Mr McLay keeps job as coup fizzles out

Press, 6 December 1985, Page 1

Mr McLay keeps job as coup fizzles out

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington The Leader of the Opposition, Mr McLay, has been given a two-month extension in his job after a planned coup to replace him with his deputy, Mr Bolger, fizzled out yesterday. Two days earlier it had seemed certain Mr McLay would be toppled, but inept tactics by his opponents and a rallying by waverers meant that he emerged from yesterday’s weekly caucus meeting still

leader. His leadership had not been an item on the written agenda, but before the meeting began formally Mr McLay three times offered caucus members the chance to discuss the leadership. When his invitation was not taken up, he went on to rebuke those of his opponents who had made public statements. “I told Mr Bruce Townshend and Sir Robert Muldoon that public statements by them claiming that the issue of my leadership would be raised at this caucus meeting had been both divisive and unhelpful,” Mr McLay said.

“I said that I, the caucus, the National Party and the public were all sick and tired of it,” he said. Asked if the statements made by Mr Townshend did not contravene the pledge given by caucus members in October not to criticise the leadership in public, Mr McLay said some people were “slow learners” and then rejected suggestions that Mr Townshend might follow the fate of Sir Robert and Mr Merv Wellington into exile to the bottomranked seats in Parliament.

Asked why he had not take the chance to seek a vote of confidence in his leadership, Mr McLay said he had gained a vote of confidence 12 months ago and did not need another.

“I did put it to the test and I am confident it will not be raised again this year,” Mr McLay said. He declined to answer a question on whether discontent with the leadership” would go away or remain. Instead, he said the real issue was getting rid of the Labour Government, and the caucus had to put any issue of leadership behind it.

In fact, Mr McLay has bought himself two months, until the first caucus meeting early in February next year. He has had to pay a price in the form of different requirements to the different groups who rallied to his support. One such group included those who felt threatened by proposals to reinstate Sir Robert Muldoon and his supporters to prominent positions and portfolios; another included those who did not want Mr McLay replaced as an isolated move, but might wear it as part of a general reform package. Then there were those who thought the timing was inappropriate; those who dreaded the return to prominence of Sir Robert; those who support Mr McLay anyway, and those who prefer the sort of National Party they think might emerge under Mr McLay than the direction they fear might be taken under Mr Bolger. To those who supported him, Mr McLay is seen to have incurred two obligations he must honour in the next two months:

First, he must help to organise and lend his support to moves to replace Mrs Sue Wood as president and Mr Barrie Leay as chief executive of the National Party. Second, he must reorganise National’s front bench and take portfolios away from those not doing well in them.

There is also a third expectation that Mr Townshend will be sent plummetting down the rankings to join Sir Robert and Mr Wellington. Demoting Mr Townshend will be a lot easier than achieving either of the others.

It is beyond Mr McLay’s power to replace Mrs Wood and Mr Leay. Besides, they have been among his closest and most loyal supporters. He has not got so many allies that he can afford to turn on them and, even if he wanted to, it is for the party organisation to replace them and not the leader.

Reorganising the front bench would mean replacing those who supported him with those who did not. He would turn none of his opponents into allies and merely turn his allies into opponents. Yesterday’s meeting achieved nothing but to postpone the showdown between Mr McLay and Mr Bolger until next February. Unless Mr McLay has somehow managed to meet most of the obligations he has incurred, or both he and the National Party rise in the polls, the challenge will come again.

Mr Bolger has been wounded by the failure of his challenge, both because it faded as soon as it surged, and because it was handled so ineptly. But he is still the heir apparent and still Mr McLay’s most likely successor.

The decision not to discuss the leadership and the failure to vote on it by the caucus yesterday achieved nothing. Mr McLay gained two months but no security, in fact, he is even less secure because of the more specific and personal expectations of him.

Supporters of Mr Bolger and Mr McLay, and the group led by Sir Robert Muldoon, all expect the issue to be raised again in February. By then each of the 38 members of the National caucus should have a clearer idea of what they want to do than they did yesterday.