Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

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Politics

Time for a save MMP campaign?

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 return is...

Politics

Hide answering “your questions”

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).

Politics

The price of milk

ACT has always been a resolute supporter of a single, unified rate of GST, with the explanation that anything different would lead to that (cliched) “bureaucratic nightmare”. Indeed, Sir Roger Douglas was the very archichtect of the single rate of GST which was introduced in New Zealand in 1986 – at first at 10%, but within a few years raised to the 12.5% level we have today. ACT can keep this position – but employ a slight election-year gimmick along the way.What to do? Here’s a 5 step plan: 1. Call a press conference led by Heather Roy (the “caring”...

Politics

Not my typical post

I was alerted by one of my parliamentary sources to a minor controversy about an ACT leaflet, specifically, whether it was in breach of the Electoral Finance Act (EFA) 2007. According to a report by Audrey Young in the New Zealand Herald last week: The commission agreed that the Act booklet Not Your Typical Party was an election advertisement but is not sure it was “published” when it was distributed to journalists at the Act Party conference. It is seeking legal advice. If it decides that distribution to journalists is publication, then it should have had proper authorisation from the...

Politics

Attacks on ACT from left and right – an Easter bonus for the party?

ACT can be well satisfied with itself this Easter, having caused not one but two attacks on it before the break. To me it sounds like a return to the old days, when ACT caused loathing from both the left and the so-called centre right. During the 1999 election campaign, Bill English called ACT’s policies “unrealistic”. On Thursday he was forced to do much the same, while John Key was scrambling to find a coherent answer to the idea of Douglas becoming a Cabinet minister. The kerfuffle started when Douglas outlined policies he wants to implement should he get the...

Politics

Conference 2008: ‘Unfinished Business’ 2.0

It seems fitting (was it deliberate?) that Douglas used the theme of the 1984 cult film Ghostbusters for his soundbite moment in his PowerPoint presentation to delegates yesterday afternoon. 1984, of course, was the year the Fourth Labour Government began its programme of neo-liberal economic reform. Yesterday, “Growthbusters” was what Douglas termed the current government led by the Labour Party since 1999. But not actual economic growth – this would be difficult to justify, given that New Zealand has enjoyed uninterrupted growth since the brief 1998 recession. Instead, he used the decline in productivity by half since 2000 as evidence...

Politics

Conference 2008: Douglas number three on the list?

The main news to come out of the conference was that Sir Roger Douglas is to stand in a constituency seat, probably south of Auckland. The Herald on Sunday suggests Hunua, which is the renamed Port Waikato electorate with slightly altered boundaries. However, I think it possible that ACT will put Douglas in the entirely new south Auckland electorate of Botany – which is without an incumbent MP. But remember, this is an MMP parliament. Constituencies might be important, especially as the “lifeline” for a small party, but it’s the party list which matters. Indeed, even if Douglas goes into...

Politics

Conference 2008: a tale of two Aucklands

I didn’t see a single Maori or Polynesian face at the conference. A few Asian supporters of former Chinese ACT MP Kenneth Wang sat near me, but even they were thin on the ground. If any proof was needed that ACT is a party of white men, a glance at the conference room today would suffice. Are they rich white men? ACT would beg to differ – indeed today again we were told that “ACT isn’t the party of the rich like the media portray us”. Yet there can be no doubt that many of the attendees were high net-worth...

Politics

Conference 2008: initial impressions

Welcome to Douglas to Dancing‘s extended Conference 2008 coverage. I aim to provide a series of posts over the remainder of the weekend examining the outcomes of the election year conference, held at the Waipuna Lodge in Auckland. Attendance was modest to begin with but steadily built during the morning. Held in a banquet room, probably only around 80-90 were there to hear party president Garry Mallett open the conference at 9am. This figure built throughout the morning, however, and by the time Sir Roger Douglas gave his speech shortly after midday, I estimated closer to 200 people were there....

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