Rodney Hide's Brethren moment

THE LONG VIEW - RICHARD LONG

OPINION: National's ill-fated dalliance with the Exclusive Brethren before the 2005 election was one of the silliest things I thought I would ever see in politics. But, in one ill-fated week, ACT leader Rodney Hide, in a colossal, incom- prehensible miscalculation, managed to match that.

For the sake of $22,000 he shattered his own and his party's carefully constructed image of fiscal purity. The perk-buster who campaigned against parliamentary excesses stood accused of grabbing the same perks, for travel with his girlfriend.

He was left as the emperor with no clothes, exposed as a hypocrite. The taxpayer-funded trip to London was bad enough, but then it emerged that it was timed to coincide with his girlfriend's brother's wedding.

Then, oops, there was also the little matter of an additional taxpayer- funded trip to Hawaii.

Not that he did anything illegal. The parliamentary travel perk is available to MPs who have been there for a certain length of time, and to former MPs who qualify in terms of service.

And in the overall scheme of things, it is but a drop in the bucket of government spending.

But for ACT this is image- shattering, only partly ameliorated by Mr Hide's belated apology and his pledge to repay. ACT has abandoned the moral high ground at a time when it has a worthwhile programme, which deserves support, to slow the inexorable expansion of local- body spending and rates, to reverse the expansion of costly government regulation, and to promote tax reform.

This is yet further evidence, if any were needed, for these unsupportable, outdated parliamentary rorts, being used by other MPs and even Cabinet ministers, to be removed from the books. \

Prime Minister John Key started this by increasing transparency; now Speaker Lockwood Smith needs to grab the opportunity and do the rest.

That Mr Hide should be caught, in the same week, slagging off Mr Key as the "do- nothing" prime minister was par for the course. He and ACT have been undermining National leaders, particularly Bill English and Don Brash, in this way for years.

ACT needs to constantly convince its backers and Right-wing voters that, without them putting some steel into National, the Nats would mutate into Labour Lite.

The irony, after this mixture of hypocrisy and treachery, is that National will have a Herculean task to convince its supporters in blue-ribbon Epsom to continue to give their electorate votes to Mr Hide.

A nod and a wink was enough last time, enabling Mr Hide to take four MPs into Parliament with him, so giving National a useful support party on the Right to counter the demands of the Maori Party.

National dare not pull the plug on ACT, and leave itself exposed to the whims of the Maori Party, so it will have to back Mr Hide in Epsom in spite of the provocation.

Meanwhile, it is hardly smooth sailing in the Maori Party, either, after the unauthorised flit to Paris, from a parliamentary work trip to Brussels, by MP Hone Harawira, his rabid response to criticism (even Mr Key found the "shock-jock" MP's comments to be offensive, with overtones of racism) and the Maori Party's subsequent attempt to apply discipline.

The Maori Party cannot afford to expel Mr Harawira, and to create a martyr, so it will have to live with him, unless he ultimately contrives his own ousting, perhaps by taking a stronger line over the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

Mr Harawira, hugely popular in his electorate, can anticipate that, by the next election, the aftermath of the Foreshore and Seabed Act repeal is likely to be contentious in Maoridom.

As well, the inevitable government spending cuts and tax reforms, together with increased motor levies, power price rises and rates increases, will by then be creating a wave of anti-Government unrest.

His future may be better served then by distancing himself from the Maori Party and its backing for National and by going it alone as a critic of both.

But he will need to temper his comments in the meantime if he is to look like an inspirational MP rather than a mad maverick.

- © Fairfax NZ News