Kiwiblog

TV3 have a copy of a CCTV video of the impact at the mine entrance from the blast.

As I understand it the entrance is around 2 kms from where the blast originated. And that the 29 miners were all within say 200 metres of the blast.

While there is always some hope until the mine is accessed, I have to say that sadly I think the 29 probably perished in the blast.

I am looking forward to the second reading speeches on the Electoral Finance Bill bt National MPs. Whale has dug up some quotes from the last time there was a law passed to restrict the ability of citizens to advocate against the Government dueing an election campaign.

• Lindsay Tisch: This is a Government that purports to support human rights in Zimbabwe and Fiji, yet at the same time wants to limit Kiwis in having their say.
• Jo Goodhew: . I can assure her that we are responding to the many, many New Zealanders who have told us how much they dislike this bill and who have said they do not want their freedom of speech shut down.
• Allan Peachey: : I was particularly anxious, after days of trying, to get a call on the Committee stage of the Electoral Finance Bill, because I want it recorded for all time in the annals of this House that I am one of those members who spoke against and voted against this attack on the democratic tradition of this country—and that is what this bill is.
• John Key: We know that after this legislation New Zealanders will no longer be free. They are used to operating in a democracy in New Zealand where they are free to express themselves on political issues, they are free to criticise the Government, they are free to criticise the Opposition, they are free to promote policies they like and to protest against policies they do not like,
• John Carter: This is an absolute restriction on the freedom of speech in this country, and if people ever thought that one day we would have to be here defending the democratic right of people in this country to express their views

As I said, I am looking forward to hearing the speeches about how a $120,000 limit was an attack on free speech but a $300,000 limit (admittedly over a smaller time period) is fine.

Just when I thought their collective amnesia and rewriting of history could not get worse, Phil Goff hits a new record.

Here is the NZPA story:

Prime Minister John Key should stop protecting former minister Pansy Wong and sack her after she misused MPs travel perks, Labour leader Phil Goff says. …

“She is aware of when she broke the rules and how often she broke the rules. It doesn’t need a speaker’s inquiry to confirm that.” …

“I just remember the constant attention that was given to Chris Carter. No excuses for Carter. I never made any. Excuses are being made for Wong,” he said.

“Other MPs have been prosecuted criminally for doing what she has done. She is still there as an MP, she ought not to be.”

When asked about leniency for former Labour Minister Taito Phillip Field, who is in jail for misusing his position, Mr Goff said that case needed to be determined in court.

“He was prosecuted. He was booted out of the Labour Party and I say there is enough evidence that the same should happen to Pansy Wong.”

So Phil Goff is demanding Pansy be booted out of Parliament without even any sort of report or inquiry. Further down we will look at Labour’s record on this, but let us put things in perspective. Pansy claimed a perk she should not have. For doing so she was immediately sacked from Cabinet.

Numerous Ministers in the last Government had the taxpayer pay for things, which they were not entitled to. We paid for Shane Jones’ porn, amongst other things. None of those former Ministers have quit Parliament over it. Even Chris Carter was merely demoted from the front bench to the second bench. That was in fact a pathetic punishment.

But let us look at our friend Taito Philip Field. Did Labour sack him without even waiting for an inquiry? No, they did not. Here is what they did.

1. Refuse to sack him when allegations arose before election
2. Refuse to have an inquiry before the election
3. Defend Field as being only guilty of helping his constituents
4. After election announce an inquiry with no powers
5. When inquiry finally reports (six months later – and Goff is complaining about a two week wait) it details dozens of abuses, lies and the like from Field.
6. Amazingly Labour still defends Field, with Cullen saying he is only guilty of working harder for his constituents than National MPs
7. Also Clark holds out the possibility that Field could return to the Ministry, despite the abuses listed in the report.
8. And Labour at no stage move to evict Field from caucus for his criminal behaviour and multiple abuses. They only kicked him out when he publicly mused that he could stand for another party, if not re-selected.

So Goff’s hypocrisy is simply staggering. In Government they defended a corrupt MP, even after a damning report highlighted his abuses. In Opposition, they are demanding Pansy be sacked from Parliament without even waiting for any sort of report.

Let me be clear – if the report by the Parliamentary Service concludes criminal behaviour has been involved, then the Police should prosecute. Even if no criminal behaviour is involved, what emerges from the report may be serious enough that Pansy is not re-selected as a candidate, or even is expelled from Caucus. But those decisions can not be made without knowing the facts.

NZPA report:

Wellington students are having a party on Wednesday to highlight what could be lost if ACT’s Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill passes.

Oh this is too good to be true. They are going to spend compulsorily acquired money on a party to protest they will not be able to force students to fund their parties in the future.

On Wednesday student radio station the VBC 88.3FM would host a gig at the San Francisco Bath House to highlight concerns that the bill would gut funding to students’ associations and clubs like the VBC.

The gig was organised by the VBC, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA) and the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA). Bands Glass Vaults, Jetsam Isles and Albert Mikoaj would play.

Oh how nice of NZUSA to help out.

VUWSA President Max Hardy said the bill would cripple the VBC.

“Wellingtonians have enjoyed the support VBC provides to local Wellington music culture through giving local bands air time and holding regular gigs. It’s important they know the student radio station could be at risk due to the government’s actions.”

A little history lesson is needed here. Radio Active is a very popular and successful radio station in Wellington. It has around 45,000 listeners. It was owned by VUWSA but they ran it so incompetently it mae huge losses and almost bankrupted them.

In 198993 it was sold to some of the staff, and it has been very successful ever since – and with no compulsory fees.

For some unknown reasons VUWSA decided it was competent to become a broadcaster again and in 20076 set up VBC, and both VUWSA and the university itself subsidise it. god knows why – it certainly shows that universities have too much money, if they use taxpayer money to fund a radio station.

If one did a survey of students, I suspect you would find far far more listen to Radio Active than VBC.

The enemies of freedom continue to make gains at the UN. This is the problem when so many of the members are countries with little regard for human rights.

Pink paper reports:

The United Nations has removed a plea for lesbians, gays and bisexuals not to be executed in a narrow vote.

For the last 10 years sexual orientation has been included in a list of discriminatory grounds for executions – gay rights activists say the vote to remove that listing is “dangerous and disturbing.”

The UN resolution urges countries to protect the right to life of all people, calling on them to investigate killings based on discriminatory grounds. Sexual orientation was previously listed as one of these forms of discrimination, alongside ethnicity, religious belief and linguistic minorities.

Others protected by the resolution were human rights defenders (like journalists, lawyers and demonstrators), street children and members of indigenous communities.

So pretty much everyone except gays have the right to life.

But now sexual orientation has been taken out of the list. The amendment was supported by Benin in Africa on behalf of the African Group in the UN General Assembly. It passed on a narrow vote of 79 for, 70 against , 17 abstentions and 26 absent.

Some of those voting to remove sexual orientation were countries where gays are known to be or thought to be executed or summarily killed including Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iraq.

No doubt many of them are members of the Human Rights Council.

Iran almost got elected to the Women’s Rights Commission – it took a dedicated campaign from the US to shame enough other countries to vote against Iran.

We do need a UN which all countries belong to. But its scope should be limited. We need another body to complement it – some sort of league of democratic nations. There should be quite tough criteria for admission, the ability to be expelled, and benefits for joining (such as free trade between members).

Labour List MP Carmel Sepuloni has blogged that National is ending race based funding. She is very very unhappy about this.

I urge her to keep blogging on this topic. Not just blogging though. I think Labour should launch a major campaign complaining that National is ending race based funding.

Now as it happens National isn’t, but the truth has never got in the way of a good Labour campaign. Remember their GST campaign?

So please Labour rev up the campaign bus, and stick up the billboards, all using Carmel’s slogan that John Key is ending race based funding.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key is indicating that a commission of inquiry will look into the cause of the explosion in the Pike River mine. …

A commission of inquiry was likely to be set up as opposed to a royal commission, Mr Key said.

What many do not realise is that in fact the powers of such inquiries are the same. The PM’s exact words from the press conference were:

Will you hold a Royal Commission into this?

He said didn’t want to speculate what the make-up of a (Inquiry) commission might be; Royal Commissions were generally for social areas. Cave Creek had been a Commission of Inquiry which was essentially the same structure.

The DIA bible of inquiries explains the different types of inquiries. The range available are:

1. Statutory inquiries
2. Ministerial inquiries
3. Select Committee inquiries
4. Ombudsmen inquiries
5. Statutory Commissions
6. Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry

Option (6) is the most powerful, with its own 1908 legislation. The legislation says:

2(e) The Governor-General may, by Order in Council, appoint any person or persons to be a Commission to inquire into and report upon any question arising out of or concerning … Any disaster or accident (whether due to natural causes or otherwise) in which members of the public were killed or injured or were or might have been exposed to risk of death or injury

The DIA guide goes on to elaborate the differences between a Royal Commission and a Commission of Inquiry.

A Royal Commission is policy/advisory and is for “Review or reform of social, legal and administrative systems”

A Commission of Inquiry is investigative and is for “Matters of conduct or misconduct and major accidents and disasters”

DIA also note:

Royal Commissions are perceived to have higher status than Commissions of Inquiry. However, there is no statutory imperative behind the two categories of inquiry.

Apart from the title, the only real difference is the method of appointment of the Commissioners.

Royal Commissions are appointed by the Governor-General in the name of the Sovereign, under the Letters Patent. Standard Commissions of Inquiry are appointed by the Governor-General pursuant to an Order in Council. The Governor-General appoints both types of Commission on the basis of recommendations by Government.

So it is very clear that the inevitable inquiry will be a Commission of Inquiry.

All the 29 dead or trapped miners have been named, and all of them will have family and friends in grief over what has happened.

The story of Joseph Dunbar is arguably the saddest of all the miners. The day of the explosion was his first day in the mine, being the day after his 17th birthday. In fact he was not meant to start until Monday but was so excited, he was allowed to start on Friday. What a cruel irony.

I understand the staff put the notice up!

UPDATE: According to Whale, Bob Jones got the sign put up. That would make sense – very much his style.

UPDATE II: The original photo was e-mailed to me so I had no idea of whose photo it was. Alan has emerged as the photographer.

I’ve found some of the spin from Labour around the unprecedented 80% drop in an Opposition seats’ majority in a by-election very amusing.

The worst excuse is from Su’a William Sio, who said:

“Low-income people can’t think about the future, let alone about voting in a by-election, when they are being forced to focus on just surviving.

So Labour almost lost because low-income people are focusing on survival. Worst spin attempt ever.

Audrey Young also highlights some terrible spin:

Some in Labour who should know better are creatively suggesting that Labour actually did better in the byelection than the last general election, despite having its majority slashed from 6155 to 1080.

From three senior figures has come the suggestions that Kris Faafoi winning 47 per cent of the candidate vote on Saturday was a better result than the 43.9 per cent party vote that the party got in 2008, when Winnie Laban stood.

That is like comparing raisins and sheep droppings.

So true. Phil Goff is one of those pushing that desperate line.

I saw on Twitter a blog post titled “Reflections on Mana” on Red Alert had appeared. I clicked on the link wondering which MP would be spinning. And I saw it was Grant Robertson, and commented to the person with me “Aha, this will be very very clever spin”. And so it proved.

Grant did something none of his colleagues could do, and something very different to Kris Faafoi’s own comments. He praised Hekia.

I also think Hekia deserves some credit. She is an articulate person who campaigned hard. Most importantly in terms of the result she has been campaigning/working in the electorate non-stop for about four years, compared to Kris’ few months. That makes a differenece. She had a profile and that worked to her advantage. She did not win, but no doubt she feels she put in a good result

Everyone in the press gallery knows Hekia is a very good MP, who ran a good campaign. Grant makes the point that Hekia had a head-start on Kris, and this is right. But what is implicit, but worth stating explicitly, is that the head-start is only useful if you use it effectively. Hekia spent two years supporting community groups, helping with fundraising, sorting out constituent problems, arranging Ministers to visit etc etc. If she had not done that (and done it well) then her headstart would not have assisted her much.

And the challenge for Kris is to spent the next year showing if he can be as effective as Hekia.

There are no doubt some things from a Labour point of view that we would want to do better and different. That’s the nature of a campaign.

And again Grant shows his smarts. Conceding there were mistakes made (but carefully not detailing them) means that his blog post comes over as balanced, thoughtful and not some desperate piece of spin. He should offer tutoring to some of his colleagues in political communications.

The Electoral Referendum Bill has also been reported back. Major aspects are:

• Comes into force 1 Jan 2011
• aligns advertising rules with Electoral Act, including $300,000 spending limit
• MMP to only be reviewed if people vote for it to remain, not if they vote for change. So any run-off referendum will be with the current version of MMP
• Order of alternate voting systems to be alphabetical
• ballot papers will not be counted on E Day, but the results of advance votes will be known which should indicate the likely result
• The SM option has been defined as a 90/30 option. This is quite significant as it means it will be significantly less proportional than MMP. My preferred SM option would be 70/50 as MMP currently has. On the plus side a 90/30 system will have smaller electorate seats.

The question in Part A has been modified to be:

Should New Zealand keep the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system?

The options are:

• I vote to keep the MMP voting system
• I vote to change to another voting system

The select committee has done a diligent job with the bill. Politically I believe a majority will vote to retain MMP, especially with the SM option being significantly disproportional.

While I am mightily pissed over the restrictions on third parties, the select committee has made many other changes, which are reasonably desirable. I’ll summarise them below.

• The editorial content of any periodical, radio or television programme, or news media Internet site is now excluded from being an election advertisement, rather than the former requirement that it be “solely for the purposes of informing, enlightening, or entertaining” which I and other submitted was too narrow.
• The exclusion for those expressing personal political views on the Internet was defined as only applying if “non-commercial”, and now it applies unless “the person makes or receives payment to express that view for publication”. That is a very welcome change.
• The definition of the regulated period has changed from what was in the draft bill, to the definition I proposed at a seminar of “experts”. The regulated period will now start 2 years and nine months after the last general election unless the PM calls an early election. This is great as it means no longer will there be a retrospective regulated period, and it also provides certainty as to when it will begin (if no snap election).
• A $300,000 (incl GST) expenditure cap on third party spending during the regulated period. This will inflation adjust. While the limit is relatively high, it is less than 10% of what a party spends in total and National should not have voted for it.
• Candidate expenditure limits have increased from $20,300 to $25,000. A small step in the right direction but the reality is that this is still an inadequate amount to be able to effectively communicate to 40,000 people over three months.
• The party expenditure limit also increased from $1.015m and $20,300 per electorate ($2.436m in total) to $1.032m and $25,000 per electorate ($2.782m in total). Again a good move in the right direction but it doesn’t even cover the inflation impact since 1993. It will at least be inflation adjusted in future.
• The summary disclosure of total revenue from donations changes from bans of under $1k, $1k to $10k and over $10k to $1.5K to $5k, $5l to $15k and over $15k. I think it is regrettable that the total amount of small donations will not be disclosed as this would have allowed the public to form a holistic view of the total way a party is funded.
• The disclosure limit of identity for individual donations has increased from $10k to $15k. Presumably this is part of the trade off with Labour in return for support third party restrictions. However I think the $10k limit was about right, and don’t see a need for it to increase to $15k. Transparency is my preference over limits.
• The disclosure limit for candidates increases from $1,000 to $1,500. Not a big change there.

Both Greens and ACT have done minority reports.

I will be very interested to see what Labour says about this bill. It is a win for them.

Most of the changes made by the select committee are good ones. The compromise over third party spending limits is what spoils it. I would be very interested to know where the decision was made to do that compromise – was it at Cabinet or at Caucus?

God I am pissed off. The Electoral (Finance and Advance Voting) Amendment Bill has been reported back, and National and Labour have voted for introducing a cap on third party spending.

I really wonder sometimes why we bother changing Governments, when the  new Government adopts so many politics of the old Government – especially a policy that was a big part of why they got thrown out.

The law is not as bad as the old EFA, for four reasons, but is still an unjustified limitation on the rights of New Zealanders to campaign against Governments or parties they don’t like. The four mitigating factors are:

1. The limit is $300,000 over three months rather than $120,000 over 11 months. That is around 10 times as high per month.
2. The bill does follow a public and transparent public policy process where people were allowed to have their say, and where most backed a limit
3. The bill has bipartisan support, and is not an attempt by one party to do over their opponents
4. There have been some trade-offs with Labour agreeing to back higher spending limits for candidates

But don’t read that list of mitigating factors as signalling agreement with the bill. I think National has sold out far too cheaply. I did say in my submission that I supported bipartisan agreement, and if National concedes on something , then basically Labour should do the same. But the only concession that in my opinion would be suitable for having a limit on third party spending would be removing the draconian ban of political parties being able to but advertising time on television and radio. If National could have got Labour to agree to that change, then I would grudgingly accept a compromise on third party spending.

I think many of those who protested against the EFA will feel a sense of betrayal with this bill. National has put the desire to be bipartisan with electoral law (which is commendable) ahead of doing what is right.

I did support the bill at select committee stage on the basis it did improve things in several areas. And the select committee has also made many other minor improvements which I support (and will detail in a later post). But the inclusion of a limit on third party spending, combined with no lifting of the ban on parties buying their own broadcasting time, means that I no longer think the bill is worth proceeding with.

I accept that in reality few third parties will find the $300,000 limit a barrier. The trade unions tend to be the biggest spenders and their biggest contribution is staff hours (which do not count as spending). And the limit is simple to get around also. But by agreeing to such a limit, National has now made it easier for future Governments to lower it, to try and silence their opponents.

Labour should be very very happy with the willingness of the Government to not just give them a veto over changes to the existing law, but also to introduce measures the National Party submitted against, all for the sake of bipartisan electoral law. It is a universe different from what Labour did in its last term, and my fear is that a future Labour Government will not return the benevolence and when they are next in Government, make changes without bipartisan support.

National MPs who railed against the Electoral Finance Act should feel very sheepish when they vote for this bill to become law. I suggest National Party members take advantage of end of year meetings to ask their MPs why they agreed to support limits on third parties using their own money to have a say during election campaigns.

UPDATE: Whale provides us with this updated billboard:

It would look better if it was 6 metres by 4 metres in size I think.

NZPA report:

Prime Minister John Key says he is praying that the 29 men trapped at Pike River are safe.

“I just pray to God that they are alive,” he said.

“Obviously we need to begin a rescue as soon as we practically can, and we just pray that they have managed to secure an oxygen source.”

I think many NZers have also been praying for a good outcome. The news is not promising sadly, based on a blast survivor:

“Because I wasn’t as far up … the explosion wasn’t as bad for me. It just bowled me over and knocked me unconscious and someone dragged me about 300 metres, brought me around and then two of us held each other to get out of the mine.”

Mr Smith described the explosion as quick and without heat or smell.

“I just remember seeing a flash of something in front of me and then the concussion hit me. It wasn’t just a bang. It just kept coming, kept coming, kept coming.

“So I crouched down as low as I could in the seat to try to get behind this metal door [on the loader he was driving] to stop being pelted with all this debris …

I just couldn’t breathe and that’s the last I could remember and then someone found me about 15 minutes or so later.”

Mr Smith said the next thing he remembers is looking out of the ambulance as it was driving into Greymouth.

The concussion must have been very severe for those further in.

It must be awful for the families who are hoping for the best, but also getting prepared for the worst. Hopefully today there may be a resolution.

Audrey Young writes at the Herald:

The strong performance of National candidate Hekia Parata in the Mana byelection has boosted her chances of being promoted this week.

It certainly has not harmed it. And the fact the PM did not announced last week the new Minister night suggest he was waiting to see how Mana went.

Ms Parata, a former public policy and Treaty of Waitangi consultant, not only slashed Labour’s majority, but performed well under pressure and ran a strong team.

Counting against her is that she is a first-term MP. Her promotion ahead of the class of 2005 could put some noses out of joint.

The leading contenders in that pack are Craig Foss, the MP for Tukituki and chairman of the finance and expenditure select committee, and Chris Tremain, MP for Napier and the chief Government whip.

I think both Craig and Chris know that their ascension is a matter of when, not if, which would help molify them if Hekia jumps ahead of then. But having said that, 2010 is far preferable to 2012 in terms of ascension.

What may count against them this time is that if they are promoted, then there has to be a minor reshuffle. While Hekia can slip in and take over Pansy’s portfolios directly.

Selwyn MP Amy Adams, in the same cohort as Ms Parata, is also tipped for future promotion in a commerce or economic role.

Or Agriculture. Or Justice. Amy is multi-talented

Mr Key could save a little money by appointing no one to the Cabinet and appointing another minister outside the Cabinet. He could make an even bigger saving by appointing no one at all and upsetting no one.

This is the only error in Audrey’s article. If the PM makes no appointment at all, this will in fact upset every single Backbencher. Reducing the size of the Ministry means more people competing for fewer places. A smaller Ministry is regarded by backbenchers with the same loathing as teacher unions performance pay.

Personally an Executive of 28 is larger than we need. However the time for change would have been when first forming the Government, rather than doing it by attrition.

But that would suggest Mrs Wong’s role was surplus to requirements in the first place.

Well …..

Mr Key is not seen as a slave to “political correctness”; he is not oblivious to gender and identity issues in National’s line-up either.

It is a factor, but not the sole or even the dominant factor.

The importance of the Mana byelection is that a promotion would be seen on the basis of talent, not tokenism

Yes, a promotion would be seen as gained on the basis of performance.

Making one appointment outside of the Cabinet to take over Mrs Wong’s two portfolios makes most sense, and of the contenders, Ms Parata’s sphere of interest is best suited to the vacancies.

We may find out later today who it is.

Talking of Mana, kudos must go to Phil Quinn who predicted a Faafoi win by just 1,000 votes.

From the Daily Telegraph:

On tonight’s One News:

She’s trying to make herself feel better. She lost, and this is the second time the people of Mana didn’t want her.

That was Kris Faafoi talking about Hekia Parata.

Such a gracious victor.

Labour came far too close to doing something that has never ever happened before in recent New Zealand electoral history – having an Opposition lose a seat in a by-election. No Government has won a seat off the opposition in the 59 by-elections since 1936.

And even worse it was not a marginal seat – it was a safe seat that has been held by Labour since 1938 (in that its predecessor seats were also Labour).

I was hoping the majority would be below 3,000 – my pick had been 2,500. I never thought it would almost drop to a triple figures and get as low as 1,080. In some ways it was the ideal result. If the margin had been 500 or so, then you’d be kicking yourself for not doing that extra bit to win it. And if Labour had actually managed to lose the seat, then Goff would be goneburger, and National doesn’t actually want Goff rolled.

So what happened? Well as I blogged during the week, I didn’t expect there to be a uniform swing – I expected different swings in different areas. I’ve divided the seat up into four areas – Porirua East, Porirua West, Northern Suburbs and Kapiti.

Porirua East

In 2008 Laban got 82% and Parata 9%. There was basically no swing here at all with 2010 as Faafoi got 82% and Parata 11%. The total vote was 72% of 2008, and McCarten got 4% here.

This shows how hard it is to win Mana, when one large portion of the electorate votes Labour 9:1 over National. Even if the rest of the electorate votes 3:2 National over Labour, it is hard to compensate for such areas.

Porirua West

In 2008 Laban got 59% and Parata 28% so still very much core Labour areas. There was a good swing here as in 2010 Faafoi got 51% and Parata 35%, so the margin dropped from 31% to 16%. The total vote was 66% of 2008, and McCarten got 6% here.

I had been expected Porirua West to be like Porirua East, and not swing much. But in some booths in Titahi Bay Hekia lifted her vote share by 9% and Faafoi lost 15%.

Northern Suburbs

These areas are pretty solid Nat, In 2008 Laban got 35% and Parata 54%. That was good enough, but there was a massive swing here as in 2010 Faafoi got 25% and Parata 67%, so the margin grew from 19% to 42%. The total vote was 74% of 2008, and McCarten got 2% here.

Kapiti

The Kapiti area voted Labour last time, and flipped to National this time. And what is more extraordinary about this is it happened despite noisy local opposition to a new expressway.

In 2008 Laban got 46% and Parata 41%. There was a big swing here as in 2010 Faafoi got 37% and Parata 47%, so the margin went from +5% to Labour to +10% for National – a 15% net movement. The total vote was 69% of 2008, and McCarten got 3% here.

Polling Places

In 17/42 polling places the vote share for Labour dropped by 10% or greater. That is huge.

Interestingly the advance votes actually had Faafoi getting a bigger vote share than Laban did in 2008. This reflects my view that Hekia got real momentum in the final week as several community leaders endorsed her, but by then many advance votes had already been cast.

CR v CL

Matt McCarten didn’t achieve a great result (but he did get lots of signatures for his petitions) and the Greens had a solid third. ACT was battling it out with Legalise Cannabis for 5th place. What was the total CR and CL vote in 2008 and 2010?

In 2008 Labour & Greens got 60% of the electorate vote, and National/ACT got 37%. In 2010 Labour/Greens/McCarten got 57% and National/ACT got 42%. So even taking the minor parties into account, you had the centre-right close the gap by 8% in Mana!

Historical Comparisons

Labour did manage to retain the seat, but they had a massive swing against their candidate. Again, this is historically very rare in by-elections. I’ve gone through the last few by-elections to note what happened:

• 2010 Mt Albert – remained safe for Opposition
• 2004 Te Tai Hauauru – not contested by major parties
• 1998 TKC – big swing against Government
• 1994 Selwyn – big swing against Government
• 1993 Tauranga – not contested by major parties
• 1992 Wellington Central – was marginal Labour and majority increases slightly for Opposition
• 1992 Tamaki – big swing against Government
• 1985 Timaru – falls to Opposition
• 1980 East Coast Bays – falls to Opposition (Social Credit)
• 1980 Onehunga – Opposition holds comfortably
• 1980 Northern Maori – stays with Labour
• 1979 Christchurch Central – Government comes 3rd
• 1978 Rangitikei – Government loses to Opposition (Social Credit)
• 1976 Nelson – Opposition increases majority
• 1977 Mangere – Opposition holds comfortably
• 1977 Pahiatua – Government holds

So this has not happened in the last 35 years – an Opposition almost losing a safe seat in a by-election.

The closest we have is 1992 Wellington Central, and they have a number of things in common

• Both held in the first term of a new National Government
• Both held two years into that term
• Both had popular retiring MPs (Wilde and Laban)
• Both had Labour put up a candidate with no background in the party (Laidlaw and Faafoi)
• Both had a high profile third party candidate on the left (Denis Welch and McCarten)
• Both times the National candidate was married to Wira Gardiner (Pauline Gardiner and Hekia Parata)
• Both times the National candidate had stood in the previous general election
• Both times Labour got a narrow victory on the by-election

The really interesting thing is that in the 1993 general election, Laidlaw lost the seat to Gardiner – it was the only seat lost by the Opposition in that election.

Kris has won the seat, but it is now a marginal seat, and he is going to have to work very very hard in the community to match Hekia and retain the seat in 2011.

UPDATE:

A reader sent me this graph, of the ten largest polling places in Mana. It tells a big story about how Cannons Creek saved Labour.

I think most people felt their hearts get a little heavier, as the news filtered out that the testing in the mine indicates that there is probably a fire down there.

I’m not sure anyone will be entering that mine today. If they did, it seems it would probably just be increasing the death toll.

2033: huge applause for Hekia and PM as final booth comes in and e night majority is a small 1,080. Hekia picked up 7% from 2008 and Labour is down 7%. I doubt Labour are celebrating much tonight.

2030: This is like a victory party. One booth to go and down to 1,365.

2029: Only two booths to go and majority is 1,500. What a great result if it holds.

2026: Wow another good Hekia booth in. Majoriy now down to 1,174. Faafoi 47%, Parata 41%. That is a 6% gain so far for Hekia and 6% down for Labour. But I suspect things may change with some big Porirua booths to come. 7 booths left.

2024: Heh McCarten is on 666 votes. How apt. He is well back in 4th behind Jan Logie. ACt has now pulled ahead of Legalise Cannabis.

2022: Nice Whitby booth for Hekia just come in – majority now down to 1,773. At this stage Faafoi has 49% and Parata 39% for a 10% gap – in 2008 it was an 18% gap. But this will change as more come in.

2017: 29/44 amd majority for Faafoi is 2,046.

2004: Clear that Labour will retain seat and Kris Faafoi is the next MP for Mana. Congrats to Kris and Labour. 21/44 booths in and majority is 1503. As we do not know which booths are in hard to project end majority. The tribal Labour booths go Labour 90/10 so just one of those coming in moves things about heaps. Parata has won some booths she lost in 2008 though so in some a.eas there is a swing.

Damn. even though they have the data, the Electoral Commission is not displaying booth data as each booth reports. This means my booth spreadsheet to predict swings is useless as it will have no data. Aargh it annoys me when they have the data and just choose not to make it available in a timely manner.

So really all I will be doing is looking at the main results page.

Two of 44 booths in and Faafoi ahead by 346.