I See Red

Change - to what?

For some time now John Key has been relying on people being a little tired of the same faces and a desire for change - not of agenda, but personality - to drive his poll results up.  The ultimate hollow man who knows his parties values (and policies that flow from them) are not in tune with most kiwis - so he presents a smiley, happy face - and some nice words "ambition", "change" etc.  So Slippery John does everything to prevent his parties real values, and policies coming out into the open.

So what kind of "Change" does John Key and National represent?  Well, now we know - back to the 80s with one of the most hated men in New Zealand - Roger Douglas.  He just has to drag Ruth Richardson from the grave and the picture would be complete.

Until John Key and National categorically rule out working in coalition with Act and Roger Douglas being in Government - the left will be presenting Acts vision, values and policies (because unlike National they are actually talking about them openly) as what National will do in Government.

No Right Turn describes it as "Rogering us again".

Cullen has said that a National-ACT government with Roger Douglas in its cabinet would take a tack to the hard right.

"Just when everybody thought it might be safe to vote National out of the box, like something out of an old horror film, comes Roger Douglas," he told reporters.

"We all know what that means - flogging off the schools, flogging off the hospitals and cutting benefits and everything else that Roger wanted to do and Ruth Richardson did and he did in part."

National are scrambling like mad-men to distance themselves from Act and Roger - but we all know that if National need 2 MPs to become Government - that Act could potentially demand Roger Douglas be Finance Minister.

 

Roger under the bed

National says Act has no future

Bill English has accused Act of being a personality cult' which will not last beyond another few elections (if at all).  Rodney Hide has accused National of being 'Labour-lite' and would "seize the right-wing gap left by National "cuddling up" to Labour policies".

Why bother even getting into a fight with Act?  Why not just say - "National is very comfortable being positioned in the centre-right of politics with the vast majority of New Zealanders.  There will always be a place for smaller fringe parties" - or something along those lines.  Reinforces their positioning while also boxing Act into a corner.

Someone needs to perk-bust Rodney

One of the things I dislike the most in politics is hypocrisy.  We heard quite a lot of it today from National, but ACT's Rodney Hide takes the cake.  The rules are clear he said, leaders office budget money can only be spent on Parliamentary business he said.  New Zealand taxpayers don't pay tax for party's to spend on electioneering he said.  Repay this money to the taxpayers of New Zealand, he said.

Of course, a quick look in one newspaper in the last week of the election and what did I find?  This wouldn't be difficult for any media person to do of course - just a matter of going to any library - a very quick look at the ChCh Press and the Sunday Star Times in the final week of the election campaign and I found ads funded out of leaders office budgets from United Future, the Greens, and horror of horrors - ACT! 

The one attached (sorry about quality) appeared 2 days before the election in the Christchurch Press on Sep 15th 2005.  Pot, Kettle, Black, Rodney.  I wonder if he'll look in a mirror and take his own advice and pay the money back.  I also wonder if these parties included this spending in their election return - I'd be willing to guess that none of them did.

Of course, this was just in 2 newspapers in the final week.  The election spend covers the 3 months before an election, and there are many more newspapers out there!

Odd Rodney, Odd

Rodney Hide has just given a rather odd speech.  I'll highlight a few sections:

Epsom people’s values are ACT’s values. They work hard. They look after their families. They care for their community. They love their country.

I'm not sure how these 'values' are any different from every other political party in New Zealand.

And Helen Clark’s priorities?... But no money for Police. No money for Defence. No money for basic infrastructure.

I guess Rodney missed the 1100 extra police staff since coming into office and commitment of 1000 further sworn staff over the next three years.   

I guess Rodney missed  the the state highway spend for the next ten years is around $12 billion, the highest ever. Roading expenditure has increased 40% since 2003/04. In Auckland in National's last year in government  $131 million was spent on highways. Last year this rose more than ten fold to $1.35 billion.

We want our country clean and green, with our natural environment the envy of the world.

This is new.  I've never heard Act or Rodney concentrate on environmental issues before.

To succeed as a nation we need more immigrants, not less. What we need are immigrants who will lead productive and fulfilling lives here and contribute to our nation.

This could read as Hide's response to Brash's Immigration comment in Orewa III?

And he offers advice to Brash that he should force a vote at the next Caucus and have a ballot of National members to test their support for his leadership.  A bazaar suggestion.  The stunt of a small party, not a major party.

Positioning Act in the new New Zealand

Act currently has a confused image.  Act is the "Liberal Party", yet in many ways it is has positioned itself as conservative and reactionary on issues such as race, drugs, alcohol, and human rights.  4 of Acts 9 MPs had one of the most conservative voting records in the last Parliament on Civil Union and Relationships Act, Prostitution, Death with Dignity, and raising drinking age back to 18.  On a variety of issues it has attempted to position itself as a rural-based party.

If I was an Act supporter I would want to re-position Act as a truly liberal party - on social as well as economic issues.  I'd position as a young, urban, liberal party, and not just a more right wing version of National - but a Party that could work with the left on socially liberally issues.  While being committed to lower taxes and minimal government, I would try to build constituencies around the new New Zealand - not by trying to convince them that lower taxes are the be all and end all, but by promoting liberal social issues.

Those wanting lower taxes aren't going anywhere.  They will vote for the right - either Act or National anyway.  And why try to convince National's rural and conservative constituencies to vote for you? Winning National's voters doesn't make a Centre-right Government more likely.  Instead, I'd try to outmaneuver the Greens and Labour by shifting their supporters - the people who would like lower taxes and smaller government, but detest right wing homophobia, xenophobia, racism, and conservatism.

I'd do this by promoting liberal social issues (and I'm not necessarily saying I support all of these things) such as drug law reform, gay adoption, death with dignity, becoming a republic, lowering the voting age, liberal immigration laws etc.  Why not take up Georgina Beyer's "Gender Identity Bill"?  That would be symbolically significant move.

I think such a repositioned Act Party would be a much more attractive prospect to a larger group of voters (certainly larger than their current 1% anyway) in New Zealand.  And with only two MPs (who are on the liberal side of social as well as economic policy) there is a chance that such a Party could emerge.