• Wellington Central – 6,657 votes, 20.08%
• Rongotai – 5,407 votes, 16.42%
• Dunedin North – 4,448 votes, 15.38%
• Port Hills – 4,406 votes, 13.53%
• Auckland Central – 4,341 votes, 15.41%
• West Coast-Tasman – 3,279 votes, 10.23%
• Christchurch Central – 3,080 votes, 10.79%
• Mt Albert – 3,065 votes, 10.37%
• Ohariu-Belmont – 3,007 votes, 8.87%
• Nelson – 2,949 votes, 8.88%

That’s an amazing result for Sue Kedgley and her team to break 20 percent in Central Wellington.  As with previous elections most of the strong performances come from the urban electorates, although it’s good to see Kevin’s West Coast Tasman team and Diane Mellor’s team in Nelson performing well too.

And our biggest improvers, by vote:

• Dunedin North – 912
• Ohariu-Belmont – 833
• Rongotai – 777
• Clutha-Southland – 758
• Dunedin South – 687
• Ilam – 617
• Mana – 531
• Tukituki – 511
• Rangitikei – 506
• Hutt South – 502

While the big city electorates still figure on that list there are also some interestingly big gains in areas that aren’t traditionally seen as Green, such as Clutha-Southland, Tukituki and Rangatikei and the Hutt.

Russel was also in Nelson this morning. Is that him under all that fur, taking a break from being the face of the campaign?  It looks like his satchel to the left of the photo, but I suspect he’s more likely in the caravan having a cuppa tea.

Meanwhile the Greens are polling over 10 percent in Nelson according to the Nelson Mail, much to Labour Party candidate Maryan Street’s chagrin:

She expressed concern that the Green Party was “cannibalising” some of Labour’s party support, saying that while she wanted to see the Greens get over the 5 percent threshold, too much support for them risked Labour not getting enough votes to form a government.

That’s a false explanation of MMP from Street.  Voters know the only way to get a strong Green voice in government (or more Green MPs into Parliament) is to party vote Green. If Labour are prepared to take on enough of Green policies then we will consider helping them form a government. We won’t form a government with National. 

On current polling Labour won’t be able to govern without us.  That means voters have the choice of Labour-NZ First or Labour-Greens.  Given Labour’s current relationship with NZ First a party vote for Labour is more likely to lead to the first option and party vote for the Greens is the best way to get the second option. No wonder then the Green vote is growing. 

Green candidate Diana Mellor was “absolutely delighted” with her party’s showing and was optimistic of it finishing well above the 7.7 percent it won in Nelson in 2005. She said that at over 10 percent, it would return some excellent candidates, including West Coast-Tasman’s Kevin Hague and possibly former Nelson-based MP Mike Ward, number 14 on the party list.

She made “no apologies” for trying to boost party votes, even at the expense of Labour, saying it would be “even more crucial to get Green people into Parliament if National becomes the government”, to keep the environmental flag flying.

Case in point – a story that No Right Turn highlighted earlier yesterday about the campaign in Nelson. The first half of the story is about Labour and National MPs abusing each other. (Mostly, in this case, National’s Nick Smith lowering the tone by talking bout Michael Cullen’s sexuality, but it’s unsurprising given the example the Prime Minister is setting on the campaign trail so far.)

Then, at the very end of the story a brief mention of Nelson Greens candidate Diane Mellor, who tries to talk about important issues for the Nelson region such as water quality and pollution. From what I know of Diane I doubt she’s the type of person to move herself to the front of that story by accusing Nick Smith of being straight and possibly even in a heterosexual relationship. But that could well be the lesson she took away from that story.

And of course opinion polls are the biggest game story of all. Who is winning? Who is losing? How is the head to head battle shaping up?

There has been some good discussion among blogs recently about opinion polls and their value or not following the Prime Minister’s ‘fairies in the garden’ comment. There is a legitimate question about the accuracy and efficacy of opinion polls and especially the way that their mathematical meaning is distorted through media coverage that tries to shorten and simplify the message.

But in the end it’s very rarely that media coverage of polls is not in or about the right range for the election result come polling day. Until that changes we are probably stuck with them.

More interesting I think is this post at World Changing that looks at media more generally and suggest that traditional media is not working as it used to:

It’s not so much the journalism that’s broken, but a scarcity-based, ad-supported model that’s broken. Publishers wake up in the middle of the night asking, “How do I not end up like the record companies?”

And that bloggers are not the answer (thankfully!)

Participatory media are louder, faster, funnier, but not necessarily likely to fix the problems with professional media. As professional media does less and less “difficult” journalism – international and deep investigative work, in-depth reporting in certain areas – blogs aren’t necessarily picking up the slack.

As the story suggests I think part of the answer lies in investing in public service journalism so that it can provide the in depth investigative issues based journalism that other media outlets and new media can then feed off.  Otherwise we can probably continue to expect more and more ‘game’ coverage.