Douglas for Hunua
Roger Douglas is interviewed in the HoS, and they suggest he may stand in Hunua, where he lives.
His motivation for standing is closing the economic growth and wage gap with Australia by 2020.
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Tags: ACT, Hunua, Roger Douglas, Wages
March 16th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Jordan Carter v Roger Douglas, huh? Which one would you vote for if you were in Hunua?
March 16th, 2008 at 11:51 am
What are the demographics like DPF? Is it more centre-right than Port Waikato was?
Could he beat Hutchison?
March 16th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
No chance he’ll beat Hutchison, but no reason to assume he won’t run an impressive party vote campaign there.
Looking at the decision to bring back Roger Douglas, I do see some good short term benefits for ACT.
What they really need to do is put Douglas in at number 4 on the list, with the message that if enough people want Douglas back in Parliament, then they need to make sure they give ACT their party vote. This way, ACT has a credible message to tempt centre-right voters to give ACT a boost in party vote to 3 or 4% (assuming Hide wins Epsom again)
Putting him in at number 1 or 2 on ACTs list makes no sense because it sends the message Douglas is more important than Hide or Roy, and I don’t think that even Douglas himself would want to see that. Putting him at 10 or 25 doesn’t make sense because the public won’t understand why he’s such a big deal but they don’t want him in Parliament. But put him in a position where he can reasonably expect a chance to get in, and voters then can get motivated to think about a party vote.
If it all becomes too much for Douglas as an MP or he doesn’t enjoy it, as a list MP he can step down half way through the term and plead ill health, or see out the three years, but if you’re going to bring back Douglas as a candidate, then they ought to make sure they leverage him properly in the election.
March 16th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Hunua is solid blue. Labour candidates averaged about 24% in those areas at the last election. They will do less well this time. The possibility of Jordan coming through on a split vote is nil.
It’s going to be incredibly amusing seeing him campaign for Labour supporters to give their electorate vote to Hutchinson!
P
Sushi – there is another option – that Hide goes off the list and Douglas gets put in at #1.
March 16th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Is Hutchison popular locally? From what I have seen, he typifies the worst the National Party has to offer.
March 16th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Hunua electorate is a semi-rural to rural ribbon coast to coast south of the Auckland suburban areas. It contains a large part of the very old ‘Franklin’ seat where the late Alf Allen and then Bill Birch were MP’s – it was within the top 5 or so ‘blue ribbon’ seats at that time. So at a guess demographics could be fairly well on the ‘right’ side and so could be a good seat for oger to have a crack at. Judith Collins does seem to be fairly well entrenched in the seat, and Roger may require a decnt turnout of decrepit baby boomers to get much traction.
However in my opinion, the likes of Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble virtually gave things away without decent safeguards – the country has paid dearly with respect to Telecom.
March 16th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
“Judith Collins does seem to be fairly well entrenched in the seat”
My understanding is that Collins is standing in Papakura, with Hutchison (currently Port Waikato) standing in Hunua.
One thing I do find interesting, is that Roger’s brother was the Member for Hunua for six months, before Winston Peters unseated him by way of a legal challenge.
March 16th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
reducing the gap to what, 0%?
what sort of growth rate will he use to do that…
March 16th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
James W – Oops! – red face on my part!
One advantage of MMP (but not extolling the virtues of it) it does avoid extremely messy candidate selections where front benchers are forced to slug it out knowing that the loser may well not remain in Parliament.
March 16th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
ACT’s new party tune, Old Man by Neil Young.
Do we have some assets left that Douglas wants to give away ?
March 16th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
peterwn
Either you have been reading the wrong material or you are too young to remember what actually happened.
The likes of Telecom (as the post office) were costing tax payers millions every year, they were not assets they were liabilities. Since they were sold they started to make a profit and dim-bulb spectators don’t research the history before passing judgment.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:53 am
re-running the old ‘lies’..eh burt..?
(psst..!!..i don’t think the mug-punters will ’swallow’ them again..eh..?..
too much ‘evidence/’experience’ before our eyes..eh..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
March 17th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Phil, you are a magical, wonderful piece of work. A true treasure to the Kiwiblog punters.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:22 am
(heh-heh..!..)
‘wodger’ hasn’t got a feckin’ clue..!..eh..?
he is on national radio..
and was asked what he would do about the current ‘perfect’ economic storm..
he had no answer..and just mumbled out the (very tired sounding) act dogma..
(and we also find out that ongoing dyspeptic-attacks were what drove him to stand…(!)..)
and his/acts’ formula for the future..?
sell all the soe’s..!
cos’ that’ll ’save every new zealander twenty dollars a week..in ‘overhead costs’..
(wtf is he smoking..?..eh..?..
and more importantly..wtf are the actites smoking..?
those who thought it would be ‘a good idea’..to trot out the corpse of nightmares past..
(but..thanks..!..eh..?..it’s been a big relief to the centre-left..
the news we can kick (failed pig-concentration-camp-owner) wodger..around again
phil(whoar.co.nz)
March 17th, 2008 at 8:50 am
peterwn:
Burts right. The Post Office (Post office savings bank, the telephone exchange and the post office) were bleeding money left right and centre. What was amazing was how a new owner could improve it so drastically.
Lets sell more things and get Govt to only look after core services. Oh that would be nice.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:05 am
that’d be a good/accurate election slogan for act..
(and ’shorthand’ for their ideological-pinhead-dancing..)
“let’s sell more things!”…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
March 17th, 2008 at 10:33 am
A better slogan would be “let’s sell more things and make Phul work for a living”
That would be a policy many here would support.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Will the Nat’s be smart enough to see this as the golden opportunity it is?
They can now concentrate of their everything to everybody approach and leave ACT to do their work for them in the area of economic reform, a strong result for ACT at the election will guarantee and end to this corrupt govt, one can only hope that the Nat’s are smart enough to realise it.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
The Nats loathe ACT and won’t hand them any easy passes.