Sunday 16th October, 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, 9:05am and 1:05pm Mondays on TVNZ 7

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PANEL DISCUSSIONS moderated by PAUL HOLMES

In response to RUSSEL NORMAN and STEVEN JOYCE interviews

PAUL Time to welcome the panel – Jon Johansson from the Victoria University is with us. Deborah Coddington is a columnist and former ACT MP. And of course we were telling you over the weekend that Anton Oliver, the former All Black and environmentalist... He had to pull out, because we understand Anton had a chance to see a top shoulder specialist this Sunday morning, and so that seemed to be more important. But Mike Williams, former Labour Party president, is alive and well, and once again is amongst us.

JON JOHANSSON – Political analyst
A facsimile of an All Black!

PAUL Oh, well, your reaction to that? I mean, he says, “The perception is wrong. The perception is wrong. We were not slow.”

JON And if the perception is wrong, that’s because of his communication failure from day one of this. I mean, that is just a no-brainer. It’s obvious to everybody that the way that the government has handled this from a communications point of view, which is meant to be the minister’s speciality, has been hopeless, right, and you can see it by both their words and their actions. And what is interesting is seeing this minister in the spotlight is what I thought earlier in the week were these very unctuous statements about complexity. Well, when you’re in his job and the prime minister’s job, how you frame the problem initially has the most impact on the consequences downstream. Now, I believe given the pipes are the central timing issue here, as we’ve been told, that not enough creativity was applied to the problem and good old Kiwi ingenuity about what we could do in that calm period, because there was only two variables here that were central. One was the weather window. Second one was the risk, and any oil you can get off that ship in that first five days has enormous consequences – beneficial consequences – downstream. Now, none of that happened.

PAUL But he says having first-response capability wouldn’t have made any difference whatsoever.

JON Look, there have been both experts and Kiwis with special... like the guy with the inflatable...

MIKE WILLIAMS – Former Labour Party president
At Te Atatu.

JON Yeah, that’s right. And all of those attempts were rejected by Maritime New Zealand and this government.

PAUL What do you think?

MIKE Well, perception is everything in politics. Steven Joyce was arguing a very complicated reality, and it may be true, but the general perception was that there was five days of flat water and no action. Now, we’ve just paid $600 million for an entirely new Navy If I’d have been the prime minister, I would have called a public council of war taking control of the situation and got some of those boats in there, even if they couldn’t do very much.

JON And if the answers coming back to you kept on being, “No, no, no, pipes, pipes, pipes,” I would say, “Well, what else?” You know.

MIKE Exactly.

JON Do we honestly not have the intelligence in this country in a makeshift situation to do our absolute level best? Because even a heroic failure to get oil off that in that five days...

MIKE It’s better than nothing.

JON ...is better than what we’ve ended up with.

PAUL Very Scandinavian.

DEBORAH CODDINGTON – Former ACT MP
I think what's happened, though, with New Zealanders is that unless the prime minister is actually there in person holding their hands and drying their eyes, they think the government’s not doing anything. In fact, at first light, Maritime New Zealand issued a tier-three emergency at 7 o'clock that morning. That is the highest level for an oil spill, which enables them to call in national and international resources. Now, why has nobody ever said that publicly?

PAUL I’ve never heard of a tier-three oil spill.

DEBORAH That is what they issued at 7 o'clock in the morning, while all of these...

PAUL But that doesn’t help me understand it.

DEBORAH ...whingers and moaners were grizzling.

MIKE But nobody knows what that is.

PAUL Nobody knows what that means.

MIKE No, nobody knows what that means.

PAUL We had to work that out this week on the programme ourselves when we were talking about the programme. But the other thing is this – god, look, this is the busiest port in the country. It’s a gigantic port. Every airport that has passengers around this country has to keep a fire engine. It might never fight a fire.

DEBORAH Look, this is bad, but it’s not the end of the world.

JON No, but, Deborah, Deborah...

DEBORAH Beaches get bombed...

PAUL Well, tell that to me on Papamoa Beach.

JON Deborah, the thing here is, though – and this is what's really struck me, cos I live down on Wellington’s south coast, so I see an endless supply of ships out my front window today. What I realise now is just actually how ill-prepared as a country we are if something happens out on the Cook Strait. We’ll be in the same position as those poor people up in the Bay of Plenty.

DEBORAH Yes, we had the Wahine disaster, and we recovered. People recover. It gets better. It’s not the end of the world.

JON I understand...

PAUL No, we can continue... I know what Deborah’s saying...

JON I understand that, but in the same way, we have a lot of resources at airports in the event of an emergency. It is palpably clear here that, as a coastal nation, as an oil importer, we are not geared up to handle these sorts of events.

PAUL Another question, I suppose, might be you would have a huge rapid-response, initial-response, first-response ship, but it might be off the coast of Bluff and the accident happens at the Port of Napier.

MIKE Yeah, but I go back to the point of perception, though. The gruntiest tug that New Zealand’s got is apparently parked at Napier. It took days to get that going. There was a perception of fiddling while Rome burnt. And what we saw there again – I think a very bad strategy is attack the messenger. That’s the second time I’ve heard Steven Joyce, who I have a great deal of respect for, call a journalist naïve. Now, that is a silly thing to do.

DEBORAH Yes, I agree there. That perception thing, you’re absolutely right. In politics, it is the perception.

PAUL But when you say, you know, there's a perception... The thing that’s developed in New Zealand that we don’t think the government’s doing anything about it unless the prime minister’s standing there – I mean, when the Mississippi was flooding, Clinton was down at the Mississippi with his arm around people’s shoulders. George Bush went to Washington and put his arm around a fireman’s shoulders.

JON Well, when the Pike River explosion happened, the prime minister was down in Greymouth in a real hurry, right.

DEBORAH Yes, well, maybe he’s created a rod for his own back.

JON Well, maybe.

DEBORAH But let’s look at Labour and the Greens. There were two days of questions – Wednesday and Thursday. What were the Greens doing? They were putting questions on Happy Feet.

JON And they were also...

DEBORAH They weren’t there. Where were they? They weren’t down at Papamoa.

MIKE Hang on, that’s not fair.

JON Their caucus has been there since it began.

MIKE Their entire caucus went there, and one of the best images there is actually Phil Goff shovelling up grunge. That’s what John Key should have been doing.

DEBORAH You think that’s a good image?

MIKE Even if it was a completely useless...

PAUL Do you think that was a good image?

DEBORAH I don’t think that was a good image.

MIKE Well, at least he was doing something, and it was appreciated by the locals, because I know some of them who appreciated it.

*

In response to EPSOM DEBATE

PAUL What were we going to discuss just there? Oh, whether people are going to vote strategically in Epsom. This is the question, isn’t it?

MIKE It’s a very complicated question, because, I mean, everyone keeps telling you that Epsom voters are intelligent. Well, blind Freddy’s dog can tell you that the ACT Party is a shambolic circus, and that’s what they know. Now, it’s quite conceivable that by voting for John Banks, they’ll get one MP, because ACT turns into something like a Peter Dunne party or Jim Anderton party, and the party vote for ACT is completely wasted. So a strategic vote in Epsom may well be to vote for Paul Goldsmith.

PAUL National-National, you mean?

MIKE Exactly.

JON If Epsom doesn’t serve as a seat multiplier, there is no strategic reason to vote for ACT.

DEBORAH Yes, but this week changed everything, you see. This week did change everything – what we were talking about before. Because National could well take a hit from Rena, and if National takes a hit, ACT could benefit from it.

PAUL But the opinion...

MIKE Well, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed all that talk about polls closing. Explain that.

DEBORAH Well, they could, because people who still want a centre-right government... ACT could benefit in Epsom, so they might...

PAUL Well, they may not, you see.

DEBORAH And they may not,...

PAUL The Greens...

DEBORAH ...because there are people... Yeah, the Greens will benefit, but Labour won’t. But people who still want a centre-right government, ACT could benefit in Epsom. But there are also people in Epsom who are sick of being told how to vote.

MIKE Mm, that’s a very good point.

PAUL That’s true, that’s true. But also, as Mike says, if blind Freddy’s dog can tell you that ACT is a hopeless joke, then why are you going to vote strategically for such a party?

DEBORAH But I don’t think that ACT is still a hopeless vote. With Catherine Isaac being confirmed as number two, you get back the liberal factor in ACT.

JON Could I just...?

DEBORAH You get some gravitas put in there. And with Alan Gibbs confirming that he’s chucked $100,000 at the party, that’s a vote of confidence in the party again. You’ve got big business backing it.

PAUL But even... Hang on, Jon. If I could just say even Banks... If you drive round Shore Rd, you know, in Epsom, on the yellow posters, it’s all John Banks and down the bottom is a little, little word that says ACT.

JON Now, in that debate today, you see the trouble... I mean, John Banks clearly continues to transmogrify himself: “Tax, spend, borrow, hope” we heard and you know we’re going to be hearing that for the next six weeks, no doubt. But the shadow standing behind Banks and the impediment to his success is Don Brash.

DEBORAH Oh yes.

JON And, you know, you talk to people in Epsom and they just... that is their fear. OK, we actually do understand the strategic dynamic, and I do accept Deborah’s point there that if National comes down, then it becomes a more complicated decision in Epsom. But how much madness can be inflicted upon an electorate without that electorate rebelling? And I think that’s actually what we’re seeing a bit of.

PAUL Do you know...? Of course, what John Banks may be quietly telling the voters, of course, is that if they don’t vote strategically for ACT in the party vote, that the Nats will have only the Maori Party to rely on.

DEBORAH No, well, there is the Greens. Don’t forget the Greens. No, well, that poll said 60% of voters wanted the Greens to go with National as opposed to Labour.

PAUL Yeah.

MIKE But can I also say that I think David Parker’s choice in running for Epsom is strategically brilliant for him. He was able to put Labour’s case in a fight which is really a fight between National and ACT, and he got a third of the time doing it.

PAUL How close do you think Russel Norman can afford to move to the Nats? You know Russel Norman, and of course you had Catherine Delahunty emphatically found out the other day saying she’d quit if they formed a coalition or got too close to the Nats. How close do you think he can go?

JON Well, the reason why the Greens I think are the most stable of the minor parties is because it’s not up to Russel Norman. You know, Russel can lead the conversation, along with his co-leader, but ultimately the way that the Green Party is set up, it has to be the Green membership that decide. Now, I think that does impose an absolute limit as to what the Greens can do. OK, I think Russel and Metiria have done an excellent job of transitioning that party from the party of its founders, but ultimately they cannot – even through abstention, in my opinion – allow National-led Budgets, because what will be in those Budgets in this second term is an anathema to the Green Party membership.

PAUL Yes.

JON That said, there's all sort of... you know, an enhanced memorandum of understand I see as completely viable. And that poll – I think we were talking about that last week, right – I think it does show that New Zealanders – and events of this week are only going to reinforce that – we want ways of how you can better couple the market economy with our love of environment and sustainability.

PAUL That’s the new realisation coming to people, isn’t it?

JON I think that’s where the next interesting set of ideas is coming from, sure.

PAUL Yes, and I’m wondering, you know, if they did a very bad thing getting rid of Rodney, because the electorate would have eventually forgiven Rodney, probably.

DEBORAH I don’t know. I don’t know if they would have. It wasn’t the perk-busting. I think his apology on the perk-busting was genuine and sincere and he recovered from that. It was David Garret and the dead baby that really stuffed it up and that Rodney knew about it, and he continued to defend David Garret.

JON And nostalgia is the most seductive of liars, right. We forget just actually what perceptions were of that Hide-led party at the end there.

MIKE I’m going to seriously disagree with Deborah there. I’ve...

PAUL I’ve got to go, me old mate. We can continue this on the web-only panel.

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