National’s conference may face

Press, 26 July 1984, Page 1

National’s conference may face

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

The National Party may be in for an emotional week-end of recrimination.

National’s Dominion council will meet this morning and the annual conference proper will start tomorrow afternoon at the new Wellington Town Hall and end at midday on Monday. The fortnight since National lost office by 17 seats on July 14 has been one of intense lobbying within the party, matched by passionate condemnations and public outbursts. Sir Robert Muldoon countered a determined bid to oust him as party leader only five days after polling day. He did so by getting a leadership debate in the National caucus deferred until February, with the rider that he was “unlikely” to be a candidate. It is not within the power of either the party’s Dominion council or the annual conference to topple him as leader.' Only the caucus can do that. But both the Dominion council and the conference can make life extremely unpleasant for him. He was due to address the conference at the so-called leader’s rally tomorrow evening but this is now being downplayed to a

“leader’s report,” given that instead of firing National to win the election it will explain why it lost. Five former Cabinet Ministers will also deliver “keynote” speeches to the conference — Mr Birch, Mr Bolger, Mr Falloon, Mr Gair, and Mr McLay. The reaction of delegates to these five, and to Sir Robert, may be the only chance they get at the conference to express publicly their feelings about the events of recent weeks. Topics to be discussed formally include education, skills training, agricultural marketing, privatisation, and the relationship between interest rates and inflation. The attitude of the party’s president, Mrs Sue Wood, to the events of recent weeks will determine the tenor of the conference. She will open and close it with addresses. Although she and Sir Robert have yet to clash in public, both have given different reasons for National’s defeat. Whether these differences surface again on the conference floor may depend on the feeling after the

earlier Dominion council meeting. Sir Robert has already said that the party was “most unwise to hold” this meeting. It . would not help the National Party and he doubted it would damage him, he said. As the election recedes and tempers in the National Party and National caucus cool, two things seem to be happening: ® A growing majority want Sir Robert to step down as leader, but with dignity, while fewer want him thrown out now and fewer want him to stay on. 0 A growing feeling within both the caucus and party is that the more Sir Robert is attacked now the more intransigent he will become, and that the best path for National is to let events take their course and for Sir Robert to see that his best interests would be served by retiring. If Sir Robert is not forced to defend himself at the Dominion council, or later at the conference, National can avoid having the meeting “messy with blood on the floor” that many predict.