The October polls
November 3rd, 2011 at 11:56 am by David FarrarI blog at Stuff on the October polls, showing the gap which had been widening for six months has started to turn. I comment:
If Parliament is 122 seats again, then a government needs 62 seats to govern. That blue line is at 69 seats. If it drops to below 62, then you will have a hung Parliament. A drop of eight seats is a drop of around 6.5 per cent, so that is effectively the target for the left – to have National drop 6.5 per cent in the last 23 days. Not impossible at all, but easier said than done.
For Labour to be able to form a government in its own right without needing the Maori Party, it needs to gain 12 seats, or around 10 per cent in 23 days. That seems less likely.
If the Maori Party does look as though it will hold the balance of power, could this affect the MMP referendum? Do you think having the Maori Party decide the government would be a fair result?
The issue is how much will National drop in these next 23 days. Here’s the last two months in 2008:
Sep 2008 – 50.6% N and 35.4% L = 15.2% gap
Oct 2008 – 47.5% N and 35.3% L = 12.3% gap
Result – 44.9% N and 34.0% L = 10.9% gap
Labour need the gap to close by 13% from 23.6% to around 10%, assuming all else stays constant (Greens at 10%, no NZF etc).
November 3rd, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Maybe. People concerned about the Maori Party “holding the balance of power” might then realise that moving to a system with 13 Maori electorates, and the possibility of the Maori Party being the only minor party in Parliament would be the wrong way to go, choosing instead to stick with MMP, which ensures the Maori Party representation in Parliament is as small as possible?
Vote:November 3rd, 2011 at 5:23 pm
As Graeme said, FPP would leave the Maori Party with the balance of power in most elections, assuming that the Maori party won all of the Maori seats, so this isn’t an issue with MMP but with the existence of the Maori seats.
Vote:November 3rd, 2011 at 5:26 pm
No, that ought not to be correct.
Vote:The way the number of Maori seats are calculated is incorrect.
There should only be about 4 = 12% (Maori population)*~50% (% of Maori on Maori role) *70 electorate seats =~4
I think they are multiplying by the total number of seats
November 3rd, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Every poll I’ve seen this week seems to have United Future sneaking up a fraction – still not massive (I mean 0.1% up to 0.5%; 0.5% up to 1% etc) but it seems pretty consistent.
Random blip or the start of something?
(Cue comments about Dunne’s hair, prostitutes, general rage against the centre)
Vote:November 3rd, 2011 at 7:27 pm
I reckon national are going to have a tough go at it.
I’m afraid National will not have enough votes to govern alone — National partners are shrinking to the point of disappearing —
And Labour will swallow a lot of dead rats to regain power.
Vote:November 3rd, 2011 at 9:08 pm
National partners are shrinking to the point of disappearing —
Not all, UnitedFuture are doing the usual late appearance, the electorate notices and does something before the media wake up.
Vote:November 4th, 2011 at 10:32 am
No. They’re doing it right. When the boundaries were last redrawn there are 57,243 (+/- 5%) people in each North Island general electoral district, 57,562 (+/- 5%) in each South Island general electoral district, and 59,583 people in each Māori electoral district.
Your 12% number is low. First, eligibility for the Māori roll is not determined by Māori ethnicity, but by Māori descent. At the last census, the proportion of New Zealanders of Māori descent was 17.7%.
Vote:Second, the proportion of Māori on the Māori roll is a fair bit over 50%. At the last census, the Māori descent population was 643,977, and the Māori electoral population (i.e. the number of people of Māori descent represented through the Māori roll) was 417,081.