Oh look, it's Colin Craig... Where is Colin Craig? And is his Conservative Party ever going to get into Parliament unless a deal is done? And perhaps not even then? The Conservatives are about to hold their second conference in Christchurch during 20-22nd September, at the Copthorne Commodore Hotel in Memorial Avenue. Although it tries to unconvincingly deny that it is New Zealand's latest fundamentalist microparty, Colin Craig was born Baptist and about half of his 2011 election candidates disclosed either fundamentalist church or pressure group affiliations when I investigated its party list. Even the printer that they chose in 2011 turned out to be a fundamentalist owned and operated publisher. Before it closed down, Craig also gave regular interviews to the defunct New Zealand fundamentalist newspaper Challenge Weekly. And predictably, Family First's Bob McCoskrie is one of the conference's keynote speakers. Granted, Conservative chief executive Christine Rankin is a Saka Gakkai Buddhist, but she's there because of her fiscal conservative credentials. Granted too, Craig is trying to shake that impression loose, which may explain his relative absence from the frontline campaign against marriage equality once Bob McCoskrie got involved. At that point, he faded out until its virtual end. This may have been deliberate, so as not to seem indelibly associated with opposition to marriage equality and unpopular resistance to popular legislative reform. Despite his obsessive advocacy of binding referenda, all such talk disappeared after the passage of the Marriage Amendment Act. As for opinion poll ratings, these range from one--half to two per cent. In itself, they prove little. At its height, the Christian Heritage Party also polled two and three quarter per cent, but never won a bolthole constituency seat. Fundamentalist Christian microparties do not seem to be viable in New Zealand, any more than any other ideological purist microparties, whether Marxist, libertarian, animal rights or advocates of cannabis legalisation. No matter how well-organised it is, if the product itself is the problem, nothing can change that. In the long term, Colin Craig will probably have to close down his vanity vehicle, as much as Brian Tamaki did far more promptly with Destiny New Zealand and the Family Party. Otherwise, the Conservatives risk turning into a gyre, sucking in vast amounts of capital to prop it up for no real, electorally viable reason. Its populism and ideological purity might be comforting to religious social conservatives, as might its centralised cult of personality around Colin Craig, but the party leadership seems oblivious to its real absence of electoral appeal. On the other hand, the Christian Heritage Party took fifteen years to reach that conclusion, as did their Christian Democrat/Future New Zealand/Kiwi Party former coalition partners. Moreover, the comfort of religious social conservative ideological purity might risk New Zealand First's voter share, knocking that potential political ally out of Parliament. Are they competing for the same vote? So, once again...where is Colin Craig? Not Recommended: Conservative Party Conference 2013 Politics and religion commentator Craig Young - 1st August 2013
Credit: Politics and religion commentator Craig Young
First published: Thursday, 1st August 2013 - 3:44pm