Anderton faction strikes out on its own

4.15pm - By FRANCESCA MOLD and NZPA

Alliance leader Jim Anderton this afternoon announced he will split from the party he helped found in 1991 at the upcoming election.

Mr Anderton revealed his decision at a press conference in the Beehive at 2.30pm. He was accompanied by Alliance deputy leader Sandra Lee and MPs Grant Gillon, Matt Robson and John Wright, who will also leave the party at the election.

"Sandra Lee and I are sending a letter to Alliance members announcing that we will not be standing under the Alliance banner as it is currently configured at the next election," said Mr Anderton.

"Our commitment stands to the overwhelming majority of the membership who believe that we have played and must continue to play an important role in Government. I have called directly for their support and that support has been given."

Mr Anderton said it was impossible to run a constructive, co-operative strategy in Government when senior members of the Alliance party organisation publicly disparaged the Government and privately undermined it.

"Conflict over this issue has reached crisis point in the last few months. It has not been resolved up until today," he said.

Mr Anderton said the Alliance's parliamentary wing would continue to operate as one, working with Labour in Government, until the election as it had for the past two and a half years.

By delaying the split until the election, Mr Anderton has bypassed new laws relating to party hopping which would have demanded he step down from Parliament if he left the Alliance during the Parliamentary term.

Mr Anderton said he would announce in May whether he intended to form a new party and what its makeup would be.

He confirmed he would remain leader of the Alliance while he still had the majority support of his caucus. He has the support of seven of the 10 Alliance MPs.

Those who stand against him are Laila Harre, Willie Jackson and Liz Gordon.

Mr Anderton wrote to Alliance members in March asking them to tick a box to indicate whether they supported him or the council faction led by party president Matt McCarten.

Today, he revealed he had received 2121 responses to the 3730 letters. He said 81 per cent supported him and the Alliance's commitment to operating in a Government coalition.

Eight per cent felt the party should do more to push Alliance views and another 8 per cent indicated Mr Anderton had lost their support.

Mr Anderton today criticised party members who had wanted the Alliance to differentiate itself more strongly from its senior coalition partner.

"For some in the Alliance, the success of this Government is a failure. They want the Alliance to distinguish itself from this successful Government no matter how good it is. Their strategy is self-defeating. It means in effect the Alliance can never win."

Mr Anderton's departure from the Alliance is the second time he has left a political party. In the late 1980s he walked away from Labour because of differences of opinion over economic policies. He founded NewLabour which was later merged into the Alliance in 1991 with Mana Motuhake, the Democrats and the Green Party. The Green party split from the Alliance in 1997.

The National Party today condemned Mr Anderton for "acting purely in his own self interest".

"Jim Anderton's action today is despicable and the National Party will not be letting him get away with it," said leader Bill English. "We will make sure he does not use taxpayer money to fund his new party."

Mr English said Mr Anderton's decision made a mockery of Parliament. "Part of the original Coalition agreement between Labour and Alliance states that one of their objectives is to restore public confidence in the political integrity of Parliament and the electoral process," he said.

"How can the public have faith when we have the deputy Prime Minister thumbing his nose at his Government's own legislation."

Alliance MP Laila Harré said she was disappointed with the Mr Anderton's decision to stand against the Alliance at the next election.

"This will be a great disappointment to members of the Alliance who had hoped for a positive and united solution to recent internal tension," Ms Harré said.

Ms Harré, who has sided with Mr McCarten, said she and the Alliance Party remained committed to a stable coalition Government with Labour.

"Regardless of Jim Anderton's decision to stand against the Alliance, we will continue to work for the improvement of the lives of ordinary people, as the Alliance has done for the past 10 years," Ms Harré said.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen today said the Government remained secure despite the split in the Alliance because that party's MPs still supported it.

He described the impending split as sad but said the Government still had 59 "secure" votes.

Mr Anderton had the confidence of the majority of his caucus and continued to be leader within Parliament, Dr Cullen said.

"It's also clear that all members of the Alliance within Parliament are committed to supporting the present Government, so in terms of the parliamentary scene nothing has essentially changed."