Act trying to look bigger than two MPs

Act president Catherine Judd has proposed in a confidential report that the party sets up a think-tank - possibly called the Douglas Institute - as a more effective vehicle to attract funding and support for its policies than the party itself, which was savaged during the election.

It would also help Act look bigger, she said in a report to the party's last board meeting, in the week before Christmas, and obtained by the Herald.

She said former leader Richard Prebble would be the ideal person to run such an organisation.

"A new active, intellectually sound media-aware, centre-right think-tank promoting Act's agenda would be a force to promote Act's ideals," she said in her report, which followed the September general election.

"Act does not lack an agenda, just support for it."

Catherine Judd's report also reviews the party's election performance. Act's parliamentary representation was slashed from nine MPs to just two - leader Rodney Hide and Heather Roy.

Her report canvasses Act's relationship with National, saying that although leader Don Brash was open to an accord, he was likely to be replaced by the "Birch-like" finance spokesman, John Key.

Catherine Judd said the report was the result of talks she had had with the MPs, the board, Mr Prebble, founder Sir Roger Douglas, former Treasury Secretary Graham Scott, strategist Brian Nicolle and businessman and supporter Alan Gibbs.

The report says the Business Roundtable is not in a position to become "a radical, applied research, focused think-tank that could choose issues that could be popularised".

Catherine Judd suggests two scenarios for a think-tank: one in which it operated in tandem with Act, and a separate organisation promoting Act-type policies.

Such a think-tank "should attract support from people who would not support a political party", she said.

"It would enable Act to get traction for its ideas, to look bigger and get bigger - an appealing proposition to sign people up to and raise funds for, and more logical and saleable than asking for support for a structure that has only two MPs."

The proposal is bound to attract criticism from political opponents when Parliament resumes next month, as a bid to promote a front for a political party and establish alternative leadership on liberal issues to Mr Hide.

After Mr Prebble resigned in 2004, Mr Hide fought a bitter leadership battle with MP Stephen Franks, whom Catherine Judd personally preferred. Mr Franks has since lost his seat.

Her suggestion that the think-tank be named the "Douglas Institute" would honour Sir Roger, who is no fan of Mr Hide's populist, scandal-mongering campaigns.

Mr Prebble also supplied the board with a paper on setting up a think-tank, saying it would not need to produce new policies but to take known policy solutions and promote them - "like tax cuts, privatisation, school choice, welfare reform".

But he believed it would cost about $750,000 a year to run and he had "real doubts about the chances of raising that sort of money".

Catherine Judd's report criticised the party's performance in the election, when it was "seriously under-resourced, both in terms of funds and people".

Other than winning Epsom, it had no plan B. 

 

Confidential - Act President Catherine Judd

"Our strategy relied on National's failing: we had no plan B other than Epsom."

"What we were saying didn't matter - no one was listening."

"National tried during the election to destroy Act and is still working on it but these days the venom comes mainly from Gerry Brownlee."

"Don Brash looks unlikely to last long and it is assumed that National will move to the left, creating a Bolger-type National Party, led by a Birch-like John Key."

"Rodney should establish himself as the Auckland MP. He could act like a local government politician - like the mayor."

"[A centre-right think-tank] would enable Act to get traction for its ideas, to look bigger and get bigger - an appealing proposition to sign people up to and raise funds for."