Sunday 4th April, 2013

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Q+A

PANEL DISCUSSION 1 – response to David Shearer interview

HOSTED BY SUSAN WOOD

SUSAN WOOD
Time to welcome the panel this morning. Dr Raymond Miller, lovely to have you here; Helen Kelly, from the CTU; and Michael Barnett, from the Chamber of Commerce. Lovely to have you all here. Did you, Michael, hear anything in that interview with David Shearer that sets them apart? What I was trying to get is, what will you do differently to National?

MICHAEL BARNETT, CEO, Auckland Chamber of Commerce
And that’s a good question. Right now I think any differentiating would be part of their game in getting them up in front of people, and there doesn’t seem to be a really strong point of difference. Two leaders, very different styles, but from a point of what I would do for you that’s going to be different, that would set them apart, I saw nothing.

SUSAN Helen?

HELEN KELLY, President, Council of Trade Unions
Yeah, I think there’s a significant difference, and that is around the role of the government in stimulating the economy. And this comes back to Tiwai Point. I think if there were more options for the people of Southland around a stimulated economy and economic growth agenda, then they wouldn’t be so anxious about what happens in regard to that smelter. What Labour has said is that they do believe government can play a role in the economy, and we know that it can, because we’ve experienced the differences there. And so that’s what they’re talking about. Not just sitting back and saying ‘what will be will be - if jobs are lost, that’s how the market works’, but actually saying, ‘we need to invest, we need to look at smarter investments’ - procurement, KiwiRail, those sorts of things.

SUSAN KiwiRail? Sorry, I’m going to laugh out loud.

HELEN No, actually if KiwiRail were investing in New Zealand, manufacturing and getting the components of the trains built here, we would have jobs in Dunedin, which has recently just laid off hundreds of workers in those KiwiRail workshops.

SUSAN I’ve got to get Michael in now.

MICHAEL We’re asking to do the same thing- You know, for years we subsidised farmers and we made cars here. We did a whole lot of stuff-

HELEN Not subsidies, Michael, triple bottom line stuff. The difference between having jobs in New Zealand that people can do. They then pay taxes, they don’t claim benefits, they can then train-

SUSAN Michael, get in here.

MICHAEL Look, I’m sorry, but all we’re doing is going back in time. What we’ve got with Tiwai Point is, you know, a situation where you either let them keep on taking the power and taking the power for nothing and we get nothing from it, or we’ve got a five-year window where we determine what is it that we’re going to do differently. Instead of that, we’re trying to reclaim the past.

HELEN It’s not a five-year window, actually. What you’ve got there is you’ve got 3000 people working in a small-

SUSAN You’ve got 700 direct jobs-

HELEN No, 3000 people relying on that smelter with no other plan in place to substitute those jobs.

SUSAN They’ve got five and a half years to come up with those jobs. Five and a half years is a lifetime.

HELEN It’s not a lifetime, actually.

MICHAEL The pace we should be working at. And as I say, all we’re doing I reclaiming the past.

HELEN No, they’re already laying people off, and it’s not true that the smelter is adding nothing to this country. They are employing people. Those people are paying tax and they’re building an economy.

SUSAN Yes, and we’re giving them a $750 million a year discount on that power. I mean, does it add up, Raymond?

RAYMOND MILLER, Political Scientist, Auckland University
Well, that way you put it, of course not, and I think therein lies a major problem. And I think a lot of voters, the public generally, I think, will probably be surprised to be reminded that 15% of all the electricity we produce goes to a multinational mining company-

SUSAN At a fabulous discount. I wish I could pay a quarter of the price-

HELEN We built a power supply to supply them.

SUSAN Yes, but why are you so wedded to the past?

HELEN I’m not wedded to it.

SUSAN It is something that was done 40 years ago. China - 100 smelters. They’re building smelters.

HELEN I’m not wedded to it. I’m not saying there’s no bottom line with this company and that it should be kept going. But we’re in a situation now, we’re at the brink, where the government’s finally stepped in. They’re selling the assets so they’ve got - Rio Tinto’s got them over the barrel. We’ve got no other alternative economic plan in this country-

SUSAN Raymond, has Rio Tinto got the government over a barrel, or has the government played it pretty well?

RAYMOND I think the government is playing it pretty well, because I think the government can see that they’re being brow-beaten a bit by a company which has been doing the same thing in Australia. And Australia, you know, has been very generous to this company.

SUSAN Australia’s got a car industry that’s dying a slow death because of government subsidies, hasn’t it?

RAYMOND Well, that’s right. So I think the government can see that it doesn’t want to be laid down the pathway of appearing to be too generous. It can see the end in sight, I think, for Tiwai Point.

HELEN Yeah, but what does ‘well’ look like? We’ve got a power company now on the market for a reduced price because people think it’s going to lose some of its energy contract-

SUSAN What are you basing reduced price on?

HELEN Well, the share prospectus that came out this week said ‘beware, this could be a loss for this company’. So we’ve got a power company-

SUSAN Michael, you’ve got to get in on this.

MICHAEL I’m sorry-

HELEN What does ‘well’ look like?

MICHAEL What does ‘triple bottom line’ look like? Going back to your question. If you have a look at the people of Southland, instead of being subsidised and living off the $750,000 subsidy that we’re handing out through government, is it time that we did something that was more meaningful, that demanded more skills, that was different? To me, triple bottom line-

HELEN Sure, if that was the plan.

MICHAEL Well, let’s have that plan instead of reclaiming the past.

SUSAN I want to bring Raymond in here.

RAYMOND Can I just change it slightly? I thought that was quite a confident and assertive display by David Shearer.

SUSAN Yes.

RAYMOND Yeah, I mean, he’s certainly improved.

SUSAN He told me to be quiet a few times. (LAUGHS) ‘Let me answer the question.’ But he still, just listening to him, he loses his point a little bit. It’s a bit of a ramble.

RAYMOND I think part of the problem is how you distinguish Labour from National. It really is difficult. There’s sort of a crisis of identity. They can’t mine the Green vote to any great extent because they’re going to need the Greens next year. They have to take votes off National.

MICHAEL He needs an elevator pitch. He needs to be able to sit down, hit me with something that I’m going to walk away with. He had three or four opportunities to do it here and he failed.

RAYMOND He didn’t do it, but, you know, you end up being fairly wishy-washy, partly because of the nature of the electoral cycle, because parties are saving up their big issues for close to the election. So the public don’t have any great steer on what Labour would actually do. Therein lies a problem.

SUSAN And, Helen, there is this great middle ground, now, isn’t there - this great middle ground of New Zealand that moves around. You’ve got a bit to the left and a bit to the right. And National, you’d have to say, has pretty effectively captured that middle ground currently, the same way that Helen Clark did, actually.

HELEN Well, I think we’re seeing the differentiation by the day. And the spy story, I think, is actually a much bigger story that just simply John Key ringing up his mate.

SUSAN Why?

HELEN Well, because I think it is a pattern of standards in the public service being degraded. I mean, we pride ourselves-

SUSAN But hang on, I mean, let’s be fair to the Prime Minister here. That is an unusual appointment in that the head of the GCSB is actually there-

HELEN Yeah, but the story with the GCSB is that he did not tell the truth to parliament when asked. I don’t have a real problem-

SUSAN Raymond?

RAYMOND Yeah, I agree with you, Susan, because you need to go to the Cabinet manual, and it’s quite clear that this is a ministerial appointment. Therefore it has to be somewhat political, and personality does play a part in those sorts of decisions. Now, let’s think about what happened. Here is the State Services Commissioner who goes to John Key and says, ‘Look, we’ve been through the shortlist. None of these people seem to have the sort of skill set we’re looking for.’ John Key says, ‘What about Ian Fletcher?’ The commissioner says, ‘Oh yes, I hadn’t thought about him. We should really get in touch with him.’ John Key, being action man, immediately gets on the blower and phones him up and says-

HELEN And forgets about it.

RAYMOND And says there’s a job going-

MICHAEL What’s the story - is it because he forgets, or because he rang?

HELEN Or because he didn’t want to be associated with it, so he said, ‘Oh yeah, he’s some childhood friend’.

SUSAN But, Helen, you’ve got to be fair - he then came out and said, ‘I rang him. I checked my records.’

RAYMOND It was years ago.

MICHAEL Every appointment, there is somebody ringing someone.

HELEN That’s not the public sector, Michael.

MICHAEL Right across the board, I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter where the appointments are made, your place or mine. We pick up the phone, we talk.

RAYMOND Prime ministers make and receive probably dozens of phone calls per day. This was two years ago. I think people can be forgiven for having something of a memory loss over something like that.

HELEN Do you forget your friends, Raymond?

RAYMOND (CHUCKLES) No.

HELEN That’s good to hear.

RAYMOND Was this a friend?

ENDS