“Stable” ACT

Written By: - Date published: 1:37 pm, November 8th, 2011 - 39 comments
Categories: act - Tags: ,

Interesting that the first member of the public to give Key a hard time on the campaign trail was not a Leftie, but an (the?) ACT supporter:

PM hassled on lack of Act ‘deal’

Prime Minister John Key was bailed up by an Act Party member angry that National was not sticking to its side of a “deal” between the two parties.

Morris Hey, Act’s electorate chair in New Plymouth, approached Mr Key at a New Plymouth mall today. He said Act had agreed not to stand in New Plymouth to help National hold the seat. However National was failing to do its part by withdrawing its candidate from Epsom.

Mr Key told Mr Hey to talk to his own party about the issue, and quickly moved on. …

Mr Key has said National was campaigning for the party vote only in Epsom – which is Act’s lifeline to Parliament as it struggles in the polls. However he is yet to give a stronger indication to National voters to vote for Mr Banks, saying it “depends if I’m thirsty” on whether he would have a cup of tea with Banks.

Not sure why Key is toying with ACT like this. They’re already begging in public, what more does he want – Don Brash to balance a biscuit on his nose on the 6 O’Clock news?

Funniest ACT related quote though. John Key, apparently with a straight face, said:

ACT have been very stable, so ACT returning to Parliament is something I’d like to see as opposed to something I wouldn’t like to see.

Yup, the party that imploded into brutal internal back-stabbing, rolled it’s leader for a patently useless Nat cast-off, and fell apart so badly that none of its current MPs are standing again, has been “very stable”. I’m glad we got that cleared up.

39 comments on ““Stable” ACT ”

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  1. queenstfarmer 1
    8 November 2011 at 2:20 pm

    With potential candidates like Mr Hey, I’m not surprised the Act exec decided not to stand anyone!

    ACT have been very stable…

    Yeah, hardly the best way to describe it John. If however he means stable in terms of a coalition partner, then that is a valid call.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 1.1
      8 November 2011 at 2:25 pm

      QtF please, don’t embarrass yourself like that. “He sits in the corner and shrieks and cuts himself, but he agrees with everything I say…”

    • mik e 1.2
      8 November 2011 at 5:00 pm

      So stable they have imploded and have failed to wag the dog as well!

  2. tc 2
    8 November 2011 at 2:58 pm

    Stable just like those finance markets JK knows oh so well, or his Omaha batch built on sand.

  3. thejackal 3
    8 November 2011 at 3:01 pm

    Perhaps it’s part of the denimic envronment Key has been talking about?

    National has a real conundrum here in that supporting Act could well backfire on them. Act has done themselves in so spectacularly that most sane politicians wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole. It’s the guilt by association thing that Key is toying with. But to not support Act could mean National will need to make arrangements with other parties in a hell has frozen over kind of atmosphere.

    It’s all highly entertaining.

    • Hami Shearlie 3.1
      8 November 2011 at 3:13 pm

      It’s entertaining in the same way as Don Brash crunched up in the little car was in 2005, funny yet pathetic.Funny how it’s only right wing parties that want to do crooked little deals to circumvent democracy isn’t it?

      • queenstfarmer 3.1.1
        8 November 2011 at 4:17 pm

        Funny how it’s only right wing parties that want to do crooked little deals to circumvent democracy isn’t it?

        1. How is any lawful electorate deal “circumventing democracy”? It sounds like you are not a fan of MMP.

        2. Re “funny how it’s only right wing parties”, you clearly have a selective memory. E.g. Labour’s longstanding arrangement with Anderton not to challenge Wigram, the Greens in Ohariu, Labour and “the Tizard bomb”, etc.

        • Lanthanide 3.1.1.1
          8 November 2011 at 8:02 pm

          I don’t believe Labour had any deal with Anderton in Wigram.

          Certainly Anderton had such strong local support that he didn’t need to make deals with anyone. You can hardly say the same about Rodney Hide or Banks in Epsom.

          • lprent 3.1.1.1.1
            8 November 2011 at 8:08 pm

            I never heard of any. Labour really doesn’t like making deals that block them out of electorates.

          • queenstfarmer 3.1.1.1.2
            8 November 2011 at 9:41 pm

            I would describe it as “an arrangement”:

            Despite Labour leader Phil Goff’s criticism of the National deals in Ohariu and Epsom, his party has been happy to give allies an easy ride when it suits. His insistence that Labour has always gone all-out to wrest Wigram from Progressives leader Jim Anderton is contradicted by the campaigns it has run there. It spent just $5425.19 in the electorate at the last election, hardly a war chest primed for victory.

            • McFlock 3.1.1.1.2.1
              8 November 2011 at 9:47 pm

              How much gets spent on electorate campaigning in the opponents’ safe seats? Particularly blue-collar areas. ISTR from involvement in local branches that the candidate campaign is often on a tight budget. Donations from trusts notwithstanding, of course.

            • mik e 3.1.1.1.2.2
              8 November 2011 at 11:45 pm

              Shifty QSF Whats that got to do with the price of any thing they don’t need to do any deal because Jim Anderton is reliable Act clearly aren’t trying to move the national and Act party to the right has been a big mistake.Rodney hide did what he was told by key now brash has had to cower down to keys wishes by not criticizing national.Act has become even more lame now post coup

            • lprent 3.1.1.1.2.3
              9 November 2011 at 12:29 am

              War chests for local campaigns are largely raised locally with a few contributions from other electorates if you plead for them. Your point is?

              Incidentally, Mt Albert typically runs nomal election campaigns upon less than 3x that. The limit isn’t much more. And I ge the idea that you know bugger about it.

            • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.1.2.4
              9 November 2011 at 12:47 am

              That sounds remarkably like biased speculation from the journo. The amount they spend is determined by the amount they raise not by how much the journos think they should spend.

              • McFlock …
                9 November 2011 at 1:18 am

                ooo snap! The expense returns are online.
                By the editor’s logic, Labour threw Clutha-Southland because their candidate only spent $3.3K.
                Maybe the author had a perspecive issue – on average labour spent $10k per electorate (with wide variation), but Nats spent $13k.
                 
                 

          • Mac1 3.1.1.1.3
            8 November 2011 at 10:15 pm

            QSF, there’s something else different about Wigram from Epsom. Anderton was a sitting MP in Wigram who transferred from Labour to another left wing party. He had local knowledge, presence, affection, as opposed to Epsom. Banks is not the sitting MP for Epsom who has crossed over to ACT, keeping his base support etc. Dunn in Ohariu is similar to Anderton and Wigram. Both are overhangs of the old FPP system when parties were factionalised and such factions were not necessarily true to basic ideals.

            Wigram is a poor electorate and poor electorates with a firmly entrenched and longstanding opposition MP don’t get a lot of money to campaign with. Remember, the money spent in Wigram is raised in Wigram. Somewhere, God knows how, people think that parties have unlimited resources. When I stood, (not in Wigram, but in another opposition stronghold), some thought I was paid to be a candidate. Instead, it costs money in lost wages, time and personal, financial outlay. We do it because we believe in a more just society, and in the ideals of a Party.

            None of that does not sit well with ‘deals’, or ‘arrangements’. QSF, you know little of what you speak.

            • queenstfarmer 3.1.1.1.3.1
              8 November 2011 at 11:07 pm

              QSF, there’s something else different about Wigram from Epsom

              Fair enough – I’m not in any way defending the train wreck that is the Epsom electorate (would would!)

              • NickS …
                8 November 2011 at 11:19 pm

                I don’t think anyone would try defending that 😛

                Hell, I’m betting that on the night it’ll go to Goldstein irrespective of what Key “asks” National voters in Epsom to vote for.

  4. the sprout 4
    8 November 2011 at 3:13 pm

    Key will not be endorsing Banks

  5. The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 5
    8 November 2011 at 3:46 pm

    How did Key and Brash/Banks having a cup of tea together become the accepted code for vote Banks?

  6. Rich 6
    8 November 2011 at 4:18 pm

    I guess his assumption is that ACT won’t vote with the opposition on confidence and supply, and that they won’t have the leverage to make him do anything that might bust up relations with MaoriNational.

    The other likely scenario, given their track record, is that one or both of their MPs get charged with a serious criminal offence during the next government. They’ll probably even try and brazen that one out for a couple of years before conviction.

    • Rodel 6.1
      8 November 2011 at 6:13 pm

      Yeah. Wonder what percent of ACT and ex ACT MPs have been convicted now? I heard it was 12% some years ago? They are certainly stable or is it just consistent?

      • mik e 6.1.1
        8 November 2011 at 11:52 pm

        And then theres the ones that didn’t get convicted
        Rodney Hide for being involved with fraud in Fiji where $10 million dollars was defrauded from investors.Hide was inviting investors to part will there money While using his parliamentry travel perk and there were a couple more incdents
        3strikes and he’s out
        Brash huljich
        brash kiwifruit board fiasco
        brash my wifes Singaporean

  7. Drakula 7
    8 November 2011 at 6:12 pm

    Well from National’s point of view it could be that ‘Act has served it’s purpose’ so we’ll go it alone in Epsom.

    I hope it backfires!!!

  8. hoom 8
    8 November 2011 at 11:31 pm

    ACT have been very stable, so ACT returning to Parliament is something I’d like to see as opposed to something I wouldn’t like to see.

    And yet all day one of the top stories on Herald:

    Goff ‘in denial’ over economy – Key
    Prime Minister John Key has hit back at Labour leader Phil Goff’s Top 10 list of Government failings, saying Goff is “in denial” and “needs to focus on reality”

    And Stuff:

    Goff needs to get real – Key
    John Key says Labour leader Phil Goff, who today released a top 10 list of the PM’s failures, is in denial.

     
    In the Herald today (or was it yesterday) they even had the gall to run a couple of letters complaining about their blatantly pro-Key election coverage replete with a curt denial of any bias from the editor.

  9. Penny Bright 9
    9 November 2011 at 8:55 am

    “However he is yet to give a stronger indication to National voters to vote for Mr Banks, saying it “depends if I’m thirsty” on whether he would have a cup of tea with Banks”.

    Could this have something to do with why Prime Minister John Key is unwilling to openly endorse John Banks – arguably a yet-to-be charged ‘white collar’ criminal?
    __________________________________________________________________________

    PROTEST OUTSIDE THE FINANCE MARKETS AUTHORITY (FMA) – SUPPORTING THE CALL FOR CRIMINAL CHARGES TO BE LAID AGAINST DON BRASH AND JOHN BANKS – FORMER DIRECTORS OF HULJICH WEALTH MANAGEMENT (NZ) LIMITED.

    Yesterday, Tuesday 8 November 2011, as an Independent Candidate for Epsom, I officially launched my election campaign when I formally requested that the Finance Markets Authority (FMA) initiate criminal proceedings against Don Brash and John Banks for misleading investors when former Directors of Huljich Wealth Management (NZ) Ltd.

    The KEY question is – how come ACT’s ‘ONE LAW FOR ALL’ doesn’t appear to apply to ACT’s Leader Don Brash, and the ACT candidate for Epsom – John Banks?

    How come Don Brash and John Banks weren’t equally charged under the Securities Act 1978, along with former fellow Director of Huljich Wealth Management (NZ) Limited, Peter Huljich?

    They were all equally Directors, and equally signed a Registered Prospectus for the ‘Huljich Kiwisaver Scheme’ dated 18 September 2009, which had untrue statements about the performance of the Huljich Kiwisaver Funds to other Kiwisaver funds from the start of Kiwisaver to 9 September 2009.

    Therefore, under the Securities Act 1978 s58 (3), an offence was arguably equally committed by all three Directors.

    http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1978/0103/latest/DLM29406.html?search=ts_act_Securities+Act+1978_resel&p=1#DLM29406

    58 Criminal liability for misstatement in advertisement or registered prospectus

    (3) Subject to subsection (4) of this section, where a registered prospectus that includes an untrue statement is distributed, every person who signed the prospectus, or on whose behalf the registered prospectus was signed for the purposes of section 41(1)(b) of this Act, commits an offence.

    (4) No person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (3) of this section if the person proves either that the statement was immaterial or that he or she had reasonable grounds to believe, and did, up to the time of the distribution of the prospectus, believe that the statement was true.

    (5) Every person who commits an offence against this section is liable—
    (a) on conviction on indictment to—
    (i) imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years; or
    (ii) a fine not exceeding $300,000 and, if the offence is a continuing one, to a further fine not exceeding $10,000 for every day or part of a day during which the offence is continued; or

    (b) on summary conviction to—
    (i) imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months; or
    (ii) a fine not exceeding $300,000 and, if the offence is a continuing one, to a further fine not exceeding $10,000 for every day or part of a day during which the offence is continued.

    ____________________________________________________________________________

    I personally delivered a signed copy of a letter, forwarded to the CEO of the FINANCE MARKETS AUTHORITY (FMA), Sean Hughes.

    My ‘OPEN LETTER/ REQUEST’ to the CEO of the Finance Markets Authority, Sean Hughes, stated:

    “So – why were Donald Thomas Brash and John Archibald Banks, as fellow Directors of Huljich Wealth Management (NZ) Limited, who signed the same Huljich Kiwisaver Scheme ‘Registered Prospectus’, dated 18 September 2009 as Peter Karl Christopher Huljich, not equally charged, particularly given that it was in their supposedly astute business acumen, that the investing public were led to believe that they could have confidence?

    Were Donald Thomas Brash, former Leader of the National Party and John Archibald Banks, former National Government Minister (of Police and Local Government), effectively protected from prosecution because of their political connections at the highest levels?

    Because, quite frankly, in my considered opinion, that’s how it appears.

    I look forward to your confirmation, in writing, within 7 days, that the same charges that were laid against Peter Karl Christopher Huljich by the former Securities Commission will be laid against Donald Thomas Brash and John Archibald Banks.

    ‘ONE LAW FOR ALL’?

    Or not?”

    ____________________________________________________________________________

    I note that since 2006, there have been some 64 finance industry collapses in New Zealand – ‘perceived’ to be the ‘least corrupt country in the world’ (along with Singapore and Denmark, according to the 2010 Transparency International ‘Corruption Perception Index’.

    ACT’s ‘three strikes and out’ doesn’t apply to ‘white collar’ crime.
    No surprises there.

    I look forward to taking my campaign against ‘white collar’ crime, corruption (and its root cause – privatisation) and ‘corporate welfare’ to the streets of Epsom – in order to help citizens to cast an informed vote.

    It appears that mainstream corporate media is unwilling to help publicise the issues that I am raising, although they have been kept fully informed of developments.

    Just seems to help confirm my rather cynical observation that in our so-called ‘democracy’ – we tend to get the Government that the majority of big business want us to have, and this is achieved by corporate media manipulation, including pre-election ‘polling’?

    Penny Bright
    Independent Candidate for Epsom

    “Anti-corruption campaigner”.
    Attendee: Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption Conference 2009
    Attendee: Transparency International’s 14th IACC 2010
    [email deleted]

    • Hami Shearlie 9.1
      13 November 2011 at 12:00 am

      Good on you Penny, I’m just listening to you at the moment on Radio Live with Keith Stewart. Hope the Serious Fraud Office complaint you are taking bears some mega-huge fruit!(John Banks would have a seizure being called a “fruit”!) Good Luck!

  10. Craig 10
    9 November 2011 at 7:26 pm

    “Stable?” Is that as in the mythological Greek “Augean stables,” noted for their copious amounts of equine excreta, which it took Hercules to finally and comprehensively clean out…?

    Now *that* sounds far more like ACT. Full of…