Whats the W in Wellington stand for?

This was written just before Christmas but I ran out of time to post until I had managed to digest Christmas dinner. For the New Year normal blogging will resume. Happy Hols everyone.

I have not posted much in the last month because I have been busy.

“Well duh!” I hear you say but it’s not like I have not wanted to blog but between the new role, new (old) town, the catching up, social occasions and settling in there has little time or incentive to get behind the keyboard.

So presented here, in no particular order, for you reading pleasure is a distillation of what I have heard, discussed or seen in the last 30 days or so.

Oh, so you have a security clearance?

The latest report on the Thompson Clark scandal makes for serious reading and I (and others) have come away from it with more questions than answers.

For example how did a private security company like T&C end up working for a government Department and its industry equivalent at the same time? What happened to the secret recordings that just disappeared? How does a government agency contract a company to do work without a contract?

And the stain of this thing spreads far and wide. The squirrels have made very rapid moves (for them at least) to distance themselves from the report’s findings and so it seems you no longer need to have a security clearance to get regular access to all sorts of privileged information via official and unofficial channels.

Net take away is that Thompson and Clark appear to have operated well beyond the law and the established code of conduct for such things and various parties are trying to sweep this under the rug because this looks far more than just a few matesy phone calls but something far more sinister.

Pedophile of the year

I hate with an undying passion the inevitable “politician of the year” lists which inevitably fill out the December news cycle because as one of the most despised sections of society it seems unfitting to elevate whatever floats to the surface of the scum pond that is politics as something excelsior.

And the candidates this year, in what has been a very mediocre year for political comings and goings are (surprise surprise) Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters because reasons.

Celebrating either of these two for doing what they have done (wait what have they done?) is the same as celebrating some ghastly child molester for doing what they do best.

Great, so they kept the collation moving forward, yaaaay, I did not set fire to my place of work so can I get some applause as well?

But just to wind you munchkins up I will put forward my own contender for “politician of the year” and its …. wait for it … Jamie-Lee Ross.

In a year where mediocrity reigned supreme and almost everything the coalition did was watered down to be meaningless (read NZ First getting the labor reforms strangled in their crib) or letting their minions run amok (read Jacinda and her inability to know or control her MPs, cabinet ministers and staffers) or perverted as to just be a piss take (read Kiwibuild) Ross stood out for his balls to the wall, Gotterdammerung approach to politics because when there are many turds bobbing in the toilet-bowl its surely the flaming turd that stands out.

A Bridge too far

And speaking of turds, how about that Simon Bridges?

I managed to finagle access to relatively informal knees up for young Nats recently (via my National Party contact T) and it seems like the old MO of dressing appropriately, keeping your mouth shut (always the hardest part for me) and letting your skin color do the talking still works.

Keep in mind that “young” in context of the Young Nats really means people in their 30s and 40s, upwardly mobile and religiously conservative (or should that be conservatively religious) (and white) but still it’s this faction of the party that is considered the liberal half of National.

Well the topic of discussion on everyone’s lips, apart from one young buck who was very excited about seeing Eminem perform live (obviously the very epitome of rebellion)*, was not when will Simon Bridges be rolled, but who will replace him.

At least for younger Nats the prospect of Judith Collins (or any other member of the gang of five) is an anathema to them but the only realistic contender (Amy Adams) seems unwilling to be seen plotting Bridges demise (the key word here is “seen”) and as such the older guard appears to be mulling the prospect of giving Judith a shot at the title because at this point why the hell not and said prospect seems to be upsetting to the youngsters as much as Jeremy Corbyn leading National.

Of course there is a high degree of faux loyalty at play here and I think such a gathering is more sounding out situation than some hatching of a plot but the obvious issue is that Bridges is now nothing more than a place holder (or a bridge if you will) for/to the next leader but the party cant make up its mind, or summon the will to move against him yet but the summer is young and MPs have a month or so to plot over the warmer months.

One thing is for certain though and that’s the warranty on Simon Bridges has well and truly expired and taking him back to the shop for repairs is not an option. The cost is too high so the “owners” are looking around for a replacement model. It’s only a matter of time.

Just one of the boys!

The NZDF has had a rough few years of late, what with the Hit and Run inquiry and all those sexual scandals** that keep coming up but the NZDF has a plan to fix all of that.

Seems that by dragging in as many “secret witnesses” as possible the whole inquiry will be kept secret with some form of edited press for the media and public because what could possibly go wrong with that?

And I am reliably informed that its gone further than that with not so subtle hints to parties to either kept their mouth shut, stick to the official line or at the very least plead “secrecy” if a line of questioning get to close to things like the truth because the NZDF has fought this tooth and nail from the start and is not going to let something like an official inquiry stop them from keeping buried what really happened.

And if that requires a few people’s careers so be it.

Meanwhile in Wadestown

Rental prices for a property (even a one or two roomed place) in Wellington are insane and every house I have looked at has been run like a hostage negotiation session by property managers who seem to have received their PR training from Hezbollah.

The flip side of all this is I have four weeks left to find a place before the summer window for genuinely available rentals closes and I am back to the mercy of the the collective insanity which is property prices in Wellington.

So far I have seen a veritable tree-house with the most spectacular view of Ngaio imaginable, a house which looked great on paper until I realized that what I thought was just the lounge was the entire house and several great looking but clearly un-insulated properties which just screamed “freezing cold in winter”.

Add to my dilemma is that as I am a cat owner and as soon as I tick the pets tab 80% of available properties disappear and I am wondering what it’s going to take for me, my cat and record collection to find a place to live.

So thats all for now, normal (well at least normal for me) blogging will resume in the new year. Have a good one, stay safe and for gods sake don't drink and drive.

*-I wonder how he would feel about the reformed Wu Tang Clan touring NZ soon?
**- Far, far too many links to link so just google "NZDF sexual scandal" and start reading

Giddy up Buttercup! Winston Peters rides again.

It can happen here!

Good Morning Munchkins, your starter for 10 is to read this recent article by Jonathan Milne, about NZ horse racing getting tax breaks and government support to open up its gambling operations in NZ, and then come back to this blog post.

Done that, good, now let us proceed by reminding you of that scene in the Godfather where the Mafia goes to a famous Hollywood producer and asks that a mafia connected actor be given a big part in his upcoming movie. The producer says no and then wakes up the next morning with the head of his favorite racehorse next to him in bed.

From there now let us careen to last year’s SFO prosecution of several figures in NZ’s horse racing industry under Operation Chestnut which revealed nearly 7 million dollars in pokie fraud and helped expose a web of money flowing from pubs to gaming societies and then to, wait for it, horse racing!

Finally let’s zoom across to this recent article by Radio NZ which notes that while the number of pokie machines and venues is declining the profits from gaming is going up.

The common factor in all of this? Winston Peters*!

It’s not for no reason that he is known as the “god father of horse racing” in NZ or that there are sections of the New Zealand’s Gambling Act which are ruefully referred to as “Winston Clauses” because they were effectively inserted by him, at the behest of the racing industry, and are the basis of the current monopoly powers that Racing New Zealand has.

But wait doesn’t Racing NZ give the money it raises from horse racing to charity? Why yes, yes it does, if you count mostly giving to established sports rather than the communities where the machines are located "charity" and where the bulk of that cash goes back to Racing New Zealand to pay for its own.

And just to add insult to injury, because this is Winston Peters we are talking about here, all of this is taking place during Gambling Harm Awareness Week here in Aotearoa, because of course it is!

So let’s recap. Massive tax breaks for a parasitic and mostly redundant niche industry in NZ so that its pseudo aristocratic and corrupt elite can maintain their lifestyles built around exploiting poor communities.

This is the dark side of Winston’s populism; this is the dark space that Ian Wishart wrote about in Lawyers, Guns and Money, his expose of the racing industry in New Zealand, and its alive and well in New Zealand First today.

Winston Peters sits in the middle of this grotty crossroad of power and vested interests and if the plans to allow these unjustified tax breaks and greedy power grabbing goes ahead expect no good to come from it.

I know, from someone who was close to the Chestnut Investigation, that the parties who were prosecuted were mostly scapegoats so that the others in the industry could avoid detection due to bungling by the DIA in the investigation and industry capture of DIAs senior management (who were then unwilling to upset the peace with their new friends in the racing industry).

My friend in DIA also advises that if YOU take the time to look at the grant lists for major gaming societies to see where much of the money from pokies actually goes it’s not really going back to the “community” as the Gambling Act requires, but mostly into the pockets of NZ’s sporting industrial complex (think rugby, cricket and hockey mostly but including horse racing - and the UPDATE UPDATE at the bottom of the page) via way of various fronts and schemes.

And the mood of the public in NZ to gambling in general is negative, the views aired in the media rarely speak any good or have any good stories to tell because for every pre-school which gets a measly $500 for toys or their leaky roof which desperately needs fixing there is some larger more connected entity which gets $500,000 just so they can help keep off season players and management in jobs by paying the work as “development coaches”.

Such a sentiment like this ties easily into a comment I got last year from someone well up in NZ's charity sector around where the funding from things like gaming machines actually goes, when they told me with a straight face, and no irony, that “if local and mid-level rugby in NZ was to have its funding tap turned off to the ongoing stream of money from gambling machines in pubs over half of those clubs would fold in six months”.

And all of this of this, absolutely and utterly not surprisingly, links back into Winston Peters with such regularity and such ease that it’s easy to see why Labour blocked NZ First from getting it hands on the Fishing Industry portfolio given how much money they have pumped into NZ First.

Its not to say that other political parties do not have dodgy links to various industries in NZ but NZ First is so brazen about it that it weakens the whole argument of who, or what, is actually in charge of things in NZ when NZ First can run such pork barrel politics in full public view with nary a grumble from the public or the people supposedly in charge, you know, like the PM and cabinet.

Personally I am opposed to gambling but I accept that the intent of the NZ gambling Act is to minimize the harm that gambling creates and then ensure that any profits from it go back to the communities which spend their money on it (in a similar model to how Lotto grants work) but that,s not happening here and its not just some sleazy operators but govt ministers like Winston seeing that his good buddies from horse racing get their $$$ while others suffer.

Keep that in mind next time you see Winnie fronting one of his "populist" causes.

UPDATE - Oh and in breaking news Police have raided a range of harness racing entities (ie also horse racing) in the Canterbury area for race fixing and drugs. Just in case you needed another reason to not want these people to benefit from Winstons "generosity".

UPDATE UPDATE - It must be my lucky day as the news just keeps on disgorging the goodies. Now its Tennis NZ sweating as half its funding comes from ... wait for it ... wait for it ... the TAB! Of course run by racing NZ. Maybe I should buy a Lotto ticket tonight.

*-Ok, except for the scene in the Godfather.

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

The pissed away revolution: Labour's impotent rage in the winter of our discontent

Not quite a rant, not quite...

Something happened in NZ politics last week and no I don’t mean the birth of the PM’s baby.

Nor am I referring to the last minute averting of the nurses strike, the grumbling over the fuel tax, the removal of health targets or the creeping suspicions that Kiwibuild is a well-meaning but ultimately futile piece of feel good government propaganda that will do little to actually fix the housing hernia.

Neither was it the fact that Trevor Mallard seemed the only person in the party with the sanity (which many other in Labour seemed to lack in this regard) to pull the plug at the very last minute, on what would have been a bona fide scandal over the foreign buyers exemption (involvement of John Key or not) or the entirely correct point being made by welfare advocates that the families package is a good start but it can’t just be a one off.

It also was not the fact that acting PM, Winston Peters, is going against the advice of IRD in giving a $40,000,000 tax break (the only one) of this Budget year to his good friends in the racing industry or that the long expected counter-revolution by NZ business (moaning and whining because even a single step away from how good they had it under National is a step too far for those little snowflakes) seems to have caught Labour unprepared and unable to respond.*

No, the change in NZ politics this week was that the glorious summer that Labour (and to a lesser extent NZ First and possibly even the Greens) had been enjoying came to a sudden end with an icy tumult of discontent blasting out from NZs blogging and media communities.

I have said myself that the political honeymoon would always end sooner or later but after a delicious Indian summer of public polling, which the government had been basking in like a certain type of lazy grasshopper, the writing was finally on the wall as the post budget blues hit hard and the PM seemed to sense that the gig might be up when she mused on the life expectancy of her government being that of only one term.

And thus began their winter of our discontent.

If the defining motif for the nine years of John Key and the National government was one of hideous monsters sucking the vitality and life out of a hapless New Zealand for the benefit of a few wealthy fat cats then the Labour/NZ First Coalition government has been come to be seen as all talk and little action as the Champaign socialists of Labour yore and the vested interest pandering political gigolos of NZ First have yet to deliver on the promise of a better future of Kiwis or give capitalism that friendly face (or should that be farce?).

Of course what helped create such an extended period of smug was the seemingly water tight argument that fixing the mess of the last nine years would take more than a few months so all and any complaints were invalid.

However that logic only applied to Labour making attempts to clean up Nationals mess and not its own inability to deal with rising labour unrest due to clear public expectations, based on the new governments own comments from last year, about the market getting reigned in, its own MPs putting their foot in their mouths or the rising tide of “we know what’s best for you” smugness, that only a Labour government can deliver.

And that is the core of this sudden cold snap of political critique. The almost violent realisation, by bloggers and the media (as the public had already started to turn sour), that it’s not just enough to make a few minor changes to the crappy edifice that National bequeathed New Zealand, then start seeking kudos by saying “look what we have done” and expecting the public to sing hosannas to Labour all the live long day.

Some might see the shift as a once star struck media final coming to its senses and doing its job (some of which is true) but this is the same media which was busy pointing out the issues with John Key and National when they were in power and clearly understood the size and scope of things like the Housing Hernia, the Labour situation, immigration issues and all the rest of the little pustules that National had generated with its filthy activities and thus understood that any genuine response needed more than just some feel good spin to make work.

The reason the blogging/media response is finally getting so frosty is that they have seen that the same problems that persisted under National are still persisting under Labour with no real change in the circumstances except that its now a Labour government and the PM is a woman.

It’s true that National left NZ in a mess, no one is denying that, BUT the people that voted for Labour, NZ First and the Greens voted for radical change away from the free-market ethos of the last 30 years and anything less than clear and undisputed changes to the direction NZ is heading is not going to be enough because it’s is not enough.

Jacinda Ardern, in her musings about her political life expectancy, was smart enough to know that without public support almost any policy plank put forward will be rejected (as we have seen with the nurses, service workers and public servants strikes) but not smart enough to realize her comments in that article betray less of a concern for actually doing anything and more disappointment that she and Labour did not pump enough PR into the public sphere to convince people that the little Labour had done was not momentous or deserving of praise.

The result is that politically NZ is on a knife edge and there is a distinct possibility that Labour and NZ First will piss away what little political capital they have left in more of the same desperate bamboozling they have been pushing lately instead of just rolling up their sleeves and doing something concrete.

And if such a thing happens then two things will follow.

The first is that those who feel disenfranchised in this country will start to swell as the clear perception that neither side of the political divide is able to fix the mess Aotearoa is in and the second is that the door will open to a range of alternates behaviours and perceptions (such as political parties, forms of action and even government) which will challenge the current status quo in every way shape and form.

Labour is barely holding on to its popular mandate now (as the unwavering level of support for National shows) and if it can’t make the changes needed it’s going to find itself facing a resurgent FukYoo Politix (as it did in the last nine years when ticked off Labour voters flocked to The Greens) as politics in Godzone becomes open to anyone (and anything) who can promise solutions to the problems we face, no matter how insane or impracticable.

So the next two years of the first real MMP government NZ has ever had could very likely be its last as Jacinda & Co slowly sink into the mire of impotent liberal rage** as people genuinely start to question if Labour was worth voting for if all they get is National-lite politics.

I have said it before and I am going to say it again here; one of the base truisms of politics is that’s its reform from above or revolt from below and the reform has to be genuine as the public is no longer in the mood for the political management practices of Third Way politics, which Labour seem intent on delivering, when inequality, housing, health and basic living standards are continuing to slip.

Henry Cooke in his article about Kiwibuild is right is noting there is “power in a brand” and Labours brand is losing its potency at an alarming rate as the gaffs pile up and ministers, who sounded so confident when in opposition, start sounding as clueless as those they were criticizing (see Kelvin Davis’s latest foot in mouth incident) when in government.

And I end this post by only half-jokingly saying that this is all Helen Clark’s fault.

If “Auntie” Helen had not been so effective in politically neutering Labour to ensure her own continued role as leader (because Clark was as good, if not better, than John Key at playing her minions off against each other as a means of retaining power) then Labour may not have been so wickedly impotent in its nine years of opposition or should have regrown the stones it needed to act, as it did in 1984 when it damned the torpedoes and gave birth to the free-market bordello that Jacinda’s baby has been born into, to do what must be done.

Instead Labour is spending more and more of its time backpedaling or having to water down its proposals and plans or worse just not doing enough with its actions. 

Anything less than a truly revolutionary approach by this government will leave a legacy that is not kind to Jacinda and Labour (or NZ for that matter) and will place her and the party in exactly the same position National is in today (ie politically bankrupt and bought out by vested interests) and if both of the big two in NZ politics fall into disrepute then we have the perfect scenario for populism in its worst form (think Shane Jones polling at 15 - 20%, determining the next government and being PM - Eeeek!!!!!).

Its been less than a year but I suspect this revolution is already over and Smiths Dream will morph into Winston Smith's reality and our new dawn will fade as the public realizes that we were fooled again.

*-I suspect the timing of this campaign with the birth of the PMs baby was deliberate so that the Jacindamania effect was reduced in any government response.

**-And if readers want an image of what a raging, impotent Labour looks like I highly suggest watching the link above

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)

Am I suffering the post budget blues?

What’s this feeling that’s been afflicting me in the week since the budget was announced? A strange unease tinged with nervousness and just a hint of apprehension.

Maybe it’s just me as the general tone form the media has been themed around the message of “Boring but good” noting that Grant Robertson cancelled the previous National governments proposed tax cuts and used the savings to pump up education and health (both areas that were needing it).

And the ongoing response of the Coalition government to its budget and it policy prescriptions overall still hinges on the valid argument that National had nine years to fix these problems but did not and in fact made them worse by focusing on the mantra of “surplus” at the cost of everything else.

Simon Bridges and Co can moan all they want but that inescapable fact has now been exposed and areas of NZ which have desperately needed more and better funding are finally getting it under the Coalition and its first budget. In a budget with no really obvious poke points National has had to suck it up and look for minor points to score while a bit more sand slips out from the foundation under Bridges and the free-market zealots start muttering Judith Collins name like they are summoning some demonic spirit*

Of course it’s not all been rainbows, sunshine and lollipops the budget has had its detractors outside of an opposition still smarting from the shock of being in opposition with teachers not happy at having to wait several years for funds the feel they need now and things like 100 million for the Americas cup and NZ Firsts extremely dubious tax breaks for horse racing but these are really minor quibbles and while I don’t like them they are neither individually or collectively enough to give me that feeling in my guts that something is not right.

It’s not even the fact that things like the government reneging on its promise to make doctors visits cheaper by 10 dollars or making Kiwibuild homes open to anyone (ie not having a means test for what is in effect state housing) while the housing hernia simmers sinister like in the background like a cancerous growth ripe to explode.

Perhaps the unease is that after nine years in the political wilderness and campaigning on being an alternative to National and starting out with comments about capitalism being a “blatant failure” this budget has been little more than another National budget with Robertson using the extra funds from the tax cuts to fuel the increased spending rather than presenting a budget which actually wants to address the issues facing NZ.

And if we dig deeper its Labour shackling itself with those bloody Budget Responsibility Rules which seems to be a big part of the unease I am feeling.

But I hear you say, if they don’t then they will just be another tax and spend government or simply blowing all those surpluses that National worked so hard to achieve (even if it was at the cost of most of this countries well being – but hey the balance sheet looked good didn’t it?) and you’d be right Skippy, you would be right.

It’s not that BRR are intrinsically wrong but the context of Labour (and lets not even start to say that either the Greens of NZ First know anything about how to run a budget) but that in sticking to those rules Labour is in effect playing Nationals game albeit in a lite form.

And when needed changes to tax reform in NZ (my personal opinion is for the increasing corporate tax rate or taxing the rich into oblivion in a time of acute inequality or even just making a genuine attempt to ween Kiwis off housing speculation by bringing down the housing market to realistic levels) are being poo pooed in advance by Labour in favor of some tinkering to the tax code it’s clear that this budget was not real about economics or money it was about politics.

This budget was in part a means of keeping the coalition on an even keel (an understandable necessity in a fully-fledged MMP govt) but also about keeping the “market” and the “business community” on side because if anyone will be planning and funding the counter revolution against a government which wanted capitalism to have a “friendly face” it will be them who will have the whip in their hands and National at their beck and call.

There have been claims that Robertson is holding back some funds for the 2020 election and that may be true but then it’s just another lolly scramble and just Labour playing the political game rather than rewriting the rules to fix what is wrong with NZ.

I still can’t place my finger on it but I think something happened with this budget and without knowing it we (or more correctly this government) turned a corner and many of the signs ahead show a government paying lip service to fixing the disease that afflicts NZ while secretly keeping it alive.

Ardern and Robertson are playing a dangerous game here as once the idealism of the election cools and more and more promises get broken or this government holds too close to the last governments economic line then we may actually get the dreaded post-election slump kicking in.

For now that has not happened, yet, but making the argument that the solution to the radical strides to the right made in the 1980s can only be fixed by cautious baby steps back to the middle is simply saying capitalism has failed NZ but that the market can’t be tamed and the government using the cancelled tax cuts as a political smoke screen for an agenda which is less about fixing the future and more about political preservation (specifically Labours) because if those tax cuts had not been there to cancel it’s hard to image what good news this year’s budget would have delivered and even still I wonder if this year’s budget is really enough to offset 30 years of neglect.

And speaking of babies, am I just suffering the political equivalent of post-natal depression? Will it pass in time or will the depression and doubt linger?

*-Perhaps they are.

Three very undemocratic (and uncool) things happening right now in NZ

Despite being busy saving the heart and soul of the National party in the last few weeks (no that’s ok, no thanks needed) three other things caught my attention which I am not down with.

First up is the proposed Waka-jumping bill which is currently slithering its way through parliament.

Despite newly minted Attorney-General, David Parker, saying it will have a “chilling effect” on MPs this extremely anti-democratic piece of legislation may actually make it through the house and be passed into law, although not with National or Green support by the look of things.

And it’s clear that this is one of the prices Labour has had to pay for getting Winston to support them but it’s a pretty high price.

In effect the means for a political party to remove a MP from their seat completely destroys the link between the MP and their electorate because under MMP an electorate votes for the party via the party vote and the MP via the electorate vote.

So if a MP is earnestly representing their constituents but that position happens to disagree with the party line then the party would have the means to remove them and keep the seat while inserting a more compliant individual and bugger what the constituents think.

As pointed out in the Spinoff, this shows “how far our political parties in Parliament have wandered away from us, the voters” and it’s pretty hypocritical coming from Winston himself given that had this law been in effect when he jumped ship from national in 1995 his political career would have ended there as National could have stripped him of his then seat in Tauranga.

One of the key ideas of Democracy is that of representation, our MPs represent us in parliament and if that ability is threatened or removed then an essential democratic link is destroyed.

And if you think that is not an issue think about the last time you spoke to your MP, they are the human link, your voice in parliament, imagine if you and your electorate wanted your MP to act on an issue important to you but the MP could/would act not due to the threat of being removed from their seat by their party if they did so.

Not cool, very, very not cool.

Also not cool is that NZME and Fairfax are appealing the High Court’s decision against their planned merger of the only two mainstream media outlets in NZ into one entity.

And again having all mainstream print and electronic media in NZ under one roof is bad for democracy as it’s hard to imagine a free and independent media when it’s all coming from one source.

The argument from NZME and Fairfax that this will be a good thing, and no one will lose their jobs is hard to imagine. Also hard to imagine is this merger doing anything positive for diversity of political reportage in mainstream media when the mainstream media is all one blobulus entity desperately relying on advertiser dollar to keep afloat and an age of declining MSM media revenue.

Add to the fact that one centralized media outlet is the hallmark of dictatorships and one party states around the world and you can see why this merger is only good for shareholders and not, in any way shape or form, the public, free speech or democracy.

Thank goodness that the blogsphere has picked up on this as not only myself previously but others like Pablo over at Kiwipolitico can see a major problem with this and its deeply ironic that bloggers  would be championing a diverse media landscape more than those MSM organisations themselves.

Or maybe it isn't but either way, very uncool.

However what is cool is the current petition to strip “sir” Bob Jones of his knighthood for his racist outburst in the NBR.

Jones always was a dinosaur and a good example of why giving rich businessmen a public platform, just because they are rich businessmen, is not a good idea, as Jones represents the same kind of people I noted in my post about Don Brash, Colin Craig and JonKey a year ago; the kind of people who desperately want a time machine to get back to the 1950s when Maori, minorities and anyone not a clone of them were silent and their desperately narrow set of (undemocratic) norms and values ruled.

And while the two other issues in this post are clear threats to democracy so too is giving people like Bob Jones a mouthpiece purely on the basis of his wealth, as just like Trump and Oprah in the US, the idea of the rich and wealthy being any good at leadership or running a democracy or having any desire for the country to be democratic is dangerous to the extreme, just as the very basis of their wealth has now become the very cancer eating away at democracy around the world.

The fact that Jones has sought to sue the organizer of the petition shows exactly the same mentality as Colin Craig, and the afore mentioned others, when their precious wealth and privilege are threatened and while we can’t take away his wealth (yet) we could take away his title and that would be just deserts for a man who once wrote a book called “NZ the way I want it” where the way he wants it would be would be us all kowtowing to scaly lizards like Bob Jones.

And the petition has been extremely successful so far so it’s clear that again Jones, like others of his kind, has lost touch with reality and has retreated into that soft, safe, reality distorting, bubble that extreme wealth wraps around a person when the rest of the world disagree with their vile opinions.

Find and sign the petition to remove his title here.

All of these three things are highly undemocratic and attack directly the idea of free speech and democracy in NZ and people always worry about dictators taking over and NZ losing its freedoms as one large grand actions (ala some takeover or coup like Smiths Dream) when instead its creeping moves like these above that eat away at democracy and leave us exposed to the predators.

If you value free speech and democracy overall, oppose all three.