Act members meet to discuss future

Rodney Hide

Act is running a series of election debrief meetings with members in the wake of a campaign that saw it reduced to a rump caucus of two MPs.

Only leader Rodney Hide's victory in Epsom saw Act retain a presence in Parliament. But he and party president Catherine Judd said yesterday that the series of meetings, the second of which is today in Auckland, will be designed to get feedback and look forward.

"We have them after every election," Mr Hide said.

Other meetings will be held over the next few weeks in other centres including Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. One meeting was held straight after the election in Auckland.

Ms Judd said there would be no formal review of the campaign but lessons would be drawn from it.

Meanwhile Ms Judd said that continuing to host former leader Richard Prebble's email newsletter The Letter on Act's website should be looked at but that it was not a big issue and she'd had no time to consider it.

Eyebrows were raised after the October 10 edition floated the possibility Act would put up former National MP and Auckland mayor John Banks in Epsom if Labour successfully challenged Mr Hide's campaign spending and he lost the seat.

But Mr Hide pointed out that if he was found guilty of a corrupt practice from Labour's petition, he would be unable to stand again anyway.

Mr Hide said he hoped to build Act and retain its energy and talent. He had told Mr Prebble he hoped The Letter, which was well received, would continue.

Mr Hide said he saw nothing wrong with The Letter continuing to appear on the Act website although he agreed with Ms Judd its name should probably be changed.

Mr Prebble's website describes The Letter as "New Zealand's largest email newspaper".