National paying the price for cannibalising the political right

27 comments on “National paying the price for cannibalising the political right ”

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1. Dot 1

   26 September 2017 at 9:59 am

   “National Cannibalised the political right” then Bill English and National members
   gloat to the media, about their large percentage,
   as if this was the old days before we moved to MMP.
   Now they have a problem of their own making,
   negotiating with Winston Peters.
   • popexplosion 1.1

     26 September 2017 at 11:32 am

     Key feasted on NZ. Rivers, children, housing, and coalition partners. Worse. Unable to get fair media coverage a host of leaders have no credibility. Eating through Labour leaders, Green, UF, Maori, its a bloodbath. The red wedding. Winter came, Key.
2. cleangreen 2

   26 September 2017 at 10:15 am

   National have made their bed of lies and dirty deals which are now coming home to haunt all of us and them.

   I have never believed that peole are thick and cant see the truth, because the fact is when the hurt of what national has done to us all over nine years finally come to visit us all or someone we love has been hurt then the ‘rubicon has been crossed’, and the people do wake up to what national has done.

   “You can fool the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.

   That is national’s death-nail.
3. WILD KATIPO 3

   26 September 2017 at 10:18 am

   Eat it , National , – just eat it !!!

   “Weird Al” Yankovic – Eat It – YouTube
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI
4. Baba Yaga 4

   26 September 2017 at 11:56 am

   Negotiating with minor parties is an intended consequence of MMP, whether those parties be your friend or not.

   The writer of this piece uses the National led government and the Political Right interchangeably, which is simply incorrect. For example, United Future and the Maori Party are not on the political right. In fact prior to the election the MP spoke openly about siding with labour, so it could be argued they were a casualty of the cannibalising of the left by Labour (even more so given the LP strategy in the Maori seats). Just as you could argue the same of the significant drop in the Greens support.

   Also, virtually all analysis of left and right is including NZF in either the left or right block (depending upon who is doing the analysis). This too is incorrect. NZF have been in coalition or as a support party to both National and Labour led governments, so to assign NZF to either left or right block is doing little more than declaring a bias.
5. savenz 5

   26 September 2017 at 12:40 pm

   Like parasites National have eaten all their hosts. Now after NZ First that narrowly got away last time after a near death experience with National.
   • Ed 5.1

     26 September 2017 at 7:14 pm

     There is a need to reduce the threshold to 3%.
     • peterlepaysan 5.1.1

       26 September 2017 at 10:35 pm

       2% would be better.
     • McFlock 5.1.2

       26 September 2017 at 10:45 pm

       Colin Craig, MP?
       Not to mention a variety of other nutbars.
       • peterlepaysan 5.1.2.1

         26 September 2017 at 11:14 pm

         This is a democracy (so I am informed).
         Many of us who do bother to vote often wind up swallowing stuff we would rather not.

         Nutbars of whatever ilk want to be voted in have exactly the same rights unnutbars.

         Electors decide not blogsters

         The more parties the better!

         (Does this make me a party animal?)
         • McFlock 5.1.2.1.1

           27 September 2017 at 12:13 am

           We’ve seen three parties established which were established and funded by multimillionaires for their personal political gain.

           Each one failed to gain an mp. Two of the three are on the path to obscurity and deregistration. We’ll see if Morgan gets over his election night hissy fit.

           So in addition to filtering out stupidity, the 5% threshold also seems to put decent brakes on wealthy egotists purchasing parliamentary seats.

           I would get rid of electorate seat coat-tailing, though. Or make the threshold the polling of the lowest party to get an electorate seat. Stops the paradox of list mps for parties way under the line, but 4% parties having no mps.
6. Stuart Munro 6

   26 September 2017 at 12:55 pm

   “Spider momma, ate her babies, cries because she’s all alone.” Glen Cook – The Dragon Never Sleeps.
7. Enough is Enough 7

   26 September 2017 at 1:12 pm

   I am not sure what your point is here. Both major parties have cannibalised their potential support partners.

   On the left the Labour Party has taken the Maori Party’s base and the majority of the Green Party. This has left those two potential partners either dead, or extremely weak to the point where they won’t be involved in any 3 party negotiations.

   NZ First sits in the middle and can fly either way.
   • peterlepaysan 7.1

     26 September 2017 at 11:04 pm

     I am not sure what your point is here.
     Cannabalise is meaningless.
     Under MMP all electors count.
     Electors are free to go to any party.
     Potential support partners are exactly that and nothing else.
     Who voted for the party does not matter.

     We know who supports national. The other parties nned to to get their act together and attract the unvoters.

     Winston will be the ruler as long as party threshold is above 2%.

     National will always have a very large slice (hopefully less than 50%) because big business (including farmers) will always bankroll them.

     As a low wage country us peasants are being cannabalised.

     The unvoters are past caring.

     Trump is here!
     National is here!

     Apolycapse is nigh??
     • David C 7.1.1

       27 September 2017 at 8:15 am

       peter.
       Money doesnt win elections, but lack of clear policy loses them.
       • KJT 7.1.1.1

         27 September 2017 at 10:07 am

         We have just seen proof, that money, lies and bullshit does win elections.

         Hopefully it will lose, the coalition building to “win” power.
         • David C 7.1.1.1.1

           27 September 2017 at 10:45 am

           Complete bullshit.
           If money alone worked the TOP would have got 20% rather than being listed alongside Mana and Internet in “other”
           • KJT 7.1.1.1.1.1

             28 September 2017 at 5:07 pm

             You really think TOP spent more than a fraction of the money supporting National..

             I have a hotel in Nuie to sell you.
8. cleangreen 8

   26 September 2017 at 6:37 pm

   ‘Forewarned is being forearmed.’

   To contimplate the opposite coalition Government in 2017 NZ of National/NZ First is dire for all come 2020 as National will hqavekilled off NZ First and then will go onto win 2023, 2026 and possibly 2030, as the weight of the voting rights of the ‘new imigrants’ national will have then deliberately opened wider will ensure this, so sthink of this please.

   I was living in Toronto during the flood of Chinese during the 1990’s (post Hong Kong exit) and that new voting block ensured a ruling (PC) ‘Progressive Conservative’ government was kept in power until recently when a liberal Government of PM justin Trudeu finally toppled the tories.
   • patricia bremner 8.1

     26 September 2017 at 11:12 pm

     We need to facebook various thinkers in our membership with this information.

     Democracy can be fragile.
9. lurgee 9

   27 September 2017 at 6:35 am

   1996: Bolger was PM 33% of the vote.

   That 33% was still the largest vote share won by any party, of course.

   Working with the National party is the political kiss of death.

   The same could be said for parties on the left working with Labour. Alliance – gone. Progressives – gone. United Future – decimated, and now gone. NZ First –
   gone after a term in government with Labour. Greens – clinging on for dear life, and they haven’t even been in coalition with Labour. They’ve just talked about it.
   • red-blooded 9.1

     27 September 2017 at 9:34 am

     Since when was United Future a party of the left? (And BTW, UF wasn’t destroyed by working with Labour – it had 3 terms with the Nats before finally withering away.)

     As for the Alliance and Progressives, one could easily make an argument that they were destroyed by the Greens. After all, it was the Greens who broke apart the Alliance, and the Progressives (formerly called New Labour) were the rump of that group. If we’re honest, “they” were really “he” (ie, Jim Anderton) buffered by his popularity in Sydenham – his ChCh seat. And his “party” survived for as long as he wanted it to. When he decided to call it a day, it folded up shop. This was hardly surprising, as it was a one man band.

     And let’s remember that the funding scandal that saw NZF out of government after the Clark years was nothing to do with Labour – it was an attack run from the opposition benches and exacerbated by Peters’ slackness (signing off on a financial declaration which he later said he hadn’t read) and the party’s slipshod (some would say shonky) accounting processes. I sure as heck remember the infamous “NO” sign he held up for the world…

     Politics is competitive and I don’t really think parties “eat” each other. I think they’re either strong enough to compete or they’re not. If they don’t have a set of principals that binds them together and if they’re really just a mechanism for a charismatic leader to get funding so that they can continue to compete in elections then they wither up after that person moves on. Similarly, if they’re really just a way for a larger party to have a tame buddy or two to call on then the public will in the end see through that (we’re still waiting, Epsom…). The Greens have survived multiple changes in leadership because they have a core set of principals and they represent an identifiable group of people with a definable viewpoint. Others come and go, but they have a core set of voters. I think they would survive a coalition arrangement. I hope we get to find out! (I’m not betting on it, but I hope…)
10. Ad 10

    27 September 2017 at 6:55 am

    Both centre parties have been fraying at the edges for 15 years.

    It’s a pretty common pattern in France, Germany, Britain, Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, and many others.

    We are overdue for new social movement to emerge in politics, in the meantime, in those countries the centre is holding, occasionally reviving itself with charismatic leadership. While the global economy holds and internal social cohesion holds, political entropy is not accelerating.
11. Warren Doney 11

    27 September 2017 at 9:39 am

    I wish I thought this was true. I wish Winston thought it was true. It’s unlikely though. Correlation does not equal causation, and Winston has 20 years worth of experience in dealing with the ups and downs of MMP. His only huge fail was losing Tauranga. Dealing with Bill wouldn’t even raise a sweat.
12. cleangreen 12

    27 September 2017 at 9:54 am

    Peter ‘pooh’ Dunne this morning on Radio NZ said greens should go with national to cut out NZ First!!!!!!!

    We all knew Dunne was ‘dung,

    But now he wants to destroy the greens and NZ as well?????
13. Eralc 13

    27 September 2017 at 11:12 am

    It’s looking likely that Winston is favouring a deal with a Labour-led government. In the event that Winston does go in with the Labour/Green bloc, with their diametrically opposed philosophies (three ways), in no time at all they will implode and NZ will be back to the polls. Maybe that’s what we need to find out actually what and who we want governing NZ. A National/NZF coalition won’t be a happy place either and could yield the same result.

    Winston has had a rocky road with his support moving around the bases over the years. After his last coalition stint, not only did he lose his seat, but Winston was in the wilderness for three years due to NZF falling under the 5% threshold. In 2011 and 2014, he was back and won the Northland by-election in 2015. In this election , he lost his Northland seat and the NZF party vote is static (-1.1% to be exact). He will be treading carefully, as will his suitors be based on their previous experience.
14. Delia 14

    28 September 2017 at 9:27 am

    Funny how the ‘looney Greenies’ how often have I heard that, are suddenly acceptable to the right. I think Eugenie got it right last night when she said National blue/green environmental policies equal brown in reality.

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