Editorial: Act MPs have trampled on party's ideals

David Garrett is confronted by the media at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

In 16 years as a political party, Act has staked out territory well enough to boast, at its peak, nine representatives in Parliament. Clearly, there is a constituency for its philosophy of individual freedom, personal responsibility and small government.

But during the current term, its supporters have been done a huge disservice by a steady stream of mostly self-inflicted blunders.

David Garrett is merely the latest of its MPs to have invited odium in, first, confessing to an assault charge dating back to 2002 and then, far more damagingly, admitting he had stolen a dead baby's identity to obtain a false passport 26 years ago.

Rodney Hide, the party leader, has compounded the shambles by expressing "absolute confidence" in the MP. His credibility and that of the party are in tatters.

Any case of identity theft involves calculated dishonesty. By any yardstick, Mr Garrett was fortunate to be discharged without conviction and to be granted name suppression.

Mr Garrett has only made matters worse by trying to pass the episode off as a "harmless prank" and attributing it to naivety.

He was in his mid-20s at the time and a law student. Mr Garrett also says he cannot explain the "rationale" for his deceit. That is hardly believable. He must have had something in mind to go to such lengths.

Mr Hide knew all this before Mr Garrett entered Parliament as one of Act's current crop of five MPs. Obviously, he did not think this should disqualify him from being the party's hard-line spokesman on law and order and the orchestrater of pernicious three-strikes legislation.

Yet Act was always going to be in a very difficult position if Mr Garrett's background was exposed. It had, after all, railed against name suppression, opposed cleaning the slate for people convicted of minor crimes, and demanded zero tolerance.

Mr Garrett's trump card is that he holds the cast voting in the party caucus. This was invaluable to Mr Hide during last month's messy displacing of Heather Roy as deputy leader by John Boscawen.

Yet his support for Mr Garrett cannot be other than utterly counter-productive to Act in terms of electoral support. This has already slumped from 3.65 per cent at the last election to 1.5 per cent in Auckland in this week's Herald-DigiPoll survey.

If Mr Hide does not take action against Mr Garrett, it must fall to party members outside the caucus to insist on it. From that same quarter must come an insistence that the party's founding principles are re-emphasised.

If nothing is done, National must surely question the point of continuing to underpin Act by clearing Mr Hide's way in the Epsom seat.

Bill English, the Deputy Prime Minister, has reiterated the current policy of steering clear of Act problems, saying "it's not a matter for the National Party to determine who represents the Act Party".

Yet the short history of MMP illustrates how parties can be tarred by association with errant small partners. At the very least, National must be worried about its party vote in Epsom. Knowing John Key's skill in forging relationships, some in its ranks must also see Act as a liability it can do without.

If National were to stand a strong candidate in Epsom, it would seal Act's fate. But there will always be a place for its philosophy. This would re-emerge in some form.

Act started as a pressure group before morphing into a party. A similar process might occur again. That prospect is heightened by National's shift to the centre, leaving part of the political spectrum vacant.

Act's MPs have not only squandered the opportunity presented to them but besmirched their party's ideals. Only Mr Boscawen has steered clear of serious misjudgments. Clearing the decks and starting again would seem the most obvious way forward.