I’ve had a look through the Greens policies. Here’s what I reckon they could get National to agree to in exchange for merely abstaining on supply and confidence.

1. $1 billion over ten years for cycleways
2. A levy on nitrate pollution
3. A South Taranaki Whale Sanctuary
4. A levy on plastic bags
5. Accelerated timetable for rail to Auckland Airport
6. Doubling the funding for DOC
7. $65 million a year more for predator-free NZ
8. Stricter water quality standards to increase the number of water bodies rated excellent from 42% to 70%.
9. A commitment to double the reduction of children in poverty from 50,000 to 100,000
10. Double the reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 from 11% to 22%

A smart Green Party could probably get all that out of National in return for a simple abstain on supply and confidence. It would be more than they have achieved in the last 18 years. But of course they’d rather deal with NZ First than National despite the fact they have no negotiating leverage with them.

NBR reports:

Stuff reports:

Wayne Doyle is considered by many to be a pillar of his community – a former bad boy who’s trying to turn lives around through his boxing gym.

To police, Doyle is the boss of a feared organisation that is making millions from drug dealing and other crime.

That dichotomy will be at the heart of a civil case in the High Court at Auckland, where Doyle – president of the Head Hunters east chapter – will essentially have to prove that $6m or so of cash and assets restrained by police under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was lawfully obtained. …

Police brought the action after a two-year joint operation involving the Serious Fraud Office, Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Social Development – the latter because Doyle is a beneficiary.

Taxpayers are paying a benefit to a man who has six million dollars of assets. Disgusting.

Winston did a 20+ minute press conference which had one item of substance (he is waiting for special votes) and 20 minutes of attacking the media.

Get ready for three years of this!

I blogged yesterday on how Fairfax had a story on Lynlie Beazley.  It trumpeted her as the “face of poverty” in New Zealand. It ran a story entirely sympathetic to her claiming she had to survive on just $22 a week for food, and portraying this as all the fault of the Government.

My original blog was critical of Fairfax for not providing any information on her claimed income and expenses so it could be scrutinised. But this is the least of their failings.

It then transpires that Beazley had 32 convictions including aggravated robbery. This changes entirely the picture the original article was portraying which was 100% sympathetic to her.

But it gets even worse than that for Fairfax. They failed to spend even 60 seconds searching her name with the Tenancy Tribunal. If they had they would have found:

• 3 Oct 2016 – tenancy terminated for non-payment of rent
• 22 Feb 2017 – tenancy terminated for non-payment of rent and cleaning costs of over $1,000

Now both tenancies were with Vision West Community Trust. It exists to end homelessness, and so would only be evicting someone if no other resort.

Now note how generous the Government is. Despite her trashing her house with Vision West Community Trust, she was put into a Housing NZ home. She gets a huge subsidy from the taxpayer so her rent is only 25% of her benefit or $59 a week. Yes only $59 a week yet she claims this is so high she can’t afford more than $22 a week on food.

Decisions have consequences. If you trash your home, you get evicted, If you commit aggravated robbery you find it hard to get a job.  Despite all this we’re providing a house for her to live in for just $59 a week.

The Herald reports:

The man who’s often been referred to as the most powerful non-elected politician in the country is quitting.

Wayne Eagleson has been Sir John Key and Bill English’s chief of staff for 12 years, but says it’s time to look at other options.

Mr Eagleson will stay around until the new Government is formed, which is expected to be around mid-October.

Eagleson formally told Bill English last week he planned to resign after the election but insiders say it has been known by the Ninth Floor for several months that he planned to go, no matter what the election result.

He will stay on for the next few week to assist with coalition talks planned between National and New Zealand First.

Eagleson was a former deputy chief of staff to Jim Bolger, and after some experience in public relations in the private sector returned to Parliament to become chief of staff to Don Brash in Opposition.

He stayed on to become Key’s chief of staff in Opposition and then in Government.

Most people in New Zealand (outside the beltway) have never heard of Wayne Eagleson, and that is a sign of his success. We have seen Chiefs of Staff who have become household names such as Peta Credlin in Australia and Heather Simpson in New Zealand. When you become the story you are less effective.

It’s a hugely challenging role. You need a relationship so strong with the Prime Minister that if you speak to someone, they will understand you are speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister. If that relationship is not strong, then people will work around the Chief of Staff. No one ever worked around Wayne.

But being a pitbull guardian of the PM doesn’t work either. Credlin was that. Ministers resented her for that. No Minister resented Wayne. In fact I don’t know anyone in politics with a bad word to say about him.  He had that rare mix of authority and approachability.

Wayne will be a big loss to the Government. But it is no surprise after 12 years he is keen for a more normal job.

Stuff reports:

The last time there was fresh produce on the table was more than two years ago.

After covering her basic expenses, Lynlie Beazley survives on just $22 per week and sometimes she sleeps on an empty stomach. 

The west Auckland resident described herself as the “face of poverty” in the country. 

“I don’t know how I live each day.”

Beazley said she would not be able to survive without food parcels from The Salvation Army.

She is one of a growing number of people knocking on the charity’s door for help. 

Her weekly benefit was about $236, but she only had $22 after rent, expenses, and hire purchase payments.    

Beazley, a Housing NZ tenant, said this was enough for two bottles of milk, three loaves of bread and a tray of eggs.

It is frustrating that media continue to do pimping poverty stories yet fail to provide information that allows readers to form any independent conclusions.

Ms Beazley appears to be on a Jobseeker benefit. We are not given any information on how long she has been on it, and has she tried to gain work. It is possible she has a disability or sickness and can’t work but again we don’t know. And a Supported Living benefit would be higher than that.

Here’s what we do know:

• Benefit $236
• Rent $59
• Food $22
• Other expenses $155

She does not have a car and walks so the other expenses are not transport. There is reference to hire purchase and a $1,000 loan but repayments on that would be just $20 a week or so to pay back over a year.

Again we don’t have enough information to reach any independent conclusions. To me it seems out of whack to spend $155 on other expenses and $22 on food. Electricity would not be that high. Now there could well be a very good reason why her non food expenses are so high but again the reporter has not told us enough.

UPDATE: It turns out Ms Beazley has 32 criminal convictions – information the original story failed to include. Even more of a fail for the media.

Julian Lee at Stuff writes:

This year’s election spelled the lowest representation for minor parties in Parliament since MMP was introduced in 1996. The Māori and United Future parties were eliminated and New Zealand’s typically most prominent third party, the Greens, barely crossed the 5 per cent threshold.

Three minor parties have made it to Parliament this year – the lowest number yet. There have been five or six minor parties in Parliament since MMP began in 1996.

This year’s election saw 17 minor party MPs in Parliament – the same number as 1996, when the public was still unsure how the system worked.

Compare that to the 2002 election, when six minor parties took out 41 seats in Parliament, a third of the total number of seats.

Actually there were more than 17 in 1996. The number of MPs from “minor” parties has been:

• 1996 – 39
• 1999 – 32
• 2002 – 41
• 2005 – 23
• 2008 – 21
• 2011 – 28
• 2014 – 29
• 2017 – 17

As for the two remaining minor parties, there is no guarantee the Greens will survive the next election given this year’s result, nor is there any guarantee NZ First’s Winston Peters will contest the next election at age 75.

This leaves the potential for a 2020 election without minor parties. A 2020 Parliament of National and Labour.

If NZ First does decide to install a Labour – NZ First Government supported by the Greens, then there has to be a decent chance both NZ First and the Greens could get wiped out in 2020.

Look at what happened to the Alliance after one term in Government. The pressures of having to actually compromise in order to govern tore the party apart.

And as previously blogged 19 of the top 20 seats for NZ First are National held seats and there would be a considerable backlash against them for putting Labour and Greens into power.

So a real upside of NZ First deciding to go with Labour and the Greens, is that both NZ First and Greens could end up being wiped out in 2020.

The Herald reports:

Former Rotorua doctor Dr Lance O’Sullivan has announced he will stand for the Maori Party in the 2020 election – a move which has both surprised and excited co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell.

The 2014 New Zealander of the Year made the announcement during a hui in Rotorua on Sunday afternoon, receiving applause and cheers of support.

He told the crowd he had resisted moving into the political arena but could not resist any longer.

His plans were also relayed in Tauranga when the travelling hui was held at the Te Puna Rugby Club later in the day, with the same support. He was part of a group, which included Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell and Mana Party leader Hone Harawira, discussing the future of Maori politics.

 “I made a commitment to stand for the Maori Party in 2020,” Dr O’Sullivan said in Tauranga.

It was not yet confirmed whether Dr O’Sullivan would stand in an electorate or stand as a list member.

This suggests the Maori Party is dead but not buried. Dr O’Sullivan would be a very popular candidate for them.

Liam Hehir produced this table which is quite fascinating. It shows that the 2017 results are not a long way removed from the 2008 results, despite nine year of National-led Government.

The changes are:

• National up 0.6%
• Labour up 2%
• Greens down 0.5%
• NZ First up 3.3%
• ACT down 3.2%

Now compare this to the difference after nine years of Labour-led Government, or 1999 to 2008.

• Labour down 4.7%
• Alliance down 6.8%
• Greens up 1.5%
• National up 14.4%
• ACT down 3.3%
• NZ First down 0.2%

National’s vote went up 14% from 1999 to 2008. Labour in 2017 have basically got to just past where they were in 2008.

The polls were pretty accurate for the German elections. The results for votes were:

• CDU/CSU (National) 33.0% (-8.5%)
• SPD (Labour) 20.5% (-5.2%)
• AfD (NZ First) 13.0% (+7.9%)
• FDP (ACT) 10.7% (+5.9%)
• DIE LINKE (Alliance) 9.2% (+0.6%)
• GRUNE (Greens) 8.9% (+0.5%)

Seats are:

• CDU/CSU (National) 246 (-65)
• SPD (Labour) 153 (-40)
• AfD (NZ First) 94 (+94)
• FDP (ACT) 80 (+80)
• DIE LINKE (Alliance) 69 (+5)
• GRUNE (Greens) 67 (+4)

Almost inevitably the Government will be CDU and FDP and GRUNE, or their equivalent of a National, ACT and Greens Government. They will have 393 seats out of 709.

No party wants to govern with the AfD. They don’t even want to sit with them. Same goes for Die Linke.

If the CDU and SDP did another coalition then AfD would become the official opposition party. So SDP has to become the main opposition party and hence FDP and Greens need to join the Government.

In New Zealand the Greens would rather work with NZ First than National! They are very different to German Greens.

The Herald reports:

An Auckland family has fallen victim to a vicious political attack after their house was vandalised with election hate speech.

On Sunday morning Grey Lynn resident Zoe Tietze was getting ready to take her dog for a walk when she stepped outside and saw her home had been tagged.

“We noticed it all over the street and on our house,” she told the Herald.

“We originally had a small hoarding on our house supporting the National Party. The vandals had clearly seen that. It was taken down on Friday afternoon but they still remembered our house and decided they wanted to tag us. “

The attackers, who vandalised the property on Saturday night after the election, wrote “Blood on your hands” on Tietze’s front porch.

The tagging spilled over on to the road where messages “3 more years of poverty and misery” and “National government kills” were spray-painted outside Tietze’s home.

The attack has left the family and nearby residents frightened.

Grumpolie has prepared this chart. Basically it shows the two TV polls were very accurate. The polls of polls and associated forecasts were less accurate. The Curia poll of polls (seperate to any internal polling I do) included the earlier Colmar Brunton polls showing Labour leading so I expected it to be out.

The Listener poll, Horizon poll, Roy Morgan poll and Newsroom polls were massively out. Newsroom was in a different universe. To be fair to them their polls were done earlier in the campaign, but to be blunt Labour were never 15% ahead of National and any poll saying they were had serious problems.

I’ll do an update on this after final results.

Simon Louisson writes at The Standard:

Labour didn’t deserve to win on Saturday because, firstly, because it failed to bring a fully-fleshed tax policy to voters, and, secondly, it never attempted to win the ideological battle over tax.

Missteps over the Capital Gains tax apart, Jacinda Ardern ran an energetic and near flawless campaign and yet Labour still lost heavily.

It is as certain as death, that tax will be front and centre of the next election and voters will be easily scaremongered again, if Labour fails to address tax.

How a major party can spend nine years in opposition and still not have detailed its tax policy, bewilders me. It raises serious questions about the competence of Finance Spokesman Grant Robertson and other senior members of the leadership team.

I understand it was Grant’s bright idea to campaign on seeking a blank cheque for tax policy and Jacinda just went along with it.

National was easily able to scare various sectors of the electorate by raising the prospect of a capital gains tax, inheritance tax, land tax, gift duties, or new higher income tax brackets.

Each of these taxes is perfectly worthy of consideration. But, assuming NZ First supports National to form a government, if Labour wants to stop an action-replay of this election, it must set up its own tax working group early next year and have its position nailed down by the end of 2018. (You can place your bet now that any government dependent on Winston Peter is not going to last until 2020).

Most importantly, whatever, the tax working group decides, Labour must put a categoric cap on how much tax, as a percentage of GDP, it intends to raise, to pre-empt tax-and-spend attacks.

If the working group recommends a CGT, as it most likely will and should, then Labour must give assurance it will maintain the cap irrespective of how much the CGT raises. So if CGT pulls in $500m of revenue by 2025, then income taxes, or the rate of GST, will be commensurately reduced.

This is an excellent idea, and in fact what the Taxpayers’ Union asked Jacinda to commit to. Grant has said this is “quite likely”.

I support broadening the tax base, but not if it increases the total amount of tax being collected by households and businesses. Make it fiscally neutral and you’d have far far far less opposition.

And Labour has already committed to keeping spending to under 30% of GDP. So just commit to keeping taxation to say 32% of GDP and you leave room for debt repayment and contributing to the NZ Super Fund.

Using the commitment not to go beyond the set ratio will allow Labour to allay attacks that it will tax anything that moves.

Yep.

Far more important, however, is the need for Labour to win the ideological debate – that taxes help to build societies. This debate has to be tackled front-on and from the day parliament reconvenes. It cannot be left to an election campaign, where there are inevitable distractions.

Until Labour wins hearts and minds that taxes are the mechanism for creating a fairer, caring and better working society, it will always be on the back foot.

Few people object to paying some tax. We all see the benefits of it. But that is not the same as wanting to pay more and more tax over time. We prefer extra tax revenue to be generated due to a growing economy – not by increasing taxes on those growing it.

Stuff reports:

National may have had a shot at getting Winston Peters onside before the election – but blew it.

Its aggressive campaign to unseat Peters in Northland is causing some in NZ First to agitate for an Epsom style deal on the table in its negotiations with Labour and National.

That is seen as the best chance of preserving the party’s future if Peters, 72, steps down at the next election.

An electoral accommodation would mean National or Labour endorsing a NZ First candidate in a seat seen as winnable by the minor party. It is not clear which seat, or the extent to which Peters is backing such a deal.

But there would be good reason for Peters’ wider caucus to seek a deal like that in negotiations with either National or Labour because they know the party has little chance otherwise of surviving without Peters.

Losing Northland has been a blow to Peters, and if he does want to retire an electorate safety net is useful. If NZ First had got 15% then you’d be confident Shane Jones would keep them over 5%. But at 7.5% (may drop on specials) they have a small comfort margin.

But what seats could NZ First win if a major party did not stand and endorsed him? Presumably one where their party vote is higher. So what general seats did NZ First do best in, and which party holds them?

1. Whangarei 14.5%, N
2. Northland 13.6%, N
3. Coromandel 12.4%, N
4. Tauranga 11.8%, N
5. Bay of Plenty 11.2%, N
6. Rangitikei 10.5%, N
7. Wairarapa 10.5%, N
8. Waikato 10.3%, N
9. Whanganui 10.2%, N
10. Rotorua 10.2%, N
11. East Coast 10.1%, N
12. West Coast-Tasman 9.6%, L

So all 11 seats where NZ First got over 10% are National held seats.

In fact 22 of the best 23 seats for NZ First are National held seats.

This will also make it very interesting for them if they decide to support a Labour-led Government. I’m not sure all those provincial and rural voters that voted NZ First will be keen on the inevitable political correctness and anti-agriculture policies that will eventuate from such a Government. I’d say there would be a huge backlash.

This is why I’m quite keen to have Winston go with Labour and Greens. It will be sad for the country, but good for National in the long term as they’d ride a wave of discontent in 2020 and only need to pick up two more seats to govern.

The decision NZ First has to make is not just between National and Labour/Greens but also what type of arrangement to have. Here’s some of the possibilities.

1. Minority Government. No formal agreement with NZ First. They abstain or vote in favour of supply and confidence at first, but may pull the plug at any stage if they think the Government is doing a bad job. The Government would need to negotiate with them on every vote. We basically had this between 1993 and 1996.
2. Supply and confidence. Government agrees to a number of NZ First policies in exchange for an agreement NZ First will vote in favour of the Government on confidence and supply motions. Had this from 2002 to 2005.
3. Supply and confidence with benefits. Government agrees to a number of NZ First policies and one of more NZ First MPs become Ministers outside Cabinet in exchange for an agreement NZ First will vote in favour of the Government on confidence and supply motions. Had this from 2005 to 2008.
4. Coalition. NZ First get several seats inside Cabinet and the coalition partners agree to a joint set of policies they will implement. Had this from 1996 to 1998.

Minority Government is unlikely as it means no stability for the Government. But having said that parties can walk away from agreements anyway, so the difference may not be huge. Only National could form a minority Government if NZ First abstained.

A supply and confidence agreement could be done with National or Labour. If NZ First doesn’t take up Ministerial positions, hard to see they would let the Greens do so. So it would be be a National Government with or a Labour Government. Labour would also need a supply and confidence agreement with the Greens which would have to be compatible with the NZ First one.

A supply and confidence agreement with benefits could be done with both NZ First and Greens with Labour. So Labour get 20 Ministers inside Cabinet and NZ First and the Greens each get three Ministers outside. Or Peters could shut the Greens out so they only do confidence and supply and no Ministers. On the National side it would be a simple National Ministers inside Cabinet and one or more NZ First Ministers outside Cabinet.

Finally the full coalition. You’d expect based on their vote share NZ First could take 3 or 4 Cabinet seats and maybe even 1 or 2 outside. So Peters, Jones, Mark and Martin could be inside Cabinet. A full coalition on the left could include the Greens who would also get say three Ministers inside Cabinet. So Labour might only get 13 or 14 slots inside Cabinet.

You could get a combination. Labour could do a full coalition with NZ First and a confidence and supply with benefits with the Greens. So NZ First Ministers inside Cabinet and Green Ministers outside Cabinet. Or Winston could lock Greens out entirely so Greens just get some policy wins and no portfolios. They have little leverage.

So it is not just about which side Winston goes for, but what sort of Government does he want. And if he goes with Labour, what role for the Greens?

Phil Quin writes:

In most cases, Labour’s vote outside the main urban centres returned to, even surpassing, 2008 tallies.  In its birthplace of West Coast Tasman, for instance, the party went from 23 percent under Cunliffe to 37 percent yesterday.  In the Wairarapa, Labour’s vote also surged by double digits, only about half of which can be attributed to the decline of the Green vote.   …

Labour lost in Auckland, performing worst of all in seats with a high number of migrants.  

Contrast New Lynn with Nelson, for example, to get the idea. Labour’s party vote actually declined by 500 votes between 2014 and 2017 in the West Auckland seat. This is despite the Greens tally dropping by 1700 — a factor, in New Lynn and across the city, that masked the severity of Labour’s problems. 

In the nearby seat of Te Atatu, Labour’s party vote inched ahead but only by claiming roughly half the discarded Green pile.

The local MP, Phil Twyford, Labour’s campaign chair and architect of the Chinese surnames stunt, even managed to shave a few hundred off from his majority — a rare but dubious achievement for an opposition frontbencher up against a minister in a third-term government.  

Opposition MPs should not be having majorities go down when up against a Government seeking a 4th term.

In the absence of exit polling, we need to make some educated guesses about what explains the chasm between Labour’s relatively strong showing in places like Nelson, and the meagre gains in Auckland. 

National’s strength among recent immigrants has emerged as a key advantage that, bedded down, could spell long term trouble for Labour. More than one in three New Lynn residents identifies as Asian, and about the same proportion of Te Atatu’s voters were born outside New Zealand.

If yesterday is any guide, National is building a beachhead around these vibrant and growing ethnic communities no less formidable than those Labour historically achieved with Pasifika and South Asian migrants.  

Of course, National’s courting of Asian New Zealanders was aided in no small part by Labour’s unwise decision to make enemies of them.  

If there was any doubt that Twyford’s surname gambit caused long-term damage to Labour’s brand among New Zealand’s fastest growing ethnic minority, surely last night’s results remove it. In seat after seat, the correlation between a high Asian population and a strong National Party showing is undeniable.

Thanks Phil, we owe you.

Do you recall the huge outcry from the left when Judith Collins made a reference to double bunking that could be construed as joking about male rape. And also the huge outcry when John Key had a radio station make a comment about soap in the shower while he was on the show.

Well if someone said something ten times worse than that, such as stating they hoped that all those on the left who didn’t vote for Jacinda be f***ed with a barbed wire d**do (asterisks are not because I am prudish but because Google sends me nasty letters when I have swear words on KB), then surely this would be front page news as it gets condemned by everyone?

All you smart cunt lefties who went Green or TOP? Fuck you with a barbed wired dildo.

— Jeremy Elwood (@JeremyElwood) September 23, 2017

Now I’m not offended in any way by what Jeremy wrote. And not just because I am not a leftie who voted Greens. I think it just reflects more on him than his intended target (disloyal lefties).

What I am highlighting is the double standard. If someone of high profile on the right had tweeted that, they would be on every news bulletin, Rape Crisis would be angrily denouncing their insensitivity towards rape etc etc. But as he is a media darling, who is “in” with all the journalists they don’t even give it a mention. In fact his weekly column with Stuff will of course be unaffected. Fairfax will have no problem with a columnist who wishes a barbed wire d**do on those who voted the wrong way, just as the Herald has no problem with columnists who say they want to break the legs of people they disagree with. So long as you are on the left, you have immunity from consequence.

Regardless of what Winston decides, 2017 was a great election night for National, as was 2008, 2011 and 2014. That makes four in a row, which is probably not something I’ll see again in my lifetime – certainly not such unequivocal great results.

For a National supporter, prior to 2008, the last decent election night was 1990. 18 years without a decent result.

• 1993 was technically a win but National blew the biggest majority in history and only held on with a deal for the Speaker’s seat
• 1996 was a loss that only was redeemed by good coalition negotiations. National only got 34%.
• 1999 was a change of Government
• 2002 was the biggest loss ever
• 2005 was a loss, made bitter by the fact it could have been a victory

So after one decent election night in 18 years, it’s hard to believe National has had four great ones in a row.

• 2008 – stormed into Government (on 45%) and a National-ACT Government clearly elected on the night. 58 seats.
• 2011 – increased party vote by 2% and 59 seats. Labour dropped to historic low. A clear National-ACT-United Government elected on the night.
• 2014 – despite the best efforts of Dotcom and Hager National storms home with 60 MPs (was 61 on the night), Labour drops to an ever lower low.
• 2017 – National gets 46% and 58 MPs in seeking a 4th term, the same as their first term. Stunning result. And picks up two electorate seats, only losing one.

Again this is highly unusual. Normally election nights will be less clear cut. I doubt we’ll see such a run again.

If I had to rank the four in order, they would be:

1. 2008 – winning Government, Nikki Kaye won Auckland Central and NZ First knocked out of Parliament
2. 2014 – won a majority on the night, stunning everyone.
3. 2017 – despite Jacindamania, a 10% gap over Labour and 58 MPs
4. 2011 – increased vote for National, but NZ First made it back

Now people may wonder if 2017 will become a dampener, if NZ First does decide to go with a Labour-Green-NZ First Government. And my answer is not really.

Look I’d prefer National to form the Government as I think Bill English is a great Prime Minister and would achieve a lot in another three years. But you have to go into opposition at some stage, and if Winston thinks his provincial and rural supporters wanted Labour and Greens in Government then he can deal with that. National with 56 to 58 MPs would be an incredibly strong opposition.

So while I have a preference for Bill remaining Prime Minister, I wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep if Winston goes with Labour.  In fact from a blogging point of view, it would be a lot more fun. Be a bit of disaster for the country though.

Many interesting electorate battles. Few seats actually change hands though. National won two seats off Labour and NZ First and Labour won three seats off National, United Future and the Maori Party. The rest were status quo. But still some interesting results.

• Auckland Central. Nikki Kaye did incredibly well to increase her majority to 1,519 after almost the smallest majority in the country in 2011 and 2014. She’s now won the formerly safe Labour seat four times. The collapse of the Greens made it dangerous for her as most of their support then goes to Labour, but her hard work paid off.
• Christchurch Central. A good win by Duncan Webb. Nicky Wagner did so well to win it in 2011 and retain it in 2014 but the traditionally safe Labour seat returned home for two reasons. One was a general trend away from National in Christchurch, but the other was Webb was a strong candidate for Labour with a pre-existing high profile. Will be one of their stronger new MPs.
• Hutt South. An amazing and deserved result by Chris Bishop gaining a majority of over 2,000. Winning a formerly safe Labour seat is an achievement in itself. To do it in your third going for fourth term of Government is pretty unheard of. This is the election when the Government should only be losing seats. I’ve blogged before about Chris’ amazing work ethic but also sheer effectiveness. He makes things happen. National should make Chris responsible for training all new MPs about how to be a good Electorate MP, even if they are a List MP. Labour threw everything they had at Chris, and even concluded their Jacinda campaign there but he came through. So delighted. And the result shows why Trevor Mallard bailed on the seat – he knew he would lose to Chris also.
• Maungakiekie. A seat Labour may have won. A traditional swing seat, partially in South Auckland. The Labour candidate was one of their stars so Denise Lee did very well in holding the seat with a 2,000 or so majority.
• Nelson. Nick Smith has a reasonable majority of 4,010 but got a much smaller percentage of the electorate vote. He got 15,000 voters, the Labour candidate 11,000 and Greens 8,000. They could have beaten him if they had co-operated.
• New Lynn. This should not be a marginal seat. This is a safe Labour seat that they have held since 1963. Their majority is only 1,886 now. So what happened? Both Labour and National had strong candidates (Deborah Russell and Paulo Garcia), so it wasn’t that. I think we are seeing the impact of Labour’s Chinese surnames fiasco. Labour is losing its grip with both working class Westies and new immigrants.
• Northland. Great effort by Matt King in winning this off Winston Peters despite the huge profile Peters has, and all the massive bribes he was promising. King won party because he campaigned well, partly because Winston is not as popular as he thinks and partly because Labour’s revival took votes off Peters. I had thought for a couple of months that King was likely to win and went out of my way not to say anything publicly so it would be a nice surprise on the night. Winston has now been kicked out of three seats – Hunua, Tauranga and Northland.
• Ohariu. No surprise that Greg O’Connor won this seat. I like Greg. He is a good guy. I think he’ll be miserable as a Labour Party backbencher, but I hope for his sake I’m wrong. What is impressive is that Brett Hudson got within 700 votes of Greg despite having only four weeks to campaign. If Peter Dunne had decided a month earlier to step down, this could have gone to the wire.
• Te Atatu. Again this is a previously safe West Auckland seat for Labour held by them since 1978 (except 1990 to 1993). And despite the high profile Phil Twyford being the Labour MP, his majority shrank to 2,055. Why? Well his own fault – his disastrous Chinese surnames fiasco. Twyford may have alienated a generation of immigrants from Labour.
• Tukituki. Labour’s Anna Lorck stood in 2014, ran a three year campaign for the seat and had a high profile with a weekly column and her PR business. With Craig Foss retiring she had a very good chance against Lawrence Yule – the popular Mayor, who did have the water issue to contend with. So a good result for Lawrence to hold on with a 2,757 majority.
• Wairarapa. This should be a safe National seat but there was concern Labour’s Kieran McAnulty could win it. Kieran is a popular local who had stood before. National’s Alastair Scott faced criticism for not living within the electorate and you also had Ron Mark as a wildcard factor. So a good result for Alastair to hold on with 2,746 majority but if Kieran stands again in 2020, it will be a battle.
• Whanganui. Another seat Labour may have won as the popular Chester Borrows was retiring. A good result by Harete Hipanago to hold off Steph Lewis by 1,841. Another that will be close in 2020.
• Whangarei. Despite the hype, not even close. A margin of over 10,000 for Shane Reti and Shane Jones continues his streak of never ever winning a seat.  NZ First must be worried about Shane’s ability to keep NZ First in Parliament if he does become leader.
• Waiariki. A resounding win for Tamati Coffey in beating the popular Te Ururoa Flavell by 1,300 votes. Coffey obviously ran a strong campaign, and was assisted by the much increased vote for Labour across the board due to Jacinda becoming leader.