Watkins (T) on Norman and democracy

It wouldn't be stretching the truth to say that Tim Watkins from Pundit leans just a little to the political Left. In addition to his blogging Watkins is regularly on the radio on Newstalk ZB, where he almost always defends left-wing positions and causes.

So that makes his condemnation of Russel Norman much more noteworthy; Watkins opines (with our emphasis added):

I'm no great fan of referenda, but when phrases such as "elected dictatorship" start getting bandied around we all need to draw breath and remember how this 'running the country' thing really works

Well, it's been less than 24 hours since the Keep Our Assets groups nailed their petition, metaphorically, to the door of parliament, and there's already been a fair bit of tosh spoken about it. Some of the worst has come from Greens co-leader Russel Norman, but he's not alone.
On its second crack, 327,224 valid signatures - 18,500 more than required to initiate the referendum - were collected by the Keep Our Assets coalition and yesterday delivered to the Speaker. The referendum question will be: "Do you support the Government selling up to 49% of Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Genesis Power, Solid Energy and Air New Zealand?"
Driving home last night I heard Norman on Checkpoint, rejecting questions that National had won the election and therefore had the right, y'know, to govern. Norman said that people vote for an against numerous issues in an election, so it didn't mean National had a mandate for partial asset sales.
"That's not how democracy works," he told Mary Wilson.
Except that's exactly how democracy works. Elections are never single issue referendums and a party like National, which for two elections has been clear as a newly polished pane of glass on a summer's day (with not too much light, but not much cloud either) about its intentions, has every right to, y'know, govern. To argue otherwise makes no sense.
Why?
Because by Norman's logic a governing party has no right to implement policies in its manifesto that don't get a majority in separate polls. Well, that's not how democracy works. If it was, you could look at this random measure from 2003 and say Labour had no right to cut us off from the Privy Council.
Indeed, republicans have never won support for New Zealand to cut ties with the monarchy in any poll ever, so by Norman's logic it would be anti-democratic for any future Labour-Greens government to even consider such a move until it had won at least a few polls.
But we don't want government by polls. Y'know, the sort of polls that urged the US and Britain to go to war in Iraq, for example.
Norman went on to say that we're not "an elected dictatorship" and that Key must listen to the voice of the people. So let me go on with another couple of examples. Because by Norman's rhetoric it's surely more oppressive for National to have started implementing the Greens' insulation scheme in its first term – at least asset sales were a clear part of National's manifesto!

If there's anyone in Parliament who rivals David Cunliffe for being an ungracious winner, it's Dr Norman. It would be easy to excuse him by suggesting that it's the Australian way, although Australians have had precious little to celebrate in recent months, especially on the sporting field. But there's something more to it than that.

Perhaps Dr Norman is peeved that David Shearer's departure and the start of the #Labour'sGotTalent taxpayer-funded tour has pushed him out of the limelight. He has certainly hammed it up in the media over the last couple of days, but as Tim Watkins note, he has been big on rhetoric, and small on substance.

And unfortunately for Dr Norman, the words of Phil Goff have come back to bite LabourGreen on the bum; check this out from 25 January 2011:

Mr Goff said Prime Minister John Key had made this year's election a referendum on whether New Zealanders wanted to see their most important strategic assets sold.

National's Mixed Ownership Model policy was one of the very central issues of the 2011 General Election campaign. Labour in particular devoted huge resources to campaigning against "asset sales", which was an untruth in itself. We all know the outcome; National recorded its largest-ever percentage of the vote under MMP, and Labour crashed to its worst result in 70 years.

The moment that John Key was able to inform the Governor-General that he was able to form a government was the moment that the 2011 referendum on "asset sales" ended. Labour and the Greens should accept the outcome that MMP, which they of course support, threw up and move on.

And here's one other point to ponder. Late in its third term of government, Labour passed. with the support of the Greens the Electoral Finance Act and the Emissions Trading Scheme. Labour was a minority government, and neither of these policies received anything like the amount of scrutiny at the 2005 General Election as the Mixed Ownership Model did in 2005. Indeed, the EFA, later repealed by National, with Labour's support was a direct response to allegations of dodgy campaigning in 2005.

Russel Norman may support MMP and democracy, but only when tthe outcome it produces suits him. Kudos to Tim Watkins for not swallowing Dr Norman's deceit, and for calling him on it.

Photo of the Day - 29 August 2013

Shane Jones has come up with a slogan for his campaign to lead the Labour Party; here 'tis, along with his portrait:

"A new New Zealand." It's not rocket science, but it's uncomplicated, and certainly indicates that Shane Jones wants to take the country, and by default the Labour Party in a different direction.

But we wonder if "A new New Zealand" might be bad news for the likes of Phil Goff, Trevor Mallard and Annette King, Labour's last remaining refugees from the Rogernomics era. Perhaps this slogan is an indication that Shane Jones plans to do a little pruning if he wins #Labour'sGotTalent.

Breaking news; David Shearer resigns

UPDATE: David Shearer has just announced his resignation as leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition. 

He does not believe that he is the right person to lead the party to the next election, and has offered his successor his full support. The NZLP will now formally begin the process of electing a new leader under the party's revised rules, which were changed at the last Labour Party conference.

Neither Mr Shearer nor Labour's senior whip Chris Hipkins would answer questions from the media. No-one will say whether Mr Shearer fell on his sword, or was pushed.

We have however just heard on 3News that Phil Goff and Shane Jones were seen earlier today leaving Mr Shearer's office, with Goff patting Jones on the back. It would seem that our Whodunnit? rating for Mr Jones of 8.5/10, the highest score we awarded may have been right on the money.

And can you spot a noticeable absentee while David Shearer was announcing his resignation this afternoon?

Where was Grant Robertson? Surely, you'd expect the deputy leader to be there to support the outgoing leader at a time like this. Has Mr Robertson's campaign for the leadership begun already?

Meanwhile, here's the Herald's take on it:

David Shearer will stand down as Labour leader, saying he no longer believed he had the full confidence of his caucus.
He said Labour had not had the lift in the polls needed under his leadership and his soundings of caucus had indicated he should step aside to allow a fresh start.
"My sense is I no longer have the full confidence of many of my caucus colleagues,"
Mr Shearer called the press conference at short notice this afternoon following a Labour caucus meeting this morning.
Mr Shearer told the press conference it was better he step down so there could be a "clean change to a new leader who can take Labour through to victory in 2014''.
He said he looked forward to continuing as a member of the Labour Party and as the MP for Mt Albert.
"Whoever becomes the new leader can rely on my full support,'' he said.
There was no explanation at Mr Shearer's hastily called press conference about why he stood down and no word on who may take over.

And Stuff reports thus:

Labour leader David Shearer has stepped aside, saying he didn't think he had support of his full caucus.
Shearer said his resignation would be effective once a new leader was elected.
Whip Chris Hipkins said a replacement would be decided in three to four weeks. He said he had informed the party president Moira Coatsworth and secretary Tim Barnett this morning.
Heading into the House with list MP Jacinda Ardern, Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson said he was the acting leader but he could not say who was acting deputy.
Shearer's seat was empty when the House sat at 2pm.
Asked about the Government's programme for next week, Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee joked there was plenty to keep Labour occupied next week - and in coming weeks.
Shearer told reporters it had been a privilege to lead the party for the past 20 months.
''But we do need to do more. So the time has come for me to hand over to a new leader who can take Labour through to 2014."

*************************

Stand by for a major political announcement at 1.30pm. David Shearer is holding a media conference after an urgent, hastily-convened Labour caucus meeting, and is expected to announce that he will stand down as Labour Party leader.

And Duncan Garner didn't break this story!

So much for the Campbell Live campaign

TV3's John Campbell and his fellow travelers have been trying to get John Key to come on the show for a few weeks to ambush him over the GCSB Bill. Yesterday they took to social media to advise that the Prime Minister had agreed to come on the show.

John Campbell may now be wishing that they hadn't tried so hard. Here's a link to the video of the interview, followed by TV3's overview of it:

Campbell Live has devoted much of this week to the GCSB bill. We're on a nationwide road trip, finding out whether you support or oppose the bill or even if you feel informed.

We've asked Prime Minister John Key to appear on a number of occasions to discuss the bill. He's always declined, until tonight.

"We got 124 submissions on the GCSB bill, and 30,000 on snapper," he says.

Mr Key says he spends a lot of time touring the country, but the GCSB bill is not a topic that comes up in his discussions.

"People do not raise GCSB. I have public meetings, I have question sessions at everything I do. I probably have half a dozen meetings a day with public engaging with people…People don't raise this issue," he tells Campbell Live.

The Prime Minister says under the changes, the GCSB will need to obtain a warrant from the Commissioner of High Security Warrants – a retired court judge appointed by Mr Key.

"[The surveillance of] Kim Dotcom was illegal under the old law, which is why I apologised, and it's illegal under the new law," Mr Key says.

Mr Key says some discussion around the bill has been misrepresented, and the organisation will not be able to spy on New Zealanders.

"The point here is that you're going into a shop, or you're going down the main street of New Zealand, and you are saying, 'Do you want to be spied on?' If you come and ask me that question the answer is no. But you cannot do that under Section Eight," he says.

Mr Key says the GCSB stopped surveillance of 88 New Zealanders last year under advice from lawyers.

"I'm a bit busy running the country…so I don't need to go in there and read out a pro-former second reading speech," he said when asked why he did not show up to the committee stages or second reading of the bill, before accusing Campbell Live of creating stories around the Dotcom saga.

"You've done so many stories which are absolute nonsense and you know they are, and I've actually answered those in the past," he says.

Mr Key says the original problems with the GCSB stem from a section passed by the Labour Government in 2003.

We didn't see the interview the first time around. But when we checked our Twitter feed around 7.30pm, there were all sorts of comments going on from some very unlikely sources about how John Key had schooled John Campbell, so we made sure that we watched the TV3 plus one channel at 8pm when Campbell Live replayed.

We know that we are biased, but John Key was absolutely masterful last night. Those who dismiss him as a lightweight could not be more wrong. He was factual, he refused to let John Campbell cut him off and/or speak over him, and he answered Campbell's questions at length and with detail.

And he made a very valid point; watch the video from around the 2 minute mark where Key talks about some of the misinformation in the public arena about the GCSB Bill. Key confirms that the Kitteridge Report identified 88 occasions between 2003 and 2012 where the GCSB may have acted unlawfully by providing support to external agencies; on average each year ONE for every HALF-MILLION New Zealanders.

The Left is trying to paint the GCSB Bill as giving the GCSB the power to undertake mass surveillance of New Zealanders. Patently that is fiction, and John Key exposed that fiction last night in a very powerful manner. The fact is that the GCSB's powers will be little different to what they were under Helen Clark, but they will be more clearly defined and less ambiguous, and they will be subject to considerably more scrutiny.

If John Campbell was hoping to ambush the Prime Minister last night, he will be awfully disappointed. We would go as far as to say that last night's interview was as good as any that John Key has given in his five years as Prime Minister.

And the Labour Party must be desperately worried. John Key regularly took on Sir Michael Cullen's rapier-sharp wit when he was Opposition finance spokesman and later Leader of the Opposition. In 2008 he went head-to-head with the formidable Helen Clark, forcing Miss Clark to resort to a jibe about Key shouting his family down. And in 2011 Key was all over the experienced Phil Goff in the televised leaders' debates. How could they even consider putting the gaffe-prone David Shearer up against him?

In 17 minutes last night, John Key went a long way towards answering criticisms of the GCSB legislation. Sure, the extreme activist element will continue to beat this up, but John Key is dead right; far, far more people care about how many snapper they can legally catch than whether the state will spy on them. No amount of beating up of the GCSB issue by John Campbell, David Fisher, Kim Dotcom et al will change that.

We can't help but wonder...

Phil Goff is under fire, even from within his own party; Andrea Vance from Stuff reports:

Labour MP Phil Goff is under fire for a "misogynistic" barb directed at Attorney-General Chris Finlayson.
During a parliamentary debate on new spying laws yesterday, the pair traded insults about election defeats.
Goff mocked Finlayson for being "beaten on three occasions, each time by a woman".
"I've won 11 times and I've lost once, but the member in the chair [Finlayson] has lost three times," he said.
"You would think that would be a humbling experience, but the arrogance of the minister shows no sign at all that he's learnt from being beaten on three occasion, each time by a woman member of Parliament."
Finlayson ran against Annette King in the Rongotai electorate in 2008 and 2011. In 2005, he lost to former Labour MP Winnie Laban in Mana. 

It's not the first time of course that Labour members have singled Christopher Finlayson out for abuse. As we have previously blogged, both those wonderfully liberal Labour MP's Trevor Mallard and Clayton Cosgrove are recorded for posterity in Hansard for calling Finlayson "Tinkerbell".

But Goff has even attracted attention from high up the Labour Party tree:

Kate Sutton tweeted that the Mt Roskill MP's remarks were "bad form".
"Its that kind of sexism the Labour Party doenst [sic] need," she said. 

Kate Sutton is, of course, a former Women's Vice-president of the Labour Party, and is influential within the party's hierarchy. So we can't help but wonder; when the Labour Party proposed women-only electorate contests ( the Man-Ban), was Phil Goff's Roskill electorate the kind of electorate that they had in mind?

Who will do the speaking?

The New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill has its First Reading in Parliament this afternoon. This of course is the Bill that will empower the building of SkyCity's new convention centre in Auckland, which will produce hundreds of jobs both in the construction phase and once it is up and running.

And it's going to be very interesting to see who Labour puts up to speak in opposition to the First Reading of the Bill; check this out:

Yes, dear readers; nearly a quarter of Labour's caucus enjoyed the corporate hospitality of SkyCity during the 2011 Rugby World Cup. They must have known at that time that a convention centre was in the wings, because National campaigned on the issue at the 2011 General Election.

Can David Shearer lead the debate, having attended matches as a guest of the casino company in 2011, and having "dropped in" to the SkyCity box just a few weeks ago? Can Grant Robertson or Clayton Cosgrove? Can Annette King, Trevor Mallard, Phil Goff, Kris Faafoi or Moana Mackey?

We don't think that they can, which leaves the Labour speaking list looking pretty lightweight. Of front bench MP's untainted by SkyCity's corporate largesse, all you have is David Parker, Jacinda Ardern, Shane Jones, Phil Twyford and Maryan Street. That's hardly the kind of speaking line-up that is going to send shivers down Steven Joyce's spine.

Of course, the likes of Shearer, Robertson, Goff, Mallard and Cosgrove COULD speak out against the convention centre and against the jobs that it will produce (not to mention the future corporate junkets that might eventuate), but wouldn't that be rather hypocritical? 

So it's going to be an interesting couple of hours of theatre tomorrow. If one was to have a drinking contest where every time the phrases "dirty deal" or "crony capitalism" was mentioned you had to drink, things would get messy soon. They will be hyperbole to burn from Labour and the Greens, but the bottom line is this; Auckland and New Zealand will benefit from this deal, and poker machine numbers nationwide will continue to fall; you can bet on it.

Whodunnit? Part 6/34

Welcome to our Whodunnit? series. Because we are community-spirited bloggers, we are helping David Shearer to discover who his loose-lipped MP is; the one who blabbed to Patrick Gower from 3News.

Annette King is one of Parliament's longest serving MP's. First elected in 1984, she lost her Horowhenua seat in the Bolger landslide in 1990, when there was of course no second chance via the list. She was re-elected in 1993 in Miramar, which later became the seat she currently holds, Rongotai.

We actually have a certain level of respect for Ms King. We have had some verbal jousts with her in the past via social media. She was a loyal servant of Phil Goff whilst deputy leader of Labour between 2008 and 2011.

But loyalty to Phil Goff does not automatically translate into loyal support for the flailing David Shearer. Ms King has been around politics for a long time, and she knows a dying leadership when she sees one. In May 1996 she was famously part of a delegation that took a collective very deep breath and went off to visit Helen Clark, suggesting Ms Clark step down as leader. Others in the delegation included Phil Goff and Michael Cullen. Oddly, the challenge lit a fire under Helen Clark, and she went on toe become a formidable leader.

Annette King is a survivor. And she, more than almost anyone in Labour's current caucus will understand that if Labour does not do something soon, the party is doomed as far as the 2014 General Election is concerned. And whilst she may support her current leader publicly (as she did with Helen Clark in 1996), what is going on behind closed doors and in off-the-record chats with members of the parliamentary press gallery might be a different thing altogether.

On that basis, we'd rank Ms King at 7/10 on the probability scale. Her history of trying to initiate leadership change is definitely a contributing factor to that ranking.

Do join us tomorrow. If you know who sits at #7 on Labour's batting order, you'll understand that Part 7/34 might be a high ranker!

Quote of the Day - 16 June 2013

Even union boss and Mana Party organiser Matt McCarten is putting the boot into Labour over the SkyCity corporate box fiasco (our emphasis added):

Before you think I'm being too one-eyed, what did Phil Goff, Kris Faafoi, Annette King and Clayton Cosgrove think they were doing accepting free seats in SkyCity's VIP box at the All Blacks' game last week?
Nice for them to get their snouts in the trough while the people who vote for them pay for uncomfortable seats in the cold outside.
Attacking SkyCity for using its political influence to get itself a sweetheart deal is legitimate politics. But the hypocrisy of cosying up on SkyCity's dime loses any advantage Labour had over John Key's unpalatable deal-making with SkyCity. Did those MPs not understand that SkyCity didn't invite them because it just happened to have four spare tickets?
SkyCity knows full well that if National loses the next election, its pokies-for-a-convention-centre deal is at risk. Therefore it makes good sense to be nice to a few Labour MPs.
The cliche is true, there really isn't any such a thing as a free lunch. In the situation last Saturday, it's not too hard to imagine, after a few beers, our worthy guests winking to their hosts not to worry about Labour's public antics as it's really only those pesky Greens who take anti-gambling seriously.
Despite National's glee, I give David Shearer a pass as he wasn't a guest and popped in for only a few minutes to talk to someone present without partaking of the hospitality.
However, Goff's explanation that he accepted the free VIP tickets only so he could meet SkyCity honchos to tell them what he really thought about the SkyCity deal was just embarrassing. Maybe he planned on using the halftime break to turn on his hosts?
Maybe our politicians aren't as dumb as we think. Maybe the problem is that they think we're dumb.

The mere fact that we are still talking about an issue that should have been shut down by morning tea time on Monday with a mea culpa from the MP's concerned tells you how poorly Labour has handled this story.

Labour has completely lost the moral high ground over the SkyCity deal. The debate in Parliament is going to be hugely entertaining, especially if Shearer, Goff, King, Cosgrove or Faafoi gets allocated a speaking slot. 

We can't help but wonder...

We've blogged about the appalling judgment shown by five Labour MP's rocking up to Sky City's corporate box at Eden Park last Saturday night.

There's nothing wrong with accepting corporate hospitality per se, provided that it is declared. But surely, MP's such as Phil Goff, Annette King and Clayton Cosgrove can see the potential conflict of interest here, especially when the Sky City convention centre legislation is before the House.

But we can't help but wonder about the role of Kris Faafoi in all of this. Mr Faafoi came into Parliament after a narrow win in the Mana by-election in November 2010. His profile on the Labour Party website reads thus (with our emphasis added):

Kris lives in Wellington and was elected Member of Parliament for Mana in November 2010.
The Mana electorate covers from Linden in the south through to Porirua, Pukerua Bay, Paekakariki, Raumati and a section of Paraparaumu to the North.
Before his election he was Chief Press Secretary to Labour Leader Phil Goff.
Kris joined the Labour Party media team in January 2008 following a decade working in journalism.
He spent most of that time working for Television New Zealand and covered the 2005 and 2008 General Elections as a member of the Press Gallery. He studied journalism at the New Zealand Broadcasting School in Christchurch.

It seems that two-and-a-half years in Parliament have robbed Kris Faafoi of all his old journalistic instincts. As Phil Goff's chief presser, his most important job was to stop his boss walking into any minefields. And as a member of the Press Gallery, he would have been only too aware of the old adage that in politics, perception is everything. Mr Faafoi should have asked himself "How would I have handled this, as a journalist?". I'm sure that he knows the answer to that; he would have broadcast it gleefully.

So Kris Faafoi may have actually been the worst offender here, we reckon. As a relatively junior back-bench MP, invitations to corporate boxes probably don't come along every day. But surely, he journalistic training and instincts should have kicked in.

In the meantime, David Shearer is angry at Messrs Goff, Cosgrove and Faafoi, and Mrs King. Mr Shearer told Marcus Lush that "I don't baby-sit my MP's". Perhaps he should, in which case this horrible mess for Labour may have been averted. 

And Lush skewered Mr Shearer when he tried the "this is MP's meeting people" argument. Lush replied "It's not a chance to meet people. This is a gift, and it's them looking like they're loving the baubles of power." And he's dead right, but of course these weren't any old baubles; they were baubles that will come back to haunt Labour whenever SkyCity and the party's opposition to the convention centre deal is mentioned.