liberation

Act’s 2008 election campaign

Of all the minor parties, Act was the most ideally placed to gain from the centrist transformation of the National Party under John Key. National’s shift into the centre of the political spectrum meant that – unlike when Don Brash led National in 2005 – Act had a large potential market of voters on the right to win. Act did make use of that gap in the market, but was ambivalent and ambiguous about it orientation towards the popular centrist National Party, choosing sometimes to hug its rival and sometimes to bite it. In regards to this, I look at the party’s strategy in the section on the Act Party within my chapter entitled ‘Party Strategy and the 2008 Election’ which is part of the recently published book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig). This blog post is the 11th of a series of explorations of the chapters from the new book, and it constitutes the original draft section about Act that I wrote for my chapter. Subsequently this draft was substantially reworked, edited, and condensed for the final book, so please see the published book for the final and ‘authoritative’ version. [Read more below]

Review of New Zealand politics in 2008

Every year the European Journal of Political Research publishes a political date yearbook which gives a review of politics in a number of western countries. I contribute the section on New Zealand to the journal – last year’s publication on New Zealand politics in 2007 can be read here. Below is the first draft of my review of New Zealand politics in 2008. It still requires a bit of abridging and editing, and as always I’m interested in feedback and suggestions, which you can leave in the comments section or email me (edwards.bryceATgmail.com). [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 29: The 2002 campaign

In the 2002 general election campaign Act was in a defensive mode – attempting to defend its 7% of the party vote. It therefore made a significant effort to rid itself of its extremist image (James, 2002i). This might have been an influence of president Catherine Judd’s Liberal Project within the party. According to Colin James, it tried ‘to present a less rednecked and less radical image than in 1999’ (James, 2002f). [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 28: The Liberal Project

Following the 1999 election, in which Act attempted to mobilise support on the basis of a socially conservative or populist platform, the more radical and policy-seeking faction of Act attempted to pull the party back towards its founding principles. Most significantly, this involved installing Catherine Judd – a Roger Douglas nominee who had not previously been involved in the party - into the party presidency. As president, Judd then instigated the ‘Liberal Project’ – an attempt to develop and reiterate Act as a party of social and economic liberalism. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 26: Factions and intra-party MP relations

Throughout 1997 a substantial divide developed within the Act party caucus over the general direction that the party had been taking within Parliament. The substance of the division was mainly to do with two general strategic issues: [1] the question of Act’s strategic orientation towards National and, [2] Act’s populist campaigns. In the debate over the populism, Rodney Hide and Richard Prebble appeared at one pole of the caucus, while Derek Quigley and Patricia Schnauer were at the opposite policy-orientated pole. The divide was so great, that speculation grew about Quigley looking to leave Act for National. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 25: Further economic moderation

Act’s first parliamentary caucus was by no means a homogenous group of Rogernomes. Ironically, due to the diverse range of opinions in the new Act caucus, the identity and policies of the party were narrowed and moderated. This was because, to function effectively and gain consensus, the party had to adopt a lowest common-dominator platform. Thus the caucus had to ‘agree to disagree’ on many matters and not raise contentious or unresolved issues as Act policy. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 24: Socially conservative repositioning

Early on in Act’s history, commentators were inclined to categorise Act as a new right urban-liberal party – a party that is rightwing on economic issues, but liberal on social ones, and sophisticated rather than traditional. This was certainly an image the party leadership, and in particular Richard Prebble, wished to convey. According to political analyst-satirist Dave Armstrong (writing in 1997): ‘This is the image Act are successfully portraying: they're fun-loving trendy young things with Pajeros and CD Roms. Act is the National Party without all the boring old farts who want compulsory military training, respect for the flag and a drinking age of thirty-three’ (Dave Armstrong, 1997: p.8). But in reality, the party was always somewhat less socially liberal than they might have seemed, and this was concealed only by the fact that they had initially chosen not to market themselves as social conservatives. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 23: The early National-Act relationship

It was obvious that the futures of the National and Act parties were always going to be closely linked. However there had been division within the Act over how to orientate towards the National Party, with the main question being: should Act treat National as a political ally (and therefore work with it) or as an enemy (and therefore seek to displace it)? This debate was not easily resolved and in 1996 the new Act caucus had to consider if it would be willing to play a role in a coalition government with National. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 22: Populism in Parliament

As soon as Act was in Parliament, there was a perceptible shift in the party’s activity. As the Parliamentary caucus sprung into action, the MPs looked less like Roger Douglas protégés, and more like the leader, Richard Prebble. While the Act leadership probably thought that their first year in Parliament was a time to define the party’s brand more clearly, the new MPs ended up being identified with trivia, side-issues and gossip. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 20: The 1996 election ‘success’ and its support base

In the 1996 general election the Act Party came in at 5th place with 6.2% of the party vote. The result was somewhat victorious in the context of the fact that Act ‘had been averaging only about 2.5 per cent in the polls in the first half of 1996' (Fraser and Zangouropoulos, 1998: p.55). However, the 6% vote was unimpressive in the context of Prebble stating that Act would get 15%. Analysis of Act’s election support shows some interesting issues about Act’s support base. [Read more below]

Act – after 6 months in government

What shape is the Act Party in after six months of being in government? That’s the question asked that was asked this week by Radio New Zealand National’s Focus on Politics programme, for which I was interviewed. You can hear the programme here (or the Morning Report abridged version here). This blog post draws on previous material, elaborates on some of the points I made to the Focus on Politics show, and generally discusses the Act party’s ideological disorientation, social conservatism, and shift towards both the centre and possible irrelevance. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 19: The 1996 campaign techniques

Act’s main campaign techniques in the 1996 general election related to running a presidential style campaign around Richard Prebble. The fact that it was an outside party – without an established base, parliamentary funding, media focus, etc – was a disadvantage, but perhaps made up for by Act’s significant private funding. It used much of this funding to purchase campaign technology and marketing techniques that meant that Act did not have to rely in the campaign on its instincts. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 18: The 1996 campaign strategy

Much of Act’s 1996 campaign focused on converting National voters to Act. The success of this strategy, no doubt, partly accounted for Act eventually crossing over the 5% MMP threshold. Although the National Party never formally agreed to a strategy to help get Act into Parliament as a potential coalition partner, some key National individuals did help Richard Prebble win his constituency seat. Prebble had chosen to run in the Wellington Central seat and he had a well-resourced and enthusiastic team of activists campaigning for him. The campaign in this particular seat became a central part of Act’s election strategy. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 17: Factions in Act

Factions continued to play a part in Act’s turmoil. As discussed an earlier blog post, there was a difference of opinion in the party between those wishing the party to market itself along ‘social justice’ lines, and those more old-fashioned rightwingers and conservatives who saw no sense in this strategy. Leader Richard Prebble came to agree with the latter faction, saying: ‘think we should concentrate on people who support us' (quoted in Corbett, 31 May 1996: p.14). Meanwhile party founder, Roger Douglas, became increasingly frustrated by some of the more populist campaigns and issues being pushed under the new leadership. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 16: Recruitment of party-hopping MPs

A central part of Act’s strategy for 1996 was to recruit some Members of Parliament to the party. The lack of any representation in Parliament prior to the 1996 election had proved a significant disadvantage to Act. Still low in the opinion poll ratings, a sense of desperation developed in the party. In early 1996 the party leadership therefore set about to recruit a number of MPs from other parties, hoping this would rectify Act’s problems. Serious prospects included Maurice Williamson, Phil Goff, Peter Dunne, Bruce Cliffe and the whole United party. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 15: Feminising the party

The Sydney-based Kortlang Group was employed to help reconfigure the languishing Act Party in 1996. One of Kortlang’s most visibly apparent recommendations was the advice to feminise the party’s image. Act had obviously become associated with its prominent male leadership and much of the party’s propaganda contained messages that were supposedly more orientated to males. According to Act organiser Brian Arps, ‘We've been selling it with the numbers.  Men are more linear thinkers, and women are more inspirational in how they think' (quoted in Campbell, 19 Nov 1994: p.16). [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 14: Employing political consultants

The first six months of 1996 was a time of extensive reworking of the Act Party, yet Act continued to rate below the significant 5% figure in opinion polls. The resulting desperation brought on a second phase of reinvention, when four months prior to the 1996 general election the party leadership contracted the Australian political and public affairs consultancy company, the Kortlang Group, to help them in a last throw of the dice attempt to re-configure the party. Ian Kortland, who specialised in helping smaller political parties, worked with Act right through to the 1996 election and then subsequently during the 1999, 2002 and 2005 elections. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 13: Softening its image

In 1996 Act replaced its stark yellow and black party logo with one that utilised ‘the New Age shades of azure and turquoise' (Trotter, 13 Dec 1996: pp.16,17). The use of upper case letters (‘ACT’) in the old logo was also now totally replaced by lower case letters (‘act’). According to Prebble, the logo was ‘changed because the old one looks like a prison sign’ (Scherer, 1996: p.5). The new logo also omitted the strangely pointless full-stop from the middle of Act’s name (“ACT. New Zealand”). [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 12: Rebranding Act

The defining feature of Act’s first few years was their process of ‘rebranding’ – as the party worked to recreate its public identity again and again. First Act went from being a programmatic ‘party of policy’ to being a ‘party of personalities’, and then again under Richard Prebble it was re-branded as a ‘party of values and virtues’. The new strategy was clearly a lowering of the party’s horizons, and emphasis was now on 'reform rather than revolution' [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 10: The new leadership

A new strategic focus by the Act Party on leadership image coincided with the announcement in December 1995 by Roger Douglas of his decision to stand down as leader. Douglas had always maintained that he was only a transitional leader, but he now also announced that he would not even stand for Parliament. This decision could only improve Act’s public standing. Douglas, after all, had actually been a liability for Act because of the public’s association of Douglas with the pain of the Fourth Labour Government’s economic reforms. However, Douglas was also not a strong leader – lacking leadership drive and charisma. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 9: Reinvention of the Act Party

Act’s disappointing performance in the opinion polls in 1995 very quickly lead to a re-evaluation of their political message. The fact that the party was run by marketing professionals, entrepreneurs and managers meant that the party and its message were always treated largely as a ‘product’. The background of the personnel involved, therefore, had a significant influence on the party’s development. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 8: Initial failure

Like most new parties, Act had an initial honeymoon period where it obtained credible support (4-5%) in the opinion polls. This support slowly declined over 1994 and 1995 until the party hardly even registered. Act was as far away as possible from their prediction of winning 50% of the vote at the 1996 election. Two competing explanations for the failure pointed to either the basically unattractive political product being sold, or alternatively the poor packaging and selling of it. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 7: Party structure and organisation

The new professionalism of the early Act party was represented most starkly by its organisational structure. The party did not just have a ‘leadership’, but also a ‘management’. The leadership obviously consisted of the public figures of Roger Douglas and Derek Quigley et al., while the management included the higher echelons of the party activists and paid organisers. The founders were attempting to create a modern highly-professionalised political party with a structure very different to the traditional ones. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 6: Initial strategy and expectations

The radicalism of the early Act party was matched by the leadership’s strong confidence in its future. Roger Douglas, for instance, expressed the belief that Act would win at least 50% of the vote in general elections. This prediction went against all available evidence that political scientists could offer. Such research showed that the New Zealand electorate was only ever likely to yield a maximum of 5-15% support for a radical free-market party (see Hubbard, 19 March 1994: p.30). The leadership quickly downplayed the 50% figure and the prediction was later downgraded to the smaller number of 30%. Many in the party continued to fret over whether to sell Act as an ideological party of blue or red [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 5: Initial radicalism and branding

Libertarians pushed the newly-formed Act Party to stand on a platform of an unfettered free market society, free from all state interference, except on ‘necessary’ intervention to ensure the maintenance of law and order – in particular the protection of private property. Early in its life, Act presented itself clearly as an overtly ideologically-focused party advocating a minimum state. Roger Douglas was personally opposed to state involvement in everything from health care to fire-fighting. Likewise, even Richard Prebble was on record saying that the state should be limited to a role of minimal regulation of enterprise and that of ensuring law and order – although he also conceded that much of the law and order operations could be contracted out to private firms (Kilroy, 30 April 1996: p.9). [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 4: Initial factions and differences

Like all new political organisations, Act had many factions (or political tendencies”) within the organisation in both its initial phase as a lobby group and then as a political party. There were rural tendencies, pragmatists, social conservatives, ex-Labour social liberals, and libertarian ideological purists. The relationship between these early factions was far from harmonious, as the internal life of the party fitted well to the theorem that ‘the intensity of party politics is in inverse proportion to the amount of power the party has achieved’. Yet because the party was instigated by its leadership rather than its membership, there was little in the way of disputes between the rank-and-file and the leadership – especially with Roger Douglas possessing a rather messiah-like standing with many. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 3: Early ideology

For a brief period this new vehicle was a radical new right force that was serious about substantially changing New Zealand society. In its early days, the Act was known for promoting very low taxes, a minimal state, increased individual responsibility, and a general continuation of the new right “revolution”. Roger Douglas’s book Unfinished Business was essentially the party's founding document, and Douglas played the role of the party’s guru or thinker. In reality, however, Act’s political ideology was derived from the political economy of Milton Friedman and Frederick A Hayek. In a sense, Douglas’s Unfinished Business represented the views of Hayek and Friedman as applied to the New Zealand case. The essence of Act’s philosophy was a strong belief in deregulated markets and a minimal State. As opposed to other variations of new right political economy, the place of the consumer played a significant role in Act’s schema. Accordingly, the consumer, rather than simply the capitalist, should be entitled to the maximum “choice” and “freedom” in the marketplace. [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 2: Formation of the party

The question of whether to turn the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers group into a political party proper initially divided the organisation into two groupings that held diametrically opposing views. One group wanted to continue as a think tank, while the other more ambitious group wanted a party launch in anticipation of an election win (Carr, 1997: p.85). [Read more below]

[Act Party history] 1: Formation of a pressure group

16 years after being formed, the Act Party has finally become part of the New Zealand Government, joining the John Key National Party administration at the end of last year. The following blog post series seeks to analyse the political nature of this party of government by looking at its initial history during the 1990s. Hopefully this series of postings will complement the excellent research work of Geoffrey Miller, published on his Act Watch blog. This first post looks at the formation of the original Association of Consumers and Taxpayers lobby group and the personnel involved. [Read more below]

Does political advertising work?

Does political advertising work? Governments and political parties spend millions of dollars on paid advertising, but the results are often of dubious effect. As I’ve pointed out in previous posts, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between how much a political party spends on advertising and how many votes they obtain (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here). The 2008 mega-professional and expensive Green Party campaign was yet another example of this in action. The party’s taxpayer-funded Buy Kiwi Made advertising campaign has also been a significant failure. [Read more below]

Who runs New Zealand in 2008?

The question of who runs New Zealand is infrequently examined in the media (or even that much in our universities), but it obviously deserves the attention of anyone interested in understanding politics or wanting any kind of social change. Fortunately, for the last five years the Listener has been publishing its annual Power List in an attempt to do just this. Although it’s always more journalistic and celebratory than analytical and critical, the exercise does nonetheless always shine a light on the people involved in running New Zealand. And it indicates some significant trends. This year there has been some major changes to the list, partly representing the fact that the outgoing Labour Government’s favoured businesspeople, ‘thinkers’ and lobbyists are now out in the cold as a change of government brings about different influences, but also because the Listener probably wants to dazzle us with new faces that are supposedly wielding great undiscovered power. This blog post offers a critical summary of, and commentary on, the Listener’s list. [Read more below]

Roger Douglas without the Rogernomics

I went and saw Roger Douglas talk today at the Otago Chamber of Commerce "Meet the Leaders" series. I left feeling rather disappointed. Although Act's politics have always been far from my cup of tea, I sometimes enjoy hearing their take on things, even when I strongly disagree. And at times I've appreciated that the Act party has been one of the more radical and dynamic voices around. The party used to stand for something interesting outside the mushy "me-too" centrist politics of Labour and National. So I went along to see if there was anything significant about the 'Roger Douglas comeback'. [Read more below]

[party membership] 8: Act New Zealand

Instead of modelling itself on a mass-membership party, Act has always had as its model the electoral-professionalised design of a cadre-type party. [Read more below]

[political party social bases] 8: Act New Zealand

There should be no doubt that the appeal of the Act party has been stronger amongst wealthy voters – yet there is evidence that such support has not always been as uneven as many political commentators make out. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 3: Act’s links

Unlike many of the new political parties formed during the 1990s that have been internally-created parties – parties formed by parliamentarians rather than by forces external to Parliament – the Act New Zealand party arrived in part due to the urging of a number of third party organisations, and once in Parliament it has continued to cultivate relationships with civil society organisations [Read more below]

Douglas to Dancing: a new blog about the Act party

The growing ePolitics phenomenon in NZ is hopefully going to involve a number of academically-rigorous specialist blogs. Possibly the first of this kind has been set up by University of Otago Political Studies student Geoffrey Miller, who has just launched a blog that focuses on the Act party entitled Douglas to Dancing. No doubt this will be an intelligent and dispassionate ‘Act-watch’ website that will add considerably to the local political blogosphere. The site draws and expands on Miller’s Otago honours dissertation From Douglas to Dancing: explaining the lack of success of ACT New Zealand and evaluating its future prospects (PDF) which is usefully downloadable. I’ve read the dissertation, and think it makes an important intellectual contribution to the academic study of party politics in New Zealand – I’ll do another blog post about it in the future.

Desperation and disorientation: the slow death of the Act party

Lately there’s been a lot of media recognition of the Act party’s ideological disorientation and shift towards both the centre and irrelevance. But this isn’t a recent trend resulting just Rodney Hide’s takeover of leadership. The party effectively set itself upon an increasingly moderate and pragmatic trajectory from its very beginnings - Hide is merely taking Act's intrinsic politics to their logical conclusion. This blog post details the long, slow death of the Act party, concentrating on its first ten years of desperation and ideological disorientation. [Read more below]

Myth 3: Corporate parties like Act can buy their way into power

Since the introduction of MMP there has only been one new party to enter Parliament - the Act party. Every other minor party established has been established by an existing parliamentarian. No doubt Act's success was aided by its possession of huge amounts of financial resources. But its election to Parliament probably had more to do with the simple fact that its political programme represented the ideological outlook and economic interests of a small but significant minority of voters. Act's steady electoral decline since 1996, however, actually indicates that money can't buy power. The story of Act shows that a well-funded corporate party can spend as much money as it likes, but if the tide is going out on your brand of discredited politics, money can't save you. [Read more below]

The disappearing Act

The Act party continues its decline as an organisational, electoral and ideological force. It's just had it's annual non-conference in Christchurch, whereby it has avoided the cost of a proper national conference by tacking on a closed-door meeting to a regional conference - see this report by John Armstrong (one of the few journalists to bother reporting on the party).

It seems that the party is a shadow of its former radical and robust self. Like every other party in Parliament it is currently obsessed with moderating itself and being 'more independent'. This means that it stands for little and attracts few voters, despite National moving well towards the centre in recent times. According to some - including those in the party - Act should be flourishing now that it has the rightwing space to itself. And Rodney Hide is still optimistic that it will benefit from National's ideological retreat. The problem is two-fold: 1) Act is also ideologically retreating into blandness and gimmickry, and 2) the tide has clearly gone out on New Right reforms. Neoliberalism has been both cemented in the new policy consensus of Labour and National, but also discredited within the eyes of the public, which means that very few want the Act-type agenda pushed further. So yet another party dies a sad and pathetic slow death with the usual situation of a party leader futilely languishing around for new ideas and a way forward but finding nothing but a focus on media stunts and attempts to keep an electorate seat.

Act party to benefit from National’s compromises

The Act party are obviously set to be the major beneficiaries of National’s recent embrace of the centre of the political spectrum.

Rodney Hide correctly notes that ‘The debate between the two old parties is now about who should be in power not about policy.’ Elsewhere he says: ‘"There's no doubt what we've got now is a National and a Labour party that in policy terms appear identical. I'll certainly be making that point, that while the personnel are different the policies now are very much the same. That's not a criticism, I think it's just a fact.’

But while Hide is correct in his criticisms of the National-Labour consensus, his own party has been moderating its policies towards the centre for years, and increasingly stands for nothing very identifiable. Recently Hide even announced that Act would seek an alliance with the Labour Party amongst others, and that the party was not ‘rightwing’ but ‘classically liberal’, which sounds like quite a rebrand.

Get ready for a greener cuddlier Act party

Apparently Act leader Rodney Hide has had a political epiphany due to his experiences in Dancing with the Stars, and claims he’s ‘saying goodbye to the finger-wagging and perk-busting that had characterised his career since he bowled into parliament’. According to the Sunday Star-Times he now wants to ‘seek strategic alliances with all-comers, even Labour’, and the party is moving away from a focus on economic rationalism. Like every other party, it seems that Act is moderating heavily and going green. But it’s hard to see what the point of Act will be. At least the old (and much larger) Rodney Hide’ used to provide a bit of humour and spark in Parliament, and it’d be disappointing to see that go. But in the SST article he still has barbs for some Labour politicians, such as Jonathan Hunt’s professed concern for the “working man”: ‘He wouldn't know a working man if he fell over one. I've watched Jonathan around working people ... he looks down on them."

[political finance] State subsidies for the Act party

The 2003 scandal over the Act party’s electorate office funding shows that, ironically, Act has become dependent on the state to sell its minimum-state politics. Here I argue that when Act started running out of money, the party buried its principles by turning to the state to run its political operations. But the scheme is not unique to Act, and such state resources are now the primary source of income for all the parties in Parliament.