KEY POINTS:
A leaked private conversation between National deputy leader Bill English and a delegate to the National Party conference suggests he does not believe leader John Key has a complete grasp of Working For Families.
Labour is expected to make much of the embarrassing tape today after Mr English
compounded the indiscretion last night by failing to say that his boss did understand the policy.
When repeatedly asked by TVNZ whether Mr Key understood Working For Families, Mr English's repeated response was that it was "a complicated policy".
The conversation was taped at a National Party cocktail function on Friday night and was posted on the Scoop website. It is not known who taped the conversation. But it reinforces the different roles that Mr English and Mr Key have adopted - that Mr English is the policy-driven brains of the leadership team and Mr Key is the affable salesman.
The tape shows Mr English did not believe that former leader Don Brash understood the Working For Families policies and the tax ramifications of changing it. He said: "Don thought he could [fix it] but he couldn't. So did John actually, but you can't."
Labour has already seized on Mr English's reference on the tape to wanting to "eventually" sell off Kiwibank as evidence that National has a hidden agenda.
Revelations of the tape forced John Key to yesterday distance himself from Mr English's comments on Kiwibank.
"National's made it clear we won't be selling assets in our first term," he said on Radio New Zealand. "If there's any change to that position ... we will go and seek that mandate by going out and asking the voters of New Zealand whether they support a particular policy or not."
Asked if selling Kiwibank would be on the agenda for the election after next, Mr Key said: "I don't think you can expect that to be on the agenda ... I wouldn't jump to any conclusions."
Asked at her post Cabinet press conference if taping conversations at a cocktail party was getting serious, Prime Minister Helen Clark said: "The same could be said of what happened in April in our conference in closed sessions which blew something completely out of proportion."
The transcript of the conversation between National deputy leader Bill English and a couple of National Party conference delegates at a cocktail party in Wellington last Friday:
ENGLISH: The basic point is, we spent a lot of time on this. The basic dynamics of it are - you look at it from the punters' point of view - they're saying they don't like Cullen and Clark. "They took all my freaking tax off me and they spend billions of it, and it went on Wassup! badges and websites and bullshit."
DELEGATE: Yeah.
ENGLISH: They got a bit back.
DELEGATE: Yeah.
ENGLISH: And all our work tells us they're pretty keen to keep the bit they've got. And we call them Labour-plus voters - and they're sitting there thinking, "that nice man Mr Key is pretty smart, he'll get me a bit more".
They're not saying, "That nice man Mr Key will take something off me." They're saying "he'll give me a bit more".
And the reality is if we had been the Government with the surpluses they had, we would have had something, like Working For Families, but not the same.
We would have given them quite a bit of cash back. And what happens is you go in there to try and change it. Frankly Don [Brash] and co got a bit carried away, cos they didn't understand it. If you give people money then, it is very hard.
There's a set of inevitable problems. It's like physics, right. If you push something up its gonna drop. If you give people cash, they have high marginal tax rates.
Okay, that's it. You can't get round that. Don thought he could but he couldn't. So did John [Key] actually but you can't. So the only raw choice is: fix the problem; or take money off them. And there's no way you can fix the problems without taking the money off them. So we're sitting here saying the punters are keen to keep it. They're facing a recession. The last thing we want is to spend the whole election campaign with families of four on TV saying "Mr Key's taking money off us". You can't do that.
DELEGATE: Yeah.
ENGLISH: So later on, we'll have to have a bit of a sort out. Yeah, we've gotta do something, but we can't do it now.
DELEGATE: What about something like Kiwibank?
ENGLISH: And actually, we just have one guy with a spreadsheet. And it's bloody complicated.
DELEGATE: I'm sure you've Lockwood Smith's spreadsheet.
ENGLISH: Oh yeah yeah, it is.
DELEGATE: Getting rid of Kiwibank? I mean.
ENGLISH: Well, eventually, but not now. Well, it's working. A lot of our supporters get a bit antsy about it, but it's working.
