The failure of the leaders to appear before the local business community seems a strange omission in their calendars when, in the past, the Otago Chamber of Commerce has hosted leaders from all parties.
At times, the audiences for some party leaders were small and the chamber had been criticised by NZ First leader Winston Peters for having no-one but the chief executive, the chamber president and the Otago Daily Times attending.
A low attendance had also been recorded for former Act New Zealand leader Rodney Hide.
Chief executive Dougal McGowan said Ms Ardern was due to be in Dunedin on Friday next week but the chamber was not on her agenda.An offer was made for Ms Ardern to talk to members for 10min at a breakfast meeting, but that was unlikely to happen, he said.
The chamber had earlier issued an invitation to former leader Andrew Little to speak to its members. When he was replaced by Ms Ardern, the chamber contacted her office to check whether the invitation would be honoured.
‘‘We were told on Monday we were not on her radar to speak to our business members. It would have been a good opportunity for businesses, who have heard the policies affecting them, to get a better understanding. We are disappointed. You would think parties would want to get in front of the business audience. We hear so much about how things affect Auckland. We would like to know how we are affected in the South.’’
Mr English had been down for the Otago Daily Times Class Act function and the chamber had invited him to speak at that time. However, he had other meetings and was unavailable. Mr McGowan said he had talked to Mr English privately, but the Prime Minister had not been able to meet with chamber members.
Mr Little had spoken to a chamber focus group last year and Dunedin North MP David Clark attended the Business After 5 functions and kept in touch with the local business community, Mr McGowan said.
Earlier in the week, invitations had been sent to Trade Minister Todd McClay and Transport Minister Simon Bridges to speak to chamber members.
Dunedin South MP Clare Curran is going back to the future with her campaign this year. Ms Curran has carried out about 50 corner meetings in her electorate which stretches from the Otago Peninsula through to Mosgiel and on to Taieri.
Up to 40 people have attended some of the corner meetings, sitting on the ground listening and asking questions. A lot of young families attended, particularly in Mosgiel. Questions ranged from affordable housing to rent.The planned rebuild of Dunedin Hospital was a hot topic, she said. People wanted to know more details. Regional development was a regular topic. One of the more interesting discussions she had was with two truck drivers, a husband-and-wife team, who believed Dunedin ‘‘is going down the gurgler’’ and asked, what ‘‘is Labour ‘going to do about it?’.‘‘I’m seeing people I have never seen before, groups of people.’’
Much has been made this week of Finance Minister Steven Joyce’s $11.9billion hole he allegedly found in Labour’s fiscal plan. While Mr Joyce swears people agree with him, he so far has not provided one name to back him up.Things got nasty this week when people on social media decided to out Mr Joyce for failing economics at Massey. Wikipedia shows Mr Joyce’s parents were grocers. He went to school at Francis Douglas Memorial College. Mr Joyce did not make the cut to study veterinary science at Massey but graduated instead with a BSc in zoology. At university, he worked as a presenter and programme director on student radio.
Much has been made of this part: he also took 11 economics papers at Massey from 1984 to 1986 and failed eight of those through insufficient grade, withdrawal or failure to complete.
What some have missed though, Mr Joyce and friends, including radio presenter Jeremy Corbett, started their own radio station in New Plymouth called Energy FM. With business partners, he built up Radio Works over the next 17 years, both organically and by acquisition, to a network of 22 radio stations (including Radio Otago) and 650 staff. He retired as Radio Works managing director in April 2001, when CanWest bought it, receiving $6million from the sale.
Labour finance spokesman Grant Robertson has rightly been calling for Mr Joyce to front up with his so-called supporters. And in the interests of fairness, Mr Robertson — who is within a few percent of being finance minister after September 23 — also has a listing in Wikipedia.
It shows he attended King’s High School, where he was head boy. He later studied political studies at the University of Otago, graduating with a BA with honours in 1995. His honours dissertation studied the restructuring of the New Zealand University Students Association in the 1980s. He was president of the Otago University Students Association in 1993 and co-president of the New Zealand University Students Association in 1996.After leaving university, Mr Robertson joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. His overseas postings included the United Nations in New York and he also managed the New Zealand Overseas Aid Programme to Samoa — a $7.7million fund with projects in diverse areas such as basic education, healthcare, public sector capacity building and small business development.
During the first term of the Fifth Labour Government, Mr Robertson worked as an adviser to former environment minister Marian Hobbs and later former prime minister Helen Clark.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters will today announce plans for a new generation of the SuperGold card.
New Zealand First would continue working in the best interests of the country’s seniors, he said.
Policies included: Three free GP visits for SuperGold card holders each year; removing the tax on the New Zealand Superannuation fund; free eye tests for SuperGold card holders once a year; a 10% discount on power bills for SuperGold card holders during winter months; extending the benefits of the SuperGold card.
