Posts by Steve Parks
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Hebe,
Laws against that kind of thing surely?
Yeah, he'd probably just have them shot.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
The situation with ACT now is pretty messed-up.
My understanding is that the ACT support-base is mostly aligned with classical liberal/Libertarian positions represented by the likes of Stephen Whittington.
Meanwhile, their one representative in parliament is John Banks, homophobe. -
Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
for the term of the next Parliament could the Herald please try really hard to remember that Kaye, Adern & Roche are not “babes” but adult women.
And not just the Herald either. It almost became de rigueur for media to refer the Auckland Central race as ’The Battle of the Babes”. It was as if once someone had used it, it was okay to just keep repeating the phrase.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Andrew E,
it is a bit surprising that other residents of the area that vote left didn’t also hold their noses and vote right.
Good on your brother. And while I understand there being some unease about such a vote, it isn't even really a 'vote right'. In such a situation, the left vote they want to cast isn't ultimately going to achieve anything, and the tactical vote they make is actually for the good of left causes.
If I were in Epsom, I would have seen a vote for Goldsmith not as a 'vote for the right', but as a "Fuck you, ACT. Sincerely, the left".
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to tussock,
The more people who would be willing to tactically vote to be rid of ACT for the left, the more people you’d have to assume would be willing to tactically vote to keep them in for National.
Not at all. The National voters who voted Goldsmith had a different set of factors to deal with. The obvious one being that Goldsmith actually had a chance of winning.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Well, it’s a giant ball of “who the hell knows?”
Craig, my original "WTF" question about Epsom was more rhetorical, than actually wanting an explanation. I was grumpily voicing my displeasure at fairly thick-headed political judgment by those voters.
And yes, no one was obliged to tactically vote to be rid of ACT, but we're entitled to register surprise at them not taking the opportunity. The other electorates you mention aren't the same situation.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to tussock,
The results were pretty much what the polls were suggesting
The hell they are.
The poll of polls I’ve seen had national at 51 or 52, and that should be +-2%. They’re probably only getting 47 after specials, which demonstrates a massive flaw in polling methodology (or a one in a thousand oddball, which it isn’t, because this always happens, worse for the Greens).
The polls lie for National and the Greens. Always have, always will.
True. Although apparently the iPredict one got it right. But otherwise the polls do have that consistent bias. I assume it's from the method of calling land lines to survey. Nevertheless most commentators seemed to allow for this somewhat in their predictions, and so did I. Hence, I wasn't surprised by the result. I would have been very surprised if the Nats got over 50% in reality.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Well, the 3,093 folks who voted for David Parker might well have shared Goff’s totally sincere shock and outrage at undemocratic attempt to game the system and manipulate voters.
So they vote for a candidate they know won't win that seat (and who will go into parliament anyway) and therefore insure that that attempt to game the system actually works. Makes no sense.
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Oh, and WTF were Labour voters of Epsom thinking? And Green voters?
That's some politically thick voting, right there. -
Some observations:
The results were pretty much what the polls were suggesting; in terms of party vote no surprises here, except the NZ First count.
Because I’ve felt the election was somewhat of a forgone conclusion, I’ve been more focused on the referendum. It looks like we’ll be retaining MMP, and I’m very pleased about that.
I guess if I look at it from the perspective of what I was trying to achieve with each distinct vote, I can be kind of satisfied. I voted for the Greens, and they got their best result; I voted for Grant Robertson, and he’s staying my local MP; I voted to keep MMP, and that looks safe.
I noticed Chris Trotter doing his ‘Waitakere man’ shtick again when talking about Labour’s fortunes. I hope that isn’t the lesson Labour take from this defeat. Also, Sean Plunket pointing out to Robertson that Damien “gaggle of gays” O’Connor was the only Labour candidate to win back his seat from National. He wasn’t, of course, but once again the suggestion of moving to some more socially conservative position. If Labour listen to these guys my vote will be staying with the Greens for some time to come.
NZ First did surprisingly well, but they’re in on very shaky support. They got 1.8% over the threshold, but I suspect their pure ‘protest vote’ would be easily 3 – 4%. That is, Labour could easily pluck back those votes if their performance improves substantially next term. They don’t have to do anything specific to appeal to those voters, they just need to generally up their game.