The howling outrage that Hone Harawira has managed to negotiate a powerful alliance with the Internet Party meaning for the first time in NZ Political history a left wing party will have more to spend on the election than the right is still reverberating around the Press Gallery.
The latest attack is from Andrea Vance which seems to have been inspired by Rodney Hide’s column. The outrage that MANA should show up their underestimation now claims Internet MANAs declaration that they will scrap the coat tailing provision is a new peak of absurdity.
What is absurd is that we have an MMP election being commentated on by a First Past the Post Press Gallery. Coat tailing is legal. Asking voters to vote tactically and strategically is legal. Just because a Left Party is playing to the rules and has a chance to have an impact on the result we get this constant condemnation narrative in the media.
Internet MANA agree coat tailing is a problem that should be solved by lowering the threshold, but to ignore using it while it is legal would be irresponsible to their supporters to use every advantage to maximise their representation. The bitter sanctimonious whining from the Press Gallery and the Right who are now suddenly the champions of democracy is a high horse too tall.
Even the Herald’s own notoriously right wing Herald Digi Poll today finds 39 per cent of those polled said the Internet-Mana arrangement was a legitimate use of MMP.
In terms of MANAs success, I doubt Kelvin Davis will win Te Tai Tokerau because of two words, Tāmaki Makaurau.
MANA have not yet announced their Tāmaki Makaurau candidate. If Kelvin can’t be made to be a team player, MANA can open Tāmaki Makaurau as a whole new battle front with a strong candidate like Willie Jackson. That would then bring into play for MANA Waiariki, Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Tai Tokerau.
The smart money will be on Kelvin gaining a high Party list position and for him to campaign for the Party vote the way Michael Wood is doing in Epsom because the last thing Labour need is an attack from their left flank.
A powerful alliance huh
1.4% in the latest poll and taking votes off the Green Party
So much for being a game changer as promoted oin this website.
pfffft – it’s the Herald Digi Poll, calm down champ.
I agree Martyn. Coat-tailing has been legal. Political manouverings before elections have been legal. Spending millions on campaigns has been legal.
But only when the Right does it.
When the Left does it, political hacks like Vance and Gower are only too happy to pontificate self-righteously that it is the work of the devil.
Well, I have news for those two mates of the National Party – grow up and smell the coffee. The only thing I’m seeing here is rank hypocrisy from media commentators and they make me sick. At least with politicians it’s done because they want to be re-elected. But with media pundits like Gower and Vance, it’s even worse hypocrisy.
I think Andrea Vance’s piece hinges on this.
The public stance, cleverly timed to hit the top-rating Sunday evening news, is hardly born out of conviction. It is instead a useful sop to those appalled at the alliance’s exploitation of the controversial MMP quirk.
Who are those who have been appalled by “the alliance’s exploitation of the controversial MMP quirk”?
A fairly predictable set of journalists and political opponents and a bunch of other people of high morals and consistent principle.
So this set of people, collectively “the appalled”, are held in such thrall by the IMP leadership that they thought, “Oops, we are culpa, we are exposed as opportunists and exploiters without principle. How can we make amends? Let us without conviction throw a useful sop to the appalled that they may think the better of us and not accuse us of breath-taking hypocrisy or being canny.”
Seems plausible and seems to have worked.
Martyn, you can’t just say its the Herald Digi Poll. All polls are showing much the same. Lets see what happens on Thursday with the Roy Morgan. The other interesting point in the Herald Poll is that most are happy with the coat tailing rule. Labour should think twice before removing it or they will find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion yet again.
Yes exactly, it seems far too great a coincidence that the Greens have dropped virtually the exact same percentage as the Internet/Mana party have gained.
Who really couldn’t have predicted this coming?
I also have to agree with The Real Matthew in that the left just exchanging votes amongst themselves is not going to materially affect the make up of the next Parliament in terms of the numbers.
The idea of the Internet party is it will bring new voters to the election, not just cannibalise the left. This scares the establishment.
On the polls, people can’t expect the announcement of a 3 million dollar deal to just, poof, make them rise 5%. Money must be spent, profile raised, their message broadcast and repeated. 3 months plenty of time if used wisely. And it should be, because Dotcom is already networked into the non-voting contstiuents the IP is aiming for.
Remember we totally overestimate how many people are interested enough in the election to have a clear opinion this far out from the election.
From the SST article on Colin Craig last week: out of 30 people they spoke to on Clyde Road, Browns Bay, 22 had never even heard of Colin Craig. 9 said they didn’t vote at all. 9 out of 30. Polls at this stage are very unreliable.
If Tory apologists think that they’re going to romp home on S20, that’s all good as far as I’m concerned. IP have improved Mana’s chances of taking at least one Maori seat, if not more. That’s bad news for National’s “Ngati Tory” bedmates.
The Greens were obviously never going to get anywhere close to takinga Maori seat, so no “dilution” there, just an increase.
As PB has already said, IMP will encourage a huge number of non-voters to vote this time round. These hidden voters are the ones who have felt no real connection with Labour, National (“same old, same old Neo-Libbers”) and even the Greens (“middle classers”). These are the forgotten, disillusioned folk who, if motivated, were always and are going to deliver victory to the left, once mobilised. Some how, I don’t think that they will even register on the poll results until the one and only day that matters.
That’s exactly why IMP scares the shit out of John Key and his entourage. We all need to work our nuts off encouraging our friends and family circles to vote. I can’t help thinking that there are quite a few Kiwis overseas who will also play a significant part on S20. Fortunately they are probably more dependent on social media for their news and are therefore getting a far less dumbed down view of NZ than if they were reading the Herald and enduring 7 Sharp!
I am overseas, we retired in Tonga, I find The Daily Blog to be very useful in keeping me up to speed with what is happening politically in NZ. Then there are friends sending me articles via email, and I read the Herald, so all round I think those who are interested can keep up with what’s happening.
And of course there is “The Keizer Report” the financial terrorist reporter, I like to keep up with him too.
Comments are closed.