Rob Salmond has attacked Chris Trotter for Trotter’s criticism of the ‘game’ Rob Salmond has tried to deconstruct Labour’s strategy down to.
Rob Salmond was David Shearer’s political advisor. You’ll remember Shearer, he was that bloke who couldn’t articulate any policy within 30seconds without looking really confused. Shearer’s legacy as leader was the failed Pagani Doctrine that tried to keep Labour in the centre right and used his infamous ‘beneficiary on the roof’ analogy to try and show Labour hated beneficiaries as much as National did.
In this analogy, David claimed he had been accosted by a Labour supporter who was complaining about an ACC recipient neighbour who despite being on a sickness benefit was able to climb their roof and paint it. Turns out the entire analogy was never as strong as Shearer claimed and my question then becomes, what role did Rob Salmond have in the creation of that, because if this is the tactical might of Labour, to chase 200 000 reactionary white voters with dog whistles rather than appeal to the dreams of 800 000 poor brown voters, then the less Rob is listened to, the better.
I asked Rob by twitter for an explanation of his involvement in the ‘bennie on a roof’ dog whistle…
Rob didn’t get back to me, but here was David Shearer live on RDU with Aaron Hawkins trying to explain his way out of the beneficiary on the roof dog whistling…
Hawkins: To quote a famous Labour politician, ‘I’ve been thinking’ about this constituent of yours in Mt Albert that you have used to illustrate fairness and responsibility to society, this sickness beneficiary who’s up painting his roof, and I have to ask on behalf of Giovanni Tiso, who has been campaigning now bilingually to get a straight answer from you for ten days now. Did that actually happen? Is that a true anecdote from your time… [Shearer interrupts]
Shearer: Yeah, yeah, I was going around the streets before the last election, knocked on a guy’s door, he walked out on the lawn with me and pointed over and said this guy supposedly – I think he said he had a bad back or a bad something or other – and the point was, I mean, wasn’t actually… whether this guy was right or not I don’t know, but the point is, what I was trying to make is the point about fairness and the way New Zealanders feel about fairness. They don’t want… this guy in particular said look I’m working hard, I pay my taxes, I’m doing all the right things and this guy – in his opinion, and that’s what I said in my thing – is ripping the system off. Now I don’t care if you’re a millionaire not paying his taxes or somebody on the benefit who shouldn’t be getting one. The way that New Zealanders see that is that it’s not fair when somebody is not doing the right thing. That’s the point of what I was saying.
Hawkins: So you don’t know if it’s true, at no point did you go talk to the beneficiary in question?
Shearer: No, the point was Aaron – the point was how people perceive others not playing by the rules, that’s all I was saying. So I mean that’s a story – the account of this guy, if what he was telling me is true, but I didn’t do a police investigation on somebody, but the point was how do people perceive others, and I think overwhelmingly in New Zealand we don’t like people who are not playing by the rules, in a sense not adhering to what I call the social contract.
Hawkins: I don’t think it’s the equivalent of a police enquiry to simply fact-check an anecdote that you are going to turn into a political platform.
Shearer: It’s not a political platform, the whole point of it as I keep saying to you is illustrating how people feel about others. That was all it was saying. It was somebody relating something to me and I was relating that on. It is about how people feel about others not playing by the rules. And we have a very highly developed sense for that in New Zealand, for good or for bad, and I actually think it’s good. But what does happen is that if people have that perception it means that everybody who legitimately receives a benefit – and overwhelmingly New Zealanders support that as well – they actually get tarred with the same brush. It’s really important that we make sure that the system works well and that people have confidence in it.
Hawkins: Isn’t that what Paula Bennett was doing, using a couple of examples of people not playing by the rules and not playing fairly within the welfare system to show up its flaws?
Shearer: Well what she did was she went into the Ministry, pulled out people’s private information and using her privileged position as a Minister and then put them into the news media because they happened to disagree with it. I think it’s a quantifiably mega-jump more than what I was talking about.
Please don’t let this be Rob’s finest work? Rob left being an advisor after the change in Labour leadership and I haven’t worked out yet if Polity is a grand garden payment or actual budgeted expenditure.
Polity.co.nz is as obvious as the Dim Post in that you will always get panicked snarky comments about Internet MANA and both writers go on and on and on and on and on and on about how much they hate Chris Trotter. They are both good blogs for ascertaining how terrified the Wellington branches of the Green Party and Labour Party are at any given moment.
3rd way Blairite expediency masquerading as Labour Party left wing policy is a price Labour should avoid paying.
UPDATE: Rob has tweeted back denying having any involvement in David Shearer’s bennie on the roof story…
Let me get this straight. Your response to my post:
1. Addresses nothing at all that was in my post;
2. Makes incorrect inferences about me as a pretext to talk at length about something David Shearer said almost two years ago;
3. And makes another incorrect inference about my attitude to I/M (see the section titles ‘A player’ of my most recent post to see the error – I favour at least considering an accommodation with I/M somewhere in the country).
And that is all you appear to have to contribute.
Heckuva job, there.
“In this analogy, David claimed he had been accosted by a Labour supporter who was complaining about an ACC recipient neighbour who despite being on a sickness benefit was able to climb their roof and paint it.”
It was rather an alleged WINZ sickness beneficiary that David Shearer seemed to refer to, but you can be forgiven, as similar allegations have at times been made against some on ACC.
Strangely it was not forbidden for sickness beneficiaries to do some work, part time that is, because the benefit (same amount as dole) was paid to persons not able to work full-time, but who could under circumstances still work part time.
And there were persons with many different sicknesses and disabilities on it, and there are the same types on what they now call a “jobseeker” benefit, which includes those with mental health issues.
Shearer was feeding into the wide spread ignorance and prejudice in the public, where few know much detail about WINZ and their benefits, rules and so forth.
As for Salmond, I looked up his blog a few times, but noticed, how few comment on it, which must indicate, not that many read his posts. Maybe he is a bit overrated?
Labour have shunned us on benefits, and treated us with little respect, I fear, and that is besides a fair few other things, plus their unresolved past track record, also in donations and fundraising, from partly rich persons in business and so, that has led to fewer and fewer trusting what they stand for.
Where are they hoping to get votes now, I ask, after all these fiascoes as of recent? You can only explain away so much, and sadly mud sticks, I fear.
Info on WINZ and welfare, now and in the past:
http://accforum.org/forums/index.php?/topic/15463-designated-doctors-%e2%80%93-used-by-work-and-income-some-also-used-by-acc/
http://accforum.org/forums/index.php?/topic/15264-welfare-reform-the-health-and-disability-panel-msd-the-truth-behind-the-agenda/
Labour did over years, up to 2008, lay the foundation to what we have been getting the last few years. And an appallingly biased Principal Health Advisor Dr David Bratt got his job with MSD and WINZ in 2007, during Labour’s last term.
No wonder Shearer did hold that speech, and no wonder Labour do not like to talk much about welfare issues.
Well said Marc. Labour never reinstated the Richardson benefit cuts which were purposefully set at rates below those needed to adequately house and feed people, and went further with the “jobs jolt” and Working for Families tax credit.
Salmond presents as just another apologist.
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