Herald-Digipoll

31 comments on “Herald-Digipoll ”

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1. gobsmacked 1

   3 March 2008 at 11:54 am

   Interesting findings on possible coalitions:

   “After determining which party each respondent supported, they were asked which party they would prefer to partner with to form a Government. And the Maori Party is not a favourite among National supporters.

   More National supporters backed a deal with New Zealand First, 30.2 per cent, over other parties. Next preferred was United Future with 21.8 per cent, and even 17.8 per cent of National supporters preferred a deal with the Greens, who are more natural allies of Labour. Only 11.4 per cent of National supporters preferred a deal with the Maori Party.”

   So National’s strategy is to kill off the partner their voters favour most, and embrace the one they like least.
2. TomS 2

   3 March 2008 at 12:10 pm

   And the collapse of the anti-Labour vote into National continues. It seems that people who don’t want Labour have worked out that under MMP National is going to have a massive problem trying to govern without a coalition partner, so everyone who wants a change of government have lined up behind National to try and give it a mandate to rule alone or, most relevantly, and get rid of Labour. But this poll just underlines National’s problem. On these figures, there will be a 6-seat overhang in the parliament (http://www.elections.org.nz/calculator/). All Labour has to do on that basis is pitch some policies aimed at clawing back 5% or so, and (I am assuming the Greens secure 6%, ACT, and NZF fail to get a seat and Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne win their electorates) the kingmakers will be the Maori Party. Now, despite all the talk about the Maori Party going with National its MOST likely they’ll try and secure there policy objective from Labour.

   So here is a question for all those rednecks out there: Do you realise that trying to obtain the unobtainable – a single party government under an electoral system partially designed to prevent such a thing ever occurring – you are going to let Hone Hawawiri and Tariana Turia name their separatist price, and simply wait to see if Labour will swallow the rat, or if National is desperate to do what it takes for power?
3. outofbed 3

   3 March 2008 at 1:28 pm

   So 24% of Green Voters favour National as a coalition partner
   Yeah right!
4. outofbed 4

   3 March 2008 at 1:34 pm

   How many people were polled ? Does anyone Know ?
5. gobsmacked 5

   3 March 2008 at 1:40 pm

   ‘No Right Turn’ does the professional job that the Herald can’t (or won’t) do:

   http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2008/03/not-meaningful.html
6. Phil 6

   3 March 2008 at 3:28 pm

   OOB,

   It’s usually 1000 people, but the poll-sters have demographic targets which are wieghted back to the last census.
7. Phil 7

   3 March 2008 at 3:33 pm

   Taking into account “No Right Turn” and his/her statistical rules of thumb, all we can conclude thus far is that it’s not possible to tell which party Maori voters would prefer to join in coalition. It could be Labour, or it could just as easily be National.

   Interestingly, the Maori party is virtually last cab off the rank for both major parties. That suggests to me that, as I have long suspected, there are just as many racists on the left of centre as the right of centre.
8. Matthew Pilott 8

   3 March 2008 at 3:50 pm

   Phil, it (the MP being the “last cab off the rank for both major parties”) might have something to do with Turia burning bridges with Clark, an ideological diaparity compared with the Greens and co, but hey, take the cheap shot option why don’t you?

   I strongly dislike the Maori party. Do you think I’m a racist?
9. Steve Pierson 9

   3 March 2008 at 3:51 pm

   Phil. To think that most Maori voters would rather go with Labour is to assume that Maori political views have performed a dramatic about turn for no reason. Maori have always voted Left, previous Maori parties have always been left-wing forces (apart from Mana Wahine, which didn’t stand for anything). In the 2002 election, the most popular party for Maori was Labour with something like 80%, followed by the Greens, and then National with something like 5%.

   You don’t have to be racist to not prefer the Maori Party as a coalition partner more than any other party. a) it could be your second choice b) there can be other reasons for being wary of the Maori Party, such as the fact, reflected in this thread, that people aren’t quite sure where the MP stands ideologically.

   captcha: mountain sized. that’s big.
10. Matthew Pilott 10

    3 March 2008 at 3:52 pm

    I meant to say “disparity” back up there.

    Steve – whoa, get out of my head!!
11. Inventory2 11

    3 March 2008 at 4:06 pm

    Tane – what I find strangest about the Green Party in the Herald DigiPoll is that their support in Auckland (3.4%) is 25% less than their support nationally (4.3%). It’s long been said, electorally speaking, that where Auckland goes, so goes New Zealand, and if that is the case, the Greens have a major problem.
12. outofbed 12

    3 March 2008 at 4:11 pm

    i dont know how many people they poll in AKl
    but say 300
    300 x 3.4% = 10 people
    6% would be 18 people

    says it all really
13. Tane 13

    3 March 2008 at 4:21 pm

    IV2 – yeah, I’d be careful reading too much into such small numbers (when you’re isolating Green voters in Auckland the sample size becomes very small). Only recently the Herald was making a big deal about the Greens scoring (from memory) only 1% in Auckland.
14. outofbed 14

    3 March 2008 at 4:22 pm

    Those six people could have been out dressed as frogs and not near a phone:-)
15. insider 15

    3 March 2008 at 4:30 pm

    I wonder how well the Greens do in NElson?

    But seriously, the entrenchment of the Maori Party will make any kind of reform of te seats very difficult as you will effectively disenfranchise a whole party (which will be seen rightly or wrongly as disenfranchising a people) if you try to remove them.

    But will the other pollies and the public allow the MP to have a continuance of such political power out of synch with their actual support, particularly if they try and play games with it (though such power might moderate rather than radicalise)?

    I think having a racially based party with 1% support potentially holding the balance of power election after election is quite a significant constitutional issue. I really don’t know what the answer might be.

    Could you end up with a cross party deal between Nat/Labour to try and limit or remove those seats? That would be a fight and a half. Or might there be a trade off made – a resurrection of a second chamber with a heavy maori influence (50:50?), with a limit on the electorate seats (back to 4?)

    I think there is going to be some significant debate sparked by the MP behaviour after this election, particularly if they swing the Govt to a minority party ie they ally with not the biggest party in parliament. While that happens overseas it has not happened here and could be controversial. REmember WInston and Peter Dunne made a big thing of going with the biggest party.
16. Steve Pierson 16

    3 March 2008 at 4:34 pm

    Matthew. I would, but its so nice in here.
17. Inventory2 17

    3 March 2008 at 4:37 pm

    3 News poll is out tonight as well, and the by-line is “More bad news for Labour”

    http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-news-february-poll.html
18. Idiot/Savant 18

    3 March 2008 at 4:38 pm

    Outofbed: if you read the article, you’ll find they polled 734 people from across the country.

    Phil: Pretty much. The coalition preferences for National and labour have a large enough sample size to be robust. Those for the other parties though use such small sample sizes (in the case of UF and ACT, 3 people each) that they’re worse than useless. If you have a margin of error of >10% or so, it’s not “indicitive”, it’s junk.

    (I’d say the same about the Marae Digipoll’s subsample of the Maori seats, BTW).

    I’d really like to see good data on coalition preferences from the smaller parties, but it would require decent sample sizes, at least twn times the size of those we’re seeing here.
19. outofbed 19

    3 March 2008 at 4:45 pm

    Well its not really bad news for labour is it ?
    It bad news for the country that so many people are having the wool pulled over there eyes surely ?

    Captcha investigation poll ,,, weird
20. outofbed 20

    3 March 2008 at 4:51 pm

    IS I read the article didn’t see it re read it still didn’t see it
    But thanx for the number 734 Is that a normal sample size ?
21. gobsmacked 21

    3 March 2008 at 4:52 pm

    Actually the real “bad news” is that we’re now getting polls every day replacing, um, news.

    The answer to the question “What’s the difference between the parties?” should be a policy, not a number.
22. outofbed 22

    3 March 2008 at 5:03 pm

    Well of all the poli parties websites the ones with the most in depth policies listed are The greens and Labour
    Funny that
23. Occasional Observer 23

    3 March 2008 at 5:16 pm

    I/S:

    DPF has some excellent analysis on the validity of the individual Maori seats: all but one of them have a 90% probability that the Maori Party leads Labour in the electorate vote. That’s a pretty high confidence level.

    What is interesting is that there isn’t a huge preference one way or the other among Maori Party voters for a coalition with National or Labour. Labour is slightly ahead, but it’s not dramatic. The sample sizes are large enough to be accurate.

    It blows the Left’s line out of the water that overwhelmingly, Maori Party voters want the Maori Party to side with Labour. It’s a fairly gratuitous, self-serving argument: if Maori Party voters did feel that way, they would vote Labour in their Party vote. We’re not seeing the same extent of vote-splitting in Maori seats as happened previously.

    It isn’t very smart for Labour to take the Maori Party for granted in a coalition. But keep patronising them if you wish. You’ll just alienate them more.
24. burt 24

    3 March 2008 at 5:53 pm

    35% is about where the Labour party should be. If they had done their job properly over the last 9 years and actually lifted wages to first world levels and stopped taxing us at 1999 levels then they might be polling better.

    However lets not forget, the labour movement is about looking after low paid workers and who really wants a govt that wants lots of low paid workers so it has a broad support base. All that achieves (as we see from 9 years of Labour) is lots of low paid workers… We need a govt with a lot more vision, one that looks forward rather than spends all of it’s time trying to blame the actions of ‘the opposition’ from 16 years ago.

    I think if Labour drop to about 35 seats then they would have the correct proportion to serve their ‘party heritage’ and they would make a good coalition partner for a govt that isn’t constantly trying to make us all poor so they poll well.
25. Dale 25

    3 March 2008 at 6:20 pm

    Looks like all the pathetic mud slinging and name calling and bullshit acusations about lower wages have made a massive impact. GO JONNY GO.The Standard can make all the excuses it likes but over the last 10 months its been all downhill for Labour. The only way they can save themselves is to deliver a budget of mammoth tax cuts to make up from all the over taxing of the last 8 years. The economy has done well despite Labour not because of it.
26. outofbed 26

    3 March 2008 at 6:26 pm

    You lost me with “GO JONNY GO.”
27. r0b 27

    3 March 2008 at 6:16 pm

    What is interesting is that there isn’t a huge preference one way or the other among Maori Party voters for a coalition with National or Labour. Labour is slightly ahead, but it’s not dramatic.

    The view from the Right:

    Key 2% ahead of Clark = Everyone hates Helen! When is Goff going to roll this lame duck has-been?!

    National 18% ahead of Labour = National to govern alone! Labour sucks! It’s all over, hah hah you losers!

    Maori preference for Labour 14% ahead of National = Labour slightly ahead, nothing dramatic.

    Jolly good then.
28. burt 28

    3 March 2008 at 7:54 pm

    rOb

    Yes good points, partisan people are pretty f’d in the head really aren’t they.

    I think that the apparent swing toward to Maori party by Maori people is fantastic. Irrespective of who they want to join into coalition with it’s about time that Maori people stopped being duped into FPP style govt by the “Two ticks Labour – Two ticks National” campaign mentality.

    The Labour party in particular campaign hard for the Maori vote so it’s understandable that there will be a backlash against Labour as they realise that they don’t need Labour paying lip service to them while Labour campaigns to govern alone.
29. Paul 29

    3 March 2008 at 9:55 pm

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but

    Did anyone see the TV3 piece about their Poll tonight in which John Key at Auckland University is acceptable to even mullets?

    But wasn’t that Mullet a Westpac Bank employee dressed up for their “WestiePac’ promotion. So shock horror John Key on campus talking to a banker and not looking like a nob.

    The media has their tongues so far up Nationals arse they can’t even report the news without lying to us.
30. r0b 30

    3 March 2008 at 9:19 pm

    Yes good points, partisan people are pretty f’d in the head really aren’t they.

    I dunno Burt, I’ve been thinking about that. As usual I think it entirely comes down to what you mean by “partisan”.

    If partisan means that someone has strongly held views, and argues for them honestly, then I say good for them.

    If partisan means being incapable of seeing or acknowledging inconvenient facts or alternative points of view, or deliberately lying, then yes that has crossed over into a form of lunacy.

    If partisan means schoolboy taunting like “Liarbore”, “dear leader”, “socialist control freaks”, “Helengrad” and so on, or worse means hate filled bile like “Dykeocracy” or attacking people’s spouses and so on, well then I think that’s simply pathetic. Common, understandable, but pathetic.

    I guess we all need to look into our own behaviour eh Burt? (And to save you some time, yes, you can gleefully cite the 3 or 4 stupid things that Labour politicians have said over their 8 plus years in the most stressful jobs in the country, and yes I’ll have to agree that they were pathetic things to say).
31. Camryn 31

    4 March 2008 at 7:34 am

    gobsmacked @ 4:52 – Very well put. That’s a great comment. It seems that both left and right accuse the media of a bias one way or the other, but the key bias seems to be that the media loves to put a party “on a roll” and then get behind accelerating that roll. Why can’t they report news instead of trying to influence it?

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