Fran O'Sullivan: Tarnishing the knight's armour

Last year, Michael Cullen ridiculed National Party leader Don Brash as "one of the hollow men: a headpiece filled with straw whose dry voice whispered quiet and meaningless things".

It was a typical, cutting remark from Labour's Finance Minister, but one easily shrugged off at the time by Brash.

However, his image has been compromised by the publication of emails and faxes in the Sunday Star-Times which Labour can now use to try to portray Brash as a puppet of the Business Roundtable; a "mouthpiece" who had been subjected to extensive email witterings from Roger Kerr (the executive director of the big business lobby) on how to avoid being painted as a Roundtable"tool"just days after taking the leadership of the National Party in late 2003.

The Kerr emails are risible and should call into question Roundtable's claims to being an objective provider of quality analysis on major policy issues.

Quite why an incoming National leader would want to compromise himself by becoming an apologist for the Roundtable's failure to maintain its own relevancy - as Kerr appears to suggest - defies comprehension. Such an email should never have been written in the first place.

It is true that Brash did use one of the phrases that Kerr suggested in his Orewa race relations speech (to great effect).

It is also true that Brash appointed former merchant banker Peter Keenan - at Roundtable's suggestion - as a speechwriter and strategist.

But it is again true that Brash would already have been thoroughly acquainted with Keenan given the right-of-centre philosophical circles both had occupied in Wellington. And, from a business perspective, there is precious little evidence in policy terms - so far - that a Brash-led National Government would implement a Roundtable-style agenda if it won the election.

National's tax package is more squarely in the mode of that executed by former National Treasurer Bill Birch than a radical Act-type model.

If anything, judging by the raft of flip-flops Brash has executed since becoming leader, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the National Party he leads is not really the "Act in drag" entity many are portraying, but a reversion to type.

Which all goes to beg the question why an alleged National Party source should seek to discredit Brash when his performance to date illustrates the Roundtable is not calling the shots.

Is this a simple shot across the bows designed to kill off Kerr as a source of influence on a post-election National Government?

Or is it, more venally, an attempt to scuttle National's chances altogether and topple Brash after the election?

There has been nothing published so far which puts Brash directly in the frame.

Most of the emails referred to in the Sunday newspaper report were externally sourced.

But inevitably some voters will connect the dots.

Brash earned his public spurs during a lengthy reign as Governor of the Reserve Bank well before being catapulted into national politics as a list candidate at the 2002 election at the invitation of former National Party president Michelle Boag .

Brash's public attraction was his "independence", a prime requirement of any successful central banker.

The Kerr emails do tarnish that image.

Labour will now taunt National to disclose the source of its offshore campaign funding by capitalising on the email sent by Roundtable deputy chairman Diane Foreman asking Brash to "contact all your friends in the business community and ask them to lobby their MPs for you, ie, no Brash no money?"

Inevitably the laundromats will have been working overtime to disguise the source of any big-ticket contributions from private donors. But Labour does not need to produce proof - it just needs to make suggestions.

It is not as if Labour has pure hands.

Prime Minister Helen Clark and Cullen were Labour MPs at the 1987 election where former Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas doled out funds to selected electorates.

As conspiracies go, the Roundtable's great email saga is pretty ordinary stuff.

But with National's campaign management sorely lacking, Roundtable is the friend it can do without.

* Election Special: Mood of the Boardroom, the Herald's survey of CEOs, will be published next Tuesday. The survey report will be launched at a breakfast seminar in Auckland that day at which Finance Minister Michael Cullen and National's John Key will debate the results with senior business leaders.