Up Front: An Open Letter to the Labour Party from a People of Christchurch
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Gee,
this by-election is a chance for our issues to make the news night after night. We need you to stand someone who knows how we feel. Your candidates should be people who marched with us, who fought with us even when nobody else was paying any attention. I would love it if at least one of the candidates you chose, for Central or East, actually was one of us: the exhausted scary fucked-off mothers of Christchurch.
Exactly. I'm not in Chch these days but I have enough family & friends in the area to know that this seat is not just another seat. Pity John Campbell isn't a mother from Chch East, I think he'd win hands down...
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Emma Hart, in reply to
Pity John Campbell isn't a mother from Chch East, I think he'd win hands down...
He might be the carpet-bagging exception: he'd win in a freaking landslide down here.
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I like this column.
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Thank you for writing this Emma.
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yeah, those are traditionally safe [insert party/incumbent here] seats
Which fucks me off beyond reason, because... you know, parliamentary democracy and all that jazz. It's a little hard to expect high quality candidates when you're either being treated like a family heirloom or not worth the effort.
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Hebe,
Yup. As a former Easter until a few years ago, you're right
Though your column assumes Dalziel will resign if she _stands_ for the mayoralty, not if she _wins_. Is that clear yet?
The other factor to consider when shopping for a candidate is that the nature of the electorate will change in the next boundary redraw: many voters have left the area, so it's possible the East geographical area will expand while Waimak shrinks in area with the influx of people. So the next candidate may need to be one with a wider appeal who will capture the centre vote. Which will make any by-election effectively a
pre-campaign campaign.The other thing to note is that nominations for local body elections don't close for a while: who knows who else could stand. I think Bob Parker will only stand if he thinks he is in with a good chance of winning. Today's Stuff poll on would you vote for Liann or Bob is interesting: either the Parker team have hammered the keyboards or it is not at all a foregone win for Dalziel. (Parker is a great user of social media).
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Emma Hart, in reply to
The other factor to consider when shopping for a candidate is that the nature of the electorate will change in the next boundary redraw:
Oh, man, Hebe, I have this rant I do after a couple of beers about how nobody seems interested in the boundary redraw. The by-election will be on the old boundaries*, but the next general? The knock-on effects of the big population moves will flow through the whole greater Canterbury area.
*I was told this in a pub.
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Love your work, Emma.
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Hebe, in reply to
Correct. I expect a scrap by National and Labour over the redraw -- which will have significant changes for the city and province. National will be trying to bed in their perceived shift in in Chch Central to surrounding electorates like Port Hills and Waimak (though Cosgrove's in with a good chance next time because Kate Wilkinson's star has tarnished, nationally and locally).
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Keir Leslie, in reply to
Stuff polls are notoriously right wing, to be fair.
I don't think anyone expects it to be a walkover. The Christchurch local body left had any traces of that rudely dispelled about three years ago now...
As far as boundaries go, I think it's easy to overstimate how much will change, but on the other hand I have no idea at all what will happen. It is a big story around the by-election, though.
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Hebe,
the exhausted scary fucked-off mothers of Christchurch.
A lovely line and a frightening visual image Emma.
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Hebe, in reply to
Stuff polls are notoriously right wing, to be fair
Yeah but sometimes they are odd: only two-to-one against a council bee convenor last week surprised me.
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the exhausted scary fucked-off mothers of Christchurch.
A lovely line and a frightening visual image Emma.
Something like this?
Big hair FTW.
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Keir Leslie, in reply to
General rule: weird ideas of Aaron Keown's are far more popular than they should be.
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Sacha, in reply to
assumes Dalziel will resign if she _stands_ for the mayoralty, not if she _wins_. Is that clear yet?
Apparently. Dalziel firmly told Kathryn Ryan this morning she wanted to deliver her valedictory in Parliament on the 4 September anniversary. (24 mins, listening options)
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Correct. I expect a scrap by National and Labour over the redraw -- which will have significant changes for the city and province.
And they can scrap away, because (it's worth noting) the Representation Commission is a statutory body and political parties have no more standing than anyone else.
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Hebe, in reply to
I , cough, am very supportive of the bees. I can make a case for the bees thriving being the foundation of agriculture etc, but I'm not sure the council in this city at this time should commit funding to it.
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Are you a member of the Labour Party? If so, and they have a democratic candidate adoption process, you could go along and vote, or even stand yourself.
If not, then consider voting for a more democratically based party.
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To be fair to Labour, if you look at the people who've gone on record as unimpressed with the Clayton for East story, you've got two LEC Chairs and a couple of other assorted bods. It's not exactly been greeted with waves of rapturous applause.
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Hebe, in reply to
The jockeying by parties in boundary redraws is part of the process, though the commission obviously has the final say.
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Emma Hart, in reply to
f you look at the people who've gone on record as unimpressed with the Clayton for East story, you've got two LEC Chairs and a couple of other assorted bods
Yes. I know a bunch of Labour people, and over the last few months I've been party to some Conversations of Discontent over stuff like this. If I'd given up on Labour, I wouldn't have bothered writing this.
However. I personally quit the Labour Party in 1989 and it's a decision I'm at peace with. For a long time, I've felt that I could do the kind of issues advocacy I do more effectively by not being a member of any party. Until this morning, when I joined the Greens...
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Keir Leslie, in reply to
I think this post is really good as far as being fair to Labour, and making it clear that it's not some kind of monolithic top-down organisation goes. I'm more thinking of say, NRT's post as treating it as if "Labour" has somehow decided to Stiff The Good People of Christchurch.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
One of the great things about MMP is that unless you live in Epsom or are on the Maori role, electorates don't matter. So I generally vote for the Green candidate - sure, they probably won't win, and a split vote might let the Nat in, but the list allocation will nullify that. If Labour happen to put up a candidate who seems to align with my ideas, then I might vote for them (e.g Grant Robertson, last election) but otherwise not.
The other thing is that the media, who are no friends of the left, often portray perfectly diligent and sincere politicians as being unpopular liabilities on a basis of absolutely nothing. Because someone loses a marginal electorate on a swing against their party, or a demographic change, doesn't mean they put up a worse performance than someone who's entrenched in a safe seat and under no risk of loss.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
if you look at the people who’ve gone on record as unimpressed with the Clayton for East story
Sounds like another case of stuffing words into mouths for the sake of a 'sexy story'.
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Hebe, in reply to
Sounds like another case of stuffing words into mouths for the sake of a 'sexy story'
More like a credulous reporter who doesn't do a lot of deep thinking.
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