Last year I looked at who was winning the online social media war between the NZ Political Parties.

Here were the results August 2012

1st – Greens 17 424
2nd – Labour 6 953
3rd – MANA 3 518
4th – National 2 863
5th – ACT 1 745
6th – Maori Party 1 013
7th – NZ First 726

Instead of waiting another 6 months for a comparison, how about we take a wee peek again at the Facebook support of the parties, and this time include the Facebook popularity of the leaders.

Let’s note that some leaders have ‘likes’ and some have ‘followers’ and some have ‘friends’. It is very easy to get a like, and far more difficult to get a follower or friend. Followers and friends require far more active engagement than a simple like on Facebook.

1st
Green: 21,163 (up 3739)
Russel: 4330 friends
Metiria: 5009 friends

2nd
Labour: 7,479 (up 526)
David Shearer: 6237 Likes

3rd
Mana: 3,756 (up 238)
Hone Harawira: 5070 Friends

4th
National: 3,246 (up 363)
John Key: 39,630 followers

5th
Act: 1,720 (down 25)
John Banks: 5277 Likes

6th
Maori: 1,232 (up 219)
Tariana Turia: No Direct Presence
Pita Sharples: 33 friends

7th
Conservative: 998
Colin Craig: 762 likes

8th
NZ First:814 (up 88)
Winston Peters: 7,038 likes

9th
United Future: No Direct Presence
Peter Dunne: 1637 friends

Conclusions:
-Greens are the undisputed kings of social media – since August they grew their Facebook support by more than double all the other parties put together. Russel and Metiria have a respectable following compared to other party leaders, but they are eclipsed by their party.

-NZ First, Act and United Future all suffer from the personality cult problem of having leaders more popular than their parties. But it looks like National is the biggest personality cult of all, JK having a following more than 10 times that of his party.

-Act has the dubious distinction of actually having lost party support since August – people have actively taken the step of un-liking them.

-It’s a bit difficult to compare active followers to likes but there is a fairly strong case that in terms of active followers Hone Harawira has the second strongest online following for a party leader after the PM – which is not a bad effort for an opposition party polling around 1%.

So what would Parliament look like if Facebook was the decider?

The Greens have an advantage that the other political parties can only dream about. The next generation are an online generation and the Greens are building the social media infrastructure to become the dominant political force of the 21st Century.

This story very much managed to slip under the corporate news radar…

Police who faked badge numbers keep jobs
Police officers who deliberately faked their uniform badge numbers to avoid being identified as they weighed into a violent public protest will keep their jobs and won’t be investigated by the force’s watchdog.

Despite the pre-meditation involved, the Independent Police Conduct Authority decided the three officers’ behaviour was not serious enough to warrant its attention, saying investigators were too busy dealing with cases involving death and bodily harm.

So the tactics to hide the identities of Police Officers can’t be properly investigated because the Independent Police Conduct Authority are so over run by Police abuses and too underfunded to look into the complaints properly?

What a terribly sad indictment on one of our public watch dogs.

There are a couple of issues here. The first are the violent tactics the NZ Police want to try and use when dealing with protesters. These Police hid their identity so that they could assault protesters and provoke a violent response. We know this because those are the exact same tactics the Police used last year with the final TPPA protest.

In that situation the Police targeted a young female protester right at the end of the protest and assaulted her, provoking a violent response from protesters which of course became the news story due to the fact that the NZ Media are too underfunded to send cameramen to protest actions any longer and they only arrived when protesters responded to the aggressive tactics employed by the cops.

I currently have a complaint lodged with IPCA over the manner in which Police threatened, intimidated and bullied Cannabis activist Stephen McIntyre into committing suicide and can attest to the vast stress and strain IPCA are currently under in investigating Police abuses of power in this country.

IPCA can be forced to investigate an issue if there is vast public outcry from the media, but in this case, the Police are given a cone of silence from the rest of the media and have been able to get away with premeditatedly hiding their identities.

Luckily for the occupation protestors, a protestor noting the deception at the time stopped the Police from using their provocation tactics and prevented anyone from being beaten up, but the fact our Police watch dog has been so under fed for resources that its teeth have fallen out should concern every citizen.

We live in a democracy, and the Police have to be held accountable for their actions. Sadly this isn’t happening right now.

Are you watching Seven Sharp? Don’t! Campbell Live has been running a series of investigations into the horror story of Solid Energy and as a citizen of this country, you must watch this.

I’d go as far as suggesting that if you are choosing to watch Seven Sharp over Campbell Live’s staggering expose, you are a traitor.

Harsh, but it is in fact true.

Now the right wing fruit loops of NZ will have you believe that the staggering incompetence exposed by Campbell Live is proof that the state shouldn’t run assets and that John Key’s flogging off of our public energy companies to the wealthy who he has given tax cuts to is justifiable.

Bullshit.

If you think you are paying a lot in electricity to these buggers now, wait until they are beholden to the private market with its vicious and myopic focus on profit.

Sadly however you can lead a John Key loving, bennie-bashing, climate denial, small Government, tax-cutting, National Party voting nutbar to a blog, but you can’t make them read.

The meme by our corporate mainstream media (who are of course benefitting from the multi-million dollar advertising campaign to sell these shares) is that 270 000 odd NZers have decided to invest and so the debate has been won.

Bullshit.

390 000 have signed against this, just because the wealthy fragment of NZ wants to rush in and buy doesn’t justify or delegitimize the rightousness of resisiting asset sales and nor does it water down the contempt of giving these same wealthy NZers tax cuts to subsidize their ability to buy our public assets.

A curse on all their leafy suburban households (including their multiple property speculations).

I digress.

Let’s get back to Solid Energy and the horror that Campbell Live has presented us with. How on earth Solid Energy managed to con everyone into believing that they had billions and billions in value when in fact every single mismanged idea failed is actually almost beyond belief. If we are wanting to crucify Don Elder, let’s make sure we have plenty of room on the cross for the bloody National Party as well. As the Greens righteously point out…

The National Government encouraged Solid Energy expansion plans but never required it to submit a business case for its ambitious but ultimately futile $2 billion lignite developments, the Green Party said today.

…so while Solid Energy were fantasizing about valuations that never existed, the Government were utterly asleep at the wheel. The National Party’s ‘oversight’ on Solid Energy makes Pike River Mine look like a tightly regulated safety zone.

Of course you won’t get any of those questions answered by any mainstream corporate news media outside of Campbell Live because they are pulling their punches now as their bosses eye up all the bribe/advertising money being spent to sell these assets.

When the electricity prices spike once our energy companies are sold, let’s hear what the sleepy hobbits have to say then. 270 000 NZers venal enough to rush and make a quick buck buying shares from their tax cuts doesn’t justify a bloody thing.

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