Editorial: Act needs to get back to its roots

The Act party is facing formidable odds - not only a trough of public support as measured in opinion polls but also a commentators' consensus that the party will not manage to lift its support in this year's election campaign as small parties usually do, and as Act has done in all the elections it has contested. The reason for this prognosis is not clear, but the reason hardly matters. If it becomes embedded in public belief it will be self-fulfilling; few will be inclined to vote for a party that is considered unlikely to clear the 5 per cent threshold and feature in the next Parliament.

Act's urgent task is to dispel that belief. Its annual conference in Auckland at the weekend needed to project that this is till a party to be taken seriously. It received no help on that score from the antics of former Auckland Mayor, John Banks, who has left the National Party for Act and evidently expects it to fall at his feet. How else to explain his extraordinary arrogance in going to the conference and virtually proclaiming himself its candidate for the Tamaki seat? Act already has a candidate for Tamaki, its loyal foreign affairs spokesperson Ken Shirley. But Mr Banks went ahead and ran a poll which tested how he might fare in the seat against National's candidate, a prominent school principal, Allan Peachey.

The poll, he says, found he would win the seat if people who wanted a centre-right government voted strategically; that is, if they voted for Mr Banks personally and gave their party vote to National. And if one Act member wins an electorate seat, it would allow the party to survive in Parliament even if it does not win 5 per cent of the nationwide party vote. That is the case Act's leader, Rodney Hide, is putting to the voters of the Epsom electorate. Mr Banks obviously believes he has more personal appeal than Mr Hide. In fact he seems to have so little regard for Act's leadership that he did not deign to inform them of his plans before coming to the conference. Nor did he tell them, before telling the media, that in return for lending his mana to the party he expects a place near the top of its list (just in case he does not win Tamaki).

Any self-respecting party presented with this sort of insult would tell the upstart to take a running jump. But Act, while criticising Mr Banks' presumptuousness, leaves the possibility open that he will get his way. That gives the impression the party is desperate indeed. Mr Banks is not such a catch that a party needs to sacrifice its self-respect to accommodate him. He lost the mayoralty after a single term to a man less controversial by temperament. And nor is Act's position so desperate that it has to hand its fate to someone who is likeable and entertaining but hard to take seriously.

Act has been handed an electoral benefit over the past six months by National's decision to moderate its position on many of the Government's decisions, notably personal tax rates and the superannuation fund. A year earlier, when Don Brash was elected to National's leadership, the outlook for Act was bad. Dr Brash was much closer to Act's policies than previous leader Bill English had been, and he did not leave much room for Act to distinguish itself on the radical right. Now that National is playing to the middle ground again, it leaves plenty of scope for Act to carve out a niche on the right.

And that is exactly what it is doing by coming out in open criticism of National lately. Don't be fooled by Act's criticism of its companion party. To take the opportunity National has handed it, Act has to criticise it closest ally. It has to do more, though. To distinguish itself successfully Act will need to forget some of the populist policies - on crime, race and the treaty - that Dr Brash has co-opted. It needs to concentrate again on its original reason for existence - to promote free markets, commercial discipline and competition in all sectors of the economy. If Act has the courage of its founding convictions, it can survive.