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.

0 UPDATED - The Labour list

UPDATED: The Herald reports:

No newcomers are likely to make it into Parliament on Labour's new list unless the party polls almost 32 per cent in September.
After delaying the announcement due to the ongoing controversy around donations from Donghua Liu, Labour released the list this afternoon.
The list has ensured that - assuming sitting electorate MPs ranked above them retain their seats - four of the first six MPs likely to get in on the list are women, which will meet the new requirement to have a caucus with at least 45 per cent women after the 2014 election.
They are Jacinda Ardern who is at no.5, Sue Moroney at no. 10, Maryan Street at no. 15, and Moana Mackey who is at no. 17.
However the first newcomer on the list Ministry of Women's Affairs policy analyst Priyanka Radhakrishnan at 23 won't come in unless the party polls 31.67 per cent or more.

The outlook is rather stormy for former TVNZ weatherman Tamati Coffey. He would probably need Labour to get around 34% of the party vote if he cannot win the Rotorua seat.

 ****************************************

The Labour Party has finally released its list after several false starts over the last two days; Stuff reports:

Policy analyst Priyanca Radhakrishnan, small business owner Rachel Jones from Tauranga and former TVNZ presenter Tamati Coffey are the top ranked non-MPs in Labour's list released today.
Five sitting MPs Ruth Dyson, Kris Faafoi, Clare Curran, Trevor Mallard and Rino Tirikatene have opted off the list as has Napier candidate Stuart Nash.
Radhakrishnan, is ranked 23, Jones 25 and Coffey, who is standing in Rotorua, is at 30.
As expected leader David Cunliffe and his deputy take out the top two slots, followed by Grant Robertson, Annette King, Jacinda Ardern and Nanaia Mahuta, who is the top-ranked Maori MP.
Maungakiekie candidate Carol Beaumont has slipped from 22 to 26.
Party president Moira Coatsworth said the list was ''an outstanding group of talented New Zealanders".
"The party's renewal and the number of skilled candidates meant that the biggest challenge was having to rank 64 people of such high calibre. We are excited by the skilled, experienced people we expect to join our Caucus team."
Cunliffe said he was delighted at the ''fantastic array of talented candidates''.
The list is made up of 30 men and 34 women.   A further 16 men and five women are standing only for electorates.
LABOUR LIST
1    David Cunliffe
2    David Parker
3    Grant Robertson
4    Annette King
5    Jacinda Ardern
6    Nanaia Mahuta
7    Phil Twyford
8    Clayton Cosgrove
9    Chris Hipkins
10    Sue Moroney
11    Andrew Little
12    Louisa Wall
13    David Shearer
14    Su'a William Sio
15    Maryan Street
16    Phil Goff
17    Moana Mackey
18    Kelvin Davis
19    Meka Whaitiri
20    Megan Woods
21    Raymond Huo
22    Damien O'Connor
23    Priyanca Radhakrishnan
24    Iain Lees-Galloway
25    Rachel Jones
26    David Clark
27    Carol Beaumont
28    Poto Williams
29    Carmel Sepuloni
30    Tamati Coffey
31    Jenny Salesa
32    Liz Craig
33    Deborah Russell
34    Willow-Jean Prime
35    Jerome Mika
36    Tony Milne
37    Virginia Andersen
38    Claire Szabo
39    Michael Wood
40    Arena Williams
41    Hamish McDouall
42    Anjum Rahman
43    Sunny Kaushal
44    Christine Greer
45    Penny Gaylor
46    Janette Walker
47    Richard Hills
48    Shanan Halbert
49    Anahila Suisuiki
50    Clare Wilson
51    James Dann
52    Kelly Ellis
53    Corie Haddock
54    Jamie Strange
55    Katie Paul
56    Steven Gibson
57    Chao-Fu Wu
58    Paul Grimshaw
59    Tracey Dorreen
60    Tofik Mamedov
61    Hikiera Toroa
62    Hugh Tyler
63    Susan Elliot
64    Simon Buckingham 

There are plenty of interesting features. Trevor Mallard and Clare Curran have gone electorate only, along with Ruth Dyson, Kris Faafoi and Rino Tirakatene. 

Although Trevor Mallard won Hutt South by 4825 votes last time around, that was against Paul Quinn. But Mallard will be worried that the party vote in Hutt South favoured National by nearly 2000 votes in 2011. He cannot take his electorate seat for granted, and newcomer Chris Bishop is, from all reports, going to mount a very strong challenge.

Likewise Clare Curran. She won her seat by over 4000 votes in 2011, but the the first time since MMP began, Labour lost the party vote in Dunedin South by almost 2000 votes.  She will have to campaign very hard against Dunedin born-and-educated Hamish Walker.

Interestingly though, a total of 21 electorate candidates are not ranked on the Labour list (16 men and 5 women). Given that some of them are likely to win their electorate seats, Labour's percentage of the party vote probably needs to get up around the 33% mark for the likes of Kelvin Davis, Moana Mackey, Raymond Huo and Carol Beaumont to get back, if they do not win their respective seats. And because of the Man-Ban, Damian O'Connor (#22) and Iain Lees-Galloway (24) will almost certainly have to win their seats to keep their jobs.

And of course, it'll get even tougher for Labour's men in 2017 when women MUST comprise 50% of caucus. We won't resile from our contention that ability is more important than gender. Labour's Man-Ban is going to haunt the party in the years ahead.