Nats a bride short of wedding
Conference had a nervous groom plus something old, new, borrowed and blue.
The National Party conference is something like a wedding with a nervous groom, something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.
The blue was the new hue on the conference programme, more calm and muted than the teal preferred by former Prime Minister John Key.
The programme cover promised the “new”.
“new team, new ideas, new zealand” it read, all in trendy lower case.
The other new was National’s place in Opposition.
The old was Key himself and reassuring noises for the more traditional supporters from leader Simon Bridges that the party would stick to the old when it came to economic policies.
The borrowed was the announcement to restore and expand charter schools — a policy that was initially the Act Party’s.
It is a potentially risky conference as National’s first in Opposition in a decade and with Bridges struggling to get traction as preferred Prime Minister.
The National Party are no fools and so, at 3.30pm, drinks arrived in the media room at Sky City Convention Centre where their annual conference was being held.
It was just in time for journalists returning from the talks at the main conference to start writing up the day’s proceedings.
The discussions showcased National’s “broad church”, from a remit for a tax-free income bracket to a delegate describing the Resource Management Act as having “too much ethnicity” in it.
But earlier in the day Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters had a go at Bridges and deputy leader Paula Bennett. He warned on television that “the jackals” were coming for them and would take out the weakest first.
Bennett and Bridges rose to the bait, saying Peters must be worried to be lavishing so much attention on them.
If that is a sign of worry, National must be very worried about Peters and Housing Minister Phil Twyford — or as one delegate called him “the dreadful Mr Twyford.”
Judith Collins (a clear crowd favourite who may or may not be the jackal Peters had in mind) delivered a presentation on housing and the Resource Management Act.
After four minutes of talking about Twyford, Collins said she did not want to talk about Twyford “because he’s not important”.
She then talked about Twyford for 13 more minutes. Eventually she conceded she may have talked a bit about Twyford. “It’s because I love him so much. He’s my favourite.”
Peters too was having attention lavished on him. Party President Peter Goodfellow kicked it off, saying National had “dodged a whisky-swilling, cigarettesmoking, double-breasted and irrational bullet.”
Nick Smith joined in, saying his worst time in politics was around the Cabinet table with Peters in the 1990s and warning the Greens to get used to swallowing dead rats.
Asked whether Peters’ proposal to increase the drink-driving limit was positive or negative, Collins’ quipped “it was self interest, wasn’t it?”
There was no open questioning about Bridges’ leadership or bloodletting about the election outcome. Nor did anyone seem to question whether gunning for Peters was a good idea given the one thing missing from National’s wedding party was a bride with whom to walk up the aisle in 2020.