Strangeness on Facebook

Everyone knows that what we see on Facebook, as well as their other services like Instagram and Threads, is driven by algorithms. Their goal is to keep us using Facebook as long as possible so that we’ll see more ads, and the best way to do that is to show us more of what they know we interact with of click on. But what if there’s more to it than that? What if they’re engaging in some sort of deliberate “de-emphasis”?

I noticed in recent weeks that I wasn’t getting notifications when the New Zealand Labour Party posted something, including a Live Feed. Instead, I’d get a Notification about something they’re supposedly posted “5 minutes ago”) or whatever. When I follow the Notification, I find out that it was actually posted six or seven days earlier. Here’s an example, first a Notification I saw yesterday morning (October 30):

And here’s what it sent me to, a Reel that had actually been posted on October 23—not an hour earlier, but a week earlier:

I also realised yesterday that I hadn’t seen any Facebook Posts from Kamala Harris in a long time. I went to the Page to make sure I was following it (I was), clicked “Like” on a post, and then a little while later a post from the page was in my feed. That has never happened with any Labour Party post, even though I often leave a “Reaction”.

I don’t think this is any sort of censorship of centre-left politics, and as far as I know the same thing could be happening with any other politically-focused Page. I also vaguely recall reading that Facebook made a decision to de-emphasise, or whatever they called it, political posts for the US elections. For all I know, this could be nothing more than them trying to keep politics out of people’s feeds, not necessarily completely, but just a bit slower.

Whatever the truth is, it’s annoying as hell. I’ve followed the Labour Party Page for at least a decade, yet I no longer see their posts in my feed nor do I get timely Notifications of posts as I used to. The fact that clicking “Like” on a post from the Kamala Harris Page made another post show up in my Feed, when doing the same on Labour Party posts never does is odd, though.

I’ve noticed something odd in Instagram, too: I’ve Liked and followed numerous political folks in recent months, and yet I seldom see their posts when I launch the Instagram App. Threads isn’t quite as much of a mystery, though, because I use it so little that the algorithms probably don’t have anything to work with.

I think that Facebook should respect our choices in what we want to see in our Feeds, or, at least, they should give us timely Notifications so we can choose to look at the post. Facebook deciding for us is a bit condescending and even infantilises uses to some extent. They already feed me lost of posts I never asked for and don’t follow, but not posts from people and Pages I do follow.

Pretty much every Facebook User I know has complained at some point about how Facebook often fails to show us things from people we actually know and/or have been FB “Friends” with for many years, and instead it shows us posts from the same handful of people over and over. There’s simply no way for Users to change this situation. Seems to me Facebook would have better luck in getting ads in front of eyes if it gave us more of what we want rather than what Facebook decides for us.

Just let us have more say in what we see. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to ask.

Update – November 2, 2024: Yesterday evening, I noticed I was getting Notifications of posts on the Kamala Harris Page again, and today there were several more, as well as posts showing up in my newsfeed, too. However, I still don't get timely Notifications about Labour Party posts, nor do I see anything in my newsfeed. That particular strangeness is still going on.

Meanwhile, opposition

In the aftermath of an election in which the government is changed, the recently-defeated prime minister remains in the role in an acting capacity until the incoming prime minister receives a Royal consent to form government.. This is the way it’s always been, and will be unless our form of government is changed some day.

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.

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.

The new team begins

Yesterday, The Governor General of New Zealand, Dame Cindy Kiro, signed the official documents appointing Chris Hipkins the 41st Prime Minister of New Zealand. His Deputy Prime Minister is Carmel Sepuloni, and that’s historic in that she’s the first person of Pacific heritage to be in that role. The transfer of power was smooth and easy. Now, it’s back to the business of governing.

I’ve never met Chris or Carmel, though we’ve all been at Labour Party events at the same time. This means that my opinion of them is based on the same sort of real-world observations as anyone else. From what I’ve personally seen, I think they’ll both do well.

The one question that’s asked a lot is, can Chris lead Labour to an election victory later this year? Not only is the answer “absolutely!”, I think any one who bets against him and Labour is being very foolish. [See also: ”Chris Hipkins as PM could sway 12% of voters, new poll suggests”]

The news media has been referring to him as “new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins” (maybe they think lots of us somehow managed to miss the news entirely over the past week?), but he (of course) has all the power and responsibility being Prime Minister, and having been part of the Labour Party government for nearly six years, there’s no learning curve.

Despite being ready to go as soon the documents were signed, he nevertheless hasn’t announced any policy changes, though there will be some. Instead, he’s only said that dealing with the cost of living crisis will be his central focus.

I think that it’s obvious that some of the previously announced policies will be put aside. Journalists seem convinced the proposed merger of TVNZ and RNZ will be put on hold, and there are likely to be changes to the Three Waters programme that the hard right has been attacking relentlessly especiallu because it talks about “co-governance” between the Crown and Māori in dealing with of water/wastewater/stormwater. Some rightwingers have had a good time mischievously using that—or, rather, their cartoon version of it—to successfully rile up racists.

The thing about having a “new Prime Minister” is that he can change the agenda, removing unpopular things, pushing things that are more popular, and explaining things cynical rightwing politicians are deliberately misrepresenting. Being a new face gives him the opportunity to reset, something Jacinda couldn’t have done as easily, or perhaps at all.

She certainly could have dropped unpopular policies, but if she’d done that, rightwing politicians would’ve attacked her for doing it: She was in a no-win situation. Chris, on the other hand, can change pretty much anything because he’s in charge now, and the agenda is his to set. He’ll also be handling the traditional election year cabinet re-shuffle, so the team going into the election will be his own.

That’s one of the main reasons Labour is in a stronger position electorally now than it was before Jacinda resigned: It’s not just a new leader, it’s also a new team, and a new game.

Obviously, there’s plenty that can still go wrong. Next month, for example, the Reserve Bank governor may follow through on his threat to deliberately wreck the New Zealand economy by triggering a recession, though with inflation now stable, it seems less likely—or, at least, that’s what all sane and rational people hope.

There are also plenty of things that can go right, too, of course. With new leadership, new policies, and new energy, there’s currently a wind in Labour’s sails.

All of which is why Labour could well win this year’s election. It would very, very foolish to bet against them.

Related video – MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle reflects on the departure of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern:

Sudden, unexpected change

Today, there was what the news media is fairly calling a “shock announcement”: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is stepping down as Prime Minister no later than February 7, and will leave Parliament in April. “You cannot, and should not [be Prime Minister] unless you have a full tank, plus, a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges,” she said. “This summer, I had hoped to find a way to prepare for not just another year, but another term – because that is what this year requires. I have not been able to do that.”

It was widely expected that today the prime minister would announce the date of the NZ General Election, and she did: Saturday, the 14th of October. Many pundits also expected her to announce a cabinet reshuffle, something governments always do in an election year to present a fresher face to voters, and they also though there might be a shift in some policy priorities, especially the ones the rightwing and the news media have been attacking. No pundit in recent weeks picked that Jacinda would step down. I didn’t, either.

The Labour Party Caucus in Parliament will meet on Sunday, and if a candidate has the support of two-thirds of the caucus, they will become the new Party Leader and Prime Minister. If not, then the choice will be made by vote of party members (people like me). I fully expect the new Prime Minister will be selected on Sunday, but I have absolutely NO idea who it will be.

I was actually working on a blog post for today when I got a pop-up notification that she was about to speak to the news media after today’s Cabinet meeting. I stopped work so I could find out when the election will be. My jaw dropped at the real news.

I’m actually not all that surprised, really. She has become the object of vicious hatred and harassment by the lunatic, unhinged far-right, including lots of serious and credible threats of violence and death. At the same time, her daughter starts school this year, and if she remained Prime Minister, she’d miss so much of her daughter’s formative years. I don’t blame her in the least, and I’m happy for her, though not for the country.

Some folks who didn’t like her opined that she must be jumping because she “knows” Labour will lose the election. That’s wish-fulfillment fantasy. In fact, her staying could also pose a risk to a third term because she is the focus for so much inchoate dislike among the general public, rightwing voters, and the news media. Without her leading, there may be a better opportunity for the party to make its case to voters—depending on who the next Labour Party Leader/Prime Minister is.

Jacinda is the Electorate MP for the Mount Albert Electorate. When an Electorate MP resigns more than six months before an election, there’s a byelection in that electorate (like Hamilton West had thrust on it for no good reason last year). By resigning from Parliament in April, six months out from the General Election, there will be no byelection.

If she thought that Labour would definitely lose, she’d have chosen to run as a List MP in the General Election. If Labour lost the election, she could then resign and the next person on the Labour Party list would enter Parliament. That would’ve been the clearest possible sign she expected Labour to lose. Resigning her seat in April indicates nothing certain, except that she wants out.

Having a new leader and, no doubt, new portfolio assignments, will mean that Labour will go to the voters with a new-look team, which can actually make them more competitive, because shiny and new is always better for getting voters’ attention. That's why governments of both parties do a cabinet reshuffle in the run-up to an election.

At the same time, without Jacinda at the centre of Labour’s campaign, she’ll blunt energy of the aggressive far-right loons who hate her to the core of their being. On the one hand, this could make it harder for Labour because the loons would’ve helped split the rightwing vote, which would help Labour and the Greens. On the other hand, with her gone, voters who aren’t loons but who don’t like her may not see National and it’s aggressive far-right potential coalition partner, the Act “Party”, as being so attractive—especially when voters look at the far-right agenda the two parties would promote. The lack of aggressive loons fighting Labour, combined with her non-loony opponents now more relaxed because the person they don’t like is gone, could mean that ultimately this is all a wash. Maybe.

Everything is riding on who is selected as the next party leader. If Caucus gets it wrong, then the election’s results won’t go their way. But, if they get it right, Labour’s back in the fight with a good wind behind its sails.

If Jacinda at her best was leading the party into the election, then only a fool would bet against Labour winning a third term. But as she herself has said, she not at her best, and she feels she has to go. The new leadership team will be able to change policy priorities, jettisoning ones that aren’t connecting with voters, and that’s likely something that Jacinda couldn’t have gotten away with.

There’s one more possibility I’ve seen people talking about. If the new leadership feels that they’ll lose the next election, they could push through the last of their agenda while they still have power. This seems highly improbable. First, it would signal that they expect to lose, and, more importantly, the incoming rightwing government would just repeal everything, anyway, so it would all be for nothing—and could possibly just had victory to the Right.

So, my bet is that the new Prime Minister and leadership team will move quickly to chart a new direction so it’s fresh—and looks fresh—heading into the General Election. If they can show energy and enthusiasm—as, indeed, Jacinda did heading into her first election as Labour Leader in 2017, then it’s a whole new game. Interesting times.

All that said, the country owes a huge debt to Jacinda Ardern and her government for leading the country through a perilous time in the world. Whoever becomes Prime Minister next, and whoever is elected in October, has a big task living up to her example.

Here’s the complete text of the Prime Minister’s statement today:

Today I have two important announcements to make.

The first is the election date.

Under the last government, the practice began of sharing the election date at the beginning of election year.

Early announcements allow for planning and preparation by the Electoral Commission, agencies, and political parties, and is, I believe, best practice. That’s why in 2020 we announced at the beginning of election year, and I do so again today.

The General Election for 2023 will be held on Saturday the 14th of October.

In setting this date, I have considered the advice of the Electoral Commission, Public Holidays and school holidays, the advance voting periods, and important events and fixtures. I believe this date best accommodates each of these factors.

Consideration of the date over the summer, and the impending election and new political term has also given me time for reflection.

I am entering now my sixth year in office. And for each of those years, I have given my absolute all.

I believe that leading a country is the most privileged job anyone could ever have, but also one of the more challenging. You cannot, and should not do it unless you have a full tank, plus, a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges.

This summer, I had hoped to find a way to prepare for not just another year, but another term – because that is what this year requires. I have not been able to do that.

And so today, I am announcing that I will not be seeking re-election and that my term as Prime Minister will conclude no later than the 7th of February.

This has been the most fulfilling five and a half years of my life. But it has also had its challenges.

Amongst an agenda focused on housing, child poverty and climate change, we encountered a major biosecurity incursion, a domestic terror event, a major natural disaster, a global pandemic and an economic crisis. The decisions that had to be made have been continual, and they have been weighty.

But I am not leaving because it was hard. Had that been the case I probably would have departed two months into the job!

I am leaving because with such a privileged role, comes responsibility. The responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead, and also, when you are not.

I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It is that simple.

But I absolutely believe and know, there are others around me who do.

We achieved a huge amount in the last five years. And I am so proud of that.

We are in a fundamentally different place on climate change than where we were, with ambitious targets and a plan to achieve them.

We have turned around child poverty statistics and made the most significant increases in welfare and the state housing stock we’ve seen in many decades.

We’ve made it easier to access education and training, improved the pay and conditions of workers, and shifted our settings towards a high wage, high skilled economy.

And we’ve worked hard to make progress on issues around our national identity, and I believe that teaching history in schools and celebrating our own indigenous national holiday will all make a difference for years to come.

And we’ve done that while responding to some of the biggest threats to the health and economic wellbeing of our nation arguably since World War Two.

The team that has done all that, they have been some of the best people I have ever had the privilege of working with, and they are well placed to take us forward as we continue to focus on our economic recovery with one of the strongest economies in the world.

They are also a team who are incredibly well placed to contest the next election. In fact, I am not leaving because I believe we can’t win the election, but because I believe we can and will, and we need a fresh set of shoulders for that challenge.

I know there will be much discussion in the aftermath of this decision as to what the so called “real” reason was. I can tell you, that what I am sharing today is it.

The only interesting angle you will find is that after going on six years of some big challenges, that I am human. Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then it’s time.

And for me, it’s time.

I intend to remain the Member for Mt Albert through till April. This will give me a bit of time in the electorate before I depart, and also spare them and the country a by-election.

Beyond that, I have no plan. No next steps. All I know is that whatever I do, I will try and find ways to keep working for New Zealand and that I am looking forward to spending time with my family again – arguably, they are the ones that have sacrificed the most out of all of us.

And so to Neve, mum is looking forward to being there when you start school this year.

And to Clarke, let’s finally get married.

As for the next Labour Leader. The caucus has seven days to ascertain whether one individual holds more than 2/3rds of the caucus support.

Caucus has today agreed that a vote will occur in three days’ time on Sunday the 22nd of January. If a leader is successfully elected, I will issue my resignation soon after to the Governor General, and a new Prime Minister will be sworn in.

If no one is able to garner this level of support within caucus, the leadership contest will go to the wider membership.

My opportunity to thank the many people I need to, will likely come in April when I depart Parliament, 15 years after having been sworn in.

Till then, I see my role to help the Labour Party, who I consider my family, navigate this next phase. And then, to leave the next colleague who takes on this role, all the space they need to make their mark.

For my part, I want to finish with a simple thank you to New Zealanders for giving me this opportunity to serve, and to take on what has and will always be the greatest role in my life.

I hope in return I leave behind a belief that you can be kind, but strong. Empathetic, but decisive. Optimistic, but focused.

That you can be your own kind of leader – one that knows when it’s time to go.

Source: New Zealand Labour Party Facebook Page.

A few Hamilton voters proved me right

Surprising absolutely no one, the National Party candidate won the Hamilton West By-Election, which ended yesterday. The only thing we didn’t know for sure was how low the turnout would be. It was truly awful.

The turnout for the election was appalling. That was expected, but the extent was a bit worse than the most optimistic guesses. During the Advance Voting period (November 26 – December 9), 9,836 votes were cast. That compares with 24,595 votes cast during the Advance Vote period for the 2020 General Election.

The most recent By-Election was in the Tauranga Electorate when former National Party Leader Simon Bridges quit Parliament to become the head of a business lobby group in Auckland. In the By-Election to find his replacement MP, 14,168 votes were cast in the Advance Voting period (In total, Tauranga had a total of 20,784 votes cast).

Altogether—including both the Advance Voting period and votes cast on Election Day (December 10)—14,392 votes were cast in the Hamilton West By-Election. As at November 30, 2022, there were 55,512 enrolled voters in the Hamilton West Electorate, which is 84.09% of the eligible population on that date. This means that fewer than 26% of enrolled voter bothered to vote, and fewer than 22% of eligible voters.

Some journalists report voter turnout as a percentage of the eligible vote. However, unenrolled people can’t vote because they aren’t enrolled, so, in my view, the turnout among enrolled voters is the important statistic. That number, though, should be reported with a notation that, in this case, 15.91% of eligible voters weren’t registered for whatever reason.

I think this matters because otherwise it implies that people not enrolling to vote are “sending a message”, but there are always a lot of reasons why people don’t enrol—and age is one of the biggest reasons. In Hamilton West, a bit fewer than 54% of eligible people 18-24 were enrolled, only 74% of people 25-29, and just under 80% of people 30-34. At least 86% of people 35 and older were enrolled to vote (and the percentage keeps rising with age). The counter argument is that voters can enrol on Election Day, so if they remain un-enrolled, it may be deliberate. Sure, it could be that—or maybe not. There’s absolutely no way to know.

Whenever voter turnout is low, it’s almost certainly the most highly-motivated people who make a point of voting. Generally speaking, they’re the people with the strongest opinions and, in this case, they obviously oppose the current Labour Government. Here are the preliminary results of the By-Election, along with my own comments (the candidates are listed in declining order by result, just as they were in the preliminary results):

POTAKA, Tama, National Party: 6,629 votes (margin of victory was 2,285 votes).

DANSEY, Georgie, Labour Party: 4,344 votes. She went to the National Party candidate on Election Night to concede in person. She said she’ll be the party’s candidate in the General Election next year.

McDOWALL, James – ACT New Zealand party: 1,462 votes.

SHARMA, Gaurav, the former Electorate MP, who ran under his own party label: 1,156 votes.

POCOCK, Naomi, The Opportunities Party (TOP): 337 votes.

POKERE-PHILLIPS, Donna, the candidate for the far-right extremist NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party: 125 votes.

DU PLOOY, Rudi, running as the candidate of both the far-right christianist New Conservative Party and the utlra-far right theocratic christianist One Party: 117 votes.

WAKEMAN, Peter, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party: 71 votes.

TAIT, Jade, of the ultra-far right christianist Vision New Zealand: 57 votes.

DICKSON, Gordon John, Independent: 26 votes.

FU, Frank, Independent: 22 votes.

OSMASTON, Richard, Money Free Party: 7 votes.

There are a number of things that stand out to me in the results. First, and the most encouraging, was the fact that a tiny, tiny 299 votes went to the most hard-core, hard-right, anti-government, and christianist candidates. That means combined they only got around 2% of the vote in an election where the outcome wouldn’t change anything so people could be free to vote their passion. Clearly the highly-motivated voters who bothered to vote in the By-Election don’t sympathise with the extremist fringe. That’s very good news, indeed.

A combined 5500 votes went to the two opposition rightwing parties, who would be in coalition if the Right wins the 2023 General Election. This time, they together got around 56% of the total vote, which underscores the anti-government nature of the vote. The National Party candidate alone got around 46% of the vote, which is a plurality, but not a majority. The Labour Party candidate got a bit more than 30% of the vote. Since Electorate elections are conducted under the old-fashioned first-past-the-post election system, a plurality is all that’s needed to win, and that fact could help either Labour or National.

Overall, though, the National Party is in a good position to hold the electorate seat in the 2023 General Election, particularly if anti-government sentiment remains strong (which is probable if the Reserve Bank of New Zealand follows through on its threat to deliberately crash the New Zealand economy). Also, the clear majority of combined votes—some 70%—were in opposition to the Government, or, at least, not in direct support of it. Despite all that, nothing can be taken for granted in a multi-candidate election, as both National and Labour would agree.

When I talked about the By-Election last month, I said that “hardly anyone will vote, regardless of who they support.” I also noted that the National Party candidate was “the clear and obvious favourite to win”, and about National, “the wind is still at their back”. I was right on all that (and I stand by all my disparaging remarks about extremist candidates).

I received very little advertising material at my house: The National candidate was first, and I also got material from candidates on the far-right and also TOP. The last one I got was from Sharma, and I found it when I opened my front door, where it had been stuck in the opening. “Sorry I missed you,” it said. The first thing that popped into my head was, “I’m not.” I opened the door because I was headed out to vote, and that was never going to be for him.

I received two campaign phone calls: One was from a Labour Party phonebank, and I was pleased to tell them I’d already voted for Labour. The other call was a Labour Party robocall on Friday evening—and it was, as far as I can remember, only the second robocall I’ve ever had (the first was during the 2017 General Election campaign and on behalf of National).

There was one funny (to me…) accidental thing that happened: Every time I saw the name of Rudi Du Plooy—which admittedly was only a couple times—my brain said, “Rooty Tooty Da Pooty” because my brain conjured up the decades-old ad slogan/product name from American restaurant chain IHOP: The “Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘n Fruity” breakfast item. While I’m not above mangling someone’s name on purpose for comedy or because of a strong dislike, this was absolutely not intentional. I’ve often said that if I could put everything I need to remember to an advertising jingle (or even a slogan), I’d never forget anything. This goes to show that it wouldn’t necessarily mean I’d remember it correctly. It does go to show, I suppose, that I didn’t take anything about this By-Election seriously, not with an obvious outcome that my vote couldn’t possibly affect. It was also easy to call it exactly right—it was pretty much impossible to get it wrong.

Oddly, I’m suddenly craving pancakes…

Disclosures: I’m a member and supporter of the New Zealand Labour Party, but have absolutely no position of any kind with them, nor am I in contact with party leaders. All opinions expressed are entirely my own, based on some 50 years closely following politics and election campaigns (obviously I started when I was an infant…), as well as my personal values. I voted for Gaurav Sharma in New Zealand’s 2020 General Election, the first election I was able to vote in the Hamilton West Electorate.

NZ bans ‘conversion practices’

Yesterday evening, the New Zealand Parliament voted to ban “conversion” practices, sometimes called “conversion therapy”, what I have called “torture”. The bill passed 122 to 8.

The eight Members of Parliament were all from the conservative National Party [see below], but it was a small minority of their caucus, and that’s a good thing. MPs from all other parties voted in favour of the bill.

This bill was always a good idea, but for some bizarre reason the ex-Leader of the Opposition ordered the entire Caucus to vote against the first reading back in August, which led me to write, ”Stupid games should fool no one”. I think she just wanted to stick it to the Labour Party, but it alienated many different people in the National Party. Actually, she was really, really good at alienating her own supporters, and nearly everyone else, which is why she was dumped as Party Leader.

I’ve seen several people saying that religion was a motivator for the eight “no” votes, and it certainly played a role in quite a few of those votes—maybe even all of them, for all we know (except, apparently Melissa Lee). However, it’s also probable that other members of the National Caucus are religious, as is the current Leader of the Opposition, Christopher Luxon, who’s regarded as a conservative religionist (he’s fairly non-committal on the subject).

In New Zealand, politicians—Right or Left—seldom try to use their religion as something to be forced onto others. Since the first MMP election in 1996, there’s never been an expressly “Christian” rightwing party elected to Parliament, despite numerous attempts to do so, and there’s never been a left-leaning “Christian” Party at all, as far as I’m aware.

So, the fact that maybe seven of those eight National Party Members of Parliament may have been motivated by their conservative religious views is less interesting than the fact that none of the 112 other MPs were similarly motivated to oppose the bill because of conservative religious views, and some must've had some. In this country, one can assume nothing about the political behaviour of people with religious convictions (or the religious views of someone with a political leaning, too, of course).

The reality is that times have changed. New Zealand’s conservative politicians (whether actually religious or not) cannot try to force their religious beliefs onto others and win elections—and most would never try. That’s both because of political reality (of course), but also because they’re younger than the old politicians, the ones who did so much harm to LGBT+ people (among others). The current National Party Leader, whatever his religious descriptor, wants to win the election next year (duh—he’d be a pretty crap party leader if he didn’t want that), and that won’t happen if National is seen as an American-style rightwing party interested in forcing a “morals” political agenda instead of working for policies that actually help real people. Not that I’ll accept any of that at face value, of course: I have a lifetime of experience that makes me suspicious of religious conservative politicians. Plenty of other New Zealanders would have to be convinced, too.

Because this was a Labour Party measure, I’ll give the final word on this achievement to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern: To anyone who has experienced conversion practices in New Zealand, please know that you are not broken. You do not need to be ‘fixed’. And we will keep doing all we can to make sure you are valued and loved for who you are. And to every member of parliament who helped end conversion practice tonight – thank you.

MPs voting against conversion therapy bill: Simon Bridges, Simeon Brown, Melissa Lee, Todd McClay, Simon O’Connor, Chris Penk, Michael Woodhouse and Shane Reti.

Previously: In 2018, I talked about my opinion on this sick “practice”.]

The NZ Labour Party image above was posted last night, and included with the Prime Minister’s comments on her official Facebook Page

MMP turns 25

Twenty-five years ago this week, New Zealand’s proportional representation system, MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) officially became the way New Zealand was governed. On October 12, 1996, the first election was held under MMP, something I remember very well because I was here to witness it.

When the 1996 election was held, I hadn’t yet lived in New Zealand for even one year, but I was absorbed by the capaign. That’s not a surprise—in fact, it was natural: I was a political science major in university, and I’d had years of electoral politics and grassroots activism, too. Watching democracy in action has always been as thrilling for me as some sportsball event can be for other people. One thing that I didn't understand at first was far more prosaic: When I first arrived in New Zealand, I didn't understand why the debating chamber that Parliament was meeting in was so boring (it was frequently shown on the evening news). It turned out that was temporary because the actual House of Representatives chamber was being refitted to accommodate the 120 MPs that were to be elected at the 1996 election (the House was smaller under the old system).

In the months after I arrived, Nigel educated me about New Zealand politics, how MMP came to be, and about the various political parties (I don't think I ever mentioned the "boring" debating chamber). He backed the Labour Party, and I realised quickly that it was my ideological home, too. That’s also not a surprise, considering how closely aligned our values and world view were.

Like most people in New Zealand, on Election Night 1996, I thought Labour would form government, but a leader of one of the minor parties, who had once been a National Party cabinet minister, decided to form a coalition with National instead, keeping them in power for another three tumultuous years [see also the list of articles in a series published by Stuff, "MMP at 24", listed below].

It would take another three years, the 1999 General Election, for Labour to win government under MMP. As it happens, that was also the first year I was eligible to vote in New Zealand elections, since I’d become a Permanent Resident in June, 1999. I got to cast my very first “two ticks” for the Labour Party and also for the Labour Party candidate for MP in our Electorate—and both won. It was a nice way to start my voting in New Zealand.

In the years since, Labour and/or its candidate in the Electorate I was living in sometimes won, and lost other times. I volunteered, one way or another, for three different Labour Party candidates, and at one time I was very involved in our Electorate’s Labour Party organisation. That was then.

I burned out on politics because I was becoming increasingly unwell, something that was already becoming apparent in the 2014 General Election, which was ultimately fixed by my cardiac stent in 2016. But I still haven’t recovered any desire to get personally active in politics, though now it's mostly for other reasons: Being a widower, it turns out, zaps a lot of energy, strength, and enthusiasm.

Through everything—winning and losing, health challenges, and tragedy—I’ve remained as strongly committed to MMP as ever. The biggest challenge MMP faced was at the 2011 General Election, when New Zealand had a referendum on whether we should retain MMP. MMP won convincingly. That result was something I passionately argued for, including writing several posts on the topic. There’s still talk about changes and reforms, and I’ll no doubt talk about them with just as much passion.

Right now, though, this is a time to reflect and to celebrate. This post has been part of that, but I’m also including a list of very useful articles one the history and path of MMP in New Zealand, followed by TV commercials recently aired by the Electoral Commission celebrating MMP—by including the first ads explaining MMP to Kiwis in the lead up to the 1996 election. I put those last because for some reason the Electoral Commission often deletes commercials from their YouTube Channel (no idea why). I include them because they’re nostalgic (I saw them back in the day), and also because they contain some New Zealand history.

New Zealand-owned media company Stuff published a four-part series on its Stuff website, “MMP at 25”, and each one of them is really good. They’re all written by Henry Cooke, who I praised last year as being, in my opinion, “the best political reporter in New Zealand”.

The Stuff Series, MMP at 25:

Part 1 – “How an academic dream from West Germany changed New Zealand forever”.

Part 2 – “How politicians let voters destroy their way of life in three short years”.

Part 3 – “The chaotic transition into a new political world almost killed off Labour”.

Part 4 – “MMP has changed Parliament for good. But has it stopped Parliament changing New Zealand?”

The NZ Electoral Commission’s recent ads celebrating MMP at 25 (posted in the order they were posted to YouTube, from most recently posted to first posted):

“People and Party”:



“MMP threshold”:



“MMP proportionality”:



“MMP top up”:

One word: Plastics

The New Zealand Government has announced plans to begin phasing out what they call “problem plastics”, things like non-recyclable plastic and consumer single-use plastics. This has been anticipated since July 1, 2019, when single-use plastic bags were banned. It’s a good and important thing to do.

From late in 2022, some 18 months from now, PVC meat trays, polystyrene (aka styrofoam) takeaway packaging, EPS grocery packaging, degradable plastic products (eg, oxo and photo degradable), plastic drink stirrers, and plastic stemmed cotton swabs will all be banned.

In mid 2023, some two years from now, the government will also ban single-use plastic items: Supermarket produce bags, plastic tableware (cutlery, plates and bowls), drink straws, and non compostable fruit labels.

The reality is that New Zealand is already a long way along the road toward moving away from such things, and just as happened with the ban on single-use plastic shopping bags, this will provide the final push. Everyone knew this was coming at some point, so I don’t have any sympathy for corporations and industries that are whining about not having “enough time” to find alternatives.

I’ve already heard some of the complaints from corporations. For example, supermarket chains say that two years isn’t enough time to eliminate plastic produce bags, something they’ve been trying to eliminate for at least a year already. Paper is one obvious alternative, but maybe they can think a little more creatively? How about selling cheap branded mesh bags to consumers (I talked about my own mesh produce bags back in June of 2016). After all, they already sell cheap branded reusable shopping bags. They could embrace this as an opportunity to embrace environmental and social responsibility.

The non-compostable stickers on fresh produce annoy me to no end, so I have zero sympathy for the moaners in the industry. They’re a relatively recent development, and I can’t think of any benefit that consumers get from them. Instead, they provide a way for producers to brand fresh produce for marketing purposes and, at least theoretically, provide some tracking information. When I was a kid, I remember oranges had the brand printed on the peel, something that obviously won’t work for all produce (like apples), but, then, why do they even use labels at all? Consumers hate them. I think they should just drop them altogether, but if they insist on having them for some bizarre reason, then the labels must be home compostable because a lot of people compost at home and commercially-compostable things don’t usually degrade.

Other products already had non-plastic alternatives corporations moved away from. For example, when I was young, the stems of cotton swabs were made of paper, not plastic. We had paper plates, and then better paper plates (because the originals weren’t very good for BBQs where people put their food on their laps). Drink straws always used to be made of paper (I remember some were waxed paper), and, in fact, paper straws are all you can buy at a supermarket right now.

A lot of companies have been experimenting with alternatives, like disposable cutlery, and even plates, made from wood. Washable, reusable steel drinking straws are cheap and available everywhere (I don’t personally have any; I don’t use straws often and have way too many paper ones to use first). I’m sure there are plenty of creative people in search of opportunities who can come up with a lot more alternatives to single-use plastic products—and now they’ll have the incentive thanks to the announced timeline for banning such plastics.

In fact, in November the government will launch a $50 million Plastics Innovation Fund to “help support projects that reimagine how we make, use and dispose of plastics”. Environment Minister David Parker said, “We need to back New Zealanders to innovate, find solutions and then scale them up.” (Full disclosure: I know and worked with David Parker when I was a volunteer in the Labour Party).

What all of this is about is making New Zealand cleaner and greener, with a circular economy in which nothing is wasted if we can prevent it. “We want to be part of global solutions to tackle the impacts of plastic pollution,” Parker said. For years now, I’ve been trying to do my part, as I’ve discussed on this blog. New Zealand, too, is trying to do its part. Cynics say our efforts are too small to make any difference, but the retort to that is simple: It’s always better to be part of the solution than part of the problem.

This is a very good move.

The image up top is a NZ Labour Party social media ad promoting the announcement. I just like the look of it.

More NZ Labour ads

The New Zealand Labour Party has started running a new ad on TV, but at the moment the only version online—and, therefore, shareable—is on Facebook (above). Those can be a problem sometimes, so if it doesn’t work, follow the Facebook link instead.

However, when I went to YouTube to try and find the video of the new ad, I realised there are two more ads I hadn’t shared yet. Both were released about a week after the first one that I shared. They’re still on TV, along with the new one.

The first ad is “Our plan creates jobs, backs business, and grows trade”:



The other ad is “We're rolling out a plan that keeps people safe & builds the economy”:



All the ads repeat similar themes, and each are good at quickly presenting their case. In general terms, I think the newest one is the most effective mainly because it’s more like the ads people are watching for pretty much everything else, and because it’s different from the ads other parties are running, nearly all of which, like Labour's previous ads, have the party leader talking to the camera. I like that Labour has mixed it up a bit. Also, the stop sign changing from "stop" to "go" is a particularly effective visual device. 

The New Zealand General Election will be held on Saturday, October 17, but voting began this past Saturday, October 3. Voter turnout so far is trending ahead of last year (though it’s only been two days; that link goes to stats that will be updated daily). Tonight I heard that Elections NZ is expecting 60% of the vote to be cast before Election Day. I think they may be right.

Disclosures: I’m a supporter of the New Zealand Labour Party, but have no position of any kind with them, nor am I in contact with party leaders. All opinions expressed are entirely my own, based on more than 40 years closely following election campaigns, as well as my personal values.

First NZ Labour ad for 2020

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The video above is the first 2020 campaign ad for the New Zealand Labour Party. It was released and promoted online this past Friday, and today I saw it on TV for the first time. To me, this looks like a sort of introductory ad, one introducing the themes that will be talked about in the campaign, and possibly in future ads, if any.

I’m sure that at least a couple other parties will have TV ads at some point, and, if so, I may share them, too. I’m no longer making any promises of what or when I’ll blog about something. Still, it’s early days in this election campaign, and I’m sure I’ll have more to day about it.

The New Zealand General Election will be held on Saturday, October 17, but voting begins on October 3.

NZ Labour proposes Matariki Holiday

Yesterday, the New Zealand Labour Party announced that if it wins the General Election next month it will create the country’s 12th public holiday, a winter holiday observing Matariki, the Māori New Year. This is an awesome idea, and well past time.

The holiday would begin in 2022 to allow businesses more time to recover from the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the meantime, a panel of experts will determine the best time for the holiday, since Matariki itself can fall between late May and into June.

The Matariki Public Holiday will be a NZ-specific holidays, celebrating Māori culture, something that is unique in the world, and unlike many of the other public holidays. Being a winter holiday, it could encourage New Zealanders to visit places in New Zealand, generating money for travel, tourism, and hospitality businesses at what is normally a slow time of year.

This also creates the opportunity to create a winter festival around the public holiday, and that, combined with the Māori cultural aspects, also creates the opportunity to draw international tourists—once that’s possible again. Our winter is in the Northern Hemisphere’s summer, and that may be an additional draw for some tourists sick of hot summer weather.

Naturally, conservatives oppose the idea. They bleat on, as they always do, about the cost to business without ever considering the benefits, both from increased income for many businesses, and also from having happier employees. To far to many on the Right, workers are a nothing but a cost, and never a resource to be nurtured and cared for.

The Opposition, the NZ National Party, has dismissed the idea, though some of them have suggested trading another holiday for a new Matariki one, but somehow I doubt they’d suggest dropping the other winter public holiday, Queen’s Birthday, which isn't celebrated or observed, except fo the annual Honours List and retail sales.

The leader of the far-right self-styled libertarian-ish party got in trouble this week when remarks he made in 2018 resurfaced. Back then, he said that all public holidays were a sign of a “fascist state” (oh, the irony…) because “I don't think the Government needs to tell people when to have a holiday and when to celebrate things." He’s often derisively called “National’s 55th MP” because even though he technically “leads” a different “party”, he’s only in Parliament at all because the National Party gifts him one of their safe electorate seats. He and his mates in the National Party are in lockstep when it comes to promoting the myth that ordinary workers can “negotiate” with their employer over time off.

In fact, National recently proposed eliminating the requirement that businesses provide meal breaks to workers. Why would they do that? "National supports an approach where employees and employers are trusted to work employment matters out themselves in good faith." That’s one of the most hilarious things they’ve said in this campaign, because it’s seldom true when few workers are in unions and by without them or the support of the law, they’re at the mercy of employers who, they have to hope, really are people of “good faith”.

Meanwhile, Labour has moved to protect workers, repealing the anti-worker rules that the previous National Government put in place, in addition to reversing that government’s deep cuts to education and job training programmes. Labour has a strong record to run on, while the opposition parties are promising to make things worse for ordinary workers. Not a hard choice for ordinary working people, really.

It’s hard to see how promising another public holiday could fail to be a winner with ordinary people, and Stuff’s Luke Malpass noted that “most people don't own businesses and so are probably happy to have a new holiday.” He went on to note, though, that “in the current climate, ironically created by the Government, both debt and sacrifice are uppermost in people’s minds. How a holiday will fit into that remains to be seen.” He concludes: “It is however a bold and confident statement in what may otherwise prove to be a long and dour election campaign dominated by a disease.”

As popular as a new holiday may be, I don’t personally see it becoming a major issue in this campaign: The people who back it probably already back Labour or the Labour-led Government, while those dead set against it don’t. But with the opposition parties staking out unpopular positions when they don’t have to, effectively scoring political own-goals, there’s no way this proposal will hurt Labour. In fact, if anything the Right’s many own-goals suggest that Labour doesn’t even need it to help win the election.

Still, a week is a long time in politics, and our election isn’t until next month. I just don’t expect the opposition parties will suddenly start running positive campaigns, and that may turn out to make all the difference.

It’s just cake

View this post on Instagram

I may be smiling but about an hour earlier I was not enjoying the first birthday cake making experience (like just about every parent I know!) I recommend cakes that you can legitimately cover in coconut - it hides almost everything. Happy Birthday wee Neve!

A post shared by Jacinda Ardern (@jacindaardern) on Jun 21, 2019 at 9:13pm PDT

The photo above is from NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Instagram account, and shows her right after she finished making the birthday cake for her daughter Neve’s first birthday. It’s a charming and perfectly ordinary photo of a mother who’s managed to conquer her child’s first birthday cake. It showed something most people could simply like without thinking about it at all..

Sadly, that wasn’t true for everyone.

New Zealand, like every other western country, has its share of hard-line partisans, and also like everywhere else, they can be found all over the political spectrum. But when it comes to pure churlishness and perpetual grumpiness, no one can beat our friends on the Right. A simple birthday cake became their latest object of fauxrage.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern posted her photo a few days ago. This was the reaction from one of her “critics”:

That was mild compared to this bizarre criticism:

That was a bizarre and churlish reaction, given that National Party Prime Ministers were not always depicted in serious situations:

As stupid and churlish as the criticism is, it’s simply routine for some of our friends on the Right: They seem to always look for the worst, most cynical possible view on every conceivable situation—but only if the Left is associated with it, of course. John Key was occasionally at the receiving end of such treatment, and the Right called it “Key Derangement Syndrome”, a dismissive term they used for quite literally any criticism of Key, no matter how legitimate, focused, or on point.

Welcome to the corollary, “Jacinda Derangement Syndrome”, in which they usually don’t even bother to attempt to offer legitimate criticism of policy or agenda, and instead they attack cakes (or similarly superficial things). It’s petty, it’s childish, it’s mean-spirited, it’s trolling—and it’s ever-present. This is only one example, and I’m highlighting it because it’s frankly so stupid.

There’s an obvious large serving of rightwing hypocrisy here. They attacked Jacinda because her photo wasn’t of a serious situation when, in fact, their own party leaders have all been depicted by the media in similarly non-serious settings. Jacinda’s photo was also her own personal one, posted on Instagram and NOT a media portrayal. Are they really trying to say that a politician can never post something light-hearted on their social media accounts? Seriously? Do they really want to go there?!

I can remember a social media photo of John Key standing next to his then teenaged son Max who was “planking” (anyone remember that fad anymore?). Bill English also posted photos with his kids. The current leader of the National Party has probably done the same (I can’t be sure; I don’t follow any social media accounts he may have). What the Right seems to be saying is that there can never be a non-serious portrayal of a Labour Party leader at any time, anywhere, whether in the newsmedia or shared to their own social media accounts. But for a National Party leader? Well, that’s obviously different, right? That’s called hypocrisy.

The bottom like here is that if New Zealand’s rightwing truly wants me or anyone else to take them seriously, they need to grow up first.

New Zealand, like every other western country, has its share of hard-line partisans, and, like everywhere else, they can be found all over the political spectrum. But when it comes to pure churlishness and perpetual grumpiness, no one can beat our friends on the Right. Their birthday cake fauxrage was just their latest example.

Despite that one thing should be clear to all rational people: It was just a cake.

Footnotes: The two Twitter screengrabs are redacted. The first one is from someone with a non-public account, and the Tweet may have been deleted, surviving only as a screengrab. Perhaps they realised how awful they sounded and thought better of it? Let’s give them a chance to repent and go and sin no more. The second one is redacted somewhat against my better judgement: It’s from a public account, but someone who could be a bot or foreign troll for all I know. In that case, it was about not giving any oxygen to someone who may or may not even be real. Neither screengrab was among the worst examples of the fauxrage I saw, but unlike so many other examples, they were neither defamatory nor obscene (and people wonder why I avoid Twitter nowadays…). The comparison image contains examples widely shared on Twitter at the same time, and copyright for those the images lies with their respective owners; they are included here for purposes of example and illustration in the context of robust political debate in matters of public interest.

Polls apart

Recent opinion polls in New Zealand offered up wildly different results and presented completely different trends. There are many possible explanations for that, including timing, polling methods, sampling errors, question construction—or even pure chance. Whatever’s going on, there’s one thing that’s certain: They can’t both be right. Let the buyer beware—and be very sceptical.

The polls (graphic above) were conducted at roughly the same time, but the results are clearly very different. The Newshub Reid Research Poll was taken May 29-June 7 (sometimes they’ve reported May 30 as the start date), and the One News Colmar Brunton Poll was taken June 4-8. This is one of the first possible explanations for the differences: The timing.

The New Zealand Budget was introduced in Parliament on May 30, and the Newshub poll was begun before Budget Day (or on the day…), and finished a week after. The One News poll began several days after Budget Day and ended about the same time as Newshub’s, after four days. In reporting the story, both news shows said their poll indicated what happened as a result of the Budget’s announcement. One News said there was no “Budget Bounce”, meaning the government didn’t go up in the polls and, in fact, they claimed Labour went down in the poll. Newshub, on the other hand, claimed that Labour did get a “Budget Bounce” and said they went up in the poll. Which claim is true depends, obviously, on which poll is more accurate.

The similarity of polling period suggests that the timing of the polls is probably not relevant, though the longer polling period for the Newhubs poll might matter. Overall, this means other factors are probably be at play. Another obvious source of the divergence would be how the polls were conducted.

In the past, Colmar Brunton rang only landlines, which has been a source of complaints for years. This poll was conducted by randomly dialling people on both NZ landlines and NZ cellphones using probability sampling. Their sample was of 1002 people, which is a typical amount. They describe their margin of error this way (read their PDF report on the poll for full details):

The maximum sampling error is approximately ±3.1%-points at the 95% confidence level. This is the sampling error for a result around 50%. Results higher and lower than 50% have a smaller sampling error. For example, results around 10% and 5% have sampling errors of approximately ±1.9%-points and ±1.4%-points, respectively, at the 95% confidence level.

These sampling errors assume a simple random sample of 1,000 eligible voters.

Reid Research hasn’t yet posted the current poll results on their website, so we don’t know for sure if their methodology has changed from previous polls. However, in their older polls, they sampled 1,000 people, 750 of whom were telephoned (they don’t disclose whether they were landline or mobile, but in the past they were landline only). The other 250 were from online polling.

Over the years, there have been many debates on whether the phone method matters and whether Reid’s use of online polling is valid. The fact that Colmar Brunton now rings mobile phones suggests, at the very least, that they listened to critics. But that doesn’t by itself make their results more accurate no less accurate, and Reid’s use of online polling doesn’t by itself make theirs less accurate or more accurate. On the other hand, we could tell if the sampling is problematic if we knew the extent of the correction they applied to their raw survey results.

The things we can’t know, and no one will tell us, is how they correct sampling errors, so we can’t judge if their methods appear to be sound or not. However, they both use industry-standard methods, and, in any case, that, too, doesn’t necessarily mean that one poll or the other might be less accurate than the other.

We also can’t rely on history to help us work this out. In the companies’ final election polls before the 2017 General Election, both polls were remarkably similar—and off. Both polls overstated support for National and the Greens, but of the two, Reid was closest to the result that New Zealand First had, where Comar Brunton greatly understated the party’s support (“greatly” because it was about 50% below the actual result). Both were pretty accurate on Labour’s eventual result. This suggests that their correction for sampling errors may not be fine-tuned enough, that they skewed conservative, toward national in particular.

So, history is no guide, and, at first glance, it looks like we can’t use the differences in these polls' methods or analysis to tell us much, either. This is reinforced by the fact that both polls had remarkably similar results on the possible legalisation of marijuana, which frankly seems odd: Why are they so hugely different on political polling, but so similar on the referendum? The answer could well be the question asked.

We don’t (yet?) know what, specifically, but the question reported on Newshub was simply, “Should we legalise cannabis?”, which is a very broad question. On the other hand Colmar Brunton asked:

“A referendum on the legalisation of cannabis will be held at the 2020 General Election. Possible new laws would allow people aged 20 and over to purchase cannabis for recreational use. The laws would also control the sale and supply of cannabis. At this stage, do you think you will vote for cannabis to be legalised, or for cannabis to remain illegal?”

That question is reasonably fair, given that the exact wording of the referendum hasn’t been released yet, but the general structure of the proposal in the question aligns with how the media has described it. The poll results showed that people under 34 were more likely to support legalisation, and those over 55 were least likely. It also found that National Party supporters were more likely to oppose legalisation.

The Newsbub Poll result produced a closer result than One News’, but found similar ideological variation. By itself, this doesn’t seem to support the claim that the One News sample skewed older and more conservative than it should have. But another question may reveal a bias.

The worst-worded question in the One News poll was this: “Would you consider voting for a party with Christian or conservative values at the 2020 General Election?” This should have been bloody obvious to everyone involved, but those two are not automatically the same thing or even symbiotic. National is a conservative party with conservative values. New Zealand First is a more moderate party with conservative values. Hell, even the Centre-Left Labour Party has some conservative values. But all of those parties are also firmly secular.

So far, only one rightwing “party” (technically, it is only announced, and doesn’t exist yet) is positioning itself a “Christian” party, but the only one claiming “conservative values” is a “Christian” party in all but name. The question should have been two questions.

We know this question was deeply flawed because of the results: Those most likely to support such a party parties were: Pacific Island peoples (who are often very Christian, but not necessarily Christian), Asians (who are often conservative, but not usually Christian)—and people 18-49? SERIOUSLY?! Every poll conducted, and all the social science data we have, shows that people in that age group are less religious and less conservative than older generations, but the poll says they’re among those most receptive to “a party with Christian or conservative values”? At the same time, voters 60-69 were reported as less likely to vote for either kind of party, and that, too, is at odds with research that indicates religious affiliation and conservatism goes up with age. Are we really supposed to believe that young voters are suddenly more religious and more conservative than their parents/grandparents? That seems highly improbable.

Further polling with properly constructed questions might explain why this question’s poll results are so wildly divergent form everything we know about people’s religious and ideological compartmentalisation, but, on the face of it, it appears that the One News poll may, indeed, have skewed conservative, as it did to some extent in 2017. As it is, the results for that one question cast a shadow over the entire poll.

The bottom line is that we cannot yet explain why the two polls are so divergent on political questions, yet similar on the marijuana referendum. It seems unlikely that timing accounts for the difference. Polling methods, sampling errors, and the correction of them, could account for the divergence—were it not for the similar results on the referendum. That leaves question construction, and that was certainly a problem with one question at least. That means that, at the moment, pure chance alone is as good an explanation as any.

These polls, as with most polls, must be taken with an entire mine of salt. The reliability of the entire polling industry has been questioned since so many companies seemed to get it so very wrong in the USA’s 2016 presidential election. However, most US polls actually did far better than the popular belief holds, something most people don’t know. Because of that doubt, though, polling companies must redouble their efforts to make their polls as accurate as humanly possible. One or both of these two polls haven’t done that—we just can’t tell for sure which it is or if it's both.

Let the buyer beware—and be very sceptical.