0 Boom!

The Donghua Liu donations saga seemed to have disappeared from our consciousness. But just as Labour MP's head to Wellington for the party's congress, the Herald has lobbed a bomb in Labour's direction; check this out:

A former Labour Minister intervened three times in the immigration bid of Donghua Liu including waiving the English language requirement for the millionaire businessman.
Damien O'Connor, in his role as the associate Immigration Minister, wrote three letters to Liu's advisor Warren Kyd - the former National Party MP - before deciding to grant residency against the advice of officials the day before the 2005 election.

The Herald goes on to detail Damien O'Connor's interventions, based on letters obtained under the Official Information Act:

The West Coast MP has said he cannot remember why he granted residency to the businessman whose links to both National and Labour have created political waves this year.
But letters released to the Herald under the Official Information Act show Mr O'Connor was being lobbied by Mr Kyd on behalf of Liu in the lead up to the tightly fought election.
The first, dated June 1 2005, stated Mr O'Connor would not intervene on Liu's behalf in regards to an "amended photograph" submitted as part of the immigration application.

"As my previous intervention on Mr Liu's behalf shows, I think Mr Liu has to date had a positive impact in New Zealand, and to this end, I would encourage him to lodge another application for residence.
"Mr Liu should be advised that I have instructed the Immigration Service to receive any such application without prejudice which may have been caused by his previous application."
There is no explanation of the "previous intervention" of Mr O'Connor, who accepted Mr Kyd's explanation that a third party was responsible for the "amended photograph" on the file.
A second letter to Mr Kyd, dated August 9 2005, reveals Mr O'Connor said "it is not my normal practice to intervene in the established immigration application process, however, I have decided to make an exception in this case.
"I have directed the Department of Labour Immigration Service to waive the English language requirements for Donghua Liu for any forthcoming residence application."
Mr O'Connor suggested Liu should enclose a copy of the letter with application, to be lodged within two years.

Somewhere along the line though, Mr O'Connor's position changed; the very day before the 2005 General Election, which was at that point anybody's race; read on:

A third letter to Mr Kyd, dated September 16, 2005 - the day before the election - stated Mr O'Connor had considered the case carefully and "decided to intervene".
"I am therefore instructing the Department of Labour Immigration Service to gran residence to Mr Liu as an exception to policy. The grant of residence will be subject to Mr Liu completing an application form, paying an application fee and meeting health and character requirements".
The residency was granted under the terms of the Investor Category at the time.

You can view the letters from Damien O'Connor here.

This bombshell from Jared Savage at the Herald raises some huge questions. What changed between 1 June 2005 and 16 September 2005 to cause Mr O'Connor to have a significant change in his approach to the Liu case? Was pressure brought on the MP, and if so, from whom. Did pressure come from people within the Labour Party? Why can Damien O'Connor not remember a case in which he had several interventions? And if it was "not my normal practice to intervene" in immigration applications, why did he intervene, not once but thrice in the Liu case?

And why the urgency to decide Donghua Liu's residence application as an exception to policy on the eve of a General Election in which Labour had a very real chance of being voted out? There are possible answers to that question that cut to the heart of the integrity of politics in New Zealand.

David Cunliffe will be seething. Not only has the Herald taken the focus off Labour's election-year congress, but he is now going to be bombarded with questions as to Damian O'Connor's conduct. Those questions will have added validity after the way that Labour attacked National and Maurice Williamson over the latter's phone call to the the police after Liu's arrest on domestic violence charges.

And Damien O'Connor needs to recover his memory, and quickly. He has some very significant questions to answer about Donghua Liu, and the circumstances in which Mr Liu was given New Zealand residence.

0 Tweet of the Day - 28 June 2014

It's not our response to 3News' Brook Sabin that we are featuring; rather his tweet about another strategic blunder by the Labour Party:

As we noted in our response, Labour has its conference next week. If it had bothered to invite the media, it could have released its much-changed immigration policy then.

Instead though, Labour leeches off the National Party. John Key and co should take that as a compliment. Interestingly, the policy is Trevor Mallard's baby; he of course was the strategic genius who guided Labour to its worst poll result in 70 years in 2011. 

Perhaps Mr Mallard should have stayed in his own electorate this weekend. That's where his fight for political survival is happening.

0 Labour backs a loser

There has been a lot of xenophobic fighting talk this year from Labour over immigration. David Cunliffe promised to slash immigration numbers, then progressively backed away from that, as he is wont to do.

But if Labour was hoping to out-Winston Winston Peters in its attacks on immigration, it is going to fail; Stuff reports:

Scaremongering by opposition parties on immigration seems to be misplaced, with the issue barely registering as a concern among voters, a new poll reveals.
Labour and NZ First are raising the impact of migration on housing and interest rates as September's general election approaches.
But in the latest Stuff.co.nz/Ipsos poll, just 4 per cent of respondents cite immigration as the most important issue the country faces.
The economy (20.6 per cent), education (21.6), health (19.2) and unemployment (14.3) are the top four issues important to voters. A little over 12 per cent were worried about housing affordability.
In the past year, around 71,000 immigrants arrived in New Zealand - the highest number in 11 years. The poll asked if migration levels should change; 44.5 per cent said they should not.
However, most respondents believe a policy that would restrict non-residents buying property would be "somewhat effective". Among Aucklanders, in the midst of a housing shortage, the top response was "very effective".
Last month Labour leader David Cunliffe blamed immigrants for rising house prices.
"It would take 80 per cent of our housing supply just to accommodate this year's migrants - and National is doing nothing," he said.
Among Asians (15 per cent) and those not in paid employment (7.4), immigration was of most concern.
Labour has signalled it will look at controlling inward migration and work permits as a way to dampen housing demand and general price inflation. 

Under Helen Clark's leadership, Labour regarded itself as the natural home for those who have chosen New Zealand as a destination to migrate to. A lot has changed in six years however, and Labour is now openly hostile towards immigration, in the worst traditions of Peters. 

But it would appear that there is only room for one anti-immigration party, and Peters already has the market cornered:

Immigration has long been a touch-stone for NZ First leader Winston Peters, who claims it drives up property prices and inflation and will make NZ Super unaffordable. Concern is highest - at 8 per cent - among those who intend to vote NZ First.
The poll also shows Kiwis have an accurate perception of the levels of migration. It asked respondents to estimate what percentage of the population was born overseas. The average response was 25.92 per cent - very close to Statistics NZ figures, which recorded 25.2 per cent for 2013. 
Immigration minister Michael Woodhouse said the results were not surprising. "It suggests to me that Messrs Cunliffe and co are missing the point. I would interpret it as saying there is a minority of people who think it should decrease but actually it's not that important to them."
Labour's immigration spokesman, Trevor Mallard, said the debate around economic tools should not be stifled because some people took a racist approach. "You can't ignore migration because a small proportion of New Zealanders are racist." The question was whether more could be done around "peaks and troughs" of migration. 
"Where you can see a net spike then it is worth looking at ways you can level that off . . . I think it is important the tools work both ways - that it is pro-migration in a negative cycle and knowing the peak of migration when the economy is overheated."
Peters said the result was wrong and he did not listen to polls. 

The last sentence there is illuminating. Of course Winston Peters listens to the polls; they tell him when it is time to intensify the anti-immigration rhetoric in an election year.

This year however, David Cunliffe has already cut Peters off at the pass. His attacks on immigration though have been far less successful than those of Peters, partly because Labour's immigration policy has been so confused.

But the damage has been done. Labour has tried to steal a political march by going feral on immigrants, when immigration is low down on the list of thinks that matter to voters, except the dwindling number of voters who support Mr Peters. And to give him a rare bit of credit, at least Peters has been consistent in his xenophobia for 20 years, whereas David Cunliffe is a latter-day convert.

But once again, Labour has backed a loser. This is becoming too much of a trend.

0 A poll sandwich

The two main newspaper groups have released political polls this week. If the Herald-Digi-Poll was bad news for the Labour Party, then they're not going to like this morning's Stuff-Ipsos poll, completing the poll sandwich.

But there's no escaping it; here's the bad news:

Labour's support has slumped to its lowest level since the 2011 election, with leader David Cunliffe battling for survival after it emerged he intervened in a residency application for Chinese businessman Donghua Liu.
In the latest Stuff.co.nz/Ipsos political poll, the party has dropped 6 percentage points to 23 per cent. National is soaring on 56 per cent, which would allow it to govern alone. Click here for full graphics. 
Cunliffe has failed to stop his party's slide in the poll since he took over as leader in September, and is now facing election humiliation. His support as preferred prime minister slipped to 11 per cent, down two points. Prime Minister John Key edged ahead, up three points to 51.4 per cent.
As he faced fire over the Liu allegations, Cunliffe insisted he retained the confidence of his caucus - but admitted he had broached the subject with senior colleagues.
Tomorrow a pre-election window opens, allowing the caucus to dump its leader without triggering the wider vote of the entire party's membership. After a wave of dismal results, the latest poll would leave Labour with 29 seats, meaning five MPs would get the chop if the election were held today. National would score 71 seats.
Our polling took place earlier this week, before the Liu revelations came to light. It shows disillusioned Labour supporters are now undecided where their loyalties lie. Respondents who voted Labour in 2011, and planned to do so in September, fell from 81.6 per cent in February to 61.3 per cent. The drop in support is greatest among 30 to 44-year-olds.
Ipsos managing director Matt Benson said past Labour voters were now unsure who to vote for.
"An increase in alternate party activity on the Left side may have traditional Labour voters weighing up their options and thinking again about Labour. On the other side, as the party options for conservative voters reduce, we are seeing them flock to National." 

This truly is a terrible poll for Labour, and it's not the news they needed this morning after a brutal day in the spotlight yesterday. Here's the poll in graphical form:

Every sandwich needs a filling. For this poll sandwich, the filling has been the revelations that Donghua Liu made donations to the Labour Party, and that Mr Cunliffe wrote to the then New Zealand Immigration Service on behalf of his constituent back in 2003, which was a time when Labour supported business migration from China. The latter revelation came just a day after Mr Cunliffe had denied ever advocating on behalf of Donghua Liu.

If Labour MP's were looking for an excuse to change jockeys in the run-up to the Big Race on September 20th, Mr Cunliffe has obliged. Add to that suggestions from this latest poll that five Labour MP's could be looking for employment after the General Election, and a casual mood for change within the party could become more urgent.

David Cunliffe was in a defiant mood yesterday afternoon; publicly, at least. But he flew to Auckland to appear on Campbell Live last night, and we wonder if there have been any behind-the-scenes discussions in his absence. We wonder if the Campbell Live appearance was a tactical error from Mr Cunliffe, rather than hunkering down in the War Room with his Chief of Staff Matt McCarten, and planning his strategy.

Today will be a very interesting day indeed. We heard whispers last night from a very surprising source not too distant from the Labour Party that two Labour MP's have been counting their numbers, and that one in particular believes they have enough support. This poll may be a catalyst to act, but it may equally be a catalyst not to act, and to wait for the post-election fallout.

Stay tuned; and we hope that Mr Cunliffe doesn't choke on his poll sandwich.

0 Hide on the "Cunliffe experiement"

Rodney Hide could have got away with just one sentence in his Herald on Sunday column this morning; the very first one. Under the headline Lonely Cunliffe must soldier on Hide opines:

The David Cunliffe experiment has failed. Eight months into his leadership Labour is polling below what it was under Phil Goff and David Shearer.
The election is less than four months away.
The danger for Labour is that its poor polling will collapse its vote, as happened to National in 2002. Its low polling became a self-fulfilling and accelerating prophecy. Polls matter.
Labour's unimpressive showing may well cause even more votes to drain across to the Greens and New Zealand First.
That prospect will now be occupying the minds of Labour MPs and activists.
Cunliffe will soldier on. He has no choice. I know what it's like.
You can't give up.

Every day you have to find your smiley, positive face. It's tough. Lonely. Hard.

Hide is right; he knows what it's like. He's even been in the same position as David Cunliffe, as he describes:

Cunliffe has an added burden. His caucus didn't want him. He was thrust on it by party members and the unions. That wouldn't matter if he were succeeding. But he isn't. There will be a lot of "I told you so" going on. The lack of caucus support makes a lonely job even lonelier.

It was always going to be tough going for David Cunliffe when barely a third of the Labour caucus voted for him after the Labour's Got Talent tour last year. For every Labour MP who supported him, there were two who did not. The cards were stacked against him.

Labour is stuck with Mr Cunliffe now, even though he is, as Hide notes, polling worse than his two predecessors. With the election just three months and 20 days away, it's too late to change horses.

And that's not going to make the post-election wrangling any easier, should Labour be in a position to form a coalition. Hide reminds us of the options:

 

And yet it remains a tight race. Labour could poll badly but still put a government together, with considerable concessions.
The Green's Metiria Turei and Russel Norman would be deputy prime ministers and would dominate policy-making.
Winston Peters would be kingmaker and would demand his pound of flesh.
Hone Harawira would be Minister of Maori Affairs. The Internet Party would be in government being dictated to by Kim Dotcom.
It's not a pretty prospect. And that's Labour's other problem. Its polling puts other parties into the box seat, a prospect that turns off middle voters.
And then there's policy. Cunliffe will be asked about every nutty policy put up by the Greens, New Zealand First, Mana and the Internet Party. Does he support it?
Cunliffe can't dodge the policy bullet. That would add to the uncertainty of voting Labour. If he accepts the policy, he's not in charge. If he dismisses it, he risks a spat with a potential partner.
John Key escapes these problems. National is polling high. Plus he has incumbency. People know what they are getting with National. They can't be so sure with Labour.
It comes back to the polls. They put Cunliffe on the back foot and Key on the front. Cunliffe is now desperate. He needs a lift.
"I just need to push the polls up a bit. I need to change the story ... hmmm. Immigration. That always works for Winston. I'll give that a shot. I will dress it up as housing policy. The party's woolly woofters will be upset. But what the hell? I've got nothing to lose." It's called dog-whistle politics. Sadly for Cunliffe, the only ones who heard it were Labour activists.

Actually, it's good that Rodney Hide wrote his whole piece, and not just the opening sentence. That last paragraph should serve as a huge warning to the Labour Party.

Traditionally the friends of immigrants, Cunliffe's Labour Party risks alienating those who have chosen to make New Zealand home. However you can guarantee that if he has to, David Cunliffe will snuggle up warmly to an immigrant who is wanted by the FBI for alleged copyright offending, racketeering and money-laundering on a Mega scale.

 David and the GIMPs; can you imagine what a recipe for disaster that would be? But sadly, thanks to MMP, that's what we could wake up to on September 21st. That's a scary thought, and we thank Rodney Hide for the reminder.


 

0 Quote of the Day - 29 May 2014

The Dom-Post manages to send a strong message to David Cunliffe and Labour whilst barely naming them. Under the headline Immigrants aren't scapegoats the Dom-Post opines:

Immigrants are easy prey for political vultures. Demagogues can win votes by using foreigners as scapegoats, as has happened repeatedly in New Zealand's history. So the argument about the effect of immigration on housing could easily turn poisonous. It's important not to let that happen.
The Budget's big surprise was the revelation of a turn in the usual tide of migration. The outward flow has turned into a net inward movement, mainly because fewer Kiwis are moving to Australia. Now there is concern that the inflow will push up house prices.
Panic measures will not help with this problem, as Labour seemed to realise soon after pledging a cut in net immigration. Asked exactly how big the cut would be, Labour faltered and fudged.
Immigration flows cannot be turned off and on like a tap. The present trans-Tasman inflow could quite quickly reverse as the rebuilding of Christchurch reduces, our growth rate falls, and Australia's economy rebounds. Big cuts in immigrant numbers would then exacerbate the renewed outward flow.
The country is entitled to control immigration and there might be room for some temporary reduction in immigrants. This would have to be done carefully, together with other measures to control house prices, such as interest rate rises. The danger is that immigration will become a hot topic and governments will over-react.
The effects of a moral panic about immigration go much wider than the immediate issue of house prices. National's scapegoating of Pacific immigrants in the 1975 election caused great harm to race relations. It led directly to the dawn raids and an outpouring of repressed prejudice.
Winston Peters' anti-Asian campaigns in the 1996 and 2002 elections also caused unnecessary alarm. There is always a receptive audience for this kind of trouble-making, especially among the older, the frightened, and the bewildered.
All the loose talk about the "Asian invasion" and the predictions of racial trouble turned out to be hollow. Auckland now has a large Asian population, but there has been no bloodshed, no ethnic violence, no outbreaks of hatred. New Zealand has shown that it is on the whole a tolerant and welcoming society which copes well with change.
Immigration has, in fact, made the nation a more interesting and vibrant place, and this is probably a more cogent reason for liberal immigration policies than any strictly economic one. A major report last year by the OECD on immigration concluded that the effect on public finances of immigration is "small, generally not exceeding 0.5 per cent of GDP in either positive or negative terms". 

It's hard to disagree with the sentiments expressed here. Winston Peters' past xenophobic scaremongering has no place, and the signs that David Cunliffe is trying to out-Winston Winston are alarming. Helen Clark in particular would be disgusted at Cunliffe's recent anti-immigrant rhetoric.

If Labour loses significant support in places like South Auckland this election, it only has itself to blame. Leave the xenophobia to Mr Peters, who if nothing else has at least been consistently xenophobic, not a latter-day convert like Mr Cunliffe.

0 Cunliffe tries to out-Winston Winston

David Cunliffe will slash immigrant numbers if Labour is elected in September; 3News reports:

Labour leader David Cunliffe has taken his hardest line yet against immigrants, blaming them for rising house prices.

It follows a 3 News-Reid Research poll which shows almost two-thirds of voters say immigration should be restricted.

"It would take 80 percent of our housing supply just to accommodate this year's migrants - and National is doing nothing," says Mr Cunliffe.

Mr Cunliffe is already copping a backlash from within Labour. DPF blogs about that here, including a tweet from a Labour Party activist who sought the Christchurch East nomination last year. And Twitter is full of disparaging comments today about Cunliffe's xenophobia. There are plenty of comparisons to Winston Peters, and none of them flatters David Cunliffe.

But wait, as they say on the infomercials, there's more. Check out this tweet from Patrick Gower:

Yes Dear Readers. One one hand and to one audience, David Cunliffe wants to slash the numbers of immigrants coming to New Zealand. But on the other hand, he's quite prepared to do a deal with a party formed by a convicted criminal, a immigrant facing extradition the the United States to face serious criminal charges, and a immigrant who has been shown to have some very unsavoury personal characteristics.

The writing should have been on the wall however. There has been no denial that Kim Dotcom helped to write Labour's ICT policy, and it is common knowledge that Labour's now-ICT Spokeswoman Clare Curran visited Dotcom's rental house in Coatesville at least twice.

We wonder how Helen Clark is feeling today. Under her leadership of Labour, the immigrant community was seem as Labour's, almost by right. A lot has changed in six years, and we look forward to hearing David Cunliffe take his "Sorry, you're not welcome" message to the Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Indian and other immigrant communities.

Perhaps David Cunliffe is angling for Winston Peters' job leading NZ First. But David First doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?

0 Quote of the Day - 23 May 2014

Today's Quote of the Day belongs to Finance Minister Bill English. In his right of reply to end the Budget Debate he lambasted Labour over its confused immigration and compulsory savings policies; this, via Hansard:

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, let us discuss some of the member’s proposals that came up in this Budget debate. Here is one. Here is a question: what is the Labour Party’s immigration policy?
Hon Member: They don’t know.
Hon BILL ENGLISH: All I would say is: “Don’t ask them because they don’t know.”, because I think, as Phil Twyford said, they were going to cut immigration to a net 5,000. So I expect that this weekend at the ethnic functions in Auckland, Labour members will be getting up in front of the Indian community and saying “There’s far too many of you. We’re going to cut the number. We’re going to slash the number—no more Indians.” Then, because they are true to their word, they will be going off to the Chinese celebration and saying “Ahh, too many Asians in housing auctions around Auckland. They’re all Chinese. We’re going to slash the numbers.” And then they are going to go down to the Pasifika function. That is right, and they are going to say “No more family members from the Pacific Islands.” That is because Phil Twyford and David Cunliffe said on the radio: “We are going to slash immigration in order to control the housing market.”
Hon Hekia Parata: That’s what it means.
Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is not just what it means; it is what they said. It is what they said. Labour’s immigration policy is to slash migrant inflows. I think it is a bit weird. I think it is a bit weird from a party that has traditionally regarded itself as the representative of the migrant communities. But we will be there, Ms Collins will be there, Sam Lotu-Iiga will be there, Kanwal Bakshi will be there, and they will write down what Grant Robertson says to those people. But then it is not weird when you think about what they are saying to low-income New Zealanders.
Chris Auchinvole: What do they say?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: I will tell you what they are saying to low-income New Zealanders. They are saying—I thought you might be interested—“We’ve got this really bright new idea, which is to increase KiwiSaver contributions so that the Chinese buyers don’t have to pay higher interest rates.” OK? Or so that the Indian buyers do not have to pay higher interest rates. So we have asked a simple question: by how much would you need to increase KiwiSaver contributions in a compulsory scheme to offset a 1 percent increase in interest rates?
Chris Auchinvole: And what do they say?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: They do not know, so we have done our own calculation and it is 15 percent—15 percent. In the weekend Labour members are going to be out in the Ōtara market, saying to women who have the second job in a household and are doing 25 hours’ cleaning in the middle of the night during the week in order to feed their family: “You have to join compulsory super, and we are going to take 9 percent of your gross income off you. That’s not enough, because when the Chinese drive the interest rates up, we’re going to put it up to 15 percent.”, and we will be listening.

Bill English is dead right. Labour's immigration policy is confused, and Labour MP's are contradicting one another over what Labour will, will not, might, or might not do. It's yet another "yeah nah" policy from David Cunliffe and his team where different messages are being given to different audiences.

If Labour chooses to go to the electorate in September with a policy to slash immigration numbers, it is going to have some explaining to do to a constituency that under Helen Clark Labour claimed as its own. And we all know that when you're explaining, you're losing.

0 Compare and contrast

John Key has set National apart from other political parties; the Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key laid out the welcome mat for foreigners yesterday and said it was a point of contrast between National and other parties.
"We don't put up the fear factor you see from other political parties about the multicultural society that is emerging in New Zealand," he told more than 300 delegates to National's northern conference at Waipuna Hotel yesterday.
"We welcome tourists that come from overseas; we welcome people that are going to come and study at our schools and universities; we welcome people who want to invest in New Zealand and we welcome people who want to make their home in New Zealand," he said. "And yes, we welcome people who want to buy a home here and raise a family. That's what a multicultural, confident society is about."
New Zealand's future lay in selling things to the rest of the world and the future of the world was about being more connected, he said.
"Do any of us think we are really going to get rich selling things to four and a half million New Zealanders?" Mr Key said.

As we blogged yesterday, it's only a matter of six years since Helen Clark regarded the Labour Party as the natural home for immigrants to Aotearoa. How much things have changed since Miss Clark departed for the greener pastures of the United Nations. Labour is now openly hostile towards immigrants, especially those from China.

New Zealand has always been a country of immigrants; it is part of our heritage. It is sad to see Labour so desperate to stay onside with Winston Peters that immigrants have become their whipping boys.

Labour's continued anti-foreigner rhetoric will cost it votes. There's only room for one redneck party, and Peters has that market cornered.

0 Tweet of the Day - 4 May 2014

Graeme Edgeler is the legal counsel for the Internet Party. Some of those who have dealt with Herr Dotcom have suffered selective amnesia as a result, but Graeme's rapier-like wit has not been dimmed at all. Here he gives Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta a right good social media slap-down:

There's a more serious undertone to this exchange however. Under Helen Clark's leadership, immigrants were seen as the sole preserve of the Labour Party; Ms Clark considered Labour to be their natural home.

What a difference six years has made. David Cunliffe's Labour Party considers immigrants (and especially Chinese immigrants) to be the cause of many of New Zealand's woes, from house prices to corruption. Hidden in the fine print of Labour's Big Tool is a plan to stem the flow of immigrants. Helen Clark must look back in disdain.

When David Cunliffe and his lackey MP's like Nanaia Mahuta start playing the Winston Peters xenophobia card, as Cunliffe has done today, Labour has lost its heart.

0 Always read the fine print...

Fairfax journalist Stacey Kirk has been busy. She's done what good journalists should do, and read the fine print of Labour's "big tool" policy. And look what she's found, lost in the fine print:

Labour may look at controlling immigration as a way to affect housing demand and general price inflation.
In the small print of Labour's monetary policy documents, the party says "there may be a case for varying inward migration and/or work permits in a counter-cyclical manner". 

Unsurprisingly, another party leader has praised Labour's policy:

NZ First leader Winston Peters has praised the policy.
"We have always been for compulsory savings and New Zealand desperately needs a long-term savings regime, so that's very wise," he said today on Morning Report.
"On the Reserve Bank Act, that surely needs changing and has been the case for a very long time, which is good too.
"The variable savings rate of course means money stays in our economy, rather than goes off in high-interest payments to some other economy."
The issue of immigration, particularly where it might drive house prices and inflation, has also been an issue Peters has focused on. 

Winston Peters was mentored by Sir Robert Muldoon when he first entered Parliament. So there is no surprise that he favours intervention by the Government with regard to the supposedly independent  Reserve Bank. 

And there are more signs that Labour is putting out the welcome mat to Peters:

The Labour documents say immigration tended to be "pro-cyclical, with higher net inwards migration coinciding with strong local economic conditions".
Labour was open to investigating whether that cycle could be reversed - letting more immigrants into New Zealand when the economy was weaker, and tightening controls during high-growth periods. 
"This would require consideration of a range of factors, including the lag time between approval and arrival, the wage effects of inward migration at times of supply constraints, and the need to meet skill shortages," the documents said.  

Intervention in the Reserve Bank and controls on inward migration are Winston peters' stock-in-trade, and it is barely surprising that he is lauding a policy which could have been written just for him.

But is Labour is cuddling up to Uncle Winston, that spells bad news for the Greens, whom Peters abhors. On the very off chance that Labour was able to do deals after September's General Election, might the Greens be left at the altar once again, and might Russel and Metiria become the perennial bridesmaids?

That's all hypothetical, of course. If Labour really is polling at 23%, as sources within the National Party claim, they will be more focused on trying to remain the dominant opposition party, not preparing to somehow lead a coalition of the unwilling and unsuited.