4 Apr 2007

Rt Hon Winston Peters Speech

Never Judge A Book By Its Cover

Professor Walsh, the editors of the book, Stephen Levine and Nigel Roberts, and Victoria University Press - thank you for the invitation to launch this book - 'The Baubles of Office'.

This book highlights the validity of the maxim never to judge a book by its cover.

You see, while the content contained within is meritorious and useful, the cover is both mischievous and erroneous.

While on the surface it may seem flattering to have altered the political lexicon, thanks in part to the publication of this book, it is really based on a false understanding of the term in question.

Indeed it is highly likely that future generations of political science students will reflect on the 2005 election - with its many nuanced consequences - and wonder with some bemusement why the term "the baubles of office" came to symbolise its outcome.

That was not the intention when it was coined.

As the source of the phrase, it was regrettable when the media missed the subtle irony of its use.

But it still astounds me that those among the echelons of our academic community failed to grasp the ironic value of the phrase.

We expect you to educate those who need it, not echo their ignorance.

You see a 'bauble' is defined as "a trinket or decoration not worth having".

So to state that one does not seek to have something not worth having would seem a totally reasonable proposition for a politician to make - can you see the irony already?

The cover also contains a photograph of a telephone conversation with a red and a blue phone. A press conference was held to illustrate the impossibility of what the media were asking at the time - who will you go with?

The only answer to that question was - and always will be - that the people will decide.

The element of humour was designed to reinforce that point.

Sadly, only a few in the media actually got the point and regrettably they clearly did not tell their mates who were busy rushing off to tell the world what they thought New Zealand First's intentions were.

What is particularly sad about this aspect of New Zealand life is how many of those who occupy the upper levels of our professions have such a lack of humour. They seem incapable of a good laugh or even a smile most of the time.

But to return to the point - gaining a substantive confidence and supply agreement, full of meaningful policy concessions along with a significant ministerial post, seems eminently consistent with rejecting a trinket or decoration not worth having - in other words the baubles of office.

Now for a little bit of history.

The New Zealand First leader was sacked from National's front bench in 1988.

He was sacked as Minister of Maori Affairs in October 1991.

He was sacked from National's caucus in October 1992.

And he walked away from the roles of Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer in August 1998.

I say walked away because I would not and could not go along with the then Prime Minister's obsession with a retrenchment budget in that year.

She then set about to conspire with some of my colleagues to get rid of me. And a little hint to those trying to right me off right now - who is still here and who is not?

Needless to say that when I walked it wasn't from a ministerial house because I didn't have one. It wasn't from a ministerial car, because I didn't have one of those either.

I remind you of these events because on no occasion was I prepared to compromise on the political platforms that had brought me to those positions.

Since New Zealand First was formed nearly 14 years ago we have under-spent our parliamentary budget by nearly $2 million.

During that time hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal money have been spent on causes such as the wine box.

Why? Because it was right to do so when the system was clearly failing.

Hence our enduring perplexity at those who should know better continuing to indulge in a misrepresentation of the term used in the book's title.

But to give credit where it is due, at least one contributor to this book understood the matters at hand. Jane Clifton quite rightly, on page 386 for those that are interested, notes - and these are her words - "he got no credit for the nobility of this resolve, entirely genuine though it was". She then added to her credit "nor did he get much credit for nobility when he abandoned this position in the light of the knife edge election result".

Thank heavens for a commentator with the prescience and insight to understand how things really were.

However, compounding the erroneous interpretation of the term baubles, is the notion that Labour was prepared to offer concessions and National was not. This is completely false.

A more accurate picture in that context would read Labour - concessions, National - as many concessions as it would take for you to consider joining this most unstable and unholy alliance.

Put simply the only thing binding Don Brash and Tariana Turia, not to mention Rodney Hide and Peter Dunne, was that they despised Helen Clark, although for very different reasons.

It was a relationship which had disaster written all over it.

But here is the point - there wasn't anything they weren't prepared to offer in order to secure power.

It smacked of desperation and New Zealand First realised very quickly which was the most stable and only real option in the 57/57 Mexican standoff which confronted us.

We had known this on election night, and hence our conduct of silence in the ensuing weeks.

But we digress.

We are here to launch this book analysing and describing the 2005 election and its outcome.

There is no question that it is a comprehensive summary of the events surrounding the 2005 election and its aftermath.

The balance between empirical analysis and the more normative assessments contained in the book are a credit to its editors.

But as we all now know, it contains some glaring omissions, and a more complete version would contain a companion copy of the Hollow Men.

The 2005 election was really a story of two great battles.

The first was a battle whose roots began with the infestation of the Fourth Labour government with radical extremist ideologues prepared to sell the heart and soul of this nation to the highest foreign bidder.

Sadly, that infestation had spread to the once great National party in the early 1990s shifting its malicious intent from our economy to tearing our social fabric apart.

Many of us had hoped this battle had been fought and lost with the demise of Ruth Richardson.

But these forces, not satisfied with having sold off the family silver, sat below the surface waiting for a new champion to hoist above the parapet.

In some ways we should feel pity for their choice - the ungainly Reserve Bank Governor, a man most unsuited to the demands of politics.

Some of us recognised the presence of the pervasive influences propping the banker up - we knew the duplicitous agendas as we had seen them before.

And our response to him had to be, and was, clear.

What we did not know was the scale of financial resources and the lengths these puppet masters were prepared to go in order to achieve their ends. It was of a magnitude unseen in New Zealand politics.

You see while on one level the 2005 election was a contrived battle about tax cuts and race - this election was never really about tax cuts and race.

It was about the unspoken and unwritten intentions of extremist malevolent forces who had unfinished business.

Some will look at the success of National in raising their vote in 2005 and will have missed the real outcome of this underlying battle.

Those who were prepared to confront the hollow men and their unseen forces had won.

And this battle continued long after the 2005 election, with we in New Zealand First having paid a considerable price for having confronted and ultimately slaying the beast.

But it is a price we are prepared to pay. We are not dead, not even close - and one side of that battle will contest the 2008 election and the other will not. Not with the same personality anyway.

So we must now focus on the second great battle of the 2005 election - the survival of MMP.

The irony is that just as the institutional knowledge and experience of how to best make MMP work has taken root, after more than a decade of the system, the symmetry of parliament has returned to a frightening semblance of First Past the Post politics.

Much of the responsibility for this must lie at the feet of the New Zealand media who continue their misguided practice of portraying politics as only a decision between two choices. It is not.

Indeed, this parliamentary term has seen the first genuine embrace of multi party politics since the advent of MMP. Parties from across the political divide are working together in a way not seen before.

But the challenge is now for the new parties to remain relevant, constructive and an entrenched feature of MMP. A reversion to a two party system would be a disaster for democracy in New Zealand.

While I can only speak for New Zealand First, we are prepared to take up the challenge of remaining a viable new party and a constructive feature of MMP politics.

So in that vein I would commend this book, despite its misguided title and cover illustration, to students of politics, both academic and in the wider community.

Most of it is eminently readable and informative.

So again congratulations to the books editors, to Victoria University Press and to all those involved.

While you could have found a better cover, the content is certainly worth the price.

ENDS

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