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January 14, 2006 7:50am by David Farrar

ACT Politics

The Whig explains why he has re-joined ACT. A very very fascinating discussion of internal ACT politics in the comments section.

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Comments (15)

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Aaron Bhatnagar

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January 14, 2006 8:55am
TomS

Its only fascinating if you also enjoy reading the equally self important and irrelevant ideological puffery of the “Minutes and Resolutions of the New Zealand Socialist Workers (Trotskyist not Leninist Splitters) Party.”
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January 14, 2006 11:27am
Belt

The following comments are made as an external observer untainted by facts 😉

I’m sure most of us have been part of an organisation where one member has been socially and organisationally inept. Training doesn’t help. Re-training doesn’t help. Subtle hints to find other challenges don’t help. Blunt requests to go away don’t help. Last ditch attempts by Mother-Teresa-like members to retrain or rehabilitate don’t help.

The constitution does not allow you an easy answer. So the only other way to try and neutralise them is to either give them something extremely time consuming yet unimportant to do while “reporting” to someone perceived to be important, or to squeeze them out using every other tactic at hand — essentially wearing down their unending resolve to stay in the fight.

It appears to me that the single post that David thinks lays bare ACT’s internal workings, is nothing more than a rotten apple that won’t go away quietly no matter how many hints, threats and setbacks are encountered.

Nothing about ACT’s internal workings to see here that you can’t find in any other party, corporate boardroom, school board or sizeable incorporated society in New Zealand.

The fact this guy thinks he can take this public and still prevail is evidence of his ineptness.

Although a suggestion of someone that he should have joined the National Party seems deliciously Machiavellian to me 🙂
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January 14, 2006 3:48pm
Belt

The following comments are made as an external observer untainted by facts 😉

I’m sure most of us have been part of an organisation where one member has been socially and organisationally inept. Training doesn’t help. Re-training doesn’t help. Subtle hints to find other challenges don’t help. Blunt requests to go away don’t help. Last ditch attempts by Mother-Teresa-like members to retrain or rehabilitate don’t help.

The constitution does not allow you an easy answer. So the only other way to try and neutralise them is to either give them something extremely time consuming yet unimportant to do while “reporting” to someone perceived to be important, or to squeeze them out using every other tactic at hand — essentially wearing down their unending resolve to stay in the fight.

It appears to me that the single post that David thinks lays bare ACT’s internal workings, is nothing more than a rotten apple that won’t go away quietly no matter how many hints, threats and setbacks are encountered.

Nothing about ACT’s internal workings to see here that you can’t find in an other party, corporate boardroom, school board or sizeable incorporated society in New Zealand.

The fact this guy thinks he can take this public and still prevail is evidence of his ineptness.

Although a suggestion of someone that he should have joined the National Party seems deliciously Machiavellian to me 🙂
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January 14, 2006 4:06pm
ATG

Belt:
This isn’t one rotten apple. Anyone who has taken note of the endless leaking, public squabbling and general open disunity in ACT would realise that the entire barrel is rotten.
When the party leadership wants $750,000 to give to a new think tank rather than the parliamentary wing, then you know they’re buggered.

No wonder so many have left ACT. National is the only party capable of taking New Zealand forward. Just compare the ability of National MPs to work as a team and keep party unity to the outright shambles of ACT. ACT is a joke, and an increasingly sick joke at that.
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January 14, 2006 6:11pm
Whig

Having been linked to in this way I’m highly embarrassed by the quality of comments responding to my post so let me apologise to those who read it expecting gold nuggets. I feel your pain.

Now to the substance of what I wanted to say. There are indeed a few rotten apples in ACT but Robin Booth was never one of them. He was popular with the Christchurch members and was successfully re-elected as a Board member. ACT’s 2002 vote in Christchurch was a significant increase on the previous election. While he has never been the most tactful of people, there was nothing he was doing that would have warranted even concern by the rest of the Board, let alone expulsion. His only crime was that he wanted to change the President and change the Leader. In response the President and Leader proved utterly why he was correct. They spent most of 2003 focused on this man and how they could get rid of him, rather than focusing on the Labour government and how they could get rid of it, when they should have just ignored him.

So Belt, really you are talking out your arse.
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January 14, 2006 7:41pm
Lindsay

There are those of us who are ACT members because we believe in the liberal/libertarian philosophy. No more and no less. I know I am not alone in believing that socialism is a “sick joke”. And there are many representatives of the National Party who still willingly embrace it, in one guise or another. They are incapable of taking NZ forward.
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January 14, 2006 7:47pm
James

Here here Lindsay! What the hell has National ever achieved in spite of all its bluster and “us too!” handwringing Socialism? ACT ain’t perfect but it sure as hell has a better idea of whats needed than National ever did.(With hat tips to those Nat members who DO know whats required but are swamped by the backsliders and the fork tounged) 😉
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January 14, 2006 8:34pm
think

Try 12 terms in government versus zero.
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January 14, 2006 10:28pm
Nichlemn

National is not a classic liberal party. In fact, the last time it was in Government was really the only time it ever embraced it at all, and that was mainly due to Ruth Richardson. National is first and foremost a conservative party – keeping the status quo. That’s why it is/was the natural party of Government – humans prefer the status quo, all other things being equal. Labour is attempting to win that status off them, by not rocking the boat too much. They may be succeeding – while National under Brash has adopted a more neoliberal platform than in the past – that is inevitably unsuccessful with the “status quo” voters.
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January 14, 2006 11:57pm
stan

hey whig, i actually heard stuff about robin booth that wasn’t so good, i won’t post them here ‘cos i don’t know which side to believe but it was pretty much the complete opposite to what you’ve written
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January 15, 2006 12:55am
Aaron Bhatnagar

I’m seeing a lot of ignorant tosh written about National by people who don’t know much about the party. Before you make sweeping claims like “National wants the status quo” and similar, I suggest you read Barry Gustafson’s “The First 50 years”, a history of the National Party. I was quite taken aback at how even in the thirties, National was a party formed to promote capitalism and personal freedoms in the face of socialism’s vanguard across the world. Read the book before you make any more generalisations about a party.
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January 15, 2006 8:19am
Aaron Bhatnagar

I’m seeing a lot of ignorant tosh written about National by people who don’t know much about the party. Before you make sweeping claims like “National wants the status quo” and similar, I suggest you read Barry Gustafson’s “The First 50 years”, a history of the National Party. I was quite taken aback at how even in the thirties, National was a party formed to promote capitalism and personal freedoms in the face of socialism’s vanguard across the world. Read the book before you make any more generalisations about a party.
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January 15, 2006 8:19am
ZenTiger

That’s all well and good Aaron, but its the next 50 years I’m curious about.
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January 16, 2006 11:22am
James

National may have started out as champions of Capitalism but they lost their way long ago and are just Labour-lite Socialists much of the time.If National want to reclaim their heritage Im all for it, its been too long!
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January 16, 2006 12:46pm

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