It has been reported that the person who was ranked No 75 on Labour’s list declined that spot and opted to go electorate only. Labour have not said who it was.

Stuff reports:

The Labour Party’s candidate for Otaki has once again opted to stay off his party’s list, saying he feels it is the best way for him to represent the electorate.

The party released its list for September’s election on Tuesday, which saw promotions, demotions and some people left right out.

Rob McCann, Labour’s candidate for Otaki, was not on the list.

An interesting coincidence. It should be a matter of record whether Mr McCann went through the list ranking process which would indicate whether his decision to opt out was before or after the list ranking was done.

Peter Dunne writes:

For those who follow British politics, the prospect of the coming General Election turning into a major train wreck for the British Labour Party looms large. Barely a day passes without another set of contradictory views or comments emerging from senior members of that Party. Most of the criticism inevitably finds its way back to the Party’s veteran socialist leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a man who, in a long political career has never been chosen to hold any Government office.

34 years in Parliament and never has held Government office. Few seriously think he could lead a Government, let alone actually negotiate Brexit with the EU.

Jeremy Corbyn was never elected leader of the British Labour Party by the Party’s MPs – indeed, only a few months ago, they passed overwhelmingly a vote of no-confidence in his leadership. Yet he remains, having twice been selected by the Party at large and its trade union base to be Labour’s standard bearer. New Zealand Labour has a similar selection system – current leader Andrew Little was installed in his role in 2014 with the backing of well under half his MPs, and then only narrowly because of the union vote.

Little only received four votes in caucus. He also lost the membership vote to Robertson, but as Dunne says the unions installed him.

As with Mr Corbyn, Mr Little knows that the key to his retaining the leadership, lies not with his MPs, but with the Party’s trade union affiliates. He has already shown his recognition of that by his installation of trade union officials as candidates in a number of seats around the country. Many are likely to feature high up on the Party’s “democratically” selected list. And, like Mr Corbyn, he has eschewed any prospect of Labour claiming the centre ground of politics, indeed going so far as to dismiss the political centre and those who occupy it as “irrelevant.”

It is all about keeping the leadership after the election.

Last week, Mr little was reported widely as proposing to cut immigration numbers by 51,000. While the announcement came from nowhere, there was no denial by any Labour MP at the time that this was their policy. Now, over a week later, having been widely criticised for the announcement, Mr Little says he was misreported, that when he said immigration levels should fall from about around 71,000 to about 20,000, he did not mean a reduction of 51,000. It is difficult to know what else he meant, particularly when his defence was to confirm his original figures, and that he was talking about a drop of “tens of thousands” only. It was a pure Corbyn moment. (It came just a week after a similar moment when responding to National’s pay equity decision.) National will be hoping for many more over the next few months.    

NCEA Maths Not Achieved.

Nick Cohen writes:

To paraphrase the paraphrase of Voltaire, the liberal view of sexual tolerance used to be: “I may disapprove of who you take to bed, but I will defend to my death your right to bed them.” Just as liberals used to tolerate free speech, except when the speaker was inciting violence, so they allowed free love between consenting adults. Few now care about defending rights to the death. Many turn authoritarian and maintain you have no right to disapprove.

To recap, the great mid-20th century movement for homosexual rights culminated in the recommendation of the Wolfenden report of 1957 that sexual acts between consenting adults in private should be decriminalised. It did not say that fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims or ordinary secular homophobes must stop believing that homosexuality was a sin. Indeed, their freedom of speech guaranteed their freedom to disapprove. They simply lost the power to call for the police to raid bedrooms.

Exactly.

Equally, the old liberal insistence that free speech must be tolerated, except when it incited violence, did not mean that an audience must approve of a speaker. It remained free to argue back, denounce or satirise in the most robust manner. It just could not call on the authorities to ban speakers or the police to arrest them for “hate speech” when the speech was not so hateful it provoked attacks on its targets.

The answer to bad speech is good speech, not banning it.

The strange controversy the leader of the Liberal Democrats began when he equivocated on whether he believes homosexuality is a sin shows how dead the old liberalism is. On the record, Tim Farron supports “equal rights for LGBT people and LGBT rights in this country and overseas”. But he also believes Christianity is “the most important thing in the universe bar nothing”.

The contortions he put himself through as he dodged questions about homosexuality’s “sinfulness” suggested he took his Bible literally and had dwelt on the murderous condemnations of homosexuality in Leviticus, echoed by St Paul, for longer than is healthy.

If he once did and has now changed his mind, so what? Farron was being a true liberal. He disapproved of homosexuality but was prepared to defend gay rights, just as I disapprove of religious fundamentalists but am prepared to defend their freedom to worship.

Being a liberal means defending things you disagree with.

Jeremy Corbyn worked for Iranian state television and spoke at Khomeinist ralliesin London. Everywhere he went, he looked a willing collaborator with a regime that flogs and executes gay men, treats women as second-class citizens and imprisons trade unionists.

If Corbyn was questioned on this, which he never is, he might say he does not approve of every aspect of Shia theocracy. But he worked for it, and was paid by it, and never found the courage to speak out on Iranian television for the victims of its oppression. A liberal society that condemns one politician who bothers God, but gives a free pass to another who works for a queer-bashing, queer-killing regime is so lost that it may never find its way home again.

A true double standard.

Trump won in part because tens of millions of Americans had had it with being told what to think. Some were genuine bigots. Others could be won over if only “liberals” stopped upholding an illiberal policing of thought.

Unless they understand how they drive so many into the welcoming embrace of the right, Trump’s four-year presidency could stretch to eight. In Britain, we will have at least five more years of Conservative rule. Basic self-interest ought to persuade liberals not to provide justifications for censorship and control when the right – and the right alone – has the power to deliver both.

The politically correct movement is not only an intellectual and practical failure, it fails on the more basic level of human psychology.

You cannot demand respect from others. You can only earn it. You cannot force others to admire you, endorse your lifestyle and drop even private doubts about you. You can only persuade them to see what good there is in you. And if you don’t know by now you that cannot compel others to love you, you never will. All you can do – and all you should want to do – is take the deal when a politician says: don’t ask if I respect you, ask if I respect your rights.

Another great Cohen column.

Stuff reports:

The country’s top spy agency has been slammed after thousands of security clearances to access classified Government information were recommended using systems that failed.

Cheryl Gwyn, Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, has released findings into how the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) held and used information collected for assessing security clearances.

The clearances were needed for people to access classified information. And Gwyn’s report found all systems used for security clearance checks were non-compliant “for several years” until a corrective programme began in 2015.

The IGIS report is here. An extract:

Until that certification and accreditation programme, however, the NZSIS instituted and operated all four systems without certification or accreditation, in breach of those security standards. OVR and System B were operated without accreditation from 2009-2016; the DMS from 2013-2015; and System D from 2013-2016.

Basically this says the SIS did not do an internal certification of how secure their systems were and also did not do an external review or accreditation.

This would be bad for any government agency not to do. But for the SIS to have failed at, is very embarrassing.

The systems are now compliant and the report doesn’t suggest any information was improperly accessed.

It is good to have an Inspector-General who is reporting so robustly.

The Herald reports:

The National Party spent $4800 on the music used in their 2014 campaign ad – music which as been labelled a “blatant rip-off” of Eminem’s hit rap song Lose Yourself.

The campaign manager for the election that year, Jo de Joux, gave evidence in the High Court at Wellington this afternoon, saying the party sought “complete assurances” there was no risk of copyright infringement when using the track Eminem Esque in their campaign video.

When the clip was played to staff, one suggested the song sounded like Eminem’s Lose Yourself, and de Joux was concerned about the association with the rapper as he had been associated with hate speech at the time, she told the court.

She also asked the production company that sourced the track for them to make sure it was safe for the party to use the music.

Marketing consultant Peter Moore, who was part of the production company set up for that year’s election campaign, said he made a number of enquiries and was informed the party would not be at risk.

He was told if the party legally bought the music from a production library and it held an Apra Amcos licence, it would be fine.

He said he was “embarrassed” to be asking the different groups about the safety of using the track.

“[They] couldn’t understand why I was asking about the appropriateness of using production music if they come from a recognised production library.

This will be an interesting case. I have a deep interest in copyright law, and of course politics.

The case will presumably determine if the song used was a “copy” of Lose Yourself or merely similar to it.  In the music industry it is very common for songs to be partly based on other music. How similiar you can be will be a key issue in the case, and may provide a precedent for future cases.

If the court does find the song used by National infringed copyright, I suspect they will then seek to recover any damages from the production library they purchased rights to the song they did use. The production library would have warranted that they had rights to that song, which National relied on – even explicitly checking.

One of the better things this Government has done is to set targets for actual outcomes, rather than merely inputs (how much you spend) or outputs (what you purchase with it). My hoep is other major political parties will publish what their targets or outcomes would be if they get to form Government, so they can be measured against it. That means a meaningful measure such as “Median house price is no more than seven times median income” not just an output “Build 100,000 more houses”.

Anyway the original BPS targets were from 2012 to 2017, so new and revised ones from 2017 on are:

1. 25% reduction of the number of people receiving main benefits by June 2018
2. 90% of pregnant women are registering with a Lead Maternity Carer in the first trimester by 2021
3. 25% reduction in the rate of hospitalisations of children for preventable conditions by 2021
4. 20% reduction in the number of children experiencing a substantiated incidence of physical or sexual abuse by 2021
5. 80% of year 8 students are achieving at or above the National Standard in writing and maths by 2021
6. 60% of 25–34 year olds will have a qualification at Level 4 or above by 2018
7. reduce the number of serious crimes by 10,000 by 2021
8. 20% reduction in the median time to house for priority A clients on the social housing register by 2021
9. business costs from dealing with government will reduce by 25% by 2021
10. 80% of the twenty most common transactions will be completed digitally by 2021

The Government has made a number of announcements today, mainly focused on a $321 million spending commitment on social investment to help the most disadvantaged families. Details are:

• $321 million for social investment initiatives
• $28 million for a national roll out of Family Start
• $35 million for an expansion of behavioural services for young children
• $6 million for a new programme to support pre-school children with oral language needs and literacy difficulties
• New Better Public Services targets including
• 90% of pregnant women to be registered with a lead maternity carer in their first trimester, up from 65%
• Reducing the number of hospitalisations for children 12 and under with preventable conditions
• Improving the literacy and numeracy of children – focusing on higher achievement of students in year 8
• Reducing the number of serious crime victims by 10,000
• Achieving a 20 per cent reduction in the time it takes to house priority clients on the social housing register.

The nice thing about this package, is it has obviously been driven by the research about what issues indicate a bad outcome for kids. So rather than just increase spending haphazardly, they are targeted at what seems to matter most:

• Pregnant mothers not getting medical advice and support
• untreated behavioural issues in young kids
• young kids with communication issues
• preventable hospitalisations
• literacy and numeracy

News.com.au reports on what would happen if the Kim regime in North Korea ended:

The first consequence would be that the Kims and all those connected with the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea would have to flee compatriots angry at years of human rights violations and public executions.

How terrible.

So what will Kim Jong-un’s people do without their supreme leader? With a lack of money, food and shelter if the regime collapses, they too may seek refuge in China, Russia and South Korea, but those countries will not necessarily be open to an influx of North Korean refugees.

Well for a start they’ll be free. They are basically slaves at the moment.

The most likely conclusion would be the reunification of Korea, according to Dr Petrov, but this may mean deep economic and social problems.

“The South Korean economy is reaching crisis,” he said. “It needs to urgently access cheap resource and labour.

“South Korea might use the opportunity to exploit North Koreans who have less education or experience in enterprise.

Oh God. The author says North Koreans might be exploited in a unified Korea. Ignoring they are slaves with no rights at the moment.

I can only imagine a similar article in the late 80s about how awful reunification of Germany would have been for the East Germans. Is there a single German alive who wants to live in old East Germany as it was under communist rule? I doubt it. Likewise once the Kim regime dies, there will not be a single North Korean wanting to live in what is a slave regime.

It will take at least a decade before the level of prosperity will be equalised between North and South. During that 10 years, the reunification going to be very expensive, $3 trillion or more. There’s going to be definite social tension between South Koreans and North Koreans.

As there is between former East and West Germans to some degree. But that doesn’t mean their lives won’t still be infinitely better off than under the Kim regime. And the cost of reunification will be worth every cent for the families who have been divided.

Overall a pretty appalling article that only looks at the negatives of reunification and none of the massive positives.

Stats NZ reports:

The unemployment rate fell to 4.9 percent in the March 2017 quarter (down from 5.2 percent in the previous quarter), while employment continued to grow, Stats NZ said today.

“In the March quarter, 6,000 fewer people were unemployed,” labour market and household statistics senior manager Mark Gordon said. “The unemployment rate for men fell from 4.8 percent to 4.2 percent, making it the lowest rate since the December 2008 quarter. However, the unemployment rate for women was unchanged.”

Unemployed people are those who are available to work, and who had either actively sought work or had a new job to start within the next four weeks.

The number of employed people increased 1.2 percent (29,000 people) in the March 2017 quarter.

Pleasing results. Some key data:

• 29,000 more people in employment
• 6,000 fewer unemployed
• Labour force participation rate rises to 70.6% (was 68.8% a year ago)
• Unemployment rate drops to 4.9% (OECD average is 6.1%)
• Manufacturing jobs at 259,200 up 19,000 in the quarter
• Total hours worked up 4.3% from a year ago

The Guardian reports:

Paula Radcliffe and Jonathan Edwards have reacted with incredulity and dismay to news that all athletics world and European records before 2005 are likely to be stripped from the record books.

Radcliffe, who set the world marathon record in 2003, told the Guardian she was “offended” by proposals that were approved by European Athletics at the weekend, adding that it “unfairly damages the reputations of many innocent athletes”. Meanwhile Edwards, whose triple jump record dates back to 1995, called them “wrong-headed and cowardly” – and warned it will further erode trust in athletics. The plan, which is strongly backed by Seb Coe, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, will not only require anyone who sets a world record to have been tested numerous times in the months beforehand but also to have the sample taken after their record performance still available for retesting.

The IAAF has stored blood and urine samples only since 2005, which means the records by Edwards and Radcliffe are at risk of being struck from the books, along with Colin Jackson’s indoor 60m hurdles world record of 7.30sec set in 1994.

It’s tough on them, but probably the right thing to do. So many of the records are obviously drug tainted, that this would allow a clean start.

The Herald reports:

Botany MP Jami-Lee Ross has been elected National’s new senior whip, with Taranaki King Country MP Barbara Kuriger becoming junior whip.

A whip’s job is to organise and discipline MPs, particularly those on the back-bench. They play a critical role in the operation of the House, including organising their party’s vote on legislation.

The position of chief whip is often a stepping stone to a ministerial appointment.

Ross replaces Hamilton West MP Tim Macindoe, who was promoted to Customs Minister in a reshuffle last month. Kuriger was third whip, and that position will now be filled by Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey.

Whips often go on to become Ministers so if National gets a 4th term, I’d expect Jami-Lee and Barbara to become Ministers at some stage during that term.

The Commerce Commission has made a final determination:

The Commerce Commission has today released its final decision declining authorisation for NZME and Fairfax to merge their media operations in New Zealand.

The merger proposed to bring New Zealand’s two largest newspaper networks and corresponding online news sites under common ownership.

The Commission’s preliminary view, published in November last year, was that the merger would be likely to substantially lessen competition in advertising and reader markets – specifically Sunday newspapers, online news and community newspapers in 10 regions. It also indicated that the merger would not be of such a benefit to the public that it should be allowed. Those views remain largely unchanged. …

The merged entity would have direct control of the largest network of journalists in the country, employing more editorial staff than the next three largest mainstream media organisations combined. Its news media business would include nearly 90% of the daily newspaper circulation in New Zealand and a majority of traffic to online sources of New Zealand news. Including its radio network, the merged entity would have a monthly reach of 3.7 million New Zealanders.

“This merger would concentrate media ownership and influence to an unprecedented extent for a well-established modern liberal democracy.  The news audience reach that the applicants have provide the merged entity with the scope to control a large share of the news consumed by a majority of New Zealanders. This level of influence over the news and political agenda by a single media organisation creates a risk of causing harm to New Zealand’s democracy and to the New Zealand public,” Dr Berry said. …

“While we cannot weigh in dollar terms the net benefits against the detrimental societal impacts we expect to see, in our assessment this is not a finely balanced decision. We decline to grant authorisation.”

A good decision, and the expected one. What will be interesting is how NZME and Fairfax respond. I think inevitably they will start laying off staff in order to try and make their businesses more sustainable.

Eric Crampton has highlighted a recent decision by the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority. He summarises:

The New Zealand police have been trying to usurp Councils’ legislative role in setting local alcohol policy. It looks like there has been a systematic campaign by the police, often with the Medical Officer of Health, to object to license renewals unless the licensee agrees to conditions the police want to put on the renewal.

The law passed by Parliament is that local Councils set licensing hours, not the Police and the Medical Officer of Health. But in some areas they have decided they know better than the law, and have been working to impose their views on all licence holders. Crampton summarises again:

The police in Wellington, along with the Medical Officer, have been bullying bottle shops, threatening to object to licence renewals unless they agree to earlier closing times. If there were some issue where a particular licensee had incompetent staff later in the evening and regular problems with, say, selling to intoxicated people or to minors after 10pm, then objections would be fair enough. But it’s really starting to look like the police just want all of downtown to have earlier closing times because they don’t like the closing times that Council chose. They had their say during the LAP process, didn’t get their way, and are trying to bully their way through by their power to make it tough for licensees to get their licenses renewed. The power to veto is the power to legislate.

There is a big difference between objecting because a licence holder has broken the conditions of their licence, and objecting just because the Police want them to close earlier.

So what has the ARLA said in this case:

[77] Both appeals before the Authority relate to the appellants’ dissatisfaction with the DLC not imposing restricted trading hours by way of a condition imposed on the licence. It is clear from their submissions that they opposed this application, in large part, because the licensee did not agree to shorter opening hours, notwithstanding that they accepted other conditions put to them.

[78] The Authority would be concerned if both the Police and the Medical Officer of Health went into the DLC hearing because they failed to negotiate a 9.00 pm closing time to achieve, as the second appellant put it, a “goal to reduce accessibility”.

[79] Reporting agencies should be careful to avoid ‘negotiating’ conditions with an applicant in exchange for those agencies not opposing the application. Doing so risks creating the impression that they have used their statutory reporting function under s 103 to achieve their own ends.While the interests of reporting agencies are undoubtedly of significant importance, and it is for that reason that they have been given a function under s 103, the Authority would take a dim view if opposition turned on whether an applicant agreed with reporting agencies’ recommendations on conditions. The role of the Police and the Medical Officer of Health under s 103 is clear. They are to inquire into the application and if they have any matters in opposition, to file with the DLC a report on those matters. The evaluative exercise under s 131, and the imposition of conditions, is for the DLC alone and not for the Medical Officer of Health or the Police. It would be an improper use of their reporting role in s 103 if that was used in a way that effectively usurped the DLC’s licensing function.

This is a major slap down by a judicial body of the Police and the Medical Officer of Health. They have been called out for improper use of their roles.

This should be enough for the respective Ministers of Police and Health to tell their agencies that their job is to enforce the law, not try and create the law. When a judicial body says they are apparently acting in a way that usurps the functions of district licencing committees, they need to stop. And if they won’t stop themselves, then they should lose their special status under the Act.

The Herald reports:

A special pathway to citizenship for expat New Zealanders living in Australia remains intact, Prime Minister Bill English has confirmed.

A spokeswoman for English said he had spoken to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today, a week after Turnbull announced tighter citizenship rules in Australia.

“Prime Minister Turnbull confirmed that the Pathway to Citizenship for eligible New Zealanders, announced in February 2016, has not been changed.

“It remains in place and on track, and is separate from the citizenship changes which Australia announced last week.

“Prime Minister English has thanked Prime Minister Turnbull for this confirmation.”

A good outcome for Kiwis in Australia.

So someone in the State Department put up an information page on Mar-a-Lago as Trump has hosted so many foreign leaders there. This leads to an op ed saying Trump should be impeached for this.

A classic case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Now Labour’s list is out, we can look at likely demographics of their caucus. This is based on an assumption of them having 35 MPs, being 27 electorate and eight list, representing 29% party vote.

Gender

• Male 54% (48% of adult population)
• Female 46% (52%)

So once again Labour has ignored their requirement to have gender equality. Only at 35% party vote do they get equal number of women and men in caucus.

Ethnicity

• European 49% (69%)
• Maori 31% (13%)
• Pasifika 14% (6%)
• Asian 6% (12%)

A huge over-representation of Maori and Pasifika in their caucus and under-representation of Europeans and Asians (compared to population).

Gender and Ethnicity

• European Men 29% (33%)
• European Women 20% (36%)
• Maori Men 17% (6%)
• Maori Women 14% (7%)
• Pasifika Women  9% (3%)
• Pasifika Men 6% (3%)
• Asian Men 3% (6%)
• Asian Women 3% (6%)

Area

• Auckland 37% (34%)
• Wellington 20% (11%)
• Provincial 17%
• Rural 17%
• Christchurch 9% (13%)

Wellington over-represented as usual.

Age

• 30s 26%
• 40s 31%
• 50s 40%
• 60s 3%

Stuff reports:

Former prime minister John Key has taken a directorship with the “incredible” Air New Zealand.

Key, who in March left Parliament after resigning following eight years in power, will be a director from September.

Air New Zealand chairman Tony Carter said it had been trying to get Key as a director since the former prime minister announced his resignation in December.

“John will bring extensive international commercial experience, outstanding leadership skills, global perspective and a keen understanding of the tourism sector gained during the years he was tourism minister as well as prime minister of New Zealand.”

What a great appointment for Air New Zealand.

Labour have finally released their 2017 party list.  What I have shown above is the effective list, taking account of what seats they are likely to win.

If you assume they retain their current 27 seats, then they get their first List MP (Little) at 23%.

Willie Jackson will become an MP if they get 29%, around their current level of polling. Of course in the last three elections they have done worse at the election than their polling six months out.

Mallard only gets back in if they get over 32%.

So assuming they get 29%, who will be their new MPs:

• Ginny Andersen
• Deborah Russell
• Paul Eagle
• Priyanca Radhakrishnan
• Jan Tinetti
• Willow-Jean Prime
• Kiri Allan
• Willie Jackson

The Independent reports:

A man in Saudi Arabia has reportedly been sentenced to death on charges of apostasy after losing two appeals. 

Several local media reports identified the man as Ahmad Al Shamri, in his 20s, from the town of Hafar al-Batin, who first came to the authorities’ attention in 2014 after allegedly uploading videos to social media in which he renounced Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. 

He was arrested on charges of atheism and blasphemy and held in prison before being convicted by a local court and sentenced to death in February 2015.

This is appalling. No one should be executed (or criminalised) for their religious beliefs, or for their decision not to believe in God. Such tyranny belongs in the Middle Ages, not 2017.

Hat Tip: No Right Turn

The Telegraph reports:

Students are joining university Conservative societies in growing numbers in reaction to the activities of left-wing activists on campus, it has been claimed.

Several Conservative student groups at Britain’s leading universities doubled in size last year, new figures show – with membership at the Cambridge University Conservative Association swelling by more than 40 per cent.

The number of new members at Brunel University’s student Conservative society has surged by more than 400 per cent, while the Conservative and Unionist Association at Edinburgh University has almost tripled in size.

All good news, but why?

Conservative student leaders say the influx of new members is in response to what they say are attacks on free speech by left- wing student groups.

They claim the Rhodes Must Fall campaign for the removal of a statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes from the grounds of Oriel College led to hundreds of students joining Oxford University’s student Conservative society.

The best outcome from it.

Alastair Ward-Booth, chairman of Cambridge’s Conservative Association, said membership had surged because students were seeking “respite” from the “insane and exclusionary” politics of left-wing groups.

That would explain it.

Eliot Smith, President of Reading Conservatives, said  the breaking point for many students took place last year, when left-wing students attempted to boycott Jeremy Paxman from speaking on campus because he had allegedly made “sexist comments” on University Challenge.

He added that many members were exasperated by so-called “special snowflakes” and found their actions to be “quite silly”.

Go the snowflakes.

Jo Moir reports:

A “crisis meeting” is being held by Labour’s list ranking committee and it’s likely prospective Labour candidate Willie Jackson will be given a higher place.

It’s understood he was given the 21st slot on Labour’s original list and wasn’t happy about it.

Jackson, a high profile broadcaster and former Alliance MP, is said to have flown down to Wellington on Monday morning to take his frustrations to the party first-hand.

The party was expected to announce its list around mid-morning but has now pushed it out to Tuesday morning while the party works through the ranking issues. A Labour Party source said a “crisis meeting” would be held on Monday night and it was expected Jackson would get a higher list ranking as a result.

It’s understood the delay is also because other electorate candidates are disappointed with their list ranking.

Jackson, who had ties to the Maori Party, was shoulder-tapped by Labour leader Andrew Little late last year to run and announced at Waitangi that would he seek a place on the list.

Little threw his support behind Jackson getting a high-list placing.

But Northland and East Coast candidates, Willow-Jean Prime and Kiri Allan, look to have secured list spots ahead of Jackson – likely helped by Labour’s 50/50 gender policy.

Willie was warned about the gender policy and that Little was making promises he couldn’t deliver.

Until we see the full list we won’t know what chances Willie has, but we can do an estimate based on what we sort of know to work out his effective placing. So who is ahead of him

• current electorate seats – 27
• current MPs – Little, Parker, Mallard, Huo
• New cands – Price, Allan, O’Connor

So Jackson may be effectively 35th on the list. That means Labour would need at least 28% to get Jackson in, which is far from the guaranteed spot he thought he was getting.

If he does now get bumped further up the list, then you’ll have some very angry candidates who get ranked below him – especially if they then miss out making Parliament.