For all our futures
With massive demonstrations across the world urging the UN & governments to do very much more to counter climate change, Al Jazeera’s Inside Story covers the demos and examines the issues.
The Election That Left One Third of Us Behind
No one should begrudge John Key and the National party the right to celebrate an impressive election victory. It is little consolation to […]
Where’s the Whip?
Our Labour MPs seem to be in disarray. Somehow the party that teaches solidarity keeps on being fractured, while the party that teaches individualism is a strong union.
Why are they talking to each other through the media instead of picking up the phone?
Labour’s leadership
David Cunliffe has just announced that he will seek to continue as leader of the Labour Party and will let the party decide. A contest for the leadership is almost inevitable.
Clean it up
Action Station has a full page ad in today’s NZ Herald, asking to clean up dirty politics. Dirty Politics is not any isolated attack politics or criticism of those in power. It is a relentless two track strategy, an orchestrated smear machine, aimed at moving politics rightwards & disengaging (left wing) voters. Update: Hager comments on the election.
Our children in Wellington
I’m pretty sure that David Cunliffe would win a members and affiliates vote. So suck it up MPs, stop playing your silly caucus games and do some frigging work this term rather than the self-indulgent posturing you wasted time with last term. We have to start building campaigning machinery as soon as possible. You are getting in the way.
Open mike 23/09/2014
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Idiots, Cowards and Bastards.
When they write about it at all, the media tends to produce a lot of smash on the issue of global warming, and I’ve had enough of the crap. I apologise for both the length of this post and the number of data chewing links (pdfs and video). I’m hoping to write a number of posts looking at global warming from a variety of perspectives, and hopefully, it’ll be possible to keep others somewhat briefer than this one.
NRT: MMP, electorates, and misaligned incentives
No Right Turn points out the underlying truth of voting in an MMP environment. For the party electorate seats don’t matter much. Running electorate only campaigns are not productive. He is wrong in ascribing them no value. They provide a base for campaigning.
National’s promises to you. #1.
Nationals promises to you. #1.
The lurch to the right begins
Expect to see a lot of drastic rightwing policies this term as John Key redefines the term “centre ground.”
Lessons
Greetings from the sanity of Dunedin North. Every pundit and their dog is opining on the lessons of Saturday, so I might as well have a go too.
Open mike 22/09/2014
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Psephology-o-rama: Hangover nerdery edition
Now that the battle for election night ratings is over for another three years, here is a table for your entrail-reading pleasure showing the three biggest parties’ vote shares in a few different geographic / demographic segments.
Looking Ahead
Win or lose, there are never any final battles in politics. A defeat simply means the firing of the starting gun for the […]
Media don’t believe their own polls
What strikes me now is the media commentators saying it was “a surprising result”. Well, if we were to believe all the polls, then this result is not a surprise. This tells us that the media don’t believe their own polls.
Another 3 years of work (first notes)
My first notes on the election results. Labour has to maintain stability internally and start campaigning now. Obviously the dirty politics is the current leverage but the tanking economy is an issue as well. Some of National puppet parties are really looking like gutted husks..
My morning thoughts on the night before
It will take a flax roots, bottom-up, community-based movement to rebuild democracy and a fair, caring and sustainable society.
Three more years
This election result is not the end of the world for me – because I am very, very lucky.
Next time …
National has an outright majority and the left has gone backwards. Some thoughts on what may have happened.
Open mike 21/09/2014
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Green Watch
I am hoping for a good proportion of the vote for the Green Party. They got !!% of the vote in 2011, resulting in them having 14 MPs. Updated
Seat watch – Te Tai Tokerau
Will Hone hang on and bring in Internet Mana MPs with him? The polls suggest that the race with Kelvin Davis is neck and neck although Hone has this habit of doing far better than the landline polls would suggest. Updated: Kelvin Davis ahead but it was won by specials last time.
Seat watch – Ohariu
Will Peter Dunne continue as the MP for Ohariu and sole United Future MP or will Labour’s Virginia Andersen prevail?
Updated: Looks like Peter Dunne is back again.
Seat Watch – Epsom
Who will win Epsom? Will enough people rebel at John Key’s instruction to vote for the ACT candidate or will ACT’s extreme policies and Jaime Whyte’s weirdness mean that the people of Epsom will rebel and vote for Paul Goldsmith? Updated: Early, but the Act guy ahead.
From Moira
Moira Coatsworth, Labour Party President, sent this notice out to the members, supporters and volunteers.
Election watch 2014
I hear there was an election today. What happened?
21:45: National will probably be easily able to form a coalition with their two puppet parties and maybe the Maori party. Conservatives out.
The election counting schedule.
The final tally for advance voting is 717,579. This is somewhat larger than 334,558 in 2011. Impressive. The electoral commission has a schedule published for tonight and later for the count.
Open mike 20/09/2014
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Political advertising on election day
I’m getting scattered reports and images of political advertising popping up on various websites. They seem to look like accidents more than a deliberate strategy.
Updated: In other news blogger does a good selfie…
Updated 1300: NZ Herald mobile site still has political ads popping up periodically.
Updated 1550: Quinovic Mt Eden have clearly violated electoral law with a mailout.
Defamation on the net
Stephen Price wrote on an interesting Appeal court decision that relates to blogging and defamation. The decision seems to leave a considerable amount of room for lawyers to continue to explore. But it effectively lays out some guidelines about site responsibilities.
Have a happy and legal election day
At 12pm tonight, the comments section on this site will (largely) stop accepting comments. I will (probably) be putting up a post tomorrow morning to accept, store and act on private electoral complaints from anywhere around the country. Take a snap of violations and log it. Lets keep the buggers honest. Updated.
Check you are enrolled – last chance
You can’t enrol to vote tomorrow. If you haven’t early voted, don’t have a vote pack, and if you don’t show up on the electronic roll and you are in anyway unsure, then your best bet is to head to your local post shop, and fill in and give them an enrolment form – BEFORE the post shop closes.
The Scottish Referendum
The polling booths are closed and the count has started in what may be an historic day for Scotland.
The importance of voting from a young woman’s perspective
A guest post from a young woman who cast her vote today.
A clean start
If Team Key manage to stagger over the line it will be a government paralysed from the start by scandal and investigation – inward looking and defensive. A rather Pyrrhic “victory” at best. We need a Labour led government so that we can put this nightmare behind us. We need a clean start.