LISA New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters has been less visible in recent months as his Foreign Affairs portfolio has seen him spend a great deal of time offshore, and he's achieved some success in the job with the Americans acknowledging his call for them to place more emphasis on the Pacific, but back home his party poll rating has languished below 5% and now there are reports of dissent within the party ranks. His caucus met for two days this week to take stock of their position, Mr Peters is with me now. Good morning Mr Peters.

Now the government has already signalled that there's going to be some business tax cuts in the budget, but are those cuts going to be enough to satisfy your concerns for New Zealand businesses?

WINSTON PETERS – Leader New Zealand First
No, but they will be a step in the right direction and you don’t expect to get everything in politics when you don’t get sufficient public support at election time, but we've got Export Year 2007, we're going to have a refocus with respect to business tax I believe and there will be something in the budget for exporters.

LISA So if there's not everything that you would like what more would you want?

WINSTON Oh look I'd like a decisively different taxation regime for exporters, we're a country that lives and dies by these people who take all their risk offshore, all their efforts offshore to bring money home to the family New Zealand and unless we as New Zealanders understand how critical they are and give them a fair go against international competition we will have the kind of balance of payments crisis we've got now, the kind of differential between imports and exports we've got now and it's long since we recognised that, we used to as a country do that, but since the 80s with the great economic revolution of Douglas and Richardson and other people we've got the kind of catastrophic economy in some ways paralysed in this area because of mindless theory.

LISA Can you give us a specific of what kind of incentive would be…

WINSTON Well first of all why aren’t we amending the Reserve Bank Act to reflect exports and employment and productivity, why aren’t we addressing that rather than having a myopic concentration still on the rate of inflation, and if you want to change the housing index of this country and the extraordinary prices people are getting not to any great benefit because if you sell for a million you’ve gotta pay 1.3 for the next property you aren’t really going too far really as a country and it's people. Well change the Reserve Bank Act, but no one in parliament is prepared to do that because they're all captured by this theory which has never been practised by any other country in the world and alongside that clean up the sharemarket itself so that people are attracted back into shares and alongside that incentivise exports so you'd get a focus off housing as the only thing I can do to save or advantage myself, and get into something that’s far more substantial, building the economy of New Zealand. Those are three things we should be doing and we should have done them a long time ago. This unsympathetic export dollar right now is crippling a lot of people and it will set back a lot of people for a long time and we've been through these cycles over and over again, when will New Zealand learn that you won't find the answer in parliament because right now the political parties are paralysed from criticising this because they might be seem to be quotes "anti business" end of quotes, now that’s humbug.

LISA You mentioned the Reserve Bank Act, I mean how can you get say Labour to come on side with you, why not put it in a supply and confidence agreement.

WINSTON Well if we'd have had more support at the last election I would have that in the supply and confidence agreement, but you can only go so far you can't give for example a party like New Zealand a mircrolite and expect them to fly to the moon.

LISA But they can't govern without you Mr Peters so why not just put your foot down on this one?

WINSTON Because you would making too many demands for the support that we got, and we've got a whole lot of things that we're achieving, I mean the minimum wage is now $11.25 up a dollar, it'll be $12 by the end of next year, that dramatic. We've had a $20 per week couples increase in super for single people that are retired $13 we've got a Golden Age Card coming, we got Export Year 2007, we've got a thousand extra police…

LISA So you'd be punched above your weight you think if you put your foot down on this?

WINSTON Well we're punching above our weight now, but my point is to New Zealanders if you want to make some of these changes take the farming community they’ll go out and vote National whether they're black or blue and as long as their bum points downwards, but here's Mr Key's latest thing on the Kiwi – he calls it the Flying Kiwi, that’s his latest letter, he has no solution to this problem it's devastating to farmers and all exporters and it's high time they began to address some of the policies in parties that do have solutions that might help them.

LISA But you say or claim to have a solution now, so why not put your foot down now, you know you're saying he won't do anything about it he doesn’t have the solution, you have the solution you believe.

WINSTON Because when you make an agreement you stick to the terms of it, and if it wasn’t part of it, if it wasn’t part of it at the end of 2005 post election you can't come along and assert it now.

LISA Alright, can I take you back to the tax cuts which are expected in the budget, the business tax cuts, with so much of New Zealand business dominated by foreign shareholders why should they get the benefits of those cuts?

WINSTON Could you just roll back a bit here, sorry, with so much of New Zealand's sharemarket owned by foreign…

LISA No no foreign economy, businesses in foreign hands, I mean look at the banks the stock exchange.

WINSTON Because people like you and others cheered from the rafters as they were allowed to do that, as we were allowed to sell all our assets offshore at bargain fire sale prices, as we allowed our sharemarket to go from 19% foreign owned to well beyond 74% foreign owned, you all cheered from the rafters. You’ve got a programme called Telstra Business, it cheered from the rafters as well and now you're asking me having allowed that to happen – a party and a leader who opposed all that, what would my solution be. Well my solution would be to gear up greater savings by New Zealanders in a way that I've advocated for a long time and begin to buy our country back and the problem that you're asking to be solved would be solved.

LISA Well when you talk about savings then look at KiwiSaver what greater incentives do you think there needs to be for that?

WINSTON Oh well hey some of the good news in the budget is that there will be a greater savings drive and incentivisation in this budget and I'm pleased to say that at long last New Zealand is addressing a serious deficiency, a void in its economic planning for the first time. Mr Cullen started on this and I give him fair credit for that, I think we should go much further but nevertheless it's heading in the right direction and this budget I believe will disclose it and that’s good.

LISA How far in the right direction do you think it's heading?

WINSTON Oh it's a long way in the right direction but it doesn’t really encapsulate all New Zealanders because we could – particularly the poor and women – give them a far greater lifestyle in their retirement with a bit of grace and a bit of support that they currently don’t get and won't get. In short they should be part of the package as well because we've incentivised them to be part of it, as other countries have done.

LISA So who do you think is going to get the most benefit out of what might be in …

WINSTON Oh the great bulk of wage and salary earners who opt to be smart about this.

LISA Alright, what about research and development incentives, what should there be for New Zealand businesses in that respect?

WINSTON Well I think the government should remove its hand on research and development and incentivise that by tax breaks proven to have been expended in the area of research and development and we could seriously increase (a) the quantum of money going into it and also overseas interest in adding to our research and development, and it's a simple way of doing it without all the bureaucracy.

LISA Will there be gains in that regard in the budget?

WINSTON Look I'm not gonna sit here and start giving out the budget secrets, I'm not entitled to, my job is Foreign Affairs, racing and the results for policies for senior citizens.

LISA Alright well let's look, we talked about foreign ownership of businesses, census figures released this week show a very rapidly changing face of New Zealand, you would have seen that I think the Asian population is the fastest growing, what do those changes mean for us as a country do you think?

WINSTON Well the question is not – and this has been very blunt in the past – just growing your population numbers regardless of whether people can be located in the economy, placed in the economy and add to its benefits. We've been very careless about that, I'm pleased to say that the government is far more focused now through the Minister's new look at immigration, but I think the figure's still far too high and then say our problems with environmental problems, our problems with transport in Auckland, the housing problems of Auckland are all exacerbated and inflated, artificially inflated by the immigration regime. There's not other country in the world that approximates this and we've been doing it for years. The greater argument of the far right and careless left was that this would advantage our economy, grow our economy and that we'd all be better off, well where's the evidence for that – it's just humbug, so we've gotta be far more careful in to the future.

LISA So do you object to the volume of people coming through or is it the quality of person we're accepting?

WINSTON Well if you’ve got volume and you cannot explain why you’ve got that volume other than to build a consumer demand, more mouths, and more need for medical and for education and housing services then it doesn’t have an economic rationale. Most countries understand that, all of Asian understands that, we don’t.

LISA Alright, can you clear up a couple of things for us Mr Peters? Are Doug Woolerton and Brian Donnelly going to be free to vote on Sue Bradford's bill as they choose?

WINSTON Look this is a party that started from the right to dissent, because I objected to the National Party telling me how I should think particularly when they had sold out their manifesto as we all know, that’s how the Wine Box, the BNZ and all those scandals got started because one member of parliament wanted to disclose what was going on, was being shut down by the other two major parties. We started from dissent and I decided as leader in discussion with my caucus as I have a number of times to have this as a conscience vote. I'm the Leader of New Zealand First and the conscience vote they will have. Now you can't give people a conscience vote and then question how they use it.

LISA Or threaten repercussions.

WINSTON No you cannot actually mean that to be the consequence either, because – our policy is for referendum on this issue but failing that then there should be in my view a conscience vote and I do individual that other people have different views, this debate is not over yet. Personally I think there's still ground for compromise and that we should exhaust our negotiations on that but on the right to have a conscience vote most certainly I'll defend it and I won't have a caucus and don’t want a caucus that hasn’t got a conscience.

LISA What did you think then of John Key's olive branch to sit down and discuss the matter and go forward from there?

WINSTON Well the problem was that he was offering the same solution as Chester Burrows as being his olive branch which is somewhat unusual really because I mean it was already out there. The problem with Chester Burrows' legislation is that it superficially looks attractive but like take two boys, two brothers, they both get whacked the same, one boy bruises easily and one doesn’t, you'll see the bruises on one boy for a week, the other one will be gone within a day, now they're sort of practical things that we should seek to solve, and I just hope that we take the politics out of it, this is not a party political issue should not be, and we should look at what is sane sound and sensible for New Zealand families. I do support those who are concerned about the level of brutality and violence to children and women in particular in New Zealand but I also say you cannot go to such an extreme where you rely upon the Police to enforce the law, that’s bad law. The law should be clear.

LISA So where does your conscience lead you at this point on this vote?

WINSTON Funny you should say that, I'm working with my seven colleagues now seeking if we ourselves can find a compromise that we can support, and all six of them and myself we're genuinely involved in that as we speak over this weekend.

LISA What do you think that compromise might be?

WINSTON Well I think it's one that doesn’t go to the extremes, on the one hand you’ve got a certain group that are making statements in defence of flogging and brutality, well simply it's wrong and it's not lawful as it is, I mean to smack a child is illegal, people avoid it because they have a defence that’s in law, but the other converse is so extreme that in some circumstances they're the most loving parent without any anger is capable of being charged and to say well the Police will sort that out is not my idea of sound law, the law should be clear.

LISA Okay well can we look forward to 2008, the election, election year.

WINSTON You most certainly can, it's going to be a most exciting 2008 and exciting campaign coming.

LISA Well how are you going to differentiate New Zealand First in that exciting campaign from Labour going into the election?

WINSTON Because the principles that we were founded on they're distinctive and they're different than every other political party. The positions we take on the Reserve Bank Act is unique, no other party is prepared to do anything about that, our policies on state asset sales, our policies on exports, the proactive intervention to get exports dramatically up is our policy, I've proven that in the racing industry alone in one year flat we've turned the racing industry which was in a bad state around, it's got a dramatic future coming. Now if we can do that for one industry imagine if we had more power what we could do for the country. New Zealand First is a distinctive party with very distinctive policies, above all we put New Zealanders, New Zealand families, New Zealand interests, New Zealand economics, New Zealand businesses first, not last, first.

LISA You're saying you have these different policies you point to the Reserve Bank Act but at the same time you're in an arrangement with the government at the moment and you can't get those things done so why should they vote for you.

WINSTON Because if you people actually put your mind to it and thought about who's been saying the same thing for a long time and may be right you might encourage your media people to give us a fair go at the election and we'll get more votes and we'll be able to do much more. Take savings, savings is coming back into fashion, I think 68% of New Zealanders now believe in a compulsory savings regime. Well when you put that…

LISA They nixed it at the referendum.

WINSTON Because you decided and many journalists decided this was some sort of joke, well the joke's on them, the joke's on them and high interest rates on paying to foreign banks that are vacuuming out of this country every time interest rates go up they cheer from the rafters. All the things that we predicted would happen have happened.

LISA So you're basically saying we need more votes for more power to do more things, bottom line?

WINSTON Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. Asking the racing industry whether it's a sound policy.

LISA Clear one thing up for us, are you standing in Tauranga next election?

WINSTON Ah look all those decisions we will make in the fullness of time, but I am standing for the 2008 election. I hope to lead the New Zealand First party to a surprisingly good result, we've got our strategy clear, we've done a lot of planning on that.

LISA Part of that strategy Mr Peters you standing in an electorate?

WINSTON Well as I said I'll give you an answer to that in the fullness of time, three questions does not get you the answer today okay, specially not the same question.

LISA Let's bring our panel into this discussion going first to Brent Edwards from Radio New Zealand, questions for Mr Peters.

BRENT EDWARDS – Political Editor, Radio New Zealand
Well I guess I'm particularly interested in KiwiSaver and as Mr Peters said has supported compulsory superannuation for some time, there have been suggestions that one of the things the government can do is through a cut to personal income tax rates tie those to contributions to KiwiSaver, has New Zealand First been pushing that idea?

WINSTON Most certainly we have. Let me just say that I think that what is coming is a very sound step in the right direction. I'm not here free to divulge the details, it's not right if I do that’s within the province of the Minister of Finance.

BRENT So you think you're on the way towards a form if you like of more compulsory super but not there yet?

WINSTON Well put it this way, ever since 1975 in December when the National Party abolished the Kirk scheme this is the first bright light we've had and we've wasted what 32 years and that’s sad, 32 years of utter waste when other countries have made such great progress. This is the first really bright light coming in this budget.

LISA You are bound in what you can say but in terms of your satisfaction with what is coming out how satisfied?

WINSTON I'm delighted, I tell you it's not too far away from what we wanted in 1997 on the issue of a significant savings regime and look how far the Cullen fund has gone already, imagine if it had a real impetus how changed our economic environment and our independence from the international or the global economy on the issue of savings and investment would be had we taken those decisions so many years ago.

LISA And compulsion are we close enough to it?

WINSTON Well you’ve always got to address this issue, is taxation voluntary? It used to amaze me you know, I'd go to the business meetings back in 1997 and some businessman would get up and say I'm against compulsion, and I feel like saying you know fellow are you paying taxes voluntary now. Well of course under the Wine Box a lot of them were paying taxes voluntary and by that I meant a proportion of their current taxes was going towards savings and I was trying to release them from that and have every young person at age 18, 19 at the price of a cigarette, packet of cigarettes per week get to have a stake in the New Zealand economy, those countries that have done that the psychological change in attitude of people is dramatic.

LISA Alright let's bring Andrew Holden in.

ANDREW HOLDEN – Deputy Editor, The Press
Mr Peters can you inform me your involvement in the budge process you have portfolio responsibilities for three portfolios none of which have anything you would think of a direct impact upon the budget yet you clearly know quite a lot about it, how much influence…

WINSTON We have the confidence and supply agreement and there are some key features in there which we are signed up to as a government, that government has signed up to delivering for us because it's part of the deal and so I could tell you areas where the policy commitment is going to be met, and areas where they're certainly heading dramatically in the right direction or in the area say for example the minimum wage they will be there by the next election $12 per hour, so we'll not longer go on persisting with a low wage economy in the dramatically sad way we were.

ANDREW So how much of an opportunity does this give you beyond those specifics in that agreement that you’ve got to influence the government in its budgetary policies.

WINSTON Well I'm not exaggerating it but certainly I think the government understands the sense of having the Export Year and policies to back it up, because after all if you can't help you can't look at the balance of payments crisis.

ANDREW And this is the sort of agreement that you'll make known to the electorate next year that should National get the majority of votes you'd be prepared to have the same sort of agreement with John Key.

WINSTON Look we will talk to the party that in the first instance get the most votes, but it's not going to be a case of who does New Zealand First go with, it will be a case of who goes with us, that’s our record, we've got the policies, our policies are defensible that’s why we're still in politics, and we'll have our 15th birthday next year, but I just point out John Key for example, the biggest thing to affect his support base his farming base for example and all exporters, he hasn’t got any policy on the Reserve Bank at all. Look at his latest newsletter just came out yesterday.

LISA Mr Peters do you think it would be any easier to speak to a National Party led by John Key than say Don Brash?

WINSTON Oh I think most certainly, I mean that one the person had no experience, you’ve got to have a certain arrogance to think you can walk out of one job where you weren't doing a terribly good job and if you want to argue that go back to the Asian crisis when we were losing 60% of our markets and the very worst thing he did was to tighten the liquidity of the monetary policy, this is sort of a myopic strange type of philosophy, you would never see Greenspan or any other chairman of the Fed do that, I think Keys has got more sense yes.

LISA So you'd be more inclined to sit down and talk to him than you would have with Brash.

WINSTON Oh I've just given the guy a compliment I think he's got more commonsense. Plus I think he might know where the parliamentary toilets are by then when the last guy didn’t, and wanted to be the Prime Minister.

LISA Now you talked about some of the gains that you're looking for in the budget, an area that you have highlighted is foreign aid and Foreign Affairs what are your expectations in that department?

WINSTON Look between 1992 and 2002 there was a 40% cut in foreign affairs funding, now this is a country trying to get into Asia and get its exports up and be competitive and everybody else is putting so much more by way of resources, twice in three times more into it, that’s exactly what the National Party set up to do. I'm pleased to say that in 2002 the Labour Party turned that around and will turn it around dramatically in 2007, why, because if we think we're going to have any future as an export nation and an export dependent nation we've got to have the people offshore on the ground able to facilitate and aid our businesses. On the question of foreign aid there's gonna be a dramatic increase as well, because if you look at the Pacific particularly our neighbourhood and Melanesia in particular we have got no option but to try and turn some of those disadvantageous social deteriorating circumstances around. I think with our allies we can but it's gonna take a huge effort.

BRENT Turning back to export yeah I think you’ve already made the point but how successful can Export Year be when the dollar is as high as it is, I mean if I was a small business trying to be encouraged to go into exports would I go into exports this year when I look at the dollar?

WINSTON I would, if I had a Minister of Finance who addressed the Reserve Bank Act, refocused the Governor of the Reserve Bank on things that really matter, exports, manufacturing, employment, productivity, so that the dollar was export sympathetic and alongside that put in some significant incentives for all those who were involved in genuine exporting internationally. In short if you gave them a 20% tax regime I'd have a whole of foreign money in here but for the right reason, to expand New Zealand's exports not to go out and buy 100 homes in Tauranga site unseen.

BRENT So they're going to get that in budget?

WINSTON No I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that’s what they should be getting. I'm not the Minister of Finance and I don’t have the power to deliver that but I think that the wisdom of that is obvious now.

ANDREW I'm puzzled by your desire to take the Sue Bradford bill to a referendum, you know the public opinion's pretty strong on this, clearly the bill would lose if you took it to a referendum, you’ve talked about the savings referendum and the public made the wrong decision, what's your policy on referendums when do you want the public to decide and when do you want parliament to decide?

WINSTON Oh no I think you underestimate the public, the public never got a fair go on the question of savings because it turned into a Shipley's gonna roll Bolger argument within the National Party which is an act of betrayal itself. They had agreed with me that we would put it to a referendum, one person turned it into a leadership bid knowing that she could never win an election by herself, I dunno where she is now but she's not involved with politics, yeah it was all ego and nothing to do with policy, but on the questions of this bill of Bradford's if you give New Zealanders a decent two year time to understand the legislation I think they'd come up with a fair answer, because what you're hearing out there at the moment sadly from a number of people on both sides is not correct, it's not true, it's false, and if you had time to iron that out I would better trust the public's conscience than that of MPs, but in the absence of that I will always support a conscience vote.

LISA Alright, thank you very much for joining us this morning, Winston Peters.

TAX ON ART SALES

Earlier this week the Ministry for Culture and Heritage released a proposal to give royalty fees to artists whenever their work is onsold, the current proposal would see a 5% royalty paid to the artist or their surviving relatives, the idea behind the tax is to encourage visual arts but not everyone thinks it's a good idea. Writer and Art Consultant Hamish Keith joins us in the studio. Can you start by just explaining what's wrong with this tax?

HAMISH KEITH – Writer & Art Consultant
Well the tax is actually the point of it is to reward artists for their work, I mean to give them a continuing interest in their work and the proposition for that is that artist's don’t do very well. The reality is that the artists whose work is onsold in the secondary art market are not the ones who are not doing well, in fact the secondary art market guarantees that those artists will actually continue to do well. The problem with the paper is it has a terrible want of reality to it, one doesn’t say how the secondary art market works for what it does, it just works on the simple premise that here is a turnover of 13 million dollars and that the work of artists who are not getting the 13 million dollars and if we impose a tax on that 13 million dollars of 5% then the artists will get the 5%, well it doesn’t work that way. One, the art being turned over is not connected with the artists who are not getting the money and two the complex nature of the art market which I've got to say has developed itself in New Zealand over the last 50 years without any help from Creative New Zealand or the Ministry at all, it doesn’t run on subsidies or it doesn’t run on grants, it actually runs on the exchange of works of art for money by artists and their clients more recently through dealers. The entire turnover of the New Zealand art market, and even the paper's not very clear about what that is, it says it's between 40 million and 80 million dollars, well how clever is that to actually have a span of that to say that’s what the art market turnover – of that we actually know that the turnover in the auction houses is 13 million, well if you take away say let's be generous and just help the sum, if you take away the three million which is say foreign works or works of artists say Goldie who wouldn’t attract the royalty anyway we're then talking of 10 million, give 5% of 10 million is half a million, not a lot of money. Now that was actually what it cost to send Et al and her donkey and the dunny to the Venice Bienali so if you put this thing in perspective it's actually quite meaningless.

LISA But 50 other countries have policies like this have taxes like this.

HAMISH Well yeah if you look at some of those 50 other countries you know how does it work because the paper doesn’t analyse how it works either, and for example a comparison that they make between Britain and here – in the British secondary art market a single work would turn over for the entire turnover of the New Zealand art markets secondary and primary, so you know we're not…

LISA We just don’t have the numbers here.

HAMISH We don’t have the numbers, we don’t have the volume.

LISA To make the bureaucracy worthwhile.

HAMISH And also the English art market by the way that was imposed on England by the European Union by Brussels, the English art market has been established since the 18th century, ours has been established as far as I know since 1858, so you know we're not dealing with – and the French is another example too – the French have had this since 1920, but the French have traditionally dealt primarily, their primary market has been auctions, I mean that’s how the art market worked in France and works still in France to a large extent so we're not dealing like with like but the comparison they make with Australia is interesting. Australia had this proposal they looked at it and decided no they wouldn’t go ahead with it because it wasn’t going to deliver any benefits and there'd be some long term administering of the market which I'll get to in a moment. Now the paper dismisses that on the grounds that the Australian Opposition has said that they’ll introduce it if they become the government, well that’s not an argument, it doesn’t investigate the reasons why Australia decided not to do it, and the reasons are because it simply won't work it won't deliver anything. Now what it will deliver in the long run is that the top end of the market will vanish and the bottom end of the market, well auction houses will be exhausted trying to deliver a cheque for $25 to the estate of an artist who died 49 years ago, I mean that’s fundamentally what it will work to.

LISA I want to bring you back to a letter, a letter to the Editor that you wrote this week in it you said that like most cultural policy from Wellington the proposal to tax the resale of works of art is totally out of touch with cultural reality. In what other ways has this government shown that it's out of touch with cultural reality then?

HAMISH Well I kind of worry. You know it's a kind of an example if you like of fleas thinking they own the dog. I mean the visual arts market has been something that developed on its own account, it hasn’t been developed by Lambton Quay, and those policies which on paper you know they use words like intellectual property and copyright which have nothing to do with the resale of works of art, artists don’t lose the copyright in their work unless of course they’ve assigned it or I've commissioned the work from the artist in which case I own the copyright, so in fact if it's a commissioned work that I commissioned and it's resold I own the copyright why don’t I get the 5%, I mean look it is just so unreal it's like most cultural policies is it cultural simple, it isn't it runs itself.

LISA Let's bring the panel in. Just another tax Brent, and hard to administer?

BRENT Yeah I mean it sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare, I can understand I guess probably what's driving it, and there probably are sincere reasons behind trying to give artists a bit more money but it sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare and it sounds like it would have unintended consequences which would in general be negative rather than positive.

HAMISH Well absolutely negative and the unintended consequences because what the secondary art market does, it does two things, one it sets the benchmark for the primary art market, it sets the benchmark in price, I mean because it works in a way which is different from a dealer persuading a client to buy a work of art, it actually is a much more open transparent system, that’s one consequence. The other consequence it actually also provides the confidence if you like for somebody to buy from the primary art market and say well I can buy this work for two thousand because that work has sold for twelve, I mean I know it's a weird market mechanism but it does work, and actually when you look at the whole art market there are three auction houses primarily in New Zealand you know of any consequence, three art auction houses, in Auckland alone there are 60 dealer galleries, so the primary art market is so much bigger than the secondary art market so why isn't the Ministry actually looking at ways that it can actually make it easier for artists who are not doing very well to have access to that primary market. Now there are ways of doing that, we in 1975 the Arts Council introduced something rather like the thing for musicians making a demo tape, the Arts Council introduced a very small subsidy for artists to have exhibitions in professional galleries, now that actually had a good effect but it somehow became too hard to administer and has vanished and gone and maybe it wouldn’t work any more but there are many more ways of delivering what the Minister appears to want which is a better deal for visual artists.

LISA Alright, thank you very much for joining us this, that’s Hamish Keith.

GUEST COMMENTATORS – FINAL THOUGHTS

LISA Turning to our panel for their final thoughts first to Brent Edwards, do you think we are gonna be wowed by the gains that New Zealand First is saying that they’ve possibly made in this budget?

BRENT Well I don’t know about wowed, but I certainly think you can't write New Zealand First off. I think the challenge for that party is to not be spooked by their low poll ratings at the moment, think if you look back ever since MMP came in generally third parties have polled badly between elections but have then tended to pick up support at election time, so I think if New Zealand First can get some gains out of the budget they go into election campaign next year being able to sort of point out this is what we've achieved and then obviously with Mr Peters running the line that he's talked about today certainly they could win back quite a bit of support and that'll be up to the voters in the end but I certainly wouldn’t write them off.

LISA You Andrew, I mean where could you see him possibly standing do you see him back in Tauranga for 2008?

ANDREW I think that would be difficult unless Bob Clarkson's stitched back and he can go in and say I'm back to save the people here, I mean what I love about this morning's interview is it's the great quality of the coalition system we've got at the moment, is you’ve got all these extra parties, Peter Dunne, Winston Peters, they're in the know, they know what's in the budget, they're just itching to tell everybody and claim credit for it but they’ve gotta sort of keep mum and let Michael come out with the big presentation, it is extraordinary dynamic of these very ambitious people fighting for their political lives but being constrained as well. It's a lot of entertainment.

LISA He's basically there touting for votes on the basis that we've done this much we can punch at a much higher weight but we need that support behind us, do you see that as the sort of simple ethos he's gonna run through with to next year.

BRENT Well I think so I mean it's a simple numbers game isn't it, I mean it's true the more votes that you get really the more influence that a party should have so I mean I think he is pushing that line of New Zealand First supporters want to see New Zealand First holding more influence in the next government then more of them have to vote for New Zealand First.

LISA Are we seeing a different Winston Peters a bit more upbeat since he has been ill for a reasonable period of time?

ANDREW I think the pressure's off him as Foreign Minister, I think the general acceptance is that he's doing an okay job and in this weird structure that they’ve got he can actually manage that and Labour can handle that as well, and so I think once that pressure's off he's now – he probably sniffs the battle's about to begin after this budget were really effectively into election mode and he loves that more than anything else I suspect.

LISA And I think today we'll give the final word to you as an Australian on the cricket perhaps.

ANDREW I haven’t heard the final score, I believe we may have done well.

LISA You believe you may have done well, ah don’t look too gleeful. Alright, thank you gentlemen.

ENDS