OPINION: Rogue poll has become something of a buzzword in the last few weeks as National MPs have come to realise that the low 30s is no longer rogue. But was ACT polling at 5 per cent the most roguish element in the latest poll? Im not so sure, given that more than one recent poll had them around 3 per cent. There are surely many dismayed National voters looking for a right-wing alternative at present.

Many National voters are classic liberals. As they see liberal MPs like Amy Adams and Nikki Kaye jump off the sinking National ship and the large religious, conservative faction gain ascendancy present leader excepted they might be thinking ACT is a better fit.

But isnt ACT that tiny party full of gun nuts and obsessed with fringe issues like three strikes and charter schools? Well, yes, but it hasnt always been that way.

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Richard Prebble led ACT to early electoral success, before stepping down in 2004.

In their first election, 1996, ACT gained a whopping 6 per cent of the vote. In the next two elections, it gained over 7 per cent, with nine MPs in 2002. Im seeing a trend here: when Labour is led by a popular leader, ACTs star starts to rise.

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Some of the earlier ACT MPs Derek Quigley, Stephen Franks, Heather Roy, Deborah Coddington, Patricia Schnauer and Ken Shirley spring to mind were intelligent professionals with political experience. Yes, they espoused what I would call heartless social policies, and supported neo-liberal economic policies which benefited the few not the many, but they were consistent and said what they believed.

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Don Brash, left, and Rodney Hide in 2011, when Brash took over the party leadership from Hide.

The late left-wing commentator Bruce Jesson used to look enviously at ACTs policy-focused operation. What New Zealand needs is an ACT of the Left, he wrote in the 1990s.

And although leader Richard Prebble had been a brawler in the past, he led his MPs well and was popular with them. But in 2003 ACT MP Donna Awatere Huata was charged with fraud. Then, for reasons that I believe have never been properly explained, Prebble stood down.

Rodney Perkbuster Hide became leader and ACT slumped to 1.5 per cent in 2005. As John Key fever swept the country, ACT gained 5 MPs in 2008, but ACT had changed. It turned to populist policies such as law and order. Thank ACT for the three strikes law which seems to have had little effect on crime and charter schools.

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When John Banks led the party, he found it hard to follow some of its liberal social policies.

But worse was to come. In 2010 MP David Garrett resigned after revelations he had fraudulently obtained a passport in the name of a dead infant. Perkbuster Hide got busted for taking perks, then Don Brash launched a coup and a divided caucus elected him by one vote.

Brash couldnt even get in on the list so John Banks become leader and even right-wing columnists wrote ACT obituaries. Banks and ACT swore by charter schools, but they were an imported irrelevancy. The present Government didnt abolish them, but made them obey the rules that every other school must abide by, and the issue has largely disappeared.

Watching anti-gay Banks having to follow his liberal party line and vote for civil unions was almost as hilarious at watching present leader David Seymour address the media against gun control while the rest of Parliament was voting on the issue. ACT was the party of the 1 per cent in more ways than one.

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Current leader David Seymour has plenty to smile about, according to the latest polls, which could see the party crossing the 5 per cent threshold.

Until last year, that is. Seymour successfully introduced the pro-euthanasia End of Life Choice Bill, which will become law if more than 50 per cent of voters support it in September. Seymour and his small team worked on this difficult issue across party lines for a successful outcome. This is not the David Seymour that venerates charter schools with little compelling evidence, has been a self-confessed lukewarmer on climate change, and provides train-wreck viewing on Dancing with the Stars.

So the question is, if the country elects more than one ACT MP in September, will they be 1996-style discerning classical liberals of ACT One, or the vulgar ACT Two populists from the class of 2008?

Two candidates in the current top six have an interest in firearms hardly the biggest issue facing the nation. Another is focused on disability issues, and one is a musician not your usual ACT candidates, given that charter schools enrolled few students with disabilities, and that ACT wanted to cut virtually all government arts funding not so long ago.

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Dave Armstrong: While many of us find such policies distasteful, ACT needs only 5 per cent of the country to like it to be relevant in the next Parliament.

If you look at its more recent statements, ACT would whack interest back on student loans, slash benefits to pre-Covid levels, push back Working for Families increases, scrap fees-free tertiary education, scrap government KiwiSaver contributions and eliminate research and development tax credits.

While our prime minister is treating those most affected by Covid with kid gloves, ACT Three, while hardly wearing jackboots, has at least donned the Doc Martens to give those at the bottom a decent jab.

While many of us find such policies distasteful, ACT needs only 5 per cent of the country to like it to be relevant in the next Parliament.

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Liberal or populist: Will all be revealed in ACT Three? - Stuff.co.nz