| LISA |
The National Party Annual Conference kicked off last night amid revelations that it wants to broaden its appeal to women youth and Pacific Islanders, Judith Collins the highest ranked woman on National's front bench and the person responsible for selling its welfare policy joins us from Christchurch. |
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Plus we cross live to London for an update on the conflict between Israel and Lebanon with Dr James Chiriyankandath, an expert on the Middle East. |
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| LISA |
Just on a year ago delegates were in election mode, this year they’ll reflect on a closely fought loss as they work to present an alternative government for 2008, but who will lead them. Our reporter Duncan Wilson is at the conference and he joins me now. Well Duncan they reckon they are not talking about leadership but what's going on behind closed doors are they talking about it? |
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| DUNCAN WILSON – Reporter, Agenda |
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Well the public line of course is that with National at 45% in the polls there's just no logic or no reason to actually challenge its leadership but of course there is a little bit of discontent and with that growing gap between Brash's popularity and that of his party that speculation is going to continue. |
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| LISA |
Well this week there was talk we heard that the National Party's going to try and funk itself up, is this a legitimate concern I mean how does Brash's image play into that, is he seen to be a little bit conservative, a bit boring? |
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| DUNCAN |
Well even last night senior party sources told me that they do see Brash as a bit wooden and he needs to sort of be a bit more lively, he needs to really show that he wants to win the next election and that he's just gotta really get in there and just do it. There are problems with him appealing to certain groups they’ve admitted that such as women and demographics like Maori or Pacific Islanders. Of course Judith Collins who you'll hear from later also says she has a strategy to tap into that. |
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| LISA |
Well the media have obviously speculated on prospective candidates for the leadership, I mean Simon Power, Gerry Brownlee, Bill English and John Key, how are they playing their hand and are any of them really contenders? |
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| DUNCAN |
Well they're all keeping quite quiet at the moment, Bill English just a few weeks ago said that the decision on Don Brash's leadership was for him to make alone not even for the caucus, so they're presenting a real united front, but in saying that though there is concern that he needs to present a united caucus and be a popular and confident leader for the next election. |
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| LISA |
Thank you very much Duncan Wilson. |
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| CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND LEBANON |
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| LA |
Now entering its 10th day the conflict between Israel and Lebanon was triggered when forces for the Muslim group Hezbollah raided an Israeli border post, they captured two soldiers and demanded they be swapped for Lebanese and Arab prisoners, since then more than 300 people have been killed, thousands of foreigners have asked to be evacuated from Lebanon including about 90 New Zealanders. Dr James Chiriyankandath is the Principal Lecturer in International Relations at London Metropolitan University an expert on the Middle East he has commented for the BBC Radio as well as Britain's Chanel Four, Dr Chiriyankandath joins me now. Dr there's been talk overnight that Israel is calling up its reserves, what does this mean can we expect some kind of full scale land invasion because of this? |
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| DR CHIRIYANKANDATH – International Relations Expert |
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Well I think what this shows is that the Israelis' bombing of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and infrastructure hasn’t caused enough damage for Israel to be certain that it's really blunted the Hezbollah's threat, and in fact of course with the kind of missiles the Hezbollah has been using against Israeli cities such as Haifa and Tiberius and Nazareth the only way in which the Israelis can really make sure that these missiles are removed from range is by moving into South Lebanon, perhaps not a full scale invasion of the 1982 kind but perhaps more like what happened when Israel first went into South Lebanon in 1978. |
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| LISA |
You mentioned those times Dr, can you put this in perspective for us because people who have seen this thing explode might think it was something that happened overnight, put it in context for us the relationship between these two states. |
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| DR CHIRIYANKANDATH |
Yes the first Israeli invasion of South Lebanon in 1978 came in response to attacks on Northern Israel by Palestinian guerrillas, the PLO guerrillas based in the south of Lebanon at the time and this was followed up in 1982 by a full scale invasion and which meant that Israel became fully embroiled in the ongoing Lebanese civil war which involved the Palestinians and the Muslims and the Christian sectarian militias in Lebanon. |
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| LISA |
So they have a tumultuous past but their Prime Minister Ehud Olmert he doesn’t really have a military background, is it surprising that he's taking this action or is he trying to stamp his identity on his role as Prime Minister? |
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| DR CHIRIYANKANDATH |
I think there are a couple of things that we need to remember there, first that yes Ehud Olmert in comparison certainly to his predecessor Ariel Sharon doesn’t have illustrious military record but along with every other member of his cabinet he has served in the Israeli Defence Force as all adult Israelis have done and I think that’s important because all the members of the Israeli Cabinet have had experience of active service themselves, the Defence Minister Emir Peretz was badly injured in the early 1970s, in the 1973 Arab Israeli war, there's a former Army commander who was Prime Minister, so everyone around the cabinet table in Israel is predisposed towards finding military solutions to problems of this kind rather than pursuing the diplomatic course. |
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| LISA |
Well the UN has asked for a ceasefire, Israel has said no way until we get "our boy" back, Condoleezza Rice it seems is going to be heading there next week what can we expect to happen next? |
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| DR CHIRIYANKANDATH |
Well Condoleezza Rice is going to Rome to meet with Arab and European governments to discuss the Lebanese crises and what happens, and then going on to Jerusalem. I think what the Americans are quite keen on and that is why they have been quite reluctant to rein Israel back is they want to see Hezbollah substantially emasculated as a military force and indeed as a political force in Lebanon, and to achieve that end they would like to see the Israelis continue their military campaign and that to be followed up by the deployment of some kind of international military force with teeth. |
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| LISA |
Do you anticipate then that this is going to be long drawn out conflict, ceasefire and then you know eruption of violence, what do you expect? |
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| DR CHIRIYANKANDATH |
I think it is going to be very drawn out because Hezbollah is not going to accept disarmament, Hezbollah's idea of a resolution to this conflict or at least this stage of the conflict is an exchange of prisoners and exchange of the two Israeli soldiers that they captures for the three Lebanese prisoners and Palestinians in Israeli gaols, and they for them to have an international force deployed in the south of Lebanon which is much stronger and with a much stronger mandate than the present unifil force would be totally unacceptable because that kind of disarmament they would see as essentially a victory for Israel and a reversal of what they see as their success in pushing Israel out of South Lebanon in 2000. |
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| LISA |
Thank you very much Dr James Chiriyankandath, thank you for joining us from London this morning. |
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Up next she's been painted as the hard woman of National politics Judith Collins is with us live. |
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| LISA |
Well standing out in the white male crowd on National's front bench Judith Collins is the face of National's welfare policy. Her roots are in rural Waikato but she made her name as an uncompromising lawyer in Auckland before entering parliament in 2002 where she moved quickly up the party rankings. Famous in parliament is the MP who made life a misery for David Benson-Pope. She isn't one to back down, when the Prime Minister asked what a nice girl like her was doing in a party like that she replied I was just thinking the same about you Helen. Judith Collins joins me live from the National Party Conference in Christchurch. Good morning, can you tell us, the Domestic Purposes Benefits going to be on the agenda at this conference, how can you realistically limit payments to women according to whether they choose to have more children? |
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| JUDITH COLLINS – National MP |
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That’s one of the challenges I've got Lisa is actually trying to get our policy in a state so that we can actually sell it on the basis of how it's going to work. It's one of those really hard jobs I've got which is actually about saying how do you stop pp or disencourage people away from behaviour that’s not good for them and their children and at the same time protect the children that are most vulnerable, that’s why I've been looking at issues such as a Smart Card for those people who are actually really having trouble meeting their obligations as parents. |
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| LISA |
But when it comes to the DPB Judith what's going to be the cutoff, you can have two kids, three, four, what's it gonna be? |
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| JUDITH |
I'm not going to go down that track at the moment Lisa, that’s very detailed information that we're still working on. |
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| LISA |
So what right do you think the State has to legislate in the bedroom which effectively is what this would be? |
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| JUDITH |
Oh I don’t think the State's got any right to legislate in the bedroom Lisa, what I do believe though is that taxpayers you know they don’t mind paying for people who need help, what they don’t like to see is when people actually use the system to bring about really bad outcomes for themselves and their children. I've got people in my electorate Lisa and I'm sure many other people have as well where there's you know five or six children all born to five or six different fathers and the taxpayer's paying for those children, and the worst thing of course Lisa is it's the children who get a really hard deal and so what I'm trying to do is try and make our policies much more child friendly but at the same time try and come out with better outcomes. |
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| LISA |
Alright you’ve said previously that you're strong on personal responsibility, how does that then marry up with policies that some might see as the nanny state, if you want people to take charge of their own lives and make their own decisions. |
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| JUDITH |
Oh look Lisa I don’t mind being politically incorrect, I think unfortunately there are about 12 to 15% of beneficiaries who are just not meeting their obligations to their children in particular and I think in those cases that we do need to actually be a little bit more paternalistic, I don’t mind saying that because I think kids need to come first and I'm sick of worrying about the feelings of adults who are not meeting their responsibilities to their children. |
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| LISA |
So some of the ideas that you mentioned were working for the dole and Smart Cards, how are you going to make those ideas appealing to a greater number of people, how are you going to soften them up and make them look attractive? |
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| JUDITH |
Well I think it's important to say that particularly with work for the dole which we've actually been working on pretty extensively frankly in the last few months, what we've got here is a package that looks as the community work rather than taking real jobs away from people and it's also about involving particularly the communities, people like for instance Salvation Army, Barbados, Plunket, all sorts of charitable groups that currently work very very well with the voluntary community sector, engaging with them, I'm setting up a welfare forum to do exactly that now. |
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| LISA |
Judith your own report on the working for the dole says that you're going to need some serious intestinal fortitude to put that to the public, you're going to need an extended campaign, so you accept already yourself that it's not generally appealing. |
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| JUDITH |
Well no it is actually generally appealing, what we've found is that about 80% of people who have been polled on it say that they believe people should be undertaking some community work when possible for those payments, so I think it actually is very electorally appealing but what is very important for us is to actually have the backbone which we do have to go forward and say look this is how it's going to be, because there are unfortunately people with vested interests who don’t want to have this work. |
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| LISA |
Within your own party though there seems to be some dissent about whether these policies are acceptable, for example Catherine Rich I mean she lost her portfolio for voicing some concerns about this, so how united is National when it comes to these ideas. |
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| JUDITH |
Well the report that you’ve just mentioned Lisa I've actually made available to all caucus members, I have not had a negative comment on any of it. |
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| LISA |
What about your report on the Domestic Purposes Benefit? |
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| JUDITH |
That I'm still working on but I don’t have a problem with any of the policies that Don Brash announced last year at Orewa 2. |
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| LISA |
But do some within your party still have issues? |
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| JUDITH |
No I'm not aware of issues if they have issues they certainly haven’t made them known to me. I think it's really important for me to put the flesh around those bones for policies and that’s what I'm doing. |
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| LISA |
Dr Brash concedes that National's got a bit of an image problem with women, he says that you need to shake the perception that National is a blokes party, why do you think you’ve got that problem and what can you do about it? |
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| JUDITH |
Well I think it is true that we did not do as well with women voters as we did with male voters. One of the challenges for us is to bring ourselves up, get more women voting for us, at the same time not to lose those male voters, that’s clearly one of our challenges. |
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| LISA |
Well why would women vote for you when perhaps they look at the party and see the way Georgina Te Heu Heu's been treated, the way that Catherine Rich has been treated, what example do you think that gives to women voters? |
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| JUDITH |
Well actually I'm not going to talk about decisions that the leaders made in a previous parliament, what I am here to talk about is the fact that National wants women voters, we actually also want to reach out and get Pacific voters, we want to have Maori voters, we want to go right across the spectrum, Asian voters, we're not just a white male blokes party and I'm certainly testament to that. |
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| LISA |
Does National still have a Pacific Affairs Committee? |
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| JUDITH |
No what we have in fact is we have a Pacific liaison person which is me, we also have people like John Hayes who's particularly interested in the Pacific from a foreign affairs point of view, what we've also said all of our policies should be taking into account the needs of Pacific New Zealanders they shouldn’t just be siloed down to a particular group and said well that’s all you're interested in, Pacific people are interested in good health outcomes, good education outcomes just the same as everyone else. |
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| LISA |
So you care about the Pacific community yet you’ve ditched this Pacific Affairs Committee, what message does that send? |
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| JUDITH |
What I think it means is that the Pacific is not going to be siloed in our caucus, it's very important to have a focus right across the spectrum of policies, Pacific people are too important to be stuck in a silo and told to stay in that little box. |
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| LISA |
You have attracted a number of descriptions in your time in parliament, you’ve been described as National's attack dog, as Lucretia Borgia, pugnacious, as having a helium inflated ego, which of these do you think is most accurate? |
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| JUDITH |
Well I've never described myself as any of those Lisa and so you'd need to ask the people who made those comments, what I do think about myself is that I'm extremely determined to bring in a National government led by Don Brash. |
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| LISA |
Do you think that you have quite an assertive or hard image, I mean where is the line in the sand for you because you were, after the Benson-Pope affair you did concede that you went a little bit too far, so where is the line in the sand do you think when it comes to being assertive and making a point and good manners perhaps? |
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| JUDITH |
Well actually Lisa I don’t think I've ever been accused of lacking good manners, that’s one of the things that hasn’t been thrown at me. One of the things Lisa for me is to always hold the government to account and if they’ve got a minister who tells lies then I am going to go after that minister because I think the people of New Zealand deserve something better than that. |
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| LISA |
Tell me the information came out this week that National is looking at changing its image, there was this release of the policy about funking National up, what are you doing to make National a funkier party? |
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| JUDITH |
Well I don’t think that’s necessarily a policy I think that was a paper put together by the general manager at the time, and certainly it was a lot of fun and everyone had a good laugh at it, but really one of the things we've got to do is to be seen to reach out across the spectrum and to actually talk about the people we've already got working in the community, working in charities and all the normal things that people do that National people do. |
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| LISA |
So have you got some Stereogram or the Feelers on your ipod Judith? |
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| JUDITH |
No actually Lisa I don’t have an ipod and I'm very much a Blues girl. |
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| LISA |
Turning to our panel now Chris Baldock your question for Judith Collins. |
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| CHRIS BALDOCK – Editor, Sunday News |
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Hi Judith or should I say Yo Sister, I'm not quite sure. Just talking about the image thing Judith I think it's quite interesting at the moment that the polls are not aligned should we say with Dr Brash not rating as highly as the party. Do you seriously think Dr Brash can lead National to victory at the next election. |
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| JUDITH |
Yes I certainly do Chris, one of the things I think people need to remember is that whenever someone is the Leader of the Opposition they always have this situation where I mean Helen Clark was what 3 or 4% for the first 31 months when she was Leader of the Opposition, and Don Brash is certainly doing considerably better than that. |
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| CHRIS |
But part of the image problem you know and there's been a lot of mickey taking and joking going on this week I think, doesn’t it just come back to Dr Brash he's just perceived as a low key slightly ineffectual leader. |
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| JUDITH |
It's certainly not my experience of Dr Brash, he's actually a leader who is extremely confident, and he's confident enough that he lets people like myself get out there into issues which are often controversial and in the headlines and it's certainly better than Helen Clark who doesn’t seem to be able to trust her ministers. |
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| CHRIS |
Just one other question quickly, your star obviously has risen very quickly since you’ve come into parliament, you’ve featured on TV screens and in our newspapers, what are your own leadership ambitions going forward? |
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| JUDITH |
Well my leadership ambitions are to get Don Brash in as Prime Minister of New Zealand. I've always had the belief that I would be a good Cabinet Minister and that’s what I want to be. |
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| LISA |
Do you have any aspirations for the deputy leadership Judith? |
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| JUDITH |
One of the things Lisa is that these decisions are made by a caucus, obviously I want to be a Cabinet Minister in a National government. |
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| LISA |
You once said I never sit on the fence it's too uncomfortable but that seems to be where you're perched at the moment, what are your personal aspirations? |
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| JUDITH |
Well my personal aspirations are in fact to be in the cabinet and the best way to do that is to support the leadership, in fact be part of the team, because after all there's no i in team and to actually go ahead and stop worrying about what the Labour Party wants us to talk about which is leadership. |
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| LISA |
How useful do you think would it be though to have a woman beside the leader? |
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| JUDITH |
Well that’s something that the caucus would have to decide and I think it's very important obviously for us to reach out across the spectrum, as I've said before to women and to actually accept that we do need to have women particularly on the front bench which we do, we've got Catherine Rich and myself. |
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| LISA |
Alright, let's bring in Sef Haouli here he wants to talk to you about growing the Pacific front. |
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| SEFITA HAOULI – Broadcaster, Radio 531pi |
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Talofa Judith. |
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| JUDITH |
Talofa. |
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| SEF |
I spose my first question would be if you want support of Pacific Island voters just how well do you think National knows the Pacific community? |
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| JUDITH |
Well I think that we do know the Pacific community but we need to know it better frankly Sef and I think that’s important for us to acknowledge that. I would like to see us have top notch Pacific candidates in the next election. We had a very good candidate in Fapouli'ai Po Iono and unfortunately we didn’t get quite enough votes to get her in and I'd like to see us have a good range. |
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| SEF |
The suggestion that silos are not going to be good or in fact you see that is something that needs to be changed, the Pacific community will say to you that because there are specific characteristics of our community that needs help, putting them in silos actually enables resources to be directed right where it's needed like education health and employment. It doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing in the end. The employment situation has improved under the silo approach why should it be any different now? |
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| JUDITH |
Well one of the reasons I think it isn't good to just put Pacific people into a silo and say these are your issues is you can have a look at the latest statistics coming out about the real hardship being experienced by Pacific people and one of the problems there is that actual real hardship has increased under those sorts of policies and yes I know that more Pacific people are in employment but unfortunately they're not necessarily better off. |
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| SEF |
The Asian community, I'm talking about National's appeal to the ethnic communities that it's growing of course in New Zealand as you would appreciate. Now Don Brash married to Asian, you're married to Samoan, Bill English married to Samoan, it doesn’t seem to me that that goes down really well with the communities to understand and appreciate that within National there is some understanding of ethnicities and what makes them tick, is this likely to be useful, are you likely to lean on that to try and get yourself across to these communities? |
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| JUDITH |
I think it is extremely important to remember that people who are particularly Pacific Maori Asian people, do want to see people who look like them representing them as well, and I think that’s just accepting the reality, it's just like you know women want to see women, men what to see men, it's just normal to do that, and in fact I think it is very important that we make use of the fact that we have people like Don like Bill like myself like Chester Burroughs like Paula Bennett people who are very multi cultural to be actually out there and saying look actually we want your votes and this is why. |
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| SEF |
And are we likely to see perhaps a brown female face in Mangere for instance? |
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| JUDITH |
I am very keen to see exactly that. |
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| LISA |
Just before we go Judith Collins can you tell us who are your friends who are your mates in National's boys' club, is it Don Brash are you close to John Key, who are they? |
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| JUDITH |
Well I'd hate to disappoint you by saying that Catherine Rich is also one of my mates too and she's not a boy, but yes certainly John Key, Don Brash, Tony Ryall, Nick Smith, Bill English, Simon Power, in fact the entire front bench, David Carter, we're all mates and what I find fabulous is that everybody actually supports each other. |
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| LISA |
Thank you very much for joining us this morning, that’s Judith Collins at the National Party Conference in Christchurch. |
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| UMR INSIGHT POLL – Political trends in the country |
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| LISA |
This week who supports the National Party? The June poll shows that their support is overwhelmingly male and tends to be older. 48.9% of male voters support National only 34% of females agree with them, but the situation is almost exactly reverse for Labour who draw only 34.4% of male voters and National voters tend to be over 48%. Among the over 60s 44.5% support National 39.7% Labour, but National is ahead of Labour in Auckland in the provinces and in rural area, whereas Labour is strongest in Wellington and the South Island. |
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| FINAL THOUGHTS |
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| LISA |
Turning to our panel for their final thoughts for the day, Chris Baldock, National the changing image and selling its welfare policies have they got a hard sell on their hands what do you reckon? |
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| CHRIS |
They have got a hard sell you know but this is a very interesting and important time for National, you know they have got image issues in regard to Dr Brash whatever Judith Collins says, he is not a man I think who connects with a large number of people and they've got to address that, but you know they’ve gotta keep the heat on the Labour government and I think people want to see him doing that, you know it's great to have Judith Collins but every time she is the attack dog as we said you know that’s another nail in Dr Brash's coffin, they've got Tito Phillip Field, you know that situation is a complete disgrace, hopefully a privileges committee will get to talk about that and they’ve got Winston Peters ready to implode at any time, lots of other issues within Labour at the moment. |
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| LISA |
But are National on to that and capitalising on what could be seen as opportunities for them? |
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| CHRIS |
Well I don’t think they are because I don’t think Dr Brash is strong enough and he really needs to be on the front food in taking the lead on these issues improving his worth, but I think it's something they're gonna have to address the leadership before we get into the next election and maybe he just needs to step down gracefully and have a smooth transition before we go to the polls. |
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| LISA |
Alright Sef they're trying to grow the Pacific Island growth and other ethnic groups, have they got a hard row to hoe with that do you think? |
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| SEF |
Yes I think they will, the history says that they’ve always had difficulty with it, I think this is a lot more to do with their understanding that the rural voters of New Zealand have yet to come to terms with the new migrants and that’s where the tension is likely to be, and you can't have policy that speaks volumes for your urban new migrants and people that the rural voters see as being foreigners in this country, and the juggling of those two aspects of their support base is likely to – and that’s why they tend to pull back and play it safe. I think if you want to take the front benches you have to go out and actually win the new voters that are here and they have to educate the rest of their supporters and say these are people that we need to talk to and be able to bring on board as supporters. |
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| LISA |
Thank you very much to our panellists this morning. |
