VOTE!
IF, ON ELECTION NIGHT 2017, you end up staring at the numbers in horrified disbelief. If National proves the people at Reid Research are the best pollsters in the business. If the Jacinda Train runs out of puff several percentage-points short of being able to form a government. If the Greens: the dear, earnest, tree-hugging Greens; fall below the 5 percent MMP threshold. If, after all these calamities, you’re casting about in your anger and your grief for an explanation, then reclaim from the back of your mind this crucial piece of information from Elections New Zealand.
As at 15 September, just over a week out from Election Day, “nearly 20,000 fewer young people under 30 [have] registered compared with 2014”.
Got that? Notwithstanding the fact that the leadership of the Labour Party has passed to a young woman of 37. Notwithstanding the fact that Labour is promising to enact a suite of policies aimed directly at addressing the problems besetting young New Zealanders. Notwithstanding the fact that the most future-focused of all New Zealand political parties, the Greens, are at serious risk of being ushered out of Parliament altogether. Notwithstanding all of these things, fewer citizens under 30 have registered than three years ago!
New Zealand is poised to repeat the circumstances that produced the shock British election result of 2015. Those with a retentive political memory will recall how both the pollsters and the pundits were predicting an extremely close election which could very easily see the Labour Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, moving in to Number 10 Downing Street as Britain’s next prime minister.
Didn’t happen.
As polling stations across the British Isles closed their doors, and the counting began, the BBC released an exit poll indicating a comfortable win for the British Conservative Party. Pundits and Opposition politicians alike were dumbfounded. When all the polls were predicting a close race – and some a Labour win – how could the BBC’s exit poll possibly be true?
The Tories knew the answer. They had cottoned-on to what was happening weeks before. All those young Britons who’d happily told the pollsters that they supported Ed Miliband and Labour were by no means as committed to making their way to a polling-booth and actually voting for them. Older voters, on the other hand, were borderline obsessive when it came to exercising the franchise. And guess what? Around three-quarters of them were Tories.
Two years later, back here in New Zealand, the chances of something very similar unfolding are distressingly high. Just consider these additional stats from Elections New Zealand:
“So far, 97 percent of people over 70 have enrolled to vote, but as the age drops, so does the percentage. Only 75 percent of people between the ages of 25 and 29 enrolled to vote and that proportion dropped to 67 percent for 18 to 24-year-olds.”
Combine that data with the latest Colmar Brunton poll’s finding that 67 percent of voters aged between 18 and 34 told the pollster that they were intending to vote for the Labour Party. 1New’s political editor, Corin Dann, has described this as a “youthquake” – and if 18 to 34-year-olds voted in anything like the same numbers as the over-60s, then he’d be right, and Labour/Green would cruise to a stunning election victory.
But, will they? In 2014 around 200,000 young New Zealanders declined to cast a vote. If that degree of abstention is repeated in 2017, then the same gasps of disbelief that greeted the BBC’s exist poll in 2015 will likely be heard here as the Early Voting figures are released on the evening of 23 September. Youthquakes are not born of young voters’ stated intentions, they only occur when young people get themselves to a polling station, step into a booth, fill out a ballot-paper, and drop it into a ballot-box. Jacinda will not become prime minister by Millennials liking her on Facebook. To effect a change of government, it is absolutely necessary that young New Zealanders vote.
Among all this doom and gloom there is, however, some good news.
When the Tory British Prime Minister, Teresa May, called a snap election earlier this year, the pundits and pollsters were determined not to be caught napping a second time. If younger citizens, in spite of declaring their support for a political party, don’t actually make it to the polling booths, reasoned the pollsters, then we must adjust our raw results to take account of the high level of youth abstention.
Accordingly, the overwhelming majority of polls released prior to the June British election showed the Conservatives increasing their parliamentary majority. Many of the British pundits went further – predicting a massive collapse in Labour support across the country.
Didn’t happen.
Young British voters had learned from the experience of 2015. They understood that if Jeremy Corbyn’s “For the Many, Not the Few” manifesto promises were ever to be honoured, then they would have to get out and vote for them. Which is exactly what they did – in numbers far surpassing the youth turnout of 2015. Support for the Labour Party surged. Teresa May lost her parliamentary majority.
The moral of the story is pretty bloody clear: VOTE!
You can enrol, and vote, at your nearest Advance Voting polling station (check out their locations at www.elections.org.nz ) right up until 22 September. It isn’t possible to enrol on Election Day itself (Saturday, 23 September) so – VOTE EARLY.
And once you’ve enrolled and voted, make sure everyone you know, who’s 18 or over, and wants to change the government, DOES THE SAME.
Wrong comparison Chris.
Youth turned out for Corbyn – it did not turn out for Milliband.
Why?
Milliband offered a paler version of neoliberalism.
Corbyn offered an alternative.
Unfortunately the leaders of NZ Labour is not as brave as Corbyn.
They are still beholden to the cult of neoliberalism.
Party vote Green.
Enough with the comparisons, its actually demeaning and Labs arent as neolib as you think, their policies are only the beginning and a Labour/Green government will not be another National despite what critics say.
….Labs arent as neolib as you think, their policies are only the beginning …
Was sold that line from 1999-2008.
Won’t be buying it again.
You incorrectly assume that this Labour party is the Clark Labour party, it is not. it is not the same, alot has changed since then.
Yeah well why hasn’t Ardern made a point of difference between her and the natz over TPP? The issue is only raised by others never by Ardern or the rest of neolib Labour. Much waffling about pharmaceutical prices but no hard veto. If TPP keeps going thru it aint gonna matter a flying fuck which cardboard cut out’s box cops the most ticks every 3 years, Aotearoa will have traded its sovereignty for a couple of soon to be devalued US dollars.
Like with Mexico or Canada since Nafta, the arsehole oppressors will be in another country and impervious to anything kiwis say or do.
I have no doubt that should Ardern be able to form a NZF/Labour coalition, nothing of any import to us people, will change in the TPP.
|Hell even the Green’s (treehuggers Trotter? that is so original, especially from an ersatz leftie such as yerself – how about people huggers, as flawed as the Greens may be, they do devote more time and energy to humanity than Labour does, the only interest the neolibLabs have in humanity is in getting them to vote) could take it up the jacksie over TPP – no pol can be trusted on this but the duplicitous Labour Party, the least.
The Labour party refused to support the TPPA in its current form and sees it as undermining our sovereignty and VOTED AGAINST it. Labour also doesn’t support National’s recent resuscitation of it. http://www.labour.org.nz/our_position_on_the_tpp I dont know what makes you think its a foregone concussion that it will be a Lab NZ First kind of set up. Labour has an MOU with the Greens and Jacinda has reiterated time and again throughout the campaign that Greens get the first phone call, and I have no doubts whatsoever that the Greens will go above the threshold and Labour’s polices are in contrast to your opinion.
Gee Chris youre a real party pooper, I really hope youre bloody wrong. NZ is not the UK, US and Jacinda is not Millband, thank christ. Understand what youre saying but this National government of 9 years is the worst in history and no party has had a 4th term since Holyoake. Even business leaders have ditched National and have come out in support of a Labour/Green government. Thats never happened before and early voting is tens of thousands greater than in 2014, so that’s promising.
The 1984 labour government was the worst in NZ history.
D J S
For obvious reasons the key/English National government is the worst in NZ history
Muldoon’s government was petty hopeless. Price and wage freeze,yet prices kept climbing, think big projects never made a profit for taxpayers, killed the super scheme, mounting deficits, sheep on welfare, IMF involvement to sort the economy.
National has a long history in government and yet New Zealand was referred to as the South Pacific Poland.What have they achieved in nine years, homelessness, massive immigration, foreign ownership, low wage economy.
Some things never change,National conservative by name and nature,no vision and no future.
V Nicely said Barry.
Chris, please stop posting knee-tremblers; the dilithium chrystals in my pacemaker will never take the strain…
Kids, please enroll and vote. Chris is just gonna keep posting this scary stuff until you do!
” knee-tremblers ” lol and I agree J S enough the scary knee tremblers!!!
My assessment is that the Greens won’t fall below 5%. Green supporters understand that (a) Labour needs a reliable coalition partner and (b) without the Greens, the environmental message will quickly be lost from the Halls of Parliament.
If, of course, Green voters don’t get that, then I’ve been wasting my time all these years…
Messaged understood. While my household had been vacillating with alternatives to the Greens my speaking to them has turned my one Green vote into 5. This is the task at hand for Green party supporters your one vote is not enough you need to bring many more people into the booth with the Green party at the top of their agenda.
Absolutely spot on, ‘Moa.
Today, at the Green stall in Lower Hutt, we explained the necessity of strategic voting to several passers-by. (Even going so far as to hand out leaflets for Ginny Andersen, Labour’s Hutt South candidate. Unofficial, of course. Not sanctioned by anyone.) People understood the reasoning, that a viable Green presence in Parliament offered Labour the options of two coalition partners so that NZ First cannot hold a potential Labour-led government to ransom.
Tomorrow I’ll be taking some people to the local voting station and explaining the relevance of strategic voting. They are the family that came within 48 hours of being homeless: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/30/update-family-of-five-including-six-month-old-baby-accommodation-crisis/
They have a score to settle with this rotten government.
Mwhahahahaaaaa !!!!
Don’t we all , Frank ,…. don’t we all…..
Message to all Westy’s , Bogan’s , Metalhead’s , Rockers , – head on down to the polling booth and give a one fingered salute to corruption and vote !!!
You should be RED with anger how neo liberalism has destroyed wages in this country .
And same to all the Varsity types , – stop the philosophy conversations you’re having in the flat long enough to all pile into the car and throw your vote !!!
Lets Do This !!!
And lets make a certain bunch of blue-bloods GREEN with envy after September 23rd !!!
Our young people are in crisis. They kill themselves in large numbers. They have no hope for the future and voting doesn’t seem to mean anything to them. God knows what they are taught at school but it obviously isn’t helping.
If our youth can’t see any way out of the disaster they find themselves in its up to us to make change happen for them. Not for us but for them.
And 37 year old Jacinda isn’t young to youth she’s just about old enough to be their mother.
The thing seems to be that previously enrolled and committed young voters are now overwhelmingly going to vote for Jacinda and Labour.
Many potential young voters are still not reached, but the shift among the existing pool of voters may do the job anyway, to change the government. That is what vote compass on TVNZ’s website seems to indicate.
But it is too damned close to call. What Jacinda may also achieve is to get enough soft Nat voters, that is light blue female voters, out to vote for her and Labour this time.
They may be the same that left Labour in 2008, some at least, and that are now wanting a new change, as English is not Key, lacks charisma and has NO new ideas.
Nevertheless, every effort must be made to get more young people to vote.
the inability of so many commenters to grasp the plain simple truth of CTs article leads me to despair of us ever ridding ourselves of the most corrupt group of politicians this country has ever seen….just vote FFS
I agree. I recently spent a week with my brother and his wife in Hawaii. He has been a Nat supporter forever, even though he was raised in the same family as myself – we come from a long line of peasants. He said he was not going to vote. I said “FFS party Vote Labour, if you can’t do anything else”. They had seen the light – it took a while- but they can now see through the Key lies and National BS.
I too hope we are not disappointed on the night. I can’t go through another election disappointment. We were in shock for weeks here in California. It was Unbloodybelievable that these people could be so insane. I have sent my vote in for Labour. Courtesy of my one week holiday every other year. Keep up the good work Frank. Keep handing out those leaflets. Where there’s life – there’s hope.
^^ this @ Jerko thanks that was good to read.
Vota Camilla, Vota Jacinda:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRPJmqJ-uLc
PLUS en francais:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udvy9KRRSuM
VOTA POR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd0bAhOOtlI
POR FAVOR
Abit of corruption in Brazil. needs research
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOmW9ISm3A0
Unfortunately the 20,000 young who are not registered don’t read The Standard or keep up to date with the current parlous state of NZ- they are more interested in exchanging trivia on their iPhones – the females on how they look, the males on sport, and both addicted to rubbish rightwing commercial media.
By not paying attention to 2017 NZ politics they will inherit massive social and environmental problems – and wonder, too late, how it all happened. Kia kaha, Jacinda.
And maybe because of their political disinterest and apathy they deserve to pay for my pension.
Might be different if they could vote on line,between facebook likes.
IMO – this CENSORED story can help #ChangeTheGovernment !
Please watch and share?
Tamaki GENTRIFICATION SCAM – happened on Bill English’s watch.
(5 mins)
(Over 83,000 Facebook views’ in 3 days)
https://www.facebook.com/penny.bright.104/posts/1796625243683493
Penny Bright
‘Whistle-blower’.
2017 Independent candidate for Tamaki.
Very informative, Thanks Penny!!
Tried to find out today from the electoral commission where to place my advance vote. Am in helensville electorate. According to their website only 4 places i can vote. I live in titirangi. But the voting options are to drive to one of the few 4 multi electorate polling booths available to me – the concourse in Henderson or into the central city for the remaining 3. I thought this a little odd so i called the electoral commission on the 0800 number provided. I was told i could advance vote at any polling booth anywhere for any electorate.
So..which is correct?
Only 4 booths for a massive outer Auckland electorate , three in the central city or anywhere at all?
I would appreciate the Electoral Commission produce some clarity.
They should be impartial and its their job.
Tried to find out today from the electoral commission where to place my advance vote. Am in helensville electorate. According to their website only 4 places i can vote. I live in titirangi. But the voting options are to drive to one of the few 4 multi electorate polling booths available to me – the concourse in Henderson or into the central city for the remaining 3. I thought this a little odd so i called the electoral commission on the 0800 number provided. I was told i could advance vote at any polling booth anywhere for any electorate.
So..which is correct?
Only 4 booths for a massive outer Auckland electorate , three in the central city or anywhere at all?
I would appreciate the Electoral Commission produce some clarity.
They should be impartial and its their job.