With just 12 months until the 2017 election, where are we at and where will we be going into the 2017 election?
OVERVIEW:
The National Party of NZ still holds an unprecedented lead in the polls. No other political party in modern history has ever enjoyed so much support, but like the 2014 and 2011 election before that, the tipping points are deceptively close and no one can guarantee National a fourth term. The Opposition need to rally their bases, pull in some of the missing million AND win over National voters. It won’t be easy, but this election will be held in the shadow of populist anger sweeping Trump and Brexit to power, so anything is possible.
POLITICAL PARTIES:
National: John Key remains the smiling assassin who has won over NZ with his laid back anti-intellectual casualness that calms Kiwis. He can say black is white and white is black because information overloaded voters don’t feel he’s looking down on them.
Strengths: John Key remains National’s main selling point, without him National are the same self interested bunch of born to rule rich pricks they’ve always been.
Weaknesses: After mass surveillance lies and dirty politics, voters are giving Key the green light to do what he likes to stay in power as long as their inflated property bubble illusion of wealth is allowed to keep growing. The second it pops watch people turn on National with vengeance. National has a real challenge in the provinces from NZ First playing off the lack of investment and from the urban educated voters who will be lured by Gareth Morgan’s promise of solution based policy.
Labour: If Labour want to be the backbone of the next Government they need to be in the early 30s and the only way they are going to do that is play to their strengths in Auckland. A huge 2 tick campaign has to be pushed in Auckland and no Labour Party MP should be saying anything other than ‘Houses for first time buyers, 6 months parental leave and Living Wage’. Labour’s greatest support is from working people, women, Pacific Island and Maori voters and first time affordable homes, a living wage and better parental leave are the issues that those voters can immediately identify with and budget weekly. Those are tangible benefits in their every day life.
Strengths: Matt McCarton running Auckland is going to be Labour’s best chance to turn Auckland into their fortress and there is a huge Pacific Island vote that is looking for real expression.
Weaknesses:Labour’s conceit to try and be a nationwide Party will still see it waste resources in the provinces that won’t vote for them. Labour’s future is urban, younger, browner and far more female, if those groups help win Auckland for Labour, they will want real voice and not more tokenism. Matt Mccarton should be on the phone to Efeso Collins right now.
Greens: The Greens have put together one of the best candidate pools of any Political Party in the country. Chloe Swarbrick, Sam Taylor and Leilani Tamu are all bright new political stars and it shows the Greens have dived deeply into a new wave of millennial activists who are hungry and passionate to be heard so expect a real turn out in younger voters there. Barry Coates and Marama Davidson are beloved by the activist community and deeply trusted. The danger for the Greens this time around is from Gareth Morgan. The Greens have had to go to the centre on environmentalism to not spook the vested interests of Dairy, Morgan doesn’t give a toss about upsetting those interests and he will probably have a far more radical green policy than the Greens. . They will bleed votes to his Party but they will pick up younger blood. They would be happy with 12.5% in 2017.
Strengths: Young, far more tech savvy than Labour and more likely to benefit most from social media.
Weaknesses: The Greens are shit at selling the sizzle, and seeing as their sausage is a vegan patti, they really have to lift their game on comms and strategy because it’s been pretty woeful to date. This will be even more difficult if Morgan is brandishing a more radical climate change platform. Water down the policy wonk and increase the feelings-o-meter.
NZ First: Winston wants to be the King maker and feels he can replicate the attack on National’s home front the way he did with Northland. The anger from the productive sectors of the economy who aren’t seeing the re-investment in local infrastructure has breached boiling point and National MPs are feeling the heat.
Strengths:Winston will use the Superfund to invest directly into the infrastructure so his promises will carry the promise of reality. These are the National voters who will turn against National so NZ First will advance not to Labour’s loss but to National’s.
Weaknesses:The Party internally is riven by political rivalry and jockeying for position post Winston. At some point the forces within the Party that dumped Tracey Martin as Deputy will challenge Winston on his Leadership.
Maori Party: As TDB predicted, the Maori Party and MANA Movement are going to work together in the Maori electorates. This has every opportunity to create a number of interesting MMP ramifications. If the Maori Party win 6 electorate seats but little Party vote they could create an overhang in Parliament and if MANA brings in 1.4% along with Hone’s seat, he brings in a second MP. Losing so many electorates for Labour would also mean that they would bring those MPs in off the Labour Party list.
Strengths:Tukoroirangi Morgan and Marama Fox have proven to be incredible assets to date. Morgan has been a far more savvy and smart political strategist than anyone could have guessed and Fox has brought genuine admiration for her Leadership.
Weaknesses:The problem the Maori Party have is bridges with which to get to NZ First and Labour, this is why they desperately need a candidate like Willie Jackson to stand for them in the Maori Auckland electorate. If he stands it will create a hype that swamps Labour while ensuring the ability to work with Labour and NZ First afterwards.
ACT: I won’t mention him by name because when you do a fairy somewhere has a stroke, but God he’s awful. He’ll win because the Stormtrooper’s of Epsom want it. ACTs Party vote will remain limp and National could lose so many seats his plus one won’t make a difference. Ugh. I’ve thrown up a bit in my mouth just having to think about him. He’s like an unblinking lizard about to feed.
Strengths: Shapeshifting and the ability to drink own bodyweight in blood.
Weaknesses:Lack of all basic human empathy, (although he sees this as an incredible strength).
United: I think that it was despicable that Peter Dunne made Helen Kelly a criminal by denying her medicinal cannabis. That is a disgrace he should never be allowed to live down, alongside his vote to allow mass surveillance (after being a victim of it himself) and stopping the feeding the kids Bill. This bow-tied arsehole is in desperate need of wiping. His electorate has more civil servants than any other electorate, let’s hope they do the right thing by Helen Kelly and vote this miserable old goat out of Office. I want people in his electorate to walk around with signs reading ‘Remember Helen Kelly when you vote’. She deserved better than he gave her and he deserves the political consequences of such petty spite. He could have been empathetic to Helen’s condition, and he wasn’t. Screw him.
Strengths: Nice bowtie.
Weaknesses:Has the same hair as Donald Trump
PARTY WILD CARDS:
The Opportunity Party: Gareth’s solution based policy will actually come across far more radical than Labour or the Greens policy platforms. Morgan has spent a huge time educating and learning about challenges like Universal Basic Income, affordable housing, climate change and pollution. He will appeal to urban males who default vote to National because they feel no welcome from Labour or the Greens. That on its own is enough to peel voters off National, Greens and bring some of the disconnected million voters who don’t vote because of the poor choices on offer by the two major parties to give him 5%. But Morgan could ignite a populist move against the neoliberal welfare State while selling the UBI to those beneficiaries who currently live in terror of WINZ, Housing NZ, MoD, CYFs, Probations, Corrections etc etc etc. Morgan will be our anti-establishment candidate and he has a real chance to do something unique here.
MANA Movement:If Hone can beat Kelvin and with the Maori Party directing their voters to support Hone, MANA could win an electorate and bring in one more MP off their Party list. Annette Sykes could yet be an MP.
The Conservative Party: The interesting thing about the defamation case between Colin Craig and Jordan Williams that the media haven’t picked up on yet is that the Judge has still not accepted and entered the Jury decision and it is within her power to actually over turn the ruling if she thinks the Jury got it wrong. Compare the actual evidence with the version the media ran with and the decision the Jury ultimately came up with and the result bore little resemblance to he evidence. With a decision still pending on that, Colin takes his defamation cases against Stringer and Slater next year. If Craig can win legally he could still stand and the Conservatives could take even more votes off National.
Not a bad piece.
Key has got it.
Little not.
Gareth might have it.
Act are dicks.
Conservative, Mana, United. Who cares?
Greens. Too wacky.
Winston . King maker maybe.
I’ll have to screen grab your predictions for future reference
you missed out the Maori Party Dave or don’t you know anything about them also what has Key got you didn’t say exactly what he has
Key has a ponytail in his hand.
Little has not.
Key has got arrogance.
Little has not.
Agreed Bert. Little has nothing.
Rubbish Dave. Andrew Little has integrity and principles and is not corrupt, a refreshing change from John key, who is the most dirtiest politician in this country’s history.
+1 Words
Plus 2 – Words.
Having met Andrew Little and spoken to him face to face this just passed show day in christchurch. Andrew Little was intensely interested in what i had to say . John Key would have switched off the moment i opened my mouth. That is the difference between the two.
Thanks for sharing that Geoff.
Agreed Dave. When Little takes over, he’ll have nothing, thanks to Key’s record borrowing and once again it will be the Left, having to pay down debt with responsible fiscal management.
Key will then ease into his ponytail sunset, bending over his soap, with three way handshakes and that is the definition of “Bling”.
Thanks the Crosby-Textor talking points Dave. As I’ve said before, National’s only chance of winning in 2017 is to focus people’s attention on a USPrez-style Key vs. Little contest. Dave’s comments are a demonstration of that strategy at work. The best response is to ignore the trollbait, ignore Key, and to focus instead of National’s *many* failings as a government over the last 8 years.
BTW this page has been archived on Archive.org for future reference (eg in just over a year’s time). Click on my username to check it out.
Key has bling, like it or not. If the Maori party had any decency they would distance them selves from rules making it impossible for disadvantaged people easily accessing some Auckland land marks but they have not.The maori party are as useless and irrelevant as ever.
“Key has bling”
Yep, it’s official the lunatics are running the asylum.
What Key has done, has borrowed and burnt the country.
But luckily for us all, Key has bling!
So I conclude, that effectively the “left” in New Zealand is now truly DEAD, since Hone and his Mana Party do seriously intend to go into bed with Maori Party, who flirted and worked with Nats for years.
Hone has betrayed the left, if he does that, it exposes what I felt all along, that the Mana Party was only an instrument that Hone Harawira used to get wider support for time being, but as the Dotcom association and alliance between traditional left activists, Internet Party and Dotcom did not pay off, it is all on the table now.
Labour is hardly truly “left”, and the Greens have moved towards the “centre”, kind of, and it is only some progressive policies they keep.
There is NO left party anymore in NZ, if Mana joins Maori Party, for getting the Maori vote.
So let the market rule, I suppose.
No “Truly Left” party has ever won an election in a Western country. Nor are they likely to, as the high water mark for unilateral enthusiasms (such as neo-liberal globalism or heaven-kissed socialism) recedes. What can happen is that a party which advocates progressive reform win. That should be our focus, not the ultimate card-carrying credentials of this or that party. We’re none of us perfect, and we all have to live in the real world.
Really, Nick? You have a flawed memory.
Socialist Party leader Salvador Allende won the 1970 elections in Chile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#1970_election) and was subsequently over-thrown by General Pinochet three years later. The US supported the coup (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#US_involvement).
It was a watershed moment in my own life and marked my final departure from right-wing-leaning politics.
It demonstrated – with crystal clarity – the bankrupt nature of western “democracy” which could not tolerate a freely-elected socialist government.
Nick,
What exactly in this topsy-turvy (upside down) world today is; “the real world” as you send up more questions here than you thought you answered, when you said; (Quote) –
“and we all have to live in the real world.”
Explain what “THE REAL WORLD” IS?
Whenever you hear “The Real World”, that’s code for my superior, logical, common sense, down to earth, no brainer world view.
Leave Hone alone he always sticks up for our people unlike some of the other Maori in parliament once they get in they get amnesia and forget who put them there. Hones mistake was to go with the German and he has paid dearly for this
Well said Michelle
Spot on there Michelle.
Yes Michelle, he did, and the Maori party cannot be trusted, they sold out again with the RMA. I really hope Hone has learnt his lessons from 2014, his best bet is to stay away from national’s maori party, but will he?
It was not a mistake to go with the German – he increased Mana’s party votes by double, beating ACT and The Maori party party votes. The big Fuck up was Labour and to a small amount the Greens being more interested in knocking Mana out than keeping an eye on the smiling assassin and the Natz.
Sorry Save NZ but the big Fuck up was not Labour and to a small amount the Greens either. Even Hone himself and Willy Jackson admit Dotcom cost Hone his seat. It is really unfortunate, but that’s politics. Don’t forget too that Winston Peters was telling voters not to vote ManaInternet. No party could have worked with Mana with Dotcom in it. Dotcom knows.
One of the reasons that Labour are losing votes are they don’t seem to have much self reflection and always seem to think everything they did last election was correct and they could not have changed the results by doing anything different.
I disagree – Dotcom was a person who was clearly hated by John Key and openly challenged him.
Labour and Greens should have sat it out and watch Key and Dotcom fight it out, not rush in and intervene by punching up Dotcom (and by extension Hone) too.
Bad look. And very Stupid.
The sideshow should have been Key and Dotcom – David against Goliath.
Also if Labour and Greens believe in justice how the hell can they be ok with how Dotcom was treated? Hollywood needed the SIS to intervene and illegally spy on him, they then retrospectively change our legislation to make it legal to spy on NZ citizens.
Dotcom is as guilty of money laundering as Tim Cook and all the rest of them!!
And as not guilty of copywrite as Google.
So if you support big business hunting down small business that are taking them on at their own game but not paying off the politicians, on the local tax payers dime then by all means cheer on John Key’s persecution of Dotcom.
Agreed.
I don’t know where you think Labour thinks everything they did last election was correct. Labour knows it’s errors. Hence the reviews and the MoU with the Greens.
Where did I say that… “So if you support big business hunting down small business that are taking them on at their own game but not paying off the politicians, on the local tax payers dime then by all means cheer on John Key’s persecution of Dotcom’?… Because I don’t. Just because I offered up another opinion that didn’t agree with yours, doesn’t mean that I condone the persecution of Dotcom or oppose his fight against what I consider to be an illegal attempt to extradite him just to make him a scapegoat and an example of. He has done nothing illegal in this country; mega didn’t even break any of our laws, correct?
No one is saying the way Dotcom is being treated is right, it is appalling in fact, and you have highlighted what put people off, that it wasn’t about politics that it was about Dotcom and John key. How tenable was that for any party to handle without a facing public backlash?
Maybe Labour supporters should educated themselves on the wider issues of the Dotcom case and the companies like Disney behind it…
“Disney is now asking its employees to chip in to promote the company’s copyright agenda via the company’s political action committee, DisneyPAC. CEO Bob Iger has sent a letter to the company’s employees lauding the company’s success with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement and the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the video service Aereo — an Internet service claiming the right to retransmit [Disney’s] broadcast signals without paying copyright or retransmission consent fees. Iger also expresses the company’s hope that DisneyPAC will be able to influence Congress in regards to lowering corporate tax rates. Not surprisingly, the company refuses to comment on the initiative.”
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/02/28/162200/disney-asking-employees-to-help-fund-copyright-lobbying
Your assumption that Labour supporters are not aware of the wider ramifications of the Dotcom case are false Save NZ
“Hone and his Mana Party do seriously intend to go into bed with Maori Party, who flirted and worked with Nats for years.
Hone has betrayed the left, if he does that”
Yes. So fingers crossed he doesn’t.
+1 Words
Fox has brought genuine admiration for her Leadership. THIS IS CORRECTLY STATED.
Marama is an impressive politician to meet as she carries her deep convictions within her spirit as we saw in Gisborne during theb Rail Forum where she dumped on National for their lack of understanding the electorate and their resolve to keep fighting to reopen the rail closed by nationals stripping out funding for operaqting a safe rail system and she said National need to drive to gisborne instead of fly there bto see the truck gridlocked roads and dangers now apparent.
Marama said she supports Gisborne totally as the most isolated city in NZ now, and was a slap in the face for a lacklustre ineffective Anne Tolley who has done nothing but spread lies about national support.
Tolley claimed National were spending 1.4 Billion on rail but forgot to mention that none of that money was used to help Gisborne or HB, but was used only for Auckland prevised commuter rail for a frenvh company and for some rolling stock/locomotives and another Wellington commuter privatisation of their rail.
Marama gained solid support here as Winston also did at the rail forum we held, and the other MP from Labour in attendance also did Sue Moroney did.
This will be a battleground province come next election so Martyn remember the provinces have had enough of National and will cause some real shift in the election this time around in all provincial regions currently abused by National concentrating only on Auckland and other big centres forb their votes.
Shades of what happened in US and Britain where the major ruling parties misread the regional electorate it is now shaping up to be another case here in forgotten provincial NZ as Winston and Marama are keenly well aware of now.
let the fear and loathing begin…a year is a rather long time in politics though…
Have to say I disagree with Bomber’s assessment of the Labour strategy on housing which sounds like a rerun of last election where they failed miserably.
Remember in Auckland now the demographics are even worse with richer home owners, more indebted homeowners and migrants who are often homeowners. Poorer and more liberal people are moving away from Auckland and those renting or homeless in Auckland are not won over by the 1st home buyer talk. (Maybe because they are having trouble just putting food on the table let alone the dream of their own home, possibly in this context Labour look out of touch).
Labour and commentators are out of touch if they think young Kiwis have social mobility any more in Auckland. It is not happening and those who think the Gen 0 shore folk pro unitary plan lobbyists are a big chunk of Auckland voters need to think again. Maybe 5% at most. It is even more grating when the Gen 0 are the migrant children living in the 2 million dollar parental basements on the shore telling everyone how their ideal city needs to be and who needs to pay for it (current homeowners and commuters) or Ponsonby types who think that if we have a cycle way and charge poorer commuters to get in then all our transport woes are solved!
Funny that might just alienate all the rest of Auckland folk if we hear that in every media source and Labour and Greens do a cameo afterwards supporting them!
Houses for first time buyers was the catch cry last election and it failed miserably and seemed to galvanise even more votes against Labour (look at the voters who voted for the Labour MP but gave their party vote to the Natz). I think Labour should stay away from first home owners as a major campaign because their message did not work and did the opposite and they are a very minor group now in the city.
Many people in Auckland think out of control migration and off shore investment is the real issue. With 70,000 inward migration this year alone you look like a fool to pretend this is not a major factor on housing. Most people think that shutting off migration is the answer not bankrupting the ratepayers with more and more infrastructure and congestion costs to fund this folly.
If Labour and Greens start going on about the unitary plan and freeing up more land then they just sound like the Natz. Notice the Natz always give Labour the rope on these issues (to hang themselves) and stay right out of it.
Labour need to talk about asset sales such as the State house sell offs in relation to housing, the incompetent way the state houses have been sold off with consultant fees and the houses presently sitting unoccupied because of the governments negligence. Charging people $1200 a week hotel fees when they are homeless and so forth.
I think Labour need to have a campaign not based on punishing voters (apart from off shore company tax cheats). Concentrate on a robin hood tax on banks. Think about it, what is more voter friendly, blaming and punishing 64% homeowners OR approx 10 banks who don’t vote Labour?
As for the new precariat class, these are not all poor people on low wages, increasingly all of the work force have these issues. In my view that is who Trump really stood for (rightly or wrongly).
Therefore I think Labour need to campaign to have a safety net for ALL people such as a UBI or a referendum on one.
The secret is simple to win the election, don’t punish, don’t bribe or put people into little groups to help or not help, just be decent moral party and tax those who make record profits (banks) and give people a safety net in today’s precariat times.
“The secret is simple to win the election, don’t punish, don’t bribe or put people into little groups to help or not help, just be decent moral party and tax those who make record profits (banks) and give people a safety net in today’s precariat times.”
Absolutely well said. I agree with everything you said in this punitive environment we have, but sadly I don’t think the left see it. The most frequent complaint against the left is that they’re too negative – I have written several times to tell them this, and suggest different responses, but there has been no change so far.
Since Russel Norman left politics, the Greens seem to have lost something. With the exception of Marama Davidson, who replaced Russel and Julie Ann Genter.
There’s no fire in the party’s belly now, whereas in the past Russel and Meteria Turei would be standing up there in Parliament virtually leading the charge against National. Together, they burned and they scolded. They were the spark in the fire that drove the Greens. To me not even Meteria seems to be as enthusiastic of holding government to account any more. Her social stance is not as kick butt as it once was since Russel Norman’s departure. Something is missing.
In my opinion, when Russel left, he took a huge chunk of the heart, soul and guts of the Green party with him I think. It’s just not the same as it was when he and Meteria together led the party.
Despite having voted Greens over the years, I’m having second thoughts now about giving my allegiance to what I consider has become a diluted party! I will be seriously weighing up my options between now and the election next year.
@ MARY_A – totally agree the Greens losing it. They seem obsessed by identity politics, misguided mainstream issues and pro development for Developers.
What they are missing, is activists for the environment!!! At a time when anti establishment rocks!
My fear is, they have been latched onto by “Green washed” lobby groups who are parasitically feeding them dirty politics messages about what is important (bridges for the shore, cycle lanes and more development).
If you divide the sea goblin loving Waiheke Green voter types in Auckland to try to lure in the 25 year old socialite renter – I fear they will do a” Labour” and haemorrhage votes, respect and their identity at the same time.
Once they topped 10% they got all focused on percentages and retaining seats – just like every other political party.
Forget the seats and retention and keep strongly advocating on policy – that is the Greens role.
Radically, they could just focus on Global Warming – become a one-issue party. If we don’t solve that one the rest don’t matter. Who else is going to be the persistent voice that is needed to get meaningful action?
If they don’t make it #1 and their sole purpose, why would anyone else?
Also don’t agree with the assessment of the Greens – they have become very boring and establishment of late and not in a good way.
Their website leads with Trains for the Shore for weeks. For those who don’t know, the Shore in Auckland in one of Auckland’s richest suburbs and one of the most favoured by richer migrants. Not sure if this is really the inclusive look for Green loving Kiwis – in fact it is a turn off for many that don’t live in Auckland and don’t live on the shore. (i.e. 99% of Kiwis don’t care about the North Shore and are wondering why the Greens care so much??). Like National’s bridges of Northland the sudden interest could like like a bribe for votes and back fire.
Chloe ran a very distant third in the mayoral election and her policies were more ACT than Green so apart from the white leftie guy fan club who love her at face value not sure why she is going to shine. If anything I think she might repel voters in Auckland due to her pro development and pro unitary plan stance which was not popular – hence both the low voter turn out AND distant third place in the Mayoral elections.
Never let real results dampen the prejudices of the Wellington and Media crowd though who think that earthy good looking young millennia’s will result in a plethora of new voters no matter what their (lack) of Green experience is. Did not work for Metiria (young Maori), did not work for Shaw (young business focus) and is not going to work for Chloe. (young)
So the Greens seem to be trying to inch towards mainstream while rejecting those that optimise mainstream NZ which is homeowners. Like Labour of past they are starting to run schizophrenic messages that repel existing voters while not convincing more people to vote for them.
I’ve never heard of Sam Taylor or Leilani Tamu (but at least I could find her on a search), Sam Taylor whoever they may be does not even come up on the Greens website! So not sure how computer and social media savvy those millennials are or how a couple of new Greens might capture the voters when they are invisible. Unfortunately it is a bad flaw of older people to think that all millennials are computer savvy if they are young. Age does not have much to do with tech. It’s the sort of thing Labour would think too, or the Herald or pretty much all older people that know little about the tech industry but grab hold of the idea that all young people do. Being obsessed with your fb does not make you a political social media expert and less so with a political campaign.
As for Gareth, the biggest thing he is doing is talking about UBI. So in may view both Greens are Labour need to get a grip and take a walk down the dark side of reality. He does not care what the fuck people think of him (just think of his view on cats!) and that’s refreshing – he wants to make the world a better place. Will he get 5% I don’t think so but he certainly has the media talking because he has new ideas!!!
It’s not just the low amount of people’s wages that is the issue, it is the more about the security of work. Therefore a UBI or referendum would be more of a help to most Kiwis than anything else, as well as a robin hood tax to raise more money from the banks.
Many Green voters are homeowners and wealthy. They are old – the 60’s people who fought for the environment. They are anti development so having Chloe telling everyone to give over Auckland to the developer, get rid of the RMA (and destroy everything in their path) is everything they have always fought against.
Greens could and should be big. It should be their time. They are fucking up big time with their pro development focus of late and micro issues that make them look out of touch.
They are better to run a campaign with earthquakes, floods and erosion taking away homeowners and renters houses and making them homeless to make them vote for them than tell them to support another bridge build for big business so that wealthy North Shore Aucklander’s have a shorter commute .
Seriously we just had an earthquake with massive environmental and social destruction, couldn’t they have something a bit more in touch on their website????
The disconnect says it all.
Didn’t Hone learn any lessons from 2014? The Maori party, that cannot be trusted, have just sold out again to National over the RMA. A vote for the Maori party is a vote for National, so how, in all honesty, can Hone, who said he will never support anyone that’s supports National, consider going into an agreement with the Maori party?
The only winner I can see coming out of this, is John key.
Anyway, it is an interesting hobby we all have, and the year ahead will surely provide us some entertainment no matter what side we prefer.
Martyn, your focus on Auckland as the be-all and end-all, and your dismissal of (contempt for?) the ‘provinces’: let me just say, remember Hillary.
Agreed. Not have a positive progressive message for two thirds of the country that live in the province’s would be a mistake….. Surely the lesson from Hillary is that status quo politics is not the route to political office.
Nowhere in the assessment of parties is there any mention of global warming. It’s as though that provides no context yet is our #1 risk. By not acknowledging it, it’s just a bit player, a bagatelle but it IS the elephant in the room.
Why not frame this as the Election for Global Warming – the shit is hitting the fan?
Also – there was reference to Party Wild Cards, but what about other wild cards? Exclusive Brethren, Destiny, Sensible Sentencing, John Ansell and friends et al – providing funding, advertising, lobbying etc
soon as someone grows half a brain and goes the trump rout its there for the taking but nothing truly the most pathetic opposition in nz history
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