Can Chris Luxon & David Seymour win in 2023?

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
57
2959
A rose between two swarms

Short answer – because of MMP, maybe?

Long answer – I think ACT were unfairly stung by Luxon, he hoovered up all the sub 5% Christian vote and the math shrunk ACTs gains. If you look at the urban vote, ACT have enormous dominance in the 18-59 male demo market and I just can’t see Christian Lex Luthor appealing to them.

The naked truth is Seymour is actually cool in comparison to National, when the media breathlessly reported that Clarke Gayford had given speaker phone advice on testing, National wagged its finger and Bishop intoned that deeply inappropriate where as Seymour cheered Clarke on for promoting RATs!

Likewise when Seymour handed Luxon his Christmas Card last month, it had Simon Bridges name crossed out on the front.

ACT are just cooler than National.

ACT will gain two huge culture war set pieces in the form of the Hate Speech legislation and the Royal Society kangaroo court for Woke heresy which ACT will be able to weaponize.

Luxon will also have trouble bringing back the Labour female voters that supported Helen Clark that Key seduced but Jacinda won back in 2020!

This 200000 block of 45+ year old women see in Jacinda an empowerment of female leadership that won’t feel at all tempted by a rich evangelical CEO Handmaid’s Tale level anti-abortionist.

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That’s not to say Luxon will fail, there is a deep polarization of NZ society but he’s unlikely to get National above 35% on Election Day.

So while I’m 90% confident that Labour + Green will win in 2023, the unique attributes of MMP may come into play in Auckland that sneaks a victory to ACT & National.

I think it’s entirely plausible that National wins more electorate seats than Party vote in 2023 because I think a lot of reactionary male vote in Auckland may well vote National as the electorate vote but will party vote ACT.

I can see National winning back Auckland electorate seats while losing party vote which will cause a huge overhang in our MMP election which will increase the size of the Parliament and make getting 51% far more difficult for Labour and the Greens.

MMP Overhang could be the deciding factor in a razor close 2023 election.

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57 COMMENTS

  1. So labour will return as the lesser of evils.
    That will be great comfort to homeless people and hungry children.
    The fact is that we have now had years of a party with socialist roots and a massive majority that gives it a mandate for meaningful change and it has basically sat on its hands and done sweet fuck all for the people who need it most.
    Core Labour supporters may not change their vote but they may well just give up voting altogether.
    Swing voters will choose the most photogenic candidates no matter which party they belong to or which philosophy they have.
    The choices for voters are tweedledum, tweedledee, tweedleprivatise and tweedlegreen.

  2. Yes, unless Labour actually does something besides Lockdowns….
    Labour would win if they did the following
    – made getting rid of child poverty their top priority
    – brought in a capital gains tax on residential housing, apart from the family home…house prices are a nightmare for first home buyers
    – make cannabis legal…
    – bring crazy Kainga ora tenants to account
    – tell the Greens to get lost
    –

    • Nathan Kerr I don’t see how you can possibly expect the Labour govt to do anything about child poverty when the PM can’t even pronounce the word ‘ poverty’ properly – I doubt they know what it means.

      And you have forgotten, as Ardern may have too, that climate change is our nuclear moment ? Do you remember that ? Do you not remember those wonderful PR buzz words which some of us were gullible enough to believe ?

      As long as the DJ’s and entertainers can keep coming in to happify the plebs, government will regard all societal problems as solved, leaving the Greens to wallow around in their adolescent obsession with hormones and bad white men, while planet earth burns away. Any way that the time-expired Nats or smart Acts would do any better? Nope.

    • Nathan Kerr,

      I share your view with some things but not others.

      Lockdowns have saved the lives of so many Kiwis. Almost certainly included are your loved ones. Most of us disliked them but very few of us enjoy being in hospital either.

      Labour can’t introduce a Capital Gains Tax after Ardern promised not to while she is PM. This was done to stop Winston Peters forcing a constitutional crisis which he threatened to do. In hindsight Ardern should have just taken it off the table until revisiting it after the 2020 election. Winston Peters put a stop to the best way of controlling house prices. Instead, we now have the worst inequity I’ve ever witnessed in NZ during my lifetime. Now Ardern is stuck in hopeless and clueless no mans land. Doesn’t know what to do except a bit of fluffy tinkering. She wants houses to be more affordable but doesn’t want prices to drop. It’s a sick joke.

      Labour can’t do a fucking thing about cannabis now. They missed that boat. They sat on their hands during the referendum while a well funded vested interest campaign butchered our democracy with fearmongering bullshit. Many kiwis have good reason to feel totally let down by Ardern especially. We waited decades for that referendum only to witness it turned into a farcical charade.

      • “Labour can’t do a fucking thing about cannabis now. ”
        I disagree.
        Key went ahead with asset sales despite a referendum with over 60% vote against.
        Labour are gutless idiots.
        They have no policies. No cajones. No plan and no idea of how to run our country. They don’t deserve to be in power.
        Legislation to legalise cannabis could be introduced to Parliament at any time.
        There is a lack of political will as Labour are pawns of big pharma.
        Our medical profession is pig ignorant and by and large too arrogant to learn about the benefits of cannabis.
        We have a medicinal cannabis industry that is struggling to survive due to Little’s inexcusable ineptitude.
        An industry that would earn us billions.
        An industry that would employ Kiwis.
        Labour are idiots.
        I do not want them to govern again.

      • Great points Thinking-Man. Labour will struggle to be Government next election if they can only point to Lockdowns as their big achievement. Kiwis want more.

        • Dream on Nathan. Wikipedia lists the ex-leaders of ACT:
          Roger Douglas (1994–1996)
          Richard Prebble (1996–2004)
          Rodney Hide (2004–2011)
          Don Brash (2011)
          John Banks (2012–2014)
          Jamie Whyte (2014)
          David Seymour (2014–present)

          Reads like a ‘Who’s-who’ bunch of right-wing, Chicago School of Economics’ trained, neoliberal reverse-Robin-Hood aresholes (rob from the poor to give to the rich). Not 0.00001% of social conscience individually, or from all of them combined. Their slogan “trickle-down economics’ will make you rich.
          What they meant was “we’ll sell off your government assets and make our rich friends, richer”

          ….and who are they in the NZ political scene?

          The extreme right tranche of the National Party, to make the National Party more palatable to “centrist voters”

          Remember the cups-of-tea between Key and Banks?
          Remember splitting Kim Dotcom’s cheque into smaller amounts to ‘slip under the legal threshold radar’?
          Remember Luigi Wegigi
          Remember wanting to put returning Covid-infected kiwis into Air BnB’s?

          ACT’s colours are yellow with a hint of light-blue. ACT is National’s right-wing retarded (but likeable) brother Ruprecht from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKDX-qJaJ08

          The sooner ACT wipes out National’s opposition vote and becomes the “real” National Party, the more distinguishable left and right will be in New Zealand.

          We need a socialist government. Kiwis want less National and even less ACT.

          • Hi Marx my word..correct, but, if Labour wishes to keep being Government after the next election..they cannot relie on their Lockdown record only…Kiwis want more

          • I’m all in favour of people taking what ever they want preferably at pharmaceutical grade but when extolling the qualities of weed do remember lung cancer, chest problems and psychological issues(yes we all know THAT dopehead) AND YES THERE ARE LEGAL DRUGS JUST AS BAD, alcohol and caffine for 2, for me, go for gold but don’t try to sell a universal panacea, cos it ain’t.

            besides ‘I like getting stoned/mood altered’ seems to be the only argument needed for the legal drugs, it’s the only argument necessary for dope. the other issues are flim flam ‘I like getting baked’ is the real reason, and that’s fine with me.

    • Labour will win, if they put a halt for 3 years on investors buying residential plots, not for living but for renting.

  3. “ACT are just cooler than National.”
    Using the word ‘cooler’ in relation to ACT and the Natzo’s is like solemnly describing phlegm on the footpath as being beautiful. ( Remember that scene in American Beauty? That plastic bag being blown about? )
    I understand the point you’re making @ MB but still, it doesn’t make it any easier to read.
    seymour is covered in douglas and quigley’s sweaty finger prints. douglas and quigley literally destroyed our AO/NZ’s society, our economy and robbed us of the soul we once relished in our beautiful home-lands.
    The national party are merely crooks and liars. Just look at them? Would you let any one of them anywhere near you or those you love? I wouldn’t let the natzo’s anywhere near my compost heap for fear they’d contaminate it.
    Our democratic political system is capitalistic. That. Must. Change. Or we’re just going to get ever more hot sweaty money fetishists climbing over each other to get to the point of the pyramid.
    Compulsory voting and dump MMP might be a start but that’ll never happen. I feel like I’m stuck in that Black Mirror episode where that guy’s left in that snow bound hut for what he’ll perceive as being thousands of years but in reality, it’s only over the weekend. The real problem is there’s a radio playing an annoying song but when he goes to variously turn it down, turn it off or smash it to pieces it mysteriously re incarnates itself and each time it’s ever louder. I think this is that episode. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Christmas_(Black_Mirror)
    That’s how I perceive the fucking natzo/act clone combo. The bastards keep coming back. If we’re not very, very careful we’ll see that greedy, twerking, lizard lipped dip shit and that god bothering, dome-headed, dead eyed death-smiler where ever we fucking look.

  4. I guess it depends on how close the polls are coming up to the election. If again it looks like a possible Labour/Green coalition will the soft National voter back Labour again to keep the Greens out? Possibly?

    One thing for sure is with Jacinda, this far out its still Labours to lose, but without her it’s game on…hmmmm?

  5. Answer to the headline question: “Yes.” How, why? Because they are in the race and people are not to be underestimated or overestimated.

    Maybe the Key/Banks cup of tea will finally bear real fruit.

    One sad reality is that regardless of what scenario eventuates Paul Goldsmith won’t be far enough down the National list and so miss out completely even if things go totally bad for National.

  6. Sadly I think you’re mostly correct Martyn. A Labour/ Green win is the most likely outcome based on what he see before us. Sad because this outcome will continue to impoverish and splinter our society.
    So far Luxon hasn’t impressed me – he’s made a few minor moves that indicate he’s as big a drip as his fellow churchgoer, Bill English.

    Things that have yet to unfold.

    > Can Luxon win in Parliament? Can he weaponize the inherent racism hidden in so much of Labour’s legislative program and create a push back? Can he sell to the voters just how much of a mess the nation’s finances are in? Inflation? Housing prices? Crime spiraling out of control? He has the ammo but can he use it?

    > How will Labour handle manage the introduction of the virus into NZ? Delaying the end of MIQ will piss off those middle class wimmin voters who you correctly point out are the backbone of their support. We now know Omicron is very mild and should be actively encouraged into the country – can Ardern make that leap of faith and carry her support with her? Or would that be seen as betrayal in the menopausal minds of her backers?

    > How will the spat within the Greens translate into votes? Their previously rock solid 8-10% support by the more bewildered fringe of society is in many ways more important than Labour holding on to their polling. The MMP system turns on a dime – the outcome is determined by random tiny fractions such as this. Now we find the EU has classes Nuclear power and natural gas as “green energy” will this awkward detail filter down here and embarrass the Greens?

  7. Martyn et al.
    You are making judgments about a player who has just run onto the field. Let’s revisit your question in the later half of this year. Don’t forget that dropping the ball also gets you kicked out, and Labour are damn good at dropping the ball.

    • Yes, with Judith Collins not as leader …will gift up to 15% more votes to National, granted a lot of those votes will transfer from ACT, but some will come from Labour

  8. A massive IF, but IF Labour can really go against all its thus far poor judgement and political dishonesty and turn around the housing crisis, at least realistically start making decent inroads like mass government house building rent to buy affordable type of thing, then they will win. That is exactly the opposite of what they’ve done in the past 4 years which is maintaining Nationals failed housing policy.

    Forget everything else like light rail, child poverty, mental health or public safety and crime.

    But if they continue to fail in housing, all of the above failures will sink them. Deservedly.

    So what’s it to be? Pretence or accomplishment? Opposition wilderness or government?

  9. Agree totally Countryboy.
    ACT are raw capitalism. Each man is a god. Women are honorary goddesses.
    Like gods they can joke about the underlings and seem cool to other gods.
    They are the Nietzschean supermen sucking what is left of life from a dying world.
    They have to be cast out of this world before they destroy it.

  10. Keep it up countryboy. Your comments are gems. Hopefully more and more people will start listening to you.

  11. Cindy n grant should loose and lab should win.

    Let some one who can stop investors from buying residential property should come to lead.

    Not Nat not act , both are to support residential property investors

    Look at what they own, their ideas will never align with the ideas which help the average nz class.

    Chief of nat own 7 properties, will he ever bring a rule against investors?

  12. unless jacinda extracts the digit pretty sharpish it could go either way and a ‘royal wedding’ won’t help

  13. I don’t think I’ve felt more depressed (or is it angry?) about NZ politics than now. Election 2023 looms as a choice between this government’s irresponsible jiggery-wokery and ACT’s freemarket fundamentalism. National? What do they stand for today? Under Luxon they seem to stand for a more business-friendly version of the current government’s wokeism.

    As for Luxon, Martyn think’s he’s “a rich evangelical CEO Handmaid’s Tale level anti-abortionist.” I’ve no idea what his private beliefs are, but is there even a shred of evidence that we’d be in for bible-belt religious conservatism if Luxon’s Nats are elected? The Nats have just joined all other parties in supporting wokeist legislation allowing trans people to fiddle their birth certificates. Hardly the position of a party dominated by religious conservatism.

    I don’t think Luxon believes in anything except money. He’s another Hollow Man. Why is the “left” not focusing on that, instead of indulging morbid religious fantasies?

    ACT? It is a terrible indictment of the so-called left in this country that the crucial task of defending freedom of speech and the rule of law falls to a fundamentalist freemarket party. Where the hell is the “left” on these crucial issues, apart from a few heretics like Chris Trotter?

    “Likewise when Seymour handed Luxon his Christmas Card last month, it had Simon Bridges name crossed out on the front.”

    Black humour at its best! 🙂

  14. Surely only the blindest of the biased will vote Labour.
    They have delivered in spades for the wealthy and completely ignored those in greatest need.
    The facts are there in plain sight.

  15. Yes….but will they? No.

    Luxon represents traits that have had their time leading NZ. He will get traction with those that will vote blue even if the leader was a garden gnome but the rest of NZ will always see straight through him and recoil. We all appreciate he will have a massive well funded campaign to be PM but a polished turd is still …….a polished turd.

    Seymour is 4 foot high man wearing the underpants of a 9 foot high man. He gains popularity with the disenchanted. He makes the occasional reasonable noise but it must be remembered who his support base is. Disillusioned blue supporters that desperately wanted to support Chucky but couldn’t. The anti Ardern brigade and firearm users that despised the efforts made to limit certain firearms in NZ. The more you look into the policies of Seymour, the more you realize he’s not much more than just a tidied up version of the McGillicuddy Serious Party. It should also be pointed out the king of those with small man syndrome Leo Molloy is his good mate.

    There are many out there including myself that are becoming increasingly disillusioned and cynical @ Ardern but a near pointless and fluffy Ardern is still worth a lot more than Seymour and Luxon.

    The Greens however have superbly proven themselves to be the quintessential chocolate teapot. They are perhaps Labour’s Achilles heel in 2023. Labour will never be in a position to again govern alone in my lifetime so will need the Greens to get them over the line. The key to the 2023 election outcome is likely to be what numbers the Greens get.

    Whenever we are talking about elections it would be remiss to leave Winston Peters out of all calculations. There are big numbers of the disillusioned blue rinse brigade that will still buy the Brooklyn bridge he’s selling and unfortunately he has a good record of knowing where the finish line is and how to best time his run.

    • Inclined to agree.
      Do think however Luxon and Seymour will show more compassion for the needy than the current Labour Government who have abandoned them.
      Yes I think Winston is in the running.

      • Well certainly Seymour won’t, the facts are in plain sight, history tells us this. I’m sure the most bias right wing supporters will take your view though.

  17. Well certainly Seymour won’t, the facts are in plain sight, history tells us this. I’m sure the most bias right wing supporters will take your view though.

  18. I think that picture is what the 2023 general elections result is going to be!
    A coalition between Act, National and labour!

    • Are you letting your female genes erode your judgement Danny Boy?
      ACT/Nats/Labour coalition is a sick inaccurate dad/man/tane/male-joke!

      • Not at all. They are just a few degrees right of each other. Starting with Labour, centre-right, then the Nats to the right of them and then ACT, Labour’s Roger Douglas’s creation a little bit more to the right of both of them.

        • You’re right (correct). All the questions about nuanced philosophical political nuances means nothing for the mass. What makes a difference is in the months before the election, the headlines about housing misery, gang crimes, stories about poverty, shortcomings in health resourcing and similar.

  19. Looking at those 3 faces, the two to the sides are obviously nitwits, but the face in the middle doesn’t give me confidence. Like FDR, MJS and others could give it. Too soiled by their adherence to ‘the rich know best’.

  20. 18 months is an eternity in politics. We still have (prior to that):

    -Rising inflation and supply issues that will get worse rather than better for at least 12 months
    -Increasing interest rates that will cripple highly leveraged households
    -The end of covid and how the government will manage this given they have scared 35% of the population into a real-life belief of the ‘shire’
    -The great resignation impact on core services such as health, law and order and everyday business
    -Increasing gang and crime waves.
    -Vengeful people stuck overseas being finally allowed back into the country as some stage in mid-to-late 2022
    -More woke dogma introduced into every facet of life.

    The only thing that saves the PM and the government is a continuation of covid. With the son-of-megatron strain being a game changer in regards to to fatalities (relative) unless another strain comes through we are on the downhill slide to the finish. When/if females realize that there is NOTHING left over from the 100B and ALL the issues little Aotearoa had prior to covid remain and have worsened then it will be a hard road to convince them to ‘go around’ for another 3 years.

    My thoughts only.

  21. Child poverty?…. do children go to work and pay taxes? I thought adults did that. Mind you, wages have gotten so low over 36 years of filth neo liberalism even the kids have to go out to work I guess…

  22. All the grumpy old men are dying out and are forgetting that the younger voters who are not polled, read the newspapers or listen to talkback will likely vote for the Greens – not the greedy Natz or Act. I note the right-wingers refer to property investors not property SPECULATORS. The Aussie banks in cahoots with the speculators have made a killing ignoring funding NZ businesses and first home buyers and shagging up our economy. For all the uneducated comments coming from the right, Jacinda and the Labour Party with advice from the scientists have saved thousands of our lives in Aotearoa – I thought the role of a government was to protect and save the lives of its population. Just look at the failure of every leader, government and country around the world to look after their people. We have been lucky – that Natz and Act weren’t in Government.

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