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16

Bob Roberts’ Bus Breaks Down

by Whaleoil on October 29, 2012

The only gimmick Shearer has got is his ability to strum a guitar, he may be playing but the voters aren’t humming his tune.

No friend of the Nats, Gordon Campbell joins Camp Cunliffe…

Few New Zealanders would be feeling over the moon right now about the situation being reflected in the political opinion polls.

The latest Roy Morgan poll, for example, indicates that support for the government has risen slightly and that support for Labour has plunged to below 30 per cent – yet even so, a coalition of the Greens, Labour and New Zealand First would still finish ahead of National and its current allies if an election was held today.

Overall, there’s probably something in that poll to dismay just about everyone.

What the polls indicate is that most New Zealanders appear to want John Key as Prime Minister. However, they would narrowly prefer his current opponents to be running the country, while leaving the ultimate decision on that score to New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. Strange, but true.

As things stand, Peters would be able to either install Labour leader David Shearer as the next Prime Minister – or alternatively, he could choose to keep the current government in power. He could virtually name his own price either way.

There would be very few New Zealanders (beyond the former member for Tauranga and his fan club) overjoyed at that prospect, but it is what the polls are currently projecting.

More than anything, the latest Morgan poll is bad news for Labour, and its leader.

All year, David Shearer’s strategists have been claiming that as New Zealanders gradually get to know him, they will come to like what they see.

Instead, what seems to be happening is that voters are going through periodic fits of disenchantment with the government and then looking more closely at the alternative, only to rebound in alarm.

So far, Shearer has simply failed to make the case that he could lead a credible alternative government.

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  • John1234

    Campbell makes a gross error. The poll does not ask the respondents if they want a Labour, Green, NZF and Mana coalition. They asked what the preferred party is. Yet he claims “they would narrowly prefer his current opponents to be running the country, while leaving the ultimate decision on that score to New Zealand First leader Winston Peters”. This is a consequential outcome of individual party preferences, not preference for a coalition. Not every NZF voter wants Greens in government for a start. Similarly none of the left parties would want NZF as a coalition partner if they could avoid it.

    I do wish this question would be framed into the polls in addition to the party preference: “What is you preference for a government coalition. Lab/Green/NZF/Mana, or Nat/MP/Act/UF, or none of the above”

    • Alloytoo

      I wonder if many NZF supportors didn’t vote for Winston in the hope that he might have been part of Government. That hasn’t borne fruit, there’s been nothing gained by supporting Winston except embarressment.

    • Apolonia

      Act and United Future won’t be there in 2014 and there are doubts about the Maori party. Winston is still septic over what happened with the privilege’s committee in 2008. He won’t support a National led Government.

      • John1234

        Winston will turn 70. I don’t see him getting up for it.
        There’s no sign of Mr Coif going anywhere so he’ll probably be back.
        Act probably gone.
        Maori Party will easily be back.
        But you are welcome to dream on.

  • Whafe

    Honestly, there is barely anyone in NZ that even feels that Shearer could run a piss up in a brewery let alone be the PM of NZ…….. Shearer will haev to just continue having wet dreams about being PM, because none of it will come to be a reality….

  • Agent BallSack

    Apart from the fact its an awesome song, Tombstone Blues could be a relevant title for this little gif.

  • Troy

    Easily fixed. All those fucknuckles who voted for NZF last time should think again if they really want to have the Labour Party in power with the toxic Greens. It’s not rocket science really. Problem is tho, NZF supports are fucknuckles so they won’t be able to do the sums and will end up with the opposite of what they probably want. I’m always astounded by the stupidity of NZF supporters… but hey that’s politics and Peters – it’s like a bad wart that just won’t go away.

    • Agent BallSack

      Ban Winston from Parliament for a start. Its obvious he is there to see how many times he can be ejected during this term, and the shit doesnt stick to anyone so diminutive and greasy. It’s constantly deflected back to the Government by the left leaning media, Campbell, Sainso, Duncan etc etc etc.

  • Sir Cullen’s Sidekick

    OK guys – Please help me here. Why are the communists and socialists crying over the Rouge Morgan poll? Gordon Campbell, The Standard etc. Basically the Rouge Morgan poll is good news for them as the toxic coalition will be in power in 2014 pulling Emperor and his cronies down into the gutter. Then why are they worried? Am I missing something very simple here? If I were in Sheep’s position, I will do nothing, get some guitar lessons, make some stupid statement on Communist Campbell live show, utter some non sense on Red Radio and sleep walk to victory in 2014. Where is the problem? Please educate me.

    • Agent BallSack

      The Mallard effect.

  • cows4me

    I wonder how long any sort of coalition of the left would survive before they took to each other? . It’s a pity they would destroy the country before before they got to destroyed each other, would be quite amusing otherwise.

  • mister nui

    Put Winston in jail. Someone needs to get to the bottom of all his corrupt activities with the fishing and racing industries whilst he was in parliament.

    Wanna take it on Whale? Perhaps some round here could chip in to a fund to get this started.

  • http://htt:://www.pukeko.net.nz/blog chrisgale

    It is eighteen months out and a lot can happen in that time. Let’s just assume that the gnats are around 40% and Labour around 30% with Greens 15% in October 2013. This should lead to a Labour/Green coalition, but they need the next 5%.

    United Futuer and ACT are dead. Peter Dunne is retiring.

    The Maori party will get 4 seats and no second ticks, and the Mana one seat. So we have a five seat overhang. 125 seats means you need 63 to govern and 64 or 65 to be comfortable.

    National have 48, Labour 36, the greens 18 (of 120: proportionalilty). Let’s say the Maori Party will support the winners and Mana Lab/Green. that gets Lab/Green (54) plus Maori/Mana (5) to 59.

    Labour need to find five more members. At present,that is Winston. But Winston is now70. His party do have a coherent position — nationalist, interventionist (old fashioned keynesian) and socially conservative. This is very akin to the right wing of Labour… but they have to transition from Winston to someone else fairly soon. And they are on all issues but economics functionally conservative. If they go too much for the baubles, they will not survive. So, if the get 5% an in… then the country will be run according to Winston, and he can basically choose his position in cabinet.

    But this is where it gets interesting. If Winston is disabled in the next few months or has had enough — and it could happen — then all bets are off. Many of the people who support Winston are social conservatives and would move to something like the conservative party. However, Winston will probably hang on to 2014 to punish the gnats

    But the coalition is unstable.

    What will probably happen is we will have a one term Labour/Green coalition. NZ First will implode in the coalition. The Greens will find themselves in exactly the same mire that the Aussies are in.

    And in 2016 a National/Conservative coalition will get enough seats to govern for quite a while.

    • Sir Cullen’s Sidekick

      The only pain in your theory is Winnie the poo will linger long like the smell of a rotten fish….so unless Emperor pulls of some miracle, Lab/Green/NZF/Mana coalitions is here to stay for a while. I can very clearly see four terms for them….be prepared for NZ to go bankrupt.

      • http://htt:://www.pukeko.net.nz/blog chrisgale

        I give Labour & Greens but one term anyway.

        And this is not Labour’s fault: they have enough sane people who will understand reality if you say things in words of one syllable.
        They have an understanding of how to govern… they are far too intrusive, but they have at times been competent.
        The Greens, however, will be completely horrible. They will want the treasury. They will destroy the economy in under three years, and then they will be gone.

  • http://htt:://www.pukeko.net.nz/blog chrisgale

    I forgot to state that all Maori politicians should be telling the members of their electorates to split their votes and cause an overhang. Vote Maori for the MP and whatever for the list.

    Which is a good reason to get rid of the Maori seats, which I predict will happen in 2017 when the National/Tories get back in.

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