Kiwiblog

Here’s how I saw them all:

• 1st One News debate – advantage Goff
• The Press debate – win to Key
• 3 News debate – win to Goff
• 2nd One News debate – advantage Key

With the minor party debates, I’d say the best performer was Hone Harawira. Not that I agree with his policies, but he articulates the “anti-capitalist” view better than any of the other leaders on the left.

Policies have not had a huge amount of coverage during the campaign, so here’s my list of good policies from National. I’ll do separate posts on the good and bad policies of Labour later today or tomorrow.

1. After having an unprecedented no extra spending budget in an election year, will maintain fiscal discipline to get NZ back into surplus by 2014/15 – four years earlier than projected in the 2008 PREFU under Labour.
2. Welfare reform. 52% of those on the DPB went onto it as teenagers and have stayed there ever since. Work testing will stop the DPB being an income source for life
3. Health. Tony Ryall has done such a great job in health that it hasn’t even featured in any of the debates. Elective surgery waiting lists to be reduced from six months to four months
4. Education. $1b to double the capital budget for schools, and retention of national standards so parents know in plain English how their kids are doing, but as importantly so the Government can identify the schools that are less effective and deliver more resource to them.
5. Science. As massive increase in investment in Science, including transforming IRL into an Advanced Technology Institute.
6. RMA Reform. A six month deadline for consenting medium sized developments
7. Ultra-fast Broadband. National will continue rolling this out without delay. 100 MB/s will be available to 75% of NZ.
8. Law & Order. Tighter bail laws and increased penalties for breaches of protection orders
9. Industrial Relations. New employees will no longer be initially forced to join a union if there is a collective, and can decide for themselves on day one whether to join a union or not.
10. Youth Unemployment. National’s Starter Wage will mean not so many young people are priced out of the labour market.

I’ve done a little table which may help people who want a Key-led Government or a Goff-led Government to decide how to vote, or more specifically how to make sure your vote is not wasted.

There are two ways a vote can be “wasted”. By this I don’t mean it isn’t counted, but that it doesn’t help a party gain extra seats in Parliament.Ineffective might be a better name for it.

The first way is if a party does not make the threshold of 5% or one electorate seat. People may wish to still vote for these parties because of a strong belief in their policies, but other people might want to make sure their vote helps decide who will be Prime Minister – Key or Goff.

The other way a party vote can be ineffective is if you vote for a party that gains no list mps on top of their electorate seats. For example the Maori Party won five electorate seats last election, and their party vote was just 2.4% and they needed 4.6% of the vote to gain a list MP on top of their electorate MPs. So all those party votes didn’t help the Maori Party gain extra MPs.

So what does this mean. Here’s what it means if you want John Key to remain Prime Minister:

• Only a vote for National is guaranteed to help Key remain Prime Minister
• A vote for United Future or ACT will only help Key remain PM if they win an electorate seat and their party vote is at least 1.2%.
• A vote for any other party is unlikely to help Key remain Prime Minister

If you want Phil Goff to become Prime Minister:

• A vote for Labour is guaranteed to help Goff become Prime Minister
• A vote for the Greens is exceptionally likely to help Goff become Prime Minister
• A vote for the Mana Party helps Phil Goff become PM if Harawira retains Te Tai Tokerau and they get at least 1.2% party vote
• A vote for NZ First helps Phil Goff become PM, or will lead to a new election if they refuse confidence and supply to both parties

If you want your party to decide after the election between Key and Goff, there is not much to choose from

• A vote for the Maori Party will only help them gain MPs if they exceed 3.6%
• A vote for the Conservative Party will only help them gain MPs if they exceed 5.0%

Now this post is not telling people how to vote. It is informing people how to make sure your vote is most effective in determining the Prime Minister and Government, if that is what matters to you. It doesn’t for some people, but it does for others.

I thought Hone did the best in the minor leader’s debate last night. Not that I agreed with anything he said – but he was best at articulating the far left point of view, and may well win some support from Labour and the Greens on it.

Russel Norman played a safe game, which is what you do when you are polling more than the other five parties combined.

I thought Peter Dunne and Winston Peters both waffled (as my tweet which was read out showed). When all six leaders were asked to name their number one economic policy, neither of them could or did. Peters of course was good at railing against, well everything, and that will appeal to some. It is a pity the moderator failed to get him to answer the final question, and in fact no media has got an answer. Peters claims (whether you believe him is another matter) that he will not go into coalition or accept a Ministerial role with either major party. He says he is campaigning to be in opposition. But the question that was not asked and answered is what will he do if he makes 5% and holds the balance of power? There are four options – vote for a National-led Government, vote for a Labour-led Government, abstain (which allows largest bloc to govern) or vote against and cause a new election.

Tariana Turia was overshadowed by Hone, and some of her facts and figures were grossly inaccurate. The media really should fact check minor party leaders. Don Brash had a hostile audience but got some good lines away such as wanting to change electoral systems because the test is what is good for NZ, not what is good for ACT.

As I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mana’s support increased enough that they might get John Minto in.

Having seen some of the tension in Ohariu about who does and does not live in the electorate, it got me curious about which MPs are standing in a seat where they are unable to vote for themselves. Based on what I could find out, this is my list of MPs who will not be able to vote for themselves in this election:

In four electorates there are multiple MPs standing who do not live there – Mt Roskill, Ohariu, Tamaki Makaurau and Taranaki King-Country. I haven’t gone into the reasons for each case, but in some cases they have a very good reason. For example Shane Ardern has lived and farmed in Opunake for several decades and that was in the TKC boundaries when he first got elected. The boundaries has since shifted, so hence he is now just outside the electorate.

Some like John Key have never lived in their electorate, while others like Phil Goff lived there initially and then moved out.

The most geographically remote MP will be David Parker who is enrolled in Dunedin North but standing in Epsom!

I’m pretty busy so last night was my first Meet the Candidates meeting. Aro Valley will probably be my only other one.

The forum was titled “Ladies in the House” and organised by the Wellington Young Feminists Collective. I found about it on The Hand Mirror blog.

I was interested in the likely topics, but was a bit dubious about attending, in case it was intended to be for women only. But after checking it wasn’t, and taking Jadis along as security, I attended.

The turnout was huge – well over 100 people. And I have to say the quality of the questions was 10 times higher than your typical MTC meeting which is made up of party hacks and old pensioners who are rich enough to have MySky, so they can record Coronation Street, and attend. The gender balance was probably 80/20.

As the forum was on issues, not an electorate, candidates were from Hutt South and Mana as well as Wellington Central, There was Paul Foster-Bell (N), Jordan Carter (L), Holly Walker (G), Jan Logie (G), Stephen Whittington (A) and Ben Craven (NZF).

There was a lively twitter stream for the forum – at #ladiesinthehouse. I’ll highlight a couple of exchanges, but want to say well done to the WYFC for organising the meeting. I’ve been to hundreds of these over the years, and this one was excellent as it was focused on issues.

Ben Craven from NZ First probably provided the most humour, not necessarily intentionally. Even I winced when he said the solution to domestic violence is to cut off their benefits. But I think people admired his pluck for fronting up.

There was (obviously) quite a bit of discussion on gender issues such as women in Parliament, abortion and  domestic violence. Jan Logie from the Greens said that she wanted the law changed so that all political parties are required to have gender equity in their party lists, as the Greens do (who specify the gender balance in their top 10 and top 20 etc). I think that’s a terrible idea to have the state tell political parties how they must select candidates. Not sure if Jan’s view is Green policy – I hope not.

There was a discussion about whether requiring the co-leadership of the Greens to be one male and one female actually discriminated against women, as it stops two women being co-leaders if they are the best person for the job. Incidentally that is a point I made when Rod Donald died. The lack of suitable male MPs to be co-leader meant they had to go outside caucus to Russel Norman, rather than have a female MP replace Donald.

One audience member (a male) advocated that there should be four electoral rolls – General Male, General Female, Maori Male and Maori Female. Luckily no candidate supported that idea. If you keep having separate rolls and seats to reflect your demographics then one day I guess I’d be voting on the Male Pakeha Anglican aged 40 – 50 roll. The proposal actually reinforced to me why having separate Maori seats is not a good idea. If you back seats based on race, why not based on gender?

The audience was, I thought, a very good one. Not just some good questions (and not the usual ones planted by party hacks), but when candidates said things they didn’t agree with, they didn’t shout them down. At most there would be a fit of giggles or a murmur of disbelief.

Again well done to the WYFC for organising the forum. I hope it becomes a regular election event.

Whale provides video of “The moment”.

Winston Peters has said:

New Zealand First is not going with National.

New Zealand First is not going with Labour either. We are making that clear here today.

New Zealand First is not going with the Greens or the Maori Party. …

MMP is criticized by those who believe they have been born to rule but since this system was introduced, the party with the most votes has always formed the government.

We believe that the party that gets the most votes should try to form the next government.

But there’s one condition – the one safeguard that voters have – the one get out of jail card.

And that is do not let any political party in New Zealand govern alone under any circumstances. It is too dangerous!

Before we analyse what Winston actually means with this, it is first important to note one thing. Winston lies. Not just generally, but specifically on issues such as these. In 2005 he said NZ First would not take up the baubles of office. That was universally interpreted as meaning they would not take up a Ministerial role. Yet, as we all know Winston became Foreign Affairs and Racing Minister, allowing him to reward his secret backers.

Stuff have interpreted this as:

NZ First leader Winston Peters says the party will remain on the Opposition benches and refuse to support either of the two main parties if it is reelected to Parliament.

In a speech to be delivered to party faithful in Auckland today, Mr Peters all but killed any hope of Labour stitching up a minority government with his support if NZ First passed the 5 per cent threshold, saying he believed that the party that got the most votes should try to form the next government.

“New Zealand First is not going with National. New Zealand First is not going with Labour either. We are making that clear here today.

NZ First would not countenance a deal that involved the Greens or the Maori Party.

No Right Turn has blogged this this has killed off Labour’s dream:

Winston Peters has announced that he will not back either main party on confidence and supply, and will refuse to support any arrangement involving the Greens or Maori Party. So, that’s it then. Labour’s dream of cobbling together a coalition government if it does well enough (already a forlorn hope) is now dead. The issue now is not whether John Key or Phil Goff is Prime Minister, but whether Key gets to rule with an absolute majority.

But Winston has not in fact said definitely what he will do. At best he seems to be saying he will oppose both National and Labour. That could mean if NZ First did make 5% and hold the balance of power, he would force a new election by voting against supply and confidence.

A Government can only govern if it has supply and confidence. All Winston has said that the party with the most votes should try to form the next Government. Nowhere has he said he will allow them to.

Winston has left massive wriggle room, so he can do in 2011 what he did in 2005. The question that media should ask him is “Will he vote for confidence and supply for the largest party, against confidence and supply, or abstain?”. A related question is “What conditions will be attached to that”.

He has said NZ first is not going with the Greens or the Maori Party. That doesn’t answer the question of what if National needs (unlikely but possible) both NZ First and Maori Party to govern. Is he saying he will vote against if there are Maori Part Ministers but vote for if they are not Ministers?

Overall the only conclusion I can draw is that a Winston saying he will oppose whomever forms the Govt, and his apparent conditions on which other parties can be involved just makes new elections likely if they make 5%. Political instability is the last thing we need as Europe totters on the brink of economic disaster.

One interesting thing is that Winston and No Right Turn have both said National should not govern alone. NRT said:

This isn’t something we should allow to happen. As we saw back in the FPP-era, absolute majority government is constitutionally dangerous. It turns our country into an elected dictatorship, allowing a single party to run roughshod over everyone else and abuse the Parliamentary process to impose policies for which it has no mandate. MMP’s (thus far) enforcement of coalition and minority government prevents that from happening. It means the government has to negotiate for policies, convince other parties (and by extension the public) that its policies are acceptable. In other words, it keeps us safe. And that’s something we need to preserve.

Presumably this means Idiot/Savant is calling on voters to vote ACT. Because that is the best way to have a National-led minority Government. I/S has said that the Government will be National-led. That means that extra votes for Labour, Greens, NZ First or Mana will just be wasted as none of them would support a National-led Government.

A vote for the Maori Party will not work, as they are highly likely to have an overhang.

That leaves United Future and ACT. Now those parties need 1.2% to get an second MP and 0.45 to avoid overhang. United Future is looking like it will be an over-hang seat. So the best way for people to have a minority National-led Government is hence to give ACT the party vote.

Now personally I do not endorse ACT, as Idiot/Savant has done. If the voters vote to give John Key a majority, he has already said he will offer to share Government with the Maori Party, United Future and ACT – and at a minimum a policy co-operation agreement with the Greens.

UPDATE: Danyl at Dim-Post nails it:

Peters’ strategy is pretty simple. By ruling out the possibility of going into coalition with Labour, he attracts back right-wing voters who like his policies on immigration etc, but don’t want to cast a vote for his party if it means he’ll go into coalition with Labour. Then, after the election, Peters can go into coalition with Labour and throw a temper tantrum about media conspiracies every time someone suggests he promised not to go into coalition with Labour.

Labour told us how they kicked arse in the first two weeks of the campaign. Their opening broadcast was better, they won the debates, their policies were better, and people now hated John Key as much as they did.  National would be hammered for its unpopular policies.

So why did Labour drop to its lowest ever poll rating in the Herald Digipoll? A poll taken up until yesterday so doesn’t even include Goff in The Press debate.

And in the One News Colmar Brunton poll, National retains a 26% lead. This poll also taken in the last week.

What happened?

I didn’t watch it, but saw John Pagani tweet:

Huge win for Goff tonight at the Press debate. One sided – he absolutely smashed it.

Sadly for John, he seems to be a minority of one. Fairfax’s Vernon Small who actually attended the debate wrote:

Who won?

On first and final impressions from someone typing madly in the front row?

Key had the audience eating out of his hand – a showman in top form.

A clear victory for the PM.

I presume Trevor Mallard won’t attack Vernon as a tool of the vast right wing conspiracy.

John Hartevelt tweeted:

A clear win to Key tonight. Proud that The Press hosted such a great debate.

Many people said the format was much better.

ZB’s Felix Marwick:

Calling tonight’s debate for Key. Goff undercut himself by not definitively answering the $ question

And the Herald’s Claire Trevett:

What a jolly Press debate that was. Both entertaining – Goff stood ground till Key Jerry McGuired him, good and hard.

I am deeply disturbed by Claire’s choice of metaphor.

Vernon Small goes further today:

If the first TVNZ debate was a narrow-points victory to Phil Goff, last night’s Press debate was not far short of a rout by John Key.

The next time John Pagani calls something a huge crushing win for Goff or Labour, I’m going to buy National win shares on iPredict!

Funnily enough when judging a debate, I tend to be harder on those whose arguments I agree with. The reason why is because I know thee arguments so well for “the right”, that I’m always thinking (or yelling at the screen) “You should have said this …..”

UPDATE: Danyl at Dim-Post notes:

Goff couldn’t respond. He couldn’t account for the $14 billion shortfall. Instead he prevaricated. He talked about asset sales. He talked about tax evasion. Key continued to press him, and Goff insisted we’d get a spreadsheet ‘soon’, which explained everything. Then he spent the final quarter of the debate insisting that he’d already explained where the money was coming from, while Key and the audience simply laughed at him.

It was a humiliating defeat. And totally unnecessary. Three-and-a-half weeks from the election and Labour’s leader can’t produce a credible budget.

I suspect we will see Labour’s costed budget later today or tomorrow. I also predict it will miraculously balance and show no extra borrowing needed. What will matter is whether Labour’s figures hold up to scrutny. Anyone can make a budget balance by just fiddling with assumptions, such as saying “Our policies are good for the economy, so we predict economic growth will be 05% higher which means this much more tax revenue”.

The Electoral Commission has them here.

Party Names and List Sizes are:

• ACT 55
• Alliance 14
• ALCP 28
• Conservative 30
• Democrats 24
• Greens 61
• Labour 65
• Libertarianz 27
• Mana 20
• Maori 17
• National 65 (in fact is 74 or 75 I think, but only top 65 get listed)
• NZ First (33)
• United Future 17

The Herald notes:

Thirteen political parties and 544 individual candidates will contest the November 26 election. …

While there were 19 parties in 2008, only thirteen have registered this year. …

The nominations also showed a drop in the number of individual candidates, with 544 this year compared with 682 in 2008.

There are 91 list-only candidates, 73 electorate-only, and 380 standing for both. Thirty candidates are standing as independents or representing unregistered parties.

The most sought after seat is Wellington Central, currently held by Labour’s Grant Robertson, which 12 candidates, including Mr Robertson, will compete for.

The number of men competing for a place in Parliament is more than double the number of women, with 397 compared with 147 women registered.

Local Government Online had a nifty portal last year for the local body elections. Well they have used that template to do the same for the general election – at vote.co.nz.

They list the candidates for every electorate, plus all the parties and their lists. Parties and candidates can upload material to it, and you can ask questions to the candidates.

I found their sister site for local body elections really useful, and this one should be a great resource also.

Over at Stuff, I note party lists are due in today at midday, and look at all the minor parties I think will be contesting. They are:

• ACT
• Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
• Conservative Party of New Zealand
• Libertarianz
• Mana
• Maori Party
• New Zealand First Party
• The Alliance
• The Greens
• The New Zealand Democratic Party for Social Credit
• United Future New Zealand

I give a paragraph on each and what I think would be a good and a poor result for them

Well at the risk of self-promotion, I have to say it turned out pretty much as I predicted.

Goff did well and scored a couple of hits, but Key held his own and came across relaxed. One can argue about who “won” but for me the score was like the RWC final – an 8-7 affair.

I did say before the debate:

Where Goff can struggle is with empathy, coming across as a “normal bloke” rather than a professional politician who is always negative. But he and his staff have spent the last two and a bit years making him less robotic, and I have no doubt he will get that balance right tonight of criticising the Government’s record, and promoting their own policies. so that he is seen more positively by New Zealanders than previously.

This is the one part where I might mark myself down. I’m not sure Goff did quite get the balance right. He certainly came across as an effective Opposition Leader last night (which is an improvement in his public perception), but he didn’t quite come across as the alternative Prime Minister. The public do not always respond well to aggressiveness. Your supporters love it and it inspires them, but they are not Joe/Jane Public. I suspect he will be less aggressive in the next debate.

A reminder that “Campaign 11″ starts tonight at 8.30 pm on Sky News. It will also replay on Prime TV.

Barry Soper moderates a minor party leader’s debate with:

• ACT Leader Don Brash
• United Future Leader Peter Dunne
• Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia
• Mana Party Leader Hone Harawira
• Green co-leader Russel Norman

The panel asking questions is Chris Trotter, myself and television reporter Ngahuia Wade.

There will be four sections to the debate, focusing on:

1. Economy
2. Environment
3. Maori
4. Coalitions

The programme will run for an hour.

Last night saw the televised opening broadcasts from National, Labour and the Greens.

Here’s my scores on the following attributes

• Style
• Policy Focus
• Creativity
• Team Focus
• Relevance

National

• Style – 1/10 – the technical quality was appalling, both in terms of sound and lighting. May have been a deliberate decision to go for substance over style, in which case they wildly succeeded. There is a difference between no style and not overly flashy though!
• Policy Focus – 8/10. Key talked on the major issues. He talked both about what the Government had done and what it will do if re-elected.
• Creativity – 0/10. Did not inspire.
• Team Focus – 2/10. In that environment had to be Key only, but could have mentioned other Ministers more.
• Relevance – 9/10. It wasn’t about trivial stuff, but stuff that people are interested in and want to hear about. Stayed current
• Positivity – 8/10. Talked about themselves, didn’t knock opponents. Focused on a brighter future.

Labour

• Style – 8/10. Was well done and engaging. Used the visual medium well. You actually wanted to hear the next few minutes of the story.
• Policy Focus – 3/10. Did not hardly mention any of their current policies at all. Solely Basically attacked National’s policies and records – not just the current National either, but those of the last 80 years!
• Creativity – 7/10. Not the usual format. Was a good focus on why their MPs are Labour.
• Team Focus – 6/10. Sensible to use attractive and personable MPs such as O’Connor, Nash, Ardern, Robertson etc. However no mention of Deputy Leader, David Parker. And use of O’Connor was cynical as he is not even on the party list and probably won’t even be an MP.
• Relevance – 2/10. Not only failed to mention a single policy they were promoting, also spent far too long campaigning against Sid Holland and Rob Muldoon.
• Positivity – 3/10. Spent most of the time knocking National, and revisiting past grievances. However balanced that a bit by positive statements from some MPs.

Greens

• Style – 7/10. Good use of outdoors scenery. The odd technical hitch with lighting and camera shaking. Nice start talking about richer NZ, then having co-leaders talk.
• Policy Focus – 9/10. Talked relentlessly about their policies, and how they planed to achieve them.
• Creativity – 6/10. A basic concept executed well
• Team Focus – 5/10. Brief mention and profile of rest of the team.
• Relevance – 7/10. They talked well about the issues around their brand. However not necessarily the issues for all NZers. Nice linking of environment and economy.
• Positivity – 9/10. Relentlessly positive about what could be achieved if you voted for them. Highlighted their achievements with National. Even when negative such as state of rivers, talked on turning it around.

How did you find them?

I might rate the other party ones tonight, but not sure I can be bothered watching them all

iPredict says:

The Electoral Commission has just announced the broadcasting allocations for the 2011 elections. I show below the monetary allocation for each party, and the comparison to the original 2008 allocation.

The Commission has given National and Labour the same amounts, as they did in 2008. The argument for this is that they are the two parties competing to become the major party in Government, so should get the same funding regardless of any disparity in seats and poll ratings.

I tend to agree with the Commission that the two major parties should get the same, but I note in 2005 they gave Labour $200,000 more than National. In 1999 and 2002 they got the same though. So the 2005 decision is probably an anomaly based on National receiving so few seats in 2002. However with hindsight it was arguably wrong as National was equal polling with Labour and almost won the 2005 election.

The allocations are:

• National $1,150,000 ($1,000,000)
• Labour $1,150,000 ($1,000,000)
• Greens $300,000 ($240,000)
• ACT $160,000 ($100,000)
• Maori $160,000 ($240,000)
• NZ First $100,000 ($240,000)
• United $100,000 ($100,000)
• Others $20,000 each ($17,000)

The two parties that get less than in 2008 are Maori Party and NZ First parties. Mana will have no allocation at all, and sadly the law has not been changed to allow parties to purchase their own broadcasting time. I am no fan of the Mana Party, but it is outraegous that they have been shut out of radio and television due to the law. I remain annoyed National failed to chaange the law.

In terms of opening and closing times, the allocations are:

• National 20 + 16 (12 + 6)
• Labour 20 + 16 (12 + 6)
• Greens 8 + 7 (8 + 3)
• ACT 5 + 4 (3+ 3)
• Maori 5 + 4 (8 + 3)
• NZ First 3 + 2.5 (8 + 3)
• United 3 + 2.5 (4 + 3)
• Others 1 + 1 each (1 + 0)

That is significantly more time for the two major parties, but really a reflection that in the past they have not been allocated enough time. The two major parties are polling at around 85%, yet are getting just 55% of the time. They are getting 70% of the money.

I think the allocations look pretty reasonable. I would make the point that personally I would change the law so that a greater allocation goes to parties outside Parliament, recognising they do not have the resources that parties already in Parliament have. I stick by that view, even though it would in this case benefit NZ First.

One of the reasons often cited as part of Labour’s loss in 2008 was that they ran such a relentlessly nasty and negative campaign against John Key, with everything from the H Fee up.

Whale Oils blogs that Labour have appointed Trevor Mallard as their campaign manager for 2011.

One can only assume that they are determined to run an even dirtier, nastier and defamatory campaign than last time.

I can’t imagine who they will get for their 2014 campaign – maybe Clay Davis?

The potential line up for the leaders’ debates amongst the minor parties verges on the hilarious. It may include:

• Russel Norman or Metiria Turei
• Rodney Hide
• Don Brash
• Winston Peters
• Hone Harawira
• Pita Sharples or Tariana Turia
• Peter Dunne

They should make it pay per view entertainment.

Key and Goff will stick with the Prime Ministerial debates unless they are bonkers.

David Cunliffe called yesterday for Bill English to resign, so to trump that Phil Goff called on the entire Government to resign. I’m not sure why – I think he blames the Government for the earthquakes.

Anyway, it would have been hilarious if John key called their bluff, and had got up and said “Okay, we’ll go to the polls on the 7th of May”.

And best of all, we’d have the election all over befiore the Rugby World Cup – which i suspect many more people are interested in.

Martin Kay in the Dom Post reports:

The Greens have held out a slim prospect of a post-election deal with National in a suggestion to be put to members.

A proposal on political manoeuvring ahead of the election, to go to the Greens’ annual general meeting in June, says the preference is for a deal with Labour, if it is in a position to form a Government.

But it also leaves the door slightly ajar to a deal with National – saying that a confidence and supply agreement is ”extremely unlikely” but not ruling it out altogether.

”The Greens could work with a National-led government to progress particular Green policies as we have over the last three years; but based on current National Party policy positions it is extremely unlikely that we could support a National-led government on confidence and supply,” the draft remit says.

The proposed position is different from 2008, when the Greens firmly ruled out any prospect of a confidence and supply deal with National after judging its policies in key areas.

It appears the party’s leadership is wary of slamming the door shut this time around in case the election result leaves National in a position where they have to court the smaller party’s support.

The wording of the remit also suggests options could include abstaining on confidence and supply, a position that could allow National to govern in return for key environmental policy concessions.

This is sensible stuff from the Greens, for three reasons:

1. By leaving open the possibility of doing a deal with National, they are less likely to be taken for granted by Labour. Labour has consistently gone for United Future and NZ First, in preference to the Greens, as the Greens had nowhere to go.
2. While I fully expect that the Greens would always choose a Labour-led Government over a National-led Government if they can make either come about, there may be a situation where if the Greens support Labour Parliament is hung. This means their option will be to force a new election or to possibly do a deal with National where they abstain on supply and confidence in return for some policy wins. I doubt they’d ever do more than abstain, but that might be enough to allow National to govern, of Labour is not able to.
3. Keeping their options open, even if only a but, means that they can campaign on a clear message of “Whomever is in Government, we’ll work them to get a greener Government. That could well be attractive to people who don’t want Phil Goff as Prime Minister, but would like a greener Government.

There are some dangers. The new Hone hard left party may campaign on the fact they’ll never work with Natonal, but the Greens might. However as Goff has ruled out working with the Hone party, that is less of a threat than it may have been.

The Prime Minister has announced the general election will be held on Saturday 26 November 2011.

I must point out that last March I blogged on the election date and said that 26 November was the most likely date. I was never one who thought the PM would go early for a possible tactical advantage.

In fact Key has again shown how different he is to his predecessors. Previous PMs have treated the election date as being more precious, than – well the Ring to Gollum. They’ve kept it secret for as long as possible, to gain maximum tactical advantage from it.

Hopefully this move by Key, may be a first step towards having a fixed election date. Unless the Government has collapsed or lost confidence, Parliament should continue full-term. Previous PMs Muldoon and Clark called snap election on flimsy excuses (Clark’s was there were too many points of order during question time).

Under the new electoral legislation s3B(2)((a)(ii) the regulated period starts three months before the election day, on the 26th of August 2011.

Bob Brockie writes:

But three Californian economists – Andrew Healy, Neil Malhotra and Cecilia Mo – have just shown that completely irrelevant events can swing public voting. They matched up top American college football and basketball results between 1964 and 2009 with results from senate and presidential elections.

The economists found that local wins and losses affected voters’ choice of candidates. More exactly, they found that a win in the 10 days before election day gave the incumbent candidate an extra 1.6 per cent more votes. The effect was most noticeable where sports teams had a big following of fans.

So if the All Blacks continue with this form, John Key will call the election for Saturday 29 October 2011

Of course the PM will not have the election campaign overlap with the Rugby World Cup. I believe the likely date is the last Saturday of November. I suspect that six weeks after a sporting event, any impact on how people vote will be minimal.