Responding to Bernard Hickey – How National win 2020 election

By
Martyn Bradbury
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61
3389

Bernard Hickey has done a very good evaluation of how Labour win the 2020 election, and he has I think zeroed in on a very important dynamic that if employed early will favour a returned Government in 2020.

Cutting an electorate deal early this year to clearly signal that NZ First, Labour and the Greens intend to campaign as a team for the election would ensure that no Party falls under the 5% threshold meaning no wasted vote meaning guaranteed representation and the near certainty of being returned to power.

Labour stand aside in Northland for NZ First and stand aside in Central Auckland to allow the Greens to win.

If they collectively announce this early, they cement in their chances to win, but as Hickey also notes, this Labour team are far too super cautious to try this.

I spent a part of 2016 talking with Matt McCarten about the Labour strategy for 2017 that they ended up using, the idea was to knock out National’s support partners United & the Māori Party to ensure NZ First went with Labour and the Greens, this election however Labour don’t seem to have any of the strategists and tacticians required to counter a resurgent National.

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I believe that this Government deserve a second term, they won by surprise last time and Jacinda’s candidacy was a desperate Hail Mary but they still deserve to be returned.

I remember trying to alert senior staff on election night 2017  because I feared they had forgotten that the special votes where the Jacindamania would be seen  wouldn’t be part of that nights count. That information didn’t get through on time and Jacinda’s dour faced sadness was the look of a person who thought they had lost.

This sense of failure meant no one had a plan to govern, so that when NZ First did predictably come on side, they had no reform program for the Wellington bureaucracy, no 100 day plan and a vague feel for something called the ‘Politics of Kindness’.

The toxicity cultures inside WINZ, Housing NZ, Oranga Tamariki and the grotesque underfunding of the social and real infrastructure are National Party legacy that this Government have barely managed to get a handle on.

Add to this the way Simon Bridges conned Chris Hipkins on the first day of Parliament that National had the numbers to stop Mallard becoming speaker and gained larger representation on Select Committees and you had an ill prepared Government crippled by Select Committees that gave them few majorities.

This lack of preparedness has been the major reason there hasn’t been any transformation, and the lack of using Kelvin Davis and Willie Jackson’s personal friendships with Shane Jones and Winston Peters has been why NZ First remains a hand break to more progressive policy.

B-u-t, Labour deserve a second term and we should judge them as progressives and as climate activists on their first 100 day program in a second term.

Winning a second term however is not nearly as easy as Bernard suggests it might be.

For National to win, look for three pressure points.

Cyber warfare: National’s online cyber warfare will be as malicious and as Machiavellian as Trump’s, Brexit’s and Johnson’s using the same micro-targeting to harvest older white males culturally alienated by the current woke mantras. It is a tactic that the Left currently have zero capacity to counter, especially as their online activist base are part of the very same woke alienation that the Right attempt to exploit. This will give National an edge in rallying voters who aren’t currently already voting.

ACT: ACT is like a dangerous fault line that hasn’t ruptured for a long time. As a barely 1% Party, it’s Epsom Electorate win means nothing, however a 1.6-4.9% ACT could deliver anywhere between 2-6 MPs which in addition with National could easily be the means to victory.  ACT’s rise is off the back of paranoid Gun Nuts who the Police are currently making  more militantly neurotic with bullshit raids on right wing gun nut homes combined with the Euthanasia referendum combined with the free speech issue. These 3 issues are giving ACT a dangerous rush of populism that could deliver it a huge influence in the next Parliament. Labour would be insane to attempt to debate the free speech-hate speech changes before the election as their micro-aggression policing woke activists will manage to terrify the bejesus out of the centre as to what the woke consider hate speech.

If ACT rupture and jump to 3%+ we could easily see a National ACT Government.

Maori Party: Part of the 2017 strategy for Labour was to knock out National Party coalition partners. Labour did it in Ohariu by knocking Peter Dunne out with Greg O’Connor and they did it to the Māori Party by recruiting Willie Jackson and taking urban Māori out of the Māori Party. That tactical decision paid Labour a huge dividend by not only winning all the Māori electorates, but also a large Māori vote for Labour in the general seat party votes as well.

Since giving Labour all their representative power however, Jacinda and Grant have not delivered much for Māori in fear of allowing National, Duncan Garner and ZB to play redneck dog whistles. This means when the Māori Labour Caucus go back to their electorates and ask again for their vote a range of issues from Oranga Tamariki, the health inquiry, the victims of abused state care, the 14 500 on state housing waiting lists, the 600+ suicides, poverty and inequality  are all bedrock problems that Labour still haven’t solved.

Add to this symbolic issues that Māoridom take to heart like Ihumatau, ownership of water and ongoing settlement processes, and a resurgent Māori Party has every opportunity to tap into that swelling frustration and turn it into political representation.

All the Māori Party has to do is pump up its party vote by using profile candidates and select one to go head to head in a Māori electorate with the determination to win.

Imagine this scenario. John Tamihere fights Peeni Henare in Tāmaki Makaurau, wins and brings in on the list Mike King, Pania Newton, Dr Lance Armstrong and Matthew Tukaki.

That kind of line up and strategy would see the Māori Party re-enter Parliament with a bunch of high profile Māori candidates and NZ First would refuse to sit in any Government that includes them.

2020 will be close because the truth is that most of NZs elections actually are incredibly close.

61 COMMENTS

  1. “ paranoid Gun Nuts who the Police are currently making more militantly neurotic with bullshit raids on right wing gun nut homes“

    Enjoy your musings, Martyn. Isn’t this sort of casual stereotyping exactly what you accuse the Woke of doing? There are a large chunk of licenced firearms owners who are anything like de Boer, to say they are will just be ‘culturally alienating’ to those in the centre.

    • If you don’t know I am some one who has already talked a lot about the woke and banning machine guns. I’m sure both sides just heard me say “woke” and “machine gun” and have already decided to clip those out of context so they can peg me at will in the hopes it will invalidate everything that Iv said about both sides.

      Forge your own words.

      On the other hand minorities have never been safer. So if you use the very stupid argument that machine gun owners produce safer communities could just as easily be substituted for emotional ties to toxic cultures and make the same point.

      A great deal of why machine gun mobs have turned there attention towards Jacinda or the Eye of Mordor is because of Brenton Tarrant, a White Supremacist icon who has been accused of bad things and they just can’t face the truth so machine gun mons have to forge there own words and battles.

      • In my opinion, take it or leave it, if you use the term ‘machine guns’ then you’ve automatically invalidated your argument. They arent and never have been available to civilians, irrespective of licence endorsement

  2. Agree with some of what you have said Martyn. Those that voted for labour in the last election need to take these points into consideration. Labour did say, things would get worse before they would get better, they also said they can’t fix everything in one term and lets be honest who has. They are also in a coalition with NZ First holding the trump cards so Labour have had to make some major trade-offs many they won’t be happy about but such is the nature of MMP. Examples of trade offs the CG Taxes, Maori issues like who owns the water, Ihumatao and welfare issues comes to mind and there are others. As for the Greens, they need to get their party vote up to have more power and they can. The Aussies bush fires ravaging now brings climate change to the fore. So this issue about under delivering in my view is a load of bollocks as you have to make promises otherwise how can you get in if you don’t sell yourself and your party. But you don’t know what will happen its on the day and its up to the voters. National and their loyal supporters who seem to vote for them no matter what have been crying like babies claiming they were robbed because of our MMP system. Yet national got 46% of the party vote so that means 54% of NZ voters did not want them. And national needs to get that into their heads that the majority of voters who voted did not want them to be in another 3 years so they voted for other options, notice I don’t say change why? because real change is hard to deliver incremental changes are easier. Now people say there is not much difference well this is reflected in the 8% gap its a small difference but its a difference. People really believed in the brighter future but when they started to see unprecedented homelessness, begging, packed motorways, more prisons and more prisoners add to that high immigration and assets sales the brighter future started to wane. If Jacinda can sell her party well and I believe she can, they will win this next election. And if they win her and her party will deliver more but again what, when and how they deliver will depend on the makeup of the coalition. And that will depend on NZ voters. So people need to vote and they need to listen to the promises, look at the parties track records and weigh them up.

    • Your figures do not take into account many who voted NZF would have expect them to go with National due to Winston’s dislike for Greens so the margins would be less. This election will be close as well . Jacinda still has big pulling power but when you look past her she has little to back her up in the way of ministers that shine. Jones is busy fighting the Greens on a number of fronts and I cannot see them working together . Bridges could say he will not work with Peters and this would take any bargaining power away and finish NZF off as he only has 1 more term in him. Act could get those spare votes . The next months will be interesting

      • Labour could take National voters off National as they see Labour doing a far better job at running the country. Those with a conscious will certainly vote Labour given National and Bridges percieved corruption. Jamie Lee Ross highlighted this and is still under investigation. The numbers show that many National voters just don’t like Bridges.

  3. “This sense of failure meant no one had a plan to govern, so that when NZ First did predictably come on side, they had no reform program for the Wellington bureaucracy, no 100 day plan and a vague feel for something called the ‘Politics of Kindness’.”

    Seriously Martyn?….an unexpected deal with NZ First undid a previously comprehensive policy agenda?…there never was one…and 3 years on there still isnt…a sad state of affairs

    • 3 years on there still isnt

      TWO years into their term.

      The endless repetition of that falsehood is furthering the Nat’s propaganda.

      • there was no comprehensive policy agenda during election year in 2017 and there is nort one now….3 years on….and National have nothing to do with it

  4. “The toxicity cultures inside WINZ, Housing NZ, Oranga Tamariki ………..”
    It’s not just those agencies Martyn.
    The state of our public service has been the biggest impediment to a “transformational and kind” government across more agencies than those you mention.
    When one hears kaumatua (plural) even refer to Te Puni Kōkiri as “The Colonial Office” you get some idea of how widespread attitudes towards the public service are.
    What saddens me most is that the coalition should have been ready to go with at least a start on reform immediately after the last election. It’s something that all three partners should have been able to come to some sort of agreement on – Labour & Greens on the basis of that ‘transformation and kindness’, and NZF on the basis of its dislike for neo-liberalism.
    Chris Hipkins himself wants reform even if he does express it in buzzword terminology (like ‘joined-up services, and ‘wrap-around’ this and that).
    Many in academia have seen its flaws for a long time (such as: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@ideasroom/2020/01/15/985361/putting-service-back-into-the-public-service ). There are others with some good ideas on reform as well.
    For the first time in my life, it’s left me wondering whether Labour is deserving of my continued support, just as my died-in-the-wool Labour supporting father-in-law gave up on them after the 80s reforms.
    And not only is it something the three coalition partners and academics could agree on, I believe it’s something that’d have received widespread public support – especially in light of everything from NZPost closures to substandard truck towbars to Pike River mine inspections to various agencies causing embarassment to their Ministers and being less than honest (to put it mildly).
    Let’s hope they’ll be ready to make AT LEAST a start after the election – probably could even make a start NOW.
    If they lose in 2020 – it’ll have been a wasted opportunity to have been kind and transformational, let alone more societal and cultural damage the current opposition is likely to wreak if they get to win power.

      • But yea but nah. I’m not at all minimising the good stuff Labour has done thus far – but hopefully they’ve come to realise where the roadblocks are, but even given Aunties Helen’s worship at the altar of incremenalism, there are quite a few other things that could have been done without much pushback.
        One thing that immediately springs to mind is that complete fuckup that brought about the demise of a half decent public transport system in Wellington (another of Joyce’s brainfarts).
        And I’m not suggesting they simply go about repealing most of the gNatz junta’s legislation (although that’d be a half decent option), only because if and when the gNatz again reign supreme, they’d do likewise.
        It may take another one or two election cycles for the natives to get restless enough. And if so – so be it. There won’t be much left to quibble over and not much of a friendly, egalitarian, plucky little Nayshun (that supposedly punches above its weight) for young Neve to look forward to.

  5. Yes I beliieve the Government will be returned as the opposition National Party is so toxic now to our futures and most will give them another chance to actually deliver on all those promises made before the last election.

    But they must soon need to get the new “public “commercial free” ‘current affairs’ neutral bais free media channel up and running to be able to sell this ‘political choice’ to give them another chance.

    If they still relly on the same biased media as they have now they will fail.

    For instance RNZ is sadly the most ‘biased network that supports only trhe National Party’ than any other political Party so needs to be shut down.

    ‘National trumpets’ still resident inside public owned RNZ should be removed immeadiately.

    • Yes Cleangreen i think you are probably right. The current govt of tossers will be returned for one more term. Their lies worked the first time and you believed them. Ever heard the saying “fool me once shame on them, fool me twice shame on me?”

    • Probably not the right place to post it.
      But when John Key was recruited by John Slater and Jenny Shipley to come to NZ and win the election for National due to his slippery ability to con an entire nation, do you really think he did it for the good of the country and so he could donate his salary to charity.
      No he did not. He did it for one reason and that is to increase his wealth and influence in hoping to join the elite and ride out the apocalypse.
      Is Jacinda any different? I’m not sure, potentially, but what if after she obtains property in a nice Ak suburb, gains international influence and shows her ability to sell out NZ as well as her predecessor, she decides RNZ is fine just the way it is.
      And what if she even stands to benefit by losing the election in 2020.
      Does anyone ever consider this apart from me.

  6. Yes, the COL has backtracked and let large swathes of the populace down , for example, the TTPA. And various other ‘ in house’ issues to coin a pun. But it is true what Michelle says about ” Labour did say, things would get worse before they would get better, they also said they can’t fix everything in one term and lets be honest who has ” …

    HOWEVER.

    Anyone who longed for a better society has only to cast their minds back a short while and recall the odious, corrupt, arrogant, out of touch years of the John Key / Bill English govts.

    Can you seriously imagine the Key / English govts dealing with the Christchurch killings ???

    Or even the White Island deaths?

    There comes a time,… when a human face to human affairs is needed. Not some ‘ our thoughts and prayers are with ” crap. And then back to business as the event is soon forgotten behind a concrete wall sealing in the evidence regarding the deaths of 29 fellow New Zealanders. Also, who gets to judge when this govt has only been in for 3 years while the appallingly socially destructive National party enjoyed NINE ???

    Has Jacinda Adern ever been booed off the stage at the Big Gay Out like John Key was? Or booed publicly at a football match? No.

    Maybe we should wait until then as the litmus test.

    We can be moaners and groaners it is true. I personally cant see much happening under ANY neo liberal govt. And Labour is STILL in the thralls of the political neo liberals , their advisers and local / foreign business interests.

    But we are still far better off under this COL than we ever were under the treasonous sell outs that called themselves the National party.

    Far better off.

    We can work with these people .

    The other lot only dictated to us.

    But if we really want to see change , we need to go back to the future and then travel back in time again . The time before 1984. The time when this country TRULY was egalitarian. THAT’S when you will see REAL change for the Kiwi battler. And not until.

    • 1984 was anythink but a happy time strikes paralyze the country home loans at 20% the country heading to bankruptcy total control from Wellington where a public servant worked out how many tins of salmon could come into the country and how much you sold a kilo of apples for. It was egalitarian but it was could not go on the way it was. The change when it came was brutal and should have been handled better and perhaps this has lead to the current Labour government being so careful about change.Unfortunately for them the list of broken promises grows and bad news keeps coming. Housing list grows DHB deficit poverty numbers Maori discontent to me a few hurdles to overcome.

      • I agree Trevor, the list of things you state have accumulated in 9 years of a National government hellbent on the false belief of the “trickle down ” theory. Your uneducated reasoning that this is a Labour government fault shows your general lack of New Zealand politics. New Zealand has a history of turn about governments, National screw things up,Labour takes years to right the wrongs.

    • we are still far better off under this COL than we ever were under the treasonous sell outs that called themselves the National party.

      Totally agree.

      Far better off.

      We can work with these people .

      The other lot only dictated to us.

      The other lot nabbed our homes and sold them off in box lots to overseas speculators, whom the other lot misnamed “investors”, and around 40,000 of those homes are sitting empty in Auckland alone, even today! While homeless numbers skyrocketed and it became commonplace for families to be living in garages and even their cars.

      They took our privacy and said we somehow needed to be spied on, “for our own protection”. They brought in that wheel-clamping of our peace of mind, and made some of us afraid to ever speak our truth, or even meet online. They caused untold stress and anguish.

      They privatised prisons, running them for profit, and filled them up until riots broke out and suicides there barely made the news.

      They turfed people off their benefits left right and centre, including those on disability payments. Excuses for cutting people off without warning were abysmal. This drove someone to shoot up the WINZ staff, and in turn the nasties placed their uniformed officers inside and out of every WINZ office.

      They turfed people out of state homes that families had thought they had for life – and had been living in them for more than a generation already.

      They created Oranga Tamariki, – they gave it a name in Te Reo to half-disguise the ugliness of what they were doing. (Grabbing the babies, taking the children away… just the brown ones.)

      They signed us up to war in Afghanistan, with that infamous call of “Get some guts” … yet when the boys (and at least one girl) came home in boxes, Mr Gutsman disappeared to the US to watch some other sporting event…

      • Agreed COL is better than Natz although sadly their pro trade beats public interest policies are very similar to the Natz.. hence COL dropping support… often by people who decide to vote for nobody….

        COL trying to blame groups like boomers, while thinking every person from overseas is an exploited saint despite all criminal reports that are suggesting the opposite, is just pushing away more of their core voters…

        • SaveNZ, Yes, I’d have thought Winston would have sorted out some of that stuff by now…

          (It was a pity he took time off from being Deputy PM to instead take on that legal tish-tosh. And then was hospitalised for a while. Hopefully he’s fully back on board in 2020, as some of this, what you’re bringing to our attention, is his natural turf.)

    • And… (addendum to my other comment) – All of the above is just the faintest scritch of the surface of their bastardry! ‘Dirty Politics’ barely begins to cover up the pigs in the muck (apology to all Suidae).

    • this govt has only been in for 3 years

      Nope. Sorry Kat. Just two (2) years. And they had a hell of a lot of cleaning up to do, and still do have. (Two biggies were ending new oil drilling permits and home sales to overseas speculators. )

      As well, this was not one party in power (as were the Nats essentially). They’re a three way coalition. So the argument being made and pushed around is comparing people in a three-legged race, tied together, with a champion sprinter who had a decade of practice (and BIG BIG money) behind them.

  7. … ” Corin Dann , Lisa Owen and Guyon Espiner ” …

    L0L0O0L0L !!!

    The three stooges.

    Good comment.

    But that’s only a few of ’em. Time does not permit the rest. We could fill a book about them. And that’s only on radio. Let alone TV or online. And yes, an unbiased news channel for the COL would be nice,… something to put the Hosking to bed finally and rid the world of the ( who’s that guy again? ) far right parasites like Matthew Hooten… that would be nice.

  8. The Labour coalition will lose the Election if they don’t do something about housing affordability for New Zealanders and State housing for the poorest ( as they promised in the last Election)….this means halt the immigration of wealthy foreigners and their families who are buying up scarce housing

  9. National is on course to easily win the 2020 election imo. Increasing house prices combined with the massive Tory win in the UK…. Also Trump is going to easily win a second term. I voted for Labour in the last election and already regret it. I won’t vote at all this year.

    • If as you say occurs, then we will go backwards at an alarming rate, Bridges will reward his backers, will promise to keep Gerry happy, make himself rich, build more roads , wreck more infrastructure, cost of living will increase, housing will become even more unaffordable, more unemployed, yep things will be much better under Bridges (literally)

  10. Based on many of the comments on this site I can see many of us are angry and rightfully so but moaning and groaning will get us no where. Instead we need to put our energy into coming up with concrete solutions with options. It is election year lets get our ideas out there far better to offer a solution whether the political parties take them up ( our ideas) it really is up to them at least the ideas and solutions are out there for our political leaders to see and ponder. It is hard to move away from a system so entrenched. (neo liberalism) We are all proud NZers why do you think so many people want to come here to live.

  12. “That kind of line up and strategy would see the Māori Party re-enter Parliament with a bunch of high profile Māori candidates and NZ First would refuse to sit in any Government that includes them.”

    Good. A Maori Party caucus that includes Mike King and Pania Newton would make a better coalition partner for Labour and the Greens than NZ First. Let’s hope the MP do get back in with this revitalized line-up, and NZ First do drop under 5%, as their voter bases punishes them for voting for the prog-washed TPP, and switches support to the Greens, who voted against it.

  13. The best way to stop the voluntary euthenasia referendum benefiting ACT is for the left to embrace the issue, so ACT don’t get to present themselves as its sole champions. Kiwis thinking about how to vote in that referendum could do worse than to consider the position of Archbishop Desmond Tutu:
    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/12/desmond-tutu-assisted-dying-right-to-die-nelson-mandela

    The same is true of protecting free speech (a basic democratic necessity despite the gutter talk it also protects at times), and making sure gun regulations are fair to responsible gun owners. These are not inherently right-wing campaigns, and people who care about them need representation. If they can only find it on the far right, that’s our failure, not theirs.

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