Gordon Copeland explains Future NZ strife with Destiny

see www.futurenz.org.nz.

Greetings once again from Parliament.
I have decided to devote the Chronicle, on this occasion, to the well intentioned but ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to give birth to a single political party, based on Judeo-Christian, values in preparation for the 2008 elections. 

This process began, for me, back in June when I was invited to a meeting convened by church leaders in Auckland. That meeting was also attended by Brian Tamaki and Richard Lewis of the Destiny Party and Taito Phillip Field of the fledging Pacific Party. 

At that meeting Brian Tamaki offered, in the interest of creating a unified political party, to do two things. Firstly to deregister the Destiny Party. Secondly to make a public statement to the effect that he was bringing to an end his involvement in party politics in order to concentrate on his work as the leader of the Destiny Church. 

My participation in subsequent meetings rested upon Brian Tamaki carrying through on those two undertakings. 

In the weeks that followed, the initial, somewhat informal, group of church leaders was broadened out by adding people from a fairly wide variety of Christian churches and denominations to become the National Advisory Council. 

During July the NAC, in response to a request from Brian Tamaki, agreed that the new political party envisaged would be co-lead by Richard Lewis and myself. However the form and shape of the new party and the timing of its public announcement was still under discussion.

I wanted to see the new party launched, with a new name, with a board, with Larry Baldock as President and myself as Leader and then, some months later, to bring Richard on as a co-leader. This arrangement had the support of the Future New Zealand leadership group with the proviso that it "must be managed very carefully". 

As agreed with the NAC, the two undertakings given by Brian Tamaki at the first meeting I  attended (as outlined above) were to be announced at the Destiny press conference during September. Careful planning went into that press conference including scripted answers to possible questions and my comments by way of response to the inevitable media interest in the matter. That was all that was agreed to. I also made it clear to Richard Lewis that he was to advise me immediately of any variation to that agreed position so that I could modify my response to the media accordingly. He agreed to do that but did not do so; hence his subsequent apology.

Accordingly I was staggered, whilst watching the Destiny press conference on my Parliamentary computer, to hear Brian Tamaki move completely away from that pre-planned and scripted position. He did announce Destiny' deregistration but reneged on his second undertaking to end his involvement in party politics. Instead he did not rule out being a candidate for the new party, signalled his continuing involvement through the NAC, and gave the impression that the NAC would somehow be running the new party! He then went on to announce that Richard Lewis would be a co-leader of the new party without any authorisation to do so from the NAC and in the knowledge that this contradicted Future New Zealand's express wishes in the matter. 

In the 24 hours following the press conference many Future New Zealand party members contacted me to say that they were not prepared to enter into a new vehicle co-led by Richard Lewis. Their overwhelming negative reaction then made it imperative for me to publicly rule out that possibility. 

At a personal level I have been greatly encouraged at the overwhelming, sympathetic, and understanding support I have received from people all over the country. They seem to have quickly grasped the extent to which I had been "ambushed" and have affirmed their strong ongoing support for Future New Zealand.

With all good wishes,
Gordon Copeland
Independent Member of Parliament