'Tis the (triennial) season

Election season has once again returned to New Zealand. Once every three years the beautiful New Zealand landscape is polluted with election hoardings (signs), campaign volunteers scurry from door to door to try and win over voters, and, especially, to motivate the supporters of their party and/or candidate to actually vote, and all too soon, banal ads will be all over TV—for those who watch broadcast TV or ad-supported streaming services, anyway.

While political junkies may enjoy all that, a great many ordinary New Zealanders can’t stand it. Personally, I’m somewhere between those two positions. I guess that makes me “discerning”.

New Zealand’s General Election is, technically, on Saturday, November 7, with voting places open from 9am to 7pm. I say “technically” because Advance Voting begins on October 26, so November 7 is actuality the final day to vote. Affecting all that, the current government changed the rules for registering: The last date to register is October 25, where in previous years eligible voters could register and vote up to and including Election Day. In 2020, around 80,000 people enrolled or updated their details on Election Day. In 2023, though, there were 600,000 enrolments or updates after writ day (when the voter rolls are printed), including 450,000 who during the voting period leading up to election day, and 110,000 voted on election day itself.

The surge in registrations/updates in 2023 is what led the current government to change the rules. They argued that the large numbers would grow, and that would add more delay the result being announced. My honest reaction to that was, “so what?!” I believe it’s government’s duty to make it as easy as possible to enrol to vote and then to actually vote. If that takes extra time, it takes extra time. Relax, and let the people have their say. But, then, conservative politicians, it seems. seldom agree with me on all that

Several Members of Parliament in the current coalition expressed disdain for voters who didn’t enrol or update their details until after writ day, implying they were basically just lazy. A large percentage of the late enrollers are usually in the 18-24 age bracket, a group with historically low enrolment and voting rates, often because they can be more transient than older folks (because, for example, they’re university students). The changes this year could disenfranchise a large percentage of those people, and it’s perhaps cynical to point out that 18-24 voters are more likely to vote for parties on the Left, and not for any of the parties in the current ruling coalition. It may be cynical to think that was a factor in the government’s decision, but that doesn’t mean it’s not also true. Or not. The larger point is that whatever the current government’s motivation, it will disenfranchise younger voters and make it harder for large numbers to register in time.

This year, I saw election hoardings going up around Kirikiriroa-Hamilton much earlier than I thought was legal, and then found out for the first time that the city’s bylaws allow signs to go up much earlier than in other parts of the country. I had no idea that was the case.

In the first couple weeks, by far the most signs I saw were for the NZ Labour Party and its candidates, with signs for the NZ National Party going up shortly afterward. The two parties still make up the vast majority of signs I’ve seen in my travels around the city (mostly within my own electorate). I don’t recall seeing this large amount of Labour signs in 2020 or 2023, but National’s presence seems similar to me.

During my first General Election in Hamilton, 2020, I don’t think we got many campaign pamphlets dropped in our letter boxes. There were some in 2023, especially from National. This year, some had materials for National had already been left, and then the week after I got a second one for National’s candidate, I got my very first pamphlet from Labour (both in photo above). I was glad to see the competition.

Last weekend, a couple lads came to my door, one wearing a National Party t-shirt. They were door knocking, as it’s usually called, for their party’s candidate. I didn’t want to waste their time, so I raised my hand as if to stop him, and much to my surprise, the guy speaking started to wind up to leave, and, after I said something like, “I’m 100% Labour,” I then added, “you guys are the first election volunteers I’ve ever seen in this neighbourhood, so well done!” I didn’t want them to think I hated them: The fact I wouldn’t vote for their party or candidate doesn’t mean I have anything against them personally. In fact, I admire people who do that, partisanship aside, because it’s something I can’t do.

The dissolution of Parliament is on October 1, and the current government becomes a caretaker government until after the final election results are declared and they either form a new coalition government, or else they become the Opposition to the new Centre-Left government. But that’s a tale for late November or early December. Naturally, I intend to talk about that then.

Overall, the fact that our neighbourhood is getting a bit more attention from the politicians means we’re a real neighbourhood now. I’m mostly joking about that, of course, because with all the development going on around us, we’ll soon be like every other part of the city, and I think that’ll be a good thing—or maybe that should say I hope it’s a good thing? Time will tell how that tale turns out, too.

To be abundantly clear, I am not, and don’t pretend to be, neutral or non-partisan. I support the New Zealand Labour Party, and am a member of the party, though I have absolutely no role or position whatsoever. I get the exact same information emails from the party as any other member or supporter gets, and don’t ever get “insider” information. All of which means that while I’m certainly partisan, all my opinions on NZ politics and elections are entirely my own sincerely held beliefs and opinions. Just so we’re clear.

A change of clowns

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.