Aces High: Chloe Swarbrick guns down Paula Bennett in a drug fueled argument live on national TV!

"I don't want to know who you use, as long as they're not complete muppets." - Hatchet Harry in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

In all the made-up controversy about Jamie-Lee Ross and whats her name last week many people may not have noticed that the first shots were fired in the debate over cannabis reform when Chloe Swarbrick, Green Party drug reform spokesperson, hammered National Party mouthpiece, former hash-house waitress and dole bludger Paula Bennett, for her wishy-washy stance on the issue while both were being interviewed on Breakfast TV.

But don’t just take my word for it go watch the clip and see for yourself a serious piece of foreshadowing of the upcoming national debate about legalizing the sweet leaf because if Bennett is going to remain Nationals spokesperson (wait let me put that in quotation marks) “spokesperson” for drug reform then two things are immediately apparent:

1. Paula Bennett has no idea what she is talking about, and 
2. Simon Bridges move of Bennett to the “new” portfolio of drug reform was similar to John Key sending Gerry Brownlee to Defense; ie to get the dead wood out of sight where it can’t do any damage

Well a fat doobies lot of good that did as Bennett's appearance with some bottle blonde talking head on morning TV came across from the start as world championship level political gibberish as she mush mouthed her way though the intro with a pasted-on smile while waffling factually ambiguous dialog that used as many words as possible to say as little as possible.

And Swarbrick knew it.

Bennett used two sentences to state the obvious by telling the viewers already knew; that there was a referendum on the matter, that it was binding and that it was a “big move for the country” which is absolute rubbish when half the country is likely to be smoking the stuff.

But its that third sentence that slid out of Bennett’s mouth which shows where Nationals debate plan is going and that Paula had been heavily coached to vomit out a set of talking points by saying that she wanted “all of the arguments out on the table” and that people “are looking at the evidence” before uttering the kind of line that no “spokesperson” should ever utter and that spin doctors dread when she almost proudly stated that she “did not have all the answers” but she would like them before she voted.

After that it was all downhill and I won’t bore the readers with a play by play but it’s worth watching to see Bennett fielding softball style questions from the peroxide talking head and then carefully regurgitating the kind of moralistic platitudes which were just a hare short of simply screeching “wont somebody please think of the children!” if only to remember why watching political debate via breakfast television is a bad idea.

But its there at about the 1.50 mark when Bennet’s yap stopped and Swarbricks attack started.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not rooting for Swarbrick, the Greens or cannabis reform but right from her opening line you could tell something was going to happen when she [Swarbrick] said she wished she was in the studio so she could shake Paula’s hand, which is an incredibly queer thing for a politician to say about or to another politician, let alone a normal human being because you only ever say that you want to shake a person’s hand when you:

1. Genuinely want to shake their hand (and then immediately proceed to do so), or
2. Are taking the piss out of them with a backhanded compliment

And I don’t think that Swarbrick would ever want to touch Bennett let alone maintain some kind of skin contact for the time needed to shake her hand, but I digress.

After that the whole interview played itself out like this: 

• Bennett mouths some sort of feeble cliché-ridden platitude, and
• Swarbrick exposes Bennett as nothing but an empty head dispensing other people’s grotesque thoughts and lies with reason, logic and facts

It was like watching Rafael Nadal playing a French open grand slam match against a wheelchair bound, mentally disabled, cripple child as every single stupid statement that Bennett oozed out of her perpetually grinning mouth was blasted back at her with terrible force and just a touch of patronizing voice tone to make clear that Swarbrick knew that Bennett was nothing more than an empty, thoughtless vessel doing evil work.

Bennett going into the debate probably thought she would just repeat what her brain coach had made her say 15 or 20 times while waiting in the Green Room before going on and hey presto her work as drug reform spokesperson would be done for the day.

Well it didn’t play out like that and the contrast between the old, tired and corrupted Bennett and the young, hungry and astute Swarbrick was hideously obvious.

You would almost think that Swarbrick knew in advance what Bennett was going to say given her responses but what I think is more likely is that Swarbrick has a brain and did her homework while Bennett did not do her homework and was left with nothing to say but more of the same talk about getting a “balanced argument” which in political terms means muddying the water just enough to sow confusion and doubt in the minds of voters so that the old political instincts kick back in and they vote along party lines rather than on their own personal preference.

And on an issue like drug reform this kind of disingenuous approach is needed because its an issue that is not politically partisan as its not just Green Party members which buy a tinnie, roll a doob, get the munchies and macramé their ass into the sofa but around half of the country (or more) so trying to enforce the party line would not work.

Not that Paula did not try by cramming in some tough talking, anti-crime comments which would have sounded good coming from the mouth of Judith Collins but from Bennett just sounded like the kind of emergency talking point you pull out of your sweaty ass when the debate has gone south and you know your lost but don’t want to look like you just got kicked around like a pair of cheap women’s shoes.

And this is where the comparison between Bennett, an aged long-time recipient of state welfare and free education turned political hypocrite and mindless cog in the National Party machine, and Swarbrick, a young, astute businesswoman turned politician showed most clearly.

Nothing Bennett said sound like an original thought while Swarbrick always seemed one (well actually several) steps ahead and the whole agonizing nine-minute segment ended with Swarbricks final coup-de-grace statement that labelled Bennett’s behavior a “cynical political move”, again delivered in that slightly patronizing Epsom Grammar tone of voice, while Paula’s face went from Resting to Seething in under three seconds.

Now we all know that all politics is essentially a “cynical move” but when it comes to two sides intellectually duking it out over an issue such as cannabis people tend to go with the side that makes the most sense and Bennett, with her essentially pointless middle ground mush, did not make sense and this is why Swarbrick labeling her position cynical did make sense and resonated.

The Green party has kept a low profile after its beating at the last election and James Shaw (now looking more and more like a middle tier Bond villain in both face and dress) has done nothing to show any leadership but if Swarbrick can keep on this path, she could easily out Jacinda Jacinda and be the first ever Green PM; she was that good!

Her performance alone was not enough for me to forgive the Greens and vote for them again but it was enough to make me reconsider the doomed course that Shaw has steered the party with its disastrous decent into social activism and identity politics but only if Swarbrick can get Shaw’s hand off the steering wheel.

However its painfully clear that Bennett is on the way out politically and Swarbrick is on the way up.

Bennett, in her "new" role as drug reform "spokesperson", is being put out to pasture, just like Brownlee and Mcully were before while Swarbrick is obviously keen to make some political capital by tearing strips off the back of  an easy target  that the aging political neanderthal Paula Bennett is.

Also as Bennett is part of the Gang of Five (Brownlee, Smith, Collins, Joyce and Bennett) so her legacy is little more than a walking, talking reminder of why we currently have Jacinda Ardern as PM as Bennett has never been more than a political brown-shirt for National and as such is subject to the same fate as all stooges and lackeys when regime change occurs.

Political antics aside, my own personal thoughts on cannabis reform is that unless the drug is regulated in the same way that gambling is in NZ (ie the money raised from it* only goes back to the community) and that the discussion about alcohol is brought into line with it then I would see it decriminalized but not legalized as if you can have big tobacco and big booze you can have big marijuana (and their attendant health and social problems that these vested interests foster in the name of profits).

Final thought is that if Swarbrick can keep this up the debate will be over before its starts and its clear that Bennett has been sent on a suicide mission (by Simon Bridges no less) as the means to justify her sooner or later removal from the National party.

And I am cool with both things.

*-excepting casinos of course

Sticks and Stones and broken bones: four idiots and the things they said.

Guess who used to be a teacher?

Ok New Zealand politics! I go away for a few weeks to attend to my spiritual enlightenment (Kifflom! brothers and sisters, Kifflom!) and this is what I come back to?

I distinctly remember making it clear that this kind of outlandish and irresponsible behavior was to cease (see previous posts) and you lot were to get down to the business of guiding this country forward and representing your constituents rather than disconnecting your mouth from your brains and then blathering forth with the first inane thoughts that came skittering into your mind, like crabs on sheet metal.

I mean what in Kraffs name got into you? Did you think it was appropriate to say those things? So what have you got to say for yourselves?

David Seymour

I know David Seymour is irrelevant, you know that he is irrelevant and even he knows that he is irrelevant and this is why he behaves the way he does.

After his bid for TV stardom failed he has returned to the one other thing that he can do with his life; and that’s spouting random gibberish.

Listening to David on RNZ a few mornings ago it’s clear that Seymore knows he has absolutely no political capital or credibility and all and DOES NOT CARE one speckled olive.

Rebrand ACT, good luck with that as its likely to be effective as Bill Cosby changing his name and going out to a singles bar and with ACT having the popularity of NAMBLA nothing Seymour does is going to change its fortunes because the neo-liberal experiment has failed and we are now living with its ghastly consequences.

So Seymour, knowing this fact, has taken a leaf from the Don Brash playbook and attempted a few beats on the one drum which he thought could not fail to draw some like minded people to the ACT fold and that’s good old fashioned Maori bashing.

Sure its dressed up in the clothes of “fiscal responsibility” that ACT has always deluded itself into thinking was its creed but to anyone except the ACT hard core (which is now really just Seymour himself) this sounds just like a pedophile arguing that they should be allowed to drive the school bus, disgusting, distasteful and just plain ole wrong.

And listening to Mathew Hooton, later that morning on RNZ, its clear that ACTS days are really numbered if Hooton gets his way as ACT will be put to sleep for good come the next election when National cuts off its political air supply in Epsom and makes space for whatever political Frankenstein’s monster it wishes to create.

I would have more sympathy for Seymour at this point if ACTs ideas and policies were not the political and philosophical equivalent of child molestation.

All I can say further about Seymour and ACT is the sooner they die (and Seymour has to go out and get a real job) the better.

Judith Collins

Judith may not have realized it but when she tweeted out bat poo lunacy posing as real news that she was showing people how her feral mind works but then I get the feeling that Collins does not really understand how twitter or perhaps even the internet works given her previous tweets.

It’s not a series of tubes Judith it’s more like the largest unregulated experiment in human history and anything you say or do inside that experiment is recorded and remembered for posterity and then spat back at you when you least expect it.

And again Mathew Hooton, on RNZ clearly does not like Judith with his dig at her about how many votes she got in the recent National Party leadership challenge (that being one by his source) or her chances of ever being leader of National are when he summed up her behavior as that of a spoiled child daring her father (in this case Simon Bridges) to call her out for her said antics, to which Bridges wisely avoided doing.

But Did Collins back down or apologize for sticking her foot up her backside and then dancing the Hootchie Coo in front of the amazed eyes of all and sundry? No she did not and in an absurd display of not understanding how the Streisand Effect works went to double down on her claims by telling Duncan garner that apologizing “would only make things worse”.

Really? Really Judith? Is that how apologizing works?

You have clearly opened a doorway into your mind and your beliefs by tweeting out fact free mental diareha as something you think your twitter followers should know about and then then decided, very unwisely, to try and link it to the Labour party and the PM (and we will get to her later) and instead of admitting your mistake you sashay on like a pig in pink tutu at the first day of school and you think apologizing would be a mistake?

Remember the Orivida scandal? Remember that and all the other grotesque things you have said and done, because the series of tubes does and one quick Google search can remind people of all your acts of political bestiality in your ghastly career and as much as you lust for the throne you will never get it.

Your only hope is that the auto correct will change their search to Judy Collins rather than Judith because otherwise you are only a step above David Seymour as something that has only just learnt to walk on its hind legs but never quite got the habit of appearing human.

Back to your scum pit at once!

Marama Davidson

In your case Marama I really don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Reclaim the C word?” What the F word are you talking about? You sound like a mid-90s campus radical, you know, someone who does not really have any idea of what they are talking about but will regurgitate any platitude or saying they hear as the faux radical they are.

You are aware of the perilous space the Green party exists in and you’re ok with wasting its valuable (and extremely limited) media exposure on this kind of backwards feminist antics when things like #metoo and equal pay movements are now things.

Worse still you said it at a rally against racism and thereby high-jacked the events agenda with your pointless political grandstanding, you are about as on message there as Seymour and Collins. What in the name of our Lord and Savior Xneu were you thinking?

Ah but of course you weren’t thinking were you and like Collins instead of apologizing you’re going to crystallize your position and be now and forever known as the “C-Word lady” rather than  for anything else meaningful, like for instance the environment, you know that thing the Green party is supposed to be about.

Oh wait, I forgot, this is the “new” Green party, the one that has pretty much sold out its ecological agenda under the queasy leadership of James “anything for the dollar” Shaw and decided that it’s just going to abandon any real pretense to its environmental and social base and simply allow itself to dissolve into a seething mass of radical posturing and empty sloganeering.

Your shallow Marama, very shallow; going out there and shouting profanities is not going to help anyone and certainly not yourself or your party and it does nothing but sell the image that the Greens don’t know what the hell they are doing and need to be treated with the same scorn and disdain that ACT gets, is that what you want?

And for the record it’s not the word itself, profanities come and go and a bad word today is common currency tomorrow but it’s the fact that you seem to think that your use of them is appropriate, or even helpful, to the causes you are supposed to be representing.

The only thing you have reclaimed is the idea that the Greens don’t know how to handle being in power and that your role as deputy leader is just window dressing under the Shaw junta.

Jacinda Ardern

And now to our PM, who in the face of the increasing unrest and industrial action in the desperately overworked and underpaid nursing and teaching sectors (ones where the majority of workers are women by the way Marama!) decided that it was a good idea to not to make time meeting with protesters, only to crap her pants with fear when thousands of them filled parliaments grounds and other public spaces around the country.

Watching your speech to those protesters it was clear you had, as you said, looked down from your window on high and realized that you had screwed the pooch (so to speak) just as Seymour, Collins and Davidson had done. And just like those cretins you could not just go down and hear their demands and show some sympathy but instead thought it was a good idea to go out there and waffle on about how it’s not “us and them” but “just us”.

Really Jacinda, really? I mean REALLY? You have critiqued the teachers for walking away from the bargaining table and implied that they should have held out for a better offer like the nurses did. Is that the way a Labour government wants to run its labor relations?

You had the nerve to front a crowd simply wanting to get paid what they are worth and tell them that you’re down with radical change but that “radical change takes time”. Are you kidding me?

Do you know what those two words imply when put together or more to the point what they implied 30 years ago when it was perfectly OK for the then Labour party to embark on a program of radical economic change in no time at all and damn the torpedoes? Do you even know what punctuated equilibrium means?

However the crowd did not seem down for your panicked platitudes and twitchy hand waving because the only cheers they made where when you referenced them and not you!

It’s clearly an Us and Them situation when you have decided that crisis management style employment bargaining is the way to go rather than just paying what they are worth (especially since you get half a million a year), settling the issue and getting back some respect and credibility for it.

And it’s also clear that when faced with anything less than an adoring crowd you don’t know how to deal with people who have not bought your BS posturing hook line and sinker when they know that you could give them their pay rises and then some if you simply did not spend billions of dollars on a few maritime surveillance planes. Which do you think is the greater priority to them and NZ?

Is this what you mean when you and other Labourites keep saying that you have failed in your messaging because it’s clear that YOU think you’re doing a great job and expect the populace (that would be the Us) to simply thank you for all that you have done in those first 100 days and get with the program.

Well Jacinda, the program is that between 30 years of Labour and National hollowing out this country there is  not a lot left of the socially democratic state that was created by your forebears all those years ago and what we are left with is a government willing to play politics, give the illusion of change by creating a whole lot of committees (often staffed with Labour cronies) and keep on with the same business friendly agenda that National had but with a slightly more oppositional tone to maintain the illusion that you’re not just another lackey for business confidence crowd.

As our PM you have squandered almost all the goodwill generated from the election and done nothing to refill the coffers. You think that you can take a leaf from the Poodle Blair book of politicizing and try and foster a feel good personality cult around yourself and that will be sufficient to compensate for all the other failures to meet public expectations.

Well I am happy to say it won’t and there will be more not less of this kind of stuff (that being strikes and industrial actions) until you actually do what you and Labour promised and implied when you went out there and said “Lets do this!” to the voters.

And of the four you are the worst offender here. The other three are political wastrels and minor players while you are supposed to be something else. But it seems that your star is already on the wane when you can’t even show genuine sympathy for a crowd of ticked off teachers and instead have to use the moment to try and make some demented political point rather than just saying they are worth it and paying them.

It is worth noting that previous PMs of the National party would probably not even have fronted such a gathering so I am acknowledging you had the guts to do that but one individual action, in and of itself, does not change the fact that the government of the day is fundamentally responsible for this situation and if Labour does not address it fully and fairly then they are bad as National under John Key was when they ignored it and refused to front. Is that something you want to be identified with or remembered as?

However as Mighty Kraff has recently taught me that “dinosaurs are a lie that people believe because they are weak” so perhaps I have bigger things to worry about than four idiot politicians and their idiotic comments. 

Come to Uncle Winston little one, would you like some candy?

Wont someone think of the children!

Attention shoppers!

It is never a good sign in a functionally democratic state when a politician starts using a phrase like “enhanced democracy” to defend a political bill which has clearly nothing to do with democracy.

So in that vein hearing Winston Peters rename the odious Waka Jumping bill the “Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill” we know this has NOTHING (emphasis all Minnie Mouse mine) to do with democracy, not a shred, not a jot, not even a sliver.

In fact saying its “enhanced democracy” is a bit like how the US described its waterboarding torture process as “enhanced interrogation”; a classic case of political doublespeak and euphemisms to cover up what is a rather nasty bit of ethically and legally dubious behaviour.

Meanwhile, as the hot froth of last Septembers Jacindamania hardens into the greasy scum of our current coalition government, it’s becoming abundantly clear exactly what New Zealand’s first genuine coalition government really looks like and in the eyes of many beholders it’s not pretty.

But before we wade into who said what and when lets take a look at this goulash of words and ideas that Winston is proposing.

Thus reading through the amendment it’s striking that this reads less like legislation (and I read legislation for a living) and more like something you would find in a zero hours employment agreement or job contract (ie unfairly weighted in favour of the employer).

For starters the additions the proposed purpose of this amendment is to:

a)      Enhance public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system; and

b)      Enhance maintenance of the proportionality of political party representation as determined by electors

And it’s worth stopping for just a moment to masticate over what exactly does “enhance public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system” mean and how this amendment would do that because the implication in that phrase is that we have had some sort of democratic crisis every time a MP jumped ship from their party to another or formed their own.

Ostensibly the argument would go that MPs going rouge from the party (ie waka jumping) creates a crisis in the public mind that the electoral system is flawed or broken and that by giving a party the power to strip a MP of their seat and kick them out of the party would fix that.

However the period of miscreant MPs leaving their party is more an artefact from the early days of MMP and a by-product of the FPP system with its monolithically two party structures which were never going to honestly encapsulate the plurality of positions and opinions on New Zealand’s political spectrum rather than some ongoing or dire threat to the integrity of the electoral system.

But if rolling that phrase round in your mouth a few times is a bit much may I suggest the word salad contained in b) which is where, under a thick dressing of euphemism, the actual purpose of this amendment is stated.

Maintenance of the proportionality? Political party representation? As determined by electors? Enhanced? WTF?

In short this abomination says the following: Lock party share of seats in parliament to general elections only and tie those seats directly to the party rather than the MP.

Yes kiddies, political parties don’t really want or need MPs as the elected representative of an electorate and they sure as heck don’t want a MP leaving the party (and taking their jucy vote share with them) and think about that for a second because if YOU like the idea of democracy then this is extremely undemocratic.

Elected representatives are a key component of democratic politics and in by-passing the MP in the process you turn them into nothing more than a glorified customer service representative between the party and the voter.

Which is where we get to the contractual conditions part of this political power grab as the mechanism for kicking a MP from the party starts when the leader of a party:

Reasonably believes that the member of Parliament concerned has acted in a way that has distorted, and is likely to continue to distort, the proportionality of political party representation in Parliament as determined at the last general election.

And where to begin with this furshlugginer waste of words, do we start with “reasonably believes” or what the definition of “distort” means (because this amendment has an actual definition section but “distort” aint there).

Or, perhaps, it better to start with the fact that this whole intellectual process starts and ends in the mind (no matter whatever fervid state that its in) of the parties leader.

Then, once the leader has made up their mind, it’s a case of issuing a written warning to said member, give them 21 days to respond and a final consideration before pulling the trigger, expelling said member from the party and giving their seat to someone more willing to eat chain for the leader.

The only brake on this hideous process is section 55D(c) which requires 2/3rds majority of parliamentary members of that party agree that written notice should be given but that brake becomes a lot less effective when you consider that if you were a MP in such a situation and not willing to back such a process you could very likely be next to get expelled under the “distorting the proportionality of political party representation” clause.

And all of this leaves out the vital question of how exactly does a party prove that its MPs really want to kick one of their colleagues out when it’s clear that the whole situation is one of deliberate imbalance in favour of the party leader. Who is going to stand up and say they are not down with the party chopping off a head when the consequence of doing so is your neck on the block!

So in summary, Winston wants political power vested in the party structure and directly under the control of the party leader while marginalising the elected representatives (the MPs) and all because of the supposed threat to democracy of MPs not doing what their party wishes.

All which takes on the most delicious coating of irony (Mmmmmm Irony!) when you realise that the very reason for the existence of Winston Peters as acting PM today is because he jumped ship from National in the early 90s and took his “electoral proportionality” with him.

But if your ironometer* on your phone is not going off right now the hypocrisy alarm should certainly be because Winston planning to eliminate the very means that he and NZ First came into being smacks a lot like how MPs, who got a free tertiary education in times past, one day decided to make going to university study fees based (along with the monstrous student loans that is often required) from now on.

And few are happy with this development.

Labour and Andrew Little, currently the shepherd for this black sheep of a bill though parliament, is not keen on the idea and neither is Nick Smith or National** who described the Greens participation in this crime as “selling its soul for power” which is exactly spot on and Nick should know as he has re-mortgaged his soul so many times he has a timeshare in Hell.

And my season of cognitive dissonance continues when I again (for the second time in less than a month) find myself in full agreement with Barry Soper over this thing while both the left and right sides of blogsphere are also against this political version of being tied over a hobby horse while being painfully rogerd from behind as Winston recreates the basement scene from Pulp Fiction with democracy as Marsalis Wallace, Winston as Zed and the Greens as the weedy guy standing off to the side passively watching the action and getting all turned on***.

The only good in this is it’s not law yet and still in select committee but with the coalition having the numbers (thank James Shaw kids!) we could very easily have this being enacted and serving as prima facie evidence that the price of power in this collation government is letting Winston kiddie fiddle democracy in public all the while he is claiming it will “enhance” the experience.

Make no mistake about it; if you value democracy or have ever been helped by your local MP then you should be against this because the only people a MP should be answerable to is the people who elected them, not whatever blowhard happens to be party leader.

*-trademarked and patented

**- Again doing the job of opposition party spokesperson and blowing my mind at the same time

***-Who gets to be Bruce Willis's character is yet to be detremined

Repeat after me – “It’s just a poll, it’s just a poll, and it’s just a poll!”

Ah political polling, the barometer, if you will, of our national mood; the dipstick measuring the public's tolerance for politicians and parties; the rectal thermometer slid, ever so gently, into the backside of New Zealand to see what its political temperature is.

Thus while no poll is exact they can provide a generalised snapshot of the situation and are often a harbinger of changes to come in the political ecosystem.

Poll results can determine the life and death (politically at least) of a politician or party leader, cause a policy shift and, when enacted in the form of an election, change governments.

So building of the back of yesterday’s post about Judith Collins lets dig a little deeper into some of the other results which have come out of the latest round of polling and see what we can find.

And for those who want to know a little more about the polling environment in New Zealand then I refer readers to a post I wrote back on KP entitled Let’s get Statistical! which looked at the political polling situation two years ago and broke down the dynamics of political polling in NZ including who does the polling, the rules for polling and why the margin of error is important.

Also for those who want to see how polling can effect change when the political situation is ripe for it check out my post from early last year when Andrew little was still heading Labour.

Greens and NZ First: circling the drain?

At first glance the polling from the latest One News/Colmar Brunton poll does not look very good for Labours collation partners (with the Greens down 1 to 5% and NZ First down 1 to 4%) and there has been various rumblings about a “one term government” in the comments below the article just to spice up the proceedings.

However since there is nothing riding on those poll results (like an election or a leadership challenge) they are better off as indicators of the public mood at this time, like waves coming up the beach, and not to be taken too seriously. 

The hyperbolic tone of the articles title could just be the editors attempt to spice up what is otherwise a rather dull piece but I think its just a fraction more on the side of media trying to stir things up where there is very little to stir.

That said some context is always good and we know from previous experience that NZ First can sag in the polls only to bounce back up just before an election when Winston takes his mojo medicine show on the road so a post-election poll showing NZ-First at 4% has a lot less impact when Winston is deputy PM (and acting PM while Jacinda is on maternity leave) and NZ First has ensured that for the next two and half years they have their people an policies in government via the coalition agreement.

NZ First has had higher poll numbers to be sure but those are always linked the mercurial Peters so it’s never a good plan to write the party off based on the polls alone. When Winston steps down and Shane Jones (now his successor in all but name despite more than a few in party not comfortable with him) steps up we will have a different ball game (as Jones polling mojo is mostly untested) but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Meanwhile the 5% the Greens got this time round (down 1% from the previous poll in April) is not that big a shift from their 6.3% they got in the election but when you look out across previous elections we see that the electoral decline in vote share over subsequent elections (10.70% in 2014 and 11.6% in 2011) is a come down from the time when Labour was in disarray and ticked off Labourites were swelling the Greens, but looking out over the longer history of the Greens we see that this is the range that the party has normally sat in when being polled.

It’s true that James Shaw’s disastrous handling of the party in the run up to the 2017 election and the rise of Jacinda Ardern hurt the Greens badly by gutting ranks of the Green vote but the reality is that 5% is about where the Greens usually sit on the longer timeline and if Shaw can keep his trap shut and avoid doing anything stupid the party should be able to keep the Green brand above the 5% cut-off come the next election.

National and Labour: Neck and Neck or the Tail Wagging the Dog?

From the same article as provided the stats for NZ First and the Greens there are also the numbers for Labour (no change at 43%) and National (up 1 to 45%) which are really minor shifts in polling but still the articles plays it like things could go anyway with potential coalation partners.

And at the start of the year there was a certain vibe in certain sections of the media (not naming names) that National had won the popular vote and was therefore the rightful party to form a government while Labour, The Greens and NZ First had done some sort of dodgy deal to steal the election (just like people thought Trump had done) by combining votes in some dirty, “disgusting”* and unfair trick to twist things in their favor.

Of course anyone who was subscribing to that theory was ignorant of how MMP politics works, eating too many dogbiscuts and as medical professionals describe it “an idiot!”

I addressed much of this in a post from last year and it was clear that while previous elections had showed Labour wallowing in the 20s and 30s as polling goes that was more of a short term reflection (think the post Helen Clark era comedown from her political neutering of potential challenges to her leadership) rather than some sort of historical norm.

Also Nationals strong polling in 2017 was as much as a product of politics in the John Key era (meaning that the first post Key election for National would probably be able to coast in on the momentum of the massive boost Key gave the party) as well as the fact that with National now the only party of the Right and the partisan dynamics of the NZ political landscape (ie that NZ is more conservative than many believe) there were definite limits to how many would cross the political line.

So the defining factor of NZ politics as we know it under MMP is not the monolithic vote blocks that the two main opposition parties have but the smaller, but crucial, vote shares that parties like NZ First and the Greens can bring to any potential coalition and it’s the ability of those bigger parties to woo those smaller parties to their side that makes the difference.

Thus we have a Labour, NZ First and Green coalition government not because of any inherent skulduggery on the coalitions part any more than the fact that National screwed the pooch (although one of those factors did count to some degree) in the election by driving Winston away via their personal attacks on him and instead the mechanism of MMP did what it was supposed to do and provide a fairer more balanced result than the yes/no/either/or result FPP used to force upon voters.

And with those thoughts in mid we can dismiss the idea that this is some sort of neck and neck situation (even if we discount that an election is still two years away) as it’s the coalition dynamics that count as neither NZ First or the Greens are likely to swing to National any time soon (see my posts on The Temptation of James Shaw and We are all Socialists now Comrade for further details why not).

Also the dog still wags the tail it’s just less of a pure breed mutt and more a MMP flavored “mixed breed”**.

So what can the current polls tell us?

The barometer analogy (along with the other two) I used at the start of this post works best as we don’t look at our barometer to see what’s going to happen next month or next year. We look at our barometer to see what’s going on now or in 12 to 24 hours from now and while political polls do have slightly longer time frames but the effect is essentially the same: a short term forecast which is generally accurate but subject to local factors and conditions.

Current political polling is probably most noticeable for what has been described as a lack of “budget bounce”*** and Simon Bridges leadership remaining open to contest, which is how most commentators have described it but other than that it will only be when we add the data from multiple polls up or when the afore mentioned election, leadership challenge or policy furor is pending can a particular poll be the hinge on which politics turns.

Why the budget did not “bounce” and Bridges job as leader remains up for challenge are the subjects of my other recent posts but in short one poll result is just one poll result so take a breath and repeat after me “it’s just a poll” as the slightly hyperbolic/hysterical tone of the original articles headline is not quite on par with these beauties.

*-As one national party higher up I spoke to around that time described it

**-for those who can’t bring themselves to say mongrel

***- ie not polling increase for the government after it releases its budget rather than this Budget Bounce (a purveyor of bouncy castles etc)