We would be foolish on the Left to write off National’s 45% in the party vote from the latest TVNZ Poll.
For a Party that was so destructive to our social services and infrastructure to still be at 45% is terrifying quite frankly. Who knew the magical economic equation of selling cheap milk powder to China while opening up immigration to keep the speculative property bubble afloat so the middle classes feel like they are millionaires was such winning combination?
Turns out it is.
For National voters it doesn’t matter that National underfunded mental health and left the hospitals to rot. It doesn’t matter that the poorest paid workers got little, It doesn’t matter that teachers and nurses were underpaid. It doesn’t matter that generations were being out priced in the housing market. It didn’t matter that Kiwis were living in cars. It certainly didn’t matter that we were doing nothing on climate change.
Fuck them, my house valuation just went up!
This innate selfishness is only going to climb as economic conditions become frigid over the next 12months. Nothing motivates political participation quite like economic anxiety, it’s the performance concern that has every voter reaching for the blue coloured viagra.
In short, National’s 45% is dangerous and only a fool would write it off. If NZ First and the Greens come under 5%, the Party with the highest Party vote (in that Poll’s case, National) recycles the lost vote to become the majority in Parliament.
Greens won’t slip under 5%? They have gone backwards in every election over the last 10 years and over-poll. Their 6% could easily be sub 5% come Election 2020.
It is imperative that this Government consisting of Labour, NZ First and the Greens continue because while I believe much of their policy has been meaningless virtue signalling garbage, their inability to get real transformative change is more due to the toxic cultures that exist within the public service and Feudal Wellington Mandarins who don’t give two shits who the Government is.
A second term could be the opportunity to take napalm to the public sector and ram through culture changes.
Of course if they don’t do any of that in their second term and there are still a record 12 000 people waiting for social housing and there are still 2am queues outside WINZ and there are still over 500 deaths per year from suicide and there are still thousands needlessly inside prison and there are still hundreds of thousands of hungry children and still kiwis living in squalor and still generations locked out of home ownership and still no meaningful action on climate change – if after a second term those things still exist at the same levels, well in that case we turn on them all and demand a new political vehicle for our progressive aspirations that takes a far more militant position on those issues.
So.
How do we ensure a second term for this Labour, NZ First and Green Party Government?
To beat a behemoth like National requires using MMP to the letter of the law.
Labour have got to gift two electorates, one to NZ First and one to the Greens.
As an insurance policy against NZ First and the Greens slipping below 5%, Labour needs to cut a deal for them while clearly signalling before the election that they intend to jointly seek a second term.
Labour stands down Willow-Jean Prime in Northland to allow Winston/Shane to run uncontested to guarantee a NZ First win. Prime gets a high list position as compensation and NZ First gain an electorate. In the 2017 election the combined total of Labour + NZ First candidate vote was 6000 more than the National candidate so this is actually very doable.
In Wellington Central Labour needs to stand aside to give James Shaw the electorate so that the Greens have a guaranteed electorate. Again, the combined Labour + Green candidate vote in 2017 was 16 000 votes higher than the National candidate.
To date, the Left have hated the idea of using MMP the way the Right use it. That’s because the Right like to win while the Left likes to loose and whinge about how unfair it is that they lost.
Matt McCarten shaped the 2017 Labour strategy by eliminating National’s two coalition partners so that NZ First was likely to negotiate with Labour + Greens. In 2020, National’s only strategy to victory is pushing Greens and NZ First under 5%.
By cementing into place this Government with electorate deals, National’s strategy fails because even if Greens and NZ First both slide under 5%, with guaranteed electorates they still get representation sub 5% and can add to Labour to gain the Parliamentary majority.
The broad Left need to work together and use MMP to defeat National or this could be a one term Government.
It’s a good strategy, but to me what the left needs to do is spell out in plain English what problems the country has, what created those problems, and exactly how they are going to fix those problems. Then campaign with some vigor on those issues. Oh, and actually following through on those promises would help as well.
Yeah, it’s populist politics. But it works. Jacinda could easily capitalise on the good will she got from the Christchurch shootings and push an identity as the peoples prime minister. Make New Zealand Great Again. Why not?
45%. Forty, five, percent. As soon as that poll came out Jacinda should have been straight back on the 9th floor having a crises meeting figuring out how to implement Bombers strategy or figuring out for themselves how to put a 3 at the beginning of National Party polling.
Well Martyn, they could make voting a citizens only right… as it should be… as would be sane… or they can lose 😉
Labour haven’t failed due to the public sector. They failed because they are incompetent. They failed because they promised outputs that could never be delivered. They failed because they spent a fortune on stupid shit like free fees.
If they are lucky enough to get a 2nd term they will continue to fuck everything up.
Transformative my arse.
Agree. NZ is one of only a handful of countries which allows non-citizens to vote. And we know why that is…a colonial hangover to keep the indigenous people marginalised.
National might capitalise on this governments ‘false hope’ and do a deal with NZF and we all keep going with extremely modest change. Nothing frustrates more than false hope.
Labour have clearly opened themselves up to a ‘jolt’ after just over 18months of a slightly kinder version of neoliberalism.
Those voting National understand that a country that is broke cannot do anything to fix the problems of the poor or climate change. They care about pollution climate change and poverty but after 18 months despite all their promises none of these have improved under this coalition. As NZF see their popularity fall they will become more desperate to fight the agendas that the Greens push so neither parties voters will be happy and the country stalls . Roll on 2020 so we can get moving again under a government with drive.
Strike up some Dave Dobbyn and call yourself loyal Martyn.
If the middle class don’t want immigration they are racist.
If they do want immigration they are greedy.
If you bother to do research then you would find that the class that pays the majority of taxes is the middle class. They tend to be the least greedy, the hardest working and pay the lions share of taxes but constantly pilloried from the left, which is crazy because they are the ones to woo in elections!
Liking the middle class is a memo that never saw the light of day in Labour and Green commentator circles who seem to attack that class the most (Green) or ignore them (Labour).
The worst offenders and sneerers of the class system, are often white, middle class lefties who hate their own class, aka the middle class.
No wonder identity politics is popular when political commentators don’t seem to have a firm grasp on their own identity and then seem to have limited understanding of others which they worship as some better standard! What happened to everyone is equal or understanding the complexities in the age of blogs and selfies?
One of the many reasons that National is still popular is that they have imported in hundreds of thousands of new voters due to immigration. In 2017 a poll amongst ethnic Chinese in NZ showed that 73% were going to vote National and their favourite PM was Bill English on 45.7 per cent.
Among the Chinese political figures, 40% believed Jian Yang would be the one to most effectively serve the community in the next three years.
Labour’s Raymond Huo is second with a score of 14.6 per cent, followed by Gisborne Mayor Meng Foon on 6.3 per cent.
(surprise, surprise now he is our new Race Relations Commissioner).
So it looks like support is along ethnic lines with new migrant voters not on policy, hence you can win both ways get a 100k donation for an MP seat on ethnicity from the Natz and not have to bother to do any policy to run the country. win win for the lazy! Lets get more immigrants into NZ so that we can run our democracy as a dem-“mock”-“race”-y instead. Part of the issue is also the type of migrants being selected are not exactly educated types who speak the language but ones who fake it, till they make it types. We have the skills levels of our migrants actually falling coming into NZ. And we have our tertiary levels for domestic students falling while our tertiary cheating increasing to approximately 50% of overseas students. So we are becoming dumber. Not good news for labour who tend to score better with more educated voters.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11852298
Not sure it is the traditional middle class that keeps voting for National no matter what!
The other issue is all these do gooder and diverse types advocating for the poor often have zero understanding of the poor and colonise their experience with their own misunderstandings, while implementing policy against the poor, aka Kiwibuild, immigration, tighter rental standards, more drugs and harmful products like tobacco into NZ, poorly run community housing.
Many of the advocates for the poor, fundamentally have never been poor, blame them in particular in the paid sector for profit, and group think amongst others to the solutions which are from flawed understanding of the issues.
Or, Labour needs to do something “Bold”, out of left field like, A STATE HOUSE BUILDING CAMPAIGN FUNDED PROPERLY! And then Jacinderella can go out and sell it and use up all of the stardust she has left.
What expectation does each voting block place upon it’s party?
It seems like National is about the status quo. The system is fine. Tinker, but don’t change too much. Just make the numbers look better and promise not to do what Labour is threatening. The market will take care of us, and it will trickle down. Don’t increase the burden on hard working Kiwis and businesses by increasing taxes to fix silly stuff like climate change. Even if it is true, we’re too small to make a difference.
For Labour though, everything needs to be fixed. Public sector wages. Gender pay gaps and representation. Public transport. Climate change and water quality. Housing affordability… More to promise, more to deliver. But also, more resistance from the established, more things to fail or get wrong.
National seems to do well on the little it promises to do. Labour scares some away with it’s promises, while also disappointing voters who wanted more from those same promises.
Next year, Grant Robertson will need to speak to the swing voters, even National voters, with his election-year budget. A lolly scramble, not a sugar tax. Labour can afford to shift to the centre if the Greens remain to pick up the left vote.
First up we need to know why the situation is like it is. As a non tribal voter my take is this:
Yes there is a degree of selfishness in voting Nat and they have imported thousands of Chinese votes, but that isn’t everyone.
To me, the coalition had a mandate to lead us in a new direction after their “capitalism has failed” speeches. They did not, neither did they address issues most kiwis on both sides of the political fence are concerned with: immigration, water pollution, overseas water exports.
Instead they have talked big but delivered either useless incremental nothings (plastic bag ban climate change 2050 etc etc) and abject failure(kiwi build middle class welfare that still didn’t work, gun buyback).
Worse, by engaging in identity politics (whites males are white supremicists, farmers are responsible for climate change) they specifically attack and alienate those remaining voters holding on to see if the left can come good.
The problem with 3rd way incrementalists is they think they’ve got it about right if both right and left are criticising them.
In reality no one really likes them they stand for nothing.
Ardern did so well fronting after the ChCh attack but has since been shown to just be a cover girl for an empty party.
As someone on this blog wisely said, if altruism is dead, we would be fools not to vote in our own selfish interests. So they bleed votes.
The trouble now is the left going strong on any one issue will look and feel like more authoritarian identity politics.
They have to have a strong overall vision we can all see and make changes to get there taking us all with them, as they could and should have from the start.
I’m not sure they either want to or actually can.
Don’t expect any support from NZF.
Maybe Jones can buy a brown seat with his slush fund money, maybe not. But overall NZF is totally rooted because the typical NZF voter thinks Winston is a traitor for going with this coalition. They will go under 5%.
I doubt Labour will fare too well either. It’s clear the shine has rubbed off Jacinda and the media vultures are circling. There is also a long list of policy failures and total incompetence exhibited by cabinet members. National will play on that.
Are Labour voters enjoying the rental price hikes created by misguided Labour policy ? 😉
Oh and did I mention collapsing business confidence and rising numbers on a benefit?
Or, the little princess gets hapu and the widdle baby arrives on time for the 2020 general election! It wont guarantee a victory, but it’ll be international news!! Woop! Woop!
Here is another own goal in the making:
Government water regulator likely mandate chlorinated water in Christchurch while the chch based Chinese water bottler ( which already breached its consent) won’t have to.
That’s bad enough in its own right but add in the fact Mayor Dalziels husband was lobbying for Chinese water and you have a very large city being screwed over by labour, for the benefit of offshore Chinese interests.
Good luck spinning that one Jacinda and Eugenie.
Although caution is always advised the fact that National is on 45% is a massive red herring. There is no one else for right wing voters to pick when the poll companies ring them. Well, ther’s ACT but clearly everyone thinks they’re a joke.
In the 2002 election when National was still recovering from Jenny Shipley being in charge, National only got 20% but NZ First got 10%, ACT got 7% and United Future got just below 7%. This is a right wing total of 44% just like we have now. The previous government had consisted of Labour and the Alliance supported by the Greens so the vote for NZ First and United future was very much a right wing vote.
This doesn’t mean Labour and the Greens can’t cock-up this election but we need to get this in perspective. National is the only box most right wingers could check at the moment and there’s no telling whether they’ll feel inspired enough to actually go out and vote for this version of National
For National voters it doesn’t matter that National underfunded mental health and left the hospitals to rot. It doesn’t matter that the poorest paid workers got little, It doesn’t matter that teachers and nurses were underpaid. It doesn’t matter that generations were being out priced in the housing market. It didn’t matter that Kiwis were living in cars. It certainly didn’t matter that we were doing nothing on climate change.
Fuck them, my house valuation just went up!
Well written post Bomber you are right on the mark with your analysis on Nationals vote share and their evil selfish voters.
Their well built constituency began with Brash in 2005 and cemented in under the shyster Key and his henchman and woman.
They are just a small step away to being back in government.
I don’t ever remember a time in our politics where we have has a change of government but the opposition party is more popular than the new government so soon after being elected it is unprecedented.
Crosby Textor and the right wing MSM has helped immensely and of course the property market.
Some argue that ACT will have a resurgence but Seymour’s recent re launch was a fizzer and it’s just not attracting the support it once had.
I would have thought that an ACT-New Conservative alliance would have provided National with the friend it needs as their polices are almost the same
The next 12 months are critical for the current coalition as we will face a general election no later than the 21st of November 2020.
Too hold on Adern will need to gift some electorate seats as you pointed out and get out and really go after the National party and grab hold of the narrative and control the agenda.
If they want to get re elected the approach of kindness will not be enough.
And keep the stability that they have so far demonstrated which will be tested with current events.
The campaign will be brutal as the National party and the MSM will make sure they apply maximum pressure.
Next years budget will have to be bold and really deliver too their support base and target some of Nationals soft vote.
It can be done.
I would never vote for a Tory government as long as my arse points to the ground, and I agree that a tactical response is necessary. However, as long as we have a government reliant on NZF, you can kiss any progressive program goodbye.
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