Trying to halt a Progressive slide

Matt Robson says he champions the faction in the Labour caucus who are afraid to speak up. Picture / Mark Mitchell

This election could be veteran politician Jim Anderton's last chance to get real traction behind the political party built around his name.

If the tiny Progressive Party's other MP, Matt Robson, is not returned that may be it for the three-year-old vehicle Anderton set up following the breakup of the Alliance before the last election.

Ask Anderton - now 67 and the oldest minister in Cabinet - if this is his last election campaign and he replies that while he's not immortal he still has plenty of enthusiasm for the job and is not thinking of retiring.

But his party has a real struggle to be anything other than a one-man band come September 17.

The Progressives have registered a new name for themselves - Jim Anderton's Progressive Party - to make the most of its leader's well-known name. "The truth is that most people don't know there's a Progressive party," he says. But canvassing by the party has shown plenty of recognition for Anderton himself. The last Herald-DigiPoll had the Progressives on 0.3 per cent support - behind the out-of-Parliament Alliance and the religious Destiny NZ.

Anderton points out that the same poll put him at 1.5 per cent as preferred prime minister, fourth after Helen Clark, Don Brash and Winston Peters.

He aims to "give it a good go" to deliver two or three MPs but is aware it will be difficult. "We're going to have 800 billboards around, we're going to have 50 candidates ... I wouldn't entirely dismiss our chances. But it is hard-going, no question."

The Progressives can point to some achievements since 2002 - four weeks' annual leave from 2007 and continuing targeted industry assistance it says has helped growth and reduced unemployment. The party's hand in driving "progressive" policies will be highlighted during its election campaign.

Another strategy, already evident in press releases, is to drive up voter fears of a National-New Zealand First coalition and remind them what happened last time.

Anderton says there will be other strategies, including emphasising that the Progressives "get things done".

He says that in the past six years as a senior Cabinet minister he's become known as a "go to" minister who gets things done. But publicly the Progressives have been all but invisible.

Anderton is careful with words of criticism he has for Labour over his party's invisibility, but he still voices them. Labour has not given coalition partners enough recognition, did not mention his party often, and had not fully grasped the way to nurture a smaller party in coalition.

"The successes that we've had - which have been considerable - have been claimed by Labour." But Anderton has been determined not to score points between elections by undermining the credibility of the coalition government.

At the same time he has built up an impressive (he says "grunty") apparatus to advance his passion: economic, industry and regional development.

That apparatus is the Ministry of Economic Development and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, which between them boast more than 1400 staff and are reputedly the envy of some in Labour.

Voters may ask what the point of the Progressive Party is, and why Anderton just doesn't rejoin the party he left in 1989. He admits that on the "darkest of nights" when the Alliance was imploding the thought did enter his mind.

But remaining outside Labour has allowed him and Robson to argue for policies - including four weeks of annual leave - that they simply couldn't have done if they had been in Labour's caucus. And Anderton says there's still a yawning chasm between him and Labour because of the different paths travelled since 1983, when the splits began in the party.

If the Progressives serve up only Anderton at the election, Robson will be a loss to Parliament. He has trod a far more independent line than Anderton has been able to in Labour's Cabinet and at times has behaved almost as an opposition MP, particularly on issues such as Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui's detention.

Robson says he has acted as a voice for a silent faction afraid to speak up in the Labour caucus.

Anderton says he'd like the education portfolio in a new Labour-led Cabinet - even more so now following Labour's policy to axe interest on student loans was announced.

Although he has no thoughts that this is his last election, he admits it might be a different story if he was still in opposition. The attraction of staying is that in Government he's getting things done.

But will enough voters notice?

Next week: United Future