Q + A
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Hosted by PAUL HOLMES
In response to DAVID SHEARER INTERVIEW

PAUL Well, it’s time to welcome the panel for the first time in 2012, and it’s my very great pleasure to welcome Dr Raymond Miller from Auckland University, political scientist at Auckland University. And Q+A veterans back to the programme, former National Party president Michelle Boag – who would have ever thought you’d be in partnership – former National Party president Michelle and the former Labour president Mike Williams. What a difference in performance from the leader of the Labour Party today compared to last year on telly.

MIKE WILLIAMS – Fmr Labour Party President
He’s lifted his game.

PAUL He’s got better.

MIKE Yeah, a tribute to both of them, I thought. That’s Shane first significant interview, and it was a good one. And I noted four things down about David Shearer. He firmly resisted making policy on the hoof, which is exactly the right thing to be doing at this point. He doesn’t want to spike his guns, for the speeches are coming. I like the future focus, particularly the emphasis on education. That’ll strike a chord. And I thought it was a good explanation of his personal philosophy done quickly, succinctly and comprehensibly. And the last thing I’d say, he’s got a very nice smile, but he only used it right at the end. There should’ve been more of that.

MICHELLE BOAG – Fmr National Party President
I think— What I was delighted to see was the David Shearer that I thought we needed for New Zealand after the election, you know, when I said I thought David Shearer should be the leader because I respect him as a person. I think he’s got the right instincts. What concerned me at the end of last year was that he was listening too much to the mongrels in the Labour Party, that it was—

MIKE Which mongrels?

PAUL (laughs)

MICHELLE Well, you know, you do have a few.

MIKE I don’t know any mongrels.

MICHELLE You do have a few.

MIKE I euthanised them all.

MICHELLE I don’t think so. I don’t think so. And, in fact, the David Shearer we saw today is the David Shearer who operates on his instincts.

PAUL He was the David Shearer you speak to in the green room out there.

MICHELLE Exactly.

PAUL He’s the David Shearer you speak to in private, lifted about five notches.

MICHELLE Yeah, but I think that all we saw was the real David Shearer today.

PAUL No, good. I’m saying good—

MIKE Yeah.

PAUL Raymond.

Dr RAYMOND MILLER – Political Analyst
He’s— Yes, I agree he acquitted himself extremely well. He’s a very likeable person, and on the likeability scale, you have to compare him with John Key. I mean, a lot of comparison will be made with John Key. They’re both not conventional politicians, they’ve both been in Parliament a relatively short period of time before they became leader, and they are both very likeable people.

PAUL They’re both ordinary.

RAYMOND They’re both ordinary.

PAUL While being extraordinary.

RAYMOND Exactly.

PAUL There’s a nice ordinariness projected. Yes—

MIKE But, Paul—

PAUL But you’re quite right when you say he resisted the temptation to make policy on the hoof. Now, he had to hold out there against Shane’s very persistent questioning.

MIKE He did. That was a good line of questioning, and he did hold out as he had to do.

PAUL He did hold out.

PAUL So he’s got the political smarts.

MIKE Yeah.

MICHELLE Yeah, I think he is a smart politician. I think his instincts are very good. I don’t yet see the self-belief that he can beat John Key. He talked about matching John Key. I’m not sure that he himself yet believes he can beat John Key, and he’s got a way to go there. But I think we need to give him time. You know, people forget that Helen Clark was—

PAUL He’s got the time.

MICHELLE Helen Clark was the leader for five years, you know, before she won an election.

PAUL Well, that’s quite right. And remember, you know, going into the 2008 election, that last debate. Nobody really had absolute confidence that John Key could take it to Helen Clark. Even in that last debate of 2008.

MICHELLE Mm.

PAUL You know?

MIKE Yeah, I think she’d lost confidence at that point. She’ll ring me up and tell me off for saying that, but I think she had. But what you’re seeing here I think is someone who’s gaining in confidence. I mean, he didn’t really— wasn’t in the framework to be leader until about two or three weeks before the actual vote.

RAYMOND But, I mean, it’s a monumental— it’s a monumental task he’s got, and that’s why I think it was really good that he didn’t get into the specifics. Because let’s face it, this was the worst performance by Labour since, and let’s wait for it, 1931. You know, the party’s been running on empty. He knows that he’s in there to actually review and change that party, and that’s a big job.

PAUL A big job, indeed, and does he have the toughs for it? So what were some of the qualities we did notice? I mean, did we see the toughs this morning for the first time, perhaps?

MIKE Yeah, I think so. You saw a firmness, but there’s also that underlying warmth, which, I mean, I’m monitoring. David’s going round the party at the moment, as he should, meeting with all the branches and LECs and regions, and God knows what else, sector groups. And he’s making a very good impression because of that warmth. What you saw there was a bit of firmness. He stood firm against Shane’s really quite persistent line of questioning.

PAUL And the other thing is the hesitancies had gone this morning.

RAYMOND Yes, they had, but I think we’ve got to remember he’s got to be salesman for the party. We’re only seeing him in one forum, in an interview situation. He has got to be performing well in the debating chamber. He’s got to get out there and sell the message, and that’s where I think questions continue to be asked about his effectiveness.

PAUL It takes years to learn that stuff, though, doesn’t it?

MICHELLE Yes, it does, and he is still very new, as John Key was.

MIKE That’s right.

MICHELLE So there are a lot of comparisons between them, but I think the point about his warmth is— the important thing is as the government dislodges voters and upsets voters on various issues, they have to feel comfortable about going to Labour under the leadership of Shearer, and I think that’s what we’re seeing – that comfort level.

PAUL I think that’s what we saw. That’s what we saw this morning, yes. We’re warming to him. Now, you believe Labour have got to do certain things to win in 2014. Of course, the other thing, as you know, that while he doesn’t seem to have been too visible the last couple of months – David Shearer – Labour’s been going up in the polls.

MIKE Well, yes, I always think of party organisations like Michelle does – I was never particularly interested in policies and caucuses. Perhaps I should’ve been a bit more. But it seems to me that the Labour Party as an organisation has got to do four things, and I’m hoping this comes out of the review. They’ve got to carry on selling the leader. One thing they didn’t do with Phil Goff is actually go out and introduce him to the party. Everyone assumed that because he’d been around for so long, everyone knew him. Everybody didn’t know him. I didn’t even know the names of his children. I didn’t know how many children he had, although I could name the names and the genders of both of John Key’s children. Secondly, there’s got to be a decent three-year fund-raising plan. When I took over the Labour Party in 2000, I think I had six or seven organisers. I’ve now got one. Now, that’s got to turn around. The third thing is they’ve got to have a provincial strategy, and Michelle observed on the radio that they really went backwards in the provinces. They’ve got to work out how to do that.

PAUL And the fourth?

MIKE And the fourth thing is they’ve got to get voters out voting. We had the— Not only did Labour have the worst result since 19— What was it?

RAYMOND ’31.

MIKE ’31. Thank you, Raymond. We had the lowest turnout in the history of New Zealand. Now, that’s tragic. And that low turnout occurred in the Labour-voting area, so he’s got to inspire people to get out and vote.

PAUL Still, in summary, is it fair to say, if I were to say that what we saw this morning was the beginning of a contest?

MICHELLE Yes, I think he’s definitely demonstrated his personality. What I loved about it was, I think, his instinctive personality – it wasn’t a whole lot of advisors saying, ‘This is what you should be.’

PAUL And there we’ve got to leave it.

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In response to THE PORTS OF AUCKLAND DISPUTE

PAUL Welcome back the programme. With me are Dr Raymond Miller, Michelle Boag and Mike Williams. I suppose we could start by debating the role of the mayor in this whole dispute. Is he right – there’s only so much he can do?

RAYMOND Yes. I mean, it’s like portioning blame following a failed marriage, and as we know, mediation doesn’t always work in situations like that. Look, he’s not an executive mayor who can tell his council-controlled organisations what to do. And I think—I feel considerable sympathy for him because I think he’s been trying to work his way through this minefield.

PAUL Well, he’s able to go down and tell them he wants 12%.

MICHELLE Yes, and that’s the conflict for him because he can’t say that on the one hand and then undermine what the port wants to do to deliver that on the other hand. I actually think that Len Brown has done incredibly well out of this. You think about it. A protest march of 5000 – that is nothing. That is 2.5% of the CTU’s membership. In Auckland, on a fine Saturday, you can get a couple of thousand people turning up to protest the opening of an envelope, for heaven’s sake. 5000 is nothing. If I was the mayor, I’d be delighted about 5000 people turning out to support the union. Secondly, I think he’s done very well to keep the councillors out of the public argument. When you think about it, he’s managed that well. You’ve got Mike Lee floating round the edges – well, you know, he’s got great affiliation to the seaman sector, so you can expect that—

PAUL Cathy Casey, one of the left-wing Auckland councillors says sack the damn lot of them – sack that investment company, sack the Ports of Auckland board, the works.

MIKE I don’t think he can do that. I mean, if Cathy Casey has that attitude, then she should put it to the council and let them vote on it. I simply don’t think they’ve got the power to do that. And Len is heavily constrained by the government’s model imposed upon Auckland by the National Government with this port. The council does not control the port. There is an intermediary called Auckland Council Investments Ltd.

PAUL Well, he can lean on people.

MIKE Well, you can lean on people, but, look, I’ve got the SOI – statement of intent – for the Auckland Council Investments Ltd, and I’m wondering if this is a way through, because it defines ‘sound business practice in a commercial undertaking, sustainable business backed and ethical and good behaviour’, and I don’t think the port company has conformed to any of those.

PAUL You could look at some documentation– Not to go one side of the argument, but you could look at some documentation, as I was yesterday, as I said to Gary Parsloe, some of those offers have been very generous. As Len Brown says, the union could’ve taken that very first offer.

RAYMOND And I think this is very interesting because we can see the left is divided on this. We saw it with David Shearer; we see it with Len Brown. Here is a situation where they can see that the union has overplayed its hand. The union leadership has overplayed its hand.

PAUL And the port has seen that very quickly—

RAYMOND Absolutely.

PAUL Acted quickly.

RAYMOND And they’re not blameless on this, but at least what we are seeing is we’re seeing an argument taking place within the leftist as to how closely they want to affiliate themselves with this union.

PAUL And I suppose the difficulty for Len Brown is that he’s a Labour mayor who’s sympathetic to the port’s position.

MICHELLE Yes, but I think the union’s miscalculated this. I think they thought that if they made enough fuss, the politicians would come in behind them because, let’s face it, that’s happened every other time. Not only did they do that, I think that once the port got its message across about 160 hours a month, most people thought, ‘Hey, I can’t decide what hours I work.’ For most of us, we have to be flexible. If our boss says, ‘I want you there till 8 o’clock tonight, you do it.’

PAUL And 160’s not bad.

MICHELLE And 160 is not bad.

PAUL Now, what about this 12%? Is that a dopey number? The mayor was not convincing on how he found this number.

MIKE No, I tend to think they’ve pulled that number out of thin air, but they’ve got a whole lot of other numbers here too, including probably the fastest crane movements achievable on earth. It’s pie-in-the-sky stuff. And I think that those were numbers that got past a very fresh council. But what I would say – I think Michelle was quite right. I think the union lost the public-relations battle very early on in the piece. The one thing I notice about here right now is the union guy, Gary Parsloe, arrived on his own, and Richard Pearson, the chairman of the port, arrived with a public-relations consultant. And that’s how they’d played it all along, and they’ve done it very well.

RAYMOND I understand that the CTU commissioned a poll which showed that there was stronger support for the union in its position than there was for the port. And I do believe Michelle is right, that they were working on the basis that they could win this argument.

PAUL I’ve got to wrap it there. Let’s have our political moment of the week. Quite a good doer – both of them are good doers in the House. Tony Ryall. But that’s an extraordinary shirt-and-tie set.

RAYMOND Well, that’s an amazing shirt-and-tie set, and I’ve seen it quite often on Tony Ryall.

PAUL Look, he should be in jail.

RAYMOND (laughs) Yes.

MICHELLE I think it’s his—

PAUL It wouldn’t matter if he threw up.

MICHELLE It’s his signature. It’s like a signature dish with Tony Ryall. Everyone looks to see what shirt and tie he’s wearing, yeah.

PAUL So there we are with a very good return and all we’re talking about is his suit and tie.

MICHELLE Exactly. The government will be delighted.

PAUL Mm. Grant Robertson – a good performer.

MIKE Always been a good performer for a long time and is gaining strength, I think.

RAYMOND Waiting in the wings, perhaps.

MICHELLE Yes, I think it’s very—

PAUL With less certainty after this morning, perhaps?

MIKE Yes.

RAYMOND Yes.

PAUL Professor Miller. Well, that’s all we have time for today.