Frank Newman: Another foolish ACT

Oh dear. Another foolish Act.

One would have thought ACT leader David Seymour would have learnt from Rodney Hide's unfortunate experiment to gain love and affection from voters. David should be smart enough to know the best he could hope for from voters is respect, not love and affection. To be brutal about it, most people like politicians as much as they like those door-to-door sales people who drive around in their vans selling over-priced stuff to people financed at exorbitant rates of interest.

Rodney made a plonker of himself by going on Dancing with the Stars.

He was advised against it but his ego was such that he could not resist the spotlight - any spot light - even one involving dancing. Instead of talking about ACT policy, people talked instead about Rodney dropping Krystal, his unfortunate dance partner.

Apparently David has not learnt that lesson because he has agreed to "star" on Dancing with the Stars which is to screen in April. David says it's to support a charity (blah blah) but the motivation is more likely to be that he, like Rodney, has got a good sized ego that needs to be fed.

It seems to me that the last thing ACT needs is another leader with a fixation for stardom. I think the 15 hours a week David's has set aside to practice his dancing skills would be better used  discussing the challenges ACT faces with the many tens of thousands of voters and party faithful who at one time supported the Party but no longer do so.  Attracting back former supporters would seem like an obvious strategy for a party that attracted just 13,000 votes at the last election and only remains in Parliament because it has been gifted a seat. David may find some of ACT's former supporters gave up on the Party after Rodney had his emotional epiphany and the pursuit of star dust above party policy.

Frank Newman is an author and commentator.