Kiwiblog

National has had to postpone its Selwyn selection, due the granting this afternoon of an injunction to Roger Payne.

Payne failed to gain an injunction last week, but filed further reasons, and Justice Panckhurst has reversed his earlier decision, and granted an injunction.

The injunction can be viewed here as a PDF.

I have had a read through it, and some key aspects:

• No decision has been made on the merits of the case
• The criteria for an injunction is firstly merely whether there is a serious question to be tried, and Justice Panckhurst has said he now accepts there is a question due to reference to Section 71 of the Electoral Act.
•  It then comes down to the balance of convenience, and this is really why the injunction was granted. If it was not granted, Payne would have permanently lost his chance to gain selection as a candidate. By comparison, National is inconvenienced (especially the accepted nominees and the delegates) but not permanently disadvantaged.

A substantive hearing will have to be arranged. This should be a matter of just weeks, not months. But until there is a substantive decision, the selection meeting scheduled for next week can not be held.

It is unfortunate for National, that it happened in Selwyn where there had already been issues around process. But this could have happened in any seat at all, where someone rejected decides to take legal action.

I’ll briefly touch on the substance of the case.  I’ll reinforce that again no decision has been made on the substance, so any conclusions about the eventual outcome are premature. The key aspect is Section 71 of the Electoral Act 1993:

Requirement for registered parties to follow democratic procedures in candidate selection

Every political party that is for the time being registered under this Part of this Act shall ensure that provision is made for participation in the selection of candidates representing the party for election as members of Parliament by—
(a) Current financial members of the party who are or would be entitled to vote for those candidates at any election; or
(b) Delegates who have (whether directly or indirectly) in turn been elected or otherwise selected by current financial members of the party; or
(c) A combination of the persons or classes of persons referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this section.

 Now the National Party Rule 94(b) says:

The Board shall consider the material submitted and shall have an unfettered discretion to approve or disapprove a nomination received. The Board may undertake an investigation on its own behalf of any candidate but shall not be bound to interview a candidate it rejects or assign any reason for rejection.

Now this rule has been there in various forms for some decades.  It is very very rarely used, and I indicated in my previous blog post what I thought was suitable reasons for its use – the fact Mr Payne had previously failed to abide by the obligations he entered into, when seeking the candidacy in 1999.

Now in terms of  s71, the requirement is only for local members and delegates to participate in the selection. It does not state they are the only people to be involved. As it happens National has extensive involvement, as the *only* people who select the candidate are local members and delegates *once* they have cleared the hurdle of board approval and pre-selection.

The substantive case will be very interesting, and no doubt observed eagerly by all political parties, as I think every significant party has a similar power for its central board.

But that substantive case is a week or so away.  All that has been decided so far is that there is a serious question to be answered, and that as Payne would be permanently disadvantaged without the injunction, and National only temporarily disadvantaged, the injunction is granted.

The list of major 2008 candidates has been updated, and it now includes hyperlinks to a website or blog for the candidate. Thanks to Carl H for his help in converting my excel file to some neat HTML.

If you have the names of any missing candidates, please let me know. And if a candidate has a website I am not linked to, send that through.

National has two more candidates. Hekia Parata was selected a couple of days ago as National’s candidate for Mana. And I was at the selection meeting last night for Rimutaka where Richard Whiteside won a three way battle. Richard is one of those rare creatures in politics – a small business owner. Amongst his various endeavours, he owned for around a decade what is now called the Speights Ale House on Tinakori Road in Thorndon.  Richard has firsthand experience of what it means to invest your own money into a business, and the environment needed for small businesses to succeed. He’s also been involved with local environmental issues – specifically the toxic sludge from the Hutt based Exide factory.

National has also announced the names of the five candidates seeking the nomination for what should be the very safe Selwyn seat.  They are:

• Amy Adams
• Alex McKinnon
• Dugald McLean
• Todd Nicholls
•  John Stringer

I know, or have met, four of the five candidates over the years.  It will be a hard fought contest, and I suspect it will go to all four ballots on the night.

I blogged previously on how gruelling the National Party selection process can be with 60 delegates to meet and impress. Well Rakaia is even worse for the candidates. Not only does it stretch out over a couple of hundred kms, but they have sought and been given permission to have universal suffrage for the selection meeting. That means that instead of 60+ delegates voting, over 700 local members (who have been members for at least six months) can and generally will vote.  So I predict a lot of travel over the next couple of weeks as the candidates get around Canterbury.

National also selected its Rotorua candidate last night.  Rotorua is marginally a National majority on the new boundaries, so it was vigorously contested by five candidates.

The evening stretched out to the maximum four ballots, and Todd McClay won in the final round against Don Hammond.

Todd has had a fascinating career including many years as the Cook Islands Ambassador to the European Union. He is very respected for his advocacy work on behalf of many Pacific states. He also has a strong business background.

His father, Roger McClay, is a former MP for Taupo. Roger was (and is) a hugely likeable guy who said in his valedictory speech he was probably leaving without an enemy in Parliament – a rare feat. He later served as Children’s Commissioner.

As I have said previously Steve Chadwick will be no pushover, but I think Todd has a fine parliamentary career ahead of him.

Talking of selection meetings, there was a really good question asked at another candidates meeting I attended this week (not Wellington Central).  The candidates were asked “What question do you not want to be asked, and what would be your answer to it”.

That was a very cunning question.  I’m not sure what question I would least like to be asked if I ever sought a candidacy. Probably something about why I was one found underneath a hedge in Dunedin pretending to be a hedgehog!

National Party selections are in full swing, as they try to get them all finished by early to mid April. Last Thursday there was a Meet the Candidates Meeting upstairs in the Backbencher at 5.30 pm. I popped in seeing it was on my way home.

The three Wellington Central candidates are Paul Quinn, Stephen Franks and David Broome.  They all spoke and answered questions well.  Obviously only one of them can be candidate for Wellington Central,but I hope more than one of them can make their way into Parliament. It’s great to see all over the country so many good candidates stepping forward.

These meetings are not public, so I can’t go into details, but I can reveal that I asked a question stolen from Grant Robertson’s blog – which was to ask all the candidates to name a policy they think would be good for NZ, but which would be unpopular.

Most people probably don’t realise how gruelling a National Party selection contest can be.  So I thought I would use this post to explain.

First of all the selection meeting is made up of at least 60 delegates, based on a delegate  for every 15 members in the electorate, plus a top-up if that doesn’t make 60 by the local Region .  You have to have been a party member for at least six months to be a delegate.  The largest electorates can have around 150 delegates at the selection meeting. The Head Office gets no say at all except they can veto unsuitable candidates at the pre-selection stages.

Now once nominations close, candidates get told who the delegates are. Because it is a defined group of people (unlike Labour where any member or affiliated union member can turn up on the night), there is intensive lobbying.

In a serious contest, each candidate will have one on one meetings with all 60+ delegates – lasting about an hour each. On top of that there may be half a dozen “cottage meetings” where a dozen or so delegates are invited to hear a candidate talk and ask questions informally.

Then you have the three formal Meet The Candidates meetings. All delegates must attend at least one of these, and  they consist of 6 – 8 minute speeches from each candidate (with them all staying in the room for each other’s) and then questions from the floor which can be to one or all of the candidates. This can go on for some hours, and you can get some aggressive or tough questions.

Then you have the selection night, where each candidate has a ten minute speech, and then they have to answer two questions – one from the Leader and one from the President.  The same questions go to all candidates, so they don’t stay in the room for each other’s speeches. Then you finally have the vote.

So a candidate for the nomination may end up doing 60+ one on one meetings, half a dozen cottage meetings, three meet the candidate meetings plus the actual selection meeting.  It is no small commitment.

I’ve done another update of the 2008 candidates page. Thanks to those in both Labour and National who have sent through additions and corrections. At present it is an image of an excel sheet but I have 95% worked out how to convert it to HTML so have started hyperlinking candidates to their websites. The hyperlinks won’t work while it is just am image, but will eventually so feel free to e-mail me any candidate websites.

The latest addition the list is National’s Auckland Central candidate, Nikki Kaye. Nikki is one of my closest friends and an amazingly hard worker so I’m thrilled for her. She won a very tough selection battle tonight, which went all the way to a final third ballot.

The list below shows the two or three major candidates in each seat. A third party candidate is shown below only if a poll has shown they have a realistic chance of winning the seat and/or are a current MP.

A spreadsheet with a fuller list of electorate candidates and party lists is here – All 2011 Election Candidates

If a candidate/MP has a personal website, I’ve linked it to their name.

If for any electorate you know the name of a missing candidate, and/or a website address for a candidate, you can e-mail that info to me for updating.