Audrey Young: Struggle to get Act together

The post-Budget rise in support for National has given the centre-right fresh optimism that it might form the next Government.

But it is looking more and more like a centre-right alternative without Act.

Divisive leadership rumbles that emerged yesterday against Rodney Hide will only confirm in the public's mind that the party is looking like dog tucker.

Speculation that former Auckland Mayor John Banks might be imported to take over as party leader after the election undermined Hide's leadership.

Now some within the party are said to be urging MP Ken Shirley to take over before the election as an interim leader.

Party president Catherine Judd was thought to be making one last bid yesterday to court Banks on to the party's list this weekend, evidence of a loss of confidence in Hide.

Hide was handicapped at the start by a board that did not want him. It forced a three-way primary election on the party membership to get Shirley or Stephen Franks elected. Anyone but Hide.

But he must take most of the blame that his leadership has failed to gain Act any more support than former leader Richard Prebble managed to secure.

It is galling for a party whose raison d'etre is low tax to see that just when the tax issue is getting some serious traction in the electorate, it has received no pay-off in support.

Hide has a case to answer when he meets the board this weekend to complete the list ranking process. He has failed to meet his promise of indulging less in scandal-mongering and more in serious policy.

The board and influential party founders Sir Roger Douglas and Derek Quigley had little appetite for Hide's scam-busting escapades before he took the leadership but they could at least be justified on the grounds of keeping Government agencies accountable.

But the mud-slinging involved in bringing down former minister John Tamihere and that may have fatally wounded David Benson-Pope over claims of mistreating students as a teacher is in another league altogether.

Hide appeared to turn over a new leaf this week and embarked on a strong attack on the effectiveness of the Government's health expenditure, with promising health spokeswoman Heather Roy armed with a damning Treasury report.

The next targets on the "serious issues" agenda are said to be law and order and education. But that may be too little, too late to retrieve support from the public.

The Act caucus has reason to feel a little aggrieved that it is not doing better because, per head of players, it has had a more active role than most in eroding confidence in the Government.

Shirley led the Opposition attack over the operations of Te Wananga o Aotearoa - without making it look personal - and whatever the rights or wrongs of the personal attack on Tamihere and Benson-Pope, it contributed to the gradual peeling of the Teflon coating from Prime Minister Helen Clark's reputation as a supreme political manager.

The voter reaction to the Budget has shaken Labour's confidence in a way that has not happened since Don Brash's Orewa speech. But Act is not associated with the tax story any more. National has branded itself the party of low tax - and that's before it has even released its policy. The risk for National is that the anticipation of its tax policy will fail to meet expectations.

Sound familiar? Finance Minister Michael Cullen made a rare personal concession this week, saying he should have dampened pre-Budget speculation. But that still doesn't properly explain what has happened.

In reality, the pre-Budget speculation was not as over-hyped as hindsight would have it. The post-Budget coverage was highly critical of the tax crumbs Cullen is offering in three years, but in itself did not create resentment.

It is possible that, like Orewa, behind the public's ingratitude may be a suppressed resentment by higher-income families or singles who have missed out on the billions being redistributed by the Government in the Working for Families package.

The extensive television advertising campaign of Working for Families is a constant reinforcement that they have missed out.

With a cash surplus of $2.4 billion, "What about me?" might seem a reasonable question for high-tax payers to ask without being labelled greedy or selfish.

Two television political polls due out within a week may indicate whether the Budget blues have waned since the first post-Budget polls, the Herald DigiPoll survey and the NBR-Phillips Fox poll, showed a heavy toll on Labour support.

Brash and National's finance spokesman, John Key, have hammered away on the theme of over-taxation with the vigour one might expect from a driven former merchant banker and an even more driven former Reserve Bank governor. In that sense, the gains they are now making have been earned.

Act has had to move on to issues such as tough law and order policy, which it feebly attempts to link to the party's libertarian and freedom roots.

It can't sell its flatter tax policy (25 per cent and 15 per cent) as a credible reality and sees itself more as the party to ensure that National keeps its tax promises - a somewhat redundant role given there is no great uncertainty that it plans to carry out its promises, whatever they may be.

National, being the beneficiary of a collapsed Act vote, has no reason to help it back to Parliament, unless as the election comes closer it is polling near the 5 per cent.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has also picked up soft Labour support after his renewed courtship of the grey vote and his Iraqi immigration claims.

The other party that could join a centre-right Government, United Future, is making no headway.

Like Act, it will rely on the exposure of an election campaign to show off the talents of its leader, Peter Dunne.

And like New Zealand First, it is putting off undertaking a potentially difficult list-ranking process.

National has no reason to wish any of them well. But it has every reason to hope that counter-attacks and internal wars do not damage the perception that it can pull together a disparate group of parties, even without Act.

The danger is that Act, contending with internal tensions and fighting National at every turn to win back a small share, will take down the prospect of a cohesive alternative with it.