Hard News: Democracy Night
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BenWilson, in reply to
But I do get the feeling that the Waitakere Man thing is getting overblown, and trying too hard to chase it could prove counterproductive.
Yup. In Waitakere, Labour + Green beat National on party vote. Let alone the Waitakere men who aren't in the Waitakeres. National are keen to push their FPP thinking at every turn, saying how blue West Auckland is. It's not really that accurate.
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WH,
We need to give people something to believe in while reinforcing that there are going to be failures along the way. People want to have faith, but it has to be compatible with the world they know. Government can do a lot of good, but it can also be corrupt and incompetent. Public money will sometimes be wasted, and people often won't deserve the help they get. I think some people prefer the right's wary cynicism to the disappointment that comes with the left's hopeful and in many ways ambitious vision of what a well run state can achieve. People don't like false hope, and they don't want to be asked to believe in a project that's basically broken.
I don't buy into the Chris Trotters patronising analysis of `Waitakere Man' - and, as an aside, I would note that Trotter's comments about Carmel Sepuloni has been shown to have been misjudged
I haven't read a lot about Waitakere Man, but I suspect Chris Trotter is just trying to make Labour more attractive to a certain sort of person. I think that's less threatening than the sense that he wants to make Labour a fundamentally different sort of party. People with an interest in politics look at government from a perspective that most people don't share. I'm not sure that Trotter is saying Waitakere Man is right, he's just saying he exists. I like Chris and I don't want a fight. I read his columns growing up and I admire his passion for helping people. In some ways it's easier being out of New Zealand, these sorts of differences don't seem to matter so much. I don't know anything at all about Carmel Sepuloni and wish her all the best.
Generally agree with this, except it is not so much ceding it's "left" flank as ceding a particular part of the spectrum of progressive policy to emphasise
I agree, I suppose I was thinking in terms of how the two parties might seek and compete for electorate support. I was pretty sceptical about the Greens at first (I was young) and I don't agree with everything they've done (one bill in particular) but generally they've impressed me.
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WH,
I guess this sums me up too... What a great comment.
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Some people have really strange ideas about how politics works. The Greens are in serious need of a reality check. They are all terribly cocky right now on the back on a 10% result of 68% of voters who bothered to vote – so really, the high tide of the Greens is around 7% of all voters. This result has been achieved on the back of polling in the low teens and after Labour’s worst performance in a very, very long time. Labour is already stirring organisationally to make sure the 2011 result is not repeated in 2014. Last night there was an unusually long piece on TVNZ news about changes in immigration laws relating to actors that seemed to me to be as much about re-framing the Hobbit film debate in a way critical of the government as anything else, and after seeing that I have no doubt the favourable media tide is going out on this government – something that will mostly favour the incumbent opposition party. So all the Green cheerleaders crowing about inheriting the earth seem terribly premature to me, especially as Green supporters cheerfully admit they have no real answers to class based economic issues beyond weak as piss water claims that they no longer exist or are not relevant anymore. And on top of that, the Greens have an organisation on the ground that is less effective than a Girl Guides biscuit sales drive in getting out it’s vote. If the tide goes out on National, Labour’s working poor and poor supporters come out to vote again in a bigger turn out and the dinner party middle class liberals band-wagon back to Labour, the Greens could easily find themselves frantically scratching around for 5% again in 2014.
A broad spectrum party like Labour would be insane to openly concede a chunk of it’s vote to the Greens on the back of one average result for the Greens. Why would they? Why should they? Why should Labour give votes to a party that is frankly middle class and therefore implicitly hostile to the political imperatives of the poor and working poor that the Labour party was founded to represent? A political party that publicly says it is abandoning a chunk of voters to another party is a political party that is intent on committing suicide “here, takes these voters that are traditionally ours and I’ll tell you what – we’ll compete in our voter heartland with you instead”. All market segments are up to competition at all times in politics, especially to a centre left broad spectrum party. The sort of angst ridden delusional thinking of Green supporters “it’s not fair, Labour are such meanies and bullies to us wah wah wah” – cry me a river – comes across as coming from a party made of whinging middle class soft cocks who have grown up expecting everything to be done for them. All the resentful whining in the world about being owed a living by Labour won’t stop Labour looking to drive the Greens back into the margin of threshold error in 2014. The Greens had better get used to that. They have to shift for themselves like everyone else has to and forget about anyone doing them a favour because, you know, they are so terribly sincere. Yeah, whatever. Politics is hard nosed exercise about power. It is all about winning baby. The Greens will get no electoral or campaign concessions from Labour (or National) and in a democracy they shouldn’t expect any.
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Sacha, in reply to
Some people have really strange ideas about how politics works.
True.
Why should Labour give votes to a party that is frankly middle class and therefore implicitly hostile to the political imperatives of the poor and working poor that the Labour party was founded to represent?
Labour's current review will be interesting. However, remaining Marxists are if anything fewer than the neolibs whose preferences we're all meant to care about. And practically, middle class no longer means what you think it does.
The Greens will get no electoral or campaign concessions from Labour
Yet you expect the reverse to apply, comrade? Previous post-election negotiations were revealing.
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Labour insider Jordan Carter expresses some frank thoughts on what the party needs to do next. Recommended read.
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>q>Yet you expect the reverse to apply, comrade? Previous post-election negotiations were revealing.</q>
You play the cars the electorate deals you, don't you think?
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
You play the cars the electorate deals you, don’t you think?
I watch the cars go back and forth
Sometimes south and sometimes north
I watch the cars
I hear them stopping down the street
I hear the sound of stocking feet
I wonder who they’re going to meet
I’m getting drunk inside my house
I see the men inside their shells
They go to prostitutes as well
Who never mind the way they smell
The prostitutes are paid for it
Alright!
I hear you’re gonna try that too
I wouldn’t pay to go to you
I’m getting drunk inside my house againRobyn Hitchcock, I Watch the Cars
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
like an Egyptian...
Robyn Hitchcock
He plays a mean electorate guitar...
here he is with the reformed Soft Boys,
2003, in Italy on a Syd...
...Barrett song -
HenryB, in reply to
They are all terribly cocky right now on the back on a 10% result of 68% of voters who bothered to vote – so really, the high tide of the Greens is around 7% of all voters.
So, using the same arithmetic, is 19% the low tide for Labour?
IMO this last election did see something of an implicit concession by Labour to not occupy the same turf - the environment - as the Greens...and, but for the resurrection of NZF, this might have worked and the result not been so disastrous for Labour.
If Labour engages in a tactic of trying to drive the Greens into "margin of error territory" it can only do so by starting to foreground environmental issues as part of its policy platform - and, frankly, I doubt that this will be taken too seriously by the "market segment" it has ignored. Worse still, in adopting such a tactic it will be trying to ensure that it has no reliable partner to work with post the next election. I don't believe that is the basis for attaining the government benches next time or the time after.
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BenWilson, in reply to
A broad spectrum party like Labour would be insane to openly concede a chunk of it’s vote to the Greens on the back of one average result for the Greens. Why would they? Why should they?
That's easy. Because they get all those voters in their coalition without having to campaign for them. Every vote they take from the Greens is coalition neutral. All it does, if Labour goes hard for that vote pool, and actually has success, is that it pushes the Greens dangerously close to the 5% threshold, at which point it's a huge loss for Labour when they go to look for partners in coalition.
Furthermore, such an openly hostile tactic will drive the Greens right, possibly seizing the coveted center position with a large bloc of votes, in which case they will be in every government from now on, left or right. The more I consider it, the more I actually want this to happen. The left/right governmental switcharoo that was how FPP was designed, is not a fundamental idea of democracy, and especially not of MMP. It creates the sense of entitlement to government that you are exuding right now, and has been pouring from the Nats as they scratch their heads about why getting a massive party vote hasn't given them the powerful government they have wet dreams about nightly.
So all the Green cheerleaders crowing about inheriting the earth seem terribly premature to me, especially as Green supporters cheerfully admit they have no real answers to class based economic issues beyond weak as piss water claims that they no longer exist or are not relevant anymore.
The Greens have always had economic policy that is actually to the left of Labour's. So they have no answers to the same extent that Labour has no answers.
Which, unfortunately, is a very large extent. There's a lot of that going around at the moment. The political right also has no answers, indeed they have no qualms about class war, so long as they're on the winning side of that war.
I have to ask: Do you have any answers? I don't. There is a huge shift of wealth away from developed economies going on at the moment. This is an inevitable outcome of globalization. As that happens, wages are at best being held level, at worst they will collapse. As that happens, owners of capital become considerably richer and more powerful - this is happening right now - all the land owners with low debt in NZ are becoming wealthier every day, in relative terms.
I very much doubt NZ's ability to do a damned thing to affect the world situation. So the question becomes, what can we do about our situation?
I'm asking you personally, Tom. Where do you see the economic future of NZ? What answers do you have?
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HenryB, in reply to
in which case [the Greens] will be in every government from now on, left or right. The more I consider it, the more I actually want this to happen
This is the last thing I would like to see happen and I doubt that the Greens would, in the end, go there: they would have to concede too much to National to make serious coalition partners for them. If any of them think that one can have environmental justice without economic and social justice then they are on different planet.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I doubt that the Greens would, in the end, go there: they would have to concede too much to National to make serious coalition partners for them.
They could stay outside of government but give confidence and supply then. There are many deals that could be cut.
If any of them think that one can have environmental justice without economic and social justice then they are on different planet.
I think that, and I voted Green. There's no necessary connection between the environmentalism and democratic socialism, and there's no connection between either of them and social justice. Furthermore, a central position gives them considerably more leverage on all three issues against both major parties.
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The state recover all those costs from father of the child unless they’re low-wage or unemployed, in which case the state would be paying for the kids even if they were together.
No they don't. Off the top of my head, you have to earn over $100K as a paying parent in child support in order to completely pay for the DPB of the other parent. The vast majority of people, including people who have relatively high incomes, only pay for the portion of the government support.
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
No they don't. Off the top of my head, you have to earn over $100K as a paying parent in child support in order to completely pay for the DPB of the other parent. The vast majority of people, including people who have relatively high incomes, only pay for the portion of the government support.
I imagine it depends whether you're talking about child support for otherwise working parents or the DPB - they are different things, right?
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Seems like a long shot, but could Dunne save TVNZ7?
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
It's a start though eh? With Rick Ellis all but gone, one never can tell. Fingers crossed.
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Steve Parks, in reply to
...the Greens could easily find themselves frantically scratching around for 5% again in 2014.
I don’t see why Labour would want that, though. You don’t seriously think Labour have any chance of governing in three years without the Greens, do you? Surely the last thing Labour want is for the Greens to get 4.9%.
Labour would be insane to openly concede a chunk of it’s vote to the Greens on the back of one average result for the Greens.
I’m not sure “openly concede” was what anyone was meaning. But certainly getting back votes from the Greens should be a very low priority. As Ben said, it’s coalition neutral. In practice, a vote for Greens is a vote for a Labour led government.
The sort of angst ridden delusional thinking of Green supporters “it’s not fair, Labour are such meanies and bullies to us wah wah wah” – cry me a river – comes across as coming from a party made of whinging middle class soft cocks who have grown up expecting everything to be done for them. All the resentful whining in the world about being owed a living by Labour ...
Yikes. This sounds dreadful. Could you point me to all this angst ridden delusional whinging by resentful Green-supporting middle class soft cocks?
I guess I missed it.
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BenWilson, in reply to
You don’t seriously think Labour have any chance of governing in three years without the Greens, do you?
Of course they do, they just have to eat up the entirety of Mana, the Greens, NZF, the Maori Party, United Future, and then bite a small piece out of National, and they're in with a grin.
In reality land, a swing of 5% from National to Labour would give a leftist coalition including NZF and Maori a strong position. That's more than doable in 3 years, now that Key's honeymoon is over, and it's policy o'clock. For all the fine rhetoric about reconnecting Labour to the people by selecting the right old white guy, they don't really need that much. If they carefully target the right segments, the unvotes, and the swing votes, it's business as usual.
Then we find out if social democracy really has any answers to the logic of globalization. I'm not optimistic, but they will be more likely to have a plan that doesn't involve deepening the rich-poor divide.
I'm mindful that Labour's glorious past under the reforms of Savage did help alleviate the Depression for a lot of people and that was a great thing. But only 4 years after they took power, WW2 broke out. It is very difficult to separate the economic effects of the welfare state from that kind of upheaval.
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Just after the election Key said, I think, that under an FPP system, National would have got 65 seats and labour 35.
Under Supplementary Member - using the results from the night and assuming that the electorate seats would have split roughly in proportion to how they fell on Saturday night and also assuming that there would have been no incentive to support ACT or UF in their electorate seats - the results would have looked roughly something like this? Also assumes the retention of Maori Electorates and removal of threshold.
National 71 seats (56 electorate+15 list)
Labour 38 seatls (29 electorate + 9 list)
Maori 4 seats (4 electorate)
Mana 1 seat (1 electorate)
Greens 3 seats (3 List)
NZF 2 seats (2 list)
Cons 1 seat (1 list)Really not all that different from FPP in my view.
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Herald says Carmel ahead by 10 votes...! Fingers crossed
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HenryB, in reply to
+1 in spades (or should that be Hearts?)
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BenWilson, in reply to
Herald says Carmel ahead by 10 votes...! Fingers crossed
Yes, lets hope it goes a lot higher! Otherwise there's sure to be a recount. But even to be highest on first full count is a major symbolic victory out west.
The booth division has been stark, which accounts for the big see sawing effect on election night. Some booths heavily for Labour, some for National, divided roughly along the lines of the most valuable property - which in Waitakere is in the hills. I've often thought people from the remoter parts of West Auckland were more rural than urban, which to me explains the red-blue battle at the border. The people in Titirangi and Henderson are one of the only urban groups I know who constantly hanker to be further from the city center. As the mid west suburbs have grown in value, they have traded up and moved further west. Often, but not always, glad to be quit of the growing ethnic diversity of the inner west. It was not very long ago that West Auckland was very rural indeed, my parents distinctly remember coming down my own street to buy from the orchards where my house is. The end of my street, up until only a few years ago was a big horse ranch, it was really weird to be able to walk down there with my son to watch a couple of old horses galloping around. Now it's going to be converted to a big retirement village. Te Atatu was the back of beyond until the north western motorway was put through there, and I think there's still a horse riding school tucked in there over the motorway from the motocross speedway.
The old west was very much a white neighborhood. This has changed and to me it would be incredibly heartening if Sepuloni took Waitakere, as much to show that the racism that was the least attractive thing about my father's side of the family is something that poorer westies have largely gotten over. Also, to disassociate with Paula Bennett.
Curiously, I have recently found out that both sides of my family at my grandparents generation were neither Labour nor National, but voted Social Credit loyally en masse. This included my grandfather who made all his money in property. I guess the post-war period set a lot of people to thinking about just how responsible fucked up capitalism was for all of those guys buried in Waikumete Cemetery, but at the same time Stalinism was a stark warning about just where Marxism could take things.
That Social Credit never got any serious representation in Parliament despite getting as high as 20% of the votes in 1981, and polling as high as 30% a few times, is one of the strongest indictments on FFP we've had in this country. Muldoon might never have happened if we'd had MMP. The country could have been on an extremely different financial path.
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Sacha, in reply to
The old west was very much a white neighborhood.
Also significant migrant families from less pale parts of Europe, without whom our wine industry would be somewhat different.
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Special votes are counted and results are in.
National loses a seat and falls to 59, the Green Party gains a seat and will have 14 MPs. In the two tight electoral races, Labour's Brendon Burns has lost Christchurch Central to National's Nicky Wagner by 45 votes and Labour's Carmel Sepuloni takes Waitakere off Cabinet Minister Paula Bennett by just 11 votes.
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MMP is also confirmed as the voting system in the final results of the referendum also held on November 26. Some 57.77 per cent backed MMP and in part two 46.66 per cent supported FPP as the most preferred alternative.
The majority support for MMP means the system stays but a review of the system is triggered.
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