April 2011

Exclusive to Whaleoil a Guest Post from David Garrett. It is published unedited.

At the beginning of – and  several times during – my short but eventful career, that consummate politician Rodney Hide told me that if I wanted things to be fair, I should go and find another game. Many of Rodney’s supposed wrong doings illustrate that dictum. His trip to London with his then girlfriend  was entirely  within the rules – but he was rightly criticized for hypocrisy given his “perk buster” persona. It was public perception that was important, not whether his trip was within the rules.

His alleged “cover up” of my past foolishness was neither a cover up  nor his at all: as the Whale noted this morning, the entire caucus – and a member of the Board – knew about it before I stood,  and  they all made the judgment call that it was so long ago it didn’t matter. They were wrong. The public – and of course the scandal driven media – decided that it did matter, regardless of the fine details.

Fair or not, those “scandals”, Hides alleged bullying of Heather Roy, and his failure to deliver to  ACT supporters all they (unreasonably) expected from ACT being part of the government, have all  resulted in him losing popularity, both in Epsom and the wider electorate. Just how unpopular is unclear; at the time of writing, TV news featured a “leaked confidential poll” allegedly showing Hide running a poor third to Brash and John Banks in a theoretical contest for Epsom.  But then there have been leaked documents of dubious authenticity emerging from ACT – and indeed other parties – before now. Some reading this will no doubt know if the poll – the third in a series supposedly – is bona fide or a jackup.

In one of the sound bites he is so good at, Hide said tonight his focus was doing the best thing  for the party, the prime minister, and the country. If I am any judge, there is no doubt that Hide truly believes he is the best person to lead the party – and not  just because of his ego. All politicians are egotistical – how else could you justify putting yourself forward to make laws for other people?

Who would be best, for the party and the country – Brash or Hide? That is not an easy question. For me, watching Rodney and other politicians on TV apparently calmly handling questions is like watching the proverbial duck serenely travelling across the pond with no hint of the furious activity below the surface.  Only those who have been intimately involved  in the game know  what preparation goes into the duck’s serene traverse.

As a political operator, Hide is superb, with very good instincts for what will fly –  and perhaps more importantly, what won’t. In this regard, in  my view   Hide is   much better than Brash. Hide  doesn’t always get it right, but who does? Teflon John Key has also  dropped clangers like cannibal jokes at an iwi dinner, and not being “across” the issue of the new BMW’s. But to pretend Rodney is not hugely damaged by the events of last year would  be wilfully blind. In a very recent communication to supporters, he says he does not “have his head in the sand” regarding his present predicament. I don’t know; he can be wilfully blind.

For me, Brash has a couple of significant  pluses. Firstly, he appeals to  three significant segments of ACT support: the “economic literates” who founded the party; the “law and order” group, which was pushing three strikes long before I came along; and perhaps just as importantly now, those who strongly believe in “one law for all” and an end to race based laws and division of resources. For reasons I never understood, ACT was always scared of confronting that issue head on.

As a party and a caucus, ACT  were  and probably remain terrified of being labelled racist – seeming not to see that in the present climate, regardless of how reasoned and reasonable they sound, they would be labelled racist anyway. Brash seemingly is prepared to run that risk because the issue is so important, and I applaud him for that.

Both Hide and Brash  come with  great strengths – one of the reasons I find it easy to believe Hide offered Brash co-leadership.  Hide is smart, and knows what Brash could bring to the party.  Sadly, a showdown now appears inevitable, and to me that is a situation fraught with peril. Just as the prospect of two left wing parties delights those on the right, the prospect of the remains of ACT fighting it out with  a new Brash led vehicle is great news for the left.

So, who is best equipped to lead the right? For all his limits, probably Brash; he says he is going to form another party anyway, and he strikes me as a man who says what means. And the raw reality is he also  appears to have  the vital financial backers.  Just as ACT can’t be “the Rodney Hide Party”, even Alan Gibbs will not go on funding a losing horse forever. If Brash is to be believed – and he does not strike me as a man who is slick enough to lie convincingly – other financial backers have put their money on him and not Hide.

There has been another crucial development today – Key has not ruled out working with Brash, whether as ACT leader or as the leader of a new party. That is a significantly different  stance from his unwavering refusal to consider Roger Douglas as a Minister.

As Hide told me, politics isn’t fair. It’s often not sensible either.

Tonight is the long awaited Duck Night at Hamills Manukau in association with Beretta.

Where: 43B Cavendish Drive, Manukau

Time: 7pm

To book your place call 09 9742672 or email manukau@hamillsnz.co.nz

Every $100 spent puts you in the draw to win a Beretta shotgun.

I’ll be going along so hopefully I will see some of you there.

Mark Mitchell won the Rodney selection on the first ballot. This is a huge win for National as they have a man proven internationally entering caucus, and with experience in areas where National is light on practitioners rather than theorists.

For those who don’t know about Mark the Sunday Star Times published a great article on him a few weeks back.

Mark appears to be an all round good guy, with heaps of mates all over the place, and what I am hearing from Rodney is he is exceptionally good at pressing the flesh. He now has a long career in parliament to look forward to, and good judges of politicians rate Mark very, very highly.

This is also a personal victory for Peter Goodfellow. Readers of this blog know I have not been afraid to bag Peter when I think he has underperformed but he has shown integrity and guts during this selection process and the party is stronger for it. 

Is really as simple as that. Rodney supporters on the board can doom their party to irrelevancy, or they can bring in someone who will win votes, bring in money and actually make a difference to New Zealand. It is hard to imagine Don ending up minister of local government, it is not exactly a weighty ministry of state. The ACT party president seems to want to commit his party to electoral oblivion. One suspects that the ACT party president may well be acting alone of in the minority if emails circulating amongst the members from other board members are an indication of the feeling out there.

Meanwhile my predictions of Rodney’s bunker pals running “Don Brash is an old man” lines has come to pass with Rodney Hide staffer Chris Diack commenting freely on Kiwiblog. Word via the tipline is that they wil keep up that line for a couple of days and then change to smears involving Don Brash’s personal life. It surprises me that Rodney Hide of all people wants to go down that path but if he plays those cards then he will reap what he sows.

Matthew Hooton presented a view on Radio Live with Andrew Patterson that was ok until he missed the obvious. Clearly Hooton is losing his touch. In his interview he mentioned and talked about the ACT President saying Don brash needs to be a member and then jump through all sorts of procedural hoops regarding advising caucus 7 days prior to any decision and frankly a whole lot of bureaucratic bumpf.

This is of highly ironic given that Rodney Hide has relentlessly banged on about regulatory responsibility and removing red-tape and when faced with a crisis in his party resorts to burdensome red-tape in an attempt to defeat the saving of his party.

Stephen Franks has also weighed into the debate:

Kiwiblog is from the same school. His posts show the responsibility that might be expected from a house organ of National .

To the traditional tribal party member a challenge for leadership from outside a party will still seem bizarre, even from a person who embodies the party’s values.

I’m reminded of a formative early legal engagement. In the mid 1980s I advised Richard Carter (who recently died as Sir Richard) on his extraordinary hostile takeover of AHI, to form what became Carter Holt Harvey Ltd. It was the boldest takeover in Australasia in its time. Against most of his professional advice, and to near universal puzzlement if not derision from the financial media, Richard insisted on launching (on market initially) a keenly priced bid for a company in which the majority of shares were held by a major Australian conglomerate which had publicly stated that its holding in AHI was not for sale.

Richard’s victory, after months of siege, was due to his disregard of the received wisdom, and his view that the internal compelling logic would prevail in the end.

Presumably Don Brash hears similar music. He is genuine when he says he regards Rodney as a friend. But he presumably sees little alternative, and the downside from trying is trivial compared with the stakes.

Rodney Hide likes to tell anyone who will listen how he masterfully saved ACT before and how he will do it again. But the simple facts falling out of this issue belie the simple unpalatable truth that neither the ACT board nor Rodney Hide seem to want to face. Rodney Hide can’t win Epsom.

The tipline received a very sensible anonymous email from someone who seems to have a good inside knowledge of the workings of ACT.

Rodney has been trying to get Don Brash into ACT for several months, on the grounds that Rodney’s entire career as leader has been based on leveraging other people to retain power. In 2005 it was Brash’s intervention that helped Rodney win Epsom and keep ACT in parliament.

Three years of undistinguished performance meant that in 2008 Rodney needed another saviour and found it in Sir Roger Douglas. Roger bought money and people back into the party, and with it the popularity that Rodney was unable achieve without Roger’s friends working the hustings for votes, and long time donors contributing again. No matter though that the people who left ACT in droves for a Don Brash led National Party didn’t flock back tot he leadership of Rodney Hide.

So as election time came around again Rodney has tried to find a saviour again. Someone that will cover over the fact that he is so unelectible even Keith Locke would have a chance against him in Epsom if National don’t tank their candidate like Don did in 2005.

ACT in sticking with Rodney Hide are going to be without money, and without votes and will cease to exist as a parliamentary force after the election. That is sad for the history of the party and sad for those who worked to get it across the line in the first instance. That will be Rodney Hide’s enduring legacy, not the SUper City, but rather the destruction of the ACT party.

As expected from a man as cunning as a shithouse rat, Rodney has been working in his bunker to try to use the “Roy play” on Brash. Unfortunately for Rodney the bunker is leaking like a sieve because his loyal staffers know the writing is on the wall for Rodney and are worried about their future career prospects.

Like Rodney did to Heather Roy he is trying to come up with evidence to show he is not a weasel and has not mislead the media. Expect documents to be circulated showing Brash has lied. Media members shopped this story should ask for provenance of all documents,when they were created (from the meta tags) and whether his bunker has worked long hours creating something that did not exist until very recently.  The media should also ask if there is anyone other than Rodney that thinks he can hold Epsom and lift the party vote enough to give National backbone.

Rodney needs to be careful with any dodgy plays because the tipline is running so hot that it is practically on fire. This includes some information about his destruction of Heather Roy’s career that would not play out kindly for Rodney. He should remember carefully how he used me in that play.

In a continuation of the “Roy play”, Rodney is also contemplating a personal attack on Don based on his ethics. This would be a great play for Don because it would mean personal life was absolutely fair game, and I just absolutely love politicians dirty laundry being aired in public, just ask Stuart Nash and the new Mangrove Iain Lees-Galloway. Not a classical scholar, Rodney probably is unaware of William Congreve, but here are a couple of excellent quotes:

“O fie, miss, you must not kiss and tell.”

And the better known

“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,”

Cactus Kate has picked a rather unsavoury scab in her article about the Herald and APN who appear to have confused the ethical lines between advertising, content, editorial and the high moral ground.

As readers will well know the Herald has been running a remarkable campaign of denigration about Mark Hotchin and Hanover, especially in the pst 10 or so days with story after story after story about how Mark Hotchin got scammed in a Ponzi scheme.

They posted an editorial as well taking the moral high ground and ticked off a judge and sounded all po-faced and sage in talking about name suppression. They spent a not inconsiderable amount of money with top end of town lawyers, reputed to be well over $100,000 attacking a victim’s rights to privacy as ordered by a court through a suppression order.

Sure I attacked suppression orders myself, but I only named kiddy fiddlers, rapists and thugs. This is why I have been so hot under the collar about this. The Herald went after victims and played for the high moral ground in doing so.

What Cactus Kate has done, and I am slapping myself for not thinking of this myself, is go straight to the source and asked Carrick Graham, spokesperson for Hotchin/Hanover about how much Hanover loot the Herald pocketed, all the while knowing that the two principals of Hanover were the victims in an elaborate Ponzi scheme.

2006 – $342,695 (Only November on)
2007 – $1,146,280
2008 – $328,807
2009 – $94,469 (all for FAI Finance)
Total – $1,912,251

So The Herald, knowing as they did that the principles of Hanover had been scammed, continued to repeatedly take truck loads of loot for their advertising.

Cactus Kate rightly points out the ethical dilemma for the Herald in continuing to accept their advertising revenue and also waxing lyrical in cu/paste opinion pieces about Hanover and their various investment vehicles. She also quite correctly asks whether or not the gamblers investors in Hanover would have been more influenced by the Herald opinion pieces by Adam Bennett and Maria Slade amongst many others along with the millions in advertising featuring a former newsreader spent with the Herald than with the prospectus proffered by some spotty investment advisor across the desk of one of myriad of advisory houses who likewise pocketed Hanover coin.

I just bet that Hanover’s and Hotchin’s lawyers are licking their chops with joy, salivating at quenstioning  gambler investor after gambler investor just exactly where they obtained their investment advice from: “Was it from advertising? Or perhaps you read something in the paper? Or did you actually read and digest with some solid research from a truly independent investment analyst the prospectus provided by Hanover?”

You can see where that is going to end can’t you. Badly…for the investors and possibly for APN.

The Herald took the high moral ground in spending huge amounts of money in overturning a victim’s name suppression, they stood on a pedestal and proclaimed their moral righteousness when all along they should have been on the naughty step for palming almost $2 million in investors cash to enable Hanover to take more investors cash from them, all the while knowing that Mark Hotchin was subject to a name suppression order.

Their retrospective moral righteousness is nothing but shameful hypocrisy. I wouldn’t mind betting that Cactus Kate has much more information about other media outlets and journalists and the large amounts of cash they similarly received. If she wasn’t so busy working in her Guangdong sweatshop she could bother to return my emails.

I have refrained from commenting on the Rodney selection in the last few weeks as the tipline has been quiet. The simple explanation for this is that the revised process has been a lot fairer than the process was before it was suspended, and this is a credit to Party President Peter Goodfellow who had the guts to stop an hopelessly flawed process.

Selection for Rodney is tonight, and so I want to run a quick recap on why the process was suspended and started again.

1. Brent Robinson tried to win the process through unscrupulous means.
2. He stacked his branch with members from his fundamentalist church, increasing his branch membership by around 600%. This completely blindsided the sitting MP and the other three branches, and forced an audit of membership.
3. Brent then tried to intimidate candidates out of the race. One requested a meeting with the electorate chair and was ambushed by Cehill Pienaar, Brent Robinson and ten others and basically told Brent had the nomination won. Many quality candidates were likewise ambushed and scared off.
4. At a meeting of delegates for nominees, Brent colluded with the electorate chair to stitch up his opponents by suggesting a speech to those in the room. He was prepared for this, and his opponents were not. New Zealand’s favourite grandmother, Maggie Barry, was intimidated out of the race by this and is now seeking the nomination in North Shore.

The wise words of Solomon provide some insights for the good delegates of Rodney:

Proverbs 28:2 When there is moral rot within a nation, its government topples easily. But wise and knowledgeable leaders bring stability.

As of late I have gained a great deal of understanding from Solomon’s wise words in the book of proverbs. There are many great verses that budding politicans would do well to read and understand the wisdom of Solomon. The behaviour exhibited in Rodney amongst some and in particular Brent Robinson was not the makings for a long term National MP. It smacks of hypocrisy, and as a Christian I find Brent’s behaviour absolutely appalling. Again Solomon provides appropriate words:

Proverbs 28:10 Those who lead good people along an evil path will fall into their own trap, but the honest will inherit good things.

Delegates should choose their new MP carefully, and choose him or her from the other four candidates all who have not tried to rig selection. I wish Karen Rolleston, John Kirikiri, Chris Penk and Mark Mitchell well tonight.

As I predicted last night, the media is turning on Rodney Hide after his rather transparent economy with the truth has been outed by Don Brash. Tracy Watkins is again in the lead on this:

Mr Hide has repeatedly dismissed Dr Brash’s claim that he was offered a co-leadership role in behind-the-scenes talks about lifting ACT out of its current polling doldrums.

But a clearly angry Dr Brash said yesterday the idea was canvassed after a meeting early last month, when he was asked to speak at an ACT-arranged function at the Mecca Cafe in Auckland’s Newmarket.

“We met a few days after that in the centre of town, at a Burger King … Subsequently [Mr Hide] and I met at a [private home].”

He would not name the other person in the room but said it was suggested at that meeting that he be co-leader. Mr Hide would stay on at No 1, he would be No 2 and “[Mr Hide] would look at the possibility of my standing in Epsom instead of him, if polling revealed that I had a considerably higher chance of winning the seat than he did”.

He had told Mr Hide a few days later that he was not prepared to accept the co-leadership on that basis because he believed Mr Hide’s “personal brand” lay behind the party’s poor polling. He never heard back from Mr Hide.

That is pretty specific and pretty damning. As one influential party member put it to me last night in an email:

Rodney’s biggest problem seems to be that he recognised there was a problem by approaching Brash in the first place, but now he’s saying everything is fine with him.

What was so great about getting Brash as co-leader that now doesn’t apply to him being leader?

As I said Rodney was being very economical with the facts about his meetings with Don Brash, so economical that he hadn’t even shared the details with his caucus members or with key board members. Now they can all see who is being honourable and who is not. We also now know that Rodney himself doesn’t think he can win Epsom and is so utterly convinced of this that he tried to recruit Don Brash to stand there instead of him.

Right now the board is staying staunch but emails I am receiving suggests that it is mostly a front, an appearance of unity. Expect now for Brian Nicolle to start running the lines that this is some sort of National party reverse takeover of ACT. Farrar has already started this line of attack albeit a little more subtly. It is a ridiculous accusation on many levels. It is an open secret that John Key and Don Brash have hardly spoken in two years and that Don Brash has largely been shunned by the parliamentary wing of National despite him being the main reason some of them still have seats in the parliament following his recovery of National’s vote in the years after the disaster that was Bill English. Brash in many respects re-built National off of the back of ACT’s support, support that never returned to the Hide-led ACT party once Don Brash departed the scene. Perhaps Don Brash sees returning that support to ACT as the very least he can do and at the same time send a message to the ungrateful National party.

Meanwhile a quick view of the ACT on Campus Facebook page suggests the younger members of the party, those without previous Labour party affiliations are falling in behind Don Brash’s tilt at saving their party.

Right now ACT is between a rock and a hard place, depending on their decision in the next week is the life of their party and their continued representation in parliament. If they bottle this decision then life becomes very, very hard for them.

As one of the longest established bloggers in New Zealand I have been surprised at the huge amount of information coming through the tip line since Tracy Watkins article in Saturday’s Dominion Post on Don’s challenge of Rodney’s leadership. It has been a flood, and there is massive resentment of Rodney for his destruction of the ACT Party.

Aside from just about every commentator telling Rodney to leave the surprising thing is just exactly how out of touch Rodney is with the ACT board. Apparently he hasn’t talked to many of them for months, and he has ignored their advice for far to long to have their support. Word is he is currently in his bunker with three trusted advisors and not taking calls from senior ACT party members or donors in case they tell him to resign. All sorts of conspiracy theories abound, some of them even including me working for Matthew Hooton! Every one knows Hooton doesn’t pay.

The difficulty for Rodney is having been caught out badly for being a hypocrite, and for not delivering the kind of economic policies ACT stood for in the past, he no longer has the confidence of the membership. The tipline is saying he is struggling to find a reason why the ACT board should retain him, as he has been tracking at the margin of error for so long that no one can remember the last time he was polling well. ACTs board are reminding themselves their loyalty is to the party, not to any individual.

The media are doing no favours to Rodney, not even running adequately his half hearted attacks on Don. My media sources tell me that they are about to go from negative to feral, as Rodney has been exceptionally economical with the truth around his negotiations with Don about his leadership discussions including list positions, a co-leadership agreement and portfolios. This could really hurt Rodney’s chances of surviving a board vote as he kept the board in the dark about the negotiations as well.

Unconfirmed sources are suggesting that Rodney is due back into the mythical smoke filled room where the real power behind ACT is going to suggest he resigns immediately or there will be a lot of utu. Rodney is not the most employable bloke in the world. In the event he loses his seat and kills off ACT his employability gets close to nil, and this point is going to be reinforced strongly.

There is much writing about the ACT leadership issue, both on blogs and in the MSM:

Thick skin Hide’s undoing by Tracy Watkins in the DomPost:

It had long been accepted that asking Epsom voters to hold their nose and tick Hide risked doing the National brand more damage than it promised to help ACT.

ACT’s woes are many and legion - Hide’s refusal to see anything wrong with his law and order spokesman David Garrett stealing a dead baby’s identity; his total lack of remorse for charging the cost of overseas travel with his girlfriend (now wife) back to the taxpayer; the grandstanding during coalition negotiations, the various bungled attempts to bring the ACT leadership issue to a head, and the unpopular super-city legislation among them. If the party were a horse, they’d shoot it.

In fact, that was precisely the thinking among many on the Right for much of the year.

Brash’s move comes after months of rumours that a new Right-wing party might emerge from the ACT debacle.

…Brash is potentially one of the few who could rally a sizeable force behind him fairly rapidly and also attract the level of dosh that is needed to get a new party off the ground. The turning point in Dr Brash’s thinking appears to have been talk that the Government intends scrapping his cherished 2025 taskforce, whose ideas National ministers have collectively pooh-poohed.

But so long as a heart continued to beat within ACT, launching a new party was always a high-risk option. It would be battling against the famously stubborn and thick-skinned Hide, who would have the advantage of a platform in Parliament and a guaranteed seat around the table at the televised leaders’ debates. Better to take over ACT and reinvent it from the inside out.

Expect the rebranding exercise to involve more than a change at the top if Brash succeeds in his ambitious gambit – a name change is also likely, though for now that seems to be closely under wraps.

Sounds awfully like Tracy Watkins has some good inside oil there.

John Armstrong: Time for Hide to walk the plank:

The political graffiti are now writ large on the wall for Rodney Hide’s leadership of Act after the apparent Easter rising within the party. Hide has to go.

It is most unlikely that Don Brash would be making such a public pitch for his job as leader without some kind of guarantee from Hide’s opponents that they now have the numbers to dump the incumbent.

Even if he has no such guarantee – the putative putsch still seems to be at a preliminary and somewhat tentative stage – Brash is making an offer the rest of the five-strong Act caucus simply cannot refuse.

Easter is all about resurrection.

In Act’s (currently hopeless) case, Brash alone offers the possibility of recovery from its basement-level poll ratings.

As predicted by me last night, Derek Cheng is running the lines supplied by loyal lieutenant Brian Nicolle, that Don Brash is old and tired. The funny thing here is that the Hreald can spend $100,000 with high priced top end of town lawyers to overturn Mark Hotchin’s name suppression but it is clear they didn’t spend a cent asking Mai Chen for an opinion or even get Derek Cheng to read and understand ACT’s constitution and rules which is conveniently online.

Lindsay Mitchell has put up an interesting post about the ageist lines being run from the bunker.

Seventy is not “very old”. In fact, believing that says more about the outlook of the person who said it than the subject of the claim. The statement tends to fall into that collectivist-thinking basket of ideas I hate so much. It’s ageist. Some people in their seventies may be very old – near death’s door because of physical and mental ailments and deteriorating health. Others have good health, sound minds and decades of life experience under their belts. Above all they have a living memory of a New Zealand when values were different. Some better, some worse. But some worth reviving as universal. Like possesion of a work ethic.

And here’s another thing. The population is ageing. For those who don’t properly comprehend that term – possibly the owner of the ageist attitude – the proportion of people over 65 is growing in relation to those under. And they all have a vote. And life expectancy is growing. So a growing percentage of voters are less likely to judge a politician on their age – at least, having too much of it.

She also makes the very obvious point about Don Brash’s appeal to ACT supporters.

Brash has been upfront about what he wants. There is only room for one party that wants less government involvement in the economy so he has to try and use the ACT vehicle first. Anyone that has been around ACT for any length of time knows the high regard supporters hold him in. So if he just went ahead and formed his own party he will decimate ACT’s vote anyway. In that context his strategy is fair to current ACT players.

The point remains too that those supporters of ACT that left for National when Don Brash was in charge never returned once he was gone. They stayed with National and John Key and shunned the Rodney Hide led ACT party.

Don Brash may be seventy but right now he would still get back into parliament with some ACT MPs  where as Rodney Hide would be 55 and unemployed and so would his party and all their MPs.