New Zealand Election: Day – 28

[For those who don’t follow the news from the bottom of the world: New Zealand’s general election will be held on September 17th. New Zealand uses a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system similar to that used in Germany, which virtualy guarantees minority government. The two major parties contesting to be the core of such a government are the incumbent center-left Labour party and the right-wing National party]

28 days out and the campaign is officially getting under way.  The major parties’ opening statements aired on TV tonight, with those of smaller parties following over the next few nights.  Both major parties have their campaign launches this weekend.

Major news:

Polling data

Stolen from Frogblog‘s rolling poll of polls:

(If you’re wondering why ACT doesn’t get any seats but smaller parties do, its because of the threshold.  A party must win 5% of the party vote or an electorate seat in order to gain seats in the House.  Currently, the Maori Party are expected to win four electorate seats, and the Progressives, NZ First and United Future one each.  ACT and the Greens are not expected to win any, so if they have less than five percent, they get no MPs).

Currently there will be an overhang, and 62 seats of 122 will be required to form a government. Currently no bloc has a clear lead, but given its proven ability to work with othr parties, Labour probably has the advantage, having many more options available to it (either Labour/Progressive + NZFirst + United, for a centrist government, or Labour/Progressive + Green + United Future or Maori for a lefter one). Given that any government would require a broad coalition to form, this points more towards minority government with the backing of other parties on confidence and supply only, rather than a formal coalition.

Labour gazumps National on tax

National’s big campaign hook is their promise of tax cuts, to be announced on Monday 22nd August.  But Labour has pre-empted them, announcing a $400 million extension of its Working For Families package (which provides targetted assistance to families with young children). This would see households well into the middle class receiving targetted assistance of over $100 per week. In order to provide comparable benefits via tax cuts, National would have to eliminate income tax up to $38000 or so, which is simply not economically feasible.  The common assessment is that National have been gazumped, just as it was on student loans two weeks ago.

Leader’s debate and court case

The first leader’s debate was last week, including the leaders of all eight parties. It was originally going to be six, but the leaders of United Future and the Progressives took TV 3 to court, arguing that the decision to exclude them was arbitrary and should be reversed. Despite TV 3 being a private broadcaster, the court found (on good precedent) that they were performing a public function amenable to judicial review, and reluctantly ordered the two leaders included. This has naturally caused some comment.

As for the debate itself, I didn’t actually watch it (due to a clash with Dr Who) – but according to other commentators, National leader Don Brash shot himself in the foot on state asset sales (an anathema in New Zealand since the mass selloffs of the 90’s), Prime Minister Helen Clark came across well, but the winners were the Greens Jeanette Fitzsimons, who managed to effectively communicate on the wonkish topic of energy policy despite the limited speaking time.

Everyone promises more police

In New Zealand, we have a perception of rising crime.  It’s not the reality, but enough people think it is that they demand ever more draconian measures to stem the supposed tidal wave.  So, we have Labour promising an extra 250 police a year, National promising “more” (but refusing to state how many), and New Zealand First promising a thousand.  We have around 10,000 police in the whole country, so the latter is a truly massive increase.  The only problem is, we have neither the recruits, nor the facilities to train them…

Iraq and the US are election issues

Since the beginning of the campaign, Iraq and the relationship with the US have been a serious point of difference between the two main parties.  This has mostly been driven by National’s repeated evasions on the subject of New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy and whether it would commit troops to Iraq.  National is its own worst enemy here, clearly believing that scrapping the policy and allowing visits by nuclear-powered ships would improve relations with the US, but being too afraid of the public backlash to dare to say so.  As a reuslt, Labour has been able to paint them as untrustworthy.  It’s the same story on Iraq; in 2003, National supported sending combat troops in the hope of getting a free trade agreement, and again, Labour has been able to paint their sudden assurances that they wouldn’t throw kiwi troops into the quagmire as lacking credibility.  Tonight’s opening night broadcasts upped the ante, with Labour promising that they would not contribute troops to “unjust wars”, while National tried to rely on its leader’s peace-campaigner background while at the same time refusing to rule it out (because if they did, the business community would be very unhapy with them).

RIP David Lange

The nuclear-free policy is a hot topic at the moment because its architect, former Prime Minister David lange, died this week after a long illness.  Despite leading the Fourth Labour Government which devastated the country with a hugely unpopular neo-liberal reform package in the late 80’s, he had publicly recanted and was fondly remembered by most New Zealanders. His life will be publicly comemorated at a ceremony in Auckland tomorrow – which will be followed by a BBQ, because that’s just the sort of people we are.

Lange’s finest moment was the 1985 Oxford Union debate, where he argued that nuclear weaposn were morally indefensible, and accused some ernest young American exchange student of having “Uranium on his breath”. It’s worth reading, as a classic statement of what New Zealand stood for and continues to stand for on the world stage.

Idiot/Savant
No Right Turn – New Zealand’s liberal blog