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Q+A is tomorrow at 9 am on One.
On TV One from 9 am to 10 am.
Tags: Q&ATomorrow on Q+A at 9 am on TV One:
Some extracts from an interesting interview:
GUYON You spoke in your speech a lot about tax as well, and again you returned to that equity and fairness argument, and I want to quote from that, you said too many people on good incomes avoid and evade paying taxes. Now I’ve looked through the MP’s Register of Pecuniary Interests, and I see you don’t have a family trust or a trust listed there, so I presume that you personally do and always have paid the top tax rate.
PHIL I’ve the top tax rate, I’ve always paid every dollar in tax that I’ve been required to pay and I’m proud to pay that tax because that’s how we fun our education our health system.
GUYON Is that the case for your caucus, because when you look through that Register of Interests, there are a lot of your own MPs who have trusts, and can structure their finance and their assets so they do not pay the top tax rate, do you include those people in the people who are being unfair by not paying the top tax rate?
PHIL If you have a system that allows people to avoid paying tax, they would avoid paying taxes, what you have to do is get the system right. What I guess offends me is that most people, average working New Zealanders, wage and salary earners they don’t evade, they don’t avoid their tax, they can’t, but when you see the list of the top hundred income earners in this country and half of them are paying less tax as a proportion of their income than the people right at the top, you say there’s something wrong with the system.
GUYON Something wrong, a lot of people would agree with that, but can I return to that, have you asked those MPs, I mean is it fair that they’re not paying the top tax rate, all of them are paid over $140,000 at least yet they’re able to structure their finances in that way. When you gave a speech and said that was unfair had you checked with your own caucus to see whether those people are paying the top tax rate and paying for the roads and hospitals and schools of New Zealand?
PHIL Yeah, I’ve got absolute confidence that every one of my MPs is paying all the tax that they should be paying …
Good to see this question put to Goff. Cactus Kate was the first to raise it – the hypocrisy of railing against wealthy people avoiding the top tax rate, and having a third of your caucus using trusts to minimise their own tax liability.
If you want to reduce tax avoidance in NZ, then the best way to do it is to lower the top tax rate.
If Goff continues to go on about how wealthy people should not avoid the top tax rate, then he should be challenged to ban his caucus members from having family trusts!
GUYON The top 10% of income earners though, they pay 44% of all the tax, is that fair?
PHIL Well they earn probably over 40% of the income, so proportionately yes.
Actually the top 10% of income earners pay 76% of net taxation (taking into account working for families etc). And what people shouold be worried about is not how to tax them even more, but what it will mean if those 10% leave NZ in significant numbers!
GUYON Shane Jones said this week that it was his mission to drive the Maori Party out of parliament. Now how smart is it for the Labour Party under MMP to actually annihilate a potential coalition partner, leaving them only with the Greens and leaving you with almost no chance of forming the next government.
PHIL Well if the electorate will make that decision but Shane was speaking from heart and he was saying this.
GUYON Is he speaking with your authority?
PHIL I’m comfortable with his comments.
GUYON You want the Maori Party out of parliament?
PHIL No no.
Yet Shane Jones does. Goff them tries to have it both ways.
GUYON No no hang on hang on, that’s what he said, sorry Mr Goff, do you want the Maori Party out of parliament?
PHIL Look if there is a question of whether there are seven Maori seats that are Labour Party or Maori Party held I want them all to be Labour Party held.
GUYON So you don’t want to work with the Maori Party potentially?
PHIL No, no, that’s a different question.
GUYON But if you’re trying to extinguish them, there’s no chance at all is there?
PHIL In a democratic competition of course every one of our Labour candidates in the Maori electorates will be seeking to win those seats and I’ll be right behind them, and I’d like 100%. The second question you ask is a slightly different one. Will we work with the Maori Party while they’re in parliament, of course we will, if we think that’s in the interests of the country, as would any other party.
GUYON So let’s get this straight. You want to drive the Maori Party out of parliament, but should they actually remain so you’ll work with them?
Would have been interesting at this point to have asked Goff if he wants Winston back in Parliament, and does he want the Greens there?
GUYON Will you resign on election night should Labour lose as Helen Clark did?
PHIL I don’t have a plan B for election night, and it’s not about losing.
GUYON I think I heard a similar phrase before, but thanks very much for coming and joining us this morning.
A very similar phrase indeed.
To be fair, I don’t think Phil Goff does have a Plan B for election night. He said that Plan B is not about losing. That must mean Plan A is about Labour losing! 
Q+A returns at 9 am tomorrow ob TV One. Details are:
Delighted to see, after I have been blogging on the issue for some time, that TVNZ started asking questions about the scheme where the Greens vest property in their superannuation fund, so they can claim rent from themselves.
It turns out to be even worse than I suspected. Not only are they doing this, they were charging $1,000 a week for a modest house in Thorndon, and secretly paid the money back.
First the transcript from Q+A:
GUYON Okay in the last section of this interview I want to talk about one of the roles that the Green Party has had in politics this year, which is the greater transparency around MPs’ expenses, and I want to look at the way that you manage your own accommodation. Now you have the Green Futures super fund, your own super fund, it owns two properties it rents to three MPs in Wellington. Now they take about $48,000 a year to live in those homes owned by the Green Party, and they plough that money back into your own super fund. Now do you think that the average worker would think that that was a fair use of taxpayers’ money?
METIRIA Well look there’s four issues that need to be understood here. First, the super trust has been going now for 12 years, has been approved by Parliamentary Services and by the Speaker, and has been transparent. Second, MPs have to live somewhere, some MPs buy flats in Wellington and then claim housing allowance for those flats, the super fund, the super trust has been consistently seeking, asking rents that are below market value.
The arrangements were at first within the rules (but as Bill found out that does not count for a lot!), but they were not transparent – we have only found out today what happened secretly.
Secondly Turei is not quite correct when she says an MP can buy a flat and claim a housing allowance for it. If the MP owns the flat directly, they can only claim the cost of interest on a mortgage. But by vesting it in their super fund, they get to claim a much higher market rental.
Finally, as we leant, they were literally double dipping by having two MPs charge close to the maximum for the same place – well above market rental.
GUYON Well let me pick you up on that point about market value.
METIRIA Earlier this year we did – those went out of whack, between February and March of 2009 one of the houses, MPs were claiming over the market value, we fixed that valuation in June to make sure they’re only being asked to pay under market value, and last week we refunded that over claim. So we made a mistake and we fixed it.
GUYON So you have refunded Parliamentary Services. So you’ve become a second party to refund. Let me talk viewers through this because they won’t know about it, and let’s look at this Wellington home where Jeanette Fitzsimons and Catherine Delahunty live, now it’s a fairly modest house, but over a four month period from February to May this year, those two MPs paid a thousand dollars a week in rent out of taxpayers’ money to live there, nearly double the market rate. Now that’s a rip-off pure and simple isn’t it?
METIRIA We made a mistake, we’re not happy about it, we fixed the rent in June to make sure that they were paying under market value from that point on, and we have refunded the money, I mean I agree mistakes are – you know they’re not a good look…
I would love to know who made the mistake, and who discovered it and put ir right. Surely they knew you can’t have two MPs living at the same place both charging almost $500 a week in rent?
The residence in question is in Thorndon and is valued at around $510,000. It is a three bedroom residence taking up 99 square metres. Hardly the sort of place you could think is worth $1,000 a week.
GUYON Well let’s look at this mistake though because there is a certain degree of cynicism about this. On June 1st when you took over as leader you said we’re throwing open our expenses to the public, we’re going to be open about this, what you didn’t tell us is that behind the scenes you were doing a market valuation on this property and you found out that you were actually charging the taxpayer double, you didn’t tell us that, then you came out and released your expenses and it’s only become public because we started asking questions this week, I mean you’re no better than anyone else.
METIRIA I was not aware of the market valuation at the time that we …
GUYON Well why wasn’t a market valuation done in the first place?
METIRIA We did, we do them every year.
GUYON But this is the problem with these cosy arrangement isn’t it because you are your own landlord so no one really cares what the market value, muggings the taxpayer picks up the bill.
This is why I have consistently advocated that MPs should not own directly or indirectly any property they claim rent for as a tenant. You can not be landlord and tenant. It has been legal to do so up until now, but I think the rules should change.
METIRIA That is why we released our expenses before any other party did, don’t forget we did this off our own back, we released those expenses, we’ve got out of whack with the rent, and we’ve refunded.
GUYON How much?
METIRIA It’s about six thousand dollars. About six thousand dollars we refunded.
GUYON To Parliamentary Services?
METIRIA To Parliamentary Services.
GUYON Where was the press release on that?
METIRIA We made sure – well that’s why I’m telling you now, on national television so you’ve got the information, and so the whole public have got the information.
You’re telling because Guyon asked the right questions.
GUYON But you wouldn’t have if we hadn’t started asking questions would you, that’s the thing.
METIRIA We made a mistake, we acknowledged that mistake, we fixed it, we fixed the mistake and we’ve refunded the money, and you’re quite right to raise it, and the public quite rightly has a right to know which is why we’re telling you about it today.
GUYON It was cynical though wasn’t it, because you didn’t tell people that behind the scenes you were tidying up your own arrangements before you laundered them, and made sure that they were actually legitimate before you released them, you never told us about that.
METIRIA I can understand that you want this to be kind of you know a big story and I understand why that’s the case…
GUYON No it’s a question because you have been telling other MPs and other political parties that you’re the moral compass of parliament, yet you’ve been ripping the taxpayer off.
METIRIA But the fact is that we made a mistake, we’ve fixed the mistake, and we’ve refunded the money, we made a mistake, we fixed the mistake and we refunded it, in 12 years that’s not too bad. The public has known about our super trust for all of that time and we’ve made information about it public, and so we’re quite happy to be open about the process that we’ve done, which is we make a mistake, we fixed the mistake, and we’ve refunded the money.
The Greens have been open (and kudos for that) about the existence of the fund, but have never detailed publicly exactly how much money they make from its own MPs living in the property they own.
You see the issue is not just the over-charging of rent. It comes back to them using the super fund as a way to maximise the amount they can claim. Let me demonstrate.
The Super Fund gets $24,000 a year rent (that is the maximum) plus the Fund gets $26,200 as the taxpayer contribution to the super, and $10,480 as the MP contribution. That means they have a total of $60,680. It was somewhat less in 2001when the property was purchased, but the comparison is still valid. I understand the cost was around $300,000.
Not over the last eight years the average interest rate has been 8.5%. This means that in the first year there would be $25,500 of interest on the property and $60,680 of repayments (if all goes into the mortgage) which reduce the principal by $35,000 or so.
This results in the mortgage being paid off after around seven years, so the MP gets left with a mortgage free property (now worth $500,000) and ongoing rental income of $24,000 a year.
If the Greens had not vested the property in their super fund, but registered it under their own MPs names, they could only claim interest on the mortgage.
Now in the first year this is $25,500 so they would claim the same – $24,000 maximum. But in the second year the interest would be just $22,500 and then $19,300 and this is all they would have been able to claim as rent.
Over the eight years they have owned the property they would have only been able to claim rent of $116,000 instead of $192,000.
They have a second property they currently rent to themselves, so that is the potential advantage per property above.
So there are really three issues here:
Again I don’t think any MP should have an interest in a home they rent out to themselves. Either just pay them all flat allowances (as Ministers will soon get) or require them to have no direct or indirect interest in the property.
Tags: Greens, Metiria Turei, MPs expenses, Q&AGreen co-leader was on Q+A this morning, and it was a pretty lamentable performance. While there were a couple of tough topics, she just didn’t cope with the scrutiny, and appeared very flustered and evasive.
I backed Turei as their best choice for co-leader (not that I get a vote!) as she has generally been a strong MP. But today showed up the gap between her and someone like Fitzsimons, who would have handled things much more calmly.
Of course part of the problem was that on the trade issue, Turei had a nonsensical position to defend. Every country on earth supports the move to freer trade, apart from pretty much just North Korea. The Green view on trade is very much a fringe view, and it got exposed today.
From the transcript (not yet online:
GUYON Okay let’s look at an economic idea that you are opposed to, and that is free trade largely. In your maiden speech in 2002 you said that, and I quote you, ‘the acceptance of free trade agreements threatens our economy, our environment, our people and our sovereignty.’ Do you not believe in any free trade agreements at all?
METIRIA Well our position is that you need to have systems of fair trade, that make sure that New Zealand can retain its economic sovereignty, and free trade deals tend to undermine the economic sovereignty.
GUYON All the free trade deals, I mean the free trade deal that we have with Australia for example that we’ve had for 20 years, has that undermined our sovereignty?
METIRIA It prevents New Zealand from being able to make the economic decisions around our manufacturing, around job retention, all of those issues that are best for New Zealand, and we want New Zealand to be a prosperous and sustainable economy, that means we have to move … we need to be able to make those decisions for ourselves.
GUYON Does that mean all free trade agreements, for example the CER agreement that we’ve had with Australia since 1982, does that cover that?
METIRIA Look the key issue for us…
GUYON No, can I get a straight answer for our viewers on this question please, because it’s all very well to give a speech about free trade.
Yet she still could not state whether or not the Green Party thought CER was a good or a bad thing.
I wonder why the Greens are so inconsistent on the issues of national sovereignty. They correctly point out climate change affects everyone regardless of national borders. They support surrendering sovereignty to the UN on every treaty there is. Yet on economic issues, they cite national sovereignty as a reason to prevent people freely trading with each other.
GUYON Okay with respect, let’s look at one of those countries, China. Now on Thursday it was the first anniversary of our Free Trade Agreement with China, our exports have climbed 61% over that year to 3.3 billion. I mean wouldn’t we all be the poorer if we’d listened to you and not gone ahead with that agreement?
METIRIA Oh look Guyon, I mean you can make that kind of accusation and I think it’s just silly, the truth is that so much of New Zealand’s economy at the moment is under serious threat if you like from the fact that we’re having to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars every week actually in order to just pay the interest on our current borrowing. We’re having a housing bubble at the moment which is going to also impact seriously on our economy and there are other kinds of tools that we can use to deal with economic issues that are affecting New Zealand, like increasing the ability for banks for example to lend ….
The stupidity of Metiria’s response is the China FTA means we are borrowing less. Exports rose 60% in the middle of a recession!! That is a huge sucess. She just had no answer at all to this.
GUYON Can we return to this agreement though because there are some real Green issues here in this China Free Trade Agreement and I want to talk to you about one of them, because the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise says areas like the health supplements in Manuka Honey are a great area for expansion of our exports, and in fact your own Super Fund has quite a large shareholding on Konvita New Zealand which has 18 branded stores in China and is actually doing very very well out of this China Free Trade Agreement, would you deny them that opportunity, because you opposed that agreement.
You have to love the irony. Their super fund is personally profiting from the China FTA that they battled against.
Tags: Australia, CER, China, Free Trade, Greens, Guyon Espiner, Metiria Turei, Q&AThe main interview on Q+A was Education Minister Anne Tolley. I thought Anne did well (as did two of the panelists – the PPTA President obviously not such a fan).
PAUL Let’s talk about that shortly. But 200,000 New Zealanders a year go to night classes to improve themselves. Grown up people – that’s a helluva lot of people to annoy for 13 million dollars.
ANNE Well 124 million dollars will still be spent in adult and community education. What I’ve said is we’re going to focus on literacy, numeracy, language, foundation skills – those courses that will lead on to employment. We’re still in an economic recession, there are people out there, particularly young people, who are the most vulnerable, they are the most likely to lose their jobs and the least ones likely to get jobs.
PAUL Yes, but night classes in schools of course as adults – migrants, refugees adults trying to improve their lot – the strugglers.
ANNE Some of them are, some of them are hobby courses courses like belly dancing, ukulele playing. We’ve got courses like pilates and yoga – I’ve attended those classes myself. The average age of people attending those night classes is about 46. What we’re saying I had a half billion debt from the previous government to find in tertiary education what we’re saying is we’re going to put those tax dollars into supporting our young people through the recession.
PAUL I understand. Go to those classes again, Minister. Some of those classes might have been questionable – belly dancing, Cook Island drumming, cheese-making, folk art for beginners – but there were also book-keeping basics, English as a second language, learning Mandarin
ANNE Yes, English is important, language classes will remain as I say
I think Labour are deluding themselves that this decision is unpopular. The protesting are mainly the providers. Most of the 200,000 understand we are in a recession.
Recent polls in the UK have found from 70% to 80% of the population support spending cuts to reduce the deficit. I doubt it is much different here. NZ Labour is trying to appeal to 20% to 25% of the population only.
They then had Labour List MP Jacinda Ardern and National Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye on, to talk about how they were finding being MPs. Some extracts:
PAUL Do you get a thrill from that as well from helping?
NIKKI Absolutely. I mean I think my point is that the part I enjoy the most is being in the community and in my electorate actually with my constituents and Ive had some pretty hard cases as well, theyre people whove asked for drugs to be funded and you know that actually theyre not going to be funded.
PAUL Of course, you are both MPs but you are a constituent MP, youve got an electorate (Nikki) and youre a list MP (Jacinda). Does that give you more mana do you think with your senior colleagues that you do have a constituency?
NIKKI I think it was a pretty big win and there are often times when you can talk on an issue and you really know youve got the people behind you in your electorate I think there is something there in that.
PAUL As a list MP, and a young list MP at that, are you made to feel a bit lesser than say a constituency MP?
JACINDA No, not at all I think that part of is that because we accept that this system that uses list MPs, MMP, has made our parliament look more like New Zealand so list MPs are an important part of doing that. Now me personally, I would love to represent a constituency one day
I think Nikki is right that electorate MPs are often in a stronger position as advocates.
Interestingly Jacinda said that she is not ruling out standing in Auckland (in 2008 she stood in her home seat of Waikato), maybe even standing against Phil Twyford for the Auckland Central nomination.
PAUL Is your generation, people of your own age, more likely to have friends across the political divide than say the, are you likely to be less tribal?
NIKKI Well I think Ive built some good relationships on both sides of the house and I think it depends on the politician. I mean, thats the way that I work. I sort of see it as a bit of a sports match, you go in and you fight for what you believe in but then youre able to come off and treat each other with dignity and respect.
JACINDA I would agree with that, I think that that is important. I dont know if tribal is quite the right word , I do believe what I believe strongly, Ive got a really strong values set but I am willing to look at new ideas and new ways of doing things and if that involves the other side then it does. But I still think that there are certain things that I wont compromise on.
Jacinda tended to not reject the ideological label, as much as Nikki did. And that probably reflects the fact Jacinda is more ideological. But I don’t mean that in a bad way. Most successful politicians have a mixture of ideology and pragmatism, and the differences between them are more shades of grey than black or white.
PAUL What are the mistakes? Tell me your one mistake, because you told me a story once about a fellow who came to you with a problem and you did the political spiel and told him what the law was blah blah blah and what did he say to you?
NIKKI He said to me, and you know I think its that whole thing about, theres a whole of politics stuff that happens in Wellington but when you get back to the community people want to know how decisions affect them&.
PAUL&What did he say to you&
NIKKI ..and he said to me you seem like a very nice lady but youve just told me a whole lot of stuff that just means nothing to me and & but we actually ended up going to the pub for a drink and, but what I realised was actually that people just want to know how the decisions are going to affect them, theyre not that interested in the politics.
PAUL Youve got to stay real, is that what youre saying?
NIKKI Thats exactly right.
I thought that was a great example of the difference between people caught up in politics regularly (the beltway) and most New Zealanders who are focused on how decisions affect them, rather than debates about politics.
Tags: Anne Tolley, Jacinda Ardern, Nikki Kaye, Q&AHad to laugh reading a recent Q&A transcript:
PAUL: But what is he doing? Is he handing the Progressives to Labour, is that what he’s doing?
MIKE: There’s nothing to hand across – except this. There’ll be 38 activists who’ll want to go on the party list, who’ll want jobs in head office, in the leader’s office and they represent frequently the most unpleasant and the most unattractive side of the left. And they will burrow in – they’re the chardonnay socialists who use the word mate because they think workers use it, and then they go to their vineyards and call each other furtively “comrade”. They are not pleasant and they are not votable.
It will be interesting to see how many Progressive activists get places on the Labour List. In the meantime Jim keeps claiming extra salary and funding by pretending to be a party leader.
Tags: Jim Anderton, Mike Moore, Progressive, Q&AAlso from Q&A today:
PHIL: Well I certainly hope we are coming out of the recession – internationally you’re seeing signs of recovery in economies and really important economies too. It’s like China now – our exports to China have gone up 62% in the last year since our free trade agreement.
That’s the free trade agreement that the Foreign Minister in the last Government campaigned against?
But as I said at the time, Clark and Goff deserve praise for their efforts in securing the China FTA.
GUYON: Let’s look at an area that National has cut back on, and that is the Public Service. Now you’ve been very critical of that, you were in the short speech you made yesterday. In eight consecutive years in Government the Public Service grew 5.5% when economic growth was not much more than half of that. Is that the sort of levels of Public Service explosion really that you want to return to if you should take the reins of Government again?
PHIL: Well we think it’s great that there were 3 or 4,000 extra nurses that were employed in the Public Service while Labour was in Government&that the numbers of Police Officers out on the beat went up by 1,250.
Nurses and police officers are not included in the figures quoted. Guyon is quoting the core public service figures I am pretty sure.
GUYON: Yes, but they’re the glamour examples though. There were a lot of policy analysts and a lot of others.. How can you sustain a 5.5% growth in the Public Service when your economy is only growing at half that level?
PHIL: Because at the time the economy was growing fast
GUYON : at half that rate though.
Here’s the problem though. Labour do not seem to have accepted that there is a need for fiscal restraint in the face of the recession and a decade of deficits. They have opposed every spending cut there has been.
Having been spoilt with a fast growing economy, how will they cope with an economy where tax revenue does not grow massively each year?
GUYON: Can you say whether you would raise personal income tax, can you rule out this morning raising personal income tax should you take power again?
PHIL: It’s not our intention to raise personal income tax, nor GST – it may well be this government’s intention to raise GST.
Now that is a very welcome, and brave statement. I welcome it. Of course this creates the problem that to fund their spending promises, they will have to borrow billions more leaving future taxpayers indebted.
The challenge for Labour in 2011 will be to present an alternative budget that keeps Goff’s promise of no tax increases, but also has NZ on a believable path back to surpluses.
Goff’s ruling out of any increase in income tax or GST is very significant and the first major departure from the Clark years. The challenge is getting people to believe it by having realistic spending promises.
GUYON: You and your party, the Labour party, went after John Key very heavily in the last election campaign, you made the whole campaign about trust – the idea was that you couldn’t trust John Key. The party president was dispatched to try and dig up dirt on decades old deals to try and find some wrong-doing. Is that something that you’re apologising for this weekend as well, the way that you handled that?
PHIL: I think that both sides in Parliament probe the other side to check whether promises being made are promises being made with integrity. That will always happen in an adversarial system. I think the publicity and the looking at the finances around Mr Key at the last election WAS a mistake yes.
A welcome admission.
GUYON: but do you trust him [Key]?
PHIL: Do I believe that what is being said is always what is on the agenda, I’d have to say no. I mean they employ spin doctors, and the role of spin doctors is to have the Prime Minister saying what people want to hear.
Now Goff loses the plot. He doesn’t trust John Key because Key has spin doctors. Goff has several himself, as did Clark.
And just as relevantly, it is pretty obvious to most journalists that Key is one of the least scripted PMs of recent times. In fact the major criticism in recent days has been that Goff is the one who speaks in spin doctor sound bites, unlike Key who speaks normally.
GUYON: You talked about spin doctors, but every party employs them and in fact it looks you are employing them pretty heavily this weekend. I mean it’s an image makeover though isn’t it – you’ve tried desperately to make yourself look more human, look more relaxed, look more casual haven’t you?
PHIL: Ah, look when you talk about spin doctors we don’t have an agency like the Australian agency
Good God, Labour’s obsession with Crosby Textor is driving them demented. National has had a relationship with Mark Textor for almost 20 years.
This is a classic example of Labour still focusing on “Wellington” issues. They’ve tried very hard to have their conference focus on wider issues such as the economy, jobs, healthcare – but if you scratch away a bit, they revert to type. Absolutely no-one outside the Labour and Green Party membership cares about this crap.
PHIL: No look obviously you think, particularly when you become leader of the opposition, there’s a different role you have to perform, there are different sides of you that people have to see. I’ve spent most of my political career trying to protect my family from politics, I didn’t want them in the full glare of politics. But suddenly people say “look we don’t know anything about you, we don’t know what your family is, we don’t know you’ve got two boys and a girl”. So clearly in the role I’m playing now I’ve got to become a little more open about the sort of things that once upon a time I would’ve like to have kept personal.
I’m pleased to see Phil take my advice that New Zealanders do want to know more about him – and by default his family. Not in a hugely intrusive way, but to understand more about who he is. It is not that easy for either politician, or family, but people do want to feel they know something about the person who may be Prime Minister.
GUYON: You lost the working class at the last election , a good strand of them, in some pretty important seats like Waitakere and other areas, Chris Trotter calls these people the sort of guy who likes to have a few beers on a Sunday afternoon sitting on a deck that he built himself. How do you win those people back next time?
PHIL: It’s a point well made and I think you’ve got to win back those people by those people perceiving you to understand what their concerns are and what there hopes are.
GUYON: And how do you do that?
PHIL: I think by showing that most of us have come up by that same particular route, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I grew up in a working family – we worked hard for everything we got. I’ve got my family that I’ve worked hard to bring up, I can identify with those people . I’ve got two sons who are tradesmen. They are exactly the sort of people that Chris Trotter gave as a Waitakere man. Those are the sorts of things that they’re interested in – I believe I’m in touch with those things.
Goff is certainly better positioned than Clark and Cullen were to win back that working class vote. In fact of the entire Labour caucus he is probably the best person to try and do that – apart from possibly Shane Jones who has potential appeal there also.
GUYON: But the voters want to know is there a place for Winston Peters in a few years time to become a part of Government?
PHIL: There’s a place for anybody who is prepared to work on-side Labour for the values, the ideals, and the policies that we put forward. I don’t rule out Winston Peters any more than I rule out the Green Party, the Maori Party or the United Future Party and obviously the Progressive Party
There was a missed opportunity there. I’m not saying he should have ruled Peters out (that then becomes the major story) but he could have said that for Labout to work with Peters again, we would have to be convinced that he would conform with the Ministerial and Parliamentary rules on conflicts of interests and disclosures.
The danger for Goff, is that he looks to be saying he will be the same as Clark, and let Winston get away with anything in exchange for the baubles of power.
GUYON: And we have a referendum to this whole electoral system, what is Labour’s position on that? 1997, as Justice Spokesman, you called for a binding referendum on MMP whether we should chuck it out or not, what’s your view now?
PHIL: I think if you’re going to change the system it MUST be with the mandate of the people and that must be by a binding referendum.
GUYON: So you support going for a referendum?
PHIL: yes, we’re not opposing the Government on that at all
That is interesting.
GUYON: ..How would you vote?
PHIL: At this stage I’d probably vote for MMP but we’ve had at this conference quite an interesting discussion about that and the members I’ve talked to have said look we’d like to see fewer list MP’s and more Electorate MP’s. We’d like to see electorates a little bit smaller so that electorate members can give a bit more personal attention to their constituents. Our people tell me that we can do that, we could have as many as 80 electorate MP’s with the balance of 40 being list MPs. It may be that we’re looking for a variation on MMP to make it work better, to use its strengths to counteract its weakness.
More interesting is that he would only “probably” vote for MMP.
Labour need to be very careful of their numbers. Chris Hipkins said yesterday:
The analysis I have seen suggests we could have 90 electorates and 30 list MPs and the proportionality would be preserved. From memory applying that to the 5 MMP elections we have had the biggest overhang would have been 4 extra seats. That’s just from memory though. Someone else might have the actual nos handy.
I responded:
Chris – your memory is faulty on MMP with a 90/30 split. Assuming parties won the same proportion of electorate seats, a 90/30 elect/list split would have seen Labour in 1999 with a 6 seat overhang and in 2002 with a 7 seat overhang. That would be almost as unproportional as SM.
On the plus side it would have meant in 1999 every Labour List MP would have been wiped out so no Cullen and Wilson
Goff is now talking 80/40. If you assume they would have won the same proportion of electorates (which is not that likely) it would in 2002 have left Labour with either 0 or 1 List MPs – very close to overhang.
But what Goff overlooks is that every census the number of electorate seats increases by 1 or 2 as the North Island has faster population growth than the South Island. Hence within a decade that 80/40 could be 84/36 and overhang could well become a regular thing.
And the issue of Maori Party overhang would also get worse. Ironically what Goff is talking about would move MMP closer to an SM system.
Tags: Guyon Espiner, MMP, Phil Goff, Q&A, taxFrom 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.
Tags: Jim Anderton, Paul Holmes, Q&AThe NZ Organisation for Rare Disorders has filed a complaint over TVNZ’s coverage of the Folic Acid debate. The complaint is here.
While I don’t support the addition of folic acid into bread, they may have a point about some of the coverage. The Q&A show where Paul Holmes was almost accusing Kate Wilkinson of giving people cancer could well have been over the line.
It will be interesting to see TVNZ’s response, and if not upheld the decision of the Broadcasting Standards Authority.
Tags: folic acid, media bias, Q&A, TVNZTVNZ say:
Guyon Espiner is in Sydney with the Prime Minister and will be asking him about Australia-NZ relations. Just how close does John Key imagine us getting? What’s in it for us? And what do we put at risk?
Paul Holmes will be interviewing David Kilcullen, one of America’s leading military advisers in Afghanistan and the author of The Accidental Guerilla. Paul will be talking to him live from Melbourne about the prospects for peace in Afghanistan and the sort of operations the New Zealand SAS is likely to be engaged in.
Kilcullen spoke to a CIS conference in Australia a couple of years ago. He is a real expert on Afghanistan and counter-terrorism and well worth listening to. Don’t expect to get a rosy view from him – he is very down to earth and realistic.
Tags: Q&AThe Paul Homes interview on Q&A was fascinating. Holmes was at his most hostile. He used every argument and language of those who support the anti-smacking law. He denigrated his guests as supporting violence, yet Cheryl Savil especially just sat there calmly and refused to allow Holmes to misrepresent her.
The video and transcript are here. I recommend them as good watching:
Cheryl you are a Mum two kids, how old are the kids.
CHERYL Ten and twelve.
PAUL And do you smack them?
So immediately tries to personalise it, but gets a calm response.
CHERYL SAVILL I have smacked them in the past, and I found it effective when they were younger?
PAUL How often would you have smacked them?
CHERYL Actually it differed between the two children, they’re quite different little characters, and one of them is quite a strong willed character and it’s interesting to point out that discipline is on the things and correcting a child is when we’ve used smacking, so when it’s you know you’re not to touch something and they’ve gone to touch it, well I have one of them that would actually eyeball me and be quite defiant in her behaviour so smacking was effective, a little light smack on the hand.
Something hundreds and thousands of parents may have done.
PAUL So why are you so passionate about the right to use physical violence against children?
And then we get the loaded language.
CHERYL Well I don’t think it’s a right, the terminology there, the right to use physical violence. Smacking is one of the things that parents can use as a technique to help discipline their children.
The calm response.
PAUL But why do we want to allow violence against children, I mean if an adult smacks, let’s use the word smack, if an adult smacks another adult it’s considered unacceptable, in fact it’s probably criminal, why should it be acceptable for a big person to assault or to smack a little child?
Here he repeast the pejorative term violence. Appears to concede and call it smacking. And then goes for anothe pejorative word – assault.
It is the equivalent of calling an unwanted kiss on the cheek, a sexual assault or violation.
CHERYL Well it’s quite a different relationship between a parent and their child than between adults. So a parent’s responsibility is to raise their child to become a responsible loving productive member of society, and that’s what I think is the issue here, the parenting role is very different to the role that we have as adults in relationship to each other.
And another calm rational response.
PAUL What did you use, a wooden spoon or the hearth brush or what?
Another attempt to attack the mother personally. he could have asked if she smacked with a bare hand or with an implement
CHERYL No I used a smack on the hand like that, or a smack on the bottom. When you actually show the footage often you’ll see a parent grabbing the child by the arm and whack whack whack whack and I don’t agree with that I think that’s going too far. So I need to really clarify that.
And another calm response, clearly saying what she finds acceptable and unacceptable.
BOB McCROSKIE
Well can I just clarify that, if you smack a child as they’re about to touch that’s preventing bad behaviour, but if they do it, if they do something naughty, and then you say you’re not to do that again I’m going to give you a smack don’t do that again, that is correction, that is illegal, and this is the minefield that parents are going through that you can smack to prevent that behaviour but not to correct.
McCroskie correctly points out the current law.
PAUL Nobody’s going through a minefield Bob.
The response being an unsupported assertion. And he is meant to be the neutral interviewer.
PAUL Parents are very calm, can I suggest to you everyone agrees, the Police, the government, both major parties, Bernardoes, Plunket, everyone agrees….
Paul think the lobby groups and the MPs represent everyone. Did he not wonder about why 300,000 people signed a petition, why it was cited as a factor in Labour’s loss, or why polls show 80%+ oppose the law. And he has the gumption to claim everyone agrees.
CHERYL I actually think it’s quite interesting that there has been this move away from smacking or from actual violence which we don’t agree with, you know anger in action.
PAUL Smacking, hitting, what’s the difference Cheryl?
Back to the language war.
CHERYL Well a big difference, you know there is a seriously big difference, if a child gets bruised that’s too far.
And a calm response again
BOB Same with time out Paul, there’s appropriate time out, but locking your kid in a dark room for three hours is child abuse.
I thought this was a very apt analogy. Any disciplinary method can become abusive. There is a difference between a light smack and a violent thrashing just as there is a difference between a time out and imprisonment.
PAUL What is your smacking history Mr McCroskie?
BOB I was smacked, and it did me the world of good. There was nothing wrong with it.
And again Holmes tries to personalise it, rather than debate the issues.
PAUL Well it was a simpler world perhaps, but go back to a situation that obtained before we amended section 59, kids in New Zealand were the only kids not protected from physical violence. They did not have the same protections afforded to adults and animals.
BOB Yes they did, they were protected because the smack had to be reasonable and for the purpose of correction within the parent child relationship, so kids were protected from violence, if a parent went too far they were prosecuted.
PAUL And they got off Bob.
BOB One or two got off, there were a couple of exceptions.
PAUL A couple of very brutal incidents.
BOB And that’s what we wanted to do was to amend the law, we agreed with Chester Burrows amendment, we agree with John Boscawen’s member’s bill, which simply more clearly defined what was reasonable and what was not, it was a win win situation, that’s what parents want, they want certainty in the law. At the moment we’ve got this mish mash, parents don’t know where they stand.
And this is a key point. As far as I know no-one is arguing to go back to the old law. The Borrows amendment would beyond any doubt take care of those cases where there was public disquiet about verdicts under the old law.
PAUL But isn’t it strange that in this day and age we’re having a debate about whether we should be able to assault children?
BOB No it’s not about assault.
And for the fourth of fith time Holmes uses the language of the small minority who support the law. It is Holmes at his most biased. He has lost basically every argument, so he resorts back to slogans.
PAUL Come on!
CHERYL It’s not assault. Assaulting children – in fact actually the footage that you showed of whacking a child over and over and over again, I don’t agree with that, that’s not what I’m saying, and that’s what – I talk to hundreds of parents, I talk to parents in the school ground all the time, and they say to me this is crazy, what’s going on with the law.
And again a good response.
PAUL Is this driven by adherence to the old biblical saying that to spare the rod is to spoil the child? Do you believe that?
BOB No I think we be disciplining kids, I think we should be bringing them up, we should be training them and they should have clear boundaries, they should be surrounded in a loving family and the question is should a parent who’s bringing up a loving family, is loving the kid, doing all the things right, and chooses to use a smack, should they be criminalised, I would say no, it’s as simple as that, 85% of New Zealanders are saying that.
This time Holmes tries to paint it as religious fundamentalism. But there are many people like me who support gay marriage, abortion on demand, ending blasphemy laws, minimal censorship, gay adoption, legal prostitution etc etc – yet think this law that criminalises so many parents is wrong and should be amended in line the Borrows/Boscawen bill.
I thought Therese Arseneu summied it up well on the panel discussion:
THERESE I think what the debate comes down to is that one smack that’s she’s talking about, that she agrees that if it’s multiply smacks it is assault, and I guess what you hear from their side is that they don’t take great comfort in the fact that the Police – you know the compromise that came from National that the Police will have discretion when it comes down to that one smack, it’s highly unlikely that any parent is going to be criminalised for one smack, but the problem is that parents don’t like that that one smack is considered criminal.
No they don’t. They resent it like hell. And the Borrows/Boscawen bill would change it so that it isn’t.
Tags: Bob McCoskrie, Cheryl Savil, media bias, Paul Homes, Q&A, Section 59, Therese ArseneauGuyon Espiner interviews Nick Smith on Q&A this morning. I thought it was a good performance from Nick:
GUYON What about here in New Zealand. What sort of climate effects are we going to see here and by when if we don’t get this under control?
NICK Well if we take the sort of estimates that have been made by NIWA scientists, you know we’re looking sea level rises over the course of the century of about .6 of a metre, we’re looking at temperature rises of about two degrees.
Great to have a politician not exagerrate the impacts. Nick correctly quoted the IPCC consensus of around 60 cm increase over 100 years. You get all sorts of hysterical nonsense about eight metre increases from some politicians.
NICK Well the government’s commissioned this report from Infometrics and NZEIR to try and get a feel for what those numbers would be if we went for the target that Greenpeace is promoting of minus 40, that indicates a cost of about you know 15 billion dollars per year at 2020, you know that’s more than the entire expense of our health system,
This is what the Green Party is campaigning for. To spend more money on this, than we do on Vote Health. And that is $15 billion a year – not one off.
The report from NZIER is here – NZIER Infometrics Report 26 July 2009.
Their model basically says that the cost would be $3,000 per person per year for a 40% reduction. That is $60 a week.
NICK Yeah I do, I think that argument is incontrovertible, you know how can we, emitting about 17 tonne a year, per New Zealander, say to the Bangladeshi who’s doing a tonne a year, hey guys you’ve gotta get your emissions down because we’ve got a global problem. But the other part we have to understand is this, even if every one of the developed countries signs up to a zero target which is totally unrealistic, and you see the continued growth in emissions from China, India, Brazil, those countries, we are not going to beat this problem, you know the projections are that you’d get emissions up to sort of 650 parts per million, even with zero from the developed world, and so that really shows how important it is in Copenhagen that we get the developing countries to come on board.
This is key. An agreement must include China, India and Brazil.
NICK I want to reassure you, that in the government making its decision both on the ETS and the 2020 target, that needs to be at the front of our mind. You know if we look at the new bill that’s in the United States Congress, they’ve specifically made provision there for tariffs against countries that don’t take climate change seriously, and so what the sort of balance that the government’s going to have to strike here, is one that has us not getting out too far of the pack. What that economic report shows if you get too far out, the costs really escalate.
GUYON So we could face a trade ban, so your 15 billion dollars pales into nothing if we are getting our goods boycotted by an international trading ban.
NICK Absolutely, and that’s why I say to farmers in the agricultural sector, look guys climate change has gotta be taken seriously, not only is it an environmental risk, it is a trade risk, and that’s where New Zealand needs to find this balance, recognise that we’ve got a tough job, but saying that look too far ahead, costs get too high, too far behind and the costs get ugly as well.
It is a balance. If we do nothing we will get hammered. If we try to be the most pure country in the world we will just get a lot poorer and possibly outsource our emissions to China.
Tags: carbon emissions, Climate Change, Guyon Espiner, Nick Smith, Q&AKate Wilkinson got a pretty tough grilling on Q&A yesterday as she was in the unenvious position of saying she thinks the compulsory medicating of bread with folic acid was wrong, yet she would not or could not stop it occurring due to our treaty with Australia – the best being offered is a review in October.
It is true that it is much easier to decide not to do something, than it is to pull out of a decision after it had been made by a previous Government – especially when it deos involve a treaty with a friendly Government. But the transcript shows the difficulty of trying to say we think this is a bad decision, but can’t stop it:
KATE The science is actually light on it. I agree with what the Irish are doing, I’d have to say I agree with what they’re doing.
PAUL Well then do it.
KATE That’s why I’m doing it – the first opportunity I’m taking it and asking for a review.
PAUL I’m sorry you’re gonna put folic acid which may give me prostate cancer again, into my staple food, the bread, and then you’re gonna&
SUE And then review it.
PAUL And then review it, so you could be threatening the health of this nation.
Ouch.
KATE If you drill down into those studies though you’ll find that they’re not that qualitative or quantitative and it is a bit light. Now if we can get a review through the Ministerial Council it’ll be done in three months.
PAUL Oh so we have three months of possible poisoning.
Holmes was very worked up on this issue.
PAUL Forgive me Minister, I read yesterday in researching this that is some link between excessive folic acid and prostate cancer.
SUE That is right.
PAUL And you are gonna put that in my bread?
SUE But Paul it’s the stupidity of this, that the Minister accepts there are these health risks.
KATE Yes she does.
SUE But she’s saying we have to do it so we’re eating up for Australia, we’re going to be forced because of some trade relationship with Australia, surely we should put – public health issues should be paramount, not some diplomatic relationship.
Never good when you let Sue Kedgley answer on your behalf
Worth remembering this, from NZPA:
Former Food Safety Minister Annette King said when the decision was made that it was “a triumph for humanity and common sense”.
I think this may become a bigger and bigger issue as September gets closer. If I was in Government I would be looking very hard at how to get a decision on this before the scheduled meeting in Australia. Surely one can get the agreement of the Australian Ministers by e-mail or something to allow New Zealand to suspend implementing the folic bread addition due to health concerns.
Tags: Annette King, folic acid, Kate Wilkinson, Nanny State, Q&ASimon Power said some very interesting things on Q&A this morning. His whole interview was excellent – other Ministers/MPs should take notes. Extracts:
SIMON: Essentially what I’m interested in is having a broad discussion about three things initially. The first is the way our jury system works. Presently under the bill of rights if you’re charged with an offence that carries a term of imprisonment of three months or more you can elect to go to a jury trial, I’m very keen to see that threshold raised.
GUYON To what?
SIMON Oh well I think three years would be appropriate. You would see a savings on jury trials about a thousand a year along with a couple of other smaller changes we could make in that area.
So someone charged with a crime that has a maximum sentence of between three months and three years, would see their trials be judge only. I’d be interested to see where the line is drawn in other OECD countries. Power mentioned five years is the threshold in Canada.
The crimes that would now be judge only, from a quick skim of the Crimes Act are:
And a few more.
GUYON I’ll come to that in a second, but is part of the factor here that you’re struggling to get jurors to actually sit on those trials?
SIMON No that wasn’t part of the thinking, what was driving the issue was the delays that we’ve been seeing in our justice system, in the District Court for example, on average it takes about 12 months before a trial kicks off, in the High Court it’s about sixteen and a half months over the 2008 year. We have to address this, this is not without controversy I accept that, but the fact is our criminal justice system has not been delivering justice served seen to be done in a timely and helpful fashion. Victims of crime find this process incredibly difficult.
And the delays are especially hard on the victims.
SIMON Well I’ll leave that up to you to decide, but the other two areas that I’m looking particularly closely at is this ability where somebody doesn’t appear at a hearing the only sanction available to the courts in general at the moment is to schedule another hearing. There are some provisions under the Summary Offences Act that allow convictions to be entered for non appearance at trials. I think we need that souped up. I think we need to have a situation where the presumption shifts – if you don’t show up, unless of course the circumstances would be manifestly unjust for good reason – if you’re not showing up to a hearing to have your time in court, the court should be able to enter that conviction. Now that’s different to sentencing where the accused would have to be present.
Power clarified that this does not mean you can be found guilty if you never appear to make a plea. But if you have actually entered a please of guilty, and then don’t turn up – that the court can enter the conviction.
SIMON Yes we are, which leads me neatly into the third issue which is that I think it’s time that the courts were able to hold lawyers, both prosecution and defence to account, for not moving through hearings in a timely and appropriate way. I just think we’re at the point now where the gaming of the system around the criminal justice processes has to be front footed.
GUYON Is that what court lawyers are doing?
SIMON Oh look I believe what we’re seeing is the system being badly incentivised particularly around legal aid, to encourage multiple appearances on issues that should be dealt with in a short and timely way at first appearance.
And again the real losers are the victims.
SIMON Well the courts presently have available to them a mechanism to be able to fine a lawyer for gross negligence in the sense of bringing that case. My view is that should be more readily available to the courts, and if you’re a legal aid lawyer, you should have your eligibility to do legal aid cases tested if you’re not proceeding in a timely way. To simply not be ready, to not be available, and to not show up, are not good reasons. Look when I was admitted to the bar, many years ago in 1994, in my short time as a lawyer I was always told that a lawyer’s first duty, his first obligation is to the court, and we have not seen that in the way that our criminal justice system has operated, it’s time for some change.
That is quite neat. If you drag out trials for years on end on legal aid, then you lose your eligibility. Those accused of crimes have the right to a fair trial. But that is not the right to have the trial delayed for years and years.
LAILA HARRE – Union Leader
Well I think that what we saw today was somebody taking a pretty objective and considered approach to the criminal justice reform, and that’s a good thing because there’s usually far too much emotion vested in this and most of that emotion will be coming from lawyers over the next week, it’s probably a pretty good distraction too from the inevitable continuing fallout of the Rankin debacle I would imagine too.
Some praise from Laila.
PAUL Wow. Exactly so. But of course the notion of juries is a very British thing isn’t it, I mean it’s not written on stone from God that you should have a jury, I mean they operate very well right through Europe with judge panels don’t they?
THERESE ARSENEAU – Political Analyst
Well it goes back to the Magna Carta, so it is quite a rich history of right to be tried by your peers, but we also have a basic right to a quick and speedy trial and in a sense you’ve got two rights perhaps in conflict here, and I agree with Fran that my understanding is that it’s the pre trial battles that eat up so much of the time, so the fact that the Minister is also going to look at what lawyers do before the trial I think is really important too.
And Therese usefully clarifies that it is balancing the rights to a speedy trial, with other rights.
What I like is that Simon has not announced these as firm policy. He has identified three measures he thinks will help victims (and accused) get speedier justice, and said he wants to have discussion about them.
Hopefully Opposition parties won’t rule them out instinctively but look carefully at whether the pros outweigh the cons.
Tags: law & order, Q&A, Simon PowerJohn Key was not on Q&A, but Air NZ CEO Rob Fyfe was, and had some interesting observations:
PAUL John Key, when he was in China recently, he said, he made it clear he wants to use the power of Prime Minister to forge linkages to form relationships between New Zealand and Chinese businesses, do you welcome that?
ROB I welcome it enormously, relationships are key in China but you’ve still gotta do a good deal I mean but the relationship gets you in the door and I think New Zealand is really well regarded, I think Helen Clark built a really good platform there and I think John Key’s built on that.
PAUL Yes, they’re different people though aren’t they?
ROB Very very different.
PAUL You’ve seen them both operate in China haven’t you?
ROB I’ve got huge respect for Helen Clark as a global statesman as a political manager. John’s a very different style, he’s more intuitive, he tends to be very responsive very interactive, his interpersonal style is more relaxed, I think a change of style is good, you open new opportunities, you identify new sources of creativity and I think we’re seeing that with the Prime Minister and I think that’s very healthy actually.
PAUL What did this achieve for us up there, I know that Mr Key was able to get Henry van der Hayden to the top table so that he sat with Premier Win and John Key and so a hand was shaken, so that was symbolic wasn’t it, but you did well as well I understand in getting a new time slot for take offs from Beijing.
ROB Yeah getting the right time slots is very valuable to us, people don’t want to arrive at the airport at early hours in the morning or late in the evening they want to go when they want to go, so it’s good. What happens in China, whenever you get a visit of a statesperson the Chinese are very keen, they’re very gift oriented, and they like to be able to give you things and so they gave us better slots, and it became a catalyst for moving the Fonterra relationship forward. That’s the nature of that relationship dynamic in China and I thought John positioned that very well as Prime Minister on that trip.
PAUL Is what you’re saying about him, he’s more naturally business?
ROB I think he understands the opportunities.
PAUL He’s a capitalist, he’s one of them.
ROB He does deals, he actually knows how to take advantage of situations and he puts himself out there, he’s a marketer. I saw him talking to a bunch of truism travel agents, we had a luncheon that he spoke at, and selling and marketing New Zealand I mean they all walked out of there buzzing I know, he created more tourists at that lunch than probably any single interaction we’ve had in our time in China, it was great.
The PM will be pleased with his Minister of Tourism!
Tags: John Key, Q&A, Rob FyfeI thought Q&A yesterday ws pretty good with interviewees being Murray McCully and Don Brash.
Was was glad there were no spouses being interviewed this week. I’m still not sure though about having MPs as panelists. Having said that Keith Locke made some useful contributions. In fact one exchange was remarkable for its agreement:
PAUL So we’ve seen Murray McCully he seemed in command of his portfolio, we have to discuss him, any surprises from Murray McCully people what do you think?
KEITH LOCKE – Green MP. Oh it was a pretty standard response and not much there I could disagree with.
Now just think about this. You’ve just had a National Party Minister of Foreign Affairs on, and Keith Locke has said he didn’t hear much he would disagree with!
Murray’s aim is to remove foreign policy as a partisan issue. Looks like he is achieiving that. Mind you good to see, there are stil disagreements on some issues. McCully today announced we will join the US, Canada and Australia in not attending the World Conference Against Racism Review Conference. The original was a nasty unashamed Israel bashing exercise (by countries with far far worse records on racism I might say), and also tends to turn into an attempt to stifle criticism of religions by portraying this as racism. So well done McCully.
Audrey Young thought McCully did well on the interview, blogging:
The interview with Guyon Espiner showed what a strong command McCully has of his portfolio and that he can articulate the values that underpin the Government’s policies.
Also of interest was Keith Locke’s comments on Mt Albert. It sounds like the Greens are going to go all out and seriously try to win it:
THERESE I think we’re all sort of fascinated to watch what happens with the Mt Albert bi-election, I think that’s gonna be a very interesting bi-election, a safe Labour seat but how safe, how much of it is a personal vote for Helen Clark, I mean there was a sizeable comfortable gap for Helen Clark but…
KEITH That’s right and if the Greens win it that’s an extra seat for us.
THERESE You may cost Labour it if you’re right.
KEITH Yes well it’s not gonna change the government so it’d be great for the Greens to have an extra seat and it’s really set up for us because you’ve got the Labour supporting 2.7 billion dollars on 4.5 kilometres of tunnel motorway, National supporting about the same amount a bit less than an over ground version, it’s gonna wipe out a whole pile of houses in Waterview in the electorate and the Greens saying well look put all that aside for a few years and spend it on public transport, I know which way the Mt Albert voters are gonna go. …
THERESE Another day and National also claims that they have increased party membership in the electorate but I do think in bi-elections it comes down to turnout, who can get the vote out, and vote splitting, the Greens running a strong candidate may well cost Labour.
KEITH Well it’s not vote splitting if we win, if we make it a three way race we could win.
It will be very interesting who the Greens choose as theri candidate.
The Don Brash interview was a goodie also. I think we can all accept future tax cuts are gone, when even Don says so:
PAUL What about tax cuts in the medium term tax cuts next year the next round of tax cuts they’re surely a goner?
DON I expect they are, I don’t think the government wants to say that quite yet, but I suspect they are a goner. …
PAUL What about the Super Fund, might they not pay in this year?
DON I think they probably won’t pay in this year, and I think that makes good sense, I mean the Super Fund was a device to ensure that some of the budget surpluses were set aside for the future. If you’ve got a budget deficit the logic of that doesn’t exist.
While I’m sad about future tax cuts probably off the radar for no, the 2008 and 2009 tax cuts combined come to a lot more than those yet to occur. I’m going to blog on this in more detail once I have had some data confirmed.
Tags: Audrey Young, Keith Locke, Mt Albert, Murray McCully, Q&ASome parts of the Goff interview showed he wasnt getting it, but others suggest he is getting it – and in fact may be able to pull off a political coup. Taking the interview in order:
PHIL Well actually it was interesting I went to a meeting of the Rotorua District Council and one of the Councillors go up there in front of all of his colleagues and the Mayor and said look I think the Labour government did a good job, he said I voted National last time, I think you got the big things right but the little things irritated me. Later on in the day he told the Council well he was re-examining his position, but I think that’s right, there were things that you do after nine years in office that irritate people, people think that there’s a need for a change, give the other guys a go and if we don’t like them we can toss them out in three years, that sort of feedback.
PAUL Are you still in denial, it was a massive rejection.
Not a good start. It isn’t just Clark. Labour are still acting as if they did nothing wrong but a couple of minor things. They think just hold their breath and they’ll be back in office in three years as the natural party of government.
PHIL Well my vision for New Zealand is it starts with a decent society affairs society, I grew up on my grandmother’s knee, her husband a war veteran from the first war died in 1934 right in the middle of the Depression, they lost their job, they lost their home, for me Labour was about a decent society that looks after all of its people, that treats people fairly that treats people with dignity and respect, so that’s the core of my political beliefs, and that could well become very relevant again in the next few months as more New Zealanders the Treasury say another 60,000 New Zealanders lose their jobs, people lose their homes and so on. But it’s about more than that, as Minister of Trade it was about having an economy that was innovative, efficient, competitive in the world. As Foreign Minister it was about being proud of your national identity, not kowtowing to any other country but standing up for the things that you believe in, believing that New Zealand is a country of 4.3 million people can still make a difference, and we did, and finally I think it’s about the environment, a sustainable environment, living up to that brand of clean green 100% pure New Zealand.
The personal stuff was good, and the ending was good. But Goff needs to stop talking so much about what he did as a Minister. No one cares any more – the sad reality. For nine years it has been about campaigning on his record, but to win in 2011, it will be ablout campaigning on a new vision.
PAUL Let’s get to the nitty gritty what policies do you think will have to change, for example can I ask you about smacking, for example should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?
PHIL Well my answer to that is no it shouldn’t be a criminal offence or we should not have people following up and prosecuting parents for a smack in that context, but remember 110 out of a 122 MPs voted for that legislation including every member of the National Party.
Now here I give Goff 9/10. He has said a smack for correctional purposes should not be a criminal offence. If he comes out and pledges that Labour will respect the results of the upcoming referendum, he;ll leave National wrong-footed and dramatically brand Goff Labour as different from Clark Labour.
Frankly I am not sure he has the authority to force it onto his caucus. But if he can, then it could be a turning point in his leadership. He needs to take some risks, and committing Labour to respect the results of the referendum would be worth the risk.
PAUL What about the Maori seats, take a stand, there’s 160,000 in Auckland shouldn’t they be able to campaign on their own don’t you think?
PHIL Well that’s the Royal Commission’s argument for it, I’ve got an open mind on that, what I’m saying at this stage is that at least it should have been consulted on, it shouldn’t have been scrapped without any consultation.
This is my criticism of Labour. They will criticise what the Government is doing, but won’t actually say what they would do.
PHIL Oh John’s a very nice guy, I think his strength is that he comes across as a middle New Zealander, he comes across as somebody that people can relate to as a human being, I think that’s good for him, what are his weaknesses, I think that his weaknesses are that the policies that’s he’s pursuing on the advice of Crosby Textor are not what he actually believes, and you can see that for the things that John Key said before he became leader compared to what he’s saying now he’s the leader, whether it’s Iraq or whether it’s a range of different issues, he used to push the party down a right wing path, he’s been told that that’s not good you can never win middle New Zealand that way, he’s created a new face but is that the reality of what underlies the National Party and John Key. The electorate will get to see that in course.
Labour don’t realise that no one outside the beltway cares one fuck about Crosby Textor. And Goff is going to get a nasty surprise if he keeps trying to push that Key is a nasty neo-conservative in drag. It did not work in 2008, and will work even less now.
Overall a pretty good interview. Not great, but with some promise. His statement on the anti-smacking law was excellent, and if he follows up by getting his party to promise to respect the referendum results, then he would put the Government on the back foot, and gain some real momentum for Labour.
Goff traditionally has had some pretty good instincts. He needs to be prepared to break with the past more, and trust his instincts.
UPDATE: NZPA have reported that Goff has clarified his comments and says there is no change to their policy on the law. A pity and lost opportunity – it would have left National looking defensive if he had. Now instead he just reminds people of Labour’s association with it.
Tags: Phil Goff, Q&A, Section 59Some 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.
Tags: Electoral Finance Act, Fran O'Sullivan, Helen Clark, Paul Holmes, Peter Davis, Q&A, Winston FirstThe Herald reports:
The views of Finance Minister Bill English and Prime Minister John Key on when New Zealand will emerge from the recession are in stark contrast.
Mr English said yesterday that he thought New Zealand was “unlikely to aggressively grow out of it”.
But Mr Key says that by this time next year New Zealand would be starting to come out of it “reasonably aggressively”.
Mr Key made his comment on March 22 on TVNZ’s Q & A; Mr English made his comments on the same programme yesterday.
Asked about the difference, Mr English said Mr Key “has always had a very positive view about New Zealand. I certainly wouldn’t want to say he is wrong but he is setting a high hurdle here and it’s our job as a Government to meet those expectations – that’s a feature of John Key’s leadership.”
To some degree the differences are not surprising, as there is a calculated division of roles where the PM is more aspirational and the Finance Minister more pessimistic, as he has to try and get back to a balanced budget over time.
But having said that, it is not helpful to have those different roles expressed quite so bluntly. The Government should have some set lines that all Ministers adhere to on the recession and eventual recovery – such as always talking about a range of scenarios. Now you may have the PM focus more on the more optimistic scenario and the Finance Minister more on the more pessimistic scenario – but you want them sounding like they are talking about the same country!
Tags: Bill English, John Key, Q&AOn Q&A Tomorrow Guyon Espiner is interviewing Bill English and Paul Homes interviews Helen Clark and Peter Davis.
The panel has Mike Moore and Fran O’Sullivan on it.
Tags: Q&AI 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:
TVNZ also has online the transcript of the interview with Judith Collins.
Tags: Laila Harre, Lockwood Smith, Parliament, Paul Holmes, Q&A, Ron Mark, Speaker, Therese ArseneauJust 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.
Tags: Andrew Little, Guyon Espiner, John Key, Paul Holmes, Phil O'Reilly, Q&A, Russel Norman, Therese Arseneau, TVNZ
