Act founder Sir Roger Douglas, with deputy leader and Consumer Affairs Minister Heather Roy, is understood to have led moves in the party against Mr Hide during the controversy over the international travel costs of his partner.
The Act board was told the caucus had issues over the leadership, and a special caucus meeting was called for November 22.
Mr Key is understood to have learned about the moves against Mr Hide shortly before that - between his return from Apec in Singapore and his trip to Trinidad for the Commonwealth summit.
He told Mrs Roy that if Mr Hide were removed from the leadership, her own ministerial position would be in jeopardy.
Oh Lord. What a loss that would be.
What a joke. Without Rodney there would be no ACT today. Sure he made mistakes this year, big ones, but so did Sir Roger. Looks like they are expending more energy on internal power games than advancing political ideas. Pathetic.
It isn't until you are well and truly out of it that you can see how silly this all looks; dump Rodney?? And replace him with whom, pray tell?
At this rate Rodney is going to end up being the Ron Paul of NZ politics. ACT needs him far more than he needs ACT.
Good on Key.
Why are we not surprised that Audrey "blood dripping on the floor" Young wrote this article.
ReplyDeleteJust a tip Lindsay: don't believe everything you see in the NZ Herald.
Lindsay
ReplyDeleteOn this we will never agree, Rodney is a sell out, a Winston like figure who has been blinded by the baubles of office.
I say they should dump Rodney, they should dump him as soon as possible and replace him with Dr Brash.
Big Bruv
Sarah Palin recognises that the media is firmly in the grip of Progressives and that modern day so called journalists are in reality the enemies of freedom.
ReplyDeleteRodney and ACT have never in my humble opinion made that step.
Neither have they been clear on their political direction with the message continually blurred by strong Progressive influences within the party.
ACT do not present as a solid option or as a solution to the insufferable totalitarianism of Socialism/ Progressivism.
It is a disgrace that they are continually outpaced by a group of loons like the Greens.
The Greens though have a pretty recognisable brand. What is ACT's brand, and when is it going to reach the voters to the same extent as the Green's brand?
ACT's shortcomings will not improve in the short term.
The quickest and easiest solution to NZ's problems lies in reforming the National Party.
So hang on... If they had dumped Wodney the Worter, and he had resigned from ACT... What would have happened to the rest of them, given that ACT is only in parliament because of the Epsom's 3.5% Mussolini?
ReplyDeleteGenius right there.
I agree, Rodney is populist, as his is protector, Key. I'd vote for Roger Douglas any day, Rodney like Key, is all about him. Showy, self-obsessed, arrogant to the voters.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 9:45. You may vote for Roger but no one else will. He's 73, and he sounds drunk now; he needs to retire.
ReplyDeleteHeather Roy is a lightweight. On a centre right swing at the last election her region, Wellington, lost votes.
Lindsay is correct. And so, I understand, is the article by Audrey Young.
If Roger Douglas and Heather Roy are the answers, I'd hate to know the question.
I am a big fan of Roger Douglas but it is time for him to retire.
ReplyDeleteAny vote for Roger now would be a nostalgic one. It is better if he retires now and we remember him for what he did achieve.
Rodney seems to me to be a version of John Key I am sorry but as a leader I have difficulty taking him seriously.
Now if Don Brash was to Lead a party with you Lindsay, Muriel Newman and Rodney now that would be a party worth voting for.
"Now if Don Brash was to Lead a party with you Lindsay, Muriel Newman and Rodney now that would be a party worth voting for."
ReplyDeleteYes indeed!
@anon 9:25 -If Rodney went, I think the rest of the ACT MPs would remain; what would be more interesting if NZ First was to win a siubsequent by-election - would it bring a few MPs in off the list? And what list the 2008 election list or whatever it has now?
ReplyDeleteHide's credibility is damaged beyond repair.
ReplyDeleteThe party appears to be doomed unless dramatic measures are take, e.g., by asking Don Brash to lead it into the next election.
Redbaiter writes:
ReplyDeleteThe quickest and easiest solution to NZ's problems lies in reforming the National Party.
Nope. You don't get it. More than half of NZ's population is on benefits or are "civil servants" - i.e. the live off the taxpayer's tit. Under MMP this means that no reform is possible - basically NZ has become effectively ungovernable under the current constitution.
Make any reforms, and enough people will be worse off they'll just vote Labour back and undo every change.
This is the core structural problem that reforming National simply cannot solve.
The only solutions are:
* Ban Labour
* remove MMP
* delay elections until NZ is no longer in financial crisis
* remove the franchise from beneficiaries and civil servants
* move all fiscal legislation away from the house of reps to e.g. the productivity commission run by Brash.
* may as well move criminal and police powers out as well, to a police commission run by Garrett.
Me, I'd do the lot. That would get real change fast in NZ.
But the Labour/Green MMP system, WFF, and the rest mean that this cannot be changed under MMP. It just can't. Expecting it to be changed is completely stupid.
As much as I like you Lindsay, and wish you were in Parliament, ACT and Rodney are a bitter disappointment, all of them: though I didn't vote for them, I voted Libertarianz, the only party now that does support 'freedom' and the state as the servant of the individual, not the oppressor of same as we have now.
ReplyDeleteACT and Rodney have been missing in action since the election on the important issues, namely, holding National to tax cuts, and even more important, voting down an ETS agreement.
Well we have this idiot ETS now, with its 50 reference to the non-existent Australian ETS, and where was Rodney in the media fighting it? In fact I think he voted for the bloody thing ...
ACT has made itself irrelevant, and on Rodney's watch.
"LATEST: The world's major emitters are backing a deal which has emerged at climate change talks in Copenhagen but Prime Minister John Key says it does not go far enough.
ReplyDelete"What we have at this point is a political statement; we don't have a legally binding agreement," Key told reporters."
And to think this f**kwit is the leader os the National party.
I'd say Sir Roger has just consigned himself to early retirement and Heather Roy to somewhere like No 10 on the list.
ReplyDeleteDo they not understand the significance of Epsom when they are polling at 1.5$ if they are lucky?
Perhaps they are too short sighted (like many of the shouters on this thread) to realise joe public will not vote for a minor party which does not project an image of COMPLETE unity?
It is marginally possible that ACT might survive this body blow - much more serious than Rodney Hide going off the rails with a bit of overseas travel.
It is hard to imagine a bigger bunch of idiots. And they have the fucking nerve ('Scuse me Lindsay) to slag off the one person who actually saved their bacon, John Key.
Like it or not the ACT Brand is the Hide Brand.
ReplyDeleteAssociation of Consumers and Taxpayers with a Liberal byline has about as much selling power as packet of wet potato chips. 98.5% of the planet don't want them.
Hides name is all they have.
Rodney & ACT =
ReplyDeleteDunne & UNITED =
Winston & NZ FIRST =
Anderton & PROGRESSIVES
ALL one man partys that get in the door because NAT and/or LAB let them into parliament in order to coalese (sp?) with.
The GREENS & MAORI (for all their contradictions) are seen as party's that stand for something independant of their leaders.
ACT's stance of pragmatisim over principles means they will never achieve the latter status with the current crop.
LoO
John Key has committed NZ to painful cuts in emissions to set an example that most other nations have just announced they will not follow.
ReplyDeleteHow clever is that.
"Power corrupts..." was the least wise thing Lord Upton ever said. No personality change occurs when people aquire power. Any one of us would wield power for our own ends even if we firmly believed we were doing it for the benefit of others. Rodney used to speak as if he understood this. Therefore, upon obtaining leverage he needed to use it to reduce the power of government. He didn't. He took the baubles/reins instead. I won't vote for ACT again. Unless something unexpected happens, I won't vote again.
ReplyDeleteDave Christian
Please excuse the errors in that last comment. I blame the Migraine medication.
ReplyDeleteDave
ReplyDeletePerhaps they are too short sighted (like many of the shouters on this thread) to realise joe public will not vote for a minor party which does not project an image of COMPLETE unity?
"joe public" - who after all is on a benefit or WFF or whose salary is paid by YOUR TAXES - will never ever vote for real reform. Didn't happen in 84, didn't happen in 91, will never happen again.
Therefore, there can be no reform unless a government has the courage to change NZ's political system so that the unproductive cannot outvote the productive. Until that happens - and it doesn't matter how it happens - but until it dose, there will be no real reform.
Oh, dear. I like Rodney. I like Heather. And I like Roger. Truly, I like all of them. I wish they were all more consistently liberal on the issues and not so spotty. But a lot of the problem is that they are in alliance with National which demands inconsistency.
ReplyDeleteRoger's time is past, regardless of how much I like him. And it would be very destructive to dump Rodney. I would feel more comfortable with such a coup if I thought it was because they want a more consistent message. I fear they want more something more like power, however.
But I also have to caution that believing everything you read in the press is like believing anything thing that Winston says—a very dangerous assumption.
As for the cause of liberty, the Perigoons are not alternative. There is more than a streak of authoritarianism in that clique (they aren't really big enough to really be called a party) and they aren't taken seriously by libertarians elsewhere in the world. Actually they have one of the worst reputations of any libertarian group (with other libertarians) around.