Staring down the barrel of oblivion

When the Act Party went calling on Te Wananga O Aotearoa this week, chief executive Rongo Wetere gave it a stern warning. "If these allegations don't stack up, you're toast," he said about the accusations of financial mismanagement by the wananga that Act has raised.

But Act leader Rodney Hide didn't find this threatening. He found it encouraging. "That's probably the most positive thing I've heard about Act. Everyone else has been saying we're toast no matter what."

Toast, history, oblivion - these are the words being used to describe what Act will be after the election. It's no wonder. Act has hovered at about 2 per cent in the polls for the past year - well below the 5 per cent threshold that guarantees seats in Parliament. But the threat of oblivion does not seem to have Hide and his fellow MPs panicking just yet. After all, he says, the party is having a "fabulous year".

The numerous difficulties of the past 12 months - Richard Prebble resigning as leader, the subsequent leadership battle, the Deborah Coddington/Roger Kerr scandal, the Donna Awatere-Huata expulsion - have largely been put behind the party. This year it has appeared rejuvenated, leading the charge on several issues, most notably the wananga and the Tame Iti flag shooting incident.

Hide has even managed to turn a potential scandal - Winston Peters' allegations that Hide's friend Jim Peron has connections to the North American Man Boy Love Association - into a plug to encourage people to come to the party's conference in Auckland this weekend.

For a small party, Act has more than its fair share of publicity. Despite this, it does not seem to be able to pull itself up in the polls, and with less than seven months until the election time is running out.

In the August 2003 Herald-Digi Poll survey - about a year after the election and with Bill English still in charge of National - Act polled at a respectable 5.6 per cent; six months later it had slumped to 2.3 per cent and has been unable to recover. What happened?

Don Brash happened, says Hide. "The big threat we have faced is Don Brash, because he is seen as an Act-type person. So people are saying they've got Don Brash, why vote Act?"

When Hide won the leadership battle last June, his clear message was that Don Brash and the National Party needed Act. But Act's attempt to form a right-of-centre alliance with National was largely ignored.

Hide says in the past six months he has watched National drift further to the centre of politics in the race to win moderate voters from Labour. He points to backdowns over opposing superannuation, selling Kiwibank and cutting the top tax rate as earlier promised.

"Don Brash might be the brand, but that is not the substance of what the party is about."

Just before Christmas, Act made a tactical decision to shift away from National. The move, dubbed Operation Break Out, was to make it clear that Act was an independent party, not merely a cling-on to National.

In the past two weeks public bickering has broken out between National and Act MPs. Despite this, Hide says communication between the two parties is the best for six months. The leaders are talking.

While the Brash factor tops the list of theories about the party's poor polling, Act MP Deborah Coddington also believes the centre-right - National, New Zealand First and Act - has yet to present a credible alternative in the public's mind.

"New Zealanders don't like change and we have to give them a very good reason to want change."

Colleague Stephen Franks thinks it is partly because the public have yet to turn their minds to the election. "The country is basically content after a reasonable summer, there is grass in the paddocks and money in people's pockets," he says. "The public, quite sensibly, doesn't pay much attention to politics until nearer when they have to make a decision."

Six months before the 2002 election Act was polling at 4.2 per cent, and six months before the 1999 election it was at 5 per cent.

Act takes comfort from the fact that in both elections it managed to pull the party vote up to about 7 per cent on the day.

Dr Raymond Miller, an Auckland University senior lecturer in politics, says small parties traditionally start picking up poll points when the campaigning begins, as the exposure they get during the campaign lifts their profile. The concern for Act is it already has that exposure, but has been unable to transform it into gains in the polls.

"They have had the big issues, they have had a huge amount of media attention at times, and it hasn't made any difference," says Miller.

Prebble could not make a difference as leader, and it was hoped that Hide would put Act back on to solid footing and ensure its political survival. He admits swapping his "perk-buster" role for the leadership job has been a more difficult change than he thought.

But the wounds of last year's leadership battles have largely been forgotten, and Hide says Prebble has been a great help.

And Franks, who stood against Hide in the leadership contest, says Hide is showing that he is capable of far more than merely exposing people abusing privilege.

Some people are less fulsome, saying the party is clearly missing Prebble's leadership and direction and that Hide has yet to reach his potential.

The next months will be a testing time for Hide - not only in terms of the election campaign. He will also face internal conflict over list placings and the potential role of former Auckland mayor John Banks.

Hide believes he is up to the challenge. His greatest strength, he says, is that politics isn't everything to him. "I play to win, but I am first prepared to lose. I don't sit there perched as leader at the top worried that I might fall off."

This sense of risk is resonating through the party. It is perhaps one of the advantages of being so low in the polls - there is little to lose, so risks can be taken.

The other possibility the party is exploring to raise its election appeal is John Banks. The former National MP is widely tipped to stand for Act - possibly in either the Tamaki or Epsom electorates, where there is an outside chance that tactical vote-splitting could see him win.

But Miller doubts Banks alone will pull Act through. "He will be another loud voice, but I don't think it will make a lot of difference because I just don't think personalities are going to do the trick."

The question that will be explored at this weekend's conference is: what will ensure the party's political future? Miller believes that as National continues to compete with Labour over the centre ground, Act will look increasingly attractive to voters wanting a right-of-centre government. At which point Act's tactic of differentiating itself from National should begin to pay off.

The election campaign will be tough, says Hide. But, with the conviction of someone determined to avoid becoming toast, he adds, " I'm fully intending the Act Party will rise to it and we will succeed."