1 SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC We all know what the Beehive looks like, and the old legislative building, but ` like most people ` I've never spent any real time here. I don't know what really goes on inside this place. I do know a lot of people have little respect for politicians. They're generally described as self-serving, untrustworthy, overpaid and out of touch. But is that really true? I've come to parliament to find out. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 MINOR PIANO MUSIC When I think about politicians and parliament, I think about this... Mr Speaker, sit down till I'm finished, for goodness' sake. No dye in these locks, baby. LAUGHTER Well, how come the curtains don't match the carpet? LAUGHTER SPEAKER: Order. Order. Order. Order! I've never understood why they have to behave like this. REPORTER: ...perk-buster Rodney Hide has fronted up late this afternoon on using taxpayers' money to take his partner on holiday and work trips. What it makes me is a person that stuffed up. Bryce, why does the public have such a low opinion of politics and the political process? Wow, where do you start? Politicians` I mean, they're disliked because they do a lot of, uh, crappy things. They do a lot of things that we disagree with and, um, they are the targets of our anger. SUSPICIOUS MUSIC We don't tend to think of politicians as normal people. We don't treat them as normal people. Politicians aren't entirely normal people. They are a special subset of society. In a sense, maybe they are our ruling class, you know, and that` we don't have the deference to them that we used to have, uh, which I think is good. TENSE MUSIC One of the things that's always intrigued me is why anyone would want to be an MP in the first place. TENSE MUSIC SWELLS Is it about public service? Is it ambition? Or is it about a desire for power? 'Would you prefer that I refer to you as Minister or Paula?' would be my first question. Well, I was called Paula and I like Paula. (LAUGHS) Yeah, so please, Paula. I really wanted to make a difference. I'm` I always say I'm this participant, you know? Like, so there's two types of people in life ` there's spectators and there's participants. I realised I had a talent, if you like. I had a skillset that was good at advocating for others. I guess we, um, try and make a difference, like every other MP in this place, I hope. LIGHT STRING MUSIC Listen, people are suspicious of politicians. They'll always be suspicious of politicians. What I say is that there's 121 people who are members of parliament in this current parliament. They are all driven to get here. No one gets to this place unless they're absolutely driven by ambition and ` I think genuinely ` a will to make this country better. Now, there's a great variety of opinions about how to do that, and that's democracy at work. PIANO MUSIC The issue of the cost of that democracy at work ` and specifically politicians' pay and perks ` is one thing that gets people really wound up, including me. Oh, they're on a very good wicket, absolutely. So the basic salary for a backbench MP is around about $150,000. Of course, there's a lot more to it than that. The whole package gives them something around $200,000. So they have, you know, travel allowances. They get an expense allowance of about $20,000, which is just a gift given to them to pay for whatever they want. That's why some people get upset with politicians ` cos they see that they're not really worth $200,000 a year, and of course, cabinet ministers get paid a lot more than that ` a base salary of about $250,000 but a package of around $300,000. I'm not convinced all MPs deserve such high salaries. Surprisingly, I've found a politician who agrees with me. Jan Logie is a list MP for the Greens. It seems like politicians are on a pretty good wicket ` that's 150 plus benefits for a basic MP. That seems pretty good. I th` I'm uncomfortable with the pay I'm on. I'm also aware that, you know, when, um, bank CEOs are wo` earning $4.1 million a year, we're not the heart of the problem, but we are symbolic of inequality, and it's harder to advocate strongly and get people's trust when they see you, um, in a very unrelatable situation. You're the first p-politician who's actually said that. (CHUCKLES) They mostly say, 'We work very hard.' Well` Well, we do. Which is true. Yeah, but so do cleaners. So do rest-home workers who are on the minimum wage. Jan's point is really important because if MPs work hard ` and they say they do ` well, so do many of us. They spend up to 10 days a month in parliament and there's two months' recess over Christmas. MPs also have their own superannuation fund ` for every dollar an MP puts in, the taxpayer gives them $2.50, capped at 20% of their salary. Then there are the travel perks. We've spent millions subsidising domestic and international air travel for ex-MPs and their spouses who served three or more terms before 1999. Sitting MPs are entitled to travel at any time on scheduled travel services throughout NZ. There's no specific travel allowance. Their partners get 20 to 30 one-way domestic trips a year while their kids under 17 get up to eight. Should that not be open to public scrutiny? Because if I'm an MP, I could fly to Queenstown and go skiing, and I don't quite see why taxpayers should be paying for that. What we do need is transparency` How much have we got now? How much`? Very little. We now do get, you know, um, each year published accounts of how much they've spent in, um, their travel budgets, but we get no sense of how they've spent that money. What's their fear around transparency? Is it that we'll see they're rorting the system? Or are they concerned that every little bit of it will be nitpicked by journalists and it will become a big bun fight? Yeah, both of those things, I think. Right. If you're an MP, you don't really want to be under scrutiny, and so that's the natural response of anyone with power is to, you know, give a wee bit of transparency. MPs can say, 'Well, we're publishing some of our stuff,' um, but it's not enough. Um, I think the major problem with politicians' pays` their resour` their resources is the fact that the Official Information Act ` which is, you know, a great piece of legislation ` doesn't apply to politicians. Oh, OK. So it applies to` Everyone apart from them. ...everyone except` And wh` You'd think` And why is that? It's a rort. It's as simple as that. So politicians get to, you know, choose how legislation impacts the world and they've chosen an exemption for themselves, and I` I think it's outrageous. So politicians have exempted themselves from the scrutiny of the Official Information Act. Bryce Edwards thinks it's a rort. Perhaps unsurprisingly, politicians don't. The Official Information Act doesn't apply to parliamentary service ` that's true ` but we're increasingly giving more and more information out. One of the things the current Prime Minister did was insist that new MPs' expenses be revealed on a quarterly basis. It doesn't apply, uh, to the` uh, the detail of what we're doing as far as the spend and that sort of thing, but we actually are more transparent now than we've ever been. So all credit card` all receipts on what we're claiming back are all made public, and the media have a great time in trawling through how much you paid for that cup of coffee. But there is some work that goes on that has to be done in good faith. Ultimately, credit card spending is a small thing. The fundamental issue is a lack of trust. So what's driving that? 1 Politicians have to be good at TV. They have to be convincing. But less and less of us are convinced by anything they say. SIMON DALLOW: Good morning and welcome to Q+A. Today, our old friend, housing... So why don't we trust their motives? Is it because politics is now a career and not a cause? PRODUCER: One minute to go, folks. In the early part of the 20th century, people went in` into politics for, uh, different reasons than they do now. It didn't used to be a career. Wh-Why has that changed? Why do we now have career politicians? Part of it is the money, in my view ` that, um, politics is now a lucrative career and so these days it's more and more common for MPs to go into parliament in their 20s and 30s, um, whereas it used to be in the past something you'd do in your 50s. So you get young people thinking, 'Actually, this is a career,' and then you're gonna approach the business of politics very differently` Absolutely. ...to if you wanted to go in for one term and achieve something. That's right. Politicians used to go in for a term or two ` or three, maybe, at most. Now, they can be in there for decades and they don't have a lot of life experience. LIGHT STRING MUSIC Bill English, the Minister of Finance, has made a career out of politics. So have more than a third of sitting members, according to a University of Otago study. That includes Chris Hipkins, Labour's Chief Whip. This is the Whip's Office guitar. Oh my God. It's probably dreadfully out of tune. He's the man who keeps his MPs in line and on message. I always find the term 'career politician' slightly confusing, because by definition, we're all career politicians. If we've chosen to stand for parliament, then we've chosen to make politics our careers. Why did you want to be a politician? Like, most people wouldn't have a bar of it. I think the vast bulk of people come here passionate about making NZ a better place. Um, quite a chunk of them are wrong, uh, in how they want to do that, but, uh, you know, they actually` everyone's hearts, I think, are in the right place. Th-There will be loads of people watching who won't believe you. They'll just go, 'Nah, it's all about the money and the perks and the jobs and stuff like that.' Look, I've got no grounds to complain about the money. You know, we're well paid for what we do. Um, but that's not why I'm here. Ultimately I could go off and do another job and I'd hope that I'd be as well paid. Cos their argument often is, 'Well, we could get better jobs in the private sector. 'We're doing public service.' Is that true of all of them? Well, some of them could. Some of them ` if you look at their backgrounds, I think that would be very unlikely, and, I mean, you see that with some politicians who've` who've left parliament, found it really hard to get any position. I mean, one of them ended up as a panel beater. He had a wardrobe full of $1000 suits that he couldn't use anymore and he went down and bought a pair of jeans and a shirt from the Warehouse instead and he just went back to being a panel beater. Others have actually even ended up on the dole. As soon as I was coming here and I tweeted, 'I'm off to parliament,' it was the same stuff ` self-serving, corporate sell-outs, blah, blah, blah. Why do you think people think that way about this place? Well, what we do affects their lives, and particularly when you're a minister. So what` what we do ` the decisions we make ` affects them, and so it's personal. So I bet there's a range of emotions and there's some people that are just kind of angry (CHUCKLES), and we seem to bring out the worst in them as well at times. Paula's portfolios include finance, social housing, state services, local government and tourism, which means big decisions and also big days. So I'm usually at my desk, um, by 7. 7.30 is a late start. This morning I gave a speech, um, at a breakfast meeting, so I was there at 7.30. It would be unusual during the week, when I'm here, for me to get home before 11. And` And every hour, I figure, that I don't work here or don't do the paperwork that needs to be done behind it, that's an hour I have to take away from my family in the weekend, cos the work still has to be done. From what I've seen, Paula puts in massive hours and has massive responsibilities. This is not something that I would see every day. Effectively, that's the Minister of Finance and Paula ` who's the Associate Minister of Finance ` making decisions about $52 billion of social spending. Paula has achieved a lot in her life. She was a single mum on a benefit who put herself through university to graduate with a BA. So, what are the qualifications you need for a job like hers? Were you good at maths at school? Well, fortunately I have economists and accountants and analysts that were very good at maths at school. Um, so I was pretty good. I'm very good at taking in detail and then analysing it. I'm learning so much and it's so new and there's new terms, and there's acronyms for everything, for Africa. Uh, so you rely on your own intellect, but equally other people's as well. And how do you keep in touch with the real world? Because when you wander around this place, it feels a bit like being lost in Hogwarts. Grand rooms lead off corridors to even grander rooms. It's all strangely formal, like something from another era, another time. And all that pomp and circumstance ` it feels a long way from our lives. I chose a small cloak and I said to the` Te Ati Awa ` the local iwi who made it for me ` 'It must be something small but of some significance,' and it's meant to signify peace and goodwill to the House. So I wear that every day for question time. And these are actual albatross feathers? They are definitely albatross feathers. It's hard to take horsehair wigs seriously, but until fairly recently, politicians did. This'll be the last wig that was worn consistently by Speaker Peter Tapsell. He was Speaker 1993 to 1996. So this wig is as old as I am. It's probably then appropriate that you try this one on, Nigel. Let's have a look and see whether you'd make a good speaker. Does it make me look wiser? Um... No. > I don't feel wiser. I actually feel` Itchy? > ...slightly itchy and a bit silly, and I'm actually` I think in this` I'm wearing a bit of horsehair that's as old as I am. Yes. (CHUCKLES) To me, all of this pomp and tradition is nice, if a bit eccentric, but I can't help thinking that it just reinforces the sense that parliament and parliamentarians live in a bubble, out of touch with the world outside ` and so are their antics in the House. PIZZICATO STRING MUSIC MUFFLED SHOUTS AND APPLAUSE This is what perplexes me about parliament ` I can't see how any of the name-calling and point-scoring makes for constructive debate. The theory is that this adversarial system holds the government to account, and if you think of it a bit like amateur dramatics, then this is how the theatre's laid out ` as seen on TV, the debating chamber. How this place works is actually quite simple. The House is arranged in a horseshoe shape with the government benches here. The opposition MPs sit over here. The minor parties sit in the middle. Down there in the comfy sheepskin seat is the Speaker, and his job is essentially to be a referee and make sure everybody follows the rules. Press gallery up top there. Public galleries on either side and Speaker's gallery directly facing the Speaker. There's no doubt that there's a sense of history, and it's a very grand room, but one thing that's quite surprising is that it generally feels a lot smaller than it looks on the telly, and the seats in particular are a lot smaller than I expected. Mr Speaker, the opposition begins the year where they left off ` desperate, divided and delusional. Mr Speaker, what is going to be that prime minister's legacy? I think John Key's actually gonna go down in history by what the international press calls him ` 'unidentified guest'. It's where members of parliament actually make their reputation. They have to be good at the cut and thrust of the` the debates and the question time, so a prime minister or a minister of finance must be able to handle those tricky questions that come in from an opposition member. An opposition member ` if he's going to make the grade ` has got to be able to jump and seize on an idea` seize on something that came out of the previous answer in question time and use that to expose the folly of the government. But it's almost like you have to` to be a successful politician you have to behave like the way in the House, but it's the s` it's the very stuff that the public looks at and we despair about. Well, I can understand why the public despairs, cos they don't take the opportunity to actually understand how this place works, and that's because the media only presents the aggro part of question time. PIANO MUSIC And this is where it all kicks off ` the opposition Procedures Room first thing in the morning. Phil Goff. Yeah, the one I'm interested in is the one on transport. I've got a copy of the letter from Simon Bridges to Len Brown basically saying, uh, 'I don't agree with your strategy. I'm not gonna fund you and let's set up another report 'and report back in a year.' We've had reports from Treasury saying it's the right thing, reports from the OECD, and somehow, Simon Bridges knows better. This is something the public never usually gets to see ` opposition MPs bidding to ask questions of the government in the House. We get four or five questions a day. It's pretty, um, competitive as to who gets to ask them, and so everyone comes along with their bids and, um` So when you say` when you say bid... People come in and they make their case as to why they think their question bid should get up versus their colleagues'. There are different types of questions. There can be broadly generic ones where you leave the minister guessing about what you're gonna ask, so it might be, you know, does he stand by all his statements, and then who knows where, you know, that might go, or it could be something quite specific. And is that calculated to make them sweat and get them anxious? Sometimes there's a little bit of that. You wanna catch them off guard, uh, and prove that they're not on top of the job that they're doing. Or it could be that actually you wanna ask them something really specific to prove that they're not on top of the job they're doing. ...is the cock-up they've made of future prohibitions on land sales to overseas people. So that's` So we've got a bit of ammo to throw at them. The primary objective in selecting questions is making the government squirm. Today it's Housing Minister Nick Smith's slip-up while unveiling Auckland housing policy. Labour is determined to embarrass him. I think Andrew's` You've gotta follow through, Andrew, on the` calling for Smith's being stripped of` Smith to be stripped of his warrant cos of the fiasco. Labour wants to push for the minister's head, but the process which leads to the actual question being asked in the House is rigidly complex. Right, well, we've got the questions from the procedures room and they come here to the research room. This is the brains trust, and what happens here is the questions are refined so they meet the Standing Orders of the House to make sure they're asked in the right way. Um, and they're also fact-checked. What's really interesting is even though the rest of the world does stuff by email, this actually goes back on paper. This is the first time this has actually felt quite West Wing, because on the West Wing, they are striding along having conversations just like this. Yes. Talking fast, walking fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, walking fast. It's great. The Whip signs off the final questions. And you can genuinely feel the tension building. I didn't realise the government gets the questions beforehand, but just the primary questions, not the tricky supplementary follow-ups. Because I've got five portfolios, I have got, um, five private secretaries. So these guys will furiously go through everything they know. They will ring their departments immediately. They will know that there's a question that's come in. Everyone will kind of scramble around for two hours. I'm likely to be in a meeting and be texting them and going, 'I think they might be going here and here,' and 'Remember that report from last week,' and 'How about you pull out this information as well?' and 'This is the general direction I want to go.' DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC MUFFLED SHOUTING Order. Order. Supplementary question. Andrew Little. Then it's question time ` gloves off. The opposition lays into Housing Minister Nick Smith. When Auckland house prices are going up by $19,000 in one month and a shortage of houses getting worse every day on his watch, doesn't he think that Auckland families deserve more than the half-baked, last-minute fiascos that pass for a housing policy under this minister? The PM fires back. We are getting the job done, but the reason it's such a big job is cos we inherited such a mess from people who ` again ` did absolutely nothing in government. It's the same old, same old. In 2002, a bunch of 14-year-olds came here and observed parliament and they wrote a report for school. They were completely disturbed by the behaviour. They saw it as being jeering, bullying, shouting over each other, and that no one was really listening. And they concluded that the kind of behaviour that you see here wouldn't be acceptable in a classroom. It might be theatre, but I don't think it's supposed to be comedy. I will ask the member once more to stand and withdraw that comment. If not` Mr Speaker, I will not withdraw the truth` Order. Order. Then the Honourable Trevor Mallard will leave the chamber. One of the options that you have is to eject someone from the House if their behaviour crosses a certain line. Yes. What does that mean in real terms? What's the impact on the person who's ejected? Physically it means that person immediately leaves the House, so if that person actually had a question later on, then they wouldn't be able to answer it. Is that seen as being a badge of honour, to get kicked out of the House? I don't think it's a badge of honour and I think most NZers ` if they're watching those sorts of behaviours if TV covers it ` won't actually see it as a badge of honour either. Mr Speaker, I'm now going to raise with you the point of order that Mr Mallard was going to raise which you didn't allow him to raise. No. That is now re-litigating. Point of order, Mr Speaker. The member will now` Point of order, Mr Speaker. The member will now leave the chamber. MPS GROAN Democracy is about disagreement and argument, and if we didn't have disagreement and argument, then we may as well not have a democratic system. Uh, you know, a benevolent dictatorship would be the most efficient form of government, but that's not what we want. You know, we want a democratic system where there's a contest of ideas, where people actually get to choose every three years who they want to lead them and to govern the country. Well, if you wanna listen to the answer then just` Zip it, sweetie. I'm getting there. The psychologist in me` I think it's like a parent who rewards the bad behaviour, so the noisiest people who are the rudest get all the attention. They're the people who get the sound bites and the stuff on the news. Um, and the quiet and reasonable stuff doesn't seem to get the same play. Yeah. Um, it's` um, it's funny that you say that. I agree with you completely. You know, it is. It's the ones that are diligently getting on and head down and solidly doing their work are not gonna get noticed in this place. Uh, and so it is a place that has that kind of personality that likes to be heard and that likes to be out there. Coming into this, I understood the theory that an adversarial debate is a contest of ideas and the best one will emerge, but it's been my professional experience that that's actually a poor way to solve complex problems, because it assumes that one side actually has the best answer already and the only thing you're supposed to do is tear the other person down, not to try to constructively build something. So knowing the theory and having observed it in practice, it's still my belief that adversarial debates are poor ways to solve complex problems. But what about the way parliament is reported? Do the media show us what really happens here, or just the noisy, silly bits? 1 This is parliamentary press gallery, and since 1870, these are the people who've told the rest of us what politicians are up to and held MPs to account. But what really interests me is the way it also filters information and shapes all of our opinions about politics and politicians. Down on the tiles is the parliamentary press scrum. Journos try and nail politicians and the politicians just try to get through it in one piece. Has Nick Smith mishandled`? He's admitted there has been a number of mistakes on this housing stuff. Has he mishandled it? I don't think so. It's very complicated... So what you can` What you can definitely feel is the drama starting to build now. I'm not gonna talk about the individual bits. I think Labour might want to be very cautious with what they say... We've got the Prime Minister. I can see why they all get so excited. You do get a bit buzzy. I feel like I should be asking a question. So in a way, the opposition criticises us if we go quickly and they criticise us if they believe houses aren't being built instantly. They can't have it both ways. I was a bit wrong-footed before. There was an embargo. That's why it was a bit` As usual, bluff it out with a high degree of verbosity and nonsense. But doesn't it boil down to the definition of` > It is the proverbial bun fight. What's that like? PAULA: Oh, Nigel, it is physical as well as the robustness of it and you don't know what's gonna come at you and they want a yes-or-no answer and the public are thinking, 'Why don't you just answer it?' 'She looks like she doesn't know what she's talking about.' But you're literally walking along and at times you've got people physically, kind of, closing you in, and these microphones` You know, I turned my head to answer another question the other day and got hit in the face by the microphones. They're that, sort of, close to you. Yes, Prime Minister, but surely as Prime Minister you would condemn bribes. Is there any kind of structure at all? Is it just you get to the front and it's just microphone out? It's get to the front, microphone out and try and get your questions in. There's a little bit of tension. Sometimes the print journos think that the TV guys are hogging things. And often your questions are just as important as the answers. Um, and the look on their face, the body language, all that sort of thing. So that is really important to telling the story as well. All the politicians say they get frustrated because the media is a bit 'gotcha' journalism. I think that, um, politicians complain about gotcha journalism when it's on themselves. Uh, they seem to forget that gotcha journalism is happening when it's happening to the other side. In fact, a lot of the time they're driving it when it's happening to the other side, or they're pushing for it, or, you know, they're trying to leak stuff or add to it and add to it in the House, but when it comes back on them, they suddenly` they suddenly forget, think they're holier than thou and, uh, it's the end of modern journalism that one of them is held to account. Are you sorry for`? Are you sorry for misspending taxpayers' money? But when does holding them to account cross the line? That's former Labour minister Chris Carter trying to avoid questions about paying for movies and flowers for his partner on his government credit card. Guys, look, there's gonna` there's gonna be a health and safety issue here. But we just wanna ask you a few questions. Can we just`? Why is this <BLEEP> not working? Are you sorry? Are you sorry, Chris, for misspending taxpayers' money? Patrick, you're gonna do yourself an injury in a minute on these stairs. Did you say sorry to your caucus today? I want ministers held to account. I don't know if I want this. Chris, are you sorry? Patrick, I made a statement. You misspent taxpayers' money. See you later, guys. Chris, can we ask you a few questions about this in a civil`? There's no doubt that the media in this country has become more aggressive and they've become particularly aggressive towards public figures and politicians. I think that's good and bad. It's obviously bad in the sense of, you know, the trivialisation of politics and, you know, making it more about the gaffes and the slip-ups of politicians, but it's also good that politicians are held to account, and I think they are more held to account by the media and the parliamentary press gallery than they used to be. SOMBRE MUSIC One of the biggest questions I have about this place is the influence of lobbyists on politicians. In America, powerful corporate lobbyists seem to have enormous power and influence, but what about over here? What role do lobbyists ` corporate, environmentalist, unions, whoever ` play in our political system? Mark, how are ya? I'm meeting Mark Unsworth, an uber-lobbyist and veteran Wellington insider. So what is a lobbyist? Tell me that. A lobbyist is someone who helps, uh, a client or an organisation present their point of view to` uh, to parliament, to decision-makers or to civil servants` government departments. Your job in some ways is very similar to my job in that you're trying to influence people just like I am, and so are relationships a large part of that? Very much so. Yeah. I think the openness of NZ MPs is fantastic. You can meet them in the street. You can talk to them anywhere you like. Bump into them in the airport, they will stop. You can` But there's a difference between that and professional lobbying though, isn't there? Not really. (LAUGHS) Really? No. No, there isn't. Um, in the old days` So if I bump into an MP at the Avondale Market, I've got just as much influence on that MP as you do? If you put a good case, you have. It's always` At the Avondale Market? Yep. It's always the quality of your case that's gonna win in the end. Do you honestly believe that I could have as much influence at the Avondale Market as you could if you're meeting with MPs? Well, um, obviously when it comes to influence, the bigger the group that you're representing, the more power you're going to have. But is it the bigger the group or the more money that they have to get lobbying? Uh, it's` it's the bigger` See, I would love to` I would love to hire you. I would hire you. I would` I would love to hire you to, uh, promote the interests of public health people. Right. I would like to hire you to advocate for them, because they don't have the sort of spending power that, say, the alcohol industry does when it comes` But they have huge power. They have huge power because NZers trust academics. PIANO MUSIC Public health academics have huge power? Really? Lobbyists like Mark are paid to spend time talking to politicians. The problem is that no one keeps a record of which lobbyists are talking to which politicians about which issues. I guess my issue with` And I think lobbying is an important part of d` is` of the process here, because it's about people coming in and arguing their case, but what you're essentially say` your argument essentially is, 'Trust us, it's fine.' Why shouldn't you, though? Because you` Because the opposite is a conspiracy theory that you shouldn't trust. Because you represent corporations who don't have the public interest at heart. No, we represent everybody. We've got SOEs, we've got councils, we've got not-for-profits, we've got small groups. We represent a lot of people. But some of the clients that you represent ` even in the past ` have been companies who` like the alcohol industry, whose interest is not the public good. It's about making profits for their company. Sometimes they overlap. How? (LAUGHS) I don't want to get into a fight on alcohol, mate. Mark's very convincing, but I'm not convinced at all. I don't believe that he has the same influence on policy-makers as you or I do. I think he has a lot more, and so I think we need a lot more transparency about the activities of lobbyists with policy-makers. SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC I get when you're in government you can get stuff done, but what about the role of the opposition? All we ever seem to see of them is being unrelentingly negative. There's no question that the government has just reacted in panic mode. So what's it really like from the outside looking in? Paula, what's the difference between being in government and being in opposition? Oh, it's stark. I've been in both. You literally as a minister are deciding the whole government's direction, particularly within your portfolio. You're working close to the Prime Minister. You're making decisions. You're making laws, whereas in opposition, you're just looking to bring the government down so that you can be the top guy. It's kind of easy for opposition to throw in what should happen. When you're in government, you have to make the tough decisions. When you're in government, you're building, you're constructing, you're` you know, you're doing things, but in opposition, you're` you're just in opposition. You're constantly criticising and saying, 'You're doing a rubbish job.' That is one of the tough things, I guess, is that people are only ever gonna report what we say when we're criticising the government. They don't generally report what we say when we agree with the government, so they're always looking for the dissent, and, uh, they'll report on that rather than when we're s` You know, I've done so many TV or radio or, uh, newsprint interviews where I've said, 'Actually, I` if I was the minister, I'd do the same thing.' You never get that reported anywhere. LIGHT MUSIC But what about minority opposition parties? Lots of us wonder what opposition list MPs actually do. They don't even have an electorate to look after. I'm back with Jan Logie, who's a list MP with the Greens. Why do you think the public perception is that you guys just all sit around doing nothing? It's like, 'What do they do?' Somebody once asked me if it was a part-time job. (LAUGHS) Which` Like, the reality is it's two jobs. You know, like, I worked a 95-hour week the other week, so, um` But I get it. Like, I used to think all politicians sucked. (LAUGHS) Like, I really did, and` and I look at the media and I look at, um, question time and I look at political rhetoric that doesn't feel honest or real and I'm like, 'Why would you trust these people?' So you used to be sitting at home, shaking your head and going, 'God, this lot are useless,' but now you're here. I know. I know ` the irony. How did that happen? Well, it happened because I was campaigning with unions and community organisations to get paid parental leave in NZ, and in that process, we were working really closely with a member of parliament, and I suddenly saw that actually there's potential for partnership in this process. As a list MP, Jan doesn't have an electorate, but she still does constituent work. When I'm talking about, you know, 'We have a good day,' no one dies. She's a committed advocate for women. There are many complex issues that contribute to why whanau walk through the door, but government departments suggest that we need to be creative and, um` What does that mean? (LAUGHS) < That was my qu` What does that mean? < Yeah, what does it mean? You have to be creative around` Does that just mean`? < So if we've got a dollar,... Yeah? Well, how do you split it 10 ways? Right. I will take their views ` as my constituents ` into parliament and advocate for law changes and for better systems and to hold the government account for what's going wrong. You know, you hear the rumour mill in Wellington. When MPs start asking questions, then, um, people within the ministries start being told to work on things. Oh, so you start putting questions in and suddenly their little alarm radar starts ringing and they go, 'Well, hang on.' Yep. When I came into this, I must admit I had loads of doubts about what list MPs actually do, but Jan's a really good example of, I think, how that can work, cos she's got prior experience and expertise in the area. She can come out here with a community group. They can raise their concerns with her. She can take it back to the House and then put some pressure on people to hold them accountable. LIGHT STRING MUSIC But is it possible for MPs from different parties ` the same people who call each other names in the House ` to work together constructively? Can they put aside their political differences for the benefit ` hopefully ` of the rest of us? I've come to see a cross-party select committee at work. We're officials who support the Attorney General in the vetting legislation for Bill of Rights compliance. Today MPs are faced with a dilemma around the Bill of Rights and whether electronic monitoring of prisoners after they're released from jail is in breach of that. Well, technically it is, according to the Attorney General's office. There's a series of things that the court has looked at and said the fact that it is imposed upon the person a second time means it constitutes double jeopardy. It's seen as double jeopardy because it's imposing punishment, uh, on the offender who has completed his term in prison. But the whole point of extended supervision is not, of course, punishment. It's to protect other potential victims from that person that's unable to control, uh, their` their own behaviour. Now, you are applying ` I understand ` a very strict legal interpretation of it, but if you were to apply a common sense interpretation of that, uh, almost no NZer would agree with you. I have no issue with the idea that public safety trumps the privacy rights of violent, high-risk offenders, and so I'm with the MPs on the select committee ` both government and opposition. It's the law that needs to change. If you ask me the question, 'Would I change how the Bill of Rights work 'or would I change the extended supervision?' I would say, 'Change how the Bill of Rights works,' because I don't think it takes into account justifiable limitations that almost everybody here would agree are justifiable in that context. Thank you very much for that. It's a shame we don't get to see more of this stuff, because I'm learning that away from the schoolyard silliness of the House, MPs can work constructively together for the benefit of all of us, and that is reassuring. DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC Ultimately, politicians are trying to do their job ` much like the rest of us ` even if sometimes we don't like the way they behave. I watched it before I became an MP as well, and I used to think, 'What terrible behaviour. 'Terrible behaviour. It's like children.' Then I got in there and it's a vibe and it's the environment and you find yourself shouting like an 11-year-old with the very behaviour that you hoped you would never do. It's adversarial and it's not attractive and I'm not sure it's always that helpful, but it is one hour out of the, kind of, 16 that I generally work a day. ORCHESTRAL MUSIC SWELLS Well, I mean, I think you've gotta keep in mind what we do here. I mean, ultimately, we have an election every three years where people get to pick who they want to run the country and we want to do that and they want to do that and so it is competitive. I don't have anything personally against any of the people on the other side, but ultimately, I want their job. There's a very strong argument in my view for putting politicians on something like the average income ` say, something like $60,000 a year ` and, um, you would see a lot fewer careerists going into parliament, sure. It would make politicians more in touch with the everyday lives of the general public. It's easy to get wound up about stuff like pay and perks, but all of the MPs that I've spoken to said they're not in it for the money ` they came here to make a difference, and even though I know loads of you out there won't believe it, for what it's worth, I actually do. The problem as I see it is the rise of the career politician, because if you come into this place and there's something specific that you want to achieve, that's very different to making it your career and then your focus becomes keeping your job. And maybe the thing that we need to change is dropping the negative stereotypes and remembering that they're just people like you and I. Maybe we need to focus less on their gaffes and mistakes and more on the issues that actually matter. DRAMATIC MUSIC