"Mixed feelings"? The 1984-1993 economic reforms were evil. No mixed feelings about that. Quite apart from the obvious point: Hipkins has no values.
A world where all List MPs live in Wellington is a world where half of Parliament is made up of Wellingtonians. That's not exactly a representative Parliament, is it? A List MP from outside Wellington ought to get the allowance too.
National's Michael Woodhouse was a Dunedin-based List MP for years. Katherine Rich before him. He'd never win the electorate, of course, but him being a list MP based out of Dunedin provided the city with extra representation that wasn't just Labour. List ...
North Otago is not as conservative as Rural Southland. Rural Southland is hard-right conservative. North Otago, assuming you include Oamaru, is actually pretty close to a national bellwether. Taking out Oamaru still leaves North Otago as moderately blue - ...
The President has veto power.
Couldn't care less about liberalism. Social democracy, or (god forbid) democratic socialism is the reason the New Zealand Labour Party exists.
Winston Peters could have legitimately opted for Bill English in 2017, but he didn't. He could not have legitimately opted for Chris Hipkins in 2023.
They got 35% in 1993 and 34% in 1996.
National has nothing against the Maori language. They simply find it a handy tool to inflict culture war on the country, as a distraction from class war.
National and ACT are supremely effective representatives of class interest (New Zealand First doesn't care). Of course they'd repeal the FPAs ASAP. If Labour were as effective at representing class interest, they wouldn't have waited until the last year of...
We're happy enough to help defend Australia - but that's largely moot, since Australia is not under any threat whatsoever. The real threat to be avoided is Australia dragging us into one of Washington's imperial projects.
I despise the incoming government as much as anyone... but can we please criticise them without the classist nonsense about Workingmen's Clubs? Not least because, you know, the sort of employment law or tax policy envisaged by a 1970s Workingmen's Club ...
First thought on the new cabinet: there's only one South Islander (Doocey) in the entire bunch (Simmonds and Patterson are outside cabinet, making it 3/28 across the entire ministry). 1/20 is rather shitty representation when you make up a quarter of the ...
I voted Labour, and I can assure you that that would be signing the party's electoral death warrant in 2026 (seriously, it would make 2023 look like 2020). If there's no deal, there will have to be another election in 2024.
I remember the (justified) pushing of David Cunliffe in 2014. 2023 was worse, in electorate terms, than 2014, and yet people are still willing to tolerate Mr Captains Call. The fact that Hipkins is not being held accountable for this disaster - and the ...
The other example is 1912, a change of government from Liberal to Reform in the middle of a term, without an election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_New_Zealand_general_election
Dunedin is an interesting one. The Dunedin electorate saw vast numbers of Green voters party voting Green and electorate voting Labour. So Rachel Brooking emerged with a comfortable majority. In fact, National's result was so poor that it actually looks ...
Once a Labour electorate goes Green, it's damned hard for Labour to get it back - Wellington Central is probably gone for good, so far as Labour is concerned, though they might have a shot at Rongotai in future. This also creates an interesting issue for ...
Taieri improving now that South Dunedin is coming in. A bit depressing in that the National candidate did not actually campaign.
It's actually more that the markets do not actually believe the libertarian nonsense that cutting taxes will increase revenue. What happened with Liz Truss is roughly as follows: Surprise announcement of giant tax cuts. Markets realise this will create a ...
A couple of fundamental differences: Muldoon ran the best election campaign ever seen in New Zealand, capped by his vast superannuation bribe. National is not running an amazing campaign, and rather than a flagship policy, literally runs on not being ...
This is not the NZ First of 2017. This is Winston running as a full conspiracy theorist. National being held hostage by both Seymour and Winston would be an utterly terrifying sight.
And before 1997, it had been 47 years since UK Labour had won an election without a leader named Wilson. By your reasoning, the post-1997 party would have been better off running a Harold Wilson tribute act.
Under MMP, the winner of 1978 and 1981 would be decided by Social Credit. Rural electorates did not have a smaller population. The problem was that Labour's vote was more concentrated. The Maori seats (acting as a pro-National gerrymander) did not help.
They buy our dairy, and we buy their manufactured goods. I believe the expression is knowing which side our bread is buttered. But short of New Zealand developing a new and massive export industry to replace dairy (which would require many years of work, a...
We're never becoming a state of Australia (our interests are too different). Frankly, Australia itself is already having the problem of divergent interests between the dominant eastern states and Western Australia. New Zealand has always been agricultural....
"Breaking open" China is perhaps a bit of a misnomer, in the sense that you make it sound like Beijing was a passive actor here. China bought itself not only milk powder for its middle class, but also bought New Zealand as an economic client - a ...
If they get 15 total, they'll indeed get a third South Island one. Which is fine. It's just that if they get 11 (or less) total, they'll only get one.
People on the Right want tax cuts so long as others pay for it via service cuts.
The Greens are being sensible by downplaying the Identity Politics stuff and appealing to the universal (wealth tax, dentistry). And Labour under Hipkins has not helped itself. Another perk of the Greens doing well is that they have a chance of bringing in...
In 2008-2017, National was dealing with vassal parties. ACT is too damned big to be a vassal now (a good twice the size of NZ First, even if Winston gets in).
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