New Zealand’s 3-ring circus government had a major change today when the leader of the hard-rightwing Act Party, David Seymour, became Deputy Prime Minister (aka “DPM”), replacing Winston Peters, leader of the rightwing populist New Zealand First Party (Peters will remain Foreign Minister). On the surface, its not a big deal at all, but it may prove to be one for entirely partisan political reasons.
The job-share Deputy Prime Minister position (a description of the job that both Seymour and Peters loathe, which is ironic since they both say disparaging things about opponents that are far, far worse) was part of the two parties’ coalition agreement with the right-of-centre National Party, headed by current Prime Minister Chris Luxon. The role of Deputy Prime Minister exists so that someone is “in charge” when the Prime Minister is out of the country, at which time the DPM becomes acting prime minister. Because there were times over the past 18 months when both Luxon and Peters were out of the country, Seymour has been the acting PM a couple before. And that’s where the unimportance ends.
By taking the first half of the job-share role, Winston is free to start campaigning for next year’s General Election. He has never won re-election after serving in Government, but he clearly hopes that this will give him the distance to run against the very government he was part of. Interesting ploy from the wily Winston, but it’s by no means certain it’ll work. The election of "change” was 2023, and 2026 will be largely a reaction to the past three years of this Government.
I wrote about this circus arrangement back in 2023, and in that post I quoted TVNZ journalist John Campbell making the same point about Winston’s motivation for being DPM first. Today, 1News published a new piece about his interviews with Winston and David about the job-share change, and Winston confirmed the reason he went first. So… not so secret then. Clearly.
Seymour, on the other hand, apparently wanted to be the sole DPM because his party won more seats in Parliament than Winston’s did. Those of us who oppose this rightwing government have dreaded this job-share change because, of the two, Seymour is way more reprehensible. His “Treaty Priniciples Bill” was the most divisive—and racist—bill in decades, or even longer. It resulted in the largest-ever protest march on Parliament and an astounding 300,000 submissions to Parliament the VAST majority of which opposed the bill. The parliamentary select committee recommended that the bill be rejected, and Parliament did: It only got 11 votes, all from the Act Party’s own MPs—ALL other parties voted against it and former politicians from all over the spectrum denounced the bill.
Among other neoliberal things, Seymour is a proponent of “charter schools”, as he was in the past, and many of his opponents, including me, see it as his way of privatising education by stealth. He and his party are not friends of working people, though in a sort of backhanded compliment, they’ve also never pretended to be. Their policies promote the sort of far-right, neoliberal agenda that could never get through democratically (kind of like the current occupant of the USA’s White House’s “Project 2025” fascist agenda).
Seymour is openly hostile to the news media—often aggressively so (though one suspects it may be mainly performative…) but always in a dickheadish way. John Campbell talks about that, too. Seymour has ties to a far-right a foreign neoliberal network that worked behind the scenes to affect public policy in multiple countries. He dismisses concerns about his past, and denies any connection, even though his policy objectives align with the neoliberals’ priorities. The extent of his involvement in the far-right group and its influence on him, AND his prickly relationship with journalists, can be seen in an RNZ documentary in its “Mata Reports” series, titled “ACT: The Foreign Influences That Have Shaped David Seymour's Political Agenda” presented by veteran journalist Mihingarangi Forbes.
Seymour has a habit of making outrageous and confrontational statements that openly and strongly contradict official government policy, often to claim “credit” for his party. While some of that is purely performative, mainly for the benefit of the minority of New Zealanders who agree with him, he’s always nevertheless consistently promoting an unpopular hard-right political agenda, and he does so with a weird blend of attempted humour and aggressive bullying. It’s never pleasant to watch him perform for the cameras—but, to be clear, he really is very, very good at performing and has a productive social media team, which is why the very journalists he attacks always cover him and his antics.
The bottom line in all this is that for the majority of New Zealanders, Winston was (and is) bad, but Seymour is far worse. To be abundantly clear, I have never voted for Winston or Seymour’s parties, and I can’t conceive of any scenario whatsoever in which I would consider it for even a nanosecond. This is a truly “duh!” statement: As I’ve made abundantly clear over the past 18+ years of this blog, I am absolutely not a “conservative”, much less a hard-rightwinger. It is, in fact, my centre-left politics and values that make me reject both Winston and Seymour. It’s not personal, it’s political.
As difficult as the past 18 months have often been, the coming 18 months may be even worse. If they are, it’ll help ensure this current government is turfed out at the next election. That gives Seymour an incentive to behave himself in his job-share role. Can he do it? Dunno. But I doubt it.
Showing posts with label NZ 2023 Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NZ 2023 Election. Show all posts
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Wednesday, December 06, 2023
AmeriNZ Podcast episode 407 is now available
The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.
Monday, November 27, 2023
New Zealand’s 3-ring circus begins
New Zealand’s new three-ring circus government was sworn in today, beginning the most rightwing government has scene in three decades. It’ll be a wild ride.
Last Wednesday, while the clowns continued the circus negotiations, the saga was still funny. The next day, they announced that negotiations had concluded, and the coalition agreement would be signed the next day. On Friday, the agreement was signed, and today the Governor General swore the new Prime Minister and other ministers into office. The “Speech from the Throne”, which is part of the royal opening of Parliament, will be next week.
Apparently the delay last week was because David Seymour, leader of the hard-right “libertarian"-ish Act Party, and Winston Peters, leader of the righting populist New Zealand First party, both thought they should be Deputy Prime Minister. David thought he should get it because he has many more MPs in his party’s caucus than Winston has in his, and supposedly Winston thought he should have it because he’s been in politics for many, many decades, dating way back to when New Zealand was ruled by the Queen (Elizabeth, not Victoria, as perhaps some people might assume…). This is, by the way, the first NZ government to swear an oath of allegiance to any monarch other than Queen Elizabeth II since the middle of the last century.
National Party leader and newly sworn in Prime Minister, Chris Luxon, arranged for David and Winston to share the job. Winston will be Deputy PM for the first 18 months, and then David will take over for the remaining approximately 18 months of the term (assuming, of course, the government lasts 18 months or more). This situation is as absurd as it sounds, but there could be a method to the madness—for one of the two, anyway. Writing in an opinion piece on the website of TVNZ’s 1News, veteran journalist John Campbell said:
While much of this post was written with my tongue firmly in my cheek (so much so my tongue got cramp), there’s a dark reason for that: The next three years will be painful. So much of what the three intend to do is divisive and will cause a lot of bitter anger, particularly among Māori, but also workers, Rainbow communities, those who care about fighting climate change, and who want action on child poverty, all of whom will be worse off under this government. My concern, though, isn’t that—the next Left-of-Centre government can fix everything the circus destroys, except, maybe, for one thing: The circus’ policies may make more hardcore followers feel they have permission to unleash aggressive, even violent, hatred, just as the leader of the USA’s Republican Party did.
Still, there’s one thing that gives me hope. We had no riots today, no one tried to violently stop the new government. We had no one bleating on that the election was “stolen”. Right on schedule, the caretaker Prime Minister, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins, whose Labour Party lost the election this year, rang the Governor General to formally end the caretaker government’s roll. The new government was then duly sworn in. I didn’t vote for any of them, and while I have grave concerns about how much harm that they will do, that peaceful and orderly transfer of power gives me hope that New Zealand might avoid the fate of so many countries that are falling under the thrall of the far-right, including overt fascists. I suppose the next election will show whether that hope was justified.
Last Wednesday, while the clowns continued the circus negotiations, the saga was still funny. The next day, they announced that negotiations had concluded, and the coalition agreement would be signed the next day. On Friday, the agreement was signed, and today the Governor General swore the new Prime Minister and other ministers into office. The “Speech from the Throne”, which is part of the royal opening of Parliament, will be next week.
Apparently the delay last week was because David Seymour, leader of the hard-right “libertarian"-ish Act Party, and Winston Peters, leader of the righting populist New Zealand First party, both thought they should be Deputy Prime Minister. David thought he should get it because he has many more MPs in his party’s caucus than Winston has in his, and supposedly Winston thought he should have it because he’s been in politics for many, many decades, dating way back to when New Zealand was ruled by the Queen (Elizabeth, not Victoria, as perhaps some people might assume…). This is, by the way, the first NZ government to swear an oath of allegiance to any monarch other than Queen Elizabeth II since the middle of the last century.
National Party leader and newly sworn in Prime Minister, Chris Luxon, arranged for David and Winston to share the job. Winston will be Deputy PM for the first 18 months, and then David will take over for the remaining approximately 18 months of the term (assuming, of course, the government lasts 18 months or more). This situation is as absurd as it sounds, but there could be a method to the madness—for one of the two, anyway. Writing in an opinion piece on the website of TVNZ’s 1News, veteran journalist John Campbell said:
Winston Peters gets to be Deputy Prime Minister first, of course. Whoever’s responsible for that is either Winston Peters himself, or someone without a particularly robust understanding of our history. Peters campaigns best when he’s in opposition. New Zealand First has never, once, been returned to government after being in a coalition. Any remote chance of retaining his loyal participation in (to use his least favourite phrase) “Cabinet collective responsibility” would have been enhanced by making him deputy at the end of the three years, not at the beginning. It’s harder to go rogue when you’re second in charge. But his bauble time will be over. (This ain’t his first rodeo.)The entirety of Campbell’s piece is worth reading, as are several others. Here’s are some more: Former journalist Vernon Small’s piece for The Sunday Star-Times, "The results are in and it’s Winston by a length” also looks at the shape of the new government. Glenn McConnell, political reporter for Stuff, pointed out the "5 surprising policies buried in the National, ACT, NZF coalition agreements”, and the news organisation’s chief political correspondent, Tova O’Brien, pointed out the absurdities in the public signing of the coalition agreement (it was pretty much Winston’s show). Finally, Gordon Campbell’s "On The New Government’s Policies Of Yesteryear”, published on Scoop pretty much sums up National’s coalition partners, and so, why the coalition took the shape it did:
For all the media attention paid to the Seymour v Peters personal conflict, a large number of crossovers exist between the hidebound conservatism of New Zealand First and the Thatcherite young fogey-ism of ACT. Both parties are actively hostile to any form of identity politics, both detest any expressions of indigenous rights, and both oppose any forms of affirmative action being taken to address the existing levels of ethnic or gender dis-advantage.I did not vote for the circus, of course, and so, I cannot wish the new government “well”, because that would mean wishing them success, something I cannot do: Success would mean taking actions I absolutely oppose. So, I wish them good health instead. The indestructible Winston doesn’t need such wishes despite being 78, and perhaps David doesn’t either (rightwing politicians' rigid ideological certainty seems to be a life-enhancing force for them, though less so their supporters). No, it’s Chris Luxon who needs the wishes of good health. He will have an enormous job merely trying to keep his new playmates under control, and managing Winston will be a full-time job by itself. Preserving his own well-being while serving as ringmaster for his circus will require Luxon's attention and a lot of energy, and for that much he deserves good wishes.
While much of this post was written with my tongue firmly in my cheek (so much so my tongue got cramp), there’s a dark reason for that: The next three years will be painful. So much of what the three intend to do is divisive and will cause a lot of bitter anger, particularly among Māori, but also workers, Rainbow communities, those who care about fighting climate change, and who want action on child poverty, all of whom will be worse off under this government. My concern, though, isn’t that—the next Left-of-Centre government can fix everything the circus destroys, except, maybe, for one thing: The circus’ policies may make more hardcore followers feel they have permission to unleash aggressive, even violent, hatred, just as the leader of the USA’s Republican Party did.
Still, there’s one thing that gives me hope. We had no riots today, no one tried to violently stop the new government. We had no one bleating on that the election was “stolen”. Right on schedule, the caretaker Prime Minister, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins, whose Labour Party lost the election this year, rang the Governor General to formally end the caretaker government’s roll. The new government was then duly sworn in. I didn’t vote for any of them, and while I have grave concerns about how much harm that they will do, that peaceful and orderly transfer of power gives me hope that New Zealand might avoid the fate of so many countries that are falling under the thrall of the far-right, including overt fascists. I suppose the next election will show whether that hope was justified.
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
AmeriNZ Podcast episode 406 is now available
The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.
New Zealand’s three ring circus
New Zealand’s three ring circus continues, thought at the moment it seems to be the clown show section. This situation is many things, but the word that first comes to my mind is “hilarious”. Of course.
Incoming Prime-Minister-to-be, National Party Leader Chris Luxon, and hard-right Act Party leader David Seymour have finally met with Winston Peters, leader of the rightwing populist New Zealand First party. It only happened after Luxon and Seymour scurried to Auckland yesterday because Peters decided not to return to Wellington yesterday, as had been assumed/planned. Peters is playing them like a well-tuned violin, as is his way, and it seems unlikely they’ll form a new government any time soon.
Historically, the odds are stacked against the new government going the distance: Peters has never had a successful time in government with National. In the early 1990s, before MMP, he was fired by then-Prime Minister Jim Bolger. Then 61 days after the first MMP election in 1996, Peters went into coalition with National—only to be sacked again when Jenny Shipley rolled Bolger and was briefly PM before losing the 1999 election.
History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself (though Peters completed two different coalitions with Labour), but the past is prologue. Stuff’s Tova O’Brien, who I agree with infrequently, and incompletely when I do, has suggested that Luxon’s inexperience led to him overestimating his ability to negotiate a coalition agreement. That seems likely, since he spent his entire working life in corporate jobs, and had no experience in politics until 2020. Plus, he’d literally never met Peters, without whom he can’t form government. He clearly didn’t understand Peters, either.
Sometime in the next week or two, Luxon and Seymour will find a way to give Peters whatever it is he wants, and Luxon will then spin it to make it sound like it was his own plan all along. And Peters will put on one of his trademark grins, knowing he was the puppeteer.
Gotta say, after watching the circus so far, the odds aren’t looking great that the new government, whenever it finally forms, will make it the entire three years. While the show has been funny to watch, it’s also always interesting how when a new government is trying to form, the country gets along just fine without the politicians. Even though that can’t last, it looks like the lolz will—though possibly not for the entire three years?
Incoming Prime-Minister-to-be, National Party Leader Chris Luxon, and hard-right Act Party leader David Seymour have finally met with Winston Peters, leader of the rightwing populist New Zealand First party. It only happened after Luxon and Seymour scurried to Auckland yesterday because Peters decided not to return to Wellington yesterday, as had been assumed/planned. Peters is playing them like a well-tuned violin, as is his way, and it seems unlikely they’ll form a new government any time soon.
Historically, the odds are stacked against the new government going the distance: Peters has never had a successful time in government with National. In the early 1990s, before MMP, he was fired by then-Prime Minister Jim Bolger. Then 61 days after the first MMP election in 1996, Peters went into coalition with National—only to be sacked again when Jenny Shipley rolled Bolger and was briefly PM before losing the 1999 election.
History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself (though Peters completed two different coalitions with Labour), but the past is prologue. Stuff’s Tova O’Brien, who I agree with infrequently, and incompletely when I do, has suggested that Luxon’s inexperience led to him overestimating his ability to negotiate a coalition agreement. That seems likely, since he spent his entire working life in corporate jobs, and had no experience in politics until 2020. Plus, he’d literally never met Peters, without whom he can’t form government. He clearly didn’t understand Peters, either.
Sometime in the next week or two, Luxon and Seymour will find a way to give Peters whatever it is he wants, and Luxon will then spin it to make it sound like it was his own plan all along. And Peters will put on one of his trademark grins, knowing he was the puppeteer.
Gotta say, after watching the circus so far, the odds aren’t looking great that the new government, whenever it finally forms, will make it the entire three years. While the show has been funny to watch, it’s also always interesting how when a new government is trying to form, the country gets along just fine without the politicians. Even though that can’t last, it looks like the lolz will—though possibly not for the entire three years?
Sunday, November 12, 2023
New Zealand’s in between days
New Zealand still doesn’t have a government, due to a lot of factors, none of them unusual. In the meantime, the Labour-led government remains in place, acting in a caretaker role until a new government is formed, which is also not unusual. However, there was an unusual change this year cause by the results of the General Election last month.
Because of section 6 of the Constitution Act, all the current Ministers tenure was scheduled to end at 11.59pm last night, Saturday, November 11. That would have left New Zealand without a government until the National Party and its support parties can sign a coalition agreement and be appointed by the Governor General.
To avoid leaving New Zealand without a government, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins consulted with National Party Leader Chris Luxon, the presumed incoming Prime Minister, to advise the Governor General to “to reappoint the current ministry to operate in caretaker mode until the new government is appointed.”
It as a simple fix to to the problem, and agreed to by the leaders of the current and incoming governments. However, there was a small complication: The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, lost her seat in the election, and since she wasn’t on the Labour Party List, she left office at 11:59pm last night. Grant Robertson was appointed as the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In announcing the arrangements, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said: “This solution to a constitutional quirk has been amicably agreed and we continue to consult closely with the incoming Government on all key decisions.” All very of matter-of-fact—and I was struck by the shockingly stark contrast between the peaceful transfer of power in New Zealand being “amicably agreed” and the attempted coup in the USA on January 6, 2021.
However, that doesn’t mean we don’t have rightwing freakouts over the formation of the new government. Every day seems to bring more and more moans from the Right about how awful it is that this process is taking so long, how it somehow “proves” that our MMP electoral system is “awful” or “a disaster” (and similarly aggressively negative terms). As is so often the case, the rightwing freakout is utterly unjustified, and it’s flat out wrong—one might even say “ignorant”, if one was feeling uncharitable.
As of today, it’s been 29 days since the 2023 General Election. The time between the election and the official formation of government took 61 days in 1996, the first election under MMP (which was also a coalition with Winston Peters and his rightwing populist New Zealand First party). The shortest amount of time was 11 days in 2008. Overall, the average has been 28.67 days between the election and the formation of government.
The “slowness” this year, then, is still far short of 1996 and will remain so—that was always obviously going to be the case. This year, in fact, things have moved quite fast—especially when you look at the obstacles.
First, the National Party didn’t do as well as it had hoped. While it was never really possible that it would win an outright majority in Parliament as Labour did in 2020, they still hoped to have enough seats that they could govern with only the hard-right Act Party. Because the two parties combined failed to win enough seats to command a majority in Parliament, they instead have to form a deal with Winston (as part of his election campaign, Winston had flat-out refused to work worth Labour after the votes were counted, and Labour Party Leader Chris Hipkins returned the favour).
On election night, there were a number of seats that were too close to call, and the final makeup of Parliament would depend on the Final Results. This made things even more delayed as the results of several seats were subject to recounts. That, in turn, delayed the final writ from the Electoral Commission, and a new government couldn’t be formed even if the three political parties had agreed to a coalition agreement in mere hours—in fact, they couldn't even really begin full negotiations until the final results were announced. The recounts are now pretty much finished, and they haven’t really changed anything, as expected. Negotiations have been fully underway for about a week.
Another complicating factor is Winston personally. The word “mercurial” may be the nicest way to describe him and his behaviour. He’s always been a political opportunist, seizing on the latest political passions—especially negative ones—to gain votes. So, in order to placate his supporters, Winston may well demand things National and Act don’t want. Or, it may just be his narcissism that drives him to demand things, no matter how unreasonable. Add to that that the fact that he and the leader of the Act Party both bitterly criticised each other in the campaign, and it was pretty obvious that coalition negotiations between the two were likely to be prickly.
All of which means that a delay was to be expected. It was obvious on election night that there was absolutely no possible way this could go any faster. That aside, the process is well within the range of time it’s taken ever since the MMP era began in 1996, something that's easily knowable.
In sum, then, people who are beside themselves over this process of forming a new government need to chill out. A new government will form soon enough, and then everyone can get back to complaining about it. That, too, is predictable.
Time between Election Days and Government being formed, 1996-2020:
1996 election: Election Day was October 12, government began December 12 – 61 days later (a re-elected government).
1999 election: Election Day was November 27 government began December 10 – 46 days later (a new government).
2002 election: Election Day was July 27, government began Aug 15, 2002 – 19 days later. (a re-elected government).
2005 election: Election Day was September 17, government began Oct 19, 2005 – 32 days later (a re-elected government).
2008 election: Election Day was November 8, government began November 19, 2008 – 11 days later (a new government).
2011 election: Election Day was November 26, government began December 14, 2011 – 18 days later (a re-elected government).
2014 election: Election Day was September 20, government began October 8, 2014 – 18 days later (a re-elected government).
2017 election: Election Day was September 23, government began October 26, 2017 – 33 days later (a new government).
2020 election: Election Day was October 17, government began November 6, 2020 – 20 days later (a re-elected government).
Sources:
“Governments in New Zealand since 1856” – NZ Parliament
”General Election Days – NZ History, Ministry for Culture and Heritage
“List of New Zealand governments” – Wikipedia
4 The title of this post made me think of a song (of course), the 1985 single “In Between Days” by English band The Cure [WATCH].
Because of section 6 of the Constitution Act, all the current Ministers tenure was scheduled to end at 11.59pm last night, Saturday, November 11. That would have left New Zealand without a government until the National Party and its support parties can sign a coalition agreement and be appointed by the Governor General.
To avoid leaving New Zealand without a government, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins consulted with National Party Leader Chris Luxon, the presumed incoming Prime Minister, to advise the Governor General to “to reappoint the current ministry to operate in caretaker mode until the new government is appointed.”
It as a simple fix to to the problem, and agreed to by the leaders of the current and incoming governments. However, there was a small complication: The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, lost her seat in the election, and since she wasn’t on the Labour Party List, she left office at 11:59pm last night. Grant Robertson was appointed as the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In announcing the arrangements, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said: “This solution to a constitutional quirk has been amicably agreed and we continue to consult closely with the incoming Government on all key decisions.” All very of matter-of-fact—and I was struck by the shockingly stark contrast between the peaceful transfer of power in New Zealand being “amicably agreed” and the attempted coup in the USA on January 6, 2021.
However, that doesn’t mean we don’t have rightwing freakouts over the formation of the new government. Every day seems to bring more and more moans from the Right about how awful it is that this process is taking so long, how it somehow “proves” that our MMP electoral system is “awful” or “a disaster” (and similarly aggressively negative terms). As is so often the case, the rightwing freakout is utterly unjustified, and it’s flat out wrong—one might even say “ignorant”, if one was feeling uncharitable.
As of today, it’s been 29 days since the 2023 General Election. The time between the election and the official formation of government took 61 days in 1996, the first election under MMP (which was also a coalition with Winston Peters and his rightwing populist New Zealand First party). The shortest amount of time was 11 days in 2008. Overall, the average has been 28.67 days between the election and the formation of government.
The “slowness” this year, then, is still far short of 1996 and will remain so—that was always obviously going to be the case. This year, in fact, things have moved quite fast—especially when you look at the obstacles.
First, the National Party didn’t do as well as it had hoped. While it was never really possible that it would win an outright majority in Parliament as Labour did in 2020, they still hoped to have enough seats that they could govern with only the hard-right Act Party. Because the two parties combined failed to win enough seats to command a majority in Parliament, they instead have to form a deal with Winston (as part of his election campaign, Winston had flat-out refused to work worth Labour after the votes were counted, and Labour Party Leader Chris Hipkins returned the favour).
On election night, there were a number of seats that were too close to call, and the final makeup of Parliament would depend on the Final Results. This made things even more delayed as the results of several seats were subject to recounts. That, in turn, delayed the final writ from the Electoral Commission, and a new government couldn’t be formed even if the three political parties had agreed to a coalition agreement in mere hours—in fact, they couldn't even really begin full negotiations until the final results were announced. The recounts are now pretty much finished, and they haven’t really changed anything, as expected. Negotiations have been fully underway for about a week.
Another complicating factor is Winston personally. The word “mercurial” may be the nicest way to describe him and his behaviour. He’s always been a political opportunist, seizing on the latest political passions—especially negative ones—to gain votes. So, in order to placate his supporters, Winston may well demand things National and Act don’t want. Or, it may just be his narcissism that drives him to demand things, no matter how unreasonable. Add to that that the fact that he and the leader of the Act Party both bitterly criticised each other in the campaign, and it was pretty obvious that coalition negotiations between the two were likely to be prickly.
All of which means that a delay was to be expected. It was obvious on election night that there was absolutely no possible way this could go any faster. That aside, the process is well within the range of time it’s taken ever since the MMP era began in 1996, something that's easily knowable.
In sum, then, people who are beside themselves over this process of forming a new government need to chill out. A new government will form soon enough, and then everyone can get back to complaining about it. That, too, is predictable.
Time between Election Days and Government being formed, 1996-2020:
1996 election: Election Day was October 12, government began December 12 – 61 days later (a re-elected government).
1999 election: Election Day was November 27 government began December 10 – 46 days later (a new government).
2002 election: Election Day was July 27, government began Aug 15, 2002 – 19 days later. (a re-elected government).
2005 election: Election Day was September 17, government began Oct 19, 2005 – 32 days later (a re-elected government).
2008 election: Election Day was November 8, government began November 19, 2008 – 11 days later (a new government).
2011 election: Election Day was November 26, government began December 14, 2011 – 18 days later (a re-elected government).
2014 election: Election Day was September 20, government began October 8, 2014 – 18 days later (a re-elected government).
2017 election: Election Day was September 23, government began October 26, 2017 – 33 days later (a new government).
2020 election: Election Day was October 17, government began November 6, 2020 – 20 days later (a re-elected government).
Sources:
“Governments in New Zealand since 1856” – NZ Parliament
”General Election Days – NZ History, Ministry for Culture and Heritage
“List of New Zealand governments” – Wikipedia
4 The title of this post made me think of a song (of course), the 1985 single “In Between Days” by English band The Cure [WATCH].
Friday, November 03, 2023
AmeriNZ Podcast episode 405 is now available
The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
AmeriNZ Podcast episode 403 is now available
The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Meanwhile, opposition
This means that the New Zealand Labour Party, as the second-biggest party in the new Parliament, will become the Opposition when Parliament is sworn in, and the Labour Party Leader will become Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition, after consultation with the party’s Members of Parliament, will appoint spokespeople for each of the government’s ministerial portfolios or the topics those ministries focus on. Other parties in Parliament may also appoint spokespeople, too, but those from the official Opposition are always seen as having more weight, mainly because they’re essentially a government-in-waiting (this is similar to what in the UK Parliament is called a “Shadow Cabinet”, and instead of spokespeople, they have “shadow ministers”).
The bigger question, of course, is, what now? Labour will need to organise itself fairly quickly in order to be able to hold the new government to account. The first order of business will be to select a Leader of the Party, and right now, the current leader, outgoing Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, will remain Labour Leader. He said, "I think right at the moment, the Labour Party need some stability and some continuity as we transition out of government and into opposition,” and I think that’s exactly the right call, and, anyway, Labour Party rules require the leadership to be re-examined 90 days after an election loss, so there’s no need to rush.
On Election Night in 2008, then Prime Minister Helen Clark announced she was stepping down as Labour Leader, something that’s been blamed for creating chaos in the Labour Caucus, leading to five Leaders before they won government again in 2017. Whether that assessment of Clark is deserved or not, it’s nevertheless true that the chaos helped keep National in power for three terms—and very nearly four. Chris Hipkins doesn’t want to see a repeat of that chaos—no one wants that either (except National?).
The time in Opposition will also give Labour the chance to give its MPs experience handling the equivalent of ministerial portfolios, and that will be good for the MPs and the party: It has around a year or so to establish itself as a government-in-waiting. With so many experienced MPs out because of the election, there’s an opportunity to refresh.
Today, too, List MP and former Labour Leader Andrew Little announced he would not take his seat in Parliament, which means that the next person on Labour’s Party List will enter Parliament instead (we won’t know for sure who that is until November 3, when the final results are declared).
Little became Labour Leader after the party lost the 2014 election, but in the run-up to the 2017 election, Labour was languishing in the polls and looked to be headed for its fourth defeat in a row, so Little resigned and Jacinda Ardern became the new Leader of the Opposition and went on to victory. Little made his public announcement today on Twitter (above, in his usual lighthearted style), and was praised for choosing as selfless an action as in 2017, because his departure clears the way for someone else.
It’s unknown who else may choose to leave, but Grant Robertson, Caretaker Finance Minister, and also Deputy Prime Minister under Jacinda Ardern, switched to the Party List this election and is widely expected to leave Parliament at some point.
A few other List MPs may do the same, but Electorate MPs won’t because doing so it would trigger a costly by-election. Chris Hipkins, who is the MP for Remutaka, Has pledged to remain the Electorate MP for the three years of this Parliament, and said:
"I've made the commitment to the people of my electorate each three years when I put my name forward that I'm committing to three years, and regardless of what role I play during that time, I owe that to my constituents who place their faith in me to be their local MP."Personalities aside, there’s the bigger issue of mission: What, exactly, will Labour present as an alternative to whatever it is the new government ends up doing? In the election, National offered slogans with little or nothing behind them, Act and NZ First offered often frighteningly extremist ideas mixed with dogwhistles and pandering to the anti-government brigade. As for Labour, well, it didn’t offer much vision at all.
To win the 2026 election, Labour will need to present a positive vision for New Zealand that is both aspirational and clearly differentiated from the parties on its Left and to its Right. I believe that means it needs to return to its Centre-Left roots, and then it needs to sell its vision in a world overrun with misinformation, disinformation, and negativity of all sorts. I don’t envy the job they have in front of them—but I’ll certainly be commenting on it.
For now, thought, the important thing to know is that Labour will be entering Opposition as a stable caucus looking to refresh and re-energise so that it can do the job it needs to do to win the 2026 election. I think it can do it—and I also think that the National-Act (plus or minus NZ First) government will help them do it. More on that in another post.
Monday, October 16, 2023
The trouble ahead
New Zealand is facing potentially massive political change as its government veers to the Right. How big the change is will depend on who, precisely, is in the government coalition, and what their demands are. None of that will be known for weeks. That gives at least us a chance to buckle ourselves in.
The Official Result of the 2023 General Election will be released Friday, November 3, and it will determine the final allocation of seats in Parliament. However, there’s also a By-election in the Port Waikato Electorate to be held Saturday, November 25, 2023, and that result may or may not affect the final make-up of Parliament. The make-up of Parliament has never been this uncertain in the 27 years since MMP began.
To be clear, the half million votes to be counted won’t change which party leads Government—there’s no way it can deliver a Labour-led Government, and it won’t give any other party seats in Parliament. Instead, the final results will determine how many seats each party will receive, and that, in turn, will determine whether the National and Act Parties can form government alone, or whether they’ll need support from New Zealand First, the result determining the legislative agenda of the new government.
For example, both National and Act want to raise the retirement age, with Act insanely wanting to start raising it on January 1: Act would force me to wait two more months before I can collect National Superannuation (our government retirement benefit, similar to the USA’s Social Security). That’s obscenely unfair not just to me, but to everyone who’s planned their retirement around National Super, only to have everything delayed longer and longer. Not even Reagan was that stupid, and the increase in the USA’s retirement age changed beginning 20 years later, and people like me had four decades to plan. I guess to a party that mainly cares about the rich, it may seem like no big deal, but it can be a very, very big deal to some people.
The proposed change deliberately ignores some important facts. First, National Super is taxed, so retirees are taxpayers—they’re not getting tax-free cash. Second, working class people—especially Māori and Pasifika peoples—don’t live as long as middle class and above peoples do. As it is right now, large numbers of working class people never live long enough to collect the pension, and National and Act will ensure that even more never do. Finally, the Labour Government under former Prime Minister Helen Clark created the National Super Fund to invest money to help fund retirement in the years ahead. All of which means there’s no urgent need to raise the age, and if the new government insists on raising the age, it MUST be done over enough time so people can plan.
The bottom line is that the campaigns of both National nor Act were dishonest about the need for change, constantly aping the absurd “people are living longer now” talking point as if it was universally true, as if the pension wasn’t actually taxed, and as if there wasn’t a substantial nest egg in place (despite National stopping contributions to the Fund under John Key). However, Winston Peters—whose own political base is largely retirees—is extremely unlikely to to go along with it. If National/Act need Winston’s support, raising the retirement age may not happen.
Act has also proposed Parliament pass legislation to arbitrarily define the “Principles of the Treaty” [of Waitangi], apparently without consulting Māori, and then hold a binding referendum on it. This was part of Act’s dogwhistling on race when it attacked partnerships between Māori and the Crown known as “co-governance”, particularly by the Right. John Key reportedly told incoming prime minister Chris Luxon to not to allow the referendum to happen, or he’d see “hikois from hell” (a reference to protest marches by Māori). Green Party co-leader James Shaw said a referendum could lead to violence. If Luxon can’t stop Act on this point, it’s unlikely he’s be able to control his right flank at all. It’s unclear what Winston would do about a referendum, but he, too, attacked “co-governance” as a dogwhistle to racists. The fact that Australian voters soundly rejected the referendum on an indigenous voice underscores both why Act and Winston dogwhistled on race, and also how ugly it could become if Act’s referendum goes ahead.
Finally, there’s no certainty on what programmes the new government will cut. Historically, National cuts funding for health and education, but Luxon promised to raise both—though John Key did, too, and actually oversaw de facto cuts. National usually cuts the taxes of the rich, too, however, Luxon has said there won’t be any such big cut for a year or so. The bigger concern is that the economic “plan” national campaigned on has been rubbished by leading economists, and the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) called it a “reverse Robin Hood tax plan [that] enriches mega landlords by hundreds of millions”, having previously noted that only 3,000 households would get the maximum $250 a fortnight benefit from the party’s promised tax cuts, an amount the party constantly promoted during the campaign as if most people would get that much. National later admitted the 3,000 household figure was correct—and then attacked the CTU for daring to point out the reality of National’s “plan”.
No one has any idea what the government led by National/Act (plus or minus NZ First) will actually do, but I think it’s reasonable to speculate that corporations and the rich will do quite well (they always do under National), the poor will be worse off (ditto), and the middle class will largely be ignored, except for bread and circuses to distract them.
Some two and a half weeks from now, we should have a clearer idea of what we’ll all be in for. I feel certain ordinary New Zealanders will be worse off by the end of this term in 2026, and the country will be a much harsher place for a number of reasons—but I deeply hope I’m proven wrong. I honestly doubt that’ll happen, though.
The Official Result of the 2023 General Election will be released Friday, November 3, and it will determine the final allocation of seats in Parliament. However, there’s also a By-election in the Port Waikato Electorate to be held Saturday, November 25, 2023, and that result may or may not affect the final make-up of Parliament. The make-up of Parliament has never been this uncertain in the 27 years since MMP began.
To be clear, the half million votes to be counted won’t change which party leads Government—there’s no way it can deliver a Labour-led Government, and it won’t give any other party seats in Parliament. Instead, the final results will determine how many seats each party will receive, and that, in turn, will determine whether the National and Act Parties can form government alone, or whether they’ll need support from New Zealand First, the result determining the legislative agenda of the new government.
For example, both National and Act want to raise the retirement age, with Act insanely wanting to start raising it on January 1: Act would force me to wait two more months before I can collect National Superannuation (our government retirement benefit, similar to the USA’s Social Security). That’s obscenely unfair not just to me, but to everyone who’s planned their retirement around National Super, only to have everything delayed longer and longer. Not even Reagan was that stupid, and the increase in the USA’s retirement age changed beginning 20 years later, and people like me had four decades to plan. I guess to a party that mainly cares about the rich, it may seem like no big deal, but it can be a very, very big deal to some people.
The proposed change deliberately ignores some important facts. First, National Super is taxed, so retirees are taxpayers—they’re not getting tax-free cash. Second, working class people—especially Māori and Pasifika peoples—don’t live as long as middle class and above peoples do. As it is right now, large numbers of working class people never live long enough to collect the pension, and National and Act will ensure that even more never do. Finally, the Labour Government under former Prime Minister Helen Clark created the National Super Fund to invest money to help fund retirement in the years ahead. All of which means there’s no urgent need to raise the age, and if the new government insists on raising the age, it MUST be done over enough time so people can plan.
The bottom line is that the campaigns of both National nor Act were dishonest about the need for change, constantly aping the absurd “people are living longer now” talking point as if it was universally true, as if the pension wasn’t actually taxed, and as if there wasn’t a substantial nest egg in place (despite National stopping contributions to the Fund under John Key). However, Winston Peters—whose own political base is largely retirees—is extremely unlikely to to go along with it. If National/Act need Winston’s support, raising the retirement age may not happen.
Act has also proposed Parliament pass legislation to arbitrarily define the “Principles of the Treaty” [of Waitangi], apparently without consulting Māori, and then hold a binding referendum on it. This was part of Act’s dogwhistling on race when it attacked partnerships between Māori and the Crown known as “co-governance”, particularly by the Right. John Key reportedly told incoming prime minister Chris Luxon to not to allow the referendum to happen, or he’d see “hikois from hell” (a reference to protest marches by Māori). Green Party co-leader James Shaw said a referendum could lead to violence. If Luxon can’t stop Act on this point, it’s unlikely he’s be able to control his right flank at all. It’s unclear what Winston would do about a referendum, but he, too, attacked “co-governance” as a dogwhistle to racists. The fact that Australian voters soundly rejected the referendum on an indigenous voice underscores both why Act and Winston dogwhistled on race, and also how ugly it could become if Act’s referendum goes ahead.
 |
| Always lovely to see a billionaire relieved when a pesky centre-left government is defeated. |
No one has any idea what the government led by National/Act (plus or minus NZ First) will actually do, but I think it’s reasonable to speculate that corporations and the rich will do quite well (they always do under National), the poor will be worse off (ditto), and the middle class will largely be ignored, except for bread and circuses to distract them.
Some two and a half weeks from now, we should have a clearer idea of what we’ll all be in for. I feel certain ordinary New Zealanders will be worse off by the end of this term in 2026, and the country will be a much harsher place for a number of reasons—but I deeply hope I’m proven wrong. I honestly doubt that’ll happen, though.
Sunday, October 15, 2023
The (political) end is here
The 2020 New Zealand General Election is over, and the preliminary results have made clear that the result is not what I wanted or voted for: Labour won’t be leading government. There are a lot of reasons for that, the biggest one being that voters were incredibly angry this year, and for a lot of different reasons, so the National Party winning government was always by far the most likely result. However, many commentators can’t seem to perceive much beyond the headlines of who’s in and who’s out. Naturally, I look beyond that for the bigger story the election told.
First, some basics about this year’s election. The preliminary count is based on 2,244,380 ordinary votes, of which 1,368,830 were cast before Election Day (approximately 61.0% of total ordinary votes cast). In 2020, 68% of votes were cast early.
Some voter enrolment applications are still being processed, but by 5pm on Saturday, 3,585,232 people were enrolled, which is 92.6% of the estimated number of eligible voters (in NZ, registering to vote is mandatory, but voting itself is not). The final enrolment rate in 2020 was 94.1%. Voter turnout for 2023, then, is estimated to be 78.4% of those enrolled as at 5pm Saturday. The final turnout of those enrolled in 2020 was 82.2%.
The next category is what’s called “special declaration votes” (or just “special votes”), which are counted after Election Day. This category includes people who registered immediately before before voting, overseas voters, and those who used dictation services to vote. This year, it’s estimated there are 567,000 special votes (20.2% of total) yet to be counted, of which around 80,000 are overseas and dictation votes. In 2020, there were 504,621 special votes including 62,787 overseas and dictation votes.
These statistics show us that 2023 voter turnout wasn’t dramatically lower or higher than 2020—there was no massive turnout of voters seeking change. This means it’s just the distribution of the votes that changed, and it wasn’t just about National picking up votes and Labour losing them.
This year’s story is really about the rise of smaller parties. In the preliminary results, the combined vote for the two main parties—Labour and National—was only around 65% of the total votes cast, something I’m pretty sure has never been that low before.
The Green Party not only held onto an Electorate (Auckland Central) for the first time, they also appear to have added two more, the first time they’ve won more than one Electorate at a time. Of the two new ones, Wellington Central seems certain to hold, and the other, erstwhile Labour stronghold Rongotai, the Green candidate, Julie Anne Genter, has a lead of 792 votes—large enough to suggest it will hold when the special votes are counted. It’s worth noting that in the past, overseas votes have helped parties on the Left, the Greens in particular, so they could theoretically, at least, pick up one more MP from their Party List, and/or ensure that Genter wins.
The rightwing Act Party won an Electorate from National without doing a deal like the two parties have have in the Epsom Electorate. That makes this the first time since 1996 they won an Electorate on their own, without a deal with National, and it’s also the first time they’ve won two Electorates at the same election. Their second electorate, Tāmaki, has been held by the National Party for about as long as I’ve been alive, but the MP there, Simon O'Connor, was too much of a religious conservative even for that sort of district. When the USA’s Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, O'Connor Tweeted his happiness about it, leading to strong and immediate backlash, causing him to delete the Tweet. His social conservatism, and his opposition to abortion rights in particular, led the Act Party’s Deputy Leader, Brooke Van Velden, to announce a challenge. The Act Party is hard right on economic issues, crime, and taxes, but it’s generally liberal on social issues. For example, their party Leader sponsored the party’s only piece of legislation that I can remember thinking was good (and I strongly backed it), the ”End of Life Choice Act 2019” to allow people with less than six months to live the option to choose the time of their own death with assistance from medical professionals (it was ratified by a binding referendum at the 2020 General Election; I voted in favour of it).
The other party to have a really good night was Te Pāti Māori, which defeated two long-serving Māori Labour MPs in Māori Electorates: Rino Tirikatene lost the South Island’s Māori seat, Te Tai Tonga. He was the MP since 2011, and family members have held the seat for most of its existence. On the preliminary results, he should be back in Parliament on the Party List.
The other defeated Māori Labour candidate was Nanaia Mahuta, who lost her Hauraki-Waikato seat (which includes Hamilton). She entered Parliament on the Labour Party List in 1996. She was an Electorate-only candidate (not on the Party List), and so, is now out of Parliament.
The conservative populist New Zealand First Party got pack into Parliament, yet another time they’ve come back from electoral defeat to re-enter Parliament. This time, they’ll probably end up with eight MPs, all of them List candidates—they failed to win any Electorate seats. They appear to have benefitted from angry voters more than any other party, in part because they made overt appeals to the loons, goons, and cartoons, along with pandering to those with anti-Māori sentiment, and social conservatives. The fact that the National Party Leader suggested that a Party Vote for NZ First would help National gave all sorts of rightwing voters license to vote for Winston’s party instead, and it sent a message to the loons, goons, and cartoons that they could safely vote for NZ First rather than throwing their votes away on some tiny fringe party. This doesn’t suggest long-term or stable support for NZ First.
No other minor party won either an Electorate seat or 5% of the Party Vote, the two ways that parties can get MPs in Parliament. In fact, if the Party Votes for ALL the minor parties were added together, they only managed 5.29% of the vote. The far-right tiny parties collectively won 2.62% of the Party Vote, but the most worrying was the 1.15% won by a party called NZ Loyal. a party set up by ex-TVNZ presenter Liz Gunn to promote a whole laundry list of conspiracy theories: Anti-fluoridation, anti-1080 poison (which is used against possums), against Bill Gates, against "gender programming", against the World Economic Forum, against the news media (unironically…), against 15-minute cities (again?!), among others. We can hope that most of the 26,141 people who voted for it had no idea what it was, that maybe they just liked the name, and not that New Zealand has that many hard-core cookers (a slang term for those who believe and actively promote conspiracy theories, often no matter out idiotically absurd they may be). The reason that 1.15% figure matters is because if there was no 5% Party Vote threshold, the cookers would have at least one MP, and we’ve all seen from the US House of Representatives the horrific consequences of allowing such people into a serious legislative body.
The biggest share of votes for a party that won’t have any MPs is The Opportunities Party. The party’s leader, Raf Manji, ran as an independent in the Christchurch Electorate of Ilam in 2017, and came in second, behind the National Party MP, and ahead of the Labour Party Candidate, who was third. In the 2020 Labour landslide, Labour easily won Ilam, and TOP had no candidate. In 2023, he ran as the party’s candidate in Ilam, and again came in second (and the incumbent Labour MP came in third). It’s probably unlikely the Labour MP would’ve won if Manji wasn’t in the race, because it’s unlikely she would have received all of Manji’s votes (given the results in other Electorates, it’s probable that the Green candidate would have benefitted enough to still give the Electorate to National.
Taken together, all of this means that this election, while a rejection of Labour, wasn’t a massive switch to National because there was FAR more going on. National won with a good margin of victory, but it didn’t win the sort of landslide that Labour did in 2020. Instead, many voters moved to minor parties, not National. The Greens, Act, and NZ First all benefitted, and of those three, the Greens took the most votes from Labour, Act from National, and NZ First from National, and from rightwing sometime Labour voters, as well as extremists who otherwise would’ve wasted their votes on fringe parties.
A question I think needs to be thought about carefully is, why did so many Labour voters vote Green? In my opinion, the most likely answer is that Labour was running a staunchly centrist campaign—essentially competing with National for the same centrist and centre-right voters. The Greens never do that. Labour could’ve embraced tax reform, for example, like a capital gains tax, but it didn’t. The Greens backed such a tax as well as a wealth tax, and their votes increased. I think it seems likely that Labour lost its more progressive voters to the Greens, and that was enough to lead to such a crushing defeat. Had Labour not tacked rightward, it may still have failed to win government (there was still all that anger, after all), but, if so, it would’ve been lost by a very slim margin.
In the weeks ahead, there will be a lot of arguments over what went wrong for Labour, though there’s a lot of information we simply don’t have (because, among other reasons, exit polling is illegal in New Zealand, so we have no good data on why people voted as they did). In fact, I’m sure I’ll be part of that, quite possibly arguing against myself.
In the meantime, however, one final thought: Since I moved to New Zealand in 1995, Labour and National have both won five elections. That goes to prove, “you win some, you lose some”. It’s inevitable that in the future I’ll again be celebrating an election win. It’s the way of things.
First, some basics about this year’s election. The preliminary count is based on 2,244,380 ordinary votes, of which 1,368,830 were cast before Election Day (approximately 61.0% of total ordinary votes cast). In 2020, 68% of votes were cast early.
Some voter enrolment applications are still being processed, but by 5pm on Saturday, 3,585,232 people were enrolled, which is 92.6% of the estimated number of eligible voters (in NZ, registering to vote is mandatory, but voting itself is not). The final enrolment rate in 2020 was 94.1%. Voter turnout for 2023, then, is estimated to be 78.4% of those enrolled as at 5pm Saturday. The final turnout of those enrolled in 2020 was 82.2%.
The next category is what’s called “special declaration votes” (or just “special votes”), which are counted after Election Day. This category includes people who registered immediately before before voting, overseas voters, and those who used dictation services to vote. This year, it’s estimated there are 567,000 special votes (20.2% of total) yet to be counted, of which around 80,000 are overseas and dictation votes. In 2020, there were 504,621 special votes including 62,787 overseas and dictation votes.
These statistics show us that 2023 voter turnout wasn’t dramatically lower or higher than 2020—there was no massive turnout of voters seeking change. This means it’s just the distribution of the votes that changed, and it wasn’t just about National picking up votes and Labour losing them.
This year’s story is really about the rise of smaller parties. In the preliminary results, the combined vote for the two main parties—Labour and National—was only around 65% of the total votes cast, something I’m pretty sure has never been that low before.
The Green Party not only held onto an Electorate (Auckland Central) for the first time, they also appear to have added two more, the first time they’ve won more than one Electorate at a time. Of the two new ones, Wellington Central seems certain to hold, and the other, erstwhile Labour stronghold Rongotai, the Green candidate, Julie Anne Genter, has a lead of 792 votes—large enough to suggest it will hold when the special votes are counted. It’s worth noting that in the past, overseas votes have helped parties on the Left, the Greens in particular, so they could theoretically, at least, pick up one more MP from their Party List, and/or ensure that Genter wins.
The rightwing Act Party won an Electorate from National without doing a deal like the two parties have have in the Epsom Electorate. That makes this the first time since 1996 they won an Electorate on their own, without a deal with National, and it’s also the first time they’ve won two Electorates at the same election. Their second electorate, Tāmaki, has been held by the National Party for about as long as I’ve been alive, but the MP there, Simon O'Connor, was too much of a religious conservative even for that sort of district. When the USA’s Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, O'Connor Tweeted his happiness about it, leading to strong and immediate backlash, causing him to delete the Tweet. His social conservatism, and his opposition to abortion rights in particular, led the Act Party’s Deputy Leader, Brooke Van Velden, to announce a challenge. The Act Party is hard right on economic issues, crime, and taxes, but it’s generally liberal on social issues. For example, their party Leader sponsored the party’s only piece of legislation that I can remember thinking was good (and I strongly backed it), the ”End of Life Choice Act 2019” to allow people with less than six months to live the option to choose the time of their own death with assistance from medical professionals (it was ratified by a binding referendum at the 2020 General Election; I voted in favour of it).
The other party to have a really good night was Te Pāti Māori, which defeated two long-serving Māori Labour MPs in Māori Electorates: Rino Tirikatene lost the South Island’s Māori seat, Te Tai Tonga. He was the MP since 2011, and family members have held the seat for most of its existence. On the preliminary results, he should be back in Parliament on the Party List.
The other defeated Māori Labour candidate was Nanaia Mahuta, who lost her Hauraki-Waikato seat (which includes Hamilton). She entered Parliament on the Labour Party List in 1996. She was an Electorate-only candidate (not on the Party List), and so, is now out of Parliament.
The conservative populist New Zealand First Party got pack into Parliament, yet another time they’ve come back from electoral defeat to re-enter Parliament. This time, they’ll probably end up with eight MPs, all of them List candidates—they failed to win any Electorate seats. They appear to have benefitted from angry voters more than any other party, in part because they made overt appeals to the loons, goons, and cartoons, along with pandering to those with anti-Māori sentiment, and social conservatives. The fact that the National Party Leader suggested that a Party Vote for NZ First would help National gave all sorts of rightwing voters license to vote for Winston’s party instead, and it sent a message to the loons, goons, and cartoons that they could safely vote for NZ First rather than throwing their votes away on some tiny fringe party. This doesn’t suggest long-term or stable support for NZ First.
No other minor party won either an Electorate seat or 5% of the Party Vote, the two ways that parties can get MPs in Parliament. In fact, if the Party Votes for ALL the minor parties were added together, they only managed 5.29% of the vote. The far-right tiny parties collectively won 2.62% of the Party Vote, but the most worrying was the 1.15% won by a party called NZ Loyal. a party set up by ex-TVNZ presenter Liz Gunn to promote a whole laundry list of conspiracy theories: Anti-fluoridation, anti-1080 poison (which is used against possums), against Bill Gates, against "gender programming", against the World Economic Forum, against the news media (unironically…), against 15-minute cities (again?!), among others. We can hope that most of the 26,141 people who voted for it had no idea what it was, that maybe they just liked the name, and not that New Zealand has that many hard-core cookers (a slang term for those who believe and actively promote conspiracy theories, often no matter out idiotically absurd they may be). The reason that 1.15% figure matters is because if there was no 5% Party Vote threshold, the cookers would have at least one MP, and we’ve all seen from the US House of Representatives the horrific consequences of allowing such people into a serious legislative body.
The biggest share of votes for a party that won’t have any MPs is The Opportunities Party. The party’s leader, Raf Manji, ran as an independent in the Christchurch Electorate of Ilam in 2017, and came in second, behind the National Party MP, and ahead of the Labour Party Candidate, who was third. In the 2020 Labour landslide, Labour easily won Ilam, and TOP had no candidate. In 2023, he ran as the party’s candidate in Ilam, and again came in second (and the incumbent Labour MP came in third). It’s probably unlikely the Labour MP would’ve won if Manji wasn’t in the race, because it’s unlikely she would have received all of Manji’s votes (given the results in other Electorates, it’s probable that the Green candidate would have benefitted enough to still give the Electorate to National.
Taken together, all of this means that this election, while a rejection of Labour, wasn’t a massive switch to National because there was FAR more going on. National won with a good margin of victory, but it didn’t win the sort of landslide that Labour did in 2020. Instead, many voters moved to minor parties, not National. The Greens, Act, and NZ First all benefitted, and of those three, the Greens took the most votes from Labour, Act from National, and NZ First from National, and from rightwing sometime Labour voters, as well as extremists who otherwise would’ve wasted their votes on fringe parties.
A question I think needs to be thought about carefully is, why did so many Labour voters vote Green? In my opinion, the most likely answer is that Labour was running a staunchly centrist campaign—essentially competing with National for the same centrist and centre-right voters. The Greens never do that. Labour could’ve embraced tax reform, for example, like a capital gains tax, but it didn’t. The Greens backed such a tax as well as a wealth tax, and their votes increased. I think it seems likely that Labour lost its more progressive voters to the Greens, and that was enough to lead to such a crushing defeat. Had Labour not tacked rightward, it may still have failed to win government (there was still all that anger, after all), but, if so, it would’ve been lost by a very slim margin.
In the weeks ahead, there will be a lot of arguments over what went wrong for Labour, though there’s a lot of information we simply don’t have (because, among other reasons, exit polling is illegal in New Zealand, so we have no good data on why people voted as they did). In fact, I’m sure I’ll be part of that, quite possibly arguing against myself.
In the meantime, however, one final thought: Since I moved to New Zealand in 1995, Labour and National have both won five elections. That goes to prove, “you win some, you lose some”. It’s inevitable that in the future I’ll again be celebrating an election win. It’s the way of things.
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Election Day 2023 has ended
The graphic above is NZ’s Google Doodle for today (with my mouse paused over it). Clicking on it took people to a page with information about the election. There’s nothing unusual about that—I’m sure they do the same thing in lots of places. It also wasn’t unusual that Facebook published a shareable animated graphic for Election Day, with a link to the Electoral Commission’s “Vote NZ” website, where people could get official information on how to vote, where to vote, etc. The whole thing was authorised by the Electoral Commission, which is important.
At 3pm today, the Electoral Commission released the final tally of the Advance Voting period, which ended yesterday. The official statistics are always interesting to me, ol’ political science major and politics nerd that I am, but I was particularly interested in this graph:
The official voter turnout in total may not be announced tonight—it’ll depend on how the counting goes, among other things—but I think the grand total may also be greater than 2017, though not as high as 2020. That matters because the higher the number of votes cast usually means an increased chance that a Centre-Left government will be formed.
The only big problem today was that for awhile the electronic version of the electoral roll wasn’t available. It’s used to look up the details of voters who don’t have their Easy Vote Card, and for folks who don’t know their electorate. It was still possible to vote, but the process was slowed down. The system was back up and running reasonably quickly.
And now we wait for the counting to be completed.
Friday, October 13, 2023
AmeriNZ Podcast episode 402 is now available
The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.
Getting on the bus
Tomorrow is Election Day in New Zealand, the final day to vote in this year’s General Election. The result will be close, and it’ll come down to who who actually votes—of course. The people who vote always determine who leads government, and the people who don’t vote don’t factor in that equation—of course. I have my own prediction of how this could play out in New Zealand this year (more about that later in this post), but it basically comes down to who gets on the bus.
I realised recently that I subscribe to the “Bus Theory” of voting (I don’t know that’s an actual name for it, but it’s what I call it). Here’s the analogy: Suppose I’m in the centre of the city, a long way from where I live, and I need to take a bus to get home. I could wait for a bus that will take me directly to my house—door to door!—but I know that such a bus doesn’t exist. Or, I could take a bus that’ll take me closest to home, even though it won’t go past my house, and it may even drop me off a block or so away and I have to walk the rest of the way. Finally, I could curse the bus for not going exactly where I want it to go and stomp off to walk an hour and a half back to my house. In rush hour traffic. And it starts to rain halfway there.
The point, of course, is that for the vast majority of people, no matter how much we might like a political party, we know no party is perfect, none of them will always do what we think they should do, and they’ll all get it wrong at least some of the time. We also know that somebody WILL win the election, maybe someone we dislike a LOT. What do we do?
For me, I vote for whichever party is going to take us closest to where I want us to be. Maybe some day the bus service will produce the perfect bus that will go exactly where I want it to, but I’m not going to wait for one that doesn’t and can’t exist today, and I’m also not going to stomp off on foot because it doesn’t exist today. I’ll take the bus that’s closest to what I want. I won’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I’ve voted Centre-Left my entire voting life, and in that time there have been plenty of times I metaphorically held my nose and voted for candidates/parties that disappointed me because their bus was going closest to where I wanted to go. Sometimes, the bus even got really close to the destination. In any case, I always got on the best bus available at the time.
There are, of course, people who feel perfection is the only acceptable option. Such people can, and often do, take the stomp-off option. Personally, I think it makes far more sense for such people to vote and deliberately spoil their ballots. If large numbers of people do that, politicians can see how many potential actual voters they’re not winning over, even grudgingly.
There are also true-believers who back their chosen parties 110%, and I honestly think that’s great for them! However, that’s seldom an option for many, possibly most, voters.
I’ve talked many times how the core of my politics is pragmatism, how I choose to work with what’s in front of me even as I also work for better and stronger progress. Honestly, I can’t even imagine a time that won’t be true—and, as a pragmatist, I can accept that, because making any progress toward the things central to my personal values is, for me, better than remaining pure and making no progress.
Which brings me back to my prediction about this year’s NZ General Election. If voters under 35, those who care about fighting climate change, if Māori and Pasifika people, and poor and working people vote, it’ll be a Centre-Left government. If large numbers of any of those groups don’t vote, or vote for parties on the Right, it’ll be a rightwing government with some quite hard-right policies due to coalition agreements. Put another way, if the people who ordinarily vote for Centre-Left parties get on the bus that’s actually there, they’ll determine the government. We know that the voters on the Right will do that, because they almost always do—but they’re more determined this year.
Based on what I’ve seen over a lifetime of watching and studying politics, everything comes down to who gets on the bus, maybe even especially so in these polarised times. After all, I want the bus to at least get close to the destination, not see it careering off a cliff from the wrong side of the road.
We’ll see tomorrow which scenario may be happening.
I realised recently that I subscribe to the “Bus Theory” of voting (I don’t know that’s an actual name for it, but it’s what I call it). Here’s the analogy: Suppose I’m in the centre of the city, a long way from where I live, and I need to take a bus to get home. I could wait for a bus that will take me directly to my house—door to door!—but I know that such a bus doesn’t exist. Or, I could take a bus that’ll take me closest to home, even though it won’t go past my house, and it may even drop me off a block or so away and I have to walk the rest of the way. Finally, I could curse the bus for not going exactly where I want it to go and stomp off to walk an hour and a half back to my house. In rush hour traffic. And it starts to rain halfway there.
The point, of course, is that for the vast majority of people, no matter how much we might like a political party, we know no party is perfect, none of them will always do what we think they should do, and they’ll all get it wrong at least some of the time. We also know that somebody WILL win the election, maybe someone we dislike a LOT. What do we do?
For me, I vote for whichever party is going to take us closest to where I want us to be. Maybe some day the bus service will produce the perfect bus that will go exactly where I want it to, but I’m not going to wait for one that doesn’t and can’t exist today, and I’m also not going to stomp off on foot because it doesn’t exist today. I’ll take the bus that’s closest to what I want. I won’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I’ve voted Centre-Left my entire voting life, and in that time there have been plenty of times I metaphorically held my nose and voted for candidates/parties that disappointed me because their bus was going closest to where I wanted to go. Sometimes, the bus even got really close to the destination. In any case, I always got on the best bus available at the time.
There are, of course, people who feel perfection is the only acceptable option. Such people can, and often do, take the stomp-off option. Personally, I think it makes far more sense for such people to vote and deliberately spoil their ballots. If large numbers of people do that, politicians can see how many potential actual voters they’re not winning over, even grudgingly.
There are also true-believers who back their chosen parties 110%, and I honestly think that’s great for them! However, that’s seldom an option for many, possibly most, voters.
I’ve talked many times how the core of my politics is pragmatism, how I choose to work with what’s in front of me even as I also work for better and stronger progress. Honestly, I can’t even imagine a time that won’t be true—and, as a pragmatist, I can accept that, because making any progress toward the things central to my personal values is, for me, better than remaining pure and making no progress.
Which brings me back to my prediction about this year’s NZ General Election. If voters under 35, those who care about fighting climate change, if Māori and Pasifika people, and poor and working people vote, it’ll be a Centre-Left government. If large numbers of any of those groups don’t vote, or vote for parties on the Right, it’ll be a rightwing government with some quite hard-right policies due to coalition agreements. Put another way, if the people who ordinarily vote for Centre-Left parties get on the bus that’s actually there, they’ll determine the government. We know that the voters on the Right will do that, because they almost always do—but they’re more determined this year.
Based on what I’ve seen over a lifetime of watching and studying politics, everything comes down to who gets on the bus, maybe even especially so in these polarised times. After all, I want the bus to at least get close to the destination, not see it careering off a cliff from the wrong side of the road.
We’ll see tomorrow which scenario may be happening.
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Pōti ahau – I voted (2023)
I planned on going to a couple shops while I was there, so I parked kind of between destinations. I new the voting was in the mall, but I didn’t know where, exactly: All I’d read was “centre court”. It turned out it was at one end of the mall, and I found easily, even without any signs directing people.
The procedure as fast an easy as ever—it took maybe five minutes in total (there are only two votes to cast this election). There were people voting before me and after me, most of whom were somewhere around my age (older, maybe?).
I took the photo above right after I was done voting, after checking over my shoulder to make sure the voting place wasn’t visibly (photography is prohibited without permission).
When I was done, I was going to go check out the JB Hi-Fi which recently relocated to Te Awa from central Hamilton. Unfortunately, I forgot. I next went to another shop in the mall I wanted to visit, but they didn’t have what I’d seen online, and I went there specifically for that thing (hopefully a story for another day). I thought about looking in a couple clothes shops, but decided I still wasn’t quite ready to shop for clothes (same reasons I talked about on Sunday). More conditioning is needed, I guess.
I headed out, thinking I might grab some lunch—but it was barely 11:30 at that point, and the place I was interested in trying seemed to be still setting up. I also realised that I wasn’t even remotely hungry yet. So, on to the next stop.
On to a nearby store where I also bought nothing—and forgot to look at one thing I wanted to look at. When I left, I realised that I couldn’t go the shoe store nearby to pick up another pair of “house shoes”, as I call them (what I wear inside the house only) because I forgot to check (and write down…) the size of what I wanted as printed on the shoebox (it’s UK sizing, I think). Again, on to the next stop.
I next went to Mitre 10 Mega to pick up something for an outside project (again, a story to come), which was pretty quick and easy. I also noticed a similar product for what is now a related project. I wandered around the shop for awhile, but didn’t pick up anything else, apart from a colour swatch brochure for some wood stains (I got a similar chart from Bunnings Warehouse, but for a different company). Those aren’t even for a project at this stage—more like a hope? A dream?
 |
| The day closed my watch's activity rings. |
Then is was back home, and I was tired. A quiet rest of the day followed.
In preparing this post, I looked back at my last three posts about the NZ General Election—apparently I have an irregular series of such posts (list of the posts is at the end of this post). Anyway, what I noticed was the photos: In 2017, 2020, and today, I wore the same shirt (I always wear a red shirt, or one with a lot of red, as silent support for the Labour Party). Last year and today, I wore the same jacket (apparently it was colder in 2017?). I also wore the same jacket, but a different, warmer shirt when I dropped off my ballot in the 2022 local government elections (party didn’t matter for that election). The first time I ever did an Early Vote was in 2014, and I worse a different red shirt that year. I didn’t talk specifically about my own voting all that much until 2014. I guess I’ve made up for that?
Also, I probably need some more red shirts.
Previous posts about me voting:
Pōti ahau – I voted (2020)
The voting is done (2017)
I love voting My 2014 post about my first Early Voting experience
How I will vote – My general post about the 2011 election
The New Zealand election – My post about the 2008 General Election, the first after I started this blog.
Thursday, October 05, 2023
AmeriNZ Podcast episode 401 is now available
The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.
Friday, September 22, 2023
AmeriNZ Podcast episode 399 is now available
The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
The ‘end’ of Covid
At one minute past midnight last night, the New Zealand Government ended all remaining Covid restrictions. This means that Kiwis testing positive for Covid will no longer be required to isolate for seven days, and requirement that all visitors to health care facilities wear face masks also ended. In essence, life in New Zealand for most people is now completely back to “normal”, like what it was in the pre-Covid times.
In announcing the change, the Minister of Health, Dr Ayesha Verrall, said, “While our case numbers will continue to fluctuate, we have not seen the dramatic peaks that characterised COVID-19 rates last year.” The Government also pointed out that the levels of the virus detected in wastewater, and also the number of hospitalisations related to Covid, have been trending downwards since the beginning of June, and also that over the past month the number of cases of Covid reported have hit their lowest levels since February 2022. All of which is very good news.
The Government conducted a massive advertising campaign to encourage New Zealanders to get this year’s influenza vaccination, and that seems to have helped take some of the strain off the healthcare system. I received my influenza and Covid booster shots back on May 30.
I think today's change is a sensible move, not the least because—if we’re truly honest—plenty of people (probably most) were ignoring the last remaining rules, anyway. On the evening news last night, a mask-wearing person talked about how even though there were signs telling people to wear a mask when entering her healthcare facility, few did. Last June, I went for my routine blood tests and wore a mask. While I was there, a woman came in—not wearing a mask. As I was leaving, a different woman who appeared to be my age or somewhat older, entered, also not wearing a mask. I didn’t take mine off until I was outside and walking toward my car.
A few days after my blood tests, I had an appointment at my doctor’s office. It was simply to check my blood pressure and weight, which hadn’t been measured (officially, that is…) in several years. I wore a mask, of course, and from what I could see, the patients there did, too—more or less. One older man was wearing his more like a chin strap, and the masks of others didn’t seem completely seated properly. In other words, compliance with the rule looked to me to be sort of half-hearted—at a doctors practice, no less, a place with sick people in it.
This being an election year, TV journalists asked if the relaxed requirements were some sort of election ploy. I mean, of course the people who hate Labour to the very core of their being because of the Government’s sound, fact-based response to Covid would suddenly completely change their minds about Labour simply because the Government removed the last two restrictions. Sometimes the idiocy of journalists is absolutely breathtaking.
Other, more rationally-inclined journalists asked health officials if it was sensible to relax the requirements while it's still winter, the season with the most respiratory illness. That absolutely was a fair question, and there were differing opinions in the answers, as one would expect. However, with the Covid-related demands on the public health system far lower than has been the case in a very long time, and with Spring beginning just over two weeks from now, it seems to me that this is as good a time as any, and many healthcare professionals agree with it. Will the change “help” Labour’s election campaign? Of course not—but neither will it hurt them. I’ve seen with my own eyes how many people are completely over the restrictions, anyway, and they have been for quite some time.
I’m someone who’s considered at higher risk of bad outcomes if I catch Covid (or influenza, for that matter), and even I can see the sense of ending the last restrictions. We’ve all moved on, and the Government is really just catching up. Clearly some TV journalists have some catching-up to do, too.
In announcing the change, the Minister of Health, Dr Ayesha Verrall, said, “While our case numbers will continue to fluctuate, we have not seen the dramatic peaks that characterised COVID-19 rates last year.” The Government also pointed out that the levels of the virus detected in wastewater, and also the number of hospitalisations related to Covid, have been trending downwards since the beginning of June, and also that over the past month the number of cases of Covid reported have hit their lowest levels since February 2022. All of which is very good news.
The Government conducted a massive advertising campaign to encourage New Zealanders to get this year’s influenza vaccination, and that seems to have helped take some of the strain off the healthcare system. I received my influenza and Covid booster shots back on May 30.
I think today's change is a sensible move, not the least because—if we’re truly honest—plenty of people (probably most) were ignoring the last remaining rules, anyway. On the evening news last night, a mask-wearing person talked about how even though there were signs telling people to wear a mask when entering her healthcare facility, few did. Last June, I went for my routine blood tests and wore a mask. While I was there, a woman came in—not wearing a mask. As I was leaving, a different woman who appeared to be my age or somewhat older, entered, also not wearing a mask. I didn’t take mine off until I was outside and walking toward my car.
A few days after my blood tests, I had an appointment at my doctor’s office. It was simply to check my blood pressure and weight, which hadn’t been measured (officially, that is…) in several years. I wore a mask, of course, and from what I could see, the patients there did, too—more or less. One older man was wearing his more like a chin strap, and the masks of others didn’t seem completely seated properly. In other words, compliance with the rule looked to me to be sort of half-hearted—at a doctors practice, no less, a place with sick people in it.
This being an election year, TV journalists asked if the relaxed requirements were some sort of election ploy. I mean, of course the people who hate Labour to the very core of their being because of the Government’s sound, fact-based response to Covid would suddenly completely change their minds about Labour simply because the Government removed the last two restrictions. Sometimes the idiocy of journalists is absolutely breathtaking.
Other, more rationally-inclined journalists asked health officials if it was sensible to relax the requirements while it's still winter, the season with the most respiratory illness. That absolutely was a fair question, and there were differing opinions in the answers, as one would expect. However, with the Covid-related demands on the public health system far lower than has been the case in a very long time, and with Spring beginning just over two weeks from now, it seems to me that this is as good a time as any, and many healthcare professionals agree with it. Will the change “help” Labour’s election campaign? Of course not—but neither will it hurt them. I’ve seen with my own eyes how many people are completely over the restrictions, anyway, and they have been for quite some time.
I’m someone who’s considered at higher risk of bad outcomes if I catch Covid (or influenza, for that matter), and even I can see the sense of ending the last restrictions. We’ve all moved on, and the Government is really just catching up. Clearly some TV journalists have some catching-up to do, too.
Tuesday, August 01, 2023
My voting details confirmed
A couple months before every election—general, special, or local government—New Zealand voters are sent a form with all the details the Electoral Commission has for them: Name, address, and phone number, occupation (if stated), whether they have NZ Māori ancestry, which Electoral Roll they’re on (General or Māori, which is why ancestry matters), and what electorate they’re enrolled in. Voters are supposed to check those details and make sure they’re correct. If not, they’re to contact the Electoral Commission using the prepaid envelope, ringing them, or providing updates online. My pack arrived yesterday, but I only remembered to check today; my details were all correct, of course.
It may seem quaint in this digital age to send such a thing by mail, however, it provides the first way to check if someone’s properly enrolled. For example, if someone has moved house since the last election, the envelope would be returned to the Electoral Commission.
The commission will later start running ads (TV, radio, online) telling people that if they haven’t received a pack, they’ll need to update their details or enrol again. Later still, they’ll run ads reminding people the deadline is fast approaching. Anyone who isn’t enrolled on or before Writ Day (this year, Sunday, September 10) will have to cast a special vote, but they can still enrol afterward, and they can enrol and vote during the advance vote period (Oct 2 to 13) and on Election Day. In a typical election, the vast majority of people sort out their voter enrollment well before Election Day.
For a politics nerd like me, elections are like a sport fans’ Super Bowl, MLB World Series, Rugby and FIFA and Cricket World Cups, all rolled into one, including the passions around winning and losing, though, for me it’s more about the process and the mechanics of it all, and all of that is now officially underway with the delivery of our voter enrollment information. And it’s good to know I’m all set and ready to vote. For me, that parts a bit like Christmas, actually.
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
AmeriNZ Podcast episode 386 is now available
The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)