. You know in politics there’s always an opposition employed to pick over the things you’ve done and why this why that why not the other way, well let them do it but I’m moving on to the next thing.

It is a real pity that Clark won’t answer this question, because I think you learn a lot from a person when they talk about what they would do differently. And while one should not dwell over long on mistakes, I find it useful to acknowledge them and learn from them.

PAUL Not so the one MP who’s name we cannot remember who did not stand up. Peter can I ask you this seriously, what was Helen like in the weeks or the days and the weeks after last year’s electoral loss?

PETER I think she felt rejected basically, because she felt she’d done a good job which I also believe and had put her best foot forward and had been frankly an almost incomparable Prime Minister and yet somehow the public had not seen that the same way. So it took some time for her to frankly come to terms with that and if I was in that position I’d feel the same way I guess.

This has a bit of an attitude about how the public made the wrong decisions, and Labour/Clark did nothing wrong. The reason I say this, is not to swipe at Davis, but because from all accounts most of the Labour Caucus are still in this space. They think John Key just conned the public and all they have to do is wait for him to be exposed.

FRAN Yes she has but I think it’s more than just you know meet and greet and all of that, I think where Helen Clark has scored is she’s also made a contribution and I saw her for instance one example chairing the OECD ministerial in Paris in 2003, and that was probably her first forum where she brought together a number of players, it was after September 11, there was a big you know fracas going on between Europe and America at that stage over the invasion of Iraq which had just happened but she brought together some disparate players to talk about what they could do to move economies forward and particularly also on the trade dialogue, so she chaired that, other actors paid tribute to her, so I’ve seen it there and I’ve also seen her at APEC where she has quietly moved a number of issues on to the agenda, for instance climate change in Korea, it wasn’t on the agenda, Australia claimed credit for it later but she put it there.

I quote this part from Fran, partly because it does highlight where Clark was skilled, but also to balance Fran’s later comment.

FRAN Well that’s right and it was interesting that she said she’s been empowered to do exactly that by Ban Ki-moon the Secretary General. I’d like to just go back, I think she will shake it up and she’s had that track record in New Zealand but one thing that struck me from that interview was that slight disconnect about not understanding why Helen Clark was voted out despite being competent, and to bring to the point one of the issues really was this issue about democracy in New Zealand with the Electoral Finance Act, that and together with Winston Peters that long running scandal that basically cost her her leadership here.

Disconnect is the right word for it. Now Labour have at least done a mea culpa over the Electoral Finance Act, but that was only one part of an arrogance the Government displayed on everything from the pledge card to Winston Peters. Frankly Labour should apologise for their disgraceful behaviour at the Privileges Committee and afterwards. Those MPs are not stupid and they all know that Winston knew about the donation. Yet they covered up for him. Until we get some mea culpas for that also, I’m not convinced they have understood why they lost the election.

I missed watching it live, but have now viewed the second segment of Q&A online. The guest was Lockwood Smith (and his fiancee).

The panel discussion afterwards was very interesting. It was Therese Arseneau, Paul Holmes, Ron Mark and Laila Harre. They were all very approving of Lockwood’s decision to try and get Ministers to answer the question, if it is a straight forward primary question.

Laila made an interesting point, about why this may have happened. She said that Lockwood is not personally or politically very close to the National Party Leadership. She contrasted that to Margaret Wilson and Jonathan Hunt who were both extremely close to Clark. In fact we got told how every time she had been in the Speaker’s office, Clark had phoned Hunt while she was there. There is a certain incompatability with being a senior advisor to the PM, and being the Speaker. And we saw that when we had the disgraceful collusion over Harry Duynhoven’s status as an MP.

Lockie I am sure values his own public reputation more than making life too easy for his colleagues. Hence why he has tried to change some things. And ironically I think it actually benefits National also, even though some weaker Ministers may find it hard going. The public see a Government as very arrogant when it refuses to answer even the most simple questions. It loses votes eventually.

What I have found interesting is that Lockie has actually introduced a number of changes, not just redefining the line between addressing and answering the questions. They are:

1. Playing “advantage”. This was referred to as a light handed regulatory approach with clear boundaries, but I see it as a rugby analogy where he concentrates more on kepping the game flowing, rather than penalising every technical infringement. Several times I have heard him say something along the lines of giving the Opposition more supplementaries because a Minister went on too long. So rather than pul everyone up, he is just striving for a reasonably fair process.
2. The previously referred to moving the boundary between addressing and answering the question
3. Is cracking down on points or order that are not points or order. Winston used to be the biggest offender at that – I would say only around 2% of his points or order were legitimate, but Wilson would never pull him up.
4. Discouraging tabling of documents just to be able to read out what it is. He can not stop anyone seeking leave to do so, but has tried to shame MPs by pointing out whenever they seek leave that they are abusing the process and leave should only be sought for documents not already available to MPs. And this seems to have had some effect on reducing such tabling requests
5. Time – it has been many years since question time took only an hour. Hell Helen called a snap election in 2002 because of a few extra minutes a day of question time. In the last two years it was routinely taking around 100 minutes. It is now a lot closer to 60 again.

TVNZ also has online the transcript of the interview with Judith Collins.

The Herald rates the chances of potential contenders for the Mayoralty of Auckland (assuming the Government adopts the key recommendations):

They are:

1. John Banks – the front runner
2. Len Brown – good to very good
3. Mike Lee – good
4. Bob Harvey – average to good
5. Paul Holmes – average
6. Peter Leitch – poor to average
7. Andrew Williams – poor
8. Judith Tizard – poor
9. Blair Strang – dead on arrival

I have not read the full report yet. It will be interesting if the vote for the Mayor is FPP or STV.

Just watched the first Q&A. Overall pretty good.

The Guyon Espiner interview with Key was solid. He probed Key on lots of areas – and Key actually revealed quite a bit of stuff we didn’t know.

The panel was Therese Arseneau (who is permanent) and Phil O’Reilly and Russel Norman. I did find it unusual that you would have the leader of an opposition party as one of the panelists discussing the interview of the Prime Minister. I would have thought MPs should only ever be interview subjects, not panelists discussing other MPs.

The second interview (done by Holmes) was with Andrew Little. I was amused to see footage of Andrew in the mid 80s (when I first met him) and even more amused that they dug out a televised exchange between Andrew as NZUSA President telling Tertiary Education Minister Phil Goff that he is talking nonsense and Goff asking Andrew to stop talking over him. The moderator was a very dapper Lindsay Perigo!

I thought it was revealing when Andrew said “Labour has Phil Goff as its Leader – it only has one leader – it’s Phil Goff”. I was waiting for the “for now”

Andrew did say that he had criticised Labour in the past as EPMU National Secretary. I think he misses the point that yes he did in the past, but now he is Labour Party President he could never criticise Labour publicly.

More revealing I thought was that he appeared to be saying he would be a President more in the style of Judy Kirk – behind the scenes, than Mike Williams who was very high profile.

Andrew finished by saying his record shows that he is very professional (and to be fair to Andrew few would dispute that) when dealing with workers issues, and already has been working with a number of Ministers.

Holmes asked if he would stand for Rongotai if Annette King stands for Mayor and vacates her seat before 2011, and Andrew kept his options open saying he has not considered that scenario. I read that as a “yes”.

I was surprised Holmes was relatively tough on Little. In my mind I saw Guyon as doing the tougher interviews, and Holmes doing the slightly less pointed ones. But Holmes pushed Andrew quite hard and asked some very good questions.

Therese made a very interesting point about Andrew’s two hats that he may build up a bigger media profile than Goff, because he is so often in the news as EPMU National Secretary.

Russel Norman made the point that while it is good to see Labour promoting insulating homes now, that getting them to agree to the package before the election was like pulling teeth.  Normal also acknolwedged that National is wrong footing Labour by doing things both on the right and the left.

Overall the panel discussion moderated by Holmes went very smoothly I thought.

I think that TVNZ will be pretty pleased with their first episode.

I heard around a fortnight ago that Paul Holmes would be the anchor for the new TVNZ weekend political show, that is meant to be the substitute for Agenda.

The Herald covers this today:

Veteran broadcaster Paul Holmes is to front the new version of the political current affairs show Agenda.

The weekend political show – wholly made with taxpayer funding – is back on air this month with the new name Q&A.

The former Newstalk ZB breakfast host has been hired for the main hosting role, but TVNZ political editor Guyon Espiner is expected to provide long-run interviews – as he did on the old Agenda.

I think it is sensible have the Political Editor doing the main interviews as he has more in depth knowledge of the issues.

It will be interesting to see how it compares to the old Agenda.

Both Sunday papers have stories on Viliami Halaholo, the father of Paula Bennett’s granddaughter.

The Herald on Sunday cite the most recent parole decision saying he still posed an “undue risk” if released, his drug use in prison (but not recently it seems as last three tests have been clean), and his previous offending. All not a pretty picture.

The Sunday Star-Times has Paul Holmes advising Paula Bennett to basically stop supporting Halaholo, or risk losing her daughter.

There is no doubt Paula and her daughter Ana have some tough decisions, either way. Cutting a father out of a child’s life is not some trivial decision. It means a child that grows up without a father, a mother without a partner, possible legal action, possible conflict within your own family.

Likewise it is a tough and risky decision to give a young man a chance to turn his life around when he is out of prison. If he offends again, then questions of judgement arise.

So it is all a complex measure of risk. If you abandon Halaholo, it is probably almost certain he will return to a life of crime. But if you continue to support him once released, well the risk is still there.

But what do I personally think? Well I think it is a decision for Paula and Ana to be made in private, not on the front page of the Sunday papers, and while well intentioned I am sure – not with the public advice of Paul Holmes. If Paul wanted to really help, then write them a private letter.

I wasn’t always a fan of Paul Holmes on TV. Don’t get me wrong – he made the Holmes show into a huge success, but I didn’t think he was the best political interviewer on TV and would get frustrated with some of TV work.

But with his radio show, I have no mixed feelings at all. I absolutely love Holmes on ZB and listen to him most mornings. His sense of humour and ability to poke at sacred cows was wonderful. He really had few peers, and it showed in the ratings. I am not sure if we will see such a talented radio person again.

The NZ Herald (despite often being a target of Holmes) delivers a nice farewell editorial.

I don’t know who I will listen to now. Not sure how Hosking will go. I could defect to National Radio but again with Sean Plunket leaving, that loses some of its appeal.

The lovely folks at the Herald on Sunday invited me to join them at their table for the Qantas Awards in Auckland last night (as I have done a couple of pieces for them), and it was definitely the place to be as they went on to win not just Best Weekly Newspaper but the coveted Best Newspaper.

Earlier in the night briefly popped into some blogger drinks and caught up with some of the old regulars, and met a few new people which was fun. Also failed to recognise Phil U due to his new look

Back to the Qantas, and as I said it was a great night for the Herald on Sunday. On top of the two main newspaper awards, they also won Best General Columnist and Best All Round Columnist (Paul Holmes) and Best Portrait or Object Portfolio Photographer (Janna Dixon).

The Herald on Sunday is less than four years old, and when you start with no subscribers, it is swim or sink, and I think it shows the power of hunger and competition that such a new newspaper has done so well. The Sunday newspapers are almost the only ones which still have direct competition in the print media.

Most people didn’t give speeches, but Paul Holmes gave a hilarious speech which Bill Ralston (one of the MCs along with Mary Lambie) tried to cut short. Paul just retorted “Knock it off Bill or I’ll fucking thump you” which had the desired effect. Ralston and Lambie were both very good as MCs, with Ralston making many jokes at the expense of his former bosses at TVNZ.

The winner of the most significant individual award – the Qantas Fellow to Wolfson College in Cambridge went to Phil Kitchin of the Dominion Post which was indisputably deserved. Kitchin and his editor Tim Pankhurst also got an Outstanding Achievement award for the Louise Nicholas story. Few stories have ever had such an impact on a country, and as Pankhurst pointed out it was their most defamatory story ever – except for the defence of truth – so deciding to run it was pretty ballsy.

Peter Griffin picked up Best Information & Comms Technology Feature Writer and Carroll du Chateau, Best Government, Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs Feature Writer. The Herald also had a very good night winning the Best Daily Newspaper with over 25,000 circulation. I understand their major stories on the Electoral Finance Act were submitted as their portfolio.

The best IT Columnist was Jillian Allison-Aitken from the Southland Times. I have to confess I have not read her stuff,so will have to look out for it in future. Colin Espiner was Best Politics Columnist.

Oh yes the best newspaper section went to the ODT for their world focus section. A few people joked they didn’t know the ODT had a world focus section – I have to admit when I lived in Dunedin my memories were that the Oamaru fair day would received twice as much space as the Berlin Wall coming down Obviously things have improved!

The Listener won Best Newsstand Magazine which editor Pamela Stirling appreciated greatly as vindication for her decisions to make changes to The Listener. We know this, because she said so in her acceptance speech!

In the online categories the Herald won best news website, NBR won best single report on a news website and the globally popular Read Write Web won Best Blog. Congrats to No Right Turn for being a finalist.

As I mentioned the Herald on Sunday won Best Newspaper and Best Weekly Newspaper, and NZ Herald Best Large Daily. The Manawatu Standard won Best Small Daily, the Aucklander (West) Best Community Newspaper, and the NZ Herald Best Front Page (for their Democracy Under Attack  story)

The full awards list is here.

Was a very enjoyable night, meeting new people and catching up with others. Having a quiet recovery day today and then off to a play in Auckland tonight.