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all Matt's columns
Matt McCarten: Key's stroke of genius gives him strong hand in one-party state
Sun 23 Nov 08
Herald on Sunday
I have to admit John Key made a superb job putting a Government together. It was a seamless operation.
Wisdom suggests business types don't make good politicians because they're used to getting their own way. If an employee doesn't do what they want, sacking ends the problem.
MPs can't be removed that way. Any constituent MP who builds a strong local power base can never be sacked, no matter what grief they cause the party leader.
Conversely, a leader holds the job only by keeping a majority of the caucus on side. If the leader steps on enough of his or her MPs, they conspire to sack the boss.
Matt McCarten: Gaining Maori Party support will let National neutralise Act
Sun 16 Nov 08
Herald on Sunday
National can return to its former place as the default party of power.
National was always going to win the election. The only question is whether they'll govern for more than a term.
Act must have thought they were in the box seat when they gained five MPs on the back of Rodney Hide's victory in Epsom. The old ideologue, Roger Douglas, must have been drooling at the thought Key would have to back down on his earlier declaration that Douglas would not be allowed into the new Cabinet.
Matt McCarten: Extent of success only real query
Sun 9 Nov 08
Herald on Sunday
John Key was always going to win this election, the only question was by how much. His two coalition partners, Act and United Future, were always going to be returned.
Because his coalition partners had electorate MPs they were guaranteed to return to Parliament if National didn't gather enough votes to govern alone.
Helen Clark could have found a way through only if the Greens had got well over 5 per cent and Winston Peters, by some miracle, had got over the threshold. There was no chance of Peters winning Tauranga, nor his colleague Ron Mark taking Rimutaka.
Matt McCarten: Formula for strategic voting as clear as Greens' policies
Sun 2 Nov 08
Herald on Sunday
Apparently one out of four voters intends to split their two votes next Saturday. Some voters are starting to understand that they can use their votes strategically to help get the electoral outcome they want.
There is little doubt that National will beat Labour in the total votes cast this election. But despite National's poll dominance, it's unlikely it will reach the 50 per cent mark it needs to rule in its own right.
Even with Act and United Future, there is a possibility that National could fail if its opponents voted strategically.
Matt McCarten: Election about mighty minnows, not major parties
Sun 26 Oct 08
Herald on Sunday
Paradoxically, the outcome of the election in a fortnight's time will be determined by Maori MPs. Either Winston Peters (yes he's Maori, not Italian) will pull off the near impossible and NZ First will squeak back in with 5 per cent of the vote, or if he fails, then Helen Clark and John Key will need the Maori Party.
Matt McCarten: Clark bulldozes opponent, but Key connects with viewers
Sun 19 Oct 08
Herald on Sunday
Helen Clark clearly dominated the Leaders' Debate on Tuesday night. She had all her arguments at her fingertips and, from the start, bulldozed right over the top of John Key. It is easy to see how she crushed her National opponents in previous election campaigns.
But she has met a harder adversary in Key, who could hold his own most of the time. But where he had the edge was in coming over better on television. Clark was very much the prime minister, talking knowledgeably and forcefully around big issues. Key, however, was able to couch his talking points in a way that resonated better with viewers. In short, Key connected.
Matt McCarten: KiwiSaver shocker ammo for Labour attack
Sun 12 Oct 08
Herald on Sunday
Well, the great anticipated tax cut bonanza promised by National turned into a damp squib, didn't it?
National's been promising us for ages every worker would get a huge tax cut.
But you didn't have to be Einstein to work out Labour would always ensure it would pay for its promises first then leave the cupboard bare.
When the Treasury books were opened last week, there was, unsurprisingly, no money left in the coffers to pay for National's promised largesse. It seems our country will be running an annual deficit of some billions for the foreseeable future.
Given the world financial crisis, John Key's earlier announcements that National might consider borrowing money to pay for tax cuts would now be electoral suicide if it tried now.
Matt McCarten: Stop clowning, McDonald's: it's time to fix your corporate culture
Sun 5 Oct 08
Herald on Sunday
In my day job as a union boss, I come across some creeps. I'm usually reluctant to name and shame bad employers, but today I'm making an exception.
I know that multinationals are notoriously exploitative, wherever they are in the world. But even a hardened operator like me continues to be shocked at some of the behaviour that is occasionally exposed.
A McDonald's franchisee was found to have constructively dismissed a then 17-year-old employee because she had the cheek to join a union.
McDonald's was found to have cut her hours and to have been unfair and unreasonable. The young woman was awarded $15,000, which is one of the highest settlements ever.
Matt McCarten: US example puts paid to free market idea
Sun 28 Sep 08
Herald on Sunday
The trillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded handout to criminal and irresponsible corporations in the United States surely puts an end to the nonsense that there is any such thing as a "free" market.
Right-wing ideologues have bullied us for three decades that the only way for growth and prosperity is to have unregulated free markets, guided by some mystical force called the "invisible hand". After the meltdown in the US this week there has been a deafening silence from these sages.
Quite frankly, the free-market theoreticians have been shown to be a bunch of charlatans dressing up old-fashioned greed as a social good.
Matt McCarten: Clark's probable Cabinet crew out-fresh National's old rehash
Sun 21 Sep 08
Herald on Sunday
After I depressed you with the centre-right's likely Cabinet line-up under National it's only fair to let you know the centre-left's alternative.
The only certain players around a Clark-led Cabinet are at least three Greens and, of course, Jim Anderton. Winston Peters would have been a certainty if his party hadn't been found out taking secret donations from the big money men. If, by some miracle, he is able to convince one in 20 of us on election day and get back into Parliament he will rightly be crowned the Great New Zealand Houdini of politics. But you can count on it that neither Clark nor Key will have him in their Cabinet.
