show the expected whitewash :

Election 2011: Epsom race close - Election 2011 - NZ Herald News

Over half the vote has now been counted in the 2011 general election.

With 64.3 per cent of polling places counted, National led with 49.23 per cent, Labour had 26.96 per cent, the Greens had 10.46 per cent, and New Zealand First remained above the 5 per cent threshold, with 6.82 per cent.

The Maori Party was on 1.28 per cent, United Future was on 0.67 per cent, the Conservative Party on 2.79 per cent, Act on 1.11 per cent and Mana on 0.93 per cent.

So I'd better present the other players.

The "New Zealand First Party" is a party of the extreme centre. Populist muckraker Winston Peters has been in coalition with both Labour and National, was finally chucked out in 2008, and has risen from the dead. He channels the angry and bewildered, the people who used to vote Social Credit.

The ACT party was founded by the neo-liberal faction of Labour, mentioned above, and represents the hard right of NZ politics. In the last couple of elections, they have been kept alive by the electorate seat that National has conceded them : National ran a candidate with instructions to lose, but this time ACT are so unpopular that the rebellious right-wing electors may well return the National candidate anyway. ACT provides National with a reliable coalition partner, and a safety valve for disaffected voters who might otherwise switch to the centre or the left. I was hoping they would be consigned to the dustbin of history this time, but we'll see...

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

ACT seem set to retain Epsom (the richest and rightest of Auckland electorates), but not pick up any additional seats, their list vote being close to zero. That's a shame, I'd have liked to see Don Brash (former head of the National Party, and before that, governer of the Reserve Bank) bumbling around in parliament. The man's a walking political catastrophe. He staged a hostile takeover of ACT this year, and basically fired their sitting MPs. He expected to ride the coat-tails of John Banks, the Epsom candidate former mayor of Auckland and all-round hard-right bastard. With Banks as its sole representative, ACT may live on to pick up support when National goes out of favour.

New far-right party, the Conservatives, backed by some millionaire, scored 2.8, but no electorate, so won't be represented in parliament, and with ACT still around, are probably doomed.

Mana on 0.9% means no coat-tails for the new left-of-labour party; I'm disappointed, that's a historic opportunity missed.

My electorate, Auckland Central, on a knife edge, looking like it will go back to Labour. Goodness me, I voted Labour last night... first time since 1984...

Oh, and Greens around 10.5% nationally. Somewhat underperforming the poll rating, this is traditional. Still, that's a dozen MPs.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Last post in DP's running updates:

12.04am: The final result, with all booths counted, gave National 60 seats, Labour 34, The Green Party 13, NZ First 8, Maori Party 3, while the Mana Party, UnitedFuture and ACT all won a seat each.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

So anyway... I voted. There is a referendum about the voting system; the right have been working hard to get MMP abolished, but the current system seems certain to be retained (I voted to retain it)

Results aren't out till December 10, but the advance vote (largely from pensioners, who are more likely to be anti-MMP) has us keeping the current system, with informal votes beating out FPP for the most popular alternative.  So, some good news at least.

There will be a postcript in about 10 jours, when "special votes" are tallied.

Votes cast outside the electorate one is registered in -- from overseas, for example -- are transmitted to the appropriate electorate, tallied, and announced when the process is finished.

This may well tip the balance in a couple of electorates -- notably in Christchurch Central, which is a dead heat on election night, and is generally tipped to stay Labour once the votes of those displaced by the earthquake are tallied.  But this will not change the overall tally, as any electorate gained or lost will be compensated by the party's list seats.

BUT... traditionally the Greens do very well on special votes (such as mine). I haven't crunched the numbers myself, but here's a well-regarded blogger who has :

Election '11: the special votes * Legal Beagle * Public Address

Preliminary		Estimated
National	47.99%	60	47.46%	59
Labour	27.13%	34	27.29%	34
Green	10.62%	13	11.06%	14
New Zealand First	6.81%	8	6.59%	8
Māori Party	1.35%	3	1.43%	3
Mana	1.00%	1	1.06%	1
ACT	1.07%	1	1.05%	1
United Future	0.61%	1	0.60%	1
Conservative	2.76%	0	2.70%	0
		121		121

So as things stand, we are expected to pick up a 14th seat, at the expense of National.

This does not change the confidence and supply equation, as this has already been stitched up, as described above by Bruce. However, the government's ability to pass legislation is impaired. In the previous parliament, they had a stable, if thin, majority with National and ACT alone. In the new parliament, although National has gained, ACT was almost wiped out, and between them (if the Greens steal another seat), they no longer have a majority.

National's major campaign issue was privatization of state assets. It's possible that the sole "United Future" MP will sign up for this-- he's always been for hire in the past-- but he hasn't yet committed.

I would not have expected the Maori Party, who have been punished by their electorate for their support for National, to support the alienation of infrastructure, but...

Turia: Iwi want to be 'major players' in asset sales - National - NZ Herald News

Iwi want to be "major players" if the new National Government goes through with its planned state asset sales, Maori Party leader Tariana Turia says.

So according to her, their votes are for hire, as long as Maori tribes are allowed to be major shareholders. Sounds promising.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

In the NZ press, I read that this election is "Labour's worst defeat since 1928", based on winning 27.1% of the vote.

This is nonsense. It is Labour's worst defeat, bar none. The 1928 result (26%, 19 seats out of 80) was a victory, with a gain of 7 seats, though it was followed by a strategic error : support for a minority Liberal government, which no doubt delayed  their obtaining a majority : they made minor gains in 1931, then, from opposition, won in a landslide in 1935.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Harawira pledges Mana will battle child poverty:

"That is what will distinguish it from all the other parties in the House. We need to put the brakes on the bus and turn around to pick up the kids living in poverty."

He said the Maori Party was unable to properly speak for the poor while it was in coalition with the National Party.

He said the party would force a focus on child poverty over the next three years and work with any party which would help make a difference.

Under New Zealand's electoral system, with the Maori seats and a Multi-party Mixed Proportional parliament, one could see the ManaP fighting to replace the MaoriP as a party seeking to win Maori constituency majorities in excess of their national party vote ~ the "overhang seat" scenario.

However, under the rule that waives the 5% party list threshold for minor parties that win constituencies, Mana can also pursue a strategy of pursuing a party list vote in excess of its constituencies won ~ as the ACT-NZP had done in 2008. The "wasted vote" problem for a 3rd part on the edge of the threshold is substantially eased if the party holds one or two consituencies without overhang, so each extra roughly 0.84% of the party list vote nationwide can mean an extra party list seat.

Indeed, the ideal from a partisan perspective could entail winning split votes in Maori consitituencies that are presently going MaoriP at the constituency level and LabP at the party list level, and also winning split votes in regular constituencies where the LabP gets the constituency vote and the ManaP gets the party list vote.

For that, a focus on the growth in child poverty that is part and parcel of a neoliberal policy stance is well placed to pressure the MaoriP and the LabP and any "neoliberal conservationist" tendency within the GrnP from the left, which is to say, the anti-corporatist side.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

Strategy could pay off for Greens | Stuff.co.nz

Former Green MP Sue Bradford hates it and the re-elected Catherine Delahunty has said she'd quit rather than vote for a National Party Budget.

But the slim chance that the Greens could do a deal to support a John Key-led Government might just have been the tactical master-stroke that led them to an historic result in the 2011 election.

I'm somewhat sceptical that there was much right-wing crossover to the Greens this time. I think it's more a matter of soaking up crossover when National's support declines. For that, the strategy, visibly, is to work with the government on environmental issues :

Gordon Campbell » Blog Archive » On the election outcomes

On Saturday night, Prime Minister John Key signalled that the environment would be the only likely area where the two parties could possibly co-operate. Well, in a press release a week before the election, the Greens claimed "water" to be the key environmental issue of this election, and that it had a three part plan to fix the problems.

1) Set standards for clean water and intensive agriculture;

2) Introduce a fair charge for irrigation water and;

3) Support water clean-up initiatives.

"Our standards for clean water will require stock exclusion from rivers and lakes within five years. Planting riverbanks and excluding stock from waterways has been shown to significantly improve water quality within three years," said Dr Norman.

Give that the "fair charge" would cost farmers some $370 $570 million per year, that part of the plan won't be a goer for National. But a watered down version of the plan (sorry) could be worthwhile for the Greens to put on the table for discussion, both as an environmental issue and as a job creation project.

Personally I find this a valid strategy, if it actually allows environmental issues to be addressed. Inviting crossover voting, I also consider legitimate. It worked in the early days of the Green Party, then became impossible due to the high visibility of Green MPs Sue Bradford and Keith Locke, formerly well-known extraparliamentory agitators (and crossovers via the Alliance). They have now both retired, which facilitates a certain re-branding :

Towards a new theory of the Greens: the election campaign | Pundit

This general election campaign was focused. It was tight, as Jolyon White found out. There were three top priority policies: kids, rivers, and jobs.

They were smart choices. There was an instantly recognisable social policy, an environmental one, and an economic one. Each of them was individually also all three: social, environmental and economic.

The billboard slogan was "party vote Green, for a richer new Zealand". They showed some healthy children swimming in a clean river, and wind-powered energy for green jobs. They suggested, perhaps, that a richer New Zealand could be reached by a different route than the fossil-fuelled, dairy-fed path we've been on. [...]
But for all the strengths and wins of the 2011 campaign, it also failed, irrespective of the size of the resulting vote. Because it did not give real profile to the difference in Green values, or confront the need for a change in values. It did not spell out that a party vote Green is not just a vote for a smart-thinking smart-looking more environmentally-friendly party branded under a different colour.

I agree with the above blogger that the ethos gets lost in the wash, but that, I hope, is more an election-campaign issue than a genuine loss of soul.

People who vote Green due to environmental issues can, in many cases, end up adhering to the whole palette of values. I think it's wise to leave the door open.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

who executed Don Brash in 2006 when he was National Party leader, with his book The Hollow Men :

I've just been internalising a really complicated situation in my head | Pundit

The news declared that the National Party had had a 'historic' election victory on Saturday but, if that was true, National Party people would be looking happier. The reality is much more complicated

Here's the bullet-point version, to begin:

• National won about the same number of votes it did three years ago (it got a higher percentage of the total vote owing to falling voter turnout)
• National has an almost unmanageably thin majority in Parliament; party insiders are not at all happy
• Winston Peters is back as a fly in the National Party's ointment, in a large part because John Key and Steven Joyce mucked up over the Epsom tea party
• MMP is here to stay, meaning governments need to win a real majority and not just a high single party vote
• 50% of voters voted against National, despite its popular leader
• Many National votes were won because of its apparently easy-going and centrist leader, not because people necessarily support its policies
• Well over 50% of the public opposes key National Party policies such as privatisation ('asset sales')
• The ACT Party, National's most important coalition partner, died on election night
• There are signs that National has passed the high point of its popularity and will now start to decline
• There are signs that National leader John Key has passed the high point of his popularity and will now start to decline.
• The coming three years will be the playing out of these things. It is going to be very different to National's first three years in government.

That's the summary. If you'd like the long version, read on.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Final election results posted including special votes ~ the Maori Party still with an overhang of 1 seat, so still a 121 seat parliament. Nats down to 59 and Greens up to 14.

Singlet parties of ACT and another small right wing party have signed Accords, giving the government confidence and supply and support for their government program (including controversial privatisations), while the three MP Maori Party has signed up for confidence and supply but freedom otherwise to vote as they wish, and two ministers outside of government.

This seems to be fairly widely understood to be the end of the Maori Party, who will be wiped out electorally by being tarred with the brush of a more right wing reformist Nat government than its first three years. The question of whether the Mana Party will take advantage of this but also continue its ambition to be a combined Maori Seat and Party List party, rather than a pure Maori Seat party like the Maori Party (hence the overhang) ... that will be seen over the three years ahead.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.