The election itself
Labour – 49.1% – will gain 2MPs from specials
Every single major academic research of psychology tells us that after a natural disaster or a crisis, it doesn’t matter if you are Left or Right, there is a reset switch that goes on in our brains as a species to be far more altruistic.
This makes evolutionary sense, our species has always had to reset after a natural disaster, and that deeply hard wired need to help one another even if you yourself have suffered has played into changing the psychology of the entire electorate.
Punters and politicians didn’t appreciate the uniqueness of the universal shared experience we had with the lockdown, nor understand the solidarity it inspired because our 35 year neoliberal experiment culturally celebrates Individualism Uber Allas, and as such, no one recognised the bonds that solidarity created.
What made Jacinda such an extraordinary leader was her emotional intelligence understood that solidarity before anyone else did. When people were at their most frightened and most altruistic, she communicated strength, courage and empathy in a way that would make Churchill proud.
If you ask the average Kiwi who is voting Labour this year to name just one Labour Party policy, I would put money down on the vast majority of them answering with, ‘Jacinda saved NZ?’
When your policy platform is seen by the vast majority of people as ‘saving our lives’, you have built an emotional 20 lane multi level motorway suspension bridge towards a mandate that demands use.
The psychology of the NZ electorate has fundamentally shifted. All the female voters Labour lost to Key have all come home to Labour for Jacinda. The strength of this solidarity afterglow must be nurtured if it is to bloom into anything meaningful.
By artificially inflating the needs of the new National voters interests over Jacinda’s own tribe, she is telling the landlords of NZ she won’t do anything to harm them yet the mentally ill, the homeless, the working poor, the beneficiaries, the renters the prisoners, the poor and the disabled – their interests come AFTER the National Party landlords???
Labour are notoriously timid when it comes to challenging the neoliberal hegemonic structure because they were the Party that unleashed this far right experiment upon us and the scars of that debate are still raw in Labour’s psyche, luckily for us the economic depression alongside the meltdown of the climate crisis will be so deep and damaging that even Cautious Jacinda and Extra Cautious Grant have no choice but to reform and rebuild.
History is watching and no handbrake will stop that.
National – 26.8% – will go lower once specials counted
What’s fascinating about the National Party Autopsy is that NO ONE has pointed out that this result marks the death spiral of the Party and that the Boomer dominance over political influence is now finally ended!
The National Party campaign was a train-wreck dumpster fire that collided with a school bus that exploded next to a pet store.
Simon Bridges fell foul of the sudden solidarity created by Covid and National were caught flat footed by a crisis that only became worse by more free market deregulation.
No one wanted to hear about the State being cut back when everyone was running to the State for safety.
It highlighted the utter vacancy of National Party ideology, all they kept coming up with was privatisation!
Their ever changing position on the border was farcical and that’s after you had to accept a former President of the Party leaking privileged information to a National MP who then leaked it to the media, another MP sending sext texts, another Party Offical smearing their own candidate, and the Todd Muller coup ignited by cowardice.
They will wander in the wilderness trying to work out who and what they actually stand for.
Green – 7.6% – might gain 1 MP after specials
If the Green Leadership mistake their better than expected result as evidence that their middle class identity politics virtue signalling alongside incremental environmental gains was a success, then they are doomed.
The Greens better than expected result was driven by Labour Left voters seeing the pittance Jacinda was offering and backing the Greens to get some actual change, those Labour Left voters looked past the Green cringe of the last 3 years to do that, they weren’t attracted to incrementalism or woke nonsense.
The radical new chapter of MPs elected will want to throw the crumbs Labour are offering to buy Green acquiescence for the next 3 years back in Labour’s face and righteously storm out to join the Opposition and mercilessly savage Labours unprotected left flank until 2023 when the demographic changes favour the Greens plus the Māori Party more than they do Labour.
The Green Leadership however will justify any crumbs as great successes and better to be in the tent blah blah blah. Normally this kind of watered down Green lime reasoning would be fine and dandy, but the fucking planet is melting and this pandemic is but the first wave of disruption from a biosphere in savage decline.
There can be no more waiting.
You can’t replace Winston as the handbrake from the last term with the entire landlord class of NZ and call that progress.
So there is an immediate friction inside the Greens between the Leadership and the new class of activist MPs alongside the sudden power of Chloe by winning an electorate.
I don’t think we won’t get a transformative Green option until Chloe is the leader.
New Zealander’s voted Green for them to be radical. So be radical!
ACT – 8% – will go lower after specials
The hollowness of National’s ideology created an enormous friction on the Right and once the woke gave Seymour the freedom of speech war and ACT hit 2MPs, they became the fault line for this backlash against National.
ACT became the Values Party of the Right the way the Greens are the Values Party of the Left.
The collapse of National is the end of a political dynasty and shows we as a country have finally hit the upper limit of boomer influence and farming political power. From here on in, National will decline as a political force while ACT radicalises more of the right and grows.
We are seeing the seeds sown of a far more polarised political future in NZ.
NZ First – 2.7% – will go backwards after specials
Māori Party – 1 seat – might gain 1 extra MP
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Why no stats for enrolments over 50 yo?
Personally don’t think age had anything to do with Labour’s victory.
The border closures stopped the dirty Politics ‘advisors’ getting into NZ, the rich foreign students/residents voting for the Natz, Natz infighting, plus Natz strategy of low wage economy have imploded with more poor in NZ who decided to vote centre, the – 2 Chinese are more valuable than 2 Indian’s (Paheha MP’s fucking useless at donations) did not resonate post Covid and I saw a lot of defaced Natz billboards around Auckland with slogans like “sell out to China.”
More than 50% seem to have rewarded the free money that has been dished out. Interest rates are low, jobs seem a bit safer without 300,000 temp residents to compete against each year, so many ‘essential workers’ were outside of NZ when Covid hit (surprise, surprise) and coming back in dribs and drabs, workers shortages will start to drive up wages and facilitate workplace training, (can’t have that, open the borders!!!) more benefits for those on welfare, like power payments, people are forced to spend their money locally for the most part instead of jetting offshore which is keeping our economy going…
Good question and logic saveNZ I agree.
Yes,indeed a good question. I am 54 and this was my first election in New Zealand I was eligible to vote in. Why no stats on over 50s?
+100 saveNZ….good points!
It would be good to see a total breakdown on all monies spend on the Covid including all isolation costs. NZers need to see who benefitted the most from this pandemic as even pandemics can cause and exacerbate further inequalities. Also a breakdown on people returning, the countries they returned from, their citizenship status and reason for returning etc.
Labour did it in a breeze. Never in doubt. Well deserved. Those who spent all day every day for 3 years mocking and undermining them thinking they would influence other voters had an epic fail and are still choking on a turd. Brilliant.
National sent to the nearest toxic waste landfill as expected but some are still saying Chucky ran an excellent campaign…haha. The Buffet man who steered their Titanic into the Iceberg was finally arseholed out…but has decided to stay at the 24 hour buffet table for the “People of Christchurch”. Ingredients for a Divisive National Party cake on show again. 50% self interest and 50% arrogance.
Greens were always a good bet to get back in. Will likely always be there now with the issues facing the planet. Chloe Swarbrick is highly valued by every young person we have contact with and is clearly the future political face of NZ.
Not an ACT supporter at all so disappointed to see them do so well. The only good aspect of it is they took many votes off the Latrine Rodent Party despite the desperate and despicable taxcut bribe offered to them.
Mixed feelings about NZF being gone. Part of me is disappointed he’s gone. He’s done some good work over the years. The most important being choosing Labour in October 2017. He was also often a character in a sea of bland. That aside, I’m stoked to see him go as he was no longer trustworthy, highly motivated by self interest despite pretending to put NZ first and he became far more cynical in recent times. Ended up turning half of his support base cold when he went with Labour and the other half cold when he cynically attacked and ridiculed Labour when he saw his own polling at 1%. NZF are now a footnote in the history books. Winston will go fishing, dream of the glory days when he held NZ to ransom until he got the deal he wanted for his party and look forward to becoming Sir Winston in the upcoming New Years honours. More perks on the way.
The Advance NZ Party became the new Mcgillicuddy Serious Party only worse and about as funny as stage 4 lymphoma. Very sad of course to see them treated with the contempt they absolutely deserved. Complete arseholes who should be lobster pot bait. Having a protest march up Queen Street shoulder to shoulder wearing no face coverings while the rest of us were respecting restrictions and why we had them highlighted a new breed of political maggots had arrived on scene. What a shock that JLR was in the thick of it. Maggot excrement right there. Tova O’Brien finally got something right.
I think a more likely reason for the far higher turnout than usual was due to the two very important and potentially transformative referendums that were also part of this election. I know that is the main reason I voted this time. And if you’re there for the referendums, you might as well cast a vote for the government while you’re there.
While we can’t project what’s going to happen down the line the unique set of factors which impacted on E2020 won’t happen in 2023.
Will there be a powerful ‘shared experience’ like that of the lockdown? Can there be? Wouldn’t it be lovely if the shared experience was one of us moving together for a couple of years, united to better things, capitalising on opportunities and addressing the dreadful problems in our society.
Such a movement would not only harness a need and would jettison the naysayers to fringe parties like National. There is a knife edge mass waiting to go one way or the other. Taking them out of play in 2023 is down to those who have the ball in their court.
Re: The Nats.
Remember this? Tea Tape Scandal
Some of the remaining Nats will hark back to that time.
I wonder if there’s a Tea brand called “Karma” 🙂
the Māori Party are a resurgent movement
Yes. And, no other party have a clear policy to end the sale of our water, here in Aotearoa, to China. Yet, water is vital for our longer term survival. Draining our aquifers, especially at this time in the history of the planet, is some kind of insanity. The government have no right to sell our water!
We need to re-define the role of government, and put some limits on the power that it can ever wield.
Climate can’t wait. There’s a huge mandate for climate reforms there that we may never get against and If labour and the greens spend three years at war with each other the public will think they can’t work with each other and if it gets really bad labour will rule out cabinet positions for the greens at the next election and just offer them the same kind of confidence agreement they’ll be offering them this time round.
Wouldn’t it be better to get some roles, experience and policy concessions and the ministerial portfolios to ram those concessions through and prove to labour and the electorate they can work with each other and if the greens are smart which they weren’t last term, gives them space to criticize and vote against the govt on some legislation while still working together and using the biggest mandate in history for climate change rather than sitting on the side lines opposing.the greens vote goes up while working with lab govts and may go down if it’s seen to be playing opposition politics for opposition politics instead of working constructively.
I think the greens should work out ten policy areas where they will work with the greens let James Eugene and Julie keep their jobs and give chloe and Marama a couple portfolios and an agree to disagree clause.
Left wing infighting and constant attacks on Labour by the left will only help the right and 2020 could just end up being 1972 with 2023 being 1975. The right loves it when the left is disappointed with the left and loves left wing disunity.
I just feel if we can’t use a supermajority and work together on the substantial policy and ideology agreements that exists between Labour and the Greens then we didn’t deserve this moment which is a once in a lifetime result for the left.
Covid helped climate change… get rid of globalism and bingo, you have the answer.
“Around the world, Covid lockdowns have led to improvements in air pollution. In northern India, the Himalayas were visible in the distance for the first time in a generation. And during the first nine weeks of the UK lockdown, nitrogen dioxide along London’s roads decreased by an average of 31% compared with the pre-lockdown period.
Non-essential shops in the capital reopened on 15 June but life and traffic pollution have still not returned to normal. Compared with 2019, decreases of more than 40% have been measured along roads in the City of London and Westminster, including the Strand and West End.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/08/covid-19-lockdowns-global-air-quality-india-london-uk
+100 saveNZ….again very good points!
Off the back of the National Party’s implosion, one simply cannot go past Judith Collins as being the final nail in their coffin. She deserves all the scrutiny for being the worst of all choices.
I don’t think anyone could win National that election but she was the exact person they did not need. It is now abundantly obvious from the media and a very interesting summary by Andrea Vance the weekend gone, as a caucus member she was anything but unifying and regarded with contempt by many members.
Her style was at least a decade out of date if it was ever applicable at anytime. The – make it up as it goes – policy was simply farcical as it was unbelievable and we now know even many of her own colleagues were as in the dark as the rest of us. And it spoke volumes that Collins put herself first and the nation last with the utterly irresponsible tax cuts, a good example of a pure bankrupt bribe to save her and her party.
Aside from the utter vindictiveness and deeply repulsive persona that Collins brought to the campaign, it was, overall, like comparing an adding machine to an iPad.
That National got above 25% should be seen by them as a good outcome.
XRAY,
Excellent analysis.
What about when she said Harete Hipango was teaching her Te Reo. What a big fat liar.
When I look back on the lead up to the 2017 election, I see two huge factors that must be rectified in time for the 2023 campaign.
The first and most important are the way data is collected for the all important Colmar Brunton / TVNZ Polls and the Reid Research / Newshub Polls. These are used to inform people and potentially influence the population how they should strategically vote etc. The big problem is they are tits on a bull.
They were reasonably useful in their results regarding the smaller parties that indicated The Greens were back in, ACT would do better than ever and that NZF were history but it was the results of the two major parties that were absolutely fucking useless. In the days leading up to election day they had Labour at 46% and National at 31%. I was incredulous at these numbers that appeared to have been pulled right out of someone’s arse. All the talk shifted to strategic voting as apparently Labour couldn’t Govern alone. Instead of straight forward issues being the order of the day we had Chucky vomiting on about the Greens Wealth Tax and how Labour would cave in to the Greens Demands bla bla bla. Labour Governing alone was not even mentioned in the last few days prior to election day based solely on what the bullshit polls were saying.
Many people never believed for a moment that National was at 31% in those final days. TVNZ had them at 33% which was farcical along with their claim that Collins was at 23% in the most preferred PM stakes.
Election night results saw Labour at 49.1% but very likely to reach 50% after specials counted. National were at 26.8 but will likely finish up at 25 point something %.
It’s nauseating to read commentators describe the polls leading up to election day as being “accurate”.
I’m not suggesting any rorts took place but there is obviously potential for vested interest to manipulate the results to encourage voters to lean a particular way. I’d rather have no polls than totally misleading ones that influence people.
The other key area that needs to be rectified are the farcical leaders debates. The format is just not conducive in having any meaningful debate. The time constraints due to advertising demands render most answers perfunctory. There is also way too much power in the hands of the moderator. We saw numerous examples of chopping one leader off while allowing the other leader to constantly interject during the limited time the other leader had to answer important questions. They need to have the debate based around three major issues. All this bullshit about having meatfree days and the price of milk etc etc etc were just pointless drains on valuable time.
I also found it nauseating that blatantly bias media commentators on set were able to judge the alleged winner of the debates. Since when is interrupting your opponent, disrespecting them, being rude and obnoxious become personal attributes New Zealanders should value in our leaders as strength? These were farcically the very things that decided the alleged winner. John Campbell was inept.
The Patrick Gower TV3 leaders debate was just as woeful. What highlighted how pointless the commentators perspective was related to Ardern’s answer to the question on how she would help NZ’s economy recover and prosper. It’s a huge question especially when you have SFA time to answer it. Ardern’s answer was right out of the top drawer. She said she would use NZ’s good name and reputation around the world to help our economy grow. Collins answer was so utterly pointless I won’t repeat it. When asked to judge the winner of the debate one well known Nat supporter media commentator in the studio was apparently so disappointed with Ardern’s answer that she farcically announced Collins was the debate winner. Why does NZ put up with this type of contemptible bullshit?
The discussion of meat-free days was historical and momentous. The animal abuse industries are responsible for 48% of New Zealand’s greenhouse gases, and around 50% of global GHGs. In a neocolonial, settler country like ours, dominated by Fonterra propaganda and Country Calender’s naturalisation of animal abuse, it is extremely hard to get the urgent issue of reducing animal flesh consumption out to the public. Having it discussed in a general election leader’s debate was indeed historical and hugely important.
I agree Paul, yes it was significant.
The Maori party had my vote this year for the key reason that they finally woke up to the implications of mass-migration on tangata whenua. I hope they stay firm on this issue and don’t fold to the woke left who think that we can have a redux of the late 1800s mass migration and all will be good for Maori.
Kauri +100 to that!….the only way things are going to improve for New Zealanders and in particular the Maori and Pakeha underclass is severely curtailing immigration
Tautoko e hoa.
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