The Herald reports:

Labour MP Jacinda Ardern has put up her hand to stand for Labour in Mt Albert in the likely byelection prompted by incumbent David Shearer’s departure.

Labour is almost certain to selected Ardern for the seat, which Labour has held since it was created in 1946 and was former Prime Minister Helen Clark’s stronghold between 1981 and her departure in 2009.

There have been only three MPs for Mt Albert over 70 years.

1. Warren Freer 1947 to 1981 – 34 years
2. Helen Clark 1981 to 2009 – 28 years
3. David Shearer 2009 to 2016 – seven years

If Ardern becomes MP for Mt Albert it will allow Labour to bring in a list MP ahead of the 2017 election – Labour leader Andrew Little is keen to get Raymond Huo back to give Labour some Chinese representation. That will mean Maryan Street and Moana Mackey will have to forfeit their places ahead of Huo on the party’s list.

Poor Raymond may not be an MP for long if he does come back. On current polling Labour would get very few List MPs.

Until Shearer’s resignation, Ardern had expected to stand again in the marginal Auckland Central for the third time after losing to National’s Nikki Kaye in 2011 and 2014. Kaye has a 700-vote majority – the slimmest in New Zealand. Kaye is still on leave being treated for breast cancer but has confirmed she will stand again.

Asked if Ardern was effectively conceding defeat to Kaye in Auckland Central, Ardern said “everyone knows I lost twice – the results are pretty clear. But no, it’s not a concession. I still genuinely believe Auckland Central can be won and I intend to work closely with whoever is the new candidate if I get selected [for Mt Albert].”

You generally only swap seats for one reason – because you don’t think you’ll win the one you are in.

She had recently moved into the Mt Albert electorate, but said the decision to switch her candidacy to Mt Albert had been a genuine dilemma because she had worked in Auckland Central for eight years and built up a good team.

If Jacinda moved some time ago, maybe she had an idea the seat would become vacant?

Anyway it is a sensible move for Jacinda. On the latest Roy Morgan poll she would not make it back as a List MP – even if ranked No 2 on the list. This gives her a likely seat for life.

Mike Hosking writes:

What do you reckon, have the Bernie Monk/Pike River protesters gone a little bit too far?

The great problem with all this is that it’s driven by tragedy and grief and, as we have said a number of times before, if you haven’t been through it personally, how can any of us really know what it’s like?

Making it even more complicated is the fact that what they’re doing appears perfectly legal. The latest development of the farmer gifting the road to the protesters seems perfectly legal and driven by genuine sympathy, and it’s his road to gift and the protesters to accept.

If they want to put up a gate to block truck access who are we to argue?

You can also bring in Solid Energy and ask why on Earth they didn’t secure the access road for their purposes and have some sort of binding agreement.

If that was the only road, what on Earth were they going to do if anything, far less a protest, happened to it?

How can you run a business if the entry to said business hangs in the balance and at the behest of the owner who is a separate entity from that business?

Now back to Bernie Monk, and here’s what worries me.

Bernie’s language is getting increasingly aggressive.

They’re doing to the Government and owners, he says, what they’ve been doing to us.

That sounds sort of tit for tat to me. That sounds needlessly full of aggro.

Yes, it will have been born out of frustration and I am sure there are many who share that frustration. But here I think is the critical bit of all of this.

Bernie keeps saying: “All they want is to be listened to.” Which I am afraid to say, technically isn’t true. Why?

Because they have been listened to, they have been listened to for six years. They have had meeting after meeting, they have protested and complained and petitioned.

You can’t possibly argue they haven’t been listened to.

What Bernie is really saying, if he were blunt and honest, is “we want it our way, we want you to change your mind and do what we want”, which is different to being listened to.

And in that is the stalemate.

The Government have listened, and they have reports, and they disagree with the protesters. It’s that simple.

They have not set out to make this any more difficult than it already is, but as the owner of the mine they have the ultimate responsibility, and safety comes first.

And as much as you might want it to be different, putting up gates and blocking roads doesn’t change that.

There is a sad irony that the Pike deaths came about due to a lack of attention to health and safety. And now some of the families of the dead are demanding that health and safety concerns be ignored, and more people be put at risk of dying. The very organisation that got set up as a result of Pike River has ruled the mine should be sealed as it is too great a risk. Solid Energy are obliged under law to do this.

Audrey Young writes:

The Labour Party was quietly thrilled last week after getting over the shock of John Key’s resignation as Prime Minister and his endorsement of Bill English.

It has less reason to be thrilled after English’s election as leader and appointment as Prime Minister.

In a 40-minute press conference English showed a political dexterity that would have matched Key and a depth that surpassed him.

Key was usually well briefed and could answer most questions.

Even when he nothing to say, he could say it rather well.

But English, after a life-long relationship with the National Party, 26 years in Parliament and eight years as Finance Minister, has an unrivalled breadth of knowledge about New Zealand, its constitution, its history, Government, economy and politics.

And yesterday, all of that was on display.

Bill is not and won’t be John. But he is a politician who is now comfortable in himself, who has a mastery of detail and it has been years since I have seen him have an uncomfortable question time.

The English story is an ongoing and forward story; his idea is to concretely tackle social ills through the social investment approach, in parallel with a healthy economy.

A healthy economy allows you to generate the tax revenue for the social investment, and the big thing English has pushed through (and Bennett) is that this should not just be untargeted spending, but spending on the most vulnerable.

English could be a harder target for Labour than it thinks.

The change of leadership in National gives Labour an opportunity – to become relevant. They may be able to seize that opportunity and life their polling to the high 30s where a Labour/Green Government becomes a possibility. Otherwise it will remain a choice between a National-led Government or Winston deciding.

Gerald Hope writes:

Watson was elusive about what he did on 1 January 1998. I concluded he had rehearsed his responses to much of the evidence we discussed. His response was absolute silence on some of the more circumstantial elements of the prosecution case such as the disposal of the bodies in a sleeping bag. When confronted with this he was mute, unemotional, disconnected – Watson definitely did not convince me that he is innocent on this point.

He failed to convince me that what he said he did on the 1st of January 1998 actually took place. Our conversation left me with four specific points where I was not convinced of his innocence:

· Sighting at Marine Head – his response was that he never stopped. The evidence was that a boat was seen there and that it was confirmed as Blade and Watson.

 

· The squabs from the main cabin with large sections cut out and then carefully picked out are crucial to the case. I was not convinced that they were caused by paint spillage or accidental burning from a cigarette.

· His arrival time at Erie Bay. He said he was there by lunchtime – whereas [name suppressed] and [name suppressed] confirmed his arrival around 5pm. This is crucial to the conviction and leaves many hours in the day unaccounted for. What was Watson doing?

· Finally, the art work – supposedly a personal statement, a visual expression by Watson not long after he was arrested. When I look at the drawing I see a disturbed person, evil depictions and undertones of death and retribution. This draws me to the conclusion that at that time in his life Watson had no respect for women and was living a dark fantasy where death was the currency of the day.

There has been so much said, written, filmed and speculated since 1998 that I now request that no further interviews be requested.

So Hope got to actually ask some inconvenient questions of Watson (he never testified at trial) and found the answers implausible.

For this he gets attacked by Watson’s father reports the Herald:

That has prompted Scott Watson’s father, Chris Watson’s response tonight.

He said he read Hope’s views with “some surprise”.

“After the trouble and expense that Scott, his legal rep, and I went to, to fulfil his wish to meet with Scott, his uninformed views can only be regarded as a slap in the face.”

You’re calling the father of one of the murder victims uninformed. Shame on you.

He said he would have reminded Hope – if he had been present – that his son was “nearly as uninformed as himself as to the finer points of this case”.

But not uninformed as to what he did and when. He is the only person who knows that – well the only person living.

Craig Foss has also announced his retirement in 2017. Another good guy who won a seat off Labour and has kept it since. Tukituki may come into play with Craig retiring.

What is interesting is to look at the makeup of both National’s and Labour’s caucuses in terms of who is standing again. Of those standing in 2017

• Only 12% of Nats entered before 2005 and 21% of Labour MPs
• 38% of remaining Nats entered from 2005 to 2010 and 45% of remaining Labour MPs
• 50% of National’s remaining caucus entered in 2011 or later compared to 34% for Labour

So again National is managing to achieve greater rejuvenation in Government than Labour is managing in opposition.

David Shearer made his valedictory speech on Tuesday. Some highlights:

The reason for my attachment to the Labour Party is quite heartfelt and very simple: over the past century no other institution has more shaped New Zealand and how we see ourselves as people. We take its boldness and its achievements for granted. But my fascination has always been with what went through the minds of those leaders before their landmark decisions, before they launched into the unknown. How did Michael Joseph Savage feel before pioneering the social safety net for New Zealanders, in a world where it had never existed before? What was Kirk thinking before deciding to send a frigate into Mururoa Atoll? Or those who sought to take a risk to settle Māori grievances right back to 1840? The Waitangi Tribunal is, I want to say, an institution that has been extraordinarily healing our country. It is simultaneously a truth commission, drafts history, acknowledges wrong, and compensates for loss. I actually think we should export it; the world needs it more than anything else.

But those nation-shaping decisions and others relied on courageous people who stood up in spite of what the polls said or the focus groups. They were big and they were visionary and occurred under Labour. They were about being progressive. So if I could make one teeny-weeny, wafer-thin criticism of this Government with such immense political capital: I think it could have been more ambitious.

A reasonable criticism.

I believe in free-trade agreements because we will always have greater opportunities and strategic leverage being connected than being disconnected at the bottom of the Pacific. Free trade can concentrate wealth though, and it is the job of Governments to ensure that prosperity is shared and that inequality is addressed. If there is one thing that Brexit and the US elections have shown us, it is that Governments can no longer sit back in their sort of laissez-faire splendour, as they have done for the last two generations.

One of the few remaining Labour MPs who support free trade agreements.

My daughter, when she was about 11, said to me: “Why are people so nasty and rude to you?”. I said “I think it’s because I’m a politician.”, and she said: “They should remember that you’re a human being, as well.” It is tough for kids to see their parents attacked through the media, and it is impossible to hide it from them. When I came into Parliament, my kids, Vetya and Anastasia, were at school, and today they are young adults, and I am immensely proud of them. My wife, Anuschka, has simply been my rock, and I thank her.

Wise words from the young.

Many years ago, some friends and I followed the Nile River on a boat down to Juba in the south of Sudan, and from there we paid a Somali truck driver to take us for 4 days across the south of Sudan and into Kenya. At one of the stops we were in the back of the truck and we were peeling mangos and throwing the skins and some stale bread we had not eaten over the side, and a dozen kids below us were fighting, we found, over our rubbish. It was probably the only food that they had had that day. It had a profound effect on me. It spurred me into humanitarian work around the world, and I have been privileged to work side by side with some wonderfully dedicated people.

So when I received a call a couple of weeks ago offering a position in the same region, I did not hesitate. It was, in many ways for me, completing the circle. My hope, as always, is that I can make something of a difference.

A dedicated humanitarian who does make a difference.

And, wouldn’t you believe it? When I was in New York last week, I remembered I had a bank account there.

Heh now that is funny.

Stuff reports:

Former corrections minister Sam Lotu-Iiga, who came under fire when allegations of fight clubs in a Serco-run prison surfaced, has announced he won’t run in next year’s election.

The MP for Maungakiekie was demoted in December last year when Judith Collins was reinstated in the Corrections portfolio.

Lotu-Iiga said the job had been “immensely challenging” and it’s one that is “taxing on families and your personal relationships”.

In a statement on Tuesday he said it had been “an absolute honour and a privilege to serve the people of Maungakiekie and to be part of the John Key and National-led Government”.

He told media he’d been thinking about stepping down for about two months and had planned to do so last week but delayed it after former Prime Minister John Key made his shock announcement. He told Prime Minister Bill English late last week that he wouldn’t be seeking re-election.

“I enjoyed the job, certainly there were challenges and a lot of issues that came up but at the same time you serve New Zealanders and try and improve their well being and I think we’ve achieved that as a government and I’ve achieved that as a minister.”

Sam entered Parliament in 2008 by winning a seat off Labour and has defended it in both 2011 and 2014. It is only a 2,348 majority so will be competitive in 2017. Sam would have kept the seat I am sure, but will now be in play.

Sam is a genuinely nice guy who will be a loss to National. But his family will be looking forward to having him around more, and I am sure will be snapped up by his former law firm or better.

One News reports:

After 30 odd years, Laila Harre has re-joined the Labour Party – and she wants to be a Labour candidate at next year’s election.

“It’s been a while. It’s really great to be back,” says Ms Harre, who first joined Labour in 1982 at the tender age of 15.

Can’t get much of a better sign that haw far left Labour is going, that Laila wants to stand for Labour.

Harre says she’s Andrew Little’s “biggest fan”.

What about Kim?

“I’ve never really felt strongly reconnected to a political party since the Alliance and I am rediscovering those connections in Labour which is a really great place to be,” she said.

You’re saying you never felt strongly connected to the Internet Party which you were the leader of?

The veteran campaigner says she does regret her four months with the Internet Party because of the damage it did to her reputation.

It did.

“We did what we did to make it possible to change the government.

So the ends justify the means, including working for the guy who faces allegations of paying his servants below the minimum wage.

Labour’s general secretary Andrew Kirton said it was great to have someone with “her talent and experience” back to the party.

And while she’s welcome to stand, she’ll have to go through Te same process as other hopeful candidates.

I hear she is interested in either the Mt Albert or New Lynn nominations, which would be seats for life.

While I disagree with her politics, Laila is a formidable politician and does fight hard for the causes she believes in. Will be an interesting battle for the seats.

A former union boss (Andrew Little) who campaigned on worker safety, along with Winston, is basically demanding that the Government allow entry into the Pike River mine, instead of sealing it.

Now let;’s be clear that the only ones who can make the decision about Pike River are the directors of Solid Energy. The Board have had advice that it is unsafe to allow entry, and that it should be sealed.

So what would happen to a Director who because of political pressure said “Let’s risk it” and allowed entry – and someone was harmed.

You can see above the average of the public polls over the last three years of the Key Government. National is polling 5% higher than the same time three years ago and Labour around 7% lower. No Prime Minister has ever retired in such a strong position.

The executive summary of the monthly newsletter is:

Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 103, November 2016

There were two political voting poll in November 2016 – a Roy Morgan and a One News Colmar Brunton. 

The average of the public polls saw John Key leave office with National a massive 24% ahead of Labour in November, up 9% from October.

 The current seat projection is centre-right 62 seats, centre-left 46 which would see a National-led Government with ACT and/or United Future.

We show the current New Zealand poll averages for party vote, country direction and preferred PM compared to three months ago, a year ago, three years ago and nine years ago. This allows easy comparisons between terms and Governments.

In the United States Trump won the November election in a massive upset. Since then his favourability rating has increase by a net 18%. However, it is still slightly negative at -2%.

 Obama is set to leave office with a respectable +11% approval rating.

 In the UK the Conservatives remain dominant with a 15% lead over Labour.

In Australia the Coalition remain behind Labour and Turnbull’s approval rating remains low.

In Canada there is little change where almost two thirds say the country is heading in the right direction.

We also carry details of polls on Scott Watson, the economy, a foreign property tax, a plastic bag levy, the government surplus plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail.  If you would like to receive future issues, please go to http://curia.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e9168e04adbaaaf75e062779e&id=8507431512 to subscribe yourself.

 

The Herald reports:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has offered himself to be the first to re-enter the Pike River mine where 29 miners perished in 2010.

Peters told families gathered at Parliament today that he’s read the safety reports and he’s willing to go in.

I say we accept the offer and then seal the mine.

The Press editorial:

On the face of it, the results were not a surprise. The Dunedin Study – the landmark longitudinal assessment of the lives of 1000 people born in the city in 1972-73 – this week announced its latest finding was that a small portion of our population was a disproportionate weight on society. They committed by far the most crime, claimed the majority of welfare benefits and were more likely to smoke and be overweight, researchers said. The numbers showed that about 20 per cent of the study’s participants accounted for 80 per cent of its economic burden.

The research drew a causal link between this cost and childhood disadvantage. Again, no surprises. The crucial part was that they found that neurological tests done when participants were three years old could predict with “reasonable accuracy” who would grow up to be part of the 22 per cent who were responsible for, at a glance, 81 per cent of criminal convictions, 78 per cent of prescriptions filled and 66 per cent of benefits paid. This burdensome few scored lower on verbal comprehension, language development, motor skills and behavioural tests as pre-schoolers.

Which is why those early years are so important for education and assistance.

Incoming Prime Minister Bill English has led a wholesale reform of the public service from the finance portfolio, based in part on smarter spending through data analytics. Predictive risk modelling has already been proffered as a way to identify and help vulnerable children and stop abuse and welfare dependency turning into criminality. It wasn’t always popular – a plan to apply modelling to newborns was particularly controversial – but the change mantra has stuck. After English, its biggest champion has been his new deputy, Paula Bennett, a veteran of a host of social services portfolios.

The risk factors are now well known. The solutions are not free tertiary education for privileged students, but targeted interventions for those most at risk.

Stuff reports:

A federal judge on Monday issued a stinging rejection of a Green Party-backed request to recount paper ballots in Pennsylvania’s presidential election, won by Republican Donald Trump, and scan some counties’ election systems for signs of hacking.

In his 31-page decision, US District Judge Paul Diamond said there were at least six grounds that required him to reject the Green Party’s lawsuit, which had been opposed by Trump, the Pennsylvania Republican Party and the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office.

Suspicion of a hacked Pennsylvania election “borders on the irrational” while granting the Green Party’s recount bid could “ensure that that no Pennsylvania vote counts” given Tuesday’s federal deadline to certify the vote for the Electoral College, Diamond wrote.

The recount application is delusional. You do recounts if the result is exceptionally close or there is actual proof of wrongdoing. But the US Greens are trying to have a recount, on the basis of “Just in case”.

“Most importantly, there is no credible evidence that any `hack’ occurred, and compelling evidence that Pennsylvania’s voting system was not in any way compromised,” Diamond wrote. He also said the lawsuit suffered from a lack of standing, potentially the lack of federal jurisdiction and an “unexplained, highly prejudicial” wait before filing last week’s lawsuit.

So how about the other states?

A federal judge halted Michigan’s recount last week after three days. The Wisconsin recount was expected to conclude Monday. With about 95 percent of the votes recounted as of Sunday, Clinton had gained 25 votes on Trump, but still trailed by about 22,000.

So the margin has changed by around 0.1%

During the ten years of John Key’s leadership, National’s caucus unity was about as strong as you can get. Basically there wasn’t a single MP in caucus who thought that the party would do better with someone else as leader. This is very rare as usually about a quarter of any caucus think they should be leader 🙂

So if the scale of caucus unity goes from 0 to 10, National under John Key was around a 9.5.

So what is caucus unity going to be now under new leadership. No one should expect it will be the same. This doesn’t mean infighting and plots – just that caucus members will be a bit bolder with their views, and happier to share them if they think things aren’t quite right.

It will be a return to politics as normal, but what is normal?

Well if National under Key was a 9.5 and say Labour under Cunliffe was a 0.01 then what is National under English? Too early to tell, but probably a 7.5 to an 8.0. Still pretty high, as you are in Government and by far the most dominant party. But that rating may change.

What would be the other parties at the moment in terms of caucus unity? My estimates would be:

• Labour under Little – say a 5.5. Definitely higher than in the past, but far from settled. Lots of Labour MPs are openly very unhappy.
• NZ First under Winston – both a 9.0 and a 4.0. A 9.0 for Winston’s leadership – his rule is absolute. But a 4.0 for the battle to be his sucessor which is brutal.
• Greens under Shaw and Turei – say a 6.5 – significant grumblings but no real desire to change anything this side of the election.

Claire Trevett reports:

He indicated infrastructure would be a priority, saying the Government would continue to invest in roading, public transport, schools and housing that were needed to support a strong economy and growing population.

It would also deliver “smarter” ways to help the most vulnerable, such as the investment approach to the delivery of social services. English has been a driving force of that and said he expected to retain some overview.

“This will be a Government supporting economic growth and ensuring the benefits of growth are widely shared.”

Traditionally National has focused on growing and Labour on sharing. Of course you need the growing to fund the sharing and a balanced Government focused on both.

However, English refused to commit to the Key’s 2008 promise not to change the pension age, saying it would be among a stocktake of National’s policies would take place before the 2017 election.

“I’m not making the same pledge as the previous Prime Minister did. That was a product of its time where there was a need to establish trust and I think it was a sound decision then. The election was followed by a recession which could have caused real insecurity for older people.

Good. This doesn’t mean National will raise the age of entitlement. It doesn’t even mean National won’t rule it out next term. It means English is not making the same commitment as Key to never ever raise it no matter what – which turned out to be with hindsight a real mistake (even if politically necessary at the time).

No doubt Labour are already booking ad space to run a scare campaign that will falsely claim National is going to increase the age. The fact this was their policy last election won’t stop them.

Setting out his leadership philosophy, English quoted a line from Selina Tusitala Marsh’s poetry which he heard at a Women’s Leadership Conference. “She said, ‘lead and dig up the diamonds around you.”

He expanded on that later, saying he was referring to the diamonds in New Zealand society.

“I’ve never been in a community where there isn’t someone with the vision and energy to change how it works, so I suppose someone else said something that I meant, and that’s why I quoted it.”

“The Government isn’t the answer to everything, most of our answers are in our own families and communities. Sometimes Government gets in the way of that. This is a Government that will be focussed on understanding, at a very individual level, what is going to work with people and then supporting them to achieve it.”

There are some things that only the Government can do such as pass laws, set policy, fund through taxation certain services. But Bill has always said that most of the answers do not lie with Government.

English said decisions on an election date would not be made until early next year. However, he ruled out going early to the polls simply because David Shearer’s departure would cause a by-election.

“I think one of the worse reasons for having an election in New Zealand is the fact Labour are losing their moderate members, and their competent members. So no, we won’t be driven by their internal problems. We are driven by what works for New Zealand, not what works for the Labour Party.”

How many moderates will be left in Labour after the election? Nash and O’Connor maybe?

Asked if he would give Key a knighthood, English grinned and joked “well, it’s not as if he’s never asked.”

Some of the left on Twitter have gone mad about this, not able to realise it was a joke.

Having said that it would be highly unusual for John Key not to be offered a knighthood in the future. Every Prime Minister who has served more than a few months has been offered a titular honour.

While he described himself as an ‘active Catholic’ who was opposed to abortion and euthanasia, he said he would probably vote differently on the gay marriage bill now.

Bill’s comments on this issue was very interesting. He said he had concluded that allowing same sex couples to marry hadn’t undermined marriage for others, but actually extended the institution. Very pleased to see him say this.

Phil Quin writes at Stuff:

Let’s be honest: few outside his notoriously bolshy inner circle could contend with a straight face that the Andrew Little is a naturally gifted politician.

The Labour leader is a grafter, whose talents fail to match his ambitions by some considerable margin. 

The “Angry Andy” thing has stuck, as tends to happen when alliterative nicknames align so neatly with public perception.

Little approaches media interviews as hand to hand combat; his tone veering between defensive and pugilistic.

It’s as if he considers questions from journalists impertinent by their very nature.

What’s more, Little often seems woefully underprepared for what should be considered straightforward lines of inquiry.

It’s hard to tell who dreads the Labour leader’s TV appearances the most: Little himself, the interviewer, or the viewing public, all of whom cringe to varying degrees through the awkward encounters.

I understand there is an unofficial competition between some journalists as to whom can get Little to turn into Angry Andy the quickest in an interview!

John Key’s unexpected resignation gives Andrew Little the rarest of opportunities, namely the chance to reintroduce himself to the New Zealand public. He won’t get another one. …

Andrew Little should be Labour’s candidate in the by-election to replace Shearer.

The Greens should stand aside to help the Labour romp home, just as Michael Wood did in Mt Roskill. 

The notoriously risk averse Little should hold no fear for Mt Albert. The other electorate for which he is touted, the Wellington-based seat of Rongotai, is a harder lift.

For one thing, he will face a general election turnout in Rongotai, whereas the Mt Albert by-election, like the neighbouring Mt Roskill, will likely see a drastic drop off in National Party voters.

This will help them to the kind of thumping victory he is unlikely to achieve in a general election context, especially when you consider the demands on him to run to spearhead Labour’s nationwide effort. 

All in all, a storming victory in Mt Albert will give Little the elusive aura of a winner, something even his closest friends would have to concede he does not currently possess.

It would also mean that Little got four to six weeks of publicity, which would normally be a god send for an opposition leader.

Imagine the precious air time a Little candidacy in Mt Albert will give the Labour leader: several weeks to showcase Little as a retail campaigner; to give voters a sustained look at the alternative PM just as they are formulating their perceptions of English in the top job.

Why on earth would you squander such serendipity by nominating some generic Labour candidate whose victory in Mt. Albert will be forgotten long before the real campaign starts? 

It’s more than just that Little should run in Mt Albert. It’s that he would be mad not to. 

A couple of days ago I heard a rumour that Little was considering standing in Mt Albert, so I tweeted it. Within almost seconds Little responded in full Angry Andy mode saying that I was part of a Dirty Politics campaign against him etc etc and that he was definitely not standing. Labour now regards anything they don’t like as Dirty Politics!

As Quin points out, there would be considerable advantages in Little standing in Mt Albert. That is all based on an assumption that Little would win though.  If Little was the candidate every National activist in Auckland would turn out to campaign for the National candidate, and a Little victory might not be assured. So perhaps that is why not running is the smarter thing – he can’t risk losing another electorate contest.

The Herald reports:

Shearer is expected to be formally announced as the head of the UN’s mission in war-torn South Sudan on Tuesday and will resign almost immediately. His job starts at the end of January.

That will spark a byelection in his Mt Albert seat unless English opts for an early election, which is unlikely.

Labour’s candidate is likely to be MP Jacinda Ardern, who now lives in the electorate but was initially aiming for a third tilt at winning the marginal Auckland Central seat.

She said yesterday she was yet to make up her mind. If Ardern won Mt Albert, Labour could bring in another List MP – Little is understood to be keen to get Raymond Huo back into Parliament before the election to give Labour Chinese representation.

The next candidates on Labour’s List are Maryan Street and Moana Mackey. To get Huo in, they would both have to turn down their spot. Street is 61 but Mackey just aged 42.

The Press editorial:

Politics watchers expect a fresh election in September 2017. But there are increasing reasons for English to call an early election. Testing his leadership is just one of them. Labour MP David Shearer is resigning to take up a role with the United Nations in South Sudan in the new year, which would trigger a by-election in Mt Albert. 

Under normal circumstances, the by-election could happen in the early months of 2017. But these are not normal circumstances. There was a by-election in the neighbouring electorate of Mt Roskill this month. By-elections are expensive, with the $947,000 cost of the Northland by-election in 2015 being typical. An early election would avoid the expense of a new contest in Mt Albert. 

What a silly argument. General elections cost in excess of $40 million, so you spend $40 million to save $1 million! Having the election earlier may mean over time we have more general elections than otherwise we would have had.

Also a June election in 2017 would mean the 2020 election would be no later than August, causing two winter elections in a row – which won’t help turnout.

A better thing to do is change the law so that by-elections are not necessary for say nine months before an election instead of six months.

On John Key’s final day as Prime Minister I can’t find a better tribute to him than the words of 21 year old Jake Millar.

Jake wrote:

It was C.S. Lewis who once said “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.”

This is perhaps the greatest lesson I have learnt from our outgoing Prime Minister, John Key, a man who changed my life by doing just that.

When I was 15-years-old, on Saturday the 4th of September in 2010, my father, Rod Miller, died in a skydiving plane crash in Fox Glacier, which killed nine people.

It was the worst plane crash New Zealand had experienced in 17 years, and it tore many people apart. …

Following the plane crash, John Key took the four-hour return drive from Hokitika to Fox Glacier to visit the crash site, and pay his respects to the victims.

John Key’s humanness and kindness inspired me during this difficult time, so I wrote to him as a 15-year-old, thanking him for caring, while asking him for some advice in regards to my own future.

I was amazed to receive a very personal letter back directly from the Prime Minister.

Not only did he address all of my points issue by issue in an extremely kind and personal way, but he also enclosed a card, saying he wanted to meet me.

Something not widely known about John is that he hand wrote a response to every kid who wrote him a letter. I understand it would be the last thing he did every evening before he crashed. He knew the difference it could make to get a personal response.

Several months later, John Key, while visiting the West Coast to see the victims’ families of the Pike River mine disaster, came to our family home in Greymouth for whitebait sandwiches, a cup of tea and a chat about my future.

He didn’t publicise the visit for political profit. No media were invited. He did it out of the goodness of his heart, because he wanted to help, and because he cared.

Jake’s story will not be unique.

It was the goodness of John Key’s heart that inspired me to try my hardest in life, and strive to be the best version of me that I could be.

I vividly remember being inspired by the fact that John Key had lost his father as a young kid, before achieving his childhood dream. I remember thinking, ‘if he could, why couldn’t I?’

I recall after Pike River John speaking to the kids who had lost a father and telling them that while this will be their darkest day, and they will worry that they will never be happy again, that he wanted to reassure them that you could have a very good and happy life despite losing your father at a young age.

Inspired by John Key’s story, I worked with hunger and a sense of purpose to achieve my goal of becoming Head Boy of Christchurch Boys’ High School, and Head Boy of Adams House, the School’s boarding house, becoming the first student in 11 years to hold both roles.

I then made the decision to turn down a $40,000 law scholarship and start my first startup OOMPHER, which was acquired by Careers New Zealand, a Crown Entity of the New Zealand Government, in May 2015, only 10 months after I launched it.

Today, as the Co-Founder of Unfiltered, I have the great honour of travelling all over the world, interviewing the biggest names in global business, growing my second startup, Unfiltered, living a dream life between Auckland and New York City.

Inspiring – 21 years old and onto his second startup.

The point to all of this is not that I’m something great, but that it’s all been inspired by that early spark of inspiration: when John Key wrote to me.

I remember running into John Key at a National Party function years after our first meeting, and he asked how my Mum’s art business was going. He had only met her once, years earlier. This showed how much he truly cared.

That’s a great memory.

Whether you loved or hated his politics, as Prime Minister, John Key was a good man. He had integrity. He cared about the people he represented. He did the right thing, even when no one was watching. …

I am unsure how many lives John Key has changed over the years, but I know that mine was one of them. For that, I will be forever grateful.

I suspect this tribute from Jake will mean more to John than all the speeches in Parliament when he leaves the House.

In the Sleaford and North Hykeham by-election, Labour dropped 7.1% from their 2015 result to come 4th behind both UKIP and the Liberal Democrats.

The Guardian reports:

Labour MPs have said they fear the party is pursuing a “0% strategy” because of the lack of clarity on Brexit, after the disappointing byelection result in Sleaford and North Hykeham in which Labour slipped from second place to fourth.

MPs said they believed the party was alienating both sides of the referendum debate by defending freedom of movement but promising to push through with leaving the EU.

Caroline Johnson, a paediatrician, held the Lincolnshire seat for the Conservatives with 17,570 votes, ahead of Victoria Ayling of Ukip, whose share of the vote fell by two percentage points from 2015.

Labour’s vote dropped by seven points and the Liberal Democrats went up by five points to take third place.

The Croydon North MP, Steve Reed, said: “Labour risks becoming the party of the 0% if we manage to upset both remainers and leavers by equivocating our position.

Will Labour survive Corbyn?