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Douglas/Quigley resignation

Act on false path - Douglas

Sir Roger Douglas has resigned as patron of the struggling Act Party and slammed its direction, saying it should not be a "front office of the Serious Fraud Office".

"In lots of policies they're fine, but the emphasis is wrong. There's far too much attention to scandals and things of that nature," Sir Roger told the Weekend Herald.

"I would like to see the party get back to promoting the solutions to the issues which confront the country, like race, crime, health, education, housing, welfare and retirement."

The obvious answer is that ACT's views on those important issues would not suddenly start getting any media coverage just because ACT stopped pointing out all the Labour MPs, bureaucrats and other flunkies with their fingers in the till.

And I don't see how Rodney Hide can ignore all the leaked information and other horror stories that find their way on to his desk. The sulphuric acid enema that he served up to the Inland Revenue Department made New Zealand a much better place to live. It's the single greatest achievement by an opposition party that I am aware of.

But I do agree that these kind of things don't necessarily persuade voters to go out and elect more ACT MPs to join those already there. The best way for a small party to promote itself hasn't been figured out yet.

NZ First has been successful in doing this, especially given the lack of talent of any of their individual members apart from Winston Peters. They stick to four core issues: immigration, crime, superannuation and race. Voters don't seem to mind that the NZ First views on health and education are a complete unknown.

Should ACT confine itself to a small number of issues instead of trying to do everything? If so, what should those issues be?

I doubt that ACT can avoid talking about entire policy areas as NZ First has done. The problem is that there is no other effective opposition - we would never hear National's health spokesman take the government to task over the state of our hospitals as Heather Roy did the other day. I have no idea what Judith Collins does when she's not trying to stop young girls having abortions, but it hasn't lead to any publicly observable result.

In the 2002 election ACT went too far in the other direction with its slogans which were: "Zero Tolerance for Crime", "One Law for All" and "A Tax Cut for every Worker". To a voter with only average political awareness, these slogans don't do enough to suggest actual policy proposals that the voter agrees with.

ACT's race and crime policies have been copied by other parties to the extent that there's no more mileage in trying to pursue them. NZ has come a long way since 1998 when Derek Quigley proposed time limits for Treaty settlements and National's Nick Smith said:

"I have to give ACT members credit - they have a damned sight more brains than Pauline Hanson. But I have to suspect that with this Bill they are hunting after a similar constituency. This Bill is designed to itch a sore."

I wonder if Smith stands by that view now that his leader has proposed essentially the same thing. Anyway, I'd just let National and NZ First have the race and crime issues and hope they don't butcher them too badly. The remaining areas where change is needed mostly fit into two categories: Economic growth and Consumer choice.

Economic growth is not a very sexy issue. However, there's just no way to avoid it because it's so overwhelmingly important. With the right policies NZ could easily have averaged 5% per annum growth since 1984 and we would be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, instead we are languishing in the bottom half of the OECD. High growth makes almost all other good things possible, slow growth make them difficult or impossible. Economic growth is the straw that stirs the drink. ACT must keep on at this, over and over again ad nauseum, until it makes an impression on people. See my earlier post on the factors that are limiting economic growth at present.

Lack of consumer choice is evident in health, education, ACC, the super fund, and a number of other areas. Everyone moans about Telecom being a monopoly (even though they're mostly not) but no party has so far made a really serious effort to go after the massive legislatively-imposed state monopolies. There's no need for any large-scale privatization. Just allow people, if they wish, to take their share of the state funding and spend it with a private provider. Everyone who wants a state-funded public health system or schools can still have that. Those of us who don't can go private without having to pay twice. If the state can outperform the private sector on a level playing field then the private providers will die off - and vice-versa.

Focusing on growth and choice means that the message is kept simple and straightforward, without excluding any of the portfolio areas where significant reform is needed.