Is the 2020 election result really the foregone conclusion that the polls and commentators are suggesting? Josh Van Veen suggests otherwise, pointing to some of the shortcomings of opinion polling, which could have some politicians saying “bugger the pollsters” on election night. In November 1993, opinion polls foretold a comfortable victory for the incumbent …
Will the rich get richer under Labour’s latest tax policy? Based on the analysis in reaction to yesterday’s announcement, the answer would seem to be yes. The consensus from commentators is that inequality and severe economic problems will remain unchanged or even be made worse by Labour’s new policy. Although the policy incorporates a small …
How badly will James Shaw’s private school debacle affect the Greens? Will it push them out of Parliament? This is increasingly the question being asked as the scandal rolls on and on this week. After all, the two main polling companies have had the party very close to the 5% MMP threshold in their surveys …
Inequality and poverty look to be the forgotten issues of the election campaign, with not much more than lip-service being paid to them on the campaign trail. Yet decisions are currently being made that appear to be fuelling a greater gap between rich and poor. Newsroom’s Bernard Hickey has tweeted this week to sum up …
National and its leader Judith Collins don’t fit very well with the times. Josiah Banbury takes a look at the wider context of this year’s general election – especially the way the ideological winds are blowing – and explains why politicians of the right don’t have much of chance of electoral success. It seems like …
Has the election been saved from becoming another victim of Covid-19? Quite possibly. The issue of when to hold the election had come under serious scrutiny due to the increased restrictions and changed focus necessitated by the outbreak of community transmission of Covid-19. There were major problems with how democratic and adequate the electoral process …
Can we postpone this year’s election? Quite frankly, the political parties don’t seem ready for it, and aren’t about to offer voters the necessary policy choices for the unprecedented times we’re in. We’ve ended up with a campaign focused on scandal, personality and leadership, with a policy void that’s worse than usual. Most of the …
If you want to understand what is happening in this year’s election campaign, it’s worth looking to the past for guidance. Colin James delves into recent contests and finds some interesting parallels. July 28 is 53 days before the 2020 election. Just 53 days before the 2017 election Jacinda Ardern walked into a press …
If New Zealand First can position itself as the only party to offer voters a “Road to Somewhere”, then we may be in for a shock on election night. Josh Van Veen, who was once a party member and researcher for Winston Peters, applies some of the lesson of a recent, landmark book about British …
When Parliament sits next Tuesday, the Prime Minister will finally meet her match. Judith Collins and Jacinda Ardern are opposites in just about every respect. Yet they have the same basic appeal. Ardern and Collins are as much cultural icons as they are political leaders. Each represents a different side of the New Zealand character, …
The Green Party of Aotearoa-New Zealand could go from helping Jacinda Ardern run the country, to being turfed out of Parliament altogether in ten weeks. And that could see the end of Labour in government. Without them, Labour would likely have to do what no party has done since the introduction of the current MMP …
The Greens have shaken up the election campaign with the announcement of their radical poverty and action plan to reform welfare provision and introduce a new wealth tax for millionaires. It’s a big-thinking, controversial policy and has generated a lot of disagreement over how radical it is, whether it could work, and what it might …
No one could have predicted when David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill was passed by Parliament last November that the referendum required to bring the legislation into force would be held against the backdrop of a deadly global pandemic. Since then, the mounting tally of casualties around the world has thrust death and dying …
The latest opinion poll forecasts a landslide win by Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party, but when taken alongside other polling, it illustrates New Zealand politics remains volatile and the contest is still very open. According to the Colmar Brunton poll published by TVNZ last night, Labour would easily romp back into power at the upcoming …
Could the quarantine and testing botch-ups have an impact on the election? The Government might have been hoping that the scandal was a one-week wonder, but the stories of quarantine and testing fiascos keep coming and will be felt strongly by the public. Many voters will now have much less confidence in the Government’s handling …
Does National have any chance of winning the election in September? It’s looking very unlikely, especially after National’s change of leadership hasn’t exactly produced Mullermania in the first two weeks. Quite the opposite, in fact, as I summarised in Tuesday’s Political Roundup column: Todd Muller’s torrid start as National leader. Even the National Party’s pollster, …
In ancient Rome, a victorious general would parade through the city to the temple of Jupiter in a gilded chariot amidst a frenzy of adoration. But to keep the triumphant commander tethered to reality, the trusted slave holding a laurel wreath above his head would whisper repeatedly in his ear: “Memento mori” — “Remember you are …
When New Zealand holds its post-virus general election later this year, the country will go through a fiercely ideological debate about economics and resources. On 19 September, New Zealanders are scheduled to go to the polls. By then, the country is likely to have eliminated Covid-19, providing an enormous boost for Jacinda Ardern’s government, which is blitzing the …
Winston Peters is a colossus of New Zealand politics, and his New Zealand First party is, once again, poised to be the lynchpin in this year’s election campaign. But so much hinges on whether his party makes it over the electoral system’s all-important 5% threshold. Being the only centre party in parliament has made NZ First …
New Zealanders will take part in a world-leading double referendum next year when they vote in the country’s general election. In addition to electing a new government, one referendum question will ask about the legalisation of cannabis for recreational use, and the other will ask whether euthanasia should be legalised in certain circumstances. It’s going to …
New Zealand takes great pride in having been the first country in the world to give women the vote. But not all New Zealand women can vote, as most prisoners are still denied that right. In 2010, the National party passed a blanket ban on prisoner voting. Until then, prisoners serving sentences of less than three years …