New Zealand Election 2017

[parochial boy]

Regarding Maori seats, iirc, Maori voters can choose to vote either in the Maori or the "normal" seat - is there any data on how many choose either? and what sorts of people choose which?

I assume that people voting in Maori electorates tend to be more traditionalist/more likely to be Maori speakers?

Also, correct me if I am wrong - but I've always thought of the Maori party as being fairly conservative on many issues, coalition government with the Nats and all, but allying with Mana seems to indicate otherwise?

[parochial boy]

The New Zealand Electoral Commission gives a brief history of the Maori seats and explains how the system works.

http://www.elections.org.nz/voting-system/maori-representation

To expand on this, based upon books I have read about New Zealand history.

In the 19th century New Zealand started out with a single voters roll, which any British subject who met a landowning qualification could qualify for. In theory the Maori could qualify but in practice few did because the Maori tradition of communal land ownership was incosistent with European ideas about how land could be owned by individuals.

The Maori became discontented over the amount of land settlers had taken over. The Europeans did not realise how discontented until the King Country War broke out. This was a big enough threat to the colony that Imperial troops had to be sent from as far away as India to reinforce the colonial militia.

As an emergency measure, so that the Maori could express their grievances by participating in politics and not have to resort to war, it was decided to create four Maori seats in the New Zealand legislature. This was originally intended to be a temporary measure, but the Maori liked the system and it was made permanent.

The Maori seats elected Maori members to a small legislature, so they could exercise significant political power. This distinguishes the New Zealand practice from that in South Africa, where all the members of legislatures had to be of European descent both before and after communal representatives were introduced into the House of Assembly.

The preamble to the Maori Representation Bill 1867 states:-

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http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_bill/mrb1867431247/

Seems like this matches my understanding.

One question I do have, though, is how they determine who is eligible to be registered on the Maori rolls. It sounds like anyone who says they are of Maori descent can register on the Maori rolls such that theoretically someone with no Maori descent could claim Maori descent on the Census and then register on the Maori rolls. Does anyone know if there is any oversight/regulation on who can claim to be of Maori descent?

If I read it right, it seems like you would indicate that you are maori when you register. I seem to remember that quite a few self-identified maori basically look white, and  I have no idea how and if they check someone's credentials

By the looks of it, about 55% of maori register in maori electorates.

[parochial boy]

Speaking of the Conservatives, is the fact that Labour won the Napier electorate in 2014 pureky down to how well the Conservatives did in that constituency? Any reason they did? it seems to be a personal vote based on the level of ticket splitting - was Garth McVicar that noteworthy?

[parochial boy]

I'm on board with Jacindamania.

I'm still waiting for Billmentum

What did the Nats do to deserve this clobbering with young people? There isn't a Brexit situation in NZ and Bill English hasn't beem campaigning on social conservatism right? Is it because of rising tuition fees and lack of affordable housing for young people (or other economic issues)?

The youth vote in the UK was about far, far more than Brexit and Tory culture wars

[parochial boy]

I'm on board with Jacindamania.

I'm still waiting for Billmentum

What did the Nats do to deserve this clobbering with young people? There isn't a Brexit situation in NZ and Bill English hasn't beem campaigning on social conservatism right? Is it because of rising tuition fees and lack of affordable housing for young people (or other economic issues)?

The youth vote in the UK was about far, far more than Brexit and Tory culture wars

I guess austerity also played a role, but May did much worse than Cameron with young voters. If it was about austerity or other economic issues the Tories should have imploded with young voters in 2015, and they still got 32% of the 18-29 vote. Maybe Corbyn energized young voters more than Ed did, but I think Brexit and culture wars were very big reasons for the Tory implosion with young voters.

We probably shouldn't sidetrack the thread - but there was a huge economic side to it; house prices and tuition fees being the most obvious factors, but also little things like job precarity, low wages, abolishing housing benefit for the under 25s at the same time as year-on-year real increases to pensions.

I mean, remember how little Corbyn/Labour even talked about Brexit during the referendum.

Look at this YouGov poll from August for example. The 18-24 group are far less likely to identify Brexit as the most important issue than older voters, and more likely to identify Education or housing. Obviously, comopulsory warning about cross tabs, but pretty much all polling is giving a similar picture.

[parochial boy]

Wait, is this supposed to be a bad thing?

I think trotting out the "communists" trope is a tacit admission things aren't going away - both Les Républicains in France and the Tories in Britain pulle out similar lines when it was clear things were going badly wrong.

Agreed we shouldn't derail this although I think if this pans out there seems to be a trend where millennials at least in the English speaking world are trending heavily towards progressive parties.  Whether it be Justin Trudeau in Canada, Bernie Sanders in the US, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, and now Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand there is a trend.  Each had their own unique reasons off course, but interesting trend nonetheless.  Now outside of the English speaking world you don't see this too much as I believe Merkel is still ahead amongst millennials although in France in the first round Melenchon won amongst millennials but Le Pen did just as well as amongst millennials as older voters although Fillon skewed heavily towards seniors.  I think in the Nordic Countries parties on the right do fairly well amongst millennials but could be wrong, although in the Netherlands Green Left despite coming in fifth I believe came in first amongst millennials.  So it is still interesting to see the trends and do cross country comparisons.

This would be an interesting conversation to have (be careful about that word "trend" though), but probably best done in another topic

[parochial boy]

Greens - 80%
TOP - 77%
Maori party - 69%
Mana - 69%
Legalise Cannabis - 68%
Labour - 66%
NZ First - 58%
United Future - 55%
National - 53%
Conservative - 39%
ACT - 37%

I thought TOP were a broadly centrist party? A bit surprised about that

[parochial boy]

Is Northland actually Winston Peter's best shot as a seat? My impression that NZ First's heartland was always Tauranga/Bay of Plenty thanks to the combination of wealthy retirees + Peter's friendly Maori. Winning Northland in a by election is all well and good, but as Mark Reckless would testify, a protest vote in a by election is a very different thing to the actual general election.

[parochial boy]

Any chance the polls are doing what they did in the UK, and adjusting their weightings to the point of being irrelevant?

Seems to be the pattern when their is a sudden change followed by wild fluctuations