Friday 29 May 2020

Guyon Espiner's fanboy interview with that old zombie Palmer (Apr. 9, 2017)

RNZ: The 9th floor – Palmer

WrittenBy:  - Date published:9:01 am, April 9th, 2017 - 70 comments
Categories: history, journalism - Tags: , , ,, 
On RNZ Guyon Espiner is running what will be a fascinating series, The 9th Floor, consisting of interviews with five ex NZ PMs: Geoffrey Palmer, Mike Moore, Jim Bolger, Jenny Shipley, Helen Clark. First up (airing on Friday) was Sir Geoffrey Palmer:
The Reformer – Geoffrey Palmer: Prime Minister 1989-90
NZ’s earliest living Prime Minister begins the series reflecting on the revolutionary fourth Labour government and his year as one of its three Prime Ministers.
…
Sir Geoffrey Palmer was one of New Zealand’s most prolific lawmakers and reformers, but a reluctant politician.
Imagine a country where the Prime Minister set the price of basic goods. Where the Cabinet, without having to even put it to a vote in Parliament, decided the wages you get and the taxes and interest rates you pay.
That was the country Geoffrey Palmer was determined to change when he entered Parliament in 1979. It was an economy, he told The 9th Floor, that no young New Zealander would recognise. … Palmer, a constitutional lawyer, describes Prime Minister Robert Muldoon as running an elected dictatorship between 1975 and 1984. It’s a big claim. …
Ultimately of course Palmer would get his chance to run the country too. He was Prime Minister for 13 months sandwiched between David Lange and Mike Moore, who a desperate Labour party turned to just two months before the 1990 election in a bid to save the furniture.
…
So what was it like to run the country? What is it like to be Prime Minister? “I found being the leader a nuisance,” Palmer told us. …
Plenty more in the text, but for the full hour-long interview you’ll need to listen…
https://twitter.com/TracyJNeal/status/850793607313342464

70 comments on “RNZ: The 9th floor – Palmer”

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  1. Sanctuary1
    9 April 2017 at 9:14 am
    That went a long way to re-confirming my view of Geoffrey Palmer as a very intelligent uber-technocrat completely besotted with his own cleverness.
    The man has the certainty and fanaticism of the technocrat, the arrogance of a self-regarding intellectual and the political nous of a fool. He was, and remains, a very dangerous conviction politician with scant regard for the opinions of the hoi polloi.
    Listening to Palmer, the viciously toxic culture of arrogance of the Roger Douglas era Labour cabinet comes flooding back.
    • Morrissey1.1
      9 April 2017 at 9:29 am
      A pretty good summary of Palmer, Sanctuary. I was appalled by Guyon Espiner’s breathless and admiring tone as he interviewed the Great Man.
      In fact, of course, Palmer was not brave, or principled, or particularly clever. His manipulation by the loathsome ex-president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, was perhaps the lowpoint of his career….
      • dukeofurl1.1.1
        9 April 2017 at 1:36 pm
        I think you are mis- understanding the type of interview, I understand its a ‘let them speak’ series on former PMs.
        It not meant to be a challenging of their previous decisions or playing the devils advocate on their current views.
        • WILD KATIPO1.1.1.1
          9 April 2017 at 5:17 pm
          Dont bullshit and just answer the fucking question.
          Your making excuses for their treachery.
          Despicable .
          • dukeofurl1.1.1.1.1
            9 April 2017 at 5:30 pm
            Your rantings arent worth reading let alone commenting on. Still losing it after all these years
            • WILD KATIPO1.1.1.1.1.1
              9 April 2017 at 7:15 pm
              Son,… your a ‘new’ kid on the block. It shows.
              ‘let them speak’
              Yeah… weve had 33 years of ‘ letting them speak’
              They still talk trash.
              Along the same lines as you do.
              • red-blooded…
                9 April 2017 at 9:29 pm
                Hey, how about dialling back on the personal abuse? dukeofurl had a perfectly reasonable point – Espiner’s role wasn’t to interrogate or to push his own viewpoint (whatever that may be), it was to give us some insight into the viewpoint of the subject of the interview. He’ll be interviewing others, too, and playing the same role with them. Besides, has it occurred to you that if you lost interest after 20 minutes (as you say below at 1.2), then maybe you’re not the best person to comment on the interview as a whole?
                • WILD KATIPO…
                  9 April 2017 at 10:29 pm
                  Dialing back?
                  How about you dial back on 33 years of bullshit and lies, buddy and stop being such a neo liberal apologist?
                  Its guys like Espiner and co that have enabled these neo liberal pricks to be seen with soft sentimental lenses ‘ because they are senior statesman types’ – or otherwise fulfilling some sort of perverted ‘ father figure’ in the under-confident NZ psyche.
                  If Espiner cant overcome his boyish state of being overwhelmed by dealing with someone that held such a dubious position of influence over so many at such a critical time then maybe he is the wrong person to be interviewing Palmer.
                  I would challenge you and every other closet neo liberal apologist to answer the fucking question of why someone like Kim Hill wasn’t doing the interviewing instead of a ‘ soft ‘ interviewer Guyon Espiner ?
                  Hill would have torn Palmer to shreds and you know it.
          • Richard McGrath1.1.1.1.2
            10 April 2017 at 6:02 pm
            “Dont bullshit and just answer the fucking question.”
            Er… what question?
    • WILD KATIPO1.2
      9 April 2017 at 11:30 am
      Spot on , Sanctuary and Morrissey. My thoughts as well. I didnt even get 20 mins into it before I lost interest and was disgusted in not only Espiners obvious admiration of the man but the real truth about Palmer.
      I bloody lived through that era and I know what this country was like long BEFORE Rogernomics and the bloody mess it is in now. 33 years of that neo liberal garbage.
      ‘ SIR’ Geoffrey Palmer?
      That mans nothing more than a treasonous louse to me. As have been so many that have followed in his footsteps in both National and Labour since. Just a treasonous , lying pack of thieving neo liberal lice.
      • Sanctuary1.2.1
        9 April 2017 at 1:35 pm
        I actually thought Espiner did a good job, he let Palmer talk and we got a relaxed and unguarded interview from Palmer, where he did a pretty good job of condemning himself to any discerning listener.
        • WILD KATIPO1.2.1.1
          9 April 2017 at 4:54 pm
          Pretty much. But let not the history books record him ( Palmer ) as anything other than any other past anarcho-capitalist saboteurs , however.
          Because THAT is what the neo liberal IS.
          Call a louse a louse and be done with it.
          No more pandering around trying to find nice words for a treacherous wanker. As for Espiner. the guy was in primary school when others of my age group had to front head on Douglas and his bullshit garbage.
          So I’m hardly going to take Espiner as someone with credibility through life experience.
          Just another newbie in my opinion , by and large.
          • WILD KATIPO1.2.1.1.1
            9 April 2017 at 5:09 pm
            Dont believe me ?
            Anarcho-capitalism – Wikipedia
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
            Do some relaxing reading and learn what sort of scum have been operating in our country for the last 33 years.
            Hopefully you will want to strip each and every last one of these fuckers of any pretentious, undeserved title they ever have had bestowed on them after reading and realising just how much we have all been played.
          • Richard McGrath1.2.1.1.2
            10 April 2017 at 6:09 pm
            “As for Espiner. the guy was in primary school when others of my age group had to front head on Douglas and his bullshit garbage.”
            I too had to front head on the policies of Douglas – it was great. A refreshing change from the Polish shipyard socialism of Muldoon and the National Party that was sending our country to the wall. Hell, I even voted Labour in 1987 as a sign of my appreciation.
            Most of us didn’t realise how oppressed the average New Zealander had been until the Lange government took over.
            • McFlock1.2.1.1.2.1
              10 April 2017 at 6:17 pm
              …and doubled the youth suicide rate. You forgot to celebrate that bit.
              • Richard McGrath…
                10 April 2017 at 7:36 pm
                You are confusing correlation with causation. What evidence do you have linking one with the other? How did you eliminate other influences on the youth suicide rate? And why on earth do you suggest that youth suicide is a reason for celebration?
                • McFlock…
                  10 April 2017 at 7:45 pm
                  I’m no more confused than you are when you talk about lab4 being refreshing.
                  Many other people had a different experience.
                  As to your last question,you’re a selfish shitheel, so I figured that you’d just be celebrating lower numbers of nonproductive economic units.
                  • Richard McGrath…
                    10 April 2017 at 8:53 pm
                    I note you have evaded addressing the issue of correlation/causation. You choose to insult rather than engage, which I think reflects poorly on you.
                    • Nic the NZer…
                      10 April 2017 at 9:10 pm
                      You have another reasonable cause to suggest for the doubling of the youth suicide rate (other than the prevailing economic policy which threw many into economic hardship)?
                      The causal argument of economic hardship and disengagement leading to a decision to suicide is more than clear, as is the correlation. You need to suggest something stronger.
                    • McFlock…
                      10 April 2017 at 9:18 pm
                      Not really.
                      I know you’d never be convinced that the waddling, quacking, feathery thing in front of you is a duck. No point flogging those dead teenagers.
                    • Richard McGrath…
                      11 April 2017 at 3:52 am
                      The onus is on those suggesting a causal relationship to prove it, not for me to suggest an alternative cause for any increase in the youth suicide rate.
                      Female youth (age 15-24) suicide rates decreased year on year from 1988 to 1991, by the way.
                    • McFlock…
                      11 April 2017 at 11:44 am
                      No onus.
                      Female youth (age 15-24) suicide rates decreased year on year from 1988 to 1991, by the way.
                      Figure 57 says you like to pick cherries, by the way. Slight declines in 15-24yo female suicide rates in the last two years of lab4 still leave a higher suicide rate in than group than in 1984 and don’t offset the year on year increases in male suicide rates, and frankly you probably know that, you dissembling fuckwit.
            • Nic the NZer1.2.1.1.2.2
              11 April 2017 at 10:06 am
              McFlock identified the correlation between changes in the economy (exacerbating economic hardship for some) and a rise in the suicide rate.
              Richard pointed out that correlation does not imply causation.
              But the causal link here between economic hardship and a decision to suicide on an individual case by case basis, is well known. This implies the causal link between the correlation of certain economic changes and a rise in the aggregate suicide rate is real.
              The onus remains on Richard to establish a stronger alternative or at least identify a potential confounding factor. The reason the onus is on Richard is because of the strong (if well known) evidence that the correlation here is caused by a causal mechanism. This is bolstered by similar correlations also applying in other countries where mass economic hardship was experienced (not necessarily so intentionally).
              The evidence here is about as strong as you will see for anything in any social science (including the entire sub domain of economics).
      • Once ..whatever1.2.2
        9 April 2017 at 4:51 pm
        Indeed. As he said himself – Thank Christ I didn’t become a journalist (to paraphrase) – or we’d have gotten to the shitty state we’re in a lot sooner with the MSM.
        There were a few other indicators as to where he stands as well (the true neo-lib though not wanting to admit it) – like the reforms “happened too quickly” – but you know ….. TINA
        And a few other bits like ‘fortress New Zealand’ – Christ on a bike – he should look at a few immigration laws NOW based almost completely on monetary value of the immigrant rather than their worth as citizens and the contribution they’re likely to make.
        Whether intentional or not, S’geoffrey unfortunately was responsible (along with cohorts) for the commodification of all and everything.
        And just so I’m not coming across as totally negative, he was correct (or should I say right) about a few things – all from the position of comfort and security:
        – such as the competence of some of his peers and populist politics
        – a commitment to democratic process and slowing things down (democracy is supposed to be slow and awkward)
        – he’s apparently as scared now as he was when Labour took office and the country was damn near broke – which begs the question “what was the past 30 years all about?” if after those decades of economic brilliance – we could be facing the same shit all again with a different and more potent stink, AND I might add affecting a lot more people
        – etc.
      • Marcus Morris1.2.3
        13 April 2017 at 4:30 pm
        I lived through those years as well, just as I had lived through the previous nine years of Muldoon, who under MMP, wouldn’t have got a second term. Muldoon held enormous and frightening power – read Hugh Templeton’s book “All Honourable Men”. I lived through the twelve years of Holyoke’s laissez-faire government when we were dragged into the Vietnam war. I remember well the joy and relief we felt when Norm Kirk finally became P.M. and we showed the world a little intestinal fortitude (nuclear testing in the Pacific). I remember the palpable despair when Kirk died and Muldoon (aided and abetted by Bob Jones who ran a despicable anti Rowling campaign in Wellington) raged virtually unchallenged against the thoroughly decent Bill Rowling . David Lange’s victory over Muldoon in 1984 brought great rejoicing and he and Palmer proved an excellent political leadership team and it was very interesting to get a bit of insight into that relationship via the discussion with Guyon Espiner. A point that wasn’t made was that Labour actually increased its majority in the ’87 elections so the country as a whole was not too concerned at events during Labour’s first three years of office. There is no question that Roger Douglas’ policies paved the way for the neoliberal economics which have prevailed since but it is certain that David Lange became acutely aware of this, albeit too late. The fact that Prebble, Douglas, the Auckland historian, Bassett, went on to form a right wing party more than justified Lange’s concerns. We now have MMP, a system I applaud, and Geoffrey Palmer, a thoroughly decent and honourable man in my opinion, played a large hand in this improvement to the democratic process. Finally, I thought that is was significant that Sir Geoffrey expressed regret that he had “signed off” the sale of Telecom. “treasonous louse” – I don’t think so.
    • Jlo731.3
      11 April 2017 at 3:08 am
      So you prefer smiling celebrity driven PM’s like John Key then?
  2. red-blooded2
    9 April 2017 at 9:33 am
    Wow – you and I seem to have been listening to different interviews!
    Palmer made some reasonable points and he also admitted that the government he was part of should have provided more support to people who suffered job losses because of their policies. It was interesting to hear his thoughts on issues like Brexit, Trump and compulsory voting. You don’t have to agree with all of his opinions but it’s still worth thinking through his reasoning. And, BTW, there’s nothing wrong with being clever!
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