“Well that’s what I mean by HYPERBOLE! … Here we go!”
Note how dominant Hooton is, and how little Williams has to say.
From the Left and From the Right, Radio NZ National, Monday 5 October 2015
Kathryn Ryan, Matthew Hooton, Mike Williams
Note how dominant Hooton is, and how little Williams has to say.
From the Left and From the Right, Radio NZ National, Monday 5 October 2015
Kathryn Ryan, Matthew Hooton, Mike Williams
Part 1 of 2
“Hissy fit? You were listening to a different show.” *
—- Matthew Hooton, 90 minutes later.
—- Matthew Hooton, 90 minutes later.
First topic today: the TPPA. From the beginning, Hooton takes charge, as always, embarking on a long monologue full of P.R.-speak….
MATTHEW HOOTON: ….. It’s about twenty-first century business, it’s about modern supply chain management, so it’s a different form from what, uh, y’know, we’re used to when we’re talking about the hangovers from the post-Second World War type GATT arrangements. Ummm, but they will be doing some details and they’ll be hoping that every i can be dotted and t crossed, to use the cliché, and then they’ll have their press conference and at some point we’ll see the text and THEN, ahhhhm, it’ll all begin again in the public domain. Because the chances of it being ratified by the U.S. Congress would have to be low, so there will be an almighty public debate involving every business, every union, every academic on one side or the other of this debate that will last probably for some more years.
…[At this point Mike Williams makes his first contribution; he loudly clears his throat]….
KATHRYN RYAN: Mike, it has to be today or it’s probably never going to happen, I think was the consensus wasn’t it. Because we know trade ministers have to head off to some other meeting somewhere, a G-8 or a G-20 meeting somewhere, and of course the big factor with the timing is whether, as Matthew has just alluded to, there is time for this to make its way through Congress before Obama’s time is up. Ahh, so what is your gut instinct on what’s happening right now?
MIKE WILLIAMS: Well I think, ahhm, SOMETHING will be announced at three o’clock. Um, if only because I think the ministers, a large proportion of the ministers, have got a meeting in Istanbul tomorrow. Be interesting to see WHAT is announced, umm, there was a leak about twenty-four hours ago that the Australians and the Americans had reached an agreement on biologicals, I think they’re called but this is in fact drugs. Ahhhm, whether there’s ANYTHING on dairy or not will be fascinating, and I think that the two holdouts there, who are the USA and Canada, are, frankly, unlikely to budge. Canada’s only three weeks—two weeks—off a general election with a very powerful dairy lobby, a very protected industry, so, y’know, it’s, it’s VERY interesting times and we have no idea what’s gonna come out.
……..
KATHRYN RYAN: … The other sticking points have been the patents on the medicines…. This is not a small matter. I don’t wanna re-, y’know, re-debate this, but with the sheer volume of quite um, y’know, dramatic, um, ahhh, treatments that are coming, ahhh, on stream and the price impacts of an extended patent, that’s been another big factor. In the end, what is the debate gonna boil down to politically in New Zealand? Whether we got done on dairy, ahhhh, Mike? Whether we got, y’know, whether we got, on balance, a better deal when we instigated the whole damn thing effectively didn’t we! A better deal, a better situation than we’re in now.
MIKE WILLIAMS: Well I, look, I think a lot of the heat’s gone out of this debate because of Helen Clark’s statement. Umm, she supported TPP very STRONGLY, and standing beside John Key—
KATHRYN RYAN: Well was that HELPFUL at this time of the negotiations, to have a former prime minister saying New Zealand can’t NOT be in it? Was that a helpful intervention?
MIKE WILLIAMS: It’s very interesting because there were two aspects to it. One, Helen Clark always was a committed free trader, I mean I watched debates in caucus on these issues, and she was very firm that free trade was a good deal for, ahhh, New Zealand, but she stepped out of her comfort zone, ‘cos she NORMALLY makes NO comments at all on New Zealand politics, and that, you could argue, is kind of international politics, but—
KATHRYN RYAN: Hmmmm, this was also at the same time though, as negotiators and trade ministers were saying we’re not gonna sign a deal that doesn’t, y’know, doesn’t meet the threshold on dairy.
MATTHEW HOOTON: This is her legacy. She launched these talks. I mean, the original Trans Pacific Partnership with um, y’know, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore and Brunei, she launched, she completed. And then she lobbied very hard as prime minister to bring the United States in, which was always the plan. Umm, so this is her legacy as prime minister and it’s going to be an historic achievement for New Zealand if it, if it happens so I don’t think it would be surprising that she would have made those comments.
KATHRYN RYAN: No, it’s more the timing of it was my point.
MATTHEW HOOTON: Well, yeah.
KATHRYN RYAN: But I think there was also a caveat, if I’m correctly reading what I read from, um, Tim Groser, the caveat which didn’t necessarily make the soundbite, which is “If it is a good deal.” [giggles]
MATTHEW HOOTON: Yeah, right.
KATHRYN RYAN: Which is quite an important caveat.
MATTHEW HOOTON: I think that what, I mean, I thought that in a few sentences, she cut through and made the case for this deal, ahh, in a way which the current prime minister has not really done in seven years. She made the case for why New Zealand should be part of this in principle, ahhh, and she did so very efficiently, and it’s very, how COULD you disagree with what she said? Umm, I know we’re going to be victims of massive hyperbole over the next twenty-four hours because the likes of Tim Groser, umm, y’know, this has been twenty years’ work for him. For all our diplomats, this has been New Zealand’s number one foreign policy objective for twenty years.
KATHRYN RYAN: Yeah but the question is whether it leaves us net better off given how much we had already liberalized most of our economy—
MATTHEW HOOTON: Well this is—
KATHRYN RYAN: And, and second—
MATTHEW HOOTON: [impatiently] Yeah.
KATHRYN RYAN: —the real gain for us was always going to be dairy. Are we in a better position—
MATTHEW HOOTON: [in an impatient, peremptory tone] Dairy’s seven per cent of our economy. This is just the, the, the CARTOONISH way of presenting this. And it goes to what I said at the outset: this is not, this deal is not about putting unmodified commodities across borders. That is where trade negotiations were sixty years ago.
KATHRYN RYAN: It’s also where our biggest exporter still is.
MATTHEW HOOTON: It is our, it is a [sic] important export for New Zealand and it is seven per cent of the economy. What this is about—and it’s DWARFED by tourism, it’s increasingly DWARFED by other services, um, what this is about, and I think that this is why the critics are absolutely right when they say this is not a trade deal, and why, I think, in many ways, the supporters of the deal have not promoted this rationally and sensibly, because the whole thing is oh, y’know, “We’ll get better dairy access” and we hear from Malcolm Bailey and he’s on the delegation. What this is about is looking at the supply chain that starts from research and development and intellectual property and goes through to the final consumer behind the borders. And this is the first in the world, other than arguably the European Union, and some of APEC’s efforts, to say that international business is no longer about exporting things across borders.
MIKE WILLIAMS: Mmmm.
KATHRYN RYAN: Okay, it does say that. Then we have the other arguments, and PLEASE let’s not get bogged down again, but these arguments about sovereignty, you’re gonna have governments being sued in these international tribunals or worse, where they’ll just be delayed and public health policies they might introduce these kinds of things, so that’s where you get—
MATTHEW HOOTON: Well that’s what I mean by HYPERBOLE! So while Groser is—
KATHRYN RYAN: Well it’s NOT hyperbole, it’s happening right now to Australia, over—
MATTHEW HOOTON: It’s NOT happening.
KATHRYN RYAN: The plain packaging is happening right now. Okay? And that is, that is—
MATTHEW HOOTON: Here we go! A single case, that hasn’t been won, that won’t be won, the Australian government will prevail over Philip Morris and that’ll be the end of that matter. But what, um, y’know, while we’re victims of hyperbole from the pros, we’re also told people are gonna die and this sort of thing and I think the most intelligent way to look at this is umm, y’know, it is not the “world historical breakthrough”, it is not “bigger than Ben Hur”, “best thing that—“. Y’know, it’s not, nor is it the most evil thing. It is an important way of integrating, um, our economy further with other economies.
KATHRYN RYAN: Right. Mike, your take on how this is going to play politically, and for whom, and what is that gonna depend on?
MIKE WILLIAMS: Well I think Helen Clark’s statement has probably defanged the MODERATE left. It will not, um, uh, alter the, y’know, the um, Jane Kelseys of this world, but I actually think it will boil down to some sort of benefit-cost ratio. Y’know, will we get more dairy exports, what will the government’s slice of that be, and what will it cost for more drugs? And if we’ve gotta pay half a billion dollars more, y’know, increase the Pharmac budget by five hundred million dollars and we don’t, ahhhh, get that back in taxes on dairying, then um, that’ll be a bad deal. But it’ll take a while to um, to work out. So let’s, y’know, we really DON’T know what’s there, we’re SPECULATING at the moment.
….An uneasy silence ensues, then the host realizes that Williams has nothing more to offer….
KATHRYN RYAN: All right. Let’s look at some of the other big matters around the place. It has been quite a focus hasn’t it, on the great and the good gathering in the United States….
END OF PART ONE
Coming up in Part Two: Some of the most vacuous chat to be heard anywhere outside of an ACT caucus meeting, including this gem by Mike Williams: “Well I think John Key actually gave a very good speech, and so did Murray McCully.”