The marriage between United Future and Outdoor Recreation New Zealand seems to have ended in divorce, with Outdoor Recreation citing irreconcilable differences. Apparantly, they didn't like being proselytised at by Christian fundamentalists.
The merger was a marriage of convenience anyway, driven primarily by MMP's undemocratic threshold rather than any real common ground between the parties. At the same time, it also seemed to be part of a project by Peter Dunne to broaden his party's base away from being a purely religious party towards the middle of the road party he'd always wanted. Outdoor Recreation's departure basically brings that project to an end, and probably means that United Future is likely to remain a small party for the forseeable future.
And with any luck, its caucus will get even smaller at the next general election. Although actually, its current caucus is one fundamentalist (Judy Turner) and one conservative Catholic
ReplyDelete(Copeland) apiece...
Craig Y.
Can anyone fill me in on a little history? I thought United NZ was just a bunch of old Labour and National guys who wanted the pointless partisan arguments to end, while Future NZ was the fundies.
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't UF/OR dump the Future NZ half? The first MMP vote pattern suggests United Outdoor would do better than the current mess, especially with the "sensible centre" meme.
Far better if we dropped the threshold and they could all have their own say of course.
Tussock: because its the Future NZ half that has all the votes and all the money.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, it would be far better if we dropped the threshold; then parties wouldn't be forced into these stupid arrangements.
I guess ORNZ is just Kiwi enough to want its independence back. We aren't rabid anythings, just we love New Zealand and a good lifestyle with individual freedoms. United, with Future, didn't allow for that.
ReplyDeleteTussock: United Future was the product of an unholy Faustian bargain, in which the dead United Party got an infrastructure, and the fundie Future New Zealand (aka
ReplyDeletethe Christian Democrats)got Peter
Dunne's Ohariu Belmont safe seat.
Unfortunately, due to lack of media coverage, Dunne and company were hoisted into Parliament in 2002, without any media scrutiny of the fundie backgrounds of the FNZ contingent (the rest of the
UFNZ caucus, apart from Dunne).
Since then, Dunne has been rabbitting on about UFNZ not being a fundie party, which is a load of bovine excrement, to put it diplomatically. He should bear in mind what happened to Faust in Marlowes version...
Craig Y.
And Dunne is now citing ex-UFNZ
ReplyDeletelist MP Marc Alexander as co-respondent in the divorce proceedings...
Craig Y.