NZPA report:

Prime Minister John Key says he is praying that the 29 men trapped at Pike River are safe.

“I just pray to God that they are alive,” he said.

“Obviously we need to begin a rescue as soon as we practically can, and we just pray that they have managed to secure an oxygen source.”

I think many NZers have also been praying for a good outcome. The news is not promising sadly, based on a blast survivor:

“Because I wasn’t as far up … the explosion wasn’t as bad for me. It just bowled me over and knocked me unconscious and someone dragged me about 300 metres, brought me around and then two of us held each other to get out of the mine.”

Mr Smith described the explosion as quick and without heat or smell.

“I just remember seeing a flash of something in front of me and then the concussion hit me. It wasn’t just a bang. It just kept coming, kept coming, kept coming.

“So I crouched down as low as I could in the seat to try to get behind this metal door [on the loader he was driving] to stop being pelted with all this debris …

I just couldn’t breathe and that’s the last I could remember and then someone found me about 15 minutes or so later.”

Mr Smith said the next thing he remembers is looking out of the ambulance as it was driving into Greymouth.

The concussion must have been very severe for those further in.

It must be awful for the families who are hoping for the best, but also getting prepared for the worst. Hopefully today there may be a resolution.

Audrey Young writes at the Herald:

The strong performance of National candidate Hekia Parata in the Mana byelection has boosted her chances of being promoted this week.

It certainly has not harmed it. And the fact the PM did not announced last week the new Minister night suggest he was waiting to see how Mana went.

Ms Parata, a former public policy and Treaty of Waitangi consultant, not only slashed Labour’s majority, but performed well under pressure and ran a strong team.

Counting against her is that she is a first-term MP. Her promotion ahead of the class of 2005 could put some noses out of joint.

The leading contenders in that pack are Craig Foss, the MP for Tukituki and chairman of the finance and expenditure select committee, and Chris Tremain, MP for Napier and the chief Government whip.

I think both Craig and Chris know that their ascension is a matter of when, not if, which would help molify them if Hekia jumps ahead of then. But having said that, 2010 is far preferable to 2012 in terms of ascension.

What may count against them this time is that if they are promoted, then there has to be a minor reshuffle. While Hekia can slip in and take over Pansy’s portfolios directly.

Selwyn MP Amy Adams, in the same cohort as Ms Parata, is also tipped for future promotion in a commerce or economic role.

Or Agriculture. Or Justice. Amy is multi-talented 🙂

Mr Key could save a little money by appointing no one to the Cabinet and appointing another minister outside the Cabinet. He could make an even bigger saving by appointing no one at all and upsetting no one.

This is the only error in Audrey’s article. If the PM makes no appointment at all, this will in fact upset every single Backbencher. Reducing the size of the Ministry means more people competing for fewer places. A smaller Ministry is regarded by backbenchers with the same loathing as teacher unions performance pay.

Personally an Executive of 28 is larger than we need. However the time for change would have been when first forming the Government, rather than doing it by attrition.

But that would suggest Mrs Wong’s role was surplus to requirements in the first place.

Well …..

Mr Key is not seen as a slave to “political correctness”; he is not oblivious to gender and identity issues in National’s line-up either.

It is a factor, but not the sole or even the dominant factor.

The importance of the Mana byelection is that a promotion would be seen on the basis of talent, not tokenism

Yes, a promotion would be seen as gained on the basis of performance.

Making one appointment outside of the Cabinet to take over Mrs Wong’s two portfolios makes most sense, and of the contenders, Ms Parata’s sphere of interest is best suited to the vacancies.

We may find out later today who it is.

Talking of Mana, kudos must go to Phil Quinn who predicted a Faafoi win by just 1,000 votes.

From the Daily Telegraph:

On tonight’s One News:

She’s trying to make herself feel better. She lost, and this is the second time the people of Mana didn’t want her.

That was Kris Faafoi talking about Hekia Parata.

Such a gracious victor.

Labour came far too close to doing something that has never ever happened before in recent New Zealand electoral history – having an Opposition lose a seat in a by-election. No Government has won a seat off the opposition in the 59 by-elections since 1936.

And even worse it was not a marginal seat – it was a safe seat that has been held by Labour since 1938 (in that its predecessor seats were also Labour).

I was hoping the majority would be below 3,000 – my pick had been 2,500. I never thought it would almost drop to a triple figures and get as low as 1,080. In some ways it was the ideal result. If the margin had been 500 or so, then you’d be kicking yourself for not doing that extra bit to win it. And if Labour had actually managed to lose the seat, then Goff would be goneburger, and National doesn’t actually want Goff rolled.

So what happened? Well as I blogged during the week, I didn’t expect there to be a uniform swing – I expected different swings in different areas. I’ve divided the seat up into four areas – Porirua East, Porirua West, Northern Suburbs and Kapiti.

Porirua East

In 2008 Laban got 82% and Parata 9%. There was basically no swing here at all with 2010 as Faafoi got 82% and Parata 11%. The total vote was 72% of 2008, and McCarten got 4% here.

This shows how hard it is to win Mana, when one large portion of the electorate votes Labour 9:1 over National. Even if the rest of the electorate votes 3:2 National over Labour, it is hard to compensate for such areas.

Porirua West

In 2008 Laban got 59% and Parata 28% so still very much core Labour areas. There was a good swing here as in 2010 Faafoi got 51% and Parata 35%, so the margin dropped from 31% to 16%. The total vote was 66% of 2008, and McCarten got 6% here.

I had been expected Porirua West to be like Porirua East, and not swing much. But in some booths in Titahi Bay Hekia lifted her vote share by 9% and Faafoi lost 15%.

Northern Suburbs

These areas are pretty solid Nat, In 2008 Laban got 35% and Parata 54%. That was good enough, but there was a massive swing here as in 2010 Faafoi got 25% and Parata 67%, so the margin grew from 19% to 42%. The total vote was 74% of 2008, and McCarten got 2% here.

Kapiti

The Kapiti area voted Labour last time, and flipped to National this time. And what is more extraordinary about this is it happened despite noisy local opposition to a new expressway.

In 2008 Laban got 46% and Parata 41%. There was a big swing here as in 2010 Faafoi got 37% and Parata 47%, so the margin went from +5% to Labour to +10% for National – a 15% net movement. The total vote was 69% of 2008, and McCarten got 3% here.

Polling Places

In 17/42 polling places the vote share for Labour dropped by 10% or greater. That is huge.

Interestingly the advance votes actually had Faafoi getting a bigger vote share than Laban did in 2008. This reflects my view that Hekia got real momentum in the final week as several community leaders endorsed her, but by then many advance votes had already been cast.

CR v CL

Matt McCarten didn’t achieve a great result (but he did get lots of signatures for his petitions) and the Greens had a solid third. ACT was battling it out with Legalise Cannabis for 5th place. What was the total CR and CL vote in 2008 and 2010?

In 2008 Labour & Greens got 60% of the electorate vote, and National/ACT got 37%. In 2010 Labour/Greens/McCarten got 57% and National/ACT got 42%. So even taking the minor parties into account, you had the centre-right close the gap by 8% in Mana!

Historical Comparisons

Labour did manage to retain the seat, but they had a massive swing against their candidate. Again, this is historically very rare in by-elections. I’ve gone through the last few by-elections to note what happened:

• 2010 Mt Albert – remained safe for Opposition
• 2004 Te Tai Hauauru – not contested by major parties
• 1998 TKC – big swing against Government
• 1994 Selwyn – big swing against Government
• 1993 Tauranga – not contested by major parties
• 1992 Wellington Central – was marginal Labour and majority increases slightly for Opposition
• 1992 Tamaki – big swing against Government
• 1985 Timaru – falls to Opposition
• 1980 East Coast Bays – falls to Opposition (Social Credit)
• 1980 Onehunga – Opposition holds comfortably
• 1980 Northern Maori – stays with Labour
• 1979 Christchurch Central – Government comes 3rd
• 1978 Rangitikei – Government loses to Opposition (Social Credit)
• 1976 Nelson – Opposition increases majority
• 1977 Mangere – Opposition holds comfortably
• 1977 Pahiatua – Government holds

So this has not happened in the last 35 years – an Opposition almost losing a safe seat in a by-election.

The closest we have is 1992 Wellington Central, and they have a number of things in common

• Both held in the first term of a new National Government
• Both held two years into that term
• Both had popular retiring MPs (Wilde and Laban)
• Both had Labour put up a candidate with no background in the party (Laidlaw and Faafoi)
• Both had a high profile third party candidate on the left (Denis Welch and McCarten)
• Both times the National candidate was married to Wira Gardiner (Pauline Gardiner and Hekia Parata)
• Both times the National candidate had stood in the previous general election
• Both times Labour got a narrow victory on the by-election

The really interesting thing is that in the 1993 general election, Laidlaw lost the seat to Gardiner – it was the only seat lost by the Opposition in that election.

Kris has won the seat, but it is now a marginal seat, and he is going to have to work very very hard in the community to match Hekia and retain the seat in 2011.

UPDATE:

A reader sent me this graph, of the ten largest polling places in Mana. It tells a big story about how Cannons Creek saved Labour.

I think most people felt their hearts get a little heavier, as the news filtered out that the testing in the mine indicates that there is probably a fire down there.

I’m not sure anyone will be entering that mine today. If they did, it seems it would probably just be increasing the death toll.

2033: huge applause for Hekia and PM as final booth comes in and e night majority is a small 1,080. Hekia picked up 7% from 2008 and Labour is down 7%. I doubt Labour are celebrating much tonight.

2030: This is like a victory party. One booth to go and down to 1,365.

2029: Only two booths to go and majority is 1,500. What a great result if it holds.

2026: Wow another good Hekia booth in. Majoriy now down to 1,174. Faafoi 47%, Parata 41%. That is a 6% gain so far for Hekia and 6% down for Labour. But I suspect things may change with some big Porirua booths to come. 7 booths left.

2024: Heh McCarten is on 666 votes. How apt. He is well back in 4th behind Jan Logie. ACt has now pulled ahead of Legalise Cannabis.

2022: Nice Whitby booth for Hekia just come in – majority now down to 1,773. At this stage Faafoi has 49% and Parata 39% for a 10% gap – in 2008 it was an 18% gap. But this will change as more come in.

2017: 29/44 amd majority for Faafoi is 2,046.

2004: Clear that Labour will retain seat and Kris Faafoi is the next MP for Mana. Congrats to Kris and Labour. 21/44 booths in and majority is 1503. As we do not know which booths are in hard to project end majority. The tribal Labour booths go Labour 90/10 so just one of those coming in moves things about heaps. Parata has won some booths she lost in 2008 though so in some a.eas there is a swing.

Damn. even though they have the data, the Electoral Commission is not displaying booth data as each booth reports. This means my booth spreadsheet to predict swings is useless as it will have no data. Aargh it annoys me when they have the data and just choose not to make it available in a timely manner.

So really all I will be doing is looking at the main results page.

Two of 44 booths in and Faafoi ahead by 346.

No politics from me today – I think we are all (or should be) focused on what happens in Pike River. There will be a by-election update after 7 pm of course.

2115: The earlier report of one fatality remains unconfirmed. Gerry Brownlee has just said there are no confirmed or official fatalities at this stage.

1950: Five out, 24 thought to be still in there

1934: TVNZ reports three other miners are making their way up.

1932: Two more fo reund injured, but alive. Injuries are moderate.

Like many I am glued to Twitter waiting for news from the Pike River mine. We are all hoping there are no deaths but sadly there have been some reports that there is one confirmed casualty at this stage.

The number of miners unaccounted for ranges from 27 to 36.

My thoughts are with all those down on the West Coast awaiting news. It must be awful not knowing anything solid yet.

Please keep this thread free of politics.

Hopefully we will have more news shortly.

In contrast to his useful policy focused post, a more recent blog post goes down to the depths from Trevor:

Anne Tolley doesn’t care about sex criminals looking after children

From the Shadow Education Minister, this is disgusting and a reminder as to why Labour should not be in Government – if this is their idea of debate.

The Education Amendment Bill currently before the house removes the obligation to get a Police check for people who look after babies and young children unsupervised at gyms and mall childcare services.

Labour may have over-regulated but this goes too far.

Labour massively over-regulated. They forced creches at gyms to register as early childhood education centres, have qualified teaching staff etc – including the Police check.

The reality is a creche at a gym is not a school, or part of the educational infrastructure. They are a babysitting service. They allow a mum to use the gym and have someone look after their kids for 60 minutes.

One can have a sensible debate about whether or not gym creches should be required by law to do police checks on their creche staff. But to effectively accuse the Minister of being indifferent to paedophilia is again disgusting.

Personally I’m not at all sure there is a need. Labour sounds like they want to go down the route of the UK where you can’t even be an occassional parent helper for sports or scouts without a Police check.

Have any kids ever been molested by a staff member while their mother is exercising at the gym? I mean, what is the problem to be solved here?

Do we only require police checks for babysitters at gyms? How about for all babysitters and nannys? Maybe we need a Department of Babysitters to register and monitor them?

The Scouts have a policy of getting police checks on all new leaders. This is very sensible, as sadly youth groups do attract paedophiles. But Scouts are not required to do this by law. Are gym creche staff a bigger risk than scout leaders?

If there is evidence that not having mandatory police checks on gym creche staff has led to children being molested, then I can be persuaded that it may be a sensible idea. But can’t we hold that debate without Labour MPs asserting that the Minister of Education (herself a parent) doesn’t care if sex criminals look after children.

I have a lot of fun last week at the Open Source Awards. Got to meet in real life a few people I only had met online, and enjoyed some great conversation along with the drink and food.

The winners were:

Winner – Open Source in Government
IRD’s use of Moodle

Winner – Open Source in Education
Albany Senior High School

Winner – Open Source in Business
Ponoko – the hub of a global personal manufacturing eco-system that brings together creators, digital fabricators, materials suppliers and buyers to make almost anything

Winner – Open Source in the Arts
Ghosts in the Form of Gifts – the use of open source technologies and design to recreate some of the lost treasures of the Te Papa collection from photographs and drawings.

Winner – Open Source Project
SilverStripe – a New Zealand-made CMS that has been downloaded more than 325,000 times globally in less than four years

Winner – Open Source Advocate
Linux.conf.au organisers Andrew & Susanne Ruthven

Winner – Open Source Contributor
Tabitha Roder for One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)

Winner – People’s Choice Award
Amie McCarron for the Alcoholics Anonymous New Zealand websites; the public facing site, service/members site and annual convention website.

Very deserving winners, and many great finalists also.

I was one of the judges, and asked to present the Open Source in Government award. The video has been placed on You Tube, so I’ve embedded it below, for anyone interested.

Today’s Dom Post editorial:

It used to be said of safe National electorates that the party could pin blue ribbons on donkeys and still win them. Mana is the Labour equivalent of such a seat – a predominantly working-class electorate that Labour has held since its first incarnation as Porirua in 1963.

And in fact the predecessor seats to Porirua have also been Labour held since at least the 1930s.

However, a combination of circumstances has given Labour leader Phil Goff and his handpicked candidate, Kris Faafoi, cause for a restless sleep tonight.

They include the strong local profile of National candidate Hekia Parata, the independent candidacy of unionist Matt McCarten, the increasing prosperity of the northern half of the electorate and Mr Faafoi’s lack of campaign experience.

The restless sleep won’t be over whether Kris will be elected to Parliament. Few are not expecting that. It will be over whether there is a significant swing to the Government’s candidate – a very rare thing in a by-election.

He and his supporters have erected so many billboards on Mungavin Avenue, the main road in Cannons Creek, that locals have taken to calling it Faafoi Avenue but, despite the attempts of the Christchurch-raised candidate to suggest he grew up in the electorate, he is not as well known as Ms Parata, who has continued to build links in the area, despite losing to Labour’s Winnie Laban at the last election.

Hekia has done what good List MPs should do – to get out there and be active in the local community.

For those reasons, and because Labour has not managed to turn the spotlight on National, the by-election is reversing the usual trend. Instead of serving as a referendum on the performance of the Government, it has become a referendum on the performance of the Labour Opposition.

I disagree to some extent on that. I do not think it is a referendum on National or Labour. I think it is more a referendum on the candidates. If National cuts the majority significantly it will be because of Hekia. Likewise if Labour has its majority take a tumble, it will mainly be because of resentment over the selection of an inexperienced non local. By this I don’t mean that Kris has done anything wrong – he has run a good campaign and if elected will be a diligent MP. But the nathie of his selection, with his successor being offered his job as Goff’s press secretary before he was selected etc is what has gone down badly with some locals.

A majority of 3000 plus would represent a solid victory for Labour, which will have MPs, activists and union supporters ferrying voters to the polls tomorrow. Fewer than 2000 would represent a triumph for National and trigger a fresh round of speculation about Mr Goff’s leadership.

I think it is too simplistic to look at the result for the entire electorate. My view is there are too “halves” of the electorate.

One half is what I call tribal Labour. And it is tribal. They may like John Key. They may think Hekia is great, but they vote Labour – always have and always will. There may be some vote loss to Matt McCarten, but in these areas I would not expect Hekia to necessarily get any movement at all compared to 2008.

Also in these “tribal Labour” areas you will have scores and scores of salaried union employees getting out the vote. They have been campaigning fulltime for Labour for weeks – and of course their salaries do not count as part of the $40,000 cap. With that extra GOTV, Faafoi might even get more vote share than Laban did in that area.

In the other half, there could be a different story. In the other half, there could well be a swing to Hekia and away from Labour. Don’t think this is just the Whitby areas. Areas like Pukerua Bay and Raumati South are what I call “trendy lefty” and voted for Laban quite strongly last time – however they are not “tribal Labour” and they may vote Hekia on the basis of her work since the last election.

So do not assume there will be a uniform swing. What I will be looking at on the night is what happens in Porirua, what happens in the northern suburbs, and what happens in the Kapiti areas. They might all do the same thing, but I suspect not.

Trevor Mallard blogs:

Media – mainly on Sundays – and bloggers especially Cam Slater have been frustrated with Teachers’ Council rules that make it very hard to hear cases in public. I share their concerns. There is almost no way to have suppression orders because the maximum fine for a breach is $1k which deters no one.

The Council is understandably reluctant to risk identifying victims especially of sexual abuse but their rules don’t let them identify accused and not the victim – and won’t change with the current fine level.

This breeds rumours and false conclusions.

I’ve got two SoPs one very simple which increases the fine to $100k and would leave the Teachers’ Council to rewrite the rules. The second, below, is more comprehensive and adopts the position that Simon Power is promoting for the Courts. It has a presumption of an open hearing.

I agree with a presumption of open hearings. I also agree that if you have name supression, you need a larger maximum fine than $1,000 to be effective. However $100,000 is too much considering this is just for a professional disciplinary board – not an actual court.

You can read the proposed SOP in full at Red Alert, and comment either there or here on what you think.

It’s a good example of MPs using blogging to get feedback on proposed law changes.

Went to the opening night of Harry Potter 7.1 last night. The movie did not disappoint. It was pretty faithful to the book (some stuff left out of course, but no additions) and it captured the dark tone well.

The way they did the tale of the three brothers was very good.

The big question I had been wondering about was at what point would they do the cut between this film and Part II next July. I thought it would be probably be just after they escaped from Malfoy Manor, and it was – but the literal last scene was Voldemort breaking open Dumbledore’s tomb to retrieve the Elder Wand.

I am looking forward to Part II. They got through enough in Part I, that the Battle for Hogwarts will be the bulk of Part II.

A pity we have to wait until July next year for it. But at least have Voyage of the Dawn Treader in a couple of weeks!

Adam Bennett reports in the Herald:

However, loudest of all was Rima Taraia who loudly harangued the Prime Minister, asking him “are you scared of me?” and “don’t you want to talk to a Maori?”.

Attempting to shove her way through to Mr Key, she was pushed away several times by police and the Diplomatic Protection Squad.

“I’ve seen it before and they’ll go away when the cameras go away,” Mr Key said.

“The reality is that we’re the Government and we’re getting out there and talking about policies. These people are activists for a small group. That’s okay, they’re entitled to do that and we treat them with respect even if they don’t treat us with respect.”

I like that quote. And this is why the TV news last night was so good.

What I find interesting is that out of the combined group of UNITE activists and Young Labour members who were screaming and shouting, I don’t think a single one of them actually lives in Mana. Some were from Dunedin and some from Auckland, with perhaps a few from Wellington. But are any of them actually voters in the by-election?

It was interesting to observe how Taraia tries to use her ethnicity as a weapon, loudly proclaiming that the PM won’t talk to her because she is Maori and accusing the Police of targeting her because she is Maori. Such antics probably do more to stir up racial tension, than the morons at the National Front ever manage to achieve deliberately.

Well, having indulged in the feathery creatures for a bit, I thought a bit of variety would be nice. Here’s an estuarine  crocodile finding a shady spot to rest. I liked it for the reflection in the water, and the colouring of the scales. It is of course, taken up in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Click for larger, higher-resolution image

Going to be another busy day here. I predict much espressos in my near future. Hope everyone else has a good day.

Brian Fallow reports:

The Treasury is calling for a swifter return to fiscal surpluses than last May’s Budget envisaged, even as the Finance Minister warns of higher deficits in the short term.

Treasury Secretary John Whitehead, in a speech to Victoria University’s Institute of Policy Studies yesterday, spoke of the need to reduce the Government’s net debt.

It would provide a buffer against future economic shocks, prepare for challenges such as the ageing of the population and free up resources for growth in exports.

Whitehead is correct. I don’t think people realise how finely balanced things are.

On average we have a recession every ten years or so. By the time of the next one, we need to have started repaying debt significantly.

The higher costs of an ageing population will also start to hit in around ten years time.

Throw into the mix, the likely inability of Labour to keep spending under control when they return to Government at some stage this decade.

An interesting interview with Bjorn Lomborg at the Daily Beast. First his profile:

Bjorn Lomborg is one of the best-known (and most controversial) participants in the global debate on climate change. A professor at the Copenhagen Business School, he founded the Copenhagen Consensus Center, an organization that brings together many of the world’s leading economists to ponder the great environmental and material questions of our time—in particular, the question of whether we are getting our priorities wrong in focusing as obsessively (and expensively) as we do on manmade global warming, instead of on other problems such as clean drinking water, or malaria.

Lomborg is well known as the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. But note he is not sceptical on climate change itself – just the response to it.

Gore got our attention and pointed out that global warming is real, but he also scared the pants off people, and hysteria makes for pretty poor political judgment. So, this film acknowledges Gore’s fundamental point: Global warming is real, manmade and important. But it does two important things: It rolls back the fear by pointing out that global warming is not the end of the world, and it shows us lots of ways in which we can start tackling climate change smartly and efficiently.

The reason there is a backlash against whether climate change is even real is because of all those who exaggerated its impact and painted Armageddon as imminent.

That is a very good question. I think part of it is due to the nature of the debate: It is easier for the people who predict the worst-case outcomes to be heard, and similarly it is easier for the people who entirely reject those propositions to be printed in response. However, it is entirely crucial for our ability to tackle global warming that we enable ourselves to have a more nuanced debate, a place where we can find a middle, or third road, where we can recognize the reality of global warming while not having to subscribe to the poor, ineffective Kyoto-style policies.

The Armageddon extremists on one side of the debate have given rise to the outright denialists and sceptics on the other. And really the debate should be on what is the most effective response.

I hope that the film will make a connection with the vast majority of Americans who indeed are in the middle of this conversation, tentatively subscribing to global warming, but unwilling to commit vast resources to amazingly poor policies.

Allow me just to give you one example: The European Union’s “20-20” policy, which will reduce emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels in 2020, will cost $250 billion per year for the rest of the century. Yet after spending $20 trillion, it will only have reduced temperatures by a minuscule 0.1°F. This simply is not smart.

Mitigation can be very expensive. There can be costs to not mitigating also of course.

The overwhelming evidence points to the reality of anthropogenic global warming. Even very skeptical scientists such as Richard Lindzen at MIT and Patrick Michaels point out that more CO₂ in the atmosphere means higher temperatures. This is really rather simple physics.

Again, the debate is over the extent of the indirect effects of greater CO2.

Fundamentally, we should be asking for governments to spend 0.2 percent of GDP on research and development into green energy. This is 50 times as much as we spend today, yet it is much less than what is typically being proposed to spend on inefficient Kyoto-style policies. Since it is so comparatively cheap, it is much more likely that we could get every nation on board (and developing countries would be paying proportionally less). But even if not everyone were on board, it would still make sense to move forward. In that sense, some countries could move ahead, fund the R&D and take us much closer to tackling global warming, without everyone participating.

NZ is spending a fair bit on R&D on reducing agricultural emissions, and in fact created a global alliance of other countries working towards this goal.

But 0.2% would be around $300 million a year. Sounds a lot. But it’s less than the subsidies in the ETS!

NZPA report at NBR:

Prime Minister John Key was mobbed in Porirua today as he campaigned for National in the Mana by-election.

A group of about 10 supporters of independent unionist candidate Matt McCarten crowded around Mr Key when he arrived at North City Plaza, and they were joined by Labour Party activists backing Kris Faafoi.

Mr Key couldn’t hear the people he was trying to talk to over screams and chants, and one determined woman activist repeatedly got in his face as he tried to meet voters.

Excellent. I can’t wait to see the news tonight. Nothing gets more votes than a group of idiots screaming at the PM.

This week‘s quite challenging. 8/10 in 40 seconds.