A party looking for policies

Press, 7 August 1985, Page 16

A party looking for policies

After its conference in Auckland at the weekend the New Zealand Party has shaken off much of the “one-man band” image under which it laboured in many quarters. The dust that was raised by the resignations of three key men in the party — its leader and founder, Mr Bob Jones, its president Mr Malcolm McDonald, and its chief functionary, Mr Charles Begg — has settled. A certain amount of sniping continues, but the organisation has managed to weather the confusion over its existence and uncertainty whether a conference would even be held. The task before the new leadership is to prove the party’s political permanence. For Mr Jones, the party has served its purpose. It assisted in the defeat of the Muldoon Government by a Labour one which, coincidentally, has removed most of the financial restrictions that Mr Jones found irksome. For many rank and file members of the New Zealand Party who supported Mr Jones’s foray into politics, the party still has a

purpose and a political identity. Exactly what this is is not clear. Conference delegates criticised the Government and the National Party with equal vehemence, but could not avoid confirming the impression that they endorse both the traditional philosophies of National and the free-market polices of the Government. This will make it difficult for the party to be seen as a political identity with a philosophy of its own rather than as an ill-defined coalition of discontended refugees from the major parties. The record of minor parties in New Zealand politics is not such as to inspire confidence in the ability of the New Zealand Party to replace either National or Labour in what has long been essentially a two-party system. A more immediate problem for the party’s new management is survival without its charismatic founder and without — as yet — a manifesto of policies to distinguish it from other political parties.