0 Tweet of the Day - 11 June 2014

Mark Mitchell, the National MP for Rodney doesn't seem to have taken too kindly to suggestions that Colin Craig will be cut a deal in his electorate; check this out:

It sounds as though there'll be no cups of tea in Rodney in the immediate future. 

In the meantime, instead of inane tweets about election signs having been blown down during last night's storm, Mr Mitchell is using Twitter to feed information to his constituents:

Matthew Beveridge notes:

Some hold that there is a difference between electorate and list MPs, that electorate MPs are directly elected and represent a geographic area. If we hold that this is true, then surely the time to step up and help your constituents is when things are not going well. I am not based in Auckland, so I don’t have first hand knowledge of how bad things up there are, other than Stuff and The NZ Herald’s coverage. But they are both reporting 40-50,000 customers without power, wind speeds of over 150km/h, and a truck blown over on the Harbour Bridge. Twitter would provide a great way for MPs to point people in the right direction of where to ask for help, or offering to do what they can. So far, the only MP who has really done that is Mark Mitchell.

Even though he is a new Twitter user, he seems to get how it can be used. My personal view is that all of the other Auckland based electorate MPs have been found wanting in their response.  Twitter can be a great way to show support for people who feel vulnerable, and to point people in the direction of either help, or how they can help. I think this is a sign that MPs still don’t understand the power and usefulness of Twitter.

Well done Mark Mitchell. That tweet should be framed, then go straight to the pool room!

0 Congratulations Dave

The Green Party has announced its party list over the weekend. And a regular commenter here has an outside chance of making it into Parliament. Dave Kennedy, aka bsprout has been ranked at #19 on the list, up four places from his 2011 ranking.

Here's the top 20:

And in a story on the list, the Dom-Post's headline writer seems to have given Dave a bit of a nod:

On current polling, Dave won't make it into Parliament, but if Labour's vote collapses much further, he could stand a chance. Both TV channels are reporting polls tonight, and if the numbers we've heard being bandied around are true, things will be tense in Labour's War Room tomorrow.


Footnote: We've blogged before about Matthew Beveridge's Politics and Social Media blog. He's just posted a link to another name from further down the Greens' list, whose sole tweet has been in breach of the Green Party's stated values!