Prime Minister John Key has left Conservative Leader Colin Craig hanging on whether National will do a deal to 'gift' Craig the East Coast Bays electorate in the hope of bringing in other Conservative MPs on his coat-tails.
Key told a post-cabinet news conference Craig appeared to have conflicting views on whether or not to do a 'cup of tea' deal over the electorate.
He said Craig shouldn't 'bet the farm' on a deal with National.
Key said National would wait until closer to the election before making its preferences known on which minor parties it would work with and in which which electorates to maximise the number of support partners for National.
He said National could in theory wait until September 19 before announcing its preferred partners, but was more likely to say some time after the election campaign began. Parliament rises for the election on July 31.
Craig announced on Sunday he would stand in Foreign Minister Murray McCully's seat of East Coast Bays. Polls put support for Craig's Party at anything from 2% to 4%, suggesting Craig could drag in two or three MPs on his coat-tails under the provisions of MMP which allow a small party with an electorate MP to 'top up' their number of MPs to match their party vote.
McCully has said he plans to campaign in the campaign ahead of the September 20 election, but has said National's final decision will be a strategic one. McCully will be overseas campaigning for New Zealand's bid for a seat on the United Nationsl Security Council for some of the election campaign.
Key has already attended a campaign function for ACT's Epsom electorate candidate David Seymour, which has been interpreted as National being likely to back ACT for the seat. United Future's Peter Dunne is also expected to be given National's implicit support for the Wellington electorate of Ohariu.
Key said he had not had any discussions with Craig.
A Stuff Ipsos poll released on Monday showed 81.6% of voters don't support the use of the 'coat-tailing' rules, while 13.8% favoured the use of the tactic under MMP.
Labour called for National to "come clean" on its coat-tailing deals and rule out such deals. It has promised to remove the coat-tailing rule in its first 100 days of Government.
Donghua Liu
Meanwhile, Key said he had known about a statement from Donghua Liu for a few weeks. The statement from Liu that he donated NZ$100,000 to Labour for a bottle of wine in June 2007 was published in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday. Labour said it had only seen the statement the previous day and that the Government was orchestrating a smear campaign.
Key would not disclose how he had found about the statement from Liu before Labour.
But he said Labour leader David Cunliffe had shown a "fair degree of hypocrisy."
"Essentially he was saying was that when National engages with a Chinese donor it was cash for access, but actually when they do it it wasn't. In the end it's for them to resolve who is right and wrong," Key said, agreeing that Liu should provide further evidence of the donation.
Labour list
Elsewhere, Labour released its list of 64 list candidates for the September 20 election, including 34 women and 30 men as Labour pushes toward a policy of 45% women MPs after the election.
Surprisingly, sitting electorate MPs Ruth Dyson, Kris Faafoi, Clare Curran, Trevor Mallard and Rino Tirikatene chose to opt out of the list.
This allowed 'new blood' such as Women's Affairs policy analyst Priyanca Radhakrishnan (23), second hand book store owner Rachel Jones (25), TV presenter Tamati Coffey (30), Tertiary Education policy adviser Jenny Salesa (31), doctor Liz Craig (32) and Massey University lecturer Deborah Russell (33) to be relatively high on the list.
(Updated with more details, background on Donghua Liu, Labour list)
30 Comments
... you obviously do not know the meaning of the word " gerrymander " .... this is nothing of the sort ... this is MMP strategy ... which up until 2008 , the Gnats have played appallingly badly ... but that has changed now , Jolly Kid knows how to strategize the vote ...
Don't be mad , fat pat .... it's just that the Gnats are now on a par with Labour , on working the system ...
... and looking at the dreadful " man-ban " list NZLabour has just released today , it's obvious that they prefer geriatric old BB incumbents over fresh talent .... Gor blimey , another 3 years guys , try again in 2017 !
Come on, manipulating electoral boundaries has the same effect as manipulating electoral candidates. Why should East Coast Bays and Epsom constituents have a greater "voting power" than say my humble Kohimarama vote?
As for the man ban, what a myth. A Labour win will put David Cunliffe, and David Parker firmly at the helm with likely support from Russel Norman. Besides, what's wrong with having a few girls on the team anyway?
'Why should East Coast Bays and Epsom constituents have a greater "voting power"' - I think the term Rotten Borough my be a better historical match than Gerrymander.
'the man ban, what a myth' - you just don't understand, a political party _has_ to be at least 70% male to fairly represent the country!! Anything less is a slippery pathway to unnatural things like the horseless carriage, crop rotation, and a round earth.
ACT haven't got a hope in h of getting enough party votes to coat-tail anyone else in .. so why would the Nats bother in Epsom - take it back for the true blue constituency it is. But CC is a different story if his last showing is anything to go by. However, I doubt they'll get as many party votes this year - as he's had three more years to put his foot in his mouth.
I think their intent is to take advantage of the coat-tail provision which requires the joint entity Internet-MANA to get past a certain number of party votes to bring in those extra MPs - but neither ACT nor United Future got past that threshold last time .. so only brought in one MP each, which we have to assume, National could have won themselves without doing these deals.
The Overhang is when you win more electorate seats than you would have gotten in parliament based on your party vote support, so your party voice is stronger than compared to other parties- it is mainly the Maori Party that has befitted from it.
The game plan for ACT and United First (and now Mana) has been coat-tailing: winning a seat means that your party vote counts under the 5% threshold where normally it wouldn't. If ACT or United First had actually gotten 1.5% in the last election they would have a couple of MPs. National have basically been taking a punt that they are no worse off giving the seat away, and might benefit from it. If the conservatives are down around 2% they might well not bother with the "climate change is caused by astological issues" party (to quote their policy), and instead decide to look principled. However, if the conservatives are up around 4% I cannot imagine National giving up getting 5 extra MPs by sacrificing East Coast Bays.
So what you're saying is that they have kept these parties "alive" on the gamble they might also reach an electoral party vote threshold.
I wonder whether (particularly where ACT is concerned) it isn't more a matter of National wanting to use them as the excuse to introduce more right-wing policies. The sort of "ACT did it, not us" type of strategy. Same goes for the more recent Maori Party accommodations - only the play there is a snooker-type one - which Hone could recognise and broke off as a result.
I dont think that is strictly speaking correct. If Act gets a seat and say 1 coatail, National lose 50% of a MP and labour the other 50%. The opposite also applies, when Mana gets in we'll probably see a second MP (who is pretty hard core left by the look of it) brought in as well.
So I dont think its as unfair as you imply, but it could be better.
Hence I think the system should be changed to say 2 or 3% gets you an MP - any seats you win (or some fomulae along these lines) so the number of MPs represents the % of the vote Nationally.
The Green's for one are pushing for such a change.
regards
Make the whole thing properly representational.
One person - one vote.
Do away with electorates, vote for the party.
As soon as a party has enough votes for a seat they are in. Yes we will end up with more small parties which is not ideal but if we maintain that every person has a say in democracy then we need to live up to it. At the moment a party can have 4.9% of the party vote and still not get in, that is a lot of people whose voice will not be represented.
And it will do away with by-elections in electorates which will save the country a fair bit.
It can make government forming and decision making a much more drawn out process but the upside is that decisions are not easily overturned by future governments of a different orientatiion, adding to more stability.
But we have to live this election with what we have at the moment. I think that a deal with CC has the potential to backfire. This is fringe right of a totally different sort then ACT in Epsom and I would have thought that ECB is way to liberal for that and could well vote for the NZ First candidate just to show their displeasure.
CC as kingmaker would be an idealogical scenario worse then NZ First, but possibly politically more stable.
Sorry ladies, back to the kitchen. And another debate on same sex marriage.
Would you like a bible with that.
Ideologically they are the PPPs in the education sector - quite different to private schools which get far less government funding, I understand , AND they don't need to teach in accordance with the state-defined curriculum AND they are not subject to the Official Information Act. So, yes, quite a different model - taxpayer funded but unaccountable to the state/taxpayer..
https://curiablog.wordpress.com/category/nz-political-party-polls/
Mana nipping at the Greens voter base it seems. I am not surprised, I think part of the Green's vote has been the mide/far left with no where to go since the alliance went toes up.
It could be a very interesting left wing Govn....as in messy.
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5639-roy-morgan-new-zealand-voting-in…
Interesting view,
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/10105504/The-deal-with…
regards
Were I a national voter in East Coast Bays who views Colin (Chemtrails) Craig to be a bit nutty, then I would be highly annoyed if the candidate I had voted for for years was suddenly withdrawn in an attempt to force me to vote Conservative.
As I am none of them other than someone who sees Craig as nuts, all I can comment on is that John Key's cynicism seems to be reaching new heights.
It is looking very much to me that Donghua Liu has made a false statement and John Key probably knows full well he has but is making as much of it as he can, as he can, because far too many people just sheep-like accept every word he says.
If I was in ECB I would probably vote him in. They're such a small party all they will get is binding referendum, which would be great for a "democratic" country with the last 4 referenda ignored by both of the large parties. If they get a 2nd policy through like ACT did this last term, any of the other 3 reported on stuff.co.nz would be fine with me, especially the Gareth Morgan style tax-free band for $20k. Looks like the looniness is more in interviews than policy.
Given how cagey Colin acts I wonder just how difficult JK would find dealing with him when he "comes out" think teaparty.
I seem to recall Brash's lovefest with the "outer bretheren" (or whatever they are) was a bit of a PR disaster?
National voters seem to be AGW deniers so actually many National voters might well be happy, of course its the swing voter who matters, they may not take too kindly to extremist antics.
regards
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