Or announcing further attacks on citizens. Heck, the more assaults on the New Zealand public the greater the chances he’ll be this country’s longest serving PM. Don’t know quite how that’s supposed to work but it does.
No, no need, strong leadership and Policies are what the voter is looking for.
Besides, if my memory serves me correctly, were not Student Loans and Working for Families Labour bribes on a grand scale which served them well to win two elections, when they looked odds on to lose?
3 News also poll people on leaders performing well/badly.
Shearer lost 10%. Core Labour voters are staying loyal to the party and expressing dissatisfaction with the leader. Only a fool or a payroll hack can fail to get the message.
So many ears and eyes cannot be wrong. Despite a corrupt, cronyistic and nasty National Government, people neither see nor hear a leader-in-waiting on the opposition bench who can lead a party that is ready to govern.
Labour needs to show it can get its own house in order and that it is a unified ‘broad church’ party from caucus to membership and affiliates, before it can convince people it is able to manage a coalition government, take the country through these difficult times, and start helping us all adapt to a different future of financial, energy and environmental crises and challenges.
Come on, Labour Caucus, come on and show us your better selves. Give us reasons, nay, just a very good reason, and remind and rally us, to provide our solid support to you so that you can govern for the common good, in the interest of the many of us in NZ.
Finally got round to watching Us Now last night. It highlights how people are organising via the internet and, interestingly, building trust. The lesson is clear, time for real democracy and not this BS representative democracy that got put in place because the rich/powerful were concerned that the people would lose their dependence upon them.
I’ll have a look at that, but have to say that plethora of white male faces on their youtube page doesn’t bode well. Nor the idea that we can all be connected as easily as on FB for the purposes of democracy.
…that plethora of white male faces on their youtube page doesn’t bode well.
Yes, I always find the ethnicity of the participants is a handy way of assessing how worthwhile something is… Oh, wait, I’ve got that the wrong way round – it’s completely fucking useless for that.
I know, it’s really bizarre to think that discussions about new kinds of democracy should include wimmen and non-white people, rather than it being optional.
One of the points made in the documentary is that, through the online organising, people are no longer basing their decisions on what people look like or what they know of the person but what information the discussion has brought out. And one of the other points made was that wrong information is rapidly corrected – a point that was made by one of the women’s groups covered.
Reid poll???? snigger i would never dare to suggest nor hint that the Reid poll is possibly the most corrupted, twisted, biased poll of them all, never you hear,
Should be a giggle soon as the Slippery cheerleaders start squealing in delight over ‘national governing alone’ as they did during the last trimester…
Hmmm so if Labour was polling 47% and the Nats were on 31% you would still say the same thing?
Ignoring the polls won’t make them go away – they are a sign that the voting public is not happy with who Labour are right now and haven’t been since 2008.
Instead of bleating on for years about the inaccuracies of polls and how the evil Nats will be gone once the public awaken to cronyism Labour should have spent 2009-10 reviewing why they lost the lost 2008 election.
Having worked this out via review they should then have selected a whole new crop of candidates for the 2011 election with the aim of building towards a 2014 victory.
By 2014 you would have had a crop of keen, fresh upstarts chaffing at the bit to get into the treasury benches with a party and policy to match (and a leader??)
Key would have found it a lot harder to aim for a 3rd term under this scenario.
But no what did Labour do? Installed the old has beens in the caucus leadership, kept the same tired policies, and pretended that the polls were inaccurate.
Result? Record loss at the 2011 election, and very few new MP’s coming in. Throw in a new insipid leader, a broke party, and factional splits more ways than a dominos pizza.
Now everyone realizes that its a mess but who is gona fix it?
And too many of the new MPs who did get in were chosen because of their support of the status quo hierarchy, not because they were expected to upset the status quo hierarchy.
Hmmm so if Labour was polling 47% and the Nats were on 31% you would still say the same thing?
Possibly but humanity is a strange beast.
At the last election a number of voters didn’t vote because they believed National had already won, i.e, influenced by the polls. If they had voted National wouldn’t be in power today.
Thing is, the people most likely to vote happen to be the right-wingers and so a poll that showed Labour was going to win may, in fact, spur more of them to vote rather than turn them off voting.
The fact that voting was influenced by the MSMs polling is why it needs to be banned before the election.
Record loss at the 2011 election
Um, what? It was one of the closest elections yet in NZ.
Why do we assume that the people who did not vote in 2011 were lefties. I have seen no evidence to suggest that proposition is correct.
The fact that the polls suggested National was going to win could have same effect on right leaning voters. Righties assuming they were going to win stayed at home as there was no real need to leave their palace to stand in a line to vote.
Some voters only get motivated if they think it will be close and their one vote will make a difference.
I am not saying that is the case but can has anyone got any evidence that the 2011 non-voters were proporitionally any different to those who did vote?
Election Labour National
1999 800,199 629,932
2002 838,219 425,310
2005 935,319 889,813
2008 796,880 1,053,398
2011 614,937 1,058,636
While showing the total number of votes received, I couldn’t find the number of people enrolled to vote, so no idea if non-voters increased or decreased from election to election
What I am asking is how those numbers stack up for non-voters. It is quite possible that noone has any idea. But for some reason the left thinks the reason we lost was because a million people didn’t turn out to vote in 2011.
I want to know why we think those non-voters would have voted for the left?
The polls before and after the election would in fact suggest the opposite.
I want to know why we think those non-voters would have voted for the left?
It’s a fact that’s been popping up in research around the world for the last 50+ years. The group most likely not to vote are the poor and they’re most likely to vote for a left leaning party if they voted.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
Left wing people did the Long March and thew out the fucking Chinese capitalists, they also got rid of the Romanovs and then fucked the Wehrmacht
the neoliberal pricks took all the jobs away from the working class and now you have the gall to pick over the remains and call people lazy
If you want lazy look at the rentier capitalists who sit on their fat asses extracting money from actual productive workers.
Apart from rambling incoherently, I think the issue is that there is no left wing political party to vote for, just different shades of the market led capitalist status quo, and political leaders all hyper-attuned to the opinions of the comfortable middle class.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
Thinking about these numbers a bit more, two things emerge:
1. Bill English will never, ever lead the national party again (joy)
2. Labour has lost 320,000 voters since the 2005 election.
Surely someone in the Labour party would be wondering what the party should be doing to get those 320,000 voters back instead of plodding on with the same ol’, same ol’ bollocks which sees them shedding voters.
It is the fault of the bloggers on The Standard?
It is the fault of David Cunliffe?
It can be fixed by coaching from Ian Fraser?
If the whole party was run a well as Wellington Central there would be no problem.
If Shearer was only given enough time, to prove himself, there would be no problem.
Hmmm so if Labour was polling 47% and the Nats were on 31% you would still say the same thing?
If Labour were doing the amount of dodgy things that Nat are; such as removing our rights and breaking rules left, right and centre and showing blatant disregard for democratic process on a regular basis and the polls were as positive for Labour as they are for Nats now, yes, I would still be thinking the same thing; that the pollsters are poll pushing ~ using polls to shift opinion. [Because, really, it is hard to see the politicians doing anything to warrant that level of popularity.]
“Ignoring the polls won’t make them go away”
I did not say I ignored the polls I said I have trouble trusting that they are anything other than tools of opinion manipulation. A good lie often has some truth involved. A little exaggeration perhaps can go a long way, for instance:
Why did so many stay at home on election day?
Could it be that lots of people thought “What is the bloody point; Nat is polling so high~everyone else must like them. My vote won’t make any difference.”?
Sometimes I suspect that the weakest point of left wing politics may be a certain naivety regarding how low political tactics can go; and discounting such tactics leaves us unable to counteract them. I am aware that opinion manipulation is a pretty sophisticated field of activity; there is a whole science developed on the subject. (more than one science).
Which brings me to the subject that you mainly speak of, a way forward: strategy.
I agree with your comments (which, by the way, require none of these reid/roymorgan polls to act upon ~ to have taken the election results seriously would have sufficed)
What you write is a pretty straight-forward common-sense dare I say obvious way to address the election result; which brings me to the question that naturally arises:
Where are Labour’s strategists? Who are they? Do they exist at all?, and if so, Where are their heads at???
The advisors are usually amongst the most desperate to keep the status quo hierarchy in place; they know if the Leadership team changes, they too will most likely be gone.
Labour strategists and staffers have fuck all job options compared to the ones working for National. The Tories always look after their own. Well, unless you screw up on a Gilmore scale.
Labour – and in this case it is not nomen est omen – is outdated and irrelevant. The few good people who could have saved the day have been put into the corner of shame – for non compliance with these boarding school bullies. It is especially the young that are feeling disaffected and whilst they are not really looking to the Nats they have not many choices. The greens have too early aligned themselves with labour and thus stall. It would be better for the Greens to go it alone and split the vote at a far greater rate so that Dunne and the Teacaddy won’t be the deciders.
I belief that the time is not quite come for a New Labour but it will come.
Polls show that no left party has credibility to run the treasury benches. That’s all. Shearer said labour needs to concentrate on power and house affordability. What about things like international trade, r & d, super bubble and let’s talk about jobs. With GFC reclining now and natural market forces take over the only thing national needs to do is getting the debt levels down. Agree 200b is too much, 80b seems about the right gearing.
Labour is all about labour now.
Greens are all about labour swing voters and mana and Maori about individuals. National is the complete package at the moment
Bill English has no plans to repay ANY debt. Hell just keep on rolling it over.
If theres a surplus, which seems to be just around the corner after the next election…. moving the goalposts every 9 months or so, it will go in tax cuts for the wealthy
Breaking news…….Yes drowns in his own excretia, excrement……no one cares. Particularly ShonKey Python – “Thank Christ……that wannabee fuckwit won’t be phoning again. I’ve told him/her/it time and time again. Ambassador Galapagos Islands has gone ! Gilmore. Shut the prick up”.
It was quite funny to watch, in a black-humour kind of way. Gower obviously feels like the result is a vindication of his efforts to put the vital political issues of the day in front TV3’s viewers – his choices for said vital political issues being, natch, Labour MPs in Sky City’s corporate box and the proposed “man ban” (in quotes because, apparently unlike the professionals working for TV3, I’m not a complete fucking idiot).
I am disappointed with the negativity shown here over Shearer. OK, I agree Labour is not doing well. But it is holding steady at 31% and the support partner Greens are steady at 12%. NZ First is inching up and I am sure it will cross 5% on election night. All Labour needs to do is claw up another 4% on election night. Then it will be a Labour-Green-NZ First-Hone Centre-Left government. I will start to worry only if Labour drops below 30%. Let us not destabilise the leadership now. Let us stay united folks.
I’m disappointed with the negativity shown towards the patient’s condition. He isn’t doing well, but he is holding steady at only losing one leg. Let’s not destabilise him by pointing out he’s lost a leg. Let’s stay united.
Besides, if we wish really hard other folks will come along to prop him up, which is practically the same as having two legs.
If we don’t act now when it is important and possible to try and get some real Labour integrity in the Leadership, then when? The present poor cowardly pollies running the Left ticket, will be lucky to get their tired legs over the finish line.
Labour’s been steady on around 31 for four years. It’s not getting any better. In the latest poll Shearer’s personal competence rating dropped from 36 to 26. The public know he’s just not up to it.
If your hope of a Labour-led government relies on Shearer picking up four points against Key in the campaign, and Winston getting to five and choosing to play third fiddle to Labour and the Greens (with Hone at his side),then you’re dreaming. He’ll go play kingmaker with his old party the Nats in a second.
Labour can’t win with Shearer. He needs to go, as does every MP who devised and propped up this dreadful experiment. He owes it to Labour to do the honourable thing.
Surely he can see he is useless. He’s earned good money as opposition leader, and he’s got plenty stashed away in his UN account. Why does he perpetuate his and Labour’s misery?
But the “destabilising” line needs exploring. Is it “destabilising” to point out that somebody else is destabilising? So if (e.g.) Shane Jones behaves like a dick, and breaks caucus discipline, is he destabilising, or are we the bad guys because we notice him doing it? If the leader destabilises the party by obeying the right-wing blogs, should we all pretend it didn’t happen?
Our job is to publicly support the destabilisers at the top, because anything else would destabilise, is that how it goes?
I suspect that the level of destabilising dickishness comes down to whether the response is proportionate to the perceived fault, and whether the perceived fault is at all reflective of an actual fault.
E.g. if there was, say, a remit that was shilly-shallied on and then kicked back to council (sorry, council were “asked to reconsider it”), was this poor form because the leader was destabilising the party by obeying the right-wing blogs that thought up a catchy critical tag for that remit, or was the leader boldly listening to the wishes of those proud internet Waitakere Men within the Labour membership who felt that for the good of Labour the remit should never have gotten so far in the process and that even taking the remit to conference was electoral suicide? Or maybe all sides within Labour acted like a dick on that one.
There’s no way that such a centre left coalition will last even 6 months; especially if Shearer is still Labour’s leader and therefore PM. Shearer cant manage Labour and its factions now; let alone a coalition that includes the Greens, NZ First and Mana.
center left?? hone is not center left neither are the greens, both are far left fringe extremists hone particularly. All these egos and nutters in power hone/winston/wussell/lab hacks left over from the clark regime will be an absolute disaster
This response is the reason why Labour cannot gain ground. No idea about the future, just hold steady at 30%…..obviously there is no interest and passion for capturing the PEOPLE’S imagination and trying to gun for a majority at the next election.
Seems a little ironic to me that with polls falling short of where labor was in 2008 that Helen Clark is in/ shortly to be in (?) town. She might have a few words of wisdom about how to pull a divided team together…
It might be nice to imagine we’re otherwise, but humans are creatures of emotion and perception. And the thing that the public think of as “Labour” has failed to create these in adequate measure (I’d argue since 2005 or 2006).
Our household had the pollsters phone in for this Reid Research poll. The questions were so focused we thought it was the Labour Party doing an “internal” poll. The family member who answered the pollster obviously thinks very much like the rest of NZ – Shearer (and the ABCs) have got it totally wrong. The Labour caucus will be history if they don’t change!
Part of the problem is the closeness to the Green Party. Time for David S. to put some space between Labour and the more extreme Green policies.
He seems to follow Norman. It cannot continue that way.
5. On the third coup he arose triumphant to heal the hearts of the unfaithful. And lo, Cunliffe did give the right of the caucus sight and to the left he brought wisdom and he ruled forever and ever.
Shearer is lucky the earthquake hit and took away attention from this poll. The TV1 poll will be interesting. I assume it is next weekend?
Another bad poll, another nail in the coffin for Shearer. Hard to see how he will be able to move on with this continued scrutiny of his leadership. Once it starts, it is hard to shake off esp when your colleagues are trying to undermine you.
On a serious note for a change, how dispiriting is it for you Labour supporters to see Labour going backwards yet knowing how simple a fix it would be to get Labour going forward.
The ideas that are bandied about are quite simple: replace Shearer, older MPs to leave, work as a team, stop shooting yourselves in the foot and refocus on the working man and woman
Its not hard or earth shattering yet time and time again Labour start to gain traction yet someone comes along and sticks their fott in their mouth
But you are wrong that it is merely “dispiriting”. It is much worse than that to have a crooked liar and ex-money trader as the Prime Minister. Someone who panders to the dollar over everything else. Someone who lies so easily he can’t even keep up himself. Someone who continually makes things harder for the lowly and easier for the rich. Someone who wants to record all of my information all day every day. Someone who lies and in a complete and utter fascist manner trashes democracy so that his voters can steal water they could not otherwise obtain for their greedy desires.
You sound like you are one of those unaffected by the acts and lies of this corrupt government and its arsehole participants.
King kong so sophisticated as I didn’t expect caves were so valuable!
Your an example of primitive instincts destroying 100’s of 1,000’s of years of civilization .
Don’t beat your chest to loudly !
New Zealand is not a good place when every second person is using the Hooton inspired interrogative figure of speech.
This one was dreamed up by him to distinguish National Party supporters from others and it is disrespectful, an invalid argument from authorty and dishonest.
Its all over the talkshows and the sports announcers and it is the most dishonest result of slimy politics this country has ever seen.
isn’t it?
Not really. A long gradual positive incline followed by a steeper (but not yet deeper) dip.
Causes? Maybe labour. Maybe the time of year. My personal suspicion is that it might have something to do with two or three of the main political editors in NZ media having placed their reputations on the line for poor labour performance and a leadership change. If there is no leadership change before the end of the year, people might think they are full of shit. If there is a change, they are mystically-gifted seers. If labour goes down further, it’s a “crisis for Shearer”. If labour go up a few points, it’s “might not be enough to save him”. If it goes up further, it’s “managing to hold off the challengers… for now”. My point being that it’s not more than just “tory media” – senior individuals have essentially staked their professional reputation on the labour caucus being a simmering pot of discontent just waiting to boil over. How true that is, or whether people have largely jiggled into their respective roles, is now irrelevant to the story.
How long does it take to get signatures on a letter, anyway? Don’t they only need something like 18?
What – 27 to 35-odd is flat? Nope. That would be underfitting a trendline for rhetorical effect. In fact given that the election is the absolute measure of support (rather than the estimate of support that the polls are – an election is a complete count of the population who cast a valid vote, rather than a likely sample of that population), there shouldn’t even be a MoE on 27%.
“Close to where they started”, maybe, but not “flat”.
And who led labour to the bottom of Cook Strait? I suppose at the moment they’re wandering around the foothills of the Kaikouras, to torture the analogy. Who knows whether they’ll head off to Aoraki/Mt Cook, or boldly stomp off towards the Pacific Basin? Certainly not Garner or Gower.
But at least you’re getting the idea that similar elevations quite some distance apart do not mean that the intermediate elevations are “dead flat”.
Fuck you’re a valiant, if oblique, defender of the current Labour hierarchy.
Labour under Shearer is polling exactly the same as Goff, at the same stage of the triannum. The current polling performance is nothing more than a reversion to the 2009/2010 mean. Dead flat in other words.
On what fucking planet is “steep descent into a deep valley, followed by a long but gradual rise, and then a bit of a drop over the last wee bit to end up at roughly the same elevation before the descent” ever a description that is interchangeable with “dead flat”? Try walking the two, and you might figure out why you’re underfitting the trendline for rhetorical effect. Or, in words you can understand, “making shit up”.
To be slightly more precise, you don’t care to let reality get in the way of your assessments of labour’s performance over the last couple of terms.
For example, the half dozen morgan polls in 2009 where Labour polled in the high 20s. Number of times they’ve polled in the 20s since the 2011 election? Four. None in 2013. Although Labour did slightly better over 2008, (difference seems to be the greens were polling quite a bit lower but that might imply that labour going more left might simply take votes from the greens). 2011 results don’t seem to be on the RM website, but ISTR Labour having at least one RM result in the low 20s during 2011.
OK I admit it, you got me fair and square. There is a real difference between 28% in 2009 and 31% in 2013. Shearer should certainly take all the credit that difference entails.
You still trying to prove yourself right on a technicality? Hey good for you, I concede, you win.
A move in the polls from 28% to 31% over 4 years is not “dead flat”. It’s actually a solid positive trend. Labour should be at 34% under Shearer, by say 2017.
Given that an RM poll just before the election had labour on 23%, and that 31% is the low point of the trends over the last few months, it’s more than a technicality. But the point, yet again, is that calling the line between 2009 and now “flat” is fucking stupid. It’s like calling the earth “blue” and saying no more thought about it is needed. But you need to look at labour’s polling with such massive granularity because if you actually looked at the details you’d have to admit that the world is slightly more complex that ‘cunliffe good leader, everyone else in caucus evil and/or abjectly incompetent leader’.
Are you really so stupid as to think that:
A) because the line between two arbitrarily-selected points is straight, the best description of the observations between those points is also a straight line; and
B) party polling is interchangeable in meaning with party leadership;
so therefore
Conclusion) the entirety of party leadership performance can bejudged by the slope of a straight line between two arbitrarily-selected points?
Any one of those statements is stupid, and yet that seems to be the gist of your argument: shearer is proved to be bad because the polls have not much slope between two arbitrary points.
Point (a) is Labour’s support when Shearer took office. Point (b) is Labour’s support now.
If you think there are any two less arbitrary points by which to measure Labour’s performance under Shearer’s leadership, I’d love to know what they are.
Apart from the fact that CV wasn’t using election night as his initial points for “dead flat” were “2009 and 2010”. But even if we compared the real observation of election night (rather than an RM estimate from Nov2011), the best description of the RM estimates between those points is not a straight line, “flat” or otherwise.
The last three RM points have been a deviation from the pattern over the last 18 months (three consecutive falls for Labour), and this is a concern. About three times as much of a concern as a single lower point – so I’m not shitting bricks just yet.
But what’s more of a concern for me is the frenzy by Garner/Gower et al – it could possibly just be a self-fulfiling prophecy (a bit like talking down stock price). If it’s genuinely someone else in caucus angling for position before list selection (I don’t think it’s Cunliffe if it is), then they deserve a kick in the nuts. Taking this long to have the confidence issue done and dusted beggars belief.
Heh – come to think of it, if there is someone trying to do that and making such a pig’s breakfast of it, then the lack of political deftness would seem to be in character for someone who likes to shit on Labour’s only real coalition hope for the government benches… well, now that Chris carter’s gone, anyway 🙂
Its an upslope, I tellsya, Shearer despite a few minor flaws has been such a boost for Labour, why can’t everyone see that?! Yer bunch of ungrateful Judases!
One was the upswing of a downward trend (RM had one point before the election of lab on 23.5%) whereas the other is the downswing on an upward trend?
18 months?
Whether your glasses tint is rosy red, tory blue, or depression black?
If you insist on ignoring every single datapoint in between.
If you ignore the possibility (likelihood) that RM used the election to calibrate their regional and demographic sampling weights in order to make the first poll after the election match the election result.
If you ignore the other parties and performance of likely coalition partners in parliament and pretend it’s an FPP two-horse race.
If you’re prepared to throw out every principle of statistical analysis in the textbook, just so you can act all emo teen, then if all that, why even bother looking at the polls? Reality might get in the way of a really good sulk.
Over time-series datapoints between 27% to 35.5%? It means you’re trying to find a midpoint of the set rather analyse whether/how the set has changed over time. Finding a line of best fit would be more suitable.
It also means that this insomnia is a bitch, and I’ll probably be quite nasty todarrow. But then you’re in the same boat, unless you’re shiftworking. 🙂
…it might have something to do with two or three of the main political editors in NZ media having placed their reputations on the line for poor labour performance and a leadership change.
That’s my suspicion too. Watching Gower peddling a survey he’s had done on whether Labour voters think Shearer needs to go for Labour to win the next election, I was wondering why he’d commission that poll – the most plausible answer is he’s now got a personal stake in Shearer getting rolled, having effectively staked his reputation on it.
Shearer has been handed an enormous amount of ammunition by National in the form of lies and half truths he could have used to cut Keys down to size and yet he has repeatedly failed to monopolize on these opportunities. He has to GO NOW and let someone more capable such as Annette King take the reigns.
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Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
One of the strongest narratives about "our" spy agencies is that they are basically institutional traitors, working for foreign powers (or just themselves), without any control or oversight by the elected government. And today, we have yet another report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which explicitly confirms this. ...
“It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April to meet the Prime Minister’s ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
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Given the quality of the current Labour leadership is anyone surprised?
Only in that the Nats have allegedly increased support.
Even the Roy Morgan has National back around its 12 month highs, while Labour is very close to its 12 month lows.
Voters have decided that the Labour caucus is not fit to govern. Wait until National start applying election year pressure on to Labour.
Key’s leadership is looking safer.
You mean like spending money in election year bribes
Or announcing further attacks on citizens. Heck, the more assaults on the New Zealand public the greater the chances he’ll be this country’s longest serving PM. Don’t know quite how that’s supposed to work but it does.
NZers like strong, firm leaders with smarts and charm.
In other words, it doesn’t matter if they are stupid as long as they have the qualities you’ve mentioned.
No, no need, strong leadership and Policies are what the voter is looking for.
Besides, if my memory serves me correctly, were not Student Loans and Working for Families Labour bribes on a grand scale which served them well to win two elections, when they looked odds on to lose?
3 News also poll people on leaders performing well/badly.
Shearer lost 10%. Core Labour voters are staying loyal to the party and expressing dissatisfaction with the leader. Only a fool or a payroll hack can fail to get the message.
Caucus tomorrow in Napier, time for action.
So many ears and eyes cannot be wrong. Despite a corrupt, cronyistic and nasty National Government, people neither see nor hear a leader-in-waiting on the opposition bench who can lead a party that is ready to govern.
Labour needs to show it can get its own house in order and that it is a unified ‘broad church’ party from caucus to membership and affiliates, before it can convince people it is able to manage a coalition government, take the country through these difficult times, and start helping us all adapt to a different future of financial, energy and environmental crises and challenges.
Come on, Labour Caucus, come on and show us your better selves. Give us reasons, nay, just a very good reason, and remind and rally us, to provide our solid support to you so that you can govern for the common good, in the interest of the many of us in NZ.
Finally got round to watching Us Now last night. It highlights how people are organising via the internet and, interestingly, building trust. The lesson is clear, time for real democracy and not this BS representative democracy that got put in place because the rich/powerful were concerned that the people would lose their dependence upon them.
I’ll have a look at that, but have to say that plethora of white male faces on their youtube page doesn’t bode well. Nor the idea that we can all be connected as easily as on FB for the purposes of democracy.
…that plethora of white male faces on their youtube page doesn’t bode well.
Yes, I always find the ethnicity of the participants is a handy way of assessing how worthwhile something is… Oh, wait, I’ve got that the wrong way round – it’s completely fucking useless for that.
I know, it’s really bizarre to think that discussions about new kinds of democracy should include wimmen and non-white people, rather than it being optional.
personally weka, I find things don’t bode well when I see a plethora of brown faces.
funny how we think the same …………
how do you cope at the beach with all the tanned people, must be hell for you lol.
One of the points made in the documentary is that, through the online organising, people are no longer basing their decisions on what people look like or what they know of the person but what information the discussion has brought out. And one of the other points made was that wrong information is rapidly corrected – a point that was made by one of the women’s groups covered.
You fucking racist.
Reid poll???? snigger i would never dare to suggest nor hint that the Reid poll is possibly the most corrupted, twisted, biased poll of them all, never you hear,
Should be a giggle soon as the Slippery cheerleaders start squealing in delight over ‘national governing alone’ as they did during the last trimester…
+1
New definiton for poll: A form of self fulfilling prophecy; Dictating public opinion by telling the public what the publics’ opinion is.
I’d ban the publication of opinion polls in the 72 hours before a General Election.
I’d ban them 72 years before a general election
That may be a little extreme but they certainly need to be banned during the electioneering period.
I’m not convinced that they serve any legitimate democratic function at any time.
I’d go for two weeks minimum, but preferably six weeks or longer. Imagine how the media would have to change for a start.
I went for 72 hours in order to balance the need to maintain maximum media freedoms while still serving the needs of the democratic electoral process.
I would make it a rule that the results of a poll couldn’t be publisized unless they were good news for the party I support.
That doesn’t surprise me.
KK
That’s amusing. A sense of humour and self-deprecation unnoticed before. I must have missed it before.
Banned totally unless Nate Silver has personally approved the pollster’s methodology and media narrative told about it.
Three weeks will do.
Hmmm so if Labour was polling 47% and the Nats were on 31% you would still say the same thing?
Ignoring the polls won’t make them go away – they are a sign that the voting public is not happy with who Labour are right now and haven’t been since 2008.
Instead of bleating on for years about the inaccuracies of polls and how the evil Nats will be gone once the public awaken to cronyism Labour should have spent 2009-10 reviewing why they lost the lost 2008 election.
Having worked this out via review they should then have selected a whole new crop of candidates for the 2011 election with the aim of building towards a 2014 victory.
By 2014 you would have had a crop of keen, fresh upstarts chaffing at the bit to get into the treasury benches with a party and policy to match (and a leader??)
Key would have found it a lot harder to aim for a 3rd term under this scenario.
But no what did Labour do? Installed the old has beens in the caucus leadership, kept the same tired policies, and pretended that the polls were inaccurate.
Result? Record loss at the 2011 election, and very few new MP’s coming in. Throw in a new insipid leader, a broke party, and factional splits more ways than a dominos pizza.
Now everyone realizes that its a mess but who is gona fix it?
+1
And too many of the new MPs who did get in were chosen because of their support of the status quo hierarchy, not because they were expected to upset the status quo hierarchy.
Possibly but humanity is a strange beast.
At the last election a number of voters didn’t vote because they believed National had already won, i.e, influenced by the polls. If they had voted National wouldn’t be in power today.
Thing is, the people most likely to vote happen to be the right-wingers and so a poll that showed Labour was going to win may, in fact, spur more of them to vote rather than turn them off voting.
The fact that voting was influenced by the MSMs polling is why it needs to be banned before the election.
Um, what? It was one of the closest elections yet in NZ.
Oh! I wrote my comment without seeing yours!
I would agree with your generalisation that left voters are spineless morons.
Not spineless but a feeling of powerlessness. They will correct for that feeling in one way or another.
Why do we assume that the people who did not vote in 2011 were lefties. I have seen no evidence to suggest that proposition is correct.
The fact that the polls suggested National was going to win could have same effect on right leaning voters. Righties assuming they were going to win stayed at home as there was no real need to leave their palace to stand in a line to vote.
Some voters only get motivated if they think it will be close and their one vote will make a difference.
I am not saying that is the case but can has anyone got any evidence that the 2011 non-voters were proporitionally any different to those who did vote?
Some figures from http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/
Just looking at the Party votes:
Election Labour National
1999 800,199 629,932
2002 838,219 425,310
2005 935,319 889,813
2008 796,880 1,053,398
2011 614,937 1,058,636
While showing the total number of votes received, I couldn’t find the number of people enrolled to vote, so no idea if non-voters increased or decreased from election to election
Thanks Richard
What I am asking is how those numbers stack up for non-voters. It is quite possible that noone has any idea. But for some reason the left thinks the reason we lost was because a million people didn’t turn out to vote in 2011.
I want to know why we think those non-voters would have voted for the left?
The polls before and after the election would in fact suggest the opposite.
I happy to be proven wrong….
It’s a fact that’s been popping up in research around the world for the last 50+ years. The group most likely not to vote are the poor and they’re most likely to vote for a left leaning party if they voted.
Because left wing people are lazy?
Left wing people did the Long March and thew out the fucking Chinese capitalists, they also got rid of the Romanovs and then fucked the Wehrmacht
the neoliberal pricks took all the jobs away from the working class and now you have the gall to pick over the remains and call people lazy
If you want lazy look at the rentier capitalists who sit on their fat asses extracting money from actual productive workers.
Apart from rambling incoherently, I think the issue is that there is no left wing political party to vote for, just different shades of the market led capitalist status quo, and political leaders all hyper-attuned to the opinions of the comfortable middle class.
I didn’t call them lazy, I was worried you might be.
Nope.
They most likely would have split along the exact same lines as existed so you most likely would have got the same result.
Thinking about these numbers a bit more, two things emerge:
1. Bill English will never, ever lead the national party again (joy)
2. Labour has lost 320,000 voters since the 2005 election.
Surely someone in the Labour party would be wondering what the party should be doing to get those 320,000 voters back instead of plodding on with the same ol’, same ol’ bollocks which sees them shedding voters.
And the population has increased since 2005
It is the fault of the bloggers on The Standard?
It is the fault of David Cunliffe?
It can be fixed by coaching from Ian Fraser?
If the whole party was run a well as Wellington Central there would be no problem.
If Shearer was only given enough time, to prove himself, there would be no problem.
@ Jimmie
Hmmm so if Labour was polling 47% and the Nats were on 31% you would still say the same thing?
If Labour were doing the amount of dodgy things that Nat are; such as removing our rights and breaking rules left, right and centre and showing blatant disregard for democratic process on a regular basis and the polls were as positive for Labour as they are for Nats now, yes, I would still be thinking the same thing; that the pollsters are poll pushing ~ using polls to shift opinion. [Because, really, it is hard to see the politicians doing anything to warrant that level of popularity.]
“Ignoring the polls won’t make them go away”
I did not say I ignored the polls I said I have trouble trusting that they are anything other than tools of opinion manipulation. A good lie often has some truth involved. A little exaggeration perhaps can go a long way, for instance:
Why did so many stay at home on election day?
Could it be that lots of people thought “What is the bloody point; Nat is polling so high~everyone else must like them. My vote won’t make any difference.”?
Sometimes I suspect that the weakest point of left wing politics may be a certain naivety regarding how low political tactics can go; and discounting such tactics leaves us unable to counteract them. I am aware that opinion manipulation is a pretty sophisticated field of activity; there is a whole science developed on the subject. (more than one science).
Which brings me to the subject that you mainly speak of, a way forward: strategy.
I agree with your comments (which, by the way, require none of these reid/roymorgan polls to act upon ~ to have taken the election results seriously would have sufficed)
What you write is a pretty straight-forward common-sense dare I say obvious way to address the election result; which brings me to the question that naturally arises:
Where are Labour’s strategists? Who are they? Do they exist at all?, and if so, Where are their heads at???
They view the entire country and the wider electorate through bubble-lensed beltway glasses. Hopeless and disconnected.
The job market is ferocious for ordinary people ~ are political strategists immune to the pressures the rest of us are under?
Perhaps being fired might give them the life experience they require to engage in everyday issues. (Like joblessness, for example).
The advisors are usually amongst the most desperate to keep the status quo hierarchy in place; they know if the Leadership team changes, they too will most likely be gone.
Labour strategists and staffers have fuck all job options compared to the ones working for National. The Tories always look after their own. Well, unless you screw up on a Gilmore scale.
“Why did so many stay at home on election day” ?
Well just ;look at what they had to vote for, do you really blame them???
“Where are Labour’s strategists”? Mallard was one, maybe the only one??
“Who are they”? The same fools that have been there since the 2k5 election debacle.
“Do they exist at all?, Unfortunately yes
“Where are their heads at???” Firmly up their arses!
It may well be that at least a million plus Labour supporters stay home on polling day, or they vote Green.
@David H
re at least a million plus…Perhaps they are going for some sort of record?
+1, perfect summation Jimmie!
Labour – and in this case it is not nomen est omen – is outdated and irrelevant. The few good people who could have saved the day have been put into the corner of shame – for non compliance with these boarding school bullies. It is especially the young that are feeling disaffected and whilst they are not really looking to the Nats they have not many choices. The greens have too early aligned themselves with labour and thus stall. It would be better for the Greens to go it alone and split the vote at a far greater rate so that Dunne and the Teacaddy won’t be the deciders.
I belief that the time is not quite come for a New Labour but it will come.
Polls show that no left party has credibility to run the treasury benches. That’s all. Shearer said labour needs to concentrate on power and house affordability. What about things like international trade, r & d, super bubble and let’s talk about jobs. With GFC reclining now and natural market forces take over the only thing national needs to do is getting the debt levels down. Agree 200b is too much, 80b seems about the right gearing.
Labour is all about labour now.
Greens are all about labour swing voters and mana and Maori about individuals. National is the complete package at the moment
GFC has only just started.
Nah..surplus projected for next 10 years will kill that debt. Next step reign in council spending.
Nah, projected surpluses can’t be used to pay real debt. And those projections don’t take into account GFC phase 2, which is warming up.
Bill English has no plans to repay ANY debt. Hell just keep on rolling it over.
If theres a surplus, which seems to be just around the corner after the next election…. moving the goalposts every 9 months or so, it will go in tax cuts for the wealthy
+1
National understands that if there’s a government surplus then profits aren’t as high as they could be.
surplus projected for next 10 years will kill that debt.
That’s awesome. Your projected TAB winnings for the next 10 years will kill your mortgage, too.
So you oppose the anchor projects in Christchurch? (National’s ‘think big’ for the city council.)
For the millionth time: it’s the trend that matters.
And the trend says?
That Labour is holding at exactly the same levels as 2009 and 2010.
The Labour patient has been in coma all this time ??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUk0CZ_VjM8
That Labour and the Titanic have a lot in common.
Breaking news..4 MPs resign from labour tomorrow and defects to greens (2).. Mana(1) and independent (1)
dox or gtfo
Yes must be doing an apprenticeship with Garner
It is school holidays. Yes in bored.
Breaking news…….Yes drowns in his own excretia, excrement……no one cares. Particularly ShonKey Python – “Thank Christ……that wannabee fuckwit won’t be phoning again. I’ve told him/her/it time and time again. Ambassador Galapagos Islands has gone ! Gilmore. Shut the prick up”.
It was quite funny to watch, in a black-humour kind of way. Gower obviously feels like the result is a vindication of his efforts to put the vital political issues of the day in front TV3’s viewers – his choices for said vital political issues being, natch, Labour MPs in Sky City’s corporate box and the proposed “man ban” (in quotes because, apparently unlike the professionals working for TV3, I’m not a complete fucking idiot).
I am disappointed with the negativity shown here over Shearer. OK, I agree Labour is not doing well. But it is holding steady at 31% and the support partner Greens are steady at 12%. NZ First is inching up and I am sure it will cross 5% on election night. All Labour needs to do is claw up another 4% on election night. Then it will be a Labour-Green-NZ First-Hone Centre-Left government. I will start to worry only if Labour drops below 30%. Let us not destabilise the leadership now. Let us stay united folks.
I’m disappointed with the negativity shown towards the patient’s condition. He isn’t doing well, but he is holding steady at only losing one leg. Let’s not destabilise him by pointing out he’s lost a leg. Let’s stay united.
Besides, if we wish really hard other folks will come along to prop him up, which is practically the same as having two legs.
Wise words, very wise words.
If we don’t act now when it is important and possible to try and get some real Labour integrity in the Leadership, then when? The present poor cowardly pollies running the Left ticket, will be lucky to get their tired legs over the finish line.
Labour’s been steady on around 31 for four years. It’s not getting any better. In the latest poll Shearer’s personal competence rating dropped from 36 to 26. The public know he’s just not up to it.
If your hope of a Labour-led government relies on Shearer picking up four points against Key in the campaign, and Winston getting to five and choosing to play third fiddle to Labour and the Greens (with Hone at his side),then you’re dreaming. He’ll go play kingmaker with his old party the Nats in a second.
Labour can’t win with Shearer. He needs to go, as does every MP who devised and propped up this dreadful experiment. He owes it to Labour to do the honourable thing.
Totally agree Struth.
Why doesn’t he do the honourable thing?
Surely he can see he is useless. He’s earned good money as opposition leader, and he’s got plenty stashed away in his UN account. Why does he perpetuate his and Labour’s misery?
I suspect that “Core Labour Voter” … isn’t.
But the “destabilising” line needs exploring. Is it “destabilising” to point out that somebody else is destabilising? So if (e.g.) Shane Jones behaves like a dick, and breaks caucus discipline, is he destabilising, or are we the bad guys because we notice him doing it? If the leader destabilises the party by obeying the right-wing blogs, should we all pretend it didn’t happen?
Our job is to publicly support the destabilisers at the top, because anything else would destabilise, is that how it goes?
I suspect that the level of destabilising dickishness comes down to whether the response is proportionate to the perceived fault, and whether the perceived fault is at all reflective of an actual fault.
E.g. if there was, say, a remit that was shilly-shallied on and then kicked back to council (sorry, council were “asked to reconsider it”), was this poor form because the leader was destabilising the party by obeying the right-wing blogs that thought up a catchy critical tag for that remit, or was the leader boldly listening to the wishes of those proud internet Waitakere Men within the Labour membership who felt that for the good of Labour the remit should never have gotten so far in the process and that even taking the remit to conference was electoral suicide? Or maybe all sides within Labour acted like a dick on that one.
There’s no way that such a centre left coalition will last even 6 months; especially if Shearer is still Labour’s leader and therefore PM. Shearer cant manage Labour and its factions now; let alone a coalition that includes the Greens, NZ First and Mana.
But it would be fun to watch him try.
Fair point.
center left?? hone is not center left neither are the greens, both are far left fringe extremists hone particularly. All these egos and nutters in power hone/winston/wussell/lab hacks left over from the clark regime will be an absolute disaster
This response is the reason why Labour cannot gain ground. No idea about the future, just hold steady at 30%…..obviously there is no interest and passion for capturing the PEOPLE’S imagination and trying to gun for a majority at the next election.
Seems a little ironic to me that with polls falling short of where labor was in 2008 that Helen Clark is in/ shortly to be in (?) town. She might have a few words of wisdom about how to pull a divided team together…
Yes.
It might be nice to imagine we’re otherwise, but humans are creatures of emotion and perception. And the thing that the public think of as “Labour” has failed to create these in adequate measure (I’d argue since 2005 or 2006).
It’s the infighting, stupid.
Why should the rest of us vote for a party who can’t even get behind their leader?
We should be at that point where Mike Smith rows in with a patrician ticking off for all of us.
🙂
It’s time to put differences aside and firmly unite behind David Shearer, who is the leader and our only hope.
Stay firm, David S.
Our household had the pollsters phone in for this Reid Research poll. The questions were so focused we thought it was the Labour Party doing an “internal” poll. The family member who answered the pollster obviously thinks very much like the rest of NZ – Shearer (and the ABCs) have got it totally wrong. The Labour caucus will be history if they don’t change!
Labour internal polls tend to be by UMR.
Part of the problem is the closeness to the Green Party. Time for David S. to put some space between Labour and the more extreme Green policies.
He seems to follow Norman. It cannot continue that way.
Lol
Gee Labour going down in the polls…theres a surprise but don’t wonrry its probably just a rogue poll and the only one that counts is on election day 🙂
It’s more complicated than that, Winston.
1. The polls are rogue.
2. All polls are captured by corporate interests and they make the results up to discourage the left.
3. People are waking up. Why, I just spoke to someone the other day who has voted for John Key and now sees he is corrupt.
4. Labour is not popular because it is too right wing. Once it moves left of the Mana party, it will be massively popular.
I second your superb analysis.
Don’t forget;
5. On the third coup he arose triumphant to heal the hearts of the unfaithful. And lo, Cunliffe did give the right of the caucus sight and to the left he brought wisdom and he ruled forever and ever.
Amen.
“Labour is not popular because it is too right wing. Once it moves left of the Mana party, it will be massively popular.”
I’d be happy if they moved to the left of the National party.
Shearer is lucky the earthquake hit and took away attention from this poll. The TV1 poll will be interesting. I assume it is next weekend?
Another bad poll, another nail in the coffin for Shearer. Hard to see how he will be able to move on with this continued scrutiny of his leadership. Once it starts, it is hard to shake off esp when your colleagues are trying to undermine you.
erikter is a troll.
it is saying the opposite on other pages.
erikter to be banned again
On a serious note for a change, how dispiriting is it for you Labour supporters to see Labour going backwards yet knowing how simple a fix it would be to get Labour going forward.
The ideas that are bandied about are quite simple: replace Shearer, older MPs to leave, work as a team, stop shooting yourselves in the foot and refocus on the working man and woman
Its not hard or earth shattering yet time and time again Labour start to gain traction yet someone comes along and sticks their fott in their mouth
I don’t know how you do it
You are right that the formula is simple.
But you are wrong that it is merely “dispiriting”. It is much worse than that to have a crooked liar and ex-money trader as the Prime Minister. Someone who panders to the dollar over everything else. Someone who lies so easily he can’t even keep up himself. Someone who continually makes things harder for the lowly and easier for the rich. Someone who wants to record all of my information all day every day. Someone who lies and in a complete and utter fascist manner trashes democracy so that his voters can steal water they could not otherwise obtain for their greedy desires.
You sound like you are one of those unaffected by the acts and lies of this corrupt government and its arsehole participants.
No not really but the economy is doing better than most, unemployment down, crime down so looking at the big picture NZ is in a pretty good place
Don’t forget that people in my boat just made another $70000 on the value of their house in the last year. Yay National.
fool
cool, what did you buy with it?
lol
I bought a new monocle and a beautifully crafted walking cane with which to strike street urchins who get in my way when traveling to my club.
*whoosh*
King kong so sophisticated as I didn’t expect caves were so valuable!
Your an example of primitive instincts destroying 100’s of 1,000’s of years of civilization .
Don’t beat your chest to loudly !
New Zealand is not a good place when every second person is using the Hooton inspired interrogative figure of speech.
This one was dreamed up by him to distinguish National Party supporters from others and it is disrespectful, an invalid argument from authorty and dishonest.
Its all over the talkshows and the sports announcers and it is the most dishonest result of slimy politics this country has ever seen.
isn’t it?
Exactly how low does labour have to go in the polls, until the “You have to look at the trends” people will admit, they’re in trouble.
They’ll never admit it…
They’re right though, you do have to look at the trends. Anything else is noise.
And the trend shows Labour has been flatlining for a long long time.
Not really. A long gradual positive incline followed by a steeper (but not yet deeper) dip.
Causes? Maybe labour. Maybe the time of year. My personal suspicion is that it might have something to do with two or three of the main political editors in NZ media having placed their reputations on the line for poor labour performance and a leadership change. If there is no leadership change before the end of the year, people might think they are full of shit. If there is a change, they are mystically-gifted seers. If labour goes down further, it’s a “crisis for Shearer”. If labour go up a few points, it’s “might not be enough to save him”. If it goes up further, it’s “managing to hold off the challengers… for now”. My point being that it’s not more than just “tory media” – senior individuals have essentially staked their professional reputation on the labour caucus being a simmering pot of discontent just waiting to boil over. How true that is, or whether people have largely jiggled into their respective roles, is now irrelevant to the story.
How long does it take to get signatures on a letter, anyway? Don’t they only need something like 18?
“A long gradual positive incline followed by a steeper (but not yet deeper) dip”
Mostly within the margin of error. Labour’s polling in real terms is flat.
What – 27 to 35-odd is flat? Nope. That would be underfitting a trendline for rhetorical effect. In fact given that the election is the absolute measure of support (rather than the estimate of support that the polls are – an election is a complete count of the population who cast a valid vote, rather than a likely sample of that population), there shouldn’t even be a MoE on 27%.
“Close to where they started”, maybe, but not “flat”.
Dead flat from 2009 and 2010.
By that logic, Edmund Hillary had a dead flat walk between March and June, 1953.
More like walking to the bottom of the cook strait and coming back up on to dry land.
And who led labour to the bottom of Cook Strait? I suppose at the moment they’re wandering around the foothills of the Kaikouras, to torture the analogy. Who knows whether they’ll head off to Aoraki/Mt Cook, or boldly stomp off towards the Pacific Basin? Certainly not Garner or Gower.
But at least you’re getting the idea that similar elevations quite some distance apart do not mean that the intermediate elevations are “dead flat”.
Fuck you’re a valiant, if oblique, defender of the current Labour hierarchy.
Labour under Shearer is polling exactly the same as Goff, at the same stage of the triannum. The current polling performance is nothing more than a reversion to the 2009/2010 mean. Dead flat in other words.
On what fucking planet is “steep descent into a deep valley, followed by a long but gradual rise, and then a bit of a drop over the last wee bit to end up at roughly the same elevation before the descent” ever a description that is interchangeable with “dead flat”? Try walking the two, and you might figure out why you’re underfitting the trendline for rhetorical effect. Or, in words you can understand, “making shit up”.
I don’t care how elaborate a path you’ve taken mate, Labour is right back where it was in 2009, 2010, and most of 2011.
To be slightly more precise, you don’t care to let reality get in the way of your assessments of labour’s performance over the last couple of terms.
For example, the half dozen morgan polls in 2009 where Labour polled in the high 20s. Number of times they’ve polled in the 20s since the 2011 election? Four. None in 2013. Although Labour did slightly better over 2008, (difference seems to be the greens were polling quite a bit lower but that might imply that labour going more left might simply take votes from the greens). 2011 results don’t seem to be on the RM website, but ISTR Labour having at least one RM result in the low 20s during 2011.
“Dead flat” indeed.
OK I admit it, you got me fair and square. There is a real difference between 28% in 2009 and 31% in 2013. Shearer should certainly take all the credit that difference entails.
Shearer should not disproportionately take so very much credit for that 3 percent diff. There is also someone called Shonkey.
aaaaand – you’ve lost the point again. Shit must have been getting too real for you.
You want to give Shearer the credit for that massive uplift? Cool.
Go die in a ditch with Shearer if you like, McFlock, good luck to you mate.
you almost had it, too. “dead flat”… all that?
You still trying to prove yourself right on a technicality? Hey good for you, I concede, you win.
A move in the polls from 28% to 31% over 4 years is not “dead flat”. It’s actually a solid positive trend. Labour should be at 34% under Shearer, by say 2017.
Given that an RM poll just before the election had labour on 23%, and that 31% is the low point of the trends over the last few months, it’s more than a technicality. But the point, yet again, is that calling the line between 2009 and now “flat” is fucking stupid. It’s like calling the earth “blue” and saying no more thought about it is needed. But you need to look at labour’s polling with such massive granularity because if you actually looked at the details you’d have to admit that the world is slightly more complex that ‘cunliffe good leader, everyone else in caucus evil and/or abjectly incompetent leader’.
I’ve already admitted that Shearer has caused an uplift in the polls to 31%. What more do you want?
What would you know about concepts of leadership complexity? Shearer is just fine, remember.
Are you really so stupid as to think that:
A) because the line between two arbitrarily-selected points is straight, the best description of the observations between those points is also a straight line; and
B) party polling is interchangeable in meaning with party leadership;
so therefore
Conclusion) the entirety of party leadership performance can bejudged by the slope of a straight line between two arbitrarily-selected points?
Any one of those statements is stupid, and yet that seems to be the gist of your argument: shearer is proved to be bad because the polls have not much slope between two arbitrary points.
“Arbitrarily selected” lolz.
Point (a) is Labour’s support when Shearer took office. Point (b) is Labour’s support now.
If you think there are any two less arbitrary points by which to measure Labour’s performance under Shearer’s leadership, I’d love to know what they are.
Apart from the fact that CV wasn’t using election night as his initial points for “dead flat” were “2009 and 2010”. But even if we compared the real observation of election night (rather than an RM estimate from Nov2011), the best description of the RM estimates between those points is not a straight line, “flat” or otherwise.
The last three RM points have been a deviation from the pattern over the last 18 months (three consecutive falls for Labour), and this is a concern. About three times as much of a concern as a single lower point – so I’m not shitting bricks just yet.
But what’s more of a concern for me is the frenzy by Garner/Gower et al – it could possibly just be a self-fulfiling prophecy (a bit like talking down stock price). If it’s genuinely someone else in caucus angling for position before list selection (I don’t think it’s Cunliffe if it is), then they deserve a kick in the nuts. Taking this long to have the confidence issue done and dusted beggars belief.
Heh – come to think of it, if there is someone trying to do that and making such a pig’s breakfast of it, then the lack of political deftness would seem to be in character for someone who likes to shit on Labour’s only real coalition hope for the government benches… well, now that Chris carter’s gone, anyway 🙂
“the best description of the RM estimates between those points is not a straight line, “flat” or otherwise.”
And the difference between those two points is…
Its an upslope, I tellsya, Shearer despite a few minor flaws has been such a boost for Labour, why can’t everyone see that?! Yer bunch of ungrateful Judases!
One was the upswing of a downward trend (RM had one point before the election of lab on 23.5%) whereas the other is the downswing on an upward trend?
18 months?
Whether your glasses tint is rosy red, tory blue, or depression black?
3.5% is the most charitable reading. And most of that was made up in the first month.
1. Shearer took over leadership of Labour in December 2011 after an election result of 27.5%.
2. The first RM of 2012 had Labour still at 27.5%.
3. By the end of Jan 2012 RM had Labour at 30.5%
4. 18 months later Labour is at 31%
It’s margin of error stuff whichever way you look at it.
If you insist on ignoring every single datapoint in between.
If you ignore the possibility (likelihood) that RM used the election to calibrate their regional and demographic sampling weights in order to make the first poll after the election match the election result.
If you ignore the other parties and performance of likely coalition partners in parliament and pretend it’s an FPP two-horse race.
If you’re prepared to throw out every principle of statistical analysis in the textbook, just so you can act all emo teen, then if all that, why even bother looking at the polls? Reality might get in the way of a really good sulk.
lolz. Are you saying that the current level (31%) is wildly out of step with the rest of the datapoints?
What is the median level of support over the past 18 months?
ps you’re right I don’t know much about statistical data analysis. What does it indicate when the mean, median and mode are the same?
Over time-series datapoints between 27% to 35.5%? It means you’re trying to find a midpoint of the set rather analyse whether/how the set has changed over time. Finding a line of best fit would be more suitable.
It also means that this insomnia is a bitch, and I’ll probably be quite nasty todarrow. But then you’re in the same boat, unless you’re shiftworking. 🙂
…it might have something to do with two or three of the main political editors in NZ media having placed their reputations on the line for poor labour performance and a leadership change.
That’s my suspicion too. Watching Gower peddling a survey he’s had done on whether Labour voters think Shearer needs to go for Labour to win the next election, I was wondering why he’d commission that poll – the most plausible answer is he’s now got a personal stake in Shearer getting rolled, having effectively staked his reputation on it.
Reputation??????????????
Mine Potty,Gower???????
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m sure he thinks he has one.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The leader David Shearer needs to stay for Labour to win the next election.
Shearer has shown himself to be lacking, Labour needs someone who is willing to stand up and fight.
Shearer has been handed an enormous amount of ammunition by National in the form of lies and half truths he could have used to cut Keys down to size and yet he has repeatedly failed to monopolize on these opportunities. He has to GO NOW and let someone more capable such as Annette King take the reigns.