Dunne Speaks

Spare a brief thought for the National Party. If being the Leader of the Opposition is the worst job in politics, then being the party of Opposition is the worst state to be in. No matter how inept the government in office, the Opposition is always on the back foot, reacting all the while to whatever the government is doing, while at the same time being expected to promote constructive, well thought-out, affordable alternatives.   And, even if the Opposition is able to develop some bold, new and attractive policy, then there is always the chance the government will act to nullify it, or simply steal it and implement it as its own. Moreover, the government has the resources of the entire government bureaucracy behind it, whereas the Opposition has but a small handful of taxpayer-funded researchers and policy advisers at its disposal to match them. It is always a very uneven contest, but the public nevertheless expects the Opposition to be able to fight the government on more o...

As the interminable saga surrounding the Wellington Mayoralty election result drags on, some are already blaming the uncertainty on the fact that the election was carried out under proportional representation – in this case, the Single Transferable Vote system Wellington has used for several recent elections. Had this been a First Past the Post election, they argue, the incumbent Mayor would probably have been returned with about 40% of the vote, on a turnout of just over 40%, meaning his effective mandate would have come from about 16% of the total Wellington electorate. At least, when the Wellington result is finally determined, it will able to be said that the person eventually elected will have had the support of the majority of voters, however slim that might be. On a bigger scale, if ever there was an example of why proportional representation systems provide for a fairer expression of the public will, however perverse and contradictory that might be, this week’s Canadian F...

Most of the time, the Labour Party bears the coarse New Zealand First millstone around its neck with patient equanimity. It appreciates that, however it might resent it, to do otherwise would quickly rend asunder the governing coalition, returning it unceremoniously to the Opposition benches for another, and potentially lengthy, fruitless spell in the wilderness. Meanwhile, elements in the National Party, including the leader it seems, wistfully yearn for a possible reconciliation that would see New Zealand First emerge as its partner in government after the next election. But that is just not going to happen. National needs to wake up to the reality that as New Zealand First was founded principally on its leader’s sense of utu for having been expelled from National’s Caucus in 1991, it is never going to be its saviour. Despite having potentially greater policy compatibility with National, New Zealand First will always opt for Labour if it can, especially while its current leader...

What are we going to do about District Health Boards? News this week that the Government is looking at a further bail-out of cash-strapped Boards to help reduce their deficits has raised afresh questions about the sustainability of the current model. At a time when the pressure on financial resources is as taut as ever, it seems simply absurd that a substantial amount of significant additional public health expenditure has to be directed towards reducing historic budget deficits. Therefore, the question must surely be asked whether District Health Boards still provide the appropriate structure to deliver the public health services we expect today. The District Health Boards were a creation of the Labour-led Government of the early 2000s, to replace the appointed Health Funding Authority and the Regional Health Authorities of the National Government of the 1990s, which, in turn, had replaced the elected Area Health Boards of the 1980s Labour Government, that had replaced the ear...

In the wake of the Christchurch terrorism incident, specifically the publication on-line of the alleged killer’s so-called manifesto, the topic of hate speech and how to deal with it has come more strongly into public focus. There have been calls for stricter regulation of social media, with the Prime Minister being invited to co-chair with the President of France an international meeting on the subject. At the other end of the scale has been the brief call from a Labour MP to consider the regulation of all media content to control hate speech. These reactions highlight the extent of the dilemma. Everybody knows there is a problem to be dealt with, but few seem completely confident about what the precise problem is, let alone how it should be dealt with. At the extreme edges, such as the Christchurch alleged killer’s diatribe, there would be close to unanimity about the vileness and unacceptability of what he was promoting, but the problem is there would be a considerable diversi...

When I first became an MP back in 1984 one of the earliest and sagest pieces of advice I received was from my illustrious predecessor, Sir John Marshall, who told me "be loyal to your electorate and it will be loyal to you." It was advice I was to follow constantly for the next 33 years. A variation of that theme had been more bluntly expressed in the United States a few years earlier by the irrepressible Speaker, "Tip" O'Neil, who bluntly stated "all politics is local." In other words, voters and constituents are most concerned about the issues that affect their personal lives and the communities in which they live, and often they will vote accordingly, and support candidates whom they see as aligned to their concerns, even if they may not belong to the party of their preference. The "all politics is local" mantra becomes all the more relevant under MMP. While it is the party vote that determines the overall make-up of Parliament, an...

So, the details of Labour’s long-awaited capital gains tax have been revealed, and now the speculation begins as to how the government will go about implementing Sir Michael Cullen’s long-cherished dream. One thing that is near certain is that should Labour choose to proceed (and why should they not – they have been promising this since 2011, despite its contributing to their massive election defeats in 2011 and 2014, and they have no other tax policy to speak of) it will not implement the Cullen proposal in its entirety (governments never do). And even if they do proceed, assuming that in this era of feel good politics they do not succumb to a reality check in the meantime, because they know better than the majority of New Zealanders opposed to a new capital gains tax, it is just as certain that the tax will be amended early and often as the myriad loopholes associated with it become more and more obvious. The history of major tax change is always one of constant tinkering and amen...