National Party 70th Annual Conference

I’m attending the 70th National Party Conference as media, or more specifically as a blogger. First one in around 20 years I have not been a delegate!

In a very smart move they got Jenny Shipley to do the opening speech, as it is on her old home patch of Canterbury. Was slightly surreal though seeing her badge list her as “Jenny Shipley, Epsom” – as she does now of course live there. Mrs SHipley gave a very well received address on how important it is to take a stand, and especially praised Wayne Mapp’s bill as an example of this.

Then the conference had Gerry Brownlee up, who had a hilarious start – talking about how he was going to wear a beanie to show how cool he is. Brownlee then got serious and referred to Labour’s tactics to change the spin rather than change the policies, and how the key question is “Are we better off now”. He uses the MSD Living Standards Report to answer this in the negative, noting despite $950 million on closing the gaps, the number of Maori in severe hardship rose by 150%.