Goff on the year ahead

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, January 4th, 2011 - 38 comments
Categories: election 2011, phil goff - Tags:

Following Key’s ‘I’ll have a hissy fit and quit if you don’t re-elect me’ interview yesterday, the Herald has an interview with Phil Goff. The contrast is stark between smile and wave’s self-centred answers and Goff’s focus on delivering real results for NZ.

In terms of policy formation, where are you looking for inspiration, can we expect surprises and when will we see the results?
We’re looking at active management of the New Zealand economy to perform better for New Zealanders, to lift wages and to create jobs, none of which the Government has done. We are looking at other small countries that have done so much better than New Zealand in their economic development – Denmark, Finland, Singapore, Israel – smart economies. We will be looking at skill development, at R&D, at better savings and investment track records and being a clean, green clever economy, by contrast to what the Government has done. The closer we get to the election, the more you’ll see the detail, but a lot of that will be in the broad campaign period, the last three months.

Smart, green, innovative, hands on. Those are the key words for a successful government’s management of the economy in the peak oil world. Not just for the good of the country but for the electoral durability of the government. If the link between petrol prices and government support continues to hold, then governments will be at the mercy of future oil shocks. A smart party will be focused on lessening Kiwis oil dependency for its own good as well as the country’s.

Your predictions for an election date?
If the Government goes before November it will be a vote of no confidence in the All Blacks and that would be unwise, or a sign of panic that the economy is failing to deliver. So I’m predicting the election should be when it normally should be – at the end of the year.

Nice framing from Goff here (and Farrar’s already bought it too). But, unless Key thinks there’s a good chance he’ll lose and so wants to make the term as long as possible for maximum smiling and waving time, I don’t see why he would wait until November. Going before the World Cup is surely fairer on the public and a safer bet for the incumbent – riding the pre-Cup buoyant mood, rather than risking any backlash if the outcomes go wrong.

Your prediction for the Rugby World Cup?
We’ll win.

Are you conflicted in your hopes for the All Blacks, given the potential voters will take a loss out on the Government?
No, no conflict at all. I want the All Blacks to win. I don’t believe we’ve peaked too early.

I think some research has shown that All Blacks results don’t really affect voting but I would think how the event as a whole goes might. Petrol prices will be a bigger element (they’ll also affect how many foreigners come for the Cup and how much discretionary spending they have here)

John Key has predicted you will be rolled before the election. Do you have a prediction for him?
Well, that’s wishful thinking by Mr Key. [For him] that smiling and waving won’t be enough to actually make a difference for New Zealanders in terms of their living standards and hopes for the future.

But… smiling and waving is all he’s got.

38 comments on “Goff on the year ahead ”

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  1. Colonial Viper 1
    4 January 2011 at 11:31 am

    The Left is better positioned with ideas and policy now than NAT was after 9 long years groping around in exile.

    Labour in 2011, Phil Goff for PM. Bring the message to people, one by one. Time to let John Key use his well considered exit plan – he clearly wants his life back 😀

    Also a plea – remember Actors Equity has shown us how *not* to communicate workers’ interests with the public.

  2. Deadly_NZ 2
    4 January 2011 at 12:06 pm

    Finally something from the Labour Govt.

    and yes this country has to do something smarter than smiling and waving.

    maybe look at Alternate fuels.
    geo thermal for power generation.
    Get Marsden point running properly to refine our Own oil and stop selling it to the open market.
    Maybe look at old landfils that have not been devoloped to dig them up and recycle that whats been buried for years or put in Methane stations.

    Because when the oil finally runs out there will not be time to do it then. We NZ need to start to act as if there will be no oil and stop saying “our desendants can sort it out”
    There is some smart thinking needed. And the Greens do have some good ideas too.

    Basically this country cannot afford another 3 years of the NACTS or I am sorry all skilled people will have headed to greener pastures and those that are left will be exploited unmercilessly by the NACTS. Also the brain Drain has to stop another fail for the NACTS.

    The last thing we need is another 3 years of the fucking cycle way policies!!!

    • Lanthanide 2.1
      4 January 2011 at 1:30 pm

      Upgrading marsden point is a mis-direction.

      The oil we get out of our fields is very light and sweet, very high quality stuff. It is worth a lot on the open market. What marsden point buys and refines into gasoline etc is lower quality stuff. There’s no point investing $$$ so that our refinery can refine our own stuff locally, when we can simply sell it overseas and buy cheaper oil for our domestic use, pocketing the difference in the process.

      In a case where the world goes to hell in a hand-basket in terms of oil, we will still be able to find a market for our high quality crude, and if worst comes to worst can simply barter it for a greater volume of lower-quality crude that we can refine locally.

      Now, if we had a huge oil industry, enough to supply more than our countries daily usage, investing in our own refineries for our domestic use and exporting the remainder finished product would make sense. But we don’t live in that world, so there’s no point making investment decisions as if we do.

      • bbfloyd 2.1.1
        5 January 2011 at 9:02 am

        still pushing the tired old paradigms ? if oil production becomes an issue overseas, then what lunatic would sell off what we have left? surely, if we can supply our own needs without having to import, then that would take priority surely..

        what sense is there in selling off the last of our own supplies when it’s running out everywhere else…

  3. Treetop 3
    4 January 2011 at 12:55 pm

    A big issue for me in 2011 is the eroding of cancer treatment services, ongoing at Capital Coast Health, (CCH) for children and now at Midcentral Health, (MCH) for 14 cancers.

    The money used for the glamorous tax cuts in 2010 surely would have prevented the eroding cancer treatment services at CCH and at MCH.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/4510848/Call-to-fight-cancer-cuts

    This link will not remain for to many days and I do not know how to Pdf.

    Good to see leadership from Iain Lees-Galloway, one of the few provincial Labour MPs

  4. M 4
    4 January 2011 at 1:04 pm

    Phil said Key is only good for smiling and waving? LOL, too much!

    I think Phil has pitched his answers just right about working smarter, focus on jobs, R & D – he must now man up and talk about peak oil and offer solutions to this problem knocking on the door because the truth plus some solutions with the concomitant job creation could really add some lustre to his campaign. He has shown his support for the ABs and shown he’s not superstitious about supposed links between rugby and election wins.

    Keep going Phil; Greens fess up about the real starkness of peak oil.

    • Lanthanide 4.1
      4 January 2011 at 1:34 pm

      No politician is going to publicly speak of peak oil until the writing is clearly on the wall.

      Even before then, we’re probably going to get (more) oil shocks, and the rhetoric will be about high oil prices and oil dependency, not about ‘peak oil’. What I’m saying is that politicians will talk about the effects of peak oil (and how to mitigate them) before they ever talk about the causes of it, because NZ in particular is pretty powerless when it comes to peak oil so there’s no point scaring the public and potentially crashing the economy prematurely.

      • Colonial Viper 4.1.1
        4 January 2011 at 1:36 pm

        Funny thing though, the Greens talk about peak oil a lot.

        • Lanthanide 4.1.1.1
          4 January 2011 at 5:14 pm

          The Greens still haven’t actually been in government yet, or setting any policy.

          It seems the Maori Party were more serious about Peak Oil than the Greens were back in 2005 also.

      • M 4.1.2
        4 January 2011 at 9:54 pm

        I concede that no politician wants to bring up the subject but if is raised then infrastructure for a post peak world has some chance of being implemented. The retro fitting of homes with insulation I reckon is some preparation, admittedly by stealth, but if the truth were to be spelt out, then a wartime mentality for the common good would eventually prevail as people would see year by year their futures becoming ever more bleak and realise that only by collective effort and sacrifice could some mitigation of this event occur. People accepted rationing in WWII because they understood the enemy was Hitler (now it’s PO) and were mobilised for the war effort and the cost of rationing was borne by all.

        Maybe Phil or any other party cannot bring themselves to broach the subject of PO, but if most of the public feel they’ve been duped I’d predict that those political parties who didn’t speak up wouldn’t be returned to office.

        Anti-spam: addressing

    • pollywog 4.2
      5 January 2011 at 1:24 pm

      He has shown his support for the ABs and shown he’s not superstitious about supposed links between rugby and election wins.

      Someone needs to interview Dan Carter and ask him what it feels like to hold the future of NZ, through its gov’t selection, in his hands ?…without Dan Carter we lose the Rugby World Cup. Without the world cup National lose !!!

      The lesson in politics and in rugby, especially at crunch time, is to “play the man, not the ball’.

      Hobble the guy who runs the team and the team falls over.

  5. Alwyn 5
    4 January 2011 at 1:37 pm

    Poor old Phil. His claims about the ratio of his photo to Key’s in the Herald are about on a par as most of the b.s that he comes out with.
    Phil’s claim. 520 of John Key and only 2 of poor little me.
    Unfortunately The Herald has the figures and published them. 110 of Key and 27 of Phil.
    That’s a lot more of Phil than I would have expected give he’s a fill-in leader of the opposition and Key is the Prime Minister.
    Phil’s claim is of course in line with most of the spin he comes out with. Remember how the Skyhawks were sold just before the 2002 election, and again before the 2005 election and then a third time before the 2008 election?
    Never happened did it?

    • Colonial Viper 5.1
      4 January 2011 at 1:44 pm

      Poor old Phil. His claims about the ratio of his photo to Key’s in the Herald are about on a par as most of the b.s that he comes out with.

      Hehehe dude Phil said it tongue in cheek! And he said it was “unscientific” to boot. The Herald has been held to account and that is great.

      Now, moving to serious election promises and BS, do you remember hearing something about “National will NOT be raising GST”?

    • Draco T Bastard 5.2
      4 January 2011 at 1:49 pm

      Phil’s claim is of course in line with most of the spin he comes out with. Remember how the Skyhawks were sold just before the 2002 election, and again before the 2005 election and then a third time before the 2008 election?
      Never happened did it?

      They had buyers but they had to get permission from the US which wasn’t forthcoming fast enough. Can’t blame that on Labour or Goff.

      • Herodotus 5.2.1
        4 January 2011 at 2:11 pm

        Can’t blame that on Labour or Goff.- Sorry DTB where do you get that. Phil was the Min involved, part of a tentative sale is also vetting the purchasor and that there are were no road blocks, and if so clearing them. Having the US state dept approve such purchases and that the coy was literally a $100 setup were more than just minor issues. It is called Spin. many in business do not recognise a sale until the cash is collected- in this case it was not.
        http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10601860
        http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/skyhawk-sale-saga-continues-3104809
        So the middle class is to be looked after, we are to become net savers and vastly increase our wages and wealth. I look forward to the details as to how and in what time line. Also why was this not done when Lab got a second chance after 05 Get out of Jail card was used.

        • Draco T Bastard 5.2.1.1
          4 January 2011 at 5:23 pm

          So, the US, in 2009, finally got around to saying that we could sell them to it’s contractor? You do know that the US reserves to right to veto any sale of military hardware made by them don’t you? and that veto extends to them doing their own due diligence upon the buyer after the seller finds one?

          And this is the 5th Labour governments fault how?

          And the buyer may or may not be able to finance them but I’m sure enough due diligence was done to ascertain that he would be in a position to do and, considering that he is a flight trainer for the US government, he probably can.

          • Herodotus 5.2.1.1.1
            4 January 2011 at 6:48 pm

            And this is the 5th Labour governments fault how?
            By over selling the spin- Lab disestablished our stike force-(Protecting the country from invasion) then after using a broker to sell (I wonder if we paid out to the broker?), or that any depssit was made? found 1 potential tentitive purchasor- and as said before over sold the issue. created high expectations that were not met. On an aside I wonder if the “sale” was recorded in the balance sheet-like student loans recorded as a current asset?
            http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4149581/Skyhawk-giveaway-after-failed-sale

            • Draco T Bastard 5.2.1.1.1.1
              4 January 2011 at 9:32 pm

              That still doesn’t make it Labours fault.

              Sure, they over sold it but that doesn’t make the fact that the deal didn’t go through their fault. Personally, I would have just slagged them.

              BTW, Labour are right about the air-strike force – it’s expensive and useless. We didn’t have enough of aircraft to make it a credible deterrent, they were getting bloody old (read as outclassed), and their limited combat range meant that any invasion force would have been in range of NZ before we could hit back.

              Of course, they didn’t do what was necessary to replace them which was to develop and produce long range missiles here.

              • Herodotus …
                4 January 2011 at 9:52 pm

                They were also part of our film history. How impressive it was watching Sleeping Dogs and seeing our stike force “bomb” the rebel camp.
                Thanks to Helen we are now vunerable to those of the evil empire.
                On an aside why do we have an airforce- no strike planes, 757’s never available, Iroquois gone-with replacements still years away.
                The govt still sent out media reports of The Sale, there was no sale. Did Phil Goff not know the difference of tentitive, conditional and unconditional?
                Now as the sale has not proceeded, we are left with planes wrapped up in condoms.

                • bbfloyd …
                  5 January 2011 at 9:31 am

                  H.. you omit an important point… namely that the current administration, now that there is no political capitol to be made, actually agree that an air strike force is beyond our reach, and therefore a pointless waste of money.

                  and which evil empire are you dribbling on about this time? australia? the united states?… or is china going to become the bogeyman for all good nats now?

    • bbfloyd 5.3
      5 January 2011 at 9:10 am

      Alwyn..they are paying you too much. unless your job description is to demonstrate just how shallow and childish it is possible to get when others attempt to discuss grownup stuff.

      • Alwyn 5.3.1
        5 January 2011 at 11:34 am

        There, there diddums.
        When you lose the argument abuse the opposition.
        Mind you. A number of the current Labour MPs have made careeres out of that.

  6. tsmithfield 6
    4 January 2011 at 4:55 pm

    So if Phil loses the next election and resigns as leader, will that be a case of “smile and walk away” as well?

    • Zorr 6.1
      4 January 2011 at 5:00 pm

      Major difference between “resigning as leader” and “leaving politics”

    • Eddie 6.2
      4 January 2011 at 5:01 pm

      goff hasn’t threatened to quit politics if he loses. He’ll probably be rolled or step down from the leadership if he loses but he won’t have a tanty and quit the cause he believes in to go live in his hawaii mansion.

    • Colonial Viper 6.3
      4 January 2011 at 5:51 pm

      Key, our 0.7 term PM, has announced that he has thought through his exit plan and given conditions which suit his needs, will leave the job for bigger and better things than NZ politics. Good of him to be so honest eh.

    • bbfloyd 6.4
      5 January 2011 at 9:13 am

      no… key’s the only petulant one in this instance.. goff has demonstrated more than enough substance over the years.. he will behave like a man. which is much more than key is capable of.

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