Saturday 23 September 2017

The Morning After the Night Before

Yesterday was Election Day here in Aotearoa NZ. I, like many of you, watched with interest to see what the next three years will bring. Here are my key observations from last night.

1. Low Voter Turnout:
This one stunned me. 66% of eligible voters voted in this year's election. Only two-thirds voted, which means for one-third of eligible voters either they don't see how politics affects them, they don't believe in the political process or they don't feel that their vote can make a difference. I have to admit that I thought this year we would see an upturn in participation. I headed along to the Labour Party campaign launch to check it out and was amazed that there was a line of people stretching from Auckland Town Hall down to the Civic Theatre! The Town Hall was full, the Q Theatre (next to the Town Hall) bar was full and a theatre upstairs was opened up and that was full too. I've seen a constant flow of university students voting early. People wanted to talk politics and it seemed everyone had an opinion. Now some so-called pundits (aka pro right wing Matthew Hooten who seems incapable of saying a good word about the left but is still used to give analysis) say this isn't a problem for the country but a problem for Labour and the Greens to solve. I disagree. You cannot have a strong democracy without good participation. On the basis of the numbers from last night, National, as the party who won the majority of any party on the day actually only won 30% of the potential vote. The combined efforts of Labour, NZ First and the Greens only won 32% of the potential vote. Is this truly representative of New Zealand? I'm not so sure. But at the moment I don't have answers on how we increase our collective participation. One thing I am sure of though. We as a nation, need to improve our participation in our democratic process.

2. Smear, Scare and Fear was the winner:
I like good robust political debating. It is part and parcel of politics and how we can see parties policies head to head. However, what I don't like is outright lying and deceit. We saw it with the claims by Family First and a down syndrome group around Jacinda Arden's stance on abortion. But worse than a couple of small pressure groups lying and deceiving, was a major political party using it as a deliberate ploy to win votes. For the record, National's continued rhetoric that there was a huge hole in Labour's budget was a lie. National's claim that Labour would tax everything was a lie. The traditional rhetoric that National are good with the books while Labour are irresponsible is also a lie. Not one leading economist backed Steven Joyce's claim that there was a hole. Regardless of their political persuasion the economists backed Labour's budget as being slightly on the tight side but by far and away totally above board. Key economists like Shamubeel Eaqub reminded us that taxes pay for things like our health system and our education system. He also told us that we are one of the lowest taxed nations in the OECD. We get off pretty lightly. We were also reminded of the number of taxes introduced by National in its 9 years in government. There were quite a few. Finally treasury figures show clearly that Labour are just as astute with the purse strings as National claim to be. In fact in comparison between the 9 years of Helen Clarke's government and John Key's government, it was Helen Clarke's that reduced our government debt down to something like 7 billion. Currently it stands at 80 something billion and seems to be climbing everyday (yes two earthquakes in Christchurch have affected our economy, but there is more to the spending than just rebuilding Christchurch). But as the old adage goes, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. At least that's what National pushed and we as a collective bought into the narrative. Instead of calling them out on their tactics we were happy for National to smear Labour with lies. We allowed National to scare us into thinking that anything Labour and particularly Labour-Greens was bad. We allowed National to dictate the narrative and we voted out of fear. The negative tactics won. In fact they've been winning for a while now, so much so that we shrug our shoulders and say "but that's just politics". I don't agree. I think we can do better. I think we should do better. And most certainly we should expect better from those who want to run our country.

3. The Māori Party shocker:
This will be talked about as one of the key aspects of this campaign and election. The Māori party will not be in Parliament for the next three years. My personal opinion is that they have suffered from being in a nine year coalition relationship with a party that doesn't seem to care about the same things that the Māori Party does. Under the National-led government of the last nine years, homelessness has increased, child poverty has increased, the queues for food parcels have increased, while housing affordability and home ownership rates have significantly reduced. Māori are over represented in the negative side of these areas and it looks like the constituents have had enough. It's a shame because I honestly believe that New Zealand politics are weaker without the Māori Party. Can they do a Winston next election and make a political comeback? Who knows, but I hope so.

4. Labout pat yourselves on the back ... but you still have work to do:
The party swing percentages to Labour across the country were a fascinating watch. Throughout the night the Electoral Commission released figures and percentages and whenever they did the swing percentage was also published. It showed in many places a double digital swing to Labour which is a good sign for them but also for our form of democracy and a positive voter engagement with the left. We need Labour to do better than they have in the past, but Labour cannot sit on its laurels yet. Of much concern for the leadership of the party are six seats: Napier, New Lynn, Palmerston North, Port Hills and West Coast-Tasman. All six electorates were won by Labour candidates. However, the party vote in these electorates feel in favour of National. That has to worry the Labour Party and it is something they will have to rectify by the next election.

5. Could we see a truly MMP government?
Our form of government is mixed member proportional. It is meant to give us a clearer, more fair system than what we had under First Past the Post. Now after 20 years of MMP, we might get a government that is truly MMP. What we've had to date is the party with the biggest margins on the night tends to form government with a couple of small parties joining in. That majority party tends to dictate to the smaller parties how things will be run. Now we face the very real prospect of a truly MMP government where the next best three combine to form a government. Collectively, those parties in opposition did win the election on the day. Now we have to wait and see who is the better negotiator to form government. This is quite a common thing in countries with MMP so it is nothing we need to be scared about. We have three strong parties with strong ideals who could decide on policy and be forced to work together for good of the country. Can they put aside their differences and focus on what unites them? Who knows. But one thing is for sure, it will be an interesting time.

So hang in there Aotearoa. We don't have a clear winner. We'll have to be patient. At the moment all we can do is speculate, calculate and wait. This election is far from over.

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NOTE: I have learned, thanks to some people I follow on Twitter, that the voter turnout didn't account for the specials which are expected to take the turnout to 78% (I was basing my original comments on pundits and journalists I trust who may have jumped the gun). This is only slightly higher than 2014, so still low in comparison to previous elections. The concern about low turnout still applies, as over 20% (1 in 5) eligible voters didn't cast their vote. Thanks to those who helped clarify this for me.