Politics
PM Woonton's Winning Ways
How one MP is making coalition politics work
Two months ago. A sunny May day. Prime Minister Dr Robert Woonton is standing outside an outer islands community hall in Aitutaki, casually answering questions about rumours of yet another leadership challenge back on Rarotonga.
He leans close. "You know what it is?" he asks rhetorically about his casual response to yet another leadership challenge. "I really don't give a ****." Eyes twinkling, the Cook Islands fourth prime minister since 1999 leans back again and gives a belly laugh.
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Woonton is well known in government circles for his devilish humour, volcanic temper, tantrums, and a seemingly short attention span. He has been investigated by police for allegedly playing loose and fast with the rules (he was cleared of a bribery attempt).
Common enough traits among politicians, perhaps. But, since taking power in a February 2002 parliamentary vote, Woonton has also won more successes than any of his predecessors when it comes to reform. Small reforms, perhaps, but still significant.
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In May, it was to end seven years of wrangling over an outer islands devolution bill. After a tea break and chat with a journalist about the no-confidence rumours, Woonton went back into the community hall where he gained agreement from a mayoral forum for what was by then the 12th draft of the grandly named (and renamed) State Islands Government Bill.
Before that, among other things, Woonton had pushed through:
• a draft legislation which would see MPs lose their fat pension scheme, currently costing Cook Islanders US$300,000 a year (PNG residents would have to pay out US$99 million in MPs pension to reach the same per capita cost);
• tabled in parliament constitutional amendments which would see the dropping of the hugely controversial Overseas seat, and, one of three seats in Mangaia, an island with one third its former population;
• most importantly of all in a country where voters complain there is too much party politics, introduced in the same amendment a reduction to the parliamentary term, cutting it from five years to four.
How did he do it? Partly by recognising one of the main problems facing reform is not too much 'party politics' but too much 'party' and not enough 'politics.'
Woonton began last year by deposing his former leader, Dr Terepai Maoate, going into coalition with opposition leader Sir Geoffrey Henry. Then he sidelined the country's most controversial MP, Norman George, a man who has held the balance of power in five previous governments. Finally, he finished off his political ballet by dumping Henry, and reappointing his former boss as his deputy.
Who does he count on to support his reform efforts?
"It will be a challenge for government to introduce these bills in Parliament. But I'm counting on the common sense of the members of the opposition to support it." Some of the much commented upon flaws can also work as strengths. Short attention span?
"Let me get the Act," he says, enthusiastically, leaping up from an interview with Islands Business. He returns from his private office, next door to a conference room in the Office of the Prime Minister, clutching a copy of the National Superannuation Act, with the comment: "I can always get my hands on things when I want to."
So it seems. But it wasn't always like this. Woonton's successes with reform and international triumphs like declaring a nationwide whale sanctuary are all the more surprising considering disastrous attempts to fast-track development before he became prime minister. In 2001, for example, jeers and boos greeted his plan for Suwarrow, the country's main bird sanctuary. In front of 400 people at a public meeting, his former boss, Maoate, declared the Woonton project dead.
As prime minister, Woonton might have been expected to use his new powers to bulldoze the opposition, public or otherwise. In fact, he appears to have absorbed criticism and involved the public more than ever before. Dumping Maoate's plans for a parliamentary budget committee (safely dominated by government), Woonton formed one of his own headed by former Chamber of Commerce president Don Beer, and dominated by other private sector leaders, including women.
Not only did the public dominate the budget discussions, Woonton's cabinet adopted the new budget without any changes. "I was amazed," says one committee member, Helen Wong, whose husband, Chris, a Fiji citizen, is a long time chief of the highly successful Cook Islands Tourism Corporation.
Says Wong: "I don't think anyone has recognised the historic significance of what this government has achieved in terms of the budget." As Islands Business went to press, there were still some nerves about the 10-day budget debate. A vote of no-confidence could strike at any time, overturning the budget, and Woonton's reforms.
