Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

Tagged: Stephen Franks

Politics

Hide the stuntman

A supporter of most ACT policies was kind enough to send me some photos of the party’s weekend campaign event. Some refreshing honesty here: even the supporter described it as a “stunt”. As the photo shows, it involved putting up 77 cardboard coffins to represent victims of violent crime who would have been “saved” had ACT’s crime policy been in place. Visual representations like this are designed for television and are not a stupid idea by any means. There was talk at ACT’s conference in March of carrying out similar exercises for economic matters. The obvious one would be to...

Politics

US election 2008: Mike Huckabee and social conservatism – contrasts with ACT

It’s timely to remember that there will probably be two elections interesting New Zealanders this November. Although the election date here has yet to be announced and could be earlier, it seems likely that PM Helen Clark will want to go a full term before calling an election, which if so would come in late November. But one election already has a certain date: on November 4, 2008, US citizens will go to the polls to elect a new president for the first time in eight years. This week, the focus in the US has been on the Iowa caucuses,...

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...

Politics

Response from Stephen Franks to dissertation

After submission, I sent copies of my dissertation to a number of figures connected in some way to ACT, including former MPs. Stephen Franks, an ACT MP from 1999-2005, sent me this response after reading a couple of weeks ago. I have been holding off publishing it as I wanted to seek his permission to post it here. Today I have received permission to publish it in a slightly modified version supplied to me by Franks. I have also received comments from another person and will reproduce these in due course. Anyone who wishes to comment on my research in...

Politics

Gerry Eckhoff and the “Country Party”

Until today, I thought Gerrard (Gerry) Eckhoff was a loyal ACT trooper, even though he lost his seat at the 2005 election. At the 2007 annual ACT conference in March, which I attended as part of my research, Eckhoff loomed large and gave a rather entertaining, if at times confusing speech on “environmental morality”. But it seems that we now have to add Eckhoff to the growing list of former MPs who have expressed misgivings about the new direction of ACT. In today’s Otago Daily Times an “op-ed” piece written by Eckhoff appeared, headlined “Time to take a Country Party...

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