Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Category: Politics

Politics

That’s it – for now

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] Unless there is an earth-shattering piece of news before midnight tonight, that concludes Douglas to Dancing‘s election campaign coverage. Of course I’ll be back after election night to analyse and interpret ACT’s fate. My thanks to everyone who has offered constructive criticism and feedback on my posts. LATEST – FINAL WORD ON THE POLLS: the Roy Morgan poll just out also puts ACT at 4% support of the party vote. ACT should be very disappointed if it gets anything less than 3%. Because newspaper polls today showed National at close to 50%, ACT could well prosper further, as...

Politics

The difference a year makes…

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] Some highlights from the transcript of my interview with Rodney Hide, August 2007: “I mean my view of Roger Douglas is, he’s a great guy, but he’s always bagged his own team, he’s done that his entire life in politics, and so he’s continued, he bagged ACT and me and Richard from the time we got to Parliament, so there’s nothing new in that.” “So we’ve got to make ourselves relevant and new and also position ourselves better in an MMP environment, as compared with a tactical appendage to National” “I think we have changed ACT totally, no...

Politics

The Guts of a Decent Slogan

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] TV3 has run a slogan competition via its election website. I’ve collated the ACT-related ones and grouped them into and anti- and pro-ACT categories (in some cases this is hard to tell!). The anti ones are first because there are more of them and they’re much funnier. Anti-ACT: Personal favourite: Vote for ACT: Rodney needs something to do between reality TV gigs. We’re going to party like its still 1979 action against Winston Peters backfired! but Rodney Hide still thinks he is right…YEAH RIGHT! Personal favourite (this was submitted as applying to all parties; the bad grammar just...

Politics

The final chapter

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] Clearly, the new strategy has at least as many pitfalls as strengths. But as a party which recorded just 1.5 per cent of the party vote at the last election, ACT New Zealand has little to lose. Moreover, it is difficult to find fault with the party for attempting to address in a serious way the very problems I found to be causes of its past lack of success. Since the 2005 election, Hide has made comprehensive attempts to change ACT’s policies, brand and to make the party matter to voters. Ultimately, only ACT’s performance in the 2008...

Politics

Two, three, four or five?

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] No doubt many ACT supporters will have a spring in their step as they walk through Newmarket this morning, with the party reaching an impressive 4.0% in the final Fairfax poll out this morning. (For all poll details see Curiablog‘s summary). But the other polls all show different results, with ACT winning two, three or four seats. Taking the average, I think this gets ACT a highly likely three seats, with a 50% chance of winning a fourth seat. The two or five seat options would remain outliers. So Douglas becomes a backbencher. In October, we had two...

Politics

Oops…

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] This just in from the Herald: Act leader Rodney Hide’s indignation at the Electoral Finance Act is nothing but a jacket jack-up.The complaint to the Electoral Commission about Mr Hide’s canary-yellow jacket was made by an Act supporter.It has been revealed the complainant is 21-year-old Andy Moore, a University of Canterbury commerce student and “strong Act supporter”….Mr Hide today said he was embarrassed and pissed off at Mr Moore. Was “pissed off” a direct quote?

Politics

From the front line

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] An Auckland-based contact e-mailed me the following thoughts on ACT: On the ground, the feel for ACT is quite strange at the moment… ACT clearly gave the impression they are bigger than they are and are polling reasonably (well, around 3% was the ball park figure often given). What’s amazing is how many ACT billboards there are around Auckland, particularly in Epsom. What’s mental is that outside of Epsom, I think ACT has replaced every single former billboard they had a few weeks ago with new ones focusing on crime, etc….They’ve also been HEAVILY direct mailing and leafletting...

Politics

Botany campaign

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] Dene Mackenzie has a background piece for the ODT online on the Botany electorate, in which ACT candidate Kenneth Wang is hoping to win the seat. This follows an earlier piece in the New Zealand Herald. Both articles highlight some apparently racist traits of non-Asian voters in the electorate. From the Herald: [A voter], who wanted to be known only as Sandy, 24, said: “It’s ridiculous that I receive flyers in my mailbox from the candidates in Chinese or whatever, and I am made to feel like I’m a foreigner in my homeland’s election.” She said she was...

Politics

ACT out of cash and out of time?

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] ACT has a reputation for being a party of the rich, a reputation which the party has often denied. There is some evidence for this, as I found out in my dissertation: ACT’s declared election spending decreased by over forty per cent over the elections from 1996 to 2005, although the decline was not uniform. In 1999, the figure dropped by sixty percent compared with 1996, to $657,889.14. Donations recovered to allow spending of $1,625,558.79 in 2002, but slumped again in 2005, when the party spent only $966,614.72 (Electoral Commission 2003). Furthermore, [then party president Catherine] Judd (2006)...

Politics

Why crime no longer pays

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] I watched last week’s TVNZ’s small party leaders’ debate and a Rodney Hide interview with John Campbell and came away with some developed thoughts on ACT’s hardline stance on crime. I had planned to do a blog post on it last week but it slipped my mind until I heard an account of a Dunedin North local candidates meeting. Let me elaborate: In his interview with Campbell, Hide admitted that ACT had had problems with the economy in election campaigns in the past, with people “jogging past” economy-related billboards. Hide said that this had changed this election, but...

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