President’s job goes to Collinge

Press, 14 August 1989, Page 1

President’s job goes to Collinge

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Dunedin

The National Party has a new president, Mr John Collinge, of Auckland, and a mandate to have a more centralised and professional organisation instead of the previous mass membership of volunteers.

Mr Collinge is the first challenger to defeat an encumbent president in the party’s 53 years. Mr Neville Young spent three years as party president but his future was always in doubt once he had sacked his popular secre-tary-general, Mr Max Bradford, in February. Mr Collinge tapped the mood of National’s fifty-third annual conference in Dunedin last weekend better than Mr Young did. He offered a new approach of greater planning, sophisticated use of high technology, and policies based on people taking more responsibility for their own needs and so loading less on to the State.

That reflected the mood of remits passed at the conference — asking a National Government to create a more appropriate environment to do things instead of expressing specific wishes on specific issues. Mr Collinge’s victory and Mr Young’s defeat signals a victory for many of the forces within National that opposed Sir Robert Muldoon during his final years as Prime Minister, and who then supported Mr Jim McLay. It sends a message to Mr Bolger, because his support has previously come from other

areas within the party. It was a victory for the dynamic wing over the respectable wing of National. Those who toppled Mr Young have also been asking questions about such prominent Bolger supporters and advisers as the deputy leader, Mr Don McKinnon, and such long-time friends as Mr Bill Birch.

Mr Bolger said he was not expecting to make any significant changes in his Parliamentary caucus as a result of Mr Collinge’s election. He derided a suggestion on television’s “Network News” on Saturday saying Mr McKinnon’s days as deputy leader were numbered. So incensed was the conference by this item that a special resolution was passed as the conference was ending that a letter be written to TVNZ over their concern at “political bias” and “unsourced and mischievous rumours.”

There were questions being asked about Messrs McKinnon and Birch, and more specifically about the leadership of Mr Bolger. At his leadership rally on the opening night of the conference there was a clear wish from

delegates for Mr Bolger to be inspiring and they fed him many opportunities during his hourlong speech. But although it was a wellcrafted speech and touched on many policy issues they supported, it was not well delivered and plainly failed to inspire them. In the two-minute appearance he made in front of the conference Mr Winston Peters, on the other hand, got in a shaft about National not “sleep-walking to victory” and looked very much an alternative leader. The conference wanted Mr Bolger to move away from his more conservative populism to a less pragmatic and more philosophically pure framework for dealing with issues. He later agreed with this when he said the delegates had been looking for “a new approach.” Mr Bolger was also very confident of election victory next year.

“The fun and games are over and now it’s work,” he said. "Speak good of your colleagues and party and leave toy-knocking for the other side. We must put our different agendas aside.”

‘Domino’ toppled, page 3