Editorial: Politics not for faint- hearted

Whatever you might say about Winston Peters, he's not an amateur, says Bonallack. Photo / John Stone

If there's one thing the debacle with the Conservative Party has demonstrated, it's that politics is not a game for amateurs.

There's a lot of factors that provide the staying power in New Zealand politics.

It can be that your party will never sail to magnificent heights, such as Peter Dunne's United Future, but Mr Dunne is well-liked in his own electorate.

A man who every year gets dressed up in green tights as one of Santa's elves on his sleigh for the Johnsonville Christmas parade is a man with an eye on his electorate - thus he stays an MP.

It could be that you time it right with a disenfranchised public. Ultimately, this is how governments are formed, when so many people are disenfranchised they vote a party out.

But it was also the impetus for parties like New Zealand First and Act, appealing to those who yearned for more simplistic and supposedly equalitarian concepts - a fairness for all. And whatever you might say about Winston Peters, he's not an amateur. He's about as professional as you can get in this game.

But by far the greatest staying power is popularity, as John Key has ably demonstrated.

You can survive for a while, a good while, with a minority liking you, especially if you become a minor celebrity and make a lot of noise, but if you don't capture an electorate you're at risk of never achieving the 5 per cent threshold needed under the MMP system.

Kim Dotcom is an excellent demonstration that notoriety, noise and money counts for very little with the voter. The Conservatives never got that 5 per cent and, without a foothold in Parliament, they were amateurs doomed to running out of steam.

Their politics, which I always felt were a bit intolerant, had a certain "conservative" appeal.

I would have thought by now that most political parties would know this country is tolerant. Appealing to the intolerant will earn you some points, because these people are out there, and amateur politicians can get them on board.

But a professional politician appeals to all of New Zealand.