AGENDA
HELEN CLARK PRIME MINISTER
Interviewed by GARTH BRAY
GARTH Today she's formed a government but how long can she hold it together. Helen Clark will try to put the complex
set of deals she's done into plain English. We'll also talk to the new Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters, will
his immigration rhetoric come back to haunt him as New Zealand looks to strengthen its position in Asia and the Pacific.
With the formation of a New Zealand government Helen Clark has secured an historic third term for Labour,
however it comes at a price. The appointment of Winston Peters and Peter Dunne as ministers outside cabinet and arguably
outside the government poses both policy and constitutional challenges. I spoke to Helen Clark last night as she prepare
to leave for Papua New Guinea and began by asking her is New Zealand First in the government or not.
HELEN New Zealand First is not in coalition with Labour, a minister is in the executive government, there's two
distinctions here.
GARTH Well what does that distinction mean though?
HELEN It means they're not in coalition, it's a confidence and supply agreement. Because they have accepted a position
in the executive ministerial responsibility will apply to that position and the same for United Future, but they're not
in coalition.
GARTH But that must be confusing to anyone looking on surely.
HELEN well it's not a question of whether it's confusing it's a question of what are the practical arrangements you
need to make to set up a government in present circumstances, and that’s the practical arrangement we've made.
GARTH The deal that you’ve done with New Zealand First says that it will fully represent the government's position and
be bound by the cabinet manual provisions in areas within the responsibilities that you’ve given Winston Peters, so what
exactly does that mean?
HELEN It means that collective responsibility applies to the portfolios which he holds and the same for Peter Dunne
but neither he nor Mr Dunne or their parties are expected to speak for the government or in line with the government on
issues outside those portfolios.
GARTH So what happens is Ron Mark gets up in the House for example and wants to criticise Annette King as Police
Minister in the way that he went after George Hawkins and really hounded him?
HELEN Nothing to stop him. I guess New Zealand First is going to have to work through how they position in this
parliament but the agreement does not take away their right as a party to express their views on issues outside those
portfolios.
GARTH And you can't see that posing any problem at all for a stable coalition?
HELEN Not particularly, I think if people have got used to the idea that with MMP governments the support arrangements
can be quite complex and parties are entitled to keep their brand identity.
GARTH But what happens for example if the New Zealand First MP wants to speak out against the Kyoto protocol for
example?
HELEN Well that of course is handled by the Environment Minister or by the person who's the minister responsible for
climate change, that wouldn’t be seen as strictly a Ministry of Foreign Affairs issue, it's a much broader issue than
that.
GARTH One with Foreign Affairs implications though how do you separate them out?
HELEN Well no more than if you go and sign up to a Fisheries treaty that that’s a foreign policy matter, in essence it
tends to be handled very much by specialist ministries.
GARTH Maybe but those looking on from outside are looking at how New Zealand is applying this and how that’s been
worked out here.
HELEN And they will look for what is the view of the government and the government view on climate change will be
expressed primarily by the minister with responsibility for that.
GARTH So how do you see the agree to disagree clause working then with regard to New Zealand First because it's really
only been used by a coalition partner before by someone that you had a really solid arrangement with.
HELEN Well the agree to disagree or the differentiation provision was put in the cabinet manual in 2000 so that the
Labour Alliance government did not get into the difficulties that the National New Zealand First government had gone
into, that’s because it's simply unrealistic in MMP governments to expect two parties to agree on absolutely everything,
so you have to make way for parties to breathe. Now in this case neither New Zealand First nor United are in coalition
but when they accept a ministerial portfolio collective responsibility applies. Were they to have a disagreement with
government policy on those portfolio areas then one would need to invoke the differentiation procedures but it's far too
early to say whether that would even arise as an issue.
GARTH Winston Peters though he's not in cabinet so how can he be an effective foreign minister?
HELEN I don’t see any reason why he can't be. For a start he is a senior member, a lot of parliamentary experience and
he has held portfolios in the past, secondly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade would be in my view one of the
very top ministries in the New Zealand government, it has a highly professional skilled group of diplomats and they do a
very very good job for a minister and he will have a tremendous amount of backup.
GARTH And they’ll all be wondering who exactly they're working for, are they working for him or are they working for
the government?
HELEN Well they work to the minister who is collectively responsible with the government for the policy. They're not
implementing New Zealand First foreign policy they're implementing government foreign policy.
GARTH But he will be travelling, and this goes back to the question I asked you about effectiveness, he doesn’t know
what the cabinet thinks about X or Y how does he give an intelligent answer if he's asked by Alexander Downer or
Condoleezza Rice…?
HELEN No, I'm afraid it's very clear that our government has very well established foreign policy positions – Ministry
of Foreign Affairs briefs, ministers go with briefs, they represent government policy, nothing can be clearer than that.
GARTH He wants a close relationship with the US where does that start?
HELEN Well what he said was what all of us believe which is that countries with as much in common as New Zealand and
the United States should have a close relationship. Now the United States has chosen to make a dispute over the nuclear
free issue which is 21 years old an issue which prevents us being as close as we could be. It has been something
everyone would like to deal with but New Zealand can't deal with it under a Labour government, certainly can't deal with
it with Winston Peters as Foreign Minister because we are of one mind on this. We can't deal with it by changing the
nuclear free law, we happen to believe in it.
GARTH You want a free trade deal with the US so are you running out of time to get that?
HELEN Well we'll keep talking of course to the US government about that and we've got a lot of support in Congress,
we've got a lot of support in the US business community, it's a question of it getting on to the US government agenda.
GARTH You’ve won the election and you’ve managed to do it with a level of vote that really hasn’t changed much over
the last two election results, how do you reach out to the people that voted for a very very different kind of
government and there are a lot of them?
HELEN Well firstly we did get the same support as last time in effect and slightly better than in 1999 and that’s a
very very good basis to go into government on. You govern in the interests of the whole country but of course we have
our policies we campaigned hard for them, we've entered into a range of agreements with other parties in order to set up
a stable and durable government, we believe what we're advancing is in the public interest, we've been out there
consulting over the past month with a range of people and we aim to have a programme which takes New Zealand ahead, you
can't do better than that.
GARTH You’ve been talking with business, you said on the night of the election result that there was some big money
against Labour in the election.
HELEN Sure was.
GARTH What did you mean by that?
HELEN I know there was big money I could see what the National Party was spending.
GARTH So the voters were manipulated really were they?
HELEN Oh no I'm not saying that I'm just saying a lot of money was spent, in the end they didn’t win and it's very
satisfying to see your opponent spend a lot of money to secure another three years in opposition.
GARTH Who did it come from?
HELEN Who knows.
GARTH Well don’t you have to be aware of who you now have to reach out to?
HELEN Well I won't be reaching out to the Exclusive Brethren who were almost certainly significant contributors.
GARTH But what's your message to groups like the Employers and Manufacturers Association or Business New Zealand or
any of the corporates that did sign up?
HELEN Well we talked to all those groups. With respect to Employers and Manufacturers Association here in Auckland
I've commonly spoken at their events and conferences and we maintain a very professional relationship, the same with the
Chamber of Commerce, same with Business New Zealand.
GARTH It's professional but is it warm I mean do they hate you?
HELEN Of course no, of course they don’t, that’s a ridiculous thing to even suggest, we have a good working
relationship with such organisations.
GARTH So how are you gonna take that relationship forward now, what will you do?
HELEN Well you take it forward by continuing to engage, making sure that there's access, I think they would say that
Michael Cullen for example has been an incredibly accessible Minister of Finance.
GARTH They would say cut taxes wouldn’t they, they would say cut the corporate tax rate.
HELEN Oh there's far more to a relationship than that particular issue.
GARTH But they would say that and what would you say to them?
HELEN They would say all sorts of things and some of them we'd agree with and some of them we wouldn’t. For example
the whole skills and productivity agenda is one that everyone happily agrees to. The Trade Agreement is one that we
would agree on with those organisations.
GARTH Peter Dunne's saying cut tax though as well, what is going to happen to the company tax rate during this term?
HELEN I just never comment on tax matters, it's never been my practice, we have Peter Dunne as Minister of Revenue,
he'll be working with Dr Cullen, we've said we're going to look a the structure of business taxation, that’s quite a big
work programme, there's no point trying to prescribe what the outcome of that will be before you’ve even started to
process.
GARTH Well you talked about exporting and the need to drive exports along, what about Winston Peters' notion of tax
breaks for exporters?
HELEN Well he can put his ideas into the process but we have a new Minister of Revenue he'll work with the Minister of
Finance and they’ve got to work through what is the best structure for business taxation.
GARTH So what makes you think you don’t have to attend to the calls that came up during the election to cut income tax
rates?
HELEN Well a majority of people did not vote for that, that’s the first point, and secondly there are very very heavy
demands on government spending, we're not in a position to go out and borrow for tax cuts which is what the National
Party proposed, and nor do we propose to slash spending on critical services to do it.
GARTH So you want to talk about income tax but you don’t want to talk about company tax.
HELEN No I'm not talking about where these policies go in the future, I'm saying that we campaigned on a set of
policies which we must fund.
GARTH What about the carbon tax, there've been headlines saying that under Winston Peters it's gone, the policy
agreement that you’ve signed with him though says it's being reviewed what will happen there?
HELEN Well how do you know you’ve gotta see the outcome. In the end to get a carbon tax in place you have to get a
majority in parliament, it remains to be seen whether that majority is there or not.
GARTH You’ve promised the Greens specific budget initiatives for things like solar power and so on, that’s to help our
Kyoto obligations, what's the point of doing something like that if Marsden B's about to be fired up as a coal fired
power station?
HELEN Who knows whether it's about to be fired up, the provisional go ahead it had had so many qualifications on it
that it may or may not go ahead at all, but it's obviously in New Zealand's interest to have renewable energy sources
and solar power is an obvious source.
GARTH I just wonder, looking at the legislative programme you’ve got ahead of you, I haven’t seen a lot exactly about
what Labour proposes to do but there is one clear one. On this programme two months ago you rubbished any notion that
you would amend any principles around the Treaty in legislation and yet that’s in the agreement that you’ve signed with
Winston Peters.
HELEN No it's not, what we've said is that we will vote for his bill to go to a select committee, that’s as far as we
have said anything. It's most unlikely we would vote for the final version of such a bill. We opposed it last time, but
as part of the agreement for confidence and supply we have said yes your bill will get our support to go to a select
committee.
GARTH And that'll be a select committee where New Zealand First has seats and so on, and parliament will be sitting as
well, there seems to be a problem over exactly where they’ll occupy space in the House.
HELEN Well they’ve gotta settle that with the Speaker and the Speaker and the Clerk will try to do it by consensus and
discussion between the parties, it's very obvious in parliament where Labour sits, it's very obvious where National
sits. I don’t have any view on it, I think it's up to the parties themselves to sort it out with the Speaker's office.
GARTH Prime Minister, Helen Clark, thank you very much.
RT HON WINSTON PETERS
Minister of Foreign Affairs
GARTH Well despite a pre-election pledge that they would abstain on confidence and supply issues New Zealand First has
of course signed a confidence and supply agreement with Labour. A major feature of the deal is that Winston Peters
becomes the Foreign Minister. Mr Peters has built a reputation on some fairly strident anti immigration rhetoric and at
one point said that a free trade deal with China would help asianise New Zealand. Well he joins me now and I'd like to
ask him a question or two about that.
Mr Peters you're New Zealand's Foreign Minister, why did you take that post?
WINSTON Well there's a very simple answer to that, we had every political party in parliament asking us to change our
Rotorua stance in the interests of forming a government and in the interests of stability, that’s what they were all
saying in the closing week before the government was formed, they cannot surely now change their idea and their mind
about that, and during the coalition talks between other parties and between the communications of ourselves and the
present government there was the suggestion of a ministerial post which I could not take because I didn’t want to be in
cabinet as such and that’s how it arose.
GARTH But you signed an agreement with Helen Clark to secure benefits for seniors, to make changes to immigration
laws. How does being Foreign Minister serve that?
WINSTON Oh well you know that which we used to be criticised for for years by the New Zealand media is now the orthodox
thinking of this country. The Minister of Immigration said on the 5th of August this year at a Law Society meeting he
said this, that our immigration laws were a dog's breakfast. Now with respect perhaps you journalists should get a fix
on it, if our laws are a dog's breakfast maybe the results are a dog's breakfast and that’s why we're having an urgent
and comprehensive review.
GARTH And how will you being Foreign Minister and travelling around the world speaking on behalf of New Zealand help
fix those, help make those changes here at home if you believe in them so strongly?
WINSTON Because the prescription is already written frankly, if you go abroad you will find every other western nation
with a much more rigid immigration policy than ours and if you go to Asia all the way to Turkey they'll be a hundred
times more rigid than ours. The only bemusement we have on this issue is not with international bodies or international
leaders of any political persuasion but in the minds of the New Zealand media who don’t seem to understand ….
GARTH Well you're right, I'm very bemused why didn’t you become the Immigration Minister if it's such an important
part of what you want to do?
WINSTON Well look that doesn’t arise, it's an issue that can be fixed very simply. It's been an issue that’s been fixed
by people like Blair, like Howard, like Malaysia, every other country is doing it since September 11, why don’t we get
with the developments in the world and understand that our security is important and who comes here should not be
abusing and misusing our laws, that is understood fundamentally it's orthodox thinking internationally, why do you think
foreign governments would be in any way concerned about that?
GARTH You want to be the Foreign Minister then and that’s your job, can you define that job for us, where does it
begin and where does it end? Let's start with Kyoto, are you able to take the government line and defend the Kyoto
protocol in international courts when you're back here and your party doesn’t believe in it?
WINSTON Look you're going to have to as a journalist get up with the programme, the government line is in …
GARTH Well if I am so is the rest of New Zealand.
WINSTON No no because you're refusing to tell New Zealand what's going on, there's been a massive change, the government
recognises that it may not have a majority in parliament to get a carbon tax passed. The government has recognised that
a review of Kyoto is therefore warranted. You know these are things that are in these agreements and I think of this
country should know what that means.
GARTH You want a closer relationship with the United States why isn’t there one now?
WINSTON Well what I was saying was that we should ensure that we keep close to all of our former allies, enhance our
relationships with them as we're building up new and improved relationships with others.
GARTH But Helen Clark's had six years to build that relationship what can you offer Washington that she couldn’t?
WINSTON Well I'm not saying I can offer anything better or new, all I'm saying is as an aspiration as a vision, we
should do our utmost to see if we can put the nuclear issue to one side and I use by way of comparison if the Moroccan
government can be offered a free trade agreement with the United States anything is possible surely.
GARTH So you wouldn’t support any change to the nuclear legislation at all then?
WINSTON Well our policy is in line with the government's policy and has been since we were formed.
GARTH So why suggest that there be a referendum or support a referendum?
WINSTON Because Charles Swindells before he left the last ambassador for the United States I think he held out the olive
branch an olive branch that we should seek to take up as possible.
GARTH Your anti immigration comments, or your anti Asian …
WINSTON No no sorry, you're not going to get away with calling me anti immigration, I have always believed in
immigration to this country, but immigration with a focused planned economic and social outcome. Every other western
nation understands that, every other Asian nation understands, that why can't you guys understand that to have a focused
seriously planned immigration policy is what every other nation does but ours.
GARTH But the examples you’ve drawn tend to demonise the people that are coming here, I mean you're a classically
educated man you understand what the word xenophobic means, why do you fear people from other countries?
WINSTON With respect, look I've been abroad on behalf of this country, I've been to China and other whole range of Asian
countries and not one politician of any persuasion ever thought anything I was saying was adverse to them, because they
have policies with between Indonesia and Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore that are a hundred times more rigid than the
ones that I am suggesting. That’s the point. Back home here in New Zealand you’ve got journalists writing abroad right
now about Winston Peters and then going wow see what the Indonesians think about him, and of course the journalist in
the first place is a New Zealander, same in the Australian news but the Australian people are on to it now and know it's
a load of drivel.
GARTH Can I ask you the Foreign Minister, you’ve been making suggestions on who goes overseas, what do you think about
political appointments to overseas posts?
WINSTON I've always said that you can find in rare cases politicians with the ability to sell the country as good as
anyone else.
GARTH Like Philip Burdon and Mike Moore for example.
WINSTON Well I took Philip Burdon and Mike Moore off shore with me twice when I was the Treasurer of this country and
Deputy Prime Minister in the interests of expanding this country's international engagement and partly to help Mike
Moore head off to the WTO and become its leader. I knew I could show him to Asian leadership and Asian countries and in
my small way I'm proud I did that and Mike will acknowledge it. I put politics aside in the interests of this country
and having a New Zealander get to head the WTO regardless of one's trade policies I think it was a very very positive
step.
GARTH I just want to talk a little bit about the coalition negotiations and the deal that you’ve done.
WINSTON We didn’t have coalition negotiations, we are not in coalition. When will you people tell the public what
exactly has happened here?
GARTH Your agreement then, says that there is a potential…
WINSTON It's a government arrangement.
GARTH You said there was a potential for a 57/57 split, a Mexican standoff, but you’ve since said that you doubted
that National could count on Peter Dunne, so why did you have to do the deal?
WINSTON Because you people for a whole week said it was a Mexican standoff …
GARTH But you knew better, you knew better …
WINSTON Well no you don’t know better, you suspect better, all your instincts tell you this can be true.
GARTH It became clear to me when I was in discussions with Labour over the weekend that what was in that Brash said it
was not a fact, I was told by Labour last weekend Dunne is with us, Brash claimed in the letter he had done he did not,
is that an inaccurate quote Winston?
WINSTON That’s a totally correct quote.
GARTH That’s a fact so you knew it so why did you act on it?
WINSTON Because you don’t start negotiations with one side on the basis that they're the only ones who can in effect
become a government, at their request and then do a switch midstream which is what I'm being accused of. Simply Don
Brash came to me on the Tuesday, asked me whether I'd meet with all these other parties in my caucus room, at which time
I might add I was the best thing since sliced bread and could be thoroughly relied upon for any portfolio no matter what
it was which tells you just how breathtakingly hypocritical he has become on this issue, and then he sent me a letter –
I asked him on Friday to confirm that letter, talks are one thing but putting it in writing is something else. So when
he put it in writing I had further reason to make inquiry of two other parties and I won't tell you which ones they are,
and then it became clear to me that this was not true. Now Mr Dunne backs up what I am saying but I didn’t know that
until Monday morning. That’s the day that the government was formed. I also believe instinctively as a party that had
won all the Maori seats as we did in 96 that there was no way the Maori Party when it came to the crunch would actually
sign a document with National how could they. Even though Dr Brash was prepared to put aside all his Orewa speech and
forget about all his promises in the campaign just for the chance to be the Prime Minister, which tells you a lot.
GUEST COMMENTATORS
GARTH Joining us from Wellington is Jonathan Boston an expert in the Westminster Constitution. Jonathan what do you
make of what you’ve heard this morning?
PROFESSOR JONATHAN BOSTON – Public Policy, Victoria University
Well we're in a very curious situation, one would have to describe what has been entered into here as certainly
innovative in terms of our constitutional history, and I'm a little perplexed and I think it would be helpful if we can
try and disentangle some of the issues and make some progress. The first issue I think that needs to be clarified Garth
is around what does a coalition mean and what does a government mean. Now the Prime Minister made it clear in her
remarks to you a few moments ago that she regards Winston Peters and Peter Dunne as being part of the executive
government, those were her words, part of the executive government. I would completely agree with that, someone who
holds a ministerial warrant is part of the executive and that means part of the government. At the same time she made it
very clear and so has Winston Peters that New Zealand First and United Future are not part of the coalition government.
Now this is a curious situation. If you were to use the international literature in political science on constitutional
matters, a party which is part of the government in a coalition context would be part of a coalition, you would never
find a distinction being made between a circumstance in which a party was part of a coalition government arrangement but
not part of the coalition. That is a very very curious situation and one would say almost defies logic, and I think it
would be helpful if we could just clarify how Mr Peters sees things, does he regard himself as being part of the
government, if he is part of the government then why is he not part of the coalition.
WINSTON Well I've answered that question before. We are not part of any formal coalition arrangement, but we do have an
arrangement on confidence and supply. Way back in 1996 when I was campaigning in my second campaign for New Zealand
First you recall I offered a job to Mike Moore as the next Trade Minister should despite that New Zealand First and
National go into government. Why? Because he had the experience, he'd had six years at the job and I could see an
opportunity to have a cabinet of talent rather than exclusively a partisan party arrangement made up of sometimes
inferior human beings in politics. I'm saying again we are not in a formal coalition but we have a formal arrangement to
support the government on confidence and supply, in all other respects we are able to prosecute our identity and our
policies the policies we campaigned on.
GARTH Jonathan in some ways that must be very unsatisfactory though surely because there are a lot of headaches
involved there, cabinet committees and you know appearing in cabinet itself and so on, how on earth can this arrangement
work in that respect.
JONATHAN Well I think this is a very important question, can I just first of all comment on what Mr Peters has
said, I can understand a distinction between the words coalition and government but it does seem to me to be very
difficult to maintain a proposition certainly internationally that one is a member of a government and indeed in Mr
Peters' case the Foreign Minister of that government, he's representing a party that is not the Labour Party and from
the point of view of overseas people they would see him as being part of a coalition government and to say otherwise
would be very odd, I mean it would be very curious indeed to be introduced to foreign ministers in other countries as a
member of the government but not a member of the coalition government, or to be introduced as the Foreign Minister but
not a member of the government. But coming to the practical issues I think these are issues which would be helpful again
for Mr Peters to clarify. Among the practical issues are will he be attending cabinet in his role as Minister of Foreign
Affairs to brief the cabinet, will he be attending cabinet committee meetings?
WINSTON The answer to both those questions is no, I am not a member of the cabinet.
GARTH But that’s where the work's done isn't it Winston?
WINSTON Well no the work's done in the years and the months and the days beforehand and I have someone who is able to
take this through cabinet in the form of the Prime Minister, that’s our arrangement.
GILLIAN BRADFORD – NZ Correspondent, ABC
How then Winston Peters do you go overseas with the authority of their cabinet, how do other ministers overseas
take you seriously and not want to go above your head to Helen Clark to get things really sorted.
WINSTON Well let's face it, in any arrangement of the type of that which you speak that would be the international
approach in the first place. Everybody wants to talk to the Prime Minister first and everybody else second.
GILLIAN But that’s hardly the way you'd like to be perceived though as Foreign Minister.
WINSTON Oh we're not here on some sort of perception trip, we're here to establish a working relationship for the next
three years and seeing that we New Zealand First and the Labour Party have such similarity in our foreign policy on
Afghanistan on Iraq, on the issue of nuclear weapons, there's not going to be any difficulty. That’s the simple fact of
the matter, but if you ask me who do the Japanese want to talk to or any Asian country for that matter given the way
that they are established it is always first the Prime Minister or the top person, who wouldn’t be.
JONATHAN Could I comment Garth that from a practical point of view of course ministers who are outside the
cabinet do attend and are members of cabinet committees, the difference between being a cabinet minister and being a
minister outside cabinet is you do not normally attend the cabinet, but you certainly attend cabinet committee meetings,
it would be very unusual therefore to have a minister particularly a senior minister such as Mr Peters not attending
cabinet committee meetings and that is going to pose some interesting issues in terms of how the government and I would
say the coalition government in this case operates. Other questions of course will be is Mr Peters going to be paid for
ministerial services or from parliamentary services, is he going to sit in parliament or as part of the executive. Is he
going to have his ministerial portfolio and himself on the government website for the Beehive. Those sorts of practical
questions.
WINSTON Oh with respect Mr Boston this is just really – these are issues which can be resolved with the greatest of
ease. I read in the paper today that we've got come sort of scandalous situation as to where New Zealand First sits in
parliament. This is the kind of media drivel that New Zealand could well do without. The question of parliamentary
seating for example, I would have assumed that a part that campaigned with Labour mainly the Greens would want to first
sit next to the Labour Party, I was given the choice to do that, apparently that’s something wrong in our approach.
GARTH But both the Greens and National have called your approach ignorant.
WINSTON But that just shows you the kind of hypocrisy about which we speak, the Greens I thought as a matter of courtesy
for them would prefer to sit there, if they don’t then fine, but let's not have serious academics and socalled leading
journalists wasting the public's time with these sorts of issues, we'll sort it out with the greatest of ease.
GARTH Well where will you sit?
WINSTON Well if the Greens don’t want to sit there then obviously we're gonna have to reconsider, but I haven’t even
seen a floor plan yet, that’s the point, I mean I'd have thought there were major issues of health and other things in
this country about which we should be concerned rather than where the parliamentarians park themselves in parliament. On
that issue if you were serious you'd look at the configuration of the parliamentary floor plan, it is not designed for
MMP, I said so back then that we needed to change the seating plan of parliament to reflect MMP, I was ignored but
perhaps I'm right now.
GARTH How are you going to behave in parliament though?
WINSTON In the responsible professional way I always have Garth.
GARTH No doubt but you will be able to question government ministers, you'll have to take government questions as well
won't you or opposition questions?
WINSTON Of course but you have read the arrangement haven’t you that on issues of …
GARTH I've read it but it just seems like such a schizophrenic relationship that I can't imagine how you'll handle …
WINSTON Oh well but you're talking about the kind of tribal politics that has far too long dominated this country. Why
can't a back bench Labour MP get up and ask a minister a question? Why shouldn’t they be able to put them to the sword
if they want to as I saw once on a question on a Wairarapa drought where a man called Ben Couch attacked the then
Minister of Farming. My point is it actually improves democracy to have democracy.
GARTH So you'll be asking supplementaries of the government.
WINSTON I would imagine I do ask supplementaries now and again yes.
GARTH Of the coalition government not the government of which you are part of.
WINSTON That’s right.
JONATHAN Well the issue of seating first of all, how parliaments organise themselves around the world varies, in
Sweden for example the members of parliament sit in regional groupings not on the basis of their party. In New Zealand
we sit on the basis of our party and we traditionally have the opposition on one side and the government on the other,
unless we're going to change that in my view that is the way things should persist and because in my view Mr Peters'
party is in effect part of the government he should sit with the government rather than opposing the government, but the
issue that concerned me yesterday was the statement by his deputy leader that New Zealand First was an opposition party
not a government party. Now I think this is really pushing the limits of logic. You cannot have the leader of a party
representing the country internationally as the Foreign Minister, claiming at the same time that it is an opposition
party. The only way you could realistically maintain that position would be to decouple the leadership of the party from
the party, that in effect would mean Mr Peters leaving his party.
GARTH Well that’s pretty much what happened to the Alliance shortly before they self destructed didn’t it, but I
imagine that you don’t want to go there. I'd just like to bring in Gillian Bradford again on this point, you’ve been
watching this as an interested Australian observer and although we're not on perception trips here as Mr Peters said
perceptions do matter don’t they?
GILLIAN Well and also the reality is that the talking and diplomacy is behind closed doors and it's what people are
saying behind closed doors that matters. You're going to be as Foreign Minister coming up against those defence and
trade and immigration and climate change issues behind closed doors, they're going to perceive you speaking out of both
sides of the mouth.
WINSTON I think your 100% wrong, even as you speak the various international agencies that I will be involved
with are aware of our position. I don’t think it's very conceptually difficult to understand at all, they know that
there are evolving and different relationships world wide, not every government is the same after all.
GILLLIAN But China are such a huge relationship for New Zealand one that this government wants to build a free
trade relationship with, it's just not feasible is it as Foreign Minister to oppose that?
WINSTON What I said was that it is a matter for the Minister of Trade to conduct, it always has been, always will be in
our case, he will be the person who will be signing off if there is an arrangement, but I have said that my party and I
have campaigned on it and have for years, is not in support of a free trade agreement with low wage economies that could
act against us. I'm not saying anything other than I've been saying for a long time and I do not intend to prosecute our
position on that issue at this point in time because my position is very very clear. That’s for the Overseas Trade
Minister to work on.
GARTH But if that is the defining issue between New Zealand and China at the moment that trade deal and you're the
Foreign Minister what on earth do you have left to talk with when you go there, is it off your radar?
WINSTON It is hardly the defining issue in total as you say and there are bigger issues to do with long term economic
and social security of Asia itself, of the world, China's a country that has a much bigger radar screen than was
contemplated in that question you're asking.
GARTH So you'll still be visiting China you'll still have things to say…
WINSTON The person who went to China in February of 1998 to secure the visa for Chinese students to come here was
actually myself, despite the presentation perception that you people brand me with, but I do remember the Chinese
government asked me when we had got the visa arrangement for students to come here organised, they asked me to give a
solemn pledge on behalf of my government that we would when they graduated would send them home. I've kept my word there
others have not and my country has not.
GARTH Just one last point you were sixty this year, are you here until 2008 and beyond.
WINSTON And beyond yes, and we're gonna make sure it works for three years and surprise some of you people who are
pouring cold water on the idea even though just a week ago you would have been ready to accuse me and New Zealand First
of being derelict in our duty in having a hung parliament and probably a snap election before Christmas.
GARTH Thank you very much Winston Peters.