THERE IS SOMETHING DEEPLY DEPRESSING about John Key’s wooing of Colin Craig’s Conservative Party. Like Hogarth’s rake, paying court to the plain but wealthy spinster, the National Party leader’s motives are as transparent as they are unworthy. And yet, the rake is skint and the spinster unlikely to receive a better offer. And so the courtship proceeds apace: everybody aware of its cynical insincerity; but nobody willing to interfere.
The other troubling aspect of National’s ardour for what is, in truth, a vanity political party, is the brazen way in which it proposes to game the MMP system. For while it is true that, in the past, both major parties have given their supporters the nod to get in behind the candidate of the party whose support they may need, once the votes have been counted, to form a viable coalition government, National’s behaviour vis-a-vis the Conservatives is new.
No one can dispute that the Greens were a very real political movement when Helen Clark tipped the wink to Jeanette Fitzsimons in Coromandel. The same was true of ACT when Jim Bolger threw his weight behind Richard Prebble in Wellington Central (although much less so when John Key backed Rodney Hide and John Banks in Epsom). Even United Future has had its moment in the sun: when Mr Common Sense attracted nearly 7 percent of the Party Vote to his ramshackle political condominium in 2002.
But the Conservatives are very far from being a real political party. Like the New Zealand Party before it, Colin Craig’s Conservative Party is the vanity project of a single, very wealthy individual who has decided to flood his country’s electoral system with money. Lots of money.
The Conservative Party spent $1,878,337.22 (most of it Colin Craig’s) on the 2011 General Election. In spite of this extraordinary level of expenditure (higher than Labour’s) just 59,237 electors (2.7 percent) supported the Conservatives. That works out at a staggering $31.71 per vote. The National Party may have outspent Mr Craig by $442,878.80 in 2011, but at just $2.19 per vote its budget was applied fourteen times more effectively.
Without the vast expenditure of its founder, the Conservative Party would barely exist. It’s presence in the political marketplace is not the result of natural demand, but of one man’s belief in his own destiny – backed by millions of his own dollars. The candidates it has managed to attract are not drawn together by a common ideological stance, or even a shared religious faith; but by the same politicised narcissism so clearly evident in its founder.
Christine Rankin, for example, has been heard bemoaning the fact that the news media continues to define the party’s members as being conservative in outlook. “We’re not conservative!”, she insists, describing journalists unfathomable determination to label members of a Conservative Party as … um … ‘conservatives’ – as yet another “media beat-up”.
But, in a funny sort of way, Rankin has a point. Her radical neo-liberalism and Buddhist faith does sit uneasily with Colin Craig’s social conservatism, economic nationalism and fundamentalist Christianity. One can only suppose that her presence in the party is acceptable to Craig because she has a high public profile. Further proof, if any is required, that the Conservative Party is little more than a vehicle for the messianic and the egocentric.
National knows all this – but it doesn’t care. With ACT and United Future unable to bring them any more than a single MP each (which, in Epsom and Ohariu, could just as easily be a National Party member as John Banks and Peter Dunne) and with the Maori Party teetering on the brink of parliamentary extinction, they are desperate for a viable coalition partner whose name does not begin with Winston and end in tears.
To this end, their representative on the Boundaries Commission, Roger Sowry, will have been doing all within his power to conjure out of the burgeoning sub-divisions of Auckland’s Upper Waitemata Harbour a brand new parliamentary seat. National is hoping for an electorate replete with right-wing South African ex-pats and fundamentalist Christian churches which they can then present to the Conservative Party leader as surety for two or three, maybe even three or four, seats in the House – courtesy of MMP’s notorious “coat-tail” rule.
The political cynicism at play here is breath-taking. The policy priorities of Mr Craig and Ms Rankin would not be given the time of day by most National Party members, who, for the most part, still subscribe to the mild flavours of Jack Marshall’s “property-owning democracy”, spiced up every now and then with a little bit of anti-union pepper and some beneficiary-bashing curry. They will not appreciate being asked to make room for a property-confiscating, child “disciplining”, climate-change sceptic, but, being the good Tory soldiers that they are, will somehow find somewhere for Colin Craig and his peculiar friends to pitch their tents.
And if the 2014 General Election is a close as it is already shaping up to be, those peculiar friends might just be enough to give John Key and the National Party another three years in office. And they will have clung on to power not by aligning themselves with a genuine political expression of grass-roots conservatism; a party called into being by the collective efforts of thousands of like-minded citizens, but by striking a deal with the vanity project of a millionaire property developer with a messiah complex and ideas so antiquated that not even Noah would give them space.
Yet space is what they are already being given in the nation’s newspapers, and time, too, on the nation’s radio and television networks. Every journalist worthy of the name knows that this blatant gaming of our electoral system could end up empowering individuals who would not, in ordinary circumstances, have the slightest chance of making it into Parliament – let alone of wielding political authority. They know, and yet they remain silent: mute observers at the nuptials of a National Party willing to do absolutely anything to hold onto power, and a Conservative Party unable to secure it from the hands of anybody else.
I’ve got mixed feelings about the conservatives – as behooves a pretty mixed party. A moderately socially conservative block that doesn’t like tax but isn’t sold on neo-liberal dogma seems a fairly credible demographic to me – it might include half or more of current National voters, and even some Labour voters.
So that while Key must be smiling the professional ‘pas devant les enfants’ smile when he looks at the curious mixture the Conservatives are becoming, it also involves some relief, because a genuine conservative party would be a significant threat to the conspicuously failing faux technocracy of National. To be a technocrat your economic policies have to work – this has proven to be beyond National’s abilities.
I am still trying to figure out how the rotation of the planets cause global warming?
as for the NP and CP alliance – Fool me twice….!
How can a party be part of a government with no parliamentry experience people need to think about that
Every Politician started out with no experience once. And it does have members with Parliamentary experience in it if you choose to dig a bit deeper.
Colin Craig said in the interview on ‘The Nation’, that half of their members are ENTRPRENEURS! So that means half of them are either employers or self employed business people.
I know no other party that has such a strong representation of business people in its membership, except perhaps the ACT Party.
It makes abundantly clear where the core power base lies in that party, and what it is all about. While Colin Craig himself is a fairly well off businessman himself, he is not alone, but he has surrounded himself with like-minded men and women of similar “occupation” and interest, to lobby for their own interests.
Then there is also a controversial person like Christine Rankin, and someone who first joined the Conservatives, but not so long ago opted out again, while having become totally disillusioned, he told me that Christine Rankin is all “about herself” and nothing else.
Indeed, it is more of a lobby group for small and medium size NZ businesses, who want their share of the cake and favourable business conditions. A bit of conservative values, with some light “religious” touch is added, and that is about as much as what the Conservatives are.
They have been spending much time, and still are, trying to present some “policies”, but nothing is clear and absolute, as Colin Craig also admitted.
Indeed, it is a group of persons and some followers to be very weary about.
Colin and his mates will bankroll the election, like they did the last, his Auckland mayoralty bid years ago, and that means many brochures, ads and glossy presentations.
Sadly too many may fall for this, and allow them to get into Parliament. But I am still doubtful that they will achieve it, and there lies a bit of hope.
As for Key, never expect any principles from that man, we have seen few, if any, since he appeared on the scene here, to do politics.
Isn’t that Interesting?! I wonder why active entrepreneurs would join a political party? WII-FM is a station to be tuning to, if that’s the case. (Are they genuine, or simply a bunch of start-up dabblers?)
So long as none of them is high on the party list, otherwise we’ll be welcoming the Proxy Vote Party into the Beehive – and we’ve seen enough of that sort to last us a long time.
What an absolute load of cods wollop Chris! I am a woman mid 50’s adult sons, middle income and an atheist to boot and I voted Colin Craig in the Mayoral elections as well as in the last elections when he ran against Mark Mitchell. Incidentally Colin lives in Rodney Mark in Sth Akld. I like his views, his values and his common sense approach. His wealth is self made and he’s not religious.
Christine Rankin is CEO of the Conservatives and is down to earth and approachable.
The Conservative Party are well known in the Rodney District and thanks to your media bashing now getting known NZ wide. Not all media is bad and once they read what the party are about and their values they will gain even more traction. Middle aged and middle income NZ’ers have had enough of the pc bull and believe that we are all accountable for ourselves and families, not the Govt.
In Christchurch they now have a candidate standing for ChCh East, step aside, a breath of fresh air is coming through!
Hello there, all Conservative supporters! How entertaining this has become. I read this line with some astonishment:
“His wealth is self made and he’s not religious.”
Now there was another story and case that went around some time ago, and in earlier interview Colin made his Christian values quite clear:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Colin-Craig-explains-work-prayers—extended-interview/tabid/1607/articleID/253338/Default.aspx
While Campbell Live interviewed him in supermarket isles nearly a week ago, it also became clear, that Colin believes in prayer and apparently prays daily. He simply admitted he is not a church-goer, and he disputed that the Conservative Party is a religious or Christian party. So that is about the party, not making a similar claim about himself personally! Naturally Colin Craig will want to appeal to more voters than the Christians and social conservatives, hence the open ended position re the party.
Of course his “wealth” is self made in a sense, but he has also enjoyed favourable contracts with some big property owners and players.
Him now already considering “housing” as a possible portfolio for him to look after, that should really get some persons worried, or is he going to give up his business involvement once he may be voted in and offered a “post” by John Key? I cannot see how a conflict of interest would be acceptable in government, but hey, we have seen a fair bit of peculiar stuff happen under Key, have we not?
As for so much else, it is a man and party full of contradictions, and insufficient coherence and clarity.
And while Colin once stood firmly on demanding citizen binding referendums, he now seems to have mellowed on that one too, same as much else. These will be interesting times for sure, but for a “breath of fresh air” I prefer some clearer and more progressive candidates. Also will I remain very cautious and suspicious of large spending parties, who get funded by private wealth of a few.
Good luck to you guys, you will need it.
Why do you want to curtail the sexual freedom of New Zealanders?
I’ll proudly be voting conservative. It’s about time this country was brought back on course.
You need to update your “poll”, lol doesn’t include the Conservative Party. Also, Trotter do you have proof of Christine Rankin’s comments saying the party isn’t “Conservative”?? You probably mean the article on Stuff saying it’s not “right wing” perhaps.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9351710/Rankin-file-conservative
Yes the Conservative party does represent business people …. so what? The Greens support lunatic hippies. Labour is full of feminist unionists. NZ first has the oldies. The Maori party has the intelligent Maoris whilst Mana is full of the idiots. Finally National supports big business. Sounds like a lot of different people are represented politically.
Or do you not believe in a political system that represents all sectors of the democracy Chris?
“The Greens support lunatic hippies. Labour is full of feminist unionists. NZ first has the oldies. The Maori party has the intelligent Maoris whilst Mana is full of the idiots. Finally National supports big business.”
Wow, this reveals very well, who is supporting Colin Craig and his bizarre bunch of supporters!
Talk about labeling, stereotyping and sloganising people and parties, we are in for an entertaining election campaign next year!
Do not forget to bring along the court jester!
“Talk about labeling, stereotyping and sloganising people and parties”
Geeze, Marc, just a simple extension of the “labeling, stereotyping and sloganising people and parties” carried out by Chris Trotter in his articles. Or is it fine to “label, stereotype and sloganise people and parties” as long as they are people and parties you don’t like?
Oh, the hypocrisy of the left…..
“The greens support lunatic hippies”, I don’t think so, they are polling around 10% in opinion polls, that suggests to me that they are more than just supporters of the looney left and perhaps have some mainstream appeal, and remember there is the youth vote, who are more likely to vote Green than Conservative
Though it seems an incurable paradox in society how do people like Key and Craig end up with the funds to promote the politics of twatism
And who is stupid enough to vote for them
We need to change the NZ culture drastically now not after these idiots have had their say
Whats it going to take another major disaster to to get people to rip the guts out these greedy selfserving capitalists
Colin comes across as fairly decent and honest. Won’t be a marriage made in heaven, but JK could stomach it far better than with Winston.
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