This weird election just got weirder

Is it just me or did the election campaign just get really weird?

At least for the right.

After a few days attacking the left because of gangs the right started to chill out, mainly because more and more photos of right wing MPs meeting gang members started to appear.

Then the One News Verian Poll landed and suggested that National’s support was slumping and the RNZ Reid Research poll also hit and suggested that National’s support was in the mid 20s, an area it had only been in twice before, in 2002 when it was a cot case and also in 2020 when it was also a cot case.

Maybe trying to make an issue out of gangs when cost of living was on everyone’s mind was not such a good idea.

National was suddenly facing the prospect of being the first one-term National government in history, not something that Christopher Luxon would like to have on his CV.

You could tell they were panicking because previously Luxon inevitably used to say that he never talked about polls. But suddenly he talked about a poll, a particularly bad one. He was basically begging people to vote for National, which is not a very statesman like thing for a Prime Minister to do.

And what was really interesting was that he focussed on the worse of the two polls. This suggests that National’s own polling is more aligned with the Reed Research poll than the TV1 Colmar Brunton poll.

Then to add to the sense of chaos we had the attempt to distort democratic proprotionality blow up big time.

Wealth businessman Harry Mowbray’s website urging people to electorate vote National but party vote NZ First and Act had to be taken down after an apparent complaint from the National Party.

The Mowbray whanau have made significant recent donations to Act, NZ First and National and I wonder if in future National may not receive any largesse of their generosity.

And Mowbray’s motivation is to keep the left out. Clearly he is worried that his intense wealth may not continue to grow as quickly because under Labour’s proposed capital gains tax he would have to share some of his wealth with the rest of us every time he sold land for a profit. If National stays in power he can keep it all to himself.

He may also be worried that a left Government may actually try and save us from the worst effects of climate change. It emerged that he offered Green MP Scott Willis $200,000 to convince him that human induced climate change is real. It looks like he is wealthy and stupid, a dangerous combination.

Mowbray’s website was designed to further the split your vote campaign, where voters are being asked to give their electorate vote to National, but party vote Act or New Zealand First, just so that the number of right-wing MPs is maximized. If successful we could have the mother of all overhangs.

The campaign is clearly immoral while not being illegal. Immorality never stopped rich people in the past, so one shouldn’t be surprised at what’s happening now.

But the problem for National is that the policy could mean it has have no list MPs. Nicola Willis would be gone. Chris Bishop would be gone. They would leave yawning gaps in a caucus which already is lacking in any sort of talent.

Willis and Bishop may be completely inept in their job, as shown by Willis’s wasting of hundreds of million dollars in canceling the Ferries contract, but at least they play the game well, and National has no one else like them.

Mowbray has a number of unusual hangers on, like Don Brash, and he is clearly utilising the anti-vax side of right-wing politics. He has provided support to Chantal Baker, and his campaign is also being run by Voices for Freedom who sponsored a full page advertisement in the Herald featuring Brash saying “Want to keep the left out of Government? Then DO NOT party vote National”.

This is a level of weirdness I have not seen since 2005, when Don Brash cultivated a campaign by the Exclusive Brethren to fund and deliver anti-Labour and anti-Greens pamphlets to a large number of New Zealand mailboxes.

For a church that requires its followers not to vote this was an unusual level of political activity. And it backfired spectacularly when the source of the funding for the pamphlets was published.

Andrew Geddis said at the time that “National probably did not break the law, but that the party’s actions “stank” and that the electoral system was like “panel beaters designing intersections”.”

So how is Voices for Freedom funding their campaign?

Where is their money coming from?

To be frank I have no idea.

VFF’s website used to say “we intend to provide basic information on finances such as to provide accountability and transparency at appropriate junctures and at least annually.”  Some time after I wrote this post the promise was quietly deleted. There is no transparency about its funding. Despite its earlier promise which it now wants you to forget.

VFF is a registered company, and there is no obligation on it, at least legally, to provide any financial information at all. Presuming it is a third-party promoter, it will be required to file a return but well after the election result. This is wrong. We deserve to know who is putting up substantial resources into our elections now so we can gague their motivation.

There seem to be some sort of tacit agreement by Act and New Zealand First to Mowbray’s campaign which must be galling to National.

Last election national made a great play about a coalition of chaos on the left. That definition would definitely apply to the current coalition. They would eat the other party’s young for political advantage.

And meanwhile, Labour has released its manifesto. Chapie is campaigning his heart out. The Greens are united and are doing a good job. The only messiness of any campaign is on the right.

And finally, the enrolment statistics came out this week. They showed that the proportion of people on the roll has dropped by 1.1%, which equates to about 40,000 people, compared to the last election period. This is not as catastrophic as it could have been, Attorney General Judith Collins thought that National’s electoral law change could result in 100,000 kiwis being disenfranchised.

And for that we need to thank all the progressive parties and political activists who have made enrolling Kiwis a major part of their campaign this year. I know that in Waitakere we have made a strenuous effort into getting people onto the roll and things are much better than I thought they would be.

But the deficit is still 40,000 voters, most of who would have been left-wing. This could hurt.

We are entering into an extremely weird stage of the campaign. The right are falling apart. The sense of desire for change is ever-increasing. Time will tell but fingers crossed that this is the first one-term National government of its history.