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Rodney Hide - 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 Rodney Hide.
PAUL You would be most interested to hear Rodney Hide say that John Key and Bill English are merely continuing the policies of Clark and Cullen.
MIKE WILLIAMS - Former Labour President
Didn't surprise me at all it's a carry on - National's done nothing
government, but I do think he's in a difficult position because he
got this Don Brash task force to have a look at how to catch up
with Australia by 2025, they came up with a straight Rogernomics'
solution, which was rejected even before it was propounded by the
Prime Minister, who sniffed the air correctly, and I think that
probably John Key understands that the policies of Helen Clark and
Michael Cullen economically were actually quite popular. What
people wanted when they changed the government was a change of
face, and I think John Key has worked that out and Rodney Hide
hasn't.
MICHELLE BOAG - Former National President
Well I wasn't surprised to hear him say it, because let's face it
ACT isn't outright a party, they have to establish some difference
between themselves and National, but Roger Douglas shouldn't kid
himself, they're only there because of Rodney Hide and there's no
way that the prescription that Roger Douglas wants is going to get
them any further ahead in the polls, that's quite clear. New
Zealand is become more centrist and we seem to like it.
THERESE ARSENEAU - Political Analyst
Well there's been long time in the ACT Party, you see different
parts or different motivations in the party, yes there's that pure
neo liberal ideological side and so as Michelle says they want to
distinguish themselves from National and push National further to
the right, but there's also a really pragmatic side where they've
worked out to get votes, and the richest source of votes for them
is National voters, and to do that, to attract those sorts of votes
they need to push National but without offending National voters,
and in fact if you look at past studies, if you looked at the
people who voted ACT, more of those people actually identify
themselves as National voters than they do actually as ACT voters.
So they have to be very careful in pushing National.
PAUL Still he's quite adamant isn't he that the incremental and cautious approach is simply not gonna do the business, here's what he said, his version of about the business of catching up with Australia.
'Paul Holmes: Can you guarantee that you'll be fighting the next election as the Leader of ACT?
Rodney Hide: Look no person can guarantee that and you'd be foolish to do so, and you'd be arrogant to do so, a person is a Leader or indeed an MP on the request of others, it's a great privilege.'
PAUL Alright that's not what he said about catching up with Australia by 2025 but we'll hear what he said about catching up with Australia in 2025 shortly. Leadership safe would you say?
MICHELLE They can't get there without Rodney, the only chance they've got in the current system and it's not gonna change before the next election is if Rodney wins Epsom again, there's no other seat they can win, they have to have Rodney as the leader.
MIKE Yes but equally I think people like Heather Roy have comprehended that that winning of Epsom has actually been jeopardised by the shenanigans that Rodney sort of swept under the carpet.
PAUL And yet he handled those very honestly and straight this morning did you feel?
THERESE Yeah but they are issues that go to the very heart of what ACT stands for and that's why I think that these are blunders that will have a longer life than the ordinary blunder, so the perk buster notion, I mean it goes to the very heart of ACT portraying themselves as a very principled party, and also attacking John Key goes back to the point that I just made that they are out to try to attract National voters who are looking for a safe coalition partner and again he's jeopardised that by attacking.
MIKE Yeah, I wouldn't have thought putting the boot into the Prime Minister who's got 58% support, was a good idea, it's just not clever.
PAUL This morning.
MIKE This morning.
PAUL Here's what he said about catching up with Australia, we'll go this time.
'Paul Holmes: Do you believe as John Key does that we can catch up with Australia by 2026, Alan Bollard of course as you know sat where you are and said we cannot, what do you believe?
Rodney Hide: We can but we can't do it on our present policies so they're both right.'
PAUL Can't do it on the present policies.
MICHELLE Well that's what you'd expect him to say, because his prescription is for a much more radical agenda, but at the same time John Key's very conscious if he adopts that agenda he probably won't be the Prime Minister.
MIKE Exactly.
MICHELLE So it's a compromise it's a tension, it's always going to be there, Rodney is always going to want to go further than the government does.
THERESE But there is a place for ACT on the policy spectrum, and especially when National moves towards the centre as they did in 2008, it frees up a spot for ACT, so I think long term there is potentially a place for ACT, but I do think the MMP referendum is gonna be crucial and the sad thing for ACT is it's bad news for them no matter which way the MMP referendum goes.
MIKE Yeah but I also think Michelle's point is a good one, this country is moving towards the centre, it's not moving to the right, I don't think they even believe the Washington consensus in Washington these days, and Rogernomics had no answer to the financial crisis.
THERESE But actually National moving to the centre helps ACT in a very strange way. In 2005 when Brash moved to the right, he cannibalised ACT's vote.
PAUL Cannibalised it, that's right. What about this business I brought up with Rodney, he's got three quite major things accepted by the Nats, got the Super City, three strikes and this regulatory reform bill, is this tail wagging the dog, and is this what people detest about MMP, the small party being able to effect such major change?
MICHELLE Well I think to some extent that's where ACT is useful to a government like National, and let's face it if there'd been a Labour government I still think we would have ended up with a Super City because that's what the Royal Commission said, but to some extent they can say well you know Rodney's the Minister, he's the one that's pushing it through. So there are some uses that a party like that has, so I don't think it is really tail wagging the dog, it is a question of negotiation and it will always be that way in an MMP environment.
PAUL What about the regulatory reform bill, what do you make of this, are you boned up on this?
THERESE Well it's almost a quasi constitutional bill, because it's meant to embed and limit future parliaments which means that we should be paying far greater attention to it perhaps than we have been, but in terms of ACT going forward, I think you're right Michelle that it is interesting that they play a particular role for National, but it is also one of the things that people hate about MMP is this notion of the tail wagging the dog, and as I said with MMP even if it's kept perhaps one of the first things that we're gonna look at changing is that one electorate's the threshold in which case perhaps bad news for ACT.
PAUL Exactly so.
