Bill English is the most important politician in New Zealand’s general election campaign. The overwhelmingly central feature of electoral debate is the economy, and all the various issues relating to it such as inequality, public sector cut backs, unemployment, asset sales, and the general nature of ‘slump capitalism’ and what it means for those that want to govern. As the Minister of Finance over the last three years, and the person vying to remain in that role, Bill English has a lot of issues and questions to face over the economy. The Treasury’s pre-election economic and fiscal update has just come out, and it’s pretty sober and sometimes pessimistic stuff – suggesting that there’s a still a real chance of an economic meltdown occurring in the next couple of years. So how will English deal with these issues? Where in society will the belt-tightening take place? What plans beyond partial asset sales and further public sector cuts, does National have for rejuvenating the economy? I’m interviewing Bill English today at 12 noon as part of University of Otago Vote Chat – which you can watch live-streamed at www.bit.ly/ruN37y But what would you like me to ask him? [Read more below]
The economy is the big issue that everyone should be focusing on over the next month of the election campaign. The various parties and politicians need to be strongly quizzed, challenged, and prodded about their plans and solutions for the state of the economy and all the economic-related issues (unemployment, provision of social services, etc). At the moment, the debate has been somewhat lacklustre, vague, and non-dynamic.
This week Bill English has responded to Treasury’s PREFU by acknowledging that the economic pain hasn’t actually started yet and that cutting debt will be painful. He says that we can’t underestimate how demanding the challenge will be. So how will the National Government achieve all of this?
According Gordon Campbell, ‘government has two main policy planks – the partial asset sales and the benefit reform process – for which it has yet to provide any kind of net costings’. Furthermore, National ‘is heading into the election campaign asking the public for a blank cheque in two of its main policy areas. We should be asking for more’. Indeed. So what questions should Bill English specifically be asked?
Certainly there needs to be some greater detail on what National plans for the core public service. Undoubtedly there are going to be some continued cuts and layoffs. This has been happening over the last three years, but it’s occurred without any real strong signal from National about what it’s going to do. Similarly in other economic areas the Government is still rather vagues and sometimes glib about its plan for ‘Building a Brighter Future’.
So I’ll be asking him all about those things above. As well as that, I’ll be asking some of the usual questions that I’ve been asking other MPs – about gay marriage, inequality, issues of ethnicity, drug reform, and alcohol use.
If anyone has additional topics and specific questions that they want put to Bill English, please let me know – or participate on the Twittersphere in realtime (see details below). Of course, I may not be able to use all the questions you suggest, but it’s helpful to get ideas from others and it’s useful to know what topics you find particularly interesting.
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The University of Otago Vote Chat takes place every week until the general election. The interviews occur in front of a public audience at the University of Otago Media Production studios, where the conversation is filmed for livestreaming on the internet and as a podcast for iTunes.
The intention is to make these political meetings rather different from the usual stage-managed and bland affairs that can happen during election campaigns. So there’ll be lots of challenging and quirky questions, and the MP won’t be allowed to revert to simply giving the usual well-rehearsed campaigning speech. The audience can help by heckling, cheering, or merely tweeting their reaction and questions to the Twitter feed – using the hashtag #OUVoteChat2011 – which will be projected up on the lecture theatre screen.
If you’re in Dunedin there is still the ability to come along and participate and/or watch – but seating is limited to about 45 or so – so turn up early. The Media Production Studio is on the 2nd floor of the Owheo Building, 133 Union Street East (Cnr of Union Street East and Forth Streets). You can see a map here:
http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?q=133+union+street+east+dunedin&hl=en&sll=-41.244772,172.617188&sspn=37.305694,86.572266&vpsrc=0&t=m&z=16
If you want to watch the live-stream of the interviews, go to:
http://www.otago.ac.nz/its/mediaproduction/streaming/mpstudio.html
Eventually all the interviews will be available as podcasts to download from iTunes, but in the meantime you can also watch them on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/OUVoteChat
To keep up with all the detail, there’s a Facebook “Vote Chat 2011” page here:
http://www.facebook.com/VoteChat2011
