Poll Dancer by Keith Ng

With no Extra-Special Secret Surprise in sight, I was honour-bound to eat my words for breakfast this morning. As delicious as I usually find my own writing, I have to say that it tasted better coming up than going down.

I don't know if I had preempted and spoiled the leak or whether I was just plain wrong, but my stomach is retching enough for me to steer clear of gossip-mongering (and tequila) for a while. It's back to the speech-notes and spreadsheets for me, then.

Pocket protector, ON!

[Note: Oh.]
--

The National Party conference was "upbeat", and although the crowd wasn't very energetic, that was probably more to do with the demographics than the mood.

A lot of old people, as is the norm for political conferences these days, and the 2:1 male:female ratio reflected National's support base. Also a damn lot of suits. There were the classic Tories, the farmers with their weathered looks and perpetual scowls, the rotund businessmen with trophy wives. Most interesting were the post-war generation of empowered women, who are the cool, rich aunts of the nation - independent and right-wing.

In the young generation there were the snappy suits of the successful entrepreneurs and whiz-kids, money bursting out of their designer pockets; in contrast were the true believers - the Thatcher fetishists - who firmly believe in the small state, hand-up not a hand out, low taxes, etc., even though it seems that they are not very good at making money themselves.

The common sentiment among attendees was cautious optimism. They've seen the poll numbers, and on a rational level, they know that it's not real - the election is months away and the campaign hasn't started yet. But seeing the numbers before them, they all feel that it *could* be real. But they also know that the moment they *think* it's real, then they'll get complacent and lose it all. So they *believe* it's real, while trying not to *think* it's real, even though they actually do.

I never realised not counting unhatched chickens could be such a complicated exercise.

--

A better indication of National's tax policy came out - both John Key and Don Brash talked about "the golden goose" (or rather, geese): the rich people whose taxes fund the majority of public spending in this country.

John Key:

The lack of reward for effort is one of the single biggest reasons that 600 people this week will get on a plane and jet off to Australia, most never to return.

In NZ today, 11% of all taxpayers pay half of all the personal tax collected. All they can look forward to under Labour is more of the same.

We simply cannot afford to keep bleeding our best and brightest overseas. They're the very people we need.

Brash:

[The current tax system] destroys the culture of enterprise and initiative... which tells our brightest and best that they and their families would be better off in Australia.

It sounds like a move towards a flatter tax system; but they can't *just* cut the top rate, otherwise what would Mainstream New Zealand think? So I'm predicting a regressive (i.e. more cut for richer folks) 2-6% cut across the brackets, costing around $2.17b a year.

Think I'm wrong? You'd be in good company. (I lost horribly on the snap election sweepstake.) Write in to with how much you think this tax cut package will cost, along with your name (real or otherwise) and any extra details you'd like to add to your prediction. (This calculator might help.) The winner will win the next best thing to immortality - fame and glory on the blogosphere!

Brash's speech got a warmish reception - the standing ovation was obligatory, and he didn't really earn it. Most of the people I spoke to thought it was "good", but nobody had any unqualified praise. The general reaction was about a 6.5/10.

It came as a surprise to me, because I'd actually give the speech a 7.5. There was a lot of the naff "we need to kick them out of government and put us in" sort of thing, a fair amount of name-calling (thank god he didn't call Helen "Prime Moneywaster" and Cullen "Wastemaster-General", like Key did).

Oh, and he managed to declare that he is no longer against wars, nukes and er... apartheid:

I was brought up to believe that to be Christian was to be socialist. I took myself out of school cadets and at the age of 18 registered as a conscientious objector. I marched in demonstrations against nuclear weapons and against whites-only All Black tours to South Africa. My Masters thesis, written under the guidance of a neo-Marxist economist, deplored New Zealand's dependence on foreign capital. And I voted for the Labour Party for years.

But I have come to my senses!

Speechwriter, you bad. Oh, and extra badness for:

We owe it to our children, and we owe it to our children’s children, to give them that future.

But, uh, aside from some lame lines and his renunciation of the struggle against apartheid, he actually said something quite useful:

[The] tired and increasingly discredited Labour Government... has simply run out of steam, run out of ideas, and has no bold plans, no big aspirations for our future.

And even when they do have new ideas – like their early childhood policy, or their recent decision restricting school bus services – it turns out that at heart they’re small, mean and petty ideas, just applied on a nationwide scale.

Does Labour have an aspiration for the future apart from the status quo?

The slogan goes that "You're better off with Labour"; it might very well be true that we *are* better off, but it misses the point. *Will* we be better off with Labour?

I have just been advised by the PM's Press Secretary that there are no plans to release any dirt files, that Labour does not keep dirt files, and that any reports to the contrary are untrue and malicious.

The comes after inquiries from the press gallery asking after this dirt file. Geez guys, thanks for getting me into trouble!

For the record (and this was how I replied), I wasn't suggesting that Labour was going to unload its dirt, I was simply saying that Labour was going to unload something, and it certainly has dirt (in a file or otherwise), and I went on to explain why it was unlikely that it would unload the dirt this weekend. There are, incidentally, plenty of things that Labour can unload that is not dirt.

My biggest concern now is that Labour has been spooked enough (and it has enough of its paw-prints over whatever will be leaked) to not release whatever it was they were going to release, thus rendering my report a self-falsifying one. Then Labour, National *and* the rest of the Gallery will hate me for giving them ulcers, heart attacks, and extra work respectively.

One member of the gallery I spoke to this evening put it well: "It's a sign of these sensitive times."

All I can say is, if Labour doesn't release "it" now, then we'll *know* that "it" was really an icky dirtball.

At least that's the best spin I can put on it, now that my mini-scoop has backfired on me. Bugger.

(And please, won't someone pick up the stuff about the surplus? Pretty please? It's genuinely more important and solidly proved and argued. Sigh. If anyone needs me, I'll be at the bar.)

Poll Dancer returns from holiday-mode to look at the Extra-Special Secret Surprise that Labour is preparing for the National Party conference this weekend. And is Cullen trying to throw this election or what? The tax debate, conspiracy theories and fiscal hanky-panky, all in this week's Poll Dancer.

Word from the Labour Party is that there will be an Extra-Special Secret Surprise this weekend (substantively different from the Deep Dark kind of secret surprises, I've been assured). I love surprises. Hey, the National Party conference is on at the same time - what a coincidence!

So what will this Extra-Special Secret Surprise be? It has to be big, for starters. The only reason why they would release something to clash with the conference is because they expect it to eclipse the conference and/or sow discontent or outright panic while the Nats are clustered together.

Possibilities:

1) Personally damaging revelation: Labour has been sitting on some nasty dirt for sometime. They say that they're holding it back because they want a clean game. Maybe. But, it's tabloid-grade stuff - not the sort of thing Helen can just get up and announce. If they're going to leak it, they wouldn't want it traced back to them, so why be so open about it now?

2) Professionally damaging revelation: Again, Labour has been sitting on some very damaging, tennis-ball-grade dirt. Last I heard, the only thing holding this information back was a thin membrane of very expensive lawyers. Again, it seems like the sort of thing that's best left for leaking quietly to Sunday Star-Times or for some elaborate ambush in the House.

3) Election date!: That would be lame as an Extra-Special Secret Surprise, especially at *somebody else's* conference.

4) Policy-related: Maybe it'll be a Treasury costing showing National's policies to be... ah, who am I kidding?

So really, I don't know. Whatever it is, and however well it goes down, I think the battle will be joined good and proper. You know, like "on my signal, unleash hell", that sort of thing. Until then, I think all this hoo-har around the recent polls (er... "poll dancing", if you will) is a bit premature.

A piece in Ian Templeton's Trans Tasman newsletter opens up the possibility for a tantalising theory number 5, though - that Labour's about to concede the election!

(Hat tip: Conor Roberts)

Okay, it's about 90% joke, but the idea is that a) Winston, Tariana, Winston, Jennette/Rod and Winston will make any coalition untenable, unbearable or, at least, really crap, b) the economy is projected to run out of pixie dust anytime now, and c) health and education are just... broken somehow. So, why not throw this election, and let the other poor schmuck win the poison chalice?

Despite it's obvious shortfalls, this theory has the advantage of being the only one capable of explaining the Government's handling of the Budget and the tax debate - and I'm not just talking about the Deep Dark Secret thing, either.

One of the disadvantages of being a young'un is that I haven't covered any Budgets before this year. It came as a surprise to me that the whole idea of the government needing to save up big before the bulk of the population became old and decrepit is not a new idea. In fact, it was there right from the beginning of the present government, in the 2000 Budget:

The Government has not yet finalised details of its policy approach towards prefunding. But the implications at a general level are clear. In the medium term, prefunding will require the Government to generate cash flows sufficient to meet our debt commitments and to make the necessary payments to the proposed New Zealand Superannuation Fund.

This means the Government must increase structural fiscal surpluses from current estimated levels, which means in turn, forgoing opportunities we would otherwise have had to increase spending or reduce taxes. But while it may appear attractive to increase spending or reduce taxes now, it is not responsible in view of future fiscal pressures.

The risk is in delays. If we do not act soon, and act decisively, a core element in our support structure will become unsustainable. At that point, future governments will have only three equally unpalatable options: large tax hikes, big cuts in the level of New Zealand Superannuation or tough age, work, income or asset tests to limit eligibility.

The reasoning is sound. The plan is solid. The alternative is scary.

What I don't get is why, after 5 years of playing the holier-than-thou fiscal monk, piously resisting the temptation to give those voluptuous surpluses a good squeeze and a thorough ravishing, Cullen has suddenly become so damn modest. He seems to have decided that it's not a good idea to extol himself as a saint for accumulating a large nest-egg for the country's impending rainy-day, and has instead been fighting a two-front battle with Key, arguing that a) the cash surplus is the real surplus, not that silly old "operating surplus" thing, and therefore b) any tax-cuts beyond the cash surplus would have to involve an immediate reduction in services.

Bollocks.

Now, I'm no Minister of Finance, but I thought that the OBERAC (Operating Balance Excluding Revaluation and Accounting Changes) was the measure of the underlying surplus. At least that's what I gathered from Minister of Finance Michael Cullen's 2001 budget speech, when he said that "the OBERAC, which may be regarded as the measure of the underlying surplus...".

In fact, having just gone through every single one of Cullen's budget speeches, he doesn't even mention cash surpluses before 2005. Not in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 or 2004. And he expects people to believe him when he tells us that we're inept for not knowing the difference between cash and operating surplus?

(National Party Research and Media Units: Come on, this material must be worth a beer, at least?)

It's baffling. Not only is it just a load of shit, it's an load of shit that politically negates the work he's done over the past five years. It obscures his true, reasonable, honestly impressive objectives and replaces it with an unbelievable and unbelieved lie that would serve little purpose even if it was believed.

Cullen's heart must still be in it - otherwise he would just have blown his surplus like any red-blooded Minister of Finance. My guess is that the Government has decided that New Zealanders would never understand the idea of demographic change or the need to save; that if they did, they wouldn't have the discipline to save; that if they did, they would still resent the Government doing it for them. So, rather than showing any leadership, they decided that they'll just hide the entire project round the back.

It's not a tough message, really. New Zealand has an aging population. The government needs to save money to pay for governmenty services in the future. That's why the government is putting billions (in the form of the big-as surplus, which clearly needs to exist) away every year. If they don't, there won't be enough money to support you in the future, when you get old.

It's not "will $5 less tax a week mean a noticeable decline in health and education services next year?"; it's "will $5 less tax a week mean that I'll have to pay for my own hip surgery in 20, 30 years' time?". This is where the real debate is, and I don't understand why Labour isn't taking it there.

Are they seriously trying to throw this election?

Wow, that's true-believerism (TB) for you. While everyone else is roasting marshmellows over the flaming wreck formerly known as the ACT Party, the true-believers are deciding who should be boss over said flaming wreck.

This is like a bid for the Nazi leadership in 1945 ("Nien, *zis* is how ve should take over zee vorld!") or officers on the Titanic competing to get a promotion ("No, I want to stay with the ship!" "No, *I* want to stay with the ship!").

Well, good news everyone - you can *all* stay with the ship. Except for Deborah. My, what a lovely yacht she has. And isn't it lovely that she's found love, instead of all this angry-shouty business?

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it's interesting to see how her self-write-up on the ACT website changed between June and October last year, right about when she didn't get the deputy leadership and the Roger Kerr thing blew up.

And the ACT list... second on the list, Heather Roy, her greatest virtue is that she didn't gun for the leadership when the caucus turned into a shooting gallery. That this is a spectacularly rare virtue in the ACT caucus should speak volumes.

And who's third on the list? Sure, Muriel Newman gunned for the leadership, but she was actually running a de facto campaign for the deputy leadership, which was what she got - so half a brownie point for only pretending to take a shot at the leadership.

Or maybe they're affirmative action spots... at any rate, Labour should congratulate ACT for having as many women in their top 5 as they do.

I still don't understand why anyone would want the leadership, less than 3 months out of election, of all times. Maybe it really is just a malicious rumour, which would be awful mean, picking on the fat kid with no friends (ACT, that is, not Rodney). Or, maybe Ken Shirley genuinely believes that his charisma and homely good looks will send ACT rocketing over the threshold.

Or perhaps, once again, I'm reading too much into it. It's all rather hard to tell these days. ACT has been hanging out in Margin-of-Error territory for so long, I think Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applies to even the most rudimentary observations of its behaviour. I suspect that one can start a real leadership coup just by looking at Gerry Eckhoff funny.

Come on, give it go.

Anyway, in Hide's defence, let it not be said that he never changed from his old Perk-Buster ways. Nowadays, he scandal-mongers in a much more dignified manner, standing up much straighter than before, and he enunciates, rather than bellows. Seriously - he does! (Personally, I liked his bellow... Brownlee's bellow doesn't quite do it for me.)

--

In other news, the National Party has banned me from their conference. Well okay, not so much banned, as making-me-pay-to-go-to-the-bits-with-food-and-drink. I find it incredulous that any party would allow a journalist to attend their conference stone sober; however, I was informed by a National Party spin doctor that it was a case of "One Law for All".

Hrumph... anyone want to spot me $60 for the Saturday function?

And finally, I was going to chime in on the National billboards, but it seems that bandwagon is long gone. I have to say, most of the parodies sucked, especially the ones from the Labour-hacks (the ones the Labour Party itself was sending were excruciating).

However, Lyndon Hood has pulled off another swifty, with a hilarious set of spoofs (one of which looks very do-able, for genuine culture-jammers with a ladder and some paint).

Heheh, I liked the one with The Invisible Man.

Ahem. That was my first drunken blog last night - what a milestone!

Turns out, my debut in the NBR was slightly more than a passing mention, and I was *actually* zinged in Ben Thomas and David Young's column, so I figured that I should defend my honour with something a little more substantial than claiming that they do not amount to half the man their pseudonym (Neil Falloon) is.

For those of you unfortunate enough not to have a copy of the NBR with you on a Sunday afternoon, Thomas & Young said that my claim that there are gay National MPs was "as overblown and cliched as the allegation that some Labour MPs might be lesbians", that "the story had the odour of an urban legend", and questioned the veracity of my claim.

First, the story of the MP with the secretary is rather dated, hence Thomas & Young's inability to find a male National MP with a male secretary. Now, it may be that this MP has been rehabilitated from his sodomite ways since then, and was a born-again conservative heterosexual when the CUB came along, but I doubt it.

Second, I don't think it's such an outrageous claim to say that some National MPs are gay. In fact, it borders on mundane - just as it's a given that numerous Labour MPs are gay (though not all of them are openly gay). Neither claim is overblown, and while the latter is cliched, the former isn't so widely circulated.

But those are reasonably nit-picky things. Where I feel my honour needs defending, though, is where T&Y said that I claimed the Gallary had deliberately "suppressed" the story, and counting my words towards a "vicious whispering campaign", with all that that implies.

My purpose in writing down that story was to highlight a genuine dilemma - scores of journalists have a lot of dirt on politicians, and choose not to report it (as opposed to suppressing it) out of respect for the privacy of politicians' private lives - this respect is something that I regard extremely highly.

Yet, there are situations when what certain politicians say seem to display disingenuousness and hypocrisy, but you'd only know it if you know the "dirt" on them. How can you report on the hypocrisy (which is a perfectly valid target) without opening the floodgate on the muck?

This has been my solution. I think that the MPs in question need to know that their private lives stay private due to the integrity of (most of) the press, and they need to show some respect for this, in return.

They can't take it for granted that they'll always have the benefit of this protection, and they should realise that they are testing its limits when they demonstrate contemptuous hypocrisy in their public personas.

[Gay Republicans is on at the Wellington Out Takes film festival this Sunday. Check out http://www.outtakes.org.nz/2005/wgn/schedule.php. It's really good, and a fantastic insight into the conflict between political loyalties and self-identification. Probably most enlightening for gay Nats; everyone else will probably just find it really funny and stupid. Ah, the pink elephant - how appropriate.

(Sorry, Aucklanders, the last session was yesterday; and it's not going down to Christchurch).]