My Take on the Leaked ACT Memos
Someone has leaked two ACT Board Papers to the NZ Herald - One from Party President Catherine Judd and the other from former Leader Richard Prebble.
Reading the text of them reveals that the Party is not dwelling about it's failure to capture the voters imagination last year and is looking ahead to re-establishing itself as a 7% (or more) Political Party.
The suggestion from Catherine Judd is to start a Liberal Policy Think Tank, like the conservative Maxim or Australia's Centre for Independent Studies. Richard Prebble is nominated as the person to head up the Think Tank.
Prebble's response is a realistic look at the costs and to question where the funding would come from - would it affect donations to Business Roundtable and ACT, he asks.
My view is ACT has not captured a bigger share of the vote because of a disconnect between the policy communication and the public perception. The policies of ACT fit well with the Kiwi 'Fair Go' attitude of letting people give an honest effort and giving them a hand back on track when things are tough for them.
What ACT does need to do is get these policies debated by a wider audience - but an aligned Think Tank (at least in the public eye) may not be the best way to do so. An non-aligned Public Policy machine with distribution via an accessible medium (i.e. regular newspaper and TV news articles) would be better.
(Last night, the lead on TV1 News was a report into the effects of abortion on womens mental health - releasing the report on a slow news day during the slow news month meant far better coverage than at any other time.)
While Prebble was the man to get ACT into Parliament, his obvious alignment would rule him out for the job of leading an independent Think Tank. Graham Scott could be a starter for the position, or perhaps a real left-field appointment of a younger, fresher face without the baggage of being an ACT MP or candidate.
Hide is also not the man to get ACT policies into the public domain - like it or not, Perkbusting and Muckraking Hide is the public image that sticks. However, Hide is a personable and larger-than-life personality who can grab popular ideas and run with them.
A Think Tank would be a great step in the right direction for ACT - the challenge is to manage to get it's ideas into more voters consciences without people automatically thinking that it comes from ACT first.
Reading the text of them reveals that the Party is not dwelling about it's failure to capture the voters imagination last year and is looking ahead to re-establishing itself as a 7% (or more) Political Party.
The suggestion from Catherine Judd is to start a Liberal Policy Think Tank, like the conservative Maxim or Australia's Centre for Independent Studies. Richard Prebble is nominated as the person to head up the Think Tank.
Prebble's response is a realistic look at the costs and to question where the funding would come from - would it affect donations to Business Roundtable and ACT, he asks.
My view is ACT has not captured a bigger share of the vote because of a disconnect between the policy communication and the public perception. The policies of ACT fit well with the Kiwi 'Fair Go' attitude of letting people give an honest effort and giving them a hand back on track when things are tough for them.
What ACT does need to do is get these policies debated by a wider audience - but an aligned Think Tank (at least in the public eye) may not be the best way to do so. An non-aligned Public Policy machine with distribution via an accessible medium (i.e. regular newspaper and TV news articles) would be better.
(Last night, the lead on TV1 News was a report into the effects of abortion on womens mental health - releasing the report on a slow news day during the slow news month meant far better coverage than at any other time.)
While Prebble was the man to get ACT into Parliament, his obvious alignment would rule him out for the job of leading an independent Think Tank. Graham Scott could be a starter for the position, or perhaps a real left-field appointment of a younger, fresher face without the baggage of being an ACT MP or candidate.
Hide is also not the man to get ACT policies into the public domain - like it or not, Perkbusting and Muckraking Hide is the public image that sticks. However, Hide is a personable and larger-than-life personality who can grab popular ideas and run with them.
A Think Tank would be a great step in the right direction for ACT - the challenge is to manage to get it's ideas into more voters consciences without people automatically thinking that it comes from ACT first.
posted by Michael at
6:35 PM
1 Comments:
Agreed. If they start it however they should expect that a former broadcaster will start a behind-the-scenes campaign about the new think tank in an attempt to ruin it.
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Anonymous, at 10:22 PM
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