Rose-tinted view cruel fairy tales

By Matt McCarten

(Reprinted from the Herald on Sunday, Februiary 2, 2014)

Winz Office. Many unemployed not receiving unemployment benefit

This Government manipulates statistics to show how well the economy is doing and most of us swallow it.

The manufactured consent is the economy is booming and the number of unemployed is at record lows.

Here’s my unease with the unemployment success story. There isn’t a week I don’t meet jobless people who are seeking work yet receive no support from the state.

Many friends and extended family are hardworking people who tell me they don’t register with Work and Income NZ because they claim they are hounded by officious bureaucrats and made to feel like something icky on the aforementioned’s shoe.

The stories are too numerous to convince me there isn’t a calculated policy to make it humiliating for workers down on their luck to apply for assistance.

Kingmaker Jones stealing show

By Matt McCarten

Herald on Sunday 8 September 2013

I haven’t had a conversation in the past fortnight where the Labour Party leadership contest doesn’t come up. So I popped into the two Auckland Labour Party meetings last Sunday to hear David Cunliffe, Grant Robertson and Shane Jones woo the faithful.

A number of attendees congratulated me for seeing the light and re-joining the party. Alas, I had opportunistically passed myself off as official media to gain a box seat. I noticed my fellow non-Labour lefties, Willie Jackson and Chris Trotter, had pulled the same trick.

The leadership fight has been the injection that Labour has sorely needed. Jones is the surprise hit, giving the campaign a flair and wow factor that Labour hasn’t experienced since David Lange entered the political stage.

Despite some in the media fawning over Jones, he hasn’t got a bolter’s show of winning. Jones knows he’s third.

But then Jones was never in it to win the leadership. He entered the fray to restart his political career by creating a new public persona to wash away the embarrassment of his early mistakes. He is already exceeding everyone’s expectations.

Former Labour MP, Rick Barker, once said to me that Jones was the man to lead the party after Helen Clark. Shortly afterwards, Jones self-destructed and his reputation nose-dived.

In the past fortnight the country has seen a man we haven’t seen before. He’s reborn. He’s witty, clever and charismatic. The Jones boy is stealing the show.

At Sunday’s meetings, before 1000 party members, the three candidates were on fire. Any of them could singly match John Key. If the three of them can work as a team after the contest they will turn the tables on this government.

Cunliffe is Auckland’s favourite son and with home-crowd advantage went down well.

Robertson performed strongly and was warmly received. Jones spoke without notes, delighting the crowds.

Given the crowd reactions, Cunliffe had half of the audience in his column and Robertson had a solid quarter. The rest were behind Jones or undecided.

Cunliffe needed an overwhelming win in Auckland to create an inevitability that he had the contest locked up, thus swinging undecided members and MPs to his side.

Apparently, Cunliffe intended to deliver an early knockout blow and lock up the party’s union and left vote by declaring his support for a living wage. As the Herald on Sunday revealed, Robertson gazumped him by announcing his support for the unions’ living wage the day before.

So, although Cunliffe won Auckland it wasn’t enough to give him the unassailable headstart he wanted. It will now be a close race to the finish.

Here’s the state of play. Cunliffe has Auckland and Hamilton. Robertson will pick up Wellington, Dunedin and the provinces. Christchurch is a toss-up.

The party overall is likely to be evenly split. The unions were supposed to go to Cunliffe, but enough of their vote is shifting to Robertson to make their vote competitive. The caucus is still heavily weighted towards Robertson.

If the analysis is correct, none of the candidates are likely to get an outright majority.

So what happens then? Assuming Jones comes third; his supporters’ votes then go to either Cunliffe or Robertson. This makes Jones the kingmaker.

I may have to eat my words when I said earlier that Jones had no chance of becoming deputy leader. If his supporters determine the final winner any role he desires is his for the asking. Frankly, he’s earned it.

No matter what happens there will be two winners in this contest: the new party leader and Jones. The star of the Maori boy from the North is on the rise.

Matt McCarten: Vector cheques powerful ploy just before the vote

Herald on Sunday 14/10/12

By Matt McCarten Email Matt

Voting papers have gone out to elect members of the AECT. Photo / Michael Craig

Evidence of what I regard as one of the country’s most dodgy pieces of electoral behaviour landed in Auckland isthmus and Manukau letterboxes this week.

The people behind this breathtaking cynicism were the five incumbents on what’s called the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust. Jenny Shipley, when Prime Minister, set it up after she abolished electricity boards. It owns $2 billion Vector power company shares. The trustees stand for election every three years. Their only job is to pay out Vector’s dividends.

The incumbent trustees are all up for re-election. And they have rigged the game. Two weeks before ballot papers were sent out they posted a cheque for $320 to every household where a voter lives. The cash handout came to $100 million.

Even more blatantly, they then ran a mass advertising campaign promoting themselves as the people responsible for this largesse. They got the trust to pick up the entire bill as part of $1 million spent on getting the grants out there.

When questioned, they said they were bound by the trust deed which dictated the timing of the payout and it was an unfortunate coincidence. Really?

That line fell over when the New Zealand Herald‘s David Fisher, a former chief reporter on this paper, exposed that the trustees themselves took a case to court so they could choose the timing of the payout. And they won that right.

I’m sure that had the judge realised the trustees intended to send cheques to voters just days before they voted there would have been a different decision.

If you are curious why the incumbents would go so to such lengths to protect their jobs you need to understand that all these trustees have been on a cushy number for six or nine years. They collect $63,000 to $90,000 a year to attend the occasional meeting. This year’s annual report was two pages long – twice as long as their previous report.

With all this extra time on their hands two of them get to appoint themselves to the Vector board to pick up another $100,000. Not a bad earner for a part-time job.

They’ve manipulated the system to keep their place at the trough by in effect getting the trust to pay for their election campaign. They send money to the electors just before the vote and then have the trust promote them as the givers. No challenger can beat that.

The cost of a campaign to 300,000 households is prohibitive. For example, both John Banks and Len Brown each had to stump up with close to $1 million for their mayoral campaigns. All the political parties, except National, raised less than $1 million for their national campaigns at the last election.

Could you imagine, two weeks before election day, John Key (or Helen Clark in 2008) sending a cheque to every voter from the public purse and then taking out taxpayer-funded full-page advertisements giving themselves and their party the credit?

That’s what the politicians on the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust have done. Even the most ethically challenged politician would blush at the antics of the incumbents. They smugly assume they’ll get away with it because most of us wouldn’t have a clue how they’ve manipulated us.

When we got an unexpected cheque two weeks ago we would have been pleasantly surprised. We’d vaguely note the faces and names of the people who gave it to us. And low and behold a few days later we get a ballot with the same five people asking us for our vote so they can keep giving us money.

Only one in eight people voted last time. On this basis, the incumbents will be expecting to romp home. This is where you come in. In the ballot you will see just 12 candidates. It’s a straight contest between the incumbents, under the banner Communities and Residents, and the challengers, the Your Power Team.

Whoever wins, you’ll still get a cheque in the future.

If you haven’t yet received voting papers, contact the returning office on 0800 922 822. This isn’t about partisan politics.

Sometimes as citizens we must stand on principle. This is one of those times.

Vote all the incumbents out.

By Matt McCarten Email Matt

Matt McCarten: Opposition taking too long to sharpen its claws

David 
Which shadow cabinet portfolios do Nanaia Mahuta (pictured) and Jacinda Ardern hold for Labour? Photo / APN

Herald on Sunday column By Matt McCarten 12/8/12

Spin over last week’s political polling is that David Shearer must lift his game if Labour is to be competitive. That’s true, but he is pitched against the most popular prime minister in living history.

It will take Shearer at least until election year before voters pay him much attention. His current 13-14 per cent preferred prime minister support is twice as much as Phil Goff managed and it took Helen Clark almost a decade before she smote her opponent.

It was always going to take a lot to knock off a Key-led National Party. Does it look like Shearer could despatch Key yet? Of course not.

But no single person can win government without a front bench of competent potential cabinet ministers. So here’s the real question: do Labour front benchers look like they are ready to govern? Have they earned the confidence of the public?

Labour’s problem is not its leader, it’s the caucus. The Green Party in Parliament is less than half Labour’s size yet day after day they prove how lacklustre our main opposition party is.

With the exception of Shearer and his deputy Grant Robertson, do we hear anything much from the rest of Labour? What sense do you have of their finance spokesman? It’s David Parker, if you’ve forgotten.

I assumed David Cunliffe would have been a better pick. But Shearer did appoint him to target Key’s right-hand man, Steven Joyce, the Minister of Everything.

Cunliffe must have a secret plan he’s not sharing with us because he hasn’t initiated one attack on Joyce for more than a month. He’s awol.

And what about our other great hope, Shane Jones? Admittedly, he’s sidelined but he still sits on the front bench so he should do something notable. Alas, his website hasn’t been touched since November.

Cunliffe and Jones’ lack of seriousness suggests they should recommit or put up their hands for early retirement.

So about the other talent? During Cunliffe’s leadership bid, he tried to persuade me that Nanaia Mahuta was a hidden talent and once in a front-bench leadership role she would be formidable. I was unconvinced. Does anyone outside the Wellington beltway even know she is Labour’s education spokesperson?

You’d think with all the fallout from National Standards and charter schools she’d be a household name. Yet in over a month, according to her own website, she’s put out a total of three press releases.

Even the new blood such as Jacinda Ardern, at No 4, can’t seem to lay a hand on Paula Bennett as she goes about kicking the poor. The most attention Ardern got was when Maggie Barry made a nasty remark over her not having a child.

Labour has always owned health but I bet you couldn’t tell me who its spokesperson is? Health minister Tony Ryall must find it hard to believe he hasn’t had one sleepless night from being marked by Maryan Street. I respect Street but she’s made no impact on him.

If you think I’m deliberately personalising my criticism, I’m not. My point is that most of the caucus aren’t up to the task. For example, unemployment increased by 2000 people in the three months to June. The party’s employment spokesperson didn’t comment.

Even putting aside the day-to-day non-performance, think about this. Winning the Maori seats from the Government at the next election is Labour’s key to victory. Yet its Maori Affairs spokesperson, Parekura Horomia, has put out just two press releases in nearly six months. One was condolences to a family and the other acknowledged the Maori New Year. Good grief!

Former leader Phil Goff was left by his caucus to do most of the heavy lifting in last year’s election campaign. It seems the MPs haven’t learned. Those current MPs who aren’t pulling their weight should be sent to the back benches in a summer reshuffle and replaced with the few in their caucus who are actually doing their jobs.

Otherwise those Greens will continue to look better and better.

By Matt McCarten | Email Matt

Matt McCarten: PM adds honours ego trip to royal list of trinkets

John Key and wife Bronagh with Britain’s David Cameron. Photo / AP

By Matt McCarten, Sunday June 10, 2012

Is it just me or does everyone feel embarrassed about how pathetically cynical our Prime Minister is by bestowing our country’s highest honour on the spouse of the Queen?

Prince Philip is known for only two things: wandering two steps behind his wife at public engagements, and frequently embarrassing everyone with his moronic mutterings that have at times bordered on racist and sexist.

I bet the increasingly doddery 90-year-old doesn’t even know what his new trinket is, let alone the name of the guy who gave it to him.

Assuming John Key is not a revolutionary republican deliberately undermining our imperial pretensions, he certainly has achieved turning our honours system into a joke.

How crass, edging a minor Greek noble on to the same table reserved for our country’s top 20 New Zealanders. We are told these spots are reserved only for a few because of their exceptional selfless dedication and contribution to our nation.

Instead, our highest honour is used by Key as a bragging device with other politicians attending the festivities on the other side of the world. The fact this Government isn’t sponsoring any public celebrations here recognises that most New Zealanders don’t give a toss about British royalty anyway.

The only reason we put up with it is because we know the role of the Queen in this country is a fiction. Buckingham Palace has hinted that it would rather we just grew up and stopped covering up that we are just too lazy to formalise the fact we’ve run our own country for more than a century.

Does anyone think the Queen is even consulted on who our government appoints as Governor-General? Imagine if the Queen actually started to exercise her constitutional rights on legislation.

Maybe she could intervene over her Government’s intention to sell her dominion’s public assets against the wishes of her subjects.

I’m sure that would swiftly transform our Prime Minister into a republican.

Apart from inertia, I suspect the real reason our establishment won’t cut ties with the monarchy is because it can’t bear to do away with knighthoods.

It must be heaven to many of our elites to finally kneel before someone in a costume with a toy sword and be told they are no longer a mere mortal. What an ego trip to have other aspirants fawning over you. It would be impossible to suppress your smirk.

No more waiting in line for anything – and you’d surely be upgraded to first class wherever you went.

Michael Cullen, a former Labour man, disgracefully joined the pigs’ trough this week. What is it about Labour politicians that they need this approval? Fancy giving Roger Douglas a knighthood for transferring our public wealth to a small number of favoured individuals and making our country more unequal.

And then giving one to Michael Fay who made a fortune because of Douglas. It only rubs salt into the wounds.

And what of former Labour Speaker Jonathan Hunt being promoted by Helen Clark to become one of the 20 most honoured New Zealanders? For what? Being an expert on wine and cheese? For services to the taxi industry?

I support recognition for those who work in the voluntary sector helping others selflessly. Also those who use their skills and talents for the greater good; or even sportspeople who make us proud of ourselves.

But somehow the thought that senior politicians around the Cabinet table decide to give knighthoods to other politicians, businesspeople, senior civil servants and judges is distasteful.

I would have thought these recipients had more than enough prestige, power and money in their careers without politicians paying them off as they morph into a well-gilded retirement.

We could stop this sort of cronyism by just selecting a jury of 12 ordinary citizens from the electoral roll each year and asking them to select, from recommendations, who gets our honours.

After all, if we assume they have the judgment to send a citizen to jail, I think they can determine if someone is worthy of an honour.

Instead, on Monday we had the leader of the National Party giving our country’s most prestigious honour to an old man, just so he could be a big-noter at this week’s booze-ups in London.

Key has cheapened the honour for everyone who actually deserves it.

By Matt McCarten