If National wins ...

[iceman]

With all the spying going on perhaps Blunt would be more appropriate.

But thats just a conservative view.

I think the good people of Sydney are quite happy today that they have been under "mass surveillance" and "spied" on !

[fungus pudding]

I think the good people of Sydney are quite happy today that they have been under "mass surveillance" and "spied" on !

Yep and they'll be stepping it well up - this episode is far from a one off according to their security.

[McGyro]

+1 on the L+N coalition, but it presupposes the politicians are sufficiently mature to put the good of the country ahead of the good of the party. Not many signs of that to date.
Always admired the Swiss political system where coalitions are a foregone conclusion, and the politicians are expected to play together nicely apart from at election time.

[iceman]

Reading the below from Tony Alexander's Weekly Overview just now. Not surprising National has been content to fight this election campaign on "steady as she goes" with the economy. Lets hope a sufficient number of voters see that we are generally doing quite well:

"Strongest Pace of Economic Growth in Nine Years
Statistics New Zealand released data this morning showing us that after growing by 1% in the December
and March quarters our economy grew by a still above average 0.7% during the June quarter. This means
that the official growth rate, calculated as four quarters versus the same four quarters a year earlier, rose
to 3.6% from 3.2% last quarter and 2.2% a year earlier. This is the strongest annual rate of growth in the
NZ economy since early 2005 so it is unsurprising that this nine year high in our growth has produced
earlier revealed 3.7% growth in job numbers this past year and a fall in the unemployment rate from 7.2%
to 5.6%.
Driving the 3.6% growth this past year was a near 12% rise in construction, 6% growth in agriculture, over
4% growth in retail trade and financial services, and over 5% growth in health and social care. Over the
past two and a half decades the average pace of growth in the NZ economy has been 2.5% therefore
3.6% growth is well above average. Construction usually grows just 3% so 12% growth is an absolute
boom. Agriculture normally grows less than 2% so 6% is also a boom – now ended. "

[elZorro]

Reading the below from Tony Alexander's Weekly Overview just now. Not surprising National has been content to fight this election campaign on "steady as she goes" with the economy. Lets hope a sufficient number of voters see that we are generally doing quite well:

"Strongest Pace of Economic Growth in Nine Years
Statistics New Zealand released data this morning showing us that after growing by 1% in the December
and March quarters our economy grew by a still above average 0.7% during the June quarter. This means
that the official growth rate, calculated as four quarters versus the same four quarters a year earlier, rose
to 3.6% from 3.2% last quarter and 2.2% a year earlier. This is the strongest annual rate of growth in the
NZ economy since early 2005 so it is unsurprising that this nine year high in our growth has produced
earlier revealed 3.7% growth in job numbers this past year and a fall in the unemployment rate from 7.2%
to 5.6%.
Driving the 3.6% growth this past year was a near 12% rise in construction, 6% growth in agriculture, over
4% growth in retail trade and financial services, and over 5% growth in health and social care. Over the
past two and a half decades the average pace of growth in the NZ economy has been 2.5% therefore
3.6% growth is well above average. Construction usually grows just 3% so 12% growth is an absolute
boom. Agriculture normally grows less than 2% so 6% is also a boom – now ended. "

Iceman, it's hardly surprising that there has been good growth in some metrics. After all, they took a terrific dump during the GFC, some of them. Is the govt running a budget surplus yet? No, 6 years out.

Dene Mackenzie on the likely election results, with the usual lean towards National.

19/9/2014 — Economics, Politics and Government
National in poll position, Winston the outlier
By Dene Mackenzie
National is on track to win a commanding majority of votes tomorrow but New Zealand First leader Winston Peters still remains the outlier of the election with no indication of who he will support in coalition.
Labour is at risk of seeing its voting support collapse as the Green Party gathers strength. The Greens again said yesterday they had led the Opposition over the last three years and were ready to lead the government.
The Green's goal is to become the largest party of the left.
National has been working hard in electorates it does not hold to not only win the seat but also increase its party vote. From the first day of the campaign, National has emphasised its supporters should not split the vote.
Labour took some time to get to the same message, meaning its billboards had a message to vote first for the candidate and secondly for the party. National also took a chance of holding its campaign launch in the traditional Labour Party stronghold of Manukau while Labour launched in the Viaduct Basin.
In previous elections, the roles would have been reversed.
It has been campaign of wits between the two major parties and Labour, as it was in 2011, was left struggling to keep up.
To have any chance of forming a government, Labour leader David Cunliffe must have the support of NZ First, the Greens, Internet Mana and the Maori Party - but he has already ruled the last two parties out of any deal.
Prime Minister John Key will get first crack at forming a government on Sunday and it will be a surprise if he has not already talked to several of the other parties of the right to help with his numbers.
Act New Zealand Epsom candidate David Seymour and United Future leader Peter Dunne will immediately throw their fortunes in with National. The deals are easy - extend charter schools for Act and consider flexi-superannuation for Dunne.
The latest polling showed National, Act and United Future with 58 seats, and the Maori Party with three. Key surprised all in 2008 when he revealed on election night he had already talked to the Maori Party co-leaders and a deal had been struck.
He did not need the party then, but the advance deal ensured Maori Party support for the next six years. He needs the Maori Party now. Retaining Whanau Ora will swing it for the Maori Party.
Winston Peters and NZ First have been growing in confidence and support and both National and Labour have wooed him in various ways. Peters has kept up a punishing schedule of visits to smaller centres, talking to mainly elderly audiences about things that matter to them - superannuation, the GoldCard, foreign ownership of land and immigration.
Peters once kept the country guessing for nearly six weeks as he played Labour and National off against each other before finally signing a deal with former National Prime Minister Jim Bolger.
Pundits spoken to yesterday by the Otago Daily Times believed National's vote is on the rise following the Kim Dotcom Moment of Truth conference held in Auckland earlier this week.
The event had the reverse effect of what Dotcom had planned with right-of-centre voters deciding to put their support behind Key in the belief a National-led government might expedite the extradition process to the United States of the German internet entrepreneur.
However, National saw its support fall short of all end-of-campaign polls in 2008 and 2011 and it will be remarkable if Key can form a government quickly with just Act, United Future and the Maori Party.
Most of the campaign has been dominated by claims of dirty politics and, latterly, spying. The loser in the debate has been Labour, unable to get its policies into mainstream media, and left fighting for space on social media.
There is plenty to watch for tomorrow and the future of senior politicians rest with the results. Long-serving Labour MPs Trevor Mallard and Ruth Dyson are at risk of losing their seats and neither is on the list.
Labour may win back Napier, thanks to Conservative candidate Garth McVicar standing and splitting National's vote.
Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira and Labour MP Kelvin Davis are thought to be polling neck and neck, with each one needing to win to return to Parliament.
Without Hone Harawira, Internet Party implodes on Sunday.
One of the most watched contests will be whether the Colin Craig-led and funded Conservative Party gets above 5%. The party polled 4.9% on Wednesday and Craig said internal polling had the party at 5.5%. But his press secretary resigned suddenly yesterday, calling Craig manipulative. That may put off some voters. National could well do with Conservative support to avoid Peters.
However, the important vote is the party vote and National is on track to at least maintain its vote from 2011, if not build upon it.
*Dene Mackenzie is political editor of the Otago Daily Times.

[slimwin]

A budget surplus after the earthquakes? You must be kidding.

[elZorro]

We are not allowed to post tomorrow, technically. In any case, the politically-minded will be watching the TV from the early evening onwards. I want to state some things now, though.

If you look at the start of this thread, conceived and hopefully carried through by Belgarion, it is about a disappointment regarding apathy towards the electoral process. Uninformed voters, people who won't vote, people who don't bother to vote.

All through this thread are numerous observations and data, graphs, stats. It is a permanent record on the web, hopefully, and all the posters have pitched in with their thoughts. I've learnt a lot from it.

With a bit of background reading, I have come to the conclusion that the 1984-onwards NZ experiment in neo-liberalism and globalisation achieved some necessary changes, but also brought havoc to our equality measures here (see the GINI index). Those changes have never been restored, part of a worldwide trend, where the capital base is achieving more power, relative to the working class.

Labour started to redress these issues from 1999 to 2008, that's why NZ started to feel like a great country again. Of course that came to an end, and the GFC cemented National into power. They have continued down the globalisation path with some minor corrections. This of course, means that wages here have to be clamped closer to average overseas wages. The rules say we should stop most manufacturing of common goods, even if that means our manufacturing base is eroded by 42,000 staff. We need to screw down costly background staff in all govt and public departments, even if that means we'll see disasters like Pike River. Our GDP/capita will drop, but that's OK. We might have to run large budget deficits as we erode the tax base to help out the landed gentry, that's also OK.

The problem for National was how to sell these (generally dangerous) ideas to NZ voters. That process started with Don Brash hiring Crosby-Textor in 2004. These people are probably the world's best neo-liberal campaign strategists. They are ruthless in changing the perception of a whole population towards what their clients want to achieve. We know that National was still using Crosby-Textor in the 2011 campaign. Now there is irrefutable proof that they are still using Crosby-Textor.

As these guys are the campaign leaders, they must have known about the information being passed to bloggers, because they'd have seen the results. This was never clamped down on, it accelerated, as shown in Nicky Hager's book "Dirty Politics". I think that it is highly likely that Crosby-Textor instigated the whole idea of passing damaging data from government files, to right-wing bloggers like Cameron Slater. All it needed was a bit of cash thrown their way, to keep the computers going.

But more to the point, since 2004, ten years ago, NZ voters have been subjected to pro-National neo-liberal brainwashing from the best campaign strategists that can be hired. I implore voters to look back over the data at StatsNZ and elsewhere, and become informed about the various party policies, before voting. Make sure you vote.

[fungus pudding]

We are not allowed to post tomorrow, technically. policies, before voting.

Why not? This is a closed forum.

[craic]

Thinking about it - If Colin Craig gets his 5%, National will win.
If Hone Harawira wins his seat, Labour will probably win with a collection of improbables from the bottom pile.
If it rains heavily in Labour marginal seats, National will win.
On Sunday, I am going to a show and dinner with a group of friends, every one of them staunch Labour supporters.
Nothing of any importance will have changed on Monday morning.

[fungus pudding]

Thinking about it - If Colin Craig gets his 5%, National will win.
If Hone Harawira wins his seat, Labour will probably win with a collection of improbables from the bottom pile.
If it rains heavily in Labour marginal seats, National will win.
On Sunday, I am going to a show and dinner with a group of friends, every one of them staunch Labour supporters.
Nothing of any importance will have changed on Monday morning.

Conservatives aren't looking good. National will hopefully still get in without Craig, and that would make for a more stable govt.
And don't believe that 'rainy day bad for Labour' myth. A lower voter rainy day turnout might have been true in the first part of the last century when it was too much trouble to saddle up the horse just to ride off and vote, but it applied to all parties.