Auckland Mayoral Election

[morepork]

The NZ Harold have wheeled out their old white dudes to step up for National. John Rougham (John Key's personal fluffer) says:

"The heart is wrestling with the head. The heart says it would be healthy to have a change after nine years and let's face it, an attractive young female Prime Minister would be good for our image in the world. The head says don't mess with success."

Hard hitting stuff.


Is it as bad on TV there?

[cashead]

TV coverage is decent. Corin Dann just destroyed Bill English yesterday morning. There'll be one final debate on Wednesday evening that may be worth a watch.

[scuzzaman]

What the fuck is happening to the Labour party? A dull culinarily handicapped replacement Prime Minister that advocates for austerity over a functional infrastructure, has irrigated half of the country into a toxic nitrate wasteland, covers for a shambolic for-profit ponzi tertiary education system, ignores a mental health system in obvious crisis, and dialogue in the media regarding the opposition is dominated by how charismatic the leader of the opposition should be?? Are there assassination squads gunning for investigative journalists or what?

But some people just keep on believing that one career politician is better than another.

I still see no evidence of this fantasy.

[morepork]

By hokey Bill English is potato.

and Mike Hosking couldn't grill a piece of tofu.

[morepork]

Which one of you has been arseing about on the bobcat over fuel pipelines?

[Spy]

Unreal. I'm supposed to be flying out for a much-needed holiday on Saturday. This is classic NZ, really. Some clown farting about with a digger looking for swamp kauri fcks up the aviation capacity of a nation.

[morepork]

Bummer boss. I get the impression infrastructure is a little stretched at the moment? Squillions of tourists, no hotels/motels every now and then, then not enough motion potion to fly them in so they can dump in fields and rivers for a month.

[Spy]

Some things yes, some things not so much. Been plenty of big infrastructure investment in Auckland roads and trains, which has been good. Need to be spending more central government money to fund tourist infrastructure in areas which have plenty of tourist interest, but a small ratepayer base.

I used to be sympathetic to the idea of freedom camping, but much less so now. It creates a mess, and is a cost to the economy. It's annoying going down to the beach and finding a collection of ferals shitting in the dunes and leaving rubbish around rather than paying a few bucks to stay in the camp ground a couple of hundred metres away. Get off my lawn, you unkempt youngsters. Hotels/motels is really a private sector issue.

[morepork]

Auckland Auckland Auckland, always bloody Auckland.

[canta_brian]

Auckland Auckland Auckland, always bloody Auckland.

Nearly 1.4 million in Auckland these days. With proportional representation I guess there are rewards to be gained in targeting that population base. I'm not sure if these benefits are quite so accentuated in a first past the post system. Could be parliament would adjust constituency boundaries anyway to end up with the same result but it skews national policy in an unwelcome way in my opinion.

[zer0]

Thing is that the only thing National really targets Auckland for is shitty and unpopular policies and projects that are straight out of the Robert Moses playbook. It sees them suffer at local elections yet they still do well enough in the general election.

[canta_brian]

I would have thought that refusing to consider a capital gains tax would play particularly well with those who think massive house price inflation is making them richer. Auckland has seen greater house price increases than elsewhere I believe?

[zer0]

If you're one of the relatively few to own a house in Auckland, then sure. That's also a national scale policy as opposed to being Auckland specific.

[cashead]

If you're eligible to vote and haven't done so yet, then go and fucking do it.

[canta_brian]

If you're eligible to vote and haven't done so yet, then go and fucking do it.

When do you start getting exit polls?

[cashead]

Exit polls aren't a thing here. We'll have a result, but not until late in the evening since polls'll close at 7 pm. It's also possible that we'll have a hung parliament, while we wait for Winston to stop hemming and hawing about whom to go with.

[canta_brian]

L poking like a big swing towards labour but most looks like tactical voting with the greens bearing the brunt so far. Could labour and the greens work with Winston? What would be his pound of flesh this time?

[cashead]

Yeah, it looks like we're heading to a similar result to 1996, with an added side of Greens. NZF have worked with the Greens in the past, and there is some common ground in their policies. What's contributed to Peters' longevity though, is his willingness to have a drink with just about anyone. Coalitions will determine this government, and I wonder how the alleged attempted hit-job on Peters (#motherofallscandals, amirite?) will come in to play.

What should concern National is that the minor parties, with the exception of their little baby boy ACT are all looking to be given the boot (which is a shame, because Marama Fox is a valuable voice in parliament).

[zer0]

I don't know why they refused to do it, but Labour should've played clever by not contesting Nelson/Maungakiekie (sending their electorate votes to the Greens candidate) or Epsom (electorate votes to National candidate). The former would've guaranteed the Greens place -- though it looks like they'll make it anyway -- while the latter could've dispatched ACT.

[cashead]

At 95% of the votes counted, it currently stands at:

1. National - 46.2% (41 electorate seats, 17 list seats; 58 seats total)
2. Labour - 35.7% (29 electorate seats, 16 list seats; 45 seats total)
3. NZF - 7.5% (9 list seats; 9 seats total)
4. Greens - 5.9% (7 list seats; 7 seats total)
5. ACT - .5% (1 electorate seat; 1 seat total)

The incumbent government is stalled on 59 seats. James Shaw of the Greens is apparently currently reaching out to Winston Peters, so we may have a change in government. Of course, we're also waiting on Special Votes results, and the 4.3% of votes that went to non-parliament parties apparently won't affect seat numbers.

As stated during the last 3 years, Peters is in a position to decide the government, like he did in 1996. Let's just hope he goes the other way this time.

We've seen
Labour and National swap Hutt South for Christchurch Central, National take Northland back off of NZF and Labour wrest Waiariki & Ohariu off of the Maori Party and UF respectively, effectively killing them off.

[cashead]

Oh, and Chloe Swarbrick will become an MP at age 23. What the fuck have we all been doing with our lives?

[morepork]

Amazing that many people can negotiate the mountain of debris swept under the rug to even see their National candidates. Oh well, more of the same flawed ideology and anecdotal points of reference.

[cashead]

1. Any commentator that writes an article wherein they suggest that they know what Peters is going to do, they're full of shit.

2. Any commentator stating that National "won" the election, well,



The parties that campaigned on "changing the government" actually earned more votes. National did get the most votes out of individual parties, but that doesn't give them any sort of mandate to therefore be the government. Simply put, having actually lost votes this round, and having cannibalised the support of their coalition partners (ACT, UF - which has doomed them) or been toxically unpopular with their coalition partners' voter base who migrated to the opposition (hello, Maori Party), they lack the numbers to govern.

What we do definitely have is a list of losers from the election though

• Maori Party - Despite serious achievements like getting Whanau Ora funding and incredible gains in Treaty settlements like the Ureweras through the mana of the MP leaders, their voter base was increasingly disillusioned by them as evidenced by their dwindling voter base from 2011 to 2017. Te Ururoa Flavell was expected to survive the election, but obviously the constituents had had enough.
• ACT Party - He's been cut loose as a coalition partner, so regardless of how any negotiations between the Gnats and Winston goes, he's boned either way.
• United Future - An ineffectual "centrist" party that rose up like a phoenix from the ashes of stupid fundie Christian politics, they said nothing, did nothing and quietly died like a nothing, at the hands of an opposition party that smelled blood in the erstwhile party leader's electorate and pounced.

3. Anyone suggesting that the Green should go with National needs an uppercut. Look at what happened to National coalition partners. Would you hop into bed with them? They obviously have some form of fatal STD.

[cashead]

So the Special Votes will be counted up by the 7th of October. Apparently this year's lot adds up to about 15% of the overall vote, so it's a fairly hefty amount.

For those not in the know, they are votes from overseas, votes from those that registered at the voting booth, votes that had to be done by proxy or a nominated helper due to issues relating to health such as disability, etc.

These tend to favour Labour and the Greens, and conversely, usually go against National. Apparently, L&G are expected to nab a seat each at the expense of National this year, like how it gained the Greens a seat the expense of the Nats 3 years ago.

[morepork]

I really hope so. From afar, National's main tactic seems to have been whipping up the fear of God into farmers and real estate agents. So much for value added economic vision...