'The Nation'

Phil Goff Interviewed By Sean Plunket

SEAN It's been quite a month for the Labour Party, Chris Carter went off the reservation and was promptly expelled from caucus. Then Manurewa MP George Hawkins announced he'd be looking to a future in local body politics, and this week Winnie Laban, MP for Mana, decided her future lay in academia, and announced she was standing down to take up a post at Victoria University. Some political leaders might take all that personally, but not it seems Phil Goff, who joins us now. Mr Goff welcome to The Nation. Some might say losing one MP is bad luck.

PHIL GOFF – Labour Party Leader ` Three is careless.

SEAN What's going on here, are these people leaving a sinking ship, or..?

PHIL No no absolutely not, I mean each person has left for a different reason, as was clear in your intro. Chris lost the plot and he lost his place in the Labour Party caucus. We acted very quickly and decisively on that.

SEAN Some might have said you should have acted quickly and decisively sooner on on what Chris ...

PHIL Well we gave him a second chance, I'm fair minded about that, but nobody gets a third chance, and he didn’t, and he had been warned about that beforehand. With Winnie – Winnie's done a decade in parliament, she's done a fantastic job, I'm very close to Winnie, she's a great person. She has a wonderful opportunity to lift the achievements and aspirations of Pasifika students at Victoria University. She came to me and she said look I've been offered this job but you know it's in your hands, what do you want me to do.

SEAN Does that mean she didn’t feel that on the national stage in the National parliament she'd have more ability to lift the aspirations and achievements of all Pacific Islanders, is that a suggestion she thought another three years in opposition?

PHIL No I think it was just a different way of doing it, and she's done her ten years in parliament, she's been Minister of Pacific Island Affairs. She had a serious illness last year and that sort of makes you think about where you want to take the future direction of your life, and I thought of it, it's a cost obviously to the taxpayer, but for other reason.

SEAN And George Hawkins.

PHIL Well George is considering his position, but he is standing for local government and George has said to me look I began my life in local government, I did over a decade in local politics, I've done my think in central government politics, I'm looking at completing the circle.

SEAN Whatever the reasons Mr Goff you're facing certainly one bi-election, maybe two, possibly three.

PHIL Well one bi-election, the second is up to Chris Carter, I have no control over that.

SEAN What would you prefer?

PHIL I'm happy if there's a bi-election, it's a cost to the country but it's also a chance for a new Member of the Parliament to gain a mandate.

SEAN Alright what else has happened in the last week or so? You’ve had a little bit of a jump in the polls. Questions obviously because of Chris Carter have been raised about your leadership, but one gets the feeling from what David Cunliffe told us here on The Nation last week, and some other media that’s coming out, that you're actually looking to develop a policy platform which is a real alternative to National, in time for the next election.

PHIL Oh absolutely we had a caucus up in Whangarei this week, we had a full day session, throwing around ideas, new ideas, new directions. Some will have to be dropped by the wayside because they're not affordable, others have got I think real appeal, and a new direction for New Zealand. Most of all I think New Zealanders are looking for a plan, and with unemployment going up, prices going up faster than wages, New Zealanders are increasingly asking is there a plan that this government has, if so we haven't seen it.

SEAN Do you believe the possibility of a double recession, the increase in GST that’s coming and perhaps some more economic hard times, is Labour's opportunity to regain, make ground on the lost last election it hasn’t been able to recoup since?

PHIL Well there couldn’t be a worse time frankly for an increase in GST. When I go out and around New Zealand I always go down and talk to the retailers because they’ll tell you what things are like on the ground, and universally across New Zealand retailers have told me that things have never been worse. The extra two and a half percent bump in GST, the likely – and this is the government's figures not mine – nearly 6% inflation when half of all New Zealanders didn’t get a wage rise last year.

SEAN So I'm gonna take that as a yes, you see economic hard times as an opportunity for Labour?

PHIL Well the fact we've got those hard times with unemployment, rising prices and no plan to deal with it, yes of course that’s an opportunity for Labour, because we do have a plan.

SEAN Mr Goff I put it to you that if we look back over say the last three years and certainly the first two years of the term of this government, that would represent a strategic shift in Labour which has spent an awful lot of time if you like denigrating the personality and the affairs of those who are in government and of National Party ministers. Has there been a gear shift or a philosophical change in the way the party has decided to battle out there on the hustings?

PHIL Well I don’t know which parliament you’ve been watching, but I haven't seen a lot of the Labour Party denigrating individuals.

SEAN I've been watching the Labour Party that’s concentrating on Richard Worth and is concentrated on the double dip, the Dipper from Dipton I think you called I think you called Bill English, and Tim Groser and John Key.

PHIL No look all of those things are cases where people have to be held to account, but politics in parliament has essentially been about issues, and it's been about the issues of GST, the tax that we're paying that we were promised that we weren’t going to get. It's been about a plan for employment when the job summit didn’t work. It's been about the sale of our assets. Those are the things actually we've been focusing on ...

SEAN Well let's talk about some policies. Interesting the front page of one of the weekend papers this weekend says the government are not looking at a compulsory super scheme, that’s probably going to be a plank from what David Cunliffe was hinting. You're gonna make Kiwi Saver compulsory, or some form of...

PHIL Well we're working on that. What we want to do, we introduced Kiwi Saver, it's been a great success, a million people are now saving through opportunities that people never had before.

SEAN But net savings by people haven't actually increased.

PHIL No, and one of the problems was that of course one of the first things that happened with the change of government, you cut the employer contribution down from 4% to 2%. The Aussies have increased theirs from 9 to 12%.

SEAN Are you going to make it 12%

PHIL Well we're working through that. We absolutely have to increase our savings as a country. If we want to own our own future we've gotta have the money to invest. We're looking to have a universal Kiwi Saver programme. Now how we do that, the details of how we do that we're still working through.

SEAN Alright, so you want it to be about policy, but you're not gonna tell me whether you're committed to that?

PHIL Oh no, but you know that’s the case, it's a year out from the election, opposition parties never release their policies a year out from the election, but we're indicating directions.

SEAN So you're gonna stick with the GST increase but definitely take it off fruit and veggies?

PHIL Well GST has gone up to 15%, we're looking at whether there are particular areas like fresh fruit and vegetables, where you could take the entire 15% off, reinforced by that University of Auckland study that said, actually if you take the tax off healthy goods people consume more...

SEAN So that’s a yes?

PHIL We're moving in that direction. Look it's gotta go through a procedure, I don’t stand up here and pronounce policy, I take it through a policy council, I take it through my caucus, but that’s the sort of area we're looking at, yes.

SEAN Okay, four weeks leave?

PHIL Well that was Labour policy, and it stays Labour policy.

SEAN Okay but you wouldn’t die in a ditch over it?

PHIL Oh it's not the most vicious of the National government's attacks on working people.

SEAN But you will roll it back?

PHIL Oh look I think people need four weeks' holiday and that’s the idea, but of course if your wages aren't going up and prices are, and I've talked right across you know with unions with ordinary New Zealanders about this. We're most worried about the fact that you or I, you know you start a new job, you're about to... Look our policy is four weeks holiday for everybody, we introduced it, we stand by it.

SEAN Okay non tradable.

PHIL We wouldn’t make it tradable.

SEAN Alright that’s great, and you'd roll it back if it was changed. I want to talk about other parties just very quickly. Winston Peters apparently cruising around the provinces talking to generally large groups of elder New Zealanders. Would you consider the idea if you had to of doing a deal if Winston Peters got back into parliament to be the Prime Minister?

PHIL I think if you’ve got an MMP parliament and you need to get a majority, you’ve gotta consider all options. So certainly we've worked with Winston Peters in the past, we could work with him in the future.

SEAN That’s a yes then?

PHIL That’s a yes.

SEAN Alright, what about the Maori Party? Well they haven't done too bad under this National government, but they’ve clearly got some internal tensions going, are you ready to have the Maori Party back in the fold?

PHIL Well the Maori Party haven't done too bad but Maori people have done terribly, you know 16% unemployment, losing basic rights like being able to be sacked in the first 90 days without a reason being given, the Maori Party have been in there and they’ve got all the perks of the office but they haven't done too well for their people.

SEAN That doesn’t sound like there's a rapprochement happening there?

PHIL Oh again there are thing, I mean I ring up Pita Sharples from time to time as I did on the 90 day bill, and said Pita, this is gonna be awful, it's gonna be awful for Maori people, are you gonna stand alongside us and oppose this? He said yeah, I said well let's work together. They’ve come out and they’ve said that they're opposed to it, and look I'll work with any party in parliament if it's for what I see as being the good of New Zealanders and for the values that we believe in.

SEAN Okay so that includes the Maori Party and Winston Peters. And of course the Greens.

PHIL Look I wouldn’t rule Winston out at all and nor would you, Winston's got a constituency out there, as you said it's a large constituency amongst older people. I think if he ramps up his campaign there's every chance that he'll be back in parliament.

SEAN Phil Goff finally, did you at any time during the Chris Carter controversy take seriously what he was saying, the belief that you couldn’t win the next election, and that other MPs, Labour MPs thought you couldn’t?

PHIL No, the latter is wrong, and so is the former. We clearly can win the next election. We're sitting on averaging about 34, 35% in the polls. You take that with two other coalition partners, we can hit that 51%.

SEAN And do you think the caucus is better off without Chris Carter?

PHIL Yes.

SEAN Thank you very much Phil Goff. We now continue our discussion joined by our panel, Bevan Rapson and Jock Anderson, good morning to you both. Anything you want to ask Phil Goff that I didn’t?

JOCK ANDERSON – NBR Reporter Well let me start. One of the things that I'd like to see from a Leader of an Opposition, is actually an undertaking that he's actually going to oppose, and hopefully Phil will give us some clues in the forthcoming months as to how he's actually going to oppose the government, he doesn’t seem to have done a great job so far. You’ve been picking a few personal things that have been popping around, you know John Key's shareholding etc etc. So when are we going to see some opposition?

PHIL Well I'd say the say thing that I just said to Sean actually Jock. That’s simply not true, our focus has been absolutely on the issues in parliament, and I can send you the Hansards and you can read them for yourself. It's been about issues like for a hell of a lot of New Zealanders, 53% in fact, no wage rise last year, but prices going up. They're going to be worse off in net terms and the taxcuts that they get on income tax aren't going to compensate them for rising prices. That’s a critical thought for a heck of a lot of New Zealanders.

JOCK Yeah but when is this sort of stuff gonna make headlines for the rest of New Zealanders other than what I would call the petty politicking on personal issues.

PHIL When the media make their mind up that they’ll actually follow issues rather than personality matters, and you know from your long years in the media that unfortunately there is the tendency for the media to focus on the sensational and the personal and to overlook the issues of substance. I agree with you entirely. I want to see those issue of substance up and debated, about a plan for employment, a plan for wages going ahead of prices. What we're doing about asset sales, what we're doing about New Zealand being sold off overseas in some vital areas. Those are the very areas that I'd like to see the media focused on.

BEVAN RAPSON – NBR Reporter Well I've got an issue that I'd like to discuss and that is this four weeks leave. You know you seem to be singing off the same song sheet now, but what that leaves is an impression that you’ve had your chain jerked by the union influences on the Labour Party.

PHIL No, nobody jerks my chain Bevan. My original statement is that that was by no means the worst of the attacks that were being taken on people's working conditions. I'm very angry about, and I can recite if you want to take the time now, one or two of the cases where people have been sacked for no good reason, not being given a reason but the reason's been obvious, and no redress. So I'm angry about that. The four weeks leave, Labour brought it in, because we believe workers need four weeks' holiday a year. I can understand why some New Zealanders would want to trade it off. If your wages haven't gone up Bevan, but prices have gone up, and you can't make ends meet, I understand why you might thing that that’s an option, but it's not a good option.

BEVAN Do you accept though that your initial line on it annoyed member of your party who felt that you we're going soft on it?

PHIL No, no, Chris Carter made a big deal about that, but nobody else did. We had a discussion about it.

SEAN Okay we're gonna have to leave that there. Phil thank you very much indeed for being with us.

ENDS

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