Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Category: Politics

Politics

Special report: the ACT List 2008 (part 2)

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] What follows is a breakdown into categories of ACT members who have put themselves forward for selection for ACT’s List at the 2008 election. I have collated this list using the biographies provided and occasionally using personal background knowledge. Obviously I have gone by the information provided by the nominees and could only place them in categories for which information was provided. For Alan (Smilie) Wood I had no information other than that he “[l]ives near Kerikeri”. Nominees will usually have been placed into at least two categories, one reflecting their geographical location and another their occupation, as...

Politics

Special report: the ACT List 2008 (part 1)

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] ACT members have been receiving voting forms and brief biographies of members who have put themselves forward to be on the party list for this year’s election. The accompanying information sets out the purpose of the vote, which is non-binding: On 16 August 2008, the Board of Trustees of the ACT Party will decide our Party List for the coming General Election. In the build-up, the Board members are gathering information about the contending candidates from many sources to assist them with that responsibility, including: – Speeches by the candidates – Summaries of qualifications and experience – Interviews...

Politics

MMP officially under threat

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] The New Zealand Herald has today devoted its editorial to agreeing with National on holding a referendum on MMP. As I’ve previously criticised, ACT is supporting a referendum on the basis that voters should have a chance to put forward their opinion. And National has committed to holding a binding referendum no later than 2011 on the MMP system. Yet as the Herald editorial shows, there is so much misinformation on MMP that no “fair” referendum could ever take place. I shook my head at the following in the editorial: Those who backed MMP no longer wanted unbridled...

Politics

One swallow does not make a summer, but…

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] As ACT strategist Brian Nicolle emphasised to me in written remarks last year, National has not won an outright majority since 1951 – the year of the waterfront workers’ strike. One could argue that a landslide election victory is well overdue and deteriorating economic conditions (don’t forget, New Zealand, not the United States, is the country halfway to a technical recession) offer fertile ground for a National 50%+ result. But if the rule, rather than the exception, prevails, we should expect National’s support to erode over the next few months as voters seek to “keep Key honest”. Presuming...

Politics

A ‘Critic’-al view of ACT – part 2

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] The main event in Critic this week was an interview with Rodney Hide, on page 39. Despite John Ansell saying this week that with the exception of Hide, ACT’s electorate candidates had “bugger all chance of winning”, Hide still expresses confidence in the ability of Sir Roger Douglas to win the seat of Hunua: Well, the key thing is the party vote but you have to say, the um … [laughs] I’m sure more people know and respect Roger Douglas than have ever heard of [National candidate in Hunua] Paul Hutchison. If Ansell is to be believed (and...

Politics

A ‘Critic’-al view of ACT – part 1

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] I must have felt nostalgic for my alma mater tonight when I entered the URL of Critic, the student magazine of the Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA), into my browser’s address bar. Fortunately, as a free on campus weekly, Critic sees no need to fumble about with clunky “E-Paper” technology and posts each week’s edition as a freely downloadable PDF, including this week’s paper. This week, Critic featured (on page 22) an interview with Warren Jones, the organiser of the Dunedin chapter of ACT on Campus. Jones’s name featured in the acknowledgements of my dissertation, as he was...

Politics

Why did Ansell leave?

[text-blocks id=”act-party”] A little less of my day job at the moment leaves a little more time for Douglas to Dancing. And there are plenty of things to comment on. Easily the most significant is the departure this week of John Ansell, essentially a marketing expert who was brought in earlier this year with the aim of sprucing up ACT’s appeal and packaging the party’s policies in more voter-friendly ways. As many will recall, Ansell was responsible for the ideas behind much of National’s advertising (and notably the half/half Labour-National comparison billboards) during the 2005 campaign. Let’s begin with Ansell’s...

Politics

Douglas publishes “further reading” to 20 point plan

[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.

Politics

Is it Worth trying to face up to Hide online?

[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...

Politics

ACT website down

[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…

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