Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Time to Vote

249 Responses

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  • Joe Wylie, in reply to ,

    And there is something I know anecdotally. If we get ten fucked up alcoholics out of canons creek and into a Hazelden treatment centor, we will get at least one of them that will pay back the effort one hundred fold.

    You appear to be describing the power of self-respect, which I still believe to be the true dividend of social justice. From other posts of yours I get the impression that you know that to be a hard-won thing, though all the more effective for being so. What we’ve seen last night is the triumph of its toxic substitute, namely snobbery, which provides a quick fix at someone else’s expense.

    Claims of widespread revulsion for Cameron Slater among National supporters conveniently ignore that the same people usually hold an equal level of fear & loathing for Nicky Hager, whose work they’ll never sully themselves with by actually reading.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • DexterX,

    I feel it was the capital gains tax - "The Majority" don't want it and the opposition Lab/Green are married to it - I don't think KDC is the reason for Labour's or the left's woes.

    Key is as bent and viscous as they come - the word "Dirty" fits - "The Majority" will no doubt be uncomfortable with the result.

    The left message seemed to be "Equality through Taxation" and the Nat message was "That won't work" - which the Majority considered to be true.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1224 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to mark taslov,

    the CGT was either too big a pill to swallow or it wasn’t fully understood.

    I don't think it's that simple. Yeah there will be a small number of people who actually would have lost significant wealth to the CGT but far far fewer than the number of voters who turned away from Labour this year again. The farmers may well have uniformly opposed the CGT for purely financial reasons but again it's a lower number than explains the massive failure in the Labour vote.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to Craig Ranapia,

    couldn’t carry the party vote in their own patches

    This!

    Seriously the Labour party need to get out on the streets and go door knocking right now and ASK and LISTEN. They need to know what message people were giving when they voted for Goff but against Labour.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • David Hood,

    Looking at the figures compared to last time. National more or less held their support from last time. Greens more or less held there support from last time. Collapse in support for Labour a bit of which went to NZ First. I think, from the outside of Labour, are not what National did to not lose it's support but what Labour can do to bring back the people staying home who used to vote Labour.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    Esteempunks…

    You appear to be describing the power of self-respect, which I still believe to be the true dividend of social justice.

    +1
    Imagine a whole country powered by such a thing…
    (and we are talking self-respect
    and not just self-involvement)

    What we’ve seen last night is the triumph of its toxic substitute, namely snobbery, which provides a quick fix at someone else’s expense.

    Which is why I still can’t bring myself to go and look at anything in hard copy that shows Judith Collins may have been voted back in by her happy electorate…
    No, no don’t tell me! LALALA
    - I can’t hear you…

    The humility of Kim Dotcom, his personal epiphany on social responsibility, came at quite a cost to the country…
    What price to put on that 'bucket list' streak?

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,

    Tell me how or why does someone vote person Labour and Party National?

    The people who need to be asked are those that live in Roskill and New Lynn.

    But Labour need to both ask and listen. The answer may not be pleasant but it is important if Labour want to be anything other than just another minor party.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    Do we have the demographics on the voter turnout?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    The people who need to be asked are those that live in Roskill and New Lynn.

    It’s a pattern that seems to have been repeated in Wigram and Christchurch East.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    …the demographics on the voter turnout?

    I heard someone on the telly, talking about how the Elderly and Asian vote broke down, and I was wondering how they could know things like that without back referencing individual votes’ voter detail…

    I can see how they’d be able to generate turnout by collating who has ‘elected’ to vote from their database – before said vote is cast – but to then say which way each sub group jumped seems to be skimming that meta-data awfully close to the reefs of privacy…
    Though when reconciling each cancelled vote against each voter’s cancelled roll name that data could be harvested relatively anonymously…
    (of course this may be all old school methods,
    there’s bound to be a whizzy program…)

    or was that info from exit polls?

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    I can see how they’d be able to generate that by collating who has ‘elected’ to vote from their database

    No you can get there fairly well by correlating regional differences in demographics with the voting in each electorate. All public data and no need to go near the privacy issues.

    I was mostly interested in % turnout for each group as well as overall turnout.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen R,

    From time to time I forget that I despair of my species, and then I am reminded.

    Now I'm cruising the web playing happy music and dancing around the house (with the curtains pulled so I don't scare the neighbours) to try to use exercise as a way of feeling better.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2009 • 259 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    What was the turnout, btw? I didn't hear any stars on it last night at all.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    I had the misfortune to be with my folks who stubbornly and masochistically insisted on watching the TV3 coverage. Their glee that Mana was gone was cut short by my explanation about who would pick up the redistribution. To my surprise it seemed like it was the first time they had ever understood how MMP works.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • izogi, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    I’m also surprised how slim Peter Dunne’s margin is. Only 930. It was my impression he was a reasonably popular local MP

    My impression of Ohariu (currently renting here) is that although it’s very in favour of National, it’s also very polarised for and against Dunne.

    It shows when a guy who did everything but clearly instruct everyone to vote for Peter Dunne, and was virtually guaranteed a place via National’s list, still managed to pick up 5000 votes against Dunne’s 12000. If National hadn’t given people a candidate to neutralise all their supporters who despise him, they very possibly would have gone to Virginia Anderson. Chauvel nearly knocked Dunne over in the previous two elections for the same reason.

    I might be mis-reading it, though. Maybe it’s just a case of many National supporters (well, voters in general) not getting the strategic voting thing or not wanting to do it, or not paying attention to anything beyond the logo next to their tick on the ballot paper.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • David Hood,

    The enrolment stats are over here, so one could do some maths against the election results for turnout

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • David Hood,

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    I make it %62 turnout but Im on my phone cant research it just yet.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    The split vote esp on Chch mystifies me. But it's probably over-thinking to call it anything more than -kinda like Labour and esp this local person who knocked on the door the other day and really seemed to care. But I really want the Rt Hon Key and his 'strong stable government. '

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    OK, so I’m not exactly sure how the calculation of turnout is usually done, but here are the base numbers:
    From the Election Results page:

    Total votes counted: 2,112,522
    Special vote: 254,630

    From David’s link, the enrolment stats:

    Est Eligible Population: 3,391,100
    Total Enrolled: 3,096,247

    I’m not sure if the special votes are votes yet to be counted. If they are, and if the guess at turnout is based on enrolled population, then it is
    (2,112,522 + 254,630)/ 3,096,247 = %76.4

    If the usual basis is the eligible population it’s
    (2,112,522 + 254,630)/ 3,391,100 = %69.8

    Neither of those is a good number. Neither speaks to the Get Out The Vote drive having made a difference. To me the more sensible number is the second, that there is little difference between enrolling-and-not-voting and not-enrolling-and-not-voting in terms of measuring meaningful interaction with the democratic process.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Greg Dawson,

    One comment on the "Labour needs to show they have a host of good leaders, not just one" and "Labour needs to x" in general - Show me where the now FPP again National government does that. Is crusher a good leader? Joyce? I'll give you English, but not Key.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 294 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Attachment

    Manual. Labour?
    Yet another vintage text
    we may all need a copy of...

    [tip: keep it in a ziplock bag]
    There's a hard reign
    is gonna fall...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    Yet another vintage text
    we may all need a copy of…

    Had one of those back in the day. Ate bracken fiddleheads like it recommended, Only years later did I learn that they're carcinogenic. Probably an analogy for something there.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    Attachment

    Had one of those back in the day.

    Let them eat damper…
    it's moistly harmless!

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • mark taslov, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    I don’t think it’s that simple. Yeah there will be a small number of people who actually would have lost significant wealth to the CGT but far far fewer than the number of voters who turned away from Labour this year again. The farmers may well have uniformly opposed the CGT for purely financial reasons but again it’s a lower number than explains the massive failure in the Labour vote.

    I'll explain my thinking here, and sorry again for yesterday Bart, I was out of my mind. I'm not talking about a small number of people, I'm talking about the majority of middle class New Zealanders, not particularly wealthy, just with a willingness to live the New Zealand dream, either by buying a bach, or a rental property. The CGT meant if they ever had to sell that second property then 15% of the sale price went to the government. I think this may be difficult to grasp for anyone living in Auckland with it's inflated house prices, but say someone lives in, I don't know, Gisborne, where people can still afford a house for less than $150,000, then the possibility of one day owning a second property isn't that far fetched. Perhaps after 10-15 years they pay off their mortgage, staying safe, they may want to buy a rental somewhere with population growth like Napier, where something like that will have $200p/w income.

    As for the baches. Well there's a fair few on the market lately, In a place like Mahia where there are a lot of would be vendors right now, people are looking for about $300,000 for their baches, and if Labour had won last night, they'd have just lost $45,000 to the Government. No one with 2 properties is going to vote away a percentage of the value of that property to the Government, and no one with a dream or realisable ambition is going to forgo that dream.

    It's not wealthy people and farmers who have these kinds of dreams, it's middle class New Zealanders, It's not about 70 pages of policy, it's about having the best policy. And just because a million New Zealanders live in Auckland doesn't mean the rest don't, that's the maths of it. These are the reasons why I was against this on the CGT thread.

    Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Mar 2008 • 2281 posts Report Reply

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