Political review: Mallard mission an election-year stunt

By JOHN ARMSTRONG

Trevor Mallard's mission to reinstate New Zealand as co-hosts of the Rugby World Cup was as much about helping the Labour Party as assisting rugby administrators in getting the International Rugby Board to compromise.

Rugby looms large in Labour Party history, most notably in the form of the 1981 Springbok Tour.

Labour "won" that year's election by 4000 votes.

But Labour lost the election because Sir Robert Muldoon insisted that the tour proceed - thus preserving slim National majorities in a number of provincial city electorates and giving him just enough seats to cling to power.

With Labour now in power, the boot is on the other foot, so to speak.

First elected to Parliament at that fateful 1981 election, the current Prime Minister would see the irony in her Government intervening to help the New Zealand Rugby Football Union resolve its argument with the IRB over who controls corporate boxes, catering and advertising at stadiums.

But any lingering antipathy towards the rugby establishment on Helen Clark's part has long been overridden by political acumen attuned to the role of rugby in shoring up the nation's self-esteem.

The reality is that, in such a small, introverted country, problems afflicting national institutions inevitably land on minister's desks as pressure builds on the Government "to do something", particularly when those institutions are battling powerful overseas interests.

Authorising Sports Minister Mallard to obtain a rudimentary legal opinion from the Solicitor-General - even though the NZRFU could surely have looked after itself in that regard - was an easy way of stifling any criticism before it was voiced.

Likewise, Mallard's dash across the Tasman on Wednesday to lobby IRB chairman Vernon Pugh in Sydney.

Mallard even stooped to a bit of Aussie-bashing on the way, giving the intervention the hallmarks of a cheap patriotic stunt one might expect from politicians in election year.

It was certainly guided by a degree of self-interest.

This year's election is really two elections - the one in Auckland and the one in the provinces.

No World Cup means regional economies miss out on an estimated $120 million fillip. No World Cup means no games in places like Invercargill, New Plymouth, Napier and Timaru - all Labour seats. Or Whangarei or Blenheim, cities which Labour thinks it can capture from National.

It would be ludicrous to suggest that missing out on a game of rugby in the latter half of 2003 will swing votes in an election held almost a year earlier. But politics is about mood and perception.

This week's intervention is designed to ensure National, which is struggling to find any issue that resonates with voters, is not handed anything Bill English can exploit.

In the decade after its 1990 landslide victory, National's support slumped in the provinces, whereas its vote in metropolitan centres held up reasonably well.

At the 1999 election, Labour enjoyed a hefty two-party swing in the provinces of more than 11 per cent in its favour.

Labour also racked up thumping majorities in places like New Plymouth, which used to be highly marginal.

English's chances of winning this year's election look slim.

But his more-realistic hopes of winning in 2005 rest on reclaiming ground this year in smaller cities and the provincial hinterland, what Jim Bolger used to describe as National's "heartland".

In turn, Helen Clark knows her intention of turning Labour into the natural party of Government hinges on consolidating Labour's hold on the provinces.

The prognosis is not good for English. Current UMR Insight polling shows that National is faring even worse in provincial areas than in the cities, registering just 29 per cent to its nationwide average of 31 per cent.

Only the self-employed and those earning $70,000-plus favour National over Labour.

In all other income bands and occupational categories - even among professionals and managers - support is overwhelmingly in Labour's favour.

The whiff of a Labour landslide has prompted the likes of Brendon Burns to resign as editor of the Marlborough Express to contest the Kaikoura electorate, which includes Blenheim.

National's Lynda Scott holds the seat with a 1486-vote majority, but Labour won the party vote in the seat in 1999.

Considering that the Alliance's constituency vote will collapse and presuming Labour support holds at current levels, Burns could ride the wave generated by Labour's higher party vote into Parliament. Labour plans to have National similarly on the defensive in Whangarei.

English, however, argues that Labour support in the provinces is soft and only based on perceptions of Helen Clark's competence rather than any attachment to Labour ideals.

He says National's problem was that it became discredited through the 1990s as "a bit mean, disconnected and arrogant".

His job is to retune National to the provincial way of thinking - a way of thinking that he describes as "giving people a fair go, economic growth [though not at any price], the Government helping out with things that are hard to do", and providing security when it comes to superannuation.

English points to National's new "life means life" policy and tax incentives for savers as examples of how voters are reconnecting with the party's traditional social conservatism he espouses.

Added to National's recommitment to a meaningful regional development programme and opposition to the new petrol tax, those policies "allow our guys to be able to stand up and say three or four things that the whole crowd agrees with" - something National MPs have been unable to do for some time.

English also argues that the conservative values of provincial New Zealand are fundamentally at odds with the "political correctness" of the Prime Minister, as exhibited by such things as Labour's favouring of Maori, the banning of smoking in bars, the new matrimonial property laws and dollops of extra funding for the arts.

No surprises, then, at Mallard's intervention this week.

Being seen to come to rugby's rescue is a powerful antidote to the perception that English is seeking to create.