Poll Dancer by Keith Ng

It's Saturday night, and I'm in an internet cafe, in Auckland.

It's Saturday night, and I'm in an internet cafe, in Auckland, after leaving Borders, having failed to find a copy of some corporate Rich Dad, Poor Dad rip-off of a tax-avoidance newsletter called "N.B.R." or somesuch, in which, I hear, I got zinged by a pair of fat, balding middle-age failed accountants (which, of course, all NBR writers are).

In my own preemptive defence (which I hear are all the rage these days), Bevid Younghomas sucks. Face it - you'll never be half the man Neil Falloon is, not even after the corrective surgery, so stop trying.

Dick.

You're so wrong. Like, so totally wrong.

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So, is this a blog yet?

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On Friday night, I ran into My Good Friend Dr Brash at the Crouching Dragon, Hidden Banana conference (it's on Chinese in NZ - yellow on the outside, white on the inside, banana, geddit?). He described Winston's latest volley as "dispicable", but says that a gentlemen's agreement with Labour won't happen, due to mutual distrust.

Obviously, one would have to suspect that Brash wants to keep the option of forming a government with Winston open, dispicable or otherwise, but Brash made a good point: collusion between National and Labour would only serve to give Winston some keepin'-them-honest creds.

I also couldn't resist asking him fiscal questions (a (presumably) geniune smile flashed across his face when I raised the subject). Given the aging population, etc, he too would work on creating a buffer - though with debt reduction rather than savings. His primary beef, though, was not with the idea of government tucking a bit of cash under the pillow, but with the degree with which it was done. He also noted that there wasn't really a hard-and-fast "prudent" level of debt (the Govt is aiming for 20% of GDP as a long-term debt level).

It's good, I suppose, that we have people on both sides who would rather eat their own pocket protectors than be fiscally irresponsible. I hope that National's finance policy proves this to be correct (i.e. That they'll continue to save or repay debt to a similar degree, rather than what a literal interpretation of their rhetoric would suggest).

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Have been spending my days at the Bananas conference. Okay, so the name is a bit clumsy and lame - but the conference, as well as hanging out with Tze Ming's posse, has been a real eye-opener for me. Met a lot of interesting people so far, and, corny as it may seem, it's quite possibly the first time in my life that I don't feel out of place being Chinese, having a BA and an interest in politics.

It's definitely a different kind of community up here from the one in Wellington, where the Chinese community is primarily conservative decendents of the old Chinese settlers who end up as some kind of accountant/lawyer combination ("different" being something fandangled like IT); or they're international students doing management or some other, similar NBResque crap.

Of course, I'm sure that these walking stereotypes are also around in Auckland, it's just that it seems like the people of my generation - the ones who are genuinely comfortable hopping between cultures - are now starting to take hold here.

Rode out with the posse for some bubble tea last night, and scammed our way into this place called Margarita's, too. ("We're writing a piece on the Asian bar scene in Auckland. Yes. All six of us.")

Incidentally, Tze Ming has informed me that I dress like a 40-something Mainlander (mainland Chinese). Probably because I have one set of clothes to last me through this 6-day trip. However, Tze Ming also noted that Ben Thomas has even worse dress sense. Ha! Take that!

Secrets of the Gallery unrevealed! National MP not outed! Why JT hates the media, as well as the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as Her Young Lover, the book. All this, and not much more, in this week's Poll Dancer.

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Qantas Media Award finalist Hamish McKenzie has recently informed me of a groundbreaking new book by internationally acclaimed* author Richard Meros that will irreversibly and permanently alter New Zealand's political scene, like, forever. The book, which McKenzie describes as "Appalling! Scandalous! Fantastic!", is boldly titled: On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as Her Young Lover.

Discussing such intricacies as the "erotic Zen of Ken Shirley", societal power relations, and "the potentialities of clipped muff", the book promises to take off from the boundaries of good taste, flush its passport down the toilet, apply for refugee status and get outed by Winston Peters before it hits the ground.

"Never before has an author so audaciously propositioned the Prime Minister through print!"

(* Hamish is in Canada. He acclaimed the book.)

The timing of Richard's advice is terribly appropriate, since I just got Helen Clark's cellphone number.

It happened at the Great Blend in Auckland last week. Pissed off at John Campbell's comments that most of the Press Gallery had Helen's phone number and that the relationship was too close, Judith Tizard said: "John has Helen's number. EVERYONE has Helen's number."

"Uh... *I* don't."

So she whipped out her cellphone and proved her point.

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So, *is* the relationship between politicians and the press too cosy?

Well, Rod Donald almost brought me a beer (someone else ended up paying for it); Bill English was really nice to me after I broke that student allowance story; and once, Stephen Franks call me "Kenneth Wang". So... does that mean they're my friends now?

Some rather sound advice from the object of my affection, Jane Clifton:

"I never thought I'd have to write a column propounding such basic, 'duh!'-grade information as this, but apparently there are things about political journalists that are still not widely understood, even by politicians. Such as, that political journalists are not politicians' friends and make truly unreliable confidants. That political journalists do not invite politicians to lunch because they like them and are genuinely personally interested in assisting them to unload. And that political journalists do not make tapes of conversations with politicians in order to treasure them as keepsakes."

Call me a cynic, but I'd have to say that the reverse is true, too. If I'm moving flats, I don't expect Bill and Rod and Stephen to turn up to help me shift the grand piano. And even though I have Helen Clark's cellphone number (Richard Meros' advice notwithstanding), we're unlikely to go out for coffee anytime soon.

It's not hard to imagine: all the handshakes, smiles and pats-on-backs are just part of the job for both sides. Like Clifton says: Duh!

In this day and age, and in this particular forum, I don't really need to convince you that it's all a big system of mutual manipulation and convenient alliances.

There are occasions when these alliances come under scrutiny. John Tamihere accused Duncan Garner of an unholy alliance with Rodney Hide. Well - it's not as if Hide had to pay Garner to break the story, and it's not as if Garner had to blackmail Hide to get him to cooperate. Once their interests met, as they say, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

As Gordon Copeland might say, this is the relationship between politicians and journalists God had intended.

What's more interesting, though, is the *other* Tamihere story. What Tamihere said in the Wishart interview wasn't new, but, to put it in a nutshell, other gallery journalists could have done the same story, but to do so would have burnt all their bridges with the government and ensured a very difficult and short career. What it took, instead, was an outsider - a nutter in a rowboat who had no bridges anyway - to let it rip.

This is a curious conundrum - to report, you need information; to get information, you need trust; to build trust, you need to refrain from reporting.

There are other, less cynical reasons, too, why certain pieces of information are left permanently in the bottom drawer. A politicians' personal affairs, for instance, are left alone unless they are politically relevant. Like the Geneva Convention, this sort of stuff is supposed to take the edge off a vicious game, and to stop Parliament from becoming a living hell for all those in it.

In one fascinating instance, it's been an open secret for a long time that a certain National MP is gay. Well, actually, numerous National MPs are gay, but this one was married, and doing it with his male secretary. [Apologies - I mistakenly said that he left his wife in the first version, this is untrue. He has not left his wife - Keith.] It was his business and his business alone; everyone knew, but nobody printed a word. But then the Civil Union Bill came along and this MP spoke against it. I know, being gay and not supporting the CUB isn't necessarily hypocritical, but the arguments that he used certainly were. There were rumblings, and a few wondered aloud whether to out him.

If he had been outed, he certainly could not have said the same things and be taken seriously. On the other hand, do we really want to risk re-opening the door to a politicians' personal life being used as debate fodder?

Some secrets are kept for good reasons. And while it's true that journalists are not politicians' best friends, they are actually strangely good at keeping secrets (uh... open secrets, anyway). Some are better at it than others. Go Sunday Star-Times.

It makes you wonder what other secrets are tucked away, but at the end of the day, one has little choice but to trust journalists' judgement in deciding what *not* to report, too.

Ironically, Sunday Star-Times Political Editor Helen Bain use to be John Tamihere's press secretary, before she switched sides and blasted the crap out of him. (JT hat-trick for me!)

The story goes that soon after Bain left, she sent an OIA request to Ministerial Services asking for all the traffic tickets that ministers clocked up in their taxpayer-funded, self-drive cars. Turns out that 13 ministers got pinged, with Tamihere himself getting 6 tickets.

Was Bain working off information she was privileged to as press secretary? The 9th floor apparently thought so - they gave copies of the OIA response to everyone else in the Gallery, who all got to it before Bain. Yup, sucks to be a weekly.

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It's a strange, strange environment to work in. I talked to Tom Scott earlier this year, after reading a book on his time inside the gallery, Ten Years Inside. He left Parliament around the time I entered kindergarten.

"When you work here for a long time, and you've fretted late at night, it's curious - the same thing happened when I worked at a freezing work, and at a psychiatric hospital for long hours - you start to think that the building you're in, the institution you're in is actually totally real, and everything outside it is false. [It's] like you're in some sort of starship, and you've landed on an alien planet - you don't really want to leave, it just becomes your total world."

I think, really, that's the sort of context that the relationship between the Gallery and politicians have to be seen through - part interdependency, part institutionalism, part cabin fever, but all so very human.

You know what I hate? Post-modernism.

The Herald-DigiPoll asked voters "Do you think the Budget will help Labour's chances in the election?". As if it wasn't bad enough that the budget was judged by how well it's been judged, now it's being judged by what the pollsters say about how well people think other people are judging it.

Isn't it the pollsters' *fucking job* to tell us whether the Budget will help Labour's chances in the election? Has their sample of 425 respondents each done their own polling?

The survey also asked whether people think the budget will make them better off. Again - how many of those surveyed actually know details about the budget, apart from the "tax cuts"? And how, pray tell, will knowing what 425 randomly selected individuals think about the budget better inform us about the budget?

The other two questions published from the survey are focused on the "tax cuts". Back at the budget lock-up (when Cullen delivered the budget to journos before the speech), everyone scoffed when they saw it. The ones who didn't were a) too busy laughing, b) too jaded to care, c) economists, or d) not paying attention.

But hang on, the reason for the laughing was because of the hype surrounding it (funny, I can't seem to find the original DomPost article claiming that there were going to be tax cuts - could have sworn I saw it on their front page). It was like expecting an engagement ring, and getting a chocolate bar - there was nothing wrong with the chocolate bar, it was just the shock/comedy of getting something so far removed from expectations. But were those expectations justified?

John Pagani: "Cullen always said there is no room for cutting the tax rates themselves because he thinks there are higher priority uses for the money, so it was obvious that any changes would only involve moving the thresholds.

"I was also not surprised that the cuts would not take effect for a few years. The way the fiscal planning cycle works, the government doesn't often announce tax changes which take immediate effect. An exception: a change of government. The top tax rate was increased immediately after this coalition took office in 1999."

It seems that there was never an intention to make dramatic changes to the tax system. Cullen's failure to reduce expectations before the budget might have been some kind of elaborate PR double-blind-dead-man's-bluff-gambit that went wrong, or just a cock-up with Outlook, but let's keep our eye on the ball here - it doesn't necessarily make the budget bad.

The Right has called this budget nothing short of "highway robbery", their main beef being that the government is taking taxes without providing services, all to strengthen its own position to Nanny-State over us in the future. Philosophically, it makes sense - the Right sees taxes as something that belong to taxpayers and should be spent for his/her well-being.

And while demographic and economic projections suggest that we will be facing a much tighter financial situation in the future and that it would indeed be prudent to save now, prudent doesn't mean necessary.

Choosing to splurge now and pay for it later with interest is imprudent - but fuck it, why not? (My $50,000 student loan can attest to my commitment to this school of thought.) There is a genuine (and not altogether unreasonable) choice between spending now and saving up for spending later, so why shouldn't the taxpayer decide, rather than the government?

It's a complex question, whether the state is just a glorified service-provider or whether it has responsibilities to a community, something more than the sum of its members. Five years of studying political philosophy has taught me that this question is so complex and imponderable that, in fact, it can only be satisfactorily resolved with guns.

But while the underlying question is somewhat tricky, this particular case contains a spanner for the neo-liberal conception of the state (that it is there to provide services for taxpayers): If the present generation wants a tax cut now and pension in the future, it'll be the next generation who'll have to pick up the tab. So much for individual responsibility.

It is, of course, not a fault of the theory, but a fault of the system - for providing pensions and for allowing old people to vote. But nonetheless, it does mean that the prerogative for hoarding money should remain with the government. In fact, those on the Right should be applauding such a move, for ensuring that baby-boomers save for their own retirement rather than force future generations to subsidise them.

Well, come on then. Applaud.

Fine. Be that way.

All this inter-generational subsidy stuff ties into student loans, of course. More on that next week, when I'm back from my three-day holiday, which I'll spend eating fish in Kaikoura.

For political junkies who have been good enough to plough through all this fiscal/philosophical stuff, I'll leave you with a PR view of the budget, from John.

"I was working in talkback radio at the time of the 1991 'Mother of all Budgets', and I clearly remember people, including media commentators, calling that one 'boring'. And every budget since has been called boring. I don't think they're boring, but you need to know enough about some technical issues to get excited about the policy choices going on. So they are... ummm, a wonk fest.

"The budget is handled in an effective way, PR-wise - this government has some skilled practitioners at the top level! But that's not the main reason things are done the way they are. The process is transparent and predictable because it is sound economics to be transparent and predictable. Key economic decision-makers - like businesses - hate surprises. And, it should be noted, 'no surprises' is a trademark of this government's political management, mainly because voters don't really like surprises.

"Fiscal planning has come a long way since Sir Robert Muldoon, Roger Douglas and even David Caygill's budget, when we would teeter on the edge of our seats waiting for the next bombshell. As recently as the early 90s the government didn't even really have a good idea how much money it had - fiscal planning was hair-raising. Thanks to a number of reforms (for which mostly Ruth Richardson and Geoff Palmer can take credit, though I don't know anyone who seriously opposed the ideas), the government's budget strategy is well-signaled. There are multiple updates throughout the year disclosing economic performance, Treasury publishes up to date Crown finance figures and Ministers have to give plenty of notice of major policy changes. But transparency and predictability also mean you get a budget day of just one or two highlights.

"Remember also governments spend the weeks before the budget announcing all the little bits and pieces that would otherwise be lost in the wash. So an extra $50m for childcare is pretty big stuff - it's the same as the cost of the paid parental leave scheme! (Why did Labour resist paid parental leave for so long, yet support childcare subsidies? Beats me.) But schemes like this would not get much attention at all on budget day, so it gets the treatment in advance.

"On the other hand, the government didn't want front page attention for the extra $63m it's putting into overseas aid, because aid is unpopular. So that didn't get a pre-release and the only people who notice are the aid-sector workers who will be very supportive..."

Now that we've all had a weekend of post-budget rest, it's time to answer the question that has, no doubt, been on everyone's minds: How big is that bulge in Cullen's pants, when is he going to whip it out, and where is he going to stick it?

Ahem.

Perhaps I should rephrase it a little more conventionally - is there a huge sum of money sitting around somewhere? If there is money in the system, when will we see it again? And where, when it comes out, is it going to go?

To answer these questions, I asked John Pagani, former Spin Doctor for Jim Anderton and owner of Molesworth and Featherston. Coverage will be split into two parts. This post will deal with the unadulterated fiscal wonk. The second part will deal with the way budgets are released these days, student loans and how they sit on the accounts, as well as the pooper of a tax adjustment. (See end of post.)

First, the easy stuff. There is no Scrouge McDuck-style money bin where Cullen keeps the billions, says John. (Awww...)

"There are not piles of cash sitting in a bank vault somewhere. How much the government has to spend is a matter of policy choices.

"Think of it like your household budget. Each year you can divide your spending up into buying groceries (and other expenses), paying the mortgage, making hire purchase payments, saving something and what is left over, which you could describe as the amount in your cheque account you have put aside for the ebb and flow in your monthly spending patterns.

"This amount left over is the cash surplus Dr Cullen is talking about. It is not an important figure AT ALL. You don't have to pay off the mortgage at the speed we are doing it. You don't have to be in a superannuation scheme, and if you are, you don't have to put in that amount.

"Staying with the household analogy, we might buy a house. That shows up on our balance sheet as both an asset (the value of the house), and a liability (the mortgage on it). Dr Cullen puts this into the frame saying 'we can't afford to buy groceries this year because we have bought a house'. He is funding capital purchases out of current expenditure. This is a very controversial thing to do in public accounting. But it has some justification - the government basically 'buys a house' every year. The analogy with a household budget is inexact because the government's capital account is much more active than yours and mine. However, it is probably more orthodox to exclude capital purchases and liabilities, and only show the financing costs (the 'weekly mortgage payments' needed to buy the new house, not the cost of the house). Making this change would release about another billion dollars in the short-term, though obviously it borrows it from the future."

So, bottom-line, how much does the Govt have to blow on booze in the weekend? It depends. "You need to make judgment calls about how much more slowly you think debt should be repaid, or capital should be purchased and so on."

The corollary is that the Government has chosen to spend its booze money on paying off debt and purchasing assets. Looks like Cullen has been reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

John says that the rate at which the Government has been paying off debt is significant.

"Michael Cullen is very aggressively paying off debt. He hasn't always believed this is a good thing to do. In the 1996 election, for example, he promised to fund Labour's promises by spending the surplus (in fact, he probably would not have been able to, and Labour would have broken an awful lot of promises and been a one term government had Winston Peters chosen Labour in 1996).

"At the time he admitted he would have paid off debt more slowly, and there was an interesting debate about what the appropriate 'gearing' (i.e. debt level) for government would be. But around that time, Bill Clinton was decisively proving the economic power of fiscal surpluses. Aggressive US surpluses helped produce the best US economy in a generation and the Third Way disciples learned that social democrats should be fiscal conservatives."

While Jordan Carter points to the surplus-hoarding as part of a long-term strategic buffer against baby-boomers (we're watching you, future old people!), John sees more immediate strategic value in strong surpluses.

"In my view they are the single most important economic policy change compared to the 90s. The government is not competing in the debt market to borrow money, so some pressure comes off interest rates; the government is not weakening our account with the world through tax-cut-fuelled import binges; there is reduced pressure for policy changes and therefore the accompanying uncertainty which slows investment; we have paid off debt quickly.

"I personally felt, five years ago, that the strategic value of large surpluses was overstated, I have completely changed my mind, because I think the case has been proven.

"But anyone who advocates spending more almost certainly would look at slowing the reduction in the government's debt. That means the government has to pay more interest on its debt, but it frees up a lot of cash which would otherwise go to repayments of capital. Of course, Dr Cullen is right when he points out that those who sold assets 'to pay off debt' have no place now advocating slower debt repayment!"

However, either the prosperity or the frugality is coming to an end, according to the projections.

"At the rate we are paying off debt, we will one day not have any more. But this year's budget says we will keep it at around 20% of GDP from the time it gets that low - next year (06/07). In last year's budget, the 20% level was expected to be held for a few years and then head towards zero debt by about 2020. So the Government is no longer expecting to pay off all the debt, or even to keep paying it off at the present rate. We will keep the same level of relative debt for ever - 20% of GDP.

"This is an important change. It suggests the government has decided to drop one of the pillars of its economic performance to date (although there are other wonky ways to read this). Bottom line, those projections never have and never will come true. Policies will be changed before 2020, I think we can be certain."

[At the Great Blend last night, a panel of people who knew what they were talking about and myself talked about political coverage and blogs. It was a bit daunting that there was over a century of journalistic experience at the table - Gordon Dryden had over half a century by himself! I thought the extra table was the kiddies table, for me. Gordon namechecked about a dozen MPs from back in his day, and the only one I knew was M. J. Savage. Talked about "The War", and the "Communists", too. Uh... are they albums or something?

Anyhoo, I lamented the fact that so much political coverage "these days" are stories about stories or commentary about commentary, etc.

Having the media looking at how stuff will be received by the media is interesting for those of us who are interested in this sort of thing, but misses the point of actually looking at whatever the hell it was that the media was supposed to be looking at in the first place.

So, while the PR rationale behind the budget and how it was leaked is admittedly sexy, I figured that an analysis of the budget itself was more important. Hope you agree...]

The 2005 Budget Lunch delivered few surprises and commentators agree that, while it was not the usual pre-election splurge of a Budget Lunch, it satisfied the needs of its key stakeholders with its close attention to detail and well-targeted programme.

Held in the Deloittes Gallery, overlooking the Wellington Stadium, Press Gallery journalists and government analysts were locked up for three hours - deprived of cellphones - while the Budget Lunch was delivered.

Service was excellent and ambiance was good, though the 1600-page placemats (labelled "The Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand") were somewhat awkward. Light entertainment was provided by local act Michael "Doctor" Cullen, who was popular with the crowd.

Treasury officials waited on the rows of journalists, yum char style, offering media kits and supplements. Most of the ingredients had been left out in the open for weeks, and were dry and tasteless as a result.

Media interest, however, remained high. Nick Venter was overheard advising his comrades, on his way to the lunch table, "better hurry - or the Herald will scoop it all up."

The key features of the 2005 Budget Lunch:

* Corned beef bagels, the centrepiece for the budget lunch that delivers on promised saltiness and meatiness.

* Potato salad, a programme to assist the Government in reaching its goal to eliminate Press Gallery hunger by 13:45. Augmented by surprisingly sophisticated mustard seed and ham-bits sauce policy.

* Small programmes of tasty pastry innovations, including the pumpkin and feta pie and a fluffy initiative to support delicate multiflavoural pastries in New Zealand.

Overall, the Budget Lunch delivered beyond expectations. On the back of this Budget Lunch, I'd give the Government another term. Not on the actual Budget, though. That was shit.

Well, okay, I can't back that up. This has, of course, just been light relief in light of how boring the budget was. Seriously, though, the lunch was really good, but that should probably be credited to the caterers at the Stadium rather than the Treasury. And Cullen says that there's no such thing as a free lunch... ha!

Seriously seriously, though, I'm tracking down John Pagani for a chat about the budget. John was, once upon a time, Spin Doctor to Jim "Tax and Spend" Anderton. He is now director of PR firm Sugar Media and part-owner of Molesworth & Featherston, currently living it up in Paris.

(Will post John's budget analysis on Monday, when the working crowd comes back. Watch this space.)

Also, I guess my source was wrong about the election date being announced on Budget Night. I expect a full refund for that beer, Mr X. While on the subject of poor investments, I placed a $5 bet the other night on Kedgley pulling out of the Wellington Central race before election day. Ah, if only we still had FPP - betting on the election would be so much more fun.