0 Quote of the Day - 18 July 2014

Toby Manhire isn't buying Kim Dotcom's latest conspiracy theory; he opines:

But while many will struggle to believe the Prime Minister didn't know about Kim Dotcom, it is not at all implausible. The case against him is built on inference and circumstance. Moreover, he has repeatedly given his word that he didn't know. He has staked his reputation on it. If Dotcom has evidence that he did know, it will automatically become a resignation matter.
And that is why, for all the theatrical appeal, it is unreasonable and wrong for Dotcom to withhold this supposed evidence for a climactic campaign spectacular. A big reveal in the final week of the campaign doesn't only lend weight to perceptions the internet-Mana hydra is a Dotcom plaything, that the political party and the Dotcom defence are two sides of the same bitcoin. It also denies New Zealanders information they deserve to know.
If Dotcom can prove that the Prime Minister has bare-faced lied, over and over, the democratic imperative is that he do so now. If Key is not fit for office on September 15, then he is not fit for office today. Dotcom should cut to the chase. Otherwise, the assumption has to be that the great Dotcom bombshell is an enormous political bluff.

Let's not forget that it was only a matter of just over a month ago that Dotcom was offering a $5m reward for anyone who could concoct come up with evidence against John Key. He didn't have the evidence then, despite having claimed to for two years, and we don't reckon he has it now.

But if he DOES have the evidence, he should reveal it up immediately, not wait until a large number of early votes have been cast in the General Election. Voters deserve to have any information BEFORE they cast their votes.

So our message to Dotcom is simple; put up, or shut up.

0 The headline no leader wants to see

In just 64 days, New Zealanders will go to the polls. And with the 2014 General Election looming large in their thinking, no political leader would want to wake up to a headline like this; Cunliffe a Labour liability, poll shows.

The headline tops a story written by veteran Fairfax political journalist Vernon Small. It begins thus:

Labour would get an immediate lift in the polls if it dumped leader David Cunliffe, a new poll suggests.
The stuff.co.nz/Ipsos poll reveals that Cunliffe may have become Labour's biggest liability, with a significant number of voters saying they would be more likely to vote for Labour if someone else were leader.
Click here for full poll results in graphics.
The effect is sizeable, making a 13.5 percentage point difference to Labour's vote.
Although a similar effect is seen on National when asked the same question about John Key, it is much smaller.
The finding will plunge Labour further into crisis after yesterday's poll result cementing Labour's support in the mid-20s.
Privately, Labour and the Greens now acknowledge that it would take an unprecedented swing against National to force a change of government on September 20. 

That last sentence is telling. For all the bullish talk and the relentless positivity in public, politicians are inherently realists when it comes to polls. Of seven polls in the last six weeks, only one shows Labour at greater than 30% support; the Herald DigiPoll of mid-June had Labour at a whopping 30.5%, and even that poll had National with enough support to govern alone.

Vernon Small continues, hinting at some deep concerns within Labour's caucus that make a mockery of David Cunliffe's pronouncements of unity:

Some Labour MPs were yesterday privately canvassing leadership options, even at this late stage.
But they believe Labour would be even more severely punished by such an outward sign of panic.
Labour's focus now has shifted to protecting its vote from further erosion, and preserving the seats of some of its up-and-coming stars, including Andrew Little, seen as a future leadership contender, and former teacher Kelvin Davis.
Even some of Labour's seasoned hands, including finance spokesman David Parker and frontbench MP Jacinda Ardern, could be at risk of losing their seats in Parliament if party support sank much lower.
Labour MPs are clearly convinced the party has suffered in recent weeks because of a series of headlines that took the focus away from what they saw as a successful alternative economic policy and Budget plan and a suite of popular education policies.
Those distractions included Trevor Mallard's moa resurrection, Nanaia Mahuta's musings about te reo in schools, Little's comments about the reversal of the burden of proof in relation to consent during rape trials, and being drawn into the Dotcom saga.
But they also included Cunliffe's own apology for being a man and his suggestion that opponents in the party were scabs - as well as what MPs saw as unfair treatment of his connection to property developer Donghua Liu. 

Small's revelation that Labour's focus has shifted from winning to self-preservation is telling, but not entirely unexpected; check out these photographs:

Sue Moroney has blanked out the "official" Labour Party authorisation on her billboards, and hand-written her own. As you can see in the middle photo, she has also obscured the Labour Party logo. Interestingly though, Sue Moroney is a David Cunliffe loyalist, yet she seems to want to disassociate herself from the party he leads.

And apart from the fact that Clayton Cosgrove is NOT the MP for Waimakariri as his billboard implies, his billboards are interesting to say the least. It looks as though he is distancing himself from the party under Cunliffe's leadership, as he did in 2011 when he lost Waimakariri to Kate Wilkinson. Unsurprisingly, Labour lost the party vote in Waimakariri by more than 12,000 votes, but ironically Cosgrove returned to Parliament via the Labour list, having not campaigned actively for party votes!

Labour is in crisis; so much crisis that there is even talk of David Shearer returning as leader. David Cunliffe is not going to be a happy leader when he returns from his holiday.

0 The latest poll cycle

The most recent poll cycle ended last night with the One News/Colmar Brunton poll. And for the first time for a while, there are either no rogue polls, or there are five of them. 

Colmar Brunton, Roy Morgan, Reid Research, Ipsos and DigiPoll are all saying the same thing; John Key is set to win a third term as prime Minister based on the results in the back half of June. And to make matters even worse for Labour, only the Herald-DigiPoll has Labour ranking in the 30's, and even that's within the margin of error at 30.5%. The other four polls all have Labour with a 2 in front of its number.

Here's the One News-Colmar Brunton result, via TVNZ:

A ONE News poll/Colmar Brunton has found Labour has dropped below 30% support for the first time in two years.
The poll results come after supposed donations from Donghua Liu have dogged Labour leader David Cunliffe this week and taken a toll on the party.
The poll found 29% of respondents supported Labour - the party's lowest polling result since the aftermath of the its disastrous election campaign in March 2012.
"We've had a sustained smear campaign against us for the last couple of weeks. The poll has hardly moved and we're not that concerned about it," says Mr Cunliffe.
The poll also found National dropped one point to 50% popularity and could govern alone with 64 seats.
New Zealand First also dropped one point to 3.8% - below the 5% threshold.
The big winner was Internet-Mana Party on 2.8%.
Internet leader Laila Harre would be likely to return to Parliament on Hone Harawira's coat tails according to the poll.
"We've formed the alliance with Mana that's giving people the confidence to know that their party votes will count and so I think a result over 5% is certainly attainable," says Ms Harre.
The poll also found 10% of respondents choose Mr Cunliffe as their preferred Prime Minister while John Key won 47% of the vote.

David Cunliffe is blaming this result on a "sustained smear campaign" from National. He should not be so quick off the mark, and we'll see who was smearing whom when Donghua Liu gets his financial records from China and passes them to Paul Davidson QC. 

Labour has attacked Mr Liu's credibility, causing him to lose face. The Chinese businessman has every motivation to save face, and prove his allegations now, and David Cunliffe will have only himself to blame for throwing down the gauntlet to him.

The National Party conference at the weekend was a positive affair, with the only negatives being repeated warnings about complacency. With party membership in great heart, we are sure that National will succeed in mobilising its vote on September 20th, and Labour may just find that it does not have a mortgage on the so-called "missing million" on which it seems to be basing its chances.

Now attention shifts to the Labour Party "congress" next weekend, although we will hear little from that because the media has been excluded.

The June polls have been truly dreadful for Labour with less than three months remaining until the General Election. There must be some very nervous backbenchers at the moment, watching their jobs and taxpayer-funded salaries wafting away in the winds of public opinion. 

0 Quote of the Day - 28 June 2014

OK; it's a fair cop. This is yesterday's post. But we were so wrapped up in the Hurricanes' gutsy win over the Crusaders last night that we clean forgot to post it.

But Steven Joyce takes the coveted Quote of the Day for this effort:

Campaign chairman Steven Joyce warned delegates that the campaign was "still a little puppy" and that anything at all could happen in the next 84 days before the election - the wackiest thing imaginable, he said.
"A retired Maori activist who has become an MP working with a hard left unionist and let's just throw in a wealthy German millionaire right-winger, they could form a political party," said.

"That's the sort of wacky thing that could happen between now and September 20.
"If Laila Harre, Hone Harawira, Pam Corkery, Kim Dotcom, Russel Norman, Metiria Turei, David Cunliffe, Matt McCarten, and John Minto are the answer, can we please have another look at the question?"

It's an oldie, but in 2014, it's a goodie, and a very relevant goodie at that. 

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 We can't help but wonder...

This Donghua Liu business raises more questions than have been answered to date. It's an absolute bugger's muddle, and it reflects appallingly on the Labour Party.

So we can't help but wonder; if we were a donor or bought something at a Labour Party fundraiser we'd now be worried the money got pocketed or spent elsewhere and never made it to the party. 

We really think Labour members should be calling for an internal Party inquiry to check the legitimacy and integrity of the donor & fundraising process and this should be underway and completed before the House lifts for the term on 31st July so that the Labour Party can hold their head high as they enter the campaign proper.

0 A poll sandwich

The two main newspaper groups have released political polls this week. If the Herald-Digi-Poll was bad news for the Labour Party, then they're not going to like this morning's Stuff-Ipsos poll, completing the poll sandwich.

But there's no escaping it; here's the bad news:

Labour's support has slumped to its lowest level since the 2011 election, with leader David Cunliffe battling for survival after it emerged he intervened in a residency application for Chinese businessman Donghua Liu.
In the latest Stuff.co.nz/Ipsos political poll, the party has dropped 6 percentage points to 23 per cent. National is soaring on 56 per cent, which would allow it to govern alone. Click here for full graphics. 
Cunliffe has failed to stop his party's slide in the poll since he took over as leader in September, and is now facing election humiliation. His support as preferred prime minister slipped to 11 per cent, down two points. Prime Minister John Key edged ahead, up three points to 51.4 per cent.
As he faced fire over the Liu allegations, Cunliffe insisted he retained the confidence of his caucus - but admitted he had broached the subject with senior colleagues.
Tomorrow a pre-election window opens, allowing the caucus to dump its leader without triggering the wider vote of the entire party's membership. After a wave of dismal results, the latest poll would leave Labour with 29 seats, meaning five MPs would get the chop if the election were held today. National would score 71 seats.
Our polling took place earlier this week, before the Liu revelations came to light. It shows disillusioned Labour supporters are now undecided where their loyalties lie. Respondents who voted Labour in 2011, and planned to do so in September, fell from 81.6 per cent in February to 61.3 per cent. The drop in support is greatest among 30 to 44-year-olds.
Ipsos managing director Matt Benson said past Labour voters were now unsure who to vote for.
"An increase in alternate party activity on the Left side may have traditional Labour voters weighing up their options and thinking again about Labour. On the other side, as the party options for conservative voters reduce, we are seeing them flock to National." 

This truly is a terrible poll for Labour, and it's not the news they needed this morning after a brutal day in the spotlight yesterday. Here's the poll in graphical form:

Every sandwich needs a filling. For this poll sandwich, the filling has been the revelations that Donghua Liu made donations to the Labour Party, and that Mr Cunliffe wrote to the then New Zealand Immigration Service on behalf of his constituent back in 2003, which was a time when Labour supported business migration from China. The latter revelation came just a day after Mr Cunliffe had denied ever advocating on behalf of Donghua Liu.

If Labour MP's were looking for an excuse to change jockeys in the run-up to the Big Race on September 20th, Mr Cunliffe has obliged. Add to that suggestions from this latest poll that five Labour MP's could be looking for employment after the General Election, and a casual mood for change within the party could become more urgent.

David Cunliffe was in a defiant mood yesterday afternoon; publicly, at least. But he flew to Auckland to appear on Campbell Live last night, and we wonder if there have been any behind-the-scenes discussions in his absence. We wonder if the Campbell Live appearance was a tactical error from Mr Cunliffe, rather than hunkering down in the War Room with his Chief of Staff Matt McCarten, and planning his strategy.

Today will be a very interesting day indeed. We heard whispers last night from a very surprising source not too distant from the Labour Party that two Labour MP's have been counting their numbers, and that one in particular believes they have enough support. This poll may be a catalyst to act, but it may equally be a catalyst not to act, and to wait for the post-election fallout.

Stay tuned; and we hope that Mr Cunliffe doesn't choke on his poll sandwich.

0 Another SMOG from guess who?

A certain aspiring MP in a provincial seat in the central North Island can't take a trick at the moment; a reader has just sent us this:

Here's the Herald story showing the word that Tamati Coffey left out:

New Zealand could soon have its first female Muslim MP.
The Herald on Sunday understands Hamilton chartered accountant Anjum Rahman performed well at a recent Labour Party conference, and is expected to be ranked inside the party's top 30 candidates for the September 20 general election.
In 2011, Raymond Huo was number 21 — the lowest ranked Labour candidate to win a list seat.
Labour Party president Moira Coatsworth and general-secretary Tim Barnett did not respond to calls from the Herald on Sunday. However, Rahman, 47, this week said: "Who told you that?
"I don't have expectations but I'm working to get as high as I can. The list is decided by a whole lot of people in a couple of weeks."

In the meantime, here's a history lesson for Mr Coffey. New Zealand's first female MP was Elizabeth McComb, elected in 1933. New Zealand's first female Cabinet Minister was Mabel Howard, and New Zealand has had two female Prime Ministers, Dame Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark.

We'll apologise to Rex/Edward/Judge now for being the hall monitor again, but clearly Mr Coffey didn't take heed of the advice we gave him yesterday; type, read, read again then tweet. 

If Tamati Coffey is going to continue making gaffes on social media, we will continue to declare them SMOG's (Social Media Own Goals). And at the moment, Tamati is in the running for the Golden Boot award for most goals (into his own net) for the 2014 General Election!

0 No by-election for Epsom

There will be no Epsom by-election to replace the departed John Banks; Stuff reports:

Labour has confirmed it will not force a by-election in the Epsom electorate brought about by John Banks' resignation.
That gives the Government the required 75 per cent of votes in Parliament to leave the seat vacant until the general election on September 20.
Leader David Cunliffe said today it was not in the public interest to hold a by-election in the seat, made vacant by ACT MP John Bank's resignation, which takes effect today.
"A by-election so close to the general election would also be a waste of taxpayers' money," he said.
"I have written to the prime minister to inform him that Labour will support any motion to ensure there is no by-election in the electorate." 

John Banks announced his intention to resign as at 5pm yesterday last Sunday. The Prime Minister immediately announced that National would seek Labour's support for there not to be an expensive and futile by-election.

What took David Cunliffe almost a week to decide to support the PM's request. Did he, like a child who pulls the wings off flies, want to twist the knife a little bit more on Mr Banks? Was he trying to show the Prime Minister that he is no push-over? Did he have to travel up and down the country asking Labour Party members for their opinions? Or is he simply incapable of making decisions.

That there should be no Epsom by-election was a no-brainer. There would barely be time to hold the by-election before Parliament rises for the Big Show. It would be a waste of taxpayer funds, and a waste of party resources; and from what we've been told, the Labour Party is already worried about its resources for fighting a General Election.

David Cunliffe ought to have been able to ring the PM immediately and agree to support his motion not to hold a by-election. If he can't make simple and obvious decisions such as this one on the hoof (although he can make up policy as he goes), how is Mr Cunliffe ever going to cope with the demands of being Prime Minister, and the decisions required there?

 

0 What the 2014 General Election is all about...

Mike Treen is the national director of the Unite union. In 2011, he was one of the organisers of a group of unionists supporting the Mana Party. It's safe to say that he is one the far Left of New Zealand politics.

Mr Treen also blogs at Martyn Bradbury's union-funded Daily Blog. And our attention has been drawn by a reader to this paragraph in a lengthy blog-post written by Mike Treen and published yesterday. In one paragraph, he tells readers what the 2014 General Election is all about:

That's right Dear Readers. This election isn't about the economy, about health, education, crime or poverty. It's not even about the trade unions' hoary chestnut of a living wage. Mike Treen has declared that this year's General Election is about Kim Dotcom getting his revenge on the Government.

So forget all the bullshit and rhetoric about the digital economy, and about better access to the internet for everyone; that's just a front. MegaMana is all about a rich convicted criminal, wanted in the USA trying to escape justice, and trying to get his pound of flesh from the Government who allowed US authorities to try and extradite Dotcom.

We suppose we should be grateful to Mike Treen; at least he has called it as it actually is, rather than feeding us sugar-coated bullshit as Dotcom, Hone Harawira and Laila Harre have done. But as the countdown to the election continues, let's not lose sight of the fact that Dotcom is trying to subvert New Zealand's electoral system for his own ends. 

There's a word for that.

Kim Dotcom wants to take his revenge on this government. This is perfectly understandable. He has every reason to do so. In fact, given his treatment, he has more reasons than most. The most effective way for that to happen is for this government to be defeated in the coming election. The Mana-Internet party alliance is the best way to make that happen. He was smart enough to see that. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/06/12/why-the-mana-internet-alliance-is-a-potential-game-breaker/#sthash.hjSfLLzz.dpuf

Kim Dotcom wants to take his revenge on this government. This is perfectly understandable. He has every reason to do so. In fact, given his treatment, he has more reasons than most. The most effective way for that to happen is for this government to be defeated in the coming election. The Mana-Internet party alliance is the best way to make that happen. He was smart enough to see that. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/06/12/why-the-mana-internet-alliance-is-a-potential-game-breaker/#sthash.hjSfLLzz.dpuf

Kim Dotcom wants to take his revenge on this government. This is perfectly understandable. He has every reason to do so. In fact, given his treatment, he has more reasons than most. The most effective way for that to happen is for this government to be defeated in the coming election. The Mana-Internet party alliance is the best way to make that happen. He was smart enough to see that. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/06/12/why-the-mana-internet-alliance-is-a-potential-game-breaker/#sthash.hjSfLLzz.dpuf

Kim Dotcom wants to take his revenge on this government. This is perfectly understandable. He has every reason to do so. In fact, given his treatment, he has more reasons than most. The most effective way for that to happen is for this government to be defeated in the coming election. The Mana-Internet party alliance is the best way to make that happen. He was smart enough to see that. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/06/12/why-the-mana-internet-alliance-is-a-potential-game-breaker/#sthash.hjSfLLzz.dpuf

0 100 days to go

UPDATE: There seems to be a glitch in the system, so we've taken the poll down for a wee while. Like the Labour Party with all its promises, the system doesn't seem to be counting at the moment...

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

The Herald notes that there are just 100 days to go before New Zealand goes to the polls on 20 September 2014.

To mark the occasion, we've kicked off our June political poll a day early. We've also combined the Internet and Mana Party, given Kim Dotcom's recent purchase of Hone Harawira's party.

As usual, the poll will close on the 20th of the month at 7pm. It will then be three months to the minute to when the polls close for the 2014 General Election.

We realise that this poll is completely unscientific; we don't need to be told that! But it's our blog, and we decide what gets published here, so polling it is!!

Thanks in advance for taking part. We'll report back when the polls close.

0 John Banks does the honourable thing

We've just arrived home from our weekend in Christchurch. And we've arrived home to the news that John Banks' last act in public life is an honourable one; the Herald reports:

Act MP John Banks has announced his resignation from Parliament, effective from this Friday.
The Epsom MP made his decision after being found guilty last Thursday of filing a false donations declaration for the Auckland mayoral race in 2010.
"I have given my heart and soul over four decades to making a worthwhile contribution to this country," he said in a statement. "I have always endeavored to do the right thing. Consequently I am saddened at this turn of events."
Act Party leader Jamie Whyte is thought to have wanted his resignation but friends of Banks say he was likely to have resigned anyway to prevent further damage to Act and National.
The move means Banks will avoid being forced out of Parliament by a conviction.
The judge held off entering a conviction last Thursday until sentencing on August 1 because Banks' lawyer, David Jones QC, gave notice he wanted to apply for a discharge without conviction.

It is highly unlikely a by-election will be held in Epsom to fill his vacancy.
Because the vacancy falls within six months of a general election, a by-election can be avoided with the support of 75 per cent of the Parliament.

Once Act leader Jamie Whyte confirmed yesterday that he wanted Banks to resign the die was cast. Rather than being sacked from Parliament within days of the 50th Parliament dissolving for the General Election, Banks has removed himself from the scene. That is entirely the right course of action on his part.

John Banks has had a life of public service. He is many different things to many different people, but he has never been a quitter. His resignation as an MP is a sad end to his career, but we are sure that having taken a few days to reflect on Thursday's guilty verdict, he understood only too well that the writing was on the wall.

There is no triumph in Banks' decision to resign, and there will be plenty of MP's and local body election candidates saying "There by the grace of God go I". Having done the honourable thing, John Banks now has the chance to rebuild his life and his reputation away from the glare of publicity.

0 Alfred for Te Atatu

We met National Party List MP Alfred Ngaro last year and were most impressed by him. We've previously posted his maiden speech to Parliament in 2011, which was widely acclaimed.

Last night Alfred won selection to stand in the Labour-held seat of Te Atatu; the National Party website reports:

The National Party has announced that Alfred Ngaro will be its candidate for the Te Atatu electorate at the 2014 General Election. Mr Ngaro was selected by a meeting of local party members tonight. “Alfred has been tireless in representing Auckland’s diversity, ensuring that all communities have a strong voice in Government. His experience makes him an outstanding candidate, and he will be a great representative for Te Atatu if elected in September,” said Northern Regional Chair Andrew Hunt. “National won the party vote here last time and we’ll be working hard to do it again by getting all our supporters in Te Atatu out to vote.” “I also want to thank Tau Henare for his dedication to the electorate as a List MP over the past nine years." Mr Ngaro said he was honoured to receive the nomination and was looking forward to the challenge ahead. “It’s incredibly humbling to be chosen to contest the seat for National and Te Atatu’s communities,” said Mr Ngaro. “Under John Key’s leadership, this National-led Government is delivering real opportunities for West Aucklanders.
“We’ve been focussed on bringing more jobs and better public services to the region, and I am committed to ensuring that Te Atatu has a strong local voice in National at the election.”

Labour's Phil Twyford won the seat from Tau Henare in 2011. Although Mr Twyford's majority was north of 5000 votes, National won the party vote in the electorate, and boundary changes announced recently will be favourable to National.

Alfred Ngaro will launch a formidable campaign. And we will make the prediction now that the Te Atatu result could be one to watch on election night. As New Zealand's first MP of Cook Islands Maori origin, Ngaro will have plenty if support from Pasifika people in the electorate.

We wish both Messrs Twyford and Ngaro well for what could be one of the more fascinating general electorate contests in September. We will be keeping a close eye on Te Atatu.

Footnote: Alfred's bio on the above link makes impressive reading.

0 Of David and the GIMPs

We spotted this on Twitter last night:

The reality, beyond the humour of the acronym GIMP, is that's what New Zealand will have should be some chance Labour be able to form a coalition government after the General Election. With the IM component picking the pocket of the G component, and quite possibly cutting the Green numbers in Parliament, there will be tensions aplenty, not to mention the tensions that already exist between the G and the P.

Can you imagine it? A coalition of David and the GIMP doesn't even bear thinking about. We think this is an acronym that will stick.

0 The Keeping Stock Political Poll - May 2014

Our most recent political poll closed at 7pm on Tuesday night. 320 people exercised their choice, an increase from the numbers who participated in April. 

There wasn't a lot of change this month, and David Cunliffe will be grateful that Labour was up two percentage points to 2%. Here are the results, in graphical form:

Some commenters have suggested that these polls are a waste of time, given our obvious political leanings. We reject that.

We make no claim that these polls are in any way scientific, and we accept that they are likely to be skewed in favour of right-leaning parties. But anyone can visit Keeping Stock, and pretty much every month the number of people visiting our blog increases; except when we take holidays! The polls are open to anyone who wants to express an opinion, whatever their politics are.

The polls are what they are, and we will continue with them until the General Election on 20 September.

0 Have your say

Our third Keeping Stock Political Poll has been up for a few days. As usual, it will close at 7pm tomorrow night, precisely four months before the real polls close on September 20th.

We invite you to have your say, whether you're a regular reader or whether you've just stopped by for a look. We don't pretend that the poll is in any way scientific, but it's a chance for anyone to express an opinion.

We'll blog the results on Wednesday morning. But in the meantime, we encourage you to take a moment and make your choice, completely anonymously.

0 Trouble at t'mill in Tamaki Makaurau

As if the Labour Party didn't already have enough internal problems, there's a massive shit-fight brewing in Tamaki Makaurau. Radio New Zealand reports:

A former Labour MP for Tamaki Makaurau has accused the Labour Party president of abusing her power over the Shane Taurima case. It follows a request from the Tamaki Makaurau electorate committee for a review of the Labour national council decision not to let Mr Taurima stand.
John Tamihere told Morning Report that independent sources have confirmed party president Moira Coatsworth met with another broadcaster, Julian Wilcox.
"It's OK for a president to shoulder tap a high profile candidate or nominee like a Wilcox, but where it goes a bit awry is when you use your authority and power to then skew the scrum completely by taking out a major adversary on the pretext of an error of judgement in his employment" he said.
Mr Tamihere went on to say he believed Mr Taurima had good grounds for a judicial review of the Labour Council decision.

We can just imagine how that's going to go down; a Labour Party electorate committee dragging the party and its president to court just months before the General Election. That's really going to reinforce the notion that Labour is ready to govern; not! The party is at war with itself at the moment.

The RNZ story continues, outlining some pretty deep discontent within the Tamaki Makaurau LEC:

In a statement, the electorate committee said it was disappointed with the decision, and wanted Labour's council to review it. It said it continued to support Mr Taurima as a candidate and would be seeking further advice.
The decision was made after Mr Taurima was found to have used Television New Zealand resources for Labour Party campaigning.
A senior member on the electorate committee Shane Te Pou said there was a lot of hurt stemming from the decision to veto Mr Taurima's candidacy.
He told Morning Report there there was lot of ill feeling on the electorate committee and a lot of patch-up work needed to be done. Mr Te Pou said it was time to move on and it was highly likely nominations for the seat would reopen.

We don't know whether Shane Taurima would have a case for judicial review, given the decision of the Labour Party council. We do know however that Will Flavell, the only nomination to date will have every reason to feel hard done by if nominations are reopened again, and he faces competition for the role of Labour's Tamaki Makaurau candidate.

The Labour Party is a far from happy place at the moment, and this morning's Fairfax-Ipsos poll will have done nothing to lift spirits. There's all sorts of trouble at t'mill.

0 Budget week begins

Bill English will deliver his sixth Budget on Thursday afternoon. Having inherited an economy predicted to be in deficit for at least ten years after the 2008 General Election, he is tipped to deliver a small surplus in 2014-15, with larger surpluses to follow in following years. New Zealand's economic outlook has not been brighter for many years.

It's a different story on the other side of the Tasman. Australian Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey is facing a nightmare with the Aussie economy tanking while others like ours recover. That's a legacy of the free-spending Rudd/Gillard/Rudd government that Australians kicked to touch a year ago. The Budget Mr Hockey has to deliver on Tuesday night is going to cut deep.

National held its Mainland Regional Conference at the weekend in Queenstown. And here's what Steven Joyce reminded the assembled delegates:

Steven Joyce is dead right. When New Zealand voters make their choice in September they will face the choice of an economy in recovery under Bill English, at least four years ahead of schedule, or an economic recovery that will run into a brick wall if the Government changes to a big-spending, big-taxing LabourGreenNZFirstMegaMana monster.

We know what our choice is going to be.

0 Always read the fine print...

Fairfax journalist Stacey Kirk has been busy. She's done what good journalists should do, and read the fine print of Labour's "big tool" policy. And look what she's found, lost in the fine print:

Labour may look at controlling immigration as a way to affect housing demand and general price inflation.
In the small print of Labour's monetary policy documents, the party says "there may be a case for varying inward migration and/or work permits in a counter-cyclical manner". 

Unsurprisingly, another party leader has praised Labour's policy:

NZ First leader Winston Peters has praised the policy.
"We have always been for compulsory savings and New Zealand desperately needs a long-term savings regime, so that's very wise," he said today on Morning Report.
"On the Reserve Bank Act, that surely needs changing and has been the case for a very long time, which is good too.
"The variable savings rate of course means money stays in our economy, rather than goes off in high-interest payments to some other economy."
The issue of immigration, particularly where it might drive house prices and inflation, has also been an issue Peters has focused on. 

Winston Peters was mentored by Sir Robert Muldoon when he first entered Parliament. So there is no surprise that he favours intervention by the Government with regard to the supposedly independent  Reserve Bank. 

And there are more signs that Labour is putting out the welcome mat to Peters:

The Labour documents say immigration tended to be "pro-cyclical, with higher net inwards migration coinciding with strong local economic conditions".
Labour was open to investigating whether that cycle could be reversed - letting more immigrants into New Zealand when the economy was weaker, and tightening controls during high-growth periods. 
"This would require consideration of a range of factors, including the lag time between approval and arrival, the wage effects of inward migration at times of supply constraints, and the need to meet skill shortages," the documents said.  

Intervention in the Reserve Bank and controls on inward migration are Winston peters' stock-in-trade, and it is barely surprising that he is lauding a policy which could have been written just for him.

But is Labour is cuddling up to Uncle Winston, that spells bad news for the Greens, whom Peters abhors. On the very off chance that Labour was able to do deals after September's General Election, might the Greens be left at the altar once again, and might Russel and Metiria become the perennial bridesmaids?

That's all hypothetical, of course. If Labour really is polling at 23%, as sources within the National Party claim, they will be more focused on trying to remain the dominant opposition party, not preparing to somehow lead a coalition of the unwilling and unsuited.

0 Small on the Jones "cluster failure"

Vernon Small is one of the more senior members of Parliament's Press Gallery. He has seen more MP's come and more MP's go than most of us have had hot dinners. So he's not given to going overboard.

That makes his column in yesterday's Dominion-Post even more noteworthy. Under the heading Church collapsed? Buy a house Small opines:

Helen Clark would have lowered her voice and with a hint of authority - and a side order of menace - drawled "it's time to move on".
Labour leader David Cunliffe must be hoping he can move the party, and the political agenda, on after what is surely the heart of darkness of his political year.
If things could get any worse than the cluster failure around Shane Jones' sudden departure to work for a government he was supposed to want out of office, it is hard to see what they could be.

When Mr Small says "cluster failure", we're pretty sure that he means a variant of that phrase, which also starts with "cluster", followed by the letter "f". But the Dom-Post is a polite newspaper, and such a turn of phrase might be frowned upon by Small's editor. However, we all get the picture.

And it has been a shocker of a week for David Cunliffe and his party. Shane Jones quite literally lobbed the electoral equivalent of a hand grenade into Labour's War Room, and the party's handling of the issue is deserving of the "clusterf#ck" label.

Small continues:

The danger for Cunliffe, in the wake of Jones' departure, is that with some in the party wading knee deep in vitriol it will spill over into civil war, revisiting the divisions of the 2012 annual conference. (That's the one where according to some Cunliffites the media fabricated Cunliffe's challenge to David Shearer's leadership.)
Already the same divisions are surfacing. On one side there are the "good riddance to Jones" merchants who seem to believe the broad church party would have a wider appeal if its MPs came from a smaller chapel. It sometimes seems they would rather people - voters - changed their ways rather than the party appealed to a broader array of views.
On the other side are those who lament the loss of Jones' appeal to Maori, soft centrist or conservative National voters but use his supposed straight talking - too many "geldings" in the party etc - to attack identity politics.
At times it becomes indistinguishable from prejudice and downplays the strong strand of liberal egalitarianism and concern for human rights at the party's core. Both axes seem to think tolerance is essential, as long as you agree with me.
Cunliffe's task is to heal those wounds yet again - as Clark mostly did after her messy coup against Mike Moore in 1993 - and get the party back to its core messages. There are, after all, only 20 weeks till polling day.

If a week is a long time in politics, the 20 weeks until the election must seem like an eternity to David Cunliffe. His party is in disarray, his policy launches have been botched, his party's social media efforts (including his own) have been ridiculed, and now his best-performing MP can see that there is not going to be much chance of a seat at the Cabinet table after 20th September.

The wounds within Labour are deep, and mere Band Aids will not suffice. Helen Clark, Phil Goff and David Shearer all resisted major surgey, but now that may be the only option Mr Cunliffe has left.