Up Front: An Open Letter to the Labour Party from a People of Christchurch
99 Responses
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Sacha, in reply to
Until this morning, when I joined the Greens
Bravo
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Graeme Edgeler, in reply to
The by-election will be on the old boundaries* ...
*I was told this in a pub.
I can confirm this.†
† is someone confirming it on the Internet really an advance on pub talk?
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Graeme Edgeler, in reply to
The jockeying by parties in boundary redraws is part of the process, though the commission obviously has the final say.
National and Labour have actual members on the Boundaries Commission.
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Sacha, in reply to
depends if the person's name is Edgeler :)
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Emma Hart, in reply to
is someone confirming it on the Internet really an advance on pub talk?
On the 'public' internet, yes. Because in my experience, pub talk = Twitter DMs.
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Hebe, in reply to
Yes.
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Mikaere Curtis, in reply to
Excellent, welcome aboard !
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Idiot Savant, in reply to
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.
Other than guaranteed representation for the government and opposition due to s28(2)(e) of the Electoral Act
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
More like a credulous reporter who doesn't do a lot of deep thinking.
If the attempts to insinuate UST between Peter Dunne and Andrea Vance were anything to go by.
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Hebe, in reply to
Until this morning, when I joined the Greens...
I'm feeling bad... it's in the "things I must get around to" box - join the Greens, dung out the garage, join the Summit Road Society,
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I should note that with the first link in this column, Stuff have done that thing where they basically glue another article on the top of the old one, change the headline, but stick with the same URL and comments. I could say some words, but they would all be swears.
OTOH, the new article now starts with a sentence I honest-to-God thought was satire:
National will probably stand a candidate in a Christchurch East by-election but with low expectations of winning, Prime Minister John Key says.
"We've been ignoring you, and in all honestly, I think we're comfortable to keep on doing that."
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the vote for a New Bright(er)on Future...
Voice of the people Emma, well said...
I can't see Cosgrove making a good fist of a Chchch East run,
he just doesn't have the common touch, IMHO.
He plays "suit games" and comes across as smarmy.After Labour abandoned Burns and central Chchch, I lost a lot of faith in them, it's only the work of Lianne* and Ruth Dyson that has left them with some credibility in my eyes - and I suspect both women would be doing exactly what they are doing, even if they weren't elected, because they are basically decent caring people, that work well with others.
Who will the Greens put up?
Or will they use the Key/Banks playbook and ask their supporters to vote Labour?
- is there also a party vote attached to a by-election?*no relation in case any one wonders, (well not directly or recently - way back in the past, in the heather -clad hills of Scotland perhaps) though we have met over the years, first way back when she was at the Canterbury Hotel and Hospital Workers' Union...
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When I heard Lianne on the radio this morning I thought that holding off the by-election until after the mayoralty election made a lot of space (who wants to steal their own media thunder) ... but then the cynic in me thought "but then, if she loses, she could run for her old seat again ...."
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Emma Hart, in reply to
is there also a party vote attached to a by-election?
No.
Who will the Greens put up?
Or will they use the Key/Banks playbook and ask their supporters to vote Labour?This is an interesting question. The Greens don't pursue the candidate vote in general elections, but concentrate on the party vote. But they do have a candidate in the Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election, so perhaps they will. Mikaere?
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Isaac Freeman, in reply to
Today's Stuff poll on would you vote for Liann or Bob is interesting
It really isn't. Pay no attention to self-selected polls.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Other than guaranteed representation for the government and opposition due to s28(2)(e) of the Electoral Act
OK, perhaps I needed to be more specific.
Labour and National can (and do) make all the representations and objections and counter-objections they like to the Representation Commission they please, just like everyone else.
Otherwise, I'll pay all the members of the Representation Commission the bare courtesy of presuming they place the law and the public good above all other considerations -- including partisan interest. If the Government and Opposition members can't clear that low bar, they I'm thankful they're outnumbered by career civil servants whose credibility and political independence I've no cause to doubt.
If the above isn't the case, I'd prefer we follow the naked and degrading jerrymanderpalooza that passes for redistricting in the US. It at least has the benefit of full-frontal contempt for democracy.
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Didn't Phil Goff keep fighting for Roskill when he got turfed out? Is that something only the respected generation of NZ parliamentarians worry about? (IE pre-Key candidate-from-central-casting days)
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Mikaere Curtis, in reply to
No particular knowledge, but we stood Jan Logie in the Mana by-election back in 2010, so I’d expect the Greens to stand someone in Christchurch East.
My money would be on Mojo Mathers standing, purely because she stood there in the 2011 election (not that this grants her a right to the seat or anything, the local electorate still get to decide who will represent them).
I don’t think there will be an expectation that the Greens would win the seat, but it is an excellent opportunity to put forward the Green kaupapapa.
One interesting note about Cosgrove – he got ~16k electorate votes in 2011, but Labour only got around half that, and it appears ~4k voters were National supporters who preferred him to their own candidate (Kate Wilkson). Is someone who appears to have popularity with National voters really a potential candidate for Christchurch East ?
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Brilliant.
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At this point, Mikaere, every member of the Labour Party who's paid their $10 is a potential candidate for Christchurch East.
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Thanks very much Emma, I'm so glad you wrote this.
We've been waiting so long for any hopeful news in Christchurch, and a Dalziel run for mayor is something we can finally get behind. I was gutted to have it followed so quickly with what sounded like shitty intra-party manoeuvring over the by-election. I don't care who supports Shearer or Cunliffe. Anyone who thinks that matters in Christchurch East is a sorry excuse for a human being.
I'm pleased to hear from people in the Labour party that Cosgrove isn't a foregone conclusion. I hope that whoever floated this idea to the press is getting told exactly what they did wrong right now by everybody in the Labour Party with an iota of common decency.
What I've learnt from this is that I'm angry as hell. Some last vestige of patience in me has broken today. I'm sick of false hope being dangled in front of me by people who don't give a shit. I expect it from National, but it really hurts from Labour.
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Stephen Judd, in reply to
National will probably stand a candidate in a Christchurch East by-election but with low expectations of winning
I don't know why. The party vote stats in East suggest that a good Nat candidate could win -- Lianne got a far greater proportion of candidate votes than Labour did party votes. The onus is really on Labour to a) field a decent candidate and b) go all out for that candidate.
I note that the Stuff article carefully says "there is speculation" and does not say who is doing the speculating.
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Hebe, in reply to
I think Mojo lives in the electorate - or she did. Another possibility is John Kelcher, who stood against Cosgrove in Waimak (costing Labour the seat), and who lives nearby. (I go for John on the basis that he'll throw a damn good party.) It would seem better tactics to me to give another Green the opportunity to get up some profile by contesting a by-election; Mojo could be out there in support.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Yeah. Also, I was testing my poll-jamming software this morning: 496 of those votes are mine, but I'm not saying on which side.
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I don’t think that ‘living in the electorate’ is a necessary criterion to meet. Working on the ground alongside the people in the electorate is probably a better one to use in this case. If you go with the ‘living in the electorate’ criterion, people can get ruled in or out by a street or two, which seems a little arbitrary. Better to look at their credentials.
ETA: Great post, Emma.
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