Labour’s fairfax rout
Today’s Fairfax Media poll brings the theory that Labour was turning its fortunes around into serious question. I enjoyed this quote from the Dominion Post:
Prime Minister Helen Clark, who is in South Korea, could not be contacted for comment.
I guess she hasn’t given it much thought , eh?
The Greens are continuing along in or around the 6% zone, which realistically is too low for any party to be happy or comfortable with.
The outstanding question I have about the poll is that whether the series of questions about tax cuts were asked before or after the party preference questions and whether they played any role in the poll numbers. Actually it would be interesting to see more public discussion about the underlying methodology behind each major poll. I’m not challenging their validity but in an environment where the media is more interested in ‘game’ stories than issue and policy stories it is surprising that the public rarely sees the raw data behind polls. I assume the Fairfax pollsters asked a series of other questions and we will see the topics that were covered in a series of stories over the next few days?
May 17th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Given oil prices and climate change prominence you would expect the greens to be on the rise. My thought is that it’s all very well to jump up and down, but can the greens (inbred thinkers who have all sorts of ideological agenda…. such as bashing non Maori for colonisation) be seen as a useful cog in the big wheel?
May 17th, 2008 at 8:27 am
I would like very much to read more about the Pollster’s methodology. Any of the main polls.
Occasionally either I or my partner have been polled and the questions have always left me wondering about the whole scheme. Just curious.
I had hoped the Greens would consistently poll at 7% +, given the huge profile of environmental issues surrounding us.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Humans asses categorizes and sort people; an evolutionary adaptation for quick action. They group Sue Bradford Keith Locke etc with John Minto and ye jump up and down radical leftos (touched with a madness). What is needed is a calm persuasive intellegent approach rather than the prepackaged (old and stale) message from behind the megaphone. This is especially important as the pond runs dry and the risk of civil order breaks down.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:06 am
>>The Greens are continuing along in or around the 6% zone, which realistically is too low for any party to be happy or comfortable with
I would have though the solution to that was obvious. You need to become an environmental party who can work with National.
Until then….
May 17th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Dare I say it but the Greens need more of a Rod Donald pragmatic approach rather than the hard left Russel Norman style.
Make no mistake Greens, you need to distance yourself from Labour as soon as possible and get Jeanette and Sue K out on the hustings or you run the very real risk of not making the threshold.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:38 am
please post my comment
May 17th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
More than 6% would require a serious alteration of some of the priorities used in determining what is important to us.
We have gone on, and on, and on about this. I am a green because of the environment. I am a New York Liberal… I DO have social justice as a priority, but it is a negotiable thing. Green Environmental issues involving the survival of civilization in NZ and the human species on the planet are NOT negotiable. They take precedence.
To do something about them requires taking power and taking power requires getting enough voters to vote for you that you CANNOT be ignored.
As we have been… because the social agenda has marginalized the environmental imperative. We haven’t chosen our battles wisely.
Now we are paying a price for those choices. I think we will pick up some of what Labour drops… but not enough, and BP, for all our disagreements, has made a very powerful point clearly enough.
Thank you BP.
respectfully
BJ
May 17th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
More than 6 percent would also require the New Zealand population to become more educated in regards to politics. When so many people do not comprehend the MMP system to any real level, it is not surprising that so few people are willing to go for one of the minor parties.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
At the Standard blog some one wrote an interesting comment about the methodology of these pollsters.
The comment is from a poster who goes by the name of RedLogic and this is what he says.
It is very important to remember that we don’t have a free and independent press any more since all but one newspaper are now owned by fairfax which is 10% owned by Murdoch.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Oops, my bad
This is the text of the post at the Standard:
These polls are rigged.
My younger daughter has been working for Herald Digipoll the last few months, and she was talking with me last night about how they are a total scam:
1. The target the demographic they want to by carefully selecting the suburb and time of day. This is done very explicitly.
2. They are perfectly aware that much of the left wing demographic does not have landlines, but they refuse to poll cellphone users.
3. Only a small fraction of those conctacted actually answer the questions; this makes these polls almost as hopelessly self-selecting as on-line polls.
4. The questions are always carefully phrased and couched in language that will get the answers that are being paid for. It is this aspect that most appalls my daughter and I got the impression she’s sick of it and is looking for another job as soon as she can.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
What about Roy Morgan?
May 17th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Is anyone listening in the lilly pond? What so many of us are saying..
Get green Greens, become a respectable environmental party willing to work with all parties towards a sustainable future and 20% of the vote or more could be a real target.
Soooo many ordinary kiwis really care about the environment but just can’t stomach the left of labour position you guys are in.
Get centre, get green, get votes.
May 17th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
It is unfortunate but it is no harder to be left of labour than left of national these days.
I half expect a Labour-National coalition to freeze out the minor parties.
BJ
May 17th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Cut Bradford, Locke, Turei and Norman loose to go form their own [rhymes with farxist] party.
They’re not fooling anybody.
May 17th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Precisely BJ, thats why it’s a no-brainer.
May 17th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I would be most surprised if the party vote question was not asked before the issues questions. It is pretty standard practice.
In case anyone is interested I have blogged at http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/05/smith_on_labours_environmental_recor d.html on how the Greens can lift their rating - not surprisingly it is that one has to expose Labour’s environmental rhetoric as almost totally hollow.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Bluepeter: Have you done any research into the Progressive Greens, which seems to be what you want to turn the Green Party into? They never secured even a single percent in an election.
I have yet to see a party that is focused on the environment succeed without subscribing to the broader Green movement- my take is that there is incredible synergy and united purpose between the four policy pillars, and that there is an effective brand in simply being “Green” that other parties cannot take with them to a centrist frame of view. I’d also like to see how you’d justify seperating the principle that the world is finite and we’re living beyond our long-term means and the principle that limited resources need to be shared as equitably as is practical- a principle that aligns environmentalists quite strongly with the Left.
I also want to remind those of you sharing your opinions from other parties or political perspectives- you’re not Greens. Ultimately, the party will listen to its base, and anyone who agrees with the policy pillars and signs up can join in on that discussion. Until you choose to, your pressure to drop MPs that Green members have voted very high up the list, and ignore policies developed with consultation on all levels of the community is at the very least undemocratic and not exactly welcome. The minute I pressure another Party around adjusting your party list, or dictate wide ideological shifts to you, then perhaps we can continue that sort of discussion.
Dpf- the Greens do put out releasing critising the Labour Party in quite strong words- however they are not picked up by the wider media, and the Party doesn’t view “attacking other parties” as an election year policy. Still, let me link you some of the last two months’ press releases that relate to directly opposing Labour stances and policies, or calling them to task:
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11819.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11814.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11813.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11807.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11800.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11796.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11791.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11782.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11774.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11753.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11729.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11728.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11727.html
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11711.html
Would you like me to go back to the beginning of the year? Do you think Act challenges National this way?
(As for comparing the Greens to NZF- actually, the Maori Party is in a far more analogous position to them, being led by an MP that left the Labour Party.)
In yet another election being portrayed by the media as some time-wasting race to the centre, (the purpose of politics is to represent the people including their differences, not to homogenise views in a cynical attempt to win votes from the uninformed) the Greens have completely avoided having previous years’ votes squeezed out by this sort of electoral misreporting.
Fairfax Media seems to commission very anamalous polls in comparison to the rest of the polling companies. I look forward to Roy Morgan’s next word on the subject before I make any conclusions about trends.
I too would like to see questions on methodology- I have serious questions about whether the sample size is large enough to accurately measure third parties, whether they contact people through diverse media in order to represent demographics of all ages and economic backgrounds, whether they even bother polling “gatekeeper” electorates to determine which parties are likely to evade the threshhold, and exactly how neutral their wording is, and whether they prompt respondants on any questions. (For example, party/candidate support questions need to be asked first, all questions should be open with little prompting, such as “What, in your opinion, is the most important issue in this election?” “What party would be the best coalition partner for your preferred party?”, etc…)
I highly doubt most of the polling companies will have adequate answers for most of those questions.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Hmm, I think my post must have been caught in moderation because of the bazillion links I put in of Greens disagreeing with Labour for dpf. If someone could have a dig for it, I’d appreciate that.
May 17th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
dpf Says:
May 17th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
> In case anyone is interested I have blogged at http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/05/smith_on_labours_environmental_recor d.html on how the Greens can lift their rating - not surprisingly it is that one has to expose Labour’s environmental rhetoric as almost totally hollow.
I think part of the problem is that the Green Party’s criticisms of the government on environmental policy don’t get prominent places in the media. “Greens have concerns about government’s environmental record” is not attention-grabbing, and therefore not seen as newsworthy.
May 17th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
travellerev Says:
May 17th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
> Oops, my bad
> This is the text of the post at the Standard:
> These polls are rigged.
> My younger daughter has been working for Herald Digipoll the last few months, and she was talking with me last night about how they are a total scam:
I’ve also heard it rumoured that people polled by Digipoll have said they intended to vote Green, only to be told it wasn’t on the list.
Herald Digipoll results are so variable and out-of-sync with the other polls tha I’d recommend ignoring them. I tend to consider the 3 News poll to be the most reliable. There used to be an NBR poll that always rated the Greens significantly higher than any other polls did. But at least it was consistent - it just consistently overestimated Green Party support.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Kahikatea
Do you really believe a word that is posted at the Labour party funded, hosted and staffed Standard?
Those fools believe that the media are all out to get Labour, and that the whole thing is a VRWC, their site is nothing but a propaganda machine for the lies of the Labour party and whats worse we (the tax payers) are funding it.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:09 am
“my take is that there is incredible synergy and united purpose between the four policy pillars, and that there is an effective brand in simply being “Green” that other parties cannot take with them to a centrist frame of view.”
…………..
My take is that The Four Pillars of the Green Party provide a useful (though false IMHO) justification for a bundle of highly motivated left -wing factions and the result is good and bad in terms of support.
I think the public see the smaller parties as concodiments however the Green support doesn’t seem to be growing with environmental concern in fact the issue is coming down to how the (more proven?) bigger parties deal with them.
==============
I’d also like to see how you’d justify seperating the principle that the world is finite and we’re living beyond our long-term means and the principle that limited resources need to be shared as equitably as is practical- a principle that aligns environmentalists quite strongly with the Left.
…………………..
to a degree as it rules out continual economic growth and a return to good core human values. It brings into focus state welfarism however. While welfare is necessary in an industrial society where jobs can disappear and some people just have bad luck or poor circumstances we have to be careful that people don’t alter their behaviour and have children on the basis that the state will be the bread winner. In addition people concerned with population have suggested reducing benefits for the third child etc.
It is nice to see state houses being insulated but what about the poor b***ers who have scrimped to get their cross leased uninsulated weather board bungalow.
There’s more than one left just as there is more than one right.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:08 am
The green party’s hatchet job on the greens is pretty disgraceful. Labour needed to shut greens out of coalition to prevent constitutional crisis/rerun election, but ever since then Labour has sacrificed political capital to support green party-pushed initiatives. Now in election year, Labour is engaging in some political hows-your-father because thats what the political agenda is, but the underlying loyalty hasn’t shifted from labour to the greens. The greens, on the other hand, are enjoying getting stuck in and thats exactly what National party activists like David Farrar want: the green blog is almost becoming a mirror of Kiwiblog on these issues. But it will prove cutting off your nose to spite your face because try getting anything done with National and you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Some of the greens press releases don’t get coverage because they are insubstantive and flaky beyond belief. Of course NZ media covers a lot of crap, but just because they will push right wing hackery doesn’t mean they will push left wing hackery.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Ari
You’re going to have to find a way to do it. Else you’ll never get above where you are now, or you’ll drift backwards. New Zealanders are never going to vote for your far left extremism in large numbers.
BTW You’ll have no choice soon. Key wants to hold a two-stage referendum on MMP.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Please release my post.
May 18th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I think the answer is to take a different direction and improve the decision making processes. Letting one faction take control and launch policy rockets is ancient. Policy could start with a debate mapping exercise to eliminate noise and get down to the nitty gritty before policy is launched. This would be a truly progressive approach. We all know parliament and the political system is a bit of a circus.
http://debatemapper.com/
http://opentopersuasion.com/
May 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am
BP et al.,
The Greens are not particularly “left wing”.
If I was a voter who wanted to support a party which:
* represented workers
* believed the current economic system was fundamentally flawed,
* supported individual liberty, and opposed government interference in peoples family and personal lives
who would I vote for? That (by my understanding) would be a left wing party, yet when I look at all the NZ political parties which stand for election, none even come close to this.
May 18th, 2008 at 11:57 am
So the national party interests r going to ditch mmp(saw it coming a mile away) cause it’s been de-legitimized….and the process that Democrats for Social Credit introduced that lead to it will be squandered.
Dnn’t worry, yur CO2 reduction agenda will still end up being pushed through.
And when the finance system engineers more hardship, they will then push through merging our currency with Australias, and things will improve for a while to justify it….
TAke the money supply away from them and give it back to the people who it should be the servant of, not the master.
DSC 08.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
>>I also want to remind those of you sharing your opinions from other parties or political perspectives- you’re not Greens.
If you listen to your base, you’ll only ever appeal to your base.
Frog was concerned about “the 6% zone”. Do you really think a significant proportion of voters are going to swing to your extreme positions, or do you think you need to move closer to them?
BTW: The “calling Labour to task” is mere window dressing. Such empty posturing is insignificant compared to enabling the Labour government, which is what the Greens have chosen to do.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:39 am
Friday’s front page of The Press proves Labour doesn’t have much to fear from the media. On Thursday Cullen announced that the government would give Canterbury $250m over the next ten years if E-Can matches it from a 4c/l regional fuel tax. The Press story made no mention of the hypothecation of the petrol tax included in the Bill that enables regional fuel taxes. That hypothecation will increase Canterbury’s direct contributions to the LTF by $1.25b over the next ten years. Not a gift of $240m but a theft of $1bn. Quite why Cantabrians tolerate paying 18.5 c/l to fix congestion in cities that have less congestion cost per capita than Christchurch and that have never actually been deprived of construction funding to anything like the same extent is a complete mystery. Maybe they’re too wrapped up in football to notice when they’re being shafted.
Incidently maybe that’s why most of the rural North Island haven’t noticed that they’re being ripped off just as much as Canterbury, all to headoffice benefit pen pushers in Wellington and Auckland.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
canterbury has a shite mayor too (chch) - bob parker is lame
May 19th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
move now fwog
NZ GOVT 2008 ..NAT ..be there or die,
http://peterquixote.blogspot.com/
May 20th, 2008 at 1:39 am
JH- yes, the policy pillars engage left-wing voters and activists, too. Again- the pillars are derived from environmental principles, not leftist policies. The fact that they engage the left disproportionately to the right probably reflects the various environmental views of each wing of politics, rather than being some vast conspiracy theory. I think the Greens are doing pretty well given that the media has been systematically ignoring the small parties despite their crucial role in the MMP system, and the Greens are the only small party that doesn’t rely on a charismatic leader to drag them in past the threshhold.
You didn’t even answer me question about seperating equitable resource distribution and a finite environment, Jh. State welfarism is indeed a prominent approach to equitable distribution of resources, and isn’t about being fundamentally lazy like the National Party seem to believe. The amount of people currently bringing up children relying on the state is lower than ever, and the statistics back up pretty soundly that most of them are geuinely in need of assistance. (I’m with you on getting EVERYONE’s house insulated and making it mandatory in the future, btw) That said, none of this explains how you can justify taking the Greens to the centre by seperating equitable distribution of resources from the acknowledgement that they are limited.
BP- You didn’t exactly mention what you’re replying to and I’ve lost track. That said, I would quickly like to point out that the greens aren’t exactly “far left”. They’re not a centrist party with vaguely left leanings like Labour is, for sure, but the Green party doesn’t really follow the stereotypes of radical anti-capitalists that people try to evoke with terms like “far left”. The Greens are, however, definitely the further left on the political spectrum of all the parties currently in Parliament, though.
As for broadening appeal- as I’ve said, the progressive greens never got even a single percentage point. How would it broaden our base to try their approach? The Greens have been pretty open to most policies- it’s only absolutely out if it has consequences that work against the policy pillars. Completely abandoning equitable distribution of resources will probably never fly.
Kevyn- tax isn’t theft, and the fact that Canterbury isn’t getting in what it’s paying to LTF is because Auckland uses up more funds than it needs with unsustainable road development. I agree that more development funds need to go into transport for smaller cities and rural areas so that they’re not paying for more Auckland motorways- but that’s an issue of whether Canterbury is subsidising Auckland, not simply the fact that the money is gone.
I also doubt the Nats have any big plans to change this dynamic, anyway.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:33 am
Ari, An hypothecated tax is a user fee. It is only when the Crown excise duty on petrol is hypothecated that this situation becomes a theft, albeit a legalised one. Currently the Crown excise duty can be used for any purpose the government deems appropriate. That they deem it appropriate to spend the $600m collected from the entire nation almost entirely in the electorates (or former electorates) of the leaders of Labour, United and NZ First pretty much sums up the ethics of MMP government. This probably happened under FPP too but that system had lots of marginal electorates from one end of the country to the other so while vote buying might have affected how fuel taxes were allocated within each region it had no measurable impact on how much was allocated to each region as a whole.
The distortion is even greater for PT funding than for road improvements. Something that Greens should be addressing.
The money isn’t gone yet - I was talking about the next ten years not the last ten years. That means we’ve got a lot to lose if we don’t stand up and demand that our elected representatives behave honourably.
The fact that the Nats haven’t raised any questions in Parliament or the media or used it to divert attention from the hollowmen allegations does suggest they will be just as bad if they get elected. On the other hand it was the Nats who began this dispropportionate capital investment in Auckland motorways back in ‘91
You may have missed the main point I was originally trying to make. That MSM simply reported the government’s words with no attempt to check their honesty. If they had done some basic checking they would have found that the government was planning to take five times more than it was giving. In fact it surprising that the MSM haven’t checked the claim that the government is spending more on transport than any previous government. Although it is only easy to check the portion being spent on highways that definitely reveals that 10 of the 14 highway regions have received more capital investment in highways from at least one previous Labour government, the West Coast did better under every previous Labour govt. Railway capital investment is only readily available until the early 1960s, but that does reveal $300m a year in the decade after WWII falling to $150m by the end of the ’50s. Funding of buses and trams was a local council matter until 1969 which means realisticly capital investment in buses and busways can be excluded to arrive at a meaningful “most ever” figure of $600m p.a. incl Ak, $300m p.a. excl Ak, compared with $450m p.a. in the 1950s. Maybe the reason Cullen smirks when he’s bragging about this “biggest spend up New Zealand has ever seen” is either that he knows he getting away with murder or else he actually thinks “New Zealand” and “Auckland” are the same place and he believes he’s telling the truth.
Glad to see we’re in agreement on funding land transport on an egalitarian basis - from those who can afford it to those who need it. ie from cities with lots of ratepayers and not a lot of roads (or railways) to districts.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Ari Says:
“You didn’t even answer my question about seperating equitable resource distribution and a finite environment, Jh. State welfarism is indeed a prominent approach to equitable distribution of resources, and isn’t about being fundamentally lazy like the National Party seem to believe. The amount of people currently bringing up children relying on the state is lower than ever, and the statistics back up pretty soundly that most of them are genuinely in need of assistance. ”
………………………..
I can see how the statement:
Unlimited material growth is impossible. Therefore the key to social responsibility is the just distribution of social and natural resources, both locally and globally is true as a general observation but I see nothing which gives instruction or method as to when and how social justice is to be achieved. Should we redistribute to groups who have out bread the carrying capacity of their local environments? I think that observation could apply to Pacific Islanders?
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
“Should we redistribute to groups who have out bread the carrying capacity of their local environments? I think that observation could apply to Pacific Islanders?”
the same could be said about “British” New Zealanders”? That was the rationale used to justify the establishment of British colonies in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand during the 19th Century, but its about as bunk as now.
The fact is elites all over the world since the establishment of the U.S. republic have ensured that small landholding agriculture is impossible or uneconomical dating back to Roman times.
The problem is that hundreds of millions of people have been deprived of their economic base and have been forced to rely on the whims of the marketplace or rather the Industrial Economy.
Its a misconception that the common people don’t know how to provide for themselves or manage their own environments.
The phrase, “teach a man to fish… is one of the most patronising that I’ve ever heard and I cringe whenever I hear it.
They don’t need to be taught how to fish. They fuc*en been fishing for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Its when misguided Westerners show up who have little knowledge of local conditions or capablities and imposed their belief or agenda, only then do problems happen.
http://tinyurl.com/4uugy7
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3308231.stm
May 24th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
“In the first major synthesis of Pacific prehistory in 20 years, an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, shows that, before Magellan ever set sail in the Pacific, human settlement and, in some cases, overpopulation on many Pacific islands disrupted the ecological chain, sending some island societies into collapse.
“French philosophers of the Enlightenment saw these islands, especially Tahiti, as the original natural society where people lived in a state of innocence and food fell from the trees. How wrong they were,” said Patrick Kirch, professor of anthropology and director of UC Berkeley’s Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
“Most islands of the Pacific were densely populated by the time of European contact, and the human impact on the natural ecosystem was often disastrous - with wholesale decimation of species and loss of vast tracts of indigenous forest.”
Moreover, he pointed out, Tahitian society was engaged in endemic warfare, with ritual human sacrifice to a blood-thirsty god named Oro, when French explorer Louis de Bougainville came for a two-week trip in 1769 and thought he had arrived in paradise. Bougainville’s description of Tahiti became the basis for Jean Jacques Rousseau’s concept of l’homme naturel, the nobel savage. ”
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2000/05/08_pacific.html
which suggests over population is a possibility (in theory anyway) and I was trying to make the point that social justice doesn’t necessarily mean we over extend ourselves to those who don’t practice ecological wisdom. As I have said before you can drive a hummer* through the Four Pillars (impressive though they are).
http://www.hummer.com
