Political diary

SATURDAY

The delegates seem to be getting older; the venues are definitely getting smaller. Act is having a bit of a mid-life crisis. The young activists who were once a major presence at the party's annual conferences appear to have jumped overboard or jumped ship (to National?). There was irony aplenty at this year's conference. It heard from David Seymour, a one-time Act candidate and board member now living in Canada. He delivered a thoughtful address on the theme of the "coming inter-generational civil war" between Generations X and Y and the baby-boomers. Seymour suggested the under-40s could prove to be a lucrative political market and urged Act to position itself to target them. The profusion of greying locks in the audience nodded in agreement. The number of delegates overall seems to be sliding progressively year by year. Admittedly, this year's conference was in Wellington, rather than the party's Auckland power base. But even last year's gathering in the auditorium at Epsom Girls' Grammar School - which was held not that long after Act got its first taste of real power through negotiating a support agreement with National - was way down on the party's heyday when a couple of hundred could be expected to show. This year, around 80 delegates squeezed into Wellington College's cramped Brierley Theatre (yes, named in honour of Sir Ron). The distance between the theatre's doors and the stage was all of 15 metres - if that - making it difficult for Rodney Hide to make one of those lengthy, anticipation-building entrances before his keynote address. Instead of bathing at length in the lights of the television cameras while soaking up the applause of the party faithful, Hide had no sooner entered the theatre than he found himself at the podium with his audience waiting for him to begin speaking.

SUNDAY

With injury ruling Jacob Oram out of the remainder of the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy one-day series with Australia, the Black Caps could do worse than look to Parliament for an all-rounder of obvious quality. Word reaches us that one Tau Henare performed splendidly with both bat and ball in a Parliamentary XI versus Celebrity XI clash in Cambridge.

The National MP notched up a handy 15 off 23 balls, including three fours. As for his bowling, the highly economical Henare took three wickets for 12 runs off four overs as the politicians secured a narrow victory in the 30-over contest against a team made up of local identities. It must be noted that the MPs got some outside assistance in the shape of former international Shane Thomson, who smashed his way to 60. The top-scoring MP was Rotorua's Todd McClay, who got to 21 before retiring. The charity match, organised by local National MP Louise Upston, raised around $11,000 towards meeting the cost of extensions to the local cricket club's pavilion.

TUESDAY

Nothing's simple in Green-land. Witness the divvying up of caucus portfolios following the departure from Parliament of Jeanette Fitzsimons. The party now has no fewer than four spokespeople on environmental matters - Russel Norman, Sue Kedgley, Catherine Delahunty and Dave Clendon. Their responsibilities respectively cover water; toxics; mining, toxics; and the Resource Management Act and waste. Three MPs - Norman, Kennedy Graham and new MP Gareth Hughes - look after the different aspects of climate change. No fewer than five MPs have some kind of responsibility for transport matters. Keith Locke and Clendon handle transport in Auckland, Kedgley covers what is going on in the capital. Kevin Hague handles "cycling and active transport", while Hughes is just plain "transport". And, for good measure, the caucus has two spokespeople on the Treaty - Delahunty and Clendon, the latter being responsible for presenting the Maori viewpoint.

FRIDAY

Now it's Labour's turn to go under the expenses' spotlight. Fear and foreboding grow in Opposition quarters as the Government collates a mountain of paper in response to Official Information Act requests for material covering the use of taxpayer-funded credit cards by Cabinet ministers in the previous Administration. Given human nature, there is bound to have also been some questionable use of the cards by some Labour ministers. That may explain why Labour has said comparatively little about the resignation of Phil Heatley from the Cabinet following his misuse of his ministerial credit card. We'll find out some time next week when box upon box of documentation is released.