5 months until the 2020 NZ election – where are we at?
So we are 5 months away from the 2020 election and all of a sudden EVERY SINGLE previous prediction means nothing!
This pandemic is a once in a generation event, political values are being tested in ways that will either break them or strengthen them. Who we are and what we are as a national identity is being excised in real time and the consequences of where New Zealand goes next will re-orientate us as a country in a way that will be as monumental as Universal Suffrage, Nuclear Free, and the Neoliberal experiment of the 1980s all rolled into one.
This plague throws the playbook of politics out the window. Voters who have voted Blue their entire lives have been bewildered by Jacinda’s competence and are considering voting Labour in gratitude, the NZ Right who have been a solidified voting block since Brash faces a hard right schism for the first time in decades and those already angry towards Jacinda have bordered on outright hate as the financial threat of lockdown bites.
Identity Politics has been diminished for the petty political narcism it is and abandoned in the race towards the election. No one gives two shits about militant vegan bike lane PoC free the nipple protests celebrating their trans allies and mommy blogger Action Station petitions, people give two shits about where their next meal is coming from, how they pay for the roof over their head and how they are going to hold their shit together.
Less woke micro aggression policing, more neoliberal hegemonic structural re-engineering. The problem for the left is that neither Labour nor the Greens have the imagination for that re-engineering as both had acquiesced to the free market gods a long time ago. Their intellectual Stockholm syndrome is what’s holding the Progressive left from actually doing anything meaningful.
We have dodged the public health nightmare, now the second wave of this pandemic tsunami threatens to cause an economic apocalypse, so where the fuck are we at?
LABOUR: Predication – Majority Government
I didn’t ever think it was possible in an MMP environment, but Jacinda’s extraordinary leadership not only through this plague but through the White Supremacist Terror attack and the volcanic eruption (all the while being new mother) have lifted her to legacy level.
We are seeing a political leader who has every chance of being Prime Minister for 4 terms.
People who only see the clips of her on the news watched breathlessly very day at 1pm as she led with fierce grace and compared her performance with Trump’s daily insanity. Jacinda has won the vast majority of New Zealanders over. She asked for lockdown sacrifice and the nation obliged, there is a real sense of pride and gratitude in her leadership that builds an electoral loyalty.
I now believe Labour will win so many seats in the September Election that they will be able to govern alone.
Now at any other time, the idea of an all powerful Labour would be depressing news for progressives because it would mean the incremental and cowardly domestic agenda of Labour to date would advance at an even more glacial pace.
The truth is that beyond Jacinda’s response to these crises, Labour have done sweet FA to be transformational; the poor still rot, the inequality still soars, the suicide rates are astronomical, homelessness continues, state housing is a joke, housing affordability is a joke, worker rights are a joke, the toxic culture of WINZ continues, meaningful climate crisis legislation is a joke, the tax working group was ignored, the Justice reforms were ignored and the welfare working groups ignored, (NOTE: tribal Labour will scream the lack of progressive wins is all because of NZ First, but that’s nonsense, Labour don’t want to be radical and blaming Winston is convenient).
All that said however, these are NOT normal times and the pending economic meltdown will FORCE Labour to actually do something new. If Grant and Jacinda can’t radically rebuild a sustainable economy that can withstand external shocks in a world that will only continue to hit us with ever increasing climate crisis external shocks, the negative backlash will drown out any legacy the last 3 years have gifted them.
NATIONAL: Dead man walking – 30%
They have utterly failed to appreciate that the country are grateful to Jacinda and want their own personal lockdown self sacrifice acknowledged. The backlash Simon faced from his own supporters on Facebook is testament to this and from the beginning National have struggled to defend their free market values in the face of pandemic exacerbated by that neoliberalism.
All our cows in one Beijing paddock was Key’s economic model, and National’s total acquiescence to China doesn’t help make them look like they appreciate their own role in making us subservient to our Chinese Overlords.
In the week before lockdown, Bridges and Goldsmith were gloating about how much Government red tape they were gong to burn in their ‘bonfire’, to boast about how much you intend to reduce the very State that frightened people are now turning to in a crisis is the biggest misread of a room since Trump guest spoke at a conference on feminism and micro aggression policing.
Simon’s Death Cult Capitalism Level 2 now demands that the slaves get back to work for their bosses has missed the mark as well. He just comes across like Mr Burns without the charm, luckily for Simon his caucus are too cowardly to take the leadership from him and he will lead National to a crushing defeat.
NZ FIRST: Back with avengeance
Winston’s sudden reminder that he hates the free market and neoliberalism has given him a second wind and with National crashing I see NZ First picking up some of those soft Blue voters who want NZ First to be a handbrake on a runaway Labour.
If Winston can make the enormous structural changes that he’s always fantasised about he could finally build the legacy he has been so desperate to achieve.
The arguments against the free market that birthed NZ First are now apparent for everyone to see and Winston could end up being the most important visionary in the Government.
NZ First should pick up the need to invest in a domestic Pharmaceutical Industry and rebuilding our manufacturing sector.
GREENS: Drowning
Even the leaked UMR polls claim the Greens are only on 5%. This should be sending shock waves throughout the Green movement, at a time when the climate crisis is the only issue and the need to rebuild our economy to meet that challenge the main focus right now, the Greens are limping along at 5%.
Why?
I’ve argued their middle class woke identity politics are so alienating that the Green brand is broken and that social media Green Party activists are so toxic that even if you agreed with their policies, you despise them as people.
The Greens over poll each election and have gone backwards over the last 9 years so todays 5% can easily be 4% on election day. Jacinda’s pandemic response has entranced lefty voters and they will flock to her, not dull James Shaw and invisible Marama Davidson.
Also the overseas vote that always benefits the Greens won’t go to them with International media drenched in Jacinda appreciation.
So, that leaves the Greens with the real possibility they will slide under 5%, which makes the fight for Auckland Central essential. Chloe Swarbrick is a star and future leader of the party and if she can win Auckland Central it would keep the Greens in power.
Marama’s strange decision to run a two tick campaign in Tamaki Makaurau could end up hurting Peeni and accidentally gifting the electorate to John Tamihere.
I think the Greens are in survival mode this election, unfortunately they don’t seem to appreciate that and if they do fail to win representation in parliament, it won’t be their Spinoff level misplaced smugness that will have alienated the voters, oh no, watch them blame the heteronormative white cismale patriarchy for failure at political relevance.
This could be the first election I don’t vote Green since they became a Party.
ACT: Right wing schism
ACT have played the culture war card better than anyone else. While the woke left have screamed to kill off free speech they disagree with, ACT has championed it and with National in free fall, the hard right of the NZ Political spectrum have moved to ACT. David Seymour’s defence of hard right values has given him an authenticity with the alt-Right that will pay dividends on election day. As hard right wing voters see National can’t win, that will turn to ACT to articulate their fury at all the socialism. Luckily ACTs talent pool is even more shallow than Labour’s so while David will get friends, they will be cheap Warehouse Bargain Basement mates who borrow your copy of Atlas Shrugged and never return it.
ADVANCE NEW ZEALAND: JLR with an anti-China electorate chance?
The interesting bit about JLRs last chance to hold onto his Botany electorate is the strident anti-Chinese Government stance he’s taken. With rumours swirling that the Dark Master Simon Lusk is advising him, they will have concluded that the Botany Chinese Diaspora are anti the Chinese Government as well. It’s a gamble.
MAORI PARTY: Election surprise?
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer will be standing in Te Tai Hauāuru. Labour’s Adrian Rurawhe won the sea in 2017 by 1039 votes over the Māori Party candidate, Howie Tamati, but what makes the electorate so competitive in 2020 is that the former Green Party MP, Jack McDonald who won 2798 votes in 2017 came out in January this year endorsing Ngarewa-Packer for Te Tai Hauāuru. This will make retaining the seat a much more difficult challenge for Labour, especially with a candidate as invisible as Rurawhe, whose endorsement of Labour’s decision to open up Taranaki to a huge onshore oil and gas block offer will galvanise Green voters against him.
Tamihere initially won Tamaki Makaurau back in 2002 and his bruising campaigning style against Phil Goff built a huge social media following that is mostly based in that electorate. Peeni has 7900 Facebook followers, whereas Tamihere has over 11 000 most of whom are in the seat, add to this the decision by Marama Davidson to actively campaign this time in Tāmaki Makaurau, and Labour face a real challenge in both electorates.
TOP: Universal Basic Income?
TOP have struggled for news oxygen but their UBI idea has finally found its moment and provided TOP with some political relevancy. Is it enough to get over 5%?
VISION: Blind
Thought they might have a shot to catch a populist wave with their call to only allow citizens to vote but they’ve created too many self inflicted mishaps to get anything above 1%.
NEW CONSERVATIVE PARTY: Joke looking for a punchline
Thought their Fox News Culture war hate campaign might have picked up the far right Incel vote, and to their credit they have. Sadly for them that’s only 1% of the voting public.
I will post an update when we are 4 months out.
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Incredibly good depiction of the current political landscape Martyn.
Winston is our savior once again here.
Why?
Because labour has shown is is not derisive in anything but COVID 19 and that wont win them widespread support in the election on its own.
Even Labour has failed to ‘flesh out the National Party sympathisers yet as they are the bedded institutional bureaucrats that are stalled labour’s key policies they stood for during the election..
Only Winston can get things done – with ‘common sense policies’ like no-one else.
Have you had enough?
You mean ‘decisive’ and ‘flush out’ and ’embedded’ and ‘have stalled’ or ‘are stalling’? A bit of proofreading might make your message clearer.
It’s lockdown. We’re all typing under influence.
Stockholm syndrome more accurately applies to Ardern herself.
Under stress people want a hero even if it’s hurting them and Ardern is being seen to be that hero, and that’s good politics.
She’s an extremely good, skilled front person, I still liken her to Obama.
If this level 3 goes too long, or the stupidity of allowing gang members and racial separatists to accost the public at road blocks continues, as further misuse of emergency powers comes to light, and as the the cost of our strategy on jobs and health and lives comes to light, that loving eye of the public is going to turn more jaundiced.
The real question is time frame, how long can the government ride the media adulation (every bit as nauseous as when they adopted Key but now with woke online trolls to harass any hint of opposition) and cover up the damage?
Labour/nat vote hinges on that.
Conservatives and TOP? No chance.
ACT will take many maybe most of the 250000 firearms voters which is pushing their numbers well up, some but not all will come from the nats, many from nz first and some from Labour.
Greens? Gone hopefully, Labour may suck the last of their oxygen as you say.
NZ First, what a difference a few months make, may stay in the game with the anti neoliberal rhetoric for the oldies, despite betraying their voter base and taking money from big corporates.
Interesting political times.
We are at the point where three things happen.
1) Vested interest media ramp up their undermining campaign of misrepresenting facts and running totally bias opinion pieces masquerading as “news stories”.
2) Bridges continues barking at every passing car, divisively undermining the Government to feed his life goal to become PM at any cost. The most untrustworthy person in NZ politics will continue trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge (pardon the pun) that he actually gives a flying fuck about your average kiwi…or as he calls them, “hard working kiwis”. Dirty politics 2020 style here we come.
3) The army of entitled blue troll worker ants will be selling magic beans online all day every day with their divisive misrepresenting undermining crap as per directive from the head latrine rodent. Keep pushing the water on a stone, dead cat on the table undermining as they attempt to muddy the water. The Government is clueless, the Government is destroying the economy, the Government is out of their depth and doesn’t care…but National are magnificent bla bla bla.
If NZ rewards the sewer rodents by putting them back into Government, our country will deserve the stinking selfish divided rat hole that will be left for our children and grandchildren. Forget changing the flag. NZ will be changing it’s name….to New China.
I don’t give a flying fuck who you vote for….except of course, National. View them as a fast growing cancer. The same sort of cancer that results in pain and loss for so many. The same sort of cancer National will then describe and sell as a healthy tan.
@ jacindafan. Still think you should print a copy of one of your posts and take it with you to show your doctor. I think you would would make JA’s skin crawl.
Wiking,
How brave of you. Quintessential online piss ant.
It must be really difficult coming to terms with not having your usual echo chamber when the cesspit otherwise known as the Trade Me message board was closed down.
I’m not here to win approval from Ardern or impress her in any way. Your personal abuse masquerading as a “comment” does however give a window into your logic.
I doubt very much the lady herself has ever seen or read any of my input. I couldn’t possibly care less either way. I’m not here for that. My user name reflects a person who supports her. The sort of politician she is and her inclusive caring for people style. That has been absent in NZ Politics for the previous decade especially. My support for her is not unconditional. She for example angered many people including myself when she chopped Shane Jones off at the knees when he dared to say if the Indian community didn’t like NZ’s stance on arranged Indian marriages, the airport is that way —–>. Unfortunately, Ardern buckled to Indian threats. I also see NZ’s reliance on China differently to her. We’ve allowed an unhealthy dynamic to exist where China feels very comfortable to threaten and bully NZ just whenever it feels like it.
The trouble for National is ineffectual leadership. Truly Bridges has no clue thus the Simple Simon analogy. SB looks to Australia for leadership, ” let’s follow them ” is his logo.
Interestingly Aussie have 10 % gst yet SB’s master raised it. They have an exemption on some goods. Would SB follow Australia on this?
Of course not.
So whilst he politicised the virus, his caucus winces.
National have got the opportunity but while National supporters enthusiasm is admirable I think it’s also very optimistic whilst Bridges burns.
5 months is a long time especially with the virus after mast to contend with . By then the dole lines will be joined by all the small business owners who have lost everything. The lockdown was needed but people have short memories and will be looking for someone to blame . Winston still has to answer to the SFO about the NZF foundation. With any luck the findings will sink him and his merry men.
Yep. When people realize that the infantile PSA commercials of, “stay home, be kind, love your bubble,” were media lubrications to keep people quiet while a small oligarchy carries out its agenda to enrich big pharma, war gear, and security surveillance systems as they lose everything, there will be a reckoning. Many of (all in fact) the positive tests in an Australian meat processing plant are asymptomatic. The World Health Organization and Bloomfield himself have stated that asymptomatic carriers run the risk of generating false positives. WHAT CHANGED? And do healthy people really need to be subjected to testing that runs the risk of false positive results, and then potentially being put out of work and separated from their families based on those results? Legally, the answer is no. The New Zealand public absolutely deserves the right to know for a fact if these forced tests that will happen because of contact tracing, on asymptomatic people can generate false positives or not. It truly is a matter of public health and mental health. We also have the right to know if the deadliness of this disease is worse for certain sub-sets of people and if that is the case what exactly being done to protect them. I think we will all have a better barometer of the mood of people when school resumes in level two. I can tell you every parent I know- if one parent is home their kids are not going back. That is how confusing and scary the messaging is to parents.
I’ve heard through the grapevine that Marama Davidson has been working hard in her electorate on behalf of poor communities. She may be invisible to the middle class media but it’s possible she’ll pick up some people who don’t usually vote come the election. Unfortunately the Green’s reputation for middle class judginess might also undo her work. It’s hard to predict but at least we know where she’s been
I can’t see it happening to NZF Trev. If Bridges can be exonerated then anyone can. And besides I think there’s still more to come from the JLR court case.
Very true Bert
Remember Winston is a lawyer with considerable pedigree, wine box ect’, and phony National Party dirt put upon him..
Anyway all politicians now have been through the legal wringer to date so nothings new here, as the court’s door is just a turn style.
“We are seeing a political leader who has every chance of being Prime Minister for 4 terms”
The only way Jacinda will get 4 terms is if she makes NZ a one party state
Would it not be the voters who make that choice…….
Tanzania did random testing for Cvid19 and found that a papaya tested positive.
I don’t wanna see the greens become irrelevant as it is likely they will. This thread dominated as it is by wishful thinking from slightly to the right centrists, isn’t capable of indicating where Aotearoa will wind up post November 2020.
Still, I don’t spend enough time studying kiwi politics to have a firm grip on the odds.
Has the Mana Party pulled the pin or has Martyn decided they are irrelevant?
They will always get my party vote AND if they are smart enough to ditch us boomers outta their executive then attract good keen young women & men, I for one, are happy to put in the work to turn out more than just my vote.
The rest of ’em simply don’t offer anything other than ‘more of the same’.
There aren’t sufficient permanent full-time workers as a percentage of total population for organised labour to have that same powerful voice they once had, even if the four decades of anti-union indoctrination could be neutralised. That doesn’t mean we’re stuffed, it means we cannot continue to look to our laurels, we must create & control alternative vehicles for humans to express solidarity for a just & equitable society.
Sure nu-old labour will try sticking a smiley face on the same old repressive nostrums they have been failing to seduce the voters with for so many years, but unless one of the hack parties can truly demonstrate that they want to change from the usual centrist policy of bare minimum undertakings & then renege on them, I see nothing that can get me down to the voting booth -that is how most I’ve spoken with also feel – that there is nothing in any of the dominant parties to feel excite by at a time when major decisions about our society must be made.
No recognised pol has the ovaries or the balls to see through what must be done.
Jacinda is a Media star. Politically, she is NZ’s Obama, hope and change. Her smile cannot hide her neo liberalism. The corporates have her ear. Jacinda honours midwives day when you have ignored them. Still waiting for a commercial free TV channel. You’ve had 12 years to come up with a plan. Government media non statements are not good enough.
What? Four term Jacinda led government? Based on what? Most of their flagship policies have fallen over and the economic pain is yet to fully crystalise. National is still very much in the running if Labour loses control of the narrative and cannot find a way to mitigate the economic damage. When people start losing their jobs enmasse, they will find someone to blame and rightly or wrongly, they will lay blame on the incumbent government. The only way to mitigate that pain in the forseeable future is to increase benefit payments considerably, matching the $585 wage subsidy (changing the punitive culture at WINZ), providing heavy subsidies for all tenancies while freezing any rent or lease increases, providing free education for people to retrain so they are still engaged and learning a new skill, all the while trying to keep viable businesses afloat, spending heaps on infrastructure, smart manufacturing using new tech and encouraging new environmentally sustainable ventures to develop. All these require ginormous amounts of money and they will just have to borrow borrow borrow. Now is as good a time as ever to have quantitative easing without risk of inflation going out of control. Borrow up to 100% GDP from RBNZ if they must and just inflate that debt away over the few decades. The execution and timing will be critical of course but for them to win, they need to bribe, control the narrative and paint a convincing story and a vision of the new roadmap. If they can pull that off and its a BIG IF coz the government is still riddled with half truths of incompetency, they will likely get a couple of terms in office. TOP, New Conservatives, Destiny loonies, JLR, Vision are all irrelevant. The UBI thing from TOP is a great idea but there is a paucity of details and as a idea in NZ is unlikely to pick up any traction and all this talk about the fairness of a flat tax and taxing wealth and assets is useless unless there is a surefire way of preventing the wealthy from hiding their assets.
This election anything could happen. Too soon to call anything.
I haven’t seen long term projections for the weather over the winter. My projection is that if hell freezes over J-L Ross might get a couple of thousand votes