If National wins ...

[BlackPeter]

and the winner is .... Winston Peters ;

He will be in for the biggest and most beautiful baubles of power NZ has ever seen ...

Apparently the most likely outcome of this election (the pollsters have know it all the time) - i.e. we may start to believe in polls again.

But if there are winners, than under a populist government there must be as well losers - right? No win-win for populists.

If history is a guide - whatever party Winston is going with will lose the next election. And I think New Zealand overall lost. It is a said state of affairs that one populist party determine the government and not the voters of NZ.

But then - Winston is the only small party leader who understands how MMP works. We can't blame him for the dumbness of the rest, can we? If all party's would be ready to negotiate with everybody else, than we could get the best possible government, not the biggest baubles for Winston.

National / Green anybody? I know, it is just a dream .... we have no green party in NZ, only a bunch of left-whingers calling themselves green.

Labour / Green / NZF: Some people call that the monster coalition - and I am sure they are right. Might be funny, though to watch. Probably the most entertainment value we could get out of this election though (sort of like Trump in the US) ... just concerned that it will need generations of New Zealanders to pay the bills and recover from their spending spree. BIG SPENDER ....

National / NZF: Depends obviously on the size of the baubles ... but so far I see it as difficult to align Winston's big spending policies with any responsible government. Might be the smallest evil, though.

Pity - looks like a lost opportunity, but then ... hey Winston, it is up to you: Surprise us!

[craic]

Winston lost his seat in Northland. Does that mean he is better on a megaphone than he is on the ground? Last time he won and lost Tauranga, from memory. sometimes winning and losing can be confused. I put a $2 win bet on several horses yesterday before I left the club. When I checked the tickets I found that one bet was on a wrong horse, the biggest dog at the meeting. It won and paid about $68 for a win so I got double that and I still find it hard to believe that this was nothing but chance. As to this new, probable, government, I don't think it will go the full term. I expect someone to pull the plug later next year.
The horse was Adonis in the sixth race in Hastings.

[Hectorplains]

Pity - looks like a lost opportunity, but then ... hey Winston, it is up to you: Surprise us!

Morgan thought so, his was definitely the best concession speech. Top effort that - blame the voters and state your contempt for their moral compasses. $3m to discover that people vote based on self interest...

[Sgt Pepper]

and the winner is .... Winston Peters ;

He will be in for the biggest and most beautiful baubles of power NZ has ever seen ...

Apparently the most likely outcome of this election (the pollsters have know it all the time) - i.e. we may start to believe in polls again.

But if there are winners, than under a populist government there must be as well losers - right? No win-win for populists.

If history is a guide - whatever party Winston is going with will lose the next election. And I think New Zealand overall lost. It is a said state of affairs that one populist party determine the government and not the voters of NZ.

But then - Winston is the only small party leader who understands how MMP works. We can't blame him for the dumbness of the rest, can we? If all party's would be ready to negotiate with everybody else, than we could get the best possible government, not the biggest baubles for Winston.

National / Green anybody? I know, it is just a dream .... we have no green party in NZ, only a bunch of left-whingers calling themselves green.

Labour / Green / NZF: Some people call that the monster coalition - and I am sure they are right. Might be funny, though to watch. Probably the most entertainment value we could get out of this election though (sort of like Trump in the US) ... just concerned that it will need generations of New Zealanders to pay the bills and recover from their spending spree. BIG SPENDER ....

National / NZF: Depends obviously on the size of the baubles ... but so far I see it as difficult to align Winston's big spending policies with any responsible government. Might be the smallest evil, though.

Pity - looks like a lost opportunity, but then ...hey Winston, it is up to you: Surprise us!

Bill English, in, what he thought was a private conversation prior to the 2008 election infamously observed that to attain power you have to swallow "dead rats". We are about to discover whether his appetite for dead rats will be satiated in coalition talks with Winston, and if so what are they.
So what will he demand and what will he eventually agree to?
1) Immigration reduction: will be pushback from employers addicted to the sugar high of cheap labour, so some face-saving compromise will be arrived at.

2) Amend Reserve Bank Act: tinkering around the periphery, face-saving, no problems

3) rail link to Northport: will be quietly abandoned

Potential problems for incoming National -NZF Coalition

1. Internal conflict around Cabinet allocation

2. Winston will demand a fair proportion of SOE board positions to NZF supporters. This was an issue in 1996-1999. He won't let it happen again.

3. Auckland Housing market
By next winter the Auckland Housing market will be in serious disarray. The newly over-mortgaged, and overextended property investors will be burnt. Mortgagee sales will significantly increase and anger directed at the government

[minimoke]

National / Green anybody? I know, it is just a dream .... we have no green party in NZ, only a bunch of left-whingers calling themselves green.!

That is something I could live with provided the Reds were binned and Greens had true environmental policies

[Marilyn Munroe]

3) rail link to Northport: will be quietly abandoned

This rail link is a good idea. When compared to the grandiosity of Nationals other transport projects it is cheap as chips.

If Winston First plans to hand over the party to indolent Whangarei NZ First candidate Shane Jones he will need to give Shane some political capital to help capture this seat to coat-tail time servers in the party next election.

Boop boop de do
Marilyn

[Sgt Pepper]

Winston lost his seat in Northland. Does that mean he is better on a megaphone than he is on the ground? Last time he won and lost Tauranga, from memory. sometimes winning and losing can be confused. I put a $2 win bet on several horses yesterday before I left the club. When I checked the tickets I found that one bet was on a wrong horse, the biggest dog at the meeting. It won and paid about $68 for a win so I got double that and I still find it hard to believe that this was nothing but chance. As to this new, probable, government, I don't think it will go the full term. I expect someone to pull the plug later next year.
The horse was Adonis in the sixth race in Hastings.

Craic
I thought Stuart Nash had no chance of holding Napier?

[fungus pudding]

That is something I could live with provided the Reds were binned and Greens had true environmental policies

Not possible to bin the reds. Jacinda is the reddest of the lot.

[Sgt Pepper]

Some potential problems for Bill English( apart from Winston /NZF)

1) David Seymours End of Life Choice Bill

Will he elect to make this a conscience vote for National MPs or will he require them to vote against it? Either way has significant problems for Bill English.

2) Auckland property market
Negative equity, mortgagee sales.(= angry National voters) That ship is about to dock.

3) Maori proprietary rights over fresh water

Negotiations,( details undisclosed to date) fronted by Bill English and Nick Smith commenced with iwi LeaderGroup in 2015. They won't wait forever, next stop the Supreme Court. If they determine in favour, then the controversy surrounding Labours irrigation tax will pale in comparison.

[elZorro]

Winston lost his seat in Northland. Does that mean he is better on a megaphone than he is on the ground? Last time he won and lost Tauranga, from memory. sometimes winning and losing can be confused. I put a $2 win bet on several horses yesterday before I left the club. When I checked the tickets I found that one bet was on a wrong horse, the biggest dog at the meeting. It won and paid about $68 for a win so I got double that and I still find it hard to believe that this was nothing but chance. As to this new, probable, government, I don't think it will go the full term. I expect someone to pull the plug later next year.
The horse was Adonis in the sixth race in Hastings.

Good to hear you're still winning those bets, Craic. Not quite a clean win to National, and Colin James picked that.

The "Jacinda effect" -- so far

As the election campaign wraps up, opinion polls say the wave that swept Labour from 24% to par with National in polls -- the Jacinda effect -- has receded a bit.

Nevertheless, Ardern might be Prime Minister in a three-way deal with the Greens and New Zealand First. That was a near-unthinkable prospect on July 31 and testifies to her extraordinary public appeal.

National built part of the dam across the Ardern wave by fabricating a non-existent $11.7 billion "hole" in Labour's fiscal projections and an imaginary Labour income tax "increase".

That dirty politics sullied churchgoing Catholic Bill English and his party. But National has come out the largest party, able to do a twosome deal with New Zealand First if the polls are right. So, a 10-cent bet on English? Only with a hedge or two, as in my column's non-forecast on Tuesday, the irony in which some may have missed. Two hedges in effect amount to a bet each way, that is, no bet -- no forecast.

That is because the prime ministership can go either way if New Zealand First decides the government. Winston Peters has laid down what read like blocks to both parties, most recently on water in Labour's case and an assertion yesterday that "neither" Steven Joyce nor Simon Bridges "are fit to hold office". But Peters is a sphinx. Words can have multiple meanings.

Whichever way the sphinx leans, there has been more to the "Jacinda effect" than whether she or English is Prime Minister next term. The Labour party has been rebuilt in confidence and finance back to competitive status with National, at least for the next while. Its caucus will be stronger as a result.

And, while Ardern is not a revolutionary, she has opened the door to a path towards a different way of doing things from the prevailing ideology of the past three decades. Her pointer has resonated with large numbers of the younger cohorts who will have to live through very different conditions in the 2020s, who do want a different way of doing things and who will in future be the majority.

That these changes are now in the frame is the "Jacinda effect" in her first seven and a-half weeks as leader.

Colin James, (64)-21-438 434, PO Box 9494, Marion Square, Wellington 6141, New Zealand ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz, www.ColinJames.co.nz

Labour has a lot of new List MPs, the Maori Party is gone, Labour has all the Maori seats. Sure the swing wasn't as big as I hoped, and that was partly the low voter turnout and the marketing lies by National.

I hope Winston will see that only about 30% of eligible voters chose National, the "Not National" vote was bigger than that, and also take note that his policies look a lot like Labour's policies. NZ First are running the line that Fed Farmers use, that urban areas also pollute waterways, but really it doesn't stack up. Only 2% of waterways by length have urban runoff, and of course all effluent from urban areas is treated.

If Winston is at all interested in effecting change in NZ "Had Enough?" then he'll wait for the special votes to come in, it should give the Labour/Green block more power, and a Labour/Green/NZ First coalition would be quite achievable and stable. Plus, he'll get the rail up north, and probably Auckland port moved as well. These would all add to his legacy. A legacy for fair play that's already better than John Key mustered.