Tuesday 29th March, 2011

TRANSCRIPT: Labour Leader, Phil Goff interviewed on TV ONE’s Breakfast at 7:20am this morning.

The full length video interview can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/Breakfast

PHIL GOFF interviewed by CORIN DANN

Corin: Well he's been criticised for his handling of the Darren Hughes affair, and today the Labour Leader will meet with senior MPs in Dunedin, where the controversy will no doubt be top of the agenda for his take on that. I'm joined now by Labour Leader Phil Goff. Good morning Mr Goff.

Phil: Good morning Corin.

Corin: Now you have faced criticism of your handling of this affair, given that do you expect a vote on your leadership today?

Phil: Absolutely not

Corin: Why not given there has been – and I've done a little bit of looking around here – I can't find any political commentators who think you’ve handled this well.

Phil: Well I'm confident in the way that I've handled it, I think that I've handled it in the right way and I'll tell you what I mean by that. The commentators are saying politically you should have cut him adrift, you should have prejudiced the case, put it out into the open arena, and fed him to the sharks. That’s not my view, I considered very carefully what the options were. If I'd gone public when I first heard that a complaint had been laid, I would have done three things. One, I would have prejudiced Darren Hughes' case, because people would have said well he's been dumped by the Labour Leader, he must know something about it that we don’t. Secondly I would have risked the privacy of the complainant, and I noticed that the complainant's mother was very strong on that, that she did not want this publicity around her son's case, and thirdly I would have been regarded by the Police as interfering in the course of their independent investigation. Now the easy thing politically for me to do, and I knew it at the time, was simply say no we'll throw it out into the public arena, that wouldn’t have been fair, and that would have been a political decision but not the right decision. If I'm gonna do one thing in politics it'll be the right thing, not the political thing.

Corin: That’s fine, that’s an argument that you have put forward strongly and people understand. What about what happened next? What about where was the plan, what about why you didn’t talk to Andrew Little about it? what about why it felt like it was sort of a moving feast over two days?

Phil: Where was the plan? The plan was very clear and I made it absolutely clear to Darren Hughes. We would await the Police investigation, because I had no way of knowing the complainant's point of view, or whether there was a substance to this complaint. When I had the outcome of that Police investigation I told Darren there were two courses that I would choose between. If there was no substance to that complaint, or if they decided not to press charges I would still be relieving him of his responsibilities and putting him on the back bench, because I think there was a serious misjudgement that he made to get himself into that position.

Corin: But you didn’t do that straight away.

Phil: No I'm sorry, that was after I'd heard what the result of the Police investigation was. We're still to hear that. If the Police investigation concluded that they would press charges, then I told Darren that both he and I knew that he would have to resign from parliament, even before the trial, because it would be impossible for him to carry out his role. I think that was the right thing to do, that was the plan, but then this was leaked in the media and now as we've seen in the last 24 hours it's trial by media where allegations are thrown up publicly, and then dismissed even by the alleged complainants.

Corin: The commentators are saying that it was about judgement and the fact that regardless of whether Darren Hughes has or hasn’t done anything wrong, you yourself have even said his judgement was lacking, and sufficiently lacking for him to be removed of his portfolios, but that didn’t happen straight away.

Phil: No, because I was told that the Police investigation would conclude within a week to two weeks, and I was content to wait for that so that I had the facts at my fingertips to know the right decision to make. Had I relieved Darren of his responsibilities Corin earlier on, you and every other journalist in the country would be demanding to know why that had happened and I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.

Corin: Alright today, what's gonna happen today? I mean you will be discussing this? You feel that you haven’t done anything wrong. It appears people within your part may feel differently. Are you going to ask them to come forward and reveal themselves. I mean is there a witch hunt on here?

Phil: Oh there's no such thing as a witch hunt. Look I have a Labour front bench of 12 people, we will be discussing a range of things today. Darren Hughes will be at the top of that list of things to discuss, but I've watched with interest as the media have speculated about a change in leadership, and I wonder about that because I know that every media outlet in the country has been ringing around all of my colleagues and they’ve got a unanimous answer. So I wonder why you still speculate about what you know is wrong.

Corin: Do you think though that you can still win the next election?

Phil: Oh absolutely. Look this next election isn't about this affair or the Pansy Wong affair, or anything that is pretty much a sideline issue, it's about…

Corin: How are you gonna do it though?

Phil: Oh look by focusing on the key issues, and that’s a responsibility of the news media as well. When I go out there I spent the weekend out around the communities. People are talking to me not about Darren Hughes, they're talking to me about the cost of living. They're talking to me about the fear about the security of their jobs. They're talking about the sale of assets. They're talking about kids not getting a decent start in life. Those are the things that this election will be determined on, and the people will be alongside Labour in that.

Corin: With all due respects you can't blame the media for focusing on the Darren Hughes saga and not focusing on some of these other issues. Why blame the media for that?

Phil: Look I'd love it Corin if I can get a front page headline saying that you know the pledges that were made sincerely faithfully before the election on Working for Families, on Kiwi Saver, on not increasing GST, all of those promises made were broken, there was absolute dishonesty there. If that was a headline in the newspaper yes I'd say that’s touching on key issues that affect people's lives, but of course something like this because there's a human interest I suppose in it, becomes what's the headline. So we can get the headlines on those sort of things, what's really important I think for the politicians and for the media is to focus on the things that are really worrying people and what can be done about that.

Corin: Have you got a good relationship with Andrew Little, your President?

Phil: I have got a good relationship with Andrew, yeah.

Corin: I'm curious, you said that it was a caucus matter this, and that’s why you didn’t tell him about the incident, but I recall being in parliament that presidents usually went to caucus meetings. I mean why wasn't it mentioned?

Phil: Because I didn’t mention this to caucus, and I didn’t mention it to him, and that was in line with my belief that the Police needed to get on and do the job that’s their responsibility without interference.

Corin: How could it be a caucus matter and then you didn’t even tell caucus?

Phil: Well because the fact of the matter is, if this had been spread out amongst a wider group of people, then it would have defeated what I believed was right and proper in the situation, that the Police should be able to do their job unimpeded, that I should not prejudice the case one way or the other, and I should not jeopardise the privacy of the complainant. So you know when I made that decision I made the decision that I was not going to go out and broadcast that to caucus or a wide range of people. I would let the Police get on and do their job. That’s what would have happened in the case of any other individual, and I believe that a parliamentarian is entitled to no more and no less rights than anyone else. I can sleep at night believing that I didn’t the right thing, if I'd decided for my own political purposes to sacrifice what I believe is fundamentally right, you know the principle of a right of everyone to get a fair go and the right of justice, then there's no reason for me to be in politics. What I did I did from the heart and I stand by that.

Corin: And you feel that that’s not gonna cost you your job?

Phil: Oh it certainly won’t cost me my job. Colleagues understand why I made the decision that I did. There’ll be a variety of opinions on that, that’s true of any group of people, and there's a variety of opinions out in the public. Corin you know that it's so easy that if a complaint is made against you, particularly of a sexual nature and you're judged through the media, you're not gonna get a fair go, and that’s exactly true of Darren Hughes and anybody else. Let the Police do their job, let's make our judgement on the basis of their fair investigation.

Corin: Labour Leader Phil Goff, thank you very much for your time.

ENDS

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