Who Will Dominate?

The meeting on May 31 was attended by only 70 people. The Chairman — Denis Tindall — was selected by Brunt who had also drawn up the agenda. The first item was the election of a spokesman/co-ordinator, the second the decision on the organisation of the region. At the beginning of the meeting Bartram handed the Chairman a motion proposing that the first two items be taken together, presumably because he wished to discuss Brunt's performance as acting co-ordinator in the light of the organisational wrangle and because he did not want Brunt's organisational proposals prematurely legitimised by Brunt's probable election as regional co-ordinator. The Chairman, however, ignored the motion and began to talk about the need for a regional co-ordinator. Brunt was elected unopposed. Brunt then proposed that a regional council be established comprising 23 people — 10 more than the figure he'd earlier cited as being the maximum compatible with efficiency. This council was to be the supreme governing authority for the Wellington Region, but its powers were undefined.

Some Values members claim that this executive will not be dominated by Brunt and his friends, pointing to the fact that a proportion of the members are selected by the branches of the Region. This argument is weakened by the consideration that most of the branches are some distance from Wellington (for example, the Palmerston North branch) and could not really be expected to send representatives to weekly, or even fortnightly meetings. Furthermore, to the extent that they do attend these branches will apparently rotate their representatives who will thus be prevented from developing the necessary continuity of knowledge to combat the machinations of a central bureacracy.

Bartram was again dissatisfied and wrote to Brunt, calling on him to resign and protesting the treatment his motion had received at the hands of Tindall. A meeting of six (see above) of the 23-member council unanimously rejected Bartram's letter, saying that to do otherwise would necessitate another general meeting what's leadership for if not to make decisions? Bartram was subsequently asked to deliver a letter arguing his case to the Deputy Co-ordinator, Martin Leqner (selected by Brunt and approved by the Regional meeting of May 31) by Monday, June 18. He was subsequently informed that a further meeting of the council to consider his letter would be held at the home of Dave West on Wednesday, June 20. West, however, had previously told Bartram that he had been invited to join the council but had refused. In the event, the meeting was held a day earlier than scheduled, Bartram being neither informed nor invited.

The situation was further complicated by the fact that Bartram wrote an article for the Dominion mildly critical of the direction the Party is taking. After publication he was contacted by Joan Beaufort, candidate for Bartram's electorate at the election, who said she had been contacted by a member of the regional council and told that the article was objectionable. She hadn't, at that point, read it. Bartram asked who had contacted her and she said "Martin". Bartram understood her to mean Martin Leqner. After she had read the article, however, Beaufort rang Bartram back, indicating that she thought the article praiseworthy. During this conversation she admitted that it was Brunt who had contacted her, not Leqner. If Beaufort was satisfied with the article, however, Brunt was not. According to one source he initially contemplated disenfranchising Bartram's branch, the Kapi — Mana branch, but contented himself, in the event, with going out to give the branch a "pep talk" at a meeting to which Bartram was again not invited.