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Cuppagate - Game Changer?

November 14th, 2011

Interesting to read Jonathan Milne from the Herald on Sunday’s account of the cuppagate tape.

Milne says

But the potential disclosure of the contents of that conversation – held only a metre away from the closest reporters – could yet throw a rocket into this election campaign. It is a game-changer.

And therein lies the problem. I am sure as hell not endorsing covert taping of anyone. But this was a major media stunt in a campaign. It was designed to be a public event. As David Farrar has noted if the tape reveals something where Key or Banks is saying one thing publicly and another thing privately, then that gives strong reasons in the public interest to know what was said. Milne uses the langauge “game changer”, which indicates there is something here.

Milne goes on

But it’s the sheer range of comments in Key and Banks’ discussion that is breathtaking – and the pair’s assessment of the prospects of National, Act and NZ First.

Perhaps leadership in ACT discussions? Maybe a discussion about future asset sales? Whatever, this episode has more to play out, and the all guns blazing approach of National against its release indicates there is something of public interest in those tea leaves.

Posted in Cuppagate, John Banks and John Key. | 1 Comment

The Double Negative Endorsement

November 12th, 2011

What a curious circus act yesterday between John Key and John Banks. The thing that struck me was the nature of the “endorsement”.

First, John Key appears to want National voters in Epsom to vote for John Banks, or so the media tells us. That is National voters except for him, John Key resident of Epsom, who won’t be voting for John Banks.

Not quite the “clear message” to the voters of Auckland. This is compounded by the use of the well known tactic of clarity and certainty- the double negative. In this case, “not unhappy”.

In the end I think how people vote is a very personal thing but what we are clearly saying is we’re not unhappy if National voters decide to vote tactically

Does that mean ‘happy”, does that mean something less than happy. Who knows? But its curious. If you want people to vote for him, have the guts to actually say it.

And where was poor old Don Brash in all of this. Key is reported as saying he thinks Don Brash is “flexible” and not extreme like Roger Douglas. That is a very recent change of tune from the man he described as ‘hard core’ and ‘very right wing’ over the last couple of years.Maybe we can put the double negative down to the 0.7% poll that will be out this weekend for ACT. I guess that’s what is a called “not an ideal result.”

Posted in John Banks, John Key and Don Brash. | 0 Comments

Foodbanks and the Underclass

October 18th, 2011

There have been lots of reasons to feel proud to be a New Zealander lately. We have hosted what looks to me like a brilliant major sporting tournament (the debacle around the opening notwithstanding) where we have fulfiled the “stadium of 4 million” ideal. And what’s more on the field the All Blacks are poised to break the 24 year drought and make us world champions again.

But today I read two stories in the New Zealand Herald that made me ashamed as a New Zealander. The first is the news that the government has slashed the number of food parcels it hands out by 20% in a year at a time when foodbanks are dealing with more and more individuals and families who need support for the very basics of food. Food parcels are not about anything other than people getting the necessities of life.

Last night in Wellington there was a public meeting on poverty issues where Stephanie McIntyre from Downtown Community Ministry talked about the more than 400 clients they dealt with in the three months to June. They do a great job at DCM, making real and substantive differences in people’s lives, but the current government is making their job much harder by changing policies to make it harder to access food grants.

The government’s approach in my view is privatising dealing with poverty, it is an abdication of responsibility and it is morally wrong.

The second story is an acknowledgement from John Key that the “underclass” he talked so much about in the 2008 election campaign has grown under his watch. He can’t deny the evidence, it is all around from the massive increase in foodbank use, the rise in unemployment to health indicators like the 5,000 extra avoidable hospital admissions among children for respiratory illness and skin infections.

So the PM acknowledges it, great. But he is not a spectator here, he is actually running the government. More can and should be done to directly attack the growth in poverty. It is simply not good enough.

Labour has policies that are directly aimed at addressing this, from the increase in the minimum wage to $15, a fairer tax system including making the first $5000 tax free for everyone, increasing the top tax rate and introducing the CGT. We also will have a comprehensive children’s policy, which as Annette King has already announced will include legislating targets for the elimination of child poverty. And for me that must be the goal. Nothing less is acceptable.

At the forum on poverty last night Brian Easton spoke and he said while it was possible to argue on a technical basis about the best policy response to poverty, the real question to be asked is what are the ethical and moral principles that lie behind the policies. It seems to me to be hard to find an ethical principle that lies behind cutting the number of food parcels or letting inequality and poverty grow.

I think Brian’s question is a legitimate one to ask. So here is my answer. The ethical basis for Labour’s policy at this election is fairness, inter-generational responsibility, inclusion and respect and a belief that if we reduce ineqaulity we will harness all our potential, which common sense tells us will benefit us all. So what’s the ethical basis for National’s policy?

Posted in Underclass, Foodbanks, John Key and Inequality. | Comments

Rena and leadership

October 16th, 2011

When I was doing Vote Chat with Bryce Edwards at Otago University on Friday he raised the good question of the political balancing act that surrounds how opposition political parties respond to a disaster, in this case the Rena. As an Opposition there is the risk that people will see criticism of the government as politicising the situation, being opportunistic etc. Equally part of the role of an Opposition is to hold the government to account, whatever the horrendous circumstances might be.

To get one thing out of the way straight up, no one is saying the Government is to blame for the Rena hitting the reef. I am also sure that John Key, Steven Joyce and Nick Smith are as disturbed as I am by the images of the oil on beaches and the death and injury of wildlife. Every New Zealander will want to see the damage from the accident mitigated and the environment cleaned up. What is a legitimate question though is whether faced with the incident the government showed the leadership that we should expect of them and acted as swiftly and effectively as they should have.

My take is that the government were flat footed and to keen to sheet blame and responsibility elsewhere rather than take the leadership role we want our government to take in times of crisis. Someone I worked with once said that people mostly want the government out of their way when things are going well, but they want them there yesterday when things go wrong. I think National got that wrong in the first few days of the Rena incident.

And criticism of this is not just coming from Labour, but also from people who might normally be described as friends of the government like John Roughan, Paul Holmes and even Matthew Hooten. Here is part of Hooten’s NBR column which is not on-line. (h/t Liberation)

Joyce failed totally to comprehend what the Rena grounding meant to the Bay of Plenty’, and ‘He did not see that, as transport minister and arguably the most powerful figure in the government after Mr Key, his role was to lead and improve the quality of the response, and ensure it was sufficiently empowered and resourced. When he spoke publicly, he demonstrated little empathy with locals, telling them there was no point going to the beach to clean up the oil, saying more was on its way and that it could take years to resolve anyway

Then there is the question of whether the government had done the work over the last three years to have us planned for a disaster like this. There are questions here too, with the freeze on funding for Maritime NZ and the failure to put in place the mechanism that would see more of the costs of dealing with the disaster fall on the ship company and less on you and me.

So, in the face of this disaster, we join with all New Zealanders in wanting to protect our beautiful coastline and all those, human and animal who inhabit it. But we also take our role seriously to raise the question- Where was the leadership?, and in this case it was sadly lacking.

Posted in Leadership, Rena and John Key. | 0 Comments

Reflecting on yesterday

October 6th, 2011

In a lot of ways I would rather not write this post, but I have been reflecting on what happened yesterday in the Parliamentary debating chamber and there are some things I want to say. The incident itself is not a political matter It was an awful experience, and had potential tragedy written all over it. The man who tried to throw himself into the chamber just a couple of feet from where I was sitting, clearly is troubled. Like many people I see in my electorate office it sounds like he has major problems with government agencies, and he was agitated. He was heading over the balcony head first, to a four metre drop, onto a collection of desks, chairs and people. To me it was the act of someone with deep and difficult issues and problems. I hope he is now getting help to deal with those.

The actions of the security guards and members of the public who pulled him back and then had to struggle further with him were courageous and certainly saved him and others from serious injury. I know that all MPs are grateful for their actions. From our party, Phil managed to speak to the guard before he was taken to hospital and Annette visited him last night in A and E (where, I am told, he waited nearly 6 hours before getting medical attention), and I understand he is doing ok today.

But there is a political element, and it was introduced by the Prime Minister. I just can not fathom his reaction. I could not hear everything he said, and it is not picked up on video because his microphone was not on, but from talking to others, it is quite clear he was talking about the incident and saying “Labour should be ashamed”, and that is “down to you”. He then did a strange gesture moving his hand across his throat (you can see it at 2.06 on the video below). What follows from that is the angry reaction from Labour members, and what I think was a very measured and calm response from Phil Goff.

Emotions were running high for all of us, and I accept that the PM would have been as disturbed as anyone in the Chamber. But now that he has had time to reflect, would it hurt for him to acknowledge that somehow trying to link Labour to the incident was wrong, inappropriate and highly likely to cause extreme offense? He has said he was making some reference to DPS. I am not sure what the connection was actually, albeit a DPS officer assisted once the man had been hauled back over the balcony. In any case, that does not make it right to link Labour with the incident.

Parliament can be a high emotion, robust and stressful environment, and in the heat of the moment some terrible things get said. If Mr Key had come out and said yesterday that he was sorry for linking Labour to the incident but that it was a very stressful time, he might actually have gone up in my estimations. Unfortunately, he has gone down.

Posted in John Key, Security and Parliament. | 0 Comments