Paul Henry hits the strategic-vote speed bump

The Spinoff spends a day on the road with the Act Party’s star salesman as his cross-country speaking tour takes a strategic turn.

Paul Henry is slightly peeved. There’s a letter in his fist fresh out of the mailbox of his luxury Remuera home, a pleading note plastered with the National Party letterhead and Paul Goldsmith’s hopeful face. “How’s this for strategic voting?” gasps Henry, leaning over some shockingly-patterned bus seats to show off Goldsmith’s appeal. “From the holier-than-thou party!”

When Henry first began this politicking pilgrimage two months ago, strategic voting was on nobody’s mind. Now, it’s a conversation which follows Henry from town to town. Increasing numbers of people want to know where their vote is best placed to keep out the “lunatic” left, and Henry is more than happy to provide his guidance. Just don’t try to suggest his Act Party is attempting something of a strategy itself. “Act would never game the system,” he says with a grin.

Truthfully, Henry doesn’t spend much time riding Big Pinky, the party’s massive magenta campaign machine (“I try to avoid anywhere with a carpeted roof”), but he has spent a great deal of time preaching the Act Party message, hitting the hustings as far south as Bluff and as far north as Whangārei. Thirty shows in and Henry still packs out venues to spread the party’s still relatively fringe libertarian values.

You’ve got to hand it to Henry – even if you’re not convinced he’s a politician, you can’t deny he’s one hell of a showman. He’s also ambivalent about his natural role as the Act Party salesman. Asked whether he expected the party to use him as a mouthpiece, he replies: “Why wouldn’t they?”

On the road today, the sales pitch is made across the Coromandel. Ahead of a public meeting in Whitianga, Henry stops at the marina to check out upgrades and chat about the cost of boating (“it’s getting really hard to be rich,” he says). The manager has a pressing question she wants to put to Henry. Her sister has been trying to explain this strategic voting thing; all she really understands is that Act should get her party vote, but… 

“Aha!” Henry cuts her off. “You’ve got it!” Trust the “political bloody genius” that is your sister, Henry tells the marina manager – Act needs your party vote, but any old right-winger will be fine for the electorate. The conversation isn’t complete without the pair taking a photo together, and the manager’s insistence that Henry take the sister out on a boat the next time he’s in town. “Is she pretty?” he replies.

An hour later, there are 275 locals waiting in an aircraft hangar-cum-venue in Whitianga waiting to hear from their favourite rabble-rouser. Some guesswork needs to be made every time Henry hits a new town: which Act Party line will resonate the most with the locals? It’s obvious from those earlier conversations with farmers that the “cutting red tape” line would’ve landed well in rural Waikato. But it’s “one law for all” that Henry reckons will go down a treat.

This is when Henry transitions from charming man on the bus to the star salesman. The “bilious twats” of the left get a verbal bollocking for their sins in government spending, as does the local council. There’re looks of admiration, appreciative mutters and plenty of applause amongst the grey-haired goers: Henry appeals because he’s “common sense”, he “says it like it is”.

When it comes to question time, the beast that is the strategic vote rears its head again. Henry all but tells her not to bother giving Act her electorate vote when the party vote is more valuable. It’s a good thing the party’s Coromandel candidate hasn’t shown face.

In transit, Big Pinky falls between polite silences and raucous laughter, always spurred on by Henry. He admits to hating small talk, but Henry is pretty damn good at it. Idle chatter is taken up with questions about hobbies, informing this reporter that yoga doesn’t count.

It’s 5.30pm by the time Big Pinky rolls into Thames. “I’m ready for this to be over,” Henry sighs through the soundcheck, before listing off a wine bottle order to his aide. He thinks of these town halls as something like a “show” – the performer in him comes out and everything else he might be takes a back seat. But then there’s the photos, and the personal stories, and all that extra time you never really account for until you’re in it. He reckons his social battery is constantly at risk of short-circuiting.

But then there’s a “save us, Paul”, from the crowd, and the performer powers on. The guts of this speech is all about the party vote, so Henry rattles off Act’s greatest hits this term. Medicines funding, bringing back three strikes, you get the idea – pro-mining messaging gets huge cheers, as does the personal freedom to forgo a vaccine.

There’s also plenty of laughter when Henry describes NZ First’s policies as “barking mad”. “Winston accuses the Greens of being communist … while at the same time saying, ‘we’re going to go out and buy a bank that’s not for sale,” Henry says. “The biggest problem with NZ First … is that some of their policies are great, but only on a Wednesday. You know what their policies are on a Thursday? I don’t!”

A woman in the crowd is picked out to ask a question. She seems much older than the MMP system itself, but still needs a bit of help understanding this strategic nonsense. “If we party vote Act,” she asks, “doesn’t that mean we’re not voting for National, and it’s going to be a vote for Labour?” She’s told that a party vote for National is “wasted” with the party likely to take more seats than its share of the party vote allows it. He’s more coy about what she should do in her electorate, and fair enough: Act’s local candidate is in the crowd.

Henry ends this meeting with the same anecdote he left Whitianga with, memories of his time as a foreign correspondent covering royal tours. He’s about to meet Queen Elizabeth II, but he’s just bitten into a swan-shaped pastry which has splattered pâté all over his hands. Cue the punchline: “For fuck’s sake, Your Majesty, I’ve got sticky fingers”. Cue the laughter. Cue the photos. Cue the aide desperately trying to hasten the long line of admirers along.

Then it’s back to the bus. Big Pinky makes it back to Parnell, 14 hours after first leaving the same parking spot. Everyone’s a bit buggered, and the three bottles of wine secured for the bus ride home only leaves the lightest wine-drunk buzz. “Party vote Act!” a staffer cries, hurrying Henry along to his ride home, where his wife has a cold meal waiting for him in the fridge. “Write that in!”