Sunday 4th December, 2011

Q+A interview with David Cunliffe & David Shearer.

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

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE. Repeats at 9.10pm Sundays, 9:05am and 1:05pm Mondays on TVNZ 7

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DAVID SHEARER & DAVID CUNLIFFE interviewed by GUYON ESPINER

GUYON ESPINER
Thank you both for joining us. We appreciate that. I’d like to
start by asking each of you about your opponent - the real
one, the one you would be facing should you win - John
Key. Labour has characterised him as the ‘smile and wave’
photo-op guy with little substance. David Cunliffe, is that
your belief about John Key?

DAVID CUNLIFFE - Labour, New Lynn
I don’t underestimate John Key. He’s an incredibly able
politician. But I’m not put off by him, either, and I think that’s because we were both West Auckland MPs long before he was Prime Minister. I have the measure of him; he has the measure of me; and I look forward to taking him on should I get the confidence of the Labour caucus.

GUYON David Shearer, do you think he’s all style and no substance?

DAVID SHEARER - Labour, Mt Albert
I think he’s shown that a bit, and I think over the coming year or so I don’t think that people feel he’s got a real vision or a plan. He certainly has been an extraordinarily good communicator. He’s also built his party. He’s been a fresh face that’s come in for National. So he’s come in with a number of advantages. I think the rubber’s gonna hit the road when we wanna try and see a plan for moving forward, and I don’t think he’s got it yet.

GUYON OK. You came into Parliament in the Mt Albert by-election, which you won handsomely. In the time you’ve been in Parliament, what are your two greatest achievements?

DAVID SHEARER
First of all, I think trying to bring the party in line with research and development. I feel very passionately about New Zealand being not only clean and green but clever and talented, and I’ve been out to see a number of companies that are doing remarkable things. We cannot double our dairy industry. We have to use our brains and our talent to be able to drive through those innovative companies that are out there. And going around and seeing those companies and getting that on the table in our caucus has been possibly the most important thing that I’ve done.

GUYON David Cunliffe, what do you see as your top achievements in parliament, in your political career so far?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
I would say ministerial experience as Minister of Communications, unbundling Telecom and bringing competition and better value to that market, probably stabilising the health sector in a difficult time in 2007 and 2008. And I’d also like to add, I think, leading some of the policy processes in the economic area that have laid down the foundations for pretty fundamental economic change within our programme going forward.

GUYON David Shearer, you admitted you’re a little bit green. Can you honestly say that you’re ready to be the leader for the opposition and ready to be the prime minister of New Zealand?

DAVID SHEARER
Yes, I am, and I think that we have to look at- The next election is 2014. What we need is a clean break from the past. I think part of the election result was really an outcome of, in a sense, still being locked back in the past. So I represent a clean, clear break from that and a fresh face.

GUYON What do you mean ‘locked back in the past’? In what respect were you locked back in the past?

DAVID SHEARER
Well, I think that there was a feeling that the Clark government, that did some remarkable things - KiwiSaver and Kiwibank and those sorts of things - but it came to its end. I think what the Labour Party needs now is to move forward in a fresh way that unlocks the potential of the party and really moves forward in a progressive way that it’s always been a progressive party.

GUYON David Cunliffe, are you mired in the past?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
No, and indeed I would say owe less to the recent past than, perhaps, the other ticket here.

GUYON Why?
DAVID CUNLIFFE
Well, because my opponent has the support of the outgoing leadership team. They’re great people and they’ve worked really hard, but we got a result that was a good, old-fashioned shellacking.

GUYON So, we haven’t heard this explicitly. So you’re saying that Phil Goff and Annette King and those others who support Goff, they are with David Shearer?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Yeah, I think that’s my understanding.

GUYON Is that right, David Shearer?

DAVID SHEARER
I’m not going to be talking-

GUYON You know this. Why deny it? What’s the bad bit?

DAVID SHEARER
I know the people who- Because I’ve told all my colleagues that I’ve spoken to I will not reveal and talk about where they might be or might not be. We’ve got a week to go in this competition. We’ve got a week to go and I will not be pushed into revealing things that I said I wouldn’t.

GUYON Why aren’t they backing you, Mr Cunliffe?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
I think because the ticket that I’m standing for embraces quite a significant degree of change. That will include bringing through new talent on merit across the caucus, and I’ve said before that I hope David would serve on that front bench.

GUYON So, that’s a nice way of saying that they would be banished to the back benches, is it?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
No, I don’t believe that at all. They are great models of how senior colleagues have provided support and advice and brought through new ones. And it’s about honouring every person for the contribution that they can make.

GUYON Let’s get into some policy areas, and let’s see if we can be concise and rip through a few of these. David Shearer, a capital gains tax. David Cunliffe said yesterday on TV3 that this is a ‘must do’. Do you believe capital gains tax is a ‘must do’?

DAVID SHEARER
I think our economic policy was pretty much right. We will-

GUYON So capital gains is a must do?

DAVID SHEARER
I’m not gonna- Yes, I agree with capital gains tax, but I think we still need to go back on everything - and I’m not just saying it about capital gains tax – on everything and take a look at it. One week out from-

GUYON But you see that as being part-?

DAVID SHEARER
I see that as an important part of our way going forward.

GUYON David Cunliffe, should the SAS have been sent into Afghanistan in 2009? Should they be there now?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
They need to come out as quickly as possible.

GUYON Do you think it was a mistake to send them?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Well, I think they’ve been placed in a very very high-risk position, and that must have been with knowledge and forethought.

GUYON So you wouldn’t have sent them had you been prime minister

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Well, I can’t go back and reassess that because I don’t have all the information that the then-prime minister had. But I’m very very clear they need to come out now.

DAVID SHEARER
The bottom line is they shouldn’t have gone in, because quite frankly the job that they were sent in to do was to prop up some very corrupt government. We are doing some very good things up in Bamyan, where we’re doing development and stability together, where we have a bit more control over the environment there, and we’re doing some great stuff. But not there. Not the SAS.

GUYON OK. Climate change - a big issue for people on the left. Who was Labour’s climate-change spokesman going into the election?

DAVID SHEARER
Well, Charles Chauvel did some of the work to-

GUYON Who was the spokesman?

DAVID SHEARER
Well, most of the policy work was done by Charles-

GUYON Can you help him out?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Brendon Burns.

GUYON OK. David Cunliffe, the 90-day trial. The 90-day workers trial. Should it stay or should it go?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
It should go. No doubt about that. The argument that it leads to higher levels of unemployment is completely unproven. Treasury’s not supported that argument, and it’s unfair to workers that they can be fired at will with no explanation after 90 days of work.

GUYON David Shearer, the 90-day trial?

DAVID SHEARER
I don’t like it. It’s led to a number of people being laid off in the last two or three days, and I don’t think that’s very fair.

GUYON Final question of this section - what, roughly, is the GDP of New Zealand, and how would you increase it?

DAVID SHEARER
The way that I was talking about before- We have a real problem-

GUYON Do you know what the GDP is?

DAVID SHEARER
A bit over $200 billion.

GUYON Yep, and how would you increase it?

DAVID SHEARER
The issue that we face is that we- in our agricultural area, we’re coming to physical limits in our environment. We must, therefore, move into other parts of our environment, and I was talking before about the clean green economy being high tech and innovative. That’s the sort of thing where Denmark, Finland, Sweden have gone. I’m very passionate about moving into that direction.

GUYON David Cunliffe?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Just under $200 billion, and we need to really give this a shape by increasing significantly our R&D investment. We must develop - as David said - new industry sectors alongside and on top of our primary base. There isn’t enough productivity gain, not enough value generation simply from primary industry if we want first world standard of living.

GUYON OK, let’s step back a bit here and talk about philosophies of the Labour Party a little bit. David Cunliffe, start with you this time. Labour’s core values - what are they?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
I think they’re about equality of opportunity and reasonable equality of outcome for people. They’re about every Kiwi kid growing up in a safe home with a good school, access to a doctor, able with the basics in place to make the very best of their lives.

GUYON Doesn’t sound a lot different from what John Key says.

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Well, there is a big difference, and I do not stand, and my team doesn’t stand, for a paler shade of blue. If you want a paler shade of blue, don’t vote for me - that’s not my ticket.

GUYON Is that what you’re offering?

DAVID SHEARER
I think the key values of the Labour Party - and they’re values that I think I represent in the work that I’ve done all over the world - standing up for the little guy, whether it be the people who are working hard in my electorate or, for me, in my background, trying to get a little guy through the Israeli checkpoint to get to a Palestinian hospital or something like that. But standing up for the little guy. But it’s also about opportunity, and it stems a lot from our education system. The opportunities that we can provide through education.

GUYON Can I talk about the Labour Party? Do you believe the unions have too much influence over the Labour Party?

DAVID SHEARER
The unions are a core part of the Labour Party. They were there-

GUYON Do they have too much influence?

DAVID SHEARER
I’ll get to that. I just want to establish that as a beginning. Our problem is not that they have too much influence. It’s the membership which has shrunk around them. And so we need to build the Labour Party up to be a broader, bigger church. The Labour Party at the moment, the rank and file, when I go along to those meetings, frankly, it’s boring. We should be- We are a progressive party. We’ve got a huge tradition of changing New Zealand in big, big ways, but we don’t have those debates any more. That’s what we should be aiming for the Labour Party to become.

GUYON David Cunliffe, should the unions continue to have special voting rights and significant influence over candidate selection processes?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Well, let’s start with why unions are there for Labour and with Labour. Labour is a labour movement. It’s there to represent the interests of working New Zealanders. Now, the demographics are changing, the nature of work’s changing-

GUYON Sure, but in the private sector there’s only about one in ten of us in a union, so is this representative of broader New Zealand?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
And that’s really important for us to understand

GUYON Don’t you have to change to reflect that?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Yes, yes, I think we do. We need to do, I think, what Moira Coatsworth has said - she’s our party president - do an organisational review and a constitutional review of Labour, to make sure that it keeps up with the times. Now, I’m not going to try and pre-empt what the outcome of that will be, but I do come back to the foundations of Labour - our Labour movement has an industrial wing and a political wing. We also have to recognise changing demographics. The reality is in New Zealand that many, many of our people are going to be Maori and Polynesian, and I’m very much standing on a ticket not of tokenism but honouring that reality and saying it’s essential that we walk the talk about the Treaty partnership, about bicultural New Zealand, about the new realities of modern Auckland, which are that Pacifica are essential for Labour, our new Asian communities are really essential. So diversity is not an optional extra. We must embrace our future and, through that, come to a vision of a new New Zealand that is confident in its new identity.

GUYON OK. David Shearer, you’ve written in the past about private military companies perhaps running UN peacekeeping missions. Now, I know this is 10 years ago or so, but-

DAVID SHEARER
More than that, yeah.

GUYON Yeah, ’98, I think. But I just wonder what your attitude now is about private sector involvement in government areas, such as prisons, because we’ve seen under the National government private companies contracting to run prisons. Is that something you’ve got a problem with?

DAVID SHEARER
I wrote about that sort of thing back at a time before 9/11, and I actually thought that some of the militaries that were contracted by governments themselves were actually upholding more human rights than people were having to be protected by the government-

GUYON Sure. I’m just trying to gauge what your attitude is to the private sector now. Private prisons-

DAVID SHEARER
I believe that we need to make- If we were to go down that road, the case would have to be made. There’s a question about PPP - private-public partnerships - around roading. If you’re going to put a road through, for example, that you have to pay on, if there’s an option that there’s an unpaid road, then I think that’s not a bad option. We need to look at ways in which we can- that enable us to go down a private way but without discriminating or making it unfair for others.

GUYON Have you got an issue with the partial privatisation of state assets? Is that an evil policy?

DAVID SHEARER
I don’t like it, no, because I think ultimately-

GUYON Could you rule it out under a David Shearer-led government?

DAVID SHEARER
I certainly don’t- I would not want to sell our sovereign assets-

GUYON You’d rule that out?

DAVID SHEARER
I would not want to go forward with that.

GUYON David Cunliffe?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Let me say two things. The right of incarceration is a right that I believe needs to be held unto the state, so I would oppose the privatisation of prisons. I wouldn’t- I’ll say three things. I wouldn’t rule out all PPPs, but we have to be realistic that the cost of capital to the private partner is almost always far higher than for the Crown as sovereign. So there has to be an overwhelming case why you’d look at it. Some large road projects, provided there’s an alternative, that’s one way. Let me finally say this-

GUYON Make it brief, cos we’re running out of time.

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Yeah, SOE partial privatisation, no. I don’t stand for a paler shade of blue, and I wanna look down the barrel and say this - if the government is going to sell off precious state assets, then we would not rule out renationalising some of them. People need to be aware of that regulatory risk.

GUYON You’d buy them back?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
We’d look very hard at that.

GUYON Is that a smart use of money?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
I think the smart use of money is making these assets actually work for New Zealand much more. When we look at the need for alternative energies, reducing the gravitas for our power companies so that they can’t move into new energy areas because they just don’t have the ability to raise the capital for it is not in New Zealand’s interest. I just don’t see selling power companies to - largely what’s going to happen Australian companies - as being in New Zealand’s interest.

GUYON OK, quick strategic question to finish for each of you. David Cunliffe, Nanaia Mahuta, who you’re proposing should be your deputy, is she the best Labour MP in the caucus?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
It’s about complementarily, and let me say-

GUYON Is she?

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Yes, for me as my running mate, she is the right fit and an incredibly able person who every member of that caucus trusts because she is absolutely honest, straight-forward and will help us bind that caucus. And can I say this? Hand on heart, I understand that I have things to learn, that I need to build bridges with some colleagues, and I’m committed to doing that, and Nanaia will be someone who will help that process.

GUYON OK, David Shearer, to finish, at least Mr Cunliffe is being up front about who his ticket is. You can’t tell us who’s supporting you or who is gonna be your deputy or who is going to be in any of your positions. Why not?

DAVID SHEARER
Because that’s actually ultimately a question of caucus and our colleagues, and I don’t want to come on national television, Guyon, and start talking about my negotiations with my colleagues. I said to them that they would be confidential. I said to them that I would not be offering anybody anything, and I will stand by my word.

GUYON All right, we better leave it there, but thank you both for joining us this morning.

ENDS

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