I don’t always agree with Nicky Hager. But he is always worth reading :-
The news declared that the National Party had had a ‘historic’ election victory on Saturday but, if that was true, National Party people would be looking happier. The reality is much more complicated
Here’s the bullet-point version, to begin:
National won about the same number of votes it did three years ago (it got a higher percentage of the total vote owing to falling voter turnout)
National has an almost unmanageably thin majority in Parliament; party insiders are not at all happy
Winston Peters is back as a fly in the National Party’s ointment, in a large part because John Key and Steven Joyce mucked up over the Epsom tea party
MMP is here to stay, meaning governments need to win a real majority and not just a high single party vote
50% of voters voted against National, despite its popular leader
Many National votes were won because of its apparently easy-going and centrist leader, not because people necessarily support its policies
Well over 50% of the public opposes key National Party policies such as privatisation (‘asset sales’)
The ACT Party, National’s most important coalition partner, died on election night
There are signs that National has passed the high point of its popularity and will now start to decline
There are signs that National leader John Key has passed the high point of his popularity and will now start to decline.
The coming three years will be the playing out of these things. It is going to be very different to National’s first three years in government.
Read the whole article here on Pundit.
I’m just waiting for his latest conspiracy theory on how National won the election. If nothing else it should be good comedy – like all his others.
@darrenw
So Hollow Men was comedy? Now that is funny …
Someday Hager will reveal his sources – then who will be laughing?
One hopes that will be before NZ Inc is entirely foreign owned.
I loved The Hollow Men!
!!!! Some of it actually was funny 
!
Thanks Trev, your post cheered me up a bit!
First thing to do so since the election 
!
“Someday Hager will reveal his sources – then who will be laughing”
That day will be a very long time coming logie. Don’t hold your breath.
Nicky is spot on with this.. That nice Mr Key is in for a rough 3 years.. Imagine having to go to work and deal with Winston Peters every sitting day..
What if National had one or two rif-raff on the back benches in the current intake? You know, rough diamonds i.e. similar to D. Garrett or R. Worth. Things might get interesting, quickly.
MPs personal lives should totally be left alone-unless-there is hypocrisy (acting substantially different in private compared to public utterances) or proven illegality. If either of those two apply MPs are fair game.
Not to forget that National won because of a useless oposition. While National actually increased it’s vote minimally by 5000 votes, Labour managed to loose 180,000 votes. http://www.electionresults.org.nz/
Nothing to be proud about.
True Wheel , it normally works the other way. The party in power will target opposition MPs to increase its majority. The ALP just did this in Australia. Expect NZ First MPs to suddenly have new friends with links to the National Party.
This is why its a very good idea to have an electoral petition in Waitakere as ‘Paula’s Peril’ will have Bennett turfed out of parliament with no replacement from the list . It would be all most certain that National would have done this if they were in the same situation
Why would anyone ever find the meanderings of this idiot Hager, “worth reading”?
A Win for the Left in 2014 just needs a tiny slip from the Nats.
They are at their peak and can only go down.
Perhaps Pat you’re right on that percentage game, but it will take a much more unified,inclusive and less arrogant LP to get the nod to run a centre-left coalition. “last cab off the rank” anti-Maori Party sentiment and “white-anting greens” type of sentiments will need to be moderated.
Debb you are just spouting National party talking points …. do you have any of your own ideas.
Last cab off the rank…the MP is a natural competitor to labour, and its worked well pushing them into nationals arms… they are gone burgers once Turia & Sharples shuffle off.
Arrogance … Oh really . havent been reading the spectacle shown here of national running parliament have we?. Urgency… Key running and hiding from Questions…the lies and evasions.
Whiteanting… all parties are competitive, with their supporters more so .. Rodney Hide whiteanted Key about a 2 year sago… and national got their revenge by engineering his replacement
Once the cracks start opening in the National camp I can see some glossed over Nat MP’s jumping ship to NZ First. Think I met one not so long ago. They’ll do alright out it too, let’s say it will be a win win with Winnie. Revenge is sweet & more icing on the cake for Peters, so yes he’ll be into that like a robbers dog.
This is why many on the right are desperate to use the change in Labour Party leadership to change policy on a CGT, the labour market and taxation/income disparity.
27%
I guess either Hager or Peter don’t yet get MMP.
This all seems very plausible to me. Key is still astonishingly popular and good at helping people not to worry about the unemployed, the unequal etc: but we have a base to fight back from: the new shadow cabinet lineup gives us a basis for that, too!
‘Winston Peters is back as a fly in the National Party’s ointment, in a large part because John Key and Steven Joyce mucked up over the Epsom tea party’
This part of the analysis is poor, I for one didn’t vote NZ First because of the tea party, I voted because their economic policies are exactly in line with my views. Winston Peters also did very well in the televised debates leading up to the election.
The rest of the analysis is good, and was mostly exactly what I was thinking on election night. National won but it wasn’t all bad news. Winston is back, ACT is dead and the Greens are stronger than theyve ever been, who are generally seen to be more left than Labour.
It was good to see Key peak about 2 weeks before the election
It’s all downhill from there let’s see how Joyce performs now his arrogance will have no bounds! Cunliffe will be more than a match for him
There is an old political saying which goes ” the higher the monkey climbs the tree the more its backside is exposed”
RT1 – I can recall when Nats were positively wetting themselves during corngate.
The people I know who really dislike Hager have never read a word of his books. Most read that Richard Prebble had allegedly been thinking though.
I wonder if Banks windfall is already causing grumblings amongst the Nats, particularly the ones who missed some baubles.
There was an article today in the Herald about Hujlich (sp). No mention of Mr Banks (Executive Director at the time) or Mr Brash (Chairman at the time). I asked the journalist who wrote it why not. he said it was in his submitted article but was edited out at proofing. Either they knew and didn’t care to stop it or they didn’t know and failed to understand the accounts being presented to them as paid Director and Chairman. Either way… should either be receiving any money from the public purse, let alone one be a Cabinet Minister.
“Huljich Wealth Management advertised itself as a market leader in terms of KiwiSaver performance and grew to be the largest privately owned KiwiSaver fund.
The charges relate to misrepresentations of the performance of the company’s KiwiSaver scheme in offer documents between May 2008 and January 2010.”
As for the $170k fine.. I can recall about 20 years ago a mother was sentenced to 3 months in prison for stealing nappies for her baby.
Good to see Labour focusing on their own desperately needed rebuilding issues and trying to become more relevent to the country. How about everyone here who is by Cullen’s definition a “rich prick” offering to pay more tax, helping the poor, creating jobs.. ?
Good analysis from Hager.
Proved by the interesting news today that John Key wants the Greens to abstain from confidence and supply votes.
I guess the National Party strategists doesn’t think their allies are all that good. I suppose they are right. All it would take is the Maori party to collapse in an internal leadership struggle (all the Maori Party MPs want to be leader remember), and this government doesn’t look stable at all. Even with their pets John Banks and Peter Dunne – National would be vulnerable.
I wonder what sort of deal Key thinks the Greens would take, while he digs up the Conservation Estate and sells State Assets.
Good point Sean.
Re ongoing Nat vulnerability: Tip-look into the history of new intake Northland MP ex copper, ex Methcon ‘P’ consultant (with dubious yank RWNJ links) , Mike Sabin, transferred (involuntary) from ‘Whangers’-aka Whangarei, to Kaitaia, by NZ Police. His personal life of course should be out of bounds barring illegality or hypocrisy…
@ Dylan Nicky Hager is right. John Key gave Winston Peters the chance he needed, by mucking up the tea party. Instead of Banks and hangers-on, Parliament has Peters and hangers-on.
While I accept, Dylan, that he had your vote anyway – there is no question that a result like 7% was bolstered over the last 2 weeks of the campaign. Polls early in the campaign suggested that a vote for NZF would be a wasted vote. On Election Day, I was convinced he was home and dry on the upward support trend.
Opponents of MMP also promoted Peter by their attempts to vilify him.
It was amusing to watch Peters, the old maestro, tuning up the violin again!
Peters will zero in on the lack of transparency/information etc and be a dog with a bone.
In the Christmas spirit my oldest brother sent me a heart warming story this morning. For those who don’t know I trained and practised as a lawyer, these days working in law but not with a practising certificate (not needed for my area)
One afternoon a lawyer was riding in his limousine when he saw two men along the road-side eating grass.
Disturbed, he ordered his driver to stop and got out to investigate.
He asked one man, “Why are you eating grass?”
“We don’t have any money for food,” the poor man replied. “We have to eat grass.”
“Well, then, you can come with me to my house and I’ll feed you,” the lawyer said.
“But sir, I have a wife and two children with me. They are over there, under that tree.”
“Bring them along,” the lawyer replied.
Turning to the other poor man he stated, “You may come with us, also.”
The second man, in a pitiful voice, then said, “But sir, I also have a wife and SIX children with me!”
“Bring them all as well,” the lawyer answered.
They all entered the car, which was no easy task, even for a car as large as the limousine was.
Once under way, one of the poor fellows turned to the lawyer and said, “Sir, you are too kind.”
“Thank you for taking all of us with you.
The lawyer replied, “Glad to do it.
“You’ll really love my place.
“The grass is almost a foot high.”
Only 39% of people voted for a Labour-led government. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do, Trev. Right wing parties added up to about 58% of the vote. You can’t claim NZF as Left just because they wanted to stop asset sales. I suppose people who voted Conservative were Labour-allies too…
Yes Ghost, you’re right. Labour must bring an electoral petition. It’s just too important not to. Imagine if successful? It would mean so much. Stopping asset sales must be the party’s main focus and everything that is humanly possible must be done to do this. Sure, it’s expensive, but Labour just needs to find a way. Finding a friendly lawyer might be a start, but it just needs to be done. You owe it to the 80% of people who don’t want NZ sold down the river.
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/paulas-peril-or-the-uncertain-scenario/
Joel makes a fair comment, anyone who voted for National or ACT were de facto voting for asset sales. If they didn’t want asset sales they negated that view by casting a vote for either of those parties. Who knows where Dunne stands on anything, he sticks his finger int he air and asks himself “who will win? Cos that’s what I think”.