Latest Roy Morgan Poll is out and it gives those wanting to see an end to John Key some hope…
During March support for National fell 2.5% to 46% – the lowest since September 2015, now only 4% ahead of a potential Labour/Greens alliance 42% (up 0.5%). If a New Zealand Election were held now the latest NZ Roy Morgan Poll shows NZ First 9% (up 3%) would hold the balance of power and be in a position to determine who would form the next New Zealand Government.
…I think what is happening is the malaise that is gripping the provinces is spilling voters from National to NZ First. This suggests that Winston’s dreams of being the 3rd largest political party may be achievable as the Greens continue to lose traction under Dr Invisible James Shaw.
The Greens have had a terrible start to the year. A recent change in their coms and strategy team may turn their fortunes around.
Labour are under a sustained media attack and it will require responses far faster than we saw when the racism nonsense broke to be able to keep these misdirections from leading the daily narrative.
National’s popularity is kept high due to the property prices going up. Middle class support stops the moment that bubble pops, the Opposition still has some way to go to beat National – but it’s far less pessimistic than the mainstream media or Matthew Hooton are braying.
To be blunt about the reality, I rather think that this is the result of ever more “dumbing down” of massive numbers of people. The internet is not making people smarter. It is new technology that has taken control of people’s lives, and so many no longer use it via a desktop or laptop computer, they use “services” via small smart phones, tablets and what else there is.
Click bait is the focus of the MSM, because that seems to be where the attention and attention seekers are going. Too many no longer read stuff, they no longer read complex, comprehensive and informative reports, they do not even learn to analyse, to comprehend complex matters, and do not even think laterally anymore.
I see it every day, people fixated at the tiny screens of their phones and at tablets in the bus, many use social media, and like on Facebook and Twitter only surround themselves with their groups of friends and followers, which is like creating little club rooms or islands for the like minded.
Isolation happens, and not reaching out to wider groups of people, so there is less connection and community. This disables also parties and their communicators to reach more people. It is like most sit in their various chat rooms, and no longer get the messages from others out there.
Privacy and personal life and experience are the refuge again, after days of exhausting work and difficult study. The more conservative ones still go and view movies, maybe meet in restaurants and clubs, but for many it is preferred to dance it off, to drink and indulge, or sit and watch Netflix at home, with the partner or a few friends.
On Demand, one to each other, when it suits them, community, and the fate and well being of others out there? Who cares, I am the master of my entertainment and destiny, that is what too many feel, and think.
Hence we have people avoid certain people and places, walk past the homeless with little thought or sympathy, there is the career and public reputation also to worry about, who wants to mix with the “wrong crowd” these days? It will only disadvantage.
And there are so many things to indulge in, on the web, with the gadgets to make life easier, and nice cars, and many imported goods, life is good for those that can afford it and participate.
John Key and his pollster Farrar and others know it, they can rely on those that bother to vote to support them by just enough to keep them in power, while the opposition is divided and struggles to present a unified alternative. The rest of what there is to worry are no worry, as the disillusioned and disconnected, the resigned have given up long ago.
Just get enough voters from that still rather comfy middle class, and you will get secure government. Whether it is fair, just, makes sense, is economically or environmentally sustainable, who worries, as long as the going is good enough, nothing will change.
And so we will continue with more migration to prop up the slack economy, creating more demand, more workers and more entrepreneurs, we have more foreign investors buying our farms and homes, we have enough desperate overseas who wish to flee the abyss before them where economies will hit the shit first.
Common sense, intelligent and smart management, not needed, future planning, not needed, join John and the Gang and get high on that drug called “growth”.
“I see it every day, people fixated at the tiny screens of their phones and at tablets in the bus, many use social media, and like on Facebook and Twitter only surround themselves with their groups of friends and followers, which is like creating little club rooms or islands for the like minded.”
True, social media does create a bubble. But don’t discount the politicising capabilities of social media. For Generation Y, social media is where we get our news, learn about politics and become politicised. The last place we’d go to for news is a news site like TVNZ or The Herald. My social media feeds are full of politics links. Every activist group I’m involved with uses social media.
See page 12 of this:
http://www.mediainsight.org/PDFs/Millennials/Millennials%20Report%20FINAL.pdf
I get your point, but “news” are no longer what real news used to be, and the following of the younger generation of what they perceive as “news” does not mean anything much at all.
We get endless click bait stuff, lifestyle stuff, watch the morning programs on TV One and TV3, which just shows what “news” now mean. I listen to RNZ simply to stay rational, or I would go insane in this country, with the shit “news” we have. Even RNZ is no longer what it used to be, but at least there I get some info that the others do never report, or only after a long delay, as they see, the cannot deny there are other things happening.
Also I observe how all the media players are now becoming more “territorial” as they no longer seem to share the same lead stories. So you get rather different “news” on TV One and Three, and totally different news on RNZ.
News is not necessarily “news” anymore, going by what we get on Paul Henry’s crap show, and the same applies to Seven Blunt with Hosking and that double on the story that never was a story, until they made it up.
The right keep trying to spin an absolute certainty argument that Labour will lose, that John Key is some sort of everyman, god-like, machiavellian, charismatic, genius of politician who will keep winning until he chooses to retire.
The reality is more mundane. Key is a good politician as was Clark and Muldoon but like those before him he is beatable.
The political battle between the left and right wing bloc is on a knife edge. There is everything to play for and either side could win.
As for the housing situation I think more and more people, including some from Auckland’s leafy suburbs are seeing the way the property market works is disenfranchising increasingly larger groups in our society. Those people want a solution and don’t believe it will come from National.
Kiwis are waking up to the fact that Key protects the status quo, the establishment, the elites, the leafy suburb NIMBYs….. Like elsewhere the anti-establishment vote is rising……..
National’s popularity is kept high due to spin, but even that is struggling. The RM poll shows, despite the spin trying to say otherwise, that the opposition bloc is now 3% ahead of National and their partners in crime; the Maori Party, Act and Peter 0% Dunne. John key and his National government have been trending downwards for quite sometime now, and no longer command the unrealistic heady heights that they used to. Not only has Colmar brunton and 3 Reid opinion polling reflected National’s downward trend, they have also had the opposition bloc ahead of the government since mid last year. Certainly looks like John key’s mate RM and no doubt Nat sycophantic Herald polling will be struggling to keep up the charade.
The Greens are about the same strength they’ve been for several years now. They’re not enjoying the growth they’d hoped for, but you’re severely early off the mark in saying they should be worried about being overtaken by NZ First who are about 2/3rds of their size even in this poll.
Now, if NZ First start consistently polling above 10%, then we can say that we have two big parties and two medium parties. But they’re not there yet.
And normally I would have thought that as well – but this is mid election cycle and bloody NZ First are soaring far higher than they ever have. Provincial National voters won’t vote Green or Labour – when the sea change occurs against National due to the dairy meltdown their votes will go to NZ First so the percentage increase available to NZ First is far higher than to Greens or Labour
I think you are correct and the strategy to elect a leader with business credibility could end up losing voters for the Greens because ex-National provincial voters just won’t vote Green, and their supporters with more progressive views are disheartened by the Green’s direction.
Warning!
Do not not trust Matthew Hooton as far as you can kick him.
You have to ask . Why does he spend most of his time on the more intelligent left wing blogs?
Putting his warped deluded 5 cents worth in.
Trying to engage with different people and understand all walks of life?
I don’t think so.
Trying to control the debate and manipulate the narrative?
I think so.
His problem is the ‘ a little knowledge is dangerous syndrome’ .
This is a one dimensional , shallow thinking , unworldly, dangerous character who should be given a wide berth!!
Personally I think Hooton is paid to post. He’s been mostly off the Standard now that TPPA has been signed. Before then he was posting constantly pro TPPA comments.
Trolls practically always come up if you mention SIS, GCSB and Spying.
I think there is some truth in
“National’s popularity is kept high due to the property prices going up.”
But it will lose an election if like last time Labour and Greens goes in to attack property with more taxes. Note the Herald were egging on Labour and Greens with hard luck stories and making it seem like more property taxes and higher retirement age was somehow a popular policy pre last election. Then after they lost the election MSM went back to Landlords place trashed by P users. The left was played!
However a Bernie style transaction tax and a crack down on how corporates don’t pay local taxes at the same rates, might be more popular.
https://berniesanders.com/issues/
Yes Winston is now being recognised by the whole electorate as the most knowledgeable of all leaders including key as he has been around politics for 30yrs and it shows with his clear concise messages on every subject as he offers clear choices to change the direction we are headed wrongly of course.
No other leader can use long experienced systematic messaging systems like Winston does and the electorate is picking this up now.
John Key destroyed David Cunliffe’s credibility with his lack of long recall of past experience during key’s tricky questions, that Winston is so good at answering , as surely the best of the bunch we have now.
My advice to Andrew Small is to again place David Cunliffe behind him and use Winston to train him up to tackle Key as replacement leader again should his leadership become tricky going forward.
Green Party Leader James is sounding more confident but must watch his back also because of these dirty politics merchants in NatZ.
e
+100 CLEANGREEN
The left bloc will only defeat National if that’s what it is, an inscrutable, impenetrable bloc. National are masters at the “lose yourself” imagery of “a disparate crew a leaky boat trying to outgun the sleek 8 man National rowing boat”.
A few choice underwater dildo torpedos need to sink the National rowing 8 boat. Do Kiwis want 3 more years of Lies. Of TPPA; of GCSB. of Anti-democracy? Of a widening gap between rich and poor? Of a callous disregard for fellow kiwis? Rock-star economy? Hair-pulling?
The flag debate is a prime example of what Nats will do. Expect a parade of successful sportspeople encouraging Kiwis to ‘steady as she goes with National”. Pamphlets by unknown ‘brethren-types’ extolling the virtues of a rock-star economy and piling invective on the rabble of the left. Every policy will be torn apart with sound-bite efficiency and click-bait monotony.
The left bloc needs to be unified. It needs to tactically expect and predict what National will offer and have a sound-bite, click-bait response. Outmaneuver the sods.
And Hone needs to be there, distanced from the Internet Party and in a vulnerable National seat so that the left-bloc can doff their tinfoil hats and bow out gracefully to give Hone oxygen.
The left bloc will only defeat National if that’s what it is, an inscrutable, impenetrable winnable and unified bloc. Who can galvanise such a bloc Martyn? Someone like you can!
Sorry, I’m still sure the last election was ‘fixed’ – but that’s my own opinion. I believe the next, if close, could be too, if it has anything with getting the TPPA truely signed and sealed, and kept in place. I guess we will see…
Social media will have a huge part to play in 2017 elections ( if NZ can actually be bothered to wait that long ), just as in the US elections at present.
The first flag referendum has shown social media works in the number of invalid votes sent in. There was no way people would have known how to send in an invalid vote, and that was even an option, without social media.
NZ political polls are easy to interpret. They are cooked, dodgy and corrupt: made by National Party bootlicking survey organisations that do not want honest data, only data manufactured to make Key look like the best thing since sliced bread.
The rules of TPPA have been used by Key before its even been ratified.
He made laws that benefit the overseas businesses involved in tppa. Key said recently if tppa is abandoned he will cancel the laws , too late, his cronies will have made hay from early laws , and if any try to take back what they made they will sue.
Comments are closed.