Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Tagged: Act

Rodney Hide Epsom billboard

Politics

Can Labour learn from Act’s leadership primary? (part 2)

#56052984 / gettyimages.com This post was originally published at Liberation. In the last post, I looked at the background to the Act Party’s 2004 leadership primary, which saw Rodney Hide win election over three other contenders. In this post, I consider some new information passed from a former Act insider, who wishes to remain anonymous. The comments are a cautionary tale as to what can go wrong with a primary contest. Based on this information and analysis, I ask whether Labour will end up going the same way that Act did following its destructive primary. An Act Party insider writes: I’m bemused by...

Act billboard 2005

Politics

Can Labour learn from Act’s leadership primary? (part 1)

#55789878 / gettyimages.com This post was originally published at Liberation. The current New Zealand Labour Party leadership primary contest presents a more democratic way to elect a party leader. Traditionally, the party leader has been seen as a matter for the parliamentary wing, with the much less visible role of party president being elected by the party as a whole. In this blog post – the first of two posts on the subject – I argue that the new primary system, while far from perfect, can only be seen as a long-overdue reform which should strengthen the Labour Party as...

Politics

I hate quoting myself but…

After a hectic campaign year in the blogosphere, your correspondent has been busy with other things and is still on a break from regular blogging. In the meantime, I urge you to enjoy the excellent series of posts on ACT’s early history by Dr. Bryce Edwards and indeed other posts on his academically-focused blog, Liberation. I have particularly enjoyed his work on New Zealand First. In a recent post, Dr. Edwards takes a look at the party’s future with the help of a Herald on Sunday article, for which he was interviewed. While this may seem beyond the scope of...

Politics

Coalition agreements

ACT will not be going into formal coalition with National. This is because ACT does not want to risk losing its independence from National and wants to be able to vote against the many aspects of National policy with which it disagrees. Instead, it will gain one or ministers outside Cabinet and negotiate some policy compromises with the National Party. The near-absence of formal coalition agreements from New Zealand politics now seems to have become cemented. The 2005-2008 Progressive Party-Labour coalition may have been the last we will see. But why not have a formal coalition agreement? Germany, on whose...

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

Newsflash: ACT overshadowed by the Herald

It’s interesting that ACT and Rodney Hide were overshadowed in the New Zealand Herald‘s coverage of the opposition to the Electoral Finance Bill by other small parties, most notably the Maori Party. In the report space was given only for a comment by Hide in a collection of quotes from MPs opposing the bill. It wasn’t a particularly exciting comment – perhaps that’s why it came last, even after the Progressives (the 1 MP party). Indeed, it was Hone Harawira who was allocated much attention by the Herald and it’s not hard to see why – he gave an impressive...

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...

Act billboard 2005

Politics

Welcome to Douglas to Dancing!

Welcome to Douglas to Dancing. The aim of this blog is to provide a forum for discussion and analysis of the ACT New Zealand political party, about which I wrote my Honours dissertation during 2007 at the University of Otago. On these pages I will highlight key findings from my research and comment on ACT’s 2008 election campaign, as well as simply examining anything relating to ACT. In the coming weeks I plan to look at how ACT is using new technology and what has happened to ACT’s MPs, past and present. For now, I encourage anyone interested in ACT...

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