KEY POINTS:
Since Labour's been in power, we haven't heard a lot from the Business Roundtable.
When Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson et al were running the country into the ground, the Roundtable was New Zealand's foremost right-wing think tank.
Once its rabid dogma had been discredited for the nonsense it was, the Roundtable disappeared. The only reminder it still exists is when its director, Roger Kerr, announces dubious research findings.
Its ideology is quite simple: we're all essentially greedy and we should be free to make as much money as we can. If we exploit others in the process - well, that's just the free market at work. Now it seems Labour may be defeated this year, it appears to be getting ready to get back into the driving seat. No doubt it would have been behind the recent manoeuvre to bring Douglas back into Act.
The neo-conservative agenda promoted by the Roundtable only got as far as it did because it secretly infiltrated the Labour Party in the 1980s and carried out a right-wing coup once Douglas was installed as Finance Minister. It carried out the same stunt with Richardson in Jim Bolger's government.
It would have been devastated when John Key, a moderate, took out Don Brash as leader. Therefore it had to resort to a Plan B and coax decrepit Douglas out of retirement. With the support of his Roundtable cronies, Douglas is now effectively co-leader of the Act Party. I'm wary of political ideologues who claim our economic and social ills can only be cured if we adopt their plan. Apparently, Douglas and Act have a new 20-point plan. Most of us are probably tempted to roll our eyes about this nuttiness. But don't think they are harmless fruitcakes.
The far-right fringe loonies who infest parts of the Business Roundtable and the Act party are true believers, but with money. Over the next few months, we will see a litany of so-called academic research releases - many of them funded by the Business Roundtable - parading right-wing policies and ideas to influence public opinion by cloaking their nonsense in apparent academic credibility.
The intention is to create an environment so the right-wing of National is more susceptible to some of its extremist thinking. The second stage of this agenda is to pour huge resources into the Act party to ensure a number of Act MPs - including Douglas - are elected.
On current polling, National is doing exceedingly well. But even its most optimistic supporters won't believe it can secure a majority to govern alone. With the exception of Peter Dunne, the minor parties are problematic as coalition partners. This is where Act sees its chance.
Unfortunately for the far right, there is a major block to their success - the Maori Party.
If the Maori Party won the seven Maori seats, the number of MPs would increase to 124, resulting in a parliamentary overhang. For Key or Clark to be Prime Minister, they would need the support of 63 - not 61 - MPs, making the Maori Party crucial.
Therefore it should be no surprise the Business Roundtable released research it has sponsored which runs along the supposedly reasonable line that as we now have MMP, the Maori seats are unnecessary and allow a disproportionate number of Maori in parliament. Funny how the Roundtable didn't produce a report about the over-representation of white males in parliament.
The report comes out of Canterbury University - not known for its cultural diversity - and ignores the fact that half of Maori choose to be on the Maori electoral roll. The report suggests Maori could be represented on party lists instead.
But it fails to mention that if the Maori seats were abolished, and the 5 per cent party list threshold maintained, groups such as the Maori Party would not be in parliament. Does anyone believe strong Maori MPs would be appointed by non-Maori Party list committees into winnable list places?
Name one instance where a Maori list MP has put Maori concerns before mainstream party leadership. The only instance I can recall was when National list MP Georgina Te Heu Heu expressed disquiet when Brash was at his Maori-bashing height. She was demoted without hesitation and hasn't said a word since.
The Business Roundtable doesn't give a fig about the role of Maori - good or bad. The report is merely propaganda to influence the public so National sticks with its promise to hold a referendum on Maori seats. Ask our country's 86 per cent non-Maori population if these seats should remain and the answer is a foregone conclusion. They will go, as the Roundtable intends.
This has nothing to do with Maori. It's the far right removing obstacles so it can get in a government it can influence to finish off the neo-conservative agenda begun in 1984.
So watch for the drip feed of so-called academic research. It is just politics masquerading as research. After all, it is election year.
