Sunday 25th October 2009

Q+A’s Panel Discussions with Paul Holmes, Dr Therese Arseneau, Mike Moore and Matt McCarten.

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 DISCUSSIONS led by PAUL HOLMES

Response to Metiria Turei & Peter Shirtcliffe interview

PAUL We've just heard from both sides of the MMP debate what did our panel think. First of all Therese, I talked to Peter Shirtcliffe and Metiria Turei about the process, this 2011 referendum and then if we need another one 2014, is it too long?

THERESE ARSENEAU – Political Analyst
Look I think what it's done it's set the timing so that we maximise voter turnout, and what we do know is if you have referendum that coincides with a general election you get a higher turnout, so I would expect that that’s the reasoning behind it. The other question is, is the government, the best group to actually set out the rules for a process like this, and this is a basic constitutional change. We put a lot of faith in our elections, we don’t have an entrenched constitution, we don’t have any other way really of formally checking the government, so it's important. So the best practices for process for constitutional reform should not be in the hands of the politicians themselves, or you know it needs to have some sort of independence, transparency, and the public needs to be consulted on it. Now having said that I've read the cabinet paper and I think Simon Power has done a very good job, I mean he's played a flat bat, he's been very fair so far in the process.

PAUL Matt McCarten do we need a referendum at all, or do we need to look at MMP at all?

MATT McCARTEN – Union Leader
I think Shirtcliffe is right, is that people when they voted for it, they thought they were going to get another referendum, that was the small print. So I think there is a matter of honour. I actually am sympathetic to his position, put the options up and do it by preferential voting instead of waiting a term, but we're gonna go through the process. Can I just make on comment though, it's that one thing if was watching Metiria and Peter and you kinda think the old guard and the new guard, and I thought about the last time I saw Peter debating this was with Rod Donald, and you know that Rod's party the Greens are actually a genuine MMP party, so is ACT and so is the Maori Party. The issues that Peter and yourself were raising, the problems with MMP, are really from First Past the Post ex politicians, Winston Peters, Jim Anderton, and Peter Dunne, they were never genuine MMP parties, they're around the cult and when those individuals go their parties go, but those other three parties it has made it more diverse and they have legitimate constituencies.

PAUL Mike Moore, the process, do we need a referendum.

MIKE MOORE – Former Prime Minister
Look I think this is rigged and dangerous, it's ad hoc, you know we've got a committee working on the size of parliament, the length of parliamentary terms, bill on a republic. We do ad hoc things, we stumble into this because it's fashionable, a new flag, we get rid of the honour system, we bring it back, we get rid of the Privy Council, we may bring it back, we get rid of QCs we may bring it back, these are fundamental issues of huge consequence that shape the nature of our country. I've been arguing for a decade we ought to bundle these together beyond the passions of a political cycle, beyond the dangers of an economic cycle, and walk our way through. Queen Elizabeth is not immortal, a bill on the Head of State is coming into the parliament, a committee working, all ad hoc, no coherence, no substance, no pathway to walk our way through.

PAUL You want a major constitutional conference?

MIKE Pure constitutional convention, serious adult stuff, over a decade, it doesn’t matter, to put the Treaty into the context inside that. I have a deep yearning for New Zealand to do this.

PAUL We hear you but let's talk about specifically MMP which is what people are talking about this week. I mean has it worked, we might have stumbled around to see what they were doing in the mid 90s.

MIKE Obviously there's a good side to it. I mean the Greens are great aren't they, they’ve called the old parties working out of self interest, of course they're looking after self interest - but the diversity issue is an important one it has worked, I sense the people would like to see fewer List MPs because the party bosses control who they are and while you’ve increased diversity in parliament in terms of ethnics, you haven't created more diversity in terms of opinions cos they’ve all gotta suck up to the party bosses.

PAUL Therese what do you think about too many List MPs?

THERESE Well that’s one of the things I believe Labour's proposing to shift the balance. You know it's interesting if you step back and you ask people and we have done series of studies where we've asked people. People like the broad strokes of MMP, in fact there's very strong support for the notion of multi party government or coalition governments very single party government, and the interesting thing to pick up on a point that Matt made is that there is a real age divide here. Young people, anybody under the age of about 34 are very supportive of MMP and very supportive of coalition government, and we have to remember these are the people who are going to be voting into the future.

PAUL In 2014.

THERESE And the other really crucial thing MMP has done, I mean voter turnout is dropping around the western world, and particularly among young people. What we've found is MMP has actually helped to halt that decline here. We've done better off because we've switched to MMP, and it comes down to this notion that it's important that people can see that their vote counts, and you know if you're a young person voting in Ireland under First Past the Post and you want to go Green, it's very hard to believe under First Past the Post for example that that vote really counted or mattered. Under MMP the party vote does count, and that’s made a big difference for why young people have become engaged in MMP.

PAUL Good analysis, Matt.

MATT Yes I think it just comes down that MMP has brought new faces, it's made it more moderate you know and Clark when she was the Prime Minister had to deal with the different parties, it wasn’t so bad because she'd go to Winston for more conservative issues, and go to the Greens when it's a more progressive position, and Key's got ACT and he can go to the Maori Party which suits them too. I mean National's 60% in the polls, where has that ever happened, when Labour was there they were riding high, so it actually shows a confidence that people – I do agree with Mike you know as the parties have dwindled there is a control thing and those List MPs there might be more types of them, but they all sing the same song when the whip comes out, because they don’t have the right power bases.

PAUL At the same time they're checked of course, even thought he bosses may want the List MPs to do something, the boss of the party's still checked by the coalition partner. Mike you don’t like MMP?

MIKE I like Members of Parliament being accountable to an electorate, but I concede that the diversity issue is serious, and so if you had 80/20 rather than 60/60, and I think we need more transparent and open parties, but can I come back to bundling these issues together, you're gonna be here talking about a republic, you're gonna be here talking about a committee that reports on the length and size of parliaments, you're gonna be here talking about a flag, you're gonna be here talking about a Privy Council. We have to be adult about this and toughen up and see over a period of time all these issues. I sense a yearning in this country, not now but eventually to have a post racial New Zealand, that’s what Obama won on, and someone one day will say, we're climbing to the mountain top, the load has been heavy, we're settling the indifferences and injustices of the past, we can see the promised land, the shining city on the hill that will be New Zealand, and this can be done over a generation, it doesn’t have to happen now.

THERESE There's no one perfect electoral system and what we need now is to have a sensible debate, I mean let's agree....

PAUL What as broad as Mike says?

THERESE Well I think eventually we are going to have to have that discussion, at the moment what we have in front of us though is a very real discussion on the electoral system.

MATT Every party with vested interest is about power and whilst it's there there's never going to be a sensible debate....

MIKE Beyond the passions of any one election, beyond the electoral cycle, the economic cycle and do it – I went to the Australian Constitutional Convention, you study how they did in South Africa, it has to be set up in a way that the vested interests of the Greens who'd be out of parliament without MMP, and the vested interests of my dear party and the National Party are beyond it.

THERESE The independent panel that they're promising to appoint will be crucial to run that publicity campaign, and I would argue that ultimately what the public needs to decide, I mean the broad strokes of this debate are not just about MMP but rather do we want a proportional system or not. You know proportional with its strengths and weaknesses versus First Past the Post, and I would put supplementary member in that category as well, it leads more often to single party majority government.

PAUL As Matt says you know really the issue here is that people felt they were promised a referendum and they're gonna get it I suppose. Who will win MMP at the 2011 will MMP win..

MATT I suspect it will if it's a blunt sort of instrument, it's sort of First Past the Post or MMP, but I think that the focus should go how to make MMP better, and it seems extraordinarily unfair that Winston Peters gets more votes nationally than ACT yet ACT is actually called the shots.

THERESE And the cabinet absolutely, the cabinet paper that Simon Power brought to cabinet actually has the paragraph in there that allows for that, and suggests that the government if the debate in the public centres around the tweaking of MMP that that needs to come on the agenda as well.

MIKE I tremble at the thought of tweaking. I don’t want it next year, I want it in a decade and we will move beyond this.

Response to LORD PATTEN interview

PAUL Copenhagen he says is going to be as important as Versailles, do you agree with that?

MIKE Yes, look that was a very good interview Paul, you didn’t interrupt him, and he was able to make a case, that should be the issues we're talking about rather than arguing, to present the future. Now I sit on a board with this bloke he is a very substantial person. I think the point he makes about the domino theory in Afghanistan is spot on. It's always been about Pakistan.

PAUL Can I just go to what he actually said on that because this was a big call on his part.

Lord Patten: 'In Vietnam talked about dominoes and I think it was a bogus metaphor, in Afghanistan I really believe the dominoes argument, I think that if we were to walk away from Afghanistan we'd find the props kicked from under democratic politicians in Pakistan.'

PAUL And then what Mike?

MIKE Well it's always been about Pakistan, these are false boundaries drawn up by some Liverpool surveyor, and the tribes and families move back and forth, and this is as serious as it gets, this brings into focus the India Pakistan issue, it is a bit destabilising issue, it is not a small thing. It is an adult thing, and it is very dangerous, and China and India and the grown ups and the adults are going to have to focus on this, are focusing on it to be fair.

PAUL We read the other day the Pentagon are getting very impatient with Obama's reluctance to commit what those 40,000 more troops. Is he right to hold out a strategy and exit strategy?

MIKE Absolutely, and to think it through, winning a war for a short time can be quite easy then what happens, and if you study the history of Afghanistan they beat the Soviets, they beat the British Empire, this is not a state, it's a state of mind and the Taliban are pretty as evil as you get in terms of our values, there is no military solution, there never really is, there's only a political solution, but the absence of a military response pushes away your chance to negotiate a political settlement.

PAUL Matt McCarten climate change, he's passionate about climate change, he said every one of us has gotta change the way we behave.

MATT Yeah well it will be nice to see when to talks to Key and Hide about that because they seem to have a different view, but I wouldn’t put it up there, I think that countries – they are driven by politics and that they will do deals which suit them, it may be as important as Versailles and I hope the outcome is not as mad, but it's sort of another step, I think politicians will always go for the lowest common denominator and it will continue, I think we've got politicians in our cabinet who still deny there's even a problem.

PAUL Yes he's quite ruthless in the book with the deniers Therese?

THERESE But he's also got some problems on his own patch, I mean in Europe we're seeing a divide on climate change between the East and the West, you know those four Warsaw Pact countries he talked about who are still developing, and they’ve gone to court in Europe and have actually won their first case, Poland and Estonia I think it was, and six more countries are challenging it, and the court has said that the EU had overstepped its bounds in terms of setting limits for those countries, so there's a fight there in Europe as well.

MIKE This is not easy but it's doable, it won't be like this though, cos they lasted six months, it's the first international conference on in French. The first time that the President had left his country for the conference, but if you look back 50 years the Thames was polluted, the Great Lakes were catching on fire in America, you couldn’t get water out of the Rhine, and this can be a doable thing moved over a period of time. Do not expect at Copenhagen to suddenly get a breakthrough, it will be a process.

MATT Cos countries like China and India have got a good case, they say it's alright for you lot who are developed and made the mess and now you want to stop our economic growth.

MIKE This is the paradox of the whole thing, it is a paradox, unless you keep oil prices around a hundred dollars a barrel you will not be driving up the alternative – that’s the deal.

PAUL Week ahead, what's the big story you'll be looking forward to this week?

MATT I think that the unravelling of John Ryles' announcement is going to be big, they’ve found a complete flip flop, it's a rejection of the old right, they're going back from federation to centralisation in health.

ENDS

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