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  AGENDA, OCTOBER 15 PETER MCCARDLE GARTH Will he – won't he? What is Winston Peters going to do, will he go with Labour or National? We understand his party will meet tomorrow to consider the rivals' offers from both parties, but how much longer will it all take? What might be going on inside his head? In Wellington we've got Peter McCardle the former New Zealand First MP, the negotiator who helped to deal with New Zealand First's 1996 agreement with National and who's just finished writing a book on that process. Peter. PETER Good morning Garth. GARTH Can you tell me, it looks like Winston's in the box seat now, can you tell me what it was like the first time around? PETER Well it was the first MMP parliament Garth for many decades and there was tremendous pressure on New Zealand First at the end of 1996 to produce a result. The talks did last seven or eight weeks and I do recall them as the hardest working weeks of my time there, we were working seven days a week. GARTH He was right there beside you? PETER He was in most of the talks and you know you'd talk to one party in the morning, you'd talk to another party at night and of course after all that Garth a very detailed coalition agreement was produced which had policies for 30 portfolios, but there's one very important thing one must remember about the coalition talks, after they're complete and signed off the little party's really at the mercy of the big party, the little party can't be seen to bring the big party down, to remove stability and so they’ve gotta get real gains, policy wins locked in that they can deliver in that next term. GARTH Labour's really made a big meal at the time out of the fact that he was betraying the voters in a sense by going with National, how fair was that? PETER Look that was absolute bollocks, what happened in 1996 early in the year Winston did tirade against Jim Bolger particularly when the immigration issue was running hot in about March and April, but over the months it became very clear that any small party wanting to get strong negotiating power after the election can't corner itself and so Winston deliberately refused to rule out going with National and I do recall in the last six to eight weeks of the campaign New Zealand First collapsed from about 26% of the vote down to 13%, in fact some commentators thought they may not even hold on to the 5% simply because they refused to rule out going with Labour, and so by the night of the election the country knew and it was made very clear that New Zealand First was open to going with either, depending on who offered the best set of policies. GARTH How scarred was he then by the criticism that came after that, because you would have worked on with him? PETER Well that’s just part of politics having to live with some of the perceptions that are created. I think that it's fair to say that the media pressure around that isn’t a little dissimilar to the pressure that went on him in this campaign where he was rather forced to point to which party he would go with and he said during this campaign I'll go with the biggest party. GARTH Well let's hear exactly what he said, we've got an excerpt from that Rotorua speech I'd like to play now. "I am announcing today that New Zealand First will not be going into formal coalition with either Labour or National." And yet no one's ever told us exactly what the deal was that was done back then or the deal that Labour was offering, the book that you're writing I think puts that in print doesn’t it, can you give us a taste now? PETER Well I've got a draft agreement that New Zealand First would have had with Labour, it'll be a little different to that I think peddled by Labour politicians since, they did say we were the ones of principle and didn’t trade off our core beliefs but they traded as well as anybody traded, so yeah that'll be interesting I'll look forward to that. GARTH You're not gonna give us a taste now though? PETER Probably not now but it won't be too far away. GARTH If you were looking across the table from Winston Peters right now, representing either National or Labour what would you be trying to offer him? PETER Well I think the first point to make is that National's not really in the hunt on this at all, I've been hearing a lot in the last 24 hours, but fundamentally particularly with that commitment given by Winston in the campaign, I have great confidence that that's where he's going to go, he's in a good position but he also knows that if he gets locked into a government his ability to mark himself out for the next election is limited, so he's going to be looking for some very strong policy wins. GARTH I'm hearing three things that Labour has on the table with him, three things that he wants, and three things that Labour has agreed to or is offering at this point. I'm hearing that he wants the waka jumping law re-enacted and that he wants the pension levels lifted, I think they’ve agreed to 68 cents in the dollar which is a lift of about 3% on the average wage and that he wants an associated foreign affairs portfolio, something outside cabinet but with a bit of gravitas and some travel and so on. Now would that sort of an offer - how long can he keep on negotiating and trying to go backwards and forwards? PETER I think he's got real strength because remember Helen Clark needs him, he's got the seven MPs, he with the Labour Party and Jim Anderton are 58, the Greens have no choice but to back a Labour led government that’s the position they’ve put themselves in so they're weak and that’s why Helen Clark's working so strongly with Winston and I have to say I believe that this wily old campaigner will do very well out of a coalition agreement and there'll be some surprises Garth, I think you'll find some of the things that Winston will want will put him in a good position for the next election and actually make it very difficult for National, I would not be at all surprised to see the company tax rate come down and come down very quickly. I would not be at all surprised to see the minimum wage lifted. These are things that New Zealand First talked about a lot in the campaign, didn’t get a lot of publicity but they'd bite into the centre right territory and would give Winston some real wins. GARTH You’ve gotta hand it to him, he's a pretty wily campaigner, he's played his hands quite well. I'd just like to bring our guests in as well. Colin, Ian, the sort of deal that we're talking about here I mean what would you make of that? COLIN ESPINER – Political Editor, Christchurch Press PETER Colin my guess on that would be that he won't go in. It's sometimes a bit surprising to people, I remember Winston in the 96 to 99 government, he wasn’t hung up on you know what people call the baubles of power, he actually used to live in a sort of set in flat from time to time much to my surprise so I think he will stay outside the government but be a strongly supportive part of that government and have a major role in policy concessions, but I don’t think he will take a ministerial role inside or outside. GARTH It does sound though more and more like it's a more formal coalition doesn’t it would you say, or is that gonna be difficult to sell? COLIN Well it depends on what you define as coalition and you know I was talking to a constitutional lawyer about that yesterday and we're still feeling our way in New Zealand about exactly what a coalition is and means and the whole arrangements around it but their feeling was that technically anything outside of cabinet you're not actually in a formal coalition, but at the end of the day the semantics aside it's a matter of Winston selling it to the New Zealand public and I tend to agree with Peter, I'm not sure that he would find it that easy to sell if he took a ministerial post even if it was just associate foreign affairs or minister of senior citizens or something like that. GARTH I have heard very strong indications that the waka jumping law is one that’s on the table and that he wants that would shore up the problems that are inherent in any kind of coalition either side wouldn’t they I mean particularly towards the right where you’ve got the Maori Party that parts of which National would be an anathema. PETER He may well want to do something on that front but I would be picking that he's also looking at a range of policies that position him strongly for the next elections in 2008 and I think you'd see the end of the socalled politically correct legislation, you know the stuff that’s probably done some damage to Labour in the latest campaign. GARTH But does it reflect a lack of confidence in his own caucus as well that he wants that law back in? PETER No I wouldn’t think so, I think that politicians have their views on that law, whether or not it achieves its goals but he's doing his best to put together a package that makes it more practical and realistic for him to succeed in 2008 and as we've seen each three years under MMP it's very difficult for the small parties to convince the public that they deserve to be put back in larger terms, the big parties consume them, take the credit and so Winston will be looking at the range of policies and positions he can take particularly in his relationship with Labour but allow him to strike out strong in 2008. GARTH Well he turns 60 though Peter in April, is that going to be a factor, I mean do you think he's in it for more than just one term? PETER Well I couldn’t answer that, I do know that even back in 96 Winston was thinking about making it his last but he knows how important he is to the New Zealand First Party, I have to say I think he's more relaxed and enjoying things now than some of those more stressful times. He is a strong contributor when in government he's got strong policy views, I hope he stays in there he's a real character and adds to the mix of politicians we have in New Zealand. GARTH One of the proposals that I mentioned before, lifting the retirement income up to 68 cents in the dollar, for 65 Steve Maharey put some figures out on that earlier in the week saying we're looking at 260 million I think, it adds a huge effect as well to Michael Cullen's super fund as well. Things like that are gonna be very very difficult to get past in the current climate aren’t they with Alan Bollard suggesting that it's a lot tighter than we imagined? PETER I think you're hitting on one of the toughest challenges of putting together the government for the next three years, the fiscal side of things. You’ve had the huge commitment for the student loan which you know it's actually poor policy but we're talking six or seven hundred million, if the Grey Power vote's gonna win again and get another two or three hundred million you're talking big time and a softening of the economy will make it very hard to deliver some of those or putting them all together. Extra Police are another guaranteed winner in the outcome of the discussions that should finish in the next several days. GARTH Guaranteed winner, five thousand extra Police it's a huge ask isn’t it? IAN LLEWELLYN – Political Reporter, NZPA GARTH You’ve got an interesting perspective on this as well haven’t you, I mean you worked the other side of the fence at that time, what are your memories of 1996? IAN I was a very very minor player in a very small office in the National government and we were as much in the dark as any journalist on the other side, I remember watching Peter and Winston in that final walk when they were doing the thing and we had no idea which way it was going in fact up to the very last word I thought it must be Labour because we hadn’t talked about any of the things that Winston was talking about in that speech. So yeah I feel as much in the dark now as I was then. GARTH Do you think he's learned at all Peter from that set of experiences, will this set of negotiations be much different, it's already looking much shorter? PETER Oh yes he's very conscious of the criticism that came. Can I just tell you one interesting thing in relation to those discussions Garth, they did take eight or nine weeks and that was because the strategy then was to do very detailed policy agreements you know 30 portfolios it was weeks of work but the decision wasn’t actually made until the New Zealand First caucus gathered in Bowen Building on the day. We met from nine, by three or four o'clock it was starting to heat up, the decision was actually made at about ten to six that Tuesday night and Winston was getting his sort of alternative speeches ready to rush across and do it on the Holmes Show, so it really came down to the wire and none of us could have called where it was going even at three or four that day, this will be a lot quicker, it's a lot less complicated, the agreements have a lot less detail in them, I would be surprised if you didn’t see a government announced you know before this time next week. GARTH Thank you very much Peter McCardle.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GARTH Avian influenza, the bird flu that humans can also catch, H5N1 has killed more than 60 people in the past two years. The deaths were all in Asia, mostly Vietnam, but infected birds have also been found in some European countries this week. World health authorities are worried that a strain of bird flu could mix with a strain of human flu and that any resulting new strain would be far more infectious and could result in a global pandemic. Virus expert Dr Lance Jennings has just returned from chairing a meeting of the Asia Pacific Advisory Committee on Influenza, and he's with me now from Christchurch. Good morning Dr Lance how are you? DR LANCE I'm fine thank you, good morning. GARTH I just wonder for those of us who maybe haven’t paid attention to the huge amount of media attention that this has been given in the last week, can you run us through exactly what this virus is and what makes it so worrying? DR LANCE Avian influenza is a disease that’s affecting poultry in a number of South East Asian countries right through to central Asia and now into eastern Europe. It's caused by an influenza type A virus, as you referred to it before the H5N1 virus. It's a virus that has moved out of its natural environment, aquatic avian species, ducks and geese and crossed into chickens and as we're also hearing this virus is spreading rapidly through chickens and when it does this it undergoes a lot of change and we're seeing it crossing the species barrier, affecting other species, tigers, cats and also humans. GARTH So the fact that it's able to leap species in a single bound as it were seems to the real worry here. DR LANCE The worry is that when these viruses move out of their natural hosts they become very volatile and they change and continue to evolve and so with the continued circulation this virus in poultry populations humans are going to be exposed and this virus could well adapt to human infection. GARTH Is this the first time something like this has happened though, is this how other viruses have developed? DR LANCE This current outbreak amongst poultry we've never seen anything like this before, we haven’t experienced it, but in terms of human pandemic influenza, since the 16th century on average three human pandemics have occurred every 100 years. In the last century we've had the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, the worst of all times, the 1957 Asian flu pandemic and the 68 flu pandemic. So that's three times in the last century so it will happen again but we don’t know when. GARTH So why the global wakeup call now this week particularly, what has given it the extra push if you like? DR LANCE Well as I mentioned as long as this virus keeps circulating amongst poultry it'll keep challenging the human species barrier and infecting humans and sooner or later it is going to learn how to infect humans efficiently and then be transferred efficiently from human to human, and possibly cause the next pandemic, and that is what's really scary. GARTH If we can compare this to a kind of a world war then if you like I mean how much of the fight will happen on New Zealand's territory, how much of it will be us sending expertise, medication whatever you like, overseas to try and deal with it? DR LANCE A pandemic of influenza will affect every country in the world, these viruses when they spread they're associated with high morbidity and possibly high mortality as well, and because if it's this H5N1 virus that emerges the next pandemic virus which it may not be, there are other viruses sitting in the wings there as well, then none of us have any natural resistance to this virus so it's likely to spread widely and very rapidly, but what is important is as I've suggested is it will happen, we don’t know when, if it's not this virus it will be another virus sitting in the wings there, so we must get over the hype that is going on at the present time and move forwards with pandemic preparedness at every level of our society. GARTH Just imagine if we do nothing at all, could you paint a picture of what might transpire here in New Zealand, what could happen if this got in and we weren’t prepared? DR LANCE I guess we've got some indication of what could happen from past pandemics, 1918 pandemic is perhaps the worst case scenario and the 57 and 68 pandemics are milder scenarios. The worst case scenario 1918 over eight thousand New Zealanders died, but what is really scary when we look at some of our neighbours, Western Samoa for example where isolation and quarantine was broken they had nearly a 20% mortality rate amongst their population, so it's devastating. GARTH So our patch would include the Pacific Islands you'd imagine, we'd be expected do you think to cater for their health needs as well simply because it's kind of a global fight if you will? DR LANCE Well Australia and New Zealand do have responsibilities with the Pacific Islands with their healthcare and certainly Australia in terms of pandemic planning has indicated that and is assisting, but overall it's the Worth Health Organisation that is co-ordinating the global pandemic preparedness planning for many countries and at the present time New Zealand is doing extremely well. GARTH Is it just as simple as sort of stocking up on Tamiflu and making sure that we've got plenty of shots in the locker, I mean is that really all we need to do? DR LANCE Well it's a complex process and New Zealand's been involved in pandemic planning really since 97, the chicken flu, the bird flu outbreak in Hong Kong. We've had a pandemic plan in place since 1999 this framework was used for our response to SARS, we had a national exercise trialling it in 2002 and it's been updated, so there is a framework there which gives guidelines and indicates what government will do, what the Ministry of Health and what is expected of all the DHBs and what have you. What we're doing at the present time is moving down to the grassroots so to speak, right down to the level of the man on the street and the Ministry of Health has just released with the latest yellow pages in the Civil Defence section, guidelines of what people should do in preparation for the next pandemic in their own homes. GARTH Well what should they do because that report that you referred to the National Health Emergency Plan I read yesterday, talks about how numbers of people would be expected to care for themselves in their own homes because there simply wouldn’t be the level of available care in most District Health Boards, is that realistic to expect people to carry out that kinda care at home? DR LANCE Well as a worst case scenario large numbers of people will be sick and health boards won't be able to cope, yes so people must know how to look after themselves at home and what they can do is make sure they’ve got enough food and water for one to two weeks, should they have to go into isolation or quarantine because bear in mind if this virus does sweep through New Zealand the Ministry of Health – well the first step will be to try and keep it out and control our borders. Once it enters New Zealand we'll try and eradicate the virus, then of course the fall back position is other public health interventions, closing schools for example and of course that will mean that immediately a number of people will be out of the workforce and mothers will have to go home and look after their children at home and probably the best protection then is to stay at home and keep away from other people, so yes it is realistic to give these guidelines for how should people look after themselves should this happen, and it includes storage of food and water, paracetomol for treatment of fever and also understanding the principles of transmission of this virus and if you keep at least a metre away from other people particularly when they're coughing and sneezing then you're less likely to come in direct contact with their respiratory secretions. So these are all basic principles. GARTH The report talked though about numbers of up to 800 you know children could be orphaned as a result of this, they’ve done various projections and steps need to be taken to care for them and so on, I mean is that work being done or are these just sort of alarm bells that are being rung so that people will focus on this as a problem? DR LANCE Well I think part of the process involved modelling, mathematically modelling, looking at worst case numbers and best case scenario numbers, and if you’ve got the range well then you can put strategies into place to deal with worst case scenarios and lesser case scenarios, and so that’s the purpose of doing this number crunching so you can get strategies in place and identify all the issues. We've Exercise Virex in 2002, we all of a sudden identified that a pandemic of influenza in New Zealand would be a public health disaster, it would be much bigger than health, it would involve the whole of government and so we've evolved a long way since then and that’s why we're getting down to looking at these detailed issues at the present time and getting things in place such as basic guidelines for people in the yellow pages. GARTH The various pandemics that you talked about though, they’ve been less and less fatal, SARS for example the most recent one nine thousand cases I think around the world I read, around about 900 fatalities, according to that same emergency plan that you talked about, are we getting better at dealing with this, and as you say because it could be not this disease but another are we focusing too much on one, is there a climate of fear around this that’s unnecessary? DR LANCE Well I think there is a lot of hype, there's a lot of misinformation out there and we must move forwards from that and as I suggested it will happen, we don’t know when, it it's not this H5N1 virus it'll be another virus that can infect humans, so we should get on and have pandemic preparedness planning in place and have a wide range of plans at all levels of society. I think yes our knowledge is improved, we've learned a lot from SARS and I think what we've learned from SARS is that that was a corona virus not an influenza, it was out there in Southern China for quite a considerable time in 2002, it was challenging the species barrier and suddenly found a way through and then as history now tells us a person infected was admitted to hospital and our hospital systems amplified this virus and in a global community it spread widely very rapidly. A similar sort of thing is happening now with the Avian Influenza virus, this virus is challenging the human species barrier, humans are being infected now in Indonesia, if this virus continues to spread and perhaps gets into Eastern Europe or even India then more humans are going to continue to be challenged by this virus and giving greater opportunity for the virus to learn how to infect humans and how to be officially passed from human to human. That is our major concern and we must try and control it if at all possible. GARTH Thanks very much for your time this morning Dr Jennings and keep an eye on it for us will you please, we'll do our bit too.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GARTH Welcome back, joining us again are our guest commentators Colin Espiner and Ian Llewellyn. Well we've just been hearing about a potential crisis in the making there that could sort of sweep any talk of coalitions and whatnot aside. Is that something that governments have to look out for obviously are these externalities these things that just sweep in from the wings and knock everything else aside? IAN Definitely, the problem is that you can't predict them, because by the nature of they're unpredictable. If you look back the alliance was destroyed by September 11th in the invasion of Afghanistan they just simply couldn’t survive, it was a small party who couldn’t survive the pragmatic politics of Helen Clark in dealing with that situation. It could be an economic crisis, it could be an international crisis you don’t know and the more stable the government and the more able the major players are to deal with what's necessary the more likely a government is to survive. GARTH The more they can trust each other if suppose is what it comes down to. COLIN Yeah and I mean also I have to say I've got immense respect for Lance Jennings, I have to, I hail from down his way, but I think we also need to keep a bit of perspective on this, I'm sort of reminded of Chicken a Little a little and I hate to use that pun given we're talking about Avian Bird Flu, but it's kind of the sky is falling in you know and if this doesn’t get you something else will, and everything gives you cancer and you might get hit by a bus tomorrow. GARTH Oh the Y2K bugs, we heard a lot about different crises that you know people say were prevented but do we know really whether they were ever going to arise in the first place. COLIN And actually I've just got a friend who's just come back from Hong Kong and he said you know over there they're sort of almost excited you know here's the next thing, they all sort of get out their masks again you know and the airport's full of the masks and all the warning signs again. I mean I'm not trying to downplay it, I'm just saying perhaps we need to remember that around about three thousand elderly New Zealanders die a year from the flu, from the ordinary flu, we've had 60 people die from bird flu. GARTH And it's the same flu that we had a real struggle trying to get vaccinations for, conventional ones, and meningitis. COLIN Meningococcal B, we've just had this massive programme, so I just think we should perhaps say just keep a bit of perspective when we're talking about this, but I mean Ian's absolutely right in terms of the way governments have to look at these things and perhaps for all the planning in the world over bird flu it's gonna be something completely different that bowls the government for six. GARTH Given that, it's gonna be who’s best able to handle that kind of crisis, I mean can you make any observations about the current pick of players? IAN Well Helen Clark's had the most experience that’s for certain, wouldn’t say it's all gone smoothly for her, even she's admitted a number of times that things of left field in the last three years that have thrown her, but she has survived, she's got the largest party in parliament and has the ability to do it. Dr Brash performed exceedingly well during the election campaign defying most of the pundits and he may have the skills to manage a government as well but we might not know that. COLIN One of the questions I think though is also who's behind them and I think that the great strength Clark has is she's got Mr Fixit, or Dr Fixit right behind her and this is the sort of thing you can flick to Michael Cullen and expect him to deal with it and I just wonder whether National has that depth of talent behind the leader. GARTH Certainly in an economic crisis I imagine you could hand anything off to John Key but you know give John Key bird flu and he might … COLIN I don’t think he'd like having bird flu Garth, but I mean then there's Trevor Mallard isn’t there I mean for all you can say about him he is a strong man who can deal with a lot of stuff too so I think Labour's been pretty competent in the way it's managed to deal with things. IAN Yeah, but some of the shine has come off. Steve Maharey and Trevor Mallard have both overseen some pretty rocky patches in the last three years, Jim Sutton lost Timaru and he's still going round kicking Trevor Mallard and so they're not the dream team that they used to be. GARTH Well obviously the debate will rage on and we'll see exactly what Winston comes up with over the weekend to see who gets to have a further go at it. Transcripts are copyright to Front Page Ltd and may contiain errors. They should be checked against a taped copy of the programme to ensure accuracy. Copyright to Front Page Ltd but may be used PROVIDED attribution is made to TVOne and Agenda
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