Here’s the tape that’s caused all the fuss. Fairfax has confirmed that it’s the real thing.

After listening to it, you might well decide that it is truly a storm in a teacup. But – it got Winston Peters and his motley crew into Parliament, so the PM may now be wishing he’d released it on the spot!

It’s difficult to decipher, but here’s a link to a transcript on The Jackal’s blog.

OK, I’m one of a number of people advising Phil Goff and you’re entitled to think I’m incapable of being objective. So I’ll stick to the demonstrable facts.

I was worried about ‘the worm’. TV3 had made the indefensible decision to allow viewers at home who could afford a particular type of phone to vote on who was winning at any particular time in the debate. ‘Indefensible’ because the owners of those phones would come from a social group much more likely to support National than Labour. They then decided to combine the indefensible with the defensible – an audience of 65 uncommitted voters who would be given meters to record their preference for what each leader was saying during the debate.

Here’s the outcome: for three quarters of the debate, Phil Goff registered approval and John Key disapproval. For one part of the debate, where Goff spoke of the possibility of an arrangement with Peters, the worm favoured Key.

More significantly, the economically-biased ‘rich folks’ worm produced virtually the same result.

Those are the facts.   Read the rest of this entry »

‘Ello, ‘Ello, ‘Ello, I’ve come to raid your newspaper/radio station/TV station on the instruction of my superior officer, PrimeMinister Key. So hand over the document or recording, according to whichever is in your possession.’

‘What document or recording are you referring to, officer?’

‘Now don’t play the smart-arse with me, sonny. You know very well it’s the recording illegally and criminally made of Prime Minister Key having an entirely private chat with the former Minister of Police during an entirely private meeting in an off-the-beaten-track Auckland eatery. Oh, and the transcript thereof.’

‘You mean the recording made when a cameraman accidentally left his microphone on the table, and couldn’t go back in to retrieve it, because your people wouldn’t let him back in.’

‘No comment. Just hand over the recording or document before I slap the cuffs on and escort you back to the station.’

‘No, I won’t.  And I’m still waiting for you to tell me what I’m charged with and to read me my rights.’

‘Harbouring an illegally and criminally obtained,  subversive recording or transcript thereof, likely to destabilise the government.’

‘But Prime Minister Key has said there’s nothing of consequence on the recording/document. He called it “bland”.’

‘We’ll have none of your clever-clever, smarty-pants media debating tricks here, mate. If Prime Minister Key says you’ve broken the law, then you’ve broken the law. And if you haven’t, he’ll change it.’

‘Really? I thought we lived in a democracy.’

‘That’s a good one!’ Read the rest of this entry »

I’m against selling our state assets. I’m impressed by Labour’s argument that you can only sell an asset once, and that, as soon as you’ve sold it, you’ve lost the revenue stream forever. Forever is probably the key word. You have to calculate the dividend loss for an indefinite period that ends – never.

And I’m not impressed by the Government’s intention to use the money from asset sales to fund hospitals and schools. Funding for hospitals and schools shouldn’t come from  selling the family silver, it should come from general taxation. If it doesn’t, where are you going to find the cash to fund health and education next year, and the year after that, and the year after that,  when the assets are gone?

I’m familiar with the Government’s answer: ‘We aren’t selling off the lot; we’re keeping a controlling 51% share and we’ll still have the dividends from that.’ Well, 51% of the dividends! And I hope you won’t think me unkind, but I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you on this. When you run short of dough, and you will run short of dough, you’re going to sell the rest. Of course you are. You’re philosophically opposed to the idea of governments owning and running businesses. That’s the private sector’s job.

And this is where you’re out of touch with the essentially chauvinistic view of a majority of Kiwis: ‘Hey, this is our bank; it’s got our name on it – Kiwi Bank; this is our airline, it’s got our name on it – Air New Zealand; this is our power station – we built the bloody thing! This stuff is all ours and you want to flog it off to foreigners.’ Ours and foreigners are probably the key (but not Key) words in this debate.   Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Rob Pharazyn

He got into practice a long time ago!

The little word ‘so’ has recently taken on a new meaning for New Zealanders. People have started using it as a space-filler at the beginning of an answer, in the same way that they use ‘well’.  In reply to the question, ‘How are you going to get the country out of this recession?’ you might have heard:

‘Well, we’re going to kick-start the economy by selling off the Southern Alps.’

Now you may hear:

‘So, we’re going to kick-start the economy by exporting beneficiaries.’

This sounds a bit odd – and it is a bit odd.  Starting a sentence this way turns ‘so’ into a type of conjunction and implies that you are expanding on or explaining something that has preceded it:

‘Social Welfare is costing too much and we need more exports, so we’re going to…etc’

But in this strange new construction nothing has preceded ‘so’. You’ve got a conjunction hanging in mid-air with nothing to join up.

‘What are you doing for Christmas this year?’

‘So I was just saying to Nigel that we should consider going to Afghanistan.’ Read the rest of this entry »

As a general principle, celebrity endorsements of politicians aren’t worth much. When actors, pop singers and assorted stars of the large and small screens say, ‘I like Candidate X, vote for him!’ the man and woman in the street are inclined to (quite sensibly) respond, ‘Why should I vote for him, because you like him? You’re an actor (pop singer etc.) not an authority on the state of the economy or the best way to solve the unemployment problem.’

And even if the endorsement comes from highly respected people, the effect may not be positive. In 1975, driven as much by their distaste for Rob Muldoon as their enthusiasm for the Leader of the Opposition, a group of highly prominent people, including Geoffrey Palmer, Sir Jack Harris, Sir Edmund Hillary, John Hinchcliff, Graham Nuthall and Sir Paul Reeves formed Citizens for Rowling.

The electorate was unimpressed, perhaps resenting the idea that these high-and-mighty people wanted to tell them how to vote, or possibly because the campaign merely served to emphasise Rowling’s weakness as a candidate. Needing help isn’t a great recommendation for any aspirant to the highest office. Muldoon not merely trounced Rowling in 1975 but went on to defeat him in two further elections.

There can be exceptions. Oprah Winfrey’s declared support of Barak Obama cannot have done his Presidential ambitions any harm. Winfrey was herself one of the most powerful people in America with a massive and devoted following. But such situations are rare.    Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I won’t keep you in suspense. It wasn’t Goff. And it wasn’t Key. It was you and me – the voting public. We were conned by Television New Zealand into thinking that for an hour-and-a -half last night the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition would debate the serious issues that confront this country, the channel’s Political Editor, Guyon Espiner, would keep order and, by the end of the 90 minutes, we would all be better informed.

We should have learned from history not to trust that promise. Television New Zealand has never treated the Leaders’ Debates as anything more than an entertainment. Its remit to sell audiences to advertisers, its suspicion that viewers are fundamentally uninterested in politics, its conviction that the attention span of the average television consumer is seven minutes tops and its paranoia about doing anything that might bore that viewer into switching channels, all contribute  to the entertainment ethos that drives the Leaders’ Debates.

‘Debates’ is of course a misnomer. A real debate requires an extensive exchange of views between the parties. Three or four minutes on a topic, some part of that time spent in an undecipherable cacophony of moderator and leaders talking at once, cannot be called a debate. But that is precisely what TVNZ wants and the programme is structured to ensure that result.  Read the rest of this entry »

There’s general agreement that the three televised debates between John Key and Phil Goff scheduled to take place between now and the election could  play a significant role in changing voter perceptions of the two contenders.

Television viewers have seen a lot of Goff over the last three years primarily because he has, on principle, made himself available for cross-examination. He regards that as something any politician aspiring to the highest office in the land ought to do. Key, on the other hand, has been largely unavailable for media interviews, preferring, it would seem, to be seen rather than heard. It’s interesting that the video which preceded National’s phoney debate TV opening was a montage of the Prime Minister’s photo ops with famous people.

If the polls are anything to go by, not being available to answer questions is a more effective strategy than being available to answer questions. But it can hardly be described as a more responsible strategy.

The televised debates thus assume a particular importance since they represent the first occasion on which the PM will be available for media interrogation before a large audience and the first occasion, outside Parliament, when we will see him in a face to face encounter with Phil Goff. Read the rest of this entry »

Is John Key such an inspirational leader that he deserves to enjoy the support of 57% of New Zealand voters? Is Phil Goff such a hopeless leader that he deserves the support of only 8% of New Zealand voters? Has the National Party’s record in office been so impressive that it deserves to enjoy the support of 56% of New Zealand voters, including one might surmise, a significant number of Labour defectors? And has the Labour opposition been so feeble that it deserves the support of only 30% of New Zealand voters?

Well, if the polls are right – and there is no great difference between one and another – then the answer to all of these questions would seem to be Yes. But are they right? The extremity of their findings – the adulation of John Key and the seeming invisibility of Phil Goff; National having twice as much support as Labour  – seems curious, given the parlous state of the economy, the high level of unemployment and the near-Third-World conditions in which so many of our citizens, both adults and children, are currently living.

As a nation we seem to have closed our eyes to these realities, so dazzled are we by the luminance of the Prime Minister. The mirror image of ourselves as a people which the polls present seems to me less than flattering. Are we really a nation more impressed by style than substance? Are we really that shallow?  Read the rest of this entry »

The interview mainly consisted of criticisms gleaned from NZ commentators, which were then put as propositions. This allowed the PM to counter them, which he did without difficulty. Stephen Sackur’s lack of knowledge of New Zealand and its politics meant he was unable to follow up Key’s answers and probe deeper. All we got was the next proposition. It sounds knowledgeable, but it’s surface stuff and easily batted back. More like practice in the nets than a real game. That aside John Key handled this HardTalk interview well and seemed relaxed and confident.

Major criticisms:

Someone had raced round and found a batch of model kiwi and waka and other Newzild stuff and scattered it round the set. Tacky, tacky.

And Key’s diction! The trick seems to be: Never use four syllables if you can get away with two. It may be OK for speeches at the United Nations – they have simultaneous translators – but the overseas audience would have needed subtitles to get the drift of his answers in this interview.

Last night we watched Alister Barry’s documentary The Hollow Men.  An excellent film, based on Nicky Hager’s book of the same name.

If the details of the 2005 election have faded into the mists of time this is an eye-opener. It’s also well worth reminding ourselves about some of the shenanigans that went on, with Don Brash now leading the Act Party.

This is your chance to get a copy of the documentary. Trevor Mallard has copies to give away. If you email your name and address to me at: judy@brianedwardsmedia.co.nz, I’ll send it on to him. Trevor’s only request – pass it on when you’ve watched it!

And my own suggestion – read the book as well, for the extra details. Apart from being a brilliant piece of investigative journalism, it’s a real page-turner. The Hollow Men, by Nicky Hager, published by Craig Potton.

UPDATE Still a few DVDs available – Trevor has a secret store!

Thanks to Greg Goodyer.

Just come across an excellent article by Rachel Goodchild – My food parcel poverty (thanks to a Facebook link by Tau Henare).

If you’ve been following the debate on my post Poor choices? Or just poor?  you’ll find this thought provoking.

NZ Herald/Mark Mitchell

I grew up at a time when being ‘on the dole’ was shameful, when single women were forced by circumstance and social pressure to give up their babies,  when women with children often stayed in bad marriages because financially there was no alternative. We weren’t very tolerant, we weren’t very caring. ‘You made your bed – now lie in it!’

I’m still a card-carrying member of Gary McCormack’s  Pull-Yourself-Together Party, so I was surprised at my own anger this morning when I read the Prime Minister’s statement that beneficiaries go to food banks because of their own ‘poor choices’.  He said:

‘…anyone on a benefit actually has a lifestyle choice. If one budgets properly, one can pay one’s bills. And that is true because the bulk of New Zealanders on a benefit do actually pay for food, their rent and other things. Now some make poor choices and they don’t have money left.’

Well, here is the news: Some people have unexpected bills, Mr Key. Some people’s cars break down, because cheap, old cars are all they can afford – seen a repair bill lately? Some people need dentistry – seen a dentist’s bill lately? Some people need to pay the rent, which they can’t afford even with an accommodation supplement – seen the news on Auckland rentals recently?

I don’t think those are poor choices. I don’t think those are choices at all. Read the rest of this entry »

This really is a very curious little episode. Let me go through it with you. Feel free to stop me anywhere you think my reasoning is faulty.

The Prime Minister is appearing on Tony Veitch’s Radio Sport breakfast show.  Veitch asks him whether he would like to be Australian cricketer Shane Warne.

Mr Key replies: ‘Yeah, well given his current liaisons with Liz Hurley.’

He adds: ‘I like Liz Hurley. I reckon she is hot.’

I’ve been wondering how I would have answered that question. It’s difficult because I think Shane Warne is a total sleazebag. But, for the purposes of the exercise,  I’ll pretend that I’m a fan.  Read the rest of this entry »

Hawkes Bay Tribune

I have only met John Key once. He was either standing for parliament or recently elected. I can’t remember. A prominent television newsreader, whom we were helping to add ‘interviewer’ to his range of skills, had invited him along as a guest. It was usual for trainee interviewers to rope in politicians as interview subjects. The would-be interviewers could practise their interrogation skills and the politicians could practise fending them off.

We knew little or nothing about Key at the time, so the impressions we had of him were first impressions which, they say, are the most lasting. Key was easy, engaging, pleasant, a man seemingly comfortable in his own skin and a good listener. If he was indeed going places, he displayed neither arrogance nor self-importance. You would have said, as the country has been saying for two years now, that he was ‘a nice bloke’. We may have given him a couple of tips on how to improve his on-camera performance, but not enough to constitute disloyalty to our #1 client.

I was reminded of this occasion by John Armstrong’s column in the Weekend Herald,  ‘Politician of the year: John Key’, sub-headed ‘Get used to it, Labour, he’s the man the country wants in charge’.

The column was as much a critique of Labour and its leader Phil Goff as it was  a paean of praise for the Prime Minister.

The left dismisses the most popular Prime Minister in New Zealand’s recent political history as Smile and Wave John Key, Do Nothing John Key and Lucky John Key. The left’s fatal error has been to constantly underrate Key in terms of ability and the fact that though he is of centre-right disposition, he is firmly at the moderate end of that broad spectrum. Key does not fit the left’s mould, which assumes or even dictates that someone as wealthy as him must be an acolyte of the old New Right. In short, Key’s critics on the left still don’t get it. Maybe the Mana byelection will remove a few scales from a few eyes. It should. That result was a gruesome preview of the slaughter that may well be inflicted on Labour at the end of next year.

Armstrong went on to list Key’s achievements and Goff’s failings.

But has Key been as good a Prime Minister and Goff as bad a Leader of the Opposition as Armstrong – whom I regard as our most astute political writer –  suggests?

Goff, it must be remembered, faces the same problem as every other Leader of the Opposition – he has to work much harder to get coverage than the PM or even a middle-ranked Cabinet Minister. Governments act, oppositions react. And generally the reaction is carping and negative. Put slightly differently, governments do, oppositions just talk.

The advantage of being in power is never more evident than during times of national crisis. Though it may seem cynical to say so, disasters, handled well, are a boon to politicians in power, while their opposition counterparts are largely sidelined. Who wants to talk to Phil Goff about the Canterbury earthquake or the Pike River mining disaster? He can do nothing  about either beyond expressing his concern and sympathy for the victims and their families.  Key, it must be said, handled the two events superbly, both in terms of being there and offering his personal and his government’s support. Goff, through no fault of his own, was conspicuous by his absence from the media coverage. If anyone doubts the role which a disaster can play in shaping a political leader’s fortunes, they need look no further than Jim Anderton and Bob Parker.   Read the rest of this entry »

Picture: Mark Mitchell/NZ Herald

‘Bugger policies! Bugger Leadership! This really works. (Note to self: Must be careful not to pat kids from Thailand, Saudi Arabia and some Muslim countries on the head. Apparently they think it could damage their souls.  Not sure about Maori and PI kids. Think I heard something about the head being tapu.  Better check with Hone. In the meantime, maybe just pat Pakeha kids on the head. Shake everyone else’s hand. Pity though. Still, better not to offend anyone. So, what was it again? Just pat Pakeha. Just pat Pakeha.)’ 

“Viewed through a parliamentary prism, there is nothing overtly brilliant about the man. He lacks the personal charisma of a Rob Muldoon or a David Lange. He does not have the after-hours bonhomie of a Winston Peters nor the intellectual menace of a Helen Clark.

“Indeed there is a touch of the Chauncey Gardner about him – the Peter Sellars gardener that charmed everyone in the classic movie satire Being There.

“Others graft their aims and aspirations on to the benign countenance of the prime minister and see themselves reflected back.

“This is the first prime minister who is actually liked. Not respected nor admired nor feared. Liked. You would have to go back to Labour’s Walter Nash to find another prime minister so routinely inoffensive.”

Michael Laws in today’s Sunday Star Times