Free Press

ACT’s regular bulletin

A Final Bludge

Metiria Turei was everything that New Zealanders hate about politics. She’d been there too long (did you know she’s been in parliament 15 years?) for any good she’s done (can you name a Turei accomplishment?). She had a reputation for being smarmy, smug, and self-satisfied. Now she’s accepted she’s not fit for office and will not run for parliament, she will sit back and take the taxpayer funded salary of around $180,000 for the rest of the year (retiring MPs get a three month redundancy).

Poor James Shaw

James Shaw is the greatest victim. He worked tirelessly to present the Greens as an environmental party you could trust. Turei was out to claim ‘her’ watermelon (red on the inside) Green Party back from the suit-wearing business-speaking types like Shaw. She has mortally wounded him as a weak leader who defended her dishonesty and law breaking until she wanted to go, not until he needed her gone. Pundits are now talking about the Greens dropping below five per cent and out of parliament.

The Return of Tax as a Weapon

Jacinda Ardern is starting to make Andrew Little look like a Rogernome with her tax and spend politics. So far she’s been leading the Labour Party for three weeks and has announced two new taxes, one on water and one on petrol. It is straight out of the Helen Clark play book where tax is a political weapon to be used against your enemies (motorists, farmers) to reward your friends (city dwellers, public transport users).

Serious Utu

If those policy prescriptions sound like something the Greens would want, it’s because they are. Naïve Green staffers in the parliamentary precinct are thrilled Labour has seen the light, but Labour hate the Greens and are coming after their votes. Free Press watched David Parker campaign on water as his number one issue at a meeting of the Remuera Residents’ Association of all places this weekend. Labour are on a mission to wipe the Greens out.

She’s Done a Deal with Winston

Free Press believes Jacinda Ardern has done a deal with Winston Peters. She mops up the urban liberals who might have voted Green, and he’ll make her PM if they’re gone, or severely marginalized. Only one party hates the Greens more than Labour and that’s Winston First (ACT almost feels sorry for them). Meanwhile Ardern has calculated that she can’t attract the blokish men who like Peters, so there is the coalition.

Three Take Outs

No. 1: no matter what is said, a vote for New Zealand First is a vote for Labour. No. 2: Labour’s newfound environmentalism is designed to destroy the Greens, not protect the environment. No. 3: Ardern is far more strategic and ruthless than some of her old-fashioned detractors give her credit for.

Meanwhile at ACT

David Seymour’s book is going gangbusters. It has sold around 600 copies already. One guy read it, came to the ACT office, and bought 100 copies to distribute. Another read it and donated $15,000 immediately. A prominent CEO on the plane last night said he’d heard good things and had ordered a copy. If you’d like to find out what all the fuss is about, please order your copy at www.act.org.nz/ownyourfuture .

Help Wanted

Only six weeks out from the election and five weeks from the start of advance voting, ACT is beginning its direct mail campaign. People wonder how ACT got from 0.6 per cent to 3.6 per cent in the two months before the 2008 election, and the answer is direct mail. We didn’t post it (prohibitively expensive) but we did have a team of volunteers nationwide who delivered them in the hundreds of thousands. If you’d like to help elect five ACT MPs, please email info@act.org.nz to offer your help. If you’re already in touch with your local ACT candidate, board member, or coordinator, they will be in touch. Please help them.

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