0 Tweet of the Day - 6 July 2014

National's Hutt South candidate Chris Bishop, likely moa-down of long-term MP Trevor Mallard was out door-knocking yesterday when he discovered this:

There will be a time when Moa jokes and references have run their course, but we haven't reached that point yet! Trevor Mallard's delightful fantasy still has some mileage.

0 Is Mallard seeking de-extinction?

What's Trevor Mallard up to? The Dom-Post reports:

With nine terms in Parliament under Trevor Mallard's belt, critics might say he is a political dinosaur. But no-one could say his latest idea is old-school thinking.
With "the science of de-extinction advancing quickly", as he put it, the Hutt South MP has laid down a challenge for Lower Hutt and for scientists: Let's work towards the possibility of moa one day striding again through the bush of Rimutaka Forest Park.
While admitting it sounded "a bit Jurassic Park", Mallard said scientists had been making progress on techniques for using recovered DNA from extinct animals to reconstruct new life.
Fifty to 100 years from now, Wainuiomata could again be home to the moa, which would make an enormous difference to the environment, community and economy, he said.
"It would certainly give us international focus and, frankly, I can't think of a better place. Those valleys [behind Wainuiomata] are accessible without helicopter, with a one-hour walk."
The 30 or so businesspeople at the Development Wainuiomata breakfast were expecting election-year fare from Mallard - and they got it. In particular, he had points to make about housing affordability.
But he caught everyone out when he started talking about mammoths being found encased in ice - "effectively quick frozen" - and being so well preserved that in at least one case, blood flowed as the beast defrosted.

We reckon that this is more a not-too-subtle plot from Trevor Mallard to delay his own political extinction, which is what's going to happen if he loses the Hutt South electorate. We guess he'll put his own DNA into storage whilst he's at it, so that he can be reincarnated at some time for another 27 years in Parliament.

But why stop there? Surely someone in Labour thought to store the DNA of Norman Kirk or Michael Joseph Savage.

The last time there was a moa sighting in New Zealand, it turned out to be an elaborate hoax by a West Coast publican. Perhaps that's Trevor Mallard's new career direction; when he is defeated by Chris Bishop in September, he can manage a pub somewhere, and regale people with tall stories about his political career. 

We hear the Chatham Islands are nice at this time of year...

0 National targets Mallard

We were tempted to make some reference to duck hunting as the title for this post, but resisted. But Trevor Mallard is definitely in National's sights, as Tracy Watkins reports in the Dom-Post:

John Key is turning into a familiar sight on the streets of Petone. Twice in the last week, the prime minister has been out pressing the flesh in the Hutt satellite suburb alongside National’s candidate, Chris Bishop. 
Locals are used to being off National’s beaten track in what has long been considered a safe Labour seat. But boundary changes and gentrification have given National the whiff of an upset.
‘‘Hutt South is definitely in play, no question about that,’’ Key said yesterday after visiting the local Weltec campus.
Some of the bravado may be justified. Labour’s Trevor Mallard may have won the seat with a comfortable majority in 2011 but National won the party vote. 
In his favour, Mallard has the benefit of incumbency – and Key acknowledges that makes it ‘‘challenging’’.
‘‘But there have been some boundary changes that make the seat more vulnerable.’’ 
A string of ministers are pencilled in for visits to the electorate over coming weeks, bolstering the impression that National thinks the seat is winnable.
But National may also be playing electoral mind games. Winning the seat might be a moral victory, but won’t change the outcome of the election as it might have once under First Past The Post – a point acknowledged by Key. And while boundary changes could slash 3000 votes off Mallard’s 4800 majority, there would still have to be a big swing against the incumbent to unseat him. 

Trevor Mallard announced on Monday that he was not seeking a place on Labour's list. He rattled off some convoluted story about wanting to ensure Kelvin Davis got a good list position, but we don't buy that for a moment. We believe it's far more likely that Mr Mallard wasn't happy with the draft ranking given to him by Labour's moderators.

And even Mallard himself concedes that Hutt South is by no means a given for him:

But National may also be playing electoral mind games. Winning the seat might be a moral victory, but won’t change the outcome of the election as it might have once under First Past The Post – a point acknowledged by Key. And while boundary changes could slash 3000 votes off Mallard’s 4800 majority, there would still have to be a big swing against the incumbent to unseat him.
But Labour MPs have been rattled by their party’s low polls. The lower party support sinks, the more their survival hinges on holding on to their seats. And the instinct to maximise their electorate vote runs counter to MMP, under which the party vote is the major decider of which party will govern. National plunged to its worst defeat in 2002 for precisely that reason, after MPs retreated to their electorates and scrapped to hold on to their seats in Parliament.
Mallard does not dispute Key’s assessment, however, that the seat is in play for National.
‘‘There’s no doubt that [my] majority is significantly lower than it was ... .I accept that the seat is not a safe seat, not that I’ve ever treated it that way.’’  

Trevor Mallard has no MMP lifeline, so he must win Hutt South to stay keep his job; just the way MP's had to in those days before the first MMP election in 1996. But National and Chris Bishop are going to make Mr Mallard fight his damndest.

And Chris Bishop had some high-level support yesterday; check out these tweets:

 

 
Taking Hutt South off Trevor Mallard would be a hugely significant achievement both for Chris Bishop and for National. With National having won the party vote in 2011 by a significant margin, and with boundary changes that are helpful to National, this will be a contest to watch on the night of 20th September, and in the twelve weeks until the election.