An empty space in Parliament, with yellow fogginess around it. Remind you of anything? John Banks' Auckland mayoral election donation scandal has concluded with a guilty verdict and the resignation of the former ACT leader, National Cabinet Minister and Epsom MP, leaving his former political party in a difficult situation. I don't intend to focus on John Banks' past in this article. Jay Bennie has already written an excellent article on the significance that his past homophobic outbursts had on earlier generations of LGBT activists during the time of homosexual law reform and the Human Rights Act. Instead, I'll be focusing on his remaking as a fiscal conservative and selection as ACT's Epsom candidate. Twenty years ago, it might have seemed incongruous for this to be happening. Banks was Whangarei National MP and primarily a social conservative. He attracted disbelief and contempt over his over the top remarks equating gay sex with zoophilia/bestiality following the passage of the Human Rights Act 1993. Later, he drifted even lower, as a talkback host at the scabrous bottom end of the talkback radio market, Radio Pacific. In doing so, he neglected his electorate responsibilities and distance developed between the idiosyncratic MP and the Bolger and Shipley administrations. Largely unnoticed, he finally resigned from Parliament altogether in 1999 and shifted south to Auckland. Thereafter, Banks reinvented himself as a fiscal conservative and served two non-consecutive terms as Auckland Mayor (2001-2004, 2007-2010), defeated by first, Dick Hubbard (2004-2007) and then current Auckland Lord Mayor Len Brown (2010- Present). With turmoil in the ACT parliamentary caucus during its first term as a Key administration coalition partner (2008-2011), ACT New Zealand had torn itself apart in bitter debate between its fiscal conservative faction and populist elements. It culminated in former ACT Leader Rodney Hide's overthrow and the re-emergence of Don Brash as a centre-right New Zealand political leader. Brash forced Hide out of Epsom and then selected Banks as his replacement. However, that destructive sequence of events may have alienated centre-right social liberal voters, as well as others who felt Banks was insufficiently fiscally conservative and those who understandably had concerns about whether or not ACT was still a stable and reliable political party. For whatever reasons, Banks became the sole surviving ACT MP and became party leader as a consequence of Brash's consequent resignation after the near-failure of ACT's electoral campaign in 2011. Epsom became a marginal electorate. (As for LGBT voters, that factionalism has made it difficult to ascertain whether or not it is a safe voters choice. Certainly, Richard Prebble and Rodney Hide were supportive of LGBT rights, apart from Hide's vote for Gordon Copeland's failed pre-emptive strike against future marriage equality, as were others such as Patricia Schnauer and Heather Roy. Unfortunately, this coherent centre-right social liberal stance was sabotaged by outbursts from Owen Jennings, David Garrett, Stephen Franks and Muriel Newman, who seemed determined to alienate centre-right social liberal voters from the party. Unfortunately, they almost succeeded, given that had Rodney Hide not won Epsom in 2005 and carried Heather Roy in with him, the party would have been obliterated. Unfortunately, Don Brash replaced Hide and was unapologetic for his under-the-counter logistical and donor dealings with the Exclusive Brethren cult against the Civil Union Act in 2005. Worse still, he replaced Hide with Banks. When Banks became the only survivor of the ACT caucus, there was audible dismay from the party's fiscal conservative quarter, who would have preferred someone with a more amenable business-friendly track record. To compensate, Banks tried to show he was now first and foremost a fiscal conservative, leading to his surprise endorsement of marriage equality, something that probably would have been unthinkable to his earlier incarnation as a National MP and social conservative.) That should have been the end of the matter, but it wasn't. Auckland local body activist Graham McCready uncovered an apparent violation of the Local Electoral Act's donation provisions, with an undeclared donation from Internet millionaire Kim Dotcom. Police investigated, but the courts took their time evaluating the veracity of McCready's claim. In late May 2014, the High Court finally found Banks guilty of electoral fraud. Beforehand, Banks had resigned as ACT party leader and announced his intention to step down as Epsom ACT MP at the next New Zealand election. At a subsequent party convention, British libertarian philosopher Jamie Whyte was elected as organisational leader, while David Seymour, formerly employed by a Canadian centre-right thinktank, became the new Epsom candidate. With the guilty verdict and Banks subsequent resignation, Seymour now has a clear field to insure that his party returns to Parliament after September 20. But is it too late? Has Banks' long-running electoral fraud trial permanently soured voters on his hapless party, or have Epsom voters concluded that the party itself had nothing to do with the scandal and are they willing to give it a second chance? Will David Seymour be the next Epsom MP, or will it be National's Paul Goldsmith? Will Jamie Whyte have to 'use the leash" on ACT campaign manager Richard Prebble, whose previous performance as parliamentary leader consisted of repeated populist grandstanding at the cost of significant attention to core fiscal conservative party policies, or even dispense with his services altogether? There is talk of generational change. Whyte hasn't done himself any favours with his unfortunate expression of some of his libertarian philosophical views. When he acknowledged that he supported drug decriminalisation and an end to criminalisation of 'consensual adult' incest, he attracted much derision and little analytical commentary. Very well, I shall do so. As I noted in an earlier Gaynz.Com column during the marriage equality debate, decriminalising consensual adult incest would lead to undesirable situations akin to the Stuebing v Germany case in the European Court of Human Rights in 2013, where a German man had been estranged from his prior dysfunctional family and fell in love with his hitherto-unknown younger sister. The couple had children, several of whom were born with severe compound intellectual and physical disabilities. CAI is currently illegal under Section 130(b) of the Crimes Act 1961 and I am opposed to changing it given the Stuebing case. On the other hand, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland seem to be experiencing little harm from their experiences of drug decriminalisation. Unfortunately, part of the problem is that Whyte is reluctant to undertake evidence-based corroboration of his libertarian philosophical positions. On an evidential basis, I disagree with him on the matter of CAI but agree about opening a debate on the merits or otherwise of drug decriminalisation. One hopes that if Whyte does undertake further public debate, that he does so with a fully elaborated and evidence based verification for whatever policies he is advocating. Seymour is keeping his head down, however. Apart from ACT, what about its prospective coalition partners? National wants it back, and Peter Dunne has more in common with ACT than he does with the Conservatives. Unfortunately, ACT hasn't ruled out working alongside the Conservatives, but Colin Craig and his sycophants haven't returned the favour. They see ACT as a social liberal party, although given that they're also trying to poach New Zealand First's elderly constituency, they may mitigate their degree of fiscal conservatism somewhat to attract them. Therefore, it needs to be dispensed with. At one point, Colin Craig was toying with standing in Epsom and has more recently complained that ACT is receiving special treatment when it comes to election broadcast funding, despite the fact that (theoretically), ACT has a bolthole constituency left, while the Conservatives do not do so. National and ACT seem to think that they can work alongside the Conservatives, given the latter's facade of "fiscal conservatism", although United Future's Peter Dunne has been acidic in his criticism of Colin Craig and his sycophants. ACT appears to be another matter. This does raise questions about why ACT and United Future don't merge into a unified satellite party for National. Can ACT survive? Only time will tell. At present, there are no seat micropolls to determine the pre-election voter preferences of the former (?) ACT bolthole constituency. Recommended: ACT New Zealand: http://www.act.org.nz Wikipedia/Jamie Whyte: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Whyte Ian Leuw and I. Hean Marshall: Between prohibition and legalisation: the Dutch experiment in drug policy: New York: Kugler: 1994. Stuart Younger and Gerrit Kinsma (eds) Physician-assisted death in perspective: Assessing the Dutch experience: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2012 Bountiful (Polygamy) reference case (British Columbia, 2011): http://canlii.ca/t/fnzqf Stuebing versus Germany (European Court of Human Rights, 2012):http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-110314 "Evidence based policies are damaging UK policy making" Institute of Economic Affairs: 21.09.2013: http://www.iea.org.uk/in-the-media/press-release/%E2%80%98evidence-based%E2%80%99-policies-are-damaging-uk-policymaking Politics and religion commentator Craig Young - 18th June 2014
Credit: Politics and religion commentator Craig Young
First published: Wednesday, 18th June 2014 - 12:30pm