Mr McLay endorsed — for now

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 18

Mr McLay endorsed — for now

By

OLIVER RIDDELL,

io Wellington

The most enduring achievement of the annual conference of the National Party in Christchurch last week-end was that it confirmed National’s Leader, Mr Jim McLay, in office for at least six months. This was the opinion of many delegates after the conference.

Delegates came to the conference to refresh themselves among friends and sympathisers; they did. They came to celebrate the collapse of the New Zealand Party and their Timaru by-election triumph; they did. They came also to look at their new leader and, generally, most liked what they saw.

Mr McLay needed to reassure his party about his leadership. After eight months as leader, he still makes embarrassing political gaffes and continues to rate badly in the public opinion polls. As delegates assembled for the conference, they found more bad news from the polls. They were told that National was running 9 per cent behind Labour, and that, at 4 per cent, Mr McLay was 29 per cent behind Mr Lange. Most delegates wanted to forget about Sir Robert Muldoon, but, at 22.2 per cent in the polls, he was more than 18 per cent ahead of his successor and could not be ignored.

Delegates were not of a mind to press for Mr McLay’s removal then and there. Only National members of Parliament choose their leader and, anyway, most delegates had come seeking reassurance rather than change. To be hit with such a poll result on the eve of the conference was an unexpected body blow nevertheless.

At first, Mr McLay faltered. Instead of a stirring welcome, delegates got another gaffe. This time it was that Wairarapa-Bush had beaten Canterbury for the Ranfurley Shield in a match in Christchurch; it should have been that Wairarapa-Bush had beaten Canterbury in a non-shield match at Masterton.

Mr McLay regained lost ground at his leader’s rally later. He was

helped by a television news item only an hour earlier suggesting that moves were afoot to depose him. This prompted many delegates to give him a rousing welcome, and he gave them a rousing address in return.

In doing so, he confirmed his position as leader. The conference then got on with its implicit agenda of improving morale, which it achieved by confirming lots of existing policy and acceding to the needs and wishes of the provincial delegates. A minority of metropolitan delegates was very muted most of the time;

Thus the conference ignored the call at its start to tackle metropolitan issues if National wanted to win metropolitan electorates. As the next general election is still two years away, metropolitan issues were put on hold until the 1986 conference and the party concentrated on the concerns of its provincial membership. After the delegates had gone home — generally in a happy frame of mind — it was clear that Mr McLay had received neither an overwhelming nor a permanent endorsement from them.

His fine speech did not, in the end, distract delegates from his appalling popular rating. National is a party that expects to be in power. It sees a Labour Government as a temporary abberration by the electorate. National supporters will not tolerate having a leader who so consistently rates so low in the opinion polls for very long. Mr McLay has bought time for himself, but he has not bought security. He may have the support of most of his caucus colleagues in Parliament; he is still “on approval” as far as most members of the National Party are concerned.

One delegate said that Mr McLay will need to have reached double figures in the polls by the end of the year if he is to survive until the 1986 annual conference. The parallel was drawn between Mr McLay in 1985 and Mr Jack Marshall in 1973, when he delivered an inspiring address to an annual conference in Christchurch

but less than a year later had been deposed as leader. The message for Mr McLay is that his public popularity needs to rise fairly dramatically, or the party members will begin to see him as an election liability and start lobbying their members of Parliament to replace him. The M.Ps themselves are far from happy at Mr McLay’s poor showing in the polls, though most are personally committed to backing him.

Lifting himself in the polls will be no easy task for Mr McLay. Now that the New Zealand Party has fizzled, he might expect to pick up a bit of the support Mr Bob Jones has had; the popularity of the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, tends to fluctuate wildly depending on how well Mr Lange has been able to bridle his tongue, and Mr McLay might get a bit from there. Mr McLay’s main hope, however, is to attract support from his predecessor, Sir Robert Muldoon. As long as Sir Robert has a high public profile, he will attract support from the public, even if in doing so he isolates himself further and further from his National party colleagues in Parliament. Mr McLay has tried ignoring Sir Robert and he has tried rebuking him. Neither ploy has worked, so now he must try something else. Whatever he does, he must avoid being too weak and he must avoid being too harsh and so creating sympathy for Sir Robert. Should Mr McLay forfeit the confidence of party members and his fellow M.Ps, his logical replacement at this stage would be his deputy, Mr Jim Bolger. Beyond Mr Bolger, the emerging figure is Mr Don McKinnon (Rodney), the Chief Opposition Whip. Further off still are the rising figures of Mr Winston Peters (Tauranga), Ms Ruth Richardson (Selwyn), or Mr Doug Graham (Remuera). What National lacks is a figure to match the Labour Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas. Although constantly under attack at the National' Party conference, Mr Douglas’s name was mentioned more than that of any other Government member.

Three potential finance spokesmen have emerged in National’s ranks — Mr Bill Birch (Franklin), Mr John Falloon (Pahiatua), and Mr Michael Cox (Manawatu). Of

the three, it is Mr Cox who is ■ being tipped as the coming man ” and the one ultimately to take up * Sir Robert’s former mantle as Minister of Finance.