The “authorised by” promoter statement has become a political tool. Intended to prevent anonymous campaigns, now political parties, particularly National, try to find materials that are unambiguously from another party but lacking a promoter statement and try to get them defined as election ads. There’s no democratic principal there, just gotcha politics.
The recall elections in Wisconsin over Governor Walker’s attempt to remove collective bargaining for public servants had it all – Republicans running fake Democrats in primaries, massive spending by faceless outside bodies, and two Republican senators losing their seats in the subsequent ballot. Democrats did not succeed in overturning the Wisconsin Senate majority for Walker’s Republicans, but it is down to one and there is one Republican who voted against the anti-union law.
I/S at No Right Turn looks at the arguments for lowering the MMP threshold instead, or as a trade off for, getting rid of the ‘win an electorate, win list MPs’ rule. The conservatives say that a low threshold would mean more parties and ‘instability’. I/S shows that’s not only mathematically false, it’s not a reason to deny people democratic representation.
Some are linking Labour’s polling to National’s in 2002. Well, I think it’s worth remembering the other side of the 2002 polls. Labour’s support plunged 13% in the last month of the campaign from 50%+ support to the point where a Nat-led government was a real threat. Then, there was 1996, where Labour went from polling 4th to losing by a hair.
What to make of Epsom? I haven’t so far had a strong opinion on the topic, but I’m starting to come down on the side of “if you can’t beat them, join them”.
Vote for Change, Peter Shirtcliffe’s anti-MMP vehicle a grassroots movement discussing the need for change in the electoral system, has launched an ad competition for their movement. There’s $10,000 in prizes. I guess they raised the money from cake stalls. We encourage to submit your entries to VfC, and send them to us too!
The 1,916 special votes got pared to 769. Of which Hone Harawira got 454 and Kelvin Davis got 204. There really isn’t anything in it with a by-election majority of 1117. It will make this a tight contest at election time because Labour will now view this electorate as being quite winnable. IMHO as an long time electorate campaigner, some of the Mana supporters have been over-blowing their result.
Peter Shirtcliffe’s Vote for Change is reeling. On Sunday, they had to boot out Alex Fogerty after the Young Nat’s neo-Nazi affiliations were made public. Yesterday, they lost their token Leftie, Bob Harvey, when he realised that being used by a collection of capitalist elitists and white supremacists wasn’t the legacy he wanted.
Peter Shirtcliffe’s Anti-MMP Vote For Change group has just 16 members and one of them has turned out to be a neo-Nazi. Is it a case of being so short of mates they’ll accept anyone who turns up, or does this give us a truer picture of who really wants to get rid of MMP? The latter, I think.
A good piece of detective work at TUMEKE! has revealed that a founding member of the anti-MMP group “Vote for Change”, one Alex Fogerty, is a white supremacist. Labour Party candidate for Dunedin North, David Clark, notes an interesting entry on Fogerty’s friend list…
Good piece in today’s Herald by John Armstrong focussing on Vote for Change declaring that they are not in favour of any particular form of electoral system at this stage. He doesn’t find it believable, and nor do I. His take is that “Vote for Change looks very much like the National Party Preservation Society in drag.” I agree. I think they have a classic bait and switch strategy, it involves Key, and we should not take it lightly.
Times that the Government had the support of the majority of voters under FPP from formation of Reform (beginning on multi-party system) in 1911: 7 out of 27 (26%)
Times that the Government has had the support of the majority of voters under MMP: 4 out of 5 (80%)
According to Audrey Young: “National and Act, the parties that kicked up a stink in Opposition about Labour’s taxpayer-funded election advertising, are engaging in their own taxpayer-funded binge this month”…
By its own admission, Vote for Change is anti MMP. Its website homepage has “More Accountability” as its first principle. It is also an Incorporated Society. So I had a look at its rules – you can find them on the Societies website. It seems more like the Politburo to me. Not a good look for a group supposedly promoting better democracy.
The latest anti-MMP outfit is already unraveling with Pundit’s Rob Salmond uncovering the fact it’s basically the Peter Shirtcliffe club.
It’s a surprisingly clumsy effort. Especially given David Farrar provided strategic advice.
I guess he’s not learned any lessons from his previous PR fiascos…
Peter Shirtcliffe’s latest attempt to destroy MMP has finally launched. The man who spent a million dollars in 1993 is a shadow of his former self. Now, he and his cronies are so despised he can’t front the organisation himself, he’s got some kid doing it. And FPP/SM is so despised they won’t actually campaign for it overtly.
A victory for Mana or a victory for Labour? Actually, it was a win for both, and a win for the Left. The losers in Te Tai Tokerau were the true enemies of the Left – the kupapa Maori Party and National. Turia put up a weak candidate hoping to concentrate the anti-Hone vote behind Davis. Now, the Maori Party faces a three-way fight it can’t win.
Hone Harawira has won the by-election for Te Tai Tokerau, despite the best efforts of the msm, John Key’s endorsement of Kelvin Davis, dirty tricks from the Maori Party, and despite Labour’s typically ill-considered, hamfisted attempts to wipe out Mana at its first election.
The best man won.
Te Tai Tokerau includes the North Shore, so there’s been a by-election in my patch today. But now: we just have to sit back and wait. What will happen to Hone’s 6,308 majority?
[99% booths in: Hone 5372 Kelvin 4582 Solomon 1003]
Were Tariana Turia’s comments on her own candidate in the Te Tai Tokerau by-election some kind of cunning plan, or just a simple stuff-up?
Could be worth watching Native Affairs on Maori television tonight at 8:30. The Te Tai Tokerau candidates will be debating and it appears there may be a very interesting poll result in the offing. The Herald’s story today on a different sort of poll is headlined “Voters back Harawira, but only by a whisker.” It could go down to the wire.
Update: Hone 41, Kelvin 40
Watch Kelvin Davis on Q+A with Hone Harawira. He was superb. He says the message he is giving about being part of the future for Maori is resonating around the Tai Tokerau. I’ll bet it is. The by-election result could be very interesting indeed. I liked his take on leadership too – it’s about being focussed on the objective and doing what is necessary to achieve it. Couldn’t agree more.
No Right Turn asks an interesting set of questions about the state allocation of broadcast media time.
“..if we think TV and radio broadcasting is so influential that it must be restricted to produce a level playing field between parties – which I agree with – why do we allocate it so it produces the opposite?”
If there is one silver lining to the cloud of a National government, it is that the MMP referendum has come up on their watch. It rather cripples their attack lines.
National Party pollster David Farrar is to be campaign strategist for an anti-MMP campaign. He’s joined by Nat ‘campaign manager for hire’ Simon Lusk who did the work on the Brash coup, and Jordan Williams a former Young Nat also involved in the Brash coup. I assume the campaign material will have National Party logos on it.
We have a date for what promises to be a fascinating by election. The pressure is on Hone Harawira…
Hone has done what he said he would and resigned, effective May 20. There will be a by-election in Te Tai Tokerau.
Labour has decided to stand Kelvin Davis in the Te Tai Tokerau by-election. I wish they hadn’t. First, Davis strikes me as quality and you don’t tarnish quality by making it lose in front of a national audience. Look what happened to Melissa Lee, former National rising star. And Davis will lose, let’s be honest.
It was good to hear Mike Williams as the voice of the left on Nine to Noon yesterday. It is high time that someone from the broad left had the mike, to coin a phrase. Mike “spat on the altar” and had a friendly go at his mate Matt McCarten’s strategy for a by-election in Te Tai Tokerau, a kind of joust of the gurus. He thinks Matt made a mistake there, and I agree.
Results are coming in for council elections in England and for the Welsh and Scottish Assemblies.
The most interesting result will be the referendum on Alternative Vote for the whole UK.
It is likely to go down according to the polls.
Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have won majority government in the Canadian election with under 40% of the vote on a turnout of just over […]
As I foreshadowed a week ago, Hone Harawira is to trigger a by-election in Te Tai Tokerau. It’s the right thing to do: Harawira should test his mandate to lead a new party, as Winston Peters and Tariana Turia did. It’s also good politics – keeping the Mana Party in the news – just as the other parties’ reactions are good politics on their part.
Quiz Night. Food and prizes provided. Friday 13 May, 7pm.
Fickling Convention Centre, Auckland.
Canada will go to the polls on May 2. That election has just got a whole lot more interesting. The latest poll has […]
Judith Tizard won’t take Labour’s vacant seat in Parliament. It’s the right thing to do. It’s only a quirk that we should be looking back to a list written in 2008 to fill a seat for 6 months now. Tizard and the next four on the 2008 list aren’t on the 2011 list. Their lives have moved on. Better for the seat to go to someone with a Parliamentary future – Louisa Wall.
In the UK they have a referendum in May as to whether to keep First Past the Post, or move to Australian-style Preferential Voting (or as they call it “Alternative Vote”). Here’s a quirky explanation of the problems with FPP using members of the animal kingdom.
