Agenda transcript: 25 03 2006 - RODNEY HIDE, BARBARA STEWART

Contact | Front Page

Transcripts

AGENDA RODNEY HIDE – Leader ACT Party Interviewed by LISA OWEN

LISA	The ACT conference is underway this morning amid rumours the party's founding father Roger Douglas is set to dress down Rodney Hide for his dirt digging, mud slinging antics. Some of the party faithful feel that the Act leader has traded policy for personality politics. Judge for yourself here is just a taste of Rodney Hide's form during question time on Thursday.

	"Rodney Hide: In actual fact what transpired was the Prime Minister's car that she was in was hit by her Police escort from behind it wasn’t just any old car that hit her, she failed to report that in her answer to the question and the second thing she fails to mention as a detail, something that is quite important is that her car was catapulted as a result of the rear end impact into another car, it was a three car pile up caused by her own motorcade.

	Michael Cullen: it's about as gross a misuse of standing order procedure I've seen in many a long time, first of all the supposed facts mentioned by the member are debatable, but more importantly the member has question of the day number 7 raising precisely this matter, then to return with an innocent look on one's fact glancing by shear chance at the TV cameras the entire time…"

LISA	Mr Hide joins us no. There you have it Rodney, Mr Cullen thinks you're a bit of a show pony playing to the cameras is he right?

RODNEY	No not at all, of course there's a lot of theatre at question time in parliament and TV1 reports it quite regularly, but there's an important principle here and that is that I believe and I hold as an ideal that our ministers and our government have to be accountable to the people of New Zealand and in the Westminster tradition we hold that accountability through our parliament. What we've seen with Helen Clark's government is a great lowering of the standard in terms of the quality of the answers given, ministers are regularly now giving misleading answers and in that particular case the Prime Minister herself had given a misleading answer to parliament, she's sposed to answer questions in writing in six days and took six weeks and her answer, and that was the point that I was making, left out all the key facts, and I mean I hold as a very very high ideal Lisa, my responsibility to the taxpayers to the citizens of New Zealand that I actually do hold a government to account for their policies for their legislations for their spending for their behaviour and we do that through our parliament through the rules.

LISA	All politicians it would seem like to grab the headlines every now and again but why do you have to do it so much?

RODNEY	How do you mean I grab the headlines so much? Let me just go back a step Lisa, I mean journalists are recently writing that Rodney Hide was going to disappear because there are only two MPs, now you're complaining that I'm in the paper too much. I mean it's not me that writes the headlines you may be able to address that to John Roughan.

LISA	Let's look then a successful businessman that we've talked to who is a staunch Act supporter says that you're perk busting is limiting the party's appeal, you're dropping more pressing policy issues at the expense of your party, what's you're response to that?

RODNEY	Well I mean I don’t know who this businessman is that you're talking about so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage but I think it's true that Opposition MPs and particularly in smaller parties have a tough time because we have two jobs to do and they're both important and I actually do do both jobs, it might be the case of you just read the headlines but there are two jobs of an MP, one is to hold the government to account, and think of this, if Opposition MPs aren’t going to hold the government to account in our parliament, who is – and I know Helen Clark hates it, I know she calls it muck raking, I know she wishes Rodney Hide wasn’t there and I wasn’t doing it, but I tell you what it'd be a sad day for New Zealand if this government could get away with any old thing and any old answer in parliament. Well I'm not prepared to let that happen. Number two, the other job of an Opposition MP particularly a party leader is to put up an alternative, to provide for an alternative government an alternative vision for New Zealand, and alternative policies and programmes and I do that Lisa and I do that every day. It may not be the headline grabbing stuff that interests you but it is a very very important part of my job as a politician, because why – New Zealanders are sick of this ramshackle Helen Clark knows best, she doesn’t answer any questions they want hope for something better and that’s what's important for the Opposition to provide.

LISA	Rodney let's look at you holding the government to account, your last 48 written questions to parliament that have had answers that were logged this year 26 relate to the chef's employments at various diplomatic posts around the world, what's that going to do to significantly advance the public's understanding of Act policy?

RODNEY	Well actually it's very hard Lisa and I'm sorry that you’ve failed to grasp this, it's very hard to be asking questions of a government to be advancing Act policy, I actually can't ask government questions about Act policy at all, and the question of the written questions that I've put in, if you read the 48 you'll realise that about 32 of them are attempts not to answer the question that’s why I keep putting them in, that was my point on Thursday that you showed, that Helen Clark wasn’t answering questions, I have the same problem with expenditure in the embassy posts around the world that the Foreign Minister Winston Peters isn't addressing the questions. Now we see this time and time again, if it takes me 48 questions to get the answers that actually the public need to know I will put 48 in, if it takes 148 I'll put 148 in and I would have thought Lisa that you would support a hardworking MP that’s trying to find out how your money as taxpayers and your viewers' money is being spent, that is a big part of my job and I'm sorry very very hard to advance Act policy by asking Winston Peter's questions, but if you come along to the speech on Sunday that I give you'll get a good feel for Act policy and our vision for New Zealand.

LISA	Well when you were elected Leader you basically gave an undertaking that you were going to hang up your private detective's badge that you were going to concentrate more on a presidential style of leadership and concentrating on policy I mean how well have you kept that promise?

RODNEY	Well I've actually done very well if you look back over the speeches that I've given, I've given speeches on the environment, on the economy, on the future of New Zealand and I've done that all since the election and I have to say Agenda didn’t have me on once, TV1 never covered it. It didn’t get a headline in the New Zealand Herald, but that’s the reality of the news, I'm actually doing all those jobs. Am I also an effective Opposition MP? Yes. Am I a hardworking MP representing the concerns of the Epsom voters? Yes. Am I hardworking MP representing the concerns of taxpayers and voters in this country? Absolutely, because at the end of the day I'm accountable for my salary, it's taxpayers that pay it and I'm accountable to the people of New Zealand and I've gotta tell you that I'm sick to death of this government, I'm sick to death of the fact of their arrogance, of their failure to answer questions and the contempt with which they treat the people of New Zealand and our parliament, and when you look at the issues that have caught the headlines it's actually not been my behaviour that’s delivered it, it's been this government and in particular the fact that they’ve stood up in parliament and given misleading answers. I have never seen that in ten years in parliament, that’s where we've got to with this government and I'm appalled actually – I'm appalled that you have me on your show and somehow say I'm at fault because I'm demanding that our government answer questions and does so properly.

LISA	Where's your policy Rodney, one National front bencher told Agenda that he struggles to recall what Act stands for and that your personality overwhelms the real message, where is Act left when its natural ally seems to be able to take or leave you?

RODNEY	Well actually again Lisa just go back to the facts. TV1 spent all of last year saying that Rodney Hide and the Act Party were finished, they weren't gonna win Epsom and they were gone, well we're not we're back, that’s a huge achievement. On the policy front I'm actually – I can't explain why National Party front bench doesn’t want to understand Act policy, maybe he doesn’t follow our speeches, maybe he doesn’t sit in parliament because I see a lot of that, but I can run through Act policies now. We want a flat tax for New Zealand. We want beefed up security and defence. We want a regulatory responsibility act to stop the red tape in New Zealand. We want welfare reform sure we want to help the needy, but we're actually fed up with hardworking taxpayers having to fund the greedy. There are just four policies of the Act Party and it's very easy to go to our web page, it's very easy to tune into parliament, it's very easy to follow our speeches to understand what the Act Party stands for. Of course the National Party might feel a bit aggrieved because you know we're actually out there doing it, we're out there in parliament but that’s not my responsibility, I'm not responsible for what a National Party front bench MP who's not prepared to be named might think.

LISA	Your own departing president post election said that your problem was, the Act Party's problem was that you had no plan B. We understand that your membership is down to about twelve hundred people down the peak of ten thousand, what's plan B now?

RODNEY	Actually you’ve got that wrong again too Lisa.

LISA	What are your membership numbers?

RODNEY	No no no it's important if you're gonna come on TV and talk about the Act Party it's important that you get your facts right. The plan B was relating to he election campaign, that’s what that was it wasn’t about post election, and in fact we have developed our plans, we've had a large number of meetings developing our plans and I actually look forward to TV1 journalists turning up to our conference and actually reporting them.

LISA	You got a lifebelt seat, that’s what brought you back to parliament, what is plan B for hereon in and what are your membership numbers Rodney?

RODNEY	Well when Helen Clark, Don Brash and all the other party leaders…

LISA	What are your membership numbers Rodney?

RODNEY	I don’t have to tell you what our membership – and let me tell you what our plan is and I'm happy to do it. Number one, yes we did win the seat of Epsom – why – because Epsom people voted for Act, voted for Rodney Hide, against again I might point journalists like yourself saying we'd never make it. My number one plan is to turn Epsom into a fortress, I am going to be the best MP this country's ever seen for the people of Epsom. Number two we're going to work hard to rebuild our party support and this conference that’s on this weekend is a big part of it and how do we do that, yes we expose this government, yes we hold them to account, yes we demand answers of ministers because we live in a great country and our government should be accountable to our people and is that enough – not it's not because it's important that the Act Party, alone amongst all the parties actually, puts out policies, puts out its vision for New Zealand, explains what's its programme would be so the people of New Zealand can judge and I ask you this Lisa, what party has put out more policy, more vision for New Zealand and a more detailed programme than the Act party and the answer is none.

LISA	Well joining us are our guest commentators John Roughan and Chris Trotter. Well perk busting versus policy how's it working for Rodney Hide and Act?

JOHN ROUGHAN – Columnist, NZ Herald
	I think that the perk busting and the scandals are far overshadowing any policy that I'm aware of and I'm very interested in Act's policy and I'd struggle to name any of it for you really. Obviously tax cuts, everyone's for tax cuts on the right. Rodney there's one question I want to ask you and it's about policy, and this week we've had a fairly interesting report come from the Ministry of Transport about road charging which is an issue very close to the heart of Aucklanders anyway and probably people in the other cities, and it's a sort of issue I'd expect to hear Act on. I'd expect Act to break into the news somehow on that one, but I don’t know your policy on road charging.

RODNEY	Oh actually I've been asked by journalists up and down the country on that road charging one and I said I'm against it, because I view the road charging proposal as another tax. New Zealanders are already paying enough to their government to fund the roads, what we've said is that we want smaller government and the money being saved and put on the roads. What we have to do in Auckland is finish State Highway No. 20 in particular because the top number one or number two issue in Epsom is transport. The way to fix the problem of transport in Epsom is to finish State Highway No. 20, but one of the sad things about it is we're only having that road charging because the Prime Minister is wanting State Highway 20 to go underground through her electorate. It's okay to go through the top of Mt Roskill, Phil Goff's electorate but when it gets to Helen Clark's electorate it's gotta go underground. It's gonna add to the cost of 500 million to a billion dollars, that’s why they're looking at road charging.

JOHN	Here was an issue that Act could define itself with, Act could stand right out for charging people for the use and putting some market forces into the roading system and that would help define Act as a party as well providing us with a good alternative policy.

RODNEY	Well what you're saying John is you know what the policy should be what I'm saying is I believe that the government is taking enough money off Aucklanders now and if you come along and put a road charge with no tax cuts it is effectively another tax because you try and get around Auckland without your car. If they want to do road charging then let's do it properly, let's actually allow the private sector in, let's have real tax cuts like Act is proposing, we could get this country down to a flat tax of 20 cents easy, that’s what we should be doing and then it would be, and I have told Herald journalists that John endlessly.

LISA	Rodney why can't you get your message out there, it seems that other politicians who are doing serious speeches with serious messages can get coverage, John Key can get his speeches covered why are you struggling to get your policy out there.

JOHN	I can answer that for you if you like.

RODNEY	Well good on you John.

JOHN	Because it's not very interesting, the policy you’ve given me is exactly what we hear from National or any party in Opposition. You’ve missed a chance there to actually promote a different quite distinctive policy that we'd be interested in because it's different.

RODNEY	I agree with you and I mean I'm not actually arguing with you that you should have put it on the front page, all I'm saying is yes often times the policy position that a party has isn't very interesting particularly when you’re the small party and it's quite hard work, but you asked me what the policy was, I told you what it was, I explained it, and I am against road charging in the present circumstances. I'm actually the biggest fan of the market there is, I'd actually have private roads and user charges. What I'm not prepared to do is to allow Helen Clark to waste taxpayers money, put taxes up, then say oh we haven’t got money for the roads put the Resource Management Act, make it even more expensive, demand that the road through her electorate go underground and then so we can't pay for it so what we're gonna do is put another tax on and make you pay to drive along the road. I won't buy into that, now it's true that’s not very interesting for the Herald, it doesn’t get reported but don’t suggest to listeners and to your viewers and to your readers that Rodney Hide and the Act Party haven’t thought about it and haven’t got a policy, it's just the case that it's not very interesting, it's not a headline and Lisa hasn’t read it.

LISA	Let's bring in Chris Trotter here – your thoughts.

CHRIS TROTTER – Political Commentator
	Rodney I've got a question for you. Do you in the dark watches of the night ever regret your party's famous quip that Don Brash is the 10th Act MP, because it seems to me that in a political context your gravest problem as a political party struggling to reclaim the ground that it's lost is that for many Act supporters Don Brash is as good as anyone that Act could supply them with in terms of representation, perhaps better in the eyes of some, and that is a huge problem it seems to me for Act because I mean just looking at the way the polls have shifted people have decided that the sort of policies that they previously associated with Act are now embraced by the National Party.

RODNEY	I don’t regret the quip that was made but what I do – I accept the reality that you're pointing out and I see everything like that as an opportunity. The reality is this the National Party actually had no policies not programme, it had not steal. Don Brash came alone he was perceived as very much an Act person, in fact the quip was used that he was Act's 10th MP, he agreed with that policy. Once he became the leader of the National Party he adopted large chunks of Act policy, and I'm actually pleased about that because I understand MMP, in order to get your policies implemented you need other parties advocating them and helping you with them because we're not gonna have a one party government every again. What we need to to – and this is a big party of what I've been doing since the election – is not just advocate the policies and the programme but more particularly put together an alternative government, and I believe that’s the fundamental failure in four of the centre right, that actually there's been parties there with policy, Act's got plenty of policies but what we haven’t done is shown well what are the parties that will make up the next centre right government, what is the alternative to Helen Clark the Greens, New Zealand First, United, and that’s where the centre right need to work, that’s particularly where National and Act need to work to show that they have an alternative government…

CHRIS	But don’t you now have a huge problem and as someone you know coming for a left wing perspective I recognise…

RODNEY	I didn’t know that…

CHRIS	I'm sure you did really Rodney, but the problem I would identify is that as support dwindles particularly in parties that have strong ideological ambitions you'd get internal strife, I mean look what happened to the Alliance once it got down to one or two percent all the unanimity all the unity began to unravel and it seems to me that Act will have to be extremely careful over the next two or three days let alone the next two or three years not to simply fly apart, because as your numbers dwindle the ideological quarrels seem to expand to sort of fill the void that’s opened up in terms of why the public support.

RODNEY	I think that’s always a danger in a smaller party and but I would point this out, I mean I was at the conference last night and I mean it was a fantastic feeling because you know Act survived and don’t underscore the feeling that Act members feel about that. You know we went into the election written off, we weren't gonna make it, it was all gone and doom and gloom and Act was finished. Well the people that are at our conference actually worked hard through the election campaign, they worked hard in Epsom and so we won't the seat, and they worked hard around the country and against all the odds they won 40,000 votes for Act when the argument in the media was it was a wasted vote. What that means is we've got a caucus and Heather, one MP, and so we actually have a base from which we can grow and that’s really important, I've got a big job to do, so has Heather, so has the new board.

LISA`	Thank you very much Rodney Hide, the Act Leader.


CHOPPING MP NUMBERS

LISA	When we voted for MMP in 1993 we had 99 MPs but when MMP was eventually introduced six years later we got another 21, bringing the total to 120, however public opinion has always been sceptical about that increase, a referendum saw 80% support for a return to smaller numbers, but nothing happened. Now New Zealand First MP Barbara Stewart has introduced a bill to flick 20 MPs. She's with me now. Why shrink parliament?

BARBARA STEWART – NZ First MP
	Well we believe that parliament and proportionality can actually be retained with a smaller number.

LISA	The royal commission on electoral systems said that we need the 120 MPs for a bigger talent pool, to improve debate and diversity, so there is a cost in some people's views what do you think?

BARBARA	Well in 2001 there was an inquiry into MMP and there was no conclusion reached on the number of MPs that we should retain in our parliament.

LISA	Well with the slashing of the 20 none of those are coming from electorates, they all come from list MPs and the Maori seats are untouched so how is that going to alter any balance of power?

BARBARA	Really I think we need to look at what parliament is there for, we're put there to represent the wishes of the people and we should at least consider this particular concept, the referendum, the overwhelming support was for less MPs and we really need to consider that and that’s what this bill is all about.

LISA	Well let's see what our panel thinks, I think Chris Trotter's going to have some strong views on this. One in five people voted in the referendum to shrink parliament why not give them what they want?

CHRIS	Well I think you’ve gotta draw distinction between a referendum which is binding as was the one in 1993 which gave us MMP and a referendum which is indicative only which was the one in 1999, because I think with an indicative referendum people can have a range of motives as to why they answer the question the way they do, knowing that it's not going to bind them absolutely in the future they may simply use it as an opportunity to give politicians never very popular a good clip around the ear. But I mean what I would say to you Barbara is that you know just six years before after a very long debate, a quite acrimonious debate where very few people in New Zealand would have been unaware of what was at stake, people voted in a binding referendum not only to bring in proportional representation but to increase the size of the House to 120 people. Now I'm asking you why not put more faith in the decision of the people on a binding referendum that you apparently put in the indicative referendum only?

BARBARA	Well we're saying this is another issue that can be considered. We need to go back and revisit the area. The 2001 constitutional inquiry into the review of MMP was not clear on this particular area and now in 2006 perhaps it's timely to review the issue, because remember we are put there basically by the people so we do need to consider their wishes.

LISA	What's to stop us then going a bit further, we apparently had 37 MPs in 1853 what's to stop us just lopping a few more off?

CHRIS	Well I mean that is always you know the obvious rejoinder to our politicians who call for a reduction in the size of parliament, why stop at 99? I mean the logical terminus of this argument is having one MP and putting everything to a plebiscite I mean that is the logical end point of this kind of direct democracy which you know responding to referenda implies, and I think the representative system where people like yourself get to read, get to listen, get to debate as Members of Parliament, key public issues, and then with a considered judgement vote in parliament this is not always what happens with referenda. Quite often you're throwing your country's future into the hands of people who pay not the slightest attention to politics and are voting purely on the basis of prejudice.

LISA	Let's bring John in here, are we going to – we the people – going to suffer by losing 20 if we were to lose 20 MPs?

JOHN	I don’t think we'd lose very much at all really. What worries me about the current number is that – I take a close interest in politics and have for a long time, and the last few parliaments I've been surprised to learn that people were there that I'd never heard of. Names come into the news very occasionally and I see oh this person's an MP and didn’t know, I don’t know who they are, and that worries me. We used to have a parliament of up to 99 people and we basically knew them all, some of them you know were very quiet but we knew where they came from and basically who they were. I can't say that these days. I want to ask Barbara, have you worked out whether you would be in parliament if there were only 100 or 99 people there at the moment?

BARBARA	I don’t think that’s really the issue.

LISA	I understand that she would be, just to clear that up.

BARBARA	No that’s not the issue, the issue is basically about looking at what we have, reviewing what we have, and every morning or every afternoon in the parliamentary prayer we say that we put aside all personal and private interests da-da-da for the good of New Zealand and this is one of these areas that we do need to put aside our personal interests. I agree totally with the previous speaker that there are a lot of MPs out there that people don’t know, people have never heard about, so perhaps it is timely to review those numbers.

JOHN	I think though that in fairness you know we always invest the past with a rosy glow, I think if you had asked the average New Zealander walking down the street to name you know five or six back benchers back in 1972 they would probably struggle as much as we do today.

LISA	The first interview we had this morning was about sort of gutter politics versus policy, do we think that the mud slinging in parliament has in some way impacted on people's view that we should just get rid of 20 of them.

JOHN	Oh abs, I mean I think what you always see here is a public response to what they consider to be the crazy antics of politicians, but once again I think they fail to understand the adversarial nature of the House itself, I mean you have two sides lined up literally facing each other, squaring off across a chamber, it's a robust place. Often I think you know the cry really is let's take politics out of politics and that is just as crazy as it sounds.

LISA	Thank you very much Barbara for coming and being with us this morning


WORKING FOR FAMILIES - ADVERTISING

LISA	In a pre election pledge the government extended its Working for Families package to include families on higher incomes, a fact that being promoted as part of a multi million dollar advertising campaign, but as Simon Pound reports the targeted families aren’t exactly short of a few dollars themselves.

SIMON POUND
	3,00pm, school's out. All over the country parents pick up their children. Here in Epsom they do so in style. Helen Clark went to school here (Epsom Girls Grammar). It's prime real estate and now apparently part of the welfare belt.

	Yes, Epsom is where the latest ad for the government's Working for Families campaign was shot.

	Now eligible for tax credits.

	The ad was shot here Fernley Ave Epsom, quotable value gives the property a capital ratings value of $710,000. Working for Families is a form of targeted tax relief for working parents, perhaps these parents. Under the scheme this fictional family could be on up to $81,000 a year which might just explain the furnishings.

	I took a copy of the ad to a local retailer to see what they might cost.

	So Chris if we were wanting to get ourselves a job like that, what would it set us back?

	Well your range is probably this one over here about 1800 dollars, 1100 dollars gets you this one brushed stainless steel, or else you can go for something a little bit cheaper for about 700 dollars.

	Not bad, and fridges, double doored.

	Well we've got these two here which have got ice makers in and they're on special at $700 off but they're still $4000.

	And how about an Ipod like this girl has here?

	Now 1gig nana which is probably the equivalent of that is about $260, the phone is the cheapest part of the componentry, it's probably $100 for an equivalent or $140 for an equivalent, the big expense you’ve gotta look at that is it's probably going to cost her $20 a week to use it.

	And use the phone they do.

	Some extra money could make it easier to get through.

	Does a family that can afford to text their child when they're in the same room really need an income top up.

	The government seems to think so. Each time you see this ad in prime time it costs the taxpayer about $10,000. The entire advertising campaign is costing 15 million over three years and ultimately all of this raises the question, is this quite what Michael Joseph Savage the father of the modern welfare state really had in mind.

LISA	Well the welfare house, who wants to move in eh?

JOHN	Yes lovely, I'm going to have to start saving I don’t qualify for walking for families I don’t think with my children grown up, but my lifestyle will have to improve to match the working for families people.

LISA	Yeah Chris what did you think of that as a backdrop for the commercial?

CHRIS	Oh it was a whimsical piece but it did have a sting in its tail and that I think is that these sort of targeted benefits are a real problem politically because so often people who are really entitled to the money don’t come forward to claim it, I mean you’ve got a real difficulty in getting actually getting the message that this money is available to people who need it the most because you know they're not great watchers of television or readers of newspapers or picking this up so you’ve gotta tell them, you’ve gotta have an ad, but I suspect given the rather middle class nature of the family that we saw in the ad what the government is clearly hoping to do is make sure that the uptake at least is high among middle class New Zealanders, it's an important constituency that they want to hold on to and it does as Simon said raise some questions about you know was the welfare state really designed to assist people with $4000 fridges and Ipods.

LISA	Over three years costing 15 million dollars, Barbara Stewart reckons we'll save 15 million a year if we drop 20 MPs. Put it on the scales do we keep the MPs or keep the ad campaign?

CHRIS	I think the problem that the government's got with targeted benefits is one that clearly they're willing to throw money at in every sense advertising included but I mean I can't help thinking you know they would have been better and helped the people that they're trying to help more effectively if they had returned to something like the family benefit which was a universal benefit and you got it without having to ask for it. People did receive the assistance you know, in this one you may well have the Epsom families getting the money and people in Otara not getting it.