Well,
It's been an eventful few weeks in terms of politics in New Zealand. Historically I always vote left, and this election was no change. I can never get a point across in on twitter due to the limited space available. So I decided to start a blog. I know a lot of my opinions won't be popular amongst the left but after the devastating defeat, there is some soul searching that needs to be done, it's going to be painful and might anger some people but if we want a change of Government in 2017 then some things have to change.
Let me start with Kim Dotcom. Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe the man should be facing jail time or should have been subjected to a raid or illegal spying for copyright infringement but to say that Kim Dotcom hasn't been destructive to the left of politics in New Zealand is a bit naive. Everything is to focused round him, if IMP had distanced itself from him they may have stood a chance. You may love the guy, and trust me a lot do. You cannot deny a lot of New Zealanders simply do not trust him and feel the Internet Party was his own personal attempt at saving his own skin.
Voters don't like being played for the fool. If you are going to come up with things like "free tertiary education" you have to at least show them how you intend on paying for that without raising taxes. Lets face it with house prices and rent the way it is, everyone except the top 10% is struggling and no one wants more tax.
The right tend to quite happily work with each other, look at National and Act, National happily gives ups the Epsom electorate for Act.
Lets look at the results for the Auckland Central electorate as an example.
http://data.nzherald.co.nz/electorates/auckland-central
10,040 votes for (NAT) Nikki Kaye
9393 votes for (LAB) Jacinda Adern
1537 votes for (GREEN) Denise Roche
172 votes for (IMP) Miriam Pierard
We know this one was going to be tight from the 2011 results. Now lets say that all the green voters had voted strategically and voted for Jacinda Adern, 9393 + 1537 = 10,930. A clear Majority.
Unfortunately the left doesn't seem to understand the concept of "strategic" voting except for in the Epsom electorate. National voters tend to be a lot more clued up about this.
Auckland Central is not the only electorate where this happened. Lets have a look at Ohariu
Peter Dunne (UNF) 12,279
Virginia Anderson (LAB) 11,349
Tane Woodley (GREEN) 2,266
If Green party voters had voted strategically again 11,349 + 2,266 = 13,615, another clear Majority.
It seems the split in the left is really shooting ourselves in the foot. As if it wasn't split enough with the Greens/Labour we now have Internet Mana coming in trying to be the hero as well, promoting a lot of the same policy that the Greens have been promoting.
seriously..
