Election blog, Sep 5-11

Jon Stokes (Maori Affairs reporter, NZ Herald)
2.20pm 11.09.05

Full marks to the Maori Party for the slickness of its last month of political campaigning. The good cop, bad cop technique now being employed has been a master stroke in ensuring the party mops up support among the wide diversity that is today's Maori voter.

Co-leader Tariana Turia, with out-bursts including supporting Mugabe's dictatorship, and defence of convicted fraudster Donna Awatere-Huata that she did nothing wrong, has confirmed the angry, Maori independence, our-way or the highway, sections, will stick with her party.

However, in the last three weeks the more tempered, reasoned voice, of her co-leader, Dr Pita Sharples, has ventured into more fertile vote country.

Dr Sharples has demonstrated an inclusive, give us a fair go voice that the conservative and growing cringing Maori middle-class are desperate to hear. It was his performance in the leaders debate last week that left many political-commentators and arm-chair critics nodding in support.

A stance that left the race flag waving National leader Don Brash and Winston Peters looking plain mean.

It is no co-incidence that the Maori Party have seen a resurgence in the polls on the back of this.

A month ago the party was lagging in the polls with Tariana Turia's return to parliament the only guarantee.

Now, just a week out from the election and the polls are united, the party are set to win at least four of the seven Maori seats this Saturday.

While part of this resurgence is due to Maori outrage at National's pledge to axe the Maori seats and remove references to the treaty of Waitangi from legislation last week - it is just part of the equation.

Dr Sharples has raised expectations among Maori - and Pakeha. It is his tempered voice that has appealed to voters, and arguments of fairness that have weakened the arguments of those attempting to make gains by attacking an apparent "Maori privilege".

Whether a deliberate strategy, a move by Dr Sharples to take control, or just a lucky co-incidence, what is clear for the party is that it has set an agenda and raised expectations among Maori voters.

And these voters have little tolerance for deception and political manipulation.

If the face that wins their vote vanishes when parliament next sits, the party can expect the same backlash that befell New Zealand First when it took-out all Maori seats in 1996. In the following election Maori voters deserted the party en-masse, and the party never again held sway with Maori.

With the Maori seats now facing greater scrutiny, the consequences of a perceived deception could indeed be dire. It could be the catalyst that confirms the Maori seats and moves for an independent Maori political voice are unwanted relics of history.

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Alan Cocker (Lecturer in Communications, AUT)
08.09.05 1.00pm

'The Secret Seven Go Mad Against the Government' was one Enid Blyton book I didn't read but as a plump schoolboy with 'short back and sides', crisply ironed shirt, shorts, long socks and sandals I instantly recognised the seven characters on the front page of this mornings Herald.

They have obviously accumulated a tidy quantity of material riches in the world of the anti-Christ, Clark and the Green Party and they are now using it to help lead poor souls like me back to the path of righteousness. In doing so they appear to using an American model of involvement by fundamentalist Christians in supporting right-wing politics that usually means they are later found in a motel room with an American model.

Yesterday morning National Radio interviewer Sean Plunket found little to be concerned about in the activities of the secret seven, instead he zeroed in on those Machiavellian masters of smear and misinformation, the Green Party. He was certain that over their stone ground wholemeal bread and organic lentil soup lunch they had contrived to link the political pamphleteering of the Exclusive Brethren with the National Party. We now know that Don Brash merely sat down to pray with them, perhaps that he might be given the strength to act in an ungentlemanly manner in debates with a woman Prime Minister.

As a public service radio journalist in a former life I was somewhat bemused by Plunket's notions of balance as he launched into Jeanette Fitzsimmons as if he'd just got an exclusive interview with Saddam Hussain and then gave National's Gerry Brownlee a few unchallenged minutes to tell us what a dreadful smear had been perpetrated against his party. Savage or at least challenge everyone was the journalistic creed I was taught.

Plunket's boss told him to take this morning off so he could sleep in, or perhaps curl up in bed with his favourite Enid Blyton.

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Graham Stairmand (National president, Grey Power)
08.09.05 3.00pm

It was with surprise that we read that one of the minor parties is advocating an increase to the minimum wage to $12.00 per hour.

Despite the fact that we are a low wage economy that bewails our inability to obtain skilled staff there will be no acceptance of this, as it would mean an extra cost to the business, who always claim to be struggling despite ever increasing bottom line figures.

It is a sad commentary to note that while we have emulated the worldwide extravagance in paying chief executive exorbitant salaries, bonuses and share issues because it is necessary to do so otherwise they will move overseas, no such concern is expressed when some 600 workers leave the country every week most being off to Australia where wages are substantially higher as are taxes but this latter does not seem to slow the exodus.

While the apprenticeship schemes are slowly being reintroduced the outcome of that will be the same as 30 years ago where only a few employers employed apprentices with most being content to wait at the factory gates when the apprenticeship was finished to offer employment to these trained people.

In other words the burden falls on the selected few. It was only those employers with an interest in the future and with a vision for the country that had extensive apprenticeship schemes as they were entirely self funded.

However the employers will not applaud the possibility of an increase in the minimum wage but until we get the wage level increased and we become a higher wage economy we will never really have a prosperous country.

The employers will continue to lament the lack of available skilled labour, which will only be attracted to remain in the country if their skills attract higher returns.

New Zealanders work some of the longest hours in the world and this does not seem to matter to politicians and no-one counts the cost of this to the proper upbringing of children and to the general health of the nation.

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Murray Jack (CEO, Deloitte NZ)
07.09.05 2.30pm

We have been reminded again that a week is a long time in politics. National seem to have struck a rich vein with their more generous than expected tax cut proposals. It does send a clear signal about their view of the size of government and individual responsibility. Rightly or wrongly National seem to trust individuals to make good decisions about how they use their money. Whether it will be enough to see them occupy the Treasury benches next month is quite another matter.

Labour still have plenty of ammunition. Their Family Tax Relief proposals are generous for those that meet the criteria, and they have a strong record as a Government that has delivered (or presided over according to some) economic growth and fiscal prudence (at least up until now). However, the vitriolic attacks on National's tax cuts could backfire as it becomes clear that National hardly plans to roll back the welfare state as we know it.

I am intrigued by Donna Wynd's comments on Auckland roads. If Aucklanders really want a lot more public transport then why don't we build it and pay for it?

Actually, why don't we use what we already have?

One reason we don't is that we don't (individually) face the cost of using roads – that gets hidden in the petrol and general taxes we all pay, including those who don't live in Auckland. If we had to pay to use inner city roads (as commuters now do in London) then maybe we wouldn't use them so much. Interestingly it was left wing Mayor Ken Livingstone ("red" Ken as he was known when I lived in London in the '80s) that implemented congestion charging in London. Traffic has since reduced by 15-20 per cent and billions are available for reinvestment in public transport.

Isn't a market-based mechanism like this much more preferable than regulating people to use public transport? (anybody remember car-less days?). It even may mean we don't have to build more roads.

It simply isn't feasible to make people use public transport unless they face the cost of using roads or the State intrudes on well accepted rights. People want to own cars – they are a symbol of freedom as well as being quite handy for shopping – and they want to use them. Roads seem to be a requirement for that. As London has demonstrated public transport and roads can peacefully coexist with sensible market-based mechanisms – it needn't be an either or.

Of course there will be questions about whether congestion charging is fair for those less well off – isn't it just another tax that falls more heavily on the lower paid? This highlights the problem with any policy; there are trade-offs that have to be made. There are no simple solutions. As the saying goes – we can have anything we want, we just can't have everything we want.

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Donna Wynd
(Commentator on social and economic issues)
07.09.05 9.50am 

So, still wondering how National are going to finance those tax cuts? Besides borrowing and selling off state assets, that is?

Options are limited if you don't want to nail the median voter. So why not hit the already poor? They don't vote National, after all.

We can't find a press release trumpeting this from the rooftops, but it appears that National want to bring back one of their most hated policies from the 1990s. Please, step out for an encore Mr Market-Rents-for-State-House-Tenants. Oh, and here, he has a friend. Direct from the Owen Mc Shane School of Urban Design, please welcome Mr Sprawl-Is-Good.

Yes, that's right Aucklanders. In the face of research done by the Auckland Regional Council showing the majority of you value a clean and healthy environment, and want to put a stop put to urban sprawl, the National Party has announced that it will solve the housing problem by making it easier to zone land so that it can be developed for housing. And if these new suburbs are anything like the ghastly examples of suburban development we have seen over the last fifteen years, we assume they will need to be connected to the rest of the world by four-lane highways. The synergy between this part of the Nats' housing policy and their transport policy is eye-wateringly beautiful.

Mind you, the person writing National's policies has learnt something in the last few years. Market rents are not market rents any more. Instead, there is a concern about "equity between private rentals and state rentals". Equity is a good thing, right? And it probably won't mean rent controls on private landlords.

To underscore this concern, we read that up to 12,000 people are "languishing" on waiting lists (sounds like they're sitting around swimming pools and drinking daiquiris). National will assist those people to get off waiting lists by re-introducing market rents, so there won't be any point in being on a waiting list so you might as well not bother signing up to be on one. No waiting list, no housing problem.

In the 1990s market rents were consistently identified as one of the biggest contributors to the rise and rise of child poverty. Fortunately for the soon-to-be poor again children of state-house tenants, a super well-funded organisation has sprung up to defend their interests. Headed by well-known children's campaigner Christine Rankin, we look forward to the For the Sake of Our Children Trust coming out and vigorously denouncing this policy as the retrograde step it is.

There is a problem here, though. We note that one of the Trust's supporters is National Party candidate Tau Henare. Does this mean that Mr Henare had no input into National's housing policy, or that he didn't notice there might be a problem here? Or is the Trust not as interested in children as it is in regulating the behaviour of their parents? I think we all know the answer to that. In the meantime, if this vile policy comes to pass, we can only hope the country's foodbanks are well-stocked.

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Alan Cocker (Lecturer in Communications, AUT)
07.09.05 7.00am

It's interesting in this era of the proliferation of media that when a catastrophe occurs we turn to long-established media for information. An article in the Guardian backgrounding the situation in New Orleans reminded me of the difference that context, breadth and depth can add to our understanding of events.

The piece by Jonathan Freedland gave the reader two points of relevance between the natural catastrophe in the United States and our upcoming election...race and tax cuts.

The first revelation for global television viewers as the floodwaters receded writes Freedland was that those who had been stranded in the city and were suffering were overwhelmingly black, the poor underclass of the city. If Americans believed that inequality was something that belongs in the past then here was graphic evidence of its persistence in the present day. As political parties in New Zealand decry the Treaty grievance industry can we be so complacent that inequality here is 'of the past'.

The second point that Freedland makes is that the situation in New Orleans highlights the failure of central government. Since the era of Reaganomics in the US and Rogernomics in New Zealand, the dominant ideology has been to shrink the state. Taxes should go down and the government would do less. The US Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105m to reinforce New Orleans' levees, the government gave them $40m. Apart from the government's role in providing infrastructure there are other things which individuals and private companies can not do alone, such as evacuating more than a million people from a drowning city.

The events in New Orleans have exposed the underbelly of the American way and should provide a lesson for our own democracy. We can not turn our back on historic problems and grievances, and if we want less tax there will be significant costs.

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Laila Harre (Trade unionist and former MP)
06.09.05 2.05pm 

National's tax cuts are already beginning to bite into their health budget. Their health policy released today falls well short of what's needed to maintain current services and deliver improvements in staffing and quality. Don Brash has clearly signalled that he will not guarantee Labour's level of health funding beyond this financial year. That is a cut.

In the three main health areas – hospitals, aged care and primary health National is way short of the mark. There will be serious doubts about whether National can fulfil its $100 million elective surgery promise, given current capacity. What is needed is a genuine commitment to workforce planning, not a three-year binge and then the money's dried up.

The $35 million extra promised to residential aged care is most likely to end up in the profits of corporate providers, and will do little to address the terrible low pay of nurses and caregivers. The promise is less than a tenth of the $500 million needed to pay nurses and caregivers in this sector on a par with public hospital staff. Added to National's promise to bring back the Employment Contracts Act there is no assurance that new money will flow through to workers. The only way to do that is with collective bargaining.

National is also promising to cut primary health subsidies and bring back the Community Services Card for low income adults between 25 and 65. This is a great step backwards. It means that anyone the National Party deems rich will have to pay top dollar to visit the doctor. We also know that about a third of people eligible for a card won't apply and will avoid early treatment because of the cost. In the end that costs everyone more.

New Zealanders have always said that health services are more important to them than tax cuts. Now they have a chance to show they mean it.

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Donna Wynd
(Commentator on social and economic issues)
06.09.05 8.30am 

Despite oil tipped to reach US$100 a barrel, Don Brash has pledged to complete major Auckland roading projects within 8 years.

The true beneficiaries of this largesse, the fat cats who will get the contracts, have an extra reason to be cheerful - the Eastern Transport Corridor, which would have cut an ugly swathe through prime Tory-voting real estate, is off the agenda.

Meanwhile, it seems improbable that ordinary Aucklanders will have much use for these projects. By 2013 - when these projects will finally be finished - motoring will be a luxury affordable only by the upper crust of National's natural constituency. Don Brash and his mates from the Chamber of Commerce will have as much influence on the continued and inexorable rise of world oil prices as King Canute over the tide.

But why let this minor technicality, or the fact that Aucklanders have consistently said they prefer improved public transport services to more roads, spoil your day? There's all those petrol taxes to spend, and if that's not enough, the private sector will helpfully provide further funds. Of course, they'll want a return on those funds. The private sector is not in the business of providing public goods.

Not only will you be paying through the nose for your petrol, the investors that built your roads will charge you royally for the privilege of using their highways. And this is really the golden egg. Construction contracts are great, but the ability to offload investment risk on to the taxpayer, while charging those same taxpayers to use your highways is something that must have Dr Don's business buddies doing backflips for joy. By the way, you can kiss your public transport good-bye, as well as any commitment to improving Auckland's air quality.

What a rort. People pay petrol tax for roads that need further funding from the private sector - roads they will not be able to afford to use as petrol prices keep climbing, and when they do use them they will have to pay to compensate private investors who built said roads knowing that peak oil would have come and gone during the construction process.

And if you think the private sector is going to be a better manager of the roads than dull old Transit, think again. Auckland's cruddy public transport services are in the hands of private operators who are milking what they can from the public purse while treating their passengers with contempt.

Aucklanders need to send Don Brash and his cronies packing, and demand the money be spent on a publicly owned public transport network that will actually deliver a quality, sustainable transport system for the benefit of the people.

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Laila Harre (Trade unionist and former MP)
05.09.05 9.50am

Friday's Herald poll suggested that the National Party has got more of a bounce from its race policy than its tax policy. I still find it quite hard to see why people get agitated about things like the inclusion of Treaty principles in legislation. To me they are abstract ideas about process rather than outcome.

I have never heard one scrap of evidence that reference to Treaty principles has ever disadvantaged a Pakeha. The mythological properties assigned the taniwha by Maori are nothing compared to those the National Party have given it (after all, it didn't stop the prison at Ngawha going ahead, but that doesn't make it onto those billboards).

And what of the Maori seats? I have never heard Pakeha say they resent them and Maori clearly don't or more of them would be on the general roll. Do people misunderstand the numbers and think that the seats give Maori extra, rather than separate representation?

I find it hard to explain why these messages from National are working. It's hard not to conclude that they are feeding not an urge for equality, but a deeper antipathy to Maori themselves.

The first "real" job I applied for as a graduate was as a mediation officer at the Human Rights Commission. I was appointed, but only after two interviews, the second of which seemed entirely a matter of me having a second go at getting the "Treaty question" right.

Frankly I had no idea at the time how I could work in a way that was consistent with the Treaty (and I suspected they didn't either). After many more years in environments where the Treaty is respected as our founding document, it wasn't until doing some excellent "treaty training" (the sort that Don Brash et al deride) that I realised that asking about the relevance of the Treaty is the wrong question – or at least its shorthand for asking whether people understand that being Maori is different from being non-indigenous.

In those two days I shifted from an intellectual/constitutional world view (where my class analysis and democratic impulses reign supreme) to one where it seemed perfectly obvious why the current deprivation of Maori was linked to the experience of colonisation and reinforced by everything since (including the foreshore and seabed legislation).

A racist would say that Maori deprivation is a genetic disadvantage. A humanist would see the product of history and experience. An opportunist would know that the relatively greater deprivation of Maori than other working class New Zealanders is an economic, social and psychological product of colonisation, but be prepared to play to colonisation's victors who prefer to blame its victims. It is in the fertile ground of opportunism that Don has planted his seed.