Making bitter wine with Comrade Trotter – why Wayne Brown winning is bad
I have mad love and deep respect for Comrade Trotter, he is as far as I am concerned one of the best political commentators in this country and his wisdom should aways be taken on board.
However, I disagree passionately with his critique of the Left’s reaction to Wayne Brown winning.
Allow me to retort.
I’d like to start by pointing out that I made the exact same criticisms about Goff’s win 3 years ago and argued that his paltry 35% turn out was no mandate and was symptomatic of a broken system!
Even if Efeso had won over the weekend with the exact same levels of turnout, I would be as equally damning of the system that produced that result, DESPITE my candidate winning.
This is NOT a left wing or right wing issue, it may be a generational issue, a bit more about that later, but to champion and defend democratic infrastructure that produces such damaged results as this does would make Republicans who adopt voter suppression tactics in America blush.
Because that is ultimately what we are discussing here.
A broken system of engagement that has been allowed to rot on the vine.
My issue is that the local elections are subcontracted out to a private company who have a vested interest in low voter turns outs!
We are such a cheap arsed, deregulated basket case of a country, we sub contracted our democratic obligations to a private company who maximise their return if fewer people engage and cost less resource!
In the last week of voting, only 8 polling booths were open for a city of 1.2million.
Here they are.
Again, that is Republican tactics in Georgia level voter suppression right there.
So if I wasn’t enrolled to vote, the only place I could have voted was one of these 8 venues.
Central Auckland, Great Barrier Island, Henderson, Manukau, Orewa, Pukekohe, Waiheke and fucking Warkworth.
How the Christ does that list sound reasonable to anyone else?
I can not see how anyone attempting to defend Wayne Brown’s victory will look at 8 booths for 1.2million and pretend that a 35% turn out is a victory for democracy.
It isn’t.
It’s a victory for the private company who has this outrageous contract in the first place.
They run postal ballots because it is far cheaper, not because it engages the population.
As for Tory Whanau in Wellington, to be very blunt, the STV system of voting is the reason she won, Auckland runs FPP, it generates totally different dynamics.
As for the counter to the landed gentry having multiple votes around the country (many of whom are boomers), I’m well aware that the landed gentry don’t have multiple votes if they have multiple properties in the same Council, my point is they have multiple votes around the country, if they have properties in different Councils.
The Right will claim they pay rates in different councils, so they have the right to vote multiple times, but renters pay their rent with the cost of rates already built into that rent by the Landlord!
If a renter moves multiple times into different councils, they’ve paid rent that goes towards those rates but they sure as hell don’t get extra votes despite paying those rates in their rents!
I note this to show how the vested interests of the propertied landed gentry (many of whom are boomers) and how their interests are sacrosanct.
The argument Chris makes that it’s every citizens responsibility to enrol is sweet, but come on.
To damn an 18 year old without ID who bounces around from house to house and who has to get out to only 1 of 8 booths to cast a vote is churlish.
To blame beneficiaries who are constantly moving in the churn for not getting out to 1 of 8 booths to cast a vote is disconnected from that reality.
To criticise the poor and the apathetic for not being engaged enough to get out to Central Auckland, Great Barrier Island, Henderson, Manukau, Orewa, Pukekohe, Waiheke and fucking Warkworth is just so jaw dropping in its audacity, it’s difficult to take seriously.
What are the solutions here?
I’ve been very clear.
Take the bloody contract off the private company and run it ourselves!
Run it with the same density of polling booths as a National election, a one day vote with 2 weeks of early voting.
There were 84 polling booths in 2020 for Auckland Central and Epsom electorates ALONE last election. That’s not city wide, that’s just the leafy burbs.
How can a handful of suburbs in the swanky part of town have 84 polling booths for the national election when there was only 8 for the entire city of 1.2million for the Mayoralty?
There is an outrageous imbalance of power here and attempting to defend a broken electoral system that has been subcontracted out for the cheapest outcome and call that vintage democratic wine is not acceptable.
If Efeso had won with the same level of turn out I would be just as damning as I was when Goff won and I would be equally critical of the private company running the election.
Again, this isn’t a Left or Right issue, it’s a basic citizen issue.
Watching so many defend this broken system and claim it is democracy at work is the kind of sophistry we’ve come to expect from those benefiting from it.
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I agree that subcontracting out council elections to private parties is wrong. Even more bizarre I found I could not post my vote, but had to go to countdown!
Countdown – a supermarket is the new location of democracy!!!! I mean is that very secure??????
But I think it was not the voting that has people down to vote, it is the lack of new ideas of candidates.
Bizarrely after voting Efeso, I am feeling much better about Wayne winning because he at least understands that the COO system is broken and it starts by changing the management first!
Wayne Brown to my mind is doing a better job than expected. The reason I say that is that he understands that the COO structure is not working for Auckland and essentially robbing the ratepayers of money and service. I applaud Wayne for going after Panakau, who like AT have failed miserably for people of Auckland while lining their own pockets in a non transparent way, with the ‘third way’ lefties and woke like Goff (who also bought in student fees) cheering them on.
As for Wayne taking time off for weekends and so forth, good on him. At least he takes the time to enjoy Piha and thus will bother to know what is going on with our declining recreational, parks and facilities, which is the only thing that many people can enjoy now – with the cost of everything else in Auckland.
Phil Goff working 70 hours a week to destroy Auckland and prop up the COO’s while bankrupting Auckland through stupid hires and policy, wasn’t my idea of a good Mayor.
Like Biden in the US, maybe it is not such a bad thing, that people who are older and remember the days before neoliberalism can actually understand that what is happening now to public assets and services is wrong. They hopefully have nothing to lose, to try and make the world and their community better and create a legacy not based on feathering a political career as critics points out, they are too old to have one.
Why couldn’t you post your vote? That is what postal vote is about. Posting it in letterboxes. The Countdown boxes were additional, not instead of.
Exactly…I say you wrote what many think…but was unable to articulate by voting..
I completely agree with you Bomber. It certainly does represent a dark turn in democracy.
But you all knew this from back when Efeso decided to run.
Why in God’s name wasn’t there an organised checking of enrollments, making sure everyone had papers, and delivering filled papers to the boxes (where ever they were)? The best way to beat this shonky shit is by beating them at their own game.
Getting to the supermarket isn’t particularly difficult. How many voters were caught up in the Costco bullshit? Yet they couldn’t get there to post their votes? Come on, for God’s sake!
No one seems to remember how to organise any more.
This lack of organisation affects only one group of voters negatively and that’s exactly what you all got.
Majurey and Taipari. Hmmmm
I agree with both of you on different points.
I totally agree private companies shouldn’t be running our election and I totally agree local elections should have the same polling booths and two weeks of early voting as generals (it can give young people a test run at general election voting cos it’s always a year before general) but you can’t move the goal posts during a match, you can only focus on changing the rules for the next one. Remember when labour got the second most votes but formed an mmp govt and the right was furious our electoral system allowed it? That’s what we sound like tbh
I do however disagree with much of the lefts constant attacks on boomers. Most of the economic lefty’s I know are gen x or boomers, my generation focuses on social justice and if we’re talking economic justice were usually talking about their student loans. Not working class issues because my generation doesn’t care about that stuff.
When I go to left wing protests there’s often way more boomers than gen x gen z and gen y, boomers are often more radical than any other generation, boomers are the generation that protested fought against wars, fought for women’s rights decriminalization of homosexuality, segregation, apartheid south Africa and the size of their protests against neoliberalism in the 80s and 90s dwarf any by my generation, they have been at forefront of the environmental movement.
I don’t know why boomers get so much shit. People act like generations are hive minds. It’s not about age it’s about class, there’s just as many right wing Zoomers and millennials and gen x’ers as there are right wing boomers and if people don’t believe it they don’t know enough millennials gen x or Zoomers.
What we should be Talking about is making local elections as accessible as generals and removing financial barriers to running for office so we get more independent voices and not just upper middle class to super rich robots backed by party machines. We may have an extremely diverse parliament based of sexuality race and gender but unless 70% of NZ are lawyers, bankers and teachers our parliament is as unrepresentative as it was a century ago.
We need more working class and poor people in our parliament and councils.
I’d vote working class boomer over an upper middle class millennial any day of the week and that boomer would remember the world before neoliberalism and before social media algorithms.
A couple of questions to kill my curiosity. A bit to do with the Rob Campbell effect other than anything else.
– Wasn’t Wayne Brown once a member of the Laborious Party?
– Didn’t Gerry Hill once act as campaign manager for someone circulating in this bubble?
No nasturtiums intended – merely curiosity. Nothing wrong with a changing one’s mind when the feks change
Nah Browns toast, he’s aligned himself with Ben Thomas and more importantly Mathew Hoote. Hooten who destroyed Todd Muller. That will be his kiss of death.
Brown is a dictator through and through, is what you meant and Auckland will get what they deserve. A Trump like leader and we all know how that turned out.
Oppo! was to text shallow see through, platitudes lost on the renting under paid prolatariat, who for some, i do not own property only the home owners allowed to vote, no,your rent covers the place you rent its rates value, so you are allowed to vote, just as if, and many are exploitive land lords do not provide clean warmth of their land agents lies,that exploit human care, for greed and its profit exploit max, maximum.
eH! COME BRING ON THE ELECTION, WHY,they will backbench their clone leader, if not their chance will be done and gone.
The idea,is vote,and vote for caring in a democracy,thats words,WOULD care sixteen,hows our look he i like that new glimmer make up,sixteen, eh eighteen do they entitle a vote.Course they do,tv ,phone and culture brain wash of self.
This COVID,slowed down holiday and other places capitalism,had power right us,now them monster petre dishes ships are quick as coming back,wealth not all most years of a journey saving,though your ship is a human petre dish, should we blaim all who ever come here on their floating petre dish,or are now coming again as our 30 year age of worker exploit minimum wage casual exploitation.