Kiwiblog

Around 9 pm last night Trevor Mallard made a rather bizarre post on Red Alert. And presumably one of his colleagues stepped in and hid it from view as it disappeared for around several hours.

One would have thought they would have learnt from the Chris Finlayson episode, that it is a bad idea to delete stuff you regret, as it is cached and stored all over the place.

As people on Red Alert asked what happened to it, it then reappeared a few hours later.George Orwell would be proud his novels were so accurate!

The post was rather stupid, to be blunt. It says/said:

It is going to be interesting to see how hard the Nats push their policy of shifting from a pretty strict zoning system based on a right to enrol if in zone to giving flexibilty to schools to pick and choose students.

Being in the Auckland Grammar zone increases the value of a house by between $100 and $150k, it will be interesting to see how Nikki Kaye balances her pretty extreme free market views with the writing off of property values.

Big + for Jacinda I think.

I know Labour are desperate to try and talk the Auckland Central race up, but really describing Nikki as holding “pretty extreme free market views” is hilarious. All I can say is that whatever Trevor is inhaling needs to be reclassified from Class C to Class A!!

More to the point, Trevor needs to visit Auckland more often. The Auckland Grammar zone is here. Almost none of it is actually in Auckland Central. It is almost all in Epsom and Mt Albert. I can only presume he was desperately trying to come up with an issue, and this is the best he could come up with.

The only parts that are in zone are the CBD on and east of Queens Street, and Grafton. Now I don’t think anyone thinks many families live in CBD apartments, and their value is not greatly affected by the Grammar zone (look at apartment values on Queen St vs Albert St). So that only leaves Grafton which is around 5% of the electorate.

I do like the fact that Trevor defends school zoning on the basis that house values in Epsom will decrease too much if one makes it more flexible. Good to see Labour focused on helping kids get the best education.

Incidentally, while I think it is very unlikely the Grammar zone will disappear, I would say it would be incredibly popular in the other 95% of Auckland Central, as their parents would get a choice of schools.

UPDATE: Clare Curran has commented that the Red Alert post disappeared due to a technical glitch, and it was not done deliberately.

Tags: Auckland Central, Auckland Grammar, Nikki Kaye, Red Alert, school zoning, Trevor Mallard

The Herald reports:

Labour’s nominations for Auckland Central and four other seats it views as winnable opened on Friday as part of a strategy to get recognisable candidates on the ground early.

I may be wrong, but I can not recall any other time when a party has gone to candidate selection (for a seat not held) within a year of the election. Normally selections are late in the second year of a three year term. Sometimes earlier in the second year, but never heard of selection starting in the first year.

I’m speculating that Labour had a few nervous List MPs, and they didn’t want them fighting each other all year for seats, so they decided to minimise any in-fighting.

Ms Ardern has confirmed she is putting her name forward to be Labour’s candidate in 2011, meaning the high-profile race will start almost two years before the election.

Ms Kaye won the seat for National for the first time at the last election, and Labour is desperate to get it back. …

Ms Ardern, who is originally from Morrinsville, has recently moved to Auckland and said she was passionate about the city and enjoying life as an “apartment dweller”.

Jacinda was highly ranked by Labour in 2005, and is one of their more able MPs. As she said, she has just moved to Auckland, and in fact she is still officially the shadow MP for Waikato and the Bay of Plenty. I think her office is actually in Tauranga.

Ms Ardern has been able to avoid an internal party struggle for the nomination, with fellow list MP Phil Twyford deciding to go for Waitakere, currently held by National minister Paula Bennett and another of the seats Labour is holding early selection for.

You almost have to feel sorry for Twyford. He’s basically been shafted again (after the Tizard factor had him withdraw from Mt Albert). Jacinda had the numbers on the ground to win the looming selection battle, so Phil has (wisely) decided to concede. However as his office is in Auckland Central (in fact he set it up just two doors away from Nikki Kaye, the National Electorate MP) it is all going to be somewhat strange.

The Waitakere candidate has his office in St Marys Bays, and the Auckland Central candidate has her office in Tauranga. Aucklanders are less parochial than provincial seats, but may still find the carpet-bagging a factor.

Mr Twyford, the party’s Auckland Issues spokesman, said he believed Waitakere should be a Labour seat and its loss was a “temporary blip”.

I think Phil will do better if he doesn’t say things like that. It comes across as somewhat arrogant and a sense of entitlement to the seat. What I would have said is:

I believe that Labour’s values are the values of most Waitakere residents, and I am looking forward for the opportunity to contest and win the seat.

Talking of a temporary blip, suggests you think the voters made a horrible mistake, and that it will right itself given time.

Normally in Opposition, you hope to win seats back, and don’t expect to lose any more. But on current polling, Labour needs to worry about some of the 21 seats it still retains, as well as try and claw some back.

Tags: Auckland Central, Jacinda Ardern, Labour, Phil Twyford, Waitakere

I’ve previously blogged on whether specials may change any allocation of List MPs. The other question is whether any seats held by narrow majorities could change due to specials. The answer is yes, but unlikely.

The most marginal seat is New Plymouth – Jonathan Young got 48.6% of the vote to 47.6% for Harry Duynhoven. There were 32,029 valid votes. There are 2,351 known specials for the seat and we estimate 1/70th of the 32,000 overseas specials, so the numebr of specials is predicted to be 2,808.

The specials would have to be 6.1% better for Labour and worse for National for Harry to win. Or in other words they would need to go Harry’s way 53.7% to 42.5%.

In Auckland Central Nikki Kaye beat Judith Tizard by 1,181 votes. However there are a large 6,420 specials plus overseas votes. Niiki beat Judith 43.0% to 38.8%. Judith would need to win the specials 49.5% to 32.3% to close the gap.

In Christchurch Central, Nicky Wagner would need specials to go her way 53.3% to 32.2% – 12.1% better than on the day.

New Plymouth looks to be the only seat which could seriously change, and even that isn’t very likely.

Tags: Auckland Central, Christchurch Central, Harry Duynhoven, Jonathan Young, Judith Tizard, New Plymouth, Nicky Wagner, Nikki Kaye, special votes

Starting at the top, the three northern seats of East Coast Bays, North Shore and Northcote were solid blue. Their party votes went up 9%, 4% and 11% respectively.  In East Coast Bays almost three times as many people voted National as Labour. These seats now are counters to the South Auckland seats.

The personal majorities were 12,800, 13,200 and 8,500 respectively. Northcote was held by Labour up until 2005 and Jonathan Coleman this tme incraesed his majority by around 6,000.

Out west we saw the near impossible – National won the party vote in all three West Auckland seats. Tim Groser worked hard on New Lynn to lift the party vote by 10% to 41%, with Labour dropping 12%. Te Atatu went from 32% to 42% and Waitakere from 33% to 42%. Listing the vote 10% in Westieville was great work.

Paula Bennett’s win in Waitakere is all the more remarkable because of the new boundaries. They had her 6,000 votes behind in 2005 and she won by 900. Groser reduced Cunliffe to 3,500 from a paper majority of 12,000 – also one of the biggest swings! Finally Chris Carter dropped to 4,500 from 7,500.

In central Auckland we have Auckland Central. National lost the party vote by 12% in 2005 and won it by 5% this time. This seat has been held by Labour since 1919 (apart from once going further left to the Alliance), making Nikki Kaye’s 1,100 vote victory all the more remarkable.

Mt Roskill also just went to National on the party vote, and Goff’s majority went from 9,400 to 5,500 – still very safe. His leadership predecessor in Mt Albert won the party vote by 6%, and had a slight dent in the electorate majority from 11,400 to 8,700.

Epsom went from 58% to 63% for National on the party vote, with Labour falling to under 20%. Rodney Hide drives his majority from 2,000 to a staggering near 12,000. They liked his dancing. Tamaki also remains solid blue with another 60:20 split on the party vote. Allan Peachey saw his majority go from 10,300 to over 15,000.

Maungakiekie was another big mover. The party vote went from a 13% deficit to 45 lead. And Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga scored an 1,800 majority from an close to 7,000 majority to Labour previously. Sam is one of the most well liked guys in the National Party, and had one of the biggest teams in recent memory on the hustings. He had between 10 and 25 people door knocking both days every weekend.

Out East we have Pakuranga which was no surprise. It is another close to 60:20 seat. Maurice is very popular locally and scored a 13,000 majority.

Botany. This brand new seat got the second highest party vote in Auckland for National – 62%. Pansy Wong also got a 10,000 majority. ACT’s Kenneth Wang was in third place but got a respectable 4,500 votes.

Papakura. The party vote went 52% to 28% for National, and Judith Collins took a 6,800 paper majority and turned it into a 9,700 real one.

Finally we have the three M seats in South Auckland. Mangere, Manurewa and Manukau East. Mangere saw Labour’s party vote go from 73% to 61%. In Manurewa it was from 61% to 50% and Manukau East from 65% to 57%. But turnout was down also and in absolute terms, Labour went from 55,000 votes to 38,000 over the three seats.

Thankfully Labour’s Sio beat Taito Phillip Field by 11,300 to 4,700

Note the above comparisons are all to 2005 results adjusted to new boundaries. Also a more formal analysis will be done when we have final results.

Tags: Allan Peachey, Auckland Central, Botany, Chris Carter, David Cunliffe, East Coast Bays, Election 2008, Epsom, Jonathan Coleman, Judith Collins, Kenneth Wang, Mangere, Manukau East, Manurewa, Maungakiekie, Maurice Williamson, Mt Albert, Mt Roskill, New Lynn, Nikki Kaye, North Shore, Northcote, Pakuranga, Pansy Wong, Papakura, Paula Bennett, Peseta Sam Lotu-liga, Phil Goff, Rodney Hide, Su'a William Sio, Taito Philip Field, Tamaki, Te Atatu, Tim Groser, Waitakere

Readers might enjoy this podcast of Auckland Central candidate Nikki Kaye on The Edge this week.  It’s quite hilarious I thought – typical Edge irreverence.

Also NZPA have just done a piece on Nikki out on the campaign trail:

Auckland, Nov 6 NZPA – If power walking wins election campaigns then National’s Auckland Central candidate Nikki Kaye will be strolling into Parliament on election day.

The 28-year-old lawyer strides down the streets of central Auckland and up into Ponsonby trying to eat into Labour MP Judith Tizard’s majority of around 3500 on redrawn boundaries….

Ms Kaye has been doing it the old-fashioned way — knocking on doors and walking the streets.

It is a difficult electorate to target.

It has a high proportion of under 30-year-olds making up many of the more than 21,000 apartment dwellers in the city.

Many of them are not natural National voters, but they are courteous to the wanna-be MP and many say to her face they will be voting for her.

One Maori woman says “give me balloon and you’ll get my vote”… Ms Kaye gladly hands over the National blue balloon.

“Look even if you don’t vote for me and I do get elected, here’s my card if you ever need any help,” Ms Kaye said.

She cuts a confident figure, similar in size, style and politics to the retiring National front bencher Katherine Rich.

Her supporters say they have hardly seen the Labour machine on the ground.

For both candidates it could be a political struggle to the death, as they are both unlikely to get in on the list on current polling.

Ms Kaye grabs another voter by the hand, thanks her for her vote and moves on … trying to power walk her into Parliament.

I think a lot will come down to how Greens supporters vote. They will give the Greens their party votes. They then have to choose whether to put Judith back in, or an socially liberally environmentally friendly National MP who will be a voice within Government, or to vote Greens with both ticks.

UPDATE: Toad (who is a senior official of the Greens) has made the following comment in the thread below:

Tags: Auckland Central, Election 2008, Nikki Kaye, The Edge

The NZ Herald looks at Auckland Central, Epsom and Maungakiekie.

Auckland Central:

That is not troubling the motivated Kaye, who is running a vigorous and old-fashioned door-knocking campaign. National Party sources say that although raised in conservative Epsom and Kohimarama, she is more socially liberal and environmentally active than most in the party.

On the other hand, Tizard has more than 40 years of family political history and nous to draw on. Name recognition, strong links with the gay and other communities and being a junior minister in transport and the arts help. Then again, she has received criticism for her now-defunct role of Minister for Auckland Issues.

Epsom:

Worth, who became a list MP, is standing again, but says he is firmly concentrating on increasing National’s party vote of 58.5 per cent in 2005 to 70 per cent.

“How people decide to cast their constituency vote is an issue for them.”

With Act polling well below the 5 per cent threshold to gain list seats in Parliament, National needs Hide to win Epsom and hopefully provide two or more Act MPs for a National-led coalition.

Maungakiekie:

Labour is replacing one unionist (Mr Gosche is a former national secretary of the Service and Food Workers Union) with another, Carol Beaumont, secretary of the Council of Trade Unions. …

Samoan-born Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga is the National candidate. Not only is he among a new bunch of young, highly educated 28-to-45-year-olds offering new blood and values for National, but he is also part of an attempt to boost the party’s ethnic diversity.

Tags: Auckland Central, Carol Beaumont, Epsom, Judith Tizard, Maungakiekie, Nikki Kaye, NZ Herald, Pesata Sam Lotu-liga, Richard Worth, Rodney Hide

The Herald on Sunday looks at the race for Auckland Central, and profiles National candidate Nikki Kaye.

I calculated in March, that based on an average swing, National would win Auckland Central if it beats Labour by 13% in the electorate vote. Of course swings are never average – as local factors always are a big influence.

But the calculations I did in March got me thinking that it would be useful to do an electoral pendulum showing what seats would swap hands at different levels of vote – if the swing applies consistently across the board. So I’ll work on that in my spare time.

Tags: Auckland Central, National, Nikki Kaye

The Parliamentary Library has just released their latest set of electorate profiles. These are invaluable documents for MPs, candidates and many others.

They are fully updated, being on the 2008 electoral boundaries, and using the latest 2006 census data.

There are many new features, including:

• HTML as well as PDF
• Summary of local schools and education decile rankings
• Socio-economic deprivation decile rankings for suburbs
• A map of decile rankings
• A breakdown of local business types

Each profile is around 20 pages, and it will have been a huge job for the Library to get them all done.  One of the very very few things I miss about Parliament is the first class Library service.

One of the most useful aspects of all the data they have in the profiles, is they also give a rank for each statistic from 1 to 63.  This means one can see some clear stuff, such as in Auckland Central:

• 29% are aged 20 – 29, ranked 1st in country (ie lots of young voters)
• 6% are over 65, ranked 63rd in country (ie stuff all oldies)
• 56% were born in NZ, ranked 57th (relatively few local born Kiwis)
• 8% have no qualification, ranked 61st (very few have no qualifications)
• Ranked 1st for couple only families, but 63rd for two parent families (people move elsewhere when they have kids)
• Ranked 63rd for married couple (living in sin rules)
• Median family income is 3rd – $81,700 vs $59,000 NZ wide

It is stuff like that which allows you to really get to understand an electorate.

A couple of things to watch out for.

1. Election results are on the old boundaries
2. With decile rankings a 1 in school decile ranking means the poorest schools, while in socio-economic deciles (done by Wgtn School of Medicine) a 10 is the poorest area.
3. The electorate profiles are done on the 63 geographical “general” electorates and include people on the Maori roll as there is no way to exclude individuals from summarised data.

For those who love data, be warned – you can spend days with these profiles!

Tags: Auckland Central, electorate profiles, Parliamentary Library

I’ve done another update of the 2008 candidates page. Thanks to those in both Labour and National who have sent through additions and corrections. At present it is an image of an excel sheet but I have 95% worked out how to convert it to HTML so have started hyperlinking candidates to their websites. The hyperlinks won’t work while it is just am image, but will eventually so feel free to e-mail me any candidate websites.

The latest addition the list is National’s Auckland Central candidate, Nikki Kaye. Nikki is one of my closest friends and an amazingly hard worker so I’m thrilled for her. She won a very tough selection battle tonight, which went all the way to a final third ballot.

Tags: Auckland Central, candidates, Election 2008, National, Nikki Kaye