Written By:
Eddie - Date published:
9:20 am, October 26th, 2010 - 55 comments
Categories: by-election -
Tags: hekia parata, Kris Faafoi, mana
National made a number of large mistakes in the Mt Albert campaign. The candidate and the way she was managed were obviously the killer blows to the Nats’ hopes of winning but the strategic mistake was talking up their chances of winning in the first place. Perhaps they believed they could jawbone the public’s expectations and that would result in more votes on the day.
It nearly succeeded: generic Nat candidate vs Lab candidate polls are said to have shown the neck and neck but the reality failed to match National’s hype. Labour’s actual candidate was the excellent David Shearer and National’s was… well. National embarrassed themselves by talking up their chances then failing so badly.
They’ve learned the lesson. This time, you’re not hearing a peep from the Nats about winning in Mana. Hekia Parata doesn’t even mention winning in her press release on her nomination.
But that doesn’t mean they’re not trying. In fact, they’re trying to win very hard. The Nats’ strategy is to run an under the radar campaign that will surprise Labour and commentators. Key is spending an awful lot of time in Mana, more than he is spending in Christchurch or on the economy, including the whole weekend before last.
What can you do to fight back?
Help out the Labour campaign if you live in the region. By-elections require more manpower than electorate parties can provide themselves.
If you’re in Mana, be sure to vote for Kris Fa’afoi and don’t throw your vote away on a third party candidate who doesn’t have a chance.
Get along to the debates, including the Back Benches special being hosted at Sand Bar next Wednesday. Parata shares with Lee a weakness under critical questioning – her tendency is to attack the questioner. Take your chance to question her on National’s record on wages and jobs.
the Back Benches Mana special is next Wednesday ie 3 Nov, not this Wednesday
Excellent post Eddie. Pity it’s going to be lost in the rush, because you’ve made some great points here. I had no idea JK was out and about in Mana.
I think the whole “If you’re in Mana, be sure to vote for Kris Fa’afoi and don’t throw your vote away on a third party candidate who doesn’t have a chance.” Is silly. I mean, I know that The Standard is a Labour party cheerleader, but given that the result of the byelection isn’t going to change the structure of Parliament, and therefore won’t change policies, isn’t it best to embrace the symbolism of a byelection and vote for the party you agree with the policies of? Or, at least, the candidate who you think represents you?
Actually there are probably more writers here who support the Greens than Labour.
Regardless, I think PP meant that people should decide for themselves, rather than just do whatever they are told by your mob.
But then, that would be democracy in action, wouldn’t it….rather than strict conformance to dogma? Wouldn’t want to have people thinking for themselves, would we…
NO vote for the candidate who best represents your values
Or perhaps you would like the Greens to just step aside?
Jan Logie the Green candidate is running an excellent campaign and getting amazing feedback.
let the contest be about ideas and who can best put those ideas across. not about entrenching Labour’s position in Mana where they haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory.
So get out meet the candidates talk to them all. Talk about the issues that concern you locally and make your voting decisions based on that.
Its called democracy
Ciao
You should vote for the party that best represents your values in your party vote at the general election.
For candidate votes you should vote for the candidate with a chance of winning who best represents your values. If you don’t, you may as well abstain for all the impact your vote has on the outcome
So vote Chris or nobody?
Who had the best chance of winning here? in the recent UK Election
Caroline Lucas Green 16,238 31.3 +9.4
Nancy Platts Labour 14,986 28.9 -7.5
Charlotte Vere Conservative 12,275 23.7 +0.4
Bernadette Millam Lib Dem 7,159 13.8 – 2.2
It was after all a Labour held seat, would you have advised everyone to vote Labour?
It was clear that Lucas was in with a good chance of winning, so it would make sense for a Green-leaning voter to vote for her. That’s not true of Logie.
“Or perhaps you would like the Greens to just step aside?”
If it makes sense to do so, then yes.
And in return, Grant Robertson could step aside in Wellington Central for the Green candidate there…
Who would probably win, actually James Shaw is a really strong candidate in WC.. and we do have a Green Mayor
And an electorate seat would be soo nice :~)
Kris is going to win. Labour have a 6,000+ majority. Let’s say you halve that to account for (a) Hekia’s doing better than she did last time, (b) Kris isn’t Winnie Laban and (c) is an out-of-town candidate without much on-the-ground support (yet). The Greens would need to nearly triple their vote for Kris to lose.
So I would say you can safely have the integrity to vote for the candidate who best represents your values and still get the next best thing, i.e. Kris.
Kris Fa’afoi could do a Melissa Lee every day for the rest of this by-election and he’s still going to win.
Excellent post, Eddie. I think you’re spot-on on a number of levels.
Here’s how I see it:
(A) Problem:
(1) Media (together with Key/Nats and Right-leaning blogosphere) = have greatly exaggerated traditional strength of the Labour vote in Mana (much emphasis on it supposedly being one of the great Labour strongholds of all time / conflation of old staunchly-Lab Porirua seat of pre-1996 FPP days with greatly expanded and much more marginal Mana under MMP/ National as enormous underdog, fighting impossible odds…)
(2) So = Very high benchmark / enormously raised expectations for Labour/Fa’afoi (emphasis in media and Tory blogosphere on the idea that anything other than a significant Fa’afoi majority – some suggest at least 6000 – would constitute disaster for Labour and Goff / vote of confidence in National).
(3) Problem: Mana is not the stronghold being portrayed.
(i) Two-thirds of current Electorate MPs have majorities larger than Winnie Laban’s 6155.
(ii) More Importantly, of Laban’s 6155 majority, 4452 votes were cast by people who split their vote (casting their Party-Vote for Parties other than Labour in 2008). This included 1757 Green voters (about 60% of all Greens in the seat), 1091 Nat voters, 695 NZ First voters and 909 minor-party voters. Without the luxury of two votes, it’s more than possible that these 4452 voters could return to the candidate of their preferred Party in the (one-vote) by-election. (For example, the 1757 Greens who split their vote in 2008 between the Greens (Party) and Winnie Laban (Candidate), returning to Green candidate Logie rather than Labour’s Fa’afoi and so on).
(iii) Simply in order to retain their majority, therefore, Labour will need to win over 4452 people who are not, in fact, Labour voters (and now, in the by-election, have only one rather than two votes). Will they vote tactically for Fa’afoi ? Or will they treat it like a FPP election where their vote for the candidate is simply an expression of which Party they fell most closely-aligned to ?
(iv) Arguably, then, the Party-Vote may be a better reflection of Mana’s political complexion than Winnie Laban’s Candidate-Vote. And Labour’s majority over the Nats in the Party-Vote in 2008 was just 2508. Relatively marginal.
(v) With this in mind, compare recent nationwide opinion poll averages (Nats 50%, Lab 32%) to the nationwide Party-Vote at the last election (Nats 45%, Lab 34%). If we assume that these differences (Nats + 5 percentage points, Lab – 2 percentage points) are true across every Electorate, then Labour and National would be neck-and-neck in Mana on about 42% each.
(vi) And, on top of all this, by-elections almost always involve a much lower turnout. And, more often than not, those staying at home are lower-income Labour voters.
(vii) It’s true that Mt Albert (with a very similar Party-Vote to Mana in 2008, and with Helen Clark – like Winnie Laban – considerably more popular than Labour’s Party-Vote there) worked out extremely well. But as Eddie has suggested, things were looking very tight there at last year’s by-election until Melissa Lee caused a collapse in National’s vote.
I should clarify, here, that by “majority” in “(iii) Simply in order to retain their majority..” (my comment above), I mean, of course, the SIZE of their majority.
I should also point out that about 1500 people in Mana in 2008 cast their Party-Vote for Labour but voted for a Candidate other than Winnie Laban (indeed, I was one of them. I and one of my close family members went for the Green (and former Alliance) Candidate, Michael Gilchrist ). The point being that, using my rationale above, most of those 1500 can be expected to return (at this by-election) to voting for the Labour candidate – thus somewhat mitigating the effects of the 4452 moving in the opposite direction. But, of course, only somewhat. Still almost a 3000 vote deficit to make up.
(B) Solution:
The first two are, of course, little more than stating the bleeding obvious.
(1) Counter the media spin.
(2) Turnout, Turnout, Turnout !!! Mobilise those core Labour voters (especially in the Porirua East/Titahi Bay/Elsdon heartlands).
(3) Needs to be a concerted effort by Labour activists when canvassing to encourage Greens (especially those 1757) to vote strategically for Fa’afoi (Rationale: For longer-term electoral good of Centre-Left as a whole / Vote for Green’s Logie wasted (she can’t win) and will ensure greatly-reduced Fa’afoi majority (possibly even outside chance of Nat’s Parata win), thus, in turn, prompting negative momentum in media regarding Labour/Green 2011 election chances, not to mention debilitating speculation on Goff leadership = downward spiral / By all means give your Party-Vote to the Greens in 2011, but please, in the strategic interests of the Centre-Left as a whole, consider voting tactically for Fa’afoi at the by-election).
Except, of course, that a lot of Greens don’t want another 9 years of a centrist do-nothing Labour government…
But they do want an increasingly Right-wing National Government ?
Many commentators would argue that Labour has just moved to the Left. Certainly not quite as far as some of us would like but surely better than an asset-selling, beneficiary-bashing, anti-union second term Key Government ?
And, in any case, more than a few Greens seem more than a little centrist: only ideology – Green (the idea of Left and Right as “archaic”).
It’s huge assumption that electing Kris is in the “longer term electoral good of Centre-Left”. Try out this narrative/scenario mash-up for size:
(1) Goff is a warmed-over Baby-Boomer who once said that the main problem of Roger Douglas’ ’80s reforms had been in communication, not policy. He is deeply unpopular in the country and barely lukewarm within his party. He is one of the least Green-friendly Labour tribe and would prefer to kill the Greens off than work with them.
(2) Labour have a bunch of Gen X talent waiting in the wings. Currently low-profile, they are Green-friendly and ‘get’ MMP in a way Goff doesn’t.
(3) Let’s say there’s a possibility of a Goff-led Labour/Green win in 2011 – Goff’s position shored up by a big Kris Fa’afoi win in Mana. It will be terribly unpopular:
– With Goff in charge Labour appears to the outside world to be largely unreconstructed.
– The Greens will be seen to be propping up the left-overs of Helen Clark’s regime before “that nice man Key’s time is up”… (There hasn’t been a 1-term government since the 1950s and generally Kiwis like to give their governments 2 terms. It’s simplistic Kiwi fairness at play.)
– Goff will get to be PM for at least one term and that Gen X talent has to continue to sit waiting in the wings.
– This unpopular warm-over from a previous era drags itself through a term or two before finally expiring, Goff retires and Labour’s younger, more talented people move up. However, now they’re back in opposition for a couple of terms…
(4) Or let’s try out the alternative – Kris wins by the skin of his teeth or even loses. Goff’s position is weakened.
– Labour dumps Goff and replaces him with a newer model. Labour’s brand is renewed and finally a generation of leaders who weren’t visibly part of the Fourth or Fifth Labour Governments moves up. Labour’s popularity improves as do relations with the Greens.
– If Labour dumps Goff before 2011 and a Labour/Green coalition wins it will be more popular than a Goff version, because it doesn’t resemble anything from the ’80s or ’90s and the coaltion looks more like a marriage of love than convenience.
– If Labour dumps Goff after a 2011 loss then the Gen X people take over then they’ll be in Government in 2014 rather than having to wait up to 12 years for Goff to lose, National to govern and then them to get in.
Ergo, the “longer term electoral good of Centre-Left” is for Goff etc to be replaced by some of the really strong new people, either before 2011 or immediately after. A Kris Fa’afoi narrow win or loss assists that.
Vote for Jan Logie.
You make sense Rumpel !
I particularly liked the bit about Vote for Jan Logie
Goff is by far the strongest leader not just of the centre left, but in Parliament today, and he will be an excellent PM.
A terrible indictment of the state of leadership on the centre left and in Parliament.Which is kind of my point. If the last rat to leave Roger Douglas’ ship is the best we’ve got, the centre-left doesn’t really deserve to be in Government.
And if there’s truly no one in Labour’s caucus who’s as strong a leader (so to speak) than Goff, then (a) it’s remarkable anyone’s bothering to vote Labour at all and (b) it’s going to be a “long,cold night” in Opposition.
Better then, for the long term good of the centre-left, to turn over such mediocre players and allow a new generation into the leadership, even if they’re a little under-experienced.
Think of the parallels to the UK: there’s simply no way the Lib Dems could have propped up a fourth term of Labour, even though they were politically far more aligned – Labour was a zombie under Gordon Brown, had been a zombie since before he took over. For the health of the democratic system, Labour had to enter opposition and renew it’s leadership, with a new generation capable of representing the idea that it had cleaned out the defunct old guard and stood for a new way of doing things, relevant to a new generation of people.
Goff? Really? He’s the *best*? Better get used to Key, then.
Too much of a long bow to draw a link between this by-election and the result of the Geebral Election.
It doesn’t matter who wins. The balance of power in the house will remain the same.
This is a fine platform for some A-grade grandstanding though 😀 Let the games begin.
Not necessarily. If the seat goes Green, they will get an extra MP at the expense of Labour, bringing Parliament further to the left. You’re right though, in that the seat going to Labour or National won’t change the proportionality or parliament.
the only reason labour want fa’afoi to win is because if he loses, tizard is in. I normally vote labour, but the jack up in kris’ selection has left me with little choice, but to either a) stay home or b) vote logie. I’ll probably pick option B, Eddie. At least then I would have voted.
Tizard is in? What the hell kind of disinformation are you on about.
She’s next on the list isn’t she? So Laban has gone, next on the list is Tizard. If Parata wins, National gain an electorate, but no more MPs.
Labour is missing an MP, ergo, next on the list comes in.
Jesus. That is so stupid I don’t even know where to start. WTF are you talking about Oscar?
You have no idea how our electoral system works. None. Zero.
I’d suggest visiting http://www.elections.org.nz and read up on the effects of changing an electorate mp
You’re right, in that if Fa’foi loses, Tizard goes in. The distribution of MPs in parliament remains the same.
Tizard doesn’t go in is Fa’afoi loses. If a list MP retires, the next list candidate replaces them. That’s not the case with electorate MPs
So if Heck Yeah wins, then labour effectively lose an MP?
Yes.
(C) Specifics:
Core Green areas for Labour activists to focus on:
(1) The Green stronghold is in the far-north of the electorate (essentially the southern end of Kapiti Coast).
Of the 5 suburbs/communities in the far-north, 2 (Paraparaumu and Raumati Beach) recorded only average Green Party-Votes (8%), but the other 3 (each strong Arts communities) are very much Green strongholds – Raumati South 17% (241 Green party-votes), Pukerua Bay 17% (139 votes) and Paekakariki a whopping 28% (241 votes).
(there is some evidence to suggest that Paekakariki Greens were not only more numerous on the ground, but also even more likely than other Greens in the seat to split their vote in favour of Laban in 2008. Paekakariki Greens may therefore be particularly open to voting strategically for Fa’afoi. The only potential problem here, however, is that Green candidate Jan Logie lives there – so may shore-up Green vote).
(2) Greens also received above-average Party-Vote support in some suburbs of what I would call the near-north (middle to high income areas surrounding Pauatahanui Inlet and northern Porirua Harbour entrance). Plimmerton 12% (161 votes), Mana 9% (112 votes), Paremata 9% (92 votes).
(3) Finally, 4 large suburbs which – despite only average or below-average Green Party-Vote percentages – contain a significant raw number of Green voters simply as a corollary of their sizable populations. Titahi Bay 8% (222 votes), Linden 7% (150 votes), Whitby 5% (218 votes), Raumati Beach 8% (181 votes).
Voters in the above 10 suburbs comprise about 50% of all Mana voters, but more than 60% of all Green voters.
I can tell you the word in Paekakariki and Northern Mana is that the Greens are going to do very very well.
Which should set them up nicely for the 2011 elections which of course is what it is all about.
particularly as Labour has little chance of winning the GE
Maybe if Labour supporters don’t like Goff as a leader they should fire a shot over Labour’s bows and vote Green .That might be a better strategic decision in the long run
We have just learned that Matt McCarten will announce tomorrow he is standing on Mana by election.
That will shake things up
shhhhhhhh
Sorry PP got carried away in the moment
McCarten can do what he likes of course but what a waste of his time and talents. Pointless.
Anyway, my friendlies, time to take a quick peek at the geography of Party-Vote support in Mana (2008), in order to clarify party strongholds and weakspots in the up-coming by-election (even though it’s way past my bedtime and I’m already in my jim-jams with little First World War British and German by-planes all over them).
Moving away from the nonsense in the media that Mana is an entirely blue-collar, poverty-striken Labour stronghold, I would (and, indeed, will) divide Mana into 5 broad sub-regions (each comprising a cluster of geographically-contiguous and, for the most part, politically-similar suburbs). (assuming that “contiguous” is a real word ? If it isn’t, it should be).
(1) The East (The true Labour stronghold. Lower/Lower-Middle income suburbs to immediate east and north-east of Porirua City Centre. High proportion of state houses and Pacifika and Maori residents – though I think Europeans comprise a slight majority).
2008 Party-Vote: 75% Lab / 11% Nat
Lab/Nat Party-Vote split in each suburb: Ascot Park 63/21, Porirua East 68/15, Waitangirua 80/9, Cannons Creek 83/6.
(2) The West (The other Labour stronghold, though to lesser degree. Mixed Lower and Middle income suburbs west and north-west of Porirua City Centre (on and immediately south of Titahi Bay peninsula). Mix of private and state housing).
2008 Party-Vote: 55% Lab / 25% Nat
Lab/Nat Party-Vote split in each suburb: Takapuwahia 48/25, Titahi Bay 53/26, Elsdon 64/16.
(3) The Near-North (The National stronghold. Almost a mirror-image of the vote in The West. Middle and High-income upwardly-mobile suburbs surrounding Pauatahanui Inlet and northern entrance to Porirua Harbour).
2008 Party-Vote: 28% Lab / 54% Nat
Lab/Nat Party-Vote split in each suburb: Pauatahanui 21/62, Whitby 26/58, Papakowhai 30/53, Paremata 30/50, Mana 30/50, Plimmerton 31/46.
The remaining two sub-regions have a very similar political profile: both highly marginal but National-leaning (albeit with a noticably strong Green vote in The Far North):
(4) The Far North (Mixed/Middle-income suburbs/townlets at southern end of Kapiti Coast with strong Arts community and high Green vote).
2008 Party-Vote: 36% Lab / 40 % Nat / (14% Green).
Lab/Nat/(Green) Party-Vote split in each suburb: Raumati Beach 34/46/(8), Raumati South 34/38/(17), Pukerua Bay 35/37/(17), Paraparaumu 37/42/(8), Paekakariki 41/23/(28).
(5) The South (Low and Middle-income suburbs between Porirua and Tawa).
2008 Party-Vote: 39% Lab / 41% Nat
Lab/Nat Party-Vote split in each suburb: Tawa(northern portion only) 34/45, Linden 39/42, Kenepuru 55/22.
And so, finally, to clarify how Labour won the Party-Vote in Mana in 2008, and therefore to highlight the kind of support-dynamics going on in this by-election, let’s aggregate these 5 into 3 larger sub-regions – each with a roughly similar-sized Total Vote (I’m beginning to sound like a pompous teacher. Brilliant !):
(1) East/West (the 2 Labour strongholds combined).
Party-Vote Number/Percentage:
Labour 6327 (67%)
National 1518 (16%)
Total Party-Votes: 9376
(2) Near North (same Nat stronghold as in previous comment).
Party-Vote Number/Percentage:
Labour 2690 (28%)
National 5289 (54%)
Total Party-Votes: 9743
Therefore, although more votes were cast in National’s (Near North) stronghold (9743) than Labour’s (East/West) stronghold (9376), Labour remain 2210 votes ahead of National (obviously because of Lab’s greater strength (67%) in East/West than Nat’s 54% in Near North).
(3) Far North/South (the 2 marginal, National-leaning sub-regions combined).
Party-Vote Number/Percentage:
Labour 3267 (37%)
National 3568 (40%)
Total Party-Votes: 8927
Clearly, the 301 Party-Vote advantage to National in Far North/South alters the picture only slightly.
And so to bed…
Brilliant analysis Mr/s Swordfish
Mr.
Thanks, Tomo.
I’ve no love for National but i think Parata would make the better MP.
Fa’afoi doesnt deserve it. He’s got no grassroots connections to anything Pasifikan and has been an MSM and political suckhole his whole life.
Are we to expect he’s suddenly become all socially conscious and culturally aware that he’ll fight on behalf of the invisible Pasifikan underclass now ?
Nah…he seems to be an opportunistic political animal kissing the party arse and only in it for himself.
Last thing Labour needs is a failed spindoctor and another housenigga warming the back benches.
Jeez Goff makes some fucked up decisions. He doesn’t deserve to be PM or leader of the Labour party either but then again, neither does key or english deserve to be running the show and in charge of the countries pursestrings.
whats a bro to do ???
vote Logie
Do you mind if I don’t ?
2008 NZ First Party-Vote in Mana:
% / (raw number)
(1) The East
Porirua East 4 (61), Ascot Park 4 (27), Waitangirua 3 (38), Cannons Creek 2 (46).
(2) The West
Titahi Bay 5 (136), Elsdon 5 (26), Takapuwahia 4 (12).
(3) The Near-North
Mana 3 (32), Whitby 2 (75), Papakowhai 2 (32), Plimmerton 2 (31), Paremata 2 (25), Pauatahanui 2 (19).
(4) The Far-North
Raumati Beach 4 (84), Paraparaumu 4 (48), Raumati South 3 (35), Pukerua Bay 3 (24), Paekakariki 3 (23).
(5) The South
Kenepuru 5 (7), Linden 3 (58), Tawa 3 (7).
There were 1029 NZ First Party-Votes in 2008 in Mana. 68% of them (695) cast their Candidate-Vote for Labour’s Laban, with only 15% going for National’s Parata.
And just under 2000 people in Mana in 2008 cast their Party-Vote for a minor-party (meaning: a party smaller than Act and NZ First). Here’s the way they split their vote:
Mana 2008
Minor Party—-Raw Number
——————-Party-Vote
—————-for Minor Party
—————in Mana as a whole—————–% Candidate-Vote 2008 Mana
————————————————–Laban (Lab)—–Gilchrist (Green)——Parata (Nat)
United Future—–458—————————–24——————2———————-38——-
Maori————–356—————————–54—————–12———————19——–
Progressive——-274—————————–63——————11———————11——–
Bill and Ben——-213—————————–42——————15———————-26——-
Kiwi—————206—————————–14——————-2———————–15——
Pacific————189—————————–51——————–0————————4——
Cannabis———-133—————————-39——————–29———————-14——-
Family————-85—————————–29———————2———————–26——
(The other 6 minor-parties all received less than 20 Party-Votes each and so have been excluded from this analysis).
And so, of the minor-party voters, we might expect those of the Maori Party, the Progressives, the Pacific Party, Legalise Cannabis, and Bill and Ben to favour one Left-leaning Candidate or another in the Mana by-election. The same goes for NZ First voters.
And, lastly, a very rough attempt at a map of the seat.
————————————————————————————————Paraparaumu
—————————————————————————————–Raumati Beach
—————————————————————————————Raumati South___(Far North)
————————————————————————————–
———————————————————————————–Paekakariki
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________Pukerua Bay
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
________________________________________Plimmerton
______________________________________________Mana/Camborne___(Near North)
______________________________________________Paremata_____Whitby___Pauatahanui
____Titahi Bay__(West)__________________________Papakowhai
__________________________________________________Ascot Park____Waitangirua_____(East)
_ Elsdon/Takupuwahia________________
__________________PORIRUA CITY CENTRE______Porirua East/_____Cannons Creek
_______________________________________________Ranui Heights
__________________________Kenepuru
_________________________Linden____(South)
________________________Tawa