2008

14th August 2008

Telling Whose Stories?

After a week in which Labour got its campaign themes dominating the news - through a Labour sympathiser acting as an agent provocateur and taping National MPs - a lull descended over the capital. The Olympics may have had something to do with it.

National got its turn later in the week: revelations about Massey University running a course in witchcraft hit the headlines. Then came proposals for the Department of Conservation to run some sort of rebranding campaign. A spokeswoman blathered about this being so NZers can “tell our stories” was probably something about national identity in there as well. There usually is these days.

Neither has been treated as explosively as last week’s tapes. There have been dire hints another tape exists: Labour MPs again seem to know something about this, which is odd given the professed lack of party involvement in the tapes. There has also been an outbreak of renewed lip-smacking from Govt MPs about the leakages from National which led to the whole “Hollow Men” saga.

In the weeks before the current recess, a handful of MPs taunted the Nats with the prospect of revelations about who was actually behind the leaked Don Brash emails. Rumours along these lines have continued to swirl during the break.

Negative, dirty politics? You bet. Being deliberately stirred up? Of course. How far this will go remains to be seen. It is reminiscent of the way, two years ago, the rumour mill about Brash’s private life was cranked up, in a fairly orchestrated way. It’s the way politics seems to be played at the moment.

7th August 2008

Failed Rhetoric Of The Past

Labour landed some hits on National this week, and not all of them were due to illicit taping of senior National MPs. But in the backwash from those tapes, National got pulled off the ground which it had established and onto Labour’s ground.

It is not just that the taped conversations gave fuel to the “secret agenda” narrative Labour has been trying to get airborne for months now. A big part of Key’s appeal is he does not get into interminable arguments about what happened 15 or 20 years ago. Key has - until now - been able to circumvent all this, by a combination of focusing on the future, and the opportunities for NZ, along with the fact he simply wasn’t around during the 1980s-1990s.

It has also been a major source of frustration on the Labour side; hence the tendency to label Key with any bad thing from National’s past (he has been accused of being both Muldoon and Ruth Richardson, which is a somewhat difficult feat to pull off).
And the more Labour has talked about what happened way back when, the more it looked out of touch with today’s worries.

It is getting grubby now. Clark at her Monday press conference, asked whether she thought this election would be dirtier than we are used to in NZ. Her reply was in her experience elections are pretty dirty anyway. Which in its way, is as revealing as anything which emerged from National on those tapes. But whoever was behind the illicit taping, it worked. National was, for the first time in a while, on the back foot, forced to fight on Labour’s ground.
 

31st July

Third Party Risk

“Ours is a record of practising what we preach, unlike the founder of the Act Party, who was happy alongside the former Labour Prime Minister David Lange to have secret trust accounts in their names earnings massive commissions, which we are happy to disclose. Apparently for Act and the Labour party – before the media – that is totally acceptable.”

That was the then-Treasurer, Winston Peters, in the House on 11 June 1997. How things have changed. Peters though insists the Spencer Trust does not actually have anything to do with NZ First. It just happens to be run by his brother.

It would be fascinating to see the trust deed of the Spencer Trust, but it will have been shoved into a very large, cast iron filing cabinet with tough locks and a difficult-to-operate reference system. And then dropped to the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

All small parties have a problem with fund raising. Larger parties tend to have a bigger pool of reliable people who can do the fund raising away from the party policy-makers. And those policy makers tend to take a dim view of donors pushing particular policies. There are, for example, recorded instances of frosty exchanges between pushy donors and numerous previous National leaders, including Holyoake, Muldoon and English.

Smaller parties have a smaller talent pool, and are also usually broke. The Chinese walls, if they exist, become semi-permeable membranes. The Peters’ row is not really surprising. The only surprise is it hasn’t happened sooner - or to more than one small party.
 

24th July 2008

Questions Over Winston

Question time has often had its bizarre moments, but the series of questions from loyal NZ First MPs this week was a new twist. With leader Winston Peters away on a Foreign Affairs job, all the NZ First MPs lined up to ask Helen Clark about Peters. What does the PM think about our charismatic and handsome Foreign Minister who is doing a wonderful job and is an all round good egg was the general thrust of the questions.

The PM replies along the lines the Foreign Minister is indeed charismatic and handsome and she thinks he’s not doing too bad a job at all, really, and thank-you for asking. The exchanges were genteel and verged on the slightly surreal in a debating chamber loaded with a higher level than usual of the normal thunder, tension and general yahooing.

Peters himself, of course, was merrily doing interviews from Singapore with everyone who asked, so he could slag off the media for covering the story at all. On Monday he did look tired and rattled in a way we haven’t seen before, but by mid-week he’d recovered his poise.

Peters must be on at least his ninth life, and this one looks as though it might be a short one. Yet it is possible the acres and acres of coverage given to the story may rebound in his favour. We’re a small place, not a lot happens here, and so given a real story there is a tendency for NZ media to go into overkill.

What makes it such an essential story though is Peters’ history of railing against anonymous donations and the role of big money in politics. It makes this an issue of accountability – and also what makes it so damaging for him and NZ First.
 

17th July 2008

What’s Wrong With These Pictures?

So. Tony Veitch is Helen Clark’s business to comment on, but she can’t possibly give a view on whether or not her Foreign Affairs Minister took money from someone who wants a plum overseas appointment.

Winston Peters himself, meanwhile - international diplomat as he is - responds to a question from an overseas reporter with all the restraint and aplomb you would expect of someone in his position, beginning with “listen, sunshine…”

National - with “Big Nicky (Hager) is Watching You” warnings flashing on computer screens every time an MP or staffer posts an email - is visibly restraining its glee someone else is in trouble over the contents of an email.
Thus far, though, no one from any party seems to have raised the security issue around how the emails from Owen Glenn got into the public eye. Another job for those private investigators who were so much in the public eye three years ago.

The Greens, meanwhile, criticise suggestions NZ should adopt the Australian approach to emissions trading. The party points out the Aussies are both (a) closer to their Kyoto targets than NZ and (b) adopting a much looser emissions regime than they should be. The fact both can be true tells you all you need to know about Kyoto.

Every economist agrees - a rarity in itself - the economy is in a recession, yet Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard still is unlikely to cut interest rates until September.

10th July 2008

The Isle Is Full Of Noises

Dear old Bill Shakespeare could certainly have turned his quill to NZ’s current scene. And not just the line from Taming of the Shrew about “A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie: I love thee well, in that thou likest it not,” which does seem to capture the contrary nature of Winston Peters rather well.

It’s the Winter of Discontent theme Helen Clark was keen to emphasise this week, only not in so many words, given Richard III came to a rather sticky end. She’s starting to look nervously over her shoulder though. Her Caucus is still milling around her in a fearful huddle, but it only takes some enterprising soul to mutter “Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers!” and screw their courage to the sticking place for the Labour caucus to go all Jacobean Tragedy on us. Not at all difficult to see Phil Goff or David Cunliffe doing a particularly insufferable “lend me your ears” speech.

And the Nats? It’s a case of tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow, when it comes to policy. Its been called the drip-feed method but thus far it’s all drips and no feed, with Shane Ardern – who would make a fine Bottom the Weaver from Midsummer Night’s Dream - the latest to apparently stray into policy areas where there is, as yet, no policy. (Ardern would, though, probably prefer the Stratford in his electorate to the Shakespearean one).

With the polls as they are, though, the Nats can muse “to be or not to be” all they like. When they do let out policy, thus far, hark! what discord follows! Their lead at present is such stuff as dreams are made of.
 

3rd July 2008

A Scary Thought?

Parallels have been drawn often enough between the Labour-led Govts in the UK and NZ. Now, as polls show the Labour parties in both countries trailing their opponents by margins of 20 points or more, the parallels appear even stronger. Both are doomed, they say. Already, before life has been pronounced extinct, authorities are preparing for post-mortems. In Britain, Gordon Brown’s failure to speak to voters in a language they understand has undone him. In NZ, Helen Clark is said to be fiddling as the ship goes down. In Britain, the Govt lambasts its main rival as a “shallow salesman,” in NZ it lambasts the Opposition leader as “slippery.”

Beyond the rhetoric, what’s changing the political climate in both countries is the economic circumstances in households. Soaring food and fuel costs, falling house prices, and the threat of stagflation provide the worst electoral parallel. After a decade or so of prosperity, both Britons and Kiwis may be better off but, suddenly, the daily grind has become harder. So the Govts of the day will be punished. The universal if dispiriting fact is most people vote with their guts, forming their views on policy on the basis of character judgements rather than vice versa. The polls show the electorate, is tired of the current crop of Ministers. The ballot box offers an escape.

But does it? Helen Clark believes she’s got more than a fighting chance. And she’s got good reason. The MMP system could yet save the Labour-led coalition. It only needs voters who appear to be leaving it to spread their support among the Greens, NZ First and the Maori Party and Labour could be back again, for a fourth term. A scary thought?
 

26th June 2008

Can Helen Walk On Water?

Helen Clark has been likened in recent weeks to King Canute, who was famous for trying to hold back the tide. It’s not a good analogy though. Canute wasn’t actually trying to hold back the waves but to demonstrate to his Court he was only human, and not divine.

We’re not suggesting Clark thinks she is God. We’re merely pointing out she is unlikely to feel the need to descend from Mount Olympus to demonstrate such a thing. Clark rather airily dismissed the latest run of bad polls as being irrelevant. She’s also claimed National’s lead is soft and could turn quite quickly.

Out of touch? Only partly. There’s no great mood for change in NZ. Voters are grizzly, with a financial hangover from the debt-binge too many of our citizens have engaged in over the past few years. An appetite for major policy changes is missing. Logically, if the mood is for much the same policies but a change of faces, the next move should be a leadership change by Labour.

It isn’t going to happen though. Clark’s own personal polling is not bad enough. More to the point, her party believes she is the best bet to win. There is still an almost touching faith amongst many within Labour Clark will pull off an unprecedented fourth win. It would be a miracle, and if it happens it won’t be pretty. Labour’s best hope is to go negative. Raise fear and loathing around what a National Govt might do to pull enough voters back. It’s Clark’s strength.

She’s the best leader we’ve had since Muldoon at negative campaigning. If she loses, she’s the leader most likely to minimise the loss.
 

19th June 2008

Inquire Within

Is Labour going out the way it came in? Nine years ago, in the winter of 1999, Labour had a few clear policies as touchstones: 39% top tax rate, renationalisation of ACC and removal of market rents for state houses being the main ones. The rest were inquires and reviews. They were to be held into everything from tax to telecommunications, from markets regulation to monetary policy. On Monday Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel announced an inquiry into fuel prices. There are a few other inquiries knocking around the Molesworth/Bowen St precinct, and there are some parallels with this latest effort.

Remember the Select Committee inquiry into housing affordability? Or the one into monetary policy, with particular reference to how higher interest rates seemed to be worrying everyone except house-buyers. Now? The market has sorted out most of the housing affordability worries. Not a pretty sight at times, admittedly, but no less pretty than if the Govt had tried to put its thumb on the scales.

Same with fuel prices. The current level has been driven by a few one off factors and a lot of speculation in oil futures. But it’s not a good look for a Minister to in effect tell voters “Stuff Happens.” Lockwood Smith tried it when he was Minister for Agriculture, telling drought stricken Marlborough farmers they would be better planting grapes. He was right, but it did nothing to help National’s re-election chances. Dalziel isn’t about to make the same mistake. But, in turn, we should not make the mistake of thinking this inquiry will make a blind bit of difference to anything.
 

12th June 2008

Damn The Dams

Ok, here we go again, another “power umm situation” as Energy Minister David Parker called it on Monday. We’re not having a crisis or even a bit of an issue, he emphasised. Just a tiny weeny infinitesimal bijou little power shortage-ette. Barely worth mentioning.

Please remain calm. All is as it should be on this particular voyage of the Titanic. Pay no attention to the big chunk of ice protruding through the hull. Just shut your eyes and hold hands. Maybe a sing-song would work. Anyone know any Celine Dion numbers?

We keep getting into these tight spots because we have a fairly risky power supply and it hasn’t been managed well enough for there to be sufficient reserve capacity for these fluctuations. And every time someone tries to build some extra capacity someone throws a wobbly and stops it.

Meridian Energy tried to build a dam on the Waitaki but ran afoul of nimbyism, the Resource Management Act, and other local factors.

But the question which should be raised is why were they building a dam on the dry side of the South Island anyway? Would not a lot of our problems be solved if we built a couple of whoppers on the West Coast of the South Island - you know, where it rains pretty much all the time and they last had a proper drought just before the last Ice Age.

Ahh, but that would require some Govt to over-ride those pesky objections, and actually, umm, you know, govern. Might be a bit much to ask. Sorry. Back to the dark.
 

5th June 2008

National, Saying Sorry

Two apologies dominated the week. Helen Clark led off with a round of apologies to the country’s surviving Vietnam Veterans. Few now doubt they have been shamefully treated. NZ backed somewhat reluctantly into the Vietnam conflict, and - as veteran journalist David Barber reminded Dominion Post readers this week - the Holyoake Govt not only sent them off badly equipped but also was incredibly mean-spirited about pay.

Any NZ Govt which decides to put our troops in harm’s way has a duty to ensure they are not exposed to any more risk than is necessary. In everything from equipment to the Agent Orange spraying, the Govt of the day failed those men miserably - as have successive Govts, as did those RSAs which refused to recognise the Vietnam vets.

One hopes the current troop commitments – to 13 different conflict zones - have been better supported. Certainly this Govt has not been as mean-spirited as its 1960s predecessor.

A further apology, somewhat half-hearted, came from convicted rapist Brad Shipton, who told the Parole Board he had done some disgusting things in his life. It wasn’t a full confession, it emerged, but it put the whole sordid saga back on the front pages. There is no doubt an apology is due from those men as well. Obviously, to the women they assaulted. But it goes further.

They owe an apology to every honest decent policeman whose job has been made harder by their behaviour. The fact is they betrayed everything their uniform is supposed to represent - justice, order, and protection from ravening predators.
 

29th May 2008

Where Are You?

When the polls tell everyone you will probably be the next Govt, it should hardly come as a surprise people will want to know what you intend to do when you get there. But it does seem to come as a bit of a shock to National. And the incident with MP Kate Wilkinson over KiwiSaver this week illustrates the perils of this approach.

The incident is significant for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Wilkinson is one of the more careful of National’s backbench. She usually engages her brain thoughtfully before opening her mouth, something a number of MPs from all parties could learn from. Secondly, what prompted it was a question from the floor at a public forum. Despite National liking to give the impression it’s only a few obsessive journalists who want the party to reveal some hard policy, the fact is, a lot of people do.

There will not have been a press gallery journalist who hasn’t had their ear chewed along the lines of “when are you guys going to get National to cough up some policy?” This is now coming not just from Labour types trying to divert attention from the Govt’s woes - although there is certainly plenty of it - but from people who are more likely to support a Govt of the Right than a Govt of the Left. People want to know what you’re there for. At present the lack of policy only highlights the impression of a lack of substance, a lack of gravitas, almost a lack of moral seriousness from National.

Unless the party wants this impression to bed in, it had better deliver some policy pretty smartly.

22nd May 2008

Keeping It Sybil, Stupid

“Can we get you on Mastermind Sybil?” the harassed hotelier snarled at his wife in one episode of Fawlty Towers. “Next contestant Sybil Fawlty, special subject the Bleeding Obvious.”

Phil Goff might have been tempted to quote it this week. All the Trade Minister said was Labour might lose the election, and if Helen Clark went he would be a candidate for leader. But politics is where stating the bleeding obvious can get you into trouble (and Goff knows it).

So here are a few other bleeding obvious things people are not saying because it will cause far too much trouble.

• You can’t spend the same dollar twice. National can’t keep on opposing any new spending by the Govt, then say it won’t reverse the policy, but will still have more money for tax cuts. Something has got to give.
• The whole point of Kyoto is to make fossil fuels more expensive. NZ signed up to Kyoto because we thought it would make us money, not because we can make a difference to climate change. Our economy is so small, if we drop out of Kyoto it won’t make a damn bit of difference to climate change, but will make a big difference to our costs.
• We will never earn enough money to pay today’s under-45 year olds a pension when they turn 65, unless they are prepared to die at, say, 70. Either shifting the age, or means/asset testing in some form, is inevitable.
• A country which locks up a third of its entire land mass in parks is surely making things difficult for itself.
Perhaps this is a case of NZ’s inconvenient truth?
 

15th May 2008

Glee Club

Green co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons doesn’t normally do gleefulness. She’s more like a slightly censorious chapel elder handing out the hymn books on Sunday morning. But she came the closest she comes to glee during the snap debate this week on the Govt buying back the railways.

Back in 2001 when the Govt bought the tracks, the Greens urged the Govt to buy the lot, but Finance Minister Michael Cullen argued against this “using much the same arguments as the National Party is using at the moment.” There were further “eat your words” games over the Govt’s back tracking on its emissions strategy, and also on the latest row to engulf the Immigration Service.

National is throwing lines at Ministers similar to ones Labour MPs threw at Ministers in the Jenny Shipley Govt over public sector mismanagement. Ministers are left saying they don’t interfere in operational matters. A few Nats have pointed out this does not seem to apply when it is an operational matter involving, say, a communications manager with a partner working in John Key’s office. “Yeah, but look how that ended” has been the guts of Labour’s response.

The Immigration Service problem is now in the hands of the Police and the State Services Commission, both of which will take a more sober view than the politicians. Incoming State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie – who, when Deputy Commissioner, showed a willingness to defend the integrity of an independent public service at the risk of offending Ministers – will face a stern first test.

8th May 2008

Chartreuse Micro-Bus

Its not easy being green, Kermit the Frog once sang. Same goes for when you’re in Govt – especially when the economy delivers a Miss Piggy “hii-ya!!” wallop to the solar plexus. So this week the Govt pulled off a two steps back, one step forward move, on the politics of greenery. The steps back were the delay of the emissions trading regime. The goal of being carbon neutral got put with the Govt’s earlier aim of getting NZ into the top half of the OECD economic growth tables. Both goals are now in that sort of “things I’d like to do one day.”

The Govt got a pretty free run on the issue from the media: railways seem to be up there with baby seals, whales, and impotent pandas when it comes to getting fuzzy coverage. Toll managed to hang onto the profitable bits of the business and foisted the liabilities onto the taxpayer, the Northern Employers and Manufacturers noted.

“One feels bound to congratulate Toll…for buying the trains, ferries and road freight business in 2001 and selling just the trains and ferries to the taxpayer for $235m profit in 2008.”

Finance Minister Michael Cullen admitted the rail service is unlikely to make a profit – which makes it different from other SOEs, which are not only expected to make a profit but often pay multi-million dollars in special dividends to the Govt.

It’s not difficult to see the political profit in the move. A good investment for the taxpayer? This one looks a bit like some of those finance companies where the risk was well hidden until too late.
 

1st May 2008

 Plan B?

And the “B” stands for Budget.

A bunch of bad numbers all round for the Govt this week. The child poverty stats were damning. Social Development Minister Ruth Dyson wheeled out Labour’s equivalent of “the dog ate my homework” excuse: it was the 1990s fault. This one is getting tired and lame, after three terms in power. If true, it means the Govt hasn’t been doing very much. Bad numbers, too, on the polling front. Not only National in front, but John Key, despite being the target of a blanket and determined campaign by Labour - “slippery”, “rich prick” etc – is still preferred PM.

It has to mean a major rethink in the Beehive. At the moment it looks as though the only Plan B on offer is along the lines defined by John Clarke AKA Fred Dagg: Plan B is “much the same as Plan A, only with a slight air of panic.”

In the past, Finance Minister Michael Cullen has rubbished the idea of dramatic budgets. They don’t win elections, but they sometimes lose them, was one observation. And a parting shot from last year’s Budget lock up was the comment “I don’t do lolly scrambles.” Cullen is now going to have to deliver either a dull, economically orthodox, non-election year Budget – a la Bill Birch in 1999 – or eat quite a few of his words.

Cullen might be tempted to respond with one of Winston Churchill’s lines about finding his own words a most nourishing meal, although Churchill is probably not one of his heroes. But after the past week, the eyes of Labour’s supporters are going to be firmly, and a little fearfully, on May 22.
 

23rd April 2008

Economic Chill

Economic news has dominated the past week and it has all been bad. Factory closures, cutbacks by a number of firms, warnings of higher interest rates and more finance company-related collapses have all captured the headlines. Oh, and tax cuts being postponed until April next year. This last piece of news may be a bit of bluff – it isn’t official, just a fairly heavy hint from the Beehive.

The scenario is tax cuts won’t happen in October- as anticipated - because Helen Clark will call an election before then. This scenario has a boomer of a Budget next month, with tax cuts tailored to make it difficult for National to reject or alter too much. Labour’s “narrative” for this election is basically that National will take things away from people - be it tax cuts, Working for Families, KiwiSaver, ACC... This is the counter to National’s “narrative,” which says Labour is part of the problem, and the things which are bugging voters most are Labour’s doing.

Helen Clark’s “diddums” comment to John Key last week only added to the message National is pushing hard: Labour is too concerned with scoring political points to fix voters’ problems. It is not clear, though, whether National’s king hit of the week - broadband to virtually every home - is going to do the job.

The obvious retort is it won’t help people struggling to pay the mortgage or their grocery bill. Are those the voters most likely to switch to National? Perhaps. Anecdotally, the credit squeeze is hitting a lot of households right now. But, again, National has to show they are part of a solution to that problem. And this is quite a big ask.

17th April 2008

Beyond Trivia

A speech by former Listener Editor Finlay McDonald, originally to the Centre for Science Communication, did the rounds early this week. The speech, which appeared on a number of Labour-leaning blogs and other internet sites, laid out why McDonald thinks John Key should not be PM.

Key never smoked dope, couldn’t recall what he thought about the ’81 Tour, and had used the word “groove” were the main complaints. Wrapped up together, the thrust was simply Key is just too much of a nerdy square to be PM. One wonders what McDonald thinks of Helen Clark, using this criteria.

But the attack also got rather blunted by the clip of four Labour Ministers singing a modified Kenny Rogers song at the party’s annual congress. TransTasman readers have probably seen the clip by now. It has probably caused deep trauma. Amateurish, yes, but one also wonders about the judgement of Ministers who would, firstly, spend their time writing the lyrics to such a ditty, and secondly, why on earth they thought it might help the cause.

This is all rather silly stuff, admittedly. But Parliament has been an oddly serious issue-free zone this week. The Electoral Finance Act got another serious going-over, and National is still making hay with the issue. The main effect so far has been to wreck Justice Minister Annette King’s previous reputation as a pair of safe hands. But it is still very much an issue for political junkies. Mostly, it concerns people who have already committed to one side or the other. It is not at all clear it is going to shift many votes.

10th April 2008

Winebox Diplomacy

Those who recall the Wine Box inquiry might remember the lawyer for European Pacific, Richard Craddock, copping ridicule when he told the inquiry he and his clients were “present for some purposes but not for others.” Winston Peters, who played a starring role in the Wine Box saga, learned a thing or two. He is now the Winebox Minister of Foreign Affairs - he is there for some purposes but not for others. Particularly, he reserves the right to disagree with the China FTA.

The disagreement is not really a surprise. Over recent months, Peters and NZ First in general have been unusually keen to link themselves with Labour. Peters often rides to the rescue of Labour Ministers at question time, and never misses a chance to put the verbal boot into National MPs. It has looked as though he was lining up as a natural ally of Labour. Given Peters’ track record, the intensification of his identification with the Govt could only mean one thing - he was about to stage a large breach.

The FTA is it. And it isn’t a passive, low-key breach. Ads appeared in newspapers this week condemning the deal and current immigration policies. So we have a Foreign Affairs Minister disagreeing with the most significant new foreign affairs policy this term, actively campaigning against it and other aspects of Govt policy, all the while staying in a senior role. Both the form, and the substance, of this stance are constitutionally dubious. The Winebox inquiry’s verdict on Craddock’s stance - “evasion and nonsense” – is equally apt.

3rd April 2008

Backward Looking Bozos

Anyone under the fond illusion Parliamentarians would, in an election year, devote most of their time and passion to NZ’s future would have been sadly disillusioned this week. The fieriest exchanges focussed on events of 20, 30 or more years ago. Green MP Keith Locke kicked it off. Locke is constantly taunted by some MPs - NZ First leader Winston Peters is the worst offender- about something he wrote in 1975 welcoming the change of Govt in Cambodia.

Locke rises to the bait every time. A couple of weeks ago Deputy PM Michael Cullen almost reduced him to tears on the issue. As Locke points out, no one in 1975 knew how murderous the new regime would be – and the NZ Govt of the time also welcomed the regime change. Having taken several minutes of this, MPs then plunged into an argument about Rogernomics.

Cullen taunted National with Roger Douglas running for ACT: Douglas would run the show in a National-led Govt, he claimed. By this point a few watchers were recalling Cullen himself trooped through the lobbies to vote for Rogernomics. National’s Deputy Bill English noted acidly Cullen was at one point Douglas’s Associate Finance Minister.

Cullen conceded this, but added Douglas had had him removed from his post, and Douglas had long ago left Labour. “He is one of them, and they are welcome to him.” All this of course, was 20 years ago. There are kids with student loans who were not even born when those events were taking place. More time spent on the future, and less time being backward looking bozos, would be appreciated.

19th March 2008

Tibetan Tightrope

When the Soviets marched into Afghanistan in 1979 NZ’s protest was somewhat muted. As satirist Tom Scott acerbically noted at the time, there were a number of Russian troops wearing uniforms containing NZ wool, and quite a few of them would have been chowing down on lamb chops raised in the McKenzie Country.

Most NZ Govts - Sir Robert Muldoon’s was only the most explicit – have declared emphatically NZ’s foreign policy is trade. The main deviation from this was David Lange’s anti-nuclear stance in the 1980s - a deviation Lange was partly pressured into by Labour’s left wing. Helen Clark played a critical role in the 1980s deviation, which is why those with a taste for irony are making some rather sardonic comments about her current stance.

There’re some other ironies though. One is, even at the height of the anti-nuclear row, US and NZ politicians emphasised trade would not be affected by other differences we have. Which is just one reason why parties calling for NZ to link trade to current human rights violations in China have it wrong. They are separate issues. There are good reasons for keeping them separate.

Govts have to make different choices than those we might make as individuals. British 19th Century Prime Minister Lord Palmerston’s axiom “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests” is the rule. Ours, given our economic and physical geography, is trade. By all means let individual citizens, and parties, protest about Tibet. And let the Govt get on with its job – which is representing our interests.

13th March 2008

Scandal!

It used to be said when it came to political scandals, the Brits did sex and the Americans did money. Of late – since Bill Clinton and Tony Blair’s days – they have swapped places. The Americans do upcoming politico and expensive prostitutes scandals: the Poms do big-money influence peddling. NZ hasn’t changed. We do perks. MPs and their assorted hangers-on of various kinds getting little fringe benefits not covered by, well, fringe benefits tax, let alone other little add-ons. It may be we just don’t have enough wealth for money scandals, and we’re just too un-sexy to do the other kind, but this would be just too depressing.

The latest perk scandal being a bunch of soon-to-retire MPs going on a networking trip to Europe. Networking to what end, one is entitled to ask, when they’ll be out of the place come the end of the year. The official line, by all party leaders concerned, is they were the only ones available, and everyone else will be too busy with election year. Sounds good, but a bit unlikely. The trip is well before even the Budget, let alone the formal election campaign. It might well have been the political party leaders took the trip to their Caucuses and said “hands up all those who want a taxpayer funded trip to Europe, with a couple of support staff?” and all the MPs in those Caucuses immediately shoved their hands in the general direction of the floor.

OK, then, said the leaders with a heavy sigh, it looks as though those of you retiring will have to go. Chorus of “Awww, do we have to?” and massed outbreak of grumpy martyrdom from those MPs. Well, it could have happened this way. In an alternative universe.

6th March 2008

Ringing Hollow

Earlier this week Helen Clark, interviewed on Alt TV, was asked what she admired about National leader John Key. Key had been interviewed earlier and asked the same question about Clark. He confessed to admiring Clark’s work ethic Clark couldn’t name any attractive features, she said, and off she went: hollow man, flip flop, etc. It came over as ungracious and just a bit desperate, but it seems to be Labour’s strategy at the moment, if “strategy” isn’t too strong a word.

Labour seems to love trotting out references to Nicky Hager’s “Hollow Man” book. It’s as if they are commission selling the thing. There’s obvious self-interest involved, but something a bit more atavistic seems to be happening. In a way, the book confirms every socialist’s deepest convictions over how evil Tories do things.

It probably more confirms the suspicion’s of undecided voters this is the way politicians in general do things. In short, going on about Hager’s wee effort is a form of preaching to the choir. This, and banging on about the 1990s. Again, this is a form of preaching to the choir. Undecided voters tend to be more forward looking.

This may not last long. Clark has begun every re-election campaign as if it is a re-run of 1999, but usually adapts as the campaign wears on. One of the effects of aging, though, is less flexibility of mind. People revert to their default settings, because it becomes ever harder to adapt to new situations. A lot of people are reiterating Mike Moore’s famous line about the 1990 election: voters’ phones are off the hook to Labour. Continuing to preach to the choir is one sure way of ensuring they’ll stay off the hook.

28th February 2008

Getting The Lead Out

The first stories about Helen Clark’s leadership have appeared. The general theme is, things look bad for the party, but no change of leader is likely. This is how leadership “spills” always start – with a bunch of stories saying change would be too risky. It plants the idea. Then the next poll comes in, and it’s even worse.

Clark knows how this game is played. She’s played it herself. Her strategy thus far boils down to trying to get voters’ attention with a “Yoo-hoo! Governing going on over here!” approach. It isn’t working. This is causing bewilderment, and the first signs of panic, amongst a lot of Labour members.

Talk to a Labour activist for more than a couple of minutes and you will get the bewilderment and anger about how badly the Govt is polling, and how well John Key is doing. There is a genuine conviction the Govt has done well, and there’s a lack of comprehension about why voters have turned so vehemently against it. Then there’s the line either Key is just copying Labour and has few policies of his own, or he’s running a secret New Right agenda. They can’t both be right.

For an explanation, look at the latest figures on mortgage debt. Look, too, at the number of fixed mortgages still to roll over in the second and third quarters this year. Look at the size of private debt, and contrast it with the multi-year, multi billion-dollar run of Govt surpluses. General fed-upness should not be surprising. It’s too soon to say - as too many have been doing - Labour is terminal. But, for the first time, there’s a whiff of gangrene in the air.

21st February 2008

Donor Kebabbed

The bane of every politician’s life is the over-enthusiastic amateur, the over-the-top supporter. They’ll hate the opposition parties more than the politician does, usually, and they’ll invariably have a pet policy nostrum – or five – which they can, only on some occasions, be induced to shut up about. When those supporters come with a large chequebook, however, they have to be humoured. Even if they can be a bit swivel-eyed at times.

So it’s possible to feel some sympathy for Labour over the revelations about Owen Glenn’s donations, and the accompanying comments. When he started talking of Cabinet posts, and an Honorary Consul’s job in Monaco, Glenn was already, fortunately for Labour, looking a bit random. Relations between the moneymen and the politicos are usually strained. ACT-supporting blogger Cactus Kate summed it up neatly on Monday: “This is why donors to political parties have to be kept silent. It’s not necessarily because of any underlying dirty dealings. They can just be awfully embarrassing.”

Parallels have been drawn with Jenny Shipley’s dinners with Kevin Roberts in 1999, but what mattered was less the details of those dinners, than Shipley looking flustered and shifty. Clark, thus far, hasn’t looked as bad. The story has moved around a bit under fire - and Party President Mike Williams has looked particularly inconsistent, which will hurt, but she hasn’t looked flustered.

The hypocrisy angle - if Glenn isn’t a “rich prick” who is? - should hurt, but it’s a difficult one for National to run. And Labour can - and is - pointing out the one thing Glenn is not, is anonymous... although they perhaps wish he was a little more anonymous than he has been the past week.

14th February 2008

Cullen’s Behaviour Explained

Over the past few years we’ve all grown used to Finance Minister Michael Cullen’s list of reasons for not having tax cuts. They‘re unfair. He doesn’t have the necessary cash in his back pocket, and people should talk about the cash surplus, not the operating surplus. They’re inflationary.

They give rise to debt. And so forth. He has yet to blame tax cuts for global warming, didymo, or the ghastly wasteland which is now primetime TV, but it’s surely only a matter of time.

One of the more intriguing reasons, cited rather less often than most of them, is their election-losing potential. Usually Govts which cut taxes lose the next election. Labour cut taxes in 1988 and was cleaned out in 1990. National cut them in 1998 and lost in 1999. The one exception is 1996, but, arguably, the arrival of a new electoral system queered the pitch then.

These days Cullen is a convert to tax cuts. Indeed, he is saying he began cutting them when he introduced Working for Families in 2000 although he didn’t call them tax cuts at the time. But he still manages to be grudging in tone about them. He’s like an Old Catholic parent grimly going along with Vatican II and allowing the youngsters to have meat on Fridays. But he doesn’t like it.

Over recent weeks it has caused some to suggest this would remove any political benefit Labour would get from cutting taxes. Why would you do it, though? Ideological blindness? Or, perhaps, a longer-term game: remove any political benefit Labour might get from tax cuts, lose the election - and discredit the whole practice of lowering taxes.

7th February 2008

 Topsy Turvey Week

Bizarre week in politics, and not just locally. There was as much local focus, among political junkies of the sort who read this publication, on the US Presidential primaries as there was on events closer to home.

But the “Super Tuesday” turned out to be more of a Clark Kent Tuesday, still stuck in a phone booth with its red underwear half on. Instead of settling the nominees, the race is still wide open.

Even more weirdness at Waitangi. The biggest protest wasn’t from the protesters, it was about the protesters, or at least one bunch of them, being bussed in to Waitangi by the state owned broadcaster.
TV3 went big on the story, as you might expect - not that they had an interest to declare, or anything.

But Helen Clark, who 24 hours earlier had looked a candidate for wuss of the year for not going, got the chance to look tough and disapproving. TVNZ should not have brought up Tame Iti and his crew, she declared – not that she could intervene in an operational issue or anything.

The Govt very quickly moved on from Waitangi though. For some years now, the morning papers on 7th February have been dominated by politicians being jostled, or scraping bits of mud off their faces. This week an imminent announcement on tax cuts, and a new motorway, led the dailies.

The tax cuts were promised to be significant, over several years. Given it was only a couple of years ago Cullen was saying anyone advocating tax cuts should be taken out and quietly drowned, the headlines were the final quirky twist on an odd week.

31st January 2008

Teach Your Children Well
Perhaps this week is a harbinger, not only of the shape of the 2008 election campaign but also of campaigns for many years to come. We hear a lot about the ageing population, and its long-term impact on the economy, savings, superannuation, and - if we really want to frighten ourselves - health costs.

But a sure sign the population is ageing is grizzling about the “youth of today” looks set to become a more dominant feature of our political discourse. Young reprobates. Loafing around. Too busy i-boxing each other on FaceText or whatever the damn newfangled things are called. Would not have happened in our day. Etc etc etc.

It’s as old as…well, Plato had a go at the youth of his day, too. Lazy, disrespectful little buggers, he reckoned.

Bit of time in Sparta would have sorted them out. And there are some bits in the Old Testament which sound rather like things you can hear in the nations’ bowling clubs any day of the week. Of course, in a few years it won’t be bowling clubs the oldies will be congregating in, it will be more reunion concerts from The Police and Led Zeppelin and the like. But they’ll be drowned out by the hum of the age-old complaint the younger generation is going to the pack.

There were silly moments in both the leaders’ speeches. John Key kept it pretty straight until the end, but his “bring it on” comment made him look like a cheeky schoolboy. Helen Clark’s bid to blame youth crime on Ruth Richardson is a bit of a stretch – Richardson left Parliament nearly 15 years ago.

24th January 2008

It’s Not Just The Economy

The trite “it’s the economy, stupid” slogan is being draped over political columns like yesterday’s sprig of parsley on the leftovers. But how true is it? We owe its origin to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign: the slogan was apparently pinned to the wall in big black letters in a bid to keep staff, and perhaps the notoriously wayward candidate, focused.

But the next few elections in the Anglo countries proved it wrong. Yes, the Bolger Govt won a shaky re-election on the back of a rapidly recovering economy the following year. But Aust voters tossed out the Keating Govt in 1996 in the middle of a boom, and the Brits threw out John Major’s Conservatives in 1997 – again, in a boom. In 1999 NZ’s economy was enjoying a post-Asia crisis bounce-back but it didn’t save Jenny Shipley.

There’re lots of reasons for this, but one is “the economy” is just a sub-set of a wider criteria: competence. John Key’s gift to the Nats is he’s the first leader for a very long time who looks - most of the time - in control. But competence includes knowing what you’re about, and having the confidence to front-foot it. The wide open spaces where National’s policy should be allows plenty of scope for Labour to sow doubt.

A lot of people don’t want to vote Labour again – but they might, however grudgingly. “I may not like ’em but I know where they stand” is an attitude ingrained in the NZ character. As for the economy, it will only work for National if (a) it gets very bad; or (b) National can convince enough voters they will be better off with a change of Govt.

13th December 2007

Time For A Chill Pill

In one sense at least 2007 was politically an improvement on the past two years. There was less of the personal nastiness – it didn’t go away, but the level was turned down a notch. But the main debates of the year have been about side issues. Neither the anti-smacking Bill nor the changes to electoral finance really deal with the main problems facing the country. One was a hobby-horse which got a run at Trentham through a chapter of flukes. The other is primarily concerned with getting Labour re-elected.

But if one factor characterised the year, it has been the overuse of inflammatory language. Comparisons with Nazism is a favourite. Apart from being a dreadful cliché, it was also a sure sign of either lack of an argument or just lazy thinking. People have compared the EFB, the anti-smacking bill, the terrorism raids, to the Nazis, which is just plain nonsense.

Spurious allegations of racism have also been raised, again about the terrorism raids and also over the Clint Rickards affair. The Govt hasn’t helped, with its ongoing bitter attack on a minority religious group.

Heated debate is one thing. Passionate exaggerations are to be expected in politics. But this year the language got somewhat divorced from reality, in a way which is dangerous. NZ is not Bosnia, yet some of the rhetoric this year would suggest we’re not far off.

Which is nonsense. Whatever our differences, there is still a lot more which unites NZers than divides us. Which is something to bear in mind as we go into election year.

6th December 2007

Hater, Wreckers

Early socialists addressed each other as “brother” (this was, you understand, before the second wave of feminists banned such language as sexist). These days, from NZ Labour, all you hear from is Brethren rather than brother, and they’re not happy. Labour Ministers’ scripted response to any questions about the validity of the Electoral Finance Bill is to rant about the Brethren buying an election.

The best/worst example of this was Education Minister Chris Carter’s semi-literate reply to a schoolboy who emailed him about the Bill. He asked the boy – after spelling his name wrong and making a dozen other grammatical and spelling errors – whether he was a member of the Exclusive Brethren. Every Labour speech in the House on the Bill is dominated by yet another rant about the religious sect.

The idea seems to be to drape the Bill in some sort of moral authority. In fact, it is doing the opposite. A law which relies for its principal justification on the vilification of a marginal group – The Exclusive Brethren – can have little moral authority. It positively invites civil disobedience. The self-dramatising nature of some of the opponents of the Bill suggests there is no shortage of people willing to be dragged before the courts next year.

Previously our electoral laws – for all their myriad faults – have been based on some cross-party work. At times it got a bit too cosy – but it is an improvement on the one-sided arrangement now being railroaded through. The cross-party approach has been pretty effectively wrecked.
 

29th November 2007

Be Good Johnny

With John Howard taking the last plane back to Sydney, his Power and Passion all spent, and Kevin Rudd headed for the Holy Grail of the Australian Prime-Ministership, thoughts turn to the parallels between NZ and Aussie politics.

There are some obvious ones right now. Rudd is a new leader, recent arrival to Parliament, not caught up in ideological battles of the previous decade, a fresh and engaging face with a can-do attitude…remind you of anyone? John Key is reminding people of it at the moment, with a “heartland” tour out on the Wide Open Road, and a DVD. The DVD is, as many have pointed out, rather policy-light. This is a bit like criticising Radio Station, The Rock, for not playing Wagner’s Ring Cycle. It’s not what it’s for. It is, as Key says, about explaining more about where he is coming from.

So, will NZers, like the Aussies, vote for a Cool Change next year? It would be Reckless to say so just yet. There was a long period of near-simultaneous changes of Govt between the Aussies and us. But the political scene became de-coupled in the 1990s. And there are emerging differences. As Labour’s grumpy uncle Mike Moore pointed out in a column this week, the long-term demographic trends in NZ seem to favour the left wing parties.

It is less so in Aust. They do not have a section of the population – Maori and Polynesians – virtually locked in to Labour or alternatives on the Left, and being the fastest growing section of the population.
The Herald DigiPoll this week looks like the Good Times are imminent for National. But it looks too good to be true. For Key, it’s still A Long Way to the Top.

22nd November 2007

What Is Common Sense?

“The law of common sense applies!” Justice Minister Annette King trumpeted at question time this week when quizzed about the intricacies of the Electoral Finance Bill. King has been around long enough to know that, firstly, there are few things as uncommon as common sense, and the Courts spend a great deal of time each year on cases where Parliament has been unclear. Airily saying it is all down to common sense, and people can sort that out, is no answer. The usually competent and confident King, by the time she sat down on Tuesday, was starting to resemble Jenny Shipley in her combination of high dudgeon and general air of being completely at sea. There is one over-riding reason electoral financing is such an issue. The trouble is simply this - the political parties themselves show little common sense, or any common decency if it comes to it, on this issue. All parties, but particularly the two large ones, are in a perpetual exercise of gaming whatever the existing rules are. This time, the rules will not only be gamed by the parties, but everyone else as well.

They will also be challenged by groups with something to say. The growing air of concern around the Bill means some groups are inevitably going to defy the law. It’s a fair bet when it gets to Court we will end up with something like the Solicitor-General’s ruling on recent raids on the Tuhoe. Parliament will have passed yet another law which is a dog’s breakfast. Voters don’t like Govts which screw things up, and they don’t like Govts which seem more concerned with self-preservation than things voters actually care about. It is a bit of common sense this Govt seems to have forgotten.

15th November 2007

A Clear Line

Perhaps the Madeleine Setchell affair - which is really a misnomer, since the woman concerned is innocent of any wrongdoing - might have some positive impact after all. The Hunn report draws a clear black line between the political affairs of the Govt of the day and neutral public servants. It shows how much the line has blurred in recent years, and it clearly un-smudges it.

The standout bit of the report from the former State Services Commissioner was the recounting of the reaction from the head of the Ministry for the Environment Hugh Logan when he realised the likely reaction from then Minister David Benson-Pope when it was discovered who Setchell was.

The report states Logan gave one of his reasons for firing Setchell was “the Minister’s reaction to the Communications Manager’s relationship with her partner.” Deputy State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie responded along the lines – “Well if the Minister does display concern, just tell him to get over it.” This was the correct response. It was not, however, followed by Logan. If it had been, much of this would have been avoided. In other words, what the Ministry does is not part of the Govt’s political spin machine.

Hunn makes it even clearer: “the increased emphasis on environmental policy was not the same as close political management … if the Govt was planning a politically oriented environmental communications programme, the Ministry shouldn’t be doing it…” With NZ already less than 12 months out from an election, those words should be engraved on the wall of every departmental Chief Executive and every Minister’s office.

8th November 2007

Reflux

“An ideological burp” was how Michael Cullen described the Treasury’s post-2005 election briefing to the incoming Govt. This was the briefing, it might be remembered, which suggested there was now scope for tax cuts, because the Govt had been running surpluses for several years, generally ahead of forecast.

At the time, Treasury recommended lowering the top two rates and considering offsetting any new spending policies with consideration of tax cuts. Cullen was deeply and publicly scathing, as only he knows how. And now, deep, satisfied belching noises emerged on the weekend from the Labour party conference... which can’t be helping reduce NZ’s emissions into the atmosphere. Not only self-satisfaction, but a re-writing of history verging on the Stalinist. To hear Helen Clark, one would have thought Labour would have loved to have adopted tax cuts much earlier, but, gosh darn it, those nasty beasts at Treasury said they couldn’t.

This is comical on so many grounds – for starters, since when has this Govt been so slavishly concerned with what the Treasury had to say? The other silliness was underlined by National throughout question time this week, taking great joy in quoting other lines from Clark and Cullen over the years on why tax cuts were abhorrent.

The Govt clearly decided it could wear the ridicule for a week or two. But voters tend to be forward looking. Come the election, they will ask less about whether they can trust Labour to deliver but more about who will deliver the better deal.

1st November 2007

Innocence And Terrorism

It’s not a bad call betting future generations will thank Helen Clark’s Govt for keeping NZ out of the running sore which is Iraq. NZ could so easily be drawn into the conflict. However, the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill currently before the House could be damned by future generations as opening the door to abuse of power by a future Govt.

For once, the more excitable “peace activists” have a point. The Bill gives the Prime Minister of the day powers to decide who is a terrorist group. ACT MP Rodney Hide has damned the Bill as fascist – a much over-used term – and asked people to consider what someone like Muldoon would do with those powers.

It’s a measure of how innocent NZers are that Muldoon is the worse case we have of abuse of power. NZers can be a bit innocent about this sort of thing. The reaction to the raids two and a half weeks ago has been underpinned by a widespread assumption, to coin a phrase, it can’t happen here. As well as scepticism about the police at the moment, a lot of people simply believe terrorism is something which happens in places like Rwanda or Bosnia.

Well, it can happen here. NZ is no more immune from the dark side of the human spirit than the folks who lived in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany. And we can put into power someone who will really abuse their powers in a way which makes Muldoon look like Geoff Palmer.

You don’t, if you are wise, leave dangerous tools like this lying around for some tyrant-in-the-making to pick up.

25th October 2007

Burying One’s Talents Under A Bushel

The great clearing out of Labour MPs has gathered pace with the long expected announcement Steve Maharey is off to the dreaming spires of academia. Others are clinging on. One of the interesting things which makes our two main parties different is the question of attracting talent. Labour - and the Left in general - has less of a problem than the parties on the right.

If your talent pool is based in academia, teaching, and the union movement, Parliament is the best option going. The salaries are far better, there is a great superannuation scheme, and there is also the whole issue of status. So competition is fierce for a place. Parties on the Right have a different problem. They have to have a far more active recruitment policy in getting talented would-be MPs and weeding out the keen but not-too-bright. The difficulty for Labour comes when letting MPs know it’s time to go. They tend not to have good jobs to go to. Some can be bought off with a diplomatic posting somewhere: others would do more damage than it is worth.

Which is why the likes of David Benson-Pope are clinging to their MP-status more desperately than some NZers to the idea you can be kicked out of a World Cup quarterfinal and still claim to have the best rugby team in the world. Making Benson-Pope something like Special Envoy to Iraq might be attractive to Helen Clark at the moment but it would sully any reputation NZ has for peace keeping. Fiji is closer, and would send two rather rude messages at once.

18th October 2007

The “Yeah, Right” Factor

The mind-numbing tedium and slack-jawed apathy which were the local body elections were barely over before the smashing of a window in a crash pad for activists in central Wellington leapt onto our screens. The arrests around the rest of the country, the crackdown in Ruatoki, tales of napalm, and rumours of threats against at least one senior politician soon followed.

What has been interesting is many people’s supposition the arrests are politically motivated, and the timing has something to do with either imminent amendments to the Suppression of Terrorism Act, Helen Clark’s visit to the Pacific Forum, a need to rehabilitate the reputation of the Police, or whatever. The attitude is not confined to fringe elements or the more excitable parts of the media.

This whole business may have ripped the lid off some pretty dubious loonies in our “activist” groups. But it has also exposed a wider, deeper pool of cynicism in the wider public about what they are told, and why they are being told it, than there used to be. The level of cynicism amongst the public does not yet appear to have sunk into Ministers’ minds. Helen Clark seemed oblivious to it, as did Police Minister Annette King. But there is a huge amount of cynicism about some of the country’s key institutions.

It’s certainly there about Police motives. Officially very little has been said about what Police were after in their raids. We should know more on Friday. But there had better be some pretty hard evidence put before the Courts if we are to avoid a massive crisis of confidence in this country’s principal institutions.

11th October 2007

A Dickens Of A Surplus

Before our very eyes, the Minister of Finance is morphing into a Mr Macawber in reverse. Michael Cullen is forever expecting something to turn down.

Whether it is tax revenue, or the overall performance of the economy, or projected spending, Cullen continually warns the apparent good news can’t be taken for granted. This, of course, is in between casting National’s John Key and Bill English as hard-faced Gradgrinds, and also dealing with Cabinet colleagues who are, Oliver Twist-like, extending their begging bowls for just a bit more in the next Budget. And perhaps humming a snatch of “you gotta pick a pocket or two.”

Even the higher dairy prices, which some economists are saying are the start of a long-term boom, should not get people too excited, Cullen says. Commodity prices can fluctuate quite dramatically, he says, so “...some caution is appropriate in that respect.”

So any tax cuts next year are purely hypothetical at this stage, and Cullen would really rather people stop talking about them. He even warned journalists not to ask about them when the December half yearly economic and fiscal update is released in the run up to Christmas: the Govt’s priorities won’t be decided by then, he warned the media.

They might be purely hypothetical, but it’s a pretty large hypothesis: certainly a better bet than the All Blacks were on Sunday morning. The Crown accounts showed not only a large operating surplus of more than $8bn, but also a cash surplus of $2.6bn. And remember the Govt has already set aside $2bn for extra spending next year. All of which is before revenue from that dairy price kicks in.

4th October 2007

Problem Solving?

We had National’s foreign affairs policy released this week, and Labour’s Phil Goff criticised it for not being ideological enough. National leader John Key replied by saying he’s interested in fixing NZ’s problems, not in re-fighting the battles of 25 years ago. Good. But the trouble is so much of what National has released in the way of policy does not seem addressed at fixing NZ’s problems, or at least the problems as most voters perceive them.

The saying “oppositions don’t win elections, Govts lose them,” is a hoary old half-truth. Govts lose elections when oppositions present a credible answer to problems voters think the current Govt is not addressing. None of the policies National has advanced over the Parliamentary recess have done that. They look, to the non-aligned voter, like solutions in search of a problem.

Removing the cap on GP fees, allowing private investors to build schools, partially privatising state-owned enterprises: whatever their merits or demerits as policies, they are not exactly things voters are clamouring for. Reports National would remove the cap on tertiary fees looked the biggest vote-loser of the bunch. There are more full time students than there are superannuitants in NZ: they also have parents. Labour’s interest free student loan was the biggest single policy factor in the 2005 election. National now says those reports were wrong and the party will keep the fee cap.

We won’t know the real voter reaction until the next round of polls. But if the Nats want to win they need to focus on things which are bugging voters.

27th September 2007

Butter Fingers

Whoops. The looks in the eyes of the National MPs standing behind party Health Spokesman Tony Ryall at Wednesday’s press conference said it all. Oh ****.

In Ryall’s defence, it seems he had earlier stated National would remove price controls on GP visits in public, and in fact from a stage with Health Minister Pete Hodgson sitting beside him. So it’s not as though the omission of the policy from National’s Health Document on Wednesday was a deliberate secret agenda thing. The party believes competition will keep prices low, so there is a genuine belief the change would not have a significant impact.

This is a bit of an article of faith thing – but voters don’t have a lot of faith, especially when it comes to health policies. And in a week when the stage play of “The Hollow Men” hit the boards, National should have been extra careful about even looking as though there is any sort of secret agenda.
This is still National’s big Achilles heel. John Key has made the party look approachable and competent again: the voters’ phones, to borrow a Mike Moore phrase, are back on the hook, in a way they haven’t been for a very long time for the centre-right. But the merest hint of a secret agenda, and one which involves extra costs, is extremely bad news for National.

The average age of voters is now a lot higher than it was 10 years ago. GP visits, in other words, are now a frequent occurrence for a much bigger proportion of the country than they were. The mini-baby boom of recent years has a similar impact on younger families. This could have been a costly week for the party.

20th September 2007

Brand Loyalty

It was Labour’s week for re-stating the party brand. Remind voters of Labour’s past achievements? Check. Helen Clark’s photo op at the country’s first state house in Miramar. To do her justice, Clark is not only a former Minister of Housing: housing was the first policy issue she mentioned in her maiden speech back in 1981.

Reach out to key voter segments? Check. The new cervical screening push aimed at Maori and Polynesian women got launched in the middle of the week. Again, a key social policy aimed at and, like the housing photo op, one fronted by the PM. The aim has been to get the Govt back on the front foot, and this week, at least there weren’t any accident prone Ministers getting in the way.

Remind people about National’s prior support for the Iraq commitment? Check. Foreign Minister Phil Goff read out in Parliament the words of a resolution proposed by former Act leader Richard Prebble supporting the move, which National voted for.

Taking the lead on climate change – again, with former Minister of Conservation Helen Clark in front? Err, check. The “err” part is because the move may not be as good politics as it looks from Wellington. For most voters climate change is still a fairly abstract idea. More pertinently, no-one has yet shoved an invoice in their hands. This in effect, hands voters a bill.

It’s a bit like toll roads, or compulsory savings. People like the idea until you tell them how much they will have to pay. This is one branding exercise which might burn, in all the wrong ways.
 

13th September 2007

Small Cabinet Reshuffle, Not Many Dead

Suddenly it’s Cabinet reshuffle time, and Wellington is alive with rumour. Well, even more rumour than usual. The likely casualty list is long, and all sorts of weird combinations are being suggested. If you believe the gossip, half the backbench is about to be elevated; and half the second half of Cabinet is bound for political oblivion.

It’s mostly nonsense of course. The safest bet is the reshuffle will be minor. Why? Firstly, reshuffles make enemies. With Helen Clark trailing John Key so comprehensively in the preferred PM polls, she can’t afford to create grievances in Caucus. Secondly, changing Ministers actually increases the risk of cock-ups. Even Cabinet old hands in a new job often have a tendency to survey their array of options and do the policy equivalent of a naïve toddler going “what’s that switch for?”

Ministers new to Cabinet are even more prone to this sort of thing. And the Govt can’t afford to look any more incompetent than Ministers such as Damien O’Connor and Mark Burton have made it look this week. O’Connor, of course, was the lead item in the earlier part of the week: Burton, although lower profile, was completely at sea at question time on Tuesday over the Electoral Finance Bill.

Although he didn’t leave the atmosphere of sweat-stained, inept and desperate deviousness David Benson-Pope used to leave when he sat down, Burton just looked out of his depth. Most Ministers like this won’t be sacked (although Burton may be an exception): they’ll be moved somewhere out of the spotlight.

6th September 2007

Groundhog Day

So by Tuesday afternoon we had another finance company fall over and Mike Moore attacking the Labour Party. Again. Same as last week. And it wasn’t very good the first time around.

But it has given Jim Anderton a new lease of life. He’s as happy as a porker in muck, back in the news again, even if a lot of it is talking about his hair. He hasn’t been in the news this much since his party left him in 2002. Again.

National’s main work this week concentrated on the Electoral Finance Bill, which the increasingly hapless Justice Minister Mark Burton is making a hash of defending in the House. Again. National’s attack is based, thus far, on pointing out the number of groups which will not be able to advertise in an election year. As the Bill stands a lot of Labour-supporting groups will get hit. National, meanwhile, was at sixes-and-sevens over paid parental leave. Labour made hay with it this week, quoting different National women MPs contradicting each other, and often themselves, on the issue.

Hmm. Nats in a muddle over social policy. Not a lot new there either. Oh, and Labour’s backbench MPs in the general debate consisted largely of excerpts from the Hollow Men. So no change there either. Green co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons has refrained from reading Labour MPs excerpts from the other Nicky Hager book, Seeds of Mistrust, but this is only because the earnest Fitzsimons doesn’t go in for tit-for-tat politics.

Some things, we suppose, can be relied on.

30th August 2007

A Cold Dish

Mike Moore, laid about him with a broadsword this week. Got in some digs at John Key – “ just has to keep his head down, and is happy to campaign as ‘Labour with tax cuts,’ sort of like playing a vacuous political air guitar” Rodney Hide “has rejected capitalism for narcissism” and is set for talkback (the latter forecast first made in this column well over a year ago). Winston Peters is the world’s only Foreign Minister who hates foreigners.

But it was his former colleagues in Labour Moore reserved his special venom for. Enmities in Labour run deep, and they last a long time. For all its eccentricities, John Tamihere’s extraordinary interview with Ian Wishart several years ago remains a good internal guide to Labour. Tamihere noted Clark’s supporters had thrown the 1993 election. They didn’t want the party to win with Moore leading, so they stopped working in Auckland. The party lost only narrowly.

Tamihere’s other comment  is also still highly relevant. “They don’t have families,” he said of Clark’s wing of the party.  “They’ve got nothing but the ability to plot. I’ve gotta take my kid to soccer on Saturday, they don’t. …And because they don’t have that they’re just totally focused. You’ve also got a fully paid organisation called the union movement, who can co-opt fully paid coordinators. These people just never sleep.”

They also “think 10 to 15 years’ ahead.” Which is why the idea the left of Labour would not support Phil Goff as leader is a bit naive. If they think Labour will probably lose the next election, why not let Goff be at the wheel when the party goes over the cliff?

23rd August 2007

Howzat?! You Messed About, I Caught You Out…

When Aust Labor leader Kevin Rudd, staggered home back in the dark days of 2003, accompanied by the aroma of cheap wine and a three day growth, he can’t have imagined the incident would return, four years away, and dominate news and politics on both sides of the Tasman.

On the strength of this week, Rudd should attain the holy grail of his party, and sweep the country at this year’s elections. As Oz Blogger John Birmingham put it, the country “might finally get a PM who understands the only poll which counts is the one The Fabulous Tina is humping to a fine shine up there on stage in perfect time to ‘Honky Tonk Woman.’”

We’re a bit more circumspect, this side of the Tassie. Helen Clark sniffily noted his visit to a strip club was “not appropriate,” but she was more concerned with revelations about Air NZ carting Aussie troops to Kuwait. The Govt’s fury was genuine: it derailed its attack on John Key, who is really starting to cause a panic amongst the Govt’s ranks. The focus in the House this week from Labour was on Key, and where he lived in 2002.

Clark had worries of her own, with some pretty bad poll results and growing criticism from normally friendly groups about the draconian Electoral Finance Bill. But although trans-Tasman news dominated the week, one comment in a vox pop from Aust about the Howard Govt, sums up a growing public mood of disgruntlement on both sides of the Tasman about the current Govts, “These guys now think they own the place.”

16th August 2007

Bauble, Bauble, Toil And, Um, Trauble….

Winston for China? This was suggested in the House, probably as a wind up, by the NZ First leader’s former deputy leader, and now National MP, Tau Henare.

This was in the wake of news NZ First MP Brian Donnelly is slated for a foreign affairs appointment at the Cook Islands. Donnelly in fact has a lot of cross-party respect and also has an ancestral link with the Cooks. But when your party has campaigned against accepting the “baubles of office” and the leader has already accepted the Foreign Affairs job, its not a good look. Winston has, in fact, surprised many people with his handling of the Foreign Affairs job. Having spent most of his career as a bull who carries his own china shop around with him, he seems to have discovered diplomacy.

He was measured this week after news Air NZ carried Aust troops to Kuwait, in the face of our policy we don’t get involved in the Iraq intervention. At this stage it looks as though Foreign Affairs knew of the incident and didn’t pass the news on. If so, it’s a serious cock-up on the part of the Department.

Still in the House it’s the same old Winston. This week he resurrected his old accusations about National’s policy in the early 1990s, and whether it was bought by Fay Richwhite or other Business Round-tablers. When challenged by National MPs Peters noted they weren’t around then, he was – and he still looks younger than them. Too young to be pensioned off to a Chinese diplomatic post, perhaps.

9th August 2007

Honeymoon Is Over?

The John Key media honeymoon is over, although we have yet to see whether the same goes for the voters. Key has had an unusual honeymoon. Unusual, because he is a National leader. National leaders do not usually have political honeymoons with the media. Think back to Brash, English, Shipley, Bolger, Mclay, Muldoon, Marshall… all of them walked into a pretty hostile reception from day one.

Some Labour leaders get them. David Lange and Norman Kirk were perhaps the most pronounced. Our current PM did not have a honeymoon when she became Labour leader (quite the reverse - her first three years were disastrous). But she eventually enjoyed an extremely long one when she won the 1999 election. Even Bill Rowling managed a honeymoon of sorts, so much so many members of his Govt feel he should have called a snap election in late 1974.

Key is now under fire from some pretty inconsistent statements over the Therapeutic Goods Bill and over what he may or may not have said about Iraq when he was a new backbencher in 2003.

Parliament, which returned this week, saw a real ratcheting up of the political tempo. Labour MPs clearly felt they had finally found a chink in Key’s armour. Partly the inconsistencies, partly the fact they seem to indicate a dread by Key of telling people things they might not want to hear. It is this latter point, more than the inconsistencies themselves, which is potentially the damaging thing. Prime Ministers need to be tougher.

2nd August 2007

Should This Really Be An Auckland Thing?

There’s to be a Royal Commission on Auckland. There are plenty of people around the country who feel there should have been an inquiry into Auckland many years ago, although they might differ as to which aspects of Auckland should be enquired into. The practice of electing either half-mad or wholly ineffectual mayors might need a look, although it looks a bit beyond the terms of reference of this particular inquiry.

Royal Commissions are rare beasts these days. They had appeared to go the same way as home milk deliveries, daytime All Black tests, and the practice, if not the theory, of a politically neutral public service.

The trouble with the Commission is perhaps it is only confined to Auckland, and how it should be governed. Auckland’s division amongst a group of squabbling local authorities is not so different from the situation which faces the rest of the country. We’ve got more than 80 local councils and although they cover a landmass not too different form the UK or Japan there is only a population base of 4m people to sustain them.

Is it really a good idea to have so many councils for a population the size of a small American city? Given NZ has some big, and unavoidable, overheads - distance from markets, a geography which is difficult and expensive to put roads, electricity networks, and other essentials onto, should we not be looking at reducing the overheads which can be reduced?

And isn’t the number of local authorities a good place to start?

26th July 2007

Everybody Loves Winston

Suddenly, they’re all cosying up to the man with the winning smile. National has signalled it can live with Winston carrying on as Foreign Affairs Minister and is offering help with his party’s Treaty Principles Bill. Labour has been falling over itself to give the NZ First leader what he wants. From a dangerous source of instability to the man everyone wants to make happy. What’s the story here?

Well, compared with the alternatives he looks good. Richard Prebble suggested on the weekend a National Govt supported by the Greens was feasible, which suggests retirement has fogged the old warhorse’s judgement, or (much more likely) he was simply being mischievous. The Greens might, just possibly, agree, if not to actively support a National Govt, at least to not oppose it on matters of confidence and supply. This agreement would last about as long as Green Party members’ outrage telegraphed itself back to its MPs. Chances are, depending on what concessions National made to the Greens, there would be similar outrage from National members.

The stark facts of electoral arithmetic are neither ACT, nor United Future, are likely to be able to supply sufficient numbers for National to form a Govt, even if they are combined. It needs NZ First.
Labour, meanwhile, has learned to work with Winston. And next to the Greens, he looks like Peter Dunne. Labour would, perhaps, be happiest forming a Govt with the Greens on one side and NZ First, and United Future on the other. It would pull Labour a bit more leftward, something Labour voters would like. Look for more deals with Winston.

19th July 2007

Image Problems

There has been a rush of polls by news organisations which show the public is pretty unimpressed by our MPs’ moves to clamp down on satirical use of Parliamentary TV footage.

There is little doubt the response from most NZers to this outbreak of pomposity and self-regard by our MPs has been a collective raspberry. Which is a healthy sign.

Unfortunately this seems to have led to a rush of blood to the head of some media executives and journalists.

Yep, our elected representatives have a bit of an image problem with the wider public. They have made it worse by getting all picky and precious about how they can and cannot be filmed in the Chamber.
But a number of apparently quite senior media executives seem to have forgotten the media has an endemic image problem with the public as well.

Newspapers, television and radio are seen as focused too much on the trivial and the sensationalist. And in general journalists are seen as a bit too smart alecky for their own, and everyone else’s good.
So the rush to show MPs doing slightly silly things, which has been engaged in by both TV channels and at least one daily newspaper, is not particularly edifying, or brave.

There are few spectacles as ridiculous as elected representatives trying to stop people laughing at them. The spectacle of journalists behaving like cheeky sixth formers, and pretending they are very brave in doing so, comes pretty damn close.

5th July 2007

Trevor’s Bad Luck

So it’s solved then. No gongs for Grant Dalton, Dean Barker et al. And no triumphal procession up Queen Street for Sports Minister Trevor Mallard clutching the Auld Mug. But should we worry about Trevor holding the Sport and Recreation portfolio for much longer? He pops up at all the events but doesn’t bring our sportsmen much luck. Can the Govt afford to carry a minister who seemingly puts a hex on winning? Come to think of it, has he done anything the country will remember? Maybe the PM should consider finding a new Minister of Sport and Recreation.

Damien O’Connor possibly? He’s eager to escape Corrections, but on the other hand, he doesn’t have a great track record. David Benson-Pope? He’s handy with tennis balls, but sluggish on his feet. Parekura Horomia? Could be, if NZ was trying for the sumo wrestling crown, but otherwise likely to be a deadweight. Clayton Cosgrove? He shows all the capacity of his onetime mentor Mike Moore to hype things up. Yet if he has the same success as Moore had when he was Director General of the WTO, NZ would face continual defeat. How about David Cunliffe? His Caucus colleagues say he’s got plenty to say for himself.

Clearly, there’s a shortage of candidates who can inject a bit of black magic. The Govt could be stuck with Mallard. So if we are to get some trophies back into the cabinet, the trick might be to confine Trevor to his Beehive office. Then he could get on with his other portfolios, without the grandstanding, which is so distracting to all of us.

It might be cheaper, too, for the taxpayer.

28th June 2007

A Serious Issue

British journalist Auberon Waugh once observed politicians of all stripes tend to resemble monkeys in the zoo. Laugh at them, he maintained, and they become enraged. Although a slight over-generalisation, it is pretty accurate. This is because almost all politicians have one underlying psychological urge: they desperately need to be taken seriously. Yes, some of them will occasionally send themselves up, or dress in silly costumes for charity or something similar, which helps show they are good sorts. It is also - very important this – something under their control.

Most people who write regularly about our MPs can confirm this: you can criticize them, pull their policies to bits, even impugn their integrity, and be forgiven. (Only eventually, in some cases, but it usually happens.) But highlight it when they are being ridiculous and grudges will be held. So they have grabbed the opportunity afforded by changes to how Parliament is being filmed to shove in a few new rules – the footage is not to be used to satirise them in any way.

The fear – or at least the excuse - which seems to have driven this is pivoted around the popularity of You Tube ‘mash ups.’ Quite a few MPs have already appeared on such mash ups, - the Trevor Mallard/Pete Hodgson dancing clip was a particularly horribly hilarious example, and made the TV news - but not in footage from Parliament. MPs can’t stop non-Parliamentary footage being used - or at least they haven’t tried yet – but Parliament is under their control. So MPs are to pass a law now. On pain of being held in contempt and banned: thou shalt not make us look like wallies.
 

21st June 2007

Billboard Moments Coming Thick And Fast

“Welcome back to NZ. It’s nice to have you in my country again,” the Prime Minister said to the Dalai Lama as the Dalai was ushered into the Beehive.

Of course it was 11 years ago and the PM was Jim Bolger. Yes, the Chinese objected then too, but Bolger’s line was he was seeing the Dalai as a spiritual leader, not a political one.

A line which Helen Clark ran this week, although she made sure she met the Dalai when they were both hanging around at Brisbane Airport. The Nats at least officially met with the Dalai at Parliament, only it was the Foreign Affairs spokesman Murray McCully who had the formal meeting, with leader John Key just happening to drop in for a brief chat.

And none of this has anything to do with the China Free Trade Agreement. Yeah Right.

A further Tui Billboard moment is on the way, with the compliments of Fay Richwhite. We’re not guilty, but here’s $20m to make it go away anyway.

Although some have found the insider trading settlement with the Securities Commission offensive, the Crown probably got a better net return than if it had pursued the case. It would have taken another five years at least, and with QCs on both sides charging $500 an hour. There’s no overt admission of guilty by Richwhite and co, but if $20m doesn’t’ quite say ‘its a fair cop Guv’ its pretty damn close. These are not people who hand over money, let alone $20m, if the alternative is not pretty bad.
 

14th June 2007

Keep Things In Proportion

Outgoing British PM Tony Blair got stuck into the media this week, decrying it as “feral” and “irresponsible.” Given Blair’s own shabby performance over recent years, it looked rather like the infamous “nonce syndrome” you get in prisons, where murderers and the like get to beat up child molesters, on the grounds even murderers need to feel morally superior to someone.

Our local media hasn’t been up to much over recent weeks. Take the Mrs Muliaga case. We still actually know very little about what happened, beyond the fact her power was cut off and several hours later she died. Whether the power cut caused her death, whether she was getting family support, working for families, or other support; whether she was having to give large tithes to her church ... not one of these is actually known yet. But a “family spokesman” has been popping up in the media pushing a very specific ideological agenda off the back of her death. Most of the coverage has been predicated on the assumption we do know what happened, and it was Mercury Energy’s fault. We know no such thing.

One thing we do know is what happened in the Liam Ashley case. The Department of Corrections locked a troubled kid in a cage with a murderous psychopath and the kid was beaten to death.

“Inhumane” the Chief Ombudsman called it in a report which reminded us two years ago he had warned the method of transporting prisoners was an accident waiting to happen, and Chubb vans were unsuitable. They weren’t fixed in time to save Ashley’s life. Some things are worse than a feral media.

7th June 2007

Green Strategies

The Green Party’s move this week is the most determined pitch it has made for disaffected Labour voters. The party has dropped its silly and incredible line earlier this year that it isn’t really a left wing party. The approach now is it could work supporting measures brought in by a National-led Govt if they fit with the Green Party’s philosophy, but in terms of partnership in Govt, Labour is the real long-term fit. And in the meantime, the Green’s message to Labour voters is if you think National is going to be the next Govt, vote Green, because Green MPs may hold quite a bit of power.

There is also a bit of pique involved. The Greens feel Labour has regarded them as a bunch of unreliable single-issue fruit-bats who nevertheless have no real option but to support Labour. The Green’s invitation to National frontbencher Nick Smith to attend their conference was part of this. True, once it was known the 9th floor had taken offence, Labour junior whip Darren Hughes was despatched, but the message had been received.

The other plus for the Greens is the Don Brash bogey is gone. Anecdotally, a lot of Green-leaning voters stuck with Labour last time because they feared a Brash-led Govt. John Key does not have the same bogey factor, except to people who are already committed. So the invitation by the Greens for National’s Nick Smith to attend their annual conflab was not an invitation to form a post-2008 coalition. The Greens don’t want this – and nor do the Nats. And don’t forget many National supporters would have a fit of ACT-voting vapours if National’s Caucus made too many concessions to the Greens.

31st May 2007

Beware The Recess Effect

Michael Cullen has claimed on more than one occasion budgets don’t win elections, but they can lose them. Some within the Govt may have forgotten the aphorism. Labour MPs put a lot of faith in the Budget, particularly the extensions to KiwiSaver, to pull people back. The polls have therefore come as a real jolter.

We’ve previously noted the tendency for bizarre things to happen during Parliamentary recesses since 2005. We’ve been spared bizarreness so far this recess, the sole piece of weirdness is Peter Dunne comparing himself with Princess Diana. But the polls which came out at the start of recess show a weird, contradictory political response by voters. This brings us back, hopefully for the last time, to the anti-smacking debate. In the end, remember, Labour and National walked through the lobbies and voted for the same measures. Yet, Labour is copping the backlash from the Bill, and National is getting kudos.

Odd? You betcha. Illogical? Undoubtedly. But what this does tell us is there is some sort of shift under way. When voters decide they’ve had enough of you the strangest things can provide the trigger for shifts in the polls. The anti-smacking Bill is probably just the occasion for the shift, and not the cause.

It’s not a final and conclusive shift, of course, and the mood, particularly at this point in the electoral cycle, is pretty fluid. However, National’s John Key is getting people interested who have been turned off politics, particularly centre-right politics, for a decade or more. It is too early yet to conclude this interest will turn into votes in 2008. But the fact it is there at all is a big change.
 

24th May 2007

The Wheels Are Spinning, But Where’s It Going?

There’re a lot of things driving the moral panic over boy racers and the like and quite a bit of it has very little to do with the scale of the problem.

Firstly, technology. Every teenager’s cellphone these days seems to have a digital camera on it. Footage of boy racers burning up the tarmac is easily to come by – making it easy for television news to illustrate the issue. Were there more or fewer teenagers hooning around in cars, say, 25 years ago? From a population point of view, probably more. There were certainly a lot more fatalities. But we didn’t have TV footage of them so they didn’t raise the same concerns.

Second reason: local body election year. This is why you’ve seen the country’s Mayors and Councillors climbing onto the issue.

Third reason: aging population. Grizzling about the generation behind you is as old as humanity. It’s in the Bible. Plato did it. There are probably cave drawings in Africa which were originally complaints about the reckless way the young played with this new fangled fire thing. The average age now is early 30s, so the sheer numbers of people who are offended by reckless, inebriated and hormonally charged teenagers, as a proportion of the population, is much larger. However, it has nothing to do with the actual scale of the problem.

This is only going to intensify as the average age increases. In 10 years we will probably have moral panics over the way those irresponsible 30 year olds are pushing their baby buggies around.

17th May 2007

It’s The Quiet Ones You Have To Watch

We suggested here last week perhaps a Christian-based party was in the making, and this could solve the centre-right’s long-term problem of a coalition partner. It appears others have been thinking similar thoughts.

Gordon Copeland, who until yesterday was a United Future MP, is no-one’s idea of a natural rebel. Think of Winston Peters, and then think of the opposite of everything you associate with Winston Peters, to give you a pretty good picture. Not for nothing has Copeland been known around Parliament by the slightly cruel nickname of Ned Flanders. So when he savaged the Govt on Tuesday for allowing inflation to push more and more people into higher tax brackets, it was a jolt.

The Christian Coalition got 4.3% in 1996. Only a few thousand more votes and the history of the 1996-99 Govt could have been very different. And more recent events show a growing willingness to engage in political issues by Christian voters.

The other surprise this week was from, of all people, Speaker. Margaret Wilson put the case, quite forcefully, for Parliamentary Services to be covered by the Official Information Act. Wilson, who has apparently been frustrated at getting any sort of accountability for Parliamentary spending, stunned her fellow MPs, and the media, with her proposal. How far it will get remains to be seen. Deputy PM and Leader of the House Michael Cullen observed through gritted teeth opening Parliamentary Services to such scrutiny did not seem to be a priority, code for ‘over my dead body.’
 

10th May 2007

Onward Christian Voters

Is John Key’s long-term strategy to encourage disgruntled Christian Nats to get together with other Christian groups and start their own party? It may sound a bit far fetched, but maybe, just maybe, it was behind his move to back a “bi-partisan” amendment to Sue Bradford’s anti smacking Bill.

The last time the combined Christian groups got together, back in 1996, they nearly got over the 5% threshold. Given the increasing salience of issues which seem to motivate Christian groups, you would have to say if the various Christian groups can bury their differences (and this is an extremely big if) they could form a morally conservative party which could play a similar role for National as the Greens do for Labour.

This is not suggesting a resurgence of the Exclusive Brethren’s activities last election. They showed, firstly, extraordinary ineptitude, but they also, by their nature, are not inclined to coalesce with other Christian groups. They call themselves “exclusive” for a reason.

National’s long-term difficulty is its lack of a viable coalition partner. United Future seems stuck at its current levels, and is unlikely to provide enough votes. NZ First, less unstable than it used to be, is still unpredictable. ACT appears becalmed, and there is much bad blood between Rodney Hide and various National MPs.

Those parties also tend to cannibalise votes from National, rather than grow the centre-right vote. A morally conservative party, Christian but with its feet on the ground, its hands out of the till and its trousers firmly fastened, could pull votes away from Labour, and be a long term force. It may be National’s best bet.

3rd May 2007

Two Back-Downs And Three More Weeks

What a difference a Marae-Digipoll makes. A few weeks ago, Sue Bradford and her supporters were saying there was no way the wording of the anti-smacking Bill would be changed. The Select Committee poured over the issue trying to find a way to make it more palatable, but couldn’t.

The road to Damascus appears to be a decidedly dodgy traffic zone. All those U-turns. After the poll, which showed 80% of Maori are as opposed to the anti-smacking Bill as everyone else, a compromise of some sort was suddenly necessary. The Maori Party’s support, staunch in public, was beginning to waver.

Suddenly, over a late night coffee between Helen Clark and National’s leader John Key, and a few others, some new words were found. Key looks Mr Reasonable, Clark looks statesmanlike, and the whole issue can be painted as MMP working well. Lovely really.

Back-down two was Finance Minister Michael Cullen’s confession on National Radio high surpluses are “no longer politically sustainable.” If you heard a kind of whirring sound, followed by a damp thud, it was the sound of Cullen throwing in the towel after years of arguing against tax cuts. It looks as though he will be Mr Bountiful on May 17, on both business and personal tax cuts. The tactic now seems to be to steal National’s thunder and also to make sure there is no fiscal headroom for National to be able to responsibly promise more tax cuts and more spending.

On top of all this, we’re going to get three extra weeks of summer. Or rather, since summer doesn’t seem to start until mid January these days, longer daylight hours in which to look at the rain.

26th April 2007

Of Symbolism And The Dollar

No, No NO! Our dollar is already too Australian. It leaps up and down like a blasted hyperactive kangaroo which has spent too much time at the local ‘P’ Lab.

What our exporters would like, of course, is a dollar more like our national symbol, the kiwi. Flightless. One which cautiously keeps as close to the ground as possible, only comes out at night, and is perhaps a bit short sighted as well. OK, the symbolism there is not all it could be either.

A genuine Anzac dollar? Again, the symbolism is perhaps a little disturbing. Yes, Anzac is a great symbol of shared comradeship hardship and disaster. But let’s keep it there. Is shared hardship and disaster really what we want to associate our shared economies with?

We don’t want our currency going “over the top” any more than it already has, thank you very much. International economists who have applauded our brave open economy do at times sound a bit like those British generals who applauded Anzac gallantry.

There isn’t a lot which can be done about the dollar. Merging with the Australian currency (or the greenback, which was mooted a few years back) is only going to make the currency less, not more, close to local economic conditions.

A cheap way to see a flight from the NZ dollar would be to appoint a convinced Leftist like Keith Locke Minister of Finance. Thus far, though the incumbent looks rather keen on hanging onto the job. We’ve just got to ride this one out.
 

19th April 2007

Politics Will Beat Good Sense Every Time

Just over a month ago, this column mused sensible compromise on the anti-smacking Bill should be possible. “It should not,” we suggested “have been beyond the ability of our Parliamentarians to come up with a law which says a slap on the hand or bum with the open hand is OK, and anything else is not.”

This seems to be what National leader John Key was aiming at this week with his suggestion the parties sit down and talk about something which would clearly rule out child abuse but not criminialise normal parents. It would also, of course, have neatly snookered Labour. The Govt has been in trouble over this Bill. The PM’s decision to make it a Govt measure in all but name, and whip her Caucus into line, was already looking like a serious mis-reading of the public mood. A rescue from such a position would have been welcomed by many within Labour.

But not a rescue which comes from John Key. The last thing the Govt wants right now is anything which makes the National leader look good. A rescue from Peter Dunne, or Winston Peters, would have been preferable. Which is why the talks were always unlikely to happen. They had to be sabotaged, somehow. And it was always better it be Sue Bradford do it.

This issue has not yet been quite played out. Once Parliament resumes we can expect to see more of Labour’s “bloke faction” – relatively conservative MPs like Clayton Cosgrove and Damian O’Connor – fronting for this Bill. And they’ll tough this one out.

4 April 2007

Historic Parallels, And The “Co-Leadership”

When National’s new leadership team took over late last year, there were plenty of people reaching for historical parallels. It was like the Holyoake-Marshall team of the 1960s, or even the Holland-Holyoake team of 1947-57, some concluded. A few months down the track, and some intriguing parallels from overseas suggest themselves.

Think about this: a leader, engaging, very good at the PR side of the job, gift of the gab but at times a bit glib with it, but not quite of his party; matched with a deputy, and holder of the Finance portfolio, much more aligned with his party, with a touch of a brooding presence and a sense of entitlement to the top job eventually... It’s Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, of course.

Key, though is not encumbered with Blair’s Sunday school teacher manner or sense of mission – which is perhaps something to be thankful for. And unlike Blair he never aspired to be a pop star, despite a slightly disturbing resemblance to the young Neil Sedaka.

Labour, meanwhile, has dubbed Key-English the “co-leadership.” This makes Labour MPs like Steve Maharey giggle on the front bench, for some reason. But why it is supposed to be such a damning criticism, and what it is supposed to mean, remains somewhat obscure.

The fact is it is not going to effect us much. Will someone wondering whether to vote Labour or National be thinking “oh, no, can’t vote for the Nats, they’ve got a co-leadership?” Can’t see it somehow.

29 March 2007

Responsibility, Where Art Thou?

Act’s Rodney Hide currently has a proposed statute on the order paper called the Regulatory Responsibility Bill. Perhaps we need a Parliamentary Responsibility Bill. Bring the Diplomatic Protection Squad and Parliament’s police under it. The decision to stop a Chinese journalist doing his job, on the advice of Chinese officials, wasn’t their’s, apparently, although they had some trouble saying whose it was. They also claimed other journalists were stopped from attending the same event – just who these journalists are remains a mystery.

We know what the Chinese officials would do to such a troublesome journalist back in their country – it would be a short and brutal process ending in organ donation. The human rights aspect of this has failed to trouble Helen Clark and Michael Cullen, both of whom usually flock to the moral high ground like ants heading for a blob of honey.

Other responsibility issues could include Health Boards, especially the Auckland one, which seems unable to understand basic rules about conflict of interest. In Parliament, Ministers are now saying they are not responsible, National is, because Dr Tony Bierre is a National Party member. Which is very embarrassing for the Nats – and makes it more difficult for them to preach on the matter – but it doesn’t get the Govt off the hook. Ministers have yet to blame “the 1990s” but it can’t be far off. Any Parliamentary Responsibility Bill should include a moratorium on this excuse. Last time Labour tried it – over the Corrections Department last week – it turned out Labour had supported the changes it was accusing National of.

22 March 2007

Basic Stuff

Even the smallest Community Board in the country’s most remote areas – the sort of places some high paid Aucklanders like to look down on – know the basics of conflict of interest. If you stand to gain materially from a decision being made, you absent yourself from the decision making process. You don’t only absent yourself from any formal meetings on the issue; you keep well away from any informal discussions on the topic. These are simple, straightforward principles. You don’t need the wisdom of Solomon or even, heaven forbid, of one of our High Court Judges. All it takes is a basic sense of right and wrong.

So when you’ve got a Court which concludes of Dr Tony Bierre that “throughout his time as an ADHB member he was interested in securing ADHB funding for his own laboratory, which amounted to an attempt to further his own private financial interests” it is pretty damning stuff. Some basic ethical principles were ignored. Health Minister Pete Hodgson was clearly out for blood this week. But this was perhaps less for reasons of genuine moral concern and more to neutralise the political damage.

The Govt cannot afford another scandal where no one is held accountable. Not after the problems the Corrections Department has mired itself in. That was the last straw. At least this time no-one has died. Yet. In other words, the Govt needs someone to swing for this. But its habit, down the years, of blaming officials, or “the 1990s” (as it did again this week, absurdly, over the Corrections debacle) means even if it brings home blame to the Health Board, it is going to look shifty.

15 March 2007

Smack Of Firm Government

The issue before the House which will have the greatest effect on NZers right now is probably Green MP Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking Bill. The bid for a compromise this week, from National MP Chester Borrows, failed when the Maori Party decided to back the Bradford Bill.

It should not, one would have thought, have been beyond the ability of our Parliamentarians to come up with a law which says a slap on the hand or bum with the open hand is OK, and anything else is not. But it looks like they can’t manage that.

Much of the debate on the Bill has been marked by its irrelevance. Bradford herself kicked this off when she introduced the Bill by arguing it is a blow against colonialism. Corporal punishment, she said, was imported with the missionaries and their bibles. What this does tell you, apart from its dubious history, is this is very much an ideological battle which has little to do with protecting children. The other
irrelevancy, of course, is this is something to do with child abuse.

On the other side, though, the debate has been championed by some of the more zealous Christian groups. There is not a press gallery journalist who has not been bombarded with messages about how the Bill is a Satanist-lesbian-communist plot. The lip-smacking glee with which some of these types talk about whacking their kids is rather disturbing, and doesn’t exactly help the cause of moderation. At this stage the Bill looks as though it will pass, although waverers are being targeted. There is another fortnight to go on this issue, and the temperature is rising.

8 March 2007

Green Grow The Voters

Parliament was in recess this week, and most politicians, certainly from the larger parties, competed to be more strenuously in favour of various law and order moves. Fixing rules which allow murderous sociopaths to be unleashed on the community would be one of them. Fixing rules of evidence which mean crucial information is kept from jurors being another.

The Green Party has also been busy. The anti-smacking Bill has got people talking, now it’s time to crack down on girl guide biscuits, which Sue Kedgeley says cause cancer, or global warming, or something. Keith Locke, meanwhile, is unhappy about the proportion of Polynesians being tasered, while Co-leader Russell Norman, in a statement which read like something from a 1970s Marxist pamphlet, strenuously opposed any tax cuts. Too many foreign businesses will benefit, apparently. Remember this is a party which only a month ago said it is not a left wing outfit. If you thought these folk were big on self awareness, think again.

The Greens have been doing well in recent polls, mostly picking up disaffected Labour voters. The Greens’ best year was 1990, when voters threw out a Labour Govt, and the party’s predecessor, Values, got its best vote in 1975, another bad Labour year. But this was under the old voting system. It is quite feasible, given National’s partner problem, Labour-Green could be the most viable Govt after the next election, even if National is the biggest party. And despite the Greens’ protestations to the contrary, it would see the Govt pull very firmly to the Left.

1 March 2007

The Odd Boathook Could Come In Handy

One of the greatest leaders of the English Conservative party, Lord Salisbury, once characterised his foreign policy as “floating lazily downstream, occasionally putting out a diplomatic boathook to avoid collisions.”

There’s a bit of this going on at the moment in 21st century NZ. Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ comments on withdrawal from Iraq have been interpreted as a “gaffe” which puts him at odds with Labour. Yet what the comments have underlined is the NZ Govt does not really have much of a position at all on the Iraqi conflict and the involvement of our allies there.

Its position boils down to being thankful the geographic position we’re in, several thousand miles away, is a damn good one, and one which we plan to maintain, which is about it really.

And it’s not all bad. Sometimes, particularly with foreign policy, the wisest thing is not to have a policy at all. It gives you room to move in a fluid, dangerous world.

Mind you, the lacuna in policy in this area is not confined to the Govt. National this week raised the question of its defence policy. It wants one. Sort of. It opposed the scrapping of the air combat wing a few years ago, although, even then “wing” was a bit of a grandiose title. It was more like the residual stub you find on the Kiwi. National now doesn’t want to replace it - the wing, that is, not the Kiwi. Its position on the Kiwi is not known, but it probably involves a tax break somewhere. But the Nats are asking for suggestions as to what they might do in the defence area perhaps arming ourselves with boathooks.
 

22nd February 2007

Cruising For A Bruising

Crime and punishment dominated the week. First there was the question of what to do about Mr Field. Before question-time even started Tuesday there was a half hour wrangle over whether Labour should be casting Field’s proxy vote, and whether Field was really absent on Parliamentary business, and would he still be on Parliamentary business in the event he winds up in the defendant’s dock at Auckland High Court?

Deputy PM Michael Cullen snapped Field is no less absent on Parliamentary business than MPs who have been absent to go dancing on TV programmes, or to defend themselves in court a la Donna Awatere Huata. ACT Leader Rodney Hide retorted these were under a different section of Standing Orders and the whole issue then descended into one of those unproductive procedural wrangles which fascinate politicians but which leave the rest of us contemplating the cricket (with a smile, this week, for once). Then there was the business of Rimutaka Prison.

To top it all, of course, there was Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking Bill, better known, by one side of the debate, as the Bill “To Abolish Child Abuse For All Time” and, by the other side, as the Bill “To Inaugurate The Rule Of Satan In Our Homes.” In the middle is a compromise amendment from National MP Chester Borrows, which would basically allow a gentle but firm smack by parents. This has attracted many MPs who have been turned off by the overly emotive rhetoric on both sides of this issue. At the moment the Borrows amendment looks as though it might squeak through.

15th February 2007

Bio Politics

The week began with Helen Clark grizzling the media had reported too fully her Deputy’s words about a mortgage levy. Reporters know a good story when they see one and Michael Cullen’s comments the Govt could consider such a levy, given the high numbers of NZers on fixed mortgages, were obviously going to be well covered.

It’s not fair, Clark grumbled. Journalists should not give such comments so much space, she grizzled. If they did, they would find Ministers would be less prepared to give wide-ranging interviews. This was by way of a curtain raiser to the PM’s opening speech to Parliament, which was far more ambitious, especially on areas of sustainable energy and climate change, than expected. Even Green co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons applauded Clark for her boldness.

But Clark’s speech was overshadowed by the toxic sludge emanating from the Mangere electorate. MP Phillip Field, who by now is semi-detached from the Labour party, appeared to say he would run against Labour in the next election, and may even resign earlier and trigger a by-election. Those comments in themselves triggered a “he’s gone” response from the Beehive. Within 12 hours Field was sounding rather like Clark – reporters had taken his comments out of context, he complained, and he would be reluctant to give any more wide-ranging interviews to the media.

John Key, meanwhile, gave an opening speech long on very good one-liners, but rather less good on gravitas and policy. But it did perk up his party.

8th February 2007

Reasons To Be Cheerful

What an upbeat start to the political year. The silly rugby sevens mood which enveloped Wellington like a fog over the airport seems to have settled over the country.

The sevens could have been worse. Much of the country now has been treated to the sight of sevens fans in some of their, ahh, costumes. Mercifully, Parliament was not sitting. And not even Wellington’s local MPs seem to have been tempted to don costumes in one of those slightly embarrassing attempts to appear to be good sorts. We were spared the sight of Marian Hobbs, Peter Dunne, Heather Roy or Mark Blumsky dressed as Borat.

John Key went to McGehan Close, having named the street in his Burnside speech as an area to avoid. It was a high risk move, but as an idea of how good - or lucky - Key is, think of how the last four National leaders would have handled it. They might have eventually gone to McGehan Close, but only after a week or so of pressure. And then there would, probably, have been a gaffe in front of the cameras. Key managed to turn it into a triumph, especially in taking a young resident to Waitangi.

If this wasn’t enough, Waitangi itself passed without incident, unless you count the rain. Even Hone Harawira was conciliatory: instead of some in-your-face statements, he suggested we should have a Waitangi Commissioner. Which is just what the country needs. We have so few Commissioners. But it says something for the general mood when a firebrand like Harawira suggests something so bureaucratically anodyne.

1st February 2007

Well, John Key Got Off To A Good Start

The Burnside speech might have been a bit short on specifics, but what matters now is mood and tone. This is something Helen Clark, for all her cleverness, did not get right when she took over Labour’s leadership.

Clark didn’t do the PR thing in those days, and it nearly cost her the leadership. She rolled Mike Moore in a bitter leadership showdown just after the 1993 election, but didn’t do enough work to allay the fears of many voters about this dour academic woman with a suspiciously deep voice. Possible Labour voters departed to Jim Anderton’s Alliance and especially after his anti-Asian immigration speech in Howick, Winston Peters. By mid-1996 Clark was facing a deputation of MPs asking her to stand down.

Clark caught up, of course, and has since won more elections than any previous Labour leader. But she lost three years because of those early mis-steps. Key is not making the same errors.
But this was perhaps not the most important thing this week. What was significant was confirmation of a shift within Maoridom. The meeting at Ratana, and subsequent statements from the Maori Party leadership, have rammed home the point last election’s movement by Maori voters was not a one-off, although whether Labour loses the party vote in Maori seats is still to be decided.

But Clark may yet go down in history as the Labour leader who saw the loss of Maori voters from being automatically counted in the Labour column.

25th January 2007

Liver Cleansing Politics

At this time of the year, with the ink barely dry on those New Years’ resolutions, those new running shoes still pristine, many people turn to ways to create a sense of renewal. De-tox diets find favour with some.

When it comes to detoxing, one’s thoughts turn to the new National leadership team. The accusations of “Labour-lite” – a line favoured, ironically by both Labour MPs and ACT supporters – miss the point. The issue for National is less about moving itself towards some sort of ill-defined centre as detoxing itself from stances which turned voters off.

There are not many votes in going to Ratana, or in other symbolic gestures. Nor will National sway voters by assurances any privatisations will only be partial and will be bodies like Solid Energy, and Landcorp, whose activities touch very few NZers’ lives. Tax cuts will be gradual and only when affordable, rather than a matter of faith.

Good, solid, commonsense stuff.

The detoxing of politics goes further than just National. We’ve had a couple of pretty poisonous years – something the pollies themselves seem to have realised. Usually minor parties, and the odd renegade MP from the main ones, uses the holiday season to get some headlines. This time, zip. They know the public has had enough.

It won’t be all spirulina and milk thistle from now on. Politics is about conflict, and we hire politicians to work and act out our society’s conflicts. But maybe, just maybe, the toxic level will be a bit lower this year.

14th December 2006

That Was The Year, That Was….

Well, what will 2006 be remembered for? The Stadium? Dear God, please no. It produced its bizarre moments, whether it was Dick Hubbard waving his arms around in an excess of incoherent enthusiasm, a bit like a television scientist, or Labour’s Minister for Unpopularity, Trevor Mallard, on another of his charges into the valley of political death. It was also the year the PM launched an extraordinary attack on lawyers, accountants and golf clubs, who, she said, were conducting a gossip campaign about her marriage. It was all their fault, apparently. We also saw Rodney Hide and Keith Locke in concert on the Stadium, which had its own ironies – Parliament’s only Stalinist links arms with the man who is now Parliament’s only free marketeer?

And we saw National embracing the centre ground with the enthusiasm and finesse of a drunken lunge on New Years’ Eve. (It’s not what we’re drinking, its how we’re drinking). National’s Caucus finally realised – and this penny has been so long dropping the currency has changed several times – being in Opposition sucks, and they have to put more effort into bringing the Govt down than they do at bringing each other down. This doesn’t mean the differences have gone away, of course, but it does mean National MPs have decided not to allow them to destabilise the party as much. There’s a flying pig going past the window as you read this. And it’s towing a Tui Billboard.

What else? Nothing you want to remember as you head for the beach. Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

7th December 2006

Politician Of The Year: Nil Points

It is tempting to award Politician of the Year to Brian Connell, if only because, in his idiosyncratic way, he epitomises 2006 in all its self-seeking, squalid, back stabbing folly and lack of purpose. Usually the award is for some policy goal. It has to be about more than just survival, or personal advancement. Which means there should be a white space for the rest of this column.

There’s a clutch of politicians who warrant a “highly commended” award. Top has to be Pita Sharples for his genuine moral leadership over the Kahui twins affair. John Key has done well, but there is still more sizzle than sausage. David Cunliffe managed the Telecom clampdown without scaring too many share market horses. Shane Jones, chairing the Finance and Expenditure Committee, has performed exceptionally. For the Nats, Tony Ryall has rattled Health Minister Pete Hodgson. Bill English managed a valuable comeback and Gerry Brownlee was the party’s foundation stone.

Of the party leaders, Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne warrant a highly commended for being competent reliable Ministers. The other leaders? Helen Clark, has been paranoid and hectoring for much of the year, and the same goes for her deputy. Don Brash, lived up to his Parliamentary nickname, Mr Magoo. Winston Peters managed to look statesmanlike on occasion. Rodney Hide went swimming. Talkback, and a run at a mayoralty (Auckland?) can’t be too far off. The Greens are only just recovering from the loss of Rod Donald.

NZ deserves better than this.

30th November 2006

Brand New Key

Well, the death-watch on Don Brash’s leadership of National has been on for at least two months, although no-one would have anticipated Nicky Hager doing a sort of Morris Dance of sanctimonious glee on Brash’s political grave.

The material in Hager’s book can be divided into three categories. One is comprised of adding two and two and somehow getting fifteen. The second is simply Hager’s apparent shock about politics as it is normally practiced, in any mainstream party. This shock tends to intermingle with shock there are awful people who have different political views to, say, sainted souls with a Marxist ideology.

But the third is enough to sink Brash. Even if it does not show conclusively he misled the public, it does show he was far too close to National’s donors. No party leader should be so close to the money men, and normal good ethical practice – and good politics – is to keep the money men talking to the party organisation, not the party policymakers. The reason Brash was so close to them is a very simple, human one. They are his friends. Previous National leaders have not naturally moved in those circles. This does not excuse it though.

But it means new leader John Key, as well as taking a sharply different tack in tone from the Brash years, will also have to be squeaky clean in his dealings with the party’s donors. It may mean those donors switch back to ACT. Either way, Key will have to keep a long arms’ length between himself and the money men.

23rd November 2006

Mother’s Milk

The famous American journalist and dope fiend Hunter S Thompson described money as the “mothers’ milk of politics.” Much less wholesome, though.

Labour has targeted the Exclusive Brethren issue for several reasons. One is purely atavistic – the Brethren stand for everything Labour activists loathe, and many Labour people regard most Christian movements as similar to the Brethren. Another reason is although Labour has done very well out of corporate and other donations since 1999, this is a fair weather thing. The party’s organisers know it won’t always be so flush. In short, it wants to build a case for state funding of political parties, and the best way to do so is to create a stench around the current approach.

The third reason is more closely linked to how the 2005 election played out. National spent up large from the start of 2005, with those famous billboards. Once the election period started, stricter rules applied. Politics 101 tends to support the theory most swinging voters make up their minds at the very end of the campaign, so political parties set aside money for a media blitz in the last week.

In 2005, National didn’t, or at least, not to the extent you would expect. It is this dog which did not bark which convinced Labour National’s strategists knew all along the Brethren leaflet was going to drop, and protestations of ignorance could not be true. It is possible there were other reasons - plain incompetence, or in this murky business, of some key people within National deciding – as a number of National supporters privately believed – the best result for the centre-right was a close loss in 2005.
 

16th November 2006

Hands Across The Water

Bipartisanship is a nice word…well, OK, it’s a horrible word, but it has a nice sense to it. There has been an outbreak of bipartisanship round Parliament of late and it is rather unsettling.

The tone was set at last week’s Finance and Expenditure Select Committee, when National finance spokesman John Key agreed with Finance Minister Michael Cullen three times in the space of an hour. If this is a man auditioning for leader of the opposition, he is going a funny way about it. Then, to the topic on everyone’s minds, the Stadium. Keith Locke and Rodney Hide, the old Stalinist and the new Rightist agree the waterfront option is a bad idea. The Nats, too, got behind the Eden Park idea this week, although with plenty of get-out clauses.

Two things seem to be driving the popularity of Eden Park. One is sentiment. Eden Park has been home to some great moments, not all of them, unfortunately, from the All Blacks, but rugby has been the winner. Another factor is the perception Helen Clark is against Eden Park because she lives two blocks away. This is widely commented on in Auckland and there seems to be an urge to knock the PM off her high horse.

But to anyone who knows Auckland, Eden Park has one big disadvantage – the transport access is woeful. It is, though, highly desirable real estate. With property prices the way they are, a waterfront stadium could be totally funded by the sale of Eden Park for residential development. This would be the sensible thing, but the odds of it happening are about the same as Uruguay making the semi-finals in 2011.

9th November 2006

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Some Wellingtonians still get a bit sniffy when people call the Westpac Stadium “The Cake Tin.” It’s a shame. There is a great tradition of giving sports grounds alternative names. The Aussies excel at it. Even the Chinese have started – the Olympic stadium in Beijing has been dubbed “The Birds Nest.”

The waterfront construction being proposed for Auckland is only a concept at this stage but it already has a nickname – the Haemorrhoid Cushion. This is not just because of its physical resemblance – it will, after all, require 200 piles to be driven into the seabed, if it is ever built.

Some Chinese planning laws, not to mention Chinese labour, might be needed if the stadium is to be completed on time. Fletchers have not exactly added to the certainty around the project. The company went from a position of “it’s not possible to build a stadium on the waterfront in time” to “oh, you mean that waterfront…yeah, we can do that.”

The trouble – the pain in the backside, if you like – for taxpayers is going to be the cost. Any stadium project from here on in is going to be, in effect, Govt guaranteed. No Govt, let alone one with a special Minister for the Rugby World Cup, is going to let any stadium project fail. This applies to any stadium project, but especially one as visible as the comfort cushion on Auckland’s waterfront. For any contractors, it is going to be the sort of money train dreams are made of.

For taxpayers, well…it is also the sort of thing dreams are made of. Remember some of your dreams?

2nd November 2006

War On Climate Change

So it was climate change to the rescue! In olden times, leaders under pressure at home would declare war on someone, in order to rally their people behind them. Helen Clark could, we suppose, have a crack at Fiji, but the last time a NZ Prime Minister considered such action, during the first coup in 1987, he was told the NZ Army would get its clock cleaned. So suddenly it’s all systems go for climate change. Unite the left, scare the hell out of the undecided, and, above all, be seen to be doing something.

Claims from overseas our kiwifruit, olive oil, butter and other exports are big contributors to climate change were a gift to the Govt. Suddenly big bad foreigners are pushing us around. Clark herself linked the climate change issue to the 1980s nuclear issue, and how what had started as a concern of the Labour Left in the 1970s became bolted onto our national identity. Clark clearly hopes to do the same with climate change, and clumsy-footed, heavy-handed foreigners who try to shove our little country around on the issue, like the Reagan administration in the mid-1980s, can only help the Govt on this one.

However National is not as flat-footed as it was on the nuclear issue 20 years ago. The party has already signed up to the notion climate change is happening, and also to the idea ‘clean green NZ’ is part of our national identity. There will be some brownie points for Labour in this, especially on the Green-tinged Left, who felt Labour was becoming too centrist. But hopes of turning climate change into rallying point similar to the anti-nukes row looks like a bit of a stretch.

26th October 2006

A Safe Workplace Is Happy And Productive

Bob Clarkson got whacked or bumped, or nudged, or whatever, on the head by Trevor Mallard. Some would take it as a badge of honour, but Clarkson is not happy. He’s even less happy about Speaker Margaret Wilson’s dismissive suggestion he wear a helmet in future. But this could catch on. It raises the question of health and safety standards around Parliament, and whether they are adequate. As many employers know, all incidents which could have resulted in injury but did not, are supposed to be reported under The Health And Safety Act. Parliamentary Services should by now have asked Clarkson to fill out a form.

But why should we stop there? Someone should monitor the roars of outrage from MPs at question time. They must, at times, breach the level of safe noise. ACC Minister Ruth Dyson is currently considering extending ACC coverage to include hearing loss, and this is one area where we could see higher claims. First up will probably be MPs sitting closest to Gerry Brownlee or Tau Henare, both of whom give the phrase “bull’s roar” a whole new dimension.

There are also rules about workplace bullying. MPs in most Caucuses could probably cite breaches, if only against their own whips. But a bit of rough stuff has never been far away in any Parliament. The width of the House of Commons’ debating chamber is designed so it is slightly wider than the length of two drawn swords. Tension is at the heart of politics, and sometimes boils over.

19th October 2006

Warnings From The ‘Real’ World

Parliament went into urgency to validate its election spending, producing a display of massed butt-covering and finger pointing you can normally see in the monkeys’ enclosure at the zoo. But you’ve probably heard enough about the issue to last a lifetime. Meanwhile, out in the real world, well, the economy, which we’ll call the real world, for a given value of ‘real,’ Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard is gearing up for another interest rate review next week. And some bank economists are picking a rate hike.

It’s all because the housing market hasn’t slowed down as much as it should have. NZers are still piling up too much debt on the back of the housing boom. Bollard last month told MPs NZ is unique in the OECD in that our response to higher house prices is to borrow more. The housing boom should be coming off the boil by now. It’s less exuberant than it was. The difficulty for the Reserve Bank is two years ago the trading banks engaged in a massive mortgage rate war, and many of those fixed term mortgages are coming up for renewal between now and early next year.

So the banks are cranking up for another mortgage rate war – just as the Reserve Bank would really rather they were putting up rates. Arcus Investments this week asked, in effect, where is all the money going? Shouldn’t more of the money be going into assets which produce wealth, rather than housing? Arcus also makes the point the Australian’s have had their housing market correction. We haven’t – yet.
So watch for some strong words from Dr Bollard next Thursday.

12th October 2006

Brutus Misses The Moment

“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life  is bound
In shallows and in miseries.”

So wrote William Shakespeare in his great work of political analysis, Julius Caesar.  The words are apt when considering the National Party of late. A school of thought argues if the party’s caucus were  - to borrow another Shakespeareism - “screw its courage to the sticking place,” and change leaders, the time has passed and the opportunity missed.

A month ago Don Brash looked finished. Why when they had the perfect opportunity to depose him, did the National Caucus choose to do nothing? In hindsight they may rue the day they let “the moment” pass. Brash was ripe for the plucking, but for whatever reason his decision not to meekly fall on his sword seemed to take the heat out of his detractors in the Caucus. They didn’t even ask him to resign.

Everyone assumes there will be a new National leader before the next election. Everyone in the party wants a smooth transition. But the truth is in politics there is no such thing. Brash will know the wolves are gathering, but has this “naive” political innocent called their bluff? Even allowing for further gaffes, the aspiring leaders are showing no more political nous than he is.

National MPs should look at Howard and Blair when they think about smooth transitions. Both men’s “successors in waiting” have been emasculated by not going in for the kill themselves. Does this fate await National’s “leader in waiting,” John Key.
 

5th October 2006

What’s Wrong With These Pictures?

Suddenly the political world is infested with creepy private investigators who say they have the real dirt on various MPs. It could be like a Pink Panther movie, but it’s just a bit too serious. It’s really mind blowing, earth shattering stuff, they say, and they’ll let us know very soon what it is. Any day now. But right now they’re too ethical to tell us.

Meanwhile, Helen Clark says the actions of the investigators are “close to blackmail.”  Hmm. A few weeks back the PM threatened the release of mysterious emails about National leader Don Brash which she hadn’t seen but which were “lurking around” and “no doubt they’ll see the full light of day in due course.”  

Don Brash makes the eminently sensible point it is not because of failures to meet the Treaty obligations Maori have a high lung cancer rate - and then goes on to say there aren’t any real Maori left in the country anyway.

Winston Peters says Brash is appealing to racists, and Trevor Mallard says he is keen to raise Parliamentary standards. Jim Anderton, meanwhile, who has been through more party splits and in-fights than most of us have had hot dinners, tells an audience “we need to work together to realise our potential.” All of which reminds us of the American saying - a politician is someone who will cut down a tree, then climb on the stump and make a speech about conservation.

We’ve heard from the body politic about the state of the play, it’s just a pity the voters have to wait several years before they deliver their final verdict.
 

28th September 2006

A Dirty Dozen

Reflecting on recent events in NZ politics, to whom, we wonder, in the current Parliament might the following aphorisms apply.

“Never throw mud. You may miss your mark, but you will have dirty hands.” Joseph Parker.

“A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump, and make a speech for conservation.” Adlai E Stevenson.

“He is forever poised between a cliché and an indiscretion.” Anon.

“You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.” Henrik Ibsen.

“I wouldn’t call him a cheap politician. He’s costing this country a fortune!” Anon.

“Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.” Thomas Jefferson.

“A power worshipper without the power.” George Orwell.

“A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.” Joseph Hall.

“In the Cabinet you can say what you like about the PM. But God help you if you say what you don’t like.” Anon.

“A sneer is the weapon of the weak.” James Russell Lowell.

“He is a sheep in sheep’s clothing.” Sir Winston Churchill.

As Harry S Truman once famously said “my choice in early life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”
 

21st September 2006

For Your Homework…

We usually set a bit of homework during the recess. This time, it looks as if quite a bit of remedial work is needed.

• Helen Clark: You may, when you did your political studies degree, have come across the term ‘democracy.’ It might pay to dig out your lecture notes on this. It means people are allowed to disagree with you and campaign against you. They don’t have to be nice about it either. Oh, and saying the Auditor General is part of a smear campaign against your party is indicative of major plot-loss.

• Don Brash: if National had got as many women voters as men voters at the last election you’d be PM now. Try to find ways to make the women voters who did vote for you last time not feel icky about it. Oh, and see what happens when you play with those rough boys from the Exclusive Brethren? Stay away.

• Trevor Mallard: Quiet Time. To the cooler now.

• John Key, Bill English: No-one sent you to Quiet Time, but you’ve been very quiet. What are you up to?

• Exclusive Brethren: Have a look at your Bible. There’s a fairly important bit called the 10 Commandments. One of them says lying is a no-no. Remember this point next time you’re tempted to put false addresses on electioneering pamphlets.

• Ian Wishart: You’re no Woodward and Bernstein – they would have been investigating who stole these fabled National Party emails, not the sex life of a politician’s spouse.
 

14th September 2006

Frag II

We wondered at the time the Don Brash emails leaked last year, who had ‘fragged’ Brash. Fragging, for those who can’t remember, is what US soldiers in Vietnam termed shooting their own officers in the back. Someone had done it to National, and it had to be an insider, or at least an ex-insider.

This week we had a second fragging. It was perfectly set up – for Labour. Helen Clark did one of her “having it both ways” performances, hinting about mysterious emails, all the while insisting she was, of course, far too pure to have actually seen them. We had Labour’s runner, Trevor Mallard, almost blurt it out, and then Clark able to shake her head indulgently and say she felt like tasering him.

All good, well scripted theatre. True, Pete Hodgson forgot the script at one point and said Labour would never pay any money back to the taxpayer, even if it were found to have broken the law. Hodgson quickly reverted to the script insisting the Govt awaits with eager concern the Auditor General’s final report.

Labour’s faces cracked into gleeful grins on Wednesday when one of Brash’s own party leaked concerns about Brash’s private life. Why anyone would do anything so dumb is perhaps left to the psychologists. But the destabilising effect on National will be something Labour could only dream of – especially as National was winning the political battle over election spending. As well as the leadership, there will be an internal hunt for the fragger.

It’s worth remembering the US lost in Vietnam. Wonder why?

7th September 2006

For What It’s Worth

Paranoia is an occupational hazard in politics, and it strikes deep. There’s a heap of paranoia around the Big House in Wellington at the moment.

There are these mysterious National Party emails constantly being alluded to by Labour. Ministers – right up to PM Helen Clark – constantly refer to them. Of course, they then hurry to add they haven’t seen these emails themselves, but they have an idea of what is in them. It’s a good tactic to sow paranoia and general discord, but after a while it gets tired and you have to deliver.

In short, these mysterious emails, if they ever emerge, in book form as has been rumoured, or in single dribs and drabs, will have to include something more than offers to invest in Nigeria, opportunities to buy pharmaceuticals online, and proposals involving the specific enlargement of very personal organs.

They will have to back up what Labour says: there were deals with the insurance industry and there was an inappropriately “close” relationship within the Business Roundtable.

So where are they?

Well, where’s Winston? It looks as though when he recovers from whatever bug he picked up in the tropics he’ll be tipping them out – under Parliamentary privilege, of course. He would be coming to Labour’s rescue at a time Labour could do with something to divert attention from the election spending and Phillip Field graft.

So what’s he going to get in return? And how much more dirty is this going to get?

31st August 2006

Crime And Punishment

We got a batch of justice reforms a few weeks ago, changing parole issues, introducing truth in sentencing, and also having the general aim of making punishment more commensurate with the crime.

A few others were considering this ruefully this week. TV3, for example, banned for three days for showing NZ First’s Ron Mark giving Tau Henare the finger. Mark got off having to say he was sorry, which didn’t really impede him from doing his job. TVNZ offered TV3 camera footage, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Still fairly unpunished is Taito Phillip Field. He declares he has done nothing wrong, and is not happy at having to answer various allegations in the media. He says if there are more questions or evidence, it should go to the police. PM Helen Clark put on one of her bravura slow shoe shuffle performances on Monday, shifting her position while telling everyone she is not shifting her position. The PM emphasised the likely “personal humiliation”  - a phrase she used four times - involved in Field clinging on.

But his removal is a “Labour Party matter.” A visiting Martian would have got the impression Clark only has a fairly loose affiliation with the Labour Party. Field hid for two days and then yesterday said he doesn’t feel all that humiliated, thanks, and he’ll stay on.

Clark wants him to go but can’t be seen to be his executioner. The reason lies in a comment by one of Field’s Mangere electorate officials “it was Mangere and Manurewa which pulled the Labour Party through last election.”
 

24th August 2006

A Week Of Ceremony

A Queen buried and mourned, a Governor-General sworn in. And who says we’re heading for republican status? The two events make one wonder if there’s a better way of doing these things, and conclude, perhaps not. The G-G is the Queen’s representative, the Queen lives on the other side of the world, is head of a swag of other countries, including her own, and we all know in reality neither have any real power. Of course it’s a bit ramshackle, illogical, and irrational. But the same could be said for many social arrangements.

Parliament is a good example. It’s a bit of a shambles and often pretty silly and often things get done for the wrong reasons. But it kind of works, albeit in an imperfect way. Political parties are another good example. They’re based on the idea one’s own side is the source of pretty much all earthly virtue, while the other side are a bunch of unscrupulous thieves and liars. One is not allowed to say this in the House, only imply it, but outside the House is open slather, constrained only by defamation laws. Those at the top of political parties know this is nonsense – well, most of them know it – but it is important a fair chunk of their supporters, both within the party and outside, fervently believe this sort of thing.

In theory bumblebees can’t fly. In theory our constitutional arrangements are a shambles. But in all their unfinished, haphazard way, they work. A cost benefit analysis of changing them – designing a more aerodynamic bumblebee, if you like – doesn’t seem to stack up.

17th August 2006

A Chilling Effect

“What all journalists might like to reflect on is what the chilling effect of this will be on their interaction with senior politicians, including me.” This was how Helen Clark reacted when her enthusiastic off-the-record briefings against the country’s top policeman were made public a couple of years ago.

The chill might now be more coming the other way, after Deputy PM Michael Cullen’s extraordinary broadside at the NZ Herald. What Ministers have failed to appreciate is, on election spending rules, politicians are the fox in charge of the chicken coop. A presumption, if not of guilt then certainly of a lack of innocence, is plain common sense.

The outburst has been compared with Mugabe – which is silly. But dragging a taxpayer’s affairs into the public domain because the taxpayer owns a newspaper which dares to criticise the Govt steps over the line. Clark’s claim criticism of the Govt on election spending is defamatory is similar intimidating conduct – as well as being plain wrong. You can’t defame a Govt or a political party. This is not quite Mugabe-ist, but it is real banana republic stuff.

The argument which precipitated this – over election spending, and whether the rules were adhered to – has become complex, deliberately so. One of Labour’s most successful tactics is to simplify issues which its polling tells it are running in its favour, and make issues which are running against it much more complicated. Plan B is intimidation. We saw at lot of it this week. It isn’t working – other newspapers have backed the Herald. We can only wait to see what Plan C will be, and whether it will be as chilling.

10th August 2006

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Recess, and things go a bit quiet. There is though growing chatter about election spending issues. The Auditor-General’s draft report on the issue says pretty much all the main parties broke the rules somewhere.

Which means our political leaders are looking like kids smoking at lunchtime. The teacher has just walked in and Helen Clark and Winston Peters have shoved their hands behind their backs  - but they’re uneasily aware the smoke is rising behind them and they’re kind of aware the teacher isn’t quite dumb enough not to notice it.

United Future’s Peter Dunne is standing, like a secondary school head prefect, off to one side.

National’s Don Brash, meanwhile, has handed over his ciggies and is pointing accusingly at the others. National is playing the goody two shoes card – it has offered to repay its GST debt and is now pushing the ‘corruption’ label for all it is worth. This is National’s answer to Labour’s ‘sleaze’ accusations (borrowing from UK Labour) of the late 1990s.

The baddest boy in the class, Winston, is on the counter-attack, questioning the teacher’s legal right to even be in the room. It is classic Peters: when you’re about to be on the losing side of an issue, change the issue – in this case, whether the Auditor-General has gone too far.

The start of a political smokescreen? You bet. And this one is certainly going to need a health warning on the side of the packet.
 

3rd August 2006

Field Manoeuvres

A by-election in Mangere? A surprising number of people think Labour should have nothing to worry about such a prospect if Taito Phillip Field walks or is pushed.

True, Mangere is one of the safest seats in Parliament, but this is not the only consideration. It ignores too many other factors. Firstly, voters in safe seat by-elections often feel they can safely give the incumbent a kick up the majority by voting for a third party – for example, East Coast Bays and Rangitikei were safe National seats in the late 1970s.

More important is the issue of collateral damage, even if Labour wins. By-elections drain off time, energy and money. Being in Govt is tiring and this administration has now been in power for seven years.

Also, it would be sapping for Labour – but not for National. The Nats will never take Mangere and would only have to put up a token effort. Labour would have to fight hard.

Perhaps most important of all, a by-election in Mangere would hand the Maori Party the spotlight – even if it eventually loses. It is the last thing Labour wants. Labour grew in the 1910s and 1920s by winning, or narrowly losing, a series of by-elections and chipping away at the then Liberal Party from the Left.

Early 21st century Labour, which has some interesting parallels with the early 20th Century Liberal Party, will be aware of the risk.

What it has to do now is somehow put the political odour-eaters to work on the stench around Field.

27th July 2006

Trivial Pursuit

Oh Dear. Winston Peters and the media. Where to begin…

The rage of Peters with the media often resembles the anger of the wicked witch in Snow White when the mirror tells her she is not, as she thought, the fairest in the land.

Which is not to say the media is not without fault here, far from it. As a group, journalists can be extraordinarily thin-skinned, much more so than most of the people they write about. And there’s been plenty of epidermically challenged behaviour from various media over the past week.

Had the Americans got their knickers in a knot over Peters’ abrupt curtailing of his press conference with John McCain the column inches and air-time devoted to it would have been justified. Uncle Sam’s nether garments, however, seem to have remained remarkably untwisted.

Peters’ outburst though, has had an odd kind of double negative-equals-a-positive effect. So often have people pointed out if he hadn’t lost his rag the visit would have been a triumph, it is now being marked as a triumph.

The affair has been of immense help to the Govt. It drew a lot of energy and outrage which should have been directed at the shameful Taito Phillip Field cover-up. The Ingram report on Field repeatedly notes his powers were limited and “other authorities” would have to deal with those questions.

However the only “other authority” who is going to get any say at all on this is Helen Clark. And she says move on.

20th July 2006

Bad Judgement, Bad Taste

There are no speed ticket quotas, and Taito Phillip Field is basically innocent of anything other than trying too hard to help constituents. Well, at least they didn’t try to blame this one on “the 1990s,” although surely the line “we are all human beings, we all make mistakes,” Field’s own line, is getting almost as hackneyed, and as threadbare.

There are a few difficulties with Noel Ingram’s report into Field’s rather unique approach to helping his constituents – buying up their houses on the cheap and flicking them on at a huge profit is, at best, not a good look, and Ingram makes it clear this showed a lack of judgement.

But Ingram seems to have had more ‘no-go’ areas than downtown Baghdad. It is in fact quite possible Field is innocent of a lot of the charges levelled at him, but Ingram is unable to clear him or condemn him.

Ingram’s report basically said some of the most serious allegations could not be addressed because people would not give him statements. And he had no power to compel them to do so.

The real sadness about all this is, for all too many voters, the affair is going to serve as further confirmation politics is a dirty business and one which is mostly concerned with self interest. All too many voters will be shrugging their shoulders and just accepting this is just the way things are.

And this is not good for any of us. Field may be guilty of no more than bad judgement. But it is bad judgement of a much worse kind, which allows voters to be left with this impression.

13th July 2006

Sutton Sacrificed For Greater Good

With Parliament off, Labour celebrated its 90th birthday - and the retirement of Jim Sutton, probably the last of the Rogernomes (albeit a reconstructed one).

The widely liked Sutton is being replaced by Charles Chauvel, an urban lawyer, with an expensive property on Wellington’s Oriental Bay and who campaigned during the last election in an open-topped Mercedes. As they used to say - up the workers.

Chauvel is fairly typical of Labour these days, and an indicator of how much the party has changed.  Sutton – who occasionally played up his rural drawl – was never typical Labour.

For years he was the only Labour MP you could imagine in gumboots. That’s not always an advantage in the Labour party and it left Sutton isolated after the last election. He’d gone out on a limb for the party over issues like land access, but his loyalty to the party line was not reciprocated - he had no power base and not enough mates willing to die in a ditch for him.

Which was what made him expendable. Sutton has got a couple of useful jobs out of his retirement from politics – and unlike some other retired MPs, he is likely to see those jobs as work rather than as a sinecure.

Of the other MPs dumped in the rejuvenation express departure lounge  by the Labour leadership – Georgina Beyer, Dianne Yates and Russell Fairbrother -  only Beyer has said she is going. And can we believe her? She has said she is going every term she has been in Parliament.

6th July 2006

No Quota – That’ll Be The Day

You could almost hear the chorus of “yeah right” from North Cape to Bluff on Monday when the Govt moved frantically to counter some pretty damning evidence police have a quota system for traffic fines. This is clearly a hugely sensitive issue, and the Govt moved fast on it. Police Minister Annette King called a quick press conference on Monday morning in a bid to hose down the issue.

The trouble is few people believe the denials. If the police focus was clearly on high accident areas, fair enough. But too many of us can point to stretches of road which have seen few accidents but plenty of revenue gathering activity.

King’s effort was unusual because since the 2005 election, the Govt has seldom moved so fast. The only move which saw similar speed was the back down, in the face of public pressure and behind-the-scenes concerns by NZ First, over changes to the investment tax regime. After having derided the whole idea of any exemptions, within an hour of introducing the Bill an amendment was being added to make one for investors in GPG.

The two moves are similar in another way: they were both reactive. All Govts are at the mercy of events. Too much of this though and it looks as though a Govt is no longer in control, or has lost its sense of purpose. Obsessive risk aversion, third term weariness, and the semi-public auditioning going on for the job of Deputy Leader and Finance Minister, are adding up to an administration which increasingly appears to be in office but not in power.

29th June 2006

Questions, Questions

•  Will Transpower’s infamous “D-Ring,” which left Aucklanders in the dark and started a massive blame game go down in political infamy like DOCs’s “bag of bolts” which could have made a difference at Cave Creek 10 years’ ago?
•  Would it be possible for Trevor Mallard to more resemble a kid going “ooh!! Pick me! Pick me!” for the finance job?
•  After years of criticism from the industry there is no energy policy, one is now being prepared “as a matter of urgency.” How quick, how thorough will it be, and why does it always take a crisis before this sort of thing is done? And how much longer can you blame the former Govt?
•  New roads and rate rises in our main centres – why is there so much surprise? Do people think new roads come from Santa?
•  Is National’s policy of saying what a good health Minister Annette King was – as a way of getting at Pete Hodgson – really such a good idea, given she is in charge of tricky areas like Transport and Police?
•  Since they obviously produce some resourceful prostitutes in the Rimutaka area, and since conventional methods aren’t working, can we smuggle the lass who broke into the prison into a Kahui family meeting so we can find out what really happened?
•  The thorniest political question of the week – for all parties – was “how can we make political capital out of the deaths of two kids without actually seeming to?” the winner – Pita Sharples, the more so because he clearly meant every word he said.
 

22nd June 2006

Private Members’ Heyday

Has there ever been a period where it is easier for individual MPs to get a high profile bill into the House?

There’s Sue Bradford’s abolish section 59 Anti-Smacking Bill. This has really brought out the campaigners on both sides – those who think smacking is the equivalent of beating your kid to death with a kettle cord; and those on the other side who think a good solid thumping was somewhere in the Bible between “blessed are the peacemakers” and “Jesus wept.”

National MP Wayne Mapp’s Employment Probationary Period Bill has brought about an intense lobbying campaign from he unions and also from various Ministers, who have provided reams of statistics with the aim of showing the bill is not necessary. The Maori Party, all bar MP Hone Harawira, voted for its introduction and looked set to back it through, but now appears to be wavering. But even if it doesn’t go through, it would never have got this far in previous Parliaments.

Another one sure to hit the headlines is Labour MP Maryan Street’s Residential Tenancies (Damage Insurance) Amendment Bill. This will require all landlords to insure their tenants against other tenants night damage the property and then scarper. With the large numbers of NZers now investing in residential property, and a similar rise in NZers renting, this one will cause fireworks – as it is no doubt intended to do. Street has been billed as a high flier and this is aimed at boosting her profile on the Left.  

15th June 2006

It Was The 1990s Wot Done It!

A couple of weeks ago an internal Labour Party memo on how the party should use language to capture political minds was leaked. What was most revealing about the memo was the sense of siege mentality which permeated the document. It was also a  useful reminder political parties – all  political parties – are a conspiracy against the general public.

But Helen Clark showed herself a master of a particular form of political language over the power blackout in Auckland. Clark carefully used the language of someone who was still in opposition, or at least had only just got into Govt, rather than someone who had been running the show for seven years.

At this stage it could be simply an act of God, or bad maintenance. And of course a number of reports have been called for. But inevitably – as it always does with the Govt – “The 1990s” got the blame.

Both Clark and Energy Minister David Parker have suggested the problem is not anything this Govt has or has not done since 1999, but because of what National did or did not do between 1990 and 1999.
As well as ignoring the last seven years of Labour Govt, it also ignores the recent economic boom. This is important, firstly because Labour has had more cash to put into important things like power lines in our largest city, and secondly because strong economic growth puts extra burdens on the electricity system. This is very basic economics, and a prudent Govt would make the investment. Poor excuses do not make the lights work.
 

8th June 2006

Recessional Strangeness Now The Norm

It’s been something of a trend of this Parliament for things to get weird when the recess is on, and with plenty of time off, there’s plenty of time for strange happenings. This time the weirdness started when Finance Minister Michael Cullen had a brain-spasm and told TVNZ the fuss over tax cuts was all because four particular gallery journalists feel they are taxed too much. Cullen obviously meant it and the television footage of a major politician in meltdown mode was stark and vaguely unsettling.

Even more deluded was the sight of the Greens insisting they are not a left wing party. They say this from time to time and it is always good for a giggle because, like Cullen, they obviously mean it.

While it is probable somewhere amongst the Greens’ support base there are one or two people who used to vote National or ACT but have now decided the Greens represent the road ahead, it’s a fair bet there are not too many of them. They are mostly the “worried well” – the Sue Kedgely-reading neurotic well-off mums who have too much money and too much time to fret. It’s a fairly limited basis for saying the party is not really left wing, especially when the party’s solution to any given problem is inevitably based on a suspicion of business and the profit motive.

The discussion amongst the Greens over not being right or left wing is really about the party’s innate conviction it is really above the grubby business of politics. Which is the silliest idea of all.
 

1st June 2006

Patriotism, Scoundrels, And Last Refuges Thereof

Unfortunately, we are going to hear a great deal more of the “national identity” theme from Labour. The party desperately wants to brand itself as the natural party of Govt. The all-encompassing Working for Families package is another part of this effort.

In democracies like ours, parties with an enduring majority have succeeded in branding themselves as the true party of the nation, the true patriots. The Conservatives did it in the UK over the last century: the Republicans have done it more recently in the US. National did it here in the 1950s through to the 1970s.

Back then the taunt was “go back to Russia!” to anyone of profound left wing sympathies. It was rare though for the Prime Minister of the day to come out with anything so crude.

Helen Clark is usually more fastidious. She usually gets Trevor Mallard to do this sort of thing. He’s so good at it. This time though Clark has led the taunts suggesting Brash is somehow not being a true NZer. Although she has stopped short of snarling “whaddarrya??!!” across the House (probably she is leaving it for Trevor) the tone has definitely been there.

The issue has hit home, hence Brash’s defence on Monday. Probably the best response is, look, we’re both patriotic. So stop being silly. And can we talk about something more important than the branding of political parties? Because it is all this talk of “national identity” is really about.

25th May 2006

The Money AND The Bag Thanks

Seized upon with barely disguised glee by National Radio this week was a survey in Aust which shows Australians would rather have more social spending than tax cuts.

One needs to take this sort of survey with a fairly Dead-Sea-sized portion of salt. Back in the 1980s survey after survey in the UK repeatedly showed a majority of Brits wanted better social services, not tax cuts. Then they trooped out and voted for Margaret Thatcher. The same goes for surveys which seem to favour tax cuts. It’s all in the questions.

One election won’t settle this issue (despite what you might think from the way some Labour MPs talk), let alone one survey.

If one were being cynical – and of course this column struggles valiantly each week against cynicism, if only to lose gracefully – it might well be voters want it both ways.

It could be we are about to see a couple of classic examples, on each side of the Tasman, of voters presented with a choice of A or B. They vote for B  - and then punish the Govt they voted into power for not giving them A.

It’s easy to be cynical about politicians. But sometimes it pays to be cynical about voters as well. However, let us spread the cynicism around. It’s not impossible Inland Revenue’s optimistic figures in the Budget about the tax take will turn out to be more accurate than the Treasury’s. And if this happens, what’s the bet Labour goes to the 2008 election with a package of tax cuts as well?

18th May 2006

Failing In Its First Duty

The large gaps in NZ’s civil defence which have been exposed over the past two weeks should have every citizen alarmed.

First there is a tsunami alert, and Civil Defence shows its total ineptness in getting out a crucial message which needs to be transmitted to the public.
The further news this week of the country’s woeful unpreparedness for a major catastrophe should be ringing alarm bells.
This is basic stuff. It goes right to the heart of what a Govt is supposed to do.

The principal reason people decided they needed a Govt in the first place is to protect citizens from harm. Historically, it is why the principal task of Govts was to raise enough money to finance, train and arm a military force of sufficient size and ability to defend against attack.

NZ does not have to worry too much about that sort of attack, unless, perhaps, the Tokelauans come over all expansionist.

Our biggest threats are those posed by the natural world around us – earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and other disasters. For Civil Defence, this means one of its first jobs is getting the right information to people affected as quickly as possible. One of the main means of getting this vitally important information out is the country’s news media.

Which is why NZ cannot afford to have a Civil Defence operation which seems to have as a core belief the media are the enemy.

For the sake of the safety of all of us, it is to be hoped the message has got through to Civil Defence.

11th May 2006

Address Real Issues Please

A bunch of old, leaked emails showing some Americans might have indicated they would be interested in helping National, and National leader Don Brash might have thought this was a good idea. Scandal!  Horror!!! Mass swoons in the debating chamber and press gallery at the sheer tragic ghastliness of it all!!!

OK. Sarcasm mode off. It should have been the dampest of damp squibs, were it not for Brash’s, to use his own words, “negligent” handling of the issue. Even then we still don’t know if it has really hurt Brash. After last year’s drawn out and mostly petty election campaign, there is still a very strong sense most of the country is tired of politics – at least, tired of petty little Wellington rows like this one, which are obscuring major issues, like the damage the Telecom leak has done to the country, the Health crisis, Prison chaos, high taxes, and the growing bureaucracy.

How much it hurts Brash will depend very much on how much people are paying attention to the key issues.

What will be interesting is to see whether this causes any “hit” in the polls. Coming as it does a week before the Budget it might be difficult to discern how much any change is due to the email Claytons scandal and how much to do with the Budget.

But:  Brash’s Achilles heel is his image as the last of the New Righters, and what Labour calls his “Mr Magoo” moments.

The email row underlined both of these. All Brash’s moves from now on need to be made with a view to not exposing these weaknesses.

4th May 2006

Nice Doggy

Auckland’s traffic system is as clogged as our obese kids’ arteries will be by the time they are 30.
The country’s transmission lines are going to fall over if Transpower can’t get enough bailing twine to hold the Cook Strait cable together and get enough landowners to lie down and allow a couple of lines of new pylons in the north Waikato and South Canterbury.

Meanwhile, the economy is really starting to slow.

And what gets the attention? Microchipping dogs, and whether farm dogs and other benign breeds should be included or not.

Now microchipping dogs is not going to bring down a Govt. It’s never likely to be a confidence issue, even in NZ. It may have become so in the 1950s, assuming there had been microchips available then.

Maybe it’s just  microchipping dogs is a reasonably easy issue to hold an opinion on. It’s easy to understand and there are relatively few options.

Solutions to Auckland’s traffic?  Energy transmission and prices?

For most citizens – and probably most MPs – it is a bit more difficult to hold a clear-cut position on any of these.
The issues are long term and complex. And – more significantly  - there are no solutions which will not cause pain somewhere.

It’s a lot easier for our Wellington beltway opinion makers to get outraged – and it is an outrage because it won’t stop dog attacks – about tagging Huntaways and Golden Retrievers.
 

27th April 2006

The Plot? I Had It Here A Minute Ago...

Weird scenes. Weird weird scenes in the becalmed world of the nation’s capital.

ACT’s two MPs do a reversal of traditional roles – the male one goes dancing, the female one joins the army. Would we rather have seen Rodney dodging behind tussock out off the Desert Road, and Heather gliding around under the light of a spinning shining ball? Perhaps.

Meanwhile, Don Brash goes to Washington with Phil Goff and says supportive things about the current foreign policy. It tells us nothing we didn’t already know – i.e. the Nats are worried about the nuclear issue and need to neutralise it – but was it really wise to rub everyone’s nose in it? The talk fest they indulged in with the Americans didn’t live up to expectations either.

Nandor Tanczos, bidding for co-leadership of his Party in what a few months ago he was calling the toxic environment of Parliament, says the Greens should not be a left wing Party. Hmm. Let’s see. They don’t like capitalism, free trade, or big business. It still sounds kind of left wing-ish to us, Nandor.

Labour says the latest piece of bad news – this time the hospital waiting lists which are more like the old kids game of “they all rolled over and one fell out” aren’t Labour’s fault but someone else’s. Nothing to do with Ministers or Govt policy whatsoever.

... OK. So no change there.

It says something when things get even more unreal when Parliament isn’t sitting than they do when it is.
 

13th April 2006

Does Scandal Mongering Really Matter?

According to an opinion poll, slightly under half of us think the present Govt is honest, and fractionally fewer think it isn’t.

Is that a surprise? And does it really matter?

Yes, and yes.

It’s an essential element of democracy, we trust those we elect. On the other hand, given the country split almost equally between those who voted Labour, and those who voted National, at the last election, it should not surprise nearly 44% say they don’t think the present Govt is honest, and 45.5% say they do.

The more comforting statistic is 57% of those same respondents said they trusted this Govt to do what it thinks is in the best interests of the country, and 39.5% answered no to that question.
 
As American essayist H.L. Mencken put it, under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove the other party is unfit to rule, and both commonly succeed, and are right.

In the first months in the life of this Govt, the Opposition parties have done everything they could to demonstrate Labour and its cohorts are unfit to rule, with a series of damaging personal attacks on a variety of targets. But yet a solid majority still trust the Govt to do what it thinks is in the best interests of the country.

No wonder Helen Clark thinks all’s well in “Helengrad,” despite David Benson-Pope, despite David Parker, despite the misuse of funds for the pledge card, and despite all the other misdeeds.

6th April 2006

Was It A Nudge Or A Stumble?

Helen Clark’s statement she does not know whether her Deputy PM Michael Cullen will be around after 2008 set the rumour mill into hyperdrive. Any ruffled feathers were smoothed down by Tuesday, although Opposition MPs had some fun trying to bait both Clark and Cullen on the issue.

Cullen’s press conference launching the new tertiary education changes turned into a question and answer on his retirement plans. Cullen appeared to rule out standing down in 2008 without doing so.  He is, he says, “contemplating” standing again, and his future “includes the next election at this stage.” Which leaves plenty of room for manoeuvre. The speculation was followed by the bizarre suggestion Cullen might want to be Speaker.

Cullen parried this with the line major players don’t become refs “how would I stop playing?” Which is a bit of an insult to current Speaker Margaret Wilson, suggesting either the former Minister of Labour and Attorney-General and architect of the Employment Relations Act and the Supreme Court Act was either not a major player, or has been unable to stop playing.

Was Clark trying to nudge Cullen out? This was the first reaction to the story, but when you read the transcript of the interview it does not look as though the PM was pushing such a line. It looked more like a clumsy response to a question. Which is significant in itself.  It’s not the sort of stumble the PM would have made a couple of years ago.
 

30th March 2006

Lifting Your Game

MPs fell over themselves at the start of the week to shake their heads and tut-tut over our team’s performance at the Commonwealth Games. By Wednesday they were instead falling over themselves to congratulate the team. It’s amazing what a quiet bit of backlash will do. A bit more mirror gazing on the part of MPs might however be in order. Perhaps it is the fact that we have what is virtually a hung Parliament, but behaviour in the Chamber is deteriorating.

Those of use who remember the MMP debate might recall that we were told it would mean MPs would have to work together a great deal more.

That is true, so far as it goes. But what it means in reality is that Team A will work with Team B so they can jointly shaft Team C.

There is more of that going on – the most notable case being the Maori Party gleefully voting for Private Members’ Bills which will upset Labour. But there’s also no doubt question time is rowdier and as we noted here last week, the off-microphone comments by MPs are getting more frequent and more personal.

Bill English last week raised the issue of what he called threats from Deputy PM Michael Cullen. Cullen denied making them. This week we had the complete absurdity of Economic Development Minister Trevor Mallard complaining Gerry Brownlee had called him a girl.

Not so, said Brownlee. He called him a goon. It was a rare moment of humour.

The game is getting dirty.
 

23rd March 2006

She’s A Hard Road Finding The Perfect MP, Boy

In, say a year’s time... won’t David Parker be looking good? The decent chap who owned up to a mistake and graciously and honourably, with a minimum of fuss, stood down.

No cute half-answers; no silly excuses for not fronting to Parliament; no desperate, pathetic clinging to office.

The two Labour MPs from the Deep South could well become a Parliamentary version of the two old blokes in the Speights beer ads, but in this version it would be the young bloke with all the clues. David Parker may have been a junior Minister, but he ain’t stupid.

David Benson-Pope, the elder of the two, is still in office, but tarnished. Parker can come back in a year or so with blemishes washed away by his time in the political wilderness.

The worry has been voiced that the business of attacking MPs for their past has gone too far. This may be true in the Benson-Pope case. The initial allegations stemmed from 20 years back. But the last time Parker filed an untrue document with the Companies Office was last September. Six months is pretty recent.

It’s a fact politics is often full of rumours about past activity of some MPs. It’s not unknown for MPs, at times of heightened excitement, to call out references to these in off-microphone moments across the House. But it’s probably where they belong, and where they will stay. There’s not much appetite, amongst MPs, let alone the public, for more gutter stuff.

16th March 2006

Contempt And Dirt

A week to consider issues such as glasshouses, peeing contests and skunks, dirt and contempt. The parties came back from recess seemingly determined to talk about other matters, ANY other matters, than what David Benson-Pope might or might not have got up to as a teacher all those years ago. Two magical words, from both PM Helen Clark and Deputy PM Michael Cullen “glass houses,” seem to have made National and ACT decide they don’t want to get into a urinating contest with a skunk.

This and feedback from voters saying calling Benson-Pope a “pervert” had been an epithet too far. Some have not learned: National’s Nick Smith compared Chris Carter’s actions over the Whangamata Marina with Robert Mugabe’s policies, which was (a) hyperbolic even by the standards of political rhetorical, and (b) dumb.

It was Labour who brought Benson-Pope up again on Wednesday, with successive MPs baiting the Opposition to go further. They didn’t, but the standing of Parliament has taken another drop.

The average swinging voter, it has to be said, has very little interest in what David Benson-Pope did or did not do as a schoolteacher. There will be reservations about Benson-Pope’s honesty and, with most voters, his card is marked. But most voters also believe in his lack of candour, Benson-Pope is no different from most other MPs. This has revealed the nasty side of Parliament, and the low regard voters have for politicians’ honesty, which is the most damnable, and damning, legacy of the whole affair.

9th March 2006

Questions To Ponder During Parliament’s Recess

• Heard PM Helen Clark talk about “restoring public accountability, openness, and honesty” to Govt lately?

• The Benson-Pope backlash: was it triggered by Rodney Hide and Judith Collins’ use of the word “pervert”? Was it because of Benson-Pope’s going on both TV channels and doing his best to be “human” and wheeling out his family for the Sunday papers? Would the same tactics have saved John Tamihere, Dover Samuels, Ruth Dyson, Phillida Bunkle, and Lianne Dalziel from demotion?

• Two prominent rugby players in a pub scuffle, and it’s on the front page. A few prominent well known journalists in a pub scuffle, and it’s in the snigger section of gossip columns. What makes one more or less newsworthy than the other?

• ACT – Is Hide’s party going the same way as the Alliance?

• The dummy spits: how long before it becomes clear meaningful tax cuts are not going to happen, and Peter Dunne takes a walk? The dummy spits II: Winston. How the non-mighty have risen. But he’s not really going to end his career as a Foreign Affairs stuffed shirt in London or Washington. Is he?

• Should we feel grateful the Awatere Ferry made it across the Cook Strait without breaking down, even in a major storm, and even if it did break a few passengers and cars in the process? Do Auckland’s travel woes have anything to do with the fact all the country’s road transport experts seem to live in Wellington?

2nd march 2006

The Dog Ate My Memory

Being a pupil of David Benson-Pope’s must, in one way at least, have been a breeze. Excuses such as “the dog ate my homework” would have been accepted without a murmur. Get caught thumping one of the younger kids? An excuse such as “I was just testing his strength” would have sufficed. Smoking behind the bike sheds? “The glare from the sun lit the cigarette, Sir, just after I found it lying on the ground and was about to bring it to the principal’s office.”

The reaction from the benign Benson-Pope, surely, would have been a cheery “well done” and a pat on the head. After all, these are the kind of excuses he expects the rest of us to accept. But seriously, to suggest he “forgot” a complaint about entering the girls’ shower room is simply not credible.

It is no exaggeration to say teachers, especially male teachers, live in terror of this sort of accusation. Short of brain damage, any teacher is going to remember this sort of complaint against them. To add the attempted sophistry,  there was no written complaint, and it never went to the Board, is the kind of pathetic wriggling which only looks more guilty.

To further claim he acted in accordance with school policy, as Benson-Pope and his boss Helen Clark have, when the school policy had to be changed as a result of the complaint against him (you know, the complaint that sort of didn’t happen, kind of) is both inept and duplicitous. As we have had cause to say previously about Benson-Pope, just how stupid do you think we are?

23rd February 2006

Square Eyes

We have proof the world has gone television mad – if proof were ever needed. It began with the sad warble of aging worthies complaining television should be like it was in the old days.

The group forgot the first rule, which should to be observed by anyone harking back to a mythical Golden Era: Never Go Into Too Much Detail.

As soon as they mentioned the awful attempt to make a NewZild Coronation Street, Close to Home, for those who don’t remember, it was a nightly half-hour of soap combined with earnest attempts at social “relevance” set amongst a group of Wellington public servants (sort of like Shortland Street with brown cardigans and even worse acting) - their case was doomed.  

Then the PM climbed into the debate over Southpark, as did the Catholic Church. The PM doesn’t, “as a woman,” like Southpark showing jokes about a menstruating statue of Mary. The Catholic Church doesn’t like it because of Mary’s status in its faith. There are other opponents as well, some calling for a boycott.
We haven’t yet heard whether other statues are offended about Southpark  making fun of statues, but on present form, it can only be a matter of time.
 
None of this can be good for anyone. There’s a point worth remembering. TV is not real life, and increasingly it seems to be taking over real life. Put down the remote. Go for a walk. Get some fresh air. It’s a lovely country outside. If the sun isn’t shining now where you are, it soon will be. Enjoy it..
 

16th February 2006

Inquiry Anyone?

Someone shoved some steroids into his corned beef, was the suggestion after National leader Don Brash came out on the attack on Tuesday. Brash had to put up with a lot of barracking during his speech – barracking which Speaker Margaret Wilson seemed not to notice, although someone must have had a word because she stomped hard on such behaviour on Wednesday.

Brash doesn’t do anger well – neither, incidentally, does John Key. But Brash does do a kind of affronted righteousness, and he managed to sound genuinely outraged at Labour’s gaming of the election rules in paying for its much vaunted pledge card.

Labour came back on Wednesday, pointing out National had engaged in similar gaming with its leaflet drop in 2004. A lot of Brash’s advantage from the first encounter was wiped away, as Labour backbenchers had a chance to enjoy National’s discomfort on the issue.

There is to be an inquiry, of course. We can probably predict the outcome now. If anyone thinks any inquiry is going to come out and call anyone to account on this they clearly have not been paying attention to how these things actually work.

It will be the system’s fault, we will be told. Things have been unclear. The rules are a mess.  These poor politicos have tried very hard to make the system work but it just hasn’t come off. It will not, of course, be asked whether the politicos should have arranged for something to be done about the rules before it got to this point.
 

9th February 2006
Want To See My Etchings?

A few bad drawings full of rather adolescent humour and suddenly the world goes berko.

Should the local media have published the anti Islamic cartoons?  The instinct of pretty much any journalist will be “publish and be damned.” These things though need to be decided by something more measured than just instincts.

No freedoms are absolute. You are not free, for example, to shout “Fire!” in a crowded sports stadium, and you would be irresponsible to  do so. Certainly, no-one would laud you for your courage.

An argument which essentially runs “we ran these things because a bunch of religious fanatics think we should not be allowed to” is also somewhat limited.

It does not really stand up if a lot of people who are not religious fanatics also think you should not publish them. The bar is somewhat higher.

Rudyard Kipling once warned of a danger of the media having “power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot down the ages.”

The way to counter this omnipresent risk is for editors to use their freedom wisely – more wisely than we have seen from certain media outlets in the country this week.

Yes, we live in a culture where the media organisations which published the cartoons are free to publish and be damned. But the rest of us are also free to judge whether those media outlets are using their hard earned freedom responsibly.

2nd February 2006
Surprising On The Upside?

When an economic result is said to “surprise on the downside” it means “we got it wrong.” When a result “surprises on the upside” it means “we got it wrong but no-one will mind very much.” So this week National leader Don Brash was written up as having returned to his comfort zone – economics – for this year’s Orewa speech. In terms of operating within their comfort zones, though, it is difficult to go past NZ’s political commentariat.

Much commentary seems to operate with an unspoken template in mind of what makes a successful political leader, and it seems to be a rough cross of John F Kennedy, David Lange, and - increasingly - Helen Clark. This is despite the success of figures such as John Howard and George Bush, who do not, to put it mildly, fit that mould. Voters have a way of looking past such frivolous templates - something our political commentators need to pay more heed to.

But it is why, when Brash got into Parliament, he was written off as a potential National leader. A good possible Finance Minister, yes, but no more. When he became leader it was said he would never rattle Helen Clark. Instead, he doubled Nationals’ vote and got within an ace of turning the Govt out. In short, Brash tends to surprise on the upside. He may yet do so again.

This was, perhaps, one reason for choosing the economy for his speech this week. The main reason though is economic surprises, over the next 18 months, may well be on the downside.

26th January 2006
Being Green Gets Harder

“It’s not easy being green,” Kermit the Frog once sang. The Green Party should be poised to do well out of the current political situation, but perhaps not as well as it might.

The Greens, and their predecessor Values,  did well in years voters threw Labour Govts out, in 1975 and 1990. Their hope is under MMP they can build a more lasting base out of the same sort of protest from the Left.

Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons kicked off the year with two events: her annual speech on the State of the Planet (It’s bad, she reckoned, in case you were wondering); and a less than happy appearance in the news, getting caught lighting fires during a fire ban. The Greens can only take votes from Labour. A lot of Labour’s more idealistic followers are disgusted with the party cosying up with Winston Peters and Peter Dunne.

There are two difficulties. The fire lighting thing is one, which may or may not be fleeting. If you’re going to capture people’s idealism, the last thing you can afford to do is look like a “do as I say not as I do” hypocrite. It’s not the first time a Green MP has done this sort of thing: Sue Kedgely had a protected native tree which was blocking the view from her expensive Oriental Bay home removed a few years ago.

The second problem is the average age of the voters the Greens are now trying to woo away form Labour is getting older. They’re more pragmatic. And they are probably more inclined to sigh and put up with New Zealand First and United Future, if it means keeping Don Brash out.

15th December 2005
Looking Ahead –  Likely Plays Of 2006

The economy – hard landing, soft landing, or fog has closed Wellington airport again and we’ll have to stooge around for a bit? Whichever it turns out to be, we won’t see 4% GDP growth again for a few years. Unemployment will start to rise again - which may take the edge off an increasingly toey union movement.

We may, at some point in 2006, get an economic indicator which is NOT immediately followed by Michael Cullen saying “this is further evidence tax cuts are a bad idea.” It would not, though, be an idea to hold your breath for this.

Cullen will though have to give some ground on company tax if he is to keep Peter Dunne’s United Future Party inside.

There will be more grumbles amongst National’s Caucus over leader Don Brash.

In the event there are similar grizzles from ACT’s Caucus about leader Rodney Hide, Hide will have a reasonably clear idea where they’re coming from.
A scrap between GPs and new Minister of Health Pete Hodgson over the latest roll out of the PHO scheme.

Water water water…for electricity generation, irrigation, and drinking. This will only be the start of a big adjustment NZers will have to make. We can no longer take good water for granted.

Will the Greens manage without Rod Donald? The omens weren’t good until this week: getting the Ian Fraser TVNZ leak was a nice coup for the party. Don’t write them off just yet.

8th December 2005

Who Is The Bozo Here?

Two weeks ago David Benson-Pope ducked question time in favour of ushering British comedian John Cleese around Parliament. There was some joking speculation this week the globe trekker and fellow Monty Pythonist Michael Palin might pay a lightening visit this week during question time and require Benson-Pope’s hosting skills.

The affair has actually moved beyond what may or may not have happened in a Dunedin classroom 20-odd years ago. Perhaps if the Minister had not been so maladroit, and so oblivious to his own maladroitness, it may have become less of an issue. There have been too many moves which Benson-Pope obviously thought were clever but which only insult the intelligence of the rest of us.

Calling the Police “Bozos” wasn’t a good look either. The leak of parts of the Police report to the Herald on Sunday does not exactly display intelligent thinking either. The full report was always going to come out, and feelings of the Herald On Sunday reporters, when they read the full report can only be imagined, even if they did rather set themselves up for it.

Again, smart or an insult to everyone else’s intelligence? Then Benson-Pope’s office denies being the source of the leak, only to rescind the denial a short while later. A smart person doesn’t indulge in this sort of ducking and diving. They’re the actions of someone who is not as smart as he thinks he is and who thinks the rest of us are Bozos.


1st December 2005
Play of the Week Annual Awards

Political issue of the year:
Tax cuts. The ground shifted here – most parties now think they’re a good idea. But if the economy tanks next year (and the omens aren’t good) there will be much less room for reductions in 2008.

Surprise of the year:
Jim Anderton as Agriculture Minister. Once this would have led to a dramatic collapse of rural confidence, and farmers marching on Parliament. Now no-one seems to mind. Or care.

Comedy performance of the year:
• Bob Clarkson. In a tight campaign and facing sexual harassment allegations Clarkson grabs his pants in front of a female TV reporter and says his crotch is under pressure. Brilliant stuff.
• Helen Clark and Winston Peters’ straight-faced claims the “Government arrangement” (we’re NOT to call it a coalition, the two say) is sensible and workable.

Mover of the year:
John Key. Three years ago an unknown backbencher: now appearing in preferred PM stakes, and he’s done it without resorting to populism or bagging his colleagues. Needs to watch the smart alec attitude though.

Miracle worker of the year:
Helen Clark. Dourly fought her way into a 3rd term, and will probably have a crack at a 4th. Loses ground for the bizarre “Government arrangement,” and her insistence we take it all as seriously as she and Winston do.

No politician of the year - it’s just been too tough to call, with a few too many contenders.
 

24th November 2005
The Boy In The Bauble

There’s something banana republicish about a Foreign Minister who reacts to media criticism by calling the newspaper concerned “treasonous.” Treason is a serious crime. Until 1989 it was still punishable by death, something most people were unaware of. So Winston Peters’ outburst at the NZ Herald this week is cause for concern. Or it would be if he had any real power. To respond to criticism of Peters with the claim such criticism is undermining the NZ Govt’s representative overseas is an Alice-in-Wonderland argument, and not just for the banana republic overtones noted above.

On anything important Peters doesn’t represent the NZ Govt overseas. His stance on a free trade agreement with China effectively puts him outside the main trade goal of this term. And Labour has carefully emasculated him over the past two weeks. Helen Clark’s response, when Peters announced his number one priority was to improve relations with the US, there is no problem with that relationship, cut the ground from under the Foreign Minister.

Then the Aussies asked why they should bother meeting with Peters - and Labour leaked that query to the media. When it emerged Peters isn’t even on the Cabinet External Relations Committee the emasculation was complete. It’s a bit like the All Black coach being excluded from the selection panel and also having his forward and back coaches dictating the run of play.

Take away all those things, and all you have left are those famous baubles.

17th November 2005

Pardies!

Back when Labour was elected in 1999 Michael Cullen observed at his first press conference that officials prepared two briefing papers for an incoming Govt: “a red one and a blue one.”

This has always been denied at an official level, even though all the briefing papers in that year had a decidedly pinkish hue. Public servants can read the polls as well as any of us, and they do like to keep an eye on who they are likely to be working with. Or for.

The Treasury’s briefing paper yesterday seems to give the lie to the legend of two briefing papers. “An ideological burp” was how Cullen dismissed it, saying the Treasury comes out with one of these eructations every three years. In fact, the tenor of this one is very different from the post-2002 election briefing, which was all about building a more inclusive economy, and was the economic equivalent of a group hug. Tales of Cullen’s grumpiness with the Treasury had seeped out earlier in the week so the content of the document was eagerly awaited by the Press Gallery on Wednesday. National seized on it as vindicating its election policies. Although there was a difference – the Nats wanted across the board tax cuts: Treasury says the top rate should be cut.

National, though has some internal grumpiness of its own. The first question time of the new Parliament did not go down well at all, and there have been further mutterings about leader Don Brash’s performance in the House.

10th November 2005
Best And Worst As Parliament Resumes

The death of Rod Donald stunned the political scene this week. The upset was genuine, from all sides of the spectrum. Donald was genuinely liked, even by people who could not abide his politics. Politics is full of fake emotion. And no doubt some of the tributes were pro forma. But it is striking how many MPs, right across the political divide, have been genuinely shocked by the loss.

Of course, the tone could not be maintained. On the same day MPs were getting stuck into each other over “baubles of office” and a real row developed over who should be Deputy Speaker.

The tributes came later in the week too, not only to Donald but to other recently deceased MPs. These included former National Party Ministers John Falloon and John Luxton. There were also tributes to former Prime Minister David Lange, and these were much more mixed.

Particularly barbed was Lange’s former adversary Jim Anderton, who suggested Lange would have been better to have waited and let Bill Rowling beat Muldoon in 1984. Anderton also suggested Rod Donald would have done better if the Greens had not broken with the Alliance.

It was another case of best and worst in one week, from Anderton alone. There has been pleasant surprise from primary sector groups, who are saying Anderton, as new Ag and Fish Minister, is a breath of fresh air. He didn’t need to re-fight old battles. There’re plenty of worthy ones to fight today. 

3rd November 2005
Telly Tanties

Departing TVNZ CEO Ian Fraser, who vamooses from his job to the popping sound of dummies being hoicked, gets an exit package of the kind which we all thought had been abolished by Labour. Fraser’s departure was initially accompanied by accusations of political interference. By Monday, the stance had changed, according to a rather shame faced press release.

He was most concerned that, when he had said, “political interference” people may have gained the impression he meant “interference” by “politicians.” Not what he meant at all, apparently.

What seems to have happened is the Board, well aware PM Helen Clark’s most basilisk-like glare is reserved for Govt appointees who cause embarrassing pay packages, decided to crackdown on high salaries. The Board probably did this without any formal guidance from the Beehive. It got some rather public informal guidance last year when Judy Bailey’s salary was leaked from the Beehive. This sent a pretty clear message to the state owned broadcaster’s Board, and so they put pressure on Fraser to rein in salaries. Not a lot wrong with that – arguably, they should have been doing it anyway.

National, it has to be said, has not covered itself with glory on this. Spokeswoman Georgina Te Heu Heu has argued, in effect, that whatever was in Ian Fraser’s contract should be ignored.

Te Heu Heu, a lawyer as well as a Nat, should know better. For a Party of business and free enterprise to argue contracts do not matter, is, at best, disturbing, and at worst, unprincipled.

27th October 2005
Who’s Queen?

This Govt so far has been largely about Winston. He’s been everywhere. It’s been a re-run of 1996-97, when a casual visitor from Mars might have gained the impression the then-Treasurer Winston Peters and one or two of his other MPs, Tuku Morgan and his amazing technicolour undergarments; Tau Henare and his wrap-arounds being prominent, were the only people in Govt.
We can expect to see Labour moving to counter this impression shortly. It all recalls the Rowan Atkinson ‘Blackadder’ comedy of the mid 1980s, when the Queen Elizabeth character, increasingly irritated at not getting her way, would menacingly inquire “who’s Queen?”

Those with good hearing can detect audible, impatient foot tapping from the ninth floor of the Beehive. PM Helen Clark is not going to want Peters to set the tone of her third term in the same way NZ First did in the first few months of the 1996 Parliament. Of course one difference is NZ First is not in Coalition with Labour. We know because Winston told us so. It’s not a Coalition agreement, it’s a “Government arrangement.”

The advent of Winston’s party onto the Treasury benches (or wherever he ends up sitting - as if it matters) may have been hailed as being the end of Labour’s “political correctness” phase. One aspect of PC remains though.

This is definitely an equal opportunity Govt, where anyone, even an Opposition MP, can be Foreign Affairs Minister.

20th October 2005
Coalition Of The Middling

The Govt has perhaps taken a slight tilt towards the centre with the advent of NZ First, the appointment of Peter Dunne as Revenue Minister, and the slight strengthening of Labour’s centre-right faction. However, with Winston Peters involved, you never can tell.

Peters’ career shows a knack for carving out a unique position for himself. At various times he has been the avenger of the “angries” who were hurt by the economic restructuring. Then he got National to invent the post of Treasurer for him in 1996, and he spent the next 18 months cheerfully trotting out much the same lines as Bill Birch before walking out in a row over privatisation. And now we have the Foreign Affairs Minister who is in a Govt for foreign affairs issues but whose Party reserves the right to attack the Govt on all other issues.

Yeah. That could work.

To be fair to all concerned, Peters, PM Helen Clark and United Future’s Peter Dunne are right when they say voters dealt the politicians an extremely difficult hand. The 2005 election has been a dramatically inconclusive one, with voters ambivalent about whether they wanted any real change or not.

The cobbled-together Govt is likely to respond by being extremely cautious about any major policy changes. And because voters have been less-than-clear, it is very likely they will be asked to reconsider well before the Parliamentary term is up. An early election is highly likely, and quite justifiable.

13th October 2005
Whoop Whoop

The NZ economy is entering what Fred Dagg once called a “whoop whoop pull up, pull up” phase. The latest economic news points to some tough decisions for Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard. Inflation is pushing well though the target, business and consumer confidence is slipping.

Economists are split. Some are picking an interest rate rise in two weeks when Dr Bollard reviews the official cash rate. Others are saying it is too soon to make this kind of leap, and warn if Bollard does, he risks tipping the economy into a major slowdown next year. Either way, it makes for some rough economic weather going into Labour’s third term.

This will make Minister of Finance a much tougher job. The speculation has also already begun on who will succeed Finance Minister Michael Cullen. It’s become accepted in Wellington, without any formal announcement, this will be Cullen’s last term.

This doesn’t mean it will happen, however. A year ago it was similarly “accepted” Mark Burton would be appointed Speaker by much the same people who now say Cullen will retire. So don’t put any money on it just yet.

However if Cullen does step down from Finance sometime during this term, who gets the job? One probable bet is Foreign Minister Phil Goff. Unnoticed by most people, Goff is already one of Labour’s Budget Ministers.

If there is to be a change, this one, sometime later this term, looks to be most likely.

6th October 2005
Who’s Going, Who’s Staying; Who’s In And Who’s Out

Some odd comings and goings. Judy Bailey announced she is going from TVNZ News, something which wasn’t unexpected.

Ahmed Zoui announced he isn’t going, despite the new amnesty in Algeria, which 97% of the population voted for. Again, not really surprising. He seems to like it here.

Paul Swain, Marian Hobbs and George Hawkins have all indicated they don’t expect to be in Cabinet. Given politics is one big game of “pick me! Pick me!!” this does seem odd.

Swain didn’t appear to be on anyone’s hit list, so perhaps his reasons are genuine. His near-death experience five years ago, along with a more recent baby, are both events which put these things into perspective. Also, he’s one of Labour’s blokey non-PC faction, and at least two other MPs, Damian O’Connor and Clayton Cosgrove, are bucking for promotion. He may be stepping aside for his mates.

Nothing odd about Hawkins saying he doesn’t expect to be in Cabinet. This is a bit like your Granny saying she doesn’t expect to go out with George Clooney.
A bit odd Hobbs is going. Particularly odd she says she told the PM 18 months ago she didn’t want to come back into Cabinet. This may have been one of those “sod this for a game of soldiers” comments we all make about our jobs from time to time. But one of her pitches to voters in Wellington Central was a vote for her would get them an MP in Cabinet. Odd….

29th September 2005
Urban - Provincial Split? Yeah Right.

Labour’s loss of a swag of provincial seats has caused some rather overexcited talk about an urban/provincial divide. This has led to speculation voters outside the main centres are in revolt over Labour’s “political correctness.” There’s more than an element of - to be blunt about it - knee-jerk reaction, metropolitan snobbery and historical ignorance about this.

For example - there are more university students living in Hamilton East - which National took - than in Labour’s Hamilton West. So what gives there?

More tellingly, Labour MP Harry Duynhoven held on to New Plymouth comfortably. Duynhoven has a reputation as an exceptionally energetic local MP. Perhaps the problem is other Labour MPs have been less assiduous. There’s also no doubt commentators have been gazing too long at those red and blue maps of the Untied States after the last presidential election and have transposed their divide here. Deep analysis? Hardly.

Two points to remember: Firstly, it really should not come as a shock prevailing attitudes on Ponsonby Road are a bit different to those on Queen St in Ashburton. So what? Secondly, the urban/provincial divide is pretty minor these days. Go back to the 1981 Springbok Tour and its aftermath for a real split.

There isn’t much of one now. It’s just a case of there being not much to write about in the post-election interregnum - and of metropolitan journalists interviewing their prejudices.

22nd September 2005
Paua Plays

The voters have resolved to be unresolved. This is a very inconclusive election. Barring an upset on the specials we have a seriously hobbled Labour Govt. And the key will be the Maori Party. We have, in fact, been here before and not just in 1996.

Until Ratana aligned with Labour in the 1920s, the Maori MPs were elected as independents who chose which of the two main parties, the Liberals or Reform, they would support. Often this led to some nail biters. In December 1914 a tight poll saw the big nanas of both parties trying to find out which way the Maori MPs would go. One, the MP for Northern Maori, received an agitated telegram from a bunch of Wellington dignitaries demanding to know which party he would support. Back came a telegram reading “I’ll give you two guesses.”

There’s a similar element of “sweat, you *****”  from Tariana Turia’s party. It’s fair enough too. PM Helen Clark’s comment about the Maori Party being the “last cab off the rank” is coming back to haunt her, with Pita Sharples declaring on Sunday morning “we’re a limousine now!” The party is making Clark pay for her earlier dismissiveness, and ramming through the foreshore and seabed legislation.

The Maori Party is also the most likely of the small parties to feel it can cause an early election and not suffer at the polls. This alone must make Clark pause. They won’t do till after the new census in March 2006. It will almost definitely mean one new Maori seat. Once those results are in and absorbed we could see some interesting developments.

15th September 2005
Questions…

Who has the more accurate poll?  Our instinct is to say it will turn out to be Centrebet.

There’s nothing like asking people to put their money down to focus the mind and to forgo wishful thinking. Except, of course pretty much the entire betting industry is based on people not forgoing wishful thinking. So scrap that one.

Is it Muffin Break’s Bean Poll? If so, the minor parties will do better than they now appear to be doing. Always possible, of course – most of those parties have tended to have a last minute surge.

How many voters are still undecided? Conflicting reports on this one – one newspaper says about a quarter; but one major political party tells us its polling reports very few undecideds.

Other questions: why is Labour doing so badly?  Even if they win on Saturday, this should have been a victory lap for Helen Clark, given the state of the economy. How much are voters prepared to punish Labour’s arrogance?

Why has the media got it so wrong about what makes a successful political leader? By conventional wisdom, Don Brash should be in shreds by now, after all the “gaffes.”

So how come he’s not? And what does this say about the Press Gallery’s ability to judge what their readers need to know? And is Winston really on the way out?  Has his guardian angel finally expired through overwork?

All answers on Saturday night -  we hope.  Enjoy your evening.

8th September 2005
Conventional Wisdom Goes AWOL

If you applied the conventional wisdom to the election this would be Labour’s in a cakewalk.

The slogan “it’s the economy stupid” has become an unthinking mantra among too many political commentators, who tend to forget after it was coined by Bill Clinton’s campaign manager in 1992, a run of elections actually proved it wrong. The Aussies threw out Keating in 1996 and the Brits ejected John Major in 1997, both in the face of long running economic booms. Locally, Jenny Shipley was turfed out in 1999 despite a strong running economy.

Conventional wisdom II holds that when the All Blacks are playing well the Govt does well. That should be good news - the ABs have just had the best run of results since Sean Fitzpatrick thumped the ground of Ellis Park in exhausted, joyous victory back in 1996. However it’s worth remembering the result of that year’s election was a decidedly ambivalent one.

Perhaps a new indicator might be the party which has senior members accused of assault during the campaign doesn’t do very well. Muldoon assaulted a heckler in his losing 1984 campaign; National MPs Max Bradford and Gerry Brownlee manhandled protesters in the run up to the 1999 election. This election we’ve had both Winston Peters and Labour’s Pete Hodgson involved in scuffles. But this may be confusing cause and effect.

It is no doubt what happens when the frustration and panic of a losing campaign boil over.  This is such a tight race though there may yet be scuffles on the right as well. It is still wide open.

1st September 2005
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Tales of people going through National finance spokesman John Key’s rubbish have been added to the whole affair of the stolen emails. We predicted last week the election would now get nasty and this is probably only the start. It’ll be low down and dirty from now on.

The emails from Don Brash’s computer, which turned up in the Sunday Star Times’ rather overheated story last weekend, turned the campaign feral. The hunt is on to find the source but perhaps only one thing more divisive and distracting than having such a leak is actually finding the leaker, especially if the source is, as the story seemed to indicate, a disgruntled National Party person.

One of the things journalists have to do to protect anonymous sources is not only not name them but write the story in a way which points away from those sources. The fact the story seemed to point to a disgruntled ex-staffer suggests it quite possibly wasn’t.  The obvious beneficiaries are Labour, and any Nat who doesn’t want a Brash-led party to win and who is prepared to take such an
embittered and highly risky action.

The other perhaps unexpected beneficiary of course is Winston Peters. Just when the tales of his being in trouble in Tauranga started hitting home he comes out with this message – only “NZ First can stop National’s secret agenda.”

And with one bound, the Tauranga magician is back on the front pages again.

25th August 2005
Nasty, Nastier, Nastiest

The big showdown between Helen Clark and Don Brash on TV1 this week was a bit of a shambles. Attracting most of the attention though was Don Brash’s comments afterwards that he was not as rude as he would have liked to be because Helen Clark is a woman.

It has been intriguing watching Labour’s response. Clark initially dismissed it as spin, saying Brash was just trying to find an excuse for losing the debate. Then, as comment emerged suggesting Brash had actually won (even the Dominion Post, the Press and Radio NZ gave it narrowly to Brash on points) the old Labour highroad/low road tactic came out. Clark criticised Brash as being “quaint” while various Labour-supporting women’s groups blasted the National leader as a sexist pig. The comment has one thing going for it: it is entirely in character. Brash comes from an old-fashioned strand of Presbyterianism which implicitly believes politeness is next to godliness.

It might work well for him: it might also help Labour paint him as being a fuddy-duddy and a bit wet.

It’ll probably be the last polite thing in the campaign. Both the main parties have delivered their policy and the rhetoric is getting personal. Deputy PM Cullen is jeering at Brash and John  Key’s wealth: the Nats must be tempted to do some work on how many Labour MPs have university age children and will do quite well out of the student loans policy. From now on, it’ll be all low-road stuff.

18th August 2005
Debates About Debates

MASH once had an episode where Hawkeye threw a wobbly about the Korean War peace talks. The big nanas involved were arguing about the shape of table before they even sat down to negotiate. Shades of the 2005 election campaign. Debates about the format of the debates even before the debates start have been a hallmark of the past two weeks.

First Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne gate crashed the TV3 debate waving a High Court injunction. It is probably the first thing they have agreed on (apart from drugs) since about 1984.

This week saw the PM pull the plug on the Radio NZ/Sky simulcast debate between her and National’s Don Brash.  If its on Sky, I’m not, was the word from the PM’s office. Clark’s withdrawal actually came quite late in the piece. Sky had run about 250 promos advertising the debate before the ninth floor said ‘nyet.’ Talks had even got to the point of discussing the size of the podiums Clark and Brash would have. So Sky is spitting.

What caused the PM’s speedy U-turn is not clear. The idea  might  be to deny Brash oxygen on the telly – which seems odd, as even his keenest supporters will admit he did poorly in the TV3 debate.

There may be the fear – like the All Blacks in Sydney last weekend – Brash will pull a blinder after a previous bad performance.

Another theory is mean comments on television come over nastier than they do on the radio – and turn voters off.

Which suggests Clark plans to cut up rough.

11th August 2005
The Man Shortage: The Parties Respond

It’s official – NZ has a man shortage. The blokes are shooting through, for whatever reason. It’s amazing it’s not an election issue - but if it were, what would our parties’ positions on the issue be?

ACT: A tax cut will fix tax cut NZ’s tax cut man shortage. Tax cut. Oh, did we remember to say tax cut?

Labour: Man Shortage caused by the 1990s. Would have fixed both by now but officials stuffed up. PM officially Very Angry About It.

National: Will release policy on Man Shortage closer to the election. Will spend billions on it; also address it with tax cuts. Probably throw in referendum as well.

NZ First: Man Shortage caused by immigrants but is also distorted and blown out of proportion by scurrilous media.

United Future: Wants a Man Commission established, along the lines of the Families Commission – i.e. will also cover people who are not men.

Maori Party: Man Shortage clear breach of Article III of Treaty, which guarantees full use of taonga.

Greens: Man Shortage a direct result of Peak Oil and people not using buses enough.

Progressives: would establish a Man Shortage unit somewhere within the Ministry of Economic Development. Jim Anderton to be photographed with lots of successful men.

4th August 2005
Maate!!!

Forget the blue collar vote, we advised exactly a year ago. Watch the “black T-shirt vote” - thirty-ish, Led Zeppelin-listening petrolheads. How right we were.

2nd sight? Pah. 3rd, 4th and 5th sight. They’re all now playing to this key demographic. Even the ex-politicos are at it - Donna Awatere Huata, turned up at court looking like the lead singer from a heavy metal band, with husband Wi in tow as a menacing roadie.

We’ve seen National leader Don Brash squeeze his parsonical frame into a speedster at Western Springs. He probably lost the vote of all the neighbouring NIMBYs but, hey, Grey Lynn/Point Chev were never Tory territory when they were working class suburbs and they’re even less Tory now they’re designer jeans latte sipping suburbs.

Then there’s the PM herself. They’re still scrubbing the scorch marks off the road in south Can-terbury after her infamous dash. As a hoon though, Clark doesn’t quite make the cut, even if she was hooning to get to a rugby game on time. Hoons stand by their mates. Clark ain’t fronting on this one.

Tested about it in Parliament, she sounded like Tuku Morgan refusing to comment on his expensive underwear. Can’t talk about because its all sub judice, was the line at question time.

Watch for more attempts to pick the Led Zep vote. We expect to see Jeanette Fitzsimons come out in a mullet haircut and Peter Dunne to be pictured swigging Jim Beam.


28th July 2005
Phone Call To Trevor Mallard, Early Last Week...

“Trevor? Yeah, H2 here. Look, we need someone to really have a go at Brash. I mean, REALLY. OK?”

...“No, not the corned beef thing. We’re saving that until later in the campaign. Helen wants you to have a go at him over the Americans. Go out and say he’s totally in their pocket, being dictated to by Washington. You know, the sort of thing that’ll get those voters who’ve buggered off to the Greens back.”

...“Yes, I know Cullen had a go on National Radio on the weekend. But we don’t want only the pointyheads to hear this one. And when Helen thought of non-pointy heads, she thought of YOU, Trevor.”

...“Yes, Trevor. No-one we know has a flatter head.”
...“That’s right, Trevor, especially not Brash.”
...“Exactly, Trevor, Brash’s problem is he didn’t spend enough time in the front row of a scrum.”
...“That’s right, Trevor, you’re the man that keeps us in touch with the ordinary working vote.”

...“Did I say vote? I meant bloke. Look Trevor, can you save the rugby talk for the punters? It impresses them. God knows why but it does.”

...“What do you mean what’s in it for you? Your party needs you.”
...“(sigh) Yes, Helen says you can be Finance Minister one day.”
...“One day, Trevor.”
...“So you’ll do it?”
...“Good man, Trevor. Buy you a beer. Heinken wasn’t it?
...“OK then. Tui.”
...“Yeah, right, Trevor.”

21st July 2005
Poll Positions

One of the polls guaranteed to provoke hand wringing around this time - and we've had this since 1996 - is the one which shows NZers don't understand MMP. Others will no doubt follow, and they will all show the average NZer has a clearer idea about how to find the square root of -1 than they do about how MMP works.

Perhaps the pollsters - and newspaper editors who commission polls - should look in the mirror over this. The polls seem stuck in a pre-MMP time warp. They also do not say how many refusals they get. According to some tales, more than 50% of those contacted hang up.

More importantly, they no longer tell us how many undecided they get. The reason is obvious - a headline reading "National in front - but 20% of voters still undecided" has much less impact than "National In Shock Lead - Govt Reels." Yet the undecided are even more crucial than before in an MMP environment. And what is crucial about them is who voters are wavering between.

How people vote is affected by the polls. If your first preference is ACT, for example, you are probably about to grit your teeth and vote National. Media outlets would be providing their readers and viewers with very useful information if they could tell them how many voters out there are wavering - and who they are wavering between. It might get us away from the horse race journalism which tends to characterise elections.

14th July 2005
The Pre-Election Guide To The Parties

Greens - Basically Marxists, but Marxists who like bicycles and trains and cute fluffy animals. Believe oil is about to run out. Opposed to all foreigners who are not members of Greenpeace.

NZ First - Really don't like foreigners. Leader Winston Peters has opposed everything since 1984 that you don't like. Anything bad you have heard about him is a scurrilous media invention without a skerrick of evidence.

National - In favour of what will get them elected. Frightened of own past. Frightened of own shadow. Won't make a move unless Act or Winston (or even, occasionally, Labour) have softened up the electorate first.

Labour - In favour of what will get them elected. Conflicted about own past. Conflicted about own shadow, especially as it fears it looks a bit like Tariana. Conflicted about present as would like to be more radical but is scared to.

Maori Party - Believe in a golden age, pre-colonisation, where there was no war, or conflict, or disease, or immunisation, or chance of living beyond about 35.

United Future - Very conflicted between Christians and others. Any other party would have had a major, messy bust up by now.

Jim Anderton's Tupperware Party - Sigh - Is there any point to this any more?

ACT - Split between those who want to boss you around like Labour, but in another direction, and those who just want to leave you alone, but turn the country upside down to do so.

7th July 2005
It's Official ­ They All Want To Lose

A few weeks back we jokingly suggested Labour was trying to "throw" the election, and 2005 is 1996 revisited ­ a good election to lose. It also seemed the only way to explain Labour's behaviour since the "chewing gum Budget."

It's still going on. The latest vote loser is PM Helen Clark's appearance, dolled up and airbrushed, on the cover of a women's magazine ­ an appearance which was then splashed across the dailies and television news. You can get away with that sort of thing during a Govt's honeymoon period. But after 6 years in power it runs into NZers aversion to anyone who gets "up themselves."

It now looks as though the Nats have joined the campaign to lose votes. Just when it looked as though they had the tricky nuclear ship visit neatly parked deep in a bomb-proof "we'll hold a referendum" garage, leader Don Brash pushed it out again.

At this rate, can we expect Winston Peters to advocate closure of retirement homes; Peter Dunne to embrace extremist atheism, and Jeanette Fitzsimons to endorse strip mining the Coromandel?

Joking aside ­ and despite the polls ­ two things still point to Labour being re-elected. Firstly, the right track/wrong track surveys show most of us think the country's heading in the right direction.

And Govts seldom lose when the All Blacks are playing well. And weren't they magnificent last Saturday?

30th June 2005

Kakapo Revisited

The Kakapo is a freakish bird, evolving in isolation and without any natural predators for thou-sands of years. It got so used to this it could not cope when hordes of natural predators arrived, and it almost became extinct. Labour, in its first 5 years, had no natural predators, a strong economic tailwind and an often favourable media.

Those conditions weren’t just good: they were freakish. They have now vanished. And, to the astonishment of friends and enemies, Labour is reacting with pique and panic, rushing around like a headless, er kakapo.

Two examples in the past 7 days: Jim Sutton’s climb-down over land access, after well and truly nailing his trousers to the mast in front of a protest rally last week; and Michael Cullen’s discovery he has $500-odd million extra to splurge on roads.

The Cullen discovery is appallingly significant because, if, as expected, the windfall turns out to be disputed tax revenue from the Australian banks, it may be reversed if they win their case with the IRD. And bang goes Cullen’s reputation as a prudent fiscal manager. The other ongoing example is Ministers – especially Helen Clark’s – preference for talking about the 1990s. Much of Clark’s rhetoric is a re-run of the 1999 election. Suddenly, in a hostile environment, Labour is reaching back to its rhetorical comfort zone.

Voters tend to look at the future, not the past, in elections. And although some foolish politicians grumble “ungrateful bastards” about this, it is perfectly sensible.

They don’t, in short, vote for headless kakapos.

23rd June 2005
For Your Homework, People...

Parliament goes into a month long recess this week. Here are some points for a few of our MPs to ponder over the break:

• Helen Clark ­ Proclaiming your Govt has set new standards of conduct, then whining when people hold you to those standards, is starting to look rather wet. You can't have it both ways.

• Don Brash ­ Big promises and economic credibility don't go together unless you can put up firm numbers. Your reputation was too hard won, and is too valuable, to lose at this stage of your life.

• Winston Peters ­ Try not to look quite so smug. The large lady hasn't even begun her throat-clearing exercises yet.

• Rodney Hide ­ Again, the female with excessive adipose tissue isn't even gargling yet. So stop chasing every passing scandal and focus on your party's main message.

• Peter Dunne ­ You do have a main message, don't you?

• Michael Cullen ­ Maybe a quiet lie down in a darkened room would be a good idea.

• Pete Hodgson ­ Maybe you can have the darkened room when Cullen has finished
with it.

•Trevor Mallard ­ Starting every second sentence with "I think its fair to say..." does not make you sound states-manlike, especially if it's followed by an outrageously unfair comment.

16th June 2005
Is This The Election To Lose?

A year or so back, a lot of National supporters ­ particularly in the business sector ­ were saying very vehemently ­ but very privately ­ it would be a disaster if National won the 2005 election. The party lost so badly in 2002 a win this year would mean more than half the caucus will be greenhorns.

The economy would be slowing. Far better to run Labour close this time get some new talent in Parliament ready for a big push in 2008. Is Labour having similar thoughts? There's an economic slowdown starting; they would have to deal with some combination of NZ First, the Maori Party, the Greens and United Future. The first three are prickly to deal with, and even UF is getting antsy.

Meanwhile Govt spending is going through the roof. Some particularly hard decisions need to be made in health. An extra billion a year is being spent, the return on it is minimal, and no-one seems to know why, or how to stop it. And there are no votes to be gained in fixing the problem, but plenty to be lost.

So - throw the 2005 election. Clark goes off to a UN job; Cullen or Goff take over as Opposition leader; National comes in, has to deal with Winston, it all goes pear-shaped and becomes the 21st century equivalent of those post WWII one term Labour Govts.

Too cynical? Unlikely? Very probably. But just over year ago, when asked if the 2004 Budget was an election winner, Cullen was adamant Budgets don't win elections ­ but can lose them.

Hmm....

9th June 2005
Be Nice (Through Gritted Teeth)

Labour Party president Mike Williams has a new nickname ­ Olivetti. The name arises out of the Govt's double-edged acknowledgement it stuffed up the pre-Budget spin. Finance Minister Michael Cullen says it was a mistake not to hose down expectations - but went on to say the expectations arose because a few journalists "interviewed their typewriters."

Cullen's latest swipe at the media was a crack in Labour's new 'Be Nice' strategy. Cullen and PM Helen Clark are now trying to emit less poison. It doesn't always work. Cullen described the spokesman for a business lobby group as a former Social Creditor - definitely a low blow.

The Greens, meanwhile, are upping the noxious quotient. This election is the Green's best chance ever to move beyond being a repository for left wing voters annoyed with Labour. Over on the right ACT put up a barrage of points of order over Speaker Wilson's ruling David Benson-Pope does not have to go to the Privileges Committee. Noticeable though was the silence from the National benches. This wasn't just a case of 'Be Nice.' The Nats have apparently decided to drop this one. Many of them went to schools where Benson-Pope would have been regarded as a softie.

But the main reason is a lot of voters feel the country needs more of Benson-Pope's discipline style. National doesn't want to lose the 'clip round the ear' vote. There is a limit to niceness ­ especially in election year.

2nd June 2005
Post-Budget Winners and Losers

Winners:

Winston Peters: His ability with the political one-liner is still exemplary – the “half a packet of
chewing gum” line about Cullen’s minuscule tax adjustment buying is now being used everywhere.

The funds management industry: The Govt’s gold-plated state sector superannuation scheme has already seen a surge of new clients; “KiwiSaver,” if it works, will expand business even further.

The real estate industry: The assistance package to new home buyers will do what every similar scheme has done, and push up house prices.

The public sector: Labour’s most important support base gets even more cash.

National: Ahead only on points, and by default. A goof up over the “tax cuts by Christmas” line
took the shine off a good week. Finance spokesman John Key has been flying high for so long they
lined up to take him down a peg.

Losers:

Labour’s spin machine: What more can be said? Whoops.

Small to medium sized businesses: they got ‘B’ priority changes such as FBT and tax simplification measures. But A-list stuff – lower taxes; faster upgrades to Auckland’s roads and electricity
supply – remains undone.

United Future: sure, they got the tax thresholds shifted, but their tax policy is $3bn tax cuts: they got $360m in the Budget. They’re sounding increasingly toey with Labour.

Play of the Week - 26th May 2005
Hissy Fits Over Trade And Mangy Budget Rabbits

The Beehive was full of Rumplestiltskins this week, stomping around in a fury. Both PM Clark and Finance Minister Cullen are aghast at the Budget coverage. The media talked to people like Labour President Mike Williams before the Budget and then, when Williams dropped some pretty heavy hints about tax cuts, wrote down what he said. Such behaviour!
So instead of Cullen proudly producing a sleek and nimble tax cut rabbit out of the hat on Budget day, he tugged out a wheezing, undernourished, mangy rodent with terminal calicivirus.

One wonders though whether the response would have been so derisive without the pre-Budget build up. Unlikely. Like a skin-flint Presbyterian aunt Cullen has promised voters you can have a few bucks – 67c a week if you’re on the average wage or below – in 2008, if you’re really good. After 5 years of record surpluses this looks both silly and mean.
The other big hissy fit – from an unlikely quarter – was from Trade Minister Jim Sutton. Sutton – normally the most phlegmatic of MPs – really lost his rag over Trade negotiator Tim Groser signing up with the Nats.

There seems to be a personal element in this – Sutton felt he should have been given a clearer idea, earlier, of Groser’s intent-ions. However, the point is it has given the Nats the chance to (a) point to how many Labour MPs are from the public sector, yet didn’t stand down when they were selected; and (b) complain Labour is putting pique ahead of the national good. Not a great look.

Play of the Week - 19th May 2005
Winston For PM – Or Would You Like Pepper On The Dead Rat?

The day the National Party agrees to Winston Peters as Prime Minister will be the day Satan is putting on thermals and strapping on his ice-skates. Where did THAT story come from? Was it the same source as the foot and mouth scare?  

Unnamed MPs from both National and NZ First are said to be having “informal discussions” about allowing Winston Peters to become PM in a National coalition Govt. Some discussions are more informal than others. Some are so informal they can barely be said to have occurred at all. We’d love to know who those MPs are. So, no doubt, would a large number of National Party members.
Whoever floated the story doesn’t know the National Party very well, or how much Peters is hated by the ordinary rank and file. They loathed it when Peters was deputy PM. As PM? Even if the National Party caucus swallowed their egos and signed up to such a deal, the party revolt would be so overwhelming the deal would be worthless.

“How many more dead rats are we going to have to swallow?” Jenny Shipley is said to have demanded during the 1996 coalition talks between National and NZ First. It was the genuine cry of National Party disgust at someone they view as a renegade. 

Peters as PM is not just a dead rat, but one infected with foot and mouth, brucellosis, and bubonic plague. It was a silly idea, and what is even sillier is some people have taken it seriously.  
 

Play Of The Week - 12th May 2005
Rattle Rattle

It took a foot and mouth scare to bump the Peter Doone, and a rattled looking Helen Clark affair, off the front pages. On the face of it, the ingredients are there for the Opposition to have the Govt on the run. The PM has changed her story, or at least bits of it do not add up.

She has gone through her usual imitation of a high born Tory lady, full of “how DARE you?’ dudgeon at the idea of anyone questioning her integrity. Then into phase 2 with Trevor Mallard asked to do the low road thing he does so well, retailing corridor tattle about Doone in a Parliamentary debate. Then Clark herself got into the gutter, throwing around unsubstantiated allegations Doone is being bankrolled by the Nats; and he or his legal team is writing Nat leader Don Brash’s questions. At least she has managed to avoid blaming her officials so far this time.

Yet one has to wonder if this is really going to pay off for the Opposition parties. This is, after all, a scrap about a public servant who lost a lot of public money on an expensive computer project, and about what the PM said or did not say to a journalist 5 and-a half years ago. It makes the PM look bad. She looks rattled. Politicians, public servants and especially the media find all this fascinating. But the Opposition’s job is to convince floating voters they are on their side. This issue doesn’t matter all that much to the floating voter.

Play Of The Week - 5th May 2005
Eerie Echoes

The cops are in trouble over their use of computers. There are problems with the emergency dispatch system. Meanwhile the PM is in strife when off-the-record comments of hers get made public. There are scandals around the immigration service.

Add tales of MPs with their snouts in the trough, and others having somewhat incoherent encounters in corridors, to the mix. Sound familiar? The years 1997-99 were certainly a chaotic time for Govt in NZ. A whiff of this chaos has returned to hit the Clark Govt –the echoes are eerie.

First, the Peter Doone affair. This will probably become an inconclusive “he said/she said” thing, but the picture of a PM leaking details of a report on the country’s top cop – which is odd at best, and underhand at worst, leaves a bad impression. The Dover Samuels late night corridor micturition, although minor in itself, adds to the shambles. And the picture of Labour loyalist Jonathan Hunt rolling up to a UK pension office and demanding “gimme gimme gimme” doesn’t exactly add to the air of high minded rectitude Clark likes to project either.

Worst of all is the latest immigration balls up. One thing you don’t expect from the Immigration Dept is a kind of “you foreigners all look the same” approach, yet they initially got the wrong man. Then it turns out the man they should have got was in Saddam’s Cabinet.

It doesn’t make him important, of course, but again, it’s the look of the thing. Sheer incompetence costs votes when it attaches to a Govt.

Play Of The Week - 28th April 2005
Taking Anniversary Advantage

It was a week when the Opposition Parties and the media laid a wreath at the grave of the Un-known Election date. It is starting to look like a ‘headless chook;’ strategy by Labour – keep every-one guessing in the hope the opposition will get it wrong and make a blunder. It also means the press gallery fills up acres of newsprint and air-time on handicapping the election date rather than concentrating on issues more likely to upset the Govt.

Not that a lot is going on in the capital this week. Acting PM Michael Cullen, having completed a campaign.... oops, we mean a Ministerial – tour of business groups in the North Island, was back in the capital being acting PM. He was also fronting for Police Minister George Hawkins who was nowhere to be found over the Police/Porn affair.

While all this was going on Helen Clark pulled off her best “Foxhole Helen” act by being in Gallipoli for the ANZAC ceremonies. Clarks’ enthusiasm for photo ops with old diggers has been noted before -it could be said she will go to the opening of a biscuit tin, but only so long as they are Anzac biscuits (and definitely not Afghans).

There’s a clutch of useful anniversaries this year – August 6 is 60 years since the first atom bomb was dropped, and a month earlier is the 20th anniversary of the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Those are very useful for Labour, and are likely to come when the election campaign is in full swing. Watch for them to be ruthlessly milked.

Play of The Week - 21st April 2005
More Tears At Waitangi?

A month ago we pointed out the Labour Party list was a gift to the Maori Party. By putting most of its Maori MPs high on the list, Labour heightened the risk Maori voters wanting more Maori representation, will give Tariana Turia’s Party their electorate vote and Labour the party vote. The Marae/Digipoll this week seems to indicate Maori voters have worked this out. True, it is only one poll, and one with a small sample. But it looks like the start of a trend.

It is unclear whether the decision was driven by a deliberate strategy or internal Labour politics. Short term, it may produce a double benefit for the Left - the Maori Party may not get to the 5% threshold on the party vote but could have a clutch of constituency seats. This gives the Left an MMP ‘overhang’ – and could make the difference between a Labour-led and a National-led Govt.

Longer term, does Labour want this? No political party wants to concede ground to another party. Maori have been such a key constituency for Labour for virtually the party’s entire history, the departure would be a huge psycho-logical blow as well as a political one. The Maori seats went to NZ First in 1996 and Labour leader Helen Clark wept tears at Waitangi not long afterwards – and dedicated huge effort to winning them back.

Does Clark want to go down in history as the leader who lost the Maori vote? Unlikely. So watch the Govt throw huge resources over coming months into those Maori seats.
 

Play Of The Week - 14th April 2005
The Significance Of Tamihere

Trans Tasman’s crystal ball was working well in January. “Conventional wisdom suggests [John Tamihere] should quietly be a good boy for a while,” we wrote. But “Tamihere,” “conventional wisdom” and “good boy” don’t really go together.” His more conventional Labour colleagues must be cursing. Tamihere insults the lot of them and has half the country saying “good on ya mate.”

How does he do it? He doesn’t talk in mealy mouthed political clichés like other politicians. Voters love it – it has an appearance of candour and doesn’t patronise them. As with his words, so with his actions. A conventional politician would have followed Helen Clark’s orders – stay away, rest up, plead “stress.” By fronting to caucus, he cut through all that - and called the PM’s bluff.

The second wave of indiscretions - about the Holocaust and ‘front bums’ – had appeared to give her the initiative. But – faced with a tricky election – she blinked.
For his colleagues Tamihere’s true crime lies in the comments about his own party. They were a useful reminder ALL political parties, not just Labour, are a conspiracy against the public.They all have secret agendas. Clark, Cullen et al were pouring out the oil after Tuesday’s caucus. Remember though Tamihere’s earlier words – “In this outfit it’s all ‘rosy’ on the outside, not on the inside.”

Play Of The Week - 7th April 2005
Politics – Short, Brutal And Nasty

“Close to fisticuffs” was how John Tamihere characterised internal relations within the Labour Party in one of his inflammatory comments about his colleagues.
“Whaddaya mean, only close to fisticuffs, John?” may well be the reaction from MPs when Tamihere next turns up in Wellington. “Brutalising,” to use one of Tamihere other unfortunate phrases, is probably not too far from it.

Politics, as Helen Clark observed, is a team sport. This is only partly true, although to be dubbed a team player you have to pretend it is totally a team sport. By Wednesday night Tamihere was back in the team, and even talking of scoring some tries for Labour. Yet the question has to be asked, what is in it for him from now on? Given the range of people Tamihere has already offended in his caucus, they are unlikely to re-elect him to Cabinet. Apart from anything else, there are too many other, better behaved MPs jostling for promotion.

Perhaps there will also be some unseen fallout for Labour’s coalition partners, especially United Future. Some of the party’s more Christian-based supporters already feel Labour has led UF around by the nose. Tamihere’s comments about Deputy PM Michael Cullen’s alleged legerdemain in legal drafting will only have confirmed those suspicions. Those coalition partners are part of the team Labour has to keep on board – no matter how brutalising it may feel at times.

Play Of The Week - 24th March 2005
Labour’s List Fogbound

Publication of Labour’s party list should have given whoever designs slogans for Tui Beer Billboards a field day. The first, ‘yeah right’ moment came when the party’s political apparatchiks announced the party’s list would be delayed. The hold up was due to heavy white cloud hanging over Wellington Airport. It now appears heavy black cloud is discernable above the head of George Hawkins and his supporters. Although the hapless Hawkins remains in Cabinet until the election, he has been given the political equivalent of a Kleensak and told he has until then to clean out his desk.
And why was the list published so early? Labour Party president Mike Williams stated he believes the election won’t be until late September, but – with indications the economy is genuinely slowing – this is another candidate for the Tui Billboard. The most likely date is the last weekend in July – exactly three years since the 2002 poll.

The true significance of Labour’s list is the Maori element. Maori MPs are highly ranked which keeps them safe from Tariana Turia’s Maori Party. This could help Turia win the Maori seats – voters in those seats can give their constituency vote to her party and vote Labour on the list. Which could cause an ‘overhang’ for the Left with Turia’s party holding some or all the Maori seats but with less than 5% of the vote overall. Meanwhile Williams says putting Labour’s Maori MPs high on the list wasn’t a deliberate strategy but “just happened in the process.” Yeah. Right.

Play Of The Week - 17th March 2005
Will Voters Swallow An Early Election?

The electoral-economic compass is now in full spin in the Beehive. Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard’s interest rate move last week, and his uncompromising rhetoric since, makes it much less likely this Parliament will go until September – the latest possible date for an election.

The Maori Party is not the only player now talking of perhaps a July election. National’s John Key cheekily raised the possibility at a Select Committee in relation to the timing of the next interest rate rise from the Reserve Bank. Bollard assured Key - and the assembled MPs and journalists – he only considers economic factors, rather than political ones, when it comes to such decisions.

Economic and political factors, and their interplay, are now top of the agenda. Bollard is trying to take the heat out of an over-warm economy, but there is a big risk instead of a gentle easing of the pace there will be what economists call a “hard landing.” This happened in Aust, which came off high growth to a near-zero increase in GDP very quickly.

And suddenly September seems a long way off. Far better to have a Budget bulging with goodies on May 19, coupled with the glowing ‘Working for Families’ advertising and PR campaign, not to mention the money flowing into bank accounts of would-be voters, around then. Hopefully, from the Govt’s point of view, this can be done before interest rates get too high for voter tolerance. The trick is finding a pretext to go to the polls early voters will swallow.

Play Of The Week - 10th March 2005
How To Win Friends And Influence People

Small parties need to differentiate themselves from their most likely partner – but there’s a right way and a wrong way. Late in January Green co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons set out the Greens’ priorities. It was seen as a bid by the party to differentiate it-self from Labour and good politics.

Fitzsimons made it clear where she sees her party as different from Labour – more environmentally friendly and more old-style socialist in its redistributive goals.
ACT’s moves of late haven’t been seen in the same light. They’ve been written up as desperate politics from a party polling in the margin of error. It would be easy to see this as an example of a leftish bias amongst the commentariat. There is an element of this, but it’s a relatively minor factor this time.

Firstly, the Greens’ shift was well signalled. It looked like part of a planned strategy. ACT’s moves looked almost accidental. Secondly, a small party needs to differentiate itself in a way which minimises – note, minimises, not eliminates - the noses out of joint in the partner. It’s a difficult trick and is not something the Greens have always managed in the past, to put it mildly. But they seem to have learned their lesson. What you don’t do is allege leadership plots in your main partner. Nor do you set up questions to Labour Ministers. At a time Labour is under pressure over educational matters, this rankled. It’s given the “Who needs ACT?” lobby within National more strength.

Play Of The Week - 3rd March 2005
5 Steps To Redemption

Giggles erupted in Parliament over the Don Brash bio. The tales of frozen corned beef and threadbare pyjamas might have been intended to show Brash’s human side, but for many the revelations came under “whoa, too much information.” The Brash bio was some light relief for the Govt, under pressure on both the NCEA and the Te Wananga o Aotearoa scandal. Labour has a 5 step process for dealing with issues which put it under pressure, and we’ve seen it in full flight over the past fortnight:

• Insist there’s no problem.
• Concede there’re “some concerns” (eg Trevor Mallard over Te Wananga o Aotearoa) but say “we’re onto it.”
• “OK, there’s a problem, but it’s not our fault, it’s the officials, and we’re Really Angry about it.” (eg Helen Clark over NCEA)
• “Yep, it’s a big problem, but it’s all because of decisions the Nats made before 1999 and it’s not our fault we haven’t got around to fixing them yet. Oh, and did we mention we’re Really Angry?”
• Make whatever U-Turns are necessary: claim they have been underway for some time anyway, and declare it’s time to Move On (see last year’s post-Orewa 180 for a classic example).

So far, it’s been working. The education rows have Ministers under pressure now, but the centre right parties will need to follow these up. Given relations between National and ACT are poisonous at present (ACT MPs fed Ministers questions to attack the Nats with this week) the coordinated follow up may not be forthcoming.

Morale slumps in senior Public Service ranks as Ministers heap blame on officials for what’s going wrong.... ACT, or rather Richard Prebble, tries to deliver the “last rites” to National, which partly explains Labour’s tacit acknowledgment of ACT’s Ken Shirley in bringing wayward Te Wananga o Aotearoa to heel.... Mallard remains trapped between the rocks and the Maori seats.... the Nats have yet to learn “tight five” attacking skills and remain solo would-be stars.... has Don Brash’s biography demonised rather than humanised him?

Play Of The Week - 24th February 2005
What Is Going On Here?

It’s been a weird few days. Firstly the Australians complained about the boorishness of NZ’s cricket crowds – a little like having Keith Richards say you take too many drugs. Then Don Brash criticised Helen Clark’s thumbs down for Aussie John Farnham singing at Anzac Cove. Brash reckoned the ceremony should cater for the young. Of course Farnham’s first hit was in the late 60s - a novelty number called “Sadie the Cleaning Lady.” Requests for the song are now met with a baleful, resentful stare.

You get a similar look from certain Labour front benchers if you remind them they voted for Rogernomics a few years ago. Yet Douglas’ ghost hung over a couple of Govt pronouncements this week. Steve Maharey’s single benefit idea was first proposed by Douglas in 1980, in a book called “There’s Got To Be A Better Way.” It got Douglas thrown off the front bench, but formed the template for much of what he eventually did in Govt.

Some of Michael Cullen’s pre-Budget speeches have echoed other Douglas ideas, in less radical form. Douglas has advocated compulsory savings and individualised accounts, which people can draw on not just for retirement but for “life events” such as tertiary education or buying a first home. Cullen is talking of a savings package to “be there” through a citizen’s life cycle. But warns “the resources available to support these aims will be limited,” which seems to show for all the topsy-turvy nature of this week, some things don’t change.

Play Of The Week - 17th February 2005
A Very Angry Woman

There is one angry woman in the Beehive. And no wonder. Helen Clark is incandescent about the NCEA Scholarship foul-up – determined to get to the “bottom of it.” And when the PM is in a black mood, they tiptoe round the ninth floor. But of course so many layers of responsibility have been folded round the fiasco, it may take weeks to unzip. There are a couple of Ministers in the gun, a Crown entity, and several other suspects. So was it a systemic failure, or just a bureaucratic bungle?

Some evidence can be found to support both hypotheses: a new system administered by educationists complacent with their own verities, public servants who failed to open e-mails, or failed to pick up a phone and talk to Ministers, and Ministers who might not have listened carefully to advice.

Then, there is the issue, to be investigated by the State Services Commission – did the NZ Qualifications Authority perform as it should? Some say the Govt is caught in its own trap of appointing “political luvvies” to the board. But what is unforgivable is the blight it has cast on the many thousands of bright young students who had conscientiously prepared for the exam, only to fail. The PM takes that personally. She says it can’t, and won’t, happen again. But will that satisfy the students, or their parents?

Play Of The Week - 10th February 2005
Hawkins Feels The Heat

“The public know that in most cases the police don’t have the resources to help them.” George Hawkins, Labour opposition police spokesman, October 1999
The ACC is currently running a series of radio ads beginning with a police siren and a warning the next time you hear the sound “chances are it won’t be an ad.”
The timing is unfortunate, to say the least, given the publicity about police response times. Many listeners are likely to mentally segue into a Tui beer ad and insert “yeah, right.”

As more and more people report cases of poor police response times to emergency calls, the political heat is going to go even further on Police Minister George Hawkins. There is a growing feeling dialling 111 is now a bit of a lottery. Hawkins, fronting for the issue in Parliament, hasn’t helped matters. Trotting out the results of some fairly dubious survey and then claiming people are more worried about being hurt in a car accident than they are of home invasion seems to miss the point. It just made the Govt look evasive and shifty.

Crime, and how it is dealt with, is inevitably an issue in election year, especially when the economy is booming. The opposition - particularly National’s Tony Ryall and NZ First’s Ron Mark - have made some serious hits on this one. As previously predicted in Trans Tasman, we can expect to see Justice Minister Phil Goff fronting more on law and order issues as the election draws closer.

Play Of The Week - 3rd February 2005
Don’t Spend, Invest

In a previous era, the Govt spent tax revenue, not always wisely. Now the Govt doesn’t do anything as ordinary as spend it. No, the Govt “invests” it, even when it goes on benefits. The PM this week talked of how the big new “investment” coming out of last year’s budget and projecting forward is in the Working for Families Package, at an annual cost of $1.1bn when fully implemented.

This is not welfare, it is an investment. And as the PM says, for her Govt investing back into health, education and people from “the surpluses we’ve built up are our top social priorities.” The Govt has also “invested” to improve public services and the capability of Govt agencies. In education, “investments are rolling out across the sector.”

But are we getting value for money? The Audit Office, in its inquiry into the Christchurch Polytechnic last year, seemed to think not. And parents, with children beginning their “free” education, find it’s not so free after all.

Health spending is up by 40% over the past 5 years. And the number of people on sickness and invalid benefits has climbed 39% in the same time. But, yes, the Govt talks of the “social” dividend its five years’ stewardship is delivering. NZ has “momentum” and “confidence.” It’s a good place to invest your money, but apparently not to save. We need help there. NZ relies on foreigners to lend them the money to close the balance of payments deficit.
So who foots the bill for this money-go-round? The taxpayer. You.

Play Of The Week - 27th January 2005
“Take What You Can Get I Reckon”

What do hip-hop tours, Judy Bailey, Dick Hubbard and long-standing DPB recipients have in common? The message National is stressing this election is, if people are to receive generous sums of money from the taxpayer, there need to be a few more awkward questions asked. This is actually the flip side of Orewa 1, when the catchphrase was “needs based rather than race based” funding.

Orewa 1 precipitated one of Labour’s screeching, hoon-like U turns, with Race relations Minister Trevor Mallard at the wheel of the policy V-8 and PM Helen Clark in the back seat urging him on but apparently not noticing what speed the car is going. Orewa II’s message puts more emphasis on the “needs based” side of the equation – making individuals more accountable for those needs, and doing more to meet those needs themselves rather than get the taxpayer to fork out the dosh.

Public ire is usually targeted at Govts, rather than recipients of taxpayer funded loot, despite the cries Brash is “beneficiary bashing.” A frequently heard comment following the Judy Bailey, hip-hop tour, and the more recent Dick Hubbard scandal is if the Govt is handing out this kind of money, who can blame people for taking it? It’s up to Govts to minimise this – which is the core of the Nat’s message. The Govt is custodian of the public’s hard earned money, and it needs to be a lot more careful about where the money goes.

Play Of The Week - 16th December 2004
Cullen Conquers All

Politician of the year: Michael Cullen. Produced the Budget Labour supporters have waited many years for: fronted for the Govt on the Foreshore/Seabed Bill, and taught Labour to love fiscal prudence – for now anyway.

Runner up: Helen Clark. Few five-and-a-half year old Govts are still running as high in the polls as this one. Knows political capital is a finite asset, holds it in reserve, and spends it shrewdly.

Honourable Mention: Don Brash. “Orewa” dominated the year, but the follow through has been ham-fisted. He shored up National’s base, but has yet to convince swinging voters his party is on their side.

Issue of the year: the Foreshore/Seabed. It isn’t going to go away, and may cause pain for many years to come.

Comedy performances of the year:
• Tariana Turia’s shocking discovery political leaders attract nutty letters - but others deal with it all the time – quietly.
• Dame Sian Elias battling Michael Cullen over Judicial versus Parliamentary sovereignty
• The emergence of Jim Anderton as an apostle of lower taxes.

Trends of the year:
• Labour’s emulation of Richard Seddon’s Liberals of 100 years ago – trying to win favour with the moderate left and the moderate right while banishing opponents to the fringes.
• The rise of the Maori Party.
• The noise over “family” issues.
• The centre-right’s belated and half-hearted rediscovery of pragmatism.

Play Of The Week - 9th December 2004
Civil Unions Become A Branding Exercise

The Civil Unions Bill dominated Parliament this week, and one thing is clear: this is not a normal conscience vote. There is too much party politics being played for it to be any such thing. Most parties are clearly either for or against the Bill, with a few outriders bucking the caucus. Some are predictable – United Future is totally opposed: the Greens are totally in favour. ACT, after some waverers, looks like being 6 – 3 split.

The fact is most parties are using this Bill as a branding exercise. Even National leader Don Brash, initially supportive, has switched to opposition. National – which is making an increasing habit of preaching to the converted – is pretty much opposing the Bill, with only 3 MPs in favour. This is sending a reassuring message to its core conservative voters, but it is likely to dismay those of its more socially liberal supporters.

This may be what Labour is counting on. The Govt is using the Bill to portray itself as a progressive, reforming administration and a worthy successor to previous Labour Govts. It underlines to a key constituency – gay voters - Labour is on its side. It is also a useful way of getting socially liberal voters who might otherwise be economically “dry” onside. Put this alongside the emphasis we will see on fiscal prudence in next week’s Budget Policy Statement, and this Bill looks like part of Labour’s bid to increase its majority at the next election.

Play Of The Week - 2nd December 2004
Who Owns That Idea?

People seem to crave buzzwords and catchphrases. It starts at school - back in the 1970s, something good was “grouse.” At some point during the decade this mutated into “gun,” followed by “ace.” It’s similar in politics. Politicians will seize on certain phrases or words which “resonate” with the prevailing mood. These can be positive or negative - Labour had “sleaze” in 1999, and then both National and Labour talked a lot about the “knowledge economy.” There was even a spat at one point between the Nat’s Max Bradford and Labour’s Paul Swain over who had started talking about it first.

The buzzword for next year is already starting to trip off tongues. If you haven’t already heard about the “ownership society” brace yourself: you will hear the phrase a lot more between now and the election. In the past 7 days we’ve had Deputy PM Michael Cullen saying “we need to promote the idea of an ownership society... that means helping people to save for their future, for housing for example, and for a better standard of living in retirement,” and National leader Don Brash saying his party will “make it easier to save and build an ownership stake in society, and have a larger pool of private retirement savings available.”

The Nats toyed with it back during the privatisation era, and talked in the 1950s of  “a property owning democracy.” The long period of economic growth, and higher tax receipts, have allowed Labour to capture the idea. Expect to see “ownership” branded all over the 2005 Budget.

Play Of The Week - 25th November 2004
Paranoia Strikes Deep

There’s nothing like a good spy story to cheer us all up. The Security Intelligence Service, whose exploits with meat pies and Penthouse magazines delighted the nation in the past, is apparently taking a close professional interest some of the Maori Party’s personnel.

Or not. Hey, who knows? The beauty of spy stories is there is seldom any hard information. You can pretty much make whatever allegations you like, and so long as you stay within the bounds of libel, there’s usually little or no comeback.

The authorities - in this case PM Clark - deny any allegations, or invoke the rule they generally don’t comment on security matters. Which evokes a “well they would say that, wouldn’t they?” response from those inclined to believe in conspiracy theories. Except PM Clark no longer finds the stories “laughable” as she put it earlier in the week. By Wednesday she appeared to be channeling the spirit of her political hero, Labour’s WWI PM Peter Fraser, in a grim and determined crack-down on the media running the stories.

There are a few old nemeses for Clark lining up here: anti-western alliance campaigner Nicky Hagar, who sparked last election’s ‘Corngate’ affair being the most prominent. There are also hints of at least one high level former Alliance party activist in the whole affair.
It is the nature of the security world to be full of secrets, assumptions about people’s motives, and leaps of suspicion backed with very little evidence. Rather like politics, in fact.

Play Of The Week - 18th November 2004
Change And Status Quo Versus Left and Right

The most abused terms in politics (apart from “point of order!” at question time) are ‘left’ and ‘right.’ These days they confuse rather than illuminate. It is better to refer to the classic Westminster political model of one main party being the party of change, and the other being of the status quo.For this reason, the great divide in NZ politics was not the 1980s but the 1990s. Because then National ceased being the party of status quo and become the party of radical change. And National’s internal divisions – the ones which matter to outsiders - are still largely about the divide.

Labour in power under Helen Clark has managed to be both. Voters don’t want much change at the moment, but steady unspectacular reform is something most can deal with. It’s why Labour dresses up even its most radical changes, such as abolition of the Privy Council, in the most conservative garb it can find.
Which is also why it wants United Future leader Peter Dunne to head up the constitutional inquiry. Dunne’s whole persona is non-ideological conservative, he has a keen sense of Parliamentary and constitutional conventions, and he has handled difficult Select Committee inquiries before, most notably the IRD inquiry a few years ago.

The real difficulty will come after the inquiry is finished. The implications are so immense, on the republican and the Waitangi questions - Labour will have to make a defining choice – party of change or party of status quo?

Play Of The Week - 11th November 2004
Burning Rubber On The Damascus Road

It’s been a month for political U-turns. Richard Prebble has suggest-ed the Govt confiscate any windfall the new owners of the railways might get out the upcoming insider trading case. The suggestion left Michael Cullen spluttering “are you on the road back from Damascus Richard?” It seems to have started a trend. This week Jim Anderton produced his own Damascene about face, advocating a cut in company tax. With U-turns in season, here are a few more we might hear:

Helen Clark: “No no, someone else get themselves photographed with returned soldiers. I’ve done quite enough of that.”

Don Brash: “Screw the Yanks. We don’t need an FTA - free trade is over-rated anyway.”

Jeanette Fitzsimons: “We should take advantage of all the rain which falls in Fiordland by building a ring of huge dams in the region.”

Peter Dunne: “Gay marriage should not only be allowed, it should be compulsory! And we’re not prepared to compromise on this one!”

Rodney Hide: “Geez, I’m not doing all that well am I? Perhaps Stephen Franks should be leader after all.”

John Tamihere: “Rodney - you’re my mate!”

Gerry Brownlee: “We’ll miss Mr Speaker when he goes to London. We’ve always appreciated the way his rulings favour the Opposition.”

Winston Peters: “Well, I did make a few mistakes when I was Treasurer. Sorry.”

Michael Cullen: “Jim Anderton is a big sook on tax cuts. Roger Douglas was right - it should be a 20% flat rate.”

Play Of The Week - 4th November 2004
PM Back In Charge

Two weeks ago Labour opted for what was called the “glass houses” defence of John Tamihere. Labour MPs gleefully hurled every rumour of financial impropriety they could dredge up at National and ACT MPs accompanied by a plenitude of Parliamentary pantomime.

Marian Hobbs ostentatiously rubbed her hands with glee at the Opposition benches; youthful whip Darren Hughes waved his arms at individual MPs, and Deputy PM Michael Cullen was in full gila monster mode, snarling at Rodney Hide.
This week Helen Clark carefully picked her way through the debris like a very fastidious and dignified panther. The emphasis was on due process, and a measured approach to the affair. Clark went as far as to assure the opposition – more than once – she shares their concerns.

The reason for the fastidiousness was clear by Wednesday afternoon, when Tamihere resigned. Whether the PM saw this coming or not, the resignation was less jarring than it would have been if the defiant Parliamentary attitude had been maintained.
And still the emphasis is on due process - the PM pointing out the Serious Fraud Office investigation means the issue is not going to go away soon, and also the hopeful “I have always seen great potential in John it is my hope he will be able to contribute at Ministerial level again in the future.”

All of which may or may not mean Tamihere is toast. But it makes for a much more edifying spectacle than the one we saw two weeks ago.

Play Of The Week - 28th October 2004
Odds Still Against An Early Poll – But Shortening

Some excited election talk hit Wellington streets this week, in the wake of the John Tamihere affair. There are reasons for the Govt to go early, but they don’t have a lot to do with the troubled MP.
Look to the economy. Finance Minister Michael Cullen told a Select Committee anecdotal evidence suggests a slowdown is starting to hit in the provinces. But Cullen’s message was aimed not so much at MPs as Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard.

Which is why this week’s OCR rise is so important. Bollard has been trying to cool the property market all year, but the popularity of fixing mortgages means a lag. Watch for the economic hit when the lag catches up. This will coincide with an already predicted downturn sometime in 2005, probably after May. This week’s rate rise – and Treasury’s economic forecasts, (still being finalised for the December Economic and Fiscal Update) are all being factored into the Govt’s calculations.
The temptation must be there in the Beehive to go early. It is often said NZers punish Govts for early elections, but this is rubbish.

Of the 3 early polls since World War II, 2 returned the sitting Govt with a bigger majority. One of those of course was the last election. It saw months of careful preparation by the Govt’s spin doctors. With a series of hints, nods and winks, the country was softened up for the early poll. The strategy would not work a second time. The odds are still against an early election. But they are shortening.

Play Of The Week - 21st October 2004
Mud Sticks

"Grab anything and throw it as hard as you can" is the Govt's tactic in the face of allegations against John Tamihere. Acting PM Michael Cullen has announced a "glass houses" approach to defending Tamihere. So far the defences are:

• National's Nick Smith got convicted of contempt of court; and Gerry Brownlee was convicted of assault.
• It was all Bill Birch's fault for bringing in tax simplification rules which mean most of us no longer have to do a tax return.
• Act leader Rodney Hide has attended conferences which have promoted tax minimisation, and has a friend who has dodged tax and is involved in the sex industry.
• To question whether Act MP Ken Shirley has received payments from the forestry industry.
• Point out the last National Govt "was paying people an extraordinary amount of money to go away."
• Complain it's all part of the internal politics of the Waipareira Trust.

Play Of The Week - 14th October 2004
Trans-Tasman political parallels can be over exaggerated.

For a long time Govts changed on both sides at the same time ­ conservative parties winning in 1949 and 1975; Labour  parties in 1972 and 1983-94. So a lot of people were reaching for parallels in the wake of John Howard's big win on Saturday. The trouble is there aren't very many. While the Howard coalition and the Clark coalition are similar in style - conservative, gradualist, steady-as-she-goes political managers - the differences are more important.

Timing is crucial. The NZ polls will probably be in  mid-2005, and by then the economy should be slowing. Howard successfully raised concerns Aust Labour's spending would lead to interest rate rises - and Finance Minister Cullen flagged a similar attack here if National proposes too much fiscal
looseness. Its effectiveness will depend on how reckless National turn out to be, and how the wider economy is performing at the time.

The other difference is the Waitangi issue, which has no parallel in Aust. We are yet to see whether Brash can rehash the impact of Orewa - thus far it looks like a bit of a one-off. Also, for Aust, Latham was an unknown factor. Here Don Brash has been around for a long time, in various roles. Voters know what they would be getting - something which may hurt Brash as much as it helps. A shrewd punter would still put money on the incumbent winning here next year, just as in Aust - but for quite different reasons.

Play of the Week - 7th October 2004
It's Election Year...

Anyone who had forgotten it's less than a year to the next election got a reminder this week, with the Govt's crackdown on prisoners getting compensation. Justice Minister Phil Goff was long on rhetoric and short on specifics at a press conference announcing the scheme.

Election years always bring some overheated crackdown on crime. Last election it was Labour back-bencher Clayton Cosgrove's anti-boy racer bill, which of course hasn¹t made a scrap of difference to the issue.  In 1999 it was then Justice Minister Tony Ryall¹s anti-home invasion law.

In both cases, of course, the law changes addressed behaviour  which was already against the law. The tendency goes a long way back, probably to the first crackdown on juvenile delinquency in the mid-1950s. Goff's plan is aimed primarily at heading off an election year risk ­ people seeing criminals getting fat compensation payments when their victims get nothing.

But there do seem to be some wider policy implications and the law changes will need to be structured very carefully to avoid opening up whole new areas of litigation. The proposals not only cover any compensation payments but also gains such as inheritances or winning Lotto.

Mostly the initiative is about damping down a political risk. If ­ as some believe ­ the next poll will be in July, we are less than 9 months from the start of the formal campaign.  The Govt is clearly in
election mode already.
 

Play Of The Week - 30th September 2004
Pious Snarls Amid The Hilarity

The Auckland Mayoralty is the best show in town right now, and there's plenty to laugh at.

John Banks, Dick Hubbard and Christine Fletcher have all perfected the kind of sound bite which basically says "I want to concentrate on the on the issues people care about, and not descend into grubby personal attacks, BUT MY OPPONENT IS A LYING SCUMBAG!!"

It's a weird type of statement - a kind of pious snarl - and it has become a hallmark of this campaign. This campaign has had an element of the absurd from the start - it began, after all, with Fletcher calling Hubbard "Helen Clark's toyboy." The whole business went beyond satire when Titewhai Harawira was called in to mediate.

Hubbard and Banks both took some hits this week. The resignation of campaign manager, Brian Nicolle, after distributing the infamous NBR stories about Hubbard, looks bad for Banks. Hubbard wobbled several times - absurdly stating at one point he couldn't debate the issues because of legal action, and then backtracking.

Fletcher was the clear winner of the televised debate on Holmes. She pushed Hubbard to the sidelines - important, because any votes she picks up will come from Hubbard rather than from Banks. Even the normally irrepressible Banks was comparatively subdued, which suggests Nicolle's departure has hit him hard.

It may be too late for Fletcher - many postal votes have already been returned but suddenly it looks more like a three horse race.

Play Of The Week - 23rd September
Reshuffle Kerfuffle

Few things get backbench MPs more agitated than an impending Cabinet reshuffle, except maybe their salaries. Labour's caucus is highly factionalised. The divisions between right and left are no longer economic but on social policy issues - the ŒPC' types versus the blokes. It's basically a case of Chardonnay versus Lion Brown; latte versus gumboot tea; Carole King versus Cold Chisel.

It's not a "split" as such, and most of the time it rumbles just under the surface. But there's nothing like an impending reshuffle to bring those tensions to the top.

The left/Clark faction got one of their own in last time, when left-leaner Lianne Dalziel was replaced by David Benson-Pope. Defence Minister Mark Burton's well telegraphed elevation to the Speaker's job at the end of this year opens up another gap on the left. This means a Clark favourite, Rotorua MP Steve Chadwick is almost certain to get the nod. Although Dalziel would love her job back, she may have to wait a while longer.

But the reshuffle kerfuffle this week looks overplayed. Hot head though he may be at times, John Tamihere is just not dumb enough to threaten to walk out over any demotion of his mate George Hawkins. There's a little bit of pointed "we've got a dummy and we know how to spit it" going on from some Labour MPs - and not only from the right. But it's about as far as it goes. Barring upsets - such as a health scare by one of the key players - it should be a pretty mild reshuffle.

Hawkins looks safe. And so does anyone who's put money on a Chadwick promotion.

Play Of The Week - 16th September
Marketable Flotsam

It’s about a year until the next election and the minor parties are flexing their tendons.

NZ First has had a fiery few weeks, which ended last Wednesday when leader Winston Peters was banned from the House for seven days. The party’s other MPs - with the qualified exception of the feisty Ron Mark - were largely quiescent in the House in the absence of their leader. The silence seems to give credence to those who accuse NZ First of being a personality cult. One of those accusers, of course, was United Future leader Peter Dunne, who pledged he would never allow his party to become a personality cult so long as he remains as leader.

Dunne took a dig at all the other minor parties, and more or less said he only plays with the big boys. The other small parties - the Greens and the Maori Party - came back with suitably rude responses, particularly as Dunne criticised them for extremism and a lack of connection with political reality.

Dunne is clearly positioning UF as the essential partner for either National or Labour. He’s copying the German model, where the centrist Liberal Democrats have been the minor party in virtually every coalition Govt since the late 1940s. This means presenting the party as a “safe pair of hands” - so personality politics, and ideology, are pretty much out.

It’s a risky strategy as it is based on making his party’s selling point a negative “United Future: we’re not mad” is what it boils down to. It worked for the German centre party. Will it work here?

Play Of The Week- 9th September
Winston’s Baiting Goes Too Far

Even the most seasoned baiter occasionally gets it badly wrong. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has been slowly turning up the blowtorch of offensive behaviour for a couple of weeks now over the David McNee affair.

Last week he put the heat on Internal Affairs and Police Minister George “Sergeant Schultz” Hawkins. Hawkins was in full “I Know Nothing!” mode over the affair.

This week Peters targeted the PM. It was intriguing to watch Clark refuse to be baited. Labour has been in fulsome “be nice to Winston” mode for months now, even to the point of privately briefing journalists about the positive chemistry between Peters and various Ministers.

But if there was chemistry this week it was of the fissionable kind. Peters seemed intent on seeing how much insolence he could throw at the Govt and how long Ministers would keep up the “be nice” attitude.

As each question and point of order from Peters became more and more offensive, Clark visibly ground her teeth and kept up her patient, polite, stonewalling replies.

It was only when Peters rounded on the Speaker, accusing Jonathan Hunt of protecting the Police Minister from further questioning, despite being warned he would be ejected, that he went way past breaking point. Peters’ suspension is a record one, and Labour dropped its “be nice” approach, to vote with the other parties for sanctions against him.

Play Of The Week- 2nd September
Can We Mix It? Yes We Can

What's Winston's latest game? NZ First has been cosying up to Labour for at least six months, attacking National at every opportunity and setting up patsy questions to Ministers so Labour can attack National. The conventional wisdom is Peters is laying the ground work to be Labour's coalition partner of choice after the next election. The thinking is he went with them last time he was in Govt, and he wants to establish NZ First as a middle party. Secondly, relations between Peters and National leader Don Brash are colder than liquid oxygen.

And although polls show by far the larger proportion of Labour voters want the Greens as a coalition partner after the next election, the Parliamentary arithmetic is likely to be against them. Then Peters turned around on Tuesday and savaged Police Minister George Hawkins calling for him to resign over a police decision to drop a prosecution against a man who later committed murder.

Is this a shift in strategy by Peters? Possibly. There are two, perhaps contradictory, things to bear in mind. Firstly, Peters has an almost pathological aversion to being predictable ­ especially if it is the media doing the predicting. He loves to surprise. Secondly, he loves a good scandal.

Whether this latest scandal is a genuine strategic shift, shadow boxing, or just another Peters shock-horror story is not yet clear. What is clear is Peters and his party are back in the limelight and making everyone wonder what the next move will be. Which is just how Peters likes things.

Play Of The Week- 26 August 2004
Unanswered Questions From Destiny’s March

Short term, Monday’s big black march on Parliament had quite an impact. Whether it will carry through is another thing entirely.

It looked impressive - and so did the reaction from those who opposed it. But NZers generally tend to recoil from anyone with an “in your face attitude” - whether it is about politics, religion or sex. A lot of questions are left hanging. The media - rightly - questioned whether it was right for Destiny to use children in its protest, and whether the church should be used as a front for a political movement.

But how come the same questions were never asked about protesters against the war in Iraq, or (going back a bit) nuclear ship visits, or the Springbok Tour? What impact will the proposed inquiry into “hate speech” have on protests like this? Will it lead to legislation banning them - and thus give them a cloak of martyrdom? Is one of the reasons Destiny has such a strong political appeal because too many policymakers view the traditional family as guilty until proven innocent?

Were those involved in the protest representative of mainstream Christianity? How many of those marching are aware there is no mention of homosexuality in the Gospels, and Christ does not mention the topic? If Christians are supposed to strive to emulate Christ in thought, word and deed, and if Christ did not see fit to mention the subject, what is all the fuss really about?

Play Of The Week - 25 March 2004
Bringing It On... And Then Off Again

Normally, PM Clark’s refusal to debate with the leader of the opposition at this point in the electoral cycle would be a straight-forward issue. Such debates just do not happen outside an election campaign. But ducking an opportunity to engage on the ‘race issue’ is a much more difficult call than it might first appear.

This is not a normal debate. It is difficult to recall an issue which has so animated the country – probably only the 1981 Springbok Tour, and before that, the 1951 Waterfront Strike, came up to this sort of public intensity. So to have debated it head to head with Brash would have been seen to have engaged – to have lived up to her ‘bring it on’ rhetoric – and would have countered the impression Labour is out of touch. On the other hand, it would have handed a lot of the political initiative to Brash.

Play Of The Week - 19th Feb 2004
Orewa Fallout Continues

One of Parliament's main functions - some would say its principle function - is to scrutinise Govt spending. Don Brash's Ocat among the pigeons' Orewa speech has thus had one positive benefit. It has led to a major re-examination of how money is spent on what was called Oclosing the gaps' and is now called Oreducing inequalities' - and programmes dating from before the Labour-led government.

Treasury and Social Services officials have been ordered to provide Ministers a comprehensive analysis of this spending and whether it is needs based or race based.

It is difficult to overstate how pre-occupied Labour has become with countering the Brash message. But one side-effect of this pre-occupation was a sluggish reaction to the lower North Island's civil emergency.

Ministers have delivered a verbal fusillade against Brash's economic views, claiming they will favour the well-off. We will hear more of this, especially as Brash has shown a penchant for re-fighting old battles. Since getting into Parliament he has easily allowed himself to be trapped into defending his Reserve Bank record, and this week he wistfully spoke of returning to the first past the post electoral system. He also repeated earlier calls to lower the company tax rate to 30%.

Revisiting these causes will allow Labour to paint Brash as a man of the 1980s and 1990s, and show the National leader's political touch is not as sure as it may have appeared in recent weeks.

Play Of The Week - 12th Feb 2004
Sound The Retreat

If you happened to hear a whirring sound this week, it was the sound of politicians back-pedalling. Both National and Labour stepped back from some of their more intemperate rhetoric over Maori issues.

Most publicly, National's Deputy Leader Gerry Brownlee crawled back down after asking whether it would be appropriate to call Labour's John Tamihere a "black fella." Brownlee apologised to Tamihere, his caucus, and most abjectly to the House. It was recognition the debate has to be conducted in a calm and reasoned manner, and cheap playground taunts are going to be particularly destructive.

Don Brash's Orewa speech was initially met with concerted fire from Govt Ministers describing his comments as racist, divisive and ignorant. But the strongly favourable reaction from the public to Brash's speech has caused a rethink. Labour can't afford to run a line effectively saying most voters are racist morons if it wants to be re-elected. And this is a Govt desperately wanting to be re-elected.

Which is why Labour has switched from name calling to pointing out the number of pro-Waitangi laws National passed ­ and noting Brash, while at the Reserve Bank, initiated special scholarships for Maori. It has caused some red-faces among National MPs, and rubs a bit of salt in the differences between National and ACT.

But if public disquiet continues to grow ­ and it translates into support for National and ACT ­ listen for more back pedalling as the year goes on.

Play Of The Week - 5th Feb 2004
Singing The Same Song

Slipping by with barely a mention this week were the talks between Aust and NZ over greater economic integration. Aust Treasurer Peter Costello and NZ Finance Minister Michael Cullen held their second annual bilateral meeting.

The two Ministers have seriously upped the ante on merging the two economies. Until now the codeword has been Oharmonisation'. However the Costello/Cullen duet has added some complexity to the harmonies. As Cullen noted, "for the first time we have used language like a Single Economic Market." The fact the issue has moved up the Cabinet table to Finance Minister level, shows the issue has genuine momentum.

Most of the questions at the post-meeting press conference were about a common currency, but it was not discussed at all, and may not be for some time. As both Ministers pointed out, Europe had nearly half a century of gradual economic integration before the Euro came about. Other aspects of economic integration, with banking being a priority, come first. Costello said wherever possible, the Govts will aim for unified standards. Any "local sensitivities" on specific issues will be stepped around rather than allowed to stop the whole process.

Costello and Cullen appear to have a rapport usually lacking in trans-Tasman Ministerial relations. Whether it would survive any change of Govt ­ and Aust is likely to go to the polls this year ­ is another question.

The harmonies are likely to continue ­ it will probably be a matter of whether they are played fortissimo or pianissimo.

Play Of The Week, 29 Jan 04 -
Measured Tone Needed On Waitangi Debate

Put any sized group of people together – and you get differing interests. Humans have, over the years, tried different ways of working through, and hopefully resolving, conflicts arising from those differing interests.

In our kind of democracy, the place these conflicts are played out is Parliament and the media.

This week National leader Don Brash stepped up the rhetoric on the Waitangi issue, stating bluntly the Treaty “should not be used as the basis for giving greater civil, political or democratic rights to any particular ethnic group.”

Most of the criticism of Brash’s speech – from his opponents and the media – focussed on his raising the issue at all.

But this is a debate NZ has to have. One of the Left’s great - and justifiable - criticisms of the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, was they were not put to voters before being implemented. But it’s nothing compared with the “unstated” ban on debating the Waitangi issue. Any objections to the process is branded as “racist” – as happened this week to Brash.

National’s approach in the 1990s was the same as Labour’s and any public disquiet on the issue was kept to the margins. But it is a debate which has to happen responsibly. History teaches us a society divided on racial grounds is a society going nowhere.

Which means all sides – along with the media – have a responsibility to tone the inflammatory talk down.

18th December 2003

Play Of The Week
Wonderful Wilson Pips Capable Cullen

Politician of the year: Margaret Wilson. As Attorney-General she managed to portray the abolition of the Privy Council, which Michael Cullen called “a significant constitutional issue” back when Labour was in Opposition, as almost a piece of minor bureaucratic tinkering. As Minister of Labour, she has played the ‘softly softly’ game and now looks like getting much of her original agenda for employment law through. If you measure by tangible results, Wilson comes out ahead.

Runner up: Michael Cullen, for managing to keep the fiscal reins on spending Ministers, as well as fronting for the Govt on the seabed and foreshore issue.

Issue of the year: No question about this one, if only because it is already front-runner for being issue of the year for 2004 as well – the foreshore and seabed.

Speech of the year: Georgina Beyers on the Prostitution Law Reform Bill. Sent a shiver up the spine of all who heard it. Runner up: Peter Dunne’s “I could be Prime Minister” speech... nah, just kidding.

Cock up of the year: Say it out loud: Nick Smith. Deputy National Party leader. Now say it with a straight face.

Storm in a teacup of the year: Paul Holmes’ witless and crass ‘cheeky darkie’ comments - and the glee they provoked amongst Holmes’ media enemies.

Theme of 2003 we’d like to see less of in 2004: Govt Depts unable to do their basic jobs – Children and Young Persons, Immigration, Fisheries, Civil Aviation, Courts and Te Puni Kokiri.

11th December 2003

Play Of The Week
Plenty Of Fires, Where’s The Direction?

It has been a tense week in the capital. Transport Minister Paul Swain’s proposal to lower the drink driving limit got pulled over to the side of the political road and told to catch a cab. Health Minister Annette King handed regulation of health supplements over to the Aussies, and told affronted Select Committee MPs - who recommended against the move - to take their St Johns’ Wort and calm down.

But overshadowing it all was the foreshore and seabed debate. Ministers appear to have decided to kick sand in the faces of the more radical Maori aspirations before the start of the summer holiday, rather than later. It remains to be seen whether those Maori groups will go on a body building course and come back to kick political sand in the Govt’s face.

Finance Minister Cullen - yet again fronting for the Govt on a difficult issue - was at his grumpiest on Tuesday, accusing some Maori groups of spreading misinformation.

As it reaches the end of the year, the Govt appears to be mostly engaged in putting put political fires – or, in the case of the foreshore debate, dampening down smouldering ashes which could easily become a conflagration.

But there is little feeling of coordination, or a sense of direction. If you ask, ‘what is this Govt here to do?’ the Clark administration has been solely about turning Labour into the natural party of Govt. So far, it seems to be the only long-term goal Labour has.

Beyond the political firefighting, and its accompanying spin, there is no real sense of any other vision.

4th December 2003

Play Of The Week
Don’t Downplay The Downside

Extending mandatory holidays to four weeks may have major lifestyle benefits, but the downside is likely to be more pressure on the public sector, which according to Treasury, is now facing difficulty in getting enough staff.

Either Govt agencies take new staff on their payroll to cover the time off, or existing staff have to do the same amount of work a year in a shorter time.

Given the skills shortages already reported, the latter appears more likely than the former. Officials have pointed to pressures in Health, WINZ, Corrections and Teaching as being the main problems.

Coming after incident after incident of public sector incapacity to deliver – Child Youth and Family, Te Puni Kokiri, Immigration, and, this week, Fisheries and Courts – the warning is a pertinent one.

State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham raised alarm bells in October about some Govt Depts having trouble delivering what they are supposed to.

The extra holidays proposal is bound to be a popular one – and there is no doubt a strong case can be made for it. Yet the issue should not be waved through as a good idea, without some scrutiny of the downside. The negative aspects appear to have been wilfully ignored by Ministers: the fact advice from Treasury was only sought at 4pm on the Friday before the issue was to go before Cabinet, is an indictment of the Govt.

It does rather suggest Ministers were trying very hard to avoid hearing unpalatable advice.

27th November 2003

Play Of The Week
What’s The Correct Rate?

Beneath the babble and shouting of day to day politics run the economic tides and currents which tend to decide the success and failure of a Govt - much more effectively than MPs shouting at each other at question time. Next week will see the key decision which will set the economic tone for much of 2004. Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard has to make the call on whether to lift interest rates or leave them alone for at least another six weeks.

The National Bank - whose business confidence survey this week showed a slight drop in mood - has called for Dr Bollard to hold off. Other bank economists have made similar noises.

Recent record low job figures and booming growth in the construction and Govt sectors point to a rate rise: on the other side is the high exchange rate and job losses in primary and manufacturing sectors.

Often the Australian-based economists have a clearer view of the NZ economy than the locals, and Macquarie Bank is picking a rate rise.

If he does lift the rate the move is not likely to make Dr Bollard very popular, and some of that mood tends to rub off on the Govt of the day. Previous Governor Don Brash copped a storm when he hiked rates in 1995-96 and the then National Govt also took some of the heat.

The political sensitivity of interest rates is why politicians used to play with them so much - and why it is just as well the two are kept separate.

20th November 2003

Play Of The Week
Have We Lost The Hunger To Win?

NZ's Rugby World Cup disaster poses fresh questions over the capacity of the administrators who control not just the national game, but its development as a professional sport. It's not surprising the media have turned to psychologists and other commentators, to probe the reasons for NZ's failure. This has thrown up comparisons between Kiwis and Australians over a range of activities, where Aussies have a hunger to show they are the best in the world. Other critics contend NZers have become so politically correct they have lost the hard edge with which earlier generations of All Blacks created fear among their opponents. The Wallabies' hunger last Saturday contrasted starkly with the mood of the NZers.

The All Blacks were not the only members of the Rugby community to fail: their failure came on top of the NZRFU's loss earlier of the sub-hosting rights. John Mitchell's "journey" was also derailed: his funereal approach to coaching suggests he was never the kind of evangelist to bring home Rugby's holy grail.

The NZRFU has undertaken a review of the NPC, calling in outside consultants, due to be published shortly. It has to make substantive changes, not just to lift the playing strength of its constituent unions, but halt the drain of experienced players abroad, and offer more assistance to Pacific Island Rugby.

Administrators have to show they can rebuild the game's own professional structures. But, like the All Blacks, they have shown a tendency to choke under pressure.

13th November 2003

Play Of The Week
You Didn't Really Need That Foot Anyway

If it isn't one of the centre right parties using its big toe for target practice it's the other one.

Things have seemed to be settling down within the National Party caucus after the leadership change. While there is still plenty of hurt on the part of the main losers (and a big question mark over how long new deputy Nick Smith will remain) the change has lanced what was something of a festering sore. Blood-letting can be cathartic.

It does not mean National is suddenly doing very well, but it is looking better focussed than it has for some time.

Now it is ACT's turn to blast away at its tootsies like a demented gun freak. The Donna Awatere Huata affair has finally come to some sort of head, and this at least was foreseen. Less expected was the revelation the partner of ACT MP Deborah Coddington, Alister Taylor, is facing legal action across the Tasman for breaches of fair trading law. This tidbit has not helped. Ms Coddington sold out of the company involved three years ago, but news of the action is not helpful for the small party.

Leakage of internal memos slagging off staff and stating Labour has successfully positioned itself as a party of economic credibility, whereas "ACT has no credibility" are particularly embarrassing. NZ needs both parties focussed on the Govt and not internal difficulties. The country has gone too long without a coherent opposition.

6th November 2003

Play Of The Week
Nothing’s Going To Happen

This week was perhaps notable for what people did not do. Labour MPs refrained from the obvious dig at the new, but very absent, deputy leader of the National Party, Nick Smith, away on stress leave. No sarcastic digs at all about stress in the workplace and National’s opposition to those laws.

Also not happening was any move by new National leader Don Brash to spice up his Parliamentary act, despite plenty of advice from the media he would have to do so.

Parliamentary performance does impress MPs, but the wisest know this can be over-rated. It impresses the press gallery even more. But few others care very much.

Brash did open the general debate on Wednesday, but even then he said what he was not going to do.

Some commentators, he observed, had suggested he had bleak prospects as a stand up comedian.

Well it isn’t his job, he said, and went on to give the sort of learned but stern economic and social lecture he occasionally delivered when he was at the Reserve Bank.

He took the odd rhetorical slash at the Govt, but this was rather perfunctory.

Also busy not doing things was Finance Minister Cullen, who told a Select Committee the high NZ dollar is really about a declining US currency and cutting interest rates would not necessarily bring relief. There are “some options” for a Govt if the NZ dollar continues to climb, he said. But he was not saying what those are, or whether he would use them.

30th October 2003

Play Of The Week
Brash – NZ’s John Hewson?

New National party leader Don Brash will have to be careful he does not emulate Aust Liberal Party leader of a decade ago - John Hewson. Both are economists without much Parliamentary experience who leap-frogged their colleagues to lead their parties. Both are rather earnest types who are into thinking, and talking policy rather than the petty name calling of political life.

They both hold Ph.Ds. And there is an almost clerical air about both men - Brash was brought up as a Christian pacifist by a clergyman: Hewson, a Baptist, at one point considered becoming a missionary.

Hewson lost the supposedly un-losable 1993 election against Paul Keating. No-one is calling the 2005 election un-losable for National - “un-winnable” is a word more often used. But Brash will have to make sure he does not make the same errors Hewson did - putting too much emphasis on policy and not enough on the emotion and blood and guts of politics.

If Brash does emulate Hewson, there is another seductive parallel. One of Hewson’s predecessors as party leader had lost one election - badly - but came back again, although there were a smattering of other, now mostly forgotten, leaders in between. That leader, now PM, was John Howard - “Lazarus with a triple bypass” as he was dubbed after his unlikely resurrection. It will be intriguing to see whether ousted National leader Bill English - who, at 41, is eight years younger than Howard when Howard first lost the Liberal leadership - feels like emulating his Aust counterpart.

23rd October 2003

Play Of The Week
Biting The Wrong End Of The Stick?

As the dust settles on the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council ("a very important constitutional matter" as Michael Cullen called it - in 1997) it is worth considering the wider ramifications.

Was this really a priority right now? A great deal of Ministerial effort went in to getting the Supreme Court Act through Parliament. The law was delayed for a while this year while Ministers got sufficient Maori support, or at least lack of opposition, to the change. Yet one has to wonder whether this was really a priority for Maori.

State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham in his Annual Report expressed concerns some Govt Departments are not delivering what they are supposed to. This has been evident particularly in Social Ministries such as Health, Te Puni Kokiri and Child Youth and Family.

What appears to be the missing ingredient is compassion. A feeling a Labour Govt should simply care more. There must be unease among Ministers about what may happen next, because systems just don't seem to be working properly.

There is also a sense of the real priorities, the more urgent issues, being lost as other Ministerial hobby-horses, get a trot. The Land Transport Management Bill is another example - there are urgent transport issues to be addressed, particularly in Auckland, yet the Bill has become a repository for all manner of hobby horses. When road user charges are being diverted to help pay for coastal shipping, something is not quite right. Sharper focus is needed on the pressing issues facing NZ.

16th October 2003

Play Of The Week
Centre-Right Snuggle Up Continues

The sight of Bill English, Winston Peters and Richard Prebble on the same stage this week was a nice study in body language.

The three looked like stroppy teenage cousins told they have to at least pretend get on otherwise granny will get upset. There is greater co-operation between the parties on the centre-right, even though by and large the leaders are more reluctant than some of their followers.

This is especially true of National and ACT - whose leaders none-the-less held a quiet meeting this week on mutual co-operation.

Elsewhere, the parties were making other appearances together. National, ACT, NZ First and United Future MPs all jointly co-hosted the launch of a new book on more choice in education, released by the Education Forum. But in what’s probably a good indication of those party’s current positions, NZ First MP Brian Donnelly made it clear he did not agree with many of the book’s proposals. ACT’s Deborah Coddington endorsed it enthusiastically, while National’s Simon Power avoided saying whether he agreed with it or not but criticised the current system.

Most interesting was United Future’s Bernie Ogilvy, who endorsed the Education Forum’s espousal of vouchers for primary and secondary education – quite a radical shift for a supposedly centre party.

But it does show there is discussion going on between the centre-right parties - and there may be greater meetings of minds than meets the eye.

9th October 2003

Play Of The Week
Captured By The Elites - Again

Democracy is not just a way of choosing a Govt - "the worst method, apart from all the alternatives" to quote Winston Churchill. It is also an immensely valuable tool for public education, involving the population in policy debate, and thus raising the level of understanding. The average citizen today knows more about public affairs than the average citizen a century ago, when universal suffrage was still in its infancy.

Which is why Labour's rejection of a referendum on the abolition of the Privy Council is so telling, and so damning. The arguments against a referendum come down to an assumption the average voter is not equipped to understand the issues.

The real reason is a fear the average citizen might reject what the Govt wants. The issue is particularly sensitive because a wider public debate on the role of the courts would have inevitably raised the issue of "activist" judges who tend to make the law rather than interpret it - an anti-democratic approach which has driven much of the Waitangi process. The republican referendum in Australia several years ago was defeated in part because a segment of the population wanted to give the elites who favoured the change two rude fingers. Labour does not want it to happen here.

Which is why the issue has been wrenched back into the hands of the elites here - and why, despite Untied Future's refusal to back the law change, the Govt will force through this major constitutional reform with a bare Parliamentary majority.

2nd October 2003

Play Of The Week
Clash Highlights Identity Crisis

Just when the infighting on the centre-right had settled down, along came this week's spat between National front bencher Gerry Brownlee and ACT. National and ACT seemed to have signed an informal non-aggression pact since the last election. Most of the time they have avoided chipping at each other - especially when invited to by journalists in search of a story. Don Brash's speech to the ACT regional conference in Canterbury looked like a further example of the two parties working together. But Brownlee came out swinging, sounding more like an old-style Labour politician than a National MP. ACT has a "superior attitude", he said, and is "quite dismissive and disrespectful of average workers".

Cynics have had a field day with the row, saying Brownlee fears ACT will run a strong candidate - Ruth Richardson has been mentioned - against him in Ilam at the next election, and he is positioning himself to run as the "anti-Brash" candidate if Bill English falls. It has also been suggested Brash's speech was a covert challenge to English.

That appears unlikely. Brash is more interested in National developing a coherent policy consistent with liberal-conservative principles than he is in being leader. And that is probably the true significance of the row. It high-lights the identity crisis on the centre-right - instinctive populism, or a more measured approach.

One thing is certain - the current approach is not working for either party.

25th September 2003

Play Of The Week
"It's The Economy, Stupid."

This quote was posted on the wall of Bill Clinton's campaign headquarters when he was running for president. Two things will scupper a Govt ­ a sad economy and a general air of incompetence.

Thus far we can rule out the latter: Labour has managed to project an air of general competence (PM Helen Clark describes herself as a popular and competent Prime Minister). But the economy is showing signs of going off the track. It is not just this Friday's GDP figures, which are expected, in the words of one senior Reserve Bank official, to be "ugly".

The Bank of New Zealand this week pointed out growth in national income per head has been depressed since early last year.

More worryingly, an NZIER report out last week showed per capita income growth will average only 1.4% for the next five years. The last five years saw average growth of 2.2%. This is starting to cause a few furrowed brows. It suggests for all the rhetoric about growth and innovation from Ministers the economy has in fact been riding high on good commodity prices, a low dollar, massive immigration and the "wealth effect" from a housing bubble. The mood is obviously still buoyant. Some would say dangerously so. This week's Westpac Consumer Confidence survey was at a seven year high. But these other indicators show a comedown may be imminent.

With the mood running so high, the comedown may arrive with a jolt ­ and jolts tend to unsettle Govts.

18th September 2003

Play Of The Week
Yes, Attorney-General

"Yes, Prime Minister," the great 80s sit-com is still one of the best guides to politics available. One of the episodes featured a package of radical reform proposals from the Prime Minister, who wanted to present them in a very upbeat, dramatic way. Not a good idea, he was advised. If the reforms are genuinely radical, the best way to present them is to make them look as low-key as possible if they are to be politically saleable.

Labour's public relations team has taken those lessons to heart, as demonstrated by the sale of the new Supreme Court this week. Attorney-General Margaret Wilson did her best to make the whole thing seem as procedural and inevitable as possible. She even went so far as to rule out a republic.

The Govt needs to make this change look as normal as possible if it is to get the changes through Parliament on a simple majority. There is a convention major constitutional changes need a bigger majority, or a referendum. The Opposition is not going to support this change, and Labour does not want a referendum

Yet the change is a radical one. Constitutionally it is a drastic move, and it will move NZ closer to republicanism. And as Trans Tasman noted 2 weeks ago, the doctrine of "public domain", which the Govt has introduced in its solution to the foreshore row, has an implicit republicanism about it. But it is being done in a low-key way ­ "in the fullness of time" as "Yes Minister's" Sir Humphrey would say.

11th September 2003

Play Of The Week
UF¹s Pot On The Boil

The heat is going on Peter Dunne¹s United Future party. The furore over its support for new ³family unfriendly² gambling law ups the heat on a slowly warming pot.

Labour needs United Future as a repository for conservative voters who could never bring themselves to vote Labour, and UF¹s MPs sound conservative. Marc Alexander has railed against welfare and dependency, sounding not unlike Act¹s Muriel Newman. Dunne himself has delivered some of the most trenchant comments on Labour¹s political correctness, saying Helen Clark¹s party not only wants to tell NZers what to do, it wants to tell us what to think as well.

Dunne also damned Labour¹s workplace stress clauses in health and safety laws as ³lunatic fringe².

Business groups have been quietly putting pressure on UF to back up it¹s business-friendly rhetoric with voting muscle. Dunne responded last week with a speech saying while the Govt is highly politically correct, ideologically driven and anti-business it would be worse if UF were not there.

Labour has played off the UF right flank against the Greens on its left for a year, but the dynamic may have changed last week, with the very public row over Corngate. Labour Ministers have privately told business groups the party¹s long term partner is the Greens, and concessions on land transport and Kyoto are necessary to offset the lifting of the GM moratorium. But the Greens don¹t play politics like that. And if the sniping on Labour¹s left continues, there will be louder calls for UF¹s conservatives to vote like conservatives.

4th September 2003

Play Of The Week
A Lesson For The All Blacks?

As John Mitchell gets his team ready to battle for the World Cup, he may have watched the display put on this week by PM Helen Clark. She gave a pointed lesson in ruthlessness, using attack as the best form of defence, seeking to draw attention away from what her opponents wanted to target.

Some see Clark’s comment “I am a victim of my own success as a competent and popular prime minister,” as arrogance. And, as John Armstrong wrote in the NZ Herald, her Monday performance in which she bagged the Greens for their role in “Corngate,” dished out the vitriol. An aggressive, almost contemptuous, demolition.

She used strongarm tactics, leaving the Greens feeling the heat of her fury, but it’s likely to be seen in the electorate as strong leadership, rather than the lashing out of someone under pressure. However there is an element of hubris in her performance, something most PM’s fall prey to.

What will the electorate think? The PM seems to emerge unscathed from this sort of thing, and will likely do so this time as well, as long as she continues to manage the situation.

But one of the points to emerge this week is, for a politician noted for high intelligence and grasp of detail, how selective her memory can be on events where she would be expected to have total recall, and how brutal she can be in hanging out to dry those who like Mark Prebble have committed, in her eyes “a mistake”. Not much pity there!

28th August 2003

Play Of The Week
Rule Changes Are Economic Hand Brake

Business groups this week had another go at the Govt over compliance costs, although it was noticeable how much the rhetoric had been toned down on both sides. Both sides have traded their own versions of the figures, but Small Business Minister John Tamihere made the point there will always be red tape, and most businesses accept it as part and parcel of doing business.

On a broader front, there are almost always costs to business ­ and thus to the wider economy ­ whenever the Govt launches a new initiative. There has been progress in some areas: tax being the most notable. While businesses still grumble about tax, the Govt says tax simplification the Inland Revenue Dept begun in the early 1990s is gradually paying off.

But political issues, and disruptions, mean costs, which means less income for NZers. Take the big political issue at present: the foreshore and seabed debate. Leaving the rights and wrongs of the debate aside for a second, there is little doubt it is having an economic impact.

The seafood industry exported $1.5bn in products last year ­ our 4th largest exported goods earner. About 26,000 people work in the industry, and it is has been poised on the brink of a major expansion into aquaculture.

It's worth remembering some of the largest fishing firms are owned by iwi. While the whole seabed and foreshore row rumbles on, decisions on investment ­ which means potential for economic growth ­ are being deferred.

And that hurts all parties.

21st August 2003

Play Of The Week
Further Deals To Be Floated Over Seabed?

Watch for the ripple effect from the Govt's foreshore and seabed proposals. While much of the public focus has been on beach access ­ the foreshore part of the deal ­ the real trade-off may yet come on the seabed. A mix of inter-departmental officials, in consultation with business and others, has been working on an ŒOceans Policy' since 2000 as there are major economic, legal and conservation grey areas around NZ's ocean zone.

Despite such vastness there has not, until now, been any attempt to put together a coherent policy on it. Business groups have been pushing for the policy to put more emphasis on economic development of aquaculture and other commercial uses, with less emphasis on conservation and social concerns. Until the foreshore and seabed issue they thought they were making some headway: now the fear is a deal will be done over ŒOceans Policy' to assuage Maori anger over the foreshore.

Hints of concessions to Maori came on Wednesday from Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen, who fronted for the Govt on the issue while PM Clark went skiing.

Cullen hinted at taking another look at Marine Reserves legislation which is already being considered, as well as yet another review of the Resource Management Act.

It may not stop there ­ the ŒOceans Policy' unit has identified 18 different laws affecting marine management, not to mention a screed to international conventions NZ has been signed up to.

Will the ripples become big waves ­ and who will get swamped?

14th August 2003

Play Of The Week
Is This Really A Fair Go?

Politics and broadcasting are both endeavours full of innocent, high minded and idealistic individuals who have little thought of their own personal gain. It's a well known fact. That is why there may be an entirely innocent explanation for the letter Labour Party activist and media trainer to the Govt Brian Edwards sent to former Broadcasting Minister Marian Hobbs, asking for funding for his own chat show. It is also why, when all involved express, with furrowed browed seriousness, they can't quite remember the details of the letter or even if it was sent, we should believe them.

And that is why when Edwards' wife, Judy Callingham, is also on New Zealand on Air, a body which decides which programmes get funding, we should not be at all concerned. No questions at all should be asked. Perish the thought.

Or, to turn to another matter ­when Speaker Jonathan Hunt post-pones ruling on whether or not Harry Duynhoven has breached the Electoral Act until he has considered the Privileges Committee report, and the Govt changes the law to help Duynhoven ­ and probably other unnamed Labour MPs; and then Hunt says the law has changed so he doesn't need to give a ruling, it looks ­ how can we put this? A little too cute for words.

Both cases exhibit a similar problem: where there is a risk something may look like cronyism, it is necessary for all concerned to be extra careful.

In these two instances over the past couple of weeks, none of the parties concerned have been careful enough.

7th August 2003

Play Of The Week
Labour Taking On Water?

There are signs of restiveness amongst voters. Labour’s lead is still holding up in the polls, but has taken a few dents over the past month. A more apt pointer is the UMR Insight poll on whether the country is on the right track or not. It is often a leading indicator, and the most recent survey, published in the National Business Review , showed a decidedly pessimistic shift. A Beehive source confirms the Govt’s own polling shows a similar shift is underway. Labour is under fire on a number of fronts.

Leading those is the foreshore debate, which has the potential to cause lasting damage to race relations. Other matters have made the Govt look sloppy. While few voters will have followed the details of the immigration “lie in unison” memo row, it has left the impression of a Govt which at best, is not on top of its game, and, at worst, is too devoted to PR ‘spin’.

There will also be blowback on the Govt over the Auckland Regional Council’s rates. It appears to confirm warnings last year over the new Local Govt Law – how-ever unjustly. And Auckland Minister Judith Tizard’s lofty ‘let them eat cake’ style suggestion ratepayers who can’t afford the increase move house, has not done the Govt much good.

Some of this mood may be put down to mid-term, mid-winter blues which occasionally afflict all Govts. But two recent good news items which usually help in the polls – positive business opinion surveys, and a couple of good All Black wins – don’t seem to be counterbalancing the impression of an administration which has started to take on water.

31st July 2003

Play Of The Week
Play Of The Week - Fronting – Or Not – On The Waterfront

Two things regularly happen when Labour is under pressure – PM Clark goes and gets photographed with children or war veterans, and Deputy PM Cullen accuses the opposition of racism. Both happened this week. Clark was out of the country, but Cullen cancelled the usual post-Cabinet press conference.

The Govt’s sensitivity is largely caused by the debate over whether or not Maori have customary right over the foreshore – and whether the Govt should to anything about it if they do (or do not).

Labour’s formerly tame ally, United Future, is showing its teeth on this issue, with leader Peter Dunne turning up at a rally against the Maori claim. That – and a trenchant opinion piece in the NZ Herald on the Govt’s anti-family legislation – suggests United Future’s patience is wearing thin. Cullen’s charges of racism, ostensibly at Bill English, were at least partly targeted at Dunne’s party.

Clark has recently tended to duck this issue – and has been under fire for her failure to front at question time in the House as well. The practice of diverting questions submitted by the Opposition to subordinate ministers has led National, Act, and NZ First to begin questions by asking the PM if she has confidence in a particular minister. It’s a tactic forcing Clark to front up – at times, anyway, although late last week Cullen was doing the honours in his usual acerbic style.

Act’s jibe this week – that it is now the Cullen/Clark Govt – is obviously mischievous but it has struck a chord

24th July 2003

Play Of The Week
Williamson's "Due Process" Means Trouble Ahead

When someone demands "due process" in politics it is generally code for "I'm going to make this as awkward, drawn out, and bitter as possible." National lone wolf Maurice Williamson has invoked "due process" over the way his caucus dealt with him ­ and it seems as though this will be a bloody and bitter process.

But his attempt to get "due process" may founder on going for specialist employment lawyers. His is not a case over employment: the National Party does not "employ" him, and his job as MP is not immediately at stake if he is suspended. If he goes for a by-election (and loses) it is a decision for the voters. If he claims victimisation, the Nats can point to having earlier offered him a role as shadow spokesman for economic development, a role he declined. That is why those who went through suspension of Winston Peters from National think Williamson is on weaker ground, and may soon fade from the headlines.

What Williamson's end game might be is not clear.

Will he force a by-election in Pakuranga? And if so, will he stand himself or walk away? While he has the organisational brainpower of John Slater onside, by-elections are expensive, and even the most ego driven politician would have to pause at the long odds involved.

Williamson may be playing a different game. Local body elections are looming next year, and there is a hint his goal may be the Manukau mayoralty.

17th July 2003

Play Of The Week
Flatulence, Foreshore, And Maurice Hit The Fan

It was a week that saw a great deal of the brown stuff hurled around. Farmers gave Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton a metaphorical pelting over the flatulence tax. But it takes a lot to get Sutton riled and he remained affable throughout. The man farmers wanted to see, the tetchy Climate Change Minister Pete Hodgson, who has already described farmers as a bunch of whingers, kept well away.

Farmers are posting elemental waste products from their animals to MPs in protest. But MPs don’t open their mail: some poor flunky does it and the poor flunkies who work at Parliament are threatening to go to court if they open mail containing offensive matter.

Also on the subject of offensive matter – National MP Maurice “don’t call me maverick” Williamson, was flinging it around as well, mostly at Bill English. This issue, too, may yet end up in court, if the party tries to expel Williamson.

Meanwhile, the problem of the seabed and foreshore rumbled on. It’s worth remembering the first major Waitangi Tribunal decision, over the Te Atiawa rights, was also on the casting of offensive matter in that case sewage and other waste into Maori fishing areas.

That Tribunal ruling appeared to settle the issue: “areas of foreshore and seabed are not Maori Customary land – s150 of the Harbours Act 1950 and s7 of the Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone Act 1977 put the title issue beyond all doubt.”

It is well and truly in doubt now and it’s one political stink in no hurry to go away.

10th July 2003

Play Of The Week
Policy Ambushes ‘Out Of Character’

A hallmark of Labour’s political management in power has been PM Helen Clark’s much repeated mantra of ‘no surprises’. As with much else, this is a reaction to the Labour Govt of the 1980s, of which senior ministers such as Clark, Cullen and Mallard, were members. Having policy ‘bounced’ on the country was a hallmark of the Rogernomics era, and Clark et al learnt one lesson from it - voters don’t like being ambushed.

But we’ve had a few ambushes of late. The first of these was the sudden impost on light spirits, aimed at discouraging younger drinkers, and which ended up disgruntling older sherry drinkers. The past couple of weeks have seen two more rushed policy initiatives - a move to pass a law confirming the Govt owns the foreshore (which may now be rescinded) and this week’s sudden immigration changes. Both are the result of judicial rulings which have gone against the Govt.

That, of course, is the thing about a ‘no surprises’ policy - it doesn’t work when the judiciary jumps out and goes ‘boo!’ at you.

But the danger in reacting so quickly, is bad law. The light spirits tax ended up hitting the wrong drinkers: there have been accusations in Parliament the immigration changes will be similarly ill-thought through. But they have been well received outside Parliament. As Finance Minister Michael Cullen told a grumpy Opposition on Wednesday, “Even (Business NZ CEO) Simon Carlaw, who is paid to whinge, has said this is a good law.”

26th June 2003

Play Of The Week
How Flexible Will Dr Bollard Be?

The Reserve Bank regime has changed twice since Labour came into office. Both have been aimed at allowing the Governor more flexibility in setting interest rates.

A test of the new rules may emerge over the next few months. GDP figures out this Friday are expected to show the start of an economic slowdown. Those statistics are only for the first three months of the year – figures for the current quarter are expected to be ugly.

But it has not yet fed into two key inflationary pressures. Forecasts of a downturn in the housing market have not been borne out by the latest figures. Indeed, the number sold in May was the highest ever, and house price inflation is at the same level as the mid-1990s.

That caused the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates, despite the rest of the economy slowing. As the Bank of NZ pointed out this week, these latest figures would norm-ally suggest interest rates are too low. If they are, there is a major risk of a housing bubble – which will eventually have to be burst.

The Westpac Consumer Confidence survey, also out this week, shows an unexpectedly upbeat mood. That too suggests inflation may be on the up. The rest of the world is cutting interest rates, and the expectation has been that Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard will follow suit. However, Dr Bollard may find himself caught in the same difficulties which ensnared his predecessor in 1995-97 – a booming housing market, particularly in Auckland, and the rest of the economy coming off the boil.

19th June 2003

Play Of The Week
Tamihere Aiming At Bigger Things

Outspoken Associate Maori Affairs Minister John Tamihere has twice laid down the gauntlet to his own people over the past 10 days. To older traditional, iwi-based leaders of Maoridom, he said clearly it is time to go.

In a less well reported, but more in-depth speech, Tamihere was even more blunt: “iwi fundamentalism” will lead to separatism and is not the way for NZ to go. He also declared the Maori seats would soon be abolished.

And with Treaty settlements working their way through, there’s a new onus on Maori. “In the next 10 years the argument will be what are the reciprocal rights that Maori owe to the nation under the Treaty? Their leadership is going to have to stand up.”

Both speeches – very powerful and wide ranging, with a lot of thought behind them – set Tamihere at the head of younger, urban, non-iwi based Maori. They also represent a reaching out to non-Maori voters.

At a time when the Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia seems unable to answer questions over his ministry – his answers have been likened to those of a schoolboy claiming “the dog ate my homework” – Tamihere’s outspokenness is being seen as a bid for Horomia’s job.

But it seems a bigger game is afoot – Tamihere wants more than just being the next Minister of Maori Affairs, and this may be why Winston Peters launched an extraordinarily vitriolic attack on Tamihere in the House on Wednesday.

12th June 2003

Play Of The Week
Economic Ground Gets Swampy As Winter Sets In

Policymakers are preparing NZers for a tighter economy over coming months.

The Reserve Bank got in first at the end of last week, with a 0.25% interest rate cut and a warning that business confidence, and thus investment, will get shakier as winter draws on.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen joined in this week saying, “this is one of the most unpredictable environments that we have encountered since the stagflation and Third World debt crises of nearly 25 years ago.”

Drought, the electricity crisis, the SARS scare, a rising dollar, and economic uncertainty around the globe mean growth for the June quarter is likely to be ugly. April retail spending figures, released this week, dropped 0.3%, giving further indication of a slowdown. But most forecasters – including the Govt’s economic advisers – are predicting a pickup in the spring.

No-one is picking a recession, merely a slowing of the recent period of relatively high growth. The medium term picture is still bright – as Cullen pointed out, growth is still running at 4.4%, unemployment hovering around 5%, inflation running at 2.5% and a current account deficit of 4% of GDP.

Of those though, only inflation is likely to remain as positive over the rest of the year. Currency pressure alone is likely to put the squeeze on – the US dollar is expected to remain low for some time, and that will hurt exporters. Spring could be a little chillier than normal this year.

5th June 2003

Play Of The Week
A Case Of ‘The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend’?

Richard Prebble saying nice things about Winston Peters? A few years back this would have been unheard of. But since the last election things have mellowed. Peters’ bid to position his party as a group Labour would have had to deal with, despite their distaste, tripped over the unforseen rise of United Future.

Those with long memories may remember Peters’ comments on election night last year when it appeared Labour would have to do a deal with his party. Peters’ statements that the markets had nothing to fear from an NZ First partner in Govt appeared to be positioning himself as Treasurer – a role he filled in coalition with National in 1997-98.

At the time Act heaped vilification on him and his populist policies, and has seldom let up since, even though Peters and Act Finance spokesman Rodney Hide have always seemed to get on well personally.

But Act, NZ First and National this year have coordinated their attacks on the Govt in Parliament. That coordination has paid big dividends, and, for the first time in four years, NZ has the beginnings of an effective opposition.

Would the threesome make an effective Govt though. Prebble seems to think so – he has mooted a – ‘grand centre/right coalition’ of the three parties after the next election – but there are still big differences between the three parties, differences which are easier to paper over in Opposition than they ever would be in Govt.

29th May 2003

Play Of The Week
Are We In A Hole? And Has The Digging Stopped Yet?

When you’re in a hole, stop digging, was PM Helen Clark’s advice to then-Alliance MP Phillida Bunkle at the height of the scandal over Ms Bunkle’s many residences. Clark may well have privately tendered the same advice to Progressive Coalition leader, Jim Anderton. Anderton took a very public swipe at the US on Monday over its bucketing of  a free trade agreement with NZ.

The US has made it clear it is not in any rush to help NZ on this one. The official line from the Americans is that disagreement amongst friends is one thing, but hurling gratuitous insults from the sidelines as the PM did - is taking differences too far. It makes any deal a lot harder to sell to the US Congress.  

Clark has appeared to be more than a little verbally slipshod on this one, and there have been signs of voter disquiet.

The issue had apparently died down until Anderton’s outburst. So what was it all about? Was it just a bit of profile raising by Anderton? Or was it a calculated attempt by the Govt to forestall any voter blame for loss of a trade deal, and the resulting economic fall out, by whipping up a bit of anti-American sentiment?

At the moment it could be either. It is significant no ministers have publicly slapped Anderton down. If ministers now shut up about the issue it was probably a one off. If we get continued comments along those lines, it looks like a bid to get the Govt out of a hole with scant regard for NZ’s long term economic interests. Definitely an issue to watch.

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