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Michelle! Your Horse Is Sick

Your horse is sick Michelle!

Paulo Politico - By Paulo Keating

It was an act of desperation when party president Michelle Boag described National as “a horse that's been training hard”.

Ms Boag said she has “complete faith in its jockey” and that her horse was “fit for a sprint down the home straight”.

Her comments were obviously uttered in desperation because two days later Treasury released figures showing the operating balance (surplus) for the seven months to January 2002 was $1,488 million. That’s $385 million higher than the December Economic and Fiscal Update (DEFU) forecast.

It gets worse: Ms Boag’s equine comments came just two days prior to National Business Review’s political Compaq poll which shows Labour commanding a 16 percent lead over National.

Now that’s a strong foundation based on low unemployment, low interest rates, low inflation, a budget surplus and steady economic growth and it’s driving the government relentlessly forward to a second term in office.

What is Ms Boag supposed to do?

Well quite frankly there is nothing she can do. Her party’s parliamentary wing is deeply divided.

Early on in her presidency Ms Boag indicated that National would need to renew itself. National needed to be fresh and innovative. It needed to capture the imagination of new people. It needed to be dynamic and forward thinking.

According to the promoters of this vision, long-serving National MPs were encouraged to review their position and how National could best be served by its own parliamentary stock.

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Long-serving National MPs such as Doug Kidd, Warren Kyd, Brian Neeson and Clem Simich might have interpreted this as a fairly blunt hint that it was time for them to wander off into the night and not come back.

For those people and their loyal electorate organisations the vision must seem like an invitation to swallow dead rats. It’s hardly palatable and it’s just not the National thing to do.

One can see why National is not at peace with itself. It’s loyal blue-rinse membership feels disenfranchised and cynical.

After all the English-led front bench could hardly be described as fresh and innovative. The so-called Brat pack – English, Roger Sowry, Nick Smith and Tony Ryall – collectively span over 48 years in parliament.
The Boag answer is a non-starter especially if National wants to become a viable party for government again. People just aren’t fooled by the clichés and the racehorse analogy.

On the same day that the Treasury released figures showing an operating balance approaching $1.5 billion, and net crown debt $278 million lower than forecast, National’s finance spokesperson David Carter said nothing.

Why isn’t National celebrating the surplus? Why isn’t National celebrating employment growth? Why isn’t National celebrating low interest rates? Why isn’t National celebrating the increase in business confidence?

Michelle Boag seeks to make National a fresh and innovative party full to the brim with forward-thinking people. Yet National’s parliamentary wing refuses to do more than carp, argue and moan.

It’s a disgrace.

No opposition party deserves to win government by carping, moaning, whinging and whining. No opposition party deserves to win government by playing up to people’s fears and anxieties. It’s just not the right thing to do.

How terrifying it must have been for National to read reports that Labour’s 2001 85th conference was perhaps the most peaceful and united conference in that party’s modern history.

Labour’s delegates were disciplined and upbeat. Helen Clark leads a party of people who are focussed and determined. Gone are the internal ructions that dogged the Labour Party in the past.

The poison chalice of the divided party is now firmly in National’s grasp. The level of apathy and half-heartedness from National’s backbenches is breathtaking.

At question time in parliament, National’s frontbenches are getting into the bad habit of laughing at their leader’s own jokes and puns before he delivers them.

National MPs are making points of order but apparently have no knowledge of standing orders. It means that they appear to be unprepared. National therefore looks sloppy and higgledy-piggledy.

National’s candidate selection process isn’t doing the party any good either.

National’s Whanganui candidate is Chester Burrows. He stood at the last election and lost by over 3,000 votes.

National’s Rongotai candidate Glenda Hughes was reported as saying that National had won the party vote in two of the past three elections under MMP in that electorate. Umm Glenda …. we’ve only had two elections under MMP, Annette King won the seat in 1996 and 1999 (by close to 13,000 votes) and Labour won the party vote in 1999 by over 4,000 votes.

Remember Tau Henare? He wants to stand as National’s candidate for the west Auckland seat of Te Atatu.

I predict that if Tau Henare makes it to parliament at any point in the future, he will be at the front of the queue to be National’s next spokesperson of Maori Affairs. I don’t make that prediction because Tau is the right person for the job. I predict that result because things are that bad for National at present.

So I conclude by getting back to where it all began – Michelle Boag’s horse.

Right now the horse is not in good health.

To nurse the beast back to good health will take more than provocative speeches and navel gazing. It will take much more than empty promises to spend the superannuation fund four different ways. And it will take more than a collection of second-tier candidates flying the blue flag in various electorates.

The solution for National is a combination of humility, commonsense and a serious dose of constructive policy.

New Zealanders are not easily fooled. Nobody believes that National is a race-fit horse that’s been training hard. And the analogy that Bill English is a hungry jockey ready to mount a willing beast is farcical.

Ms Boag should stop with the silly similes and metaphors. She does her once-proud party a disservice in the eyes of an electorate that can see past such absurd bluster.

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