Sunday 28th February, 2010

Q+A’s Panel Discussions with Paul Holmes, Dr Therese Arseneau, Mike Williams & Michelle Boag have been transcribed below.

The full length video interviews from this morning’s episode of Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 (Freeview 7 & Sky 97) at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS led by PAUL HOLMES

Response to RODNEY HIDE interview

PAUL You would be most interested to hear Rodney Hide say that John Key and Bill English are merely continuing the policies of Clark and Cullen.

MIKE WILLIAMS – Former Labour President
Didn’t surprise me at all it's a carry on – National's done nothing government, but I do think he's in a difficult position because he got this Don Brash task force to have a look at how to catch up with Australia by 2025, they came up with a straight Rogernomics' solution, which was rejected even before it was propounded by the Prime Minister, who sniffed the air correctly, and I think that probably John Key understands that the policies of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen economically were actually quite popular. What people wanted when they changed the government was a change of face, and I think John Key has worked that out and Rodney Hide hasn’t.

MICHELLE BOAG – Former National President
Well I wasn’t surprised to hear him say it, because let's face it ACT isn't outright a party, they have to establish some difference between themselves and National, but Roger Douglas shouldn’t kid himself, they're only there because of Rodney Hide and there's no way that the prescription that Roger Douglas wants is going to get them any further ahead in the polls, that’s quite clear. New Zealand is become more centrist and we seem to like it.

THERESE ARSENEAU – Political Analyst
Well there's been long time in the ACT Party, you see different parts or different motivations in the party, yes there's that pure neo liberal ideological side and so as Michelle says they want to distinguish themselves from National and push National further to the right, but there's also a really pragmatic side where they’ve worked out to get votes, and the richest source of votes for them is National voters, and to do that, to attract those sorts of votes they need to push National but without offending National voters, and in fact if you look at past studies, if you looked at the people who voted ACT, more of those people actually identify themselves as National voters than they do actually as ACT voters. So they have to be very careful in pushing National.

PAUL Still he's quite adamant isn't he that the incremental and cautious approach is simply not gonna do the business, here's what he said, his version of about the business of catching up with Australia.

'Paul Holmes: Can you guarantee that you'll be fighting the next election as the Leader of ACT?

Rodney Hide: Look no person can guarantee that and you'd be foolish to do so, and you'd be arrogant to do so, a person is a Leader or indeed an MP on the request of others, it's a great privilege.'

PAUL Alright that’s not what he said about catching up with Australia by 2025 but we'll hear what he said about catching up with Australia in 2025 shortly. Leadership safe would you say?

MICHELLE They can't get there without Rodney, the only chance they’ve got in the current system and it's not gonna change before the next election is if Rodney wins Epsom again, there's no other seat they can win, they have to have Rodney as the leader.

MIKE Yes but equally I think people like Heather Roy have comprehended that that winning of Epsom has actually been jeopardised by the shenanigans that Rodney sort of swept under the carpet.

PAUL And yet he handled those very honestly and straight this morning did you feel?

THERESE Yeah but they are issues that go to the very heart of what ACT stands for and that’s why I think that these are blunders that will have a longer life than the ordinary blunder, so the perk buster notion, I mean it goes to the very heart of ACT portraying themselves as a very principled party, and also attacking John Key goes back to the point that I just made that they are out to try to attract National voters who are looking for a safe coalition partner and again he's jeopardised that by attacking.

MIKE Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought putting the boot into the Prime Minister who's got 58% support, was a good idea, it's just not clever.

PAUL This morning.

MIKE This morning.

PAUL Here's what he said about catching up with Australia, we'll go this time.

'Paul Holmes: Do you believe as John Key does that we can catch up with Australia by 2026, Alan Bollard of course as you know sat where you are and said we cannot, what do you believe?

Rodney Hide: We can but we can't do it on our present policies so they're both right.'

PAUL Can't do it on the present policies.

MICHELLE Well that’s what you'd expect him to say, because his prescription is for a much more radical agenda, but at the same time John Key's very conscious if he adopts that agenda he probably won't be the Prime Minister.

MIKE Exactly.

MICHELLE So it's a compromise it's a tension, it's always going to be there, Rodney is always going to want to go further than the government does.

THERESE But there is a place for ACT on the policy spectrum, and especially when National moves towards the centre as they did in 2008, it frees up a spot for ACT, so I think long term there is potentially a place for ACT, but I do think the MMP referendum is gonna be crucial and the sad thing for ACT is it's bad news for them no matter which way the MMP referendum goes.

MIKE Yeah but I also think Michelle's point is a good one, this country is moving towards the centre, it's not moving to the right, I don’t think they even believe the Washington consensus in Washington these days, and Rogernomics had no answer to the financial crisis.

THERESE But actually National moving to the centre helps ACT in a very strange way. In 2005 when Brash moved to the right, he cannibalised ACT's vote.

PAUL Cannibalised it, that’s right. What about this business I brought up with Rodney, he's got three quite major things accepted by the Nats, got the Super City, three strikes and this regulatory reform bill, is this tail wagging the dog, and is this what people detest about MMP, the small party being able to effect such major change?

MICHELLE Well I think to some extent that’s where ACT is useful to a government like National, and let's face it if there'd been a Labour government I still think we would have ended up with a Super City because that’s what the Royal Commission said, but to some extent they can say well you know Rodney's the Minister, he's the one that’s pushing it through. So there are some uses that a party like that has, so I don’t think it is really tail wagging the dog, it is a question of negotiation and it will always be that way in an MMP environment.

PAUL What about the regulatory reform bill, what do you make of this, are you boned up on this?

THERESE Well it's almost a quasi constitutional bill, because it's meant to embed and limit future parliaments which means that we should be paying far greater attention to it perhaps than we have been, but in terms of ACT going forward, I think you're right Michelle that it is interesting that they play a particular role for National, but it is also one of the things that people hate about MMP is this notion of the tail wagging the dog, and as I said with MMP even if it's kept perhaps one of the first things that we're gonna look at changing is that one electorate's the threshold in which case perhaps bad news for ACT

PAUL Exactly so.

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Response to DR PAUL REYNOLDS interview

PAUL Well it's hard not to like him.

MICHELLE BOAG – Former National President
I think number one we have to give him points for fronting up, and let's not underestimate the demands on a Chief Executive's time going through a crisis like this, he will have all sorts of people from all round the world trying to talk to him, and he's making as much as possible to front up and I think you’ve gotta give him brownie points for that. Number two there are clearly some legacy issues that Telecom is dealing with, and it was interesting to see his body language when you asked him that question because he looked away and that tells me that he does think there are some legacy issue, but I'll give you an example. I'm a big user of directory and I keep getting these people in Manila, and I still think they're employed by Telecom, of course they're not, they're not, but Telecom is sort of tarred with that brush, and thirdly.

PAUL That’s a legacy issue.

MICHELLE That is a legacy issue, and thirdly when something goes wrong every little thing that happens is magnified. So you know Vodafone has outages from time to time but at the moment no one's worried about that, they're only worried about the Telecom one, so you get this magnification of interest and scrutiny and so they are gonna have a period where they're dealing with that, doesn’t matter what they do, the little things will become big issues, just because of where they are.

PAUL Are you sorry for Telecom or angry at Telecom Therese, what's your attitude to Telecom about this? I mean given that the ad campaign, this extraordinary lavish indulgent ad campaign promised a new world, and they roll it out and it don’t work.

THERESE ARSENEAU – Political Analyst
You'd expect better, the point is you would expect better, but to pick up on Michelle's point, I mean when it rains it pours, I mean it's not just the XT but then the 111, I mean that is actually, well that’s a serious letdown in terms of communications, and then the Broadband with the contract coming up with the governments, I mean this has been more than just a bad week, it's been a disastrous week really for Telecom.

PAUL The brand damage – significant Michael?

MIKE WILLLIAMS – Former Labour President
Oh it's significant but I had to think this week, thinking about Telecom, reading a lot about it, that we've seen two iconic brands in New Zealand really attacked this week, Telecom and Toyota. Now I've been on Telecom for years, I've never been on Vodafone. I've never driven anything but a Toyota for the last 30 years. I've never had the slightest difficulty with either of them personally, now but I tell what I think the basic problem is with Telecom is a lack of redundancy in the system. This is a key piece of infrastructure, and I think they’ve got the same problem as Transpower, if one of these big expensive black boxes cuts out you really ought to have another one sitting beside it. Now that may be a place for a government subsidy, because it's in the interests of all of us that that piece of infrastructure stays up.

PAUL Can I just ask you all something else too. A senior Telecom person has been saying to me staff are coming to her all the time saying why does the public hate us, why do New Zealanders hate Telecom, or quickly find themselves able to hate Telecom.

MIKE Well I think it's partly the tall poppy syndrome we have in New Zealand, Telecom is the big one you love to hate.

PAUL Yeah but Telecom was also you know we came to know that it did its best to screw competition, that it was a great monopolistic kind of thing for years didn’t it, we still get gouged on phone call prices compared to other countries?

MICHELLE Yes, yes we do, and that’s another one of these legacy issues that he's dealing with, he's inherited that culture, I suspect he's trying to change that culture, I have to say that was a very good performance he was credible, he was honest, he was straight up, but there's a big job for him to do and he has to stick around and do the job.

THERESE And that’s the point, you know people calling for his resignation, I'd much rather him stick around and fix the problem, because New Zealand needs it.

MICHELLE The easiest thing to do would be to walk away, he's got to stick around and fix it.

PAUL Michael what are the chances of Telecom getting the Broadband roll out?

MIKE Well they're dwindling by the day, but if you listen to what Paul Reynolds said, they certainly deserve to be in the game and to be seriously considered, he's quite correct in what he said, they have been rolling out, spending a hell of a lot on fibre to their cellphone towers, and you know ideally it ought to be better than anybody else, and they’ve got a head start in this, so let's wait and see.

PAUL Alright let me now ask you what you'll be looking for politically in the week ahead – Michelle?

MICHELLE Oh more transparency issues. I think there's going to be a release of the previous government's spending, I think there's going to be more about that stuff, and of course it's easy fodder for the media, they love it.

PAUL And of course Labour quite quiet on the departure of Heatley.

THERESE Well parliament is going into recess but I'd have to say that the last three weeks of parliament the sittings have been very good for Labour, I think they picked up some real momentum, and I'll be watching to see whether that carried through. I'd like to hear a bit more about the future of Ecam, but I do think it's going to be much more about expenses.

PAUL There's a very nice contest going on between Mallard and Anne Tolley of course, and I see Tolley got Mallard a rare beauty this week when she noted that in the despatch she sent from NZEI bus, he had misspent Invercargill, and she therefore kindly offered him a copy of the national....

THERESE But overall though Trevor Mallard has been doing very well in question time against Anne Tolley.

PAUL And Ruth Dyson with Tony Ryall too.

MIKE Yeah I agree with Therese, I'm watching the battle of the giants and I do think it's slowly tipping Labour's way, but very slowly, they’ve got a bus tour happening this week, it'll be interesting to see whether anyone's interested in that. I always used to block bus tours when I was President of the Labour Party because they cost too much.

THERESE And they sing Country Road.

MIKE Oh they sing awful songs.

ENDS

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