Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Greg Dawson,
Tracy Watkins love-fest for the return of Key has the bold opinion that 48% of the vote means you can do whatever you like
Key called it "a huge majority" on Morning Report today. I really wish he wouldn't do that.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Wow. Even if he’s right (and I don’t know if that’s the case), one might think it’s a little tone deaf to be talking about red flight.
Why?
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Tim Hannah,
Sure, but there would have been more symbolic value in Labour being able to form a government with support from the greens and all. And if that had happened Ardern would almost certainly have won Auckland Central.
If that had happened we wouldn’t have been having this discussion. But it didn’t come within reach. Everybody who voted for those parties had already made their contribution in pursuit of such an outcome via their party votes, but they had an opportunity to procure a particular additional outcome – the election of an Auckland Central MP who is an articulate advocate for the CBD rail loop, and other “Auckland issues” where the parties have common ground.
If you were a Green party voter in Auckland Central, giving your candidate vote to Ardern was the next best thing you could do to lend weight to public transport investment, and to give Len Brown an important ally.
It really did make sense -- especially given that the Greens had been quite clearly saying they weren't targeting electorate votes.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Tim Hannah,
If Kaye had lost to Ardern with no change in Party vote the number of seats National and Labour held in Parliament wouldn’t change.
There would be great symbolic value in a Labour MP reclaiming Auckland Central. Ardern is a talented enough politician to make the seat her own if she got the chance.
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People staked their positions early for the parade.
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A pink dinosaur waits at the lights, this morning, before the Santa parade.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
4) 27.13% actually good for Phil Goff. Seriously.
When the prospect loomed of an actual collapse, yes.
I think Labour has to transform now. The union movement doesn't justify its constitutional status in the party at the moment. It's just wrong that Darien Fenton is safe and Carmel Sepuloni is gone. And that Labour's only new list MP is Andrew Little, who ran a useless campaign in New Plymouth.
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Word of big turnouts in South Auckland, I 'm told. 20% up on last time, apparently.
Currently at Listener Live HQ. Two guys working really hard and everyone else chillaxing.
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iDevice-friendly version of Keith's map:
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Good Lord, if DPF’s latest hysterical attack on Winston Peters isn’t proof NZ First is over the 5% threshold according to National’s internal polling I don’t know what is.
I think Farrar tipped over into the simply maniacal about two weeks ago.
