Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Category: Politics

Politics

ACT 2008 Annual Conference

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] Early notice of the 2008 ACT Annual Conference has been in the member-only e-mail newsletter ACTion! for a couple of weeks now. It will be on March 14/15, at the Waipuna Hotel & Conference Centre in Auckland. Funnily enough, I happen to be coming to Auckland that weekend, so I hope to be able to go along at least on the Saturday to cover it for Douglas to Dancing. I’m expecting something bold and new at the conference. I think it will be the first of the election year party conferences, so ACT has a good opportunity to...

Politics

Hide vs. Mallard – part II

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] I’m pleased to see Margaret Wilson threw out Hide’s complaint about Trevor Mallard. Hide did not do himself any credit with this – a real “sideshow” to promoting policies if ever there was one: [Wilson] said the ACT Party leader did not raise the matter in time and had not done it the right way. “If a member wishes to have the Speaker refer the matter to the Privileges Committee, the member must act immediately…. Mr Hide said he was disappointed by Ms Wilson’s response. “It is difficult to imagine what constitutes a breach of privilege if punching...

Politics

We’re Here to Help premiere

I’d have to agree with Dave Henderson, on whose “battle” with the IRD the new film (on general release from tomorrow) We’re Here to Help is based. This is what was reported in the Press this morning: Henderson said all the Labour MPs were invited to the premiere of We’re Here to Help in Riccarton last night, but none arrived. “It is time they got over it,” said Henderson, 52. “I’m just a Kiwi boy and they screwed up and it is about time they acknowledged it and fixed it.” Henderson said the Inland Revenue Department was “cowardly” for not...

Politics

Comments in ODT on Geoff Robinson vs. Rodney Hide

For the benefit of readers living north of the Waitaki River, I reproduce comments by Clarke Isaacs, radio reviewer for the Otago Daily Times (7/11/07, p. 28): The normally mild-mannered, even-handed Geoff Robinson, co-presenter of Radio New Zealand National’s Morning Report, was uncharacteristically aggressive the Tuesday before last when interviewing Act New Zealand leader Rodney Hide about his intended complaint to the much-publicised right-cross Cabinet Minister Trevor Mallard landed on National’s Tau Henare. Robinson’s interviewing partner, the feisty, no-holds-barred Sean Plunket, might have to look to his laurels should Robinson find that he quite likes a fiery questioning style when...

Politics

Ron Smith – update

Following my previous post, I sought comment from Dr. Ron Smith. His response: Dear Geoffrey, I am overseas at the moment. I will hope to have a look at your dissertation late November, when I get back. I am no longer involved with ACT, though I have some contact with ACT and former ACT persons. Regards Ron Smith This is pretty much what I expected to hear. As I understand it there are a lot of people around who were enthusiastic about ACT in its incipient and more wealthy phase around the mid-1990s, but who dropped off as the party...

Politics

Ron Smith and nuclear power

In the latest issue of the New Zealand International Review (November/December 2007, pp. 2-5), there is an article by Dr. Ron Smith, who is head of international relations at the Political Science department at the University of Waikato. Smith is a regular contributor to the Review and his latest article advocates the introduction of nuclear power to New Zealand. Here is the ACT connection: in the party’s formative phase, Smith was foreign affairs spokesman and was quoted in some media reports around 1996. Although I don’t have exact figures on hand at the moment, I believe he was ranked at...

Politics

Radio NZ “bias” – the Coddington connection

An opinion piece by Finlay Macdonald in today’s Sunday Star-Times discusses a survey of New Zealand journalists which apparently found they lean more to the left than right. Are journalists biased? It’s a bit like asking how long a piece of string is you need more information. Nevertheless, the authors of a recent survey of New Zealand newsrooms bravely posed the question of political “orientation” to a self-selected sample of hacks who were asked to rate themselves on a scale from hard left to hard right. The fact that most considered themselves very mildly left or just “neutral” possibly also...

Politics

Hide vs. Mallard

This week, Rodney Hide took a complaint to the Speaker about the scuffle between Labour minister Trevor Mallard and National MP Tau Henare, in which the former admitted assaulting the latter, as NZPA reported: ACT leader Rodney Hide says he will go to the police if his privileges complaint over the stoush between Trevor Mallard and Tau Henare goes unheard.Mr Hide said last week he would lay a breach of privilege complaint with Speaker Margaret Wilson over the altercation which saw Mr Mallard punch Mr Henare. Hide has posted his full letter to Wilson at his blog. In keeping with...

Politics

Gerry Eckhoff and the “Country Party”

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] Until today, I thought Gerrard (Gerry) Eckhoff was a loyal ACT trooper, even though he lost his seat at the 2005 election. At the 2007 annual ACT conference in March, which I attended as part of my research, Eckhoff loomed large and gave a rather entertaining, if at times confusing speech on “environmental morality”. But it seems that we now have to add Eckhoff to the growing list of former MPs who have expressed misgivings about the new direction of ACT. In today’s Otago Daily Times an “op-ed” piece written by Eckhoff appeared, headlined “Time to take a...

Politics

Leighton Smith

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] The preoccupation with medical stories on Nine to Noon means that I sometimes flick on to Newstalk ZB in the mornings, where Leighton Smith reigns supreme. Today I heard Smith advocating school “vouchers”, whereby parents take funding to their school of choice. This competitive system has long been a cornerstone of ACT policy, with MPs Donna Awatere-Huata and later Deborah Coddington particularly in favour of it. I wonder if ACT will bring out schemes like the voucher system once again. The “economisation” of politics over the last couple of years, in which Labour and National have argued about...

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