A Message to Winston; A Message to John Key; and a Message to the Regions

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NZ First – National Coalition announcement, 11 December 1996

 

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Message to Winston Peters: don’t stuff this one up.

If you get too close to John Key’s government, voters will perceive you as another “satellite” party to National in the same vein as ACT, Peter Dunne, and the Maori Party. None of the three have done particularly well in  elections;

• ACT won Epsom only at the pleasure of John Key
• Peter Dunne remains a one-man band – essentially a National-lite clone
• The Maori Party lost another MP last year, as voters deserted it in droves

Be wary of supporting National’s legislative programme (even with “major” changes).

Be wary of being perceived as being too close to National.

Be extremely wary about throwing National a Parliamentary “life-line” – voters will remember that in 2017 (if not earlier).

How many times can you repeat the same mistake?

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Message to John Key: a reminder of your warning on 21 September, 2014, about the perils of third-term arrogance creeping into government;

“I won’t be wanting to see any hint of arrogance creeping in.

In a way, having an absolute majority could exacerbate that situation, so I don’t intend to take the party veering off to the right.

One of the big messages I’ll be wanting to give incoming ministers and the caucus is that it is incredibly important that National stays connected with our supporters and connected with the New Zealand public.”

The arrogance from National was demonstrated when they  kept secret the Police investigation of Mike Sabin – prior to last year’s election. It was only four months later that some (but not all) revelations regarding a police investigation became public knowledge and Sabin was forced to resign.

Voters in Northland had good reason to consider they had been deceived – by their own Party-in-power!

National’s further arrogance was again demonstrated when Key flippantly dismissed Peters’ presence in the by-election with his “absolutely zero” chance remark. It is not for government MPs, Ministers, or the Prime Minister to tell voters who has or has no chance of winning an election. That privilege is reserved solely for voters, who make that decision on the ballot paper.

More arrogance when a brace of Ministers suddenly appeared throughout Northland, in taxpayer-funded Ministerial limousines, to prop up their lame-duck candidate. Not exactly a good look for a region racked with poverty, one would have thought?

As  Green Party co-leader, Russel Norman, said,

“It’s pretty extraordinary that National is not only pork barrelling the electorate, but accessing the pork themselves to get themselves around the electorate.”

More important still – why wasn’t this kind of attention bestowed on Northland over the last few decades whenever National was in power? Did they really think citizens would not notice? Really?!?!

The arrogance of National was even more jaw-droppingly breath-taking with it’s blatant electoral bribes of up-grading ten Northland bridges to two lanes; speeding up broadband introduction to the region, etc. Is that how National really perceives voters – that they think we are too thick to recognise the stench of electoral bribes when  shoved under our collective noses?

Then again, the tax cut bribes did work for Key in 2008. (Which, nearly seven years later, we are still paying for.)

And threatening to withdraw one of the bribes, if voters decided not to choose the National candidate – as Key clumsily announced on 13 March – was arrogance cloaked in paternalism. Paternalism is best left to parents with rebellious teenage children. It rarely works on voters.

Five days later there was more arrogance yet, when a National backbencher thought that threatening New Zealand citizens, was a really, really clever idea. It was not, as Shane Reti discovered to his cost. Real Stalinist-stuff. Doesn’t go down well with Kiwis.

Finally – John Key’s most brazen act of arrogance  illustrates how deeply “concerned” he felt  about Northland’s dire economic and social circumstances, and how “greatly”  he supported his own Party’s candidate to win the by-election;

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I’m sure Northlanders are equally delighted to have a new Member of Parliament to represent them.

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Message to the Regions: if New Zealanders living in parts of the country that have missed out on the country’s “rock star economy” feel sufficiently aggrieved, they should do something about it.

As always, the power is in their hands. They have the vote.

Use it.

Northlanders did, and they have just sent National a clear message they will not forget in a very long time.

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes

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References

NZ Herald:  Election 2014 – Triumphant PM’s strict line with MPs – Don’t get arrogant

Fairfax media: Government’s wall of silence over Mike Sabin

TV3 News: National MP Mike Sabin resigns

TV3 News: Peters launches Northland campaign with ‘The Force’

TV1 News: Taxpayers forking out for ministers limo rides in Northland

Fairfax media: Northland by-election – John Key admits National pulled back on promises

NZ Herald: Nats to borrow for other spending – but not tax cuts

Fairfax media: Nats – Roads in doubt if Winston wins

Radio NZ: Dusty road group claim bullying

Scoop media: PM to attend the Cricket World Cup Final

Previous related blogpost

Teflon Man No More

When the teflon is stripped away

Witnessing the slow decay of a government past it’s Use-By date

Letter to the editor – Northland voters have been warned

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 29 March 2015.

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Northland by-election – a damning poll and a damnable lie?

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A recent TV3 poll and associated story yielded two interesting observations. Firstly, that Winston Peters has a better chance of winning the Northland by-election than Labour.

Secondly, that the National candidate, Mark Osborne, is quite likely a liar.

The Poll

Despite TV3’s Patrick Gower thoroughly unprofessional interview with Winston Peters on The Nation, on 28 February, where he condescendingly referred to the NZ First leader’s candidacy in the Northland by-election as “a stunt” with “very little chance of winning here” – a TV3-Reid Research poll has put Peters firmly in the lead.

Peters’ lead is a commanding five percentage points over his nearest rival, National’s Mark Osborne;

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The poll results are a stunning up-set for National and creates serious doubt whether the Key government can survive a full three-year term.

The poll also revealed that Northland voters are far from “relaxed” about the police investigation  surrounding former Northland MP, Mike Sabin, which evidently began in August last year;

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Even a clear majority of National voters agreed with the question whether “voters should have been told Mike Sabin was under investigation”;

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The TV3 poll is evidently backed up by a  “secret poll” recently referenced by the National Business Review.

From a majority of 9,300 in the 2014 election, National is now set for a crushing, humiliating defeat. Worse still, it will take their numbers in the House from 60 to 59 with reliance on ACT, Peter Dunne, and the Maori Party to pass legislation and survive confidence votes.

Any further by-elections between now and 2017, and even support from ACT and Peter Dunne may not be sufficient to save this government. For the first time since the first MMP government was formed in 1996, New Zealand could see an early election, and the subsequent demise of John Key’s political career.

On 35%, Peters has a fairly good chance of taking Northland. But with 19% Undecideds – the outcome is by no means “done and dusted”.

This is still a First Past the Post election, and Osborne could still win the electorate with one single vote, even with a majority voting against him.

Labour Leader Andrew Little should re-visit his comments on Radio NZ’s Morning Report on 3 March, where he stated that the Labour candidate, Willow-Jean Prime “was in with a chance“.

Little also said that he did not know “where Peters stands in terms of peoples’ affections for him” in the electorate.

I suggest that the TV3 poll is a fairly clear indication.

Little added, “I’m just not convinced that the level of support is there for Winston that some people claim“.

Perhaps the poll may begin to convince Little that  “the level of support is there for Winston“.

Guyon Espiner pointedly  asked Little “are you  open to being convinced if a poll were to come out“?

Little replied that it thought it was “unlikely“.

It is no longer unlikely, and indeed, it is likely that Labour’s Ms Prime will come a distant third in what has quickly become a two-horse race.

The question for Labour, now, is what is more important?

1. Contesting a by-election on a point of principle even at the cost of  potentially helping National retain the seat?
2. Swallowing pride; adopting a truckload of pragmatism;  giving Peters a free run; and perhaps hastening the demise of this increasingly self-serving government?

Former Labour president, Mike William said on 4 March, on Radio NZ’s Nine to Noon programme, that he would have counselled against Labour contesting the by-election. Williams cited cost and Peters working alongside Labour to assist Kelvin Davis to win the Te Tai Tokerau electorate last year.

If Peters wins Northland, it would be a win/win for the Opposition;

1. The government’s majority would fall by one,
2. The government would become more vulnerable to future by-elections,
3. Peters would have to vote with the Opposition on every important issue that mattered. Peters simply could not afford to vote with National and risk being seen as another coalition partner alongside Dune, ACT, and the Maori Party.

The question that Andrew Little should ask himself every day and night from now on is; do I really want to risk splitting the opposition vote in Northland and thereby help John Key preserve his government?

Because in the final analysis, that is what it boils down to.

The Lie?

In the TV3 video with Gower’s voice-over, note Osborne’s response (at 2:16) to an off-video question regarding the curious circumstances surrounding Mike Sabin’s sudden resignation from Parliament on 30 January;

“Ah, I’m not aware of the situation or the circumstances behind it.”

Then note Peters’ response (at 2:20) to Osborne’s comment;

“They all knew. And at the top. Including my opponent, who was a Treasurer of the organisation.”

If Peters is correct and Osborne was (is?) the Treasurer of the Northland Branch of the National Party – then it is inconceivable that he was unaware of Sabin’s situation and the police investigation.

Enquiries made to the National Party, by phoning the Electorate Office, and on Twitter,  on the morning of 6 March have not resulted in any responses to questions on this issue.

Electorate committee executives are almost always the first to find out what is happening on their own patch.  For Osborne to deny any knowledge of Sabin’s situation is simply not credible.

Osborne was either kept out of the loop by other electorate executives; never attended committee meetings; and never spoke to other committee members – or he is lying.

Which is more likely?

Not exactly an auspicious start to his nascent political career?

Perhaps he is following in his Dear Leader’s footsteps.

 

 

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References

TV3 The Nation: Transcript – NZ First leader Winston Peters

TV3 News:  Peters on track to win Northland seat

TVNZ News: Police asked questions about Mike Sabin six months ago

NBR: UPDATED: The fix isn’t in – Labour to contest Northland

Wikipedia: 2014 General Election results

Radio NZ: Labour won’t rule out deal in Northland byelection (audio)

Radio NZ: Labour urged to make way for Peters in Northland

National Party: Northland electorate

National Party: Twitter

Other blogs

Bowalley Road: Sorry Winston – Why Labour Needs To Stand In Northland

Polity: Herald on Northland

Polity: Game on

Public Address: The Northland by-election; or The so-called Tizard Effect

The Daily Blog: Why National might lose Northland and why Labour can’t win

The Daily Blog: Poll shows Winston winning Northland

The Dim Post: Northland

The Standard: On Northland

The Standard: Northland Polls; Horrorshow for National

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 7 March 2015.

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Letter to the editor – Getting the government we deserve

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from: Frank Macskasy <fmacskasy@gmail.com>
to: Northern Advocate <editor@northernadvocate.co.nz>
date: Wed, Mar 11, 2015
subject: Letter to the editor

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The editor
Northern Advocate

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On Radio NZ’s Morning Report, on 10 March, our esteemed Prime Minister openly admitted that his government was engaged in naked bribing of the Northland electorate. He vainly attempted to justify  the policy announcements-cum-bribes with this noble-sounding explanation;

“We’re in an election and in election campaigns you announce your policies what you’re going to do. There’s no point in us, you know, waiting two months and saying to the people of Northland ‘Oh by the way, this is what we’re intending to do’. I mean they’re entitled to know upfront, before they vote, what our intentions are and we intend to make a number of policy announcements.”

It’s a shame that Key does not hold the same view that Northlanders are “entitled to know upfront, before they vote” why the former National MP, Mike Sabin, was forced to suddenly step down as Northland’s MP.

Are Northland voters not “entitled to know upfront, before they vote” what prompted Sabin’s resignation?

And why did the National Party keep the circumstances a secret prior to the general election last year?

Whatever potential scandal surrounds Mr Sabin, with National Party connivance to keep it secret; it seems that Northlanders are now being offered ‘lollies’ to keep them happy.

If the new National candidate is elected to Parliament, then never before has the old adage – that we deserve the government we get – been ever truer.

-Frank Macskasy

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[address & phone number supplied]

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Reference

Radio NZ: Government pulling out all the stops for Northland (audio)

 

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The Donghua Liu Affair – The Players Revealed

 

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– Special investigation by Frank Macskasy & ‘Hercules‘

Speculation that the Beehive office of Immigration Minister, Michael Woodhouse, was behind the release of a letter linking Labour leader, David Cunliffe, with controversial Chinese businessman, Donghua Liu, is supported by Twitter chatter linking Herald editor, Shayne Currie, with Cameron Slater’s Whale Oil blog.

“Nothing to see here” Currie’s boss, Tim Murphy, tweeted on 19 June in response to questions about Immigration NZ’s speedy release the previous day of the now infamous  Cunliffe-Donghua Liu 2003 letter to his investigations editor, Jared Savage.

“We seek info, public service tells govt and denies us info. We refine request and get letters. We publish. Pretty standard.”

But there was nothing “standard” about the handling of this OIA request. Made at lunchtime on Monday June 16 it produced a response — which usually takes at least 20 working days —  within 48 hours. Plucked from a file and previously withheld on privacy grounds, the 11-year-old letter was immediately put to use by National’s frontbenchers in the debating  chamber and by the Parliamentary press gallery in the corridors to discredit Cunliffe and undermine his leadership of Labour’s caucus.

Although just a routine check on progress being made on  Donghua Liu’s residency application, signed by Cunliffe as New Lynn MP in March 2003, the letter was touted as evidence of support and advocacy for the controversial Chinese businessman.

[Full Background]

For the Herald, it lent credibility to its investigation into allegations that Liu had made big donations to the Labour Party.

Jared Savage’s investigation had included a request on May 8 for all information that Immigration NZ held on Donghua Liu. After taking three weeks to decide to withhold everything on his file on privacy grounds, the ministry sat on that decision for another three weeks before suddenly agreeing to  release it to Mr Savage at 8.59AM on Monday 16 June.

Although no explanation was given for the sudden u-turn it is most likely that the potential for extracting maximum political advantage from releasing the Cunliffe/Donghua Liu letter became apparent over the preceding weekend.

The resignation of ACT leader John Banks as an MP had taken effect on the Friday (13 June). The filling of the vacancy created in Epsom required a special debate on whether to hold a by- election or wait for the general election on September 20. Gerry Brownlee decided to get it over with, scheduling it for Wednesday afternoon following the weekly General Debate. That meant National faced a torrid afternoon on Wednesday 18 June as Opposition parties combined to hang the Government’s dirty washing all around the debating chamber.

A  diversion would be handy.

First, the response to Mr Savage’s May 8 OIA request had to be cleared away and replaced by a fresh request targeted more precisely at the Cunliffe/Donghua Liu letter. Mr Savage obliged with an email seeking “any correspondence, including emails, letters or queries, from an Members of Parliament in regards to Donghua Liu’s immigration status prior to 2005.” The email was sent at 1.04pm on the Monday and asked for the request to be treated urgently because of “the public interest in this case.”

Just over an hour later, at 2.11pm, a remarkably similar request arrived from TV3’s political reporter, Brook Sabin;

“We’d like to know if any Labour MPs lobbied for Donghua Liu’s residency back in 2005 . . . Cheers.”

A growing army of managers, business advisors, comms people and consultants went straight to work on co-ordinating responses to the two requests. Ironically, although TV3 lodged their request sixty seven minutes after the Herald, Sabin was to scoop Savage by three minutes when the 2003 Cunliffe letter was released just under forty eight hours later at 12.49PM on Wednesday 18 June.

Twitter chatter in the hour leading up to the letter’s release reveals a small network of journalists and right-wing bloggers who knew it was coming. They had their stories already written and were waiting impatiently to hit “send”.

12.10pm: Herald editor, Shayne Currie, starts the count down on Twitter: “Tick, tick, tick . . . keep an eye on @nzherald #scoop.”

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The 2003 Cunliffe-Liu letter has not yet been released at this point. No one outside of  Immigration NZ and Minister Woodhouse are supposedly aware of it’s existence. It would not be released for another thirty nine minutes.

At exactly the same moment, an unidentified staff member in the Immigration Minister’s Beehive office in Wellington emails across the Parliamentary complex to Cunliffe’s office with a heads-up. Two documents, Cunliffe’s 2003 letter and a similar one sent five months earlier from Labour’s Te Atatu MP, Chris Carter, are to be released to the media “around 1pm”.

12.12pm: Meanwhile, “Pete” is getting impatient. Described in his Twitter profile as “a fluffer, researcher, reporter, journalist, moderator and deputy editor” for Whale Oil Beef Hooked, “Pete” tweets back at Currie: “We’ve been waiting. Get on with it. #bloodyembargoes.”

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12.23pm “Pete” is missing lunch. He asks @Inventory2 [Wanganui right-wing blogger and National Party member, Tony Stuart] and Currie if he has enough time to make himself a sandwich;

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12.28pm: Currie tells sandwich-seeking “Pete” to “Take your Herald mobile app.”

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12.30pm: Back in Wellington, ministry staff are racing to get the  letters to the minister’s office. An area manager in Visa Services emails 10 colleagues with the news that a copy of the OIA response to Sabin’s request has been sent to the minister’s office.

12.39pm: The Visa Services area manager reports that he’s “just been advised that the Ministerial consultation has been completed so we will proceed to release.”

12.42pm: The same area manager then emails 10 colleagues to report that the consultation process has been completed and the letters are being released. “I have also asked . . . when we can release the Brook Sabin OIA.”

12.49pm: A business advisor in the ministry’s “Operations Support” team emails scans of the signed response and the two letters to Jared Savage at the Herald. At this point the 2003 Cunliffe and 2002 Carter letters ‘officially’ become public.

12.53pm: Sabin posts a scan of the Cunliffe letter on TV3’s website with a story quoting extensively from it. His story appear four minutes after ImmigrationNZ release the 2003 Cunliffe and 2002 Carter letters to Savage.

12.55pm: “Pete” checks in. He’s had lunch and he’s hot to post the story he’s already written after hearing from Whale Oil. Currie gets the green light and, obviously unaware that the Herald has already been scooped by TV3, tweets “Big political story breaking now . . . what David Cunliffe knew and said about Donghua Liu.”

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12.57pm: Cameron Slater posts excerpts from Savage’s story on his Whale Oil blog along with a transcript from a media briefing the previous day on Labour’s KiwiSaver policy when Sabin’s TV3 colleague, Tova O’Brien, asked Cunliffe four questions about Donghua Liu.

12.59pm: Blogger Keith Ng posts the Question and Answer transcript on Twitter, describing it as a “wicked sick burn.”

1.00pm: The Herald’s veteran political correspondent, John Armstrong, posts a comment on the Herald’s website saying Cunliffe “is in deep political trouble. So deep that his resignation  as Labour’s leader may now be very much in order”. Armstrong’s column is written and published on-line eleven minutes after Savage is emailed the 2003 Cunliffe and 2002 Carter letters.

1.46pm: Parliamentary Press Gallery accuse Cunliffe of lying and and being a hypocrite in 8-minute “stand-up” on his way into the debating chamber.

2.00pm: Cunliffe arrives in chamber, met by jeering from National benches. Ministers use the 2003 Cunliffe-Liu letter to attack the Labour leader’s credibility. Two of them (English and Woodhouse) quote directly from TV3’s Question and Answer transcript from the previous day.

On the following day, Thursday 19 June . . .

8.04pm: Herald political editor, Audrey Young, in New York with the prime minister, reports that Key admitted knowledge of the Cunliffe/Donghua Liu letter for some weeks. She says Cunliffe’s denials that he wrote “any such letter” has “thrown his leadership into crisis.”

5.14pm: Herald deputy political editor, Claire Trevett, and political reporter, Adam Bennett, report that Woodhouse had confirmed that his office had informed the prime minister’s office of the letter’s existence within a few days of learning of it on 9 May, the day after Savage lodged his first OIA request — the first of three conflicting accounts from Woodhouse.

Four conclusions

1. This was no ordinary scoop. This was a political dirty trick with journalists as willing participants when they should have been exposing it for what it was. Links between political operatives, bloggers and journalists are inevitable and revealed. Ultimately the credibility of mainstream news depends on  its objectivity, independence and accuracy.

2. While the last-minute scramble to publish the letter before 1pm on the Wednesday depended on its release to the Herald’s  investigations editor at 12.49pm, there is no record of its  release to TV3’s political reporter. There is no paper trail, except a few references in internal emails. If it didn’t come from the ministry, it must have come from the minister.

3. The production and circulation of the Question and Answer transcript, required to support the — false — claim that Cunliffe had lied or suffered serious memory loss, remains a mystery. Blogger Keith Ng’s instant judgment on it as a “wicked sick burn” is more than just a smart turn of phrase.

4. Nicky Hager’s chapter on the Cunliffe/Donghua letter in ‘Dirty Politics’ refers to a blogger called “Barnsley Bill”, who – on the day before the Cunliffe-Liu story “broke” on 18 June in the Herald –  made this cryptic remark on Danyl McLauchlan’s blog, “The Dim Post“;

Within 24 hours the poll are going to be the least of David Cunliffes problems.
Keep an eye on the herald website, we are about to see pledge card theft relegated to second place as the biggest labour funding scandal.

Comment by Barnsley Bill — June 17, 2014 @ 10:21 am

Followed the next day with this;

Pascals Bookie..
There ya go. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11276510
Boom.
Now wait for the 100k bottle of wine to drop

Comment by Barnsley Bill — June 18, 2014 @ 1:02 pm

“Barnsley Bill’s” reference to “the 100k bottle of wine” was made before the Herald published allegations of Liu spending $100,000 on a bottle of wine to the Labour Party. (Allegations which have since been re-tracted by the Herald.)

Subsequent questions put to  “Barnsley Bill” have yielded no sensible answers, and his/her responses have been evasive. (Ref.)(Ref.)(Ref.)(Ref.)

Maintaining his cryptic game-playing,  “Barnsley Bill” referred on “The Daily Blog” to “look to Kerikeri for the leak” – which he pointedly repeated. Kerikeri is in the Northland Electorate. Northland is National MP, Mike Sabin’s electorate.

Mike Sabin is TV3 journalist, Brook Sabin’s father.

These are the people who knew about the 2003 Cunliffe letter before it was made public under  OIA requests on 18 June. Those OIA requests were ‘smoke-screens’ as TV3, NZ Herald, and Whaleoil already had the documents, or had been informed of their content.

Those letters were provided by the Office of the Minister for Immigration.

Under Savage’s OIA request there was a deliberate, pointed paper-trail trail by Ministry officials. No doubt the civil servants involved had an idea what their Minister was up to, and wanted plausible deniability in case any investigation resulted. By contrast, no such paper trail exists to explain how Brook Sabin obtained his copy of the 2003 Cunliffe letter. Minister Woodhouse was clumsy.

This could have come directly from the Minister’s office.

As the Twitter discussion and “Barnsley Bill’s” cryptic, prescient, comments  indicate, there were several people “in the loop” to what was clearly a calculated, planned, – if rushed – political trap and public smear campaign. Clearly, these people did not expect anyone to notice their public conversation.

Organised from a  Minister’s office; with involvement by Cameron Slater,  and with TV3 and NZ Herald complicity, David Cunliffe walked into that trap.

The truth is only now coming out.

Put the whole Twitter conversation together, and it is abundantly obvious that those involved knew that the story was coming out  prior to the Ministry releasing the 2003 Cunliffe and 2002 Carter letters.

Herald Editor, Shane Currie certainly had fore-warning.

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Acknowledgement

Appreciation to ‘Hercules‘ for providing  information and filling in the gaps. Without your in-put, this story would never have come it.

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References

Wikipedia: Shayne Curry

Document Cloud: David Cunliffe-Liu-Immigration NZ 2003 letter

Document Cache: Jared Savage OIA request 16 June 2014

Document Cache: Jared Savage OIA request declined 8 May 2014

Parliament Hansards: Daily debates – Volume 699, Week 75 – Wednesday, 18 June 2014

TV3: Cunliffe’s links to Liu (see video)

NZ Herald: Businessman gifts $150k to Labour Party

Document Cache: Jared Savage OIA request extension-approved 16 June 2014 8.59AM

Radio NZ: John Banks to resign from Parliament

Document Cache: Jared Savage – Immigration NZ – new OIA request – 16 June 1.04PM

Document Cache: Brook Sabin – TV3 – Immigration NZ – OIA request –  16 June 2.11PM

NZ Herald: David Cunliffe wrote letter supporting Liu’s residency bid

Document Cache:  Release of OIA to Jared Savage – covering email – 18 June 2014 – 12.49PM

Document Cache: Chris Carter – letter – 3 October 2002

Twitter: Pete – 12.12PM

Twitter: Pete – 12.23PM

Twitter: Shayne Currie – 12.28PM

Wanganui Chronicle: Wanganui man outed in Hager’s book

Document Cache: ImmigrationNZ Area Manager to 10 colleagues – 12.30PM

Document Cache: Immigration NZ – 18 June – 12.39PM

Document Cache: Immigration NZ – 18 June – 12.42PM

Twitter: Pete – 12.55PM

Twitter: Shayne Curry – 12.55PM

Twitter: Shayne Currie @ShayneCurrieNZH

Whaleoil: BREAKING – David Cunliffe’s career, such as it was, is over [ UPDATED ]

TV3: Tova O’Brien’s four questions to David Cunliffe, 17 June

Twitter: Keith Ng – 12:59 PM – 18 Jun 2014

NZ Herald: John Armstrong: Cunliffe’s resignation may be in order

NZ Herald: Key on Liu-Labour Link – More to come

NZ Herald:  National denies dirty tricks campaign against Cunliffe

The Dim Post: June Polls – Barnsley Bill

The Dim Post: Entities – Barnsley Bill

NZ Herald: Donghua Liu’s new statement on Labour donations

The Daily Blog: EXCLUSIVE: Was the Donghua Liu Affair another example of Dirty Politics?

Mike Sabin

Previous related blogposts

The Donghua Liu Affair:  Damn lies, dirty tricks, and a docile media

The Donghua Liu Affair threatens to unravel – PM and NZ Herald caught up in a dirty trick campaign?

The Donghua Liu Affair: the impending final act and curtain-fall in this smear-campaign

The Donghua Liu Affair: The first step to a complaint to the Press Council

The Donghua Liu Affair: responses from NZ Herald and Prime Minister’s Office – Is the PM’s office fudging?

The Donghua Liu Affair: Evidence of Collusion between the NZ Herald and Immigration NZ?

The Donghua Liu Affair: the Press Council’s decision

The Donghua Liu Affair: The OIA Gambit

 

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 19 September 2014 as “The Donghua Liu Affair – how the NZ Herald played their part in #dirtypolitics”

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Interview: A Young NZer’s Thirst to make a Difference

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This online interview is with Curwen Rolinson, a member of NZ First’s Board of Directors; Leader, NZF Youth;  and “one-man nationalist revolution”.

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Curwen Rolinson

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Kia ora, Curwen, and thank you for giving us your time and answers to the following questions…

Q: You’re a Director on NZ First’s Board of Directors. How long have you been a member of NZ First, and what attracted you to that Party – as opposed to, say, another Party?

I joined up a little after the 2008 election. I’d always had a soft spot for NZF’s nationalism and its anti-neoliberal economics, and these seemed increasingly relevant in the face of a looming threat from the economic vandals of the Maori, ACT and National parties.

I decided to go along to a local NZF meeting to see what the party was really like on the ground. The attendence may have been toward the gold-card end of the spectrum, but they got what I was on about. They didn’t need me to tell them that Rogernomics & Ruthanasia had ruined the country – they’d lived through it. They didn’t need me to remind them we once led the world as a humane social democracy with a brilliant budding nationhood – they built both.

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Then Winston walked in.

I’d never heard him speak before. I’d seen him on tv, but that’s a very different experience to the live act. The overall impression we got was of a man who shared our concerns, our aspirations and our vision.

Afterward, Winston and I had a chat about tertiary policy and getting a youth wing going at university. What really sold me on NZF was that Winston seemed genuinely interested in how I thought we could improve NZF’s policy for students. The end result of that conversation was a set of policies for students written by students. In what other major political party would you get that kind of consultation with membership.

As for other parties, I ruled out ACT, National and the Maori Party on principle. I also ruled out United Future on lack of principle. Labour struck me as a tired third-way party that didn’t listen to its membership, while The Greens were being somewhat confused about whether they were left or right. Neither struck me as being an especially viable opposition. Jim Anderton’s Progressive Coalition also looked pretty decrepit at that point. His party wasn’t looking too healthy either.

Q: What has been your personal best experience with NZ First thus far?

Now that’s tough – close toss-up between two I think. First, crashing the Cup of Tea and hijacking John Banks’ photo op by staging an NZF Counter-Press Conference outside the Epsom Tea Party. Second, addressing last year’s NZF Convention. I love public speaking, and for me there’s nothing cooler than getting a few hundred people fired up to save the nation!  [link to speech]

How did Banks react to your presence? He couldn’t have been too thrilled to see you there?

Haha; Banks beat a hasty retreat, and still seems shaken by his Near-Curwen-Experience. I was eating in Bellamy’s (the Parliamentary restaurant) last week with NZF’s Caucus and Banks happened to walk in. He caught sight of me, did a double-take, and spent the next five minutes giving me a very disconcerted stare from across the room.

The more amusing reaction at the Tea Party, however, was from Key’s Diplomatic Protection Squad minders who apparently thought I was the guy who’d planted the recording device.

Yes, I think I did hear something to that effect, on the Youtube-uploaded Tape. I think you may be off Banksies Christmas card list from now on…

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NZF's Curwen Rolinson stages counter-press conference outside the Cup of Tea.

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"Got The Mic Winston"

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Q: How do you feel about your Party’s success at the last election? And what do you attribute NZ First’s success to?

I’m exceptionally proud of the party, and exceptionally proud to have helped make a difference. I think it’s safe to say that our values and our mission have never been more needed than they are now. When my grandkids ask me what I did to build and save the nation they’re going to inherit, I can proudly start the tale with “well kids, I helped get NZF back into Parliament.”

I remember watching the swearing in ceremony and feeling hugely confident that the comrades I’ve come to know and respect over the last three years will do their utmost to protect and save our New Zealand.

The one thing I’m gutted about is that Helen Mulford was something like 0.1% away from becoming our 9th MP.

We’re back because we didn’t just try to recapture our old support base.

We undoubtedly had a solid core of support in electorates like B.O.P and Tauranga bolstered by strong local candidates, but we also reached out to new people and campaigned in new ways.

As an example of what I mean, two of my proudest achievements with NZF have been getting us on digital media (facebook, twitter and a new website) and crafting the best damn student policy of any serious political party.
Both of these helped us to connect with younger voters who might not otherwise have considered us. We put our message somewhere they could reach it, and we made sure they knew we’d represent their interests.
The end result of all this was polling showing something like 14.5% of first time voters were going our way.

In general, I’d put NZF’s success down to one in fifteen voters being seriously concerned about the path this country is going down on everything from asset sales to racial separatism. They’ve decided that they trust us above all others to get our ship of state back on its chartered course to prosperity. They have also agreed that (to paraphrase Helen Clark and/or Eminem) it just feels so empty without Winny.

I’ve heard an array of pundits put our resurgence down to the Tea Tape debacle. This interpretation marginalises and undermines the three years solid work we’ve all put into returning to Parliament. While the added media prominence it gave Winston was unquestionably a factor, to my mind it only served to enhance our pre-existing campaign work and solidify our role as the Anti-Key in the minds of the electorate. 

Q: Had Labour won a slightly higher poll result, and had NZ First held the balance of power, what would your personal coalition preference have been? Or would you have preferred no coalition arrangement?

Opposition. It’s what we campaigned on, it’s what the electorate has asked of us, and it’s where our Caucus’s strengths lie at the moment.

More to the point, as NZF’s record with Labour from 2002 to 2005 proves, it’s entirely possible to secure progressive policy gains like the original Foreshore & Seabed legislation and the establishment of Kiwibank without a coalition or even confidence & supply agreement.

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Q: If your option is for coalition, who would be first first preference as a coalition partner, and what bottom line(s) would you have, if any?

If I were pushed, and assuming we hadn’t tied ourselves to a previously announced position, it would have to be Labour. We enjoyed a reasonably amicable relationship with them from 2005-2008 in which they proved themselves capable of helping us govern for all New Zealanders, not a neoliberal few.

Despite Phil Goff’s past record (and I remember stumbling across some truly odious quotations of his from the Rogernomics Error), they agreed with us about improving wages, abolishing youth rates and buying back KiwiRail.

In terms of bottom lines, I’d be thinking about binding Labour to undoing some of the harm National’s wreaked over the last three years. Just off the top of my head… Reinstating the 2004 Foreshore & Seabed legislation, reducing GST back down to 12.5%, keeping the retirement age at 65, amending the Reserve Bank Act to take into account things other than inflation targetting, and a commitment to keep PHARMAC and block the sale of assets or farmland to foreigners would probably be a good place to start.
A Universal Student Allowance wouldn’t be too bad either.

However, what we bring to government is not just a series of bottom lines to horse-trade – Peter Dunne and Pita Sharples seem happy to merely do that; but rather a nationalist vibe that guides our decisionmaking. With this in mind, perhaps we should once again demand the position of Treasurer to ensure we can hold government economic policy to account. 

I’m wondering if we can afford to keep retitrement at 65, or maybe push it out to 66 or 67, so we can fund social policies at the other end of the scale; early childhood education, school lunches, etc?

The way I’d approach this is by asking which you’d prefer to fund – pensions for hardworking Kiwis over 65, or unemployment benefits for same. Nobody in favour of raising the retirement age by two years has ever explained how exactly they intend to keep Kiwis in work for those additional two years. I’m quite in favour of incentivising people to put off retiring for a few years, but still believe that 65 is a fair and sustainable age for New Zealanders to retire at.

More to the point, this doctrine of “either-or” provision of social necessities doesn’t strike me as a sensible way to govern a nation. What your question effectively asks me is “do I prioritize looking after the elderly or the young”; and I cannot in good conscience give any answer other than “both, man, both!”

If we’re serious about having a decent society for all Kiwis regardless of age, then I suppose we’ll just have to once again get serious about having the fair taxation regimen to fund it, rather than looking to unfairly pull the rug out from beneath the feet of entire generations at either end of the spectrum.

Fair point about not pitting one sector of society against another. The Right seem to be quite adept at using that tactic.  (Bomber Bradbury often refers to  workers pitted against beneficiaries, solo-mums against families, etc, on ‘Tumeke‘.)

Q: Do you have a top three list of priorities that NZ First should focus on, this Parliamentary term?

1. Keeping the Bastards Honest. 2. Ensuring someone in the House actually stands up for the vocally expressed will of the people. 3. To echo Muldoon, Leaving New Zealand a better place than we found it.

Q: Have you read or heard of Gareth Morgan’s “Big Kahuna”, and his proposal for a Universal Basic Income/negative tax for the first $11,000?

I haven’t read the book, but I am aware of the idea of a universal basic income – if memory serves, it’s something Roger Douglas proposed back in the 80s. While he’s right that our present welfare system could use some substantial improvement (and arguably broadening of service), I find myself alarmed by the idea of a flat tax rate and a capital gains tax including the family home. Further, the movement away from targetted state assistance to a nonspecific, very generalised apprach arguably allows for far more wasted welfare than is currently the case.

Q: Taxes. Are the top earners/wealthy paying their fair share? Too much? About right?

No. It’s common knowledge that successful economies tend to have progressive taxation structures. We regressivised ours by giving tax cuts to the wealthy and then trying to pay for them by making everyone else shoulder the burden. Even the OECD thinks we went the wrong way on that one.
The end result of this is that many Kiwis are paying more than their fair share of tax to subsidise someone else’s perks.

However, I want to approach taxation fairness from a different perspective.
We pay taxes in part for what we and our families use. For most Kiwis that means paying to cover our kids’ education, ACC and medical services we might use, and more day-to-day things like infrastructure.

For our top earners, it’s a bit different. To amass that kind of income, you have to use the resources of the state a bit differently. Rather than worrying about your children getting an education for their sake, you want an educated workforce to staff your factories and offices. You don’t just want personal transport – you want infrastructure that can carry your products all over the country and further afield.

The question I’d be asking myself is whether the far right’s doctrine of tax cuts at any cost is really the most sensible, sustainable way to keep this going. We want to ensure our next generation of entrepeneurs and high earners enjoy the same if not better opportunities to do business as their predecessors enjoyed.

With this in mind, one of the core concerns for a taxation regimen of the wealthy should be ensuring they “pay it forward” to the next guy.

Q: Just briefly, what are your personal views on,

* private-run prisons?

There are some areas of human activity that I don’t believe a businessman should be able to turn a profit on. The incarceration of our fellow citizens would have to be one of them. This is not running a hotel or a half-way house for people who might have gone a bit off the rails. This is a matter concerning some of our most fundamental human rights. Just as we cannot allow the state to give up its monopoly on legitimated violence and killing to the private sector, we should also not allow the abjuration of our right to personal liberty by the market. 

More to the point, a cursory examination of the track record for private prisons in America is alarming. They seem to cost exhorbitantly, tend to have strikingly high inmate suicide and abuse rates, allow for effective slave labour; and, most chillingly, can produce huge conflicts of interest in the parole process. If you’re being paid a premium per prisoner per year, you’re hardly going to want to release anyone early. Allowing justice to take its course at a parole hearing would harm your bottom line. 

Our existing prisons are not perfect, however and I appreciate the arguments behind allowing non-state third parties a role in providing things like rehabilitation programmes.

* Charter schools?

I’ve yet to see compelling evidence that allowing McDonalds or the Destiny Church to open up a high-school will improve our kids’ educational outcomes.
Most of the points about distinctiveness are already adequately met by provision for ‘character’ schools, while the American experience with charter schools appears to have produced inferior outcomes at greater cost.

* minimum wage?

The expression “if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys” springs to mind – although a cursory examination of any corporate boardroom appears to prove that ridiculously overinflated pay packets have much the same effect.

There is something manifestly wrong with a poverty-line wage that doesn’t even cover the costs of keeping you in the job you’re doing (transport, accomodation, food and child care being the most obvious ones).

This was one of the things I initially loved about NZF. They understood the perils of being a low income earner in a low wage economy and had a $15 an hour minimum wage stance years before the other big parties got on board.
I think offhand we increased the minimum wage for youth more in a single year than National has done over the last three.

* waterfront dispute? Do you think the  Labour Party has done enough on this issue?

The Maritime Union should ask for its donations back. Shearer’s stuck in 1951, and Tony Gibson’s attitude to his workers seems to be stuck in the 1800s.

It’s childish brinksmanship to threaten to sack one’s entire workforce as a bargaining tactic, and it’s dangerous dehumanisation to insist on the casualisation of said workforce to cut costs.

Whether or not there’s a privatisation agenda afoot, Tony Gibson is not the sort of man I’d like looking after one of Auckland’s greatest assets.

Indeed – sacking an entire sklled and highly experienced workforce doesn’t seem particularly bright.  I think more than one person has suggested that Gibson is not the right person for the job.

What about ACC – to de-regulate or not to de-regulate, that is the question?

As with Privatization, it’s a case of “we’ve been down this road before”.  It didn’t work in 1999, and I see absolutely no reason to assume ordinary Kiwis are going to get anything worthwile out of this. The insurance companies are no doubt licking their lips in eager anticipation for a cash-cow to offset Christchurch.

* Ok, fair ’nuff. What about mining? Especially of conservation lands?

Now let’s be honest. Mining can be great for an economy; it garners resources and is a major employer in some parts of the country.
However, I am absolutely not OK with mining the conservation estate which is in my eyes a precious resource all its own.

Here’s a simple political axiom – when guys like Rodney Hide think something’s a great idea … that is the time to start fighting vigorously to oppose it. This, after all, is a man who thought an open-cast strip mine would be more worth to the tourism sector than our present unspoilt wilderness.

* climate change?

Whether you believe in anthropogenic climate change or not (and I strongly do), reducing pollution and energy efficiency are good things.

It would, however, be refreshing to see some change in the political climate about things like the Emissions Trading Scheme. Letting derivatives traders like our Prime Minister make a quick buck off pollution is not part of the solution.

Good point about reducing pollution – that’s not something that the Right Wing can readily address. I  mean, who could possibly be in favour of more air pollution?

And your thoughts on deep sea oil drilling? Especially after the ‘Rena’ stranding?

Heck, Yeah! Parata reckons “we have a sufficient legislative and regulatory regime in place to cover the permit that has currently been made available to Petrobras.” Terry Pratchett (whom I have rather more respect for) reckons “when nothing can possibly go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.”

We are not equipped to handle a substantial oil spill, as recent events have made unconscionably clear. We have also been steadily weakening the Crown Minerals Act to make ourselves a more enticing prospect to foreign oil companies. We are thus hardly legislatively equipped to handle oil drilling anyway.

You may be right, Curwen.  I think sf writers may be more credible and insightful than many politicians. At least sf writers have more believable fiction. But I digress, let’s carry on…

Should Kiwisaver be compulsory? Should there be an opt-out option?

My gut instinct is that it should be compulsory. Sovereign wealth funds and forward planning for retirement are vital components in many successful economies – Norway, Singapore and Australia being the standout examples.

However, the problem is without substantial increases in wages and employer contribution, a good number of workers can’t afford to belong to the scheme.
The reason I say that is because when it was first introduced, I was the only guy in my workplace to sign on. Everyone else had mortgages, bills or children to support so couldn’t afford it.

So, if we’re serious about having a national saving regimen, we should probably sort out our wages first.

With regard to the opt-out clause, while I’m tempted to say I support one (remembering that Kiwis seem to have an innate fear of anything containing the word “compulsory” – as proven to Bill Rowling’s horror in 1975 and Winston’s in 1996), it has occured that many of the circumstances that might cause one to want to opt out are probably covered by the provision for a “contribution holiday”.

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* Roads or rail? Which should have priority?

Rail, both for mass transit and for goods. I can’t get my head around the logic that people are better moved around our cities by creating multi-billion dollar traffic jams than by doing what every other first world city out there does and investing in rail. As petrol prices increase, it makes less and less sense to move large numbers of people or produce over long distance by road.

* School meals – should they be introduced in all schools? Just low-decile shools? Or not at all?

I can definitely see a place for them in low-decile schools; and, on a needs basis could well see them implemented across the board. Just because one is attending a decile 10 school does not mean one’s parents have a decile 10 income.

I’m frankly appalled by National’s Mike Sabin who claimed we shouldn’t be providing school lunches to our vulnerable kids because “then mothers and fathers would never have to do it”. That, to my mind, isn’t a child-friendly argument.

As far as I’m concerned, a malnourished child is probably not getting all they can out of either schooling or life. It will be through no fault of their own, and petty political point-scoring at the child’s expense is repugnant.

* Republic or not?

My big issue with New Zealand becoming a republic is that there’d be an immense temptation to shoehorn a new constitution into the process.

Thus, the best argument I’ve yet heard against becoming a republic, is the fact that Bill English & Pita Sharples are writing the constitution that would form the basis for it.

Whichever way we go, I hope it’s as the result of a binding referendum on the subject. This should be a matter for the people to decide – not a few hundred elites.

Q: What, in your opinion, has been the worst aspect or single thing, about John Key’s government?

The duplicity. A far better Prime Minister than Key (one Benjamin Disraeli) once noted that there were lies, damned lies and statistics.

Every number this government puts out – from unemployment rates to growth figures and from asset sales revenue to the 170,000 jobs we keep hearing about suggests that this is a government whose economic forecasting makes astrology look respectable.

Yeah, whatever happened to that 170,000 “new jobs”  promised by Key?? It certainly seems to have been quietly dropped.

Q: What, in your opinion, has been the best aspect, or single thing, about John Key’s government?

I love political satire. It’s certainly a treat having an entire government writing for you.

Q: How do you feel about our current media? Do you have a favourite media that you feel stands above others? Which, in your view, is the worst?

Up until relatively recently I was frankly appalled by our mainstream domestic media on a seemingly daily basis.

It’s probably cliche for an NZFer to claim we don’t get a fair go, but I’ve watched it happen. On numerous occasions, I’ve seen journalists attempt to take on Winston in a manner that’s more bull-fight than interview so they can get an aggressive 5-second soundbite to play on the 6 pm news.
Thankfully, they’ve started to change their tune.

On a more positive note, the best media in the country is the blogosphere.

Gordon Campbell is, in my eyes, a national treasure. In few other places do you seem to get the hard questions asked and information presented in a manner that’s insulting to neither truth nor the intelligence of the reader.

Internationally, I love Al Jazeera and I detest the Economist.

Their respective coverage of the Honduras coup a few years back probably explains why. Al Jazeerah was first in, and reported in an unbiased way about a reasonably popular and progressive President who’d just been illegitimately overthrown by legislative elites.

The Economist, by contrast, seemed to be reporting about a completely different coup in which an overwhelmingly unpopular President was legally overthrown by a coalition of concerned citizens and lawmakers with the country’s best interests at heart.

Needless to say, the weight of history, and virtually every other source I came across did not side with The Economist’s manifestly counterfactual interpretation of events.

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Q: If NZ First was in government as the major coalition Party, and you were an MP offered a ministerial role, what portfolio would you want? And why?

Hahaha. Once upon a time I, like almost every other young politico with a smattering of an economics education, wanted to be Finance Minister.

These days, I’d probably consider Minister of Education.

Oh? Why is that?

I’m really passionate about ensuring Kiwi kids get the best start in life. My parents are both teachers, I work in the education sector, and for years I’ve seen first hand the effects of flawed education policy.

At the moment, our education policy seems to be decided and implemented by people whose relationship with the educational professions seems to have moved from “arms length” to “armed standoff”.  
The previous Minister of Education, for instance, was the only Minister in Cabinet lacking a degree and seemed to think her role in government was to play Thatcherite strikebreaker rather than improving the future prospects of our next generation. NZQA’s head office seems quite literally to be staffed with accountants rather than teachers, the end result of which being ongoing shambles like the NCEA and the soon-to-be-upon-us debacle that will be the implementation of National Standards.

I’m not sure about the National Party, but when something like 90% of the paid professionals who’ve spent several years training to teach our kids think something’s a bad idea … I’m inclined to listen. 

Better be careful, Curwen – you could end up the most popular Education Minister since… since… Actually, have we ever had one?!

Which leads us on to,

Q: In your opinion, what is the single most critical problem affecting us as a society? How would you address that problem? And what time-frame would you give yourself?

The apparent lack of any compelling vision or plan by our government to leave New Zealand a better place than they found it.

We have three years to contribute our ideas and convince our government to do better.

After that, we must seek to change the government. 

Q: Are your friends and family political? How do you relate  to those friends and family who aren’t political?

Good question. The closest my family got to politics before me was my father’s vocation as a Reverend. Perhaps that’s where I get the faith & fury rhetoric about social justice from.

Deep down, I think everyone cares about politics. They might not be die-hard supporters of a particular cause or party, but we all want to leave a better New Zealand to our children than the one we inherited.

The trick is to bring that out in people – and I’d like to think that it’s pretty close to the surface in most of my friends.

Or, to put it another way, if they weren’t political before meeting me, they certainly are now. A case in point for this would be my long-suffering girlfriend Anya, who went from being apathetic about politics to the point of libertarianism to evangelising the Bengali community and shooting television commercials for us.

I think my partner would sympathise with you on that one, Curwen.

On a more personal level…  What are some of your most favourite things,

* food?

Shapes, sour-worms and ginger ale.

In terms of actual meals, I’m highly partial to that traditional Kiwi repast of lamb & mint sauce; although I’ve recently developed an insatiable taste for home-made chicken curry. 

Currwen, I must introduce you to ‘ The Curry Shop‘, in Upper Hutt. Their Chicken Saag  is mana-from-heaven.

What about  place to live? What is your favourite turf?

Mt Eden. I love my mountain and my valley.

* movie and/or tv programme?

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

* book?

I don’t really have favourite books per se. My favourite author’s probably Terry Pratchett, but what I’m reading currently is Bruce Jesson’s “To Build A Nation”.

* prominent historical person you admire the most? And why?

Hunter S Thompson. This was a man whose dual personal maxims of “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro” and “some may never live, but the crazy never die” have proven of great personal inspiration to me. 

His uncompromising political principles, flair for the eccentric, and conviction of life-as-art-worth-doing are things which I hope to bring to my career.

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Well, I see he’s still popular with the ladies…

Q: And your Last Word is on;

NZF’s role in Parliament this term strikes me as remeniscent of Gandalf confronting the neoliberal Balrog in The Fellowship of The Ring.

When National puts forward its bills to privatize our future, I look forward to hearing a clarion voice from the House yelling “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

Sounds damned good to me.

Thank you, Curwen,  for sharing with us!

Folks wishing to contact Curwen can email him at;  curwen@nzfirst.org.nz    or alternatively Facebook him, on his page; Curwen Ares Rolinson; or blog on puttingnzfirst.blogspot.com, or on Twitter @ huntersrolinson.

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Disclaimer

This blog is not affiliated to NZ First in any way, shape, or form.

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