20 Dominion Post political predictions
The Dominion Post gallery team have also made some predictions for 2008, and they look somewhat more likely than Fran’s! Here they are:
- 1. Most litigious election year ever as letter and the spirit of the contentious Electoral Finance Act is dragged through the courts.
- Margaret Wilson will announce her exit from politics
- Tim Barnett, will opt not to go on the party list and will leave Parliament.
- Labour will announce tax cuts worth about $25 a week to most taxpayers, but National will go several steps further by unveiling a programme of tax cuts.
- Jeanette Fitzsimons will wait till after the election to announce her retirement date.
- Labour will hold just two Maori seats after the 2008 election.
- Clem Simich, Richard Worth and Eric Roy will fight it out for the Speaker’s job if National wins office, but might miss out to Peter Dunne if National needs his vote.
- Another senior Cabinet minister will announce their retirement at the next election and it won’t come as much of a surprise. [DPF: King? Horomia? Cullen?]
- For the second year in a row, National will go the whole year without any leadership speculation.
- NZ First MP Brian Donnelly will finally announce his departure for a posting as high commissioner in the Cook Islands.
- Winston Peters, will fail to win back his old Tauranga seat but his party scrapes past the 5 per cent threshold.
- Peters will get another term as foreign affairs minister whichever party forms the next government.
- A scandal bubbling below the surface will be made public in 2008. [DPF: More than one I suspect]
- The economy will be the major theme of the election
- National will stand Richard Worth in Epsom again
- Michael Cullen will deliver a boring Budget that outlines tax cuts but the big bang and big bucks will be saved for the election campaign.
- Outgoing Labour MP Steve Maharey will stay on till very close to the election because Clark won’t want to risk governing with one vote fewer.
- Labour will revive its 2005 “don’t put it all at risk” campaign theme for John Key, but s unlikely to have the same bite as against Don Brash.
- The Green Party and the Maori Party will get increasingly cosy as they see the benefits of pooling their votes for more negotiating muscle.
- We can confidently predict that National will win the most votes on election night. But the vagaries of MMP (see 11 and 19 above) mean it may be weeks after the election before we know whether that will be enough for National to form a government.
They won’t get 100% right, but they should easily get at least half, probably more. Someone remind me in a year’s time to review how they did 🙂