Sunday 29th May, 2011

Q+A panel discussions.

The panel discussions have been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be watched on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE. Repeats at 9.10pm Sundays, 10.10am and 2.10pm Mondays on TVNZ 7

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PANEL DISCUSSIONS led by PAUL HOLMES

In response to WELLYWOOD SIGN

PAUL So, not much approval there. It’s time to welcome the panel, Dr Jon Johansson, Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown and the vice chancellor of Canterbury University, Dr Rod Carr. So let us discuss it, then, Wellywood – you don’t want it?

CELIA WADE-BROWN – Wellington Mayor
No, I don’t. I didn’t back in 2010, and I don’t now.

PAUL Your predecessor was very enthusiastic about it.

CELIA She described it as capturing the essence of Wellington, and I beg to differ.

PAUL You see, I mean, you’ve got the chief executive of Infratil, the airport, saying putting this sign here will put Wellington on the bucket list of everyone in the world.

JON JOHANSSON – Political Analyst
What? You mean you—?

PAUL You go before you die, because you’ve got to see Wellington.

JON Just before?

DR ROD CARR – Canterbury University Vice Chancellor
The last thing you do?

CELIA Well, I think everyone should come to Wellington, but I don’t think the sign is a compelling reason.

PAUL What do you think of the sign?

JON I think this is the biggest local fuss since the Mosgiel sign conflict of 1987, Paul. I suspect— Let the market take care of this. Let the market put it up and let Wellingtonians drag it down, which we well, because you talk to Wellingtonians, there’s an overwhelming majority against this. The lack of creativity is what irks most of us, and we all start to feel our inner Hone Heke, and I think that ultimately will—

PAUL We all start to feel our inner hokey too, because that’s what it is. It’s provincial, it’s unoriginal, it’s tacky and it’s hokey. And I don’t know about— We’re not Wellingtonians, Rod Carr, but how do you feel as a Christchurch person with this being the sign at the gateway to your capital city?

ROD CARR – Canterbury University Vice Chancellor
Well, I have to say, Paul, if that was the major thing that Christchurch was worried about at the moment, that would be really great. I think it is a matter for Wellington and Wellingtonians to decide. I think there is a matter of process, that apparently the airport did go through due process. Whether that was an appropriate process or the right process, that’s something that the good people of Wellington can decide.

PAUL Well, it was a bit loose. There was no public consultation, but, then again, there didn’t have to be, is that right?

CELIA Well, they applied for a resource consent, and because the rules about the airport precinct are pretty permissive, the staff under the RMA can’t really look at what the sign says. They looked at it’s 3.5 metres high, it’s 28 metres long, which is pretty huge, and anywhere else, that wouldn’t be permitted, but the staff made a decision back in 2010. I’ve asked for that decision to be checked, and the chief executive has come back and said that was a correct process. So when I moved the motion at full council, I was quite clear that I was not commenting on the regulatory process; I was just saying we don’t think that this is a cool way to describe the coolest little capital in the world.

PAUL There you go. I mean—

JON Will you change your regulatory process, Celia?

CELIA We will look at the level of delegation in the district plan, but let’s face it, it’s the advertising standards. We’re not going to be looking at what’s said on every billboard. But Wellywood – it looks like it seeks to brand the capital, and that’s not appropriate for a private company to decide the name of the capital.

PAUL It has— Well, there you go.

JON Especially when the intellectual capital is more extensive than just Weta Workshops. You know, they’re fantastic—

PAUL However, the airport says there is a big link between them and the film industry. The film industry brings in just under 300 million a year to Wellington, so there is a significant link there, probably. Infratil says it’s going to— it’s reconsidering, I think.

CELIA I think they’re going to respond back to us. I like the idea of promoting Wellington, I like the idea of promoting film and creative, but Wellywood’s not going to tell anyone that Avatar was in the hills behind. It’s not going to tell anyone about the whole many other small companies as well as Weta.

PAUL The other thing is this – if I may say so, it’s just dumb, and it has connotations with gumboots. Wellington boots.

CELIA Welly.

ROD You suggest other cities that should adopt it, Paul.

PAUL No, I just think it’s unoriginal, you see.

JON That’s my beef with it too. It’s cringingly unoriginal, and, like I say, there is more to the intellectual capital of that city than just solely the film industry.

CELIA And the one thing that would be worse than a Wellywood sign would be a Wellywood sign with graffiti all over it.

PAUL Dead right. You think it would be the target of taggers?

CELIA Well, the people have already said they would want to do— At least tagging might be the mildest thing that happens, and I don’t condone violence, even to a sign, but I’m sure that’s what’s going to happen.

PAUL No offence to some of our other towns, but, I mean, I can see it as not being inappropriate at the entrance of Pukeatua. I can see it not being inappropriate at the entrance to Ohinemutu. Do you know what I mean? Because it doesn’t matter there.

CELIA But this is our capital.

PAUL This is the capital city.

CELIA And when you come— when you fly into Wellington, you’re looking at how beautiful a place it is and the little houses and—

PAUL No, you’re not. You’re thinking, ‘Will I survive this landing?’

CELIA No, you’re not. (laughs) Those of us that live there have got used to that, Paul.

PAUL You could never get used to that.

JON But we’re also a very very cosmopolitan city, and just the branding just doesn’t represent what actually Wellington is.

ROD So who has the monopoly right to brand a city?

CELIA Well, it’s usually the people that live there have a say in the naming of the city and how it’s used, rather than just one company. Look, the airport’s done some great stuff with the rock, but this is not great stuff.

PAUL Just to sum it up, then, Infratil, presuming they’re not deaf, what do you think is going to happen? It’s a goner, isn’t it?

CELIA I think we’ll just wait and see. They’ve been pretty bullish about this. I think they need to look at the goodwill for the airport, as well as the city council’s expressed our majority.

PAUL The rest of the country thinks it’s absurd. Can I tell you that on behalf of the rest of the country? Not that I have any—

CELIA So do emails from London and from America and from around the world, and there are a lot of ex-pats really embarrassed about their capital being branded Wellywood.

PAUL Very good.

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In response to JOHN WHITEHEAD interview

PAUL Welcome back to our panellists, Dr Jon Johansson, Celia Wade-Brown and Dr Bob Carr, the vice chancellor of Canterbury University. So there we have it. We know that Treasury didn’t like the interest-free idea for student loans. Bob.

ROD I think most rational people would think that something that’s free is likely to be overused, and I think the time has come for a serious debate why 575,000 New Zealanders have an interest-free student loan, where the real value of that is eroded by inflation every year.

PAUL Did we actually learn anything from that interview, from what John Whitehead was saying – did we get any ideas at all about how we might grow the economy? His own idea seemed to be we lay off a hundred public servants and they lead the regrowth – is that it?

CELIA Well, unemployed public servants are not going to do a lot for the Wellington economy. And while we are trying to grow the weightless economy, we’re trying to grow other areas of the economy. The public service is the heart of Wellington in some ways.

PAUL Mm.

ROD Look, Paul, I think that’s a little disingenuous. I think there were a number of things that, first, there is no silver bullet for this, and I think the days of looking for silver bullets hopefully are behind us. It is complicated. There are matters around the exchange rate, the government deficit, but particularly our predisposition to tax middle-income, middle-class New Zealanders and then give the money back to them after it’s been through the hands of many other people. This is just churning.

PAUL Mm, he said that. Yeah?

JON Yeah, well, really, the most interesting aspect of what Whitehead was talking about is this change in the framework that he delivered at his valedictory address. And that is a sea change in the thinking of Treasury to bring in a broader set of measures to measure living standards in New Zealand. And I know that having read John’s speech, it was very much something he wants us to debate about, you know, GDP is too narrow a measure of well-being, and we need to— especially this, you know, clearly the Treasury itself has got the point here about the greater the inequality in a society, the more societal problems that we’re having.

CELIA That’s right.

PAUL Here is what he said about that growing inequality in New Zealand. I think this is what we have here.

JOHN WHITEHEAD
If you get highly unequal societies, it becomes really difficult to sustain your economic performance, so that is something I think most New Zealanders would want to think about.

PAUL Indeed, people get trapped is what he also said. You know, people get trapped in the welfare system and so forth, but we’ve been saying that for 20, 30 years now, and we’re still there. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed.

CELIA If you’ve got cold, damp homes, then the children aren’t going to be learning, and it’s difficult for the adults to be going out to work, so there are some things happening about—

PAUL This is not a new problem. This is not a new problem.

CELIA No, it’s not a new problem, but the recognition of inequality has been bad for the people at all levels of society is relatively new. Having looked at The Spirit Level, it’s common sense, but it’s been measured as well. And if you’re— We don’t want everyone having to live in gated communities because they’re worried about the safety in the city.

ROD I think there is a difference to being stuck in a low income and passing through a low income as you progress, so what we see in India, China and Brazil is actually a larger inequality of income, but a dynamism that allows lower-income people to aspire and progress through the income.

PAUL Yes, but he also mentioned this – we have a transgenerational welfare entrapment.

ROD And that we should be worried about.

PAUL But we’ve had it for 30 years, so, again, where are the ideas?

JON Yeah, well, you saw in the paper this morning that the government— Anne Tolley was announcing how they’re going to try and target Pasifika and Maori kids in preschool, in earliest education, and ultimately it’s only going to be through the education system that young Kiwi children are going to be empowered and actually start learning the knowledge and skill they’re going to need to survive in a 21st century information economy, Paul.

CELIA So the investment needs to at the preschool as well as the tertiary.

JON You’re looking for a silver bullet.

ROD Well, I think investing in education does pay off. The human capital is so critical to current and further society.

CELIA And that’s what they are.

PAUL If all you have is people, I know that, but then we’ve had a wonderful education system for a hundred years and we still have hundreds of thousands of people trapped in a welfare trap.

CELIA I’m not sure that we’ve had a wonderful preschool system for that long.

JON No, that’s for real.

CELIA There’s still— And with reducing the number of qualified teachers, and if you look at the spread of where there’s good preschool education, it’s in the areas that can afford it. It’s not spread out.

ROD So the question is always what do we give up? We all agree we want to invest more. We all agree we’re running debts and deficits that are unsustainable. The question isn’t what we should do more of; the question is what are we prepared to stop doing in order to do more of those things, because we do often agree on what we should do more of. And I think that’s where the Treasury conversation is helpful, because it says there are some things that maybe a little less would be an improvement and free up resources to do some of these other things.

PAUL He likes the idea of being able to do some of these other things by the partial sale, 49% sale, of some of the assets – power companies and Air New Zealand, for example – and he said there could well be some foreign participation, even at board level. Is that going to be politically possible, even for a 67% popular John Key?

JON Well, I think yes, because ultimately I think what’s going to decide this election is not going to be solely the issue of privatisation. I think National can quite conceivably, you know, win a second term despite that policy, because I don’t think that’s the major reason that’s going to drive people’s voting. If it was, they would be in trouble.

PAUL Is R&D going to decide it?

JON Oh, R&D is not going to decide on its own either. I mean, that’s actually the problem is that neither side, left or right, at the moment is actually offering a compelling long-term plan about how to actually re-engineer the economy. And, I mean, because you’re saying nothing ever changes, and that’s the problem because it’s driven by the short-termism of the next election.

CELIA But what’s changing is what will be coming on to with the broadband and the wireless and the actual opportunities to have a much bigger market.

JON Well, if Sam’s idea prevailed, maybe.

CELIA Maybe you grow before you cut would be sensible, rather than cutting and the idea that private is always better, if you look at KiwiRail, it wasn’t exactly in a good state when it came back to us.

ROD But I think the question becomes again, if we want fibre to the home, multibillion-dollar investment on that opportunity, are we prepared to let go of something, or do we assume that we can afford to borrow all that money as well as keep ownership of all the other—

PAUL Well, Sam Morgan will tell you— Sam Morgan will tell you the private sector can do it and we need that second international cable, and we shall speak to Sam Morgan shortly.

CELIA We could cut the money on the road.

PAUL You’re very unruly, if I may say so. You’re the most unruly guest.

LAUGHTER

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In response to SAM MORGAN interview

PAUL So, welcome back again to the panel on Q+A, Jon Johansson, Celia Wade-Brown and Rod Carr. Is it Rod or Bob Carr?

ROD Rod.

PAUL Of course it’s Rod Carr. They keep typing in. I’m sorry, Rod.

LAUGHTER

PAUL Yes, yes, yes. He is using the one—

ROD Former.

PAUL Former. Sam Morgan – you’re up to speed on this cable he’s talking about. I mean, I find this incredibly exciting what he’s talking about.

ROD Yeah, this is very important for New Zealand for a bunch of reasons.

PAUL Could it be the silver bullet now?

ROD No, no silver bullets, but this is important. We talk about the upside opportunity. We have to accept there is a real risk if we don’t connect to the world in a low-cost, reliable, ‘online all the time’ system. This is a minimum chip to play in the game of the world of the future, so I do absolutely believe this is important for us. I do believe it’s important to have contestability around supply. I do think that Rod Drury and Sam Morgan are putting together something, from the private sector, we’ll note, that there are market issues around pricing that can be addressed a number of ways. I think your question about duopoly is a sensible one.

JON Yeah, I mean, it’s just necessary future-proofing. I mean, when I was listening to Sam, I was actually thinking back to the day of Vogel and putting in the cables between us and Australia and between the islands here. I mean, it’s just necessary future-proofing, and you can see the very very valid point that if we want to be a place that makes the most of its intellectual capital, overseas intellectual capital will only be attracted here if we supply what they are used to. That’s a very profound point he makes there, and that is clearly a problem we have under the current supply.

PAUL He’s talking being able to operate with Americans as if you’re downtown in San Francisco. It’ll be that—

JON But it’s interesting, isn’t it, that like Weta Workshops will actually still fly the material over there because that’s actually more economic and faster than relying on the net.

ROD What we have to understand is that this technology already exists. We through the REANNZ and the KAREN network, because it is a research-based network, can run ‘online all the time’ video links to other universities anywhere in the world – over 3000 of them – and so that technology is established. The question is always about price and access, particularly to a broader base of business and households. That’s what this proposal is beginning to try and address.

PAUL He’s saying it really is an impediment – the cost of that international connectivity to New Zealand business.

CELIA I’m sure it is. I mean, if you’ve got— If we’re going to try and use the weightless economy, then we don’t want any barriers, we don’t want the data caps, and if you can’t Skype with San Francisco, then inevitably there’s going to be more congestion, more transport costs. I don’t think we know all of the industries that are going to benefit. I mean, the weightless and the film are pretty obvious.

PAUL Yeah, they’re obvious, but I think he’s talking about industries and doing the kind of business that we don’t even know exists.

JON Yeah.

ROD But even back-office processing, we look at—

PAUL And he’s talking about bringing really quality people here. You know, such a development bringing really quality immigrants.

ROD But you think of the eastern seaboard of Australia – dense populations in Melbourne, Sydney, high wage rates, and the opportunity to provide online services to support, whether it’s medical diagnosis, whether it’s advance home-help and services, whether it’s the back-office processing – not the paper-based stuff, but the thought process around insurance-claim processing, all of that could be done in Christchurch and Wellington or Auckland as easily as it could be done in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth, but it’s not at the moment. It’s expensive.

PAUL Now, that’s right, but he says just imagine – imagine it being possible – imagine us being so cheaply connected to the great hub of the United States that Google contemplates setting up a data centre in New Zealand.

CELIA Well, that would be amazing, and they are looking now – I was looking at the energy costs of data centres – and they’re really moving towards much more energy-efficient ones. I think Weta already has one of the largest ones in the Southern hemisphere. New Zealand could really benefit from that kind of economy.

PAUL Sam said that what Trade Me taught him— He was telling me what Trade Me taught him is that the fastest your internet connection, the longer people stay online, the more data they’ll access, the greater the purpose of the internet becomes to them. The faster you go.

ROD Yes. The faster, more reliable, and I think resilience is another issue we have to think about. Is it really smart for all of these cables to come ashore at the same beach in South Auckland?

PAUL You want one in Christchurch?

ROD I think thinking carefully about national resilience is actually an important issue. Now, obviously from the commercial provider’s point of view, this is not their issue. This is an issue for New Zealand to think about how dependent are we on a single connection.

PAUL Very good. Thank you all of you. Celia, very nice to see you, Jon Johansson and Rod Carr. Before we go, to our feedback. A letter came in – an actual letter, hand-typed by a Palmerston North man, Mr Robert Coburn. He writes to point out that, ‘Mr Paul Holmes, sir.’ He points out, ‘Not everyone owns a computer. Not everyone can Facebook or tweet or Skype, especially when they are,’ like you are, Robert, you say, ’80 years— 88 years old, blind in one eye and all but blind in the other.’ And Mr Coburn asks if we can perhaps not provide an 0800 number for people like him. And then he goes on to make his point, ‘Way back in the 1940s,’ he says, ‘I donned a uniform to do my tiny bit to rid this world of dictators, and now we have the most arrogant one we’ve ever seen on this morning’s Q+A.’ So that was his particular bit of feedback. ‘Someone likened him to Hitler, and they were not far wrong.’ Robert is referring to Dr Brash. ‘Please excuse the typing,’ says Bob, ‘As I struggled to see what I was doing. Yours, etc, Bob of Palmerston North. Well, there you go, Bob, so you see, as much as we’d love to have a bank of eager telephonists awaiting your call, we simply don’t have the resources available on a Sunday morning. Most of the good folk at TVNZ who would otherwise help are out enjoying a well-deserved weekend, but I hope we’ve just shown a letter is just as effective as it ever was and your feedback will get through and did. Mr Brash is probably not very happy.