KEY POINTS:
[This is an edited transcript]
Q: What is your vision for New Zealand?
A:A fair go society where everybody has the opportunity of reaching his or her full potential.
Q: What is this election about?
Maintaining the momentum that we've got.
Q: The Progressives have an agree-to-disagree clause with Labour. What's that been used for this term?
A: I didn't vote for the censure of Winston Peters but I didn't vote for his absolution either, which Labour did. I exercised my independence on that. I've used my position around the cabinet table to argue for nuances or different directions, sometimes I'm successful, some times I'm not.
Q: Why did you abstain on the censure vote for Mr Peters. Surely you had a view?
A: I had a very strong view. The privileges committee on this occasion, as on many others, is a bit like a kangaroo court. It becomes a farce. On the other hand, Winston Peters clearly had a lot of questions that had to be answered. So I couldn't give him a tick. But I couldn't give the process a tick either.
I very rarely abstain, but I thought it was a plague on all houses really. I've been around when Winston Peters has got on his high horse and denigrated every party that ever got a business donation - but at the same time these business donations were flying through to him. He's got to answer for that in the court of public opinion. It could theoretically be a high-level court of parliamentary interest. But you had people on the committee, or Key who was the leader of the party with committee members, making pejorative statements in Parliament while the committee was on. If a jury had conducted itself like that the trial would have been declared invalid.
Q: What advantage to casting a vote for the Progressives rather than Labour
A: I've taken roles that the Labour Party hasn't. I'm number three in the Cabinet, I'm not pulling rank about that but it's not insignificant, but it's not 20, if your number three people listen up. I've also added a new dimension to what people see as a politically correct outfit. I asked for suicide prevention, I have a passion for it from my own personal experience. Suicide was actually responsible for more deaths than the road deaths, but the expenditure on it coming from Youth Affairs was $28,000. Its now tens of millions and I've put it into Health. Then there is illicit drugs. Its no secret the Greens and many in the Labour party want to legalise cannabis, and there wasn't much sympathy for changing the laws on BZP. Having someone like who's deemed to be a bit conservative on these matters, and I don't think I'm conservative, I'm just standing up for the reality. I think we may have been mistaken when we reduced the age of drinking to 18. I've been the face of conservatism, but my view that has added another dimension to the government, it is not all one way traffic, it is not all liberalisation. And it has been a great help to the Labour party - I've taken the flak for it willingly, but its satisfied quite a lot of people out there who wanted some action. You do push things up the agenda a bit. Suicide prevention, illicit drugs, and going back to paid parental leave and Kiwibank. They wouldn't have been as high. What we do in the Government, even though it might only be one issue, we raise an issue and its profile, and you've got a chance of getting it through before it is off the radar screen. And if you do it without hitting people over the head with a piece of four-by-two, you get some respect.
Q: What percentage of the party vote are the Progressives targeting?
A: About 1.4 per cent, enough for a second seat. We want to get at least Matt Robson in. We only missed by 300 votes last time. We missed because Rodney Hide won Epsom. If the Act vote had been redistributed, I'd have Matt back. And not to put too finer a point on it, I know I'm 70 years old. I don't think I'd put on a football jersey and get knocked around the football field, but I feel like I'm 18. I'm a bit of a workaholic, I get up at 5.45 in the morning and get home at 11 o'clock at night. I'm not immortal. Unless I've got someone in here that I can pass the mantle onto in due course, then the Progressives and what I stand for will be lost. In the Herald's one man's poll by Simon Collins we got 1.4 per cent. In all the other polls, no one is prompted. We know from one poll that 83 per cent of people haven't heard of the Progressives. So if you ask in a poll who are you going to vote for, 83 per cent of people won't know there's a Progressives Party, so they are not going to mention us. In the Simon Collins' poll, he put the list of parties in front of people, and Jim Anderton's Progressives came up. That tells me there is a residual vote there for us, and our name will be on the ballot paper so we have a chance.
Q: In saying that, televised debates are obviously vital to get the Progressives profile up enough to get another MP. Are you angry that Prime Minister Helen Clark blackballed you from the TV3 debate?
A: I'm disappointed. I don't object to the concept of a head-to-head between the two major parties. But there should be one where everybody is there and you can see the interaction. At least once on the two major channels people should have the chance to see the interaction. We have a parliamentary system, not a presidential system. In the United States, they are electing the president direct, here we are electing parties.
Q: Have you said anything to Helen Clark about it?
A: No. To go around carping about it, makes you look like a whinger. I've watched the other parties complaining, and all they get is "oh well they would wouldn't they".
Q: Is there a future for the Progressives without Jim Anderton?
A: There is if we've got somebody else in here who establishes themselves. Matt has made his presence felt here. He was a good Minister of Corrections, he is very widely admired for his general views on important matter like foreign affairs, he was Minister of Disarmament and Overseas Aid. He's got a lot of support around the country, we've got to materialise that.
Q: You are 70. Will Parliament have the same allure for you if you are on the opposition benches?
A: No I don't think it ever would. If you've been in the executive, if you've been at the heart of important decisions for nine years, you can't say with any seriousness that an opposition bench where you throw wet press releases at a government would have the same allure. In saying that, I'm effective as an opposition MP - I was once in a government that I was in opposition to actually, and my opposition didn't go unnoticed. So, if a National government was elected - and I'm not suggesting it will be - I'd be very interested in holding them accountable for what they've done, and I'm not bad at it I can tell you.
Q: Would you retire?
A: I've made a decision to stand. I've got to see that through. It would be disingenuous of me and I think unreasonable if I was to stand and if we didn't win then leave. If Matt's re-elected some succession is obvious.
Q: Is it an option for Matt Robson to stand in Wigram?
A: I can tell you when I went there from Auckland, it was not all that well received. I was called a carpet-bagger. I don't say this with arrogance, but I think the seat of Wigram is mine personally. I think I've proved that, I've represented four different political parties and I've got a bigger majority than when I started. Let's face it, its a Labour electorate. It's not an option.
Q: What is your policy to watch for this election and in any subsequent coalition talks?
A: Cheaper dental care. I told the Nurses Association about it after raising the idea and got a standing ovation. That surprised me. It was just spontaneous. Nurses know the state of health of people's teeth is a real problem. I'm going to visit Middlemore Hospital where people queue up from five in the morning to get their teeth extracted because they can't afford to go to the dentist.I know what my own teeth have cost, and I've had the luxury of being able to look after them. I've still got my own teeth, but in recent times it has cost me a fortune. How on Earth on a low income would you be able to afford that? The answer is you can't. In my view it is the hidden health issue for New Zealand. There's a range of ways you can do it. I wouldn't want to nominate the exact methodology, because when you're dealing with the health system, you've got to have the co-operation of the health professionals, so it's no use coming out with something they believe is not productive. What I'm doing is putting dental care on the policy agenda. Nobody else has ever done it.
Q: You wrote the information-kit for over-60s that Labour MPs like Phil Goff have adopted and National says is an electioneering loophole.
A: It is information. When it first came out, I had 4000 phone calls, 2000 people through my office, 8000 booklets out to the electorate. We had traffic jams outside my office with people stopping their cars in the middle of the road, leaping out and coming in to get one of these books and leaving their cars in the middle of the road. I was hiding my face, saying "there's going to be an accident here". There was such an incredible response to this our phones melted down. We were getting 100 calls an hour. We couldn't handle it. My office staff were just about dead on their feet, saying "please do not send out another letter like that".
Q: So it is not a loophole then?
A: I don't stop being a constituency MP at election time. As long as its promoting only what is available from a Government perspective it's really is what a constituency MP is supposed to be doing. There's nothing in there that talks about the Progressives Party.
Q: Have any MPs from the National Party adopted it?
A: They are probably too silly and don't want people to know what they are entitled to.
