Fairfax scores their 2017 predictions

Fairfax scores their 2017 predictions:

1.  will feature in the Queen's Birthday honours list, but as befits the man who reinstated knights and dames he will be dubbed “Sir John”: Easy pickings – it's offered to every PM. 10/10

2. Shane Jones will join NZ First: Worst kept secret in the Beltway, but you have to rack up the easy wins. 10/10 

3.  will enter Parliament before election and be given a winnable place: Another non-shocker – we didn't predict that a prominent academic would question his links to the Chinese government however. 10/10

4. ACT will fail to increase MP count, will get lifeline: Completely true, but nobody mention the Epsom deal to David Seymour. 10/10

5. Marama Fox will exit Parliament: 100 per cent correct and then some – turns out the whole party was on the out. 10/10

6. Barack Obama will visit New Zealand in 2017: Nope. What wishful thinking that was. 0/10

7. National will move tax thresholds in the budget but only bring in tax cuts in full if re-elected: Mostly true, they brought in threshold movements and then promised some more relief if re-elected. 8/10 

8. 's TOP will fail to crack three per cent or enter Parliament: TOP hit 2.4 per cent. 8/10

9. The Greens will do little better – and little worse – than their 2014 result: Wrong. The Green Party's support dropped four and a half points on their 2014 result, losing them six seats in Parliament. 0/10 

10. Judith Collins and Steven Joyce will clash over the party's direction, and Joyce will prevail: If they have, nobody's told us or anybody else. 0/10

11. Chris Finlayson, Peter Dunne and Annette King will call it a day: Two out of three ain't bad. 6/10

12. One National and one Labour MP in electorate seats will leave within six months before the election, under an unspoken deal that will maintain the voting balance in the House: Specific but correct – David Cunliffe and John Key. 10/10

13. The Greens will be given a free run in some electorates, under a deal with Labour, but will still fail to win any constituency seats: No dice – they did run a seat for the first time, however, no deals were struck. 0/10

14. Louise Upston and David Bennett will prove the weakest links in the English ministry: Our apologies chaps, turns out Nick Smith had designs on this one. 0/10

15. Jonathan Coleman will take over the foreign affairs portfolio from May, but only after an internal tussle with at least two other ministers for the plum job: There was an internal tussle, and we're confident he was in the running. 4/10

16. Winston Peters will not be prime , nor be in line to be, under any deal he does to support the next Government: He's deputy, but only “in line” to be acting prime minister every now and then. If Ardern resigned, the new Labour leader would become PM. 7/10

17. Economic growth will top 4 per cent during 2017: Nope – but this NZ recalculation means it did hit 4 per cent last year. 0/10

18. house prices will be lower in real terms by Christmas than they were at the start of 2017: Despite all this talk of  “flat to falling” prices, the median house price in Auckland has still risen $85,000 from January to November to $890,000, according to REINZ. Inflation is a long way off accounting for that. 0/10

19. There will be one more political bombshell in 2017 that will change the course of the election and install Andrew Little as prime minister: So close but so far. There was a bombshell or five, but any bombshell in relation to Andrew Little carried the opposite effect of what was predicted so points off. 4/10

20. At least two party leaders will be heading for the door by Christmas: Yes – but not by choice. We get points for Metiria Turei, Peter Dunne and Andrew Little. 10/10

TOTAL SCORE: 107/200

Not bad for a topsy turvy year.

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