Tag Archives: Elections

An open letter to the politically apathetic Facebook generation #votenz

Posted on by Brad Heap

To all who will listen,

Voting: simple and easy, even from overseas.

Next Saturday, each eligible New Zealander will be given the opportunity to vote for who they wish to represent them in government for the next three years.

Unfortunately a large number of young people won’t use this opportunity and as a result their opinion won’t be expressed.

The sad reality is that many people will happily answer online polls, express frustration via status updates and in general complain (often quite rightly) about how crap it is to be young won’t leave the house to pop down to their local school or community hall to vote and make a difference where they actually can.

However, this is the true reality: there is more power in casting a vote than three years of online polls, status updates, and complaining combined.

In New Zealand, under the MMP voting system, every vote is equal, and every vote matters.

But, when you don’t vote you are giving up that equality, you are letting someone else decide, and they will surely decide what is best for themselves, not for you.

For young people this election is particularly relevant for two key reasons: minimum wage/employment and education.

Currently the minimum wage in New Zealand is $12.75/hour and in Australia it is $15.51 AUD/hour which converted to NZ dollars is $20.52/hour – almost double.

If National is re-elected to government their policy is to set a youth minimum wage of 80% of the full minimum wage. That would lower the NZ minimum wage to $10.20/hour – less than half that of Australia’s. In other words young people get screwed.

National have also spent the last three years in government making it harder and more expensive to access education. Entry to university and polytechs are now capped, fees have continued to rise, and it is much harder to get student loans and if National get re-elected expect this to get worse.

Put simply, youth unemployment is over 17%, there are few jobs, people who currently have jobs can expect to be paid less for the same work, and upskilling is a tough gig. Young people are being screwed.

However, most other parties have policy to set the minimum wage to $15/hour and increase access to education.

But while young people continue to moan on Facebook, and fail to vote, they will continue to be screwed by a government that doesn’t care about them.

Next Saturday is an opportunity to change that and elect a government that does represent you.

About a third of people under the age of 25 are not enrolled to vote. If this is you then please enrol you must do so before Friday 25th November. You can enrol here: http://www.elections.org.nz/app/enrol/

Most importantly make sure you go out and vote on Saturday.

Chur,
Passionate young kiwi, living in Australia, wishing to call NZ home again someday.

Labour self destructs further with involvement in voting scam

Posted on by Brad Heap

Update October 9: Name supression has been revoked, it is safe to post this, I will update with more details later today.

For the last few weeks there has been investigations by Police in New Zealand into voting fraud in South Auckland. In the blogosphere a number of right wing blogs have been point the finger at members of the Labour Party being involved. I refused to believe them as I did not think for one second anyone involved in a political party would be that stupid. I was wrong.

Radio NZ reports:

Two men have been arrested and charged with forgery just days before local body voting closes, accused of creating enrolment irregularities in Auckland.

Labour Party president Andrew Little says at least one of them has links to the party.

At the rate the Labour Party is going they will not be back in power for a long time. This is a real shame, while I may be a Greens supporter it is unlikely they will ever be able to form government without Labour, and with Labour just going from one self-inflected crises to the next National are likely to retain power for the better part of the next decade.

Update: Kiwiblog is reporting the names of the two people arrested, they may or may not have name suppression so I am not going to repost the names here but one of them is a JP. Fraud is one thing, fraud by a JP is another. Since when did NZ become so corrupt?

Blog Post on Electoral Fraud Taken Down and now back up.

Posted on by Brad Heap

Update: Name supression revoked, you should see the post above this one.

I have just taken down my post on the Electoral Fraud in South Auckland. Those involved have managed to get name suppression and news sites and blogs have also removed their political affiliation until the suppression order is lifted. As Kiwiblog points out. This is “Very ironic that this happens on the day the Government announces it will be harder to get name suppression.”

Auckland Council Elections – Where My Ticks Went

Posted on by Brad Heap

It has just taken me an hour and 20 minutes to decide who to vote for in the elections for the new Auckland Council. I tried my best to read all the candidate blurbs and make an informed choice. I did not follow a particular party but instead judged each candidate on their vision and experience. And here is where my votes went:

Auckland Mayor: Len Brown.
I chose to vote for Brown to strategically stop John Banks from winning. My first preference was for Andrew Williams but the chances of him winning are so slim that I do not want to waste my vote.

Auckland Council – Waitemata and Gulf Ward: Rob Thomas.
It is likely that Mike Lee will win this seat, however, of the six candidates, I chose Thomas as he appears to have the best vision for Auckland and is not an old politician but rather a fresh face.

Auckland Council – Waitemata Local Board:

  • Anna Booth
  • Jesse Chalmers (City Vision)
  • Shale Chambers (City Vision)
  • Christopher Demsey (City Vision)
  • Rohan Evans
  • Bruce Kilmister (City Vision)
  • Rob Thomas

In my local board my votes went primarily to the left. However, I did not select every City Vision candidate, instead I chose independents who would bring a good mix of skills to the table as well as some experienced old hands.

Auckland District Health Board:

  1. Helen Gaeta
  2. Edward Saafi (Citizens and Ratepayers)
  3. Jo Agnew (City Vision)
  4. Judith Bassett (Citizens and Ratepayers)
  5. Moira Macnab
  6. Ian Ward (Citizens and Ratepayers)
  7. Jeanette Elley (City Vision)

My votes for the ADHB was split across both the left and the right. I chose candidates who have experience in the health system not those who are there for politics or business reasons.

Australian Election Results Live Blogging from a Kiwi’s perspective

Posted on by Brad Heap

From around 6pm AEST tonight I will be live blogging the Australian Election results in this post.

Updates will be added to the post as the results come in.

My commentary will be from a Kiwi’s perspective with the focus primarily on New South Wales but also a bit of Queensland and Victoria.

Stay Tuned for more.

5.20pm update – Seven News have exit polls by Roy Morgan. First seat Herbet near Townsville is showing a swing to Labor however exit polls are not accurate and with a sample of only 300 people the result is within the margin of error (which 7 News failed to tell the viewers).

5.30pm – Seven News have their second exit poll. Lindsay to go Liberal with a 15% swing. Again massive swing and most likely because the sample size is so small.

5.40pm – Third exit poll. La Trobe, in Melbourne’s South East. ALP to win with 5% swing.

7pm – 7 News is reporting that the swing is going against Labor but instead of going to Liberal it is going towards the Greens. Still very early days with only around 1% of the votes counted.

7.30pm – It looks like The Greens may pick up their first ever House of Representatives seat by winning the electorate of Melbourne. (This is an early prediction). Predictions also showing ALP have lost two seats nationally, and LNP have gained two, so neck and neck.

8pm – With 3 million votes counted nationally on two party preferred LNP is leading 50.5% to 49.5%, so neck and neck, ALP may lose 13 seats on latest predictions. Election is very much too close to call. Sydney may also go Greens, and possibly Denison in Tasmania. Result may not be known tonight.

8.30pm – Greens have almost definitely won Melbourne. Candidate just gave a victory speech. Nationally with a little over 5 million votes ALP is now leading 50.3% to 49.7%.

9pm – A few victory speeches over the last half hour, but still too close to call in many seats.

9.30pm – Still heading for a hung parliament.

9.50pm – Greens have 12% in the Senate. Looks like 9 senators in the new Parliament. “We are seeing the birth of a new political movement” – Bob Brown, Greens Leader. “It is time we moved to proportional representation”

10pm – 7 News is calling it currently at 73 seats each, below the 76 needed to govern. With 3 independents + 1 Green.

10.15pm – Can a government be formed? Labor + Greens will not be enough to govern without two independents on current predictions.

11.15pm – Gillard takes the stage (before Abbott), “Too close to call”, “Every vote must be counted”

11.30pm – Channel 7′s panel is saying Labor lost the plot when they failed to have a backbone and pass the ETS in March or go to a Double D Election over the issue.

12am – Abbott has addressed the Liberal Party faithful. At end of the night hung parliament with 72 seats Labor, 71 seats LNP declared.

The mess that is the UK Elections

Posted on by Brad Heap

It is amazing how much technology can change the shape of history, can shape our future, and can shape the outcome of elections. A little over a year ago we saw the election of Barack Obama to the United States Presidency off the back of a massive campaign using new media. Now thanks to two televised election debates we are seeing a mini revolution in UK politics. The only problem is this mini revolution may be the biggest political revolution that never happens because with the UK still using the First Past the Post voting system the party that wins the most number of votes may fail to govern.

Like Australia, the United States, and many other countries the UK has traditionally had two major political parties, the left leaning Labour Party, and the right leaning Conservatives. For a few parliamentary terms the Labour Party will rule and once the voters get sick of them the Conservatives will rule until the cycle reverses. The way in which these governments are elected comes down to local electorates rather than voting for the party you want to win you vote for your local MP. The party that has the most number of electorate MPs elected will get to govern. This is different from NZ politics where under MMP you have two votes one for your local MP and one for the party you wish to govern with the parliament being made up with a mixture of local MPs and party list MPs.

Now the reason a mini revolution has occurred in England is because for the first time Nick Clegg, the leader of the Social Democrats a small minority party, has been included in two televised leaders debates alongside the leaders of the both the Conservative and Labour parties. And in both of these debates Clegg has won. This has seen the Social Democrats rocket up the polls on the popular vote to a position where they are beating Labour and in some poles even leading the Conservatives. This has also thrown the May 6 election wide open with the real possibility of a hung parliament.

The biggest problem with all this analysis though is it may amount to nothing all because of the way FPP operates. The NZ Herald puts it this way:

The really surprising thing about the Nick Clegg surge is that almost nothing has changed.

That may seem an odd thing to say after 10 days in which Labour has been forced into third place in the opinion polls and the Liberal Democrats have broken through for the first time since the formation of the Social Democratic Party nearly three decades ago.

But the way votes translate into seats means that, unless the Lib Dems get up to 36 or 37 per cent of the vote, they remain the third party in seats.

And while Clegg’s party remains the third party in the House of Commons, the outcome of the election is decided by the gap between the Conservatives and Labour.

The shape of politics will be transformed on May 6. That may be the beginning of the end for the Labour Party. And yet the outcome of the election remains surprisingly unchanged.

The reason is that Clegg’s surge has been uncannily even-handed in its effect on the other two parties. The Conservatives have fallen 4.5 points in the polls, on average, since the first debate, and the Labour drop has been the same.

The gap between the two is therefore unchanged, at about 6.5 points, which suggests the Tories would be the largest party in a hung parliament – which is where the country was before the Cleggshell was dropped on this campaign.

The voters are likely to end up, therefore, with David Cameron as prime minister, leader of a minority Conservative government.

All of this screams out that the who democratic process of FPP is wrong, for a party to be able to gain the most number of popular votes and not govern is wrong, for a party to be able to govern on only 30% support is wrong. And focusing on New Zealand for a second this is the exact reason why we should not move back towards FPP or change away from MPP. It is often argued that MMP gives small parties too much power, but I would rather have good, cross party support for well written laws than be ruled by a minority forcing their sole thoughts on the nation.

This morning the Green Party posted a good video about the problems with the UK election to their blog:

Final NZ Election Results

Posted on by Brad Heap

The final results of the November 8 election were released this afternoon after the 250,000 special votes were counted.

In the end National lost one MP and the Greens gained one MP. Labour were only 40 votes off getting another MP and National lossing a second MP.

Party Election Night % Special % Diff Final % Change
National Party 45.45 40.61 -4.84 44.93 -0.52
Labour Party 33.77 35.82 2.05 33.99 0.22
Green Party 6.43 9.13 2.70 6.72 0.29
ACT New Zealand 3.72 3.04 -0.68 3.65 -0.07
Mäori Party 2.24 3.62 1.38 2.39 0.15
Jim Anderton’s Progressive 0.93 0.68 -0.25 0.91 -0.02
United Future 0.89 0.74 -0.15 0.87 -0.02
New Zealand First Party 4.21 2.90 -1.31 4.07 -0.14
The Bill and Ben Party 0.56 0.54 -0.02 0.56 0.00
Kiwi Party 0.51 0.80 0.29 0.54 0.03
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party 0.36 0.76 0.40 0.41 0.05
New Zealand Pacific Party 0.33 0.65 0.32 0.37 0.04
Family Party 0.33 0.48 0.15 0.35 0.02
Alliance 0.08 0.07 -0.01 0.08 0.00
Democrats for Social Credit 0.05 0.04 -0.01 0.05 0.00
Libertarianz 0.05 0.04 -0.01 0.05 0.00
Workers Party 0.04 0.04 0.00 0.04 0.00
RAM – Residents Action Movement 0.02 0.02 0.00 0.02 0.00
The Republic of New Zealand Party 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.00

It is interesting to note the large differences between the election night results and the special votes.

Overall National lost 0.52% of the total votes once the specials were included. The majority of this was transferred to Labour (0.22%) and the Greens (0.29%) who gained. What is more interesting is the party vote % of only the specials.

If the specials were the election results (i.e. the Nov 8 votes didn’t count) the make up of the government could be quite different.

National polled 4.84% lower, Labour 2.05% higher, Greens 2.70% higher, Maori 1.38% higher. It is interesting to note that those who casts specials – i.e. those away from home, or overseas appear to be more left leaning then the majority of the country.

After running some more calculations this is how the results would of ended up if only specials counted. As you can see the overhang is gone. And the Maori Party becomes the King Maker. We could have had a Labour Government back.

Party name Party Votes won Party seat entitlement Actual Result
Act New Zealand 3.04% 4 5
The Greens 9.13% 12 9
Jim Anderton’s Progressive 0.68% 1 1
Maori Party 3.62% 5 5
New Zealand Labour Party 35.82% 45 43
New Zealand National Party 40.61% 52 58
United Future New Zealand 0.74% 1 1
Totals 93.64% 120 122

National Government: Nat 52 + Act 4 + UF 1 + Maori 5 = 62/120.
Labour Government: Lab 45 + Prog 1 + Greens 12 + Maori 5 = 63/120

The funny thing is the special votes seem to more accurately reflect the polls in the lead up to the election then the actual election result.

The Answers to The Questions

Posted on by Brad Heap

Will National get over 50% of the vote? NO

Will National + ACT + United Future get over 50% of the vote? YES – JUST.
(note: they may be able to get over 50% of the seats without needing 50% of the popular vote)

Will the Maori party be the king maker? NO

Will Labour + Green be greater then that of National? NO

Will Green get over 10%? NO

Will Labour get over 35%? NO

Will National get over 45%? YES – JUST

Will the Gap between the parties be less than 15%? YES

Will Ron Mark win Riumataka? NO

Will NZ First get 5%? NO

Will Roger Dogulas be back? YES

Will Labour lose Auckland Central? YES

Will the Maori Party win all 7 Maori Seats? NO

Live Election Results

Posted on by Brad Heap

This post will be updated around every 30 minutes.

9pm – First upload of graphs. Features results over past hour since Advance Votes confirmed.

9.30pm – Last half hour has seen the gap closing again. Minor parties are beginning to rise.

10pm – Gap is still closing but probably not fast enough. Most results in now.

10.30pm – 95.8% in. National will be the new government.

11pm – 98.9% in. Didn’t go the way of the left at all. 50.04% went to National + Act + United Future so popular vote is differently for the right. The world may be heading left (Australia, United States) but NZ has gone right.

11.30pm – 99.9% in. HELEN CLARK HAS JUST RESIGNED AS LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY.

Major Party Percent:

Minor Party Percent:

Seats in the House:

Questions that only the vote can answer.

Posted on by Brad Heap

Will National get over 50% of the vote?

Will National + ACT + United Future get over 50% of the vote?
(note: they may be able to get over 50% of the seats without needing 50% of the popular vote)

Will the Maori party be the king maker?

Will Labour + Green be greater then that of National?

Will Green get over 10%?

Will Labour get over 35%?

Will National get over 45%?

Will the Gap between the parties be less than 15%?

Will Ron Mark win Riumataka?

Will NZ First get 5%?

Will Roger Dogulas be back?

Will Labour lose Auckland Central?

Will the Maori Party win all 7 Maori Seats?

Tomorrow is anything but certain.