'THE NATION'

RODNEY HIDE
Interviewed by DUNCAN GARNER

Duncan Well politics is a brutal business as Rodney Hide knows all too well, one minute he's the ACT Leader, the next his political career looks to be over as he's rolled in a fast and ruthless leadership coup, but now he's hoping to make perhaps a political comeback. The party's new leader Don Brash, says there's no place for Rodney Hide even though he can stay on as a minister until the next election, Brash wants him to go and to go quietly. But that may not happen. Mr Hide hopes Dr Brash will change his mind and is planning to win back his confidence. Rodney Hide joins me now, thanks for joining us Mr Hide.

Rodney Hide –
Good morning.

Duncan It's not easy to be rejected at the best of times, but I mean you’ve been rejected quite publicly over the past two weeks, what's that been like?

Rodney It's an interesting thing because you take a lot of hits in politics and you read a lot of stuff that simply isn't true, and what I've worked to do and this is how I handle it, is you know in yourself whether you’ve stuck to your principles, whether you’ve kept your integrity, and I always try to be responsible for my decisions and my actions, and it's how I feel that matters to me.

Duncan So you talk about the truth. Is it true that you’ve announced your retirement from politics because Don Brash has said quite strongly in the past few days, that part of this deal of you staying on as a minister is that you won’t stand at the next election, is that a given?

Rodney No what I've said, and we've had a lot to deal with in the past couple of weeks, and so what I said to Don is clearly he doesn’t support me to stay on, and I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t stay on, I wouldn’t stand if you didn’t have the support of a leader.

Duncan And are you trying to convince him?

Rodney Look I always try and do the best job that I can as an MP, as a Minister, so I'm very focused on you know being the MP for Epsom, there's a lot of work in there, and also with my ministerial portfolios. I've got work in parliament…

Duncan Do you want to convince him though, is it still in your DNA, you were the first party president chairman of the party going right back into those early 90s. It seems to me it's in your DNA and it seems to me that you're not saying that your number is up yet?

Rodney Well the truth of it is I don’t know. Honestly I won’t stand if I don’t have Don's support or the leader's support, but I just think it's a bit too soon to be making all those decisions.

Duncan It seems to me you do want to convince him?

Rodney Look I want to do the best job, and in a way if you do the best job you convince people that you're worthy, but in myself if Don came to me and said look you know I want you to stand, I think I'd probably say no, I think the best thing is it's a new phase for the ACT Party now, and it's a new phase for Rodney Hide.

Duncan So you’ve talked to your wife in the past few days have you, cos you’ve just said to me that if he came and said stand, you'd probably say no? You’ve moved on from parliament in your mind have you?

Rodney I'm moving on, if you know what I mean, I don’t want to be difficult but I've tried to deal with this process over the past couple of weeks as best I can for the party, as best I can for the government, because that’s been important, but most importantly the best I can for the country.

Duncan So we are talking about the end of your political career then?

Rodney Well could be, but I haven’t actually taken the time out of this to say okay looking beyond the election what is it for myself.

Duncan But you haven’t said to us last week, or this week or even today, that this is it. you’ve said that probably you'll go, but you haven’t announced your retirement from politics as strongly as Don Brash has announced you're retirement from politics. Are you annoyed that he announced your retirement from politics, and isn't that your job?

Rodney No, I'm not annoyed, I've been around long enough not to get annoyed.

Duncan Why didn’t you do a deal with Brash earlier on in the year, because it seems to me that, and you’ve confirmed this too that you spoke you know about potential co-leaderhsip, deputy leadership or whatever. Why didn’t you do what's in the best interests of the party just like you said you'd do when you were on The Nation here with me last year?

Rodney Well the way it went was I had a number of talks with Don in fact going back years, but most recently in recent weeks, and I wanted Don to join the party, and he said well if he did that he'd want to be leader, and I said well of course you can be leader you know it's the nature of it, it might be the best thing, because I always felt that ACT needed to sort of step up. It's very important for the country.

Duncan Didn’t he want a deal though?

Rodney Yes, no I'll come to that. I thought it was very important that we get Don and potentially a new leader because we needed to lift ACT in order to strengthen the government and get a better result for New Zealand, but Don said that he would come and John Banks would come, and John Banks would stand in Epsom and that would be the deal. I discussed that with the party president and the party vice president and the deputy leader, we were very uncomfortable with that, and also too we felt that Don should join the party and go through the process, and if John Banks wanted to stand he should join the party. And so I went back to Don and said look it's not gonna work for John Banks, he's not an ACT man.

Duncan So you're telling me that the reason you dug your toes in for those couple of weeks, and it became a bit of a war in the end, is because Brash wanted Banks confirmed at that early stage he came as a two man deal?

Rodney Yes, and I couldn’t do it as leader. We have a constitution and I explained that, and I also explained that I didn’t think that John Banks would fit with the ACT Party philosophy.

Duncan Where do you think, and I want to go back a bit now into when you took over the leadership and so forth of the ACT Party – where did things start going wrong do you think with the direction of the party, because a lot of Auckland business people had lost faith in the party – when do you think it started going wrong for you?

Rodney Oh look I think that’s too negative about it going wrong. I think the reality is this, and you know maybe this is me.

Duncan Reality shows it though doesn’t it?

Rodney No, not at all, I mean I'm an optimistic person. Here's what we did, we survived in 2005 with two MPs. Our mission in 2005 was to survive. In 2008 our mission was to change the government, it was our success in Epsom. If we hadn’t have succeeded in Epsom Helen Clark would still be Prime Minister. We then needed to nudge the government to the right and we did that, had some wins. What we need to do now for the sake of the country is take ACT to the next level, get more MPs so the Maori Party can't hold John Key hostage, and we're in a position to do that. I'm proud of the fact. You know I mean you might think I'm stupid or not, I don’t know, but I'm proud of the fact that we've attracted if you like Don to actually take over the party and take it to that next level.

Duncan But you made a number of – and I cover your career going right back to 1996, and I remember sitting in when you made your maiden speech about perks and so forth, and you made – I put it to you you made a fatal mistake taking your wife now, but your girlfriend at the time on that trip overseas. It was hypocritical wasn't it? Do you regret it?

Rodney Look I don’t go back and regret it, but what I realised was this, it actually proved the point how seductive they are, I changed the perks significantly, they now come out of our salary. I took the trip, I realised subsequent to that that I was wrong to do so. I'd set myself a higher standard than everyone else.

Duncan What changed in your mind, did your ego get hold of you or something?

Rodney Yes.

Duncan Your ego got hold of you?

Rodney Yes, I paid the money back and I apologised.

Duncan Who did you think you were because you were so different earlier to that?

Rodney Oh look I think you do. It was a great experience in a funny way because it was humbling, and I think you do, I became a Minister, I got very busy with the Super City.

Duncan Were you not big noting in that sense, let's go on the trip?

Rodney No, I wasn't big noting and let's go on the trip. What I did was you know I went to the Prime Minister, we'd organised this trip to see you know super cities around the world. I did what everyone else had done, and I didn’t realise and didn’t accept, and that was my mistake that I'd set a higher standard than everyone else.

Duncan It's also the case that the party perhaps lost sight of some of its economic goals because you pushed hard in that law and order area too.

Rodney That’s a bullshit statement and the media keep repeating that.

Duncan It's not just the media that’s repeated it, I mean there's all sorts of people, commentators and political scientists that have looked at the morphing of your party from 99, under you.

Rodney With the greatest respect Duncan you're wrong. Let me come back and answer that question. Our constitution is very clear. I'm a libertarian right, through and through. We believe in individual freedom and person responsibility. Yes we believe in a free market but we also believe that we have to be protected as individuals from the thugs and the bullies, and the state isn't doing that at all, and Three Strikes achieved that.

Duncan And this wasn't your policy in the mid 90s, and it morphed from 1999 onwards when Richard Prebble took leadership. Let me read you this. Bryce Edwards who's an Otago Political Scientist wrote, and I want to read this to you. "In lieu of the concentration on its economic policy, ACT pushed its socially conservative message on law and order, anti-crime policy, and … increasingly replaced neo-liberalism and hard line economics". You became just like all the other parties. So you morphed into almost a sensible sentencing wing of parliament?

Rodney Oh I don’t accept his commentary but I also do accept that we did become like all the other parties and you have to. As soon as you turn up to parliament it changes, because you then actually have to debate the parliamentary issues of the day, you can't be a think tank or Bryce Edwards writing you know furiously on your blog not accountable to anyone. And also when you become a party in government you actually change again. But here's what I'm proud of, we've actually kept our core philosophy, individual freedom, personal responsibility, free market, choice, competition, prosperous New Zealand. But here's what it involves. It actually involves the government keeping us safe from the thugs and the bullies, and I done resile from any of that.

Duncan So you accept that you’ve had to morph into that party to survive?

Rodney Not on our policy.

Duncan But hard line economic wasn't – yes you stand for that, I accept that, but you morphed into and some commentators have said this, the sensible sentencing wing of parliament by taking on David Garret.

Rodney No we did not, we did not. Go to our constitution, the ACT constitution and you will see there.

Duncan I have seen that and I accept that, but the focus was heavily on Garret, you talked about him a lot in the Sensible Sentencing Trust, you talked about him a lot in your 2008 campaign launch. The focus went on law and order and you morphed into like the other party.

Rodney And the reality is this Duncan, economics is too hard for you, it's too hard for the media, and they don’t report it. You have never reported properly our work on the 2025, you’ve never reported the Productivity Commission.

Duncan Yes we have, well the Prime Minister did, the Prime Minister didn’t want to know about the 2025 task force.

Rodney You’ve never reported on the Regulatory Standards Bill, you don’t properly report on … All that’s going on, I can't help that, it's your choice what you report, but actually my focus funnily enough is economics. Why? Because I'm an economist and an environmentalist.

Duncan And because of the focus on law and order one of your decisions was to take on David Garret. Do you accept full responsibility for that Garret mistake?

Rodney Well again you go on about mistakes Duncan. Look…

Duncan Do you take responsibility for taking on Garret?

Rodney Of course I have to accept, I was the leader, I accept everything …

Duncan You went out and got him didn’t you?

Rodney Yes, and I mean what I'm proud of is that New Zealand is gonna become a safer place because of our Three Strikes legislation. Look for 20 years New Zealanders have been crying out for tougher sentencing on repeat violent offenders. For 20 years politicians have been promising it and never delivering it. the ACT Party delivered it, I'm proud of that.

Duncan But do you accept in any way that that became a much heavier distraction than hard line economic policy, because we don’t understand it as you say, which I disagree with, okay I disagree with that, but you focused on law and order ahead of what these business leaders in Auckland and what Liggam Dann wrote about in the Herald a couple of weeks ago, they want the buzz of the centre right again, they want some more right wing economic policies, which you weren’t delivering to them, because you were talking about Three Strikes. Do you accept you were distracted in a way?

Rodney No.

Duncan Because this is what the Auckland business leaders are saying.

Rodney Well I'm sorry.

Duncan This is why Brash is now there.

Rodney Well I'm sorry. They have to take responsibility for what they say, and yes Don Brash is there, and look I think there's nothing more important than lifting New Zealand's economic performance, and that’s why – look it was quite hard for me, I had to accept that it's the best interests for the party and indeed for the government, that Don take over as leader. That was quite a hard decision to come to, and then I engineered it if you like, but actually when I announced the decision I actually realised it was the best thing for the country, because ACT needs to succeed precisely because we need to life our economic performance and Don Brash can do that.

Duncan Where to now for you? Are you trying to get a job out of John Key or Don Brash or someone?

Rodney No, not at all.

Duncan I mean there's been talk about the Business Round Table, do you want a job like that?

Rodney No no, my job is this. I'm the MP for Epsom, it's a big job, a Minister. I've got two important pieces of legislation I'm putting through the parliament. I also have a responsibility with the Super City and local government and indeed in Education. I'm actually focused on doing the best I can, I'm in a very privileged position and I can make a difference right through to November 26.

Duncan Can you honestly say that the difference in salary between being a Minister and an MP which is what you may have been had you not held on to your ministry and portfolios. The difference is about $80,000. Can you honestly say that didn’t have an impact on your decision this week.

Rodney I can honestly say that, and in fact I think anyone that’s looked at my career could hardly say that I've been there to advance my personal interest.

Duncan Right, Rodney Hide, thanks for joining us this morning.

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