Matt McCarten: Labour should be in for the kill as Act strikes out

David Garrett has shown up the Act Party for what it is. Photo / NZ Herald

You couldn't make this crap up about Act this week, could you? It's beyond farce.

The party founded on high-brow free market ideology and personal responsibility has collapsed into a grubby, sordid little cabal of redneck weirdos.

Fancy Act's hardline "law and order" hit man - who opposes name suppression for crims and wants anyone on their third conviction sent down for life - admitting this week he'd got name suppression over an identity theft conviction.

Earlier, he'd admitted a conviction for an assault we didn't know about. I can't wait for David Garrett to fess up to another conviction so he can be the first recipient of a lengthy sentence from his own "three strikes and you're out" policy.

However, Act leader Rodney Hide initially assured us he knew of Garrett's criminal rap sheet before he was appointed Act's law and order guy. Hide then helpfully admitted his previous secret conviction too.

This is the man John Key has entrusted with the future of Auckland. Truly tragic.

What is clear to me now is the shenanigans of Act will bring Key down. Garrett has walked from Act and Hide must be reluctant to want to replace him because the next two list candidates are allies of his ousted deputy, Heather Roy.

That means Phil Goff and the Labour Party just need to gnaw away at Key's newly exposed Achilles heel. Is National really expecting their Epsom supporters to vote for Hide at the next election?

Key is damned if he does or doesn't back Hide in the blue seat of Epsom.

If Key endorses Hide, his party support will drop around the country. If he doesn't, Act is finished and National loses the opportunity for several necessary seats to hold on to government.

It's a golden opportunity for Goff. However, I was astounded during Parliament's question time on Thursday not one Labour MP went on the attack over Garrett's mess.

Labour should go for the jugular. I was amazed that, instead, it supported National's Seabed and Foreshore redraft. All that does is help the Maori Party, which is seen as having won concessions and is able to claim victory before quickly moving on.

How strategically stupid for Labour is that? It's left to Maori MP Hone Harawira - who knows perfectly well the change is only superficially different from the current legislation - to break ranks and vote against it.

After all, he did lead the widespread revolt against Labour's legislation that split many Maori from Labour. I do wonder whether Labour will ever have the killer instinct to put the right wing on the ropes.

That even carries through to the local body elections in Auckland. This was an election for the left to waltz home with the mayoralty and the council.

The gift of Hide's barely concealed privatisation agenda and the undemocratic structures he has imposed to achieve it and the stacking of unelected and unaccountable cronies on to the boards of "council-owned organisations" should have had the left bolting home.

But it's all muddy. The voting papers are out this weekend and most of us have no clue whether the candidates seeking our votes are on the side of the people or the corporate interests.

This election is so important and the political colours of candidates who are elected in three weeks' time will determine the heritage we gift to our grandchildren. We mustn't get it wrong.

Many people ask me who they should vote for. So Laila Harre, Chris Trotter and I have decided to launch a website - supercitypicks.com - on Wednesday giving our recommendations on which candidates we think voters should support based on their realistic chances of winning; their reliable opposition to Hide's agenda and their personal abilities and attributes. We certainly don't want centre-left voters supporting right-wingers by mistake.

The thought of Act policies being carried out in the new Auckland at the very time we are seeing them for what they really are in Wellington would drive me nuts.