Tuesday5th April, 2011

TRANSCRIPT: Labour Leader, Phil Goff interviewed on TV ONE's Breakfast at 7:20am this morning.

The full length video interview can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/Breakfast

PHIL GOFF interviewed by CORIN DANN

Corin: Let's talk politics. The Opposition Leader Phil Goff is with me now. Busy week for you Mr Goff. We'll just start with this issue of Luisa Wall coming in on the list. Lots of allegations levelled at the Labour Party that you essentially bullied Judith Tizard and others out of the position so that she could come through. Was that a credible position to take by the Labour Party?

Phil: That accusation is wrong. I talked to every member on the list in the top six. I said to them the decision was theirs to take, by law they were entitled to take up the position, and if they did they'd be welcomed into our caucus. Now each of the top five are longstanding former MPs, but every one of them has moved on in their life, they've got new jobs, they've set out to do new things, and each one of them has told me no we don't intend to take up that position. It makes a lot of sense for Luisa Wall, a bright energetic young new candidate, selected already for Manurewa to fight the next election, to take the position up and I think she will.

Corin: It might make a lot of sense, but is it devaluing the process and the list and the constitutional aspect of the list, because you go into an election, you put out your list, people vote for their party vote and they know what they're getting.

Phil: Yeah, but I think what you've gotta consider is that that list was drawn up three years ago. People that didn't get elected back to parliament have now looked as this and said, does it really make sense for me or for the taxpayer for me to come back for six months. I actually think common sense has prevailed, the people at the top of the list have been given a fair opportunity, the right to take it up, they've each expressed to me that they don't really want to do that. Luisa is a person with a future in parliament, very bright, very talented, former Black Fern and Silver Fern, she's gonna make a great contribution. It makes sense for her to come in.

Corin: So should the list process be changed to allow this in the future?

Phil: Well I think actually it's worked, people have been given the opportunity to take up the place. They say in the circumstances it doesn't make sense to do it, common sense has prevailed, we're getting the candidate who's looking forward to a future in parliament, not those who say no we've moved on from parliament we're not going back.

Corin: Alright, big budget deficit again confirmed yesterday by the government, but also I want to talk to you about South Canterbury Finance, because this has got the potential to put a huge hole in the government's books, already 300 million gone. I mean did they make the right decision in taking all this money on?

Phil: Well if they released all the documentation we'd be able to tell. Should they have sold? That's one possibility. Should they have extended the guarantee? Look I think along with a whole lot of other New Zealanders I've had a gutsful of companies that come along, that capitalised on their profits and socialised their losses to the taxpayer. You know we're seeing the same thing with the quick developers that move in and build the leaky homes, they fail, and suddenly the bill falls on the taxpayer again. The people that brought up the privatised companies that National sold off you know like Kiwi Rail, they ran it into the ground, they asset stripped it, we pick up the bill. I think the time's gotta come if you're in private enterprise you carry responsibility for what you do, and you don't just pass that across to the taxpayer.

Corin: So are you suggesting though that those people who had money in South Canterbury Finance should have just taken the hit?

Phil: Well you know there was a guarantee in place, that came at the time of the global financial crisis, everybody understands why the guarantee was there. Should it have been renewed? Should it have been renewed without safeguards? Those are real questions.

Corin: Just finally on this, they've got an issue of confidence here in financial stability, and you could argue that at the end of the day this was about securing financial stability for our whole system, I mean 1.6 billion dollars?

Phil: Yeah look but people go into private enterprise, they make an investment, they get a reasonable return, and if they go for the highest return then they have a higher risk. In the end most people feel that the taxpayer shouldn't always be there to bail out people who have taken a risk and that's failed. You can't have that, just like you can't have total subsidisation of sheep farmers like we had in the past. If private enterprise is private enterprise they should stand on their own feet. There shouldn't be constant bailouts, it sends the wrong message.

Corin: Alright speaking of private enterprise, you are launching an anti asset sales campaign today, is that right?

Phil: Yeah, well we did it last night, big meeting in West Auckland, and a very enthusiastic response. What do people want? And I'm talking about New Zealanders as a whole. They want community assets to stay owned by the community. We built up those assets you know like the hydro dams, they're now very profitable, why would we turn them over to the private sector and then to foreign investors to make that profit, when New Zealand taxpayers have paid to product them?

Corin: Just on that though, because Labour has a policy which says a subsidiary of a state owned asset can be floated on the sharemarket and get private enterprise. Now there's not a big jump is there between those two positions?

Phil: Oh there's a huge jump. Look, what the last Labour government did is it turned its back on privatisation. We saw Air New Zealand turned over to the private sector, they ran it into bankruptcy. We saw Kiwi Rail asset stripped, we saw the banks with pretty much a monopoly situation, Australian owned banks, we set up Kiwi Bank to provide competition, a mixed economy.

Corin: Surely under our policy something like Orcon which is a subsidiary of Kordia the state owned asset, I mean you could potentially float Orcon on the sharemarket, that's a state asset and then people will be able to buy it?

Phil: I think what New Zealanders want - let's come back to what ordinary Kiwis want. They want to have those assets that they've built up over generations that are producing. Look the electricity companies, 700 million dollars in dividends - why shouldn't that go back to the taxpayer? Why should you allow it to be sold off? It belongs to all New Zealanders now. If that's sold off like Contact was sold off, it quickly became corporate owned and Australian owned. Those dividends go straight out of the country and into Australia now. How can that make sense?

Corin: Opposition Leader Phil Goff, thank you very much for your time.

ENDS

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