The ACT party has been virtually invisible of late, with leader Rodney Hide slipping into the background. Hide’s Party has been overshadowed by John Key’s growing closeness with the Maori Party. ACT badly needs a profile boost and its backing for the controversial extension of the 90-day probation period to cover all workers should deliver it. It is also very much in line with ACT policy and Hide can claim without his party, the Govt wouldn’t be able to enact measures being welcomed by the business sector. Opposition from unions won’t worry him - they don’t vote ACT. Although it’s not for want of trying, ACT’s poll ratings are abysmal as it hovers around the 2% mark - way short of the 5% it would need to get seats without Hide holding Epsom.

Hide’s biggest mistake - taking his partner overseas on a taxpayer-funded trip through Parliamentary perks - still hangs over the party despite a grovelling apology and Deputy Leader Heather Roy’s veiled reference to it at ACT’s annual conference earlier this year - she talked about the impact of black swans on the party, meaning unfortunate and unexpected developments - couldn’t have helped her relationship with Hide.

Another difficulty for ACT is Hide could run the risk of being a right-wing version of Jim Anderton, whose party lost its profile while he was a senior Minister in the Labour cabinet. And ACT is aware Hide’s Epsom seat is only safe so long as National lets him keep it. Epsom is National territory and could again be a National seat if the party decides to put up a strong candidate. John Key says there’s no deal with Rodney Hide yet and there’s been speculation Steven Joyce, a list MP, would be a good fit if he wanted to be an electorate member.

John Key’s announcement of relatively minor, if right-leaning, changes to labour laws which provoked the most violent political demonstration seen for years in NZ, played straight into the hands of a Govt which fears its mining back down will be seen as another sign of weakness among its right-wing supporters, who can always still turn to ACT if they wish. The juxtaposition of the labour law changes and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee’s humiliating U-turn on mining Schedule 4 conservation lands is fairly simple politics, but the need for such a gesture raises a larger question which will be troubling party insiders - the quality of the Govt’s political management.

While Key’s free-wheeling encouragement of entrepreneurial Ministers like Brownlee has a refreshing element, it can also breed a pattern of high expectations followed by underdone delivery. The PM’s instincts for middle-of-the-road popularity are sound - it’s why the party rides so high in the polls. But the mining back down, in particular, is an outcome better political management might have avoided, and which will have National’s pro-development lobby cranking up the “faster, bolder” rhetoric, which had eased off after the Budget tax cuts were announced.