Posts by Pete George
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A couple of random bits:
Chris Keall in NBR today:
Another factor: Mr Dotcom has long maintained that Prime Minister John Key knew about the January 2011 raid on his rented mansion long before it occurred. I suspect he's going to drop some new evidence on that one shortly before the election.
@KimDotcom two weeks ago
September 15th A big day for New Zealand
THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
Event details coming soon -
Hard News: Dotcom: Further news of the unlikely, in reply to Russell Brown,
Mega boss Dotcom, founder of the Internet-Mana party, believes US authorities wanted to keep him in New Zealand so it would be easier to extradite him on internet piracy and copyright infringement charges.
He has claimed to have evidence to back up his claims but says he is holding it back until the appropriate time, which he had said was court.
Court has now been delayed until next year.
Will Dotcom keep waiting or release his evidence to blow Key out of the election? That's presuming he has the claimed evidence.
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While the "political pressure" phrase has been picked up on with gusto (or disgust) by a number of people this part of the herald article seems to be being ignored:
An earlier statement from Immigration NZ - provided by the SIS - said "it appears the government interest in the success of the [business migration] policy may have been misconstrued as political pressure".
The statement appeared to be contradictory, saying so much time had passed "it is impossible to know whether this is an accurate reflection of comments that were made" while adding "INZ can state unequivocally that there was no political pressure".
There's more twists in this story than a packet of spiralini. And the story is nowhere near al dente yet.
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What would it take to establish a system of surveying public opinion on contentious bills going through Parliament, before the third reading? It should be in far more depth than a single petition/referendum question allows for (and the referendum/petition system takes far too long).
This could reasonably accurately inform Parliament of public opinion in a timely way so parties and MPs could use that in making their decisions on voting. It can inject the 'voice of the people' into the process and better inform our representatives.
The public submission process serves a purpose but it is sometimes misused to erroneously represent public opinion - ie "80% of submissions opposed the bill".
Polling experts could advise whether random polls or establishing a large focus group or rolling survey group or whatever would provide the best means of establishing public opinion before bills have been fixed in law.
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Hard News: Meanwhile back at the polls, in reply to Tim Michie,
Craig may not get a lot of confidence from Key if his public statemenst are all there is to go on.
Asked whether he was willing still to do an electorate deal for Craig, Key said “he hasn’t approached me”, but believed Craig was not seeking such an arrangement, citing public comments earlier this year.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/coat-tail-deals-few-weeks-away-says-key-bd-157437
And Key said any announcement on possible party accommodations was "a few weeks away". That's getting close to the election for Craig to find out what electorate he might stand in.
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Hard News: Meanwhile back at the polls, in reply to Bart Janssen,
As a point of anecdata, I had a conversation with an in-law who used to vote Labour but wouldn’t this time because he thought The Greens would then get to control the country.
It isn’t the first time I have heard that. It’s an interesting and frustrating situation for both The Greens and Labour. What’s weird is people don’t seem to apply the same fear and distrust to the influence of The Maori Party and ACT over National.
I think there is something strange going on out there particularly in the older (voting) public. It seems that there is very little acceptance that The Greens have shed their more extreme views and are now a much more serious party and hence more reasonable.
I don’t think Labour distancing themselves from The Greens will solve the problem, I suspect that what needs to happen is for both the parties to establish what the coalition will look like and just how much influence each party will have on overall policy. But I doubt anyone is keen to do that.
Greens seem to have been keen on doing that but Labour opted out.
Greens have fluctuated between 9 and 15 in the polls, often through give and take with Labour's results. Greens have benefited from Labour's weaknesses and look a good bet to at least maintain last election's improved result (but they have tended to poll better than they achieve in elections).
The next few polls should give us an idea of the impact of Internet-MANA who could take some Green support, but they also make the Greens look comparatively less scary - to many floating voters Labour+Greens doesn't look as risky as Labour+Greens+MANA+Internet.
I think Greens have always had fairly widespread partial support, with many people being happy with a healthy Green voice in Parliament - but those some partial supporters are wary of too much Green say, especially on economic matters. As far as Greens are seen, environmentalist good, economist bad. So Greens through Norman pushing for wider credentials and especially promoting financial ambitions may attract some but it scares a lot more.
What Greens might benefit most from is if the Labour vote collapses as it did for National in 2002. But that won't help the chances of a left leaning coalition.
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Hard News: Meanwhile back at the polls, in reply to Grant Taylor,
The thing about all this that unsettles me the most is the demonstration provided by the Internet Party of how much campaign funding matters, even in NZ politics.
Funding helps but it's not necessarily an election winner.
Last election the Conservative Party spent $1.88 million, more than any other party other than National, to get 59,237 votes (2.65%) at $31 per vote.
The Internet Party may double that spend but it will be remarkable if they double that vote. And if they do it will probably be at the expense of Labour and Greens and could reduce the chances of a left wing coalition.
NZ First may be the deciding factor and it's well known they have a reluctance to work with Greens and may be less wiling to work with MANA, but it's not known whether Winston's visits to Dotcom have cemented a possible liason there or not. And as NZ First often picks up protest votes Internat-MANA may impact on their result too, potentially putting them into risky territory.
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Hard News: Meanwhile back at the polls, in reply to George Darroch,
Mike Smith has now posted his follow-up. He begins:
David Cunliffe badly needs a new stump speech. On Thursday in Whanganui I heard him depress a large and sympathetic audience for ten minutes with tales of national woe, then promise a positive campaign but give no details.
And later:
Too much of Labour’s communication has been relentlessly negative, coming from what appears to be a pervasive view that “the purpose of opposition is opposition.” That’s fine if your purpose is to stay in opposition; my view is that the purpose of opposition is to get into government as soon as possible. To do that people have to know what is on offer, have a sense of hope and purpose, and that can’t be done with a negative approach.
Finally if Labour is going to run a positive campaign, the its media unit needs to get with the programme. We’ve been getting their feed for several years, and endless series of negative or critical straplines is very off-putting. They also all follow a similar pattern; gripe followed (sometimes) by alternative. I suspect many of them by now don’t even get opened.
An emphasis on negatives is a problem for sure.
Messy policy announcements with on the hoof 'clarifications' are a problem.Deferring any indication of how a Labour led government might lookm and might be able to work together until "the voters have shown what they want" is nonsensical. Voters want some sort of reassurance before they vote but instead they keep getting fobbed off. If that continues then Labour will be fobbed off, with a risk of their support collapsing.
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Hard News: Meanwhile back at the polls, in reply to Alec Morgan,
It wasn't two days in advance. It was initially posted at Trade Me at 3:04 pm Wednesday 4 June. That evening I searched Roy Morgan (in various ways) with no sign of any published results.
I found published results the following afternoon, as did someone who posted the link on Trade Me at 2:12 pm.
A day early is still interesting.
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...despite Cunliffe unquestionably looking more confident, competent and potentially Prime Ministerial than Shearer ever did.
But the Shearer standard is not very hard to beat.
Cunliffe's confidence seems to vary quite a bit and has been noticeably knocked at times.
Competence (or lack thereof) is one of Labour's biggest hurdles.Cunliffe looks like he struggles to competently lead his own caucus let alone a coalition of parties, most of which seem to have more determination than Labour.
Shearer looked far from Prime Ministerial. While there are hints that Cunliffe could step up he quote clearly hasn't yet, in fact his and Labour's strategies seem to be diametrically opposed to appearing as Prime Minister material.
And they keep repeating the same mistakes.
If Cunliffe really was confident he would be himself. That's not how he appears, I think many people are still scratching their heads about what he stands for and what he would be like as our top politician. I've seen glimpses of potential but I've been mostly very disappointed in Cunliffe so far. And I'm a potential voter for a change in government, when I think the time has come.