So far so good for Clark

I commented on radio yesterday that so far this week has gone pretty well for Helen Clark in terms of Taito Field. She’s had three wins:

1) Managed to provoke Field into saying something stupid so they could use that as a pretence for moving against him

2) He has now resigned from Labour, avoiding a very messy expulsion battle (National knows from kicking Winston out how hard this can be)

3) Labour still have his vote on confidence and supply, for now

John Armstrong writes that Clark will not be banking on keeping it, and I agree. The story is not yet over.

The NZ Herald editorial says Labour have been let off the hook undeserevedely, noting:

At no point has principle played a part in Labour’s handling of allegations about the Mangere MP’s dealings with prospective immigrants

Clark needs 61 votes to pass laws. Her options are:

Labour 49
Progressive 1
Greens 6
NZ First 7
United Future 3
Maori Party 4
Taito Phillip Field 1

The logical more centrist alliance of Lab/Prog/NZF/UNFNZ used to be 61 but now is 60.
And the logical more left alliance of Lab/Prog/Greens/Maori used to be 61 but now is 60

This means that unless you keep Field voting with you, neither of those alliance can pass laws, so they need to get either Maori or Greens to vote centrist or get NZF or UFNZ to vote more left. Most likely scenario is Maori voting centrist I would say.