Strategic analyst
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] Sir Roger Douglas has published a 129 page document giving “further reading to ACT’s 20 Point Plan to bring our children home”. See also the pages by Douglas at his campaign website, http://www.roger4hunua.com/. I’m told the file will soon appear at the official ACT website. Commentary to follow.
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] A few weeks ago an e-mail came across my inbox from Facebook. This is not remarkable in itself – even fellow occasional social networkers like me will be aware that the form e-mails advising that person XYZ “has added you as a friend” come along as regularly as the sun rises and sets. But this time the person adding me as a friend was no-one other than Richard Worth, National’s candidate (and former Member of Parliament) in Epsom who is again standing, this time to try and unseat Rodney Hide as the local MP. My first concern was...
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] The biggest, juiciest pledge card ever has been replaced by the most frustrating, annoying error message ever…(well probably not that bad but certainly a pain when I wanted to check something just now!). Correct as at 8am on Thursday New Zealand time…
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] This a “well-strained” post (given that it relates to a comment on a Kiwiblog post about an interview at the Scoop website) but I couldn’t help chuckling at a particularly sharp reader comment about a party which is faring even worse in the polls than ACT: Peter Dunne’s United Future: United Future – the personality cult without a personality. The interview is classic Peter Dunn[e] isn’t it. Sounds oh so reasonable but actually the sum is meaningless. I remember the 1980’s: yes [Sir] Roger [Douglas] was dynamic and exciting. Peter Dunn[e] can never been accused of that….. even...
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] The ODT reports today that former ACT MP Gerry Eckhoff yesterday voted against the Otago Regional Council funding Dunedin’s new “multipurpose” (read: rugby) stadium to the tune of $37.5 million. This is of course in Eckhoff’s capacity as an ORC councillor. Cr Eckhoff said he could not support the stadium as it would only be used occasionally, with little chance of a financial return for Otago. Followers of ACT will recall that Rodney Hide was involved in a much higher profile anti-stadium campaign in late 2006, when he joined forces with Green MP Keith Locke to protest against...
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] ACT has managed to double its poll results, according to the latest surveys by TVNZ and TV3 out on Sunday. ACT had been down at around 0.3-0.4% in the One News-Colmar Brunton Poll, but had increased that to 1.2% according to Sunday’s figures. On TV3, the party was at 1%, up from 0.5% in the last poll. I think TV3 may round its figures to the nearest whole or half percentage point, so the actual result may have been slightly higher (or lower) than 1%. These results may be no more than a statistical blip, but could it...
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] I’ve had some feedback on my comments on MMP, including a comment on an earlier post suggesting an STV system replace MMP. But these comments reflect the prejudice against MMP: This I believe would result in a more diverse parliament, with still MP’s such as Jeanette Fitzimmons being elected, and the same for Hide, & perhaps 1 or 2 other ACT MP’s, and even Winston would be represented, but their power would be limited to how many candidates they can get elected by electorates, rather than quirks of the MMP system. Let me emphasise: MMP is not a...
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] Some breaking news for ACT watchers: Overnight on Monday, ACT has sent out an e-mail promoting a new “pledge card”. The text also appears on the homepage of the party website. On clicking the link one is taken to a PDF with a “20 point plan” of what policy measures ACT supports. There we also see a new party logo – ACT’s fourth since launching as a political party in 1994. The 2008 version dispenses with the blue-green mix in place since 1996, replacing it with a solid sky-blue colour, while retaining the tick device in the yellow...
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] New Zealand must be the only country in the world which has a government coalition partner (the Progressive Party) with absolutely no popular support. From the 1000 voters polled in the latest Herald-DigiPoll, not one named the Progressives as the preferred recipient of their party vote. Please don’t get me wrong: this certainly isn’t intended as a criticism of Jim Anderton’s party per se. ACT itself had just 0.4% – “translated” (as Guyon Espiner would say), this means just 4 voters of the thousand polled selected ACT. Noting this, the post I could write now is that Douglas’s...
[text-blocks id=”act-party”] ACT leader Rodney Hide has featured in the “Interview the Leaders” series on left-wing blog The Standard. It’s a fairly useless interview in terms of substance and is indeed so short that I strongly suspect Hide responded via his Blackberry. However, Hide did respond with some more detail on what exactly constitutes ACT’s “Smart Green” policy and we now know that it will include the end of the current Emissions Trading Scheme (i.e. the “cap and trade” model).