Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Tagged: Rodney Hide

Politics

ACT’s “harsh feel” – the name change debate

I think ACT has got that harsh feel to it for me, like I find it quite a hard word to say, oh it sounds German, with the greatest respect to the German people. It sounds like “Achtung!”- “okay!”, whereas we want something warm – Rodney Hide, 30 August 2007* The one major fault I would have if I were one of Hide’s advisers with his on-air performance on Radio Live today was that he scarcely mentioned the word “ACT” in his programme. Now, maybe he was trying to be fair and not use the air-time as a campaigning vehicle,...

Politics

Epsom electorate background

Quest for Security has an excellent backgrounder on the history of the Epsom electorate and predicts Hide will win the seat by a landslide in 2008. Barring the unlikely scenario, such as Hide somehow blotting his copy-book in a big way with the “little old ladies” (Hide’s words, not mine) prior to the election, I agree 100% with this assessment. I think the voters of Epsom have got their money’s worth over the last couple of years, as far as Hide being a “good local MP” is concerned. It’s interesting how individual electorates such as Epsom and Tauranga still fascinate...

Politics

Rodney Hide on Radio Live and owning up to being a right-wing party

Today I was fortunate enough to tune into Radio Live just after the 1pm news to hear that Rodney Hide was going to be hosting the afternoon slot (1-4pm) solo. Last week reports to this blog said that he had been paired with Willie Jackson in a left-right battle. I was able to listen until 2 o’clock and I have to say that Radio Live made an inspired choice. It’s hard to imagine any other sitting MP being offered the chance to host his own programme for three hours, although having said that I recall Radio Live hired John Tamihere...

Politics

Election year underway for ACT

I may have spoken too soon. Since I wrote my last post, the first ACTion member e-mail newsletter for the year has appeared in my inbox, and the party seems to be well underway with election year preparations. The first item of interest is that Rodney Hide will be giving his “Forward Thinking” speech on February 6, i.e. Waitangi Day, to the Remuera Racquets Club in Epsom. This will be at least the second “Forward Thinking” speech given by Hide and seems to have become his “State of the Nation” address. It’s good to see it coming much earlier (six...

Politics

Summer theatre

Bad news. My “prediction” of just a couple of weeks back about John Key announcing a National-ACT deal in his Burnside speech has been dealt a bitter blow (to keep it in TV speak). There won’t be any Burnside speech. According to a report in today’s Dominion-Post, Key will in fact be giving his New Year speech at Ellerslie, with Helen Clark snapping on his heels the next day. Now if it had been Epsom, not Ellerslie, we might have been cooking. But while National and Labour will soon be full of oratory, ACT won’t be. As far as I...

Politics

Stellar candidate on the way?

It might not be Tim Shadbolt, but it sounds like a “stellar candidate” is in the works for ACT this election. I’ve had a tip-off from inside the party that a prominent New Zealander has been recruited to stand for ACT at the election. I don’t know who it is, but an annoucement is apparently expected soon. This may come to nothing, of course: last year the rumour was that ACT was targeting the Rakaia electorate and had almost concluded signing up a prominent local person to stand in the seat. There was no announcement, although to be fair to...

Politics

Tim Shadbolt – a stellar ACT candidate?

I’ve talked before how ACT could do with a star candidate to help it build a bigger profile, especially in the 2008 election campaign. It was the personality of Rodney Hide who really saved ACT at the 2005 election from complete annihilation. If another MP had been elected ACT leader in 2004 to replace Richard Prebble, I have doubts that the party would have been returned to Parliament (even though this would not have necessarily prevented Hide from standing in Epsom, first passing him over for leader would not have been a good look, at the very least). In November,...

Politics

BREAKING NEWS: A winning 2008 election strategy for ACT!

“This is 3 News, with Mike McRoberts and Hilary Barry” “Kia ora, good evening. National leader John Key kicked off the political year today with his Burnside speech. And he had a shock in store: a coalition deal signed and sealed with Rodney Hide’s ACT party, ten months before the election even takes place. For more on this story, political editor Duncan Garner joins us now live from Parliament. Duncan?” “Yes good evening Hilary, I can tell you that Key’s announcement took everyone completely by surprise, his advisers had been telling the media privately that Key would give a speech...

Politics

ACT’s Christmas mailout – part 2

In a pre-Christmas posting, I looked at what ACT president Garry Mallett had to say to members in a December 2007 letter. Today I examine what leader Rodney Hide had to say for himself. Hide’s letter is an important document, as it is the closest guide we currently have as to how ACT is planning to campaign in this year’s election. First, Hide talks about a “Taxpayer Rights Campaign”. According to Hide, this “campaign will demonstrate what makes ACT fundamentally different…[the] party will advocate for a constitutional limit on the size of the tax take and tax cuts”. I’m not...

Politics

ACT’s Christmas letter – part 1

I joined ACT for research purposes in February 2007, at the outset of my research, but on Thursday this week finally received my first piece of conventional mail from the party. Of course, like most parties these days, ACT prefers to save money and use e-mail. Accordingly, it sends out the weekly ACTion! e-mail newsletter to members every Friday. The problem with ACTion! is that there’s not a lot in it and most of it is the same each week, having been copied and pasted from the previous edition. It’s also not very personalised and I’m sure for many people...

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