New Act leader Don Brash says he will recommend Rodney Hide retain his ministerial portfolios until the election.
However its other minister John Boscawen will drop his portfolios and will not be replaced - meaning the party will continue with just one of its two ministerialships.
Mr Boscawen was appointed Act's deputy leader at a meeting this morning and will also lead the Act Party's Parliamentary team. Hillary Calvert was appointed the whip.
Dr Brash said Mr Hide had told him he would not contest the election this year. Mr Hide has previously refused to rule out seeking a list place or trying to retain the Epsom candidacy.
Dr Brash said Mr Hide was currently ushering some important pieces of legislation through Parliament as minister of local government and regulatory reform. It was important for Act that that work continued.
It would seem that Don Brash and Rodney Hide have come to an agreement here. Hide gets to keep his portfolios for the rest of the parliamentary term, and Brash doesn't have the itch of Rodney Hide to deal with post November.
That seems to us to be an eminently sensible solution. Hide remains a Minister, but will presumably remain co-operative to his former caucus colleagues who rolled him, and John Boscawen can focus on giving Act some credibility in the House in the lead-up to the election. Hilary Calvert has been rewarded with the role of Whip, and the only loser seems to be Heather Roy.
It will be interesting to watch the dynamics of the Act benches when the House reconvenes at 2pm this afternoon!
6 comments:
Troughers. Way way way worse then Hone. Hypocritical bosom buddies of the Nasty Gnats. Bad eggs the lot of them. Well done for pointing this out INV2 Jesus would be proud. He hates a hypocrite. (But will forgive them if they worship him). Just like right wingers.
Not surprised that Rodney is staying on. There was some backlash building in the rank and file about the way in which he was treated. Interesting how Whaleoil got this so wrong. Shows exactly how close he is to the action - ie not at all. Poor fellow doesn't seem to realise how much he is being manipulated. He also seemed to go off the deep end today about a story about Brash not being able to keep his fly up. But given that it was only a wikileaks repeat I can't see why he is so worried.
Pragmatic politics here, Boscowan loyalty as deputy leader was obvious and he is clearly out in front as the link between Rodney and Don and will present as a good front till November.
Roy would have continued her smug path to extinction and made Brash's relaunch impossible as the vehicle for the dissatisfied right team's frustration at the pace of change from Mr Key.
Now could someone in the ear of Bill English get him to pack up all his "baggage" and wait on the platform with the others who don't have the stomach to do what needs doing next term, for the next train and go back to the farm and let the big people go to work.
A shame Rodney Hide is leaving parliament. He was the best speaker in the house at his peak.
Rodney's nasty. So is Don. John is smarmy. He squirms a lot.
Ah Anon; such erudite analysis ...
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