The announcement that Paul Henry is to be an ACT candidate has thrown the political world into a state of excitement.
Could Henry be the catalyst that re-ignites ACT’s lacklustre polling, which has seen it barely move beyond the 8.64% it got at the last election?
He comes at a time when NZ First and Labour are also recruiting big names to bolster their electoral chances.
But past experience suggests that no matter how big the name a new MP might have, the processes of Parliament and particularly Government soon dull their lustre.
Simply, success outside Parliament does not guarantee success within it.
There is no better example than the Prime Minister.
Christopher Luxon came to politics (as he has taken to reminding us) from a highly successful business career.
But he has struggled to gel with the public.
That mightn’t matter when the polls are like they were last election.
That situation resembled 1983 in Australia when, on the eve of the election, Bill Hayden stepped aside as Labor leader for Bob Hawke, but not before declaring that the situation for the Liberal Government was so dire a drover’s dog could win the election.
So now, with the two main parties within the margin of error from each other, every little bit matters.
Luxon’s electoral attractiveness is one of those little bits.
He started out polling as the preferred Prime Minister at just over 30 per cent immediately after the last election, but now he is just below 20 per cent.
In his first term, Sir John Key started at around 50 per cent and stayed there until the first election in 2011.
So no matter how successful Luxon was as CEO at Air New Zealand or overseas in the senior ranks of Unilever, that success has not translated into political support.
Henry, on the other hand, does not claim to possess any elevated business management skills. Rather, he is presenting himself as an ideas man.
POLITIK has worked with him and can testify to his intelligence, affability and generosity of spirit.
He will undoubtedly liven things up.
But where broadcasters have succeeded in Parliament, they have generally done so by building on separate skills.
Parliament already has one high-profile former broadcaster in Willie Jackson, who has been politically successful, but he was a political operator both within Maori politics and also the union movement well before he hit the radio waves.
Tamati Coffey, a former TV host who became a Labour MP, was less successful, possibly because he did not have the background in Maori politics that Jackson did.
Maggie Barry, who was a broadcasting star with her gardening programmes and RNZ Morning Report hosting, did better.
She translated her botanical knowledge into becoming a high-profile Minister of Conservation.
But she and Jackson are the exceptions among celebrity MPs.
The Bolger National Government had two former All Blacks, Graham Thorne and Tony Steele.
Thorn came in with a big reputation, having not just been a spectacular try-scoring All Black but also a popular sports presenter on TVNZ.
Steele had been a popular headmaster of Hamilton Boys High School.
Despite those CVs, neither rose beyond the back bench.
Another arguably much more successful All Black missed out altogether on joining the Bolger Government caucus.
Bolger tried to persuade the National Party in Tamaki to select David Kirk, who had captained the All Blacks to win the 1987 World Cup, to become the party’s candidate in the 1992 Tamaki by-election.
The local electorate ignored him and selected Clem Simich instead. The party members could not see any political pluses in Kirk despite his CV.
Also, in that 1990 – 93 caucus was Michael Laws, who resigned from Parliament in 1996 over his awarding a contract to his wife when he was simultaneously a Napier City Councillor.
Laws had tried to obscure the connection by providing a false name in place of his wife’s.
But he has a long background in politics; first in the National Party and then on the fringes of New Zealand First.
And he has followed that with a career as a local body politician in Napier, Whanganui and Otago.
He has had an on-off career as a talk radio host and, since 2022, has been a host on the right-wing “The Platform”.
But Laws is a politician first, and a broadcaster second.
Now he is looking to have a high position on the New Zealand First list, where he is likely to be joined by former All Black captain Taine Randal.
He is close to Winston Peters and would seem destined to play a major role in New Zealand First in the next Parliamentary term.
Labour has also joined the celebrity MP stakes with its selection of Superintendent Rakesh Naidoo, the Ethnic, Iwi and Communities national partnerships manager at New Zealand Police, who has been ranked at 13 on the party list, above many sitting MPs.
His nomination is understood to have been strongly supported by the leader, Chris Hipkins.
Parliament has seen a long line of police officers become MPs.
Currently, there are three: Police Minister Mark Mitchell, Assistant Speaker Greg O’Connor and Customs Minister Casey Costello.
Their positions would indicate they tend to do better than former All Blacks.
Just how Paul Henry will adapt to the mind-numbing hours on Select Committees hearing submissions on obscure pieces of legislation or how he will react to only occasionally getting an opportunity to speak in the Chamber remains to be seen.
But that is not why he will be on the ACT list.
He is there to increase their support.
