Q+A

Panel Discussions

Hosted by Paul Holmes

PAUL HOLMES
Time to welcome the panel. This week, Dr Raymond Miller from Auckland University. Sue Bradford, former Green MP and a candidate for the Mana Party at the last election. And Christine Rankin, former Chief Executive of Work and Income, now a member of the Families Commission. Welcome to you.

So, you’ve been head of Work and Income. Is what you’re hearing- Are you hearing anything from Paula Bennett that tells you anything that’s going to make a substantial difference to these figures?

CHRISTINE RANKIN, former CEO, Work & Income
Yeah, I really do believe that those welfare reforms are going to work. I think she’s put all the right things in place. We’ve just gotta get on with it. We’ve got to start it and watch it happen. But, you know, the economy is really bad, and they can’t just pull jobs out of some magic box somewhere.

PAUL No, things have been very bleak. I mean, the thing with the welfare business, it seems to me, the difficulty any minister has is that the numbers don’t move, and they haven’t moved for years. 70,000 more on welfare now than when the Nats got in. 70,000, and as Shane says, 83,000 15-24-

CHRISTINE And she is giving an incentive to employers. You know, when they took the youth rate away, that was to make everything equal. It’s actually created an inequality and a serious one. They’re going to give that financial incentive. I think that will make a huge difference. They’re going to have those kids training. Employers don’t want to take the risk. If they’ve got somebody that’s mature and got skills, they’ll choose them every time, and we’ve gotta get those young people into a different position.

PAUL Sue Bradford, will she make any difference?

SUE BRADFORD, former Green MP
None whatsoever, except to further increase the harassment and intimidation not only of young people who are on the benefit, of whom there are not very many-

PAUL It’s gotta be a little bit tough to get a benefit, though, doesn’t it?

SUE But also sole parents. She hasn’t really talked about the scope of even this first lot of welfare returns in this interview, but when you look at the scale of unemployment in this country, it’s ridiculous to think that harassing this very small group of 16- and 17-year-olds, and some 18-year-olds, is actually going to do anything to create jobs. It may, and I hope it does, help some young people to improve their chances, but this $130 million they’re spending on further intimidation of DPB and-

PAUL Why are you talking about harassment and intimidation and so on?

SUE Oh, for example, extending work testing of the sole parents so that some mothers with babies as young as one year old will be expected to go out to work part-time or full-time. I call that harassment. Whose jobs will they be taking?

CHRISTINE This country cannot afford to let people rot on a benefit, and I’ve seen that happen. The results of it are absolutely appalling. I think we do need these moves and we need to do it strongly. It’s not about harassment, it’s about supporting people to be the very best that they can be.

SUE But the jobs aren’t there. Why isn’t the government creating jobs? I’d have a lot more respect if this government was also saying, ‘Well, we’re going to do our upmost to create jobs as a priority for the people who are unemployed now.’ Not only are there these young people that the minister’s talking about. What about all the unemployed young graduates who are desperate-

PAUL Right, I was looking at- There’s much debate about it. People at home are saying, ‘They don’t bloody want to work, some of these kids. The kids in Dargaville, that Paula Bennett’s talking about. They just won’t get off their backsides and work. Just lie in their pyjamas and smoke dope all day.’ Maybe. I mean, this may be the myth. But that’s probably- But when I look at the numbers of people who apply for work at supermarkets opening up and down the country, 2000 people showing up for 150 jobs. But the really depressing thing is the only businesses opening up who are big employers are supermarkets.

DR RAYMOND MILLER, Political Scientist
Well, that’s right, and really-

PAUL So you’ve got an economy malfunction.

RAYMOND Yes, but you know, you’ve got literally thousands of 16- and 17-year-olds who have never worked being turned away because they lack experience or training. I mean, it really is an incredibly difficult situation. I think there are two things that need to be done. I don’t believe that the Social Development Ministry is focusing enough on this issue. I think it’s too large and too diverse. In countries like Denmark and Sweden and Britain they have a ministry for employment, or for jobs, and I think they really need to focus on that. You know, we have a minister of sport, we have a minister of horse-racing. We need to have a ministry that deals specifically with this issue. The second thing is we really need to invest much more than the government is currently planning to do this. I know it’s an age of austerity and stimulus is a dirty word for many, but-

PAUL But you can have a minister of jobs, but if the government’s not going to open the factory, then what difference is it going to make? I mean, this is a worldwide problem. We have to bear this in mind, don’t we? I mean, Britain has just sunk back into recession.

CHRISTINE And she’s taking it away from the Ministry of Social Development and she’s putting it with star performers like the Salvation Army. Look, those kids need that personal involvement and that personal support, and who better to do it than groups like that?

PAUL But in the end, she’s been talking black and blue about reforming welfare for three and a half years. She’s had three and a half years now. Numbers are up. 70,000 people more on welfare than when she came in, and 83,000 15-24 year olds are not in training, education or work.

SUE Yeah, that’s why Raymond’s right. The answer is in jobs. It’s not in these little details that are actually quite big in terms of negatively impacting people’s lives, that she’s talking about with the reforms they’ve just brought in, the ones they’re going to announce in July are going to have an incredibly devastating impact on people’s lives.

PAUL Yeah, Sue, but people at home are going to be listening to you saying, ‘Yeah, but the rain’s gotta stop somewhere.’

CHRISTINE Well, in case we haven’t noticed, we’ve got a terrible economic situation.

RAYMOND That’s being used all the time, though.

SUE So why make life harder for beneficiaries? Why not do something about actually helping to create jobs so people can get off the benefit and into decent work with decent wages?

PAUL But then how do you create jobs?

SUE There’s lots of ways of doing that.

PAUL You’ve got to provide incentives for people to come and set up here, don’t you?

SUE People like the group I work with, and I’m sure at the universities, we have many ideas about how government could be proactively involved in constructive job creation. I’d love it if Paula Bennett would say, ‘What are your ideas?’ We’d give them to her for sure, and Mr Key, and Mr English.

PAUL What are your ideas?

SUE Well, there’s many places, but to start with, we’ve got a desperate homelessness crisis in this city and in Christchurch and around the country. How about building 20,000 state homes over the next two years to help begin to solve that crisis? Training apprenticeships within that, as well as providing lots of jobs.

PAUL Thanks, Sue. Raymond?

RAYMOND Yes, exactly. Trade training, apprenticeships, putting much more money into preparing students at secondary school and university for the job market.

PAUL But the trouble is we’ve got a billion-dollar hole, as we’ll discuss shortly.

RAYMOND Yes, I know, but this is a critical issue. As Shane kept saying, 83,000. Half of all those people who are unemployed are under the age of 25. These people haven’t even started yet.

PAUL John Key tells us, or the government tells us, its own people tell us, if you go on the benefit at 18, you are likely to be on it for 10 years.

CHRISTINE Absolutely.

PAUL I mean, it’s a criminal human tragedy.

CHRISTINE And that’s why these reforms have to kick in. I mean, these kids can’t be left to stay in bed, as somebody’s quoted, in Dargaville and not get off their bottoms and do something. It’s not about harassment. It’s about incenting them and supporting them.

PAUL But the problem’s not easy.

PAUL Ray Miller, first of all, to you. Has John Banks, as Shearer says, got to stand down?

RAYMOND Well, I think there’s a lot of mystery around this. He was not at all convincing this morning, in my view. He did not deny anything that Kim Dotcom had been saying, but rather he tried to deflect attention. I think there’s something quite serious going on here, because there is an electoral act of 2001 which states that if you knowingly- when you make a submission, if you know the name of the person who has made the donation, you must declare that.

PAUL Yes, it’s quite clear, quite simple. If somebody makes a donation, say, of 25 grand, and you don’t know who that person was, you can declare that person in your electoral return as anonymous. But if you know who made that donation, like sitting there watching the cheque written out, and you call that anonymous, that’s a bit dodgy, isn’t it?

RAYMOND And to offer advice beforehand as to breaking the amount into two lots of 25 and to phone up afterwards, if Dotcom is right, to phone up afterwards and thank him for the money which has come into his account, suggests it was not an anonymous donation.

PAUL Yeah, I mean how prima facie can you get? Does he have to stand down? Is it serious for him?

SUE Oh, I think he should. I mean, he just showed the most phenomenal gall just now on this programme, sitting there and acting as if there’s no issue, but I think most people in this country understand now there is a real issue, as Raymond’s just said. There is a serious legal matter here. I understand complaints have been made with the police. I hope that these complaints are not just ignored, as so often happens. Politicians have been playing fun and games with electoral laws around donations forever in my experience. People do push the borders. Whatever the laws are, they always push at the borders. But this is such a blatant breach of the law. In terms of claiming anonymity or pretending anonymity when it’s so clear that it wasn’t.

PAUL Well, I don’t want to broaden it more than it’s already broad, but did you notice in his return there were five lots of $25,000?

SUE Yes, well, you do wonder.

PAUL One does wonder. Is he in trouble? Christine, what do you think?

CHRISTINE Well, I think he is, and how the hell does a seasoned performer get himself into this situation? Look, you do have a group working for you when you’re on a campaign like that, and they do all of that stuff, but it is your responsibility to know, and, you know, we’ve learned more and more about this new act and what the regulations and determinations of it are. I just cannot believe this, and to not answer your question directly makes me very very concerned.

PAUL Well, there was no weakness to be perceived there at all. I mean, it could be- He said he’ll be cleared. He could be cleared.

CHRISTINE He may be right, but it’s not sounding very good.

PAUL Of course, the danger for the government in this is that if he does get into the position of being forced to step down, and we don’t know what Prime Minister- Well, what can the Prime Minister do? He’s of another party. But he’s the one key vote, isn’t he, or certain key vote on the convention centre.

SUE I don’t think that the voters of Epsom in a by-election are, unfortunately, very likely to vote for a left or left-of-centre candidate, which, of course, is what a lot of us would love to see happen. So ultimately, I don’t think Key and co are going to be particularly worried. They may just simply get their own man in in a by-election and actually feel more comfortable.

CHRISTINE And it’s a vain hope that he won’t be the sideshow next week.

RAYMOND And you know this teacup saga goes on and on and on, and how much has it cost the government in terms of Winston Peter’s eight MPs in there who wouldn’t have been in there otherwise, and now all of this. It cost an awful lot to save John Banks, I must say.

SUE One of the best things is we could see charter schools down the road, which could be a wonderful outcome of this.

PAUL What have you got against charter schools? What are they, actually? I meant to get John Tamihere to explain this to me one day and ran out of time.

SUE Well, they appear to be many things to many people, but it’s taking some schools outside of the state system into what I see as a privatised system where not-for-profits or private enterprise can run schools how they wish without adhering to any or many of the standards that apply in the rest of our education system. It’s a terribly regressive-

PAUL Well, Britain built an empire with the church owning the schools and the government coming in very late, didn’t they?

CHRISTINE What’s wrong with doing things differently? If we get the right results, great. Go for it.

PAUL Anyway, we better talk about that thing we were talking about originally with David Parker and John Banks, which is this billion-dollar shortfall.

RAYMOND Yeah, the worrying thing for me was something that Bill English said this week, which was that we need to pay off the deficit and get into surplus so that we can provide a buffer for future recessions. Now, how deeply depressing is that? It really makes me wonder about this austerity process that the government is on. It really- We’re seeing already in Europe, and including the United Kingdom, a kind of a voter backlash against it. Up until now, the public I think has given them support because of their economic management. But the more it costs people in terms of their everyday lives, the more this austerity is going to cause, I think, a voter backlash-

PAUL And in terms of economics, of course, they have been austering themselves left, right and centre, and Britain has still gone into recession again.

PAUL The importance of the council to that convention deal. How important are they, Christine?

CHRISTINE Well, they haven’t got the deciding say. They’ve got an opinion, but I don’t think they’re it, at the end of the day.

PAUL That’s it. They’ve got an opinion, haven’t they?

CHRISTINE They’ve got an opinion, like the rest of New Zealand. But we need this. We need economic development. We want jobs. We can’t have it all. Sometimes you’ve just gotta be pragmatic, and we are in a very serious situation. This is a huge opportunity for this country.

PAUL Sometimes you’ve gotta pay the piper.

SUE Oh, no. It’s a manufactured crisis again, like the government and its budget. This is totally manufactured bullshit, when it comes down to it. Why does Auckland need this huge convention centre? They’re talking about 800 jobs, four times the number at the Melbourne casino. These figures are pulled out of the air. If we do want a convention centre, why do we have to trade off with 500 pokie machines? $140,000 a year, Skycity’s going to get out of those machines. It’s a wonderful deal for Skycity. It’s a terrible deal for Auckland. And this mayor is showing a total abrogation of leadership in not fronting on the issue and just walking the fence like he did on Ports of Auckland.

PAUL Where did you get 400? With respect, you’re being a bit disingenuous and dishonest on that. 400? No one has said 400 extra pokies.

SUE 500. Up to 500 extra pokies. The government itself has talked about it. We know that-

PAUL It’s early days, isn’t it. Early days.

SUE It’s the government itself that figure comes from.

PAUL But, you know, the pokies, they are- People fall victim to them, Ray. This is a serious thing.

RAYMOND This is the dilemma. I have some sympathy for Len Brown on this. I mean, the first thing we need to say is partisanship doesn’t really work in local government in New Zealand. So when you talk about left and right, he’s really an independent. He is a Labour Party member, but he’s an independent. Secondly, yes, council is largely impotent, Christine, that’s right, in the face of government action on this, but I think the government should have tried to solve this moral dilemma by being much more clear about what they were going to do to help problem gamblers, to simply put it out as an economic argument without dealing specifically with the moral issues causes real problems for many voters.

PAUL Well, I think the problem- One of the problems, really is both Key and- Their two main, what do you call them, handlers, you know, Steven Joyce was in Oman, and Key himself was up in Indonesia when this thing really started to get wheels, and so the anti-gambling, anti-pokies group got really organised, and so the message that really wasn’t got out by the government was the wonders, if there are any, of the convention centre. So they went on the back foot straight away.

RAYMOND It wasn’t managed properly. And that’s the problem, and you’re dealing with Skycity, which is a very powerful corporate-

SUE Making lots of donations to these very people, we might note. Len Brown and John Banks are huge beneficiaries-

PAUL Making lots of donations also to people who are not victims of pokies.

CHRISTINE Absolutely.

PAUL I’m a member of that trust. All right, then, so if council were to turn against it, though, the government would have no buy-in from council. That’s got to have some kind of tempering effect.

SUE Yeah, this government was so keen on the Super City, on Auckland speaking as one. That’s why it’s such an abrogation of Len Brown’s responsibility, and the council’s, not to take a clear position on this now, and try to put it off. They’re there to represent us. They’re not doing a very good job at all at the moment.

PAUL Sue Bradford, I thank you for your continued outspokenness on our national landscape. Raymond Miller, thank you for your time. Christine Rankin, thank you for coming in.