If the Left’s strategy of knocking National’s coalition partners out using MMP is successful, Key can’t form a majority and is forced to culling McCully in East Coast Bays for Colin Craig. National are terrified of requiring Craig as their internal polling is telling them much of their urban educated vote will just march off to the Greens if the Conservative Party is required to form a Government.
For that to occur, the opposition need to ensure Maori Party and ACT are both knocked out of Parliament this election, luckily for the opposition, the Maori Party and ACT have made it very easy to do.
ACT are a political zombie party still marching without being aware they are dead. The utterly underwhelming Epsom candidate, David Whatshisface, has no chance of matching John Banks’ 2000 majority name recognition and a combined effort by the Green and Labour voters will hand the electorate to Paul Goldsmith. Goodbye ACT, goodbye nutty far right free market fringe.
The Maori Party are in a worse position. Their pointless strategy of sitting at a table John Key has already privatised has given them nothing in terms of real policy direction. The rot of collapse set in once they expelled Hone from the party, their desire to represent those few Maori who have benefitted from colonialism and free market capitalism has compromised every single thing they have done since.
In terms of the Maori electorates…
Hauraki-Waikato – Nanaia Mahuta will win.
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti – I’m going to make a punt and say this electorate is open between Labour and MANA. MANA’s surprise second place in the by-election will be added to by extra resources of the Internet MANA alliance where as Labour’s candidate, Meka Whaitiri, won’t have the entire Labour Caucus in support.
Te Tai Hauāuru – Adrian Rurawhe has a good chance of beating Chris McKenzie if Labour can convince Green Party voters who wasted their vote on Jack McDonald that their vote could be crucial for changing the Government.
Te Tai Tonga – He’s done bugger all for it, but Rino Tirikatene will hold this for Labour.
Waiariki – Last election Anette Sykes cut Flavell’s majority by over 5000 votes with only 6 weeks of campaigning. She has spent the last 3 years building networks in that electorate, she will win this electorate for MANA.
Tāmaki Makaurau – While the ABCs attempts to derail any relationship with MANA remains, MANA will keep Tāmaki Makaurau open as a clear threat for an all out war in the Maori electorates. If Labour let Kelvin off his leash in Te Tai Tokerau, MANA will respond with a much stronger candidate in Tāmaki Makaurau that will swamp Labour’s 3rd choice in what was a fiasco selection process for Labour. If Labour and MANA can work things out, expect Tāmaki Makaurau to go to Labour. Green candidate Marama Davidson will make a significant impact for the Green Party vote in Auckland.
Te Tai Tokerau – Having seen the internal polling, Kelvin has as much chance of winning Te Tai Tokerau as John Key does. With a passionate campaign from Hone, Te Tai Tokerau will stay MANA.
If 2 of National’s 3 coalition partners are taken out, Key will be forced to hand East Coast Bays to Colin Craig by taking McCully out, that will have an immediate impact with urban national voters leaving for the Greens and the more right wing bigoty National vote will walk to the Conservatives. The response at that point would be for the Greens to stand their candidate down and allow it to be a straight contest between Colin Craig and Labour candidate Greg Milner-White…
If Labour needed a beige Christian champion to rally the fine beige Christian voters of East Coast Bays, they couldn’t have prayed for a better candidate than Greg Milner-White. Deeply committed to his Christian community, Milner-White represents a less Conservative Party book burning style of religion to the more urbane East Coast Bays broad church.
After being so tricked and manipulated by National who will pull out their candidate at the last minute, a deeply unchristian thing to do I might add, the fine people of East Coast Bays may decide to select a leader more worthy of their faith than a moon landing denial chemtrail fruit loop.
…McCully has so many enemies, it’s difficult trying to work out who is stabbing him in the back over the mishandling of the Malaysian diplomat case. A cocktail of personal sexist hubris mixed with enough MFAT staff with an axe to grind and a Prime Minister needing you to vacate your electorate seat mean the target on Muzza’s back is now enormous.
This election will be decided by how the opposition use MMP to eliminate National’s allies and who wins East Coast Bays.
I suspect very few urban liberals like myself would walk away from National because of a deal with Colin Craig.
Why? Because coalitions with dubious fringe operators become almost mandatory under MMP. The influence Craig will have on National is going to be very small given the strength of National’s support amongst the broader electorate. You can’t say the same thing for Labour, given how poorly Cunliffe and his party are currently polling.
Voters basically have two alternatives:
National government (that is about 95% National), propped up with an additional 5% of ACT, United and Conservative MP’s
or;
A Labour government (that is about about 50-60% Labour) propped up with an additional 40%-50% of Green, Mana, Dot Com party MP’s.
For a soft National voter, the answer is pretty easy. Stick with National centric government led by Key, over a highly unstable coalition reliant on Russel Norman, Minto, Harawira and Dot Com.
If Craig wins the electorate vote he gets to draw in list mps, regardless of the 5% party vote threshold. Under a confidence and supply arrangement, his guaranteed votes (in exchange for support to some of his pet causes) could actually result in a significant influence, not a minor one. Remember that it came down to Peter Dunne’s single vote to pass the asset sales. I wouldn’t call that a minor influence.
This kind of shenanigans where a party, especially a major one, withdraw a candidate, especially a sitting minister, is about as nasty as one could take MMP and THE main reason why coat tailing absolutely must go. It should not be that others should follow in an MP in a jacked up campaign in one small area should the rest of the country ignore them.
I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if your policies match what I want to see word for word, coat tailing is an out and out rort and we want it changed, we said so, and your stupid party ignored it.
The infighting among the right is something to behold. New players, weird philosophies, and decrepit, selfish baby-boomers everywhere.
“Labour can convince Green Party voters who wasted their vote on Jack McDonald that their vote could be crucial for changing the Government.”
The thing about the Green Party is that it doesn’t ask anyone to vote for its candidates. It’s catch cry this election as in past ones is “Party Vote Green”. It’s just that some people just prefer to vote for the Green Candidate as well and they may not even be Green Party members. The Green Party has to have candidates in electorates to campaign for the party vote. For better or possibly worse (can’t get much worse than a National/Conservative government) I can’t see the Greens not standing a candidate in East Coast Bays.
Is that why John Key has now less of a permanent grin than last year?
Reality kicking in I suppose.
Winston was fighting fit and delivered a brilliant speech yesterday in GIsborne as he released his brilliant new transport policy bid to save our failing rail system all over the country, and promising to reinstate the Napier Gisborne rail National dumped, may well win some votes only if this crooked right wing media circus ever comes clean and covers an honest election for a change. I include it here for some to see.
A $300 million cash swap from roads to railways is at the heart of New Zealand First’s transport policy for the election, including restoring the Gisborne-Napier line, and looking at extending the Wellington line to Levin and into Wairarapa.
Auckland would also be a priority, with electrification of the rail network south to Pukekohe, and supporting the construction of the City Rail Link, starting at the earliest appropriate time – but no later than 2016.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters announced the party’s election transport policy in Gisborne today, the centrepiece of which was a 10-year Railways of National Importance programme.
“Funding for the Railways of National Importance Programme will be fiscally neutral and will be met by diverting money from National’s Roads Of National Significance programme ? an initial allocation of $300 million will be made.”
Investment in rail would ease road congestion, he said.
“This will apply especially to heavy and bulk freight services, but also where passenger services can be redeveloped to attract sufficient demand over time.
“The National Government’s agenda is to let rail in New Zealand die. They are starving rail to death. Our transport policy will give rail a real and valued role in the total transport mix.”
He said the Gisborne-Napier railway line should never have been closed “on the flimsy pretext of a washout”.
“National was looking for an excuse to close down another bit of the rail network and jumped on the excuse that the washout provided. The Napier-Gisborne line will be back in business with New Zealand First.”
He said the existing railway line north of Christchurch could be used for an express commuter service to the North Canterbury town of Rangiora, which has had significant population growth since the earthquakes.
He called National’s roading policy “massively extravagant” and in need of a review.
A 2010 report found that overall every dollar spent on the Roads Of National Significance programme returned a benefit of $1.80.
He said public transport needed more support, and every major new urban roading project would be subject to a test to see if there was a better public transport option.
In aviation, New Zealand First favoured retaining the crown investment in Air New Zealand, and wanted to impose a pricing regime on airports to disable monopolies and ensure it “recovers no more than a fair rate of return”.
Nice summation. If the various parties of the left cannot sort through their petty differences, then in an election this close they really will have let down everyone who hopes for positive change.
Case in point: Labour would be better off focusing resources on winning Te Tai Hauāuru off the Maori Party (and thus growing the anti-government bloc overall) than on fighting a war between the left parties in Tāmaki Makaurau (or in Te Tai Tokerau). FWIW Marama Davidson will be an awesome MP, she should get in off the Green list but if she wins TM then all the better.
Add one more to knock out – United. Peter Dunne has now nailed his 95 theses to the church door, number one is that a vote for United is the same as a vote for National.
I used to like Peter Dunne back in the 80s when he was a Labour MP…now his social conservatism just appalls me.
ACT are a political zombie party still marching without being aware they are dead and to boot have an utterly, totally underwhelming Epsom candidate. Yet the electorate with the highest income in the land, with one of the highest levels of education as well will vote for the dill if John Key tells them to.
Over the next three years the country will shake their heads and consider that if the intelligent ones vote for someone like that we are in worse straits than anyone could imagine.
Hells Bells, I’d swear Colin Craig is channeling Norman Bates in that amusing but slightly disturbing photo of the man …………………. so very very intense 🙂 :0 🙂
My personal experience with Charter schools is very positive the students now there.I have ACT to thank for Charter Schools and those I know on the Maori role are grateful for the progress they have made under Sharples and his arrangement with National.
“My personal experience with Charter schools is very positive the students now there.”
that doesnt even make the slightest bit of sense – you were talking about education yes?
this election we will see more voters understanding how MMP works.
Charter schools are one last rip-off by the fraudster John Banks.
A final one fingered salute by the party’s who think public money should be for their private use ……………..
Private schools, private prisons, private power stations ….
Its almost ironic that it took a private prosecution to get that piece of muck out of parliament …….. 🙂
I am extremely sceptical that the National Party has decided to share its closely guarded internal polling with Martyn Bradbury.
The National Party didn’t share its closely guarded internal polling with me.
Oh. Sorry. I am just incredulous at the notion that National and Green Party votes are highly substitutionary.
Accordingly, I just assumed that because “National[‘s] … internal polling is telling them much of their urban educated vote will just march off to the Greens if the Conservative Party is required to form a Government” was such a matter-of-fact statement, it wouldn’t have been made without an empircal basis.
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