It looks like ACT’s Minister of Rhyming Slang knows on which side his bread is buttered, and is intent on keeping the butter flowing no matter who and what he sells out.
Because just three days after being elected on the ACT ticket, John Banks is already talking up his prospects as a Minister, talking publicly about rebranding and redirecting “his” ACT party, and talking noisily about merging it with Colin Craig’s Moral Majority –“a class New Zealander” according to Banks.
Colin Craig at least is happy to muse publicly that this will require the departure of the libertarian wing of ACT—i.e., the folk who got Banks over the line in Epsom this year.
Banks, I’m sure, is equally aware. And just as happy at the prospect. It’s just that he’s not talking about it. Not publicly. Not yet. Except to say:
He [Mr Craig] is interventionist when it comes to social policies but the ACT party has people who are not. And that's where we would have to talk.
He does not say who he would have to talk with. Or how he would reconcile that problem.
But it’s clear enough already what he intends. And clear enough now that support for Banks from this point forth is support for the Conservatives in 2014—whether with a small ‘c’ or a large one.
Might I suggest then that those being taken so shamefully for granted decide now where their futures, and their principles, really lie. Because it’s just possible that in 2014, in Epsom and elsewhere, the folk they will be fighting are those they so recently supported.
And vice versa.
4 comments:
In "fairness" to Banks, I don't think the people of Epsom were actually voting for the Act ticket. Any National lap-dog is a good National lap-dog.
This comes down to Brash's choice of Banks for Epsom, yet Perigo still holds Brash in high regard for some reason.
Let's not let either of these two (or three counting Banks) has-beens near a new "Freedom Party".
The best thing for ACT right now would be to fold their cards and let Banks be an "Independant". They can then reboot with a new brand, possibly with the Libertarianz. Banks will probably then join the conservatives a little closer to the 2014 election and Key will likely offer another tea party (sans microphone)
Everybody will be happy
ACT can't re-brand. They are too toxic, the staff, the Board and the brand. And if the same staff and board think they can be involved in a new Liberal party, then that one will also be toxic. Why? Because all of the same people will bring in all of the same baggage and incompetence they have always had.
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