Sunday 14th June 2009: Q+A’s panel this week – Paul Holmes, Therese Arseneau, former Reserve Bank Governor, Dr Don Brash & EPMU President, Andrew Little.

The panel discussion on the Mt Albert by-election and Richard Worth’s resignation has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Panel Discussion With Paul Holmes, Therese Arseneau, Don Brash And Andrew Little

PAUL So, what do we make of David Shearer’s win – he was always going to be a safe pair of hands wasn’t he?

ANDREW David has been, always was, an outstanding candidate, he was selected for that reason. And amidst all the claiming the party had seven or eight weeks ago about having mishandled Mt Albert and it’s election, the party was focused on one thing - choosing the best candidate. It got it and the result last night demonstrated that.

PAUL What do you make of David Shearer?

THERESE I think he’s a top quality candidate and it was interesting in your intro, you said it doesn’t make any difference in parliament, to Labour in Parliament, it doesn’t make any difference numerically but I think in terms of the quality of the candidate I think it’s a welcome addition.

PAUL Is it Phil Goff seizing control? Of the machinery?

THERESE (Laughs)…it’s never as simple as one thing is it in terms of an election outcome. It was a by-election where Labour has traditionally been strong, where the machine … it was interesting watching Labour yesterday in Mt Albert, that machine is still a well oiled machine. A bit of help perhaps by Melissa Lee not performing as well so lots…and lots of local issues I think that helped.

PAUL Melissa Lee a disappointment to you..was she?

DON No I don’t think so. I think this was always a by-election which National could not win, it’s been a Labour seat for a very long time and I think I’m right in saying that the candidate for an incumbent government has never won a by-election in New Zealand political history- so it was always an election, and I can testify to that in my own case in 1980…

ANDREW Except the talk a few weeks ago was that National did have a chance of winning it….the margin, the difference between votes in the general election last year, party vote 2,500.. so there was a lot of talk about this could be a radical change for Mt Albert but National had the wrong candidate…they had a duff candidate.

PAUL Well was she a duff candidate or was she…..?

DON Well I don’t think that’s right. There were some peculiar factors in Mt Albert – the motorway being the obvious one….

PAUL Oh come on Don, you know she took it too lightly on Q+A when she came on and…

DON Well, let’s face it. National refused to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to save two hundred houses at an average cost of seven million dollars a house. It was never something which was justified…and she paid the price for that.

ANDREW It wasn’t just the Waterview tunnel – I mean even as late as Thursday when she turned up to a union meeting, a union meeting of low paid workers, saying that she thought she was paid $2 an hour, I mean it just smacked of such a woeful lack of judgement that clearly that Melissa wasn’t capable of winning the campaign.

PAUL She could be clumsy, she was clumsy

THERESE Well the bottom line if you ask political insiders what do you need from a candidate in an election, the best advice is to avoid blunders. And her problem was she had too many of those blunders. Now I feel badly for her because by-elections are very difficult beasts…because it’s a local election, but the problems are magnified because it’s followed as if it’s a presidential or a national election - you’ve got the national media traipsing around everywhere you go. No fumble is a small fumble –it’s magnified.

ANDREW From the party’s point of view it’s also an opportunity to intensify the use of your resources so you actually have access to more help and support and resources than you do in an general election campaign.

THERESE So the big question is – did National adequately back her up. Because it seemed on occasions that she was wrong footed in terms of not knowing announcements that were coming up or not being well prepared.

PAUL Just a quick answer on that Don

DON I don’t think that’s true. I think Jonathon Coleman was the campaign manager and in fact I think he did a very good job. So I’m.. one thing is clear it doesn’t represent the National mood of the country. National polls suggest National is still well ahead of Labour.

PAUL Can I move on to Richard Worth – the resignation late Friday afternoon. Inevitable Dr Brash?

DON I think it was inevitable. Sadly. I think it was inevitable. Yes.

PAUL Did he ever really fit in to the Caucus?

DON Oh absolutely. I mean I was leader for a time when he was a member of the Caucus, and he was an active member of the Caucus and made a contribution to it.

PAUL He is damaged of course. I suppose the question being asked now is is the Government being damaged now because of the Worth thing? You heard Shearer saying that no one was mentioning Dr Worth in Mt Albert…so is the government damaged, is the prime minister damaged?

THERESE Depends on whether you’re talking short term or long term. I think most of the public have moved on, in fact they probably moved on a week ago. I watch politics and I always think these sorts of stories have a longer shelf life inside the
beltway than it does outside. But I do think these sorts of things do add up over time. And so I think longer term a government starts to look error prone, or it starts to look
more vulnerable to it does have an impact I think longer term.

ANDREW I think there’s something else too though, we still don’t know the reason why Dr Worth was sacked from Cabinet that reason hasn’t been disclosed. But I think if you have a look at the way the Prime Minister, John Key, has handled Richard Worth and now Melissa Lee, he basically, when he saw that there was a lack of popular support he simply withdrew. He’s not shown a great deal of loyalty to his troops.

PAUL Well a very difficult thing to manage I suppose – Dr Worth. But apparently he was not at Melissa Lee’s do last night, is that correct?

ANDREW Well he took the day off on Friday – the last day of campaigning – when you would expect the party leader to at least front up and show up – but he took the day off and had it in Taupo.

THERESE I do think National is at a point now – they’ve been in government for a good length of time – they’ve had some issues, some serious issues I would say - in the last few weeks, what they do next will really define them. Do they step back, do they work out where they’ve made mistakes? And do they correct them? And that will be the test of whether they’re going to be a government that’s going to be successful.

DON Now let’s keep this in perspective, I mean the big event of the last month was the Budget. That was the big event. And Bill English managed to avoid a down grade of New Zealand’s credit rating. Now people tend to forget that but it’s hugely significant.

THERESE I think the public remembers that. I think the media tends to run around and follow scandal but I think for the public the issues that are important to the public are the Budget – will the swine flu shut their kids’ local school – I mean these are the things the people are thinking about.

PAUL Don’t touch me. Don’t come too close!

ENDS

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