Sir Roger’s return

Two announcements were made yesterday regarding Sir Roger Douglas. The minor one was regarding which seat he would stand in, and the decision to choose Hunua is no surprise as he lives there. His brother, Malcolm Douglas, is a former MP for Hunua and will be his campaign manager.

The more significant announcement is that he accept whatever list ranking the members give him. Previously indications are he would be lower down the list to give ACT supporters a target to work towards (such as “If we get 5% we get Sir Roger back), but now it seems Sir Roger will be No 3 or maybe even No 2.

To get three MPs ACT needs around 2.5% of the vote which is certainly plausible.

Who from ACT would become a Minister, if an agreement with National can be achieved, would be interesting. You see if you do only have three MPs, then they won’t all get to be Ministers. In fact realistically only one of them would be. So would Rodney (who would be in his 5th term) and Heather be content being backbenchers if they push Sir Roger to take up a ministerial role? And the converse also goes – would Sir Roger be content being a backbencher with Rodney in Cabinet?