Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Tagged: Roger Douglas

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

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....

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....

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