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  AGENDA, NOVEMBER 12 Interviewed by SIMON DALLOW SIMON Earlier this week National Deputy Leader Gerry Brownlee criticised the Governor General Dame Sylvia Cartwright for not talking to National about its prospects for forming a government, he's also been critical of Labour's application of collective responsibility in negotiating its confidence and supply agreements with New Zealand First and United Future. Ministers outside of cabinet Winston Peters and Peter Dunne must toe the Labour Party line on their individual portfolios but can be openly critically of the government in other areas. Are New Zealand's constitutional arrangements under siege? National Party Leader Don Brash joins me now. Welcome to the programme. Gerry Brownlee's comments this week that he's lost confidence in the Governor General saw him heavily criticised, do you support what he said? DON I think the words he used were a bit unfortunate and I wouldn’t have used those words but I think the reality was he was talking about a situation where Helen Clark simply tore up the unwritten constitution if you can tear up an unwritten constitution. SIMON Well that is a question in itself. DON Indeed, but I mean it's always been assumed that if you're a minister in a government you are bound in some sense by collective responsibility and what Helen Clark has cobbled together is an arrangement where she's got two people… SIMON I'll come to collective responsibility shortly but do you support his comments on losing confidence in the Governor General? DON Well I think you’ve gotta make it clear, your own TV network's commentator on Friday said – Guyon Espiner said – it was a way of getting on to the table an extraordinary constitutional development and in that respect he was very successful. SIMON I guess I want to ask you about the other statement that Gerry made that he said it's time to look for a more formal constitution, do you agree with that, so that we can remove these types of uncertainty? DON Well I think we do have to look at what we've got at the moment because if the Prime Minister and a caretaker Prime Minister at that can simply tear up what has been taken for granted over decades you’ve got to ask yourself whether in fact we don’t need something much more formal than we've got now. SIMON It was an embarrassment though from Gerry Brownlee, does he have your full and unqualified support? DON Oh Gerry is a first class deputy leader and I've got great confidence in him. SIMON Full and unqualified? DON Absolutely. SIMON Embarrassment from Brian Connell last week and from Gerry this week the question is begged then, do you have control of your own caucus? DON Oh well I've got 48 members of my caucus, they're able, they're experienced in most cases, and obviously they sometimes will differ from my view, but I think we do have a very unified caucus, Brian Connell I think was an exception, he's apologised to the caucus, he's apologised to me and I think we're a very unified team. SIMON I want to clarify part of the role of the caucus, the appointment of Wayne Mapp as Political Correctness Eradicator, was that a decision taken by caucus or was that made by you unilaterally? DON No, it was made by me. SIMON Did you put it to caucus? DON No. The allocation of portfolios is something which the leader does and I talked with all members of the caucus about their own particular portfolio preferences before making a final decision, but at the end of the day those decisions are mine and mine alone, and I thought Wayne Mapp did a very important speech what three or four months back now, talking about the damage done by political correctness, the way it attempts to brainwash people and attitudes and he highlighted that there were two or three institutions which might be amended if you like, or two or three laws under which those institutions operate which might be amended to improve the situation. SIMON Two or three, does that justify a full time role though? DON It's not a full time role, he's got a whole range of other portfolio responsibilities as well the most important one of which is probably Industrial and Employment Relations. SIMON Does it justify a position then? DON Yeah absolutely. SIMON Isn't it just sort of inherent within many other roles? DON Look there are lots of people in my caucus who have got more than one responsibility, some have got two, three, four. Murray McCully's got four. I asked Wayne to do this because he's particularly well suited to doing it. SIMON Did you anticipate the controversy? DON No I didn’t quite frankly, the title was partly tongue in cheek I have to say, political correctness eradication was a bit tongue in cheek the title but the subject itself is very serious, and people are sick and tired of having primary school children told that they can play in a sports team but don’t count the score and that kind of silly behaviour people are fed up with. SIMON You alluded to collective responsibility a couple of moments ago, with the new government arrangements including Winston Peters and Peter Dunne as ministers outside of cabinet, how relevant is the notion collective responsibility now? DON Well it's not just that they're outside cabinet, we've had plenty of ministers outside cabinet before but these are people who are ministers outside cabinet who want to reserve the right to oppose the government in everything but their own portfolio areas. Winston Peters party wanted to sit with the opposition, he's sitting now as far away from Helen Clark as Jeanette Fitzsimons is from me in the House. Now I mean he's either part of the government or he's not, he can't be part of the government and part of the opposition he's leading a kind of double life and I mean that’s in any kind of conventional sense, absurd. SIMON Several constitutional experts have said though that essentially this convention, collective responsibility, is no more than a practice and that’s what the cabinet manual describes it as. Canterbury University constitutional expert Phillip Joseph said on Thursday 'it's just a practice that can be dispensed with modified or altered depending on what the public institution requires'. DON Well I don’t think we've ever seen this – never seen this happen in New Zealand, we've never seen it happen in any other country of a western democracy type at all to my knowledge. Never have we seen someone who says I'm a minister but I want the right to oppose the government in everything other than my portfolio. I mean he's off to APEC next week, Winston Peters. SIMON Not on his own. DON Well no, but I mean when he's asked what do you think about the free trade agreement your government is negotiating with China, what does he say, I oppose it as Leader of the New Zealand First Party but support it as Foreign Minister? I mean it's a crazy situation. SIMON What happens when he gets portfolio conflict, when you’ve got Foreign Affairs he has to say one thing yet on the other hand his own party will be demanding that it intersects say with Immigration or … DON Indeed, I guess it's a question you'd have to ask Winston Peters. I mean I'll be fascinated to see what happens. SIMON But it's a contradictory situation. DON And that’s what prompted Gerry Brownlee's comment. SIMON You had asserted the possibility of a National led government, how would you have formed it, who would have done what? DON Well I don’t think we ever got close enough to answer that question properly but I wrote to Winston Peters on the Friday before the government was formed indicating that there were political parties representing 57 seats in parliament willing to back a National led government, come talk to us, he didn’t in fact come talk to us, he simply signed up with Labour and then wrote me a letter saying basically that he didn’t think we really had 57 votes. Now how that would have looked I don’t know, I assumed from his September 7 statement before the election that he would not have wanted any ministerial position because he said quite explicitly in his speech pre election that he would not accept the so-called perks and baubles of office, well he's accepted one bauble and he's taken it himself. SIMON So you had no conversations at all with Winston Peters after September 17th? DON Yes I did, oh yes I did, I had a conversation with him in his caucus room with the other three parties who are willing to back a National led government also present. SIMON But no private talks with Winston Peters at all? DON I spoke to him by phone I think on two occasions, I rang him first of all to congratulate him on getting his party back into parliament, we spoke quite briefly, he reminded me about his September 7 speech but I had no face to face meeting with him at all. SIMON At any stage did you offer him a portfolio or a suggestion or a scenario under which he could be part of the government? DON I did not. SIMON At no stage? DON At no stage. In fact I asked my caucus this week, I said did anyone of the caucus offer Winston Peters the Ministry of Foreign Affairs because he's talking as if National did offer that to him. None of my caucus has come forward saying yes well I did over a beer in the Green Parrot. SIMON On the flip side did he ask you or did he ask any of the caucus for a role? DON No he did not. SIMON He never requested anything from you? DON No, he said on the Thursday prior to the government being announced, put something in writing to us. We did on the Friday but it was a general letter which I think the Herald has actually published in full but made no offer of specific portfolios or specific policy positions. SIMON He has said in the past week or so or past couple of weeks that he wanted to revive ANZUS and restore New Zealand's relationship with the US. We asked Murray McCully the question a couple of weeks ago and he said he was only a couple of days into the job so we'll ask you instead: what would National do about ANZUS and to restore New Zealand US relations? DON I don’t think we can answer that question. Why, because clearly this is a subject of bilateral negotiation with the United States in the first place, the United States has made it very clear to New Zealand over many years that they cannot reinstate ANZUS while we maintain the current ban on nuclear propelled ships. SIMON The incoming US Ambassador said this week though that the two things are not linked, trade and the nuclear legislation are not linked. DON But you asked about ANZUS I think and you asked whether we'd reinstate ANZUS not whether we could do a free trade agreement. SIMON But ANZUS and the nuclear legislation were interlinked anyway. DON Well indeed although the American Ambassador suggested they’re not linked so I don’t think I can answer the question without talking with the Americans. SIMON In your Orewa speech and through the campaign you talked about the Waitangi Treaty, its interpretation and the need for one law for all. Now you’ve been talking to the Maori Party, what are you saying to them about it? DON Well I'm saying that in some areas the Maori Party and the National Party are a million miles apart, just take the evolution of Maori seats for example, we wanted to abolish Maori seats, we still do want to abolish Maori seats, they want to entrench the Maori seats and we said look there's no scope for compromise on that at all. SIMON You said on this programme about 10 weeks ago that it was a non negotiable bottom line and it remains that? DON That’s right, I mean the reality is though that we accept with 48 seats in parliament we cannot get that through parliament. They accept that with four seats in parliament they can't entrench the Maori seats and we said look let's put that to one side because we can't move on that, but let's see if there are other areas of policy, perhaps in social welfare reform, perhaps in education, where we have a lot in common, and we found that we do have in common. SIMON What else was flexible though for you with regard to the Maori Party, reviewing, an inquiry in to the Foreshore and Seabed Act, repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed? DON Well we were very critical of the Foreshore and Seabed Act when it went through late in what 2004 so we said look we're happy to look at that, clearly we have different views on that, but both of us accept that the present law is not a good one. SIMON What is your future within the National Party, are you going to be there in three years time? DON Ah, well I expect to be yes. SIMON And if you were to win that election you would be over 70. DON Oh no I would not. SIMON As Prime Minister during the term. DON Well if the election is held three years from the last one I'd be 67 when the election is held. At the end of that period yes I'd be 70. SIMON You'd be 70 and you think you'd be okay? DON Well I guess time will tell, I mean some people die much much earlier than that as we have sadly seen this week, but I mean well… SIMON You are committed for how long to this? DON When I first got into parliament the decision I made was based on the assumption that I would be in parliament for three parliamentary terms, nine years, that would take me to 61 to 70, and we've seen overseas important political leaders start their time as Prime Minister or President at the age of 70. Winston Churchill became Prime Minister at the age of 70 for the second time. Ronald Reagan became President at 70 for the first time, second time he was 74. So no I'm not too old at all. SIMON Let's have a look at the economy, Reserve Bank Governor of course Alan Bollard's been making a number of statements recently and issued another warning last week about the dangers of our over consumption and under saving, how precarious do you think the economy is? DON Oh I think Alan Bollard is right, that it is quite precarious at the moment, we are spending more than we're earning both as individuals and as a country and Alan Bollard is clearly worried about that fact. He clearly is going to keep on tightening monetary policy, most people expect him to raise interest rates next month, I think that’s a reasonable expectation, there are some economists round town who are expecting the official cash rate to go a lot higher than 7%, in fact one economist is saying it'll be lucky if we don’t go above 8%. SIMON What would you do to change our aversion to savings, to encourage us to do that? DON Well nobody knows really how to do that effectively. We know from international experience that tax incentives for savings don’t work terribly well, but we certainly need to save more. SIMON Just finally what do make of Michael Cullen's musing over possibly intervening in the economy other than by monetary policy, the ancillary instruments he was talking about? DON Well I guess we've been looking for ancillary instruments for a long time, we were looking at them when I was governor for 14 years, we were looking to find ways of influencing the speed of the economy without cranking up interest rates which have some effect on the exchange rate. Those instruments are not easy to find. SIMON Don Brash thank you so much for joining us on Agenda today. DON Thank you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GUEST COMMENTATORS
DON Well in the case of Brian Connell I removed his portfolios from him as you may recall and I did that quite quickly before the caucus meeting took place. Brian apologised to the caucus he apologised to me and I thought there was no need for further action after that apology was taken but he remains free of portfolio responsibilities. COLIN But he apologised for the way that his comments were interpreted which is always the golden out isn't it, it's almost blaming the media for what was said. DON The press statement was drafted by someone who wasn’t actually in the caucus and looking back at it now we might have drafted it slight differently, but the apology he made to caucus is quite unambiguous. COLIN What about Gerry's comments again just coming back to Simon's point earlier, I mean yes they were his personal reflection but he's the Deputy Leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition criticising Her Majesty's representative in New Zealand, I mean is that what National wants to be doing? DON Well as I say I wouldn’t have used those particular words, I'm not sure that Gerry on reflection would have used them again either, but you I think are familiar with the TVNZ political reporter who… COLIN Never heard of him! DON Never heard of him no. Colin's brother of course. Said on I think Breakfast TV yesterday morning that the advantage of using those terms were that the issue got up and it is an important issue, Helen Clark simply overrode the unwritten constitution in New Zealand and created a most extraordinary structure. If he had simply attacked Helen Clark we might not have got the debate. COLIN What's the future for Brian Connell, I mean he's okay he's had no portfolios allocated to him now but the board I understand is still to meet to talk about Brian Connell, is it likely he'll face any further disciplinary action or are you just hoping he'll sit back in Rakaia and shut up for the next three years? DON Well I mean I think the reality is that if Brian performs as a caucus member he's on a select committee, he's electorate member for Rakaia, I think he can rehabilitate himself but that’s really up to Brian. COLIN Well Maurice Williamson did it. DON He did, absolutely, as a very effective member of the caucus. SIMON But you have got off to the new year in parliament by shooting yourselves in the foot with a large caucus now you should have been in opposition firing shots instead of the shots are coming at you. DON Well just hold on a second, I mean Brian Connell was an unfortunate incident I agree and I dealt with it quickly, I dealt with it very quickly and I think that was seen as the decisive action it was. SIMON And Gerry Brownlee. DON Well Gerry as I say made some comments which are not the way I would have worded them but he got an important issue up that this government cobbled together a most extraordinary structure never before seen in any Westminster democracy. SIMON Have you been or will you be pushing discipline at the next caucus meeting? DON Oh of course we talk about that and also I'll remind people about the importance of keeping on message. SIMON Anita, from afar I know you’ve only got back in the country in the past week. ANITA McNAUGHT – Foreign Correspondent DON Well I don’t think we know the answer to that question, as I said in the earlier interview I mean the American Ambassador this week has said that the nuclear legislation and trade are not linked in the minds of the administration. ANITA So there's no problem then? DON Indeed that’s right, so why will you change it, and we said going into the election we would not change it unless we were convinced there was a benefit to New Zealand. ANITA Why did you bring it up then, why did you bring it up? It makes people like me very nervous overseas you know. DON Let me tell you that we did not raise it, it was raised by Phil Goff who claimed that months earlier a comment had been made to visiting American Senators that we would scrap it. ANITA Had that comment been made? DON I made it clear that I had no recollection of making that comment at all, it was many months earlier that we had a very informal meeting before a golf game. SIMON That was very heavily canvassed I think. You did say on this programme though on 11th of June this issue ought to be decided by referendum. DON That’s right. I said if we were convinced there was benefit to New Zealand in making the change, if we were convinced of that we'd put that to the New Zealand people to decide. ANITA So what would convince you, the American representative here saying actually we'd be nicer to New Zealand if they did it. SIMON You said we're committed to doing a referendum before there's any change at all. DON Correct. SIMON Will you introduce a referendum though? DON No, we said we would not introduce a referendum unless we're persuaded there's benefit to New Zealand. COLIN Can I just pick up one other point that you made about the relationship with America, I mean we've got our own Foreign Minister now saying we need closer ties with the US, we've got Mr McCormack in the country now, I mean if you were the government what would you be doing to foster these closer relations then if it wasn’t anything to do with ANZUS? DON Well if we can improve the relationship without changing the law, fantastic, but right now Australia as you know has a free trade agreement with the United States, we're not even in the queue to talk about them, and that’s a serious issue. Now if we can get a free trade deal without changing the law, fantastic. SIMON And that is where we're gonna have to leave it, Don Brash thank you very much again for appearing on the programme.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHRIS TROTTER – Political Commentator
CHRIS Oh it's a hole in the Green movement which will take a very long time to fill. He was a unique combination of the idealist and the pragmatist and that’s not conspicuous in most Greens you know to be blunt about it, they are typically very idealistic people and they are impatient with structure, and one of the great strengths of Rod Donald was that he actually loved parliament, he was a true parliamentarian and he immersed himself in the minutiae of parliament so the Greens had this person who could tell them which select committee they needed to be at and what question they needed to ask and he was on the business committee and he would come back and tell them what needed to be done, so they didn't have to think about it, now they do. SIMON Pragmatism to temper the idealism. You said in an article in the Independent this week that they were a party that has been blessed with such extraordinary complementarity talking about Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald together. CHRIS Yes well that was one of the great serendipitous moments I think in New Zealand political history, the coming together of those two politicians, because he really was Tigger the bouncy friendly face of the Greens to Jeanette Fitzsimons you know more serene and flinty it has to be said in terms of her commitment to the whole environmental movement, and so you had this wonderful pairing, you know Rod could be that person in front of the media and it was really interesting to see the number of journalists who attended his funeral because I think in the press gallery he was really liked and perhaps even you know loved by some journalists. SIMON People didn’t necessarily agree with his politics. CHRIS No no but he was just such a nice person and he was always on the phone, the cellphone seemed to be sort of attached to his head almost literally sometimes. SIMON What do the Greens do now to replace that extraordinary complementarity when they're selecting the new co-leader, the constitution demands he must be male, I mean in itself as a constitution an anachronism but at the same time with the two males in parliament Keith Locke and Nandor Tanczos are either of them equipped to be to be his replacement? CHRIS Well I think Jeanette should possibly take a leaf out of Helen's book and change the constitution. I don’t think there's much to be gained really from sticking to the current constitutional arrangement. SIMON Do you think that will ….. CHRIS It probably will because as the weeks go by and people assess the various strengths and weaknesses of the caucus they will see that you're right Nandor and Keith probably aren’t the right people to sit alongside. SIMON What about Russell Norman? CHRIS Well Russell Norman was raised as a possibility, I mean it's not often I disagree with John Armstrong of the Herald if have to say but I did disagree with him this morning, it wasn’t a realistic proposition to say that they should have somehow pushed Russell up the party list, there were people in between not only Nandor but Mike Ward and Catherine Delahunty, it's not a conceivable project to go to people who have put in years of work and say oh well would you just stand aside I know you could actually be in parliament now because Nandor stood aside and Mike stood aside but Catherine could you stand aside too so – it's not gonna happen. SIMON So you're anticipating a constitutional change? CHRIS I think that would be the most – I think they’ll probably keep the co-leadership. SIMON Who do you think it'll be? CHRIS And I think it would probably be Sue Bradford or Matiria Turei. SIMON Either or? CHRIS Well I'd put my money on Sue first frankly because she's been there longer and she's demonstrated a real flare for the parliamentary work that she's undertaken. SIMON You mentioned John Armstrong a moment ago, he said on the 6th of June “some of the party are worried they're diluting their greatest strength their environmental brand”. The Greens scraped back into parliament amid accusations message become too confused. Is the brand in trouble? CHRIS No I don’t think it is, and once again I think the Greens would have to be very cautious about taking that sort of advice, the social justice element to the Green message is absolutely integral to its success, simply to go for environmentalism would put you in the same camp as someone like Nick Smith, now Nick Smith is a strong supporter of environmental issues but he's not a Green, and to abandon all those other things that are synonymous with the Green movement would simply strip it of its true brand content. SIMON So you don’t believe in environmentalism as the key to getting a wider constituency then? CHRIS No, I think what they have to do is they have to in a sense you know go through the various barriers that have been erected to the Green message and I think they’ve gone through a number of those already, the MMP system of course was probably Rod's greatest achievement. I think with Nandor returning they have to go through that decriminalisation of marijuana hurdle too as has happened in Australian states, as has happened to a large extent in the UK. SIMON Let me bring in the panel her. COLIN Chris are you suggesting that they have two female co-leaders, Jeanette Fitzsimons herself has said she'd like this to be her last term, she said that previously, do you think she's gonna have to reconsider? CHRIS Oh I think she's probably got another term now at least. The ironic thing about you know the night of Rod Donald's death was that they were actually discussing the succession question at their executive meeting. I think the plan was for Jeanette to retire at the end of this term. I think incidentally Keith will probably retire at the end of this term too, and so the question was who is gonna sit alongside Rod and that in a sense was a much easier question to deal with because they had a superfluity of female talent in the Greens not so much as we've seen on the masculine side. COLIN Chris do you think that the Greens are worth 5% whatever happens, I mean the brand is strong enough so that even if they go through a troubled term they're gonna scrape back in next time or do you think that their existence is actually under threat as a political party? CHRIS No I think the core vote of just about any party you care to name is actually zero. I mean the Alliance demonstrated this, if you tear yourself to pieces in public even though you’ve got a solid message to sell and one which in the past has attracted anything up to nearly 20% of the vote, you know you're not gonna get any votes. SIMON So why has it fractured then if it's not environmentalism and the it's not mixed messages, why has the vote … CHRIS Oh I think in this last election it was simply pure fear which drove down the Green vote, an awful lot of people who would normally have voted Green voted Labour because they knew that there was this promise on the part of Winston Peters and Peter Dunne that they would begin negotiating with the party that had the largest number of seats and I think that was part of the reason. We've seen that in the polls too the Greens have suddenly sort of bounced up from 5 to 7% you know which I imagine came as a mixed blessing for many Greens, they'd have been grinding their teeth saying now you're giving us your votes. ANITA Where were you when we needed you. SIMON But you're confident they will be back regardless of the loss of Rod Donald? CHRIS I think with this particular grouping in parliament there will be a long period of grieving, fortunately the way this has broken we've got the Christmas holidays to intervene, I think they’ll come through that, they're gonna have to do a crash course in that parliamentary procedure which Rod mastered, but I think with Jeanette Fitzsimons, Sue Bradford, Nandor, that particular mix is a very very strong one still and I think they’ll survive. SIMON Political Commentator Chris Trotter, thank you so much for joining us on the programme.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIMON Time for some final thoughts from our panel now and of course discussing the Greens, Anita how do you perceive the Greens here versus the world wide scenario.
SIMON So given that though then why are the Greens not represented, if it is so permeated does that mean it's been taken over by the other parties? ANITA Well in a sense no one's arguing with it any more and other parties are doing things, it's partly because the EU has started implementing directives universally that take up some of the issues that the Greens had campaigned for earlier on, and partly because I think no responsible government in power certainly in Britain which I can talk about most immediately, no responsible government in power can be seen to be ignoring the blindingly obvious now, these sorts of things from the 70s the Greens were cast as lunatics for saying have on the whole now become absolutely mainstream and are not disputed any more. It may give them little satisfaction that they don’t have political power as a reward for having been right. COLIN I think as we were talking off air just before Anita, it's also just because of the UK electoral system I mean I'd be willing to bet that if you put proportional representation into Britain the Greens would be in parliament and I mean to some extent it's as simple as that, I mean we had exactly the same issue here before 96, I mean we had a Green party but they weren’t in parliament, in fact Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons were co-leaders of the Green party before they were MPs. SIMON Speaking of the Greens and bringing them back to here, not supporting the waka jumping legislation Winston Peters said all eight parties in parliament are behind it, the Greens have said no we're not and National said no we're not, that’s where it's at. COLIN And ACT said no we're not, and the Maori Party is saying well we probably won't, it's actually down to one vote on my count. SIMON I've got it to 61/60. COLIN Yeah 61 seats he's got Winston has, if his own party agrees and from my understandign is that they're not happy either, when I talked to the Deputy Leader Peter Brown the other day he was extremely ambivalent about the waka hopping law, this is something Winston Peters wants. SIMON It's about keeping Winston's caucus under control some commentators are saying? COLIN Well yes although you know the funny thing is that if we look back to what happened with Donna Awatere Huata, she got forced out by that same piece of legislation so there's even people suggesting that if Winston's own party wanted to use it against him they could do so. SIMON Yeah well we'll watch that one with fascination. Thank you both. Transcripts are copyright to Front Page Ltd and may contain 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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