First, an apology to Dieuwe de Boer who is standing in the Botany electorate for New Conservatives, a contributor to The BFD and a straight up guy with admirable values and intentions who would undoubtedly get my vote if I lived in Botany.
My preference is to give New Cons my party vote this year because their policies dovetail with my personal values, they are most worthy with National coming in second.
Unfortunately, we get just one party vote. There is no drop-down option to accommodate a second choice. If I vote New Cons and they don’t pass the threshold my vote is wasted and the party who will benefit is Labour because they are likely to return to government based on current polling.
Do I vote for a minor party with excellent ideals but no experience (and a slim chance of success) or do I vote for an experienced party with no guarantee of despatching Labour but a much better shot than a minor party that probably won’t make the cut? This is my dilemma.
Labour got us into huge debt and unemployment and has no workable plan to get us out. Their five-point recovery plan promises:
- Investing in our people (why not farmers or small business owners?)
- Jobs jobs jobs (31,000 new jobs for a bigger government not a smaller one)
- Preparing for our future (includes hospitals & health they’ve ignored so far)
- Supporting small business (why haven’t they done this already?)
- Position us globally (including Tedros at the UN who initially downplayed COVID)
The idealism of Labour and the Greens resulted in three years of unfulfilled promises and an election campaign promising more of the same. Why would anyone believe them? Spare us another term of the flippant leadership, financially crippling policies and grandiose ideas that don’t work.
Following her recent visit to Christchurch Ardern is pacifying Christchurch Muslims with her promise to resurrect a law change targeting “hate speech”. Undoubtedly hate speech law will be impossible to implement without denying someone their free speech.
“We do have within our legislation in New Zealand provision that deal with hate speech, discrimination around people’s identities, but religion hasn’t been included in that. My view is that does need to change,” she said.
“I just think in a modern New Zealand everyone would agree that no one should be discriminated against for their religion and so it makes sense that we add this to the other suite of things we say is just not OK to discriminate people over.”
David Farrar writing for the Taxpayers’ Union predicts another blow to financial stability if the Greens squeak in for a second term. Hopefully they won’t, after Julie-Anne Genter foolishly resurrected the spectre of a capital gains tax.
“Green Party Minister Julie-Anne Genter let slip the Greens’ position for coalition negotiations after the election: a wealth tax on homes and retirement savings is the Greens’ “bottom line”.
That’s right – the Greens’ asset tax on homes, kiwisaver, and family nest eggs has gone from the Party’s wish list to a non-negotiable demand if Labour need their support to form a Government.”
Genter pushed the Greens’ self destruct button hard on the heels of James Shaw’s wayward $11.7M funding for the non-registered privately owned Green school after this government closed successful charter schools.
Whatever promises Labour makes about “no capital gains tax in any form” are meaningless in post-election coalition negotiations. Remember 2017 when coalition negotiations were not made public? Everything is up for grabs when the country’s leadership is at stake.
The PM saying “no capital gains tax while she is PM” won’t matter a whit if she disappears overseas and Labour appoints a new leader. A vote for Ardern could be a vote for Robertson if Ardern succumbs to the pressure. She’s not looking in great shape for round two.
Traditional red and blue voters will probably vote as they always have done, leaving the outcome of the election in the hands of swing voters and votes for parties who failed to make the 5% cut.
Swing voters who haven’t decided yet were 10% in the latest Colmar Brunton poll which is in line with MYOB polling last month where 11% of SMEs polled were undecided.
People who refused to disclose who they will vote for constituted 4%.
14% of the vote is an unknown quantity.
Votes for parties who aren’t expected to make the 5% threshold polled at 6.8%, rounding up to 7%.
NZ First 2.4%
New Conservatives 1.6%
Maori 0.9%
Opportunities 1.1%
Advance 0.8%
This is not far away from the almost 5% of votes in 2017 for parties that never made it into parliament.
Our percentage of indeterminate voters is now 10%+4%+7% totalling 21% which is substantial.
And then there’s the Greens polling at 6%. On a knife edge, will they or won’t they make it back in? Traditionally they perform worse on election day than polling indicated.
Chloe Swarbrick is not looking strong enough to drag the Greens back into government, currently polling third in Auckland Central.
“Labour’s Helen White has a strong lead in the Reid Research poll for Newshub Nation, with 42.3 percent support. National’s candidate, Emma Mellow, has 26.6 percent support, while Chloe Swarbrick has 24.2. In terms of party support, Labour is at 56 percent, National 23, and the Greens attract 12 percent.
If Swarbrick doesn’t win and the Greens don’t make the cut, let’s assume they just miss out and achieve 4%, the current estimated tally of votes to be reallocated rises to a whopping 25% representing 30 seats.
Based on the latest Colmar Brunton poll released 22 September the parties who will return to government are Labour, National and Act.
Party support (after pro-rata reallocation of the 14% who don’t know/won’t say):
Labour Party – 48%
National Party – 31%
ACT – 7%
Green Party – 6%
New Zealand First – 2.4%
New Conservative – 1.6%
The Opportunities Party – 1.1%
Maori Party – 0.9%
Advance New Zealand – 0.8%
Aotearoa Legalize Cannabis – 0.2%
NZ Outdoors Party – 0.2%
Sustainable NZ – 0.1%
Parliamentary seat entitlement (after pro-rata allocation of 14%)
Labour Party 62
National Party 41
ACT Party 9
Green Party 8
The pro-rata allocation of wasted votes benefits the party who achieves the most votes, currently that’s Labour who are polling highest.
With five weeks to go it is still too early to call, but swing voters make a difference and votes for discarded parties will benefit the party receiving the most votes. And that is why I will probably give my vote to the party with the best chance of dispatching Labour, even though that party is not my first choice. Sad but true.
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