Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Tagged: Conference 2008

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: Still more coverage on Douglas

I’ve just caught up with another couple of recent stories on ACT. Former ACT MP Deborah Coddington used her column in this week’s Herald on Sunday to discuss Douglas’s return to ACT. There’s too much worth reading in there for me to extract bits here, so do take a look. Also this week, the Dominion-Post carried a report by its political editor Tracy Watkins on the Douglas-Hide reconciliation and whether Douglas would stand for the party. NZPA also summarised and expanded on this report later. So we still don’t know whether Douglas will be on the list, but it sounds...

Politics

Conference 2008: ACT gets high-tech

The front page of the ACT website has recently been updated for the conference this weekend, with two videos on display. Both are slickly produced (mostly) and are welcome additions to the site – let’s hope we see plenty more multimedia during the year. The right-hand video is an invitation from Hide to attend the conference, short but to the point. On the left, the first video features a conversation between Sir Roger Douglas and Rodney Hide about why he’s coming back to the party. Douglas believes that ACT can get 6-8% of the party vote this election. Obviously we’ve...

Politics

Conference 2008: Opinion piece in the Herald

I have an opinion piece (“Act’s dilemma – what’s in a name?”) in today’s New Zealand Herald, on the return of Sir Roger Douglas to the ACT fold. In the print edition it’s on page A19. Understandably, the piece in the Herald was edited for length and other reasons (and for some reason “perkbuster” was changed to “perkmaster”), so for reference the full piece as I submitted it appears below: It came as a surprise to those who follow the fortunes of ACT New Zealand to hear recently that Sir Roger Douglas has apparently made his peace with the party....

Politics

Roger returns (part II): From Dancing to Douglas – circuit-breaker or poisoned chalice?

What are the implications of Sir Roger Douglas’s return to ACT? Today, I look at the pros and cons of him returning to the party he co-founded in 1993/4. While I’m sure many ACT supporters were pleased to hear that he’s coming back to the fold, the strategy is certainly not without risk. The main advantage of Douglas coming back is his galvanising effect with core ACT supporters. In my dissertation, I examined how Douglas possessed an extraordinary capability to unify supporters of the neo-liberal economic reforms he introduced, but did not complete, during the Fourth Labour Government of 1984-1990....

Politics

Roger returns (part I): how the story unfolded

He’s back. If you’re reading this blog you have probably already read that Sir Roger Douglas, co-founder of ACT New Zealand (with Derek Quigley), is returning to the party fold by giving a speech to the Annual Conference on March 15. In this post, I look at how the story unfolded, while in subsequent posts I will discuss the implications and the conference itself. First, I want to acknowledge the several messages I’ve received wondering where my analysis of the story is. I’m a little annoyed with myself, as I had already my suspicions that Douglas would turn out to...

Politics

ACT 2008 Annual Conference

Early notice of the 2008 ACT Annual Conference has been in the member-only e-mail newsletter ACTion! for a couple of weeks now. It will be on March 14/15, at the Waipuna Hotel & Conference Centre in Auckland. Funnily enough, I happen to be coming to Auckland that weekend, so I hope to be able to go along at least on the Saturday to cover it for Douglas to Dancing. I’m expecting something bold and new at the conference. I think it will be the first of the election year party conferences, so ACT has a good opportunity to get itself...

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