New Zealand Election 2017

[Pericles]

I fear it will be National and Peters like in 1996.

[Pericles]

Yes, but I said Auckland Central was the only National held one. Given the polls, I wouldn't expect much Labour held electorates to be in danger of flipping.

Hutt South could flip. Long-serving MP Trevor Mallard has retired and the National candidate Chris Bishop is pretty popular and effective(deservedly so IMO). I'm not sure if he can overcome Jacindamania but I wouldn't rule it out.

[Pericles]

Yes, but I said Auckland Central was the only National held one. Given the polls, I wouldn't expect much Labour held electorates to be in danger of flipping.

Hutt South could flip. Long-serving MP Trevor Mallard has retired and the National candidate Chris Bishop is pretty popular and effective(deservedly so IMO). I'm not sure if he can overcome Jacindamania but I wouldn't rule it out.

Sad that Mallard is leaving. A few years back, he proposed resurrecting the moa, an extinct flightless bird related to the kiwi.

Didn't go down well for him.

[Pericles]

Who won the second debate in your opinion? 

[Pericles]

It's disappointing how cynical the National Party has revealed itself to be, that they see one poll showing Labour in the lead and decide to mislead the public and use dirty tricks, in a desperate ploy to muddy the waters and deceive the electorate. I hope it backfires, as it deservedly should.

[Pericles]

A meme has been circulating that Joyce failed 8 economics papers at uni. It turns out he quit most and only actually failed one. The one he did fail though was 'Labour Economics.'

[Pericles]

The Stuff Leader's debate didn't seem to go well for English. The best he could do on Jacinda was calling her 'stardust'.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/96581255/live-english-ardern-face-off-in-stuff-leaders-debate

[Pericles]

The 'budget hole' is National's 'alternative facts', trying to deceive and mislead the voters of New Zealand. However it appears they are smart enough not to fall for it.

[Pericles]

I think it's bullsh**t how Gareth can't get into the debates with 2%, but yet United Future can, and their numbers are so small most pollsters don't include them anymore.

The rules are that parties have to poll at 3% or more to get in, or have a seat in parliament. As United Future have a seat they get to be in the debates. It allows incumbents to get a fair hearing, but could also unfairly entrench incumbent politicians.

[Pericles]

In 1993 National won a 1-seat majority, which they'd have lost if a National MP became the Speaker. So they put up Labour MP Peter Tapsell as Speaker, enabling them to survive the 3 years.

[Pericles]

In 1993 National won a 1-seat majority, which they'd have lost if a National MP became the Speaker. So they put up Labour MP Peter Tapsell as Speaker, enabling them to survive the 3 years.

Surprised Labour went along with it.  Here in BC, the BC Liberals got 43 seats out of 87 so one shy of a majority while NDP 41 seats and the Greens 3 seats.  The Greens decided to back the NDP thus a 44-43 split however one BC Liberal decided to run for speaker giving them an advantage and the BC Liberals were so outraged they booted him from caucus so if politics is as polarizing as here, I would think if an opposition party did this there would be a lot of anger.  Off course if ACT or United Future win a seat, maybe they could that would seem like a reasonable way to avoid the impasse.

Only Tapsell went along with it. They offered the Speakers hip first to several other Labour MPs who refused, including David Lange . Tapsell was elected Speaker unopposed though, despite an attempt by Winston Peters to stop him.

[Pericles]

Tbh it was pretty obvious if you follow NZ politics that Ardern would give Labour a significant boost, compared to Andrew Little. The question now is whether that's enough for Labour to go from 24% less than 2 months ago to actually winning the election.

[Pericles]

Jacinda Ardern's grandmother has died.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/09/jacinda-ardern-s-grandmother-dies.html

[Pericles]

My two possible election predictions.
2017 NZ election
Jacinda Ardern-Labour: 53+21 42.71%
Bill English-National: 50-9 40.59%
Winston Peters(lost electorate)-NZ First: 7-5 5.86%
James Shaw-Green: 7-7 5.76%
Te Ururoa Flavell/Marama Fox(lost seat)-Maori: 2_ 1.35%
David Seymour-ACT: 1_ 0.49%
Damian Light-United Future: 0-1 0.10%
120 seats
61 for majority

National cannot form a government. Labour forms a coalition with the Greens and confidence and supply from the Maori Party. Winston Peters is not the kingmaker.

2017 NZ election
Bill English-National: 56-3 43.36%
Jacinda Ardern-Labour: 53+21 41.19%
Winston Peters(lost electorate)-NZ First: 8-4 6.03%
Te Ururoa Flavell/Marama Fox(lost seat)-Maori: 2_ 1.42%
David Seymour-ACT: 1_ 0.48%
James Shaw(lost seat)-Green: 0-14 4.78%
Damian Light-United Future: 0-1 0.09%
120 seats
61 for majority

Labour gets the same MPs in both scenarios but National gets more MPs. Winston Peters is the kingmaker. A National-NZ First coalition is formed.

[Pericles]

The final poll of the election. After this chaotic and unpredictable campaign, it has perhaps the most predictable outcome-National in the lead but Winston Peters decides.



The Stuff Poll of Polls for the entirety of its existence, from mid-2008 to present. Notice the recent Labour surge.


I graphed the Colmar Brunton and Newshub/Reid Research polling for this election, and added trendlines for the National Party lead. The straight line is the 5% threshold.

[Pericles]

It's because Jacinda made a big mistake in her 'captain's call' on tax in leaving open changes to the tax code before the 2020 election and then being forced to make a U-turn, as well as National's attacks on Labour, some of which were less than honest. That meant Labour blew their opportunity(unless they still get in with Winston).

[Pericles]

The special votes will be counted by October 7. Winston will make his decision on October 12.

[Pericles]

If Winston goes with Labour, will it spur renewed anti-MMP sentiment and calls for reform on the political right in NZ?

There are already editorials lamenting MMP in the media. It will be a bit of a shock to the system as under MMP the party with the most party votes has always formed the government, despite it being entirely possible and even likely that the 'losers' would get to govern. However I think it will just be  a fit of pique at having lost power and not a lasting change in public opinion.

[Pericles]

If Winston goes with Labour, will it spur renewed anti-MMP sentiment and calls for reform on the political right in NZ?

It will from the peple who don't have half a brain on the right, that's for sure.

But surely Winston's supporters would be happy with whichever party he chooses to back?

Plenty of National Party supporting commentators are already attacking MMP.

[Pericles]

Why don't people get that with MMP, there are no winners or losers until a government is formed.

There's still a lingering FPP mindset, and given that there hasn't been a situation where the biggest party lost, the automatic assumption is that the biggest party wins. Hopefully that is disproven this election.

[Pericles]

The first formal coalition negotiations for government formation were held today. The reason the negotiations have been delayed is that Winston Peters won't negotiate until all the special votes are counted on October 7, and says he will reach a decision on October 12. On that note, Winston peters also said that the special votes may take even longer to count, so I'm sincerely hoping the process isn't drawn out anymore. Bill English made a good point when he said that 5 days would be a very tight timetable to negotiate a coalition agreement, but Winston Peters and Jacinda Ardern did not agree.
The meetings were short, with Winston meeting with National's team first and then Labour's. Winston stated before the meetings that the parties "wouldn't want somebody's past behaviour and obnoxiousness to be a part of the problem". National's negotiating team included Finance Minister Steven Joyce-who Winston is reported to hate, while Labour brought former Deputy PM Michael Cullen onto their negotiating team, Cullen having worked with Winston in government from 2005-2008.
It turns out the negotiations were only about protocol for the coming negotiations, and no work was done on actually negotiating a coalition agreement. Winston demanded that the negotiations be confidential, saying that otherwise "we may as well hire the Westpac Stadium* and turn on the lights and turn on the loudspeakers and just go for it. Now, we are not going to have that sort of circus."
Afterwards Peters said he felt as if he were "between the Devil and the deep blue sea", not talking about the parties(despite blue being the National Party's colour), but saying "we just can't win - you can't win with the public, you can't win with the media, you can't win with the commentariat. You can't win with people who believe it is all about First Past the Post, even though it is an MMP environment. And they just bang on day in, day out." Despite that political news, little of substance was actually done and until October 12-and hopefully not later-I honestly don't know what will happen.

[Pericles]

National's negotiating team included Finance Minister Steven Joyce-who Winston is reported to hate, while Labour brought former Deputy PM Michael Cullen onto their negotiating team, Cullen having worked with Winston in government from 2005-2008.

Is National even trying?

I'm not sure. They could still easily end up governing for the next 3 years. However if Winston chooses to go with Labour I think that Bill English and the National Party would have felt too entitled to govern and treated Winston going with them as inevitable.

[Pericles]

These results are brilliant and mean a Labour government is a  real possibility.

[Pericles]

National's party vote fell by a lot to 44.4%. This is their worst performance since 2005, and Bill English did worse than John Key ever did.

[Pericles]

There seemed to have been a surge of late youth enrollements and youth enrolling and voting on the same day so a mild youthquake could explain why the effect was bigger than expected.