Scoop Election Briefing: NZ First's Winston Peters

Wednesday, 14 September 2005, 3:02 pm
Article: Kevin List

EXPLANATORY NOTE Re: Scoop's Election Briefings: Over the next few weeks, utilising the latest electronic wizardry, Scoop will be interviewing key players from across the political spectrum. The interviews will be posted in full in audio files in MP3 format with a summary note from the interviewer. The intention is to provide a venue for a more detailed understanding of the thinking of the political parties and their views on policies than can be obtained from the typical debate style presentations being carried by other media.

Listen to the interview:
STREAMING AUDIO:
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/audio/0509/WinstonPetersListIV.m3u
DOWNLOAD (Hint: right click and "save target as"):
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/audio/0509/WinstonPetersListIV.mp3

Questions asked in this interview in roughly the order they came – note: these are not the exact questions asked but an approximation.

In the past week National has dropped the tax on petrol. Are you pleased with this?

Which party would be better to coalesce with in regard to raising the minimum wage?

What are your views on industrial legislation?

What specifically in terms of social engineering are you upset about with respect to the Labour Party?

How do these social issues - Civil Unions, etc. affect your core constituency?

What are your views on market rents for State houses?
… views on scrapping the Kiwisaver scheme?
... views on withdrawing from Kyoto?

In terms of Labour Party policy what is the problem with Working for Families.

Which is best, across the board tax cuts or Working for Families?

What are you views on United Future's policy of the partial sale of SOEs?

Lets say United Future tried to twist the National Party's arm on SOE sales, how would you work on confidence and supply in a situation like that?

Is your policy going with the party that gets the most votes a bright line absolute test. If for example the Labour + Greens gets more than National + United Future is there wiggle room to go with Labour? Or is it simply a matter of which major party gets the most seats?

What about removing the Maori seats?

Will the Maori Seats issue be a bottom line for you then?

Marc Alexander last week slammed your new coalitions approach as making you a poodle party, how would you feel being the poodle party for the poodle party?

If Peter Dunne was Deputy PM and he was advocating selling SOEs wouldn't that be precisely the position you would be in?

ENDS

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