There is no NZ First candidate in Mt Albert. The poor old chemist won’t have anyone to vote for. Even Future United is running Judy Turner from Whakatane. Really is turning into a classic two horse FPP race. Voters understand that a vote for Norman might let Lee win. It will either be Shearer or Lee and the more the voters see of them the better Shearer looks.
Is this a sign NZ First has died?
Voters aren’t seeing much of Mr Shearer though, are they Mr Mallard? Whenever Labour and Mount Albert appear in the same sentence, it seems that it is either Mr Goff, Mr Hughes or yourself doing Mr Shearer’s bidding.
Is Mr Shearer capable of fronting a campaign himself, or does he need Labour’s front bench pulling his strings?
Trevor – Please remind me of who was Labour’s partner in crime for the past three years. Who supported Labour through the EFA? And who (apart from Mike Williams and Sue Bradford) contributed so much to your current seating position on the Opposition benches with his corruption? I celebrated two things on election night – firstly seeing Winston get evicted by NZ, then watching in delight as Helen conceded defeat.
In this post you confirm what I have suspected all along – That Labour really did despise Winston and he was only there to assist Clark in retaining power. I am so pleased his party is no more.
Monty – perhaps you might want to look at how MMP works. At the 2005 election NZFirst got nearl 4 times as many votes as Act. It got more votes than Act, Maori Party and Jim Anderton put together.
Labour worked with them. That involved swallowing some dead rats.
Is that ideal? No. Working with other parties involves compromise.
National is now working with most parties in Parliament. That will have it’s upsides and downsides.
A lot of Labour people, me included, are thrilled to see NZFirst gone.
But that’s not the same as saying that a party that was the 3rd largest in Parliament after the 2005 election should have been left out entirely.
Brendon wrote “Working with other parties involves compromise.” Compromise is fine but when the parties became co-dependant on one another to cover the sins (crimes) of one another, that is when the NZ public decided they had enough.
This guy Tim Ellis (above) seems to be an advertorialist, possibly an employee of Melissa Lee’s or National as I’ve seen him on a number of other sites with the same messages. He never seems to debate issues only tries to ’sell’ Melissa and National.
Interesting tactic, but getting stale now…
I myself will be thrilled to see MMP gone, what an undemocratic system it is, the ‘list’ is the problem, because the power is taken from the voter’s hands. Whatever the future system, I hope it is not longer MMP and the revolving door into Paliament is gone, giving the voting public the final say.
how will labour ever hope to govern without Winston?
So labour don’t have any concerns about the Greens – that’s what they keep telling everyone so very loudly at least.
get some better spinners you guys.
What’s labour’s strategy with belittling Green Party voters – is that payback for the MoU with National?
Clearly Labour only went with NZ First very reluctantly in 2005. To be honest I am amazed that things between the two parties worked for as long as they did – I was sure Winston would screw up Foreign Affairs terribly, but he actually did an OK job in general.
I wouldn’t write off the Greens in Mt Albert. There could be the potential for dis-affected centre-right voters who dislike Labour but realise that Melissa Lee’s a muppet to vote Greens.
It was that sort of situation which led to the Green Party in Western Australia winning the Freemantle by-election.
Don’t think there is any danger of Green victory. They haven’t really fired in the campaign – in fact I’m not sure they would run Russel again if they thought it through now.
As for NZ First I’m sure we have all worked with people who we prefered weren’t employed in the same workplace.
Helen Clark and Michael Cullen spend 10 months defending Winston Peters while he misleads the voters and now you turn on him. Shame on you.
Mr Mallard, Russel Norman is getting far more coverage than Mr Shearer. In fact, Mr Shearer has been pretty invisible in the whole campaign. Almost every time there is a comment from Labour on the Mt Albert campaign, it is from somebody other than Mr Shearer.
Ah. Tim Eliis and Neil. Sometimes you can provide a non political yet resonable answer, but most of the time, I pick better things off my shoes than the bleatings I read from you both
For shame.
Still, I don’t know if NZF is dead, but I know that MMP keeps us from the hedgemony of a two-party system. I think that’s all the better. There are plenty of skeletons in everyones closet, so many that I suprised that we dont see more MPs covered in glass when they attack each others ethics and moral strength.
What I do know is this: we all live lives of imperfection. Yes Neil, yes Tim Eliis, we all do. I do not and will not give MPs a free pass to run amok with my taxes, but I’m not going to let you waste time cracking out a right wing haigography, fueled by your anger, and yet as powerful as a wet bus ticket.
Trev, if you are correct, I suspect it will be not be the end of centrist populism…so keep an eye out.
My experience tells me Tim that not all publicity is good. Shearer got a great name recognition push from Whaleoil and MSM just b4 selection. One just needs to look at the publicity that Lee has had over the last ten days to see that Shearer’s measured approach is working.
I take your point on whether name recognition is good, Mr Mallard, but I am not so sure that Mr Shearer’s got much name recognition at all. I doubt the influence of Whaleoil or the MSM before selection, and how much that might have lasted. I recall that Judith Tizard had a very low name recognition over the border in my electorate in Auckland Central, despite being the local MP for twelve years. Have you seen any evidence (apart, of course, from ipredict), that Mr Shearer has particularly good name recognition?
I suspect the MSM have very little else to comment on at the moment, which is what makes Mt Albert so exciting. I don’t doubt that they will turn their attention to Mr Shearer next.
If Mr Shearer is the favourite, as you claim, Mr Mallard, and if he is destined to be the MP for Mt Albert for a long time to come, then shouldn’t the media be focussing on his every utterance?
I wouldn’t presume to tell the media what to focus on but maybe they are more likely to report a train wreck than a good solid rational constituency candidate.
I also see the Progressive Coalition (or whatever variation they are now using) arent running a candidate. Is this an indication that it is nothing more than a personality cult for Jim Anderton and is now dead. As it is the only party that Labour can maintain a relationship with, arent you concerned by its non standing?
Labour did choose a NZ First/UFNZ coalition over Maori/Green. They did not even try talking to the Maori Party.
Also NZF and UFNZ have already guaranteed confidence and supply to Labour pre-election, and could have got this without making Winston a Minister. Labour proposed a closer relationship with Winston as a Minister to tie them together.
And finally while reasonable people can disagree on the wisdom of going with Winston in the first place (and yes National would have also if they could), I still remain staggered at how Labour MPs defended Winston at Privileges Committee when anyone half sane could tell he was lying. And don’t even get me started on Clark refusing to read the SFO reports that revealed the Velas had paid off some of Winston’s personal debts, which raised huge issues about conflicts of interest.
David Farrar says Labour didn’t even talk to the Maori Party in 2005. I’m not sure that’s right, but it wouldn’t do any good, when you consider the Maori Party said to and wrote to, Don Brash saying they preferred him over Labour.