Mr Jones using Muldoon tactics, says official

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 3

Mr Jones using Muldoon tactics, says official

PA Auckland New Zealand Party officials in Auckland yesterday accused the party leader, Mr Jones, of Mul-doon-like tactics as the row within the party flared. In developments yesterday:

The party’s president, Mr Malcolm McDonald, said he and Mr Jones had decided that a special council meeting would be called in Wellington next week to consider calling off the 18month recess. Mr McDonald also said that the deputy leader, Mrs Janie Pearce, would be dumped if Mr Jones had his way.

The party’s central division executive called on Mr

McDonald to resign because he acted unconstitutionally in calling the recess. The vice-president, Mr Earle Thompson, said Mr Jones could expect a hostile backlash from members because of his actions. Mr Thompson said that if it came to a showdown between Mrs Pearce and Mr Jones — as it would if Mr Jones persisted — he was the one risking being dumped. “He is taking the risk of saying to members ‘You really can’t do without me’ — he is taking a big risk,” Mr Thompson said. “It is quite ironic, whether Bob recognises it or not, the very things he is accusing Muldoon of he is doing himself,” he said.

Mr Thompson said the New Zealand Party council was not giving in to Mr Jones’s “public tantrum” and would pursue the members’ interests. He said the recess announcement had been a “jack-up” by Mr Jones and Mr McDonald because they “wanted out.”

“They are free to go, but they are not taking the party with them,” he said. “What .has been established is that the ruling body of the party is in control — not two individuals,” he said. Mr Thompson was surprised by Mr Jones’s reported offer of a council meeting to persuade him out of recess. Councillors had tried to reach him all day Wednesday leaving urgent messages, but he had made no response. The party conference would go ahead at the Sheraton Hotel, in Auckland in three weeks and members would decide on the leadership of Mr Jones and Mr McDonald, Mr Thompson said.

Mr Thompson said that whether councillors responded to any meeting call was doubtful because Mr McDonald had “shot his credibility.”

Mrs Pearce said it was unlikely she would attend the special council meeting next week because of business commitments and because the recess was “null and void.”

Mr Jones told the “New Zealand Herald” that he had been surprised at the fervour and depth of feeling in the party since the announcement on Monday that the organisation would go into recess.

He said the turmoil and “dirty laundry” after the announcement meant there had to be another council meeting to sort everything out.

Asked if he would still push for a recess, he said: “I

don’t know. Maybe they can persuade me otherwise. I have been surprised at the fervour and feeling.” Mr Jones rejected the suggestion that the recess announcement had been a stunt, although he said he had expected such a question.

The party’s president, Mr McDonald, said his position as president would be discussed at the meeting next week but he had no intention at present of resigning. Asked about the future of the annual conference, planned for early August, Mr McDonald said there was a feeling, especially among Auckland members, that it should go ahead. Asked yesterday if he had expected the reaction that had come after the announcement that the- party would go into recess for 18 months, Mr McDonald said “Certainly not.” Most “noise” had come from Auckland. It was the Auckland division that had been “totally inept” since the party’s inception, he said.

The Auckland division had been an embarrassment to the party’s head office. It was the only one still in debt, to the tune of maybe $4OOO or $5OOO. He said that every type of funding system had been proposed to Auckland but it had rejected them all. “Bob and I concluded eventually that the Aucklanders were interested in Auckland, not the party. That was proved when they defaulted on the token payment last Friday (of $850).

“When the deadline passed I phoned Auckland and said that I had the power to put the party in recess and would do so unless Auckland met the unanimous resolution of the party. “They said, ‘You wouldn’t.’ Next thing they knew the news media were phoning them and asking why the party was in recess,” Mr McDonald said.