Steve Chadwick: What working together means

There have been some pretty big issues in my years here in Parliament and on many occasions people have asked me why we don't have an "accord" between the major parties so that the country moves forward in a measured way. Such a bipartisan approach does exist in the areas of foreign affairs and trade.

There is an understanding that an incoming government will build on what is working and then it will embark on implementing the party policy from the manifesto it took to the country during the election campaign. Under MMP you need to add additional obligations agreed to under any coalition agreement that was struck with a minor party.

The big issues like education and health usually get imprinted with the incoming government's own ideological stamp and that is its democratic right. In some instances "social" issues are given a wide berth and that is clearly the position of the current Government. Don't touch any "lightbulb" issues that may flare the nerves of the punters, always look busy and actually do very little but focus on reducing the size of government and fiddle with tax breaks that make people feel comfortable.

Every now and then a minister gets something grossly wrong that goes against public opinion and there have been many in this category that need swift assurances from John Key to correct and calm the public.

Gerry Brownlee got mining on national parks wrong, gone but not before damage was done in the public opinion. National standards in education is another potboiler that Minister Tolley has adroitly got offside with educationists on and her latest was the assurance last week that play centres will not have a 70 per cent funding cut after all but there is still no assurance on 20 free hours of early quality childhood education.

Currently Kate Wilkinson is in the eye of the storm over what appears to be an about-turn on mining safety standards that were exposed by the Pike River mining inquiry.

It is a national shame for us all that we have not reached a bipartisan approach on how to tackle family violence, poverty and the impacts of inequality on our children. Annette King wrote to John Key to offer such an approach and was turned down flat. That was because at long last he has listened to his science adviser, Peter Gluckman, and decided he must do something to address the impact of poverty. So up popped the bright idea to put out a discussion document and then a green paper to advise what needs to be done in 2012.

We say we already know what needs to be done. We just need to commit to it and tackle the issue.

Another major issue was about reaching consensus on how we need to increase savings. We thought we were there with Kiwi Saver and then this Government fiddled with it and halved the employer contribution and bingo, it suddenly lost ground and is losing popularity and we are now back arguing to the detriment of all those Kiwis who joined the scheme and those thinking about it.

Funnily enough, in these economically jittery times, this scheme has held strong on the financial markets.

This brings into question the myth that National are marvellous managers of the economy.

Then came a small but hugely significant issue for people up against it as to how we should treat loan sharks and protect consumers from unrealistic levels of borrowing and exorbitant interest rates. For two years we travelled the country speaking about the law changes required and we were totally ignored. The Government even voted against the proposed law change, resulting in even longer delays to find a remedy.

Until this week, just before a financial summit, the Government suddenly produced their own law which is considerably weaker. This is a cynical response when the community expects us to be working together for their protection. This is both silly and petty point-scoring and I thought that a new leader would have been more aspirational than this.

Do we have a bipartisan approach?

We did for Christchurch after the quake but that was a one-off. Other than that the answer seems to be - only when everybody is equally affected. That of course applies to tax. When the government put GST up, it affected everyone.

But otherwise, when the rich get a tax break then only they benefit and not the rest of the taxpayers.