By suppressing the Special Votes by limiting enrolment, the Political Right are attempting to gerrymander and screw the scrum.
That’s 600 000 voters who are impacted, 75% of which vote Left.
We can not pretend that we have to play this game any longer.
This demands the Left do exactly what the Right do and that is use MMP to it’s greatest potential!
Why does the Left always fight with both hands tied behind our back while the Right have no problems bringing guns to fist fights?
Labour and the Māori Party could come to an arrangement in the Māori Electorates that create a 6 seat overhang that would lock the Left into a decade of power!
If Labour are too frightened to try that, then a Māori Party/Green Party Alliance that negotiates as a united front with Labour.
Either way will see a Labour/Green/MP Government with the spine of the Greens and MP to ensure it’s not another incremental red blancmange.
Brothers and Sisters.
I have a meme
That one day the Political Left in Aotearoa New Zealand, can sort their shit out enough to see that there is more common ground between us than the narcissism of petty policy difference.
I dream this Summer that the Labour, Greens and MāoriParty can meet for an early election year hui to present a united front that includes an individualised electorate voting strategy to maximise MMP and an agreed basic policy platform.
For the love of the risen Baby Jesus, this anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-worker, anti-renter, anti-beneficiary, anti-disability, anti-environment Government is too dangerous to hand a second term to, but it’s not enough to win through apathy, the Left needs an electorate mandate from the People to make the transformational change we all voted Jacinda in to archive.
We are all still waiting for that transformative change Jacinda promised us in 2017.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
It becomes even more important that Willy Jackson is leader of the Labour Party.
Chippie might be a nice bloke but he hasn’t got what it takes to excite people. Labour must sort this out soon or remain in opposition forever.
Luxon is not a formidable opponent, but his backers have money and are willing to bend rules and play dirty.
Your kidding right?
Clark has the ability to excite people. Here she is between the lines (I reckon) crying that she didn’t become head of the UN.
“She said the environment where Ardern and Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin exited politics was hostile to them, and those who direct that abuse should consider the impact it would have if it was aimed at the women in their lives.”
Or is she sticking up for me? An impossibility if she’s a FarLy&Rightard.
what?
Joy August 31, 2025 At 7:44 am
“It becomes even more important that Willy Jackson is leader of the Labour Party.
Chippie might be a nice bloke…..”
Tautoko that. The sooner the better.
Chippie is not a nice bloke….
Anyone who denies the genocide in Gaza is not ‘a nice bloke’
Anyone who makes a ‘Catain’s Call’ to cancel his party and government’s decision to impose a wealth tax is not ‘a nice bloke’.
Ok, he puts on an act. Point is, he needs to be gone.
They can’t anoint someone 6 weeks before the next election and expect a second ‘miracle’, if you can call Jacinda’s elevation a miracle.
It needs planning and do we see any of that happening?
Needs to be a nationwide enrol/check your enrolment campaign-people are getting bumped from the roll. The decrepit postal system along with transient renters and homeless is another barrier.
“Enrol and vote” will have to be a bottom up led campaign as the Electoral Commission is going to do stuff all in terms of community outreach for 2026.
As for Labour/Greens/TPM cooperation we can but try. LP can’t even get their act together on a wealth tax in the face of the worst Govt. in decades.
Tiger Mountain August 31, 2025 At 8:31 am
“…..The decrepit postal system along with transient renters and homeless is another barrier.”
The cutoff date also bars young people who are turning 18 around election time.
Not enough attention is being given to the fact that the government is also pushing ahead to include a referendum to raise the parliamentary term to Four Years, which will further disenfranchise young first time voters. In my opinion this is another right wing attack on our democracy.
If a young person turned 18 on election day or just before it, there will be Four Years before they will have a chance to vote again.
In four years our young men and women could be conscripted and sent to an unpopular foreign war by a government they had no say in forming.
We need more democracy not less
In essence the government are arguing that 6 years is not enough time to put in place all the things they want to achieve.
Most New Zealand governments last for two terms. Only two New Zealand governments have ever served only one term, and they were both Labour governments. (possibly because Labour keeps disappointing their base, whereas National never does).
Three New Zealand governments have served three parliamentary terms, one government, the first Labour Government served for 14 years (more than three terms).
If a government is satisfying their base voters, and is not too extreme for the rest electorate, then they can easily remain in power for 6 years. Time enough in my opinion.
As the saying goes; Politicians, like nappies, need to be changed often and for the same reason’
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zMimdtAdUWg
You are not correct about those turning 18 .If you are 17 and a permanent resident you can enroll and you will be able to vote when you turn 18.
If you are too disorganized to register then you are not worthy of a vote .Why is it you seem to think this only applies to those on the left and you saying us right wing voter are smarter.
“If a young person turned 18 on election day or just before it, there will be Four Years before they will have a chance to vote again.”
aw c’mon, Pull the cut-off day back a few days and there will ALWAYS be some people who just miss out and have to wait for next election. That will apply whenever the age limit is placed. It’s in the very nature of age deadlines.
“The cutoff date also bars young people who are turning 18 around election time.”
“If a young person turned 18 on election day or just before it, there will be Four Years before they will have a chance to vote again.”
That’s not true though is it. As can be seen here under this section:
“Are you 17 years old?”
https://vote.nz/enrolling/get-ready-to-enrol/are-you-eligible-to-enrol-and-vote/
Needs to be a nationwide enrol/check your enrolment campaign-people are getting bumped from the roll. The decrepit postal system along with transient renters and homeless is another barrier.
“Enrol and vote” will have to be a bottom up led campaign as the Electoral Commission is going to do stuff all in terms of community outreach for 2026.
As for Labour/Greens/TPM cooperation we can but try. LP can’t even get their act together on a wealth tax in the face of the worst Govt. in decades.
Labour should have done an Epsom scenario with TPM this upcoming By-election with Orini Kaipara instead they do a Pene Henare pitting Maori candidate against each other typical colonial divide & rule tactics that Labour for yah
Yes, if Hipkins doesn’t have a burning passion or the courage to win, then he must step down now for someone who has ALL those qualities. Personally I would love to see Willie Jackson in that role but with the spiteful level of racism in this country it would probably not work. Every Left party needs to be on board now with their best policies. Sadly the dummies who fund/vote for the CoC parties don’t have the brains or acumen to even see the damage their mob is causing. It’s so simple to them, FOLLOW THE MONEY! Must be lovely to snuggle up in your warm bed at night, after a sumptuous meal, without a thought for those freezing on the street with a rumbling stomach just because their whole world has been turned upsidedown when their job was discontinued. Oh how the day of reckoning [not the banking sort you do Luxon] is so overdue. Lefties send a link to Martyn’s post to your local MP – most emails are ‘name@parliament.govt.nz’.
Like the title – use MMP tactically strategically. Some people rail against it as if it was the worst thing after mouldy bread. And I can understand that but those people need to understand that it was brought in to see that everybody’s votes showed up in stats, not just being swallowed up in the sure seats of the two main parties when there was no possibility of making change.
I thought it important even though I had seen in Oz that it opened the way for one politician with bombast and a meretricious nature to hold the country to ransom. We all have a political party idea in the Westminster style that is past its use-by date. I think there needs to be small changes carefully thought through from A to Z made every 20 years.
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