The Labour numbers game

With a caucus of 32 MPs, David Cunliffe needs the support of at least thirteen MPs in order survive a confidence vote. His opponents need twenty votes to force a full leadership ballot. Yesterday, I listed nine MPs who have either publicly refused to express support for him or have – like David Shearer, Stuart Nash and Damien O’Connor – been overtly hostile.

This morning in the NZ Herald, Claire Trevett lists the pro- and anti-Cunliffe factions:

• Camp Cunliffe: David Cunliffe, Iain Lees-Galloway, Nanaia Mahuta, Sue Moroney, Carmel Sepuloni, Su’a William Sio, Louisa Wall.
• Another candidate: Jacinda Ardern, David Clark, Clayton Cosgrove, Clare Curran, Kelvin Davis, Ruth Dyson, Kris Faafoi, Phil Goff, Chris Hipkins, Annette King, Andrew Little, Trevor Mallard, Stuart Nash, Damien O’Connor, David Parker, Grant Robertson, David Shearer, Rino Tirikatene, Phil Twyford, Megan Woods.
• Unknown: Peeni Henare, Adrian Rurawhe, Jenny Salesa, Meka Whaitiri, Poto Williams.

That’s twenty anti-Cunliffe names right there already, without even the need to put pressure on any of the five ‘unknowns’. Cunliffe has just six supporters (not counting himself), five of whom flanked him at his pre-caucus meeting press conference.

Cunliffe’s opponents presumably therefore have the numbers to force a party-wide leadership ballot any time they like. And as predicted, before they make their move, they’re waiting for the full horror of a campaign review to erode Cunliffe’s support among the members and unions.

The only hope that Cunliffe has of hanging on to his leadership is to resign immediately and force a quick leadership contest. He’d have to hope that the party membership will be sufficiently hacked off about the caucus declaration of war against him that they’ll keep the faith with him. In my view, that’s a slim hope…

Cunliffe supporters are desperately trying to compare the situation to 1996, where Helen Clark lost in New Zealand’s first MMP election, before going on to win power in 1999. There’s no comparison there. Labour may have dropped 6.5% in that election to just 28.2%, but National was just 5.7% ahead, on 33.9% (having dropped 1.2% since 1993). Helen Clark could have formed a government, had Winston Peters jumped in that direction (the direction many had assumed he would go). Labour was well set up to oust National in three years time.

In 2014, however, National is able to govern alone, having received almost 50% of the vote. Labour finds itself 23.4% adrift, and in almost complete internal turmoil.

David Cunliffe is no Helen Clark.

EDIT:

Hmm, I appear to have been led astray by both the One News and 3News political editors, both of whom have been reporting that the anti-Cunliffe campaign requires 60% plus one MP.

However, David Farrar in his post entitled ‘Caucus in Charge‘ says Dann and Gower are wrong, and the ABCs need just 40% to spark a contested ballot. Peter Green confirms this to me on Twitter. That means that Cunliffe needs 21 MPs to survive a confidence vote, which means the ABCs already have the numbers by a huge margin.

Labour candidates’ destiny out of their hands

Consider the Super 15 (or whatever name the competition is currently going by), as the final round of the regular season arrives. Most teams don’t have a chance at qualifying top of their conference, but there’s still a chance of getting through in one of the remaining spots. But various results have to go their way. Team X must lose to Team Y by 23 points. Team M must draw with Team Q. Their destiny is no longer in their own hands.

Come Election Night, there’s a few sitting Labour MPs who might well be in a similar position. This site’s Poll of Polls currently has Labour on 26.0%, with 33 MPs. Let’s assume that Labour gets 33 MPs on Saturday, and look at who might be in or out.

First, some assumptions. Carmel Sepuloni will win Kelston, and Jenny Salesa will win Manukau East. One’s in a new seat, and the other’s a new candidate, but they should romp home.

There are some relatively marginal seats, but it’s likely than not that Damien O’Connor will win West Coast Tasman, Iain Lees-Galloway will hold Palmsterson North, Trevor Mallard will win Hutt South, Stuart Nash will win back Napier, and Tony Milne will win back Christchurch Central.

If those are the only marginal results that go Labour’s way, then Raymond Huo would be the cut-off point on Labour’s effective list. Carol Beaumont will be gone, as would Ruth Dyson (who isn’t on the list, and is dependent on winning Port Hills in the face of unfavourable boundary changes).

But what happens if a few more close races go in Labour’s favour, with Adrian Rurawhe winning Te Tai Hauauru and Peeni Henare winning Tamaki Makaurau? Well, Kelvin Davis and Raymond Huo won’t be returning. And if Ruth Dyson wins Port Hills? Then it’s sayonara to Moana Mackey.

Attempted new entrants Priyanca Radhakrishnan and Tamati Coffey must have initially thought their respective list positions of 23 and 30 were pretty good. With Labour’s current polling though, Ms Radhakrishnan is certainly no shoe in, and even if Trevor Mallard was to lose Hutt South, Adrian Rurawhe and Peeni Henare were to lose their Maori seat campaigns, and Stuart Nash was to fail in Napier, Tamati Coffey would still only be the next cab off the rank.

List MPs such as Sue Moroney, Andrew Little, Maryan Street and Moana Mackey will be hoping that the Conservatives get 4.9%, therefore bumping up the effective Labour Party vote share.

Quite a few on-the-cusp Labour MPs may be spending their Saturday night hoping that their colleagues fail in their electorate challenges…

Poll of Polls update – 17 July 2014

Fresh on the heels of the latest Roy Morgan poll last night, Fairfax Ipsos has just revealed it’s latest poll. Labour may be higher in the Ipsos poll (up 1.7% to 24.9%) compared to the 23.5% they received in the Roy Morgan, but news for the left overall is worse in the Ipsos poll. The Greens rise 0.5% to 12.4%, but that still leaves a collective Labour/Greens bloc a massive 17.5% adrift of National, which is down 1.7%, but still on 54.8%.

For the minor parties, the good news for NZ First from the Roy Morgan is vaporised in the Ipsos poll, with the party dropping 0.6% to 2.6%. ACT collapses, losing 0.6% to just 0.1%, beaten even by United Future, who rise from 0% to 0.2%.  The Conservatives rise 0.4%, but that still leaves them on just 1.3%. The Maori Party makes a modest gain of 0.2% to 0.9%, while Mana remains unchanged on 1.2% (oddly, the Ipsos poll appears to differentiate between Mana and Internet Mana, but doesn’t provide any indication of total support for the Internet Mana alliance, which had been on 2.1% in the last Ipsos poll).

So here’s how the Poll of Polls now looks:

National: 49.8% (+0.4%)

Labour: 28.1% (-0.3%)

Greens: 12.1% (+0.2%)

NZ First: 4.6% (-0.2%)

Maori: 1.1% (nc)

United Future: 0.1% (nc)

ACT: 0.6% (-0.1%)

Internet Mana: 1.6% (-0.1%)

Conservative: 1.4% (nc)

Based on those percentages, the parties are predicted to win the following number of seats:

National: 64 (+1)

Labour: 36 (-1)

Greens: 15 (nc)

NZ First: 0 (nc)

Maori: 2 (nc)

United Future: 1 (nc)

ACT: 1 (nc)

Internet Mana: 2 (nc)

There’s a further collapse of Labour’s vote. Since mid-March, Labour have dropped from a Poll of Poll rating of 33.3% to today’s 28.1%. Meanwhile the Greens have moved from a mid-March low of 10.5% to 12.1%, just shy of their high this year of 12.4%.

For National, after dropping to a low of 46.0% in mid-May, the party is now on a high of 49.8%, easily governing alone thanks to the wasted vote created by NZ First and the Conservatives. The end result? Labour loses a seat to National.

To put Labour’s result in context, if the party received it’s Poll of Polls result of 28.1% on election day, I calculate that Labour will lose Carol Beaumont, and new candidate Priyanca Radhakrishnan will just miss out on a place. That’s assuming that Labour hold Palmerston North. If Iain Lees-Galloway loses to Jono Naylor, Ms Radkarishnan just scrapes in, while Mr Lees-Galloway is on the way out.

NZ First, after surging yesterday on the back of 6% Roy Morgan result, lose almost all of the ground, back down to 4.6%. Frankly, the polls have been all over the place with NZ First, with the Roy Morgan result being the party’s second highest rating this year, compared to today’s Ipsos result being their lowest of the year.

Overall, the right bloc now holds a huge 66 seats in total, compared to just 53 for a Labour, Greens and Internet Mana alliance. The left-right gap is now 10.1%, the largest it’s been this year, having ballooned out from a low of 5.0% in mid-May when National was at it’s lowest ebb.

All told, if the left bloc keep up this level of polling, they’re staring down the barrel of a damn good kicking (to mix my metaphors). The left may be praying that the election campaign brings with it the inevitable drop in support for the governing party, but that may be of little comfort if Labour and the Greens don’t pick up a decent proportion of National’s current support. If any voters National sheds simply go in the direction of NZ First or the Conservatives, Labour and the Greens will be far too far adrift to be close to cobbling together a viable coalition.

At the very least, Labour needs to look long and hard at its level of party discipline, while the left as a whole needs to concentrate on presenting the image of a coalition government-in-waiting.

Vulnerable Labour MPs

Over the weekend, it was reported that National has targeted four Labour-held seats it thinks it can win – Trevor Mallard’s seat of Hutt South, Ruth Dyson’s seat of Port Hills, Damien O’Connor in West Coast Tasman, and Iain Lees-Galloway in Palmerston North. Let’s look at each of those seats.

The idea of National taking Hutt South is somewhat far-fetched. Although the recent boundary changes have slashed Mr Mallard’s paper majority from about 4,800 to around 1,800, there still needs to be a further swing against the incumbent. However, Mallard has gone list-only this election, which will likely aid his vote, and he’ll undoubtedly be calling in a wide variety of favours to ensure he’s got a constant supply of foot soldiers on the ground. As Tracy Watkins wrote:

Labour has thrown its foot soldiers at the seat, knocking on 13,000 households doors over the last 12 months. This weekend alone 40 activists are canvassing Mallard’s home suburb of Wainuiomata.

‘‘We’ve done more canvassing [in Hutt South] than I have ever done before,’’ Mallard says.

I’d be surprised though if National actually believed they are likely to take Hutt South. Instead, it’s a diversionary tactic. If Mallard feels under pressure, he’ll stay hunkered down in his electorate, diverting resources (people, time and money) to ensuring the continuance of his political career. A Mallard that is pinned down in Hutt South is a Mallard that isn’t traveling the country lending support to other electorates. Targeting Hutt South is a smart move for National.

In Port Hills, the situation is far less clear. Ruth Dyson may currently hold the seat with a 3,097 vote majority, but the boundary changes have created a paper majority of around 500 for the National candidate. It’s certainly winnable for National, but (as I’ve previously noted) they certainly took their time in selecting a candidate, possibly surrendering an edge to Labour.

Like Mr Mallard, Ms Dyson has gone list-only this election. One can only imagine that she has worked out that her slide down the Labour rankings (from 5th in 2011 to 28th after David Cunliffe’s last reshuffle) would result in a dreadful list position, and she’s hell-bent on shoring up her electorate support. It looks set to be a close race, with iPredict currently showing Dyson and National’s candidate Nuk Korako all tied up with 50/50 odds.

Over on the West Coast, Damien O’Connor would surely have to be fancied to retain his seat. After reclaiming the seat in 2011, having lost it in 2008, O’Connor has kept a close eye on what his constituents want to hear. Having hit all the right notes back in 2011 with his “gaggle of gays” and “self-serving unionists” comments, O’Connor recently crossed the floor to support the commercial removal of the swathe of storm-fallen native timber, and fought valiantly (albeit unsuccessfully) for the proceeds of the timber removal to remain in the region. It’s hard to see the West Coast Tasman voters deserting him.

Nonetheless, National have a tough candidate in the form of former Westland mayor Maureen Pugh, so there’s still a chance of an upset. Especially with National announcing tens of millions of new roading projects in the electorate, in the form of replacing the Taramakau Bridge and improving Mingha Bluff, already condemned by Mr O’Connor as “pork-barrel politics”.

Finally, there’s Palmerston North. With a 3,285 vote majority and no boundary change issues, Iain Lees-Galloway would ordinarily consider himself safe. However, National’s choice of candidate – Mayor Jono Naylor – may make Lees-Galloway vulnerable. Mr Naylor was re-elected as Mayor last year for a third term, receiving 52.7% of people’s first choice votes. Whether that support continues, as Mr Naylor goes from being a popular independent to a National Party candidate remains to be seen. Nonetheless, after Port Hills, Palmerston North is probably National’s best chance of picking up a seat off Labour.

 

Legal high knee-jerking: Deconstructing the angst

Well, after three weeks of almost-daily pressure from Campbell Live, the government has finally folded and announced the imminent removal of legal highs from the shelves. All interim approvals will be cancelled.

However, the government (and indeed the opposition, since every MP but John Banks voted for the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013) got almost exactly what it had wanted from the new legislation – the number of products on shelves was cut dramatically; the number of outlets stocking legal highs dropped by 95%; and according to the Ministry of Health anecdotal reports demonstrate “the number of severe presentations to emergency departments [due to problems with psychoactive substances] has reduced since the Act came in” (see Tim Watkins’ Pundit post). As far as I can see, the law was and is working precisely as Parliament intended.

So why has this knee-jerk policy announcement happened? Let’s look at some of the culprits.

1. The ever-pervasive laws of supply and demand: As Parliament intended, the number of shops stocking legal highs was slashed. The demand for the product was not. Therefore, the buyers of legal highs, once spread thinly across a far greater number of suppliers, now congregate at a select few supply locations. What was once a largely unseen trade has now become extremely visible, with queues forming down streets in a number of locations. The public has suddenly gone from blissful ignorance to a state of squalid knowledge.

2. Local councils: As Peter Dunne has hammered endlessly in almost every interview for past three weeks, Parliament gave local councils exactly what they had asked for, namely, the ability to pass local plans regulating where legal highs could be sold (just as occurs with the sale of alcohol). Only Hamilton and Hastings councils passed such plans. The remainder, such as the southern mayors, simply whinged about the government passing the problem on to them.

(Admittedly, having the councils relegate the sale of legal highs to just one or two locations would only intensify the public perception problem at those few locations. And a de facto ban, which is essentially what Hamilton and Hastings had put in place, simply results in a black market, creating its own brand of problems.)

3. The government: The approval regime for testing proposed products and ensuring they are low risk was not due to be announced until 2015. How long does it take to set up a testing framework and clarify what is low risk? While in the meantime, the more the moral panic grows…

4. Parliament and partisan politics: Despite voting for the Act just last year, the moral panic has been such that Labour have been unable to resist putting the boot into the government, secretly preparing a bill to overturn the interim approvals. Unfortunately for Labour, their plans were leaked and Peter Dunne announced the government’s plan to overturn the interim approvals one day ahead of Labour. Peter Dunne says that Cabinet gave the green light to the government’s bill two weeks ago, but that he was planning to hold off on making any public announcements “to prevent panic-buying and stockpiling”.

Despite Dunne admitting that his early announcement was political, he sanctimoniously stated:

“The consequence is going to be there will be a period now of binge-buying over the next couple of weeks and they [Labour] have to bear the responsibility for that.”

No, Mr Dunne – you made the call to announce your bill weeks early, for your political purposes. The responsibility is yours.

If Dunne really cared about the issues of binge-buying and stockpiling, he would have picked up the phone to the Labour party weeks ago and come to a bipartisan accord. After all, did he really think that Labour wouldn’t have been preparing some anti-government lines of attack on the issue, with an election fast approaching? Instead, here’s Dunne’s response on Twitter to Labour’s Iain Lees-Galloway, who had been criticising Dunne for not picking up the phone to Labour:

“and do you really think the government would have given you a victory on this?”

If National, Labour and Dunne had worked together on this issue, a number of harms could have been ameliorated. A pity Dunne couldn’t resist the allure of egotism and grandstanding, as opposed to principle.

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