Emmess
Cosgrove and Goff have all done the bidding of their master. Many in the Executive have succumbed to the hubris that seems to infect some who attain Cabinet office. When you add this to classic 3rd term-itis and the left’s inherent Realpolitik (the end justifies the means), we end up with the EFA and other acts of corruption and abuse that have led to the Clark Administration’s litany of shabby and tawdry conduct.

Property values are also heading South and there is a noticeable drift of private sector workers to Oz. One of my workmates can’t find any flatmates for her flat now the landlord raised the rent. Apparently it is a tenants/flatters market at the moment.

We had Cosgrove blocking the Canadian purchase of the AIA shares
Goff holding hands with Arafat
I am sure there are a lot more examples people can think of

MMP, through the power of the list, has the effect of protecting the more ideologically extreme flank of Labour because their electorate MPs are more exposed to the real centre of NZ politics as they must be accountable to a geographically bound group of voters. If a left leaning Labour MP is in favour with the heirarchy then he/she gets the List safety net. Electorate MPs from the right could thumb their noses at Head Office and could fight somewhat against the leadership because under MMP, National voters could safely vote National on the list but keep a seemingly moderate local Labour MP in power. That tactic has worked well for the last 3 elections and has kept the right’s numbers in the Labour caucus at sufficient numbers that Clark is forced to at least listen to them. In their hearts, the sisterhood wanted all Mike Moore and Rogernomics supporters who didn’t fully recant to be exiled.

Labour’s poor polling now will see the loss of the very MPs that have acted as an anchor on Clark’s crew from lurching even futher to the left. When you combine this with the resignations of moderates like Sutton, right leaners like Samuels and experienced lefties like Maharey, the results come post November inside their caucus will not be pretty and, as Rex points out, the resulting Opposition front bench will be more likely from the further left than the current Cabinet. This will make it easier for a Key Ministry to more easily dominate the ideological landscape of NZ politics giving them a good moral mandate to underpin the electoral mandate they will undoubtedly receive.

Further to David’s comment on the swing: I am hearing informal comment around voting National for electorate MP’s and ACT for party vote to ensure the benches are changed to the right. This however may change if Key either:
shows some testicular fortitude and/or
releases policy
both of which I suspect will come much closer to an election.

Whilst some list MPs have done an admirable job at becoming an expert in the issues of particular groups (eg Pansy Wong and Asian voters) and have been able to operate as such at a national level, it is still a truism that most list MPs constituent workloads are less than their electorate MP colleagues. Given that people prefer to deal with an MP from the party they identify with, a result like this has some real implications for the constituency workloads of what will be Labour’s rump of electorate MPs.

There is also an ideological consequence from David’s prediction if it pans out. Labour’s right wing have tended to take their chances as electorate only MPs. Sometimes this is out of necessity due to low list rankings given the penchant for Labour’s Head Office to play PC policeman (sorry person) by ranking candidates from preferred minority groups (gays, Muslims, Pacific Islanders) and its trade union mates. In the list of electorate MPs who would lose to National with an 18% swing, 4 are identified with Labour’s right wing (Harry Duynhoven – New Plymouth, Clayton Cosgrove – Waimakariri, Damien O’Connor – West Coast Tasman and Marty Gallagher – Hamilton West) and you could argue Darren Hughes – Otaki was likely in that camp as well. This has ramifications post election after Clark steps down and the caucus choose her successor. A greatly reduced Labour caucus arising from an 18% swing ideologically would be more to the left than the current caucus and so is more likely to choose a fellow traveller. The smart money would be on Goff but he has always been seen as being on the right of the party despite his senior Cabinet ranking.

The only use of the electorate vote is to get a minor party or independant candidate in. In many cases you then end up with two locals for the price of one, as the Labour or National candidate is in anyway on the list.

As people get more used to how the system works, we should hopefully see more minor party seats (greater diversity of views) until parliament reaches such an overhang that the system needs to be revised.

In my opinion the party vote should only dictate how to allocate the seats left after the electoral seats are filled, which would be clearer and fairer. However until the system is changed, use it to get in good minor party & independent candidates rather than throwing votes away on National and Labour candidates.

Are our public servants really that brainwashed?!

What are you proposing here? That Nats are going to win a whole lot electorate seats which won’t mean anything in the balance of the parliament if they also don’t capitalise in the party vote?

This is another useless expedition into statistics which does nothing to inform or improve on current discourse about the NZ political sysem. Stop thinking in FPP terms and start fighting an MMP battle and ALL parties will benefit.

[DPF: You should a lack of understand of how politics really works, as oppossed to a textbook. Of course electorate seats generally do not affect the overall number of seats but none the less they are of significant importance to parties and of great importance to MPs. Losing electorate seats greatly harms a party]

In wealthy seats the National vote is almost as high as it can go.
In very poor seats the Labour vote will not dip that much or at least Labour voters will stay at home
So in a lot of the suburban seats such as Waimakariri, Port Hills, Hutt South, Maungakiekie and Waitakere shouldn’t the swing be larger than average and possibly enough to take for National given about a 15% swing nationwide?