A new poll by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union shows that almost half of respondents oppose the Cook Islands having automatic New Zealand citizenship.

Thirty percent of the 1000-person sample supported Cook Islanders retaining citizenship, 46 percent were opposed and 24 percent were unsure.

• The Cook Islands government is pursuing closer strategic ties with China, ignoring New Zealand’s wishes and not consulting with the New Zealand government. Given this, should the Cook Islands continue to enjoy automatic access to New Zealand passports, citizenship, health care and education when its government pursues a foreign policy against the wishes of the New Zealand government?
• READ MORE: Other Cook Islands reports

Taxpayers’ Union head of communications Tory Relf said the framing of the question was “fair”.

“If the Cook Islands wants to continue enjoying a close relationship with New Zealand, then, of course, we will support that,” he said.

“However, if they are looking in a different direction, then I think it is entirely fair that taxpayers can have a right to say whether they want their money sent there or not.”

But New Zealand Labour Party deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said it was a “leading question”.

‘Dead end’ assumption
“It asserts or assumes that we have hit a dead end here and that we cannot resolve the relationship issues that have unfolded between New Zealand and the Cook Islands,” Sepuloni said.

“We want a resolution. We do not want to assume or assert that it is all done and dusted and the relationship is broken.”

The two nations have been in free association since 1965.

Relf said that adding historical context of the two countries relationship would be a different question.

“We were polling on the Cook Islands current policy, asking about historic ties would introduce an emotive element that would influence the response.”

New Zealand has paused nearly $20 million in development assistance to the realm nation.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the decision was made because the Cook Islands failed to adequately inform his government about several agreements signed with Beijing in February.

‘An extreme response’
Sepuloni, who is also Labour’s Pacific Peoples spokesperson, said her party agreed with the government that the Cook Islands had acted outside of the free association agreement.

“[The aid pause is] an extreme response, however, in saying that we don’t have all of the information in front of us that the government have. I’m very mindful that in terms of pausing or stopping aid, the scenarios where I can recall that happening are scenarios like when Fiji was having their coup.”

In response to questions from Cook Islands News, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said that, while he acknowledged the concerns raised in the recent poll, he believed it was important to place the discussion within the full context of Cook Islands’ longstanding and unique relationship with New Zealand.

“The Cook Islands and New Zealand share a deep, enduring constitutional bond underpinned by shared history, family ties, and mutual responsibility,” Brown told the Rarotonga-based newspaper.

“Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens not by privilege, but by right. A right rooted in decades of shared sacrifice, contribution, and identity.

“More than 100,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealand, contributing to its economy, culture, and communities. In return, our people have always looked to New Zealand not just as a partner but as family.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new poll shows a significant number of New Zealanders support recognising Palestine as a state and applying sanctions against Israel.

Commissioned by advocacy group Justice for Palestine and conducted by Talbot-Mills, the poll found support for recognising Palestinian statehood and sanctions for Israel was higher among young people.

It also showed many people were not sure where they stood.

While Israel’s embassy questioned the neutrality of the poll, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said it was a matter of “when, not if” for Palestinian statehood — but the main priority for now was a ceasefire.

The poll found 40 percent of the 1116 people surveyed supported recognising Palestine as a state, while 19 percent did not.

Forty-two percent of the respondents supported sanctioning Israel, while 29 percent did not.

Laura Agel, a Palestinian-British woman and a member of Justice for Palestine — the group which commissioned the poll — said it sent a clear message to the government.

“I think that the government needs to respond to the needs of its citizens, and the wants of its citizens and sanction Israel fully. I think we can see that other countries, whether small or big have taken strong action against Israel,” she said.

Many respondents without opinion
Although the poll showed strong support for Palestine, many respondents did not give an opinion either way.

Forty-one percent were not sure whether New Zealand should recognise Palestine as a state, and 30 percent were not sure whether the government should sanction Israel.

Agel put this down to the issues New Zealanders were facing in their day-to-day lives, and a lack of knowledge.

“Issues such as the cost-of-living crisis, and I think it also shows that the Israel-Palestine issue is one that people don’t necessarily think they’re very informed about,” she said.

She also blamed the government and media for not showing the extent of what was happening in Gaza.

“What they’ve done to civilians and infrastructure in Gaza. What they’ve done bombing hospitals and schools since October 7th. But also within a context of decades-long oppression.”

The current 12 month bombardment of the Gaza Strip by Israel followed a Hamas attack last October.

About 1139 people were killed and about 240 hostages were taken. Some were freed, some died and about 97 were still unaccounted for.

More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The military campaign also led to what the United Nations said was a “massive human rights crisis and a humanitarian disaster”.

Israeli embassy responds
Israel’s embassy in Wellington told RNZ Checkpoint in a statement that Israel was defending its citizens from Hamas, and the focus should remain on “dismantling terrorism” and releasing the remaining hostages.

It added that while polls could be informative, those commissioned by advocacy groups would not always provide a comprehensive or neutral view.

It said the poll’s respondents might not be familiar with the complex roots of the Middle East conflict and the positions of all parties involved, and a question should have been added to reflect that.

Marilyn Garson, co-founder of Alternative Jewish Voices of Aotearoa, said the poll’s result that 51 percent of New Zealanders under the age of 30 supported recognising Palestinian statehood reflected a growing movement of young people rejecting Zionism — the ideology that supported the creation of a Jewish state.

That was playing out in New Zealand and overseas, she said.

“An unprecedented number of Jews are taking part in demonstrations, joining organisations for justice — for dignified solutions. And they are disproportionately young people. I think that’s magnificent.”

Garson did not care whether the solution to the crisis involved two states or 12, she said, as long both Palestinian and Jewish people were involved in the process.

“I don’t care what the number of administrative entities is, I just want to know that two peoples sat down and made a dignified choice that represent their peoples. I’ll support any outcome.”

Minister of Foreign Affairs responds
In May this year, Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognised a Palestinian state — 146 of the 193 UN members (more than 75 percent) have now recognised Palestine as a sovereign state.

A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the government had supported the establishment of a Palestinian state for decades and it was a matter of “when not if”.

But asserting Palestinian statehood at this point would not alleviate the plight of the Palestinian people, he said. The immediate focus should be on a ceasefire and the provision of aid in Gaza.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Two polls out tonight both have Winston Peters firmly in the drivers’ seat for forming a government with Aotearoa New Zealand’s general election this Saturday, though the left bloc has increased its overall support.

With 1News and Newshub each releasing their final polls ahead of the election, the trends are showing a last-minute boost for Labour and the Greens — but still far short of forming a government without Winston Peters’ support — which he has vowed not to provide them.

While Newshub’s poll featured a dramatic 4.6-point fall for National, TVNZ’s had National up 1 point but ACT down by the same amount — the right bloc staying steady.

That could be partly explained by the difference in each poll’s survey period: Newshub’s was comparing to numbers from 17 days before, while TVNZ’s poll has been on a weekly release schedule — which makes for smaller shifts in the numbers.

Newshub’s poll also showed a smaller majority for the combined National-ACT-NZ First grouping, with 63 seats, and with trends showing an increase in the left vote, the final days could be crucial.

RNZ political editor Jane Patterson told Checkpoint the rise for the left bloc would be putting the pressure on National.

“Chris Hipkins has of course been talking about that, he said, ‘Look, I feel the momentum, that the left bloc is starting to pick up’ and these polls are starting to show that — however they are not being put in the position where they are in a commanding enough position to form a government.

Second election threats
“If you look at the timeframe, both of them basically covered the weekend . . .  that covered the threats of a second election on Sunday from National, it covered Chris Hipkins back on the campaign trail, and obviously a lot of policy debate we know over the tax package.”

She said Labour was also really starting to hone in on the impact of a National government on rental tenants and beneficiaries, “so there’s been a lot of very assertive, aggressive campaigning from Labour against the National Party policy platform”.

Poll mania. Video: RNZ News

Patterson said ACT and NZ First were typically battling each other for voters, and ACT would have been hoping to see their support increase to help consolidate their chances of a two-party government.

“It’s more difficult because of the rhetoric that Chris Luxon has been rolling out about Winston Peters — that tactic has not worked, on these numbers . . .  so they could basically cut New Zealand First out he was saying, ‘please, don’t vote for New Zealand First, it’s not going to be good.’”

Despite National doubling down on this by raising the risk of a second election, Peters had remained statesman-like during that time, she said, and NZ First support base were unlikely to like being told what to do.

“The supporters are anti-government, a protest against the government, and not just against Labour — an anti-establishment type vote, so I don’t think that tactic’s worked either.”

Biggest risk
She said the biggest risk to Labour, meanwhile, would be people coming to the conclusion the election result had already been decided.

“I think they’re just going to have to keep carrying on and campaigning until Saturday.”

National also have an advantage, likely to pick up another seat after the Port Waikato by-election in November.

Both had Labour leader Chris Hipkins’ personal popularity also on the rise — but still equal with or just below that of National’s Christopher Luxon. That said, Luxon’s popularity is still well below voters’ preference for his wider party.

This all must be taken with a grain of salt, however.

Individual polls compare their numbers to the most recent poll by the same polling company, as different polls can use different methodologies.

They are intended to track trends in voting preferences, showing a snapshot in time, rather than be a completely accurate predictor of the final election result.

Because of those differences in how they collect and calculate the numbers, which includes revising the calculations to account for demographic differences compared to the wider population (known as ‘weighting’), the different companies’ polls shouldn’t be compared against one another directly.

However, with both showing similar general trends and numbers, it gives a good idea of what voters’ thinking was through to yesterday.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There is a definite gloominess among the public right now — with a perception that not only is the country broken in many ways, but the political system is too.

We see this most strongly in surveys that ask if the country is on the right track or not.

Generally, New Zealand has flipped in a few short years from having about two-thirds of the public saying the country is headed in the right direction, to now having two-thirds saying we’re going the wrong way.

Journalists and politicians report that out on the campaign trail they are discovering that the public is angrier than ever.

Mark Blackham reported last week that “MPs are encountering angry people — a general anger about the state of affairs and paucity of political choices.”

Stuff journalist Julie Jacobson summed up the political mood in the weekend as “Disillusioned, demoralised, disenchanted, disgruntled”. And she argues this has only increased during the campaign: “What was a low hum has become a sustained grumble.”

‘Out of love’
Jacobson reports that across the political spectrum people are “out of love with what’s currently on offer.”

Certainly, much of what the politicians are offering is extremely grim. For example, both Labour and National are promising to slash billions of dollars from public services.

This promised austerity drive reflects a reality that the government’s books are empty, with no room for additional new spending. Hence Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has openly said that this election can’t be one for big spending policies.

Hipkins has gone from promising “bread and butter” reforms to, as leftwing political commentator Chris Trotter points out, being committed “to less butter and thinner bread for at least the next three years.”

Trotter says, in general, there’s not much for the public to positively vote for, and instead people will vote negatively – choosing whoever they regard as the best of a bad bunch.

Hence, “This is not going to be a happy election.”

For traditional leftwing voters, Labour’s austerity programme is a major disappointment, as it goes hand in hand with opposition to any real tax reform that might collect more revenue for public services and infrastructure.

Strong suspicion
Likewise, on the right, there is a strong suspicion that National’s tax cuts are simply unaffordable. The policy is being called out by the likes of rightwing political commentator Matthew Hooton as being unprincipled and incompetent, and by the Taxpayers Union as foolhardy.

There is also growing scepticism that some of the bigger policy promises are electoral bribes that can’t be delivered. Hooton says that a “cynical electorate” sees many of these policies as empty promises — especially because voters have got used to being lied to or misled by politicians who don’t deliver their promises once in power.

He suggests that voters are right to be cynical because New Zealand has had “15 years of people hearing promises from politicians which are platitudes on the face of it and they haven’t even been delivered to that extent”.

Similarly, Stuff journalist Andrea Vance argued in the weekend that “Voters know when they are being used”, suggesting that the “bribes” being offered don’t compute for voters. Vance says politicians are promising to slash “public services and spending — in the name of savings and efficiencies — when they are already stretched and degraded.”

Voters shouldn’t have confidence, she suggests, that the next government will be able to meet the existing needs of public services, let alone start fixing the severe deficits in infrastructure and services. Fundamentally there is a credibility gap between politician promises to cut spending but to properly maintain all “front-line” services.

Politicians aren’t up to challenge
Voters are aware that we’re in something of a “polycrisis”, and the status quo is unsustainable.

Political pollster Peter Stahel wrote last week that there is “an unmistakable mood for change” based on a “strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction, driven by personal financial hardships and an uncertain economic outlook”.

His company’s polling show “only 29 percent of voters say the current options for prime minister appeal, with nearly half (46 percent) saying they don’t.”

There’s a cost of living crisis, failing public health and education systems, a housing crisis, a climate crisis — the list goes on. As Newstalk’s Mike Hosking says, “There is no shortage of serious, worryingly serious, issues to discuss this campaign”, but the politicians are largely missing in action.

Because the politicians haven’t risen to the challenge, the contrast between what is desperately needed and what is on offer has never been so great. The public is right to be disenchanted — parties are mostly just offering sniping and petty criticisms of their opponents.

As political commentator Josie Pagani has put it, “This is an election of parties wrestling on the ground, when we crave a new Jerusalem.”

Pagani says “We have gone from ‘Hope and Change’ to ‘Perhaps Just a Biscuit’.” Whereas in previous elections, parties ran on a programme of grand causes, this time around, issues like child poverty and the housing crisis are being ignored by politicians.

Former Labour leader David Cunliffe appears to agree — he went on Breakfast TV on Thursday to say that “voters are grumpy. They don’t think that either party is really hitting the nail on the head in terms of what’s worrying them.”

Similarly, business commentator Bruce Cotterill wrote in the Herald last week that the campaign has been highly disappointing so far because it’s more about attack ads and petty sniping than about illuminating the big issues and the policies that the parties have for fixing them.

He laments the lack of debate about the crises in the health and education systems, and says problems like housing waiting lists and child poverty have been virtually ignored.

Hooton also says this avoidance of the big issues is a tragedy, especially since we are now in what he argues is the worst economic crisis in decades.

An uninspiring election campaign
In lieu of being focused on the things that matter, the politicians are becoming more aggressive, threatening to turn this year’s campaign into the most negative in living memory.

Press gallery journalist Glenn McConnell reports that as we go into the last month of the campaign its “becoming more feral”. He says the politicians are largely to blame: “Nobody is running a wholesome forward-looking, solutions focused campaign. They are frothing to attack, attack, attack.”

The lacklustre nature of the parties is reflected in their campaign slogans according to Jacinda Ardern’s former chief of staff Mike Munro. He says none of them are original, because “every variation of wording around concepts like change, hope, aspiration, unity and the future have been previously used on party billboards”.

And he argues that the parties are incredibly risk-adverse this election, being determined to stage-manage every element of the campaign and the candidates, reducing any chance of life in the election.

Is this therefore the most uninspiring election ever? Writing on Sunday, journalist Andrea Vance asks: “Has there been a duller election campaign in recent memory?” She labels it “the election of The Great Uninterested” because people seem to be turning away in boredom or disgust.

Vance says: “It’s not just that voters are bored. They’ve stopped listening.”

Political commentator and former Cabinet Minister Peter Dunne is also amazed at the lacklustre performances of the politicians so far – especially Hipkins and Luxon who are in the fight for their political careers.

He says, given the big issues at stake, “Neither Hipkins nor Luxon has so far shown sufficient passion or boldness to convince New Zealanders they have what it takes to be an effective prime minister in the difficult years ahead.”

Election fatigue and low voter turnout
Do you wish the election was over already? You are probably in good company. This year there is no apparent enthusiasm for the campaign. You’ll notice that there aren’t many pictures or videos of politicians being swamped on the campaign trail, signing autographs or having mass selfies with fans — as occurred in recent elections.

Young people, in particular, seem unimpressed this time around. According to political scientist Richard Shaw, the students he teaches are losing faith in the New Zealand political system.

He says that they are part of a growing cohort who are now “over” politics. Shaw is also picking that voter turnout is going to be low this election.

So, could the most popular choice at the coming election be “none of the above”? Certainly, the number of eligible voters who choose not to vote in the upcoming election could surpass a million, effectively making it the most popular option in 2023.

Voter turnout has generally been trending down in recent decades, and it hit a low of only 69.6 percent at the 2011 election. That low turnout was generally because none of the parties were offering much that was inspiring, and no one expected the result to be close. Hence, one third of the electorate turned away in that election in disgust, apathy, or whatever.

The fact that the politicians and debate have become more aggressive and divisive puts people off. Other commentators are also now picking a decline too.

David Cunliffe says: “Expect a record low turnout, and expect a record low vote share for Labour and National combined, and the highest ever share for the [minor] parties on both sides of politics.”

Leftwing columnist Verity Johnson has also written recently about the political despair among the public, predicting an extremely low voter turnout: “I’ve lost count of the people I’ve spoken to this week (smart, articulate and historically politically engaged people) who aren’t planning on voting in October. What’s the point, they shrug, there’s no one to vote for.”

Johnson says that the rising fury in New Zealand society is very tangible: “if you go into the suburbs and listen closely, you can hear an ominous hiss of fury rising up like a gas leak.”

She suggests that this disenchantment is rational, and that there’s now little hope that politics can fix the problems of New Zealand: “Whatever happens on October 14, it feels like there’s just gonna be another 3 years of muddling, myopic, middle management politics where we have our head up our ass and our ecosystem on fire.”

Is politics in New Zealand broken?
Given the declining trust and participation in politics and the electoral process, this might signal that something is wrong in New Zealand’s democracy.

Of course, this is a problem all over the world at the moment, with rising dissatisfaction and a sense that elites and vested interests dominate. There is a huge mood of change everywhere.

Chris Trotter says that most politicians haven’t caught up with the new Zeitgeist. He reports on a new book exploring the decline of politics, written by former British Tory Cabinet Minister Rory Stewart, which reflects on how the political system has hollowed out.

Here’s the key quote that Trotter cites from the book, suggesting it could well come from a minister in the current New Zealand government: “I had discovered how grotesquely unqualified so many of us, including myself, were for the offices we were given… It was a culture that prized campaigning over careful governing, opinion polls over detailed policy debates, announcements over implementation.”

Similarly, writing about how dire the current election campaign is, Matthew Hooton says New Zealand’s political system is effectively broken because the parties simply aren’t serious vehicles for political change anymore.

He argues that they have been captured by careerists, consultants and lobbyists seeking power: “That is, they are not concerned with achieving power to make anything better. They are focussed merely on achieving office, to enjoy the status and perks.

“This is why they feel no need to do real work between elections, before which they release pseudo-policies, written the night before, often by external lobbyists or consultants, that they can’t and won’t deliver — and which they don’t care whether or not are delivered anyway.”

Dr Bryce Edwards is a political scientist and an independent analyst with The Democracy Project. He writes a regular column titled Political Roundup in Evening Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Nothing much changed in a 1News Verian poll released last Monday. However, some commentators treated the boring results as a blank canvas on which to express their creativity.

1News presenter Simon Dallow described the results of the newly named 1News Verian poll on Monday as a harsh verdict on the government.

“It is just under three months until the election and Labour seems to have been dented by a series of ministerial distractions,” he said as he introduced the story at the top of the bulletin.

Despite that effort to dress up the poll as a tough verdict on the government, it was mostly notable for how un-notable it was.

Few parties moved more than the margin of error from the last 1News poll in May, which also showed National and Act with the numbers to form the next government — just. National and Labour both dropped the same amount: 2 percent.

You might have thought the damp squib of a result would put the clamps on our political commentators’ narrative-crafting abilities.

Instead, for some it proved to be a blank canvas on which they could express their creativity.

‘Centre-right surge’
At Stuff, chief politics editor Luke Malpass called the poll a “fillip for the right” under a headline hailing a “centre-right surge”.

One issue with that: the poll showed a 1 percent overall drop for the right bloc of National and Act.

“Fillips” generally involve polls going up not down. Similarly, a drop in support doesn’t traditionally meet the definition of a surge in support.

The lack of big statistical swings wasn’t enough to deter some commentators from making big calls.

On Newstalk ZB, political editor Jason Walls said Labour was plunging due to its disunity.

“All [Chris Hipkins] has been really able to talk about is what’s happening within the Labour Party — be it Stuart Nash, be it other ministers who are behaving badly. Jan Tinetti. Voters punish that. And we’ve seen that from the Nats in opposition. They punish disunity.”

It’s uncertain what National’s equivalent 2 percent drop was down to. Perhaps voters punish unity as well.

Wider trends context
Mutch-McKay’s own commentary was a bit more nuanced, placing the poll in the context of wider trends.

On TVNZ’s Breakfast the day after the poll’s release, she said some people inside Labour couldn’t believe the results hadn’t been worse for the party.

Perhaps that air of disbelief also extended to the parliamentary press gallery.

After all, the commentators are right: Labour has had a terrible few months, with high-ranking ministers defecting, being stood down, being censured by the parliamentary privileges committee, facing allegations of mistreating staff, or struggling with the apparently near-impossible task of selling shares in Auckland Airport.

Maybe a sense of inertia propelled some of our gallery members to keep rolling with the narrative of the last few months, in spite of the actual poll result.

Or maybe part of the issue is that hyping up the significance of these polls is a financial necessity for news organisations which pay a lot to commission them.

“You’ve got to squeeze the hell of it. You’ve paid $11,000 or $12,000 for a poll, it’s got to be the top story. It’s got to be your lead. It’s got to have the fancy graphics,” Stuff’s political reporter and commentator Andrea Vance said recently on the organisation’s daily podcast Newsable.

‘Manufacturing news’
“It just feels like we’re manufacturing news. We’re taking a piece of information that’s a snapshot in time and we’re pretending that we know the future,” she said.

Vance went on to say these kinds of snapshot polls don’t actually tell us all much — but she said long-term polling trends are worth paying attention to.

It’s probably no coincidence then that the most useful analysis of this latest poll focused on those macro patterns.

In a piece for 1News.co.nz, John Campbell noted the electorate’s slow drift away from the centre, with Labour losing 20 percent of the electorate’s support since 2020 and National failing to fully capitalise on that drop-off.

He quoted Yeats line, “the centre cannot hold”, before asking the question: “What do Labour and National stand for? Really? Perhaps, just perhaps, this is a growing section of the electorate saying — you’re almost as bad as each other.”

That sentiment has been echoed by other commentators. In his latest column for Metro magazine, commentator and former National Party comms man Matthew Hooton decried the major parties’ lack of ambition.

“At least Act, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori aren’t insulting you with bullshit. Instead they offer ideas they think will make your life better, even if they’ll never happen. So here’s a better idea than falling for the big scare from National or Labour.

‘Reward ideas-based parties’
“How about using your ballot paper to tell them to f*** off and reward one of the three ideas-based parties with your vote instead?” he wrote.

And on his podcast The Kaka, financial journalist Bernard Hickey and commentator Danyl McLauchlan criticised our major parties for their grey managerialism.

“You kind of have to go back to the mid-1990s when so many people just hated the two major parties because they didn’t trust them,” he said.

“We seem to be going through a similar phase now. The two major parties are just these managerial centrist parties. They don’t have much to offer by way of a vision.”

Maybe it’s a little shaky to say anyone’s surging or flopping on the basis of a couple of percentage points shifting in a single poll.

But if you zoom out a bit, at least one narrative does have a strong foundation — voters saying, to quote Shakespeare this time — “a plague on both your (untaxed) houses”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Tuesday, February 7, at 2pm. That’s when New Zealand’s new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins’ parliamentary year begins and he faces National leader Christopher Luxon in the debating chamber for the first question time of 2023.

He needs to “Win the House”, as the saying goes. That means getting the better of the other side, and Hipkins has to show his caucus that he is up to it.

Hipkins is a vastly experienced parliamentarian, but there is nothing like being in the hot seat directly facing the leader of the opposition.

He can be expected to take it to Luxon and ACT leader David Seymour more aggressively than Jacinda Ardern did, he is more of a “take no prisoners” politician than she was and he needs to get some hits in early on.

Hipkins has had a great start with two opinion polls showing Labour has regained the ground it lost to National.

The 1News Kantar poll showed Labour up five points to 38 percent and National down one point to 37 percent.

Newshub’s Reid Research poll had Labour up 5.7 points to 38 percent and National down 4.1 points to 36.6 percent.

Hipkins slightly ahead
In the preferred prime minister stakes, Hipkins was slightly ahead of Luxon in both polls.

Stuff‘s political editor Luke Malpass said the polls showed what no Labour figures dared to consider a fortnight ago — that the party might have better prospects under a leader other than Jacinda Ardern.

“Hipkins, it now appears, could be that person,” he said.

“In other words, by the time Ardern left she might have been a drag on the party vote.”

Luxon dismissed the poll results, saying nothing had changed.

“It’s the same government, and a new leader who can’t deliver,” he said. “It’s going to be an incredibly tight race.”

The poll details, and what the results would mean in terms of seats if an election was held now, are on RNZ’s website.

Labour’s new champion
After settling in to his debating chamber role as Labour’s new champion, Hipkins has to get his next big agenda item off the blocks — ditching policies and programmes that are in the way of his pledge to totally focus on “bread and butter” issues that affect people, which means the cost of living.

This process was started by Ardern at the end of last year and Hipkins needs to get it done and dusted because there’s sure to be the usual cries of “U-turn, U-turn”.

Although Ardern and Hipkins have explained it as necessary to the new focus on dealing with inflation and the cost of living crisis, there Is also an obvious political need in election year.

Labour wants to get rid of liabilities, policies and programmes that are causing trouble and are easy targets for the opposition.

Hipkins needs what MPs call clear air to explain and implement policies Labour hopes will reset the party’s direction, entrench the lead over National and ACT, and deliver a platform for the election campaign.

The new prime minister may be in his honeymoon period but the media knows he has to deliver.

“He will have to show there is more on the tin than just a new sticker, and in pretty short order,” said Malpass.

“It won’t be enough to just chuck the odd media merger and dank old bits of legislation over the side: It will have to be replaced by some actions on the ‘bread and butter’ issues Chris Hipkins says he is concerned about.”

Plagued by troubles
The New Zealand Herald’s political editor Claire Trevett said Hipkins’ job was to convince voters that Labour was focused “on the various troubles plaguing them now — from potholes to hip ops to the price of bread”.

“The talk is one thing, the delivery is another. Hipkins has no real option but to deliver.”

There’s been speculation about which policies and programmes will get the chop or be put on the slow track, and Stuff published a list with the top three being the RNZ/TVNZ merger, the Income Insurance Scheme (which National calls a jobs tax) and Auckland Light Rail.

It said other lesser known projects could join the list.

Hipkins must also deal with Three Waters, which has given the government more problems than anything else.

That’s more difficult because the legislation has been passed, but Hipkins has acknowledged he has to do something about it.

“We are going to look closely at the Three Waters programme,” he told Trevett in an interview. “There’s no question there has to be change. I don’t think we can just sit back and say ‘this is not our problem, this is a council problem’.

“I don’t think that would be responsible. But we also need to bring people along with us and what we are doing.”

Policy clear-out
When it comes to the policy clear-out, Hipkins has much more freedom than Ardern would have had.

She would have faced ferocious opposition attacks for dumping policies she had supported, her words would have been thrown back at her.

But Hipkins is a new prime minister, doing things his way, just as Ardern told him when she said “you must do you”. She was giving him free rein to do it his way.

Did she know Labour was heading in the wrong direction under her leadership, and that it wouldn’t win the next election unless there was drastic change?

One commentator who thinks so is Matthew Hooton.

Writing in the Herald, Hooton said Ardern so badly wanted her government to win a third term that she was prepared to step down.

“Labour’s masterful transition was carefully planned before Christmas by Ardern and her closest allies, Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins, and flawlessly executed,” he said.

Capturing the initiative
“Political strategists spend every December working out how to capture the initiative in January, especially in election year. None has ever succeeded like Labour over the last week.”

Luxon hasn’t had a good run-up to the new parliamentary year.

Inevitably, he’s been eclipsed by Hipkins simply because he is the new prime minister but when Luxon has been able to get into the media he might have wished he hadn’t.

“National strategists seem dumbstruck,” Hooton said in his article. “Christopher Luxon was more incoherent than usual trying to explain where he stands on co-governance, the Māori seats, and whether women politicians receive worse abuse than males, pleasing neither the liberal nor conservative wings of his party.”

Stuff’s Andrea Vance said Luxon had actually helped ease Hipkins into the job “by being more mediocre than usual”.

“Somehow Luxon — whose one job last week was to stay on message — managed to drive down a co-governance cul-de-sac at`Rātana, and then spend the rest of the week doing bunny-hop u-turns to get out of it,” she said.

“And how did he manage to piss off women, again? The correct answer was ‘yes’, Christopher. Female politicians patently face more abuse than men.”

Abuse of women
She was referring to Luxon responding to a question about whether women politicians suffered more abuse than men by saying he wasn’t sure.

When Hipkins takes his seat in Parliament on Tuesday he’ll have his revamped front bench alongside him.

The cabinet reshuffle, as RNZ reported, means some of the government’s most contentious portfolios will have a fresh face.

One of the most interesting facets was Hipkins’ decision to appoint Michael Wood as Minister for Auckland.

Hipkins explained the need to “get Auckland pumping” after a difficult couple of years, but there’s a political imperative behind it as well which the Herald’s Trevett saw.

“It is aimed as a pre-emptive counter to the inevitable attacks from Auckland-based opposition leaders such as Christopher Luxon and David Seymour that the Wellington-based Hipkins is a beltway creation and out of touch with Auckland’s concerns,” she said.

“It sends a signal that Hipkins has his eye on Auckland and knows its importance.”

Peter Wilson is a life member of Parliament’s press gallery, 22 years as NZPA’s political editor and seven as parliamentary bureau chief for NZ Newswire. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“So many detractors were saying, ‘no you won’t get it, the Supervisor of Elections won’t allow it’. I said, ‘well let him just do his work’. And I believe in the goodness of the man. We got it and we’re happy.” — Sitiveni Rabuka, CFL/FijiVillage interview. 8 September 2021

The leader of the new People’s Alliance gives Frank Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Kahyum has given yet another masterclass in how to win friends and influence people in the Fijian context.

Of course, he doesn’t necessarily “believe in the goodness” of Elections Supervisor Mohammed Saneen, who tried to prevent him from contesting the 2018 election and will do his damnedest to try to exclude him from the 2022 election.

Or maybe he does. It doesn’t matter because Sitiveni Rabuka has spoken well of someone who everyone regards as his nemesis and in doing so has presented himself as magnanimous and humble.

Fijians like that and Rabuka knows it. Which makes it all the more astonishing that Frank Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum still don’t know it after 15 years in power.

It was Rabuka’s humility and forbearance in the face of an ordeal in the courts before the 2018 election that triggered a wave of community sympathy that manifested itself on election day and took the Bai-Kai duo to the brink of defeat.

Readers of my website will know that in the immediate aftermath of the election, I tried and failed to get Bainimarama to realise that the FijiFirst government’s appearance of arrogance — its vei beci, viavialevu attitude to everything — was the prime cause of its electoral collapse.

But they still don’t get it. And having given them a fright in 2018 but still not having learnt their lesson, I suspect that the Rabuka juggernaut is going to bear down on them in the coming months and flatten them like toads on hot bitumen.

Why? Because the Fijian people are fed up with them, not just the usual burden of longevity in government and people tiring of their increasingly tired faces but a visceral distaste for the manner in which they conduct themselves.

Always right. Never wrong. Always contemptuous. Never, ever humble.

Even some of my closest friends say Rabuka cannot win — that the burden of his two coups in 1987 and the hatred and bitterness that lingers — especially among Indo-Fijians – is too much of a cross to bear, let alone such things as the fiasco of the National Bank collapse under his watch when he was eventually elected prime minister.

But politics is more about perception than substance wherever it is practiced in the world. And is equally true that electors have notoriously short memories, never mind that a great many voters weren’t even born when Rabuka held the reins of power.

I am coming to the view that not only can Rabuka win the next election but probably will.

For many Fijians, the events of 1987, let alone Rabuka’s period in government, aren’t a part of their lived experience. In any event, Bainimarama and Khaiyum have yet to learn the most basic lesson of politics — that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.

And these two conjoined twins — with their chronic hubris and arrogance — are doing everything they possibly can to lose.

I’ve chosen the accompanying selection of photos to illustrate Rabuka’s extraordinary journey from coup-maker in 1987 to the benign figure that the opinion polls now tell us is set to make the most extraordinary comeback in Fijian political history. Provided of course, that Bainimarama and Khaiyum keep to the election timetable and the people still get their say.

There’s “Rambo” – the smiling tough guy and defender of iTaukei rights who forced thousands of Indo-Fijians to leave Fiji post 1987. And there’s Rabuka as Prime Minister in the 1990s forming a warm partnership with the main Indo-Fijian politician, Jai Ram Reddy, that produced the 1997 Constitution and eventually led to Rabuka’s defeat.

There’s the “treasonous” soldier who abolished the monarchy and took Fiji out of the Commonwealth when it wouldn’t accept his takeover. And there is the barefooted Prime Minister at Buckingham Palace making a formal apology to HM the Queen for his act of lese majeste and it being graciously accepted.

The man has had an incredible journey, that’s for sure. And maybe, just maybe, he is going to cement his place in Fijian history next year with an incredible final twist.

Is it in the stars? It doesn’t matter. It’s already in the opinion polls.

And you can bet your last saqamoli that it’s keeping Frank Bainimarama and his puppet master, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, awake at night with agonising intimations of their own political mortality.

Fiji-born Graham Davis is a Walkley Award and Logie Award-winning Australian-based journalist and media consultant. He is publisher of the Grubsheet blog on Fiji affairs. This commentary is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand’s opposition National Party leader Judith Collins has suffered a sharp dip in support in the preferred prime minister stakes, in the latest Newshub Reid Research poll.

The new poll has Labour on 52.7 percent while National has improved slightly to 27 percent support – an increase of 1.4 percentage points on election night.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is on 48.1 percent in the preferred prime minister stakes, while Collins has slipped to 5.6 percent – a drop of 12.8 percent.

This is despite plenty of media coverage since she began accusing the government of introducing separatism for Māori “by stealth” when dealing with poverty and lack of opportunity in New Zealand.

Labour keeps its majority stranglehold on Parliament on 52.7 percent, up 2.7 points on the election result.

The Green Party is on 7.1 percent – down 0.8 – and ACT is just below on 6.9 percent, down 0.7.

The Māori Party remains on 1.2.

The poll was conducted between 7 and 13 May with a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The last opinion poll before Saturday’s general election on Saturday last night put Labour on 46 percent and National on 31 percent. Both are down 1 percent.

Behind is ACT on 8 percent and the Green Party on 8 percent, up two.

New Zealand First is up on 3 percent, according to the 1 News Colmar Brunton poll.

It would mean Labour would get 59 seats, 40 for National, 11 for the Greens and 10 for ACT. Labour would need the Green Party to form a government on these results.

In the preferred prime minister stakes, Jacinda Ardern is on 55 percent and Judith Collins is on 20 percent.

More than 1.5 million people have already voted.

The poll was conducted by landline and mobile phone between October 10-14.

What the commentators think
Former National MP Jonathan Coleman thinks Labour will not be pleased with the result.

“I think people might be quite surprised they have gone to 46 percent,” he said.

New Zealand First’s slight increase might “make things interesting”.

“New Zealand First voters might be the sort of people who don’t necessarily tell pollsters how they are going to vote, so I wouldn’t say this is exactly how it’s exactly going to play out on election night.”

But former Green Party policy director, now consultant, David Cormack, said today’s results were “effectively an exit poll”.

“We’ve had such a large chunk of the electorate already vote, so I think this is going to be the most accurate representation of what is going to be the final result.”

Coleman said polls had been incorrect in the past, but Cormack said this was best poll he had seen in a long time.

‘Terrifying scenario’
“We get out of the terrifying scenario of Labour governing alone. The Greens look well comfortable.”

Coleman thinks opposition leader Judith Collins has done an excellent job with the leadership of National.

“Judith has an opinion and many people will back her on that. She’s had to make some calls, I think at times she’s been let down by people on her team who should have backed her up.

“They should have at least stayed quiet because that’s what you do. You back the leader if you want to win.”

Cormack is standing by his call that NZ First will be gone at the election.

But Coleman said Winston Peters had surprised in the past and said there could be twists and turns before the election results were known.

The previous political poll – published by 1 News Colmar Brunton on October 8 – had support for Labour steady on 47 percent, National on 32, ACT on 8, the Greens on 6 and NZ First on 2.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

With just under three weeks until the election, Newshub’s new political poll shows the gap is closing between Labour and National, but Labour could still govern alone.

The Newshub Reid Research Poll had Labour at 50.1 percent – down 10 percent on the last poll – but well above National at 29.6 percent.

ACT is on 6.3 percent and the Greens are at 6.5 percent. NZ First is at 1.9 percent.

On those figures, Labour would have 65 seats in Parliament, National 38, and the Greens and ACT eight each.

As for the minor parties, the New Conservatives are polling at 2.1 percent, the Māori party at 1.5 percent and The Opportunities Party at .9 percent.

In the preferred prime minister stakes, Jacinda Ardern is on 53.2 percent and Judith Collins is on 17.7 percent.

Last week’s TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll had Labour at 48 percent, National on 31 percent, ACT on 7 percent, Greens on 6 percent and NZ First on 2 percent.

Newshub’s last poll in late July had on 60.9 percent and National at 25.1 percent.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will face National Leader Judith Collins in the second leaders debate tomorrow night, this time on television Three.

The election date is October 17.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

I’ll be honest, it was a long day yesterday so I only watched the first 10 minutes of the Leader’s debate in the New Zealand general election 2020 last night.

What I saw confirmed the view I expressed some weeks ago that in Judith Collins National have chosen someone who will save their party from oblivion. The rise of ACT in the latest and the appearance of the New Conservative Party, however, I think indicates the political Right is splitting.

The choice between the major parties who want to form the next government now does seem pretty clear.

If you want to pay less tax and have welfare cuts – in short unrepentant neoliberalism and a less caring society that panders to the wealthy – then a National /Act coalition will be what you are hoping for.

On the other hand, if you want the wealth of our country to be shared more equally and see the government driving the marketplace in the post-covid economy rather than big business and big money – then a Labour /Green coalition is what you will want to see once all the votes are in.

A Labour alone government? On current polling it could happen but it would be against the history of MMP voting in our country.

NZ First? You can’t write them off just yet but it seems at this stage that Winston Peters will not be in the position of kingmaker.

I think this is also true of the smaller parties – even if one of them managed to get a candidate elected I doubt they would find themselves in the kingmaker role.

Bryan Bruce is an independent filmmaker and journalist. The Pacific Media Centre is publishing a series of occasional commentaries by him during the NZ election campaign.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Strong team. More jobs. Better economy. So say the National Party’s campaign hoardings. Only thing is, last Sunday’s Newshub-Reid Research poll – which had support for the Labour Party at 60.9 percent and for National at 25.1 percent – suggests the team is not looking that strong at all.

Nor will it be having much to say on jobs or the economy following the general election on September 19 if those numbers are close to the result.

As you might expect, National’s leadership dismissed the poll as “rogue”, saying the party’s internal polling (which hasn’t been publicly released) puts it in a much stronger position.

READ MORE: National gambles on Collins crushing Ardern’s charisma in NZ election

But this latest poll is consistent with three others released since May (June 1, June 25 and July 15). Averaged out, these polls put support for Labour and National at 55.5 percent and 29.1 percent respectively.

[Editor: Yesterday’s 1 News-Colmar Brunton poll put National down to 32 percent while Labour moved up another three points to 53 percent.]

That is quite the gap. Assuming they are broadly accurate, what do they tell us about the state of politics in Aotearoa New Zealand?

The centre is now centre-left
For a start, the political centre appears to be shifting to the left. Across the past four polls, support for Labour and the Greens sits around 62 percent. When nearly two out of three voters in a naturally conservative nation support the centre-left, something is going on.

Correspondingly, as the notional median voter shifts left, parties on the right are being left high and dry. The Reid Research poll put the combined support for National, ACT and New Zealand First at 30.4 percent, a touch under half the level of support for the centre-left.

In 2017, National secured nearly 45 percent of the party vote. Nearly half of that support has bled away – and most of it hasn’t gone to other conservative parties. New Zealand First is on life support; the right-wing ACT party is at 3 percent; and the other centre-right parties (including the New Conservatives, the Outdoors Party and the conspiratorially inclined Advance NZ/Public Party coalition) are well off the pace.

The leadership gap
Then there is the question of leadership. Judith Collins was installed in an attempt to re-establish National’s bona fides as New Zealand’s natural party of government. But she has not had the impact Jacinda Ardern did when she took Labour’s reins several weeks out from the 2017 election.

In fact, while 25 percent of those polled by Reid Research support National, the party’s leader sits at only 14 percent in the preferred prime minister stakes: nearly half of those who would vote National do not rate Collins as the prime minister.

The polling suggests that Collins’s penchant for attack politics is not resonating with voters. She has not been helped by the recent antics of (now departed or demoted) caucus colleagues Hamish Walker, Michael Woodhouse and Andrew Falloon, but the buck stops with her.

National’s default claim of being the better economic manager also took a blow in the most recent poll. Asked who they trusted most with the post-covid economy, 62.3 percent of respondents preferred a Labour-led government and only 26.5 percent a National-led one.

Could we see an outright victory?
Something may be about to happen to the shape of our governments. Under New Zealand’s previous first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system we saw a string of manufactured governing majorities.

For the better part of the 20th century either National or (less frequently) Labour would win a majority of seats in the House of Representatives with a minority of the popular vote. Indeed, the last time any party won a majority of the popular vote was 1951.

That may be about to change. Since the first mixed member proportional (MMP) election in 1996 we have not had a single-party majority government: multi-party (and often minority) governments have become the norm. That is because MMP does not permit manufactured majorities in the way FPP does. To win an outright majority you need to enjoy the support of a (near) majority of voters.

Labour may be on the verge of doing precisely that. If it does, it will be a very different kind of single-party majority government to those formed after FPP elections.

In 1993, for instance, the National Party formed a single-party majority government on the basis of just 35 percent of the vote. If Labour is in a position to govern alone (even if Ardern looks to some sort of arrangement with the Greens) it will be because a genuine majority of voters want it to.

Rogue poll or outlier on the same trend, Collins has had her honeymoon (if it can even be called that). In a way, though, neither Ardern nor Collins is the real story here. Much can and will happen between now and September 5 when advance voting begins. But something bigger and more fundamental may be going on.

If the pollsters are anywhere near right, New Zealanders will look back at the 2020 election as one of those epochal events when the electoral tectonic plates moved.

Dr Richard Shaw is professor of politics, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Nasik Swami in Suva

Fiji’s 2018 General Election is going to be a close contest between the ruling FijiFirst and the opposition parties, according to a leading New Zealand-based Fiji academic.

Professor Steven Ratuva, political sociologist and director of the MacMillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury, says the election will be “won and lost” over the undecided, currently a third of the eligible voters.

Dr Ratuva made the comment in response to a Tebbutt-Times poll conducted on February 5-8 with 1000 randomly sampled people who were eligible voters.

According to the results of the poll on the public’s voting intention, a staggering 34 percent said they were not sure who to vote for, 8 percent declined to answer the question and half a percent said they did not intend to vote.

Thirty-two percent said they would vote for FijiFirst, 22 percent for Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), 3 percent for National Federation Party (NFP) and 1 percent for Fiji Labour Party (FLP).

When looking only at the percentages for those who selected a party (removing the undecided voters), 56 percent selected FijiFirst, 38 percent SODELPA, 5 percent NFP, 1 percent FLP, 0.2 per cent Unity Fiji Party, and 0.1 per cent independent.

Slender lead
Dr Ratuva said of those who expressed their party preferences, FijiFirst had a slender lead of 6 percent with a total of 32 percent (or equivalent to 16 seats) compared with 26 percent (or 13 seats) by all the other opposition parties combined.

“The interesting factor here is the large number of undecided voters totalling 34 percent (or 21 seats).

“This is where the election will be won and lost. So very hypothetically, 21 seats are up for grabs,” said Dr Ratuva.

He said FijiFirst would need at least 18 percent and above of these undecided voters to get over the 50 percent barrier and win the election while the opposition parties needed 24 percent.

“These results show that there have been a lot of movement’s since the last election in terms of people’s preferences as a result of changing perceptions of issues, perceptions of parties, experience of changing circumstances and how they respond to these.

“Whichever way the votes shift, we can be certain that the election might be very close. The next three political party-based polls will begin to provide a much clearer picture of where things are moving as campaigns begin in earnest and the elections come closer.”

Analysing the results, University of the South Pacific economist Dr Neelesh Gounder said the support for FijiFirst had reached an all-time low since the 2014 election, when it had received almost 60 percent of all the votes cast.

Bainimarama’s popularity rises
“While Bainimarama’s popularity has increased by 20 percent in February 2018 compared with February 2017, FijiFirst party as the preferred choice has decreased by 5 percent during the same period (from 37 percent in February 2017 to 32 percent in February 2018),” Dr Gounder said.

He said comparing poll results of preferred party with preferred PM, there was now a clear “delink” between the two.

“It seems there is no clear link between Bainimarama’s popularity as the PM and FijiFirst party as the preferred party.

“On the other hand, both opposition parties SODELPA and NFP have gained in terms of the choice for preferred party.

“SODELPA, in particular, has strengthened its position with a 9 percent increase in preferred party choice (from 13 percent in February 2017 to 22 percent in February 2018).

“Support for NFP has increased from 1 percent to 3 percent.”

He said also interesting was the percent of undecided voters.

“Despite the reduction in undecided voters, 34 percent [from 40 percent] is large and can play a significant role in which party or parties form government after the 2018 election. The challenge for SODELPA and NFP is the continuation of the momentum towards attracting undecided voters towards their party and candidates,” Dr Gounder said.

“For FijiFirst, given how this scenario has evolved since 2014, it might be beneficial to have elections sooner than later. This strategy might avoid FijiFirst 2014 voters who are now undecided from moving to the opposition.”

• Reaction from political parties

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz