Kiwiblog

Matt Nippert from the HoS profiles retiring Green MP Sue Bradford. A long article – here are some extracts:

Greg Fleming, founder and head of the arch-conservative Maxim Institute, has clashed repeatedly with the Green MP in recent years. On smacking and prostitution reform Bradford describes the organisation as a “deadly enemy”, but Fleming says he’s sad to see a fellow ideologue go.

“The thing that’s been delightful about our friendship – and we’ve disagreed over almost everything – is that she’s actually very clear about why she believes what she believes,” says Fleming.

A nice compliment.

She says she had high hopes that Jim Anderton’s breakaway party could shatter the male-led old boys’ club of national politics. “But of course in New Labour I was right back into an old patriarchal model – with bells on.”

Bradford quit in 1990, barely a year after she had joined, and refused to take part in the Alliance because of bad blood with Anderton. She joined the Greens in 1998 only after they split from the Alliance.

(Asked about his brief political liaison with Bradford, Jim Anderton declined to comment.)

Sue just got out early. Jim made very clear later on that he would leave unless complete control of the party was ceded to him. McCarten and Harre refused, so he bailed.

While Bradford was able to eventually recruit both John Key and Helen Clark into her drive to remove the Section 59 defence, resulting in a resounding 113-7 victory when the third reading was passed, her inability to connect with the public has been labelled a “catastrophic failure of propaganda” by a source who previously worked for the Greens.

“It ended up being labelled a bill against smacking, which it never was,” says the source.

It did not start off like that. The original bill merely removed S59. But the final bill was a bill against smacking. It basically said you can use reasonable force in numerous situations except correction.

Turei defends the change, saying it has been a conscious process.

She does not openly criticise Bradford, but it’s impossible to hide Turei’s differences with the MP who unsuccessfully battled her for the leadership.

Turei explains the evolution in Green thinking: “I don’t want to
exclude people who don’t hold that old left-wing culture, that can’t relate to that old 1970s hard-core working-class struggle.”

While Turei insists that Green policy remains unchanged, she supports moving the party away from under Labour’s wing and into a position where they could – conceivably – work with National in the future.

Says Bradford: “I’ve always been clear that if we wanted to be a party that would enter coalition with National, I would leave it.

As I have said numerous time. The Greens will never choose a National-led Govt over a Labour-led Govt. But they need to be able to hold open that possibility to stop Labour treating the like a doormat.

The most I would ever expect to see between the Greens and National is an agreement to abstain on supply and confidence.

THERE’S ALSO the possibility of a return to politics – albeit not in Wellington. Auckland Supercity mayoral candidate and Manukau Mayor Len Brown has expressed an interest in having her around the council table.

“I do support Len Brown for mayor and think he’s a great guy, and I live in Manukau at the moment,” she says, non-committally.

“Standing for council would be a big job and I think the process of forming tickets and who will be on those tickets will be tense. I don’t want to cut off the option, I’m quite open to it, but that does not a campaign or ticket make.”

Not yet, but Deputy Mayor of Auckland must be a tempting prize for a woman who quit national politics partly because she never got to be a Minister. I can’t imagine Sue would want to just be a Councillor, so if she is on the ticket, it will be fair to assume she has been promised the Deputy spot.

Liberation has some extracts from a radio interview with Sue Bradford on the Greens:

Sue Bradford: That tension is always there in our Green Party, as it is in green parties around the world… I think that some of the people on the more blue-green, or conservative side of the Green Party will be feeling probably quite relieved that I won’t be a Green MP anymore.

Yet Green party supporters on this blog attacked me when I suggested Sue’s departure pointed to some splits in the party. They insisted it was just about her not winning the co-leadership.

Julian Robbins: Is the Green Party losing its radical edge?…. Is it coming into a sort of comfortable middle age, a professional phase where it tries to be less risk-taking?

Sue Bradford: I think that’s absolutely true…. We did have a real radical cutting edge [in 1999]… I think that we have, to some extent we have begun to lose a little bit of that differentiation with the other parties in Parliament – in terms of being a little less willing to take risks; a little less willing to be radical and “out there”; and the sense that too many political parties – including perhaps our own – are focused on winning the middle ground voters and not seeing the voters out to the sides – in our case, out to the left, and to the environmental left, as being as important as the voters that are in the middle and to the right.

Not exactly a vote of confidence in the leadership.

Julian Robbins: Is the party really ‘fine’? I would have thought that at a time when the Labour Party is at a lower ebb and climate change as an issue as an item is at the top of the agenda, that the Green Party should perhaps be doing much better than it is. Why isn’t it doing much better?
Sue Bradford: …I’ve just given some of the ideas that I have about that. I think that part of the reason for that [lack of political success is] is that we’ve lost the radical edge and we’ve lost some of the points of differentiation with the other parties…

Bradford’s valedictory speech could be interesting.

Anthony Hubbard has a nice exclusive in the SST:

MP SUE Bradford threatened to resign from the Greens if they became a swing party which could go with either National or Labour, party sources have revealed.

Bradford’s resignation last month was not just because she was disappointed at her defeat by Metiria Turei for the job of woman co-leader, as Bradford claimed.

It also reflected her disillusionment with what she saw as greater readiness by co-leaders Turei and Russel Norman to deal with National. Bradford, said a party source, “wanted to stay staunch”, and wanted the Green Party to remain left-wing.

I don’t think Sue had much to worry about there. Of course her definition of left-wing may be very different to most.

When Sue resigned, I said it indicated that things were not too harmonious in the Greens, and certain supporters howled at me for daring to suggest this.

Bradford’s resignation follows a serious disagreement with the party over strategy and ideology. During the campaign for co-leadership, according to party sources, Bradford was accused of attempting to blackmail the Greens with her threat of resignation.

Blackmail is a strong word. Was that another MP who used it?

It is understood she told the caucus in either late 2007 or early 2008 that she would quit the party if it went further down the track as a swing party, ready to go with either of the two big parties. Her resignation was simply following through on that threat, a source said.

But they never mentioned this at the press conference.

The list MP was originally a Marxist radical and spent many years in militant activity for the unemployed. Although she abandoned Marxism, she never quit being a radical.

I thought she was more Maoist than Marxist. One has to keep the different communist sects distinct. Locke and Norman are also former Marxists.

She and a minority in the party fought the trend to widen the appeal of the Greens to include a broad cross-section of voters, including National supporters.

If the Greens only take votes off Labour, it doesn’t help the left a lot.

Anyway maybe Sue will elaborate in her valedictory speech to Parliament.

An interesting blog post from Nandor Tanczos:

Sue Bradford announced last week that she is leaving Parliament, citing disappointment at losing the co-leadership contest. It’s an honest statement and she is to be admired for that. She did not add that she is unhappy at the direction the Green Party is headed, but there is no doubt that she would have steered a very different course from that intended by the current leadership. Perhaps she saw little place for herself in the new, unaligned, Green Party.

Nandor makes clear there must be considerable tension over direction and leadership.

Sue was a sometimes controversial figure, but there is no doubt that she has played a key role in the early development of the Parliamentary Greens. She has also played an important role in Parliament, but that is all about to change. Despite her brave face, life after Parliament will be hard to adjust to. Once gone, she is unlikely to get any support from the Greens during this difficult transition, and I hope that her personal support system is strong. She will need it.

Ouch. To be fair almost all former MPs find it pretty hard after Parliament.

The Old Left element of the party, once so influential, will be scarcely represented once Sue has left. Keith Locke, considered by many to be the archetypical communist, is actually nothing of the sort. While he is the oldest member of the Green caucus, his mental youthfulness and his sense of empathy have prevented him from becoming sufficiently doctrinaire. With this new influx, the Green Party is likely to become a more emphatically ‘green-wing’ party than has been possible in the past.

A point I made.

I was interviewed for TV3 News on Saturday about what Bradford’s departure may mean politically, along with Andrew Little, Chris Trotter and Matt McCarten.

I took the view that it was potentially beneficial to the Greens as replacing Bradford with Clendon strengthens their environmental brand and if they are smart they could get as much as 10% of the vote if they position themselves as “greening” the Government no matter if it is National or Labour.

I stressed that the Greens will always support a Labour-led Government over a National-Led Government if one is possible. But if only National can form a Government, the Greens might be able to go beyond their current co-operation agreement to an abstain on supply and confidence agreement.

I understand Matt McCarten saw the move as potentially beneficial to the Greens also, and their ability to work on both sides of the aisle so to speak.

Andrew Little saw it as good for Labour, as Labour could pick up social justice voters from the Greens. I responded that this doesn’t actually help Labour win office, just as National picking up ACT voters doesn’t. And it can actually backfire if the Greens drop below 5% (as they have done in last night’s TVNZ poll). Also I have some doubts that Goff-led Labour will be more convincing to social justice voters than the Greens.

The real benefit to Labour would be if the Greens pick up some centrist voters who were previously put off by Bradford. For that will grow the left’s vote.

Chris Trotter sees the departure of Bradford as being the death of the left as the Greens go middle class.

He’s done a follow-up post today, which has some interesting observations:

The dangers inherent in the Greens’ educative model are demonstrated in their policy on the Treaty of Waitangi. Though the signing of the Treaty, like all historical events, is the subject of multiple, and often sharply contradictory, interpretations, the Greens have adopted an unequivocal and quite inflexible interpretation of the Treaty’s meaning. So much so that when some of their own members, unconvinced by the official party line, openly questioned it’s accuracy, they were deemed ineligible to stand as Green candidates by the Party leadership.

That the dissidents’ views on the Treaty of Waitangi were actually more in tune with those of the majority of Pakeha New Zealanders was an “inconvenient truth” to be overcome by – yes, you guessed it – a taxpayer-funded traveling road-show which would take the “true” meaning of the Treaty directly to the ignorant Pakeha masses and educate them into full conformity with the Greens’ historical interpretation.

This authoritarian aspect of the Greens’ political style is nowhere more apparent than in their so-called “consensus-based decision-making” constitution. Described as a means of “seeking positions that the maximum number of people can support, rather than a simple majority”, what these rules actually make possible is the ability of a tiny minority to over-rule and/or subvert the will of the majority.

In practical terms, it allows the leadership of the party, either directly or through their surrogates, to prevent the membership from directly challenging the Green Party caucus’s political strategy and tactics. Rather than promoting the open contest of conflicting political options, it fosters the cobbling together of compromises. Also, by imposing enormous emotional pressure on dissenters, it drives opposition below the surface of party affairs – a situation which, once again, privileges those in senior positions, and makes rank-and-file challenges to official party policy extremely difficult.

That is an interesting analysis of how the much vaunted consensus system actually can favour the hierarchy.

Sue Bradford only announced her resignation on Friday, but already Len Brown has a job for her, as reported by NewstalkZB:

Len Brown says he would relish the opportunity to work alongside Sue Bradford on the Auckland Super City Council.

The Manukau mayor has thrown his hat into the ring to lead the new local body, and says the Green MP would make a great councillor.

Mr Brown says he enjoys Ms Bradford’s company and thinks she is a great leader.

If Len is elected, he appoints the Deputy Mayor so that may be Sue Bradford. Of course Sue doesn’t like it when she isn’t leader, so she may have designs on the top job, not just the Deputy.

Imagine all the worthy projects Sue can think up for the ratepayers of Auckland to fund.

The NZ Herald editorial:

Green MP Sue Bradford’s sudden retirement from Parliament yesterday reflects little credit on her party. With typical candour she declares her decision was prompted by the party’s co-leadership election a few months ago, which she lost to a young Maori, Metiria Turei.

Normally this would sound like sour grapes but whatever one thinks of Ms Bradford’s politics, she does not seem to suffer from wounded pride or excessive self-importance. She is remembered for the indignities she was willing to suffer in the years before entering Parliament when she was pictured in every small protest sit-in, usually being carried away by the police.

This is true, but I still regard it as a bad look for an MP to bail out of Parliament just a few months after they got elected.

Being elected to Parliament is a huge privilege, and MPs are elected for a three year term. It is one of the downsides of MMP that List MPs especially are being shuffled into and out of Parliament outside the electoral cycle.

I think no MP should bail out of Parliament early, unless it is for ill health, or to take up an appointment.

When Jeanette Fitzsimons relinquished the female co-leadership this year Ms Bradford was clearly the strongest candidate to replace her, and she knew it. Ms Turei was barely known outside the party and Sue Kedgley, another previous campaigner who has found her feet in Parliament, seemed not to be interested.

I’m not sure I agree. First of all Turei was deemed the favourite to win at a very early stage. Secondly the skills at being a good legislator (which Bradford was) are not necessarily the skills of leadership. Leadership is about taking people with you – and I think Bradford has never shown much in the way of skills there.

So why did Ms Bradford miss out? It is reasonable to conclude the Greens wanted a different face. They are a party sensitive to demographic character, as evidenced by co-leadership from different genders. Ms Turei offered youth and ethnic diversity. In the four months since her election she has not shown much else.

A party that puts appearances before substance is making difficulties for itself.

The Herald overlooks another issue – maybe the biggest issue. Bradford has rarely been involved with environmental issues. Her causes are social justice. In fact some in the Greens had grumbled her fights for so called social justice diminished the Greens branding as an environmental party.

Russel Norman (who like Bradford used to be a communist – Marxist not Maoist though) also has a background more on the social justice side, than the environmental side. Since becoming co-leader his focus has changed – but nevertheless I think a combination of Norman and Bradford would have weakened the Greens brand as an environmental party – and I suspect this was a factor in Turei’s victory.

Sue Bradford has announced she is quitting Parliament on the 30th of October.

It’s basically because she lost the co-leadership election to Metiria Turei. Things are obviously not that happy in the Green camp.

More later.

UPDATE:

Some thoughts on Sue. Before she entered Parliament I thought she would be an atrocious MP – someone like Pam Corkery who was only good at protest and unsuited to actually making a positive (as in positive for their point of view) contribution.

I was wrong. She was in her first two terms a very effective MP. She was named Backbencher of the Year in 2000 by the NZ Herald. On select committee she asked useful and intelligent questions. She didn’t grandstand much. And she actually stood up a bit for small businesses – reasonably sympathetic to not burying them in compliance costs.

She also was a successful backbench legislator, getting three laws passed.

The anti-smacking law was one of those bills. Now I don’t think any worse of Sue because I disagree with the substance of the law. There are many laws I don’t agree with, and I don’t expect Green Party MPs to be promoting that many laws I like.

But where I am highly critical of her, is that she was fundamentally dishonest in her promotion of the law change. I think her rhetoric at times was as disgraceful as some of her opponents. And she basically lied when she said the law change was not about making it illegal to smack, when it was. She has since made quite clear that it was not just about stopping child abuse, but about legislating against correctional smacking.

If Bradford had promoted her law change more honestly, my previously high opinion of her would have remained. But I think she did herself and the country a disservice on that issue – and again I am not talking about the law change itself, but the way she conducted it.

Regardless I hope she has a happy career outside Parliament. Maybe she will stand for Mayor of the Auckland Super City?

This has exposed some unhappiness within the Greens. No matter how much you sugar coat it, an MP bailing out of Parliament with over two years to go is a bad look. Lots of MPs lose leadership contests, do not get selected for Cabinet, are not ranked as high as they want.  Almost all see their term through.

There is a wider issue, which I have alluded to before also. Green voters voted for a Green list with Jeanette as Leader and Bradford as an MP. I am not a fan of having significant changes so soon after an election. It almost stretches to false pretences. If there is to be a managed change of leadership it should be in the final year of the parliamentary terms, not just a few months after an electoral mandate has been granted.

On Wed 26 August the user GarfieldNZ twittered:

@suebr is STILL a good candidate for NZ’s first political assassination. (watch sue run to the Police because of a death threat, stupid cow)

For those who do not know Twitter, the reference to @suebr means it will get seen by user “suebr” which is Sue Bradford herself.

While I am not sure I would classify the tweet as a literal death threat, even implicit threats of violence should have no part in our discourse.

Dave at Big News names the user as Henk van Helmond, formerly of CYFSWatch, based on some good detective work.

The media door-stopped van Hermond and his response is reported by the Herald:

CYFSwatch is run by Henk van Helmond, who yesterday wrote that though the threats had come from his account “it seems my password was hacked”.

Yeah, Right.

IrishBill at The Standard dives into the gutter as usual and tries to link the actions of van Hermond to the anti-EFA campaign and me personally and sees something sinister in the fact I did not report the original Sunday News story, implying somehow I condone such threat of violence.

As usual he could not be more wrong. I’m not sure if I have revealed this publicly before, but in 2007 there were similar threats made by someone with the CYFSWatch site (and my response is here) – maybe even the same person. Back then, their identities were tightly kept.

Someone from CYFSWatch commented on my site. Due to the threats that had made against Bradford, I passed on their identifying information (IP address) to Sue Bradford’s office and explained the Police could use this to trace them.

Bradford’s office in time passed this into the Police, and they contacted me and I provided the Police with information which allowed them to obtain from the ISP, the identity of the person holding the account which had made the threats.

As I said I don’t think I’ve ever blogged this info before (I think I did mention it once in a comment) but as someone too cowardly to even post under their own name is trying to link me to condoning or encouraging this sort of activity, I need to set the record straight.

UPDATE: Idiot/Savant also jumps into the gutter. Again someone who hides behind anonymity tries to smear someone who does not. You never tend to get these sort of smears from people who blog under their own name. That is because blogging under your own name forces you to think about consequences (well except for Whale!) of what you say on your own reputation.

NZPA reports:

The Government will consider adopting a Green MP’s bill to prevent confusing and ambiguous referendum questions, Prime Minister John Key said today. …

Today Green MP Sue Bradford said she was hoping her bill to prevent confusing questions would be drawn out of the next ballot.

The Citizens Initiated Referenda (Wording of Question) Amendment Bill required the Clerk of the House to allow only referendum questions which were “not ambiguous, complex, leading or misleading”.

Where a question was not allowed a person would be able to re-write it until it met the criteria.

Firstly I am suspicious about all this sudden concern in the wording of referenda questions. There have been far more ambigious questions in the past. I suspect this is politicians finding reasons in advance to ignore the result of the referendum – because they know the public do not like the new law.

But putting aside the suspicious rationale, it is worth considering the merits of Bradford’s bill. On the face of it, it would make referenda more useful and hopefully harder to ignore.

But it does give huge powers to the Clerk of the House. Now the Clerk is not the sort of person who would abuse such powers but Bradford’s bill is asking her to make subjective judgements, not objective judgements.  It is very subjective as to what is leading or misleading.  Any decisions made by the Clerk could lead to political attacks on that office – and that would be regrettable.

Even though all the pundits had long been picking a victory for Turei, the co-leader election result seems to have hit Sue Bradford hard. Both TV channels highlighted her absence yesterday from the Conference, and today she twittered:

Heading north to prepare for the week ahead, no shortage of work to be done but no question have lost a little heart & strength, for now

Even though politically Turei was always the more logical choice, you can understand it would be hard to lose a leadership contest to someone in their 30s, whose involvement in serious politics has been less than a decade. Two decades ago Bradford was the New Labour Party President and in 2000 the NZ Herald awarded her “Backbencher of the Year” – two years before Turei even became an MP.

Bradford will no doubt continue on for this term of Parliament. It will be interesting to see if she stands again in 2011.

Bryce Edwards has a very detailed and comprehensive post on Sue Bradford, one of the contenders for the Green co-leader without a penis position. I recommend people read the full post, but could not resist one quote from Bradford in the early 19902:

she found the Greens to be either ignorant of or hostile to worker and union issues. She describes two kinds of Green: hippie dropouts content to make pots, be creative and smoke dope; and those who are quite right wing, “who think it’s fine to send the unemployed out to work that is environmentally sound like cutting bush tracks” ‘ (Leget, 1993: p.68).

Heh.

The results of the election will be known later today. The market is strongly picking Turei.

Well according to Sue Bradford.

You should have seen the faces in the audience at Backbenches last night, when Wallace Chapman asked the panel how bad they thought the current recession would be.

Sue answered that she thought it would be worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s, and further that it would last for the rest of her lifetime!

I guess the bright side is that a never ending great depression would be excellent for reducing carbon emissions.

As predicted in the newspapers yesterday, Jeanette Fitzsimons has announced she is stepping down as Green co-leader in June.

The Greens are going to have to think hard about their choice and strategy. They only have to drop 2% to be out of Parliament, and they failed to significantly attract votes in 2008 from what I call “ethical lefties” who were appalled by what Labour had done, but didn’t want to vote centre-right. In the end many more ex-Labour voters went to National instead of the Greens.

Elections for the new co-leader will happen on 30 May and 1 June.

Sounds like a good futures market for ipredict!

Sue Bradford and Metira Turei have both confirmed they will stand for the position.

The Sunday Star-Times says:

GREEN PARTY co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons is about to announce her resignation from the post. She will stand down to allow a new co-leader time to make her mark before the 2011 election.

The veteran Green, co-leader since 1995, is expected to serve out the parliamentary term as a list MP.

No real surprise, but earlier than expected. Seems weird to announce your retirement just weeks after the election. I guess if she had become a Minister, it would have been delayed.

Fitzsimons’ departure will leave a difficult problem for the party. She is a widely liked and admired politician, with appeal across the political spectrum.

Yep. You very very rarely hear a bad word about her.

The SST looks at her possible sucessors:

Neither Bradford nor Turei has similar appeal. Bradford, once a fiery Marxist radical, has softened her image, but her sponsorship of the anti-smacking bill drew much flak.

Turei has the progressive appeal of being a Maori woman, but she may be seen as too radical to have wide appeal.

It is not known if Catherine Delahunty, elected to parliament at last year’s general election, will be a candidate for the co-leadership. Her lack of parliamentary experience could count against her.

Oh please please please let the Greens select Catherine Delahunty as co-leader. If she stands, I urge all Kiwiblog readers to join the Green Party and vote for her

Sue Bradford is a very competent and hard working MP. She impresses on select committees. But her anti-smacking law has (rightfully) tainted her public image, and she is not from the environmental wing of the party. Bradford would be a risk – a Bradford/Norman leadership coudl look like the Greens had turned into the Alliance.

I think Metira Turei is their best bet. She is very smart, and while she is a radical (former anarchist), she has been pretty restrained as an MP.

Voting is now open in the 2008 Kiwiblog Awards. They close at 3 pm Friday 3 October. You can vote in the sidebar.

The most popular nominations in each category are:

MP of the Year

• Rodney Hide – not even a finalist last year but a popular nominee for his campaign to expose Peters, amongst other things
• Bill English – a repeat nominee – his year of picking apart the EFA was often cited
• Pita Sharples – has become the Maori MP, Pakeha love to love, and helped position the Maori Party as Kingmakers.
• Phil Goff – a China FTA plus a possible United States FTA endears Goff to many readers

Labour MP of the Year

• Phil Goff was nominated by many but disqualified as the 2007 winner
• Michael Cullen cited by many for his mastery of the House
• David Cunliffe also impressed several with his determination to improve the Health sector
• Winston Peters was nominated multiple times in this category, so who are we to stand in the way of the public!

National MP of the Year

• Simon Power had the most nominations, having impressed with his constant highlighting of law & order problems, and also superb Chairmanship of the Privileges Committee.
• John Key is still the country’s Preferred PM
• Bill English was disqualified having won this category last year
• Gerry Brownlee also often nominated for his take no prisoners methods in the House

Minor Party MP of the Year

• Rodney Hide a popular nominee for many
• Pita Sharples had 12 nominations in this category – will it be Minister Sharples in a few weeks?
• Sue Bradford has had a quieter year than 2007 when she was runner up, but still gained some nominations
• Hone Harawira also gained multiple nominations – the once reviled radical has been impressing a few people

Press Gallery of the Journalist

• Audrey Young – Winston still has not apologised to her, but she was a favourite nominee amongst Kiwiblog readers
• Duncan Garner – his “straight talking” doesn’t always win friends in Parliament, but has proven popular with some readers
• Guyon Espiner – cool, clam and collected – the most viewed gallery reporter has some fans
• Colin Espiner – the blogging journalist has many online fans

Public Servant of the Year

• Grant Liddell – the SFO Director was a multiple nominee for doing what was right, regardless of what the Government wanted.
• Owen Glenn – okay not technically a public servant, but many nominated him for having performed a public service.
• Helena Catt – the Electoral Commission CEO wins the sympathy and nominations of many for having to try and work out what the Electoral Finance Act actually means, and for her willingness to criticise the law she has to enforce.

Enjoy voting.

Steve Braunias hands out his awards for 2008 viewing on Parliament TV. Some of them are:

1. Biggest Wretch: Winston Peters
2. Biggest Flirts: Margaret Wilson & Rodney Hide
3. Best Valedictory Speech: Katherine Rich
4. Best Smile: Sue Bradford
5. Best Impersonation of Eternal Youth: David Parker
6. Cruellest Wit: Michael Cullen
7. Best Debater: Michael Cullen
8. Most Acute Ears: Bill English
9. Best Reply: Tau Henare

That reminds me I must start the traditional Kiwiblog poll for Best MP shortly.

This is on workplace issues. Panelists:

• Trevor Mallard (Lab)
• Sue Bradford (Greens)
• Kate Wilkinson (National)
• Peter Brown (NZ First)

Questions

1. What changes to KiwiSaver and why?
2. What changes to ACC and why?
3. Will you allow grievance free probationary periods?
4. Will you remove the union monopoly on on collective bargaining?
5. Will you change the “relevant daily pay” provisions of the Holidays Act

Kate Wilkinson

1. No policy released. Key has indicated some modest changes to be announced in due course. Against Labour’s KiwiSaver amendment passed this morning that makes total remuneration packages illegal
2. Will investigate opening the work account to competition so incentives are there for good safety practices, and allow employers to insure for a higher stand of cover. Also will have an independent disputes tribunal for ACC to be fair to claimants
3. Yes a 90 day trial period for businesses with less than 20 employees.
4. Yes will allow a collective agreement with no union. Making employees form an incorporated society just to negotiate a collective contract is cumbersome.
5. The Holidays Act is like the blackboard scribblings in A Beautiful Mind. Will appoint business and union reps to a working group to review the Act, esp for relevant daily pay definition. Not to reduce rights but make law more clear.
6. General comment – important to be fair to all parties – no major changes but some improvements

Peter Brown

1. Want to make KiwiSaver compulsory
2. Do not support competition to ACC. Does support an independent disputes tribunal.
3. Missed
4. Passionate about allowing employees to do a collective contract without forming a union, but NZ First does not have policy.
5. Thinks law has settled down but willing to be persuaded otherwise.

Sue Bradford

1. Support Government, think it is great.
2. Oppose any moves to competition. Want more emphasis on equitable compensation regardless of how someone is impaired.
3. No.
4. No.
5. No.

Trevor Mallard

1. Missed but I guess no major changes
2. Against
3. Current Act has probationary periods (but grievances still possible)
4. Against
5. Missed

What was interesting is that every speaker against Trevor just spoke to policies and issues while Trevor sounded like he was blogging at The Standard and was referring to Crosby/Textor and the like.

Jeanette Fitzsimons expects her upcoming sixth term in Parliament to be her last. She will probably stand down as co-leader in 2010.

Metira Turei would have to be the favourite to suceed her. A couple of years ago I would have put Sue Bradford as favourite, but her anti-smacking law has branded her in a way which would be risky for the Greens.

Went with a couple of mates to Back Benches again last night. Three of the MPs had been on before – Jacqui Dean, Hone Harawira, Sue Bradford and newcomer Doug Woolerton.

Spent quite a bit of time talking about P. Jacqui and Doug pushing a hard line approach on P and gangs. Hone made the point to some applause neither of them would know a gang if one bit them in the arse. I did think Sue Bradford misjudged things by saying that P was a distraction and people should be more concerned about peak oil and global warming. I think that shows a certain disconnect from society.

Very amusing was discussion of Mt Eden prison and Sue and Hone talking about their stays there, or as Hone put it – his bed and breakfast visit.

I did some minor heckling but nothing in comparison to a certain other blogger who really was loud when he wanted to be! I did like (if I can say so) my suggestion that the solution to P should be to set up a P emissions trading scheme for it

The funniest part of the night for me was when chatting to one of the other regulars, who can only be described as a stunningly attractive blond. I introduced her to my friend (Hunting Man), and it was only when he mentioned his job that she pointed out they had actually met a short while ago at a business meeting. Much ribbing followed of Hunting Man for managing to forget such an, umm, unforgettable person.

The show is still good fun.  A few people have mentioned though that it tries to fit too much in and the debates get cut a bit short. I think this is a valid criticism, and if I was looking to change things I would consider getting rid of the pre-recorded segment where they look in an MPs office. The novelty is starting to wear off!

I am in danger of getting addicted to Back Benches, even though Tim Selwyn still isn’t a fan. I actually like the lighter side such as poking through an MP’s office.

I like being able to watch the show live while drinking and eating at the Backbencher. And this week the MPs didn’t interject so much, which made it better I though. The MPs on Wednesday were Moana Mackey, Chester Borrows, Ron Mark and Sue Bradford.

They encourage three audience questions to the MPs during the show, and when there seemed to be a lack of volunteers, I agreed to ask a question to Ron Mark.

Now I actually get on very well with Ron, having worked with him in Government in the 1990s,  and I admire his loyalty to his Leader even though I think it is misplaced. But that didn’t stop Ron immediately loudly exclaiming that I was a National plant as I got up to ask my question, and so it made good theatre.

I though I asked a very fair, not at all loaded question, just inquiring whether the MPs thought it was a good thing or a bad thing that NZ had a Foreign Minister who was against foreign trade deals, against foreign investment and against foreigners being able to come and live in NZ

Ron said they were not against any of those things, they just wanted smarter investment, smarter trade etc, Wallace (the host) then asked me the three questions from the NZ First ad.  I happily said yes I support the China FTA.  Then he asked if I supported selling the NZ dairy industry overseas.  I was a bit puzzled by that one because as I said, I wasn’t aware it was for sale, and if so who was selling it.  And how would a sale work – are we actually talking of moving all the cows to Japan or something? Finally I concluded that I think the cows are happier in NZ.

I thought Moana Mackey did very well- relaxed and on message.  I did hope though that when they asked her does she think the Diana inquest got it right, she would proclaim no, no Prince Philip really did murder her. Chester Borrows also good – supporting the FTA, and carefully tip-toeing through the issue of Winston. Ron Mark was on the receiving end of most of it, but as usual was the happy battler. Sue Bradford was fairly subdued, but got good cheers from the large contingent of Green supporters.

So was lots of fun, and was nice the MPs stayed around for a while to chat with the people in the BB.

I can’t be bothered doing the normal debate on the stupidity of laws which prevent willing employees from earning extra money on Good Friday or Easter Sunday. Those who believe it is their job to “force” people not to work will never be persaded I accept. They probably opposed Saturday shopping also.

But what I do want to touch on is this reported statement by Green MP Sue Bradford:

Meanwhile, Green Party industrial relations spokeswoman Sue Bradford said last week the party would like to see the Department of Labour given the power to close businesses for the day if they broke the law, rather than the current $1000 fine.

She wants the state to have the power to close businesses for the day, rather than just fine them.  Okay – how would this work when the Greens obtain power.

Will staff be arrested by Police if they refuse to stop serving customers? Will customers be tear gassed if they don’t stop buying goods at a store Sue has ordered closed? Or will Department of Labour inspectors just put up barbed wire fences around offending businesses?