Smart thinking

Photo credit: http://www.act.org.nz/rodney/images/uploads/side.jpg

On my walk to work at the University of Mainz, I pass two petrol (N.B. not "gas") stations. From my observations of the price-boards at Aral and Shell, the price of petrol has dropped by about 5 Euro cents over the last week, but the price per litre is still 1.40 EUR per litre - and only marginally lower for diesel. So if you think fuel prices are high in New Zealand, imagine paying $2.80 a litre. Much of the high price is made up of what Germans call Ökosteuern, or "eco taxes", with the aim of discouraging consumption of fossil fuels. Ironically, the price is set to rise in the next year because of a government directive to boost the proportion of costly bio-fuels blended into petrol sold at the pump.

While Germans pay more for their fuel than New Zealanders, I suspect on a purchasing-power parity (PPP) conversion basis the costs would work out pretty much the same. But drivers' reactions to the rising costs in the two countries are quite different. countries. In Germany, it's still the exception to see SUVs on city streets, and when you do see one, more often than not it's a trade vehicle, such as a courier. By comparison, on New Zealand roads, sales of four wheel drive vehicles have mushroomed in recent years. I recall looking around a carpark in central Christchurch a few months ago and finding that about half of the vehicles parked there were SUVs.

I can also report that there were an awful lot of hulking SUVs parked in the carpark at the Waipuna Lodge on the day of ACT's Annual Conference there on March 15. This mirrored results of a focus group projective exercise I conducted for my dissertation. Shown photos of various makes of vehicles and asked which one most closely corresponded with their view of ACT, participants overwhelmingly favoured the SUV and sports car, ignoring more ordinary sedan and people-mover models. One participant felt that the SUV was suitable because it “could run anyone over...sort of a bully's car”, while the sports car represented “arrogance” and “aiming for the highlife”. Wealth was clearly a trigger for these perceptions: one participant said that ACT was not interested in “the social side of politics, whereas Labour is about helping people, the lower people, they're [ACT] more about the rich people at the top and aiming for that sort of lifestyle, which is what you associate those cars with, money”.*

The exception to all of this is ACT leader Rodney Hide, who for several years has been driving a "Smart" car, seen above, emblazoned with a caricatured, pre-weight loss image of himself. I'm sure there are a few more Smart cars around on New Zealand streets, but the only one I remember seeing was Hide's vehicle. In Mainz, I've seen dozens of Smart cars weaving in and out of city traffic - and every time I see one I think of ACT!

I don't know whether Hide acquired his Smart car to try and combat the party's fabled "image problem" and tackle perceptions that the party was the domain of "Remuera tractor" drivers. But perhaps encouraging New Zealanders to cut down on fossil fuel use and save themselves money at the same time could become the basis of a new environmental policy for the party this election year. Encouraging voters to drive smaller cars - and, heaven forbid, use public transport - might not be one of the "bottom-line" policies ACT is planning, but at the very least it would turn heads and be in line with the trimmed-down image that Rodney Hide has presented of himself since the 2005 election. By bringing back Sir Roger Douglas to the party, ACT may have already dashed its chances of turning around its negative image in the eyes of voters. But it still may be possible to win over some more moderate voters by putting forward some "un-ACT-like" ideas.

Perhaps the environment policy could be launched by equipping other candidates (think: Heather Roy, Sir Roger Douglas et al.) with Smart cars to drive around the campaign trail. Smart cars could form the signature and perhaps even endearing image for ACT's election campaign, just as John Ansell's billboards became National's in 2005 and "Bob the Builder" turned into New Zealand First's mascot in 2002.

ACT already has just the right name for such a policy. It's called Smart Green.

*For more on this exercise, see pages 26 and 97 of the dissertation.