National-related natterings

Regretfully I was away from keys for several days recently. Luckily Danyl Mclaughlan wasn't. He's read The Hollow Men already and has his initial impressions up on Public Address.

While who will be the new National leader is of some interest to me, it seems Key is almost inevitable. I've long wanted to see the return of English, not because I think he'd be bad for National (if that was my motivation then I'd say bring it on, Judith Collins), but because I think he's one of the few National MPs who could actually do the job. Key, like Brash, has a lack of experience. As time goes on fewer and fewer National MPs have ever been in Cabinet. I think it's important, for our democratic process, that the other candidate in the Prime Ministerial stakes has a range of political experience, beyond being a relatively new MP. Brash didn't and it showed. In this regard, Key is in the same category as the man he wishes to succeed.

For the sake of showing unity and stability, National really needs the leadership to be uncontested. For this reason English may decide to forgo an attempt, unless he knows he has the numbers. For every National leader since Bolger it has felt like there was a clear successor always waiting in the wings - someone we all knew by name and face long before the knife went in. You can hardly say the same of Labour in the last decade, and it has been a definite strength for the centre-left, long accused of division.

The Deputy Leadership will possibly be more interesting though. I've heard media commentary that Brownlee has done a deal to sew it up for himself, and Russell Brown has blogged that, but since then there has been speculation that English may win the spot. Collins has also indicated she'll be in, and there are rumours about Katherine Rich too. Again, lack of contest would be a good sign to the public that National can provide a viable and secure alternative Cabinet, but it seems unlikely.**

But perhaps the aspect of this that fascinates me the most is what will happen to Brash now, an element STC has also been musing on. Given his age, and the damage that politics so far has wrecked on both his personal and professional lives, Brash may be set to stand down, bringing Katrina Shanks in on the list (the one advantage I guess of having a leader without an electorate). How will a new leader reshuffle portfolios to show some change to the public, assert their authority, reward their friends, safe-guard against their enemies, and also deal with Brash in a way seen as fair (from many different angles)? Speculation in the Herald yesterday (offline) was that English might be brought back into Finance and Brash thus given education (shudder) or economic development.

Whatever happens it will be interesting to watch how it unfolds, when it unfolds, and whether National's poll ratings hold up. I suspect that poll-wise any damage to National will mean voters either switch off in disgust or attach to United, Act or NZ First instead, rather than heading to Labour. If Labour's percentage stays stable, or improves slightly, it could well still end up ahead of National if the Tories shed enough.

We're still a long way from the ballot box anyway, but if Labour could end the year ahead that will be a psychological advantage.***

* Not least because I'd like to know what to name the new category I'll now need

** In general I think contested elections, in any environment, are A Good Thing, as they show the health (or otherwise) of democracy within an organisation. But in terms of The Game, electoral contests can be more wounding than winning.

*** And put the new National leader on the back foot. Key/English must be a bit miffed at the timing - I'm sure any leadership hopefuls would have wanted Brash to carry the poll drop that was likely to come out of The Hollow Men and other recent troubles (and a slightly resurgent Labour), rather than presiding over it themselves.

better dust off the pension plan

Noted in the most recent Sunday Star Times/BRC poll (Hat tip: I See Red), Don Brash is still a long way behind Helen Clark in the preferred Prime Minister stakes.

I know that bloggers and commenters from the Right get rather shirty rather quickly when those of us on the Left refer to Brash's limited political lifespan, but this really is the kicker.

It's not about National's ratings (43 in the above poll, to 42 for Labour), it's about Brash being seen as a credible PM.

Given his current polling, it's clear that almost half of those who would vote National don't see it's current leader as their first choice for our Great Helmsman. This is a big problem - not for National so much (seeing as their party vote is holding up) but for Brash personally. He cannot possibly consider his leadership safe while this continues.

Clark though seems to be unassailable. If I were Don I'd be hoping for a coup within Labour sometime soon, because it currently seems to be his only chance of bringing the Red Leader's polling down.

Thanks to Jordan Carter's constant reportage of the polls on Just Left, and his categories function (I am so jealous), I've been able to do a little bit of analysis*:

The lighter colours are the leaders, the darker ones the parties. These results cover 14 polls, from the 31st August last year (TV3/TNS), until the SST/BRC one released yesterday, also covering polls from the NZ Herald, One News/Colmar Brunton and Fairfax/AC Neilsen. Most of them are of course bunched in September, just prior to the election, but the trend is the thing.

What I find interesting is that Brash(light blue) has consistently polled considerably lower than his party (National, dark blue). Clark (pink) tends to poll either close to Labour's rating(red), or above it. On only one occasion does she fall below Labour by more than a few points (Sept 7th).

I haven't included Winston Peters (because many of the polls didn't) but Mr Pinstripe always rated higher than NZ First when his result was mentioned.

John Key of course will be hoovering up some of those National Preferred PM ticks (9% in the most recent SST poll, and he's only shown up in the last four polls). But there's still a gap of 9% currently - that's 9% of National voters who don't want Brash or Key as PM (English anyone?). And of course when Clark rates higher than Labour, and Brash lower than National, the obvious answer is that there may be National voters who still prefer Helen over Don.

Orewa III** (actually happening down the road in Silverdale this year) could see Brash get that boost he needs to survive the year. I guess we'll have a better idea this time next month if, outside of the political gala of election year, Brash can cut it - as preferred Prime Minister and in the House.

Tags:
Don Brash
New Zealand Prime Minister

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* Sorry about the appalling quality of this picture - if anyone can give me some tips on how to better capture a chart from Excel and turn it into a jpeg that would be much appreciated.

* Can anyone point to any information about this on the National website? Or even a release from Brash on Scoop about it? I couldn't find a bean.

polly poll - bites

Labour's lead looks quite solid - if National are still this far behind in a couple of months supporters are going to be looking to UF and NZF instead to try to moderate Labour (hah hah, like they need much moderation, but anyway).

Interesting to see Act blip up a little - is this just due to the relatively huge amount of coverage lately? Are people feeling sorry for them? Now that the Banksmoon is over what will they do next?

Good to see the Greens on 5% - hopefully the only way is up for them (although I don't think they're going to get near 10% unless something externally fortuitous for them happens).

pay-to-vote

There are some very strange ads on Solid Gold FM in Auckland these days.

I don't listen to 93.4 often, but recently I have almost always heard these strange little messages asking me what my opinion is on various justice issues, in particular around prisoner compensation.

But to voice this opinion I have to call an 0900 number. (See my previous rantings on the spurious value of 0900 polls for why I won't be doing that.)

And which organisation is conducting this poll?

The Sensible Sentencing Trust.

If the Sensible Sentencing Trust wants to fundraise then they should be open and transparent about it. Doing it through a phone-in poll of absolutely no value except as a form of revenue is disingenous.

(Humph - I think 2005 may be My Year Of Grumpiness)

phone-in polls - a statistical plague on both our houses

According to Reinventing TVNZ GayNZ and others are incredibly concerned about the use of phone-in polls in news reporting. Fair enough - these have got to be amongst the most dubious news-creating devices out.

I just cannot believe that any journalist would base a news story on the results of a phone-in poll. They are statistically criminal for so many reasons it's hard to know where to start, but I'll try:

1. the sample is completely self-selected, ie there is no randomness that would mean you could meaningfully extrapolate - the poll ONLY represents the views of the exact people who rang in, NO ONE else.

2. multiple call-ins are not taken into account. Those who hit redial effectively get twice the say of those who only call once. What might be useful would be some analysis of how many voters on each side called multiple times - it might reveal that there was a minority who felt strongly enough to call many times, which would be interesting.

3. of course it is exclusive to people who own phones, without a toll bar, and can afford to call. And were watching Holmes, oops Close Up At 7, (or whatever) and thus knew about the poll.

Ok enough of this - check out the excellent cartoon from Ross at Dorking Labs for a good sum-up of it all.

are NZers extremist?

There was an interesting conversation going on on National Radio tonight which I only heard a snippet on. They (Raybon Kan and some other people, Kim Hill, Gaylene Preston, Russell Brown I think) were discussing whether NZers are liberal and Kan raised his theory that in fact we are extremists who lurch from one extreme to the other. Eg the radical change in the mid 80s from a "socialist paradise" (their words not mine) to everything being deregulated in a very short space of time.

I was thinking about this in the context of the Civil Unions Bill debate. I had assumed that there are a relatively small group of people at the extremes on this issue and then everyone else sort of floats around in the middle, tending towards one end (the pro CUB side if the polls are indicative) but maybe that is too simplistic. After all polls don't tend to measure strength of opinion, just measure them in black and whites - "for" or "against", rather than "die in a ditch", "mildly in favour," "slightly against," "I will flee these shores if this passes."

Perhaps there are not in fact this great unwashed mass of undecideds out there, who we valiantly try to convince. Maybe they are in fact decided, but affiliated to different parties on different issues, and they prioritise things differently at different times, resulting in changes over votes.

What if all our rhetoric and lobbying and campaigning really only results in a reshuffle of priorities, rather than changing minds and hearts?

Maori seat stoush ahead

According to the Herald on Sunday, National is expected to announce a boycott of the Maori seats this week, in line with its policy calling for their abolition. (Sorry the article isn't available on line.) The Herald also reports on a Marae/Digipoll which shows National polling a rather tiny 2.2% in the Maori electorates - pretty easy to decry standing in them with those kinds of figures.

But what was really interesting about the story, despite the focus on National, were the figures showing that 39.6% of those polled said they would vote for a Maori Party local candidate, ahead of the 34.1% for a Labour candidate (National candidates would get 1.4%). This is before the Maori Party candidates have even been picked, with the exception of Pita Sharples for Tamaki Makaurau, and with sitting MPs for Labour in all the seats. There's a lot of time to run on this one (in particular, a lot of water to flow back and forth across the foreshore and seabed) but the Maori Party must be feeling quietly confident of picking up several more seats next year.

As the minors and minnows don't generally contest the Maori seats, this is going to be a case of those on the Maori roll accepting or rejecting Labour's approach to them in recent years. Sadly I don't think there will be much scrutiny of the Maori Party - they will be the alternative to Labour in the way that NZ First was in the past, before they stuffed up.

wishful voting II

So if the world had, theoretically, got to vote in the US Presidential elections Kerry would have won. Not exactly an earth shattering revelation.

What is interesting about Betavote's results is the voting for the USA - they have Kerry ahead by a massive 51%, which seems quite bizarre given the high level of internet organisation of both campaigns. I would have expected Bush to be ahead on there by a significant margin, or results to be fairly even. Weird.

should minnows contest the list?

In my recent post about the Alliance's current situation, we got into a bit of a discussion about whether or not small parties should contest the list, if they have little chance of making the threshold (5% of the vote).

Parties outside of Parliament find it very hard to reach the threshold, or win an electorate. Without the money and profile that an MP (or more) provide it is difficult to garner list votes, especially as NZ voters seem very canny about "wasting" their vote on a party that won't make it (witness the fate of the Alliance in 2002).

While some minnows are single issue parties, those take a broader approach must inevitably take votes off bigger parties that are almost guaranteed representation. For the Alliance the obvious parties are the Greens and Labour, and possibly the Maori Party. (We have also historically contested the "grumpy" vote with NZF). But the policies and principles, not to mention the personalities, of these parties are in fact quite distinct - so should minnows with little change of representation not run in the interests of securing power for bigger parties that they don't entirely agree with?

Part of my reason for supporting the continuation of the Alliance, and the strategy to contest the list in 2005, is that without the Alliance I will simply have no party to give my list vote to. I will, simply put, be disenfranchised, as I would find it nigh on impossible to vote for Labour or anyone to the right of them, and I would only vote for the Greens if I had absolutely no other options.

I suspect there are others like me - not a vast percentage of the total vote, but people who believe that one of the minnows is the only party that really represents their vision for NZ. Without the minnows many of us would not vote (on the list) or would do so in a very grumpy and unhappy manner. We can in fact think strategically for ourselves, and decide whether we would rather "waste" our vote on a minnow, or vote for the lesser evil to return the kind of Government we prefer. In addition the minnow parties can make a collective decision, given how the polls are shaking out in the lead-up to Election Day, to ask supporters to give their list votes to one of the bigger parties instead.

Without the minnows I believe our political environment would be poorer. Sure sometimes minnows put out bizarre policy, but one person's bizarre is another person's ideal. Diversity of opinions should be encouraged - no one person has all the answers, so best we share the ideas we have. If we were minnow-less the big parties would also be less vigorous - they keep an eye on what the minnows say, and pick up on the ideas that appeal to the public (some might call this stealing!! ;-)

Surely it is better that the minnows run and voters be left to make up their own minds?

wishful voting

Many bloggers have linked to Betavote.com - where non-US citizens can have a vote for US President (seeing as how we all feel so frustrated at our disenfranchisement at the election of a leader of another democracy).

But I noticed that Betavote doesn't include any candidates other than Bush or Kerry, in particular Nader. Not that I'm saying I would vote for Nader (although I suspect I would find it hard to vote for Kerry I still would in the current situation) but it might make things (even) more interesting if it were a three horse race - would Kerry lose votes overseas or would Nader garner votes from those who would otherwise click on to the next website in disgust rather than vote for the lesser of two evils?

Anyway there is a poll on the Alliance website which does include Nader so those who want to exercise their totally futile and unconstitutional right to vote for someone else's president could always try that too - last I checked Nader was ahead 75% to Kerry's 25% (and no votes for Bush).

rumours of our demise etc II

just got a call from a party member who was called up not long ago by a telephone polling survey person. when they asked who he would vote for if an election were held tomorrow and he answered the Alliance he was told "they don't exist anymore". he put them right.

now i suspect that this was not in fact one of the major polls - they have shown low level support for the Alliance (roughly the same as Destiny or the Progs) in recent months - around the 0.3% mark.

i reckon the pollster was in fact from Act or National - the party member is in Epsom...

it's as if 2002 never happened

in the detail of the Herald poll today i see they have lumped the Progressives and the Alliance together. (i only noticed because i was stunned to see us polling at all)

why don't they lump Labour and Act together too? or the Greens and the Progs and the Alliance?

i just despair when the major daily of our biggest city makes these kinds of mistakes.

*bumps head against wall repeatedly*