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I experienced less disappointment on elections night / the next morning than last time; probably because National does not have the straight up majority of last election.
The post election commentary as rounded up by Bryce Edwards at the Herald is split with those firmly on the right lauding National's having the largest single share of the vote as a win and moral majority while more numerically educated voices point out that under MMP being the largest major party means diddly squat (especially when your raw number of votes fell); under MMP it is the coalition which represents the largest number of NZers. The fact that we've had a couple of instances of one party effectively managing to govern alone does not change that.
Not included in the roundup but on my radar this from Stephanie Rodgers at Boots Theory
[I continue to be frustrated by the NZ love affair with a two-party, us or them, "rulership" concept of government]
~~~
Surprised by the obliteration of the Māori party but I guess that is the kererū coming home to roost after two? terms of being in coalition with National against the expressed will of their constituency; now that Labour is looking like an effective alternative again.
This makes things interesting because National doesn't have the option of getting support from one minor party or another on a case by case basis. It's basically all or nothing with NZ First ... rendering ACT also irrelevant so maybe we can look forward to them being gone altogether next time.
Riffing off a friend "Democracy: one man, one vote. Today that man is Winston Peters". He does not seem likely to announce his decision until the outcome of the special votes (which includes all those who enrolled while voting early) making about 15% of the total vote - easily enough to move things one way or another by a seat or two. While my personal preference at the present time would be a functional MMP coalition of Labour / NZ First / Greens I think my second preference would be his smartest play: he supports either National, Labour/Greens or Labour with additional outside government support from the Greens form a minority government and rides them for support on every piece of legislation.
That's more how MMP is supposed to work in my opinion; it shouldn't matter which party puts up legislation it should stand on it's own merits against all parties rather than being successful or not at the whim of the "governing" party or parties.
Unfortunately I don't see Winston being happy without a seat at the cabinet table.
Either way I'm not seeing an awful lot of progressive legislation managing to be passed or a significant culture change in the public service over the next few years :( So the rest of us who are comfortable are just going to have to keep stepping up and looking out for our friends - and strangers - who continue to be ground down.
~~~
Particular electorates I was interested in (preliminary results)
# Christchurch Central
Finally dropped National's Nicky Wagner who mostly seems to have MIA for the past term for the Labour candidate; but there is only 0.1% between Labour and National in the party vote
# Epsom
ACT remained in existence thanks to National party voters faithfully using their electorate vote to get David Seymour the electorate seat; however the loyal pooch has already been kicked to the curb for having no actual use in the next terms government.
Sadly it is too soon to say ACT is finished; we will probably have to wait another 3 years to find out. Still I wouldn't be surprised to see a by-election in Epsom sooner than that.
# Ilam
Gerry Brownlee of course won convincingly :( But Raj Manji (Independent) did manage to get over half as many votes as Brownlee, and the Labour candidate managed nearly that many. Combined a total of exactly as many as Gerry (I put the numbers through the calculator several times) so there is actually hope that a well targeted campaign might get him out next time.
# Ōhāriu
Labour took the electorate on the night but only barely ... 679 votes is easily small enough to change on the specials. National easily got the bulk of the party vote. I hear that happened in a number of electorates.
I am not a fan of the Labour candidate who got in there; Greg O'Conner has a well documented history of being "tough on crime" and pro the police having carte blanche to use force and little to no accountability for their actions. I do not buy his line that he was only saying what he had to as the spokesman of the police union; as there is no indication that he was actually trying to challenge the negative culture and corruption within the NZ police force.
# Wigram
My own electorate; Megan Woods won by a far more comfortable margin than last time (I switched my electorate vote to Labour because of the earlier result) but the party vote only had 0.4% in it and went to National :(
~~~
The post election commentary as rounded up by Bryce Edwards at the Herald is split with those firmly on the right lauding National's having the largest single share of the vote as a win and moral majority while more numerically educated voices point out that under MMP being the largest major party means diddly squat (especially when your raw number of votes fell); under MMP it is the coalition which represents the largest number of NZers. The fact that we've had a couple of instances of one party effectively managing to govern alone does not change that.
There is a strong narrative at the moment that National has received an extraordinary result. But has it really? The vote for centre right parties has actually declined significantly at this election. At the 2014 election, the aggregate vote for National, Act and the Conservatives was over 52 per cent. This year, the final result for those parties is projected to be little more than 45 per cent. What's more the National Party has now lost allies - United Future and the Maori Party are gone from Parliament, and Act's party vote has halved. Basically, National has cannibalised the vote of other rightwing parties. In devouring its coalition partners, National might now look stronger, but in reality, fewer voters are actually supporting parties of the right.
But it is the illusion that National has won significantly more vote than the political left that particularly needs addressing.
Not included in the roundup but on my radar this from Stephanie Rodgers at Boots Theory
"A side note: The repeated line of questioning about whether there’s a rule, convention, or expectation around the largest party forming the government demonstrate how we’ve really failed to grasp the core function of MMP: delivering a balanced one which is the most appealing to the broadest number of people, not an all-powerful one based on arbitrary geographical lines.
[I continue to be frustrated by the NZ love affair with a two-party, us or them, "rulership" concept of government]
~~~
Surprised by the obliteration of the Māori party but I guess that is the kererū coming home to roost after two? terms of being in coalition with National against the expressed will of their constituency; now that Labour is looking like an effective alternative again.
This makes things interesting because National doesn't have the option of getting support from one minor party or another on a case by case basis. It's basically all or nothing with NZ First ... rendering ACT also irrelevant so maybe we can look forward to them being gone altogether next time.
Riffing off a friend "Democracy: one man, one vote. Today that man is Winston Peters". He does not seem likely to announce his decision until the outcome of the special votes (which includes all those who enrolled while voting early) making about 15% of the total vote - easily enough to move things one way or another by a seat or two. While my personal preference at the present time would be a functional MMP coalition of Labour / NZ First / Greens I think my second preference would be his smartest play: he supports either National, Labour/Greens or Labour with additional outside government support from the Greens form a minority government and rides them for support on every piece of legislation.
That's more how MMP is supposed to work in my opinion; it shouldn't matter which party puts up legislation it should stand on it's own merits against all parties rather than being successful or not at the whim of the "governing" party or parties.
Unfortunately I don't see Winston being happy without a seat at the cabinet table.
Either way I'm not seeing an awful lot of progressive legislation managing to be passed or a significant culture change in the public service over the next few years :( So the rest of us who are comfortable are just going to have to keep stepping up and looking out for our friends - and strangers - who continue to be ground down.
~~~
Particular electorates I was interested in (preliminary results)
# Christchurch Central
Finally dropped National's Nicky Wagner who mostly seems to have MIA for the past term for the Labour candidate; but there is only 0.1% between Labour and National in the party vote
# Epsom
ACT remained in existence thanks to National party voters faithfully using their electorate vote to get David Seymour the electorate seat; however the loyal pooch has already been kicked to the curb for having no actual use in the next terms government.
Sadly it is too soon to say ACT is finished; we will probably have to wait another 3 years to find out. Still I wouldn't be surprised to see a by-election in Epsom sooner than that.
# Ilam
Gerry Brownlee of course won convincingly :( But Raj Manji (Independent) did manage to get over half as many votes as Brownlee, and the Labour candidate managed nearly that many. Combined a total of exactly as many as Gerry (I put the numbers through the calculator several times) so there is actually hope that a well targeted campaign might get him out next time.
# Ōhāriu
Labour took the electorate on the night but only barely ... 679 votes is easily small enough to change on the specials. National easily got the bulk of the party vote. I hear that happened in a number of electorates.
I am not a fan of the Labour candidate who got in there; Greg O'Conner has a well documented history of being "tough on crime" and pro the police having carte blanche to use force and little to no accountability for their actions. I do not buy his line that he was only saying what he had to as the spokesman of the police union; as there is no indication that he was actually trying to challenge the negative culture and corruption within the NZ police force.
# Wigram
My own electorate; Megan Woods won by a far more comfortable margin than last time (I switched my electorate vote to Labour because of the earlier result) but the party vote only had 0.4% in it and went to National :(
~~~
