Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Tagged: Heather Roy

Act Party campaign 2008

Politics

Conspiracy against Hide? Or Conspiracy by Hide?

This blog post was originally published at Liberation There are two conspiracy stories about the alleged November 2009 leadership challenge in the Act Party which is still dogging the party today. The dominant version about the so-called failed leadership coup is that deputy leader Heather Roy and maverick MP Roger Douglas conspired to topple Rodney Hide from the leadership position within Act. A second conspiracy theory that deserves some attention is the idea that the whole story is actually a beat-up, or at least an exaggeration, and that the story has actually been encouraged and exaggerated by Rodney Hide himself....

Politics

Act’s problem – Roger, not Roy

This blog post was originally published at Liberation The case against Heather Roy The Heather Roy conspiracy supposedly climaxed with her speech to Act’s annual conference in Wellington at the end of last month where supposedly the knives were still out for party leader Rodney Hide. The political commentator at the New Zealand Herald, John Armstrong, told readers that Roy had hidden ‘numerous, if subtle, digs at Hide personally’ throughout her speech. To Armstrong, Roy’s statement that ‘Holding an electorate seat and a couple of percentage points of party vote is not good enough’ is evidently not a blindingly obvious...

Politics

Conference 2009: the broad church?

If you work in a large organisation, I’m sure you’ll be familiar with the “general reminder” e-mail or memo sent out to all staff. “Could all staff please remember that in future….?” or “Just a friendly note that….” and so on. In my experience, these messages are usually directed at just one or two colleagues, but are sent out in a cloaked fashion to all employees in order to avoid broaching the specific issue with the person in question. Like the not-so-subtle reminders to employees, ACT’s decision to adopt a conscience-vote model for all bills is a general one, but...

Politics

Ultimus inter pares – part I

Minister of Local Government Minister of Regulatory Reform Associate Minister of Commerce + Minister of Consumer Affairs Associate Minister of Defence Associate Minister of Education + Reviews, committees, discussions, aims, aspirations, considerations, concepts, Commissions, working groups, taskforces, briefings – Roger Douglas = A great deal for the National Party. Over the past week ACT has been successfully cornered by a cunning John Key. Overtly, Key has told New Zealand that the reason he wanted to draw in the Maori Party and United Future – even though their participation is technically unnecessary – is to build an “inclusive” government. But the...

Politics

Consumer Affairs for Heather Roy

Courtesy of the Dominion-Post, we learn that ACT’s deputy leader Heather Roy will be made Minister of Consumer Affairs. The paper asked Consumers’ Insitute head Sue Chetwin for comment and as she used to be a journalist and editor of both major Sunday papers, her insights are certainly worth noting: ACT itself is not strong on consumer issues in terms of country-of-origin labelling and some of the things we’re interested in. But regulations around financial advisers and a lot of that stuff that’s happening now, I think she’d be very good. Chetwin’s view is a balanced one. To a certain...

Politics

The new world

In just four days we gained a US President-elect and an NZ Prime Minister-elect. If Phil Goff succeeds Helen Clark as Labour leader as expected, for the first time since 1993 both of New Zealand’s main parties will be headed by men. And Sir Roger Douglas is back in Parliament. Welcome to the new world. First, let me offer congratulations to ACT for an impressive comeback. And congratulations to the 10 people who correctly predicted in this site’s poll about a month ago that the party would gain a result in the 3-4% band. While ACT’s number of MPs not...

Politics

Very clever

Very clever indeed. Heather Roy has a relaunched website with a new news blog called “Royters”. Which person in the office had that stroke of genius I wonder? The name alone is reason enough to visit! Incidentally I’m told from sources within National that Roy has little chance of beating former ACT MP Stephen Franks in the Wellington Central electorate. Roy is truly a credit to ACT and an asset to Parliament though, so I hope ACT polls enough to get her in alongside Hide.

Politics

MMP officially under threat

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 power to...

Politics

A ‘Critic’-al view of ACT – part 2

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 he has...

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”...

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