Q+A

Q+A Panel Discussion 3

GREG BOYED
Welcome back. Were Minister Gerry Brownlee’s comments on Finland insulting? Following Labour leader David Shearer’s speech, Brownlee went on the attack in the house pointing out a few areas where the Finnish finish behind New Zealand?

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The prime minister argued that was evidence of Brownlee’s comic genius, saying, ‘I think everybody knows Gerry has a great sense of humour and gives rollicking speeches in the house from time to time, and that was one of them’. The PM also says he has no plans to send the minister to Finland, despite the fact we understand he will receive an official invitation from the Finnish Minister of Transport this week. News just in - the Gerry Brownlee comedy tour of NZ has been cancelled. What do we make of what he was trying to get at?

MIKE Well, I don’t know who wrote his speech, but my understanding is he got his facts completely wrong, and I think that reflects very badly on the research unit of the National Party. It wouldn’t have been Gerry who wrote that speech, but it certainly occasioned a lot of mirth. One columnist I read wrote that ‘This is probably the only ‘finish’ line that Gerry will ever cross’, so, you know, we’ve had a lot of fun with this. But at the end of it, our prime minister had to apologise to the prime minister of Finland. It’s not a good look.

GREG Yes. Waves of laughter aside, this is probably the last thing he wanted after the fortnight he’s had.

RAYMOND Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, here he’s dealing with someone who he sees as the Billy Connolly or maybe the Ronnie Barker as the NZ parliament, but honestly-

GREG He’d be the big Ronnie, wouldn’t he?

RAYMOND He’d be the big Ronnie. But seriously, it’s the last thing that the prime minister would have wanted at this time. You know, something that’s genuinely unfunny and humiliating to the entire population of a nation state the size of NZ - not the sort of thing you want to be doing.

GREG Fran, what do you make- I mean, putting aside the comedy of it, the point David Shearer was trying to make - bearing in mind, this is where Nokia’s from - wasn’t a terrible one, and for Gerry Brownlee to have gone off on that tangent is quite interesting.

FRAN Yeah, well, obviously his tactic was to try and diffuse anything that Shearer was trying to make. I think David Shearer made- you know, it was kind of interesting. He made a big deal about the previous prime minister of Finland, who went down in a heap of proverbial after just one term for doing all sorts of stuff. But it seems that a lot of that was relatively right wing. So I think that’s-

MIKE That was a strange choice, wasn’t it?

FRAN It was a very strange choice. I think no one really wants to go too near Finland. I think David Shearer should choose something else.

GREG We’ve got a few of the facts here. Finnish teachers are paid more and their students perform best in the OECD consistently. Finland is the best in education achievement.

MIKE There you go. And their incarceration rate is 59 per 100,000 of population, and our incarceration rate is 199 per 100,000 of population.

GREG And the Finnish economy- I can beat you there, Mike. The Finnish economy grew 2.9% in 2011. Ours grew 1.4% in 2011. All in all-

MIKE He was wrong.

RAYMOND So how many Finns are watching this programme?

GREG None of them. They’ve all thought it finished. In summary, though, Gerry Brownlee – not his smartest move in parliament.

RAYMOND And it illustrates a really important point, and that is how many of the senior ministers have caused problems for the prime minister? And we’re not talking about people who’ve just been made ministers. These are people with a long history of ministerial responsibility who are being kind of careless. And overall it gives a bad impression of the government and where it’s going.

GREG All right. Fran O’Sullivan, Raymond Miller and Mike Williams, thank you very much to you all.

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