Rodney Hide

The political landscape stretching predictably out before the November 26 election with barely a wrinkle in sight just got more interesting - or at least unpredictable.

Rodney Hide has resigned as ACT leader, endorsing former National leader Don Brash to take his place.

Associate Education Minister Rodney Hide may not have made a funding announcement but having the opportunity to talk to him was enough for staff and parents of Sara Cohen School yesterday.

For the several hundreds of thousands of voters of conservative mind, Rodney Hide has a message. If they think they can afford to watch Act New Zealand go down the gurgler, they should think again.

The thing about hypocrisy is that its unmistakable odour offends the most disparate of sensibilities, political and otherwise. Only the blindly devoted supporters of David Garrett and Rodney Hide cannot see how they have hoisted themselves with their own petard.

After the political goings-on this past week, it should have been comforting to see the envelope proudly declaring "Voting document enclosed" nestling in my letter box.

Epsom MP Rodney Hide continues to cling to his leadership of embattled Act New Zealand as a party insider and political opponents called for him to step down over his role allegedly covering up MP David Garrett's identity theft charges.

At the last local government election, in Dunedin and across most of New Zealand, voter figures dropped below 50% for the first time since the re-organisation of local government in 1989. Dunedin City Council reporter David Loughrey asks why the public is turning away from the action at the very heart of our system of government, what is behind the problem, and how it can be fixed.

Doomed, kaput, done for, dead and buried: Act New Zealand has been written-off more times than your typical boy-racer's standard low-slung 2-litre turbo-charged pride and joy.

Act New Zealand leader Rodney Hide is quite correct when he suggests, apropos his colleague David Garrett, that they both belong to a house of representatives - not a choir of angels.