Rodney Hide (born 16 December 1956) is a New Zealand politician who became leader of the political party ACT New Zealand in 2004. Since 2005, he has represented the electorate of Epsom as its Member of Parliament. Rodney Hide is Minister of Local Government, Associate Minister of Commerce and Minister of Regulatory Reform. The latter is a new portoflio mainly aimed at controlling government spending, which has been one of Rodney Hide's core policies in his election campaign.

Early life

Hide was born in Oxford in Canterbury. His father, Philip Hide, owned a small mixed-farm at Cust and also drove trucks. In 1960, due to sickness, Philip Hide sold the small farm and moved to Rangiora, continuing to drive trucks until his retirement. Hide gained a degree in zoology and botany from the University of Canterbury. After completing his degree, he travelled overseas, eventually finding himself in Scotland. He worked for some time on oil rig in the North Sea. Hide eventually returned to New Zealand by way of Romania, Egypt, India, Bangladesh, and Malaysia. In Malaysia he re-met Jiuan Jiuan, with whom he had shared a house in Christchurch - the two married in 1983 (in 2007 they separated). After returning to New Zealand, Hide gained a degree in resource management from Lincoln College, Canterbury. He then took up a teaching position at Lincoln, first in resource management and later in economics. He completed his master's degree in economics from Montana State University in record time.

In 1993, Alan Gibbs, an Auckland businessman, offered Hide a job as an economist. He accepted, and also began working at a radio station owned by Gibbs. Later, Hide also met Roger Douglas, a former Minister of Finance whose radical economic reforms had made a considerable impression on him.

When Douglas established the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers (which later formed the ACT party), Hide had close involvement as the organisation's first chairman and president.

Member of Parliament

Hide first entered Parliament in 1996 as a list MP. He won the party parliamentary leadership role in a closely-contested primary after the retirement of Richard Prebble in 2004. He then went on to win the Epsom electorate from sitting National Party MP Richard Worth in 2005 with the campaign message "ACT is back".

Hide has a reputation for strong views, for his media profile, and for his confrontational style. Some commentators dubbed him the "leader of the opposition" when he still sat on the back benches. His supporters often describe him as one of the most effective opposition MPs, and praise him for his motivation and commitment.

Entry into Parliament

Hide held the seventh place on the ACT party list for the 1996 elections. ACT received enough votes for Hide to enter Parliament, making him one of the party's "founding" MPs. He gradually rose through the party's ranks, reaching second place in the ACT list for the 2002 elections.

In his maiden speech, Hide made a specific attack on "perks" enjoyed by MPs, and this "perk-busting" has become a characteristic of his political career ever since. Hide has developed a substantial reputation for finding and exposing "scandals", whether they relate to MPs' perks or to other governmental matters. Hide's critics often claim that his "scandals" rely on sensationalism and exaggeration, and have as their only purpose the gaining of media attention; but his supporters believe that Hide's constant scrutiny "keeps the government honest" and ensures that the administration does not waste taxpayers' money.

Roger Douglas himself has emerged as one of Hide's more prominent critics, referring to Hide's "stunts" as detracting from ACT's core economic message, shifting focus to populist issues of law and order and to provocative race relations policies. At a party conference, Douglas condemned MPs "who run any fickle line capable of grabbing short-term votes and attention", a comment allegedly directed at Hide or at his supporters. Hide acknowledges the criticism, but defends himself on the grounds that a focus on pure economic theory will not attract interest: "the problem is that the so-called stunts are particularly well-reported and my work explaining free market ideas disappears without trace." The tension between Douglas and Hide increased when Hide made a bid for the vice-presidency of ACT in 2000: supporters of Douglas interpreted this action as a challenge to Douglas' organisational authority within the party. Both Douglas and Hide stood down from their roles as President and Vice-President, suggesting an uneasy truce between these two factions. In 2008 the two men worked closely together with Douglas holding third place on the party list following Hide and Heather Roy.

ACT Party leadership

Many people had known for some time that Hide saw himself as a potential parliamentary leader of the ACT party, and he himself showed no reluctance in saying so. At several points, rumours circulated that Hide planned to challenge party leader Richard Prebble for his position, although such a challenge never emerged. When Prebble eventually announced his retirement, his critics [who?] claimed that this had been brought about by secret campaigning by Hide. However, Prebble himself has denied this claim and it appears more likely that he stood down for personal reasons, as he publicly claimed.

When Prebble announced his retirement, Hide quickly indicated that he would seek the caucus leadership. Prebble, however, appeared unenthusiastic about the prospect of Hide succeeding him, and in a speech praising each of the new leadership contenders, pointedly dwelled on the others. The succession method chosen by Prebble also appeared to disfavour Hide: rather than a simple caucus vote, which a conventional leadership challenge would have called, a four-way election involved all ACT party members (although the election remained only "indicative"). Many people consider that the party organisation, in which Douglas has considerable influence, dislikes Hide.

Hide campaigned against Stephen Franks, Ken Shirley, and Muriel Newman for the ACT party parliamentary leadership. In the race he claimed that his high public profile and his image of strength would prove crucial to ACT's political survival. Stephen Franks, seen as the primary "anti-Hide" candidate and a social conservative, had the backing of Roger Douglas. In the end, however, Hide prevailed, and the party introduced Hide as its new leader on June 13, 2004.

Post-2005 general election

Under Hide's leadership, the vote in the September 2005 elections severely reduced ACT's party parliamentary representation. ACT's share of the party vote dropped from over 7% of the total to around 1.5% and its representation in Parliament fell from nine MPs to two. Such dramatic declines were seen in most the smaller parties that year primarily due to the close nature of the race. The party remained in parliament due to Hide winning the Epsom seat. As a consequence of its reduced share of the vote, ACT has received a significant cut in taxpayer-funded Parliamentary resourcing.

The subsequent reduction in ACT's size has seen Rodney Hide shut down his high-profile electorate office in Remuera and consolidate his electorate office with that of the ACT Party's head office in a less visible spot in Newmarket.

As a post-election strategy, Rodney Hide has focused on his high-profile attacks on prominent Labour Party MPs. His campaign against alleged abuse of schoolchildren by Labour Party minister David Benson-Pope, which was verified by the now grown children involved, continued to make headlines in late 2005. With Hide holding the Epsom seat all votes for ACT counted and the party saw a substantial increase in votes in 2008 election and increased its representation in parliament from two seats to five. Hide commenced his political year in 2006 by voicing speculation on the leadership cadre of the National Party, a strategy which gained him headlines but which has raised the ire of National parliamentarians, complicating the once co-operative relationship between ACT and National.

Hide announced in late April 2006 that he would appear in the celebrity-based Dancing with the Stars television series, paired off with a professional dancer and competing against other celebrities, with the funds raised through his performance going to St John's Ambulance. Hide stated that he appeared on the show as a personal challenge, having never danced before.

Hide danced his way to fourth place on the show, despite harsh criticism from the show's judges.

Hide has also sought to reposition the party. While not moving away from ACT's key tenets of freedom, choice and personal responsibility, Hide has said that provided the governing Labour Party promise (amongst other things) significant tax-cuts, ACT could provide the centre-left party with support. Many see this as a departure from ACT's position of providing the National Party with staunch support. Others see ACT as a centre-right liberal party (as opposed to National, a conservative party) and, as such, sharing many areas of agreement with Labour (seen as more liberal than National).

This new approach by the ACT Party has emerged, at least publicly, since Rodney Hide and deputy leader (and fellow MP) Heather Roy returned from a privately-funded tour of Europe. During this trip, Hide and Roy met with a number of political parties, including the Irish Progressive Democrats and the German Free Democrats, both parties with similar ideologies to ACT but substantially better electoral records.

2008 election

The 2008 election saw ACT's fortunes improve. The party's share of the vote rose to a little under four percent, winning the party five seats in parliament and making it the fourth largest party there. Hide also did well in Epsom, and was re-elected with approximately 55% of the electorate vote, and nearly triple the votes of the second place-getter. The National Party won the most seats overall and formed a minority government with the support of Act, the Maori Party and United Future. Hide became a Minister outside Cabinet, holding the portfolios of Minister of Local Government, Minister for Regulatory Reform, Associate Minister of Commerce.

Post-2008 general election

One of the main focuses of his work in cabinet has been pushing the 'Super City' proposal for unification of the various local authorities of Auckland.

The rushed pace and what some consider an undemocratic goal and process, have brought strong criticism of his handling of the matter. Contrary to any aspirations of democracy, the 'consultation' process has been operated in a clearly predetermined manner. Recommendations of the Royal Commission were broadly rejected, selecting instead a weak local structure of 20-30 community boards, and excluding the concept of Maori representation. Both these decisions were announced, both publicly and in response to submissions, prior to completion of the consultation process.

The selected local structure, is intended to feature only minimal powers (dog control etc), meet only intermittently, and have no fixed offices or staff. Minimizing the local role in politics, and dividing into so many separate boards, will render the boards irrelevant and enable the central council to effectively ignore & override. Issues of satellite city boundaries, assets, financing & political consolidation have also brought accusations from parties including North Shore City mayor Andrew Williams of railroading participants, and of misleading people, including John Key.

Hide was heavily criticised in November 2009 for taking his girlfriend Louise Crome on a tax-payer funded private holiday to Hawaii and on a tax-payer funded trip to London, Canada and the United States. He repaid the money for the Hawaii trip.

Political offices

Publications

• Hide's contribution is entitled "Taking the brake off business."
• Hide's contribution is entitled "Free trade: route to poverty or growth?"
• Hide's contribution (co-authored with Owen McShane) is entitled " Can privatization succeed in a western democracy? Lessons from New Zealand"
• Hide contributed a foreword for this book. This book originally appeared in 1999 - published by Alister Taylor IRD Press (with the ISBN 0-908-57872-5), and also with a foreword by Hide.
• The foreword for this book was provided by Dave Henderson (see above)
• Hide's contribution is entitled "ACT - survival in Epsom."
• Hide's contribution is entitled "The classical liberal view."

References

1. Rodney Hide's marriage ends after 23 years
2. Election results 2008.
3. Epsom results 2008.
4. New Zealand Herald, 'Key's Government', 17 November 2008.
5. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10565730
6. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0909/S00062.htm
7. Andrew Williams: Downsize this Super City madness - The New Zealand Herald, Friday 08 May 2009
8. Banks calls Williams a lunatic as Super City debate gets ugly - The New Zealand Herald, Monday 13 April 2009
9. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3041488/Rodney-Hides-other-holiday-perk
10. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3013709/Hide-against-travel-perk-but-still-used-it

External links

• Rodney Hide (personal website and blog).
• ACT New Zealand