Conference platform for party stars

Press, 5 August 1988, Page 9

Conference platform for party stars

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Rotorua

National Party delegates assembling in Rotorua today for their annual conference this week-end do so when the party’s stocks have never been as high.

Running 15 per cent ahead of Labour in the polls and watching the Labour Government and Labour Party fly apart is doing wonders for National’s confidence. Although the next election is still more than two years away, for the first time in 10 years National expects to win. (It did win in 1981, but did not really expect to.)

How to harness this new public support and new enthusiasm among party stalwarts is the question the organisers of the conference faced.

They answered it by focusing on two topics rather than permitting wide-ranging debate on

the conference floor. The two topics are race relations and the economy, and they provide platforms for the two stars of the National Party in Parliament, other than the Leader — Mr Winston Peters and Miss Ruth Richardson. The surge of Mr Peters in the public opinion poll has still to be addressed by National. An annual

conference is not the time to do it; a public forum is useful for promoting stars but not for accommodating them in the party framework.

But as long as Labour keeps making mistakes with party splits, rising unemployment and a

shaky economy, National does not have to worry too much about potential problems of its own. It is looking like the next Government and that is what it cares about.

Labour will try to distract news media attention from National’s conference.

Today it is releasing Judge Cartwright’s report on cervical cancer treatment at Auckland Hospital and on Sunday it is releasing its response to the Picot report on education administration. That will not disturb the conference, but it may mute the messages the National Party hopes it will convey.