I have to admit last night’s Reid Research poll was pretty dire. It invoked the same sort of dread I felt early in 2017 and during the latter stages of the 2014 election campaign.
The underlying reasons are clear. National has a shit load of money through donations from wealthy people upset at imagined threats to their privilege. And people are grumpy. The covid lockdowns have affected 5% of the population and opened them up to conspiracy theories. And the storm damage is still around is in Auckland and on the Hawkes Bay.
It is hard to be positive about anything.
The sense of grumpiness is very public. I was campaigning for Labour at Avondale Market on Sunday morning. At different times four older males chose to come up and shout at us repeatedly for reasons I am still processing. One was a Destiny Church anti vaccination conspiracy nut. For some reason talking to him about how many lives the lockdowns had saved did not create any impression. Another was a housing corporation tenant upset that others had made complaints about him and the local MP had not solved this. He should see what Christopher Bishop plans for him.
The third was a white male obsessed with a rather marginal policy proposal who was upset that Labour were not doing what he wanted.
And the fourth was to the far right of the spectrum who attacked us with Cameron Slater manufactured lines about co governance and ended up abusing us because the party was a Socialist party.
To describe the current Labour Party as a socialist party given where Chris Hipkins has positioned us suggests this person occupies a different dimension to the rest of us. Some of us dream of the day Labour is a Socialist Party. Right now it is anything but.
Grumpy older men with testosterone problems shouting is a real example of what is happening right now.
It is the privileged angst that is the most difficult to comprehend.
Like that shown by this mega landlord who would celebrate the possibility of a National win, return of preferential tax treatment for landlords and a 10% to 20% increase in house prices and who has threatened to sell up and emigrate if Labour wins again. How many houses does someone have to own to feel satisfied? And how can someone with so much privilege think they deserve more? If it was not for his clear wealth I would strongly suggest we pass the hat around so that the country can get rid of him.
And the media is pretty disgusting. Even Radio New Zealand is starting to irk. Too often their headlines involve National’s inevitably negative response to a Labour announcement rather than the announcement itself. Morning Report is a mess. Corin Dann and Ingrid Hipkiss cannot ask questions to save themselves. Combine this with the afternoon show and it feels like something not too far removed from commercial radio.
This is a real pity. Mediawatch is an outstanding show, I still enjoy Kim Hill on Saturday morning but the rest of the station is lagging. The opinionated right wing guests on during the afternoons particularly rankle. And Nine to Noon politics too often involve right wing commentators with pecuniary interests in their commentary while the left wing commentators are not necessarily Labour friendly.
So it is not wonder the polls are where they are.
The glimmer of hope is that Act’s vote is crashing. A National Act coalition would be an utter disaster for the country. But over the past few weeks it appears that Act’s vote has nearly halved.
It is no wonder that Jordan Williams was seen having terse words with a National Party staffer. National’s actions in funneling donations to NZ First is clearly designed to minimise the ability of Act to hold the next Government to ransom and may mean that a potentially future National Government would only be a shambles and not a complete and utter train wreck.
Of course we still have an election campaign to run and you may wonder if Luxon’s continued poor form will catch up with him. And I suspect that the PREFU’s analysis that things are actually better than predicted will help.
Hang onto your hats. Every vote will count. And there are still questions about the polls. As pointed out by Professor Grant Duncan polls in 2020 overestimated National’s support and underestimated Labour’s. He calculates that the polls overcalculated National’s support by an average of 5.8 percentage points. They underestimated Labour support by 3.7 points, the Greens by 1.1% and Te Pati Māori by 0.7%. This sized change between left and right will see the left well and truly back in the battle.
So hang onto your hats. And it is a time for all good activists, whether they are Labour Green or Te Pati Maori supporters to get involved. As I said, every vote will count.
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