100 Days

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, June 15th, 2017 - 36 comments
Categories: election 2017 - Tags: , , ,

It’s 100 days to the election!

Grant Duncan puts his finger on a defining issue:
‘Completely broken’? Widening inequality fuels discontent among Kiwis

Audrey Young has a roundup of where the party campaigns and organisation are at:
100 Days to Go: Parties gearing up their army of volunteers as campaigns

Tracy Watkins reflects on the phony war:
100 day countdown to the election – are you ready?

John Armstrong tries to expect the unexpected:
Can Andrew Little do a Jeremy Corbyn?

The pollsters try and cover their arses:
UK and US results make NZ pollsters nervous

Winston Peters reclines in his arm chair stroking a white cat:
Polls underline NZ First’s kingmaker status
Sigh.

Young voters have the power, if they choose to use it:
Political Roundup: Youthquake unlikely to shakeup NZ politics
Be the change!

36 comments on “100 Days ”

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  1. dukeofurl 1
    15 June 2017 at 10:31 am

    “UK and US results make NZ pollsters nervous”
    Shouldnt , as MMP with a single list means the popular vote matches the final result ( minus the parties under 5% and plus the small party overhangs)
    That isnt the case in US or UK.
    Plus we dont do exit voting, but nowdays the early voters are counted during the day so results given not long after polls close, these are pretty good overall indication.

  2. Adrian Thornton 2
    15 June 2017 at 11:20 am

    “Can Andrew Little do a Jeremy Corbyn?”

    Sadly after meeting Andrew the answer is no, not saying he isn’t a nice guy who seems pretty authentic for a politician, but a transformative left wing progressive that will inspire and rally thousands of people to fight for an equal and fair society for all, he would be doing that now if he was ever going to.

    No he and Labour seem more focused on getting the middle classes to canvas and rally for them, or that is what it sounded like at his speech…good luck with that project.

    After all the speeches Little and Arden have just gone around the country giving, and they still haven’t broken 30% in the polls…what an embarrassment.

    Turn labour Left!

    • JanM 2.1
      15 June 2017 at 11:56 am

      I think it says a lot about how used people have become to being treated with facile charm – the polls I have seen still rate John Key highly even though he’s gone. It’s going to take a while for people’s brains to switch back on again, I’m afraid – it’s a bit like the effects of grooming by a predator. They’ve got so used to being promised chocolate cake it’s a bit difficult to face being encouraged to eat your vegetables again

    • Enough is Enough 2.2
      15 June 2017 at 12:26 pm

      I agree.

      Andrew is a thoroughly decent human being and will make a good Prime Minister.

      But he needs to be himself and not try and emulate Corbyn.

      Corbyn is a tireless life long campaigner for truly socialist values. If Little tried to copy that it would be a tad insincere, as he has not campaigned on those values in the past.

    • Bill 2.3
      15 June 2017 at 1:14 pm

      Thinking it can all be summed up by Labour’s use of the slogan or term “Kiwi dream”.

      Please tell if I’m wrong, but that term is essentially white and middle class – whether aspiring middle class or arrived.

      I’m an immigrant and don’t consider myself as a kiwi. No other immigrants I know (a fair few) do either. I doubt if many Maori consider themselves as kiwis. Neither, I imagine would the PI community…

      I’ve no problem being corrected on that.

      But going on it being accurate enough, and then reflecting on Andrew Little saying he was on the side of home-owners (so not renters) and putting housing affordability fairly high up on the list of Labour priorities…

      Yawn – this election is gearing up to be another dead space choice between *this* liberal or *that* liberal.

      • Adrian Thornton 2.3.1
        15 June 2017 at 2:28 pm

        Yes I think you are right, It seems from the outside, that staunch Labour centrists and strategists have installed an obsessive fear of a ‘middle class backlash’ into the Labour hierarchy, so whatever interesting shifts to the Left that might have resulted as an obvious move from Labour NZ in light of the UK results last week, will be nullified by this constant and powerful centering force within Labour NZ.
        So boring liberal politics from centre NZ for the next 100 days about is right.

        Turn Labour Left!

      • Stunned Mullet 2.3.2
        15 June 2017 at 2:50 pm

        “Yawn – this election is gearing up to be another dead space choice between *this* liberal or *that* liberal.”

        Far better to have a choice between *this* authoritarian/libertarian/conservative or *that* authoritarian/libertarian/conservative.

        • Stuart Munro 2.3.2.1
          15 June 2017 at 2:53 pm

          Only if the choice is which goes into the tiger pit first.

        • Ed 2.3.2.2
          15 June 2017 at 9:04 pm

          Only if you’re a libertarian ideologue.

        • Richard McGrath 2.3.2.3
          15 June 2017 at 10:34 pm

          You realise that libertarians and authoritarians are polar opposites?

          • Stuart Munro 2.3.2.3.1
            15 June 2017 at 11:32 pm

            Only in principle – most in NZ are only tax libertarians and have no principles at all – this was demonstrated pretty solidly by the usual suspects on the Green cannabis bill thread. Real libertarians have no reason to oppose it.

  3. greywarshark 3
    15 June 2017 at 11:56 am

    I suggest you print off some flyers perhaps two or four to an A4 sheet, and they can be cut up, or even torn along the crease, easy-peasy no style no glossiness just the message, and put them up on bulletin boards for the next few months. Perhaps cellotaped or bluetack rather than drawing pins.

    Message – You’re young, the future is yours.
    VOTE for it.
    Only you can shape it.

    See them everywhere – get through the cynical Iron Curtain.

  4. Vinnie 4
    15 June 2017 at 1:15 pm

    Turn Labour left
    Then I’ll vote for them…
    And more

    • greywarshark 4.1
      15 June 2017 at 1:35 pm

      Vinnie Vinnie!
      Put your back into it, don’t sit like a ragged lord on the kerb and order Labour to do what you want. Get them moving following your lead and initiative, shame the buggers into action, and threaten them with a pie in the face (of very sour cream)
      if they don’t. We will have lots of sour cream to do that with before long. After Gnashional have finished milking us of every possible piece of muck, on the basis of where there is muck there is brass.

    • Ed 4.2
      15 June 2017 at 9:03 pm

      So you’ll let English, Joyce, Brownlee, Bennett, Collins and their corporate masters run amok for another 3 years???

  5. Stuart Munro 5
    15 June 2017 at 2:52 pm

    Seems about right – I’ll be voting Green – they haven’t shafted me yet. Can’t see anything to attract youth to Labour, or any signs of material action to avert the crash that is coming.

    Arguably, topping the world in suicide means the crash is already here.

  6. Cinny 6
    15 June 2017 at 3:12 pm

    Can Andrew Little do a Jeremy Corbyn?… uh noooo, he will do better than that, he’ll do an ‘Alpha’ and become the next PM of NZ.

  7. greg 7
    15 June 2017 at 3:21 pm

    young voters wont vote so they will just need to suck it up

    • left_forward 7.1
      15 June 2017 at 3:47 pm

      grump, grump

    • Cinny 7.2
      15 June 2017 at 4:25 pm

      Not around these part’s, many people have had enough of this government, have talked to a number of people in their late 20’s who will be voting for the first time ever.

      If Agent Orange has done anything, he’s ensured that people are a bit more engaged with politics. Everyone had/has an opinion on the Trump Circus

  8. Michael who failed Civics 8
    15 June 2017 at 5:25 pm

    “Young voters have the power, if they choose to use it” – and the best way for voters, young and old, to use that power is not to vote for Labour until it apologises for neoliberalism and releases credible, no-bullshit, alternative policies to the neoliberal status quo. There’s no chance of that happening this year. 2020?

    • Grafton Gully 8.1
      15 June 2017 at 6:36 pm

      There will be a powerful new populist party after the crash if history is anything to go by.

      • Michael who failed Civics 8.1.1
        15 June 2017 at 11:23 pm

        That’s what I worry about. A younger, non-lazy, version of Winston with very shiny black shoes whipping up the proles against …
        It will happen as long as the progressive left don’t bother to provide an alternative to populism. And the progressive left are no longer welcome in the Labour Party (AFAICS, they’ve been shut of the Greens too).

    • Korero Pono 8.2
      15 June 2017 at 8:58 pm

      +100, maybe by 2020 they’ve finally clean all the neolibs out. Sadly most New Zealanders are stuck in a mind set that National and Labour are and can only ever be New Zealand’s main political parties, thankfully we’re not doomed by having them as our only choices.

  9. Philj 9
    15 June 2017 at 8:44 pm

    Labourlite is lost. It is riven and doesn’t really know how to present policy for ALL of the people in this country. A recent opinion piece by Hawkes Bay Labour candidate Ann Lorck singing the praises of RSE schemes as underpinning the successful local economy is testimony to how out of touch Labour is. Sad. Provide some real and realistic policies that overturns neo liberal orthodoxy and speaks to the youth of Aotearoa. If not now … when? Where is our Jeremy?

    • Ed 9.1
      15 June 2017 at 9:02 pm

      So are you voting for English and more extreme neo-liberalism?

      • Richard McGrath 9.1.1
        15 June 2017 at 10:39 pm

        “Extreme neo-liberalism”?? Try Labour-lite.

        No meaningful tax cuts or deregulation. Election year bribes to outflank Labour on the left. Don’t worry guys, the left will win this election, no matter which major party comes out on top.

        The neo-liberal party is on a stunning 0.9% in today’s poll.

        • Ed 9.1.1.1
          16 June 2017 at 5:41 am

          Have you heard of Overton’s window?

          ‘our “Overton window” – through which the boundaries between political orthodoxy and heresy are defined – has shifted very considerably to the right in the past 30 years. Political philosophies and policies that would in 1981 have seemed “loony right” are now viewed as mainstream, and formerly social-democrat positions are commonly reviled as somehow Marxist.

          Trident excepted, most of what Corbyn stands for today is closer to Shirley Williams than to Michael Foot. This is why Corbyn is so popular. It is not that he is hard left: it is because the current position of the Overton window is repellent to millions of ordinary citizens who wish to live in a more decent society than ours has become.’

          https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/24/framing-jeremy-corbyn-overton-window

    • Michael who failed Civics 9.2
      15 June 2017 at 11:25 pm

      Not happening under this bunch of careerist, time-serving hacks (aka the Labour caucus). It’s either 2020 or Trump style populist kleptocracy for us.

  10. saveNZ 10
    16 June 2017 at 9:50 am

    For Gods sake if anybody doesn’t want to vote Labour, at least vote for the Greens, if you want further left policy!

    If you don’t like what the National Party have done in the last decade and want to guarantee a change of government that’s pretty much your choices.

    Everyone else apart from Mana (if they keep Te Tai Tokerau, fingers crossed) might join up with the Natz!

    Not voting, is like giving a vote to National and ACT, because that’s part of National’s brighter future, Keeping the ‘renta crowd’, homeless and disillusioned, confused about their choices, to do nothing and let’s the Natz future come to fruition without a fight.

    If you are still blaming Labour after nearly a decade of National rule, you might as well pin on a National Supporter badge and start posting anti Labour messages at Whale Oil.

  11. Tamati Tautuhi 11
    16 June 2017 at 4:29 pm

    NZF is the only rational alternative.