Scott Simpson

Transtasman’s 8th Annual Roll Call has been a bit cruel:

Simpson, Scott – Coromandel: We predicted last year he was unlikely to make an impact. We were right.  2

This is very unfair on my old mate Scott. He has three decades of fronting up to boring National Party meetings, glad handing the blue rinse brigade and getting involved in every shit fight possible at huge personal cost to protect the party.

Scott is the one National MP capable of the kind of low bastardry that Russel Norman shows, and is well practiced at the dark arts. He taught me huge amounts about meeting Labour’s dirty and illegal tactics with our own dirty and illegal tactics, and I will always remember the 1987 Eden campaign as a highlight where he helped me grow up and understand how brutal politics really is.

Everyone knows cabinet doesn’t trust Scott but that shouldn’t matter. Low bastardry should be prized, not spurned, and Scott should be asked to run the attacks on Labour as he is a genius at negative campaigning.

National should be doing more to protect Scott from the rumoured Labour/Greens dodgy deal to unseat him in Coromandel.

The three main contenders are David Carter, Maurice Williamson and Tau Henare. I’ll cover each and will revise the post as fresh information comes in through the tip line.

David Carter

An old fashioned gentleman who’s courtesy is a byword in the National Party. Known to be diffident or opposed to becoming speaker but the top brass want to move him aside so they can seamlessly bring Nick Smith back into cabinet to run the environment portfolio that Amy Adams has proven to be so inept in.

Pros

• Nice convenient fit
• No one would mind calling him Sir David
• No real enemies in the house

Weaknesses

• Gentleman and relies on peoples good nature.
• MPs don’t have a good natures
• Winston and Trev will carve him up like the Christmas turkey

I find it hard not to feel a little sorry for David being put in this difficult position. He is too much of a gentleman and a team player to complain, but he is not a natural fit for speaker.

Maurice Williamson

Aside from Scott Simpson, Maurice is my oldest friend in caucus. He has many virtues that Scott doesn’t have, like ethics and a sense of theatre. Maurice is the first man to put on a debating team, a brilliant entertainer and a real raconteur.

Pros

• Will dominate proceedings and ensure the smooth running of parliament
• Will nail Winston and Trev on a daily basis until they learn who is boss
• Bloody good in a knife fight, and known to be willing to take a few hits for a good cause
• Discipline will be enforced without exception

Cons

• Not a convenient fit for bringing Nick back into the environment portfolio
• Will be the centre of attention in parliament
• Offside with the brat pack who still have a lot of influence, even though he was proven right on Bill English being tits.

Tau Henare

Tau is a man I have grown to know and like over the last ten years. He has the underlying mongrel that is found in union fixers, and is usually lacking in National. He has low rat cunning almost as good as Russel Norman’s, and low bastardry that makes you wonder if he has spent time in Australia.

Pros

• Makes Maurice look like a little girl in a knife fight
• Good at getting factional war lords in behind the cause, no matter what faction they are
• Hates Winston over the New Zealand First disaster, and got whacked by Trevor so is going to be very strong on parliamentary procedure

Cons

• As rough as guts and way too interested in a big donneybrook just for the sake of it
• Not the PM or Steven Joyce’s choice
• Might seek utu on a few within National
• Sir Tau would grate a good many in cabinet

From a theatrical perspective is a real toss up between Maurice and Tau. Maurice will be poetry in motion to watch, whereas Tau will not be burdened by the dignity the position when it comes to having a brawl. I find it hard to pick between the two.

ᔥ Kiwiblog

In Australia the ALP has been pointing out the truth about the Greens as the Greens are as big a bunch of fruit loops there as they are here. They are also as big a threat to Labour as they are to the ALP, so it would not be surprising if Labour forget the enemy is the Tories or within and start fighting the Greens.

This would all be very good for my oldest friend in caucus, Coromandel MP Scott Simpson.

As regular readers know the Greens and Labour are talking about colluding to beat Scott in some kind of shameless, shabby deal that needs to be exposed for what it is. Labour and the Greens fighting publicly would probably kill the chances of Scott getting beaten by a dodgy deal.

I’ve told the truth about how inept National is at training candidates, and how useless their candidate college is. This is supported by the stupidity in not training
campaign teams in electorates properly, or at all.

Last cycle National were useless at selecting candidates, with the myopic president saying “we are too busy governing” to select candidates in 2010 like Labour did.
Unfortunately for the president the party has no role in governing, so this excuse is either a lie, or the statement of an exceptionally stupid man.

So National offered their standard day long training in Wellington for campaign teams in early February, before many of the candidates had been selected. Despite knowing the election would be in late 2011 National didn’t have candidates selected, so many campaign teams missed out on the training session. Not that the training session offered much by all accounts anyway, it was more just a series of peacocks preening in front of a captive audience.

With such a large caucus National should delegate some of the better campaigners to help build the grass roots campaign of the party. The man I would like to see lead this is my oldest friend in caucus, good fiscal conservative and MP for Coromandel, Scott Simpson.

Scott has been around campaigns for as long as I can remember, including the by-election in East Coast Bays where Muldoon stitched up Brash. He taught me much of what I know about the negative side of campaigning, and isn’t afraid of breaking a few laws to even things up when Labour are breaking laws, unlike the squeamish beltway faux warriors in National. The Eden campaign of 1987 was a study in practical campaigning, where I learned a huge amount about the law of
the jungle from the current MP for Coromandel.

Lets see Scott take responsibility for training an entire generation of National activists.

I have been picking up whispers from a variety of sources that my oldest friend in caucus, Scott Simpson, is facing a nasty, negative campaign in Coromandel where the Greens and Labour are going to do a deal to shaft him.

2011 Election results

DELAHUNTY, Catherine GP 5,660

KININMONTH, Hugh LAB 5,831

SIMPSON, Scott NAT 18,571

As you can see the Greens and Labour candidates did poorly, getting only 5000 votes each. But combined their votes put the seat in play, if one party doesn’t run a candidate. Word is that they are looking for a good candidate as neither the Member for Mars or the previous Labour candidate are much good.

Scott is a good and long term mate, but he would be the first to acknowledge he is an Aucklander through and through and he is a little out of place in a rural seat.

This makes him a prime target for a “To the Manor Born” or “Jaffa” or “Not one of us” campaigns. Hopefully the nasty manipulation of the electorate to shaft my old mate Scott won’t happen, but from what I am picking up anything is possible.

Following on from my post earlier today about the future of National the type of MP I think will be around in 10 years time is based on historical precedent. MPs with safe blue seats will still be there, but they will also be under 60 and obviously it depends on whether National is in power or not.

This means:

Mike Sabin
Phil Heatley
Mark Mitchell
Simon O’Connor
Jami-Lee Ross
Simon Bridges
Louise Upston
Amy Adams

Most of the other safe blue seats are held by MPs who have been around for ages and will retire, or who are too old to expect to be cabinet ministers in 2022. Some may hang around, and it will also depend on who is leader. There are younger MPs who took seats from Labour in recent elections, and they will probably not last another three elections. The exception to this is Louise Upston who has benefited from boundary changes and now has a safe blue seat.

List MPs, no matter how powerful now, will not make it back for three elections. David Farrar has pointed out that there are no List MPs from 1996 still in parliament as List MPs, and there have been no List MPs who have made it to Prime Minister.

From along term perspective, and whatever you think of their merits, the 2011 intake did not have many people like Bill English, Tony Ryall or Nick Smith who will do two terms of government at least. Age discriminates against Maggie Barry, Scott Simpson and Ian McKelvie who will in extremely advanced years in political terms in 2022.

There is going to be a major generational change in the National Party when long serving MPs like McCully, Williamson, Ryall, Smith and English move on, and older MPs in safe blue seats like Hutchinson, Tisch, Ardern, King, Wilkinson, Brownlee and Dean will also be replaced by new MPs by 2022. The big question is will they be replaced by people who can make it into cabinet like McCully, Ryall, Smith and English?

This weekend is the National Party CNI Regional Conference in Taupo. In terms of numbers CNI is 100% blue, with no red seats in the region. Other numbers worth bearing in mind are the outstanding electoral success of three members of the 2008 intake.

Jonathan Young increased his majority in New Plymouth, giving Andrew Little’s hopes of becoming Labour leader a big dent. Provincial MPs often get overlooked, but the word from New Plymouth is Jonathan is a bloody good campaigner and a well liked and well respected local MP.

In Taupo Louise Upston increased her majority from 6445 to a whopping 14115, cementing her reputation as a vote winner, and turning a formerly red seat blue.

Over in Rotorua Todd McClay was one of only three National MPs competing against a Labour List MP to increase his majority, with Tim McIndoe in Hamilton West doing slightly better than Todd in increasing his majority against a Labour List MP. Unlike Boris, Bluey had the huge good fortune of benefiting from the Moroney Effect.

So with no electorates in play the questions for the CNI delegates are more about how members get their voice heard in the party hierarchy. Are there enough remits and is the policy process working well enough that a good party member can have their ideas adopted as government policy? What plans do the party have to get more people between 30-40 involved, not just as members but actually contributing to the party? Should party members directly elect the president to get them more involved in the party rather than having the board appoint the president?

And finally, in what should not be seen as a slight on my long time friend in caucus, Scott Simpson, what is the party doing to ensure that good local people with good local connections win selection in seats in the CNI.

ᔥ NZ Herald

Today’s Herald has a go at my oldest friend in caucus, Coromandel MP Scott Simpson for allegedly being involved in John Banks’ fundraising.

So bloody what.

It may be news to the idealistic cub reporter, David Fisher, that political party operatives are involved in fundraising for campaigns. Money does not just appear, and Scott Simpson, a long term Friend of Whale, has been involved in fundraising for a huge number of campaigns over the years.

Why the Herald has named him in this campaign is perplexing, especially since most of Banks’ campaign team were National, just as most Len Brown’s campaign team were Labour.

The nature of political contests is…somewhat strangely…is that political people become involved.

The tipline has been running hot on this one. Apparently the only MPs taken aside and told to publicly distance themselves from Michelle Boag were Nikki Kaye and Murray McCully. So her reach within caucus was non existent.

Several other MPs have called to tell stories of how Michelle shafted them one day then tried to get her corporate clients favours from them the next. They agreed she was the most shameless woman within National, although some fairly complained that this is not a gender specific position, and she is just the most shameless person in National.

The other part of her faction are the activists in Auckland, collectively known as the buggers muddle. Leading light Board Member Alastair Bell’s issues with the Dominion crossword were dealt with yesterday, and he is just part of an inept, useless clique who are so inept and so useless they have failed to bring a single new MP into parliament in Auckland in two elections.

Long term friend of Whaleoil, Scott Simpson, ended up MP for Coromandel, where the buggers muddle ran an unethical campaign whispering about opponents, saying National needed men not women, and generally carrying on in a manner that I should have shined light on. The crossword solver was right in the thick of it, distributing information printed off the internet, just as he had in Rodney when LTFOW was running up there.

Also close to Boag and a key member of the Buggers Muddle is Peter Keily. Peter is National’s lawyer, and like all good lawyers charges an arm and a leg for legal work, while at the same time forcefully demanding amateurism from all others. He sounds like a member of the bonehead rugby union just before the professional era, except a lot more hypocritical as he can get paid, whereas others must be amateur. Peter has a rather unfortunate nickname, and new Young Nats are taken aside and quietly advised not to accept an offer of a spa with him.

An aspirant buggers muddle member and a “regional power broker” is also in the Boag faction, mainly on the grounds that the rest of the party thinks he is, in the immortal words of Rowan Atkinson “either this man is suffering from serious brain damage or the new vacuum cleaner has arrived.”

There were many maiden speeches yesterday, I watched most of them. They were all good. Here are the links to them: Maggie Barry, Ian McKelvie, Simon O’Connor, Scott Simpson, and Jian Yang.

I am posting this one by Mark Mitchell because his comments in the middle about mental health, depression and suicide moved me…I really felt for Mark as he made this speech.

His last line too shows a commitment that many other MPs never show.