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Labour Green Maori NZ First Mana WTF?

I’ve followed New Zealand electoral politics for many years, rather rabidly since the Fifth Labour Government was elected in 1999, and have read the New Zealand Herald online pretty much daily since then.

Based in Auckland, the Herald has NZ’s largest newspaper circulation and a slew of political commentators ranging from former Alliance president Matt McCarten on the left to, say, former Act MP Deborah Coddington on the right.

I appreciate the content, still, reading the Herald is akin to reading the Times for Irish politics – not exactly a progressive editorial voice, but a professional media outlet with a well-organized website and lots of grist for the proverbial mill.

To some extent, the Herald’s political coverage reflects trends in NZ politics over the years – they sway in the breeze a bit, in other words. Certainly the Herald was friendliest to Labour when Helen Clark was PM and the National Party was hapless, while it’s currently, shall we say, well disposed toward the Nats who have governed since 2008 under PM John Key.

I think it’s fair to say that the Herald favours centre-right politics overall, and sometimes the appearance of bias is painfully obvious.

Having led the polls with majority support consistently for months, years even, the National Party dropped to 49.5% in the latest Herald Digipoll. “Poll shock,” the Herald breathlessly reported. Oh my good lord, the Nats have lost support and are now, what, still more popular than any other government in a Westminster democracy? Give me a break.

Suddenly the Herald was chock full of stern articles talking about the “surge” of New Zealand First (wow, what a surge – up to 3.7%!) and the scandalous possibility that the Nats wouldn’t win a majority on their own or with their preferred coalition partners.

The worst of the scaremongering came via David Farrar, who runs NZ’s most popular blog, Kiwiblog, and is described by the Herald as a “centre-right blogger” (translation: has worked for four National Party leaders). No surprise, that, though one wishes Farrar would admit to having an agenda. It’s okay. Most of us do, though few of us write for the country’s leading newspaper.

Farrar’s recent column, “What a Labour-led coalition might look like,” is laughable. Farrar supposes that there is a “small swing” to Labour (which, please note, lost support in that same poll) and makes assumptions that are by no means certain or even plausible: that NZ First reaches the 5% hurdle, that the Green, Maori & Mana parties would back a Labour government, that Peter Dunne loses and John Banks doesn’t take Epsom.

Oh come on.

Granted I’m not a big Winston Peters fan – to my mind New Zealand First represents the worst sort of populism, serving Peters’ egotistical need for attention every three years – but objectively, 3.7% being less than NZ First won in 2008, it will be tough for them to reach the hurdle. Even if they do poll over 5%, Labour didn’t exactly have a fun time when it last let Peters into cabinet and Peters has ruled out working with Labour.

The Greens are always considered to be a natural coalition partner for Labour, especially by the Herald, despite evidence to the contrary: that when Labour won its substantial minorities under Helen Clark, the Greens did not go into coalition with Labour. And it’s silly to suppose that the Maori Party, which currently supports the National government, would suddenly, capriciously, without logic or reason switch to supporting Labour, its major competitor for the Maori electorate seats.

As for the Mana Party, the idea that Hone Harawira can work with his erstwhile Maori Party colleagues – or anyone – is laughable. (Am I the only one out there who thinks Hone is the new Winston Peters of the left?)

Farrar’s highly questionable poll and seat distribution analysis aside, his suppositions about the composition of a Labour-Green-Maori-Mana-NZ First cabinet reaches heights of laughable hysteria. My hands-down favourite paragraph:

Gareth Hughes could become the Climate Change Minister entrusted with making sure New Zealand is the world leader on reducing climate emissions. Greenpeace’s target of a 40% reduction by 2020 would need around one third of the dairy herd to be euthanized over the next nine years.

Oh. My. God. If you vote anything but National (or United Future or Act), the Greens are gonna KILL ALL THE COWS!

I suspect Farrar of having another purpose in envisioning this nightmare coalition scenario, snuck into in the column’s last paragraph:

So as we head into the final fortnight before the election, a Labour-Green-NZ First-Maori-Mana Government may become a viable alternative to National winning the election. It will be MMP politics at its best. The more parties you need to agree to govern, the more consensus you get – right?

This election, Kiwis are also voting in a referendum to keep or ditch their country’s Mixed Member Proportional electoral system that has been in place since 1996, and despite polls showing majority support for retaining MMP, Farrar is, in a roundabout way, bricking us over the head with the notion that first-past-the-post would prevent all those pesky five-party leftist coalition governments (that exist only in Farrar’s imagination).

How wonderful it would be for Farrar and his ilk to have first-past-the-post back with a twenty-point spread between National and Labour. Canadians may recall the result of the 1984 federal election when the Tories won 50% of the vote and 75% of the seats, and because of its smaller size, NZ’s first-past-the-post results were once even more lopsided – that’s why voters opted for MMP in the first place.

I’m in favour of keeping MMP in New Zealand, though I prefer a ranked ballot – less kind to smaller parties, but helps to prevent wasted votes and avoids splitting MPs into two groups, electorate and list, along with it the perception that list MPs are beholden to their parties, not the voters.

I really don’t like the MMP exception that allows a party to gain list seats without reaching the 5% hurdle if it elects a single MP in an electorate. Why? It makes no sense to me. A party that fails to reach the hurdle yet elects a single MP should have, well, one MP. In 2008, Act won list seats with fewer votes that New Zealand First because of Rodney Hide’s win in Epsom – not that I was upset to see NZ First out of parliament. Still, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and all that.

Farrar’s scaremongering seems even more inappropriate when one considers that John Key and the National Party aren’t indulging in the same rhetoric. Key is a reasonable man, for a Nat, and has done the expected in having a cuppa with John Banks to indicate his tacit support for Banks to win Epsom, thereby bringing Act (and former National) leader Don Brash into the legislature as well – working the system to produce the most stable result for a continuing National-led administration.

It’s not the result I’d prefer but I respect Key for being calm, cool, and collected, and for not insulting our intelligence like certain centre-right bloggers out there.

I can’t be dead certain, but I’m pretty sure John Key has avoided, at least, spurious claims that the Greens take their marching orders from Greenpeace HQ or that the Greens are gonna KILL ALL THE COWS.

Whatever. I’m not that fond of cattle anyway.

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Fianna Fáil in an independent’s clothing

UPDATE (28 October): According to all the usual sources (RTE, Irish Times, Journal), there is every indication that Michael D. Higgins will be elected to the presidency. Huge swing away from Gallagher because of, well, what I wrote below. As my friend @Chasaveen rightly points out, whereas the words “Fianna Fáil” did NOT scare voters, the word “bagman” caused the electorate to collectively recoil.

An RTE telephone poll found that 17% of all voters switched their preference in the last week of the campaign – since the Frontline debate widely seen as won by Higgins and McGuinness and lost by Gallagher – away from Gallagher. Of those, two-thirds went to Higgins. If the poll is correct, a whopping 12% of the entire electorate swung from one candidate to another in a few days. Wow.

 

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You are – I’m sure – as entertained about the October 27 Irish presidential election as I am. Er… Well, anyway…

There are a record seven candidates this time around, and the majority are nominal independents: Mary Davis (Ind), Seán Gallagher (Ind), Michael Higgins (Labour), Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin), Gay Mitchell (Fine Gael), David Norris (Ind), and Dana Rosemary Scallon (Ind).

Of the independents, Davis is a centrist former organizer of the Special Olympics, Gallagher is best known as a Dragons’ Den panellist, Norris is a left-leaning openly gay Senator, and Dana is, well, Dana – former Eurovision winner, MEP, and social conservative who usually provides the lion’s share of giggles when she runs for office.

What’s notable about the contest, candidate-wise, is how it does and doesn’t mirror the recent general election results.

Back in February, the Irish unceremoniously turfed the governing Fianna Fáil-Green coalition, eliminating the Greens from the Dáil entirely and giving FF its worst result ever. A large number of independents were elected, and the current Fine Gael-Labour coalition government has a massive majority in the Dáil. I approved of the result because, you might say, my instinctive bias is anti-Fianna Fáil.

Appropriate, then, to see a large number of independents in the race and – after ringing its hands for several weeks – FF failed to even nominate a candidate.

Well, sort of.

Lo and behold, it turns out that Gallagher has been involved with FF forever and is a former member of the party’s national executive, so in fact if not in name there is a Fianna Fáil candidate as far as I’m concerned.

This didn’t bother me when a) I wasn’t aware and b) the early polls hinted at a very different result. Initially it was Norris, the civil rights campaigner, who led, and those of us who like left-leaning gay Irish senators could easily envision a scenario in which Norris could win on Labour, Fine Gael, and indie transfers.

To the disappointment of his early supporters, Norris’ campaign has proven to be a bit of a train wreck. Is he in? Is he out? Does he lack sound judgement, or is he just a very poor campaigner? After seeming likely to win the Oireachtas support (20 TDs or senators) needed for nomination, Norris withdrew after a scandal surrounding his writing a letter asking for clemency for a former partner who had been convicted of the statutory rape of a fifteen-year-old Palestinian boy.

But then, with multiple polls showing Norris in the lead, he re-entered the race and managed to get enough support from local councils to be nominated. However, Norris’ questionable decisions and the uncertainty of his campaign caused his poll results to plummet by something like 20 points.

Which takes us to two recent polls, published October 16 by RED C and Quantum Research.

RED C: Gallagher 39%, Higgins 27%, McGuinness 13%, Mitchell 8%, Norris 7%, Davis 4%, Scallon 2%
Quantum: Higgins 36%, Gallagher 29%, McGuinness 13%, Norris 10%, Mitchell 6%, Davis 4%, Scallon 2%

It does strike me as stunning that Gay Mitchell, despite being the lead governing party’s nominee, and FG doing well in opinion polls, can only muster single-digit support. Norris is clearly down, but then so is McGuinness, it would seem, and that’s good news. The Quantum poll doesn’t bother me; Higgins would be my second pick after Norris, for whom I have a soft spot, and it’s easy to see how Labour’s guy could get elected on second preference votes from Norris, Mitchell, and Davis.

But WTF is up with the surge for Gallagher?

My initial reaction was that Gallagher – who, after all, is known as an entrepreneur – had bought his way into popularity. Fianna Fáil’s nominal reason (besides the embarrassment of another big loss) for not nominating its own candidate was that the party lacked funds, and hearing about Gallagher’s FF links, I assumed blithely that FF had encouraged him to run as a independent and spend his own money.

However, several blogs have pointed out that Gallagher filed tax returns indicating an income of a mere 12,000 euros (about $18,000), so first, how is Gallagher a successful entrepreneur, and second, who’s funding his campaign? [Note more recent news items about fundraisers for Gallagher featuring none other than former FF Taoiseach Brian Cowen.]

But even more so, I have to ask, Ireland, what the hell are you thinking? You finally turfed the dreaded Fianna Fáil from government, so why would you consider electing a FF insider? Are you daft? Are you blinded by the shine off Gallagher’s pate? Are you that impressed by Gallagher’s being on the telly?

Norris, as Norris himself would have it, is indeed the true independent in the race. Davis is tarnished by a long career of making a living off quangos to which she was named by FF, and for heaven’s sake, Gallagher essentially quit FF in order to run as an independent.

Only 17% cast their first preference votes for FF in the February election. Even if the Quantum poll is the best barometer, that means another 10% of the populace is that impressed by Seán Gallagher, failed businessman, tacky TV panellist, and (I repeat) Fianna Fáil insider.

What a dream come true for FF. They spend no money, they don’t campaign, and in the end they get to keep the presidency. So the outgoing president, Mary McAleese, is Fianna Fáil, but by all accounts McAleese has been an apolitical president, comparable to her Labour-nominated predecessor Mary Robinson, considered by many to be the finest Irish president in history. But I don’t think Seán Gallagher is a Mary McAleese or a Mary Robinson by any stretch of the imagination.

Ireland’s financial collapse has led inexorably to a shake-up of its political scene, and I suppose the poll volatility is a reflection of the country’s fluid partisan identification – whereas in the past, the largest single bloc of voters would vote in a donkey (or even Charles Haughey) if he or she were Fianna Fáil, that’s not the case now.

So why, in less than a year, would Ireland fall back into its old, stagnant, stale, corrupt habit of choosing one of the Soldiers of Destiny as its president? The mind boggles.

For what it’s worth, I’d vote Norris, Higgins, Davis, Mitchell in that order and would rather gouge my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon or attend a Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis than preference Gallagher, McGuinness, or Scallon. Well, maybe I’d rank Dana for a larf.

I figure that would get Ireland a Labour president, and that’s not so bad a result, even if Higgins does look like a hobbit.

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