Q+A's Christchurch Mayoral Debate

Q+A's Paul Holmes interviews Christchurch Mayoral Candidates - Jim Anderton and Bob Parker

The debate has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews 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.

CHRISTCHURCH MAYORAL DEBATE mediated by PAUL HOLMES

PAUL The Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker's chances of getting re-elected looked pretty good, a few scraps but nothing major, until along came the MP and Progressive Party Leader Jim Anderton, who announced he wanted the job, and since then it's all been on. The Prime Minister John Key's been to Christchurch and while he's not endorsing anyone, he did seem to favour Mayor Bob Parker, but will it make any difference and what do they both have to offer, the two main candidates. Let's find out. Welcome to both of you Jim Anderton and Bob Parker, you've both got 30 seconds to start off each of you to tell us if you win Christchurch how Christchurch will be better off in three years time. Jim Anderton you first, 30 seconds.

JIM ANDERTON There'll be more jobs. We lost 8,600 in Christchurch last year. Christchurch will be a more business friendly city. The inner city which is dying will be revitalised and we've got a wide range of affordable housing that we should build. Secret council meetings, poor decision making, and bad decisions will come to an end. No more failed property developer bailouts, no more overseas trips to sunny sandcastle building, and 24% housing rental rates for council housing will end. The doors of the council will be open to people ...

BOB PARKER Well I think you're going to see a council with a full time mayor, not someone who's pottering off to Wellington three days a week to look at putting in fluoride across the whole of the country. You're gonna see that we'll still have the lowest rates in New Zealand, the most affordable city. We'll be the safest city in New Zealand, and the infrastructure that we're putting into place right now is going to create a framework for our city to emerge with a very strong economy at the end of the current recession. It'll be a great place to be.

PAUL Alright what are you talking about fluoridation?

BOB Well yeah just an issue that's come up in the campaign that my opponent has a proposal to fluoridate New Zealand's water supply.

PAUL Well does he want to fluoridate Christchurch's water supply?

BOB He wants to fluoridate chch.

PAUL Do you?

JIM No I do not. What I want is a recognition of the dental health of children in New Zealand, where 60% of the people have fluoridated water supply and the teeth decay of children under five is 30% lower in those areas.

PAUL Which is all very fine, I know the fluoridation argument. I know this but would you like ...?

JIM No I'm not leading the charge for Christchurch water, because I don't think the way in which we don't make these decisions on fluoride at a local level, is satisfactory, you put the fluoride in one year you take it out the next.

PAUL But would you like to see Christchurch water supply fluoridated?

JIM If I'm asked as a former Associate Minister of Health whether fluoride is a good thing for children's health the answer is yes, but I'm not leading the charge to fluoridate Christchurch's water supply.

PAUL Thank you we get the point. Mr Parker one of the big issues which people have trouble with about your - I was going to say presidency - your mayoralty, is a lack of transparency, the buying of these Henderson buildings. Of course well he's got the right to buy them back, the public didn't know about this until you bought them, paid 17 million bucks of ratepayers' money?

BOB Well they were all purchases that fitted in with the broader strategy of council, the Auditor General had a look at it and said guys the process is absolutely fine, but we have got a problem and I have to face up to the fact that over the last three years we've done heaps of great work in the city, but we've had a number of contentious issues, and I think we've really failed to inform ....

PAUL That's right. So how are you going to address this lack of transparency?

BOB Well I've got a new policy coming out in the next week actually Paul that's going to bring a number of new initiatives in front of the council. We actually have to be better about what we do. So we'll go online, we'll go out to the community more, and we'll ask the councillors themselves at the beginning of the new term and the public, what are the things that they would like to see us do that we could do to improve communication and transparency for them.

PAUL Mr Anderton, what are you up to exactly? You've been around a very long time, is it simply that you're sick of getting on the plane to Wellington every week twice a week whatever, you want a nice well paying job with your feet up in Christchurch, is that it?

JIM Well Paul I was not standing for election next term, and most people knew that, so it's not as though I'm just trying to truncate flying to Wellington, because I won't be flying to Wellington, and I wouldn't be standing for the Mayor of Christchurch if what Bob says is hunky dory, everyone's happy, it's been a great time, except he hasn't done all the things he's now going to do in the next three years. The time to hold people accountable, mayors and councillors is at an election, there's one in five weeks' time, and that's when Bob will be held accountable. It's no use him telling the people now he going to do the things he promised to do last time, and this time next time.

BOB There's a little bit of misinformation going on here shall we say politely.

PAUL What's he talking about he's still going to be going to Wellington isn't he?

BOB He'll still be flying to Wellington, we said we'd bring the rates down, they were going up 9, 10% per annum, we've brought that down to a sustainable below 4% average for the next 10 years. We said we'd make it a safer city, sort out the boy racers. We've done that. We said we'd get stuck into infrastructure, and we've got a huge amount of new work going on now Paul. So we've delivered on a lot of areas, and I've learned a lot of lessons as I've gone through.

JIM See Paul the one thing I'd say about Bob is he talks very well, that's true he's a very good speaker.

PAUL Well you're not bad yourself.

JIM Well that's true, but doing things is the thing that people are anxious about in Christchurch, and what they're saying is things have not been done that should have been done, and I'm gonna do them.

PAUL Yes, but what Bob Parker is saying I think, there's a lot of what you're proposing is they've got in the pipeline already.

JIM He's had three years to get in the pipeline, it's not what's in the pipeline, it's what's come out of the pipeline. The truth is nothing's come out of the pipeline. The inner city as we speak is dying, there's all sorts of development that should have taken place there, thousands of jobs that could have been created, homes for people built that are affordable and he hasn't don't any.

PAUL I've got to ask you this though. If you were to win the mayoralty, you don't want to force a bi-election for your Wigram seat. So for at least a year you'd be a part time Mayor of Christchurch. Now is that acceptable Bob Parker do you think?

BOB I don't think it's acceptable at all, this is New Zealand's second largest city, in whichever way, and Jim's about to try and spin it that it's only going to be a matter of months, bla bla bla, but here's the reality. He wants to do one term, a third of it he wants to spend in Wellington, and I don't think that that is good enough for a city like Christchurch. I actually think that's treating us rather badly. I'm a ratepayer too, I want a better deal than that.

JIM Well Bob's just spun it, but let me ask anyone listening, who's just got one job in New Zealand at the moment. When I was Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, I had seven ministerial portfolios, I was a leader, a coalition partner, and I had an electorate seat to win. The Prime Minister's got the Prime Minister's job, he's also got an electorate seat, and who doesn't have more than one or two jobs. I can do that job for the short time that it's available, I'm not going to commit my electorate to a bi-election which will mean that for months probably they won't have an MP and they won't have an electoral office, and I stood at the last election on a commitment to stand for the full term. I'm going to honour that promise.

BOB Well why did you re-register your party and yourself as...

JIM How do you register a party of one Paul have you ever tried it? You can't. You've gotta have 500 people who support you and who sign up to it, and that's what I've done, I can register a party Paul because I've got one, has Bob got one?

BOB No I don't, I'm an independent, I don't want a political party, I don't think that political parties ...

JIM Oh that's why the National Party down in Christchurch with the Prime Minister supporting Bob.

PAUL Mr Parker may not have a party Mr Anderton, but he has the next best thing which is a wife. Does your wife have too much say in the governance of Christchurch?

BOB Absolutely not. This is one of those lovely stories that's been spun up locally, I love my wife, she's a beautiful woman, I want to spend as much of my life as I can with her, this is an antisocial job. So we chose before I stood for the mayoralty that we would spend as much time together, she would come into the office, she would accompany me on a lot of stuff, but she does not ...

PAUL But does she believe because of your love that she's got certain entitlements, for example, she was quoted as saying she's entitled to a few perks, is that right Bob?

BOB Well I mean that's Jo's view and no she puts in long hours, she doesn't get paid for it, she has to put up with me a lot of the time and occasionally she gets a cup of coffee on the ratepayer, I don't think that's the end of the world, that's what she was saying. She's an asset to our city, she's certainly an asset to my life.

PAUL Gotta talk about water, ECAN, was it right to sack the council, I've got to ask you both this, 20 years that crowd had failed to come up with a plan for managing that water, which also matters to the rest of the North Island, because it's what 75% of the country's water. So Wyatt Creech went in, was it right to sack the councillors, to strip the Cantabrians of their Regional Council democracy. What's gotta happen there?

JIM Well what's gotta happen is that democracy has to be restored as soon as possible, I've met with commissioners and they're doing their best to get that back on track. The irony is that when I was Minister of Economic Development I gave ECAN half a million dollars to get a water plan. It was a shocker that they didn't have one for the project Aqua, a dam on the Waitaki River, and we had reason then to bring in commissioners, but we gave them empowerment and we gave them the resources to do it, and the irony is that just after the election they presented to all the National Party MPs and myself and other Labour MPs the full policy for the water plan, it had all been completed and the commissioners acknowledged that. The plan has been completed so just at the time it's completed Bob leads the charge to get them abolished.

BOB Well look ECAN was broken, somebody had to fix it, we finally got a government with enough courage to fix it. The mayors put their hands up and said we too are having problems with his organisation, and it was on our watch we had to say what we felt, we did, it was important and the government went in. it was their decision to remove the councillors, but you know at the end of the day it has to be fixed Paul, water is essential to the future of this province, both looking after it and utilising it in irrigation.

PAUL Jim Anderton and Bob Parker I thank you very much for your time.

ENDS