A Kiwi conservative’s message for Dave

Allister Heath talks to Don Brash, leader of New Zealand’s National party, and finds him much more robust than Cameron on tax cuts, welfare and the environment

If you were to cross Clark Kent with Josiah Bartlet of The West Wing, you would end up with somebody very much like Don Brash, leader of New Zealand’s conservative National party.

A mild-mannered, grey and softly spoken 66-year-old, he is endearingly wonkish; thanks to eye surgery, he no longer wears thick glasses but his hobby remains growing kiwi fruit on his orchards. But first impressions can be deceptive and there is another, steely side to Dr Brash: like Martin Sheen’s character, he is a highly respected economist, probably the best to run a major political party anywhere; and he displayed his secret super-strength at last year’s election, doubling his party’s share of the vote from 20.9 to 39.1 per cent.

While this astonishing performance wasn’t quite enough — he lost by two seats — the resurgence of Dr Brash’s conservatives is a story that David Cameron ought to study closely, even though the two leaders’ styles are very different. When I asked Dr Brash last week what his one overriding objective was, he answered that it was to make New Zealand wealthy again, a bread-and-butter goal radically different from Mr Cameron’s focus on softer quality-of-life issues.

‘We’ve seen a major exodus of New Zealanders across the Tasman,’ Dr Brash told me. ‘Thirty years ago, per capita income in New Zealand was identical to that of Australia. Today, the per capita income in Australia is 30–33 per cent higher and the gap is increasing. If New Zealand is to remain a viable economy and society, we have to begin reducing that gap or else we will lose all the people on which a modern economy depends.