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Leader's LetterMarch 2004
President’s ReportWELL WHAT A difference the polls make! The turnaround in Labour’s policies and future agenda is breathtaking in its scope and audacity. But that is their problem - not ours! Our job as a party is to put more people into Parliament at the next election in 2005. Then, more the election after that because everything is based on numbers. The only thing that we can control is what we do. The rest is outside our control. As the party organisation we must put aside the questions of coalitions and will someone be a minister or will they not? Our task is to ensure that we have the firepower on the ground to get people elected. What happens after that is another story. By the end of this year we must have the money and the members to fight an election at any time thereafter. To help the leader with the wide number of tasks involved, he has recently appointed the Hon Roger McClay as an advisor to his office. He is keen to meet as many of you as possible and I will be introducing him in the near future. I am excited by this appointment and look forward to his assistance greatly. As this is but one of the tasks he will be carrying out, Roger is going to be a very busy man indeed. During a two day board meeting in Wellington on the 21-22 February several important decisions were made following a re-examination of previous strategies. It was reaffirmed that we would not stand candidates in the Maori seats at the 2005 election. Our results in 2002 saw an increased vote for New Zealand First and have encouraged us to continue with this strategy. Our 2005 election will again be one where a presidential style centralised format is used. Again, this strategy led to a result in 2002 which increased our support, on average 2.5 times over the previous election, even in those electorates where we did not stand a candidate. So we are confi dent that 2005 will be even better. A decision was made to hold our 2004 convention in Taupo in late October. This needs to be confirmed for price and dates. Football fixtures and other distractions have to be avoided at all costs. Doug Woolerton MP
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