Another candidate enters the arena

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

The conservative Party has entered the fray that is the Whanganui electorate.

Kim MacIntyre was this week a last-minute addition to the list of candidates chasing your vote.

Mr MacIntyre lives in Auckland, was previously from Wellington and has no known connections to the Wanganui district.

He has no real aspirations to be our MP. He has put his name down simply to garner party votes for the Conservatives in the hope that, nationwide, it can tip them over the 5 per cent threshold that will get them into Parliament.

It is, I suppose, classic MMP strategy and, in view of what else has gone on in this election (Mana joining forces with Kim Dotcom's Internet Party, National stepping aside in Epsom to let Act into Parliament), I wouldn't even call it cynical.

That doesn't mean there isn't a slight feeling of unease about someone so non-Wanganui pounding the streets for votes. It shows that, sadly, the importance of local constituency MPs is waning rapidly and that the party vote is where it's at.

Still, good luck to Mr MacIntyre. I would guess he will find Conservative supporters and votes down here ... maybe enough to put leader Colin Craig into the House.

Mr MacIntyre and colleagues will be in Wanganui next week, and they will be welcome - just as he will be welcome at the Chronicle's public meeting for candidates later in September.

However, while we treat all fairly and without bias, I have to say that some of the Conservative Party policies verge on the appalling. The latest offering particularly sticks in the throat. As if trying to legitimise parents' inclination to hit their children wasn't bad enough, they are now calling for the abolition of parole.

It is a cause espoused by Garth McVicar, formerly of the dubious Sensible Sentencing Trust, and is based on the time-worn political strategy that if you can make people afraid of something (say, being murdered in their own home), you can get their vote.

As evidence to support this policy, Mr McVicar points to people who commit violent crime while out on parole. This certainly happens from time to time and is regrettable - but it has everything to do with the offender and nothing to do with parole. If they had served their full prison term, they are just as likely to go out and commit violent crime.

And, of course, the Conservatives do not really attempt an analysis of the issue. If they did, they would balance their views with the thousands of people who have benefited from parole and managed to turn their lives around.

There was a time when talk was of a coalition between the Conservatives and National. I wonder what National's Courts Minister Chester Borrows - an advocate of restorative justice and a system that tries to avoid putting people in prison rather than stuffing in as many as possible - would say about that.