I blogged a few days on how Winston Peters endorsed Chris Bishop for Hutt South, saying he is “is a cut above the regular MP”.

Richard Prebble also wrote on Chris Bishop:

It is not often I agree with Winston Peters, but Chris Bishop is a remarkable MP.

New Zealand has wasted billions of taxpayers’ dollars as incoming governments cancel their predecessors’ infrastructure projects.

One of this government’s achievements is securing cross-party agreement that this waste must stop and that New Zealand needs a bipartisan, long-term infrastructure plan.

While all parties deserve credit, Chris Bishop was the driving force.

For over 30 years, Parliament has known the Resource Management Act was flawed. Successive governments failed to replace it.

Bishop succeeded.

Labour opposed aspects of the replacement legislation but is not campaigning to repeal it. That is a measure of Bishop’s remarkable ability to achieve difficult reform.

Both were remarkable achievements indeed.

But the support for Bishop is not just from Peters and Prebble, but also former Labour Leader Phil Goff:

Former Labour leader Phil Goff has delivered a surprise election endorsement of National minister Chris Bishop, warning it would be a “loss to Parliament” if the senior MP is knocked out of the House.

Goff, who spent decades on the opposite side of the political divide from Bishop, said the National MP deserved to remain in Parliament.

I agree with Phil Goff. And Labour voters can vote for Bishop, knowing Ginny Andersen is guaranteed to get in on the list.

But there is a fourth endorsement from Green voter and columnist Verity Johnson:

I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but I think you should vote for Chris Bishop …

Here’s me. A two-ticks-Green voter, endorsing a National candidate next week in the battleground electorate of Hutt South.

For one, he rewrote the RMA. And secondly, because I know you don’t care about that, he’s trying to fix the housing crisis. Yep, he’s a National MP who actually wants to bring house prices down. Wild, right? …

So look, Hutt South, help us out here. Get him back in.

I mean, sure, I’m a lefty, but I still want high-quality opponents. And, if we have to have conservatives in there, I want good ones. Smart ones. Ones who take the future seriously.

That is an incredibly diverse array of people saying that Parliament will be worse off if Chris Bishop isn’t there. A former Labour leader, a Green voting columnist, a former ACT Leader and the NZ First Leader.

Hutt South voters – it is up to you.

If I lived in the US I’d be very depressed about a choice between the corrupt and the crazy. The Democrats seem to be sliding more to the extreme left, and the Republicans are so terrified of Trump they acquiesce and ignore stuff that they would be outraged about normally.

Trump is hugely unpopular. He is -21% approval overall. On the economy he is -32% and on inflation -43%. He is even -11% on immigration which before the election was a huge strength for him. On Iran he is at -31%. Inflation is the No 1 issue and he is at -43% where 70% of voters disapprove of his record.

And they are right to disapprove. His tariff obsessions has not just been terrible for the world economy, but also terrible for US consumers. A recent Fed estimate is that 2.9 percentage points of US inflation is due to the tariffs.

And the war with Iran has been a debacle. In the early stages there was definitely an optimistic scenario where you could get regime change, or at least the nuclear threat gone and their offensive capacity wiped out. But his lack of strategy and over reliance on bluster has led to global oil and diesel prices skyrocketing.

So what do I want to happen? Well the House is going to fall to the Democrats beyond reasonable doubt, and this is a good thing. House Republicans have shown no interest in standing up for traditional Republican values like free trade, NATO, rule of law, democratic values. I want them to lose so badly that they learn a lesson (yeah I know they won’t). I hope that in 2030, if the GOP is in a post Trump era, they can come back.

In the Senate, I’m more mixed on what I want as an outcome. In Trump’s first term I loved most of his judicial appointments, as they were good principled originalists. Trump basically rubber stamped nominees from the Federalist Society, and we got three excellent Supreme Court Justices and many excellent lower court judges.

This term, Trump has taken a far far keener interest in judicial nominations. While there are still many fine appointments, a significant proportion are just hacks whose only criteria is personal loyalty to Trump and a high probability they would always rule for him. I would like vacant judicial roles to be filled, which a GOP held Senate would allow. Would also allow Alito or Thomas to be replaced by someone younger, but I am concerned that Trump’s nominee would be a Judge Aileen Cannon, not a Brett Cavanagh.

Losing the Senate also means Trump can’t get any cabinet and sub cabinet appointments ratified. But as he is basically ignoring them anyway and relying on Acting appointments, that isn’t a big factor.

Trump has personally endorsed challengers to sitting Senators that he say as no sycophantic enough, and their successors are looking likely to lose those seats. So losing the Senate will be down to Trump personally, if it happens. A year ago it was almost unthinkable as it was such a favourable map.

So in the Senate I’m sort of agnostic on overall control. But I do have preferences based on candidate quality in individual races. Here are the marginal Senate seats with the probability from Nate Silver.

1. Alaska: Pelota (D) 56%: Want Pelota to lose as she is lying about her cheat strategy, and also seems a very unpleasant person
2. Iowa: Turek (D) 58%: Want Hinson (R) to win as she seems normal. To be fair Turek seems pretty normal also, and is a relatively moderate Democrats.
3. Kansas: Hamilton (D) 61%: Want Marshall (incumbent R) to lose as he tried to steal the 2020 election.
4. South Carolina: Graham (R) 67%. Graham is uninspiring and only there as the sister of the deceased Lindsay. But her opponent Annie Andrews appears to be a radical pretending to be moderate. So Graham the lesser evil.
5. Nebraska: Ricketts (R) 67%. Ricketts is a pretty typical conservative politician and his opponent is a Democrat pretending to be an Independent. Prefer Ricketts.
6. Ohio: Brown (D) 71%. Brown is on the left of the Democratic Party and Husted is sort off normal. So prefer Husted.
7. Maine: Jackson (D) 73%. Jackson is hard left pretending not to be. Collins is a great advocate for her state, and one of the few GOP Senators who will stand u to Trump. Team Collins.
8. Texas: Talarico (D) 74%. I think Talarico is weird and will be pretty terrible. But Ken Paxton is corrupt (his own Deputy AGs reported him to the FBI) and has no redeeming qualities. I want Paxton to lose more than anyone else.
9. Florida: Moody (R) 83%. Nixon (D) is terrible and Moody is not. Easy.
10. Michigan: El-Sayed (D) 84%. El-Sayed is the one I second most want to lose. His anti-semitism is a huge threat, if he gets into the Senate.
11. Minnesota: Flanagan (D) 94%. She’s going to win. But she will be terrible. Prefer Tafoya (R)
12. New Hampshire: Pappas 94%. I prefer Sununu, but he will lose to Pappas who to be fair is one of the better Democrats
13. North Carolina: Cooper 96%. Trump faced out Tillis so this will be karma as Cooper wins against Whatley. Whatley support’s Trump’s tariffs so I’m with Cooper

We find out on Wednesday!

Republican Senator Daniel (Scott) Sullivan is standing for re-election against Democrat Mary Peltola. Alaska rules allow up to four people on the ballot and one of the other two candidates is a Daniel J Sullivan, who is also listed as a Republican.

It has been obvious for some time he is there to try and confuse people into voting for the wrong Daniel Sullivan. But the assumption was he just decided to stand himself.

The NY Times has run a story showing that Democratic operatives actually searched the entire state to try and find people called Daniel Sullivan to run:

In the summer of 2025, a staffer for Mary Peltola, the Alaska Democrat who was eyeing a run for Senate, received unusual instructions from top campaign aides: Find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can. …

The Peltola campaign has repeatedly denied any involvement in his candidacy. But The Times has found, based on interviews and text messages, along with documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign, that not only did Ms. Peltola’s team work with people trying to recruit Mr. Sullivan to run for Senate, but the effort was much broader. The group worked to coax other would-be spoilers into the race, to dilute the incumbent’s support and help catapult the Democrat to victory.

This should be denounced. You should win based on more people actually wanted you than your opponent, not based on trying to get people to accidentally not vote for your opponent. I hope Peltola loses.

Dr David Smylie writes for the FSU:

I’ve practised medicine in Britain, Australia, the US and New Zealand, including two years providing care to Aboriginal Australians in the Outback. In 2022, I was a senior partner at Cambridge Medical Centre in the Waikato. I had a blemish-free record.

That November, a sales rep from a nutrition company emailed me and other health professionals an invitation to a sponsored education evening. Her email opened “Ate Marie Everyone“. She meant “ata mārie,” meaning “good morning.”

I’m a Scot with a dry sense of humour, and I couldn’t resist the typo. I replied the moment I read it:

He joked that he hoped she hasn’t really eaten Marie, and that it would be good to communicate in a language not understood by 98.5% of the population. He also expressed relief she had not included her preferred pronouns.

Dr Smylie notes:

Was it wise? No, and I wish I hadn’t sent it. It was a hasty, knee-jerk reaction to the language in her email, not a calculated attack on her. It was also private: it went to her alone, and none of the other invitees were copied in. And she was a sales rep, not a patient or a colleague. I didn’t think it was a big deal, and it never crossed my mind that I might hear from the Medical Council over it.

Alas this is not the Medical Council of old that was concerned about clinical competence. Now their criteria is woke compliance.

In September 2023, the Committee delivered its verdict. My comments were “objectively racist, offensive, and insensitive“. Whether I’d meant any harm was “of little consequence“. My four sentences even had “the potential to contribute to current health inequities“. The three courses I’d done unprompted were only “the beginning of your journey“, and I lacked “insight“.

This reminds me of the old Soviet Union trials for being insufficiently committed to Marxism.

The committee’s remedy was “counselling“. In practice, that meant what I’d call twelve months of reprogramming. The Council called it an “Educational Programme“. I had to see a Council-approved supervisor every month, and the supervisor reported on me to the Council every month.

I suspect if you totally stuff up a diagnosis, you don’t need to have a monthly report on you. But if you have the wrong view on te reo or pronouns, you must be supervised.

At the end I was to write two essays: 500 words reflecting on my email, and 1,000 on structural racism in New Zealand health care. 

George Orwell could turn this into a novel!

So, I left. I’m now practising overseas. I’m told I might be allowed to work in New Zealand again if I write them. Clearly, that is not going to happen.

Those two years were a living nightmare. I lost more than 10kg and a great many nights’ sleep, over something a sensible regulator would have settled with a quiet word.

Exactly. Any sane regulator would just say “Hey it’s silly to wind someone up like that”. But the Medical Council wasted God knows how much money on treating it like a hanging offence.

At a time when Health NZ are reporting severe staffing shortages, and are looking to bring in staff from overseas, I have to be blunt: based on my experience, I would not advise any health professional to work in New Zealand until the regulators get back to their core purposes.

I know so many professionals who say Australia looks attractive because the regulators there are not as insane as in NZ.

I like some of the law & order policies announced by NZ First. They include:

• Introduce a formal ‘degrees of murder’ regime that increases the minimum non-parole period from 10 to 20 years. DPF: This is very important as the 10 year non-parole period currently in place tends to mean that it drags down all sentences for other serious crimes such as rape and GBH
• Limit sentence discounts for factors other than a guilty plea to 10%. 
• Raise standard parole eligibility to 75% of a sentence for long-term offenders. DPF: Labour once dropped it to 33%!
• New Zealand First will strengthen the ‘Coward Punch’ law so that Coward punches causing death, will require Judges to impose a minimum non-parole period of 8 years imprisonment.
• Require District Courts to proactively publish sentencing notes within 72 hours and limit final name suppression to extreme cases.  DPF: This is critically important. Having all sentencing notes online is needed for an open justice system
• NZ First will defend our children and introduce tougher penalties for sexual violation, including life imprisonment for rape against children. 

The results so far for the Israeli election shows the government parties have lost a majority, but are still the largest bloc. Here’s the seats so far:

Government supporting:

• Likud (right) 26
• Shas (social/religious conservative) 7
• United Torah Judaism (conservative, non zionist) 7
• Otzma Yehudit (far right, ultra orthodox) 7
• Religious Zionism (far right, religious) 6
• Total 53

Opposition supporting:

• Yashar (centrist) 21
• Together (centrist) 12
• The Democrats (left) 8
• Yisrael Beiteinu (right) 7
• Total 48

Arab

• Joint List (left, anti zionist) 12
• Raam (Islamist) 7
• Total 19

The potential outcomes are:

• Bibi gets one of the opposition parties to support him
• A coalition between Likud and Yashar (Yashar has ruled this out)
• A Yashur-led Government with support from Arab parties
• A Yashur-led Government in coalition with an Arab party

Radio NZ reports:

Kerrin Leoni says she will sit as an independent MP if she wins the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate.

With nominations closed, Leoni’s name remains on the ballot with Labour’s name and logo.

Under the Electoral Act she is still an official candidate for Labour. This means if she does win the seat, it is credited to Labour, and they will get one fewer List MP as a result.

The writ delivered to the Clerk of the House will declare her a Labour MP. She will then have to notify the Speaker that she wishes to become an Independent MP. If she does, then in theory Labour could try to use the waka jumping law against her. However this is very unlikely.

In 2024 British Columba voted and the results were NDP winning 47 of 93 seats. The Conservatives win 44 seats, the first time since 1952 they won more than two seats.

An election wasn’t due until 2028, but Premier David Eby called a snap election, hoping to get a bigger majority. The Conservative Party had huge internal strife with John Rustad ousted in September 2025. Kerry-Lynne Findlay was elected in May 2026, and then they lost 45% of their MPs in scandals and purges. Finally Finlay resigned on 20 September after 113 days and Lorne Doerkson was made interim leader on 20 September. Under party rules an interim leader can’t stand for permament leader, so they appoint someone who doesn’t aspire to be leader.

Two days later Eby called a snap election, thinking he would win a massive majority as the Conservatives were down to 55% of their caucus, and down to their third leader in a few months.

But voters didn’t like such blatant opportunism, and the results of the election are NDP lost 26 seats to 21, and Conservatives won 55 seats and Doerkson is now Premier, yet ineligible to remain party leader (unless they change the rules).

Radio NZ reports:

Labour has confirmed it will keep the coalition government’s health targets if elected, while admitting some of its “three free GP visits” could be with a nurse practitioner rather than a GP. …

Verrall confirmed Labour’s approach to the targets while discussing its plan for emergency departments, released on Tuesday.

“We’re going to keep the targets, but what we won’t do is set the targets and then not resource the health system by not hiring any more nurses in order to deliver them,” she said.

When I read this last week, I was really happy. I am a huge believer in targets because they are about accountability. It is about a Government not just saying we are going to spend money, but saying this is the level of service you should get for that money.

I was gutted in 2017 when Labour abandoned both the all of Government Better Public Services targets and the health targets. I said before the election that they should of course come up with their own ones (to reflect their priorities), but not to abandon the concept of accountability.

But they scrapped them all, and we saw how almost every indicator (such as ED waiting times) went south.

So I was so pleased to see Verrall say Labour would keep them. If there is a change of Government, I want a Labour-led Government to be focused on accountability.

But alas I celebrated prematurely.

Simeon Brown tweeted that Chris Hipkins has ignored or ever-ridden his Health Spokesperson and said Labour will scrap all the health targets.

This is significant in that Hipkins and Verrall are obviously at odds on such a fundamental issue, but also depressing at Hipkins desire to avoid all accountability, like last time.

The Herald reports:

MP Takutai Kemp was under investigation at the time of her death last year for funnelling thousands of dollars of charity money into Te Pāti Māori electoral campaigns, official documents show.

Details of the investigation by the Department of Internal Affairs into support provided in 2023 to Te Pāti Māori (TPM) by registered charity Manurewa Marae, for which Kemp served as chief executive at the time, were obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act.

Kemp won the Tāmaki Makaurau seat at the general election in October that year by just 46 votes, and died in June 2025 of complications caused by kidney disease.

Regulator Charities Services (CS) has long maintained that case law prohibits using charity funds or resources to support political parties, candidates or campaigns.

The CS investigation, opened formally in July 2024, found Kemp authorised the use of Manurewa Marae funds to pay: $1500 for seats to a TPM candidate fundraiser in May; $8800 for a musket and korowai (cloak) at a TPM fundraising auction in June; and two payments totalling $1250 coded as “Te Paati Maori” on her Manurewa Marae credit card in October.

This is not surprising. Ion fact it iOS clear this is a feature, not a bug, when it comes to TPM. They regard any surplus charitable funds as suitable for furthering their political activities.

The Guardian reports:

Patrick Stewart, the acclaimed British stage and screen actor renowned for both Shakespeare and sci-fi, has died. He was 86.

The Star Trek: the Next Generation and X-Men star died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia”, said Kelly Bush Novak, his longtime spokesperson, to the Hollywood Reporter.

As someone who has watched all 970 episodes of the Star Trek franchise, he will always be Captain Picard to me. He revived the franchise and was so great to watch. Also loved him as Professor X, and in his many other roles.

He was a titan of stage and TV and film. He will be missed by so many.

An interesting analysis of time given to minor parties by the two state broadcasters is here.

My summary is:

So in terms of favourable coverage Opportunity and Greens get five to seven times more than ACT and NZF. Also TPM got zero.

Greens had the most unfavourable coverage also, while Opportunity had the highest ratio of favourable to unfavourable. NZ First and TPM were the only parties with more unfavourable and than favourable coverage.

The Herald reports:

Some of the only warm words in Peters’ speech were reserved for the local MP, National’s Chris Bishop, who is facing a tight race against Labour’s Ginny Andersen. …

That would be a shame, according to Peters, who offered Bishop a rare and “very unique” endorsement. Peters rarely endorses candidates from a party outside his own; he did it in 2014, endorsing Labour’s Kelvin Davis in the Te Tai Tokerau electorate against Hone Harawira. 

Peters told the crowd that NZ First’s candidate in the seat, Alastair Boyce – “a Hutt kid done good” – and owner of Wellington’s famous Backbencher pub, had recently endorsed Bishop, saying Bishop should receive the candidate vote from NZ First supporters.

“Mr Bishop needs that endorsement; without it he might be out of Parliament,” Peters said. 

“We can all acknowledge Chris Bishop, it is quite rare for us to say this, is a cut above the regular MP.” 

Peters said this was an endorsement of Bishop, not National.

This is indeed a very rare thing. I think it shows the high esteem Chris Bishop is held by so many as both a parliamentarian and a Minister. If he doesn’t make it back, it will be Parliament’s loss.

The only thing surprising about the Greens defending their attendance at a Mongrel Mob hui, is that people were surprised they attended.

The Greens have a very clear view.   Co-leader Marama Davidson said “This is not new. It’s not new for the Green Party”^[1] and she is right.  

Their election justice policy^[2] is even more radical than their stance that gangs are legitimate community organisations to engage with.

First of all they propose abolishing life sentences. This means that every murderer in New Zealand would only have a finite sentence, regardless of the severity of their crimes. Even Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people, would get a finite sentence rather than a life sentence without parole.

With the exception of Mr Tarrant, all those who have a life sentence are only eligible for parole if they are not deemed a risk to society. The Green party policy is that they must be released after a finite sentence, regardless of their risk.

But their policy doesn’t stop there. They also wish to ban preventive detention. This is the provision in the Sentencing Act designed to protect the community from recidivist paedophiles and other sexual and violent offenders who are deemed very likely to keep offending. Fewer than 300 New Zealanders have such a sentence.

Not content with abolishing life sentences for murder, the Greens also wish to abolish the restriction on home detention for murder. Home detention is currently only available for those given a sentence of two or less years, and they wish to have it available for everyone, including presumably Mr Tarrant.

Now you might wonder what will happen to people on home detention who break the rules and decide to leave their home? Well the Greens have that sorted also. They want to abolish the practice of sending people to prison for breaching home detention. Instead they want a community-based response. 

If under a Green Government someone did manage to get sent to prison, they would of course be eligible for parole. Parole is when you get out early as an incentive to not reoffend. If you obey your parole conditions, you stay free. If you don’t, you may go back to prison. 

Now what do the Greens prescribe for people who breach parole? Yep that’s right, not sending people back to prison but another community based response. So once you’re out on parole, you can’t be sent back to prison.

The same ideology applies to bail. If you are charged with committing serious crimes, you may be given bail. So rather than go to prison while you await trial, you are allowed to remain at large on bail but with conditions. The conditions may be not committing any further crimes, or checking in with the Police at certain times. And guess what the Green policy is for bail breaches – yes community based response rather than prison.

They also (along with the Opportunity Party more implicitly) wish to increase the youth justice age from 18 to 25. What this means is that almost all criminals aged between 18 to 24 years old who commit crimes will not go to an adult court where they will face a sentence, but instead go to youth court where they may get a family group conference.

Sadly a very high proportion of crimes are committed by 18 – 24-year-olds. 

So again it is no surprise that the Green Party see the Mongrel Mob as a legitimate community organisation whose hui they attended to solicit votes.

What is interesting is that Marama Davidson did say that there were some organisations that were so beyond the pale, they would refuse to engage with them. Was it Black Power, Hells’ Angels? Some other organised crime group?

No it was Destiny Church^[3], on the basis they have violent rhetoric.

So violent rhetoric is beyond the pale, but actual violence is not disqualifying. 

Marama Davidson also justified the distinction on the basis that Destiny Church has racist rhetoric. Unless I am mistaken the Mongrel Mob often portray the Nazi swastika, and chant sieg heils. Is it not possible that the chant and insignia of a movement that slaughtered six million people on the basis of their race could also be seen as just a teensy bit racist also? 

Chris Hipkins has astutely ruled out Green MPs from serving as Police or Corrections Ministers (but not Justice Minister or Attorney-General), but in any Government he leads they are likely to make up between a third and a quarter of his Cabinet, where presumably they will promote their world view that the Mongrel Mob is less harmful than Destiny Church.

For the one thing you can count on the Greens for, is that they will be consistent.

^[1] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1923070/greens-marama-davidson-doubles-down-amid-outrage-over-gang-visit

^[2] https://www.greens.org.nz/justice_policy

^[3] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1923070/greens-marama-davidson-doubles-down-amid-outrage-over-gang-visit

The Reserve Bank announced:

The Monetary Policy Committee today voted 4 – 3 to hold the OCR at 2.75 percent. …

Global events are adding to near-term inflation pressures in New Zealand. Fuel prices have risen further because of ongoing disruptions in global energy markets, and the exchange rate has fallen by around 3 percent since early September. Annual inflation is expected to increase to 4.4 percent in the December quarter, largely reflecting current futures prices for fuel. Near-term inflation forecasts are uncertain given volatility in prices for oil and refined fuels.

The New Zealand economy continues to recover, although conditions remain uneven. Export-exposed parts of the economy are benefiting from high commodity prices, strong demand for goods exports and increased tourist numbers. But domestic demand remains subdued outside of exporting centres.

It’s a reasonable decision to wait and see, but for my 2c I would have voted with the minority to raise now. I do love the fact we know what the vote was, and even who voted each way.

Prasanna Gai and Anna Breman attached material risk to the possibility that the global environment could shift abruptly. It was therefore appropriate to account for such risks when judging neutral rates and the stance of monetary policy rather than relying on most likely or mid-point measures.

So let’s see if Trump attacks Iran again, or if there is a peace deal, and also possible the impact of the US midterms on markets.

There is a risk that inflation becomes entrenched before conventional expectations measures respond, despite the previous two OCR increases. In addition, the world economy could tip abruptly into a downturn causing weaker inflation over the medium term. 

As I said, I would have voted to raise as I think entrenched expectations is a bigger risk than a global downturn. Hopefully we get neither.

The Herald reports:

Former Opportunity Party board members have spoken out about internal disarray and tribal politics as polling suggests the party may hold the balance of power after November’s election.

Speaking exclusively to the Herald, the former insiders have described a party plagued by a “toxic” and “nasty” culture, with sources feeling they were excluded, blocked from discussion and treated like outsiders when at odds with a “cliquey” faction of the party.

The plural means more than one.

“I’ve had insights into whānau, hapū and iwi politics and it can be quite nasty, but the nastiness I personally saw from the managerial, woke Pākehā class within Top [Opportunity], it supersedes any of the nastiness I’ve seen in Māori politics,” Parata said.

That’s some comparison.

Worth reflecting that any government of the left that forms will need both Te Pati Maori and Opportunity to govern. Does it looks like serious stable government?

For the third election in a row, Curia has done polls in the Māori electorates for Whakaata Māori (Māori TV). The results can all be found here. In four of the electorates TPM leads, in two Labour leads and in one, Greens lead.

I thought it would be useful to caution that electorate polls, and especially Māori electorate polls, should not be seen as predictive of the election outcome as party vote polls.

There are six reasons why these polls are less predictive.

1. They have a smaller sample of 500, and hence a larger margin of error of 4.5%. A gap between candidates of less than 7% is not statistically significant at 95% confidence.
2. People are less certain about their electorate vote. Most people have a fairly good idea of parties they will vote for, or not vote for. But they keep their options open on candidates until closer to the election. There is always a much higher level of undecideds with electorate vote than party vote.
3. Māori electorates are harder to poll than general electorates. As it is not cost effective to call random households hoping that 1 in six may have a Māori adult, you target areas more likely to have Māori respondents. This makes the poll less random.
4. Māori households tend to have higher levels of poverty, and those with the highest levels of deprivation can be harder to contact.
5. In most seats the electorate contest is primarily between a centre right candidate and a centre left candidate, making the decision more binary. In Māori electorates all the leading candidates tend to be centre left, so respondents won’t be as guided by their party vote choice.
6. Most electorate polls are done a month or two before the actual election, so can’t be seen as predictive as a poll taken the week before the election.

So the results from the polls are very very interesting, and can tell us a lot about how party and candidates are doing. But unless there is a huge gap between candidates, they should not be seen as particularly predictive of the outcome.

Israel will have results in a few hours. The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIPAC) has produced an excellent fact sheet on the election, which is very comprehensive.

This is the first Government since 1973 to last the entire four year term.

The threshold to gain MPs is 3.25% so who makes the threshold is critical. It looks like 11 to 15 of the 38 parties will make it.

The parties that support the Government currently have 64 seats out of 120. The current polls project they will get 55 seats.

The opposition parties look to be on target for 49 seats.

Again this will vary based on who makes the threshold.

There are two Arab party lists, and between them they are projected to get 14 seats.

It is unclear what happens if the Arab parties hold the balance of power, as both main parties have said they won’t bring them into a coalition. Either some sort of grand coalition, or some sort of confidence and supply agreement with one of them.

It will be an extremely consequential election.