Politics is getting rough around Rena. The various political parties are sniping at opponents, allegations are being thrown around, and there’s strong acrimony between Labour and National.
All of that’s to be expected, especially during an election campaign, but the level of aggression seems higher than usual, and we can expect to see many more sparks fly before November 26. This is all well conveyed in Audrey Young’s Rena oil-spill emergency winds up political leaders as well as RNZ’s Focus on crisis instead of pot shots, Goff tells PM, and Lloyd Burr’s Key dismisses Goff’s oil drilling moratorium as 'pure politics'. But there’s also a fair bit of consensus developing and alliances being formed, with Labour, the Greens, Mana and New Zealand First all apparently on the same page over the disaster.
Hooton excoriates Steven Joyce for his mismanagement and mis-leadership of both the politics and portfolio relating to the Rena disaster. Hooton’s worth quoting at length on the matter. He says that ‘Joyce failed totally to comprehend what the Rena grounding meant to the Bay of Plenty’, and ‘He did not see that, as transport minister and arguably the most powerful figure in the government after Mr Key, his role was to lead and improve the quality of the response, and ensure it was sufficiently empowered and resourced.
When he spoke publicly, he demonstrated little empathy with locals, telling them there was no point going to the beach to clean up the oil, saying more was on its way and that it could take years to resolve anyway’. Furthermore, ‘It was three days before he even visited the region… Even Mr Key, usually so politically adroit, stayed away for five days and finger-pointed from afar.
Presumably he was acting on the advice of Mr Joyce, also the National Party’s campaign chairman and the government’s PR supremo’. So how did Joyce come to stuff up so badly? Hooton ponders whether Joyce was ‘out of his league when faced with an issue where just doing a poll wouldn’t give him an answer.
Political, it now seems that deep sea oil exploration has just become a lot harder in New Zealand. In fact the two issues of coastal shipping and deep sea oil drilling are about to physically collide this week. The Rena's skipper and navigator, if they re-appear in the Tauranga court next week, will probably pass by Elvis Teddy, skipper of the Te Whanau a Apanui-owned fishing vessel San Pietro, also due in court next week after being charged during protests against Petrobas' oil exploration in April. Teddy already has strong iwi support, but given you may be able to literally smell the issue in the Tauranga Courthouse, deep sea oil exploration looks likely to become a very stinky issue for voters. And although Goff and Labour might be fairly criticized for ‘rewriting policy on the hoof’ with their new moratorium on deep sea oil exploration, electorally it’s likely to be popular.
While the government is furiously trying to de-link the Rena disaster to deep sea oil drilling the task is probably as hopeless as that facing locals fighting 350 tonnes of heavy oil with rubbish bags and rakes. As Tracey Barnett points out in her article,
A word of warning, the locals in the Bay of Plenty have plenty of reasons to doubt Petrobas and government assurances about low risk and "best practice" responses to any emergency. The Rena had 1700 tonnes of oil on board, large tankers can carry 100,000 tonnes. That's a lot of rubbish bags. See also Patrick Gower’s very good item,
Rena Disaster sees Labour rush out policy to stop deep sea drilling. Gower says, ‘Beehive sources were today super sensitive to the Rena spill being linked to deep sea drilling. The reason for that is simple; they fear a public backlash like the one that scuttled its plans for mining in National Parks before they even got off the drawing board’.
Politics carries on outside of the Rena disaster zone. And the following stories are either insightful, interesting, important, or influential: Lane Nichols’
Justice not well served, Elias warns, Andrea Geddis’
Is this really how we have to remember Simon Power?, David Williams’
$2.84m spent on scrapped housing scheme, Claire Trevett’s
BSA dismisses DJ Key complaint, Vernon Small’s
MPs change TV coverage rules in Parliament, John Drinnan’s
Big bosses, big bucks - big cutbacks, Claire Trevett’s
Act line-up attracts Gibbs' money, Anna Leask’s
Call to sack SFO boss over slur, and Chris Trotter’s
John Key is a lucky boy indeed.
And, finally, Labour appears to be shifting tact on economics and state service restructuring. Following on from yesterday’s announcement from David Cunliffe that Labour is joining the Government’s ‘bipartisan consensus’ for fiscal austerity, and that the public service should not expect ‘a lolly scramble’ (
Don't expect a lolly scramble – Labour), today Labour’s Ruth Dyson has responded incredibly softly to National’s announced cuts of 233 staff within the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries – see Felix Marwick’s
Fear MAF cuts will lead to performance problems.
Today’s content:
Rena oil spill
Matthew Hooton (NBR): Key, Smith forced to clean up Joyce’s PR debacle [Not currently online]
Law and order
MAF job losses
Earthquake readiness and recovery
Key/RadioLive decision & media
Election
Gay politics
Other
Bryce Edwards
Fri, 14 Oct 2011