Hard News: Democracy Night
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Apparently turnout is not as bad as media was wittering on about on the night. They neglected to count special votes. Via Edge, Elections NZ says the turnout was about 74%: http://www.elections.org.nz/study/news/preliminary-results-for-the-2011-general-election-and-advance-voting-for-the-referendum-on-the-voting-system.html
Not great, but not as bad as 65%.
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And from recent history, special votes alone were the lifeline of the Greens in 1999. I vividly remember the headline, "Greens crash the party".
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DexterX, in reply to
I think Labour has to transform now. The union movement doesn't justify its constitutional status in the party at the moment. It's just wrong that Darien Fenton is safe and Carmel Sepuloni is gone. And that Labour's only new list MP is Andrew Little, who ran a useless campaign in New Plymouth.
The union movement in Labour has to focus more on who they represent "workers" first and then look to influence policy from that perspective. The Unions/CTU did dampen down workers aspirations for political expediency, which was essentially what I consider the last 9 years of Labour produced – WFF and all that jazz.
For Labour the penny still hasn't dropped - they haven't noticed they just weren’t organised well enough to create a “win”. Labour had a strategy they didn’t stick to it.
What really hurt Labour was:
1) The response to: “Show me the Money?” A quick witted on the night – “We’ll be getting it from the same place you will, borrowing it off shore till things improve ” would have been substantially better than floundering for two days to produce figures.
2) Labour saying they were going to take a broad focus and not focus on the personality cult of John Key – The Labour front bench should have stepped up and drawn attention to National Front bench bunkering down and disappearing.
3) The low voter turn out – Labour likely didn’t get their people out so one has to look at the party machine and the president.
4) The Cup of Tea Saga stymied debate and shifted the focus away from the economy.Labour undermined their offensive game and faltered on defence.
Looking at the principle issue Asset sales – the vote is 62 to the Right and 59 to the Left – there were only two seats in it which would have enabled Labour to have succeeded in stopping Asset Sales whether the result was a National or Labour coalition govt.
Watching the TV3 coverage on the night the women outside Keys home was like a schoolgirl with a crush, and the focus on what food was being served and other matters infantile were cringe worthy.
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My highlights were: seeing Gil Hanly taking her wonderful photos, and moving around completely innocuously, as she does; hearing Phil Goff speak - he really is the loveliest man, and has his own sort of quiet charisma, and it upsets me that more people don't see it; being with my friend, who was graceful, and supportive of those disappointed and disillusioned around her; talking to a young woman of 24 who was so politically fired up - she was an inspiration. If National won, she told me, she would quit her job, and look at either upskilling or getting a job with the Unions that would further her desired career as a political journalist or whatever it took to get the Labour Party into power again. I told her she better start, already. My lowlights were the media scrum who took up all the space all night, mostly to see Phil Goff at the end of the night; watching the election results online and realising very early on that, once again, NZers had been duped, and knowing that we are going to be in for a very, very hard 3 years. The most interesting part of the night was overhearing some people in the know, predicting that Key wouldn't stick around for the next election. What think the prols?
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Spent the night catching up with friends at dinner at my place. Incredibly the TV only only went on at 11.
So it takes an earthquake to change a staunch labour electorate. The Nats should pray for a few more in the next three years.
Winston did not have a heartbeat two weeks ago,.....Nek Minut.....A cup of tea and a leaked "His followers are going to die off anyway".......and Nek Minut 2 ....the defibrilator is fired up and.......back from the dead. Why oh why didn't someone not grab the stake????
You silly silly 6.8% people....Nek three years....
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Double posted.....
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
an interesting election, where are we at?
Um, about three years down the track from Rodney Hide's triumphal procession draped in the freshly flayed pelt of Winston?
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
So it takes an earthquake to change a staunch labour electorate. The Nats should pray for a few more in the next three years.
Bad taste, Ross. Very bad taste.
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Steve Parks, in reply to
the National party got a record majority
They got 48%.
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JacksonP, in reply to
Winston did not have a heartbeat two weeks ago,…..Nek Minut…..
Posted without further comment.
<RB did ask for photos, innit?>
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
So it takes an earthquake to change a staunch labour electorate. The Nats should pray for a few more in the next three years.
Er - which electorate would that be? Christchurch Central was a marginal seat in 2008, with a margin of 935. Doesn't take an earthquake to swing that by any stretch of the imagination.
The most interesting part of the night was overhearing some people in the know, predicting that Key wouldn’t stick around for the next election. What think the prols?
High. He's got his shiny PM certificate, he's won re-election, time to move on out before the asset sales start and the real anger sets in.
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Tim Hannah, in reply to
The Wgtn Central party vote (provisional) still went to the Nats
I see National taking the party vote by 40% to 50% Labour/Green. Which is who they were running against, according to me.
But yeah, on an FPP party vote they would've won.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
They got 48%.
Biggest share of the party vote anyone received in an MMP election. Which is not a "record majority" - you'd have to climb into the wayback machine and nerd-fu FPP election results to find that. I can't really be arsed.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
hearing Phil Goff speak - he really is the loveliest man, and has his own sort of quiet charisma, and it upsets me that more people don't see it;
Jackie, you sound spookily like my late Mum talking about Bill Rowling. I'm sure you're both right.
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Ross Mason, in reply to
Probably. But maybe if you accept it as a "post election hangover first response". I hope Craig, you know I wouldn't mean it.
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Russell, I know what your saying about the union influence but I don't agree with you. The balance between progressive and union interests is a constant tension but it's essential to the party's character. I do think that some of the candidate selection has been questionable though. Incidentally, in Rimutaka, Chris Hipkins beat the union backed candidate to succeed Paul Swain in '08 and now has a healthy majority.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
It's funny. I've always liked him as a person, as my electorate MP, as Helen's successor. And I always thought he just needed time for people to get used to his style as a leader. I've bumped into him in the supermarket a couple of times, and signalled my support for him. But last night, hearing him talking, seeing the hubbub around him, I was so admiring of him. I think he hasn't been the best Leader of the Opposition for the last 3 years, and I live in hope that he will fire up his troops sufficiently this time. If he doesn't, it would be a tragedy. Not just for him, but for all those marvellous young people who were too low on the list to make it into parliament.
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Only woke to the results this morning after deciding to watch a Japanese movie with friends last night. It was a sense of the inevitable, after spending most of Saturday waiting in vain for requests to drive folk to the polling booth. So,we have a nobody MP (David Bennett) again instead of a dynamic young woman like Sehei Orgard. But she is not giving up.
The best thing, though, was walking down to the polling booth at the local school with my daughter Catherine Rose, who was voting for the first time. -
Jackie Clark, in reply to
Hurrah for Catherine Rose!
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Hey Jacki, I share your views re Phil. He’s made mistakes but he’s led the party in really difficult circumstances. If there was a better leader over the last three years, they’d have rolled him. I also get the sense that his actions in the next few days will also be about helping the party make sense of last night and reorganizing accordingly.
Geoff, I saw only a little of Orgard but she comes across as a real talent, I hope she does stick around.
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Steven Whiting, in reply to
And how beautifully expensive his house was, even compared to how gorgeously expensive his neighbors' houses were! Fangirl for plutocracy.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Probably. But maybe if you accept it as a “post election hangover first response”. I hope Craig, you know I wouldn’t mean it.
I'll write it down to a case of 24-hour PEST (Post-Election Stress Trauma), because you're infinitely more classy. I prescribe a nice mug of sweet milky tea and a mega-dose of buttery jam-loaded toast. :)
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Bugger. If only I had read your post. THAT breakfast would have beaten my two mushy Weetbix anyday!!
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Danyl has a reasonable-looking analysis here.
In other media there’s analysis of the respective effectiveness of the various campaigns, but how much of a decision to vote is based on diffuse, slowly-established impressions? Campaigns and their events, I think tend to trigger or enable decisions, not directly determine them.
For example:
If National is so publicly committed to asset sales and there is such overwhelming opposition, then logically, they should have lost badly. On the other hand, National has had a strong brand, a popular leader who’s been kept away from arguments and moreover, his whole party and the parasite parties have more or less consistently been unified in their support of him.
Labour on the other hand, for two and a half years was complacent, meandering between various me-toos and Phil Goff underwent more costume changes than Lady Gaga, but they managed to be both more absurd and deeply, deeply boring at once. The front benches are despised, smug and indolent. I’ve compared them to the late Soviet Politburo, but I could compare them to the deposed Bourbons as well. They need to start promoting their backbenchers and unifying them into a team NOW, but the incumbents sitting like soggy Christmas Puddings in front of them will have forgotten nothing and learned nothing.
The Greens throughout have been stable, not scary, and Meteria Turei in particular has been in public approachable, confident and quick-witted without being snarky.
Winston First’s percentage points didn’t just come out of nowhere, they came out of long memories of Peters’ charm and aggro (as perceived by his followers). They’re over their breakup, now they’ve kissed and made up and everything’s rosy again.
Well, the counting of the specials is going to be interesting…
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But before I move on and out into this beautiful sunny Sunday. Congratulations to the National Party. You fought well. You discovered the right buttons. You had the best teflon coated leader ever, You found the weakspots and carressed your fingers and much salt well into the sores.
I am sure we all are looking forward to three years of stable government.
And even though my vote got nowhere near them, I have to confess that these next three years may be interesting times in the science and technology area. The Advanced Techology Institute of New Zealand (preliminary mouth full name) that IRL is likely to be morphed into will influence future work life considerably.
But Winston.......Winston.....Winston.......Jesus Wept!
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