One of the interesting dynamics for the 2020 election will be the overseas vote.
Typically this always benefits the Greens and on one occasion it was the difference between them being under the 5% threshold and getting back into Parliament.
There were 61,524 overseas votes cast in the last election but since then, Jacinda has been a stellar hit on the International stage and you could easily see those votes swamping over to Labour because of Jacinda’s international star power.
This could be devastating for the Greens and they will need to sell their overseas campaigning as ‘A vote for the Greens will keep Jacinda in power’ because they can’t compete directly with Jacinda’s international fame.
I mean the Greens are lovely, but Jacinda took her baby to the UN. New Zealanders overseas will be getting compliments about Jacinda wherever they go, this is going to influence their vote.
According to Mike Hosking and Simon Bridges, being celebrated overseas for championing progressive democracy is a bad thing, those NZers travelling through that international praise however will see it is a massive bonus.
I doubt the Greens have even considered this impact on their international vote yet.
Labour has to give a safe seat to both junior parties to make sure they get back in 2020. Fight dirty because the other side certainly will. There will be a lot of young voters (hopefully) with the cannabis referendum. They need to be convinced to also vote Green or Labour by directing policies towards them.
Greens seem to have morphed into Labour. Where they are different and could be getting votes, they fail aka TPPA and spying and being anti neoliberalism was a big differentiator but they failed to make that difference prominent and it is not even clear if they believe it anymore.
Greens used to be more focused on the local than the global in terms of food, community, trade, sustainable living, but now seem the opposite, more interested in helping non NZ’ers than NZer’s and the Labour mantra of ‘warm dry houses’ or ‘white supremacist’ when there are not even any houses, it was a migrant that was the white supremacist, and still more people keep arriving in NZ to fuel the neoliberal agenda which the Greens seem to worship just like Labour!
When was the last time you heard the words ‘exploited labour’ instead of ‘exploited migrant labour’ – the rights and ability of politicians to even recognise the exploitation of local kiwis have had to put up with for the last 30 years from employment contracts act, to gig economy or any recognition they are the biggest victims of migrant labour scams (aka they no longer have a job or hope of getting a well paid one in NZ anymore as now you pay for the job) is missing in action, no wonder we have the highest suicide rate in existence!
The reason that overseas Kiwis vote Green used to be because they were forced out of the country by Rogernomics and voted Green in protest, now there are so many overseas new ‘NZ passport holders’ who vote the Natz and have no environmental instincts, no matter what, so of course the overseas votes will be different.
Well said and I’ll add Labour are only on 41% less than the Nats so it begs the question of how valuable personality politics really are? I think you are dead right, people off shore vote against the mainstream as they feel it’s let them down. I doubt those people will suddenly decide to vote Labour or National. I suspect what may happen is many will simply not bother this time around. A good number probably have dual citizenship too and may decide to focus on politics where they now live.
I’m an ex Green voter and Id NEVER vote Labour. The reason I sought out other parties was disgust at the neo liberalism that crept into Labour’s policies and remains to this day. Personality politics won’t change that for me and I wonder if it will make any difference to other NZ voters like myself either be they off or on shore.
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