Panel Discussions Led By Paul Holmes

Response to PHIL GOFF interview

PAUL Now we've heard from Phil Goff, what did the panel think. How did he equip himself this morning, how did he equip himself through the week, Therese?

THERESE ARSENEAU – Political Analyst

Well I thought he presented himself very well this morning, he came across as very strong and apparently I wasn’t at the speech during the week, and apparent there also he presented a very strong Phil Goff. My concern though is the speech itself and the nationhood speech as well, I'm not a great fan of either of those speeches. I just don’t think they're as smart as Phil Goff and Labour are. I mean I think it's playing for a populist crowd, I think it presents simplistic answers to things that are really far more complicated, but the big problem for Phil Goff is every time he tries to criticise the government or criticise things as they are now, he's essentially criticising his own government. Now he's tried to put some distance between himself and his nine years record in government, but that’s gonna take time. My feeling is there's no quick easy fix for this, there are no shortcuts, they're gonna have to take the time to really rebuild.

PAUL Nevertheless in terms of his demeanour this morning, I remarked to you during the interview just quietly something's changed. He's more comfortable in his own skin as leader, did you sense that.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS – Green Party MP I thought Phil is looking relaxed and confident and he's projecting an image of capability. He does have a problem though that when he makes his core message the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, which is a good core message for Labour to project, he still has to confront the question that under nine years of Labour that gap got wider, and the very high CEO salaries that he's now criticising all happened under Labour, so it inevitably leads to the question well if you didn’t do it in government how are you going to do anything in Opposition, and he's still neglecting the beneficiaries who are actually the real poor in New Zealand.

MIKE MOORE – US Ambassador Designate Oh I've known him since he was 15, I mean a solid guy and will do a good job. Don’t forget MMP it's not always about who wins the election it's who forms the government and I do think our core message ought to be to toughen up New Zealand, put on your big boy pants because it's going to be very hard, this country is now No.22 in the OECD, this is a disgrace, and the inspiring thing for me this week was a couple of thousand people queuing up for a job, and women in their 50s and 60s wanting to go to the toilet couldn’t lose their place in the queue, this was an oh-oh moment for New Zealand, people want to work, we're a good people, give them the tools they will do the job.

PAUL Did you hear the tools then?

MIKE Yes - well I'm a diplomat now.

THERESE But the speech itself was not aspirational was it, it was about going after those 16 CEOs in Wellington and instead of saying what they're going to do to lift the disadvantage, I agree with Jeanette it is exactly the right message.

MIKE We mustn’t be trapped into this nonsense will you give the unemployment benefit more money and these kind of cheap expensive things to do, where in 18 months time the economy may be different, it's about stair-casing people into work, people want to work, it's inspiring.

PAUL Let me leave the inspiration there for a second, let's talk about tax. The taxcuts, he was critical of the taxcuts last year, here's what Phil Goff said.

Guyon: '$70,000 that’s what we're talking about, that’s been the top tax rate, are they the privileged few that you were talking about, many trades people earn $70,000.

Phil Goff: I think there's a good argument for lifting the thresholds so that people that were intended to be caught in that top tax bracket don’t pay that top tax rate.'

So raise the threshold rather than reduce the taxes.

JEANETTE This is still about fiddling, yes of course $70,000 is no longer as appropriate as it was 10 years ago, but this is fiddling, there are real opportunities to reduce taxes on hard work, and put them instead on scarce resources, waste and pollution. Labour consistently ignored that for nine years, National is not sweeping it off the agenda again, it's not even part of the tax review.

PAUL What about the speech, you’ve said you weren’t particularly keen on either of those speeches, and as you mentioned at the top of the programme Phil Goff's speech happened within hours of Barak Obama's State of the Union address.

THERESE A tough comparison.

PAUL I know that, but when we talk about perhaps the little bit of tax here and the other things in Phil Goff's speech, where's the real aspirational aspect about where New Zealand can go and what New Zealand can accomplish.

MIKE You know tax is a complex thing and this is again we ought to toughen up, put on the big boy pants and explain to the people, there's something wrong in a country where the 100 wealthiest don’t live there, all the incentives are to go to Australia, and it's extremely complicated and extremely difficult to explain tax matters, but you ought to have a programme on that, the incentives are to leave, and it is nonsense, when you separate company and personal tax of course everyone contracts into private companies, but I've already lost the audience, the eyes glaze over, but to widen that tax base to make it more predictable is the essential thing. You do not create wealth by taxing people.

THERESE I think there was an opportunity for Phil Goff to lead from the front, I mean people complain he's not dynamic he's not charismatic, but he is substantive, he is smart, and you know I really am frightened that he's taking that old French saying of you know there go the people I must follow them for I am their leader, approach to leadership, when the speech really I thought was an opportunity to try to set the agenda for the year, and I would have made it very much about the budget that’s coming up, education and jobs.

PAUL Would we still have to say Jeanette that despite his speech the other day, despite his appearance this morning where he may be more comfortable as the leader, that the election so far is still gonna be John Key's to lose?

JEANETTE I think that’s always the case for a first term government, and there are many ways in which John Key could lose it, but Labour has to be ready to step up if they do, and you know there's gotta be a viable alternative and they’ve gotta have a vision that people will believe in. People have gotta believe in more than just wherefore the workers, there's gotta be something there that makes people believe in the country and believe in themselves.

THERESE And let's put it into perspective, since National has come on the scene, elections in this country have been very close, on average the gap between the two is around five and a half percent, only four times has that gap reached double digits, 2008 was one of those times, so there are no quick fixes. Yes they have to get back the working class vote, but they also have to get back the middle class vote, women, Maori, Pacific Islanders, you know again let's think more substantively rather than simplistically.

Response to HONE HARAWIRA interview

PAUL Well any surprises there? He's very hard to deal with because he remains so likeable.

MIKE The same could be said of you.

PAUL How badly has he been managed do you think?

JEANETTE I don’t think he's been damaged among his constituents in Northland, I think Te Tai Tokerau still love Hone and they want him in parliament, because he's giving expression to something that a lot of Pakeha in New Zealand have never understood, which is that what Maori want – of course it includes jobs and a house and economic advancement, but that in itself is not enough, it's actually about mana, it's about self respect, it's about tinorangatiratanga, you know Hone says we want title to the foreshore and seabed and we want to not be able to sell it, no economic advantage, everybody has access, but that mana is enormously important to Maori, and I think that’s what the Labour government never understood, and that’s why they couldn’t keep them.

PAUL Perhaps the Pakeha community as a whole can never understand that, perhaps that’s a bridge we cannot cross.

THERESE I agree with Jeanette.

JEANETTE Some of us can – come of us can understand that.

PAUL Yeah okay, but we all own it anyway. Mr Harawira as I said to him at the end is a Kiwi he therefore owns the foreshore and seabed forever.

THERESE I agree with Jeanette that Hone probably was in his own electorate and I haven't seen polling to back this up, but he's not necessarily personally damaged but I think the more important question is has he helped his party, as the Maori Party been damaged by this, has it damaged the relationship with National and you know I really don’t know the answer to that because the conventional thinking is when you have these sorts of divisions played out publicly there's a political cost, but you know on the other hand the Maori Party's a very different party and it might very well help the Maori Party to have someone expressing the sort of views that Hone's expecting, especially when they're in government with National.

MIKE Well tie-ho a minute here, look I'm from the Far North, this is very vulgar language, if that email using that language went to your daughter you'd be appalled.

PAUL He's apologised for the language.

MIKE Okay, I don’t know what this actually means, absolute sovereignty, title, this is a loaded issue, titles can be leased, this is a defining issue for our country. If the courts transfer title it'll be a victory, if the courts do not transfer title whatever that means and to whom this will mean colonial oppression. I think there's a yearning even up home eventually for this country to become a post racial society, to look for the future when all of us are New Zealanders given the rights and dignity of the first people.

PAUL Now the week ahead. Waitangi Day next week, do we still want it as our national day?

JEANETTE Well it is the founding of the nation and the constitution and it creates unease because we haven't really resolved the issues around the first people and the settlers, but that’s not a reason for getting rid of it, because at least once a year we ponder those issues again.

THERESE We're gonna have the Maori flag probably flying in certain places on Waitangi Day. Is it the national day? I mean I suppose there's more than one national day really isn't there, and I think it's interesting watching how this debate has developed and having a Maori Party now on the political scene certainly brings a new voice to it, and over this next year I'll be watching the Maori Party to see whether they can really survive the political system they're in. It tends to be very bad for small parties that go into government and in particular it tends to be very difficult to be a centrist party and survive.

PAUL And very difficult perhaps to be an activist who's been a long time activist coming in and having to learn about the betrayals of compromise that you have to do and so forth.

JEANETTE We know about that.

PAUL Exactly, and Susie Bradford I spose ...

JEANETTE And what I'm picking up out in the community is there is quite a lot of anger among Maori for the compromises the Maori Party have made to work with National, and I think the question is that going to surface at Waitangi, will that anger be obvious at Waitangi or will they leave it for other forums.

PAUL Mr Moore it is 25 years this week since the Lange government declined access to our waters of the USS Buchanan, and old thing puffing out diesel. Was it the right thing to do?

MIKE Probably was at the time, this is a different age, the cold war was on. I want to go back earlier in political memory to Waitangi Day when Normal Kirk walked out there, held the boy's hand, this was not staged, he talked about Waitangi being New Zealand Day, it is a day for the Maori but just not the Maori, it is a Croatian New Zealander, it is a Samoan New Zealander, it is the Asian New Zealander, this has to be a day for all the children of God who live here – and I got goosebumps, and I still get goosebumps when I think of the vision Norman talked about for our country.

PAUL Are you just being a diplomat on the refusal of the Buchanan?

MIKE I am a little bit. Now I haven't said this, I am grateful for the opportunity to serve our country again from the government, I will serve this government with everything I've got.

PAUL Might it be the start of the comeback trail?

MIKE Look it's a stepping start.

ENDS

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