Last night Hawkes Bay Nat MPs, Messer’s Tremain and Foss, hosted John Key at a public meeting in Napier. The resulting debacle will, I suspect, pretty much ensure that Key won’t be visiting the Bay for a while.!

Someone obviously misjudged Key’s popularity and booked Napier’s Municipal theater (hate to think how much that cost – and I do believe the cost is attributable as well). The Municipal has a capacity of around 1,000. Tremain and Foss advertised the meeting widely though billboards and full page newspaper ads.

Well, around 120 people turned up, bolstered by a class of Auckland University students in Napier on a field trip. The theater looks empty with 300 seated, and so was, i am told, embarrassingly sparse. Around 50 peaceful protesters also turned up with signs and songs, so ‘the man of the people’ went in through the side door.

During the meeting Key was grilled by unhappy teachers and grumpy constituents, and copped an earful from Steiner staff who have been treated very poorly by Mrs Tolley. He then left via the side door.

All in all, not a successful event. If Foss and Tremain can only rustle up around 80 supporters from across the region (the rest were there to have their say and the aforementioned students) then things perhaps aren’t as rosy as maybe they appear. I am told that when Foss saw how many protesters had turned up he went very pale. Obviously concerned that such a poor turnout inside and a fantastic turnout outside might harm his career.

As an aside, 24 hours later i attended my daughter’s primary school play at the same Municipal theater: 1,000 parents and school supporters enjoyed the performance. Now that was the only decent show in town this week.!

You gotta smile at Peter Dunne’s demand that the Nats give him the same level of help that they are giving ACT. Talk about an over inflated sense of self importance.! Actually, he cuts a rather sad irrelevant figure around parliament these days. He’s given very little respect by either the Nats or Labour.

Dunne won a seat for Labour in 1984 that he was never supposed to win, thanks to Bob Jones and the NZ party splitting the Nat vote, and he has held on ever since.

In recent times he has flipped flopped between National and Labour with no apparent political philosophy except a desire for a ministerial salary. He rages against Labour’s tax policies and yet as Revenue Minister under Dr Cullen he probably had a minor hand in Labour’s tax policy development.

The one Bill he put up as part of supply and confidence agreement with the Nat’s will get approximately 1 vote in it’s second reading.

But most importantly, he achieves exactly 0% in any poll, thus underlining his irrelevance in today’s political scene. He also knows that he will be beaten by Charles Chauvel this election; why, because the right vote will be split due to his own vanity. History does repeat.

Lord please bless me with the judgement to know when it’s time to go, and allow me the good grace to leave with my dignity and my pride intact. Too late for Peter Dunne.

Bought a book for a couple of dollars from a second hand store in Tirau last week: ‘Upgrading New Zealand’s Competitive Advantage’ by Michael Porter et al.  Published 1991.  Thought it might be interesting to understand what the experts were saying back then and to see how far we have come in 20 years, especially since PM Bolger is quoted on the back as saying “..I hope to see a new consensus for change emerge from the debate this book will stimulate.” 

There are many themes throughout the book, but several important ones that readers may recognise are: unhealthy reliance on commodity exports, lack of savings, poor investment in R&D, capital constraints, lack of investment in training etc

In fact the solutions provided are a little too ‘market oriented’ for my liking (and outdated considering the times – I am sure the great Michael Porter will have modified his thinking over the past 20 years), however, when I read about the problems inherent in the NZ economy in 1991, I may as well be reading something from the NZ Institute highlighting exactly the same problems 20 years on.

Give credit where credit is due, the last Labour govt did do a lot to address many of the issues (think R&D tax credits, huge increase in funding for post-secondary education, Kiwisaver, Cullen fund, significant investment in NZTE, NZVIF etc etc).  Therefore it is concerning that many of these initiatives have been rolled back by the Key-led govt in the name of ‘fiscal prudence’.  Short term scrapping them may save a buck or two, but to do so is putting NZ’s chance of developing any real, significant and sustainable global competitve advantage at great risk.   

Many business people who initially announced Key’s arrival as the second coming have recently voiced disappointment and disillusionment at the complete lack of progress by this government in addressing the fundamental issues affecting the NZ economy.  The title of the NZ Institute’s ‘A Goal is not a Strategy’ paper pretty much sums it up. 

There is a better way: there has to be.  And there is only one party that has the balls and guts to deliver it.  Key has shown that he simply hasn’t got the political will to do what’s right.  I hope those who expect him to pull something out of the hat 2 years down the track are not holding their breath.  If so, they will have gone from blue to a muddy grey by now. 

I also hope that in 2031 I am not reading of the same problems plaguing the NZ economy that were pointed out by Porter et al in 1991 and the NZ Institute (amongst others) in 2011.  It is time for a better way, and I think most are beginning to realise that way is with Labour in 2011.

NZers love a good yarn, and none more so than me, however, there is something about that DB ad that really pisses me off.  Perhaps because it attempts to rewrite history in such a disingenuous way; or perhaps because I have a history degree I consider such historical dishonesty abhorrent; or perhaps because it treats NZers like fools by asking us to believe something that simply isn’t true - or all three. 

In response, Jim Anderton has put out an excellent fact sheet that discounts the lies in the ad.  Its well worth a read,  so, read away…

“The ad is set in 1958 around the time of the so-called ‘Black Budget’ of Labour’s Finance Minister, Arnold Nordmeyer. It would be a good resource for NCEA students and their teachers as a classic example of Orwellian propaganda techniques used to distort history.

The 1984-type facts and the truth are as follows:

1984-type fact: “Fancy a pint with a tight fisted bore” is the way the Labour Party’s Finance Minister Arnold Nordmeyer is portrayed. It continues, “As far as misers go, old man Nordmeyer took the cake”. 

Truth:  In the 1958 Budget, Nordmeyer had raised excise on beer, spirits, cigarettes and petroleum products as a part of a package to meet a balance of payments crisis that had been caused by the previous National government. Arnold Nordmeyer was putting the interests of New Zealand before short term political gain. He was not trying to stop the working man’s drink after work but to raise revenue from non-essential items. Nordmeyer was also of course the architect of New Zealand’s Public Health Scheme, at the time the envy of the world.

1984-type fact: Nordmeyer’s “infamous 1958 ‘Black Budget’ was a puritanical regime that taxed the world’s best beers so heavily no ordinary bloke could afford to drink them.”

Truth: In 1958, the amount of imported beers coming into New Zealand was next to nothing. The working man did not drink imported beer at the pub or at home. Imported beer did, however, have a tax advantage over the local product. Nordmeyer equalised the excise so that local and imported beers would be equally taxed.

1984-type fact: “Morton Coutts found the situation about as tolerable as a tofu burger. His mission was gutsy but simple: to dodge Nordmeyer’s tax by brewing the world’s best beer, right here. ”

• The ad implies that Morton Coutts invented the Continuous Fermentation Process as a result of the ‘Black Budget’ to give working men back their export quality beer. 
• The ad shows the ‘toffs’ being thrown out of the public bar to be reclaimed by working men now that they can afford to drink good beer again (which has been altruistically ‘created’ for them by Morton Coutts).

Truth: Morton Coutts had taken over his father’s brewery in 1918. He had used the innovative Continuous Fermentation Process since 1956 – not as a result of the ’58 budget. 

Nordmeyer’s budget, besides raising revenue to meet a serious budget deficit, was aimed at encouraging manufacturing in New Zealand so that full employment policies were maintained. Rather than beating the system, Morton Coutts was doing exactly what the Labour government wanted – building up a strong manufacturing base and creating jobs for New Zealand workers.

1984-type fact: Film footage titled ‘Men rioting in Wellington’. One is led to believe it is working men protesting over the price of a jug!

Truth: The ad uses real film footage shot during the Waterfront Lock-out of 1951. There were no riots in Wellington or public demonstrations of any sort against the 1958 Budget.

Pumping hundreds of thousands dollars a day into advertising campaigns like this one reveals once again the liquor industry’s cynicism towards New Zealand’s social problems, our history and the working people who drink the fourth most amount of beer per head in the world. For the liquor industry, there are no bottom lines.  The creators of this ad would have a place in George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth where lies are truth and truth are lies”. 

 Thanks Jim.  If the DB can’t sell its products without resorting to blatant lies, then they must be in a sorry state.  You can probably guess who’s beer they’re now drinking here