Q+A Panel Discussion - Response To Phil Goff Interview

Sunday 12th April 2009: Q+A’s Paul Holmes and Therese Arseneau are joined on the panel by Matt McCarten & Michael Barnett this week and they pick up on points made by Phil Goff and Dr Pita Sharples from the interviews earlier on Q+A

Points of interest:

The panel discussions have been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz: http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A PANEL DISCUSSION

THERESE ARSENEAU – Political Analyst
Well interesting is his leadership secure, I mean that’s the sort of major question he's facing us.

PAUL Well he's adamant about that isn't he?

THERESE He is and I think it is secure for now but with numbers around 6% it won't stay secure, the biggest thing that keeps it secure at the moment is you need a challenger to actually knock him off as leader and at the moment there is no obvious challenger, and that’s part a curse part a blessing, I mean it does keep him in the position, the problem - is he talked about the transition being so smooth from Helen Clark to him, it was almost too smooth, you know the rule of thumb is you want to not tear the party apart but you want it to be exciting enough that people even notice.

PAUL You want a bit of salt and pepper that’s quite right.

THERESE The second major thing and this is a problem that’s gonna be hard for him to change and you touched on it with your questions to him as well, if you look around the world at comparable places like Canada Australia the UK, when you have a long serving Prime Minister and somebody whose been an understudy for a very long time, when people want change typically that person who comes from inside that long term government has a very difficult job rejuvenating the party enough to …

PAUL It's not the change they want, Matt, what do you think?

MATT McCARTEN – Union Leader
He's fine, he's fine, when Clark took over her poll rating was 2%.

THERESE At a different point in her career.

MATT No no, and I was the director of the Alliance Party at the time, we were at 30% and Labour was at 14%, so you know and Clark by sheer grit just stuck in there and kept – and that’s what Goff has gotta do and it's clear there is no one else.

PAUL But she was new you see, he's not new.

THERESE And it was a different point in the life cycle of the party as well.

PAUL Can we just go what Phil Goff said in response to questions about his leadership he said this –

Phil: 'I have to develop the different dimensions that leadership requires so is my personal challenge over the months and the years ahead.'

PAUL So what do you think about, you know what I was trying to get at with that business about that little bit of magic that enables people to touch people on the shoulder and communicate a vision, does he have that?

MICHAEL BENNETT – Chamber of Commerce
No he does not and when you asked him what his vision was for New Zealand that to me was the most telling point, it lacked – it was all the language you'd expect to come from traditional Phil Goff, and if we're going to see something new it has to be inspirational, it has to be something that’s really going to attract my attention and right now he doesn’t so it's going to be about him as a brand, and he said for instance you know our values are set, we should be reviewing, there's new values. So to my mind it's a branding exercise for him and it's also….

MATT There is nothing he is going to do that’s going to make an ounce of difference, at the moment it's John Key, and it's going to be that for the next year, there is no short term fix of the charismatic, how much charisma did Helen Clark have until she was Prime Minister – zilch, it doesn’t matter. No it's John Key it's him for a year, these guys have just gotta be internal got to get their act together and it's just gonna take time.

PAUL The phone is still off the hook and it's staying off the hook for some time.

THERESE And I guess the question is but do they get it, when you asked him about why they lost the election an awful lot of it is about – we were just so successful for nine years that people got tired of listening to us.

PAUL Well but he knows, he talked about nanny state, he knows what it is that retracted people but I spose out of respect to his predecessor he's not going to necessarily say so.

THERESE I think they’ll do well in parliament though they have a very impressive new intake of MPs and a good mix of new inexperienced people.

PAUL The snakiness, he feels a bit aggrieved doesn’t he that Labour got all the blame for the smacking when every National MP and he's right.

MATT It was the Greens who set them up.

PAUL Here's what Mr Goff said about the smacking business –

Phil: 'My answer to that is no it shouldn’t be a criminal offence or it should not be – we should not have people following up and prosecuting parents for a smack in that context.'

So what is that, is it a turn round, is that a reversal.

MICHAEL It is but I mean the thing that gets me is he called it the little stuff, this wasn’t the little stuff, this was …

MATT It was a public relations coup that they were put on the back foot on it, because Kay and Clark made the agreement it wasn’t even their bill it had come from the Greens, somehow they got all the blame for it, this is after you're getting these kids being killed by their parents and everyone goes we must do something about it, the first time they get the opportunity about it the right wing came in and turned it into the nanny state and Phil said it twice in the thing you know, they’ve actually even bought the language they got put on the defensive and they’ve never recovered…..

PAUL But isn't it amazing how John Key and the National Party got no blame at all for the smacking stuff when he's the one who swung the deal

MATT The tidies going in on that you can do no wrong.

PAUL Yes exactly, I was asking that question about whether he's got that ruthless little bit of darkness and I think we can say in successful political leaders there is a little bit of that.

MICHAEL He's not gonna tell you.

PAUL Well is he scary, leaders have to be a little bit scary have to be able to be scary don’t they.

MICHAEL And he's neither scary or urgent.

THERESE John Key's not scary, John Key's not the least bit scary.

PAUL I'm told he's very effective behind the scenes.

MATT You want to go and see his ministers who are outside cabinet, they're told you go in there on the condition you're out in three years, he talked to Worth and Williamson and all those guys, they're waiting to exit the package, who else has done that in politics in New Zealand.

THERESE I think the scarier thing for Labour is that they’ve been now completely wrong footed by National, National gets MMP, and what they’ve done, Labour was very successful under Helen Clark cos they very consciously broadened the scope of the party, no longer just an urban working class party it is a university educated middle class party, that’s who voted Labour and that’s where most people are and that’s where you win the elections, what National has done is they have spilled over into that area.

PAUL They’ve gone to middle New Zealand.

*****

Response to Pita Sharples interview

PAUL We've heard from Dr Pita Sharples the Maori Affairs Minister and we see that he is absolutely adamant that there has to be Maori representation at what he calls the top table, is he right Matt McCarten?

MATT Well yes from his perspective absolutely, I think they're in the fight that no one wants to have at national level, you know like we're fascinated in Auckland about the Super City the rest of Auckland goes can't you guys sort of sort it out, but the problem is the Commission went away and it thought how do we do it, they were the Maori seats already there electorally nationally so they said well that’s a good way to get Maori input at the top table instead of advisory committees which don’t work by the way, and when they put it up it looks good from a bureaucratic point of view but from politics from Key and them who went out and said we want to get rid of Maori seats but we're fudging at the meantime cos we've got the Maoris in the government, they're all pretending it's not there. Up it comes they must all put their head in their hands cos they knew what they had to do, they’ve done exactly what they’ve done they’ve got National Act and they aligned up and the Maori Party have gotta go out now, they’ve gotta swallow a rat because we know where this is going they're gonna have a fight, but National's gonna get its way.

MICHAEL I liked Pita's answer when he said we'll have the discussion and I don’t have to win I don’t have to lose but I do have to have the discussion, and I'm a little bit in that space, I'm yet to be convinced that there should be Maori seats or shouldn’t be, as I say to me I'm yet to be convinced I can't see any reason why and anything he said there this morning didn’t convince me.

PAUL Hasn’t the world moved on though now, I mean we see a powerful Maori Party influencing decisions of government in our parliament, we have Barack Obama of course an African American elected by a country that we never thought they’ve elect an African American, hasn’t the world moved on couldn’t Maori fight for their own representation on the Super City Council.

THERESE Let's be realistic, first of all the end results, these sorts of organisations work best and it's the same as a business board it works best when there's diversity around the table, you don’t want every person sitting around the table to come from the same background and to have the same views, it is not a good effective decision making body, so let's agree that what we do want around the table is diversity, but the big question is how you get it and I think it's interesting in terms of the council the switch we now have fewer at large members more ward based members and what I would like to ask is what sort of electoral system are we going to use, cos we do know that first past the post does not tend to elect diverse groups, it does not bring diversity to the table and secondly are we going to replicate all the divisions that we've had in Auckland all along by having 12 ward representatives eight at large, I mean we really need to talk about if we're gonna have diversity maybe we need to talk about how we elect those people around the council table.

PAUL Nevertheless the situation we have at the moment you could say it's fairly you know it's constipated kind of in terms of Auckland's making progress isn't it, that at least we have a chance to go to something centralised.

MICHAEL I certainly agree, you know we're talking about having something big at the top, they’ve made an error in representation, how we get that representation to me is absolutely key, so I agree yes there has to be diversity, at the moment I get value from having the Maori Party as part of National political I really do, I need to be convinced ….

MATT If there weren't Maori seats in the New Zealand electoral system the Maori Party would not be in parliament, number one, number two does anyone actually really think that Maori are going to be elected on the city council without a Maori role option, absolutely not, there's none there now, and the third thing is if you believe in the Treaty or not and that’s a different debate, it's about whether you believe in the partnership or not. Now the State's position the Council's position they do but let's pretend they do believe it then how is that acted out, to give them an advisory board on the same status as other ethnic groups is an absolute insult you might as well not have it at all, we all know that advisory groups are made up of hacks which the council's all paid to give them the answers they actually want.

MICHAEL Yes 160,000 Maori surely they can do something about representation.

MATT Willy Jackson and John Tamihere very high profile Maoris both stood for mayoralties not councils admittedly but they didn’t get any more than what is the Maori population in their actual areas. People vote for like, now all of us who run campaigns I want to say this, if you’ve got a non Anglo name it is always very difficult to get elected, because Anglos will tend to got for Anglos and Maori for Maori and Asian for Asian, that’s just how modern society does work that people vote for people like them and what happens is, in a mass base if your name's up the top of the alphabet and it's Anglo you're more likely elected at the top.

THERESE It's not just that, women are over 50% of the population and until MMP came along women had difficulty getting elected as well, it has more to do with financial resources as well and to win the candidacy.

PAUL Let's go to Pita Sharples cos here's what the said about being at the top table –
Pita: 'Maori have allowed the growth of Auckland City at the top table, now that they're getting all powerful on Super City goodbye Maoris.'
Michael you're on the Auckland Regional Council are you pleased at what's going to be happening or do you think they're going a bit quickly? Goff is worried they're going a bit fast without adequate consultation.

MICHAEL No I think the big issue is going to be if they go too slow because you know they’ve come back and it's like opening the gates up and saying okay let's relitigate all of the stuff that we've had for the last couple of years, let's you know do it all again and I don’t think that we should leave ourselves open to that. All I do think is that what they’ve done in making some very quick decisions and then wanting to move on what they should have done is they should have appointed the transition board and let the transition board sort out the detail, that way it takes it away from politics and gets it back into the region where the discussion should take place.

PAUL But all in all just a quick yes or no, Super City a good idea.

MICHAEL Yes.

PAUL Super City a good idea? You might get one in Christchurch. Bob Parker might be the Mayor …

THERESE Yes. It's probably more likely in Wellington before Christchurch but I think yeah the unity at the top I think there are still a lot of questions to be answered in terms of the details.

PAUL Super City Mr McCarten or not?

MATT In principle yes, I don’t think electing a Caesar with all power to rule us right and all they’ve done is actually just knocked out the middle, so the community boards are all there and a powerful top that’s all they’ve done.

PAUL What should we be looking for this coming week?

THERESE I think it will be a quieter week, it's a short week, I think of course Super City is going to be on the agenda, John Key I believe is heading to China to have some high level talks there in terms of trade relations.

PAUL Bit of foreign stuff to look for, Mr Key engaging the foreign people. Mr Barnett what would you look for this week?

MICHAEL I'm going to look for Super City and I'd like to think that you know perhaps some of those that have created the problem in Auckland will not be providing the thinking for the changes, so as I say I'd like to see a transition board appointed quickly I'd like to move towards that and then have the discussion about the detail, I think we'll get a good answer.

PAUL No I don’t think there's going to be any kind of board like that is there, I mean they're just adamant, he's hell bent he knows what he wants to do, and he's doing it, Mr McCarten what would you look for?

MATT I think the hui, the hikoi which is being formed in Pita Sharples' offices Wednesday is going to be about the only political event worth watching.

PAUL Has this got the capacity to really damage the arrangement at national level?

MATT I think so, I think so, because what this is is about they're having to learn to swallow rats, they haven't really had to swallow them up to now and this has always been the question when it comes to real decisions about what non Maori society wants you'll get the shaft and I think they're getting a lesson in that.

THERESE I wonder too how the relationship is within the Maori Party between the Cabinet Ministers and the caucus as well.

MATT I think there's Pita and Tariana and Tariana hasn’t got the same interest as Pita because he's here, but Hone his seat comes into this area as well, and you should be looking at the rest of the caucus quite rightly.

PAUL And Hone don’t want to be swallowing no rat.

MATT He doesn’t swallow rats well, no.

PAUL Thank you very much to our panel.

ENDS

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