5 months out from 2017 election – National melting, Labour stalling, Greens tactical & the one word NZ First uses to explode immigration debate
Following up on my 6 months out from the election analysis, here’s the run down 5 months out.
Political Party Challenges:
NATIONAL – current poll of polling 43%
National are in trouble. While there are no immediate economic troubles facing NZ, the decades of underfunding and using immigration and student work visas to prop up the over speculated property market are catching up and the blame goes directly on National.
The infrastructure simply can’t handle the students, the work visas, the new migrants and the millions of tourists. House prices will be stable but the infrastructure underinvestment is obvious, and that will turn the middle classes towards Labour as the infrastructure party. National’s announcement last week of $11billion infrastructure budget turned out to be a mix of previous announcements and a new motorway.
Hardly visionary but enough to keep rump National voters happy.
National face a threat in the provinces from NZ First’s looming weaponisation of the immigration debate and they face a challenge from Labour who are winning over female voters who supported John Key but are now interested in Jacinda Ardern.
Over the last few elections National have been known to over-poll by 6 points this close to the election, for them to be at 43% now is a worry for them.
There’s also looming danger for Bill English and the allegations of war crimes in the Hit and Run book. The video tape that Bill English claims he saw does not paint our soldiers or the US Apache Attack Helicopters in a positive light at all and there are now versions of that tape floating around. It is only a matter of time before Bill English will be forced to explain the chasm of discrepancy between what he claims he saw and what everyone else will see.
LABOUR – current poll of polling 29.5%
The current media beat up about the list process is a reminder that Corporate media are here to always paint the Opposition in disarray but it’s also a wake up call to the Labour Leadership that the whip better get in control of the behind the scenes situation because internal leaks like this are designed to keep control of the losing side rather than lose control of the winning side. If Andrew doesn’t win in 2017, it’s over for him so he has everything to play for.
Andrew Little has got to control his Caucus far better than he currently is if he’s going to be able to manage the challenges of a Labour-NZ First minority Government.
This bullshit aside, the gridlock, the housing crisis and the lack of a clear direction as to where NZ is actually going are all for Labour to capitalise on. I’ve seen some of the plans to turn out the vote in Auckland and I’ve never seen anything quite like it. If it succeeds Auckland will swing hard in favour for Labour.
If you win Auckland, you win NZ.
GREENS – current poll of polling 13%
Here’s what I posted earlier this week on the Greens...
The Greens have few options between now and the election.
There is a sense they may have stalled already.
The Greens had their greatest leap in the polls between 2008 and 2011 when they went from 6.7% to 11.1%. It was the golden age of Russel Norman, but the 2014 election saw them go backwards despite a small lift in total voter numbers to 10.7%.
There is a chance the Greens could stall further and go backwards again this election to 10%.
The Gaia with a vajazzle glamour shoot will turn off older Green supporters who might go back to Labour because the Greens have de-radaclaised almost every policy at a time when the environment desperately requires radical action.
The Greens will also need a tactic to counter the online activist fallout from their inability to criticise Winston too harshly once he goes nuclear on immigration.
But, with the propulsion of younger and fresher faces into the top of the party list, the Greens do have a chance to pull in voters from the demographic who vote least, Millennials & Gen Xers and their muscling in on the Maori vote, while detrimental to Labour at a time when Labour will be hard pushed by the Maori Party/MANA Alliance, is possibly the smartest play the Greens have come up with for some time.
I vote Green, not because I think they are very good at politics, but because they hold policy closest to where I see the country needs to be, but the grim reality this election is that Labour + Greens won’t = 51%, whereas Labour + NZ First + supply and confidence from the Greens will = 51%.
But there is another equation. It sees Labour at 33%, Greens at 12% and a resurgent Maori and MANA Party coming in with 6 MPs between them.
That would give you 51% and you would then have a Labour, Green, Maori Party + MANA Party Government.
By splitting the Maori vote again and taking party vote support, the Greens just made it easier for the Maori/MANA alliance to beat Labour and in doing so provide an alternative path way to Parliament where the Greens have actual political power and not what Winston will allow them to have.
…if NZ First leapfrogs the Greens, they will have little option but to accept a Labour/NZ First minority Government arrangement.
NZ FIRST – current poll of polling 10.5%
The political landscape has never been better for Winston to exploit. Immigration frustrations, fear of Maori and the RMA, a sense that the provinces who create the wealth are not seeing the infrastructure, all will combine in a supernova of a flashpoint, and that flashpoint will be Winston Peters.
Here is the one word NZ First will use to turn the entire immigration issue on its head – colonisation. Winston and NZ First will stop talking about immigration as immigration, they will start referring to it as colonisation, and once they cross that rubicon, all bets are off. It will resonate and ring with an angry reactive white vote whom National have to date marginalised rather than listened to, Don Brash’s Pakeha Pied Piper of Hatesville tour of the provinces has Don urging those hundreds turning up to vote Winston.
Roy Morgan made the point this week that NZ First under poll by 4 to 5 points each election. At 10.5% they have every possibility of leap frogging the Greens, but their late surge won’t come at the expense of Labour this election, it will come at the cost of National.
MAORI PARTY – current poll of polling 1%
There was hype last month that there was a surge in the Maori Party party vote, if that holds they have a good chance of bringing in extra numbers off the list, but the likeliest outcome is they will re-enter Parliament with 3 to 5 MPs in a combo of party list and newly won electorates. They won’t be welcome in a National-NZ First Gov, they won’t be welcome in a Labour-NZ First Gov and National won’t ever go into a coalition where they needed their vote (especially after the damage Winston is about to cause that relationship) so the Maori Party’s only chance is a Labour + Green + MP + MANA = 51% strategy.
UNITED FUTURE – current polling 0%
Greg O’Connor’s low party hits ranking has given him every incentive to beat Peter Dunne. Twitter liberals vow they will vote Dunne over a civil rights eating monster like O’Connor, but these are the same twitter elite who championed red peak.
Dunne has to go if there is to be a change of Government.
ACT – current polling 1.5%
ACT are perfectly placed to be the counter point to NZ First’s immigration as colonisation narrative and take some type of moral high ground. Migrants will find a champion in ACT. Expect Seymour to bring in 2 MPS off the list with him.
TOP – current polling .4%
They are not getting the traction they need, their best advocate is Gareth, but he’s unable to find a platform to gain attention on, twitter is too liberal and he ends up chasing Trolls all day, he needs a livestream video show to gain the media attention he won’t get as a Leader of a Political Party outside Parliament.
MANA – current polling .2%
With Labour moving all their Maori MPs off the list they have really inoculated themselves to the claim that their Maori Electorate will MPs will just get in off the list.
While the combined numbers of Maori Party and MANA voters swamp Labour, Kelvin Davis is popular up north and this new move by Labour means they will have to back him, it really will be 50-50 odds that Hone gets back in.
The biggest indicator for a genuine desire for change came 6 weeks ago from two Horizon Polls.
The first is how there is a change of sentiment amongst the 2014 and 2017 electorate…
…in the 2014 election, 56% wanted a National led Government, this time 54% want a Labour led Government. That’s a clear signal for change. The second interesting thing is that 77% of NZ First voters want a Labour led Government…
…if NZ First does hold the balance of power, their own members overwhelmingly want Labour to lead the Government. The caveat to that is NZ First are about to drag in a large number of National voters this time around.
My conclusion 5 months out is the same I had last month, I think the 2017 election will be close and won on the margins, but if there is a change of Government, the most likely outcome will be a Labour-NZ First minority Government with the Greens in supply and confidence for a couple of Ministry positions.
Second likeliest outcome is National with NZ First coalition Government
Outside chance Labour+Green+Maori Party + MANA = 51%
Boy Martyn me in Gisborne/Napier we all feel this way as Nactional turned their back on us when we needed our rail Line fixed expecially after we saw them rush to save the midland and the Kaikoura lines but not ours!!!!
Instead the creeps gave it to an Auckland entrepreneur to run bikes on it instead and now we are smoking mad so look out at this election Nactional you will lose two seats Tuki Tuki & Gisborne.
Yeah yeah!!!!!!!!
Id be quite happy to see NZ First in with Labour myself – with one caveat – that the Greens also have a major say and stake in a Labour led govt.
Its a shame Mana effectively went with the Maori party. The Maori party is one Id like to see the demise off. For 9 years they have sat on their arses giving support to the most odiously corrupt Prime Minister this country has ever had .They gave that globalist monstrosity both their willing and tacit support.
And for what justification?… because they said they would rather sit around the table winning concessions for ‘ their’ people.
‘Their’ people didn’t seem to include anyone outside of their brown neo liberal elitist class, however. And so they were quite willing to sit around the table winning concessions for ‘ their ‘ people while the rest of the country sucked on Keys shit and died.
And apart from Marama Fox, – the rest of those treacherous Uncle Toms can find other employment. Along with Dunne and the lone ranger in ACT ,- this country doesn’t need anymore useless slobs like that cluttering up the healing process of this place needs anymore.
Begone all three of them.
Well said Wild Katipo
Gut feeling at this stage is NZF will get at least 15% of the Party vote and will do particularly well in some Electorates as word has it they are gathering some potentially strong candidates. You heard it first on the TDB.
Didn’t hear it first here. Been rumblings down here on the ground for some time. Keep ear close thereunto
May be risky , but I hope NZ First does reach those numbers and possibly beyond , I do not think Peters will back National.
For two reasons , first his internal party voting system . I don’t think he will risk crumbling support if he try’s going National. Second is , Nationals brand of neo liberalism is far more extreme than the remnants in Labours caucus.
I don’t see National winning, they are tired , – and even now , under English , – old problems and new developments are starting to haunt and catch up with him and his party.
It will be a Labour , Greens , NZ First govt after this coming September election.
+100 WILD KATIPO…hope so
This year will have many surprises coming, I just sense it, it is far too early for such presumptions and speculation, there will be some upheaval, and some significant movement in the polls, leading to a potential surprise upset at election time.
That is without even considering international developments that may impact on NZ.
Oh, the Nats won’t get in – I’d bet my inheritance on it.
ABSOLUTELY. NO. CHANCE.
agree with you Weatherman there time is up they have had there 3 terms to deliver our brighter future no brighter future no gnats
Be kinda nice to see Hone regain his seat ,…. never did like that Davis … too much of a free-market type for my liking. A bit like Shane Jones, unfortunately.
Its testament to how far NZ has gone down the Far Right wing track when many of MANA’s policy’s are far more in line with Rob Muldoon and that era.
We need a few more social democratic voices such as those found in MANA to provide a true counter to even the supposed ‘Left ‘ party’s in parliament today.
Don’t believe me ?
READ THIS :
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
I agree completely with that, Mr Pungawerewere.
Problem is, the true left appears to have vapourised these days…
+100 WILD KATIPO
“… decades of underfunding and using immigration and student work visas to prop up the over speculated property market are catching up and the blame goes directly on National. The infrastructure simply can’t handle the students, the work visas, the new migrants and the millions of tourists. House prices will be stable but the infrastructure underinvestment is obvious… ”
All true. So it’s September 23rd: How many of the ‘missing million’ voters are going to think those words, or say those words, and be so moved that they’d make voting part of their day? And not vote for National?
And how many of the ‘missing million’ voters are going to think that those words are being said by others and think, “My boys could be in trouble so I’m going to make an effort this time and vote for them”?
National are in trouble? They would be if a mass of the electorate could see ‘the Left’ as an alternative enough to vote for them. The disenchantment will see NZ First gain the bulk of the National losses. Then Winston and Bill will get together. National’s trouble will be in working the deal with Peters.
We need a spiritual revolution – a revolution of the heart.
*laughter*
later….
*the sound of choking, children coughing their lungs out…..*
We do in fact need a ‘ spiritual revolution’.
Don’t knock it.
Premium importance is given to winning ‘Hearts and minds’ in many military and political decisions.
And that is EXACTLY what the NZ Left need to do today.
Yes CB – the truth would be nice… I think it definitely owed to us after generations of plunder!
What is left and how can it be valid at any point.
It seems left means a reduction of progress, money, enterprise, jobs, kind of a chilling effect blanketed on all citizens, how can it even be considered a valid governance.
What we need is 5 right wing (pro jobs, pro economy, pro enterprise, pro human excellence, trails risk, pro life, pro freedom, pro realism) parties with various flavors of solutions and with various levels of competence.
Left wing party is a sure way to destroy any country over time, it means National can do the most disgusting job of capitalism because their opposition is fatalistic and slow death of all ambitions and dreams? Why do thinking humans really fucken spin this deception on us?
” Why do thinking humans really fucken spin this deception on us?”
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Why does the right wing ?
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
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Who Is The Mont Pelerin Society ?
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This looting and destruction of the nation-state of New Zealand was planned and implemented by the London-based Mont Pelerin Society.
In 1947, Mont Pelerin founder von Hayek lamented that the war had drastically strengthened nation-states, which must be replaced, he said, with the classic, anti-state free trade “liberalism” of eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain.
Many of those continental Europeans present, like von Hayek, carried the prefix “von” before their surnames, signifying that they came from the noble families which had governed Europe for centuries.
Mont Pelerin shared the same “conservative revolution” philosophy as the Nazis. It also shared some of the same personnel.
For instance, Max von Thurn und Taxis was a sponsor of von Hayek and his new society. Thurn und Taxis’ family had founded another society in southern Germany before World War 1, which was composed entirely of aristocrats, known as the Thule Society.
Thule in turn formed a special “workers division” known as the “National Socialist German Workers Party” (NSDAP). The NSDAP, into which an Austrian corporal named Adolf Hitler was recruited, later became better known by the abbreviated version of its name, the “Nazis.”
In 1989, Max von Thurn und Taxis attended a meeting of his Mont Pelerin Society in Christchurch, New Zealand, to judge, first hand, the results of the “worlds most radical free market revolution.”
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” A primary focus of the Thule Society was a claim concerning the origins of the Aryan race. In 1917, people who wanted to join the “Germanic Order”, out of which the Thule Society developed in 1918, had to sign a special “blood declaration of faith” concerning their lineage:
“The signer hereby swears to the best of his knowledge and belief that no Jewish or coloured blood flows in either his or in his wife’s veins, and that among their ancestors are no members of the coloured races.”
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Thule Society – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society
Young Hitler – Excerpts Appendix | The Thule Society
http://www.younghitler.com/thule_society.htm
“Labour as the infrastructure party”
And what does THAT mean?
Right at the end of the chain – how about sewage treatment systems – very very affordable – to prevent waste and toxic goo hitting either the sea or the water table? World-class and 21st century, if you please. As a higher priority than anything else.
Investment in research for alternatives to the condensed energy of petroleum and coal.
A few more tunnels in critical places to cut out the ‘over the hills and far away’ of heavy haulage.
Freight train rail with some capacity for passengers. Northland and East Coast – and the West Coast, too.
Fewer five minute savers (aka ‘motorways’) that cost years of upheaval and millions or billions of wasted hours for the patient fool drivers.
Affordable public transport that runs at people friendly hours – and not just in cities or bigger towns.
Water conservation – more than simply bigger reservoirs.
And two-lane bridges for Northland. Plus moving that peculiarity that is Auckland Port off, out, away and connected to rail.
Plus both adequate/affordable electricity supply and an insistence on power-frugal devices. We’re way behind.
Could they? Yes. Will they? Maybe. It’s always maybe.
Indeed, Andrea. Resurgent rail could prove a real boone to the provinces, and reduce reliance on fossil fuels and spending ever-increasing amounts on more motorways.
I swear, one day I will lose the plot and send all those damned, ubiquitous, road-cones to the nearest tip (or recycle station).
100% and gorgeous message , Frank.
ANY modern and forward thinking state in Europe has ALREADY utilized the benefits of rail.
And for that sometimes lonely voice CLEANGREEN who regularly campaigns on this site for rail , – 100 % support to him as well.
We need to fall in behind rail for this country , – BIG TIME.
Which is pretty much what NZ First’s supporters wanted back in 1996. Especially with all the anti-National rhetoric that Peters was putting out during the ’96 elections campaign;
And we all know how played out on 11 December 1996: https://fmacskasy.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/nz-first-national-coalition-11-12-96.jpg
Lest we forget…
Yes but the balance to that was that NZ First was a ‘ centrist party’,… straddling both benches ,… therefore they could hardly be swayed one way or another…and that’s NZ Firsts unenviable position. Unfortunately.
I see it as more Peters went with National to at least try and soften the neo liberal impact by winning some concessions.
We were , at that time , overwhelmed by the New Right…
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
To which , was an assault on the New Zealand public at that time, and as we all know… people voted out Labour and ‘ Douglas’ in the hope of change, … instead they got Bolger and ‘ Richardson ‘…
BOTH members of the Mont Pelerin Society.
And as it transpired , Shipley rolled Bolger because she was impatient with Bolgers caution…
She assumed power to ram through the neo liberal ‘ reforms’…
And all this time , Peters opposed both Richardson and later Shipley….
Peters is a nationalist at heart.
And given half a chance , I think he would side with a Left Centrist govt hands down rather than try to ‘ work within’ as he did before… don’t forget , – he paid a heavy price for that stint with extremist’s like Shipley.
I don’t think he will go against the wishes of the party voting system and risk the same sort of implosion that happened to NZ First under the neo liberal Bolger / Shipley years.
I think he will go with Labour and we will be looking at a Labour led govt post September.
Not a bad article. Put simply Labour cannot get its shit together and will not do so before the election, if ever. It would be great to sea mutually agreeable resolution for Pike (between who is in govt and the families as this will go on hurting until resolved. Immigration is the bear in the room and will be an interesting one. Will be an interesting few months.
Ahhh ,… bollicks to ya!
Labour IS ‘getting its shit together’ and that’s whats getting English and his National party all angsty.
And part of that includes entering into Pike River – which the Nats are fearful of.
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I posted this regarding Pike River on The Standard regarding this article:
‘Andrew Little: Together, we will fight for justice for Pike families ‘
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The “in-ground resource value” of New Zealand’s extensive ironsand deposits could be between $1 trillion and $5 trillion, says state-owned energy company Solid Energy.
The iron ore contained in ironsands off the west coast of the North Island has been estimated to be worth a trillion dollars, but Solid Energy chief executive Don Elder said that “the industry view is increasingly that (the value) could be substantially greater than that”.
The final value would depend on the price of steel, and the availability of technology to smelt ironsands, he told Parliament’s commerce select committee yesterday.
“Resources are attracting margins or profits in the order of 20 percent of the revenue.”
Prices seen in 2008 would mean profit margins of 50 percent or “significantly higher” could be available from ironsands.
A New Zealand-based company, Trans Tasman Resources Ltd (TTR), and overseas rivals are looking at exploiting New Zealand ironsands, and TTR has suggested that a domestic steel mill could use local high-grade coking coal to refine the ironsands.
Dr Elder said Chinese companies had cheaper labour and capital and could do such projects faster, but New Zealand had an advantage in the availability of the water needed for such a refinery.
“If you could process those in New Zealand, it’s a much much better value opportunity and would certainly compete with doing the same thing in China under the right circumstances, with the right technology”.
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There are many overseas company eyeing up those same resources , as well as NZ ones. Opencast mining is cheaper to conduct and – less prone to negative publicity such as the tragedy at Pike River. You will also recall when John Key first came to power, he and Brownlee were keen to exploit minerals in our national parks . However the rest of us were not and the momentum was lost.
And as an example of what I meant , I posted this directly below
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BTW :…
Pike River was ONE of the mines that was envisioned to help supply that ‘high quality coking coal’ for the NZ iron sand smelting process….
As well… the same company that owned the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia , USA , … that had a similar methane /coal dust explosion killing 29 workers with only 2 escaping ( just like Pike River) … several months before Pike River – ALSO HAD FINANCIAL INTERESTS IN PIKE RIVER.
Go figure , people !!!
There’s a lot more riding on this whole thing than meets the eye with some pretty powerful local and offshore vested interests who are working to ensure Pike River evidence never gets to see the light of day.
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( Update : Bathhurst Resources was a direct investor in Pike River Coal Mine – which has DIRECT RELEVANCE to the articles in today’s news in the articles below ….)
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NOW TODAY WE SEE THIS ,… in the NZ Herald – AND hot on the heels of the latest release on Pike River :
Forest & Bird says Government has secret mining plans for Denniston …
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11848323
‘Secret’ coal mining plans on the West Coast alarm Forest & Bird | Stuff …
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/92107750/Secret-coal-mining-plans-alarm-Forest-Bird
Forest & Bird says Government has secret mining plans for Denniston …
mining.einnews.com/…/378838187-forest-bird-says-government-has-secret-mining-p.
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And historically , – the Forest and Bird Society know all too well how these deceptive mining operators work through Government.
Forest & Bird Magazine 352 May 2014 by Forest & Bird – issuu
https://issuu.com/forestandbird/docs/forest___bird_magazine_352_may_2014
The labour party list debacle and the flip flop immigration policy does not give me any hope that they have it together. If you consider National to be bastards they are at least united bastards. Being united is something that Labour never seems to manage.