Latest Roy Morgan shows National plummeting to 42.5% and NZ First soaring to 12.5%. These are pretty huge swings and might explain why National are so nervous they need to talk about a Land Tax.
The internal research shows that Key has been hit hard by the flag referendum, the ponytail hair pulling and the TPPA. Voters are turning away from Key in droves, but they don’t see an alternative. When asked if they could name a Labour Party policy, many couldn’t.
Labour are stymied by a media who because of clickbait pressures aren’t focusing on policy, but focusing on the petty.
This means Labour have to think of alternative means of communication. Old school town hall meetings and the launch of a new social contract would make that cut through.
This Roy Morgan poll backs up that internal research.
People are turning to Winston Peters as they turn away from National while the Greens pick up the more liberal vote.
This move away from National to NZ First means Labour need to start sharpening their tactics and strategy if they want any hope of winning 2017.
With the provinces turning to NZ First for opposition, Labour needs to acknowledge the rural and provincial electorates are in play for NZ First, not Labour. Labour needs to focus on a Two Tick City campaign. They need a vibrant Auckland HQ and a two tick strategy in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Trying to do a National Campaign is nonsense when they are polling as low as 26% – they need urban voters who are being squeezed by the housing crisis and low wage work.
A two tick urban campaign will allow Labour to hold the line and build their base while growing the math that creates a majority.
This latest RM poll is quite interesting. It definitely is suggesting disillusioned Kiwis from both NatzKEY and Labour are obviously giving their support to NZ First.
FJK losing his sparkle perhaps? Could be.
I hope this is the beginning of a downward spiral trend against NatzKEY, which continues through to the next election. However, I won’t hold my breath!
Labour needs to be very concerned about this poll result and pull its finger out right now. A good start would be to rid itself of the toxic neo libs and corporate gnomes pulling the party down, doing a huge disservice to its supporter base. Kick them out asap. Replace them with MPs dedicated to serving its core supporters, not corporations and the wealthy!
Better still, Labour needs a mini revolution in its ranks and get David Cunliffe back in the leadership role! This time around, with some hindsight, I’m sure he’d purge the party of its destructive elitist right wing element, responsible for binding the party up!
To be effective, Labour has to turn itself around, getting back to its core root values of serving working and middle class NZers and small to medium businesses, which are the backbone of the nation. Putting petty differences aside, Labour should be looking at working with NZ First and the Greens, trying to find common ground policies, likely to benefit NZ as a whole. This includes working with Mana as well, which represents a fair proportion of NZ society.
Also msm needs to do its job of objective journalism for a change, serving the people honestly and openly and quit promoting the venomous vile reptile FJK and his crooked party. It’s about time msm gave ALL political leaders and parties a fair deal, thereby serving ALL of the people, offering some balance!
This is Labour’s last chance.To ignore it, is to ignore its supporters at its peril, likely to see the complete demise of the party in the very near future, as Labour people switch their political allegiance. And who can blame them, given Labour’s present standing of being virtually a non political entity?
Labour have made it pretty clear they don’t stand for anything and nor are they fundamentally different from National. Same tired neoliberal policies.
If someone starts a New Labour that promises to undo the destructive neoliberalism since the 1984s, put an end to the rich tax cheats, and sort out housing prices (lowering rent would be a good enough start) YOU WILL GET MY VOTE!
“If someone starts a New Labour that promises to undo the destructive neoliberalism since the 1984s, put an end to the rich tax cheats, and sort out housing prices (lowering rent would be a good enough start) YOU WILL GET MY VOTE!”
Yeah, me too Slumbergod. Labour are awful. But we did that with Mana and the left ignored Mana in 2011 and 2014. Do you think NZ wants a left wing party?
@ Slumbergod …. If I could, I’d give you a thumbs up. However there’s nothing there to allow this … at present that is!
A nasty little gremlin at work perhaps, or is it intentional for some reason, or is it my computer?
What’s going on here TDB team?
Man New Zealand First gets an easy ride. Does almost nothing and leaps up to 12.5 percent. Shows that the majority of New Zealand voters don’t feel comfortable voting for any party that isn’t conservative.
@ Esoteric….”easy ride”?…Green with envy?!
….NZF has its finger on the pulse and certainly more to the Left than Labour
…eg. opposed TPPA outright and the foreigners Spy Bill on NZers and jonkey’s vanity changing of the flag
( incidentally the Greens stupid support for jonkey Nact’s $26 million dollar vanity project NZ flag change …and of the corporate vacuous Red Peak flag made people suspicious and think the Greens were flakey and not want to vote for them…Greens tried to “take us for a ride” there…whose fooling who?…NZers are not stupid )
Well, the spread of anti-immigration sentiment will benefit NZ First. Even on this blog I’m surprised at the casual racism of people…blaming housing on foreigners when we haven’t added to our social housing stock since 1991. What a disgrace.
Labour counting Chinese sounding last names would’ve helped. Or maybe the pollsters rang Kyle Chapman and his mates…
I’m disturbed by the ‘left’ in NZ (but not really left, because a leftist doesn’t blame immigrants)
@ Fatty …”casual racism”…disingenuous
( the ‘racist’ accusation is used by jonkey nactional and we all know he has a vested monetary motivation)
…does China allow unrestricted immigration and/or foreigners buying up Chinese housing and land and core assets ?…and speculation at the expense of Chinese?…No
Winston Peters was a very popular and respected Minister of Foreign Affairs among Asian leaders …they understood each other perfectly …he was protecting his New Zealand people and country just as they were protecting theirs
@Fatty
http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/wall-of-chinese-capital-buying-up-australian-properties-20150628-ghztdf.html
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/chinese-buyers-double-down-on-australian-property-20160411-go3gue.html
And I’ll repeat:
“blaming housing on foreigners when we haven’t added to our social housing stock since 1991”
Feel free to bleat on about foreigners. It won’t change anything. If we bring in a policy that prevents foreigners from buying property, then local landlords and wealthy people will gain more control of the market and the problem remains.
I’ll stick to a class analysis on property thanks. I think your ethic analysis is casual racism. My solution will mean that foreigners would never invest in property in NZ. Your solution perpetuates the problem
Chooky is absolutely right about foreign speculators ,notably from China, fueling the housing markets here and elsewhere around the world. That cannot be denied, and it would change a lot if it were stopped. BTW The Labour government did build state housing when it was in power Fatty.
“BTW The Labour government did build state housing when it was in power Fatty.”
I never said they didn’t. I said since 1991.
Here’s a graph showing that Labour built some state housing from 1999-2007 http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/graph/32421/total-state-housing-stock
However, the housing boom began under Helen Clark around 2003. Clark’s housing policies overall were a disaster – and continued by Key.
“Chooky is absolutely right about foreign speculators ,notably from China, fueling the housing markets here and elsewhere around the world.”
So was it the Chinese who fueled the housing market under Helen Clark too? Is that what you and Chooky are saying? I say no – it is the comodification of a social right (housing). Foreign buyers are part of that, just like Kiwis are too (see Gareth Morgan’s recent piece on this issue). If you stop foreigners then you open up the chances of further exploitation by local wealthy people.
Stop blaming foreigners for our economic problems – and especially stop singling out Chinese people. That’s some old school racism from the 19th Century. It’s embarrassing.
@ Fatty …John Key’s argument of “racism” again
…and of course it is entirely neolib right wing cant disguised as international socialism that New Zealanders should go into state houses or live in garages or under bridges,because they can not afford the properties their parents and grandparents and great -grandparents built
….of course we must make way for the Chinese speculators
…the facts speak for themselves and they are a problem in other countries as well ( see links above)
…and of course you can not buy property in China and speculate on it
“@ Fatty …John Key’s argument of “racism” again”
Just because the far left and the far right call Labour’s ‘blame the immigrants’ stance racist, that doesn’t mean I’m making the same argument as Key.
Key’s making an argument for more liberal capitalism.
I’m anti-capitalist. I’m a communist. I blame our economic system and I do not fall for conservative nationalist bullshit. I don’t blame immigrants or ‘the Chinese’. I blame capitalism. I refuse to blame ethic groups so that the wealthy New Zealanders can continue their rentier scam via private property.
Phil F has been posting some good links on here that I generally agree with:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/more-labour-anti-chinese-racism-and-the-left-tags-along-behind-them-still/
sorry we are in danger of being swamped in NZ and it has nothing to do with racism….go talk to the Tibetans…their country, culture and environment has been swamped and taken over
http://freetibet.org/about/human-rights
….some so- called Left international socialists ( socialism without borders and immigration without borders) are so ideologically purist and so far away from reality they are away with the fairies …and they are support right wing neolib imperialists in their arguments (makes you wonder if they have been infiltrated)
…it has nothing to do with racism…it has everything to do with maintaining our borders and culture and egalitarianism for New Zealanders eg NZers rights to own their own home and control their own land
this is about facts and numbers not racism
Well said Chooky !!
Agree totally with you there ESOTERIC PINEAPPLES. Gary Morgan reckons its because Winston Peters got chucked out of parliament by the speaker that increased NZ First’s support, but when that happens to other members of the opposition, or when women mps from Labour and the Greens etc got ejected from parliament for standing up for women abused by sexual violence, there wasn’t even a blip in the polls.
It is not just the click bait pressures .
If you listened to Guyon Espiner interviewing Annette King on Radio N.Z about the banning of foreign house buyers, you could have been forgiven for thinking he was in the National Party caucus.
His sneering defensive questions clearly showed what a poor unprofessional journalist he his and the public, who are paying his wages have every right to demand that he be sacked.
Annette to her credit did well and made him look like a fool .
He is but one small example of how poisonous things have become.
How do you counter a complete domination of the media and the millions and millions of dollars being poured into the National Party coffers by wealthy Chinese and big business ?
I know it’s old fashioned and hard, time consuming yakka, but get out on the street corners and engage.
Pick your areas well and turn up a lot . Make it regular.
Stand in Queen St , K Rd and Ponsonby Rd and start talking.
Have arguments and debates with people. Make it interesting , humorous, but serious .
Some one like Tamati Coffey would be perfect for this type of engagement and there are others with the talent.
There is nothing to lose and no time to waste!!
Well said Grant.
“This Roy Morgan poll backs up that internal research.” Whose internal research? It’s frakking obvious Labour is not doing any…
Clarification please, when a post is not published, does the sender have any way of finding out why?
[Hi Tony. There is no automatic right for any contributor to have their comments published. While we publish a broad range of views from Left, Right, and everything in between, there may be factors where we decline publication. The most usual reasons are personal abuse, breaking Court Suppression Orders, irrelevancy, obvious trolling, fake email addresses; previous banning, mass postings, failure to comply with directions from Admin/Mods, repetition, misrepresentations/lies, etc, etc. Some comments that are inappropriate may slip past one of the administrators or moderators, but picked up by someone else. – ScarletMod]
yes one of mine is missing in action also
Lol I like the way you’ve said that!!
Hi there, is TDB having technical hitches? wondering where my comment has gone.
NZ First are not what I would call “left”, although some of their policies are similar to what Labour would traditionally stand for.
This trend shows, if correct, that people are more disillusioned with Key and his Nats, but they are hardly fancying any progressive alternative, as the Greens would usually benefit from those from that quarter shifting away from Labour.
It is a worry, if Winston and NZ First actually poll that well, they are positioned to push National into a negotiating position, where NZ First can make the demands as kingmakers, to form a National – NZ First government. Never rule this out, despite the many jibes by Peters towards Key. Once Key goes, Peters may be prepared to make a deal with Collins or someone else who takes over.
Time will tell whether this is just another temporary shift or not.
Society is not that friendly anymore, that is what I have noted over recent years, people are less connecting and more competitive minded, sadly.
I am sufficiently disillusioned with Labour (who had my votes last time) that I might just take a punt on Winston. What appealed to me recently was his Northland success, where the ancient one-way bridges up there, alongside the billion $ tunnels etc. in Auckland, made for a stark contrast. National seem to be (along with their other deficiencies) the ABC party — Auckland bloody ChCh. Vast amounts into Auckland’s rail and roading network, ChCh bankrolling EQC, convention centre, several other grandiose projects. Winston is about the only person with whom one can connect who thinks outside this particular ‘mainstream’. What is there in it for, say, Wanganui, Invercargill, and the rest of small city NZ? This may be Winston’s patch. Otherwise, horrendously, I may have to give my party vote to ACT, since they are supporting two pet projects of mine, (1) physician-assisted suicide (Labour scandalously sidelined Maryann Street) and (2) the rejection of National’s one-size-fits-all earthquake building codes, which disadvantage low-risk parts of the country with nice old buildings. Well, that may be a (one-way) bridge too far. But these are desperate times.
So Phil Twyford’s messaging on the housing crisis and Labour’s solution to it is not getting through? You are so right Martyn, Labour is stymied by the media.
Another 5 star article there Martyn, you’ve outlined a good plan. Labour do need to take note. Received an email the other day, Labour recognizes that electioneering has changed in the past few years, and is working on a new system.
It seems that the public are tiring of National’s antics and Key’s bland “reassurances”. The “Trump” Factor may be at play here.
One poll by itself means nothing. I bet there will be interest in the next 1 or 2 though, from both sides
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