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Paul Reynolds - Source: ONE News -
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Q A's panel - Paul Holmes, Dr Therese Arseneau, Mike Williams and Michelle Boag - discuss Holmes' interview with Paul Reynolds.
PAUL Well it's hard not to like him.
MICHELLE BOAG - Former National President
I think number one we have to give him points for fronting up, and
let's not underestimate the demands on a Chief Executive's time
going through a crisis like this, he will have all sorts of people
from all round the world trying to talk to him, and he's making as
much as possible to front up and I think you've gotta give him
brownie points for that. Number two there are clearly some legacy
issues that Telecom is dealing with, and it was interesting to see
his body language when you asked him that question because he
looked away and that tells me that he does think there are some
legacy issue, but I'll give you an example. I'm a big user of
directory and I keep getting these people in Manila, and I still
think they're employed by Telecom, of course they're not, they're
not, but Telecom is sort of tarred with that brush, and
thirdly.
PAUL That's a legacy issue.
MICHELLE That is a legacy issue, and thirdly when something goes wrong every little thing that happens is magnified. So you know Vodafone has outages from time to time but at the moment no one's worried about that, they're only worried about the Telecom one, so you get this magnification of interest and scrutiny and so they are gonna have a period where they're dealing with that, doesn't matter what they do, the little things will become big issues, just because of where they are.
PAUL Are you sorry for Telecom or angry at Telecom Therese, what's your attitude to Telecom about this? I mean given that the ad campaign, this extraordinary lavish indulgent ad campaign promised a new world, and they roll it out and it don't work.
THERESE ARSENEAU - Political Analyst
You'd expect better, the point is you would expect better, but to
pick up on Michelle's point, I mean when it rains it pours, I mean
it's not just the XT but then the 111, I mean that is actually,
well that's a serious letdown in terms of communications, and then
the Broadband with the contract coming up with the governments, I
mean this has been more than just a bad week, it's been a
disastrous week really for Telecom.
PAUL The brand damage - significant Michael?
MIKE WILLLIAMS - Former Labour President
Oh it's significant but I had to think this week, thinking about
Telecom, reading a lot about it, that we've seen two iconic brands
in New Zealand really attacked this week, Telecom and Toyota. Now
I've been on Telecom for years, I've never been on Vodafone. I've
never driven anything but a Toyota for the last 30 years. I've
never had the slightest difficulty with either of them personally,
now but I tell what I think the basic problem is with Telecom is a
lack of redundancy in the system. This is a key piece of
infrastructure, and I think they've got the same problem as
Transpower, if one of these big expensive black boxes cuts out you
really ought to have another one sitting beside it. Now that may be
a place for a government subsidy, because it's in the interests of
all of us that that piece of infrastructure stays up.
PAUL Can I just ask you all something else too. A senior Telecom person has been saying to me staff are coming to her all the time saying why does the public hate us, why do New Zealanders hate Telecom, or quickly find themselves able to hate Telecom.
MIKE Well I think it's partly the tall poppy syndrome we have in New Zealand, Telecom is the big one you love to hate.
PAUL Yeah but Telecom was also you know we came to know that it did its best to screw competition, that it was a great monopolistic kind of thing for years didn't it, we still get gouged on phone call prices compared to other countries?
MICHELLE Yes, yes we do, and that's another one of these legacy issues that he's dealing with, he's inherited that culture, I suspect he's trying to change that culture, I have to say that was a very good performance he was credible, he was honest, he was straight up, but there's a big job for him to do and he has to stick around and do the job.
THERESE And that's the point, you know people calling for his resignation, I'd much rather him stick around and fix the problem, because New Zealand needs it.
MICHELLE The easiest thing to do would be to walk away, he's got to stick around and fix it.
PAUL Michael what are the chances of Telecom getting the Broadband roll out?
MIKE Well they're dwindling by the day, but if you listen to what Paul Reynolds said, they certainly deserve to be in the game and to be seriously considered, he's quite correct in what he said, they have been rolling out, spending a hell of a lot on fibre to their cellphone towers, and you know ideally it ought to be better than anybody else, and they've got a head start in this, so let's wait and see.
PAUL Alright let me now ask you what you'll be looking for politically in the week ahead - Michelle?
MICHELLE Oh more transparency issues. I think there's going to be a release of the previous government's spending, I think there's going to be more about that stuff, and of course it's easy fodder for the media, they love it.
PAUL And of course Labour quite quiet on the departure of Heatley.
THERESE Well parliament is going into recess but I'd have to say that the last three weeks of parliament the sittings have been very good for Labour, I think they picked up some real momentum, and I'll be watching to see whether that carried through. I'd like to hear a bit more about the future of Ecam, but I do think it's going to be much more about expenses.
PAUL There's a very nice contest going on between Mallard and Anne Tolley of course, and I see Tolley got Mallard a rare beauty this week when she noted that in the despatch she sent from NZEI bus, he had misspent Invercargill, and she therefore kindly offered him a copy of the national....
THERESE But overall though Trevor Mallard has been doing very well in question time against Anne Tolley.
PAUL And Ruth Dyson with Tony Ryall too.
MIKE Yeah I agree with Therese, I'm watching the battle of the giants and I do think it's slowly tipping Labour's way, but very slowly, they've got a bus tour happening this week, it'll be interesting to see whether anyone's interested in that. I always used to block bus tours when I was President of the Labour Party because they cost too much.
THERESE And they sing Country Road.
MIKE Oh they sing awful songs.
