NZ Elections 05 category

After a month of negotiations and deals we finally have a government. It is a Labour, Progressive, United Future, New Zealand First government, with the Greens given confidence and supply.

As was predicted by everyone, Winston Peters got a ministerial position. Sorry refugees, but you are now all deemed to be terrorists that helped the Saddam regime. And if you’re driving taxis round town well screw you! New Zealanders should be driving those goddamn taxis! That’s right folks - Winston is our new Foreign Affairs Minister. Oh the joy.

Also the Greens got shafted, again. They are now all bitter and twisted about it, but they won’t tell you that! They still think they have a chance to put “Green-thinking” into “Modern-thinking,” but I don’t think they have a chance. My thoughts about this is that Helen has reacted to the strong business opposition to the Greens gaining power, especially in the so called Energy and Transportation portfolios.

And the poor Maori party. Willie Jackson on Close Up was being reserved about it. He was always going on about how the Maori Party will get the last laugh. Who’s laughing now? I think Helen is quietly chuckling to herself now.

And why is Jim Anderton still around?

The official results of the elections is at hand, and Labour leads with 50 seats, and then National with 48. National has dropped one percentage point since the 17th of September. Other than that there is no real changes.

The big loosers of this is of course National who has lost one seat. The others are the Greens where they were counting on the specials to get Nando Tascoz in, he is seventh on their list, and with only six seats means he won’t be in parliament this time.

Now the real negotiations are at hand. Who will form a government? It is looking highly likely that Labour are going to take it with a minority government.

A Wanaka man was successful in enrolling his dog onto the New Zealand electoral roll. The dog, Toby, had his name printed in the roll, as well as received an EasyVote card as anyone would have had when they enrolled.

What’s worse is that the enrolment form was given a paw print for a signature according to the man.

Police are now looking into it, as it is a criminal offence to provide false information to the Electoral Enrolment Centre.

See Stuff for the story.

Enrolling is incredibly easy. So long as you have a name and address in New Zealand, you could enrol. This year the Electoral Commission had three ways to enrol, including online, however all methods did require a hand signed form to be sent. You don’t need ID.

My flatmate noticed this when he went to vote. He didn’t have his EasyVote card and said how easy it could have been for is girlfriend, who is both 17 and a permanent resident who has lived here less than a year, to have cast her vote just by using the name of someone she knew from the hall.

BBC News have posted some thoughts and opinions about the election.

Some intriguing views are expressed here, not only from our shores but also in others (most likely New Zealanders overseas). There are some who hope Labour will get in, some that hope National get in, some that talked about how devisive the whole thing is, some congratulating New Zealand on getting Helen back in (though, she isn’t yet).

Keith Locke (Green MP) made a bet before the election that if Rodney Hide did win his Epsom seat then he’ll run down the streets nude. *shudder*

He now regrets it, but he will still do it.

David Farrar is encouraging bloggers to go out there are capture a full frontal shot, and the photos will be voted on for the best one.

Media of course will be out there.

Those poor people of Epsom.

That was all it was between National and Labour in the end. It was a close race all night, with National getting a good lead. Then the gap shrunk, and then shrunk some more, till there was no gap left, and I started getting angry texts from mum.

Labour leads with 50 seats, and National a close 49 seats. Now we need to wait for the specials votes to be counted, and David Farrar looks at how vulnerable the seats are, with the results favouring the centre-left.

However, it all comes down probably to NZ First - again. NZ First’s seven seats are enough for National to catch up on Labour/Greens. But then you have all the little parties that won’t get along with each other. Maori party have four seats, however Labour doesn’t want them, and National can’t because it wants to abolish the Maori seats. United Future has clearly stated it won’t work with the Greens. How fun.

Also last night had a plane threatening to crash into the Sky Tower, with it crashing into a beach in the end (apparently near Don Brash’s house). No word has been made about the pilot since he went into hospital.

One News’ election coverage is here, with video highlights of the night. TV3… ummmmm… best be forgotten. The official site is here.

Last night TV3 and TV One published their polling results and both showed opposing sides.

TV One showed National ahead by 6%. Their polling was done from Monday to Wednesday.
TV3 showed Labour ahead by 2%. Their polling was done from Thursday to Wednesday (so almost an entire week).

Note that while these polls do happen over at least a couple of days, TV3’s poll has a wide time frame for something so volitile.

New Zealand Herald also published results today, showing that Labour could form a government - on it’s own. This was once again taken over the past week.

Image is of the virtual parliament TV One are going to present on Saturday. If you enjoy eye candy then I guess TV One is the channel to watch that night. If you enjoy tiny fonts, having to squint, and John Campbell then TV3 maybe your best bet.

Last thing, did anyone watch the “debate” last night on TV3 (read: Helen and Don in an interview together with John Campbell). You have gotta hand it to Helen being a good speaker, however it was the concensus in our flat that they weren’t giving her such a fair go. Well, I guess John still holds grudges.

After urgent investigations, Labour was forced to come out about its student loans policy, saying that it would actually increase student debt by a couple of billion dollars by the year 2020. This goes against what Labour had said when they had announced the policy.

It just adds to the increasingly unpredictable election campaign. On Sunday alone we had three polls representing the entire spectrum - Sunday Star Times reported National leading by 7 points, One News reported National leading by just 2 (in the margin of error, so technically neck-and-neck), and the Herald on Sunday saying Labour leads with 4.

But then, after the battle of the polls on Saturday, we have the battle of the viewer polls with both TV One and TV3 giving the exact same reasons to watch their channels that night. TV3’s is scary with a close up of John Campbell in its ad. But then TV One has Susan, hmmm, tough call.

Curiously, Don Brash went from “I don’t need to apologise for anything,” to “Sorry and misguided you all,” in less than a day. However, he is not apologising for lying, which to be fair, he didn’t know what the pamphlets were going to be, he just said “That’s great!”

Earlier this week there was harsh critism of the pamphlet drops being anti-Labour and anti-Greens. But, it was the Brethrens who did it! Strange for a group that doesn’t want to be apart of the world. So, why are the Brethrens suddenly involved?

David Farrar (yes, OK, a National supporter/ex-MP, but give me a good Labour party blog to read) has a word about this here.

TV3 highlighted more fluffs with his language, saying that the pamphlets don’t mention Labour at all - then quickly corrected himself. This follows on from the gaff that One News pointed out, saying that the National campaign is scare-mongering. Once again seeing the err of his way and correcting himself.

Meanwhile we get all these ads from such unions as the PPTA which, while not mentioning any party directly, are anti-National. Despite this the anti-Labour/Greens gets all the attention.

Labour on the other hand aren’t handing over anything themselves with regards to the actual costings of the no-interest-on-student-loans scheme. Legally she has to under the Official Information Act, however the Ombudsman is making an urgent enquiry into the matter.

Plus did anyone see the debate last night on TV One? It was great and showed some interesting things:

• Don actually started standing his ground for once. When Helen tried to interrupt him he told her to let him finish. This comes after the Helen vs. Don debate two weeks ago when he let her run all over him. Then, saying that if she were a man it would’ve been different, opening up a whole can of worms.
• Don and Pita (of the Maori party) scarily said the same things much of the time, with Don even admitting that he agrees with what Pita had said. However then when asked if a coalition with the Maori Party was possible, it was quashed because of the Maori seats (that Don wants to abolish).
• Helen was cool and calm this time, well, most of it anyway.
• Winston Peters must hate really hate TVNZ now. But then it was his fault anyway. With a quick yes/no answer on the issue of Maori seats, he was the only one that decided to talk about, but they had to go to a break so got cut off. He did however get his say in a totally different topic though. One of NZ Firsts policies is to combine TVNZ and Radio New Zealand (RNZ) into one news service. Why? One cannot answer.
• I was waiting for Pita to say “Treaty of Waitangi” a million times, but he didn’t.
• I was waiting for Jeanette (Greens) to meantion environmental issues all the time, and she did!
• I was waiting for Peter (United Future) to mention “common sense” in all of his answers, but he didn’t! (Probably because TVNZ found the worm too tacky this time so didn’t have one - but Peter made up his own in his TV ads).

See the debate, or read the transcripts, here.

NZ Herald today released a poll saying that National and Labour are neck-and-neck, however these results were from Wednesday before the “I’m sorry,” news.

3 News today announced its own polling data with Labour in the lead by nine points - the complete opposite of what One News announced on Sunday with National in the lead by eight points.

Of course, the thing to remember is that the ultimate and true test is on the election day polls.

A report on this poll is on TVNZ.co.nz.