Sunday 1st August, 2010

The panel discussions between Paul Holmes, Dr Therese Arseneau, Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast & Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey have been transcribed below. The full length video debate, interview and panel discussions from this morning's Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS led by PAUL HOLMES

In Response to SUPERCITY DEBATE

PAUL Well, who won that of the three- of the three of them? Who convinced you the best? Kerry.

KERRY PRENDERGAST - Wellington Mayor

Well, to me-

PAUL Seeing as you're from out of town.

KERRY Exactly. To me, Auckland has to have really strong deci- devi- divisive- decisive leadership.

BOB HARVEY - Waitakere Mayor

It's got that already.

PAUL It's had that.

KERRY Yeah, we do have to have that. And we need someone with vision. We need someone who has implementation plans that are going to be delivered. Today I heard one candidate who I think overpromised. Uh, I don't think some of the opportunities that were being offered can realistically be delivered in the timeframe.

PAUL Were you talking about the person standing in the centre?

KERRY I was.

PAUL Mm-hm.

KERRY I think of the other two, one was very clearly talking about not just their vision for Auckland. And let's face it, Aucklanders, I think, are sick of hearing for the last year that this isn't going to work. What they want to hear, if I was an Aucklander, is how this is going to work. How Auckland that's good is going to be great.

PAUL Therese. Therese, which one did you prefer? Sorry.

KERRY Oh, you didn't let me finish! It's going on forever.

PAUL It's a tight show, yes.

THERESE ARSENAU - Political Analyst

The interesting thing is ordinarily these elections are decided on incumbency and name recognition. This is an extraordinary election, because all three of those candidates have those things. So what is going to make the difference? You pointed out we don't really have an executive mayor. The powers that come with this new mayor of supercity actually are not significantly bigger than the mayor of any other city, in Christchurch. So it is going to come down to the ability to promote that vision.

PAUL Which is going to be difficult because it will remain, for some time to come, a fractious city.

THERESE And I think it's interesting too that in this election what we're seeing is the importance of the two major political parties, in a way, in a local-government election, which we haven't really seen to the same extent in the past.

PAUL To what extent, just quickly, Therese, do you think this is more or less a rehearsal for next year's election between the two major parties?

THERESE Well, I think it was interesting how Banks kept referring to his connection to the National Party. And, of course, Len Brown has a similar connection with the Labour Party. National needs this election to go well.

KERRY Yep.

THERESE I mean, they won the last general election basically on a swing in Auckland, and, you know, Auckland is one-third of our population. It will be decisive in the next election. So I think it could be-That is the spill-over effect, and it's really important for the rest of the country to watch what happens in this mayoral.

PAUL Bob, your mind must be full of ideas watching those three. You know them well, of course. You've worked-

BOB Yeah, well, we all like each other, in a kind of wacky way, I must say. And the reason I'm not standing up there, because - it's all about me now - is because it's not empowered. The job is not empowered. The job has to be about enormous leadership, which in the first three years will be very difficult.

PAUL Well, what about Andrew Williams' idea of four deputies? You have a north, south, east, west deputy. Not bad. Len's talking-

BOB Kind of OK-ish. But, you know, those four deputies will then fight. And that's the difficulty with the enormous number.

PAUL Can I say something else? You know, it may have occurred to nobody else, but it strikes me, given the size, geographically, of Auckland as a region and soon as a supercity, given the transport hassles, how is anybody who becomes mayor of the supercity actually going to get around everywhere during the daytime?

BOB Well, you can't overpromise. And that was coming from Williams. Do you know what? I wondered how I was going to deal with this, because I know these guys. I love those MasterChef things, and I wanted to say, if they were chefs, what kind of promise did they deliver us? And I wanted at the end to say, 'One you is going home tonight.' And I have to say, Andrew, you are going home tonight, because you overpromised and you know it can't be delivered.

PAUL Kerry, what about this business, again from you, you've been one, the mayor, whoever wins, is one vote amongst 21. You're an experienced mayor. Well, you are too. Bob has said that, in the end, the job's not empowered. Do you agree?

KERRY I agree.

PAUL Is that a weakness?

KERRY It is a weakness, but I think it's interesting none of them, and they're all experienced mayors, talked about the ability to build up trust and respect amongst your colleagues. At the end of the day, I have one vote. There are 14 councillors. If I don't get trust and respect, I don't win a thing. And not one of them talked about that. It is not just about them. It is not about them, it is about the team that the electors will deliver them and making sure they can build those relationships. Then we will have a great Auckland going forward.

PAUL Can Banks build those relationships? That is the worry, I suppose, when we talked about the leopard and the spots. Mr Banks. I mean, you've got some very specifically-

BOB I think both those guys could in different ways. I think Banks is a true old performer. He knows- He's been around. Len has been around Manukau. This race- By the way, this election is not for tourists, OK? It's a big boys' game. I don't want to know about those other people. The race is between Brown and Banks. No one else.

THERESE And the race is who can get people to actually vote. I mean, last time it was somewhere around 40% of people actually sent in their ballots. That is going to be a crucial thing. And it also impacts, I think, on the mandate that this mayor will have. Because the mandate is going to be crucial. If only 40% vote, and if the vote is really split by First Past the Post, what sort of mandate will the mayor have?

BOB And it's postal, and those things are always lost. They're lost in Kleensaks.

PAUL There was another layer in all of this which we didn't really get on to in that debate because, well, it didn't seem to get in there, but is the power of the local boards. Now, in fact, Mr Williams in his briefing notes yesterday was quite- was most impressive on what he sees the power of the local boards. Local boards are going to be running museums, art galleries, parks, gardens...

KERRY The things that make a community different. So 85% of what we spend is on the pipes and the roads and those things. It's the other 15% that creates the character, sense of place, and that's what the boards will be doing.

PAUL My- Exactly, Kerry. But my point was a mayor's going to have to be mindful of them. They're going to be-

BOB And work with them. Absolutely. Totally. I don't think John has had a great relationship with community boards, but the leopard has changed his spots, and I have to say that-

PAUL The leopard doesn't overpromise now.

BOB No. I thought he actually made a huge amount of sense, because he was anchored by what he knows he can do.

KERRY And he talked about working together. He mentioned affordability heaps. I thought that was good.

PAUL Very good. Thank you, panel, very much

In Response to PHIL GOFF interview

PAUL I suppose the question, Mr Harvey, does Phil Goff convince? And the second part of the question, does it matter if he doesn't? Because, in the end, as we all know, governments lose elections, parties don't win them.

BOB HARVEY - Waitakere Mayor

I think Phil showed leadership, and I think he's back on the board. I mean, countries need good opposition, and I think that's what Phil has done, that he's stamped his mark on this one. I'd just say to Phil that I give him credit for what he's done this week, but all political lives finish in tears, to be honest. And with Chris Carter, you're seeing that, you know, Helen, all of them. Uh, the end of your career is often very sad. And we're seeing a very good MP, basically- There's no grief counselling in this business, I have to tell you.

PAUL They did score some good points through the week, before the Chris Carter thing came along. But in the end...

THERESE ARSENEAU - Political Analyst

It's never a good thing when this sort of ruction comes out in public. It's always seen as a failure for the party. And I actually think, in many ways, the Chris Carter thing is a side issue, almost a red herring. I think the more important question to ask is why did this happen? What's going on within Labour? And I do think we're at a crucial point. We're at crunch time in the electoral cycle, and the problem is really that Labour has not made any progress. It was always going to be a big ask to win in 2011. I actually don't even think that's the issue. I think the issue is where's the rejuvenation? Where is the change? What does this new Labour stand for?

PAUL He says the rejuvenation is there, of course.

THERESE But in the back benches...

PAUL Yes, exactly.

THERESE ...predominantly.

PAUL Yes, exactly. No one's heard of them. That's right.

THERESE But the good thing for Labour - and this is the important thing - there's been a lot written that the voters moved to the right in 2008. I don't think that's correct. I think John Key moved National towards the vote, to the voter.

PAUL And is governing Labour-lite.

THERESE And it's not necessarily a natural or comfortable place for a lot of that National Party caucus to be.

PAUL Kerry.

KERRY PRENDERGAST - Wellington Mayor

I think Phil's in an impossible situation, in this three years and potentially six years. I think it's a shame he's suggesting there are mental-health issues. I think Chris has been under enormous stress. I think he's responded to that stress. I think Phil should have used Chris' contacts, maybe contacted Helen. I think Chris needs an opportunity to leave with dignity. I think it's a sad end to what has been a hard-working minister over the years.

PAUL You're saying, as leader, he should have seen it coming, Phil Goff - is that what you're saying?

KERRY I do, too.

PAUL As a manager of people.

BOB Support. Support these people.

PAUL OK.

BOB Clearly there's a gap there. And I said there's no grief counselling for these people, that you can see are in trouble. Carter's been in trouble probably since Helen left.

PAUL As someone once said to me at Parliament, no one leaves this place without being deeply wounded.

BOB And hurt.

PAUL Well, let us speak about what we might be seeing in the week ahead, Kerry.

KERRY Well, I'd hate to think the media's going to be dominated with the Chris Carter. I suspect it will be, but I hope it isn't. I think there are much bigger issues. The Australian election is three weeks away. The polls are 50-50. There don't seem to be any issues - they're concentrating on silly issues around gender and dress and earlobes and things like that. It's ridiculous. Australia is so important to us. Their GDP is bouncing ahead of ours. I think we need to be looking to our government to make sure we're getting really clear answers on how we're going to close the gap, and how they're going to continue to work with an Australian government.

THERESE Pacific Islands Forum is coming up. I think Fiji might be back on the agenda.

BOB And I'm keen to see us coming to terms with the slaughtering of our children in this country. And I have been and Waitakere has been advocating for a greater accountability when the social services that keep sending our kids back into homes to be killed. Enough is enough. That will be this week, Paul.

PAUL This kid-

KERRY But it was known to the social services. This family was-

PAUL What do you do, Bob? It's just such...

BOB You register every child that's born and the difficulties in the family. You're sending children back- Kerry's a midwife. My wife's a midwife. They know you don't send back kids home, and we do.

THERESE And you look at what organisations are having success, like there's a group in Christchurch, the Family Help Trust. And there are other organisations like that around the country.

PAUL Therese, I've got to leave it there, and I thank you all very much.

ENDS

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