Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Tagged: Heather Roy

Politics

ACT’s new Wellington office

This is intended as a news rather than commentary post. I recently checked with ACT on what the story is with Heather Roy’s Wellington Office which was opened in October 2007. The main function of the office is obviously to give Heather Roy a more visible presence in her Wellington Central electorate campaign. The party tells me that Roy is using her entitlement to open an Out of Parliament office with a support staffer funded by Parliamentary Services. At the moment the office shares a staffer with Heather Roy’s Parliamentary office. From ACT: The office is located on the corner...

Politics

Populism on the rise again – an opportunity for ACT?

Populism seems to be on the rise again in New Zealand politics. Today we had Helen Clark declaring a virtual war on tagging with draconian, yet ineffective policies to deal with spray-paint vandalism. The chances of this sort of policy, which includes banning the sale of spray-paint to youths under 18, actually working hover slightly above nil. But it’s a popular policy to push to the electorate: 1. Tagging is a bane of the (mostly white) middle class. It gets people riled in a way that banging on about “sustainability” never will. Tagging is emotional, as it gets to the...

Politics

Summer speeches 2008: Hide has knives out for Clark – but kid gloves for Key

The reaction from ACT to the speeches given this week by John Key and Helen Clark is extremely interesting. Soon after each leader had given his or her speech, ACT had a press release from Rodney Hide on its website – a rarity in itself these days, when one is more accustomed to seeing a digital stack of issues of Heather Roy’s Diary. First up, Hide commented on Key. It was the traditional “good, but not far enough” argument from ACT. Hide “welcomed” the “good” speech. Key’s “youth entitlement” was a “good” policy. The only problem was that the speech...

Politics

Election year underway for ACT

I may have spoken too soon. Since I wrote my last post, the first ACTion member e-mail newsletter for the year has appeared in my inbox, and the party seems to be well underway with election year preparations. The first item of interest is that Rodney Hide will be giving his “Forward Thinking” speech on February 6, i.e. Waitangi Day, to the Remuera Racquets Club in Epsom. This will be at least the second “Forward Thinking” speech given by Hide and seems to have become his “State of the Nation” address. It’s good to see it coming much earlier (six...

Politics

Summer theatre

Bad news. My “prediction” of just a couple of weeks back about John Key announcing a National-ACT deal in his Burnside speech has been dealt a bitter blow (to keep it in TV speak). There won’t be any Burnside speech. According to a report in today’s Dominion-Post, Key will in fact be giving his New Year speech at Ellerslie, with Helen Clark snapping on his heels the next day. Now if it had been Epsom, not Ellerslie, we might have been cooking. But while National and Labour will soon be full of oratory, ACT won’t be. As far as I...

Politics

Stellar candidate on the way?

It might not be Tim Shadbolt, but it sounds like a “stellar candidate” is in the works for ACT this election. I’ve had a tip-off from inside the party that a prominent New Zealander has been recruited to stand for ACT at the election. I don’t know who it is, but an annoucement is apparently expected soon. This may come to nothing, of course: last year the rumour was that ACT was targeting the Rakaia electorate and had almost concluded signing up a prominent local person to stand in the seat. There was no announcement, although to be fair to...

Politics

Tim Shadbolt – a stellar ACT candidate?

I’ve talked before how ACT could do with a star candidate to help it build a bigger profile, especially in the 2008 election campaign. It was the personality of Rodney Hide who really saved ACT at the 2005 election from complete annihilation. If another MP had been elected ACT leader in 2004 to replace Richard Prebble, I have doubts that the party would have been returned to Parliament (even though this would not have necessarily prevented Hide from standing in Epsom, first passing him over for leader would not have been a good look, at the very least). In November,...

Politics

ACT’s Christmas letter – part 1

I joined ACT for research purposes in February 2007, at the outset of my research, but on Thursday this week finally received my first piece of conventional mail from the party. Of course, like most parties these days, ACT prefers to save money and use e-mail. Accordingly, it sends out the weekly ACTion! e-mail newsletter to members every Friday. The problem with ACTion! is that there’s not a lot in it and most of it is the same each week, having been copied and pasted from the previous edition. It’s also not very personalised and I’m sure for many people...

Politics

Stephen Franks to stand for National!

Some very interesting news out today: Stephen Franks is standing for National in Wellington Central. Although this was signalled in the NBR in July 2007, the big surprise for me is that he is standing in Wellington Central, where Heather Roy recently announced she was standing for ACT. This can only be seen as a slap in the face for ACT. Admittedly, it is quite likely that Franks’s nomination was already finalized before Roy announced her candidacy. Still, this will make for some interesting campaign meetings. Although we knew that Franks was being courted by National, I wonder if he...

Politics

NZPA on Roy

NZPA has a report on Heather Roy standing in Wellington Central and gives some good background: Wellington Central is going to be open territory for candidates next year because the Labour MP who holds it, Marian Hobbs, is standing down.Ms Hobbs retained it in 2005 with 20,199 votes – a majority of 6180 over Mark Blumsky, the former Wellington mayor who stood for National.A former Act MP, Stephen Franks, contested the seat in that election but gained only 1254 votes, fewer than the Green’s Sue Kedgley who came third. Richard Prebble, a former ACT leader, won the seat in 1996...

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