Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Prospects | Nov 07, 2008 09:56

Our last November election took place on November 27, 1999. The day before, I delivered a Hard News commentary looking back at the election campaign and forward to tomorrow. It's instructive to observe what hasn't changed: John Campbell did most of the talking in the TV3 leaders' debate, for example. And the polls suggest a change of government. It is not a done deal, and the change could happen in a number of ways, but the odds are certainly with change.

If that does prove the case, I doubt that history will assess the Clark-Cullen Labour governments as dismissively as their critics do now. Labour's real achievements -- net government debt reduced from 20 billion to two billion before the current crisis; unemployment down to levels many people didn't think possible; a huge drop in the number of welfare beneficiaries, especially per capita; real wage growth; GDP growth that outstripped the OECD for years; a historic turnaround of trends in poverty; the repair of a public sector that was in dire straits by the end of the 90s; a serious attempt to address our savings problem via KiwiSaver and the Superannuation Fund; and a degree of stability that we now all take for granted -- outweigh any counterfactual.

In 20 years' time, those achievements will be regarded as prodigious and defining of an era. The fact that Helen Clark signed a painting for charity, or that her car once went really fast with a police escort on an open road; or the absurd mythology constructed around the departure of an under-performing police commissioner; none of these will be thought of as anything important.

It's a measure of success that a string of key initiatives are now part of the landscape: National has had no choice but to accept and embrace Working for Families and the Super Fund if it wants to be in government. It has been obliged to promise that it will not sell Kiwibank or anything else.

And yet it would be rational to be concerned about some of National's policies, insofar as they can be determined. Let's take ACC. The PriceWaterhouseCoopers report this year found that on virtually every measure it applied, ACC "adds considerable value to New Zealand society and economy and performs very well in comparison to alternative schemes in operation internationally." It costs us less and delivers more. Depending on how you parse it, "opening ACC up to competition" as National proposes, is either a poor idea or a really rancid one. Seriously -- there is simply no rational public interest case for privatising ACC.

I'm also in the curious position of finding some of National's policies too left-wing for my tastes. I'm disturbed in particular by the intention to introduce political direction of the Superannuation Fund investments. That would critically undermine the fund's real purpose -- to provide for a generational liability in 20 years' time -- and do conceptual damage to practices of governance and transparency of which post-economic-reform New Zealand can be proud. National's willingness to politically direct the decisions of Pharmac speaks of much the same thing.

Its broadband policy is also remarkably statist: it implies quite some degree of command in getting a bunch of unwilling telcos to tear up their business plans, ignore market signals and hand over ownership of their networks to a new entity half-owned by the government. The stated time-frame and costings are also unrealistic, and the "download a movie in seven seconds" sales pitch is bullshit.

Labour, on the other hand, deserves the benefit of the doubt in opting for a contestable funding model. It has already seen through historic telecommunications reforms that are beginning to truly bear fruit. Given the daunting complexity of such regulation, and the powerful interests at play, I would say that telecommunications reform has been this government's most impressive legislative achievement.

It would also be fair to say that Labour's legislative virtuosity has frequently gone missing in the past three years. Perhaps that's the curse of tired governments: reading the 1999 Hard News reminded me of the debacle that was Max Bradford's attempt to write legislation to reform the electricity sector.

Bradford (who, in saltier days, I referred to as "a platinum-plated prick") is gone, but I can't see why I should feel glad at the prospect of Murray McCully, Tony Ryall and Gerry Brownlee returning to the Treasury benches. Indeed, I find the prospect of McCully as foreign minister quite alarming. (Roger Douglas, if he re-enters Parliament, will largely be irrelevant; an old man chosen because he is the leader of a cult.)

On the other hand, my respect for Bill English, his intellect and work-rate, remains much as it was in 1999. I like Chris Finlayson too, because I like intellectuals in politics.

John Key? I still can't get a handle on him, or shake the feeling that he sees becoming Prime Minister as a mere career goal, but I think he has performed quite well through the campaign.

But if he is to be Prime Minister, he will not enter the role with the political capital or momentum that Clark possessed in 1999, and National does not have the policy depth or philosophical cohesion that Labour developed while it waited for power through the nineties. Perhaps it will be a straitened government for straitened times. I expect it to be competent.

The polls portend some interesting things: 10 Green MPs and a Maori Party that could yet choose the government, and bright new Labour MPs, like Phil Twyford and Grant Robertson. I would prefer that, if National can form a government, it needs support from other parties, and I actually expect the race to be tighter than the polls suggest. I will, as ever, vote for the party whose policies I prefer.

But in a week when our election has seemed dull in comparison to what happened in America, I'd like to do what I did in 1999, and pay tribute to the people who play an active part in our democratic process: who join parties, attend meetings and conferences, raise money, deliver leaflets and stand for office. Those of us who do not should feel grateful to them. Because it's too easy to be cynical.

PS: There's a Media7 election special screening from 7.10pm tomorrow night on TVNZ 7. It's shaping up really well. Simon Pound has produced a fascinating report on Hone Harawira's northern domain, we recorded a lunch interview with Richard Griffin, Richard Long and Mike Munro yesterday that produced far more great stuff than we can use, and it'll be stitched together with a panel comprised of Linda Clark, Laila Harre and Deborah Coddington. (If you'd like to come down to The Classic tomorrow morning for the panel recording -- and a sneak preview of the video -- just let me know. We'd need you there by about 9.15.)

Meanwhile, Wednesday night's Media7, with two New Zealanders who work as foreign correspondents for the Financial Times, and Indian political and security issues specialist Sudha Ramachandran -- kindly made available to use by the Asia: New Zealand Foundation (see Graham's write up on the seminar)-- is here on TVNZ ondemand. There are links to the other versions of the video on our TVNZ microsite.

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History is now | Nov 05, 2008 00:14

The first results are back in the final phase of an extraordinary US presidential election. As Doris Kearns Goodwin declared on the Daily Show, "there's been nothing like it since the 19th century". And they didin't even have the internet then. Indulge yourself. Throw a sickie and gorge on news channels, blogs and novelty eBay auctions for a day, I'm not judging. But do feel very welcome to post your links and share your insights here …

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God's squads | Nov 04, 2008 09:19

I'm amazed that anyone's amazed about Michael Jones and Inga Tuigamala turning out for National yesterday in South Auckland. They're very conservative Christians -- Jones is on the "board of reference" of Family First, and presumably, helped create its policy platform -- including comprehensively banning abortion -- and both men signed Family First's open letter to MPs during the progress of Sue Bradford's bill.

John Key has been dropping hints about Jones as not just a friend of the party but a prospective National MP for more than a year, and Patrick Gower's story in the Herald this morning confirms he was offered a high place on National's list, but turned it down for "family reasons".

But I'd be cautious about trumpeting the community links of the two men in South Auckland: someone should tell Christchurch boy Colin Espiner they're both born-and-bred Westies.

Richard Pamatatau offered some fascinating commentary on Morning Report today that strongly indicated that even the Iceman won't help National eat Labour's lunch in South Auckland -- in large part because the Family Party and Philip Field's Pacific Party are doing it already, and have been on the ground pitching morally conservative agendas for some time.

He also said both Field and Family Party candidate Jerry Filipaina have been running the "two for one" line in Mangere: seeking electorate votes on the basis that Labour's candidate, Su'a William Sio, is assured of entry on the Labour list.

Labour's lock on the Pacific Island vote has been declared at an end before. Perhaps this time more PIs will actually be led elsewhere by faith, but I'll believe it when it happens.

This did get me thinking about where all the Christians were at in this election. Last time, they seemed to have it all going on. Is it just that some people are too busy with their PhDs to read this stuff so we don't have to?

Craig Young GayNZ has noted and analysed Family First's Value Your Vote outreach (noting that the two party leaders to score best on its moral checklist are Philip Field and Winston Peters), but also reports that the Maxim Institute has edged away from " hard core frontline Christian Right activism" to a more secular stance -- and that Larry Baldock's Kiwi Party has no friends.

Even Maxim's reborn NZ Votes site doesn't seem to be the covert National Party campaign operation it was in 2005, and is running credible candidate debates.

Thoughts?

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One good thing about next week. Perhaps we'll be spared at least some of the nastiness in the blogosphere.

David Farrar dived into the gutter last week by not only gleefully running ("by popular request") a video of Helen Clark tripping over a chair at a shopping mall last week but letting stand comments below his clip that hardly reflect well on his party: "clumsy old bitch", " kick the vile witch when she is down", "the silly bint can't even wave and walk at the same time without falling flat on her face", "I always knew Helen was retarded but it's good to see evidence", "Only somebody without a sense of humour (i.e, a leftist) wouldn't find this amusing". One chap even links to a different clip of the fall, which "doesn't have talking over the top so you can hear the slap on the ground."

Wow.

Clark-hate and petty misogyny are pretty much stock-in-trade for Kiwiblog comments, but this one was too creepy even for some of Farrar's regulars. The next time he whines about Helen Clark's "nasty" side, he might want to think hard about what he encourages on his own site.

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Granny for Sale | Nov 03, 2008 10:26

The Australian's business section says this morning that APN is being put up for sale by Tony O'Reilly's heavily indebted Independent News and Media.

Nevil Gibson has a New Zealand-angled story on the NBR website, noting that the company's half share in The Radio Network will be up for grabs too. And that O'Reilly's dissident shareholder (and fellow Irish billionaire) Denis O'Brien is outraged by the decision to cut loose the Australasian assets rather than do something about O'Reilly's London vanity paper, The Independent.

At a time when APN is already cutting editorial resources -- and where the liquidity that might have enabled, say, a private equity company purchase, is gone -- O'Brien would seem to have a point. The New Zealand media industry is about to head into strange territory. Perhaps O'Reilly could try a Trade Me listing …

You know, on Saturday I really thought Winston Peters was toast: that there was enough in Phil Kitchin's reporting on former National MP Ross Meurant's lobbying practice to establish that New Zealand First policy was exchanged for cash and goods. And then Peters is bailed out by Peter Dunne, who turns out to be another Meurant guy.

It's hard to see how one could go down without another; and potentially hard to see how a government could be formed without one of them involved. And whatever way it goes, I think we're due some strong public inquiry on lobbying practices in the racing and fishing industries, no matter who it embarrasses.

And we really need to hear from Meurant, along the lines of "Ross, just how rancid was your lobbying business?"

Meanwhile, the Herald has an "editorial" (oddly, bylined to Eugene Bingham) [Just got a call from someone at the Herald: the Bingham byline on the editorial I linked to above was a mistake -- their system automatically populated the byline field with Bingham's name because it was in the copy] explaining its approach to last week's H-Fee story, headed H-fee: same story chased for different reasons:

… why did [Key] tell us he had left Elders a year earlier than he did? The reason may be simply that he has a hazy recall of dates but he needs to be more precise. A would-be Prime Minister must expect scrutiny of every word.

Okay, then. But how and why did the language of story on the Herald's website on Wednesday afternoon come to be so sharply dialled back in the course of a couple of hours? At what point did the Herald decide it didn't really have a story? I'm interested.

Anyway, best go: big day tomorrow (well, bigweek, actually): we have a Media7 show where two New Zealand journalists working as correspondents for the Financial Times -- deputy Beijing bureau chief Jamil Anderlini, and former Seoul correspondent Anna Fifield -- along with Indian security and political reporter Dr Sudha Ramachandran will discuss the stories we get from Asia -- and the stories we don't. Tip: don't count on China to bail us out of the global credit crunch.

If you'd like to join us early evening tomorrow at The Classic in Queen Street for the recording, hit "reply" and let me know asap.

Earlier in the day, I also have a dizzingly special appointment: I'm interviewing Professor Lawrence Lessig for the TV show (the plan at present is to show it as a summer special). Feel free to suggest a question or two.

And, of course, you can get yourself along to tonight's public lecture at Auckland University to hear Lessig speak on "Keeping culture free: The choices law and technology force us to make about the future of the Internet and the progress of cultures".

PS: Some applause, please for the New Zealand U17 women's football team, who have participated in two wonderfully watchable matches in the past week. They lost both, ending any hope of advancing in the tournament, but I don't think that result really reflects how well they played.

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