Former National Party leader, Don Brash, appears to have bought himself a political party - ACT - and they made him their leader. That pretty much says it all for me about the ACT Party. I've never understood why anyone would vote for them. After selling themselves off to the highest bidder, I still don't.
In case the original TVNZ story linked to disappears, this is the para that caught my eye:
"Hide joked that he did not pay Don Brash's membership fee, but did say Brash has made a generous donation to the Act party."What this means for ACT or the coming election will be the subject of much speculation. For day-to-day parliamentary purposes, I'm interested to see who runs ACT in the House. It can't be Don Brash as he doesn't have a seat and wasn't on ACT's list in any position last time around. The earliest he could assume as seat would be following the November elections....assuming ACT is returned at all. Rodney Hide could resign and trigger a by-election in Epsom, to make way for Brash, but being so close to an election there likely isn't time....unless the government decides there is.
That raises the interesting question: If Hide was number 1 on ACT's list and Brash won Epsom....would they get to keep the extra MP? Or would a sitting ACT MP have leave parliament?
