Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:51a.m.
By Patrick Gower
It's finally official: John Key owns the ACT Party.
Yes, the ACT Party is getting totally owned by Key. Owned.
The National Business Review poll I reported on 3 News last night shows that pure and simple.
I'll summarise it quickly: John Banks is political dead meat in Epsom.
That means Don Brash and the ACT party are dead meat too - because they are not popular enough to get into Parliament without slithering through the MMP electorate seat back door.
But the NBR poll shows everything changes if Key tells Epsom what to do.
Under that scenario, Banks will get back.
So John Key owns the ACT Party.
ACT will only survive on Key's say-so.
Epsom has always been a disgusting dirty deal, but to my mind it will get even filthier if John Key uses his substantial political capital to save ACT.
The great irony in all this is that if Key promotes up a filthy deal for National voters to vote for Banks, he doesn't actually have the stomach to do it himself - admitting yesterday he will vote for National's Paul Goldsmith.
That's essentially the problem for Banks - because Banks thinks National voters are going to vote for him to help get a centre-right Government - but they cannot bring themselves to do it right now.
ACT can't make the 5 percent threshold to get list MPs into Parliament, but National doesn't like to see the percentage of the vote they get wasted.
So National let them win the Epsom electorate seat - which means whatever percentage ACT get counts - and they bring a couple of MPs back.
It’s been going on for years: the good people of Epsom are the most manipulated voters in the country.
Key has the ACT Party's future in his palm
But this poll shows they have almost had a guts-full.
Don Brash is one of the main beneficiaries of the Epsom deal - he won't get back to Parliament without it.
Patrick Gower has blogged extensively on election
deals – you can read his other blogs
here:
But Epsomites can't stand Brash – 47 percent say his leadership has "worked out poorly" and 30 percent say it’s no better than the political disaster under Rodney Hide.
The people of Epsom were sick of Rodney Hide.
But get this: the polling shows Rodders would have done just as well in Epsom if he'd been standing!
The whole Brash coup has been a waste of time.
Brash called Rodney "toxic" - well, I wonder what that makes Brash now?
And at least Hide was leader of ACT when he stood in Epsom - he had moral authority.
I personally believe Brash is the leader of ACT in name-only.
Banks really has all the power given he is the one who can get them back to Parliament.
The Banks/Brash legalise dope/don't legalise dope debate said it all - Banks won.
So the people of Epsom are obviously wondering if they want to send Brash back to Parliament.
Brash is obviously now holding back Banks' chances.
But it’s too late for Banks to take out Brash now. As I've said before. That will come later.
Banks has taken the reins - I watched him tell my boss Duncan Garner on The Nation the other week that he was effectively telling Brash what to say.
That’s a pretty potent symbol of who was supposed to lose an electoral contest between the two.
Beneath all this, ACT is falling to pieces.
There's a lot of good people in the ACT Party - I know them well.
But Banks isn't an ACT man and it’s sad for the party faithful to see all their honourable libertarian philosophical views sidelined.
Every rat is deserting the sinking ship - Andrea Vance's story today shows that.
As for National, Paul Goldsmith is the candidate who is beating Banks even though he is supposed to lose.
He used to effectively work for Banks - engaged to write his life story.
Goldsmith is a real politician but to my mind he isn't a real candidate in this election.
At this stage, Goldsmith is in the seat to lose. He gets out of bed in the morning to go and lose.
I rang him for comment on the story yesterday. He would have freaked out and probably rung the National strategy team about what to do. Then he finally got back with a thanks-but-no-thanks text message and some prepared lines.
Goldsmith turned down publicity. That's because he doesn't want to win.
Is this the kind of politician the people of Epsom want taking their message to Wellington?
I don't know how the people of Epsom put up with this. I think they must have the political version of battered partner syndrome.
They can no longer think for themselves.
The whole Epsom thing is a sham.
The people of Epsom don't really want Banks.
The people of Epsom don't really want Brash.
Goldsmith doesn't want the people of Epsom.
The people of ACT don't really want Brash and Banks.
But this shabby deal to beat them all looks set to go ahead.
That's because John Key is a numbers man.
Key knows that as long as ACT poll above about 1.2 percent he gets a two for the price of one MP deal.
And with the poll ratings where they are that one MP could be all he needs to govern with a majority.
Key knows the people of Epsom will most likely do his bidding if he sends a message close to election day.
So he will likely send that message.
John Key will use up some of his political capital to save ACT/Brash/Banks.
Key won't use up his political capital to take the retirement age out to 67 and help future-proof the economy.
Key won't use up his political capital to take the knife to interest-free student loans or Working for Families.
In fact, Key won't use his political capital on hardly anything.
Yet he will use it to save Brash and Banks from political oblivion.
And that's what will make this dirty deal the filthiest of them all - that political capital is wasted on a rort.
But if ACT starts polling under 1 percent - then Key might - might - just finish ACT off.
Because the people of Epsom seemingly can't decide to do that for themselves.