Agenda transcript:29 04 2006 - JOHN KEY, PHIL GOFF

Contact | Front Page

Transcripts

AGENDA Presented by LISA OWEN

LISA	With National Party Leader Don Brash turning 66 this year speculation is mounting that he will not lead the party into the next election. There is only one other National MP drawing significant support as preferred Prime Minister in the One New Kolmar Brunton polls and that’s Helensville MP John Key, he's polling 5%. Best known as our wealthiest MP with a personal fortune made from a career in international finance, speculation is that he's worth around 50 million dollars, perhaps therefore predictably John Key is National's finance spokesperson, he is with me now. Well you are delivering a speech later on today to the National Party, I've read it so tell us what you see as the vision for New Zealand, what you want for New Zealand.

JOHN KEY – National MP

	Well there's three really important themes, I mean the first is just saying that New Zealand spends a lot of time comparing itself with the OECD the developed countries. I don’t see that as the entire competition when our exporters get up in the morning they have to worry about Latin America and China and India and various other countries and they are rapidly becoming wealthy, rapidly eating our export markets. So the first real point is just let's look at the entire world because that’s the world our companies have to compete with. The second thing is really about saying look economic transformation has to be serious if we're going to achieve what we need to achieve, and I think you’ve had a Labour government that have spent six and a half years now talking about economic transformation and it really involves changing depreciation rates on tiny sort of inconsequential issues, so we're going to need to do more than that, I mean we've got an economy that this year will grow at less than 1%, compare that with Singapore which I do in the speech and this year growing at 9%, China at above 10%, so you know I think it's gotta be serious and I think the third major point really and that’s probably and arguably the most important point is that there's a huge opportunity sitting in our time zone now in China and India, and so it can either be a huge opportunity or it can be a huge threat, and if you prepare in my view it's the biggest single opportunity to raise living standards here in New Zealand and for really to develop wealth in New Zealand, but if it's done the wrong way then Latin America and Porto Rico and all these other countries are gonna eat our lunch frankly and we're in serious trouble.

LISA	Look we can come back to your economic vision a bit later but beyond numbers paint us a picture of what you think life should be like in your ideal New Zealand, not the numbers.

JOHN	Well look I mean it's gotta be a society that’s egalitarian, I mean I grew up in a state house, brought up by a solo mother, and that’s a well known piece of information, so I mean my view is that what we've gotta deliver is an opportunity for every child to have the best place in New Zealand, to be able to make the most of their life and not to be restricted by the background or the bank balance of their parents, and if we can achieve that then you really deliver hope and prosperity and opportunity and that’s what politics in my regard is about. It's also gotta be about quality of living, I lived in London and I worked in New York, the facts of life are is you'll always make more money in those centres, your costs will be greater but your quality of life will be less, and so there's always going to be a balance of that.

LISA	You said in one of these speeches that you’ve given, the series of speeches, you said we shouldn’t settle for small island mediocrity. Have we?

JOHN	Yes in my view I mean we spend a lot of time saying 3% economic growth is fantastic. My personal view is that New Zealand's getting poorer and poorer on a relative basis compared to Australia, that’s really a statement of fact, it used to be around about 20% wage gap between the average Australian worker and the average New Zealand worker, now it's 33% and in the real world I see that in my electoral office, you know truck drivers come in and say I'm earning 60 grand I'm going to Australia to earn a 100. So to me unless we can deliver that sort of opportunity then we'll lose our best and our brightest and our motivated and we're already doing that at an alarming rate, so I just simply believe there's no good reason why New Zealand has to settle for that and in fact in the global world it will not happen. Australia is actively targeting our skilled workers, we are fast becoming a polytech in the university for Australia's workforce, and why on earth should we accept that, I mean we don’t accept it in sport, we don’t accept it when it comes to making movies, we don’t say that Lord of the Rings is okay because it's gonna be a third rate movie, we expect it to be the best and it is.

LISA	You bring up the arts, tell me in a prosperous country - you seem to be taking a more holistic approach, in a prosperous country you say you can afford things like the orchestra, you can afford arts and culture, I mean how do you feel about those things.

JOHN	Well I mean in economic terms money is value in exchange, it's only worth something if you use it and one of the reasons ….

LISA	But why are these things important, why are those cultural things important for the richness of a nation?

JOHN	Well because life isn't just about going to work and making money there's a lot of other things and a lot of things that define a country, one of those things is clearly culture, New Zealanders are proud of their culture they're proud of their history in arts and we're creative innovative people, we're the No.8 wire society. So I mean in my mind why on earth would you just want to have money if you're a nation and no backbone no fabric to your society, and we have that through a whole lot of things we do, we should be proud of it in fact if you go and look at the Singaporeans which I compare in the speech, actually in the last decade or so as they’ve become wealthier they’ve been spending a lot of time trying to build up an arts sort of society.

LISA`	So what should a government then pay for if you're talking about those kinds of things what should they be paying for arts sports the orchestra the ballet?

JOHN	In part, I'd like to think that our companies would support them, I mean I think it's very important that philanthropy in terms of our companies and putting something back into building a better society would take place and it does. I mean frankly if you go out there and have a look at the arts you'll see that they're supported as is sport, as is lots of community activities. I have in my electorate a little youth group Microsoft actually put in a lot of money and that came about because the young lady who runs it wrote to Bill Gates and Bill Gates literally sent her a cheque and hey that’s great and that’s what we want isn't it?

LISA	Well should the government pay for retirement, there's always talk about whether we're poor savers, are we poor savers, and do you support compulsion?

JOHN	Well I think we're poor savers in my view, we have a number of issues in New Zealand one is we certainly have a concentration of assets around simply housing, and that will create an issue for New Zealanders, either they’ll need to eat their house in retirement in some form or another but also I think it's an investable capital issue, you know we find it hard in our capital markets to grow new businesses, I mean banks want to lend on housing they don’t actually want to lend necessarily to start up businesses, so I think there's a problem. Secondly New Zealanders are gonna live a lot longer, so to me I just look at it and say New Zealanders if they go and really think about it they're not going to go at 65 to the rocking chair and to the coffin, they're actually going to go for 20 or 30 or 40 years now potentially having to live off their capital, so they need more. We have compulsion already in the form of New Zealand Super actually you can't elect out and say I don’t want to pay my taxes. Do we need more, my view is yes we need to save more, it's an extremely complex issue. If you look at Kiwi Saver, at one level it does something and that is access for the workforce, but in the large part I think it'll be a glorified first home buyer's grant.

LISA	So are you giving me a yes or no answer on compulsion?

JOHN	Look I don’t think it's as simple as that, what I can tell you is that we've done quite a lot of work and we're continuing to do a lot of work and you can expect to hear more from us on savings and it'll be a solution that works. I mean Kiwi Saver sounds like a solution that works but in reality won't, and I think it's better to deliver outcomes that actually work rather than just window dressing.

LISA	Well let's move beyond John Key and his calculator for a second, let's find out a little bit more about you, do you have an ipod? What music do you listen to?

JOHN	Yeah well I'm more of a Robbie Williams fan than sort of Snoop Dog or something, which is probably useful given he's been arrested, but yeah I don’t have one but I occasionally listen to the kids' but yeah.

LISA	Favourite album?

JOHN	Yeah Robbie Williams Millennium something like that.

LISA	We're really putting the pressure on you here.

JOHN	We are indeed.

LISA	What was the last thing you read?

JOHN	Lee Kwan Yu's Third World to First World actually but before that was Political Animals. I really don’t have a lot of time to read books actually, I'd like to but there's just so much reading in parliament.

LISA	You mentioned Lord of the Rings have you seen the trilogy?

JOHN	I've seen the first one.

LISA	And what would be the last movie that you saw?

JOHN	Ooh that’s a good question – Corpses Bride with the kids.

LISA	Would you rather go the ballet or to a rugby game?

JOHN	Rugby game.

LISA	And do you play any sport?

JOHN	I play a bit of golf, I'm running but it's not obviously showing, but I run a little bit and you know I'd like to play a bit more squash I used to play a lot but you know gotta get a bit fitter.

LISA	Do you believe in God John?

JOHN	That’s an interesting question do I believe in God. I don’t believe in life after death.

LISA	Do you believe in God?

JOHN	Well I don’t believe in life after death, I don’t know how you'd define it really.

LISA	Are you agnostic, are you atheist?

JOHN	Well if your asking me if I'm religious it depends how you define religion, I look at religion as doing the right thing, I don’t define that as someone that goes to church necessarily on a Sunday, I mean I go to church a lot with the kids but I wouldn’t describe it as something that I – I'm not a heavy believer, my mother was Jewish which technically makes me Jewish, yeah I probably see it in a slightly more relaxed way.

LISA	Alright well you once confessed to having voted for Mike Moore, which politician outside of your own party would you say that you admired, outside of your party, current government – well current political spectrum? Pita Sharples?

JOHN	Yeah, I have a lot of respect for Pita Sharples, in fact I was in a meeting with him yesterday and he advocate a lot of things which actually believe it or not make an enormous amount of sense and cross over a lot with National and yeah there's a lot of personal responsibility, a lot of frankness about the issues that they see, yeah I think look he's very impressive and he's done immensely well in his time in parliament.

LISA	Right well the Maori Party, we had Tariana Turia on this show and I asked her whether she could work with you as leader of the National Party, let's have a look at what she had to say.

	Tariana Turia: Well you know I've got my views about who might be a really good leader but in a way it's none of my business. I always like Bill English, you know I like his style, I like his manner, I think that had National bit the bullet that in fact he would have made a great leader.

LISA	Pregnant pause there when I mentioned your name, could you work with the Maori Party and what are your views on Maori issues, are you more Orewa or treatiology?

JOHN	Well I think National could certainly work with the Maori Party and Jerry will make that plain in his speech today, and that’s right I mean there's so much crossover in terms of what we believe in, there are always gonna be some things that we don’t agree with, we don’t support the Maori seats but that’s actually not a new position for National, I mean if you go back right back to 1986 to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into MMP National was advocating then the abolition of the Maori seats. I mean I support the position that Don has been advocating which is one standard of citizenship and I guess the example I would give is you know I believe very much in needs based funding, I grew up in a state house under a model where there's not needs based funding and there's race based funding, you know I could have been the white kid that wouldn’t have got the support I might have needed and I don’t agree with that. So to me it's around needs.

LISA	Alright let me ask you bluntly, do you want to be Prime Minister one day?

JOHN	I want to be part of a National government, you know that’s what I want to do, my focus is on being Minister of Finance.

LISA	But do you want to be Prime Minister? You yourself said people at Merrill Lynch described you as the smiling assassin, do you want to be Prime Minister?

JOHN	What I want to be is part of a National government.

LISA	That wasn’t the question. Do you want to be Prime Minister?

JOHN	Well no, look I mean the answer is …

LISA	Well you don’t or…?

JOHN	The answer is simply this that I don’t get to determine whether I'd ever become Prime Minister of New Zealand, there are a million variables out there and so my focus is on the things I can control.

LISA	Would you like to be?

JOHN	Well the things I can control are being Minister of Finance – the number one most important thing is for New Zealand to do better and I believe National government will deliver that, and the role I play within that National government frankly is largely irrelevant.

LISA	Let's bring in our panel. Any thoughts or questions from that? Guyon.

GUYON ESPINER – TVNZ Political Editor
	I'm quite interested in John Key talking there about how he sees National's relationship with the Maori Party, and I'd like to ask you John whether you think that your position in the tone of the Maori policy last election cost you, and whether you think you need to change that a little bit?

JOHN	Look I don’t think it cost us, I think it was actually in many respects the launching of Don's leadership and the resurgence of National back in the party, and frankly I think the media actually read it totally wrong, they came out and called Don all sorts of things said he was out of step with New Zealand in fact the polls proved he was in step with New Zealand and that was really an argument about the pendulum going too far, and I think actually National's done a lot for Maori in its history, it's stood up for Maori and we believe in the …

GUYON	How can you have this relationship with the Maori Party when you would abolish the very seats that they sit on in parliament, isn't that the thing that just makes this slightly incongruous?

JOHN	Well we'll never agree with them on everything but actually very few coalition partners agree with their other party on everything and if they did they'd merge and become the same party. So I think under an MMP environment and you can go back and look at the Royal Commission of Inquiry and see pretty clearly under MMP you don’t require Maori seats, I actually think it lets MPs like myself, constituency MPs, off the hook because many of my Maori constituents go on the Maori role and effectively I'm able to abdicate my responsibility to them, so look I think it's a process of time and we can work our way through it.

CHRIS TROTTER – Political Commentator
	The Royal Commission also said however in the same breath that it said abolish the Maori seats that you would need to establish a much lower threshold for Maori parties, now were you to become leader of the National Party for example is that a position that you would advocate that there be a lower threshold for Maori parties, a 1% threshold I think the Royal Commission was in favour of?

JOHN	Yeah it was 1%. Look I mean that’s something the party has to decide Chris I mean it's not something I can opine on on Agenda on a Saturday morning but what I think you can see is that the representation of Maori in parliament has been growing and growing steadily, MMP is a good vehicle for getting a lot of diversity into our parliament and I think it's working in that regard. I think there are other elements that don’t work terribly well but I think that element is working well, and you know you can look at the numbers but at this stage there's no evidence that there would be required a smaller amount, you know the Maori Party I think could succeed under its own environment even if there weren't Maori seats.

CHRIS	Not at 2% in the polls, not in the current legislative situation.

JOHN	Well we'll see how things play out.

LISA	At the risk of labouring the point John you're a man who's done very well in his career path, I find it very difficult to believe that you haven’t got a career path planned for yourself in politics and if you won't give us a clear answer on leadership of the party or desire to be Prime Minister what about – how will your measure your political success or failure?

JOHN	Well, failure will probably be measured by the media I suspect actually, that’s the way that happens, but in terms of the way I've operated, I've always operated on a basis of doing what I do to the best of my ability and that may or may not lead to other opportunities. In the banking world that I worked in it did and that worked really well. I think if you sit around worrying about things that could or could not happen a long time into the future you'll never actually do what you do well, and it's about focus, and my job is to be part of the National team, my job is to be giving sound and good advice and I think good policies on finance and it's about delivering a better New Zealand for the 4.1 million New Zealanders who live here and that’s what I intend to keep doing.

CHRIS	I want to ask you John, you're probably better placed than most of the MPs in your caucus to understand just how little room for manoeuvre there is in terms of economic social policy, you’ve worked in the field of international finance, you know what a globalised marketplace looks like, you know what the constraints on any sovereign state now are in economic terms, so I mean what I'd like to hear from you is you know where you see a government being able to make a difference, you're not gonna be able to make a difference to the overall economic framework because that seems to be settled both between Labour and National, those basic changes of the 80s and 90s are entrenched now, so where does a government make a difference?

JOHN	Well firstly you're absolutely right, I mean three quarters of every budget that Michael Cullen reads out or maybe one day I read out at this point anyway in New Zealand is eaten up with health, education and welfare, and in fact if anything you can argue it's likely to get larger because of demands in those areas, so you're absolutely right, there's not necessarily financially a lot of room to move, and that’s really one of the points we're trying to make very subtly in this speech is that government's around the world don’t abdicate their responsibility actually they're very aggressive, I mean the Australians when they come over here the moment they get off the plane they start talking about building better business links with Telstra or whoever it may be, you know Qantas. I think you actually have to grow the cake if you're serious about having better living standards, it's not about redistribution, and if you're gonna grow the cake then you need to be a bit more pragmatic and you need to do some deals. I think you need to say where does New Zealand fit in and it will fit in where it has a comparative advantage, it can't fit in in certain areas of trying to compete with China where they pay people you know a bowl of rice a day and where environmental standards are completely ….

CHRIS	I guess what I'm getting at here is the Orewa speech for example I think was a very good example of how a political party when there is so little room for manoeuvre on the basics tends to look at issues which can generate a lot of emotion perhaps shift people from one side of the political ledger to the other, I mean are you comfortable with that sort of wedge politics with that sort of divide and conquer on issues which aren’t necessarily related to economics at all but to identity for example?

JOHN	There'll always be those issues but I mean I actually think what will happen frankly from my view on the next election is it will be much more fought out around the economic vision of New Zealand and I say that because in my view that the country's going to go through a period of relatively low economic growth, it's gonna be contrasted with the world which is going to grow quite rapidly certainly Australia's likely to grow three times our growth rate this year, and I think more New Zealanders will have a growing frustration that we are not doing better when we have the ability to do better, so my view the sorts of things that we're talking about are and are likely to be more relevant but there'll always be a range of issues where there's a difference between Labour and National and so there should be.

GUYON	But even on the economy your points of difference other than tax with Labour aren’t really that marked are they, you moved to neutralise those issues of four weeks leave, the Super Fund, you’ve spoken out against the Kiwi Saver scheme, would you scrap that?

JOHN	Yeah, look Kiwi Saver in its current form won't work, it's a first home buyer's grant scheme it's not a savings scheme and if that’s what you want to achieve and I actually have some sympathy for home ownership I think it's a pretty important part of New Zealand society and it's actually one of the core principles of the National Party, but that’s what that scheme is.

GUYON	But would you actually scrap it?

JOHN	What I would disagree with you on Guyon is there are a lot of differences between National and Labour on the economic policy, you know Labour are tinkering around the edges they're certainly out of sync in terms of tax but there's a lot of other areas where they are as well.

LISA	Thank you very much John Key for joining us this morning.


SOLOMON ISLANDS

LISA	Last week's violence in the Solomon Island may have been the result of voter dissatisfaction but some say there's more to it than that. A study conducted by Massey University in conjunction with the Islands Knowledge Institute suggests there are fundamental problems with RAMSI, the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands. We're joined this morning by Minister of Defence Phil Goff who returned from Honiara just last night, and in our Christchurch studio researcher and Solomon Islander Paul Roughan, welcome to you both. If we can start with you this morning Phil, can you describe what the atmosphere is like there in the Solomons?

PHIL GOFF – Minister of Defence
	Well the atmosphere I think over the last three or four days has calmed down considerably, the curfew was lifted yesterday which is a sign of return to normality, but the damage in Chinatown is huge, 80% of Chinatown is gone and that’s hugely disappointing, a real concern because I think this wasn’t simply a spontaneous act but an act of retribution planned by a number of people who were disappointed that they failed to get their hands on the levers of power. So underlying there are still major problems.

LISA	Do you still have that sense of tension there?

PHIL	On the streets I've gotta say no, I think people are going about their day to day life on the streets, but things can be very calm in the Solomons one moment, they can blow up the next and I think that’s true of much of the Pacific and particularly Melanesia, but you know on your intro in terms of RAMSI overwhelmingly everybody I spoke to was keen that RAMSI maintain its presence in the Solomon Islands, you go around with our troops, our defence personnel in the truck, people aren’t glaring at you or making gestures they're smiling they're calling out they're saying hullo, I think the Kiwis are hugely popular there, that’s one of the strengths that New Zealanders have as peacekeepers.

LISA	How do you think the Regional Assistance Mission this international force of Police how do you think they’ve handled themselves so far?

PHIL	Well I went there with an open mind, there were people saying look this violence was provoked by RAMSI, everybody that I spoke to that was on the scene or was well informed about it said that was not the case, RAMSI finally responded with teargas after they'd been stoned, after officers had been injured, after police cars had been set alight, now people turned up at the riot armed with plastic bottles full of petrol, they didn’t come along with that to light their barbecue, so you know it's very easy for us to say well they might have done this and they might have done that, I think they were doing the best job they could, they were overwhelmed by the numbers that they faced with, it was a matter of real concern that this destruction took place but were the Police heavy handed, well the injuries were on the side of the Police Officers not the side of the crowd, that tells you something.

LISA	Alright let's bring Paul Roughan in here. Paul I mean that’s talk of the immediate performance of this group of international Police but overall how do you rate the performance of this regional assistance mission?

PAUL ROUGHAN – Researcher, Islands Knowledge Institute
	Thanks Lisa, I think definitely I would be one of the people like the ones that Phil spoke to in Honiara saying it's not time for RAMSI to go. Having said that could things have gone better over the last couple of years, could things be a lot better now into the future, definitely. There is not doubt RAMSI has disarmed a vast majority of the militants, captured key militants, and generally restored a lot of normalcy to the situation following the tensions, the socalled tensions, late 90s, early 2000s. The question that last week's events is really raising is, is that enough and I think that’s definitely where our research is pointing to some areas where the past is the past but if we start recognising and acknowledging what the limitations have been then there is not only the potential to keep the progress going but retain what progress that has been made, because I think it's as Phil himself said it's nobody saw this coming last week and these things can turn very quickly, this has happened once, who are we to say that this won't happen again, and also just to put into perspective I think Chinatown is a significant portion of Honiara's CBD, we're talking about 80% of Chinatown which is perhaps 30 to 40% of the total CBD of Honiara, it's massive destruction it dwarfs anything that happened during the tensions, so definitely this is something more than a signal this is a very important warning sign.

LISA	Can I say there has been some criticism that this international force of Police they haven’t sort of interacted with the community, that’s one of the criticisms and if you even look back at some of the local papers have been saying that they risk being seen as an occupying force, what are your comments on that?

PAUL	Again going off something Phil said earlier the Kiwis and Pacific Islanders have an extremely good profile amongst Solomon Islanders. The force as a whole definitely suffers from the perceptions that it is not engaging on a human level with people, it's responding perhaps to crises but not conducting an ongoing positive relationship with people and again I say there are smaller groups within RAMSI such as the Kiwis and Pacific Islanders particularly who seem to be bucking that trend, and that is certainly something that is absolutely critical coming out of this last week of violence, rebuilding relationships with and amongst the population of Honiara and the Solomons and RAMSI forces.

LISA	Paul let's bring Phil back in again, you’ve heard what he's had to say that the New Zealanders are seen in a good light, that there is some difficulty with this interaction with the community, your observation.

PHIL	Well a couple of points, are we seen as occupiers, absolutely not. I've been in countries where troops have been seen as occupiers, there is no parallel there whatsoever, the relationship between the Kiwis and the people on the ground I think is good, but to take up Paul's point can RAMSI do better, of course, I mean we need to look at the events of the last two weeks and we've gotta say what can we learn from it, why wasn’t the intelligence there that might have suggested this was going to happen, or was it so spontaneous that that wasn’t able to be foretold. I think that one of the important things that we've done is that we've looked at who the ringleaders behind these riots were, doesn’t matter whether they're MPs or ordinary citizens the rule of the law has applied. Has RAMSI been successful? Let me compare the situation today with what it was when I first went there where it was utter chaos, the cabinet could not meet without being surrounded by the Solomon Islands Police making demands for compensation payments that were met. The gold ridge was destroyed, palm oil plantation, two of the major employers closed down, there was a country on the brink of absolute failure. I think we have turned that around but we've still got some way to go.

LISA	Paul can I just ask you the Minister has said that there are key ring leaders, is it deeper than that though some of the problems still?

PAUL	I think there are lessons from the previous tensions, were there ringleaders – yes almost certainly. Were there mistakes on the part of law enforcement – again a lot of Chinese businessmen are saying definitely. Is this all on the back of a deep dissatisfaction with people's lot in life – that is definitely the case. Men women children old people were involved in the looting and swelled the crowd that was so large and so violent last week, so it's complicated, there are number of elements but to say that the overall situation is going to keep tracking upwards or has not started tracking downwards I think it's not at all clear enough to be able to say that right now.

LISA	I'd also like to bring our panel in there, look there's been some allegations that the Australian and New Zealand Police there were caught napping, any thoughts on that?

CHRIS	Well I think the thing that I notice most about what both Paul and Phil have said or not said, there's one word Australian. It's the Australians I think that are you know attracting the flak from the Solomon Islanders. I think Australia has adopted in recent times a much more aggressive approach to the whole South Pacific region that’s reflected in the South Pacific forum, it's new chief executive, it's reflected in think tanks in Australia which have come out very aggressively against past policies in relation to aid in the South Pacific, I think people in the South Pacific view Australia in a very different way to the way they view New Zealanders.

LISA	Fair comment Paul?

PAUL	I think so, I think so and on the one hand that is actually something that’s quite cultural if you like. The history of engagement of Australia and the Pacific is different than the history of New Zealand's engagement in the Pacific. The Pacific Island population here in New Zealand is much larger, there's an appreciation of what the Pacific is in New Zealand, that is something that’s definitely not as much the case across the Tasman.

LISA	Thank you very much Paul Roughan. Now while we've got the Minister here in the studio last week on Agenda we had the Assistant Secretary of State, Christopher Hill speaking to us from Washington, this week Richard Armitage who is still a highly influential Washington influence has said there should not be a military ban against New Zealand over our anti nuclear policy. How significant is that do you think?

PHIL	I think it's very helpful indeed. I've worked with Rich Armitage over the last four or five years, not a person that I thought I'd naturally find some identity with, he was part of the 1980s administration, he's an ex Navy SEAL actually I found him a person of enormous integrity, of quite deep feelings and commitments, he's very straight, he's very hard, but the relationship that we formed and I think the relationship that he has with New Zealanders generally have led him to the conclusion that 20 years past this event it makes no sense to be seeing the relationship between our two countries through the prism of a single issue.

LISA	Can expect to see US navy ships in New Zealand ports any time soon?

PHIL	Well we have British we have French and Chinese ships calling in our ports they're all nuclear weapon states, all surface ships except the aircraft carriers are non nuclear propelled, they're welcome here any time always have been.

LISA	Thank you very much Phil Goff.

FINAL COMMENTS

LISA	Back to our panel for their final thoughts for the day, Guyon.

GUYON	John Key I thought a lot more cautious now, I think he got a bit of a rocket or a but of a lesson certainly after that leadership story was bubbling along and they had that caucus retreat in February when he was making some musing along those lines, so I thought you're seeing a slightly more cautious John Keys developed a line for that impossible to answer question about whether you want to be the leader, and he also wouldn’t really answer would he about whether National would scrap the Kiwi Saver, so he's becoming more and more of a politician. I think those leadership stories have a few cycles and this is sort of it's not going to go away it's still the elephant in the room for National about whether Don Brash can lead them again, so that’s gonna come up again and again.

CHRIS	Well I just think we've got a fascinating situation developing here, clearly in the speech he's going to deliver to day to the Regional Conference of the National Party John Key is looking to Asia, he's comparing us to China to Singapore to India. We just heard Phil Goff say that Richard Armitage is offering an olive branch to New Zealand, that is an extraordinary thing, he was the hard man back in the days of David Lange and the original ban, if a warship from the United States comes here and that period of cold shouldering in New Zealand comes to an end we're going to see a strange reversal, we're going to see Labour strengthening the relationship with the United States while the National Party looks to Asia, very very interesting it