John Armstrong: Reconciliation too good to be true

Rodney Hide and Heather Roy have put on a united front. Photo / Supplied

And they all lived happily ever after. Or so Rodney Hide and Heather Roy would now like everyone to believe.

Anyone other than the most blinkered Act supporter could not have watched the pair's kiss-and-make-up routine yesterday without feeling more than a little sceptical, however.

Here were two politicians who had previously been locked for months in what had become the leader/deputy leader tryst from hell suddenly putting on a show of unity.

What was more, they were doing so having spent the time since Roy was dumped from the latter role scheming against each other.

Their sudden reconciliation was just too good to be true. It reeked of convenience.

For all that, this was the first real sign that after 10 days of self-mutilation conducted in the full glare of the media, Act's hopelessly factionalised parliamentary wing has at last come to its senses.

Even so, yesterday's special caucus meeting, which has brought some closure to the most debilitating episode in Act's history, was forced on the party.

Things could not have been left hanging the way they were on Wednesday evening.

Roy's defiance in showing up at Parliament that day unheralded and without informing the leader had prompted Hide's statement that she would have to go in front of the Act caucus and the party's board of management to answer for her actions over the past week or so. If those matters had been left unresolved until the next scheduled caucus meeting - next Tuesday at the earliest - the speculation and attendant negative publicity would have just kept on coming.

The positives that can be taken from the meeting is that the combatants were prepared to compromise - though only to a limited degree to ensure they did not suffer too much loss of face.

None of this resolves the fundamental problem afflicting Act - factional arguments over the party's direction.

Yesterday's attempt to paper over those cracks is akin to trying to bridge the Grand Canyon with tissue paper.

Never mind. Yesterday's priority was to stop Act bleeding to death in public. The display of unity may have been pantomime. But Act needs to get off the front pages and the top of the news bulletins.

Whether the latest truce will be a lasting one is the big question.

The track record of small parties in such predicaments is not good. Whichever way you look at it, Act's story is not going to have a fairytale ending.