Body of evidence
The local elections offered a rare glimpse inside the factions and rivalries that have dogged the National Party in Auckland. It proved disastrous viewing.
The local elections offered a rare glimpse inside the rivalries that have dogged the National Party in Auckland.
At what turned out to be Bill Ralston’s commiseration party after he failed to win the Waitemata ward seat on Auckland Council, one guest arrived fresh from a conversation with National Party president Peter Goodfellow. Whether he was quoting Goodfellow was unclear, but he simply used one word to describe the result: “disaster”.
It was a word I was to hear a lot as I talked to National Party MPs and officials over the next week.
Like everything that seems to happen in local body politics, where personalities often matter more than policies, it is a long story. But what happened in Auckland is bigger than just the city itself.
The Auckland local body elections offered us a rare inside glimpse of the factions and rivalries that have long dogged the National Party in the region.
What they showed us was the politically vulnerable, fragmented entity that has been kept well hidden by Prime Minister John Key’s unifying populism.
What they showed us is what National could look like when Key eventually retires if things are not managed.
The problems began in the middle of last year when the National Party caucus, having decided not to support any move by the party into local body politics, agreed to have ministers Paul Goldsmith and Nikki Kaye investigate what they might do in the Auckland local body elections.
In the words of one MP, they needed to get the Auckland Council “under control”.
Kaye began to outline a plan that involved first the preparation of a policy manifesto, then using it to attract a highprofile mayoral candidate and funding.
Megan Campbell, a former head of National’s research unit and these days a lobbyist with Saunders Unsworth, was commissioned to prepare the manifesto.
Apparently she did, but it never emerged in public. Instead, a four-page document that simply proposed controlling council spending and limiting rates increases was produced.
At the same time, Kaye and Goldsmith convinced former National Party president Sue Wood to run the campaign for them.
Wood has been part of the National Party for more than 40 years and will be long remembered as the woman who stood up to Sir Robert Muldoon during his last year in power. But her critics say the
frankness and fearlessness that served her so well dealing with Muldoon were precisely what was not going to work among the local heroes with big egos who make up Auckland city’s councillors.
Wood wanted to clean out some of those councillors, in particular the former mayor and National Government minister Christine Fletcher, whose failure to vote consistently with the centre right on the council infuriated many in the Beehive.
By all accounts, there was an unpleasant confrontation and Fletcher refused to go. Instead, she stuck with her Communities and Residents group, which was the old centre-right vehicle in Auckland City Council days.
Also in that group was Orakei candidate Desley Simpson, wife of Goodfellow, the party president. Goodfellow himself tried to paper over the divisions by appearing with the prime minister at least one fundraiser for the centre right’s Auckland Future local body group. But it was always going to be hard to explain why his wife was not standing for Auckland Future.
There were other standouts – Bill Ralston in Waitemata and notably Dick Quax in Howick. Quax was one of the most consistent centre-right voices on the council.
There was another confrontation – this time with councillor and former North Shore mayor George Wood, who some sources say Auckland Future threatened to run candidates against if he did not stand down. He did stand down, but then formed his own Team George Wood ticket to contest the local board. That led to the failing of one of the main goals of Auckland Future: to translate National’s big general election vote on the North Shore into more centreright seats on the council.
TOO MANY CHIEFS
Separate from Auckland Future was a mayoral campaign for Victoria Crone. One of National’s key organisers, Jo de Joux, and another former party president, Michelle Boag, were at various times both involved in that campaign. There appeared to be little crossover between the campaigns.
So by the end of the first quarter of the year, the promised manifesto had not appeared, the high-profile mayoral candidate turned out to be a little-known Auckland businesswoman, and there were growing rumours of dissent and argument.
Somewhere about this time, Goldsmith either drifted away or was sidelined (depending on whom you talk to). Thus Auckland Future now largely consisted of Kaye and Sue Wood. Each had her critics inside the caucus and the party, and perhaps because of that, the party organisation began to develop an ambivalent attitude to Auckland Future.
There was some support for the group’s fundraising, but by all accounts there was little crossover between National Party members and Auckland Future, and there are reports of some recriminations between the two entities after election day.
Certainly, some MPs are highly critical of how Auckland Future went about its task. One MP summed it up simply: “Too many chiefs. No Indians.”
In fact, the only “Indian” appeared to be a long-time associate of Kaye’s, Hamish Price, who has organised campaigns for her and other National Party candidates.
By mid-year, he was employed as the Auckland Future organiser. But it was too late. The divisions within the party, along with the antipathy engendered by the Fletcher and George Wood affairs, made Auckland Future something many National Party members decided they wanted to avoid.
At the same time within Auckland Future, there was an air of unreality, with talk on the eve of the election of them beginning “supply and confidence” agreements with mayor-elect Phil Goff the minute the votes were counted.
The final irony was that they won only one council seat, Communities and Residents won two and the centre left won a majority.
What all this showed is how much personalities define politics, particularly at the local level, and how, when you scratch the surface, National is not the united, cohesive body that John Key photo opportunities make it appear.
This politically vulnerable, fragmented entity has been kept well hidden by John Key’s unifying populism.
SMART MOVE
Goff’s decision to appoint Bill Cashmore deputy mayor is a smart move. Cashmore is a National Party supporter but also knows Goff well. They holiday together at Orere Point. More importantly, he is highly regarded in the Beehive, particularly by Deputy PM Bill English, for the conciliatory role he played in bringing the Government and Auckland Council together over the Auckland Transport Alignment project.
He is one of the few councillors who can bridge all factions.