Time running out to get Act together

Rodney Hide says if Act is not returned to Parliament it will not survive as a party. Picture / Paul Estcourt

Rodney Hide stalls when he is asked what he could have done differently as leader of Act. For the man who always has an answer, this question causes him to slouch back on the couch in his Bowen House office and think and think.

Finally, he cautiously admits he should have more clearly distinguished Act from National when he took over the leadership from Richard Prebble in June last year.

Hide says that instead he wasted the first six months of his leadership trying to build a relationship with National and firm-up a centre-right alternative government. At Christmas he realised it was not going to happen because, for reasons he could not fathom, National was just not interested.

By that time it was election year and, in Hide's words, National, under the leadership of Don Brash, had gone out and eaten Act, its supporting party.

The relationship, or lack of relationship, with National is a telling factor in Act's present troubles. It's as if Act is an annoying younger sibling who wants to join in the game, but its staid older brother, National, just won't have a bar of the embarrassing youngster.

This was shown again this week when National complained to the chief electoral office over Act's billboards, which National said gave the impression it was telling its supporters to vote for Act.

Although National was appalled at the inference voters might take from the billboards, Hide could not see what the problem was. To his mind, the two parties should be working together.

Hide is confident that National will see the error of its ways, but he is now aware that if Act is to get back into Parliament the party must do it on their own.

The party is conveying the messages that it is needed to keep National honest and that it is crucial Act is in Parliament for there to be a change of government.

But to get back into Parliament the party - polling at about 1 per cent, on a good day 2 per cent - has a lot of ground to make up.

When Act MPs are asked about the party's chances in the election they regularly pull out the line that the party always picks up the critical points to push it over the 5 per cent threshold during the campaign. But the election is now only five weeks away and the party is yet to show any sign of a comeback.

At the comparative stage before the last election, Act was polling 5.7 per cent; on election day it reached 7.14 per cent. Five weeks from the 1999 election it was at 5.6 per cent and reached 7.04 in the election.

Hide's confidence that Act will get over the threshold remains steadfast - at least publicly - but the party is also putting huge energy into securing the Epsom seat, where Hide is up against National's Richard Worth.

Winning this seat is far from certain. Last month a Herald on Sunday poll found Hide trailing a distant third.

But he says Epsom constituents are slowly comprehending his message that voting strategically for him will help National's chances of forming a government.

"I think voters will figure it out," says Hide, "that voting for Rodney Hide adds MPs to the centre right, but voting for Richard Worth doesn't change the outcome."

Worth is ranked 16 on National's list and is assured of returning to Parliament even if he loses the Epsom seat.

One of the hurdles Act faces this election is a lack of public understanding of how MMP works and the general impression that this election is a two-party race between Labour and National.

Hide says Act supporters have apologetically told him that they will be voting for National because they believe it is the only way there can be a change of government.

But he says he expects that Act's fortunes will improve as the election draws closer and people start thinking about their voting alternatives and realise that National will not be able to form a government by itself.

Act will also be reminding voters of its successful record in exposing rorts, keeping the Government honest, and persisting with its key issues.

For a small party Act has been effective and prides itself that the once fringe issues it has pursued - such as tax cuts, welfare reform and time limits for Treaty claims - are now the issues on which this election is being fought. So why is Act not making all the running on them?

Hide believes it is because National has grabbed them and claimed them as their own. "So what we need to do now is start looking ahead and see what is beyond that," he says.

Sharing that task with Hide will be his eight hardworking MPs. But if Act is returned to Parliament it will be a different looking party. Gone will be its original leader, Prebble, and high-profile MP Deborah Coddington.

Hide concedes that both are a loss, but also says no one is irreplaceable.

He does not apply the same theory to Act, the party he says would be impossible to replace.

In a warning to supporters, Hide is adamant that Act will not survive as a party if it is not returned to Parliament.

"Once you are out, you are out." The best of times and the worst of times

The good:

* Exposing the rorts at Te Wananga O Aotearoa.

* Pushing for tax cuts.

* Pushing for time limits on Treaty claims.

* Raising allegations about Labour MP John Tamihere's running of West Auckland's Waipareira Trust.

* Raising allegations that David Benson-Pope mistreated students, now being investigated by the police.

* Heather Roy's close scrutiny of the health system.

The bad:

* Former Act MP Donna Awatere Huata's fraud case and the convoluted court action needed to expel her from Parliament.

* Richard Prebble resigning and his private life becoming public.

* Deborah Coddington resigning and her private life becoming public (repeatedly).

* John Banks - the "will he/won't he throw his hat in".

* Rumours of a leadership coup by Ken Shirley earlier this year.

* Roger Douglas resigning as patron of the party.