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National’s Strategic Stupidity, Ctd

by Whaleoil on October 11, 2012

The latest Roy Morgan Poll is out showing that Steven Joyce’s self serving and self congratulatory approach to the 2011 election are going to bite him and National hard in 2014. The latest Roy Morgan Poll shows the arse falling out of National’s support, and them having no coalition partners.

Joyce has not been helped by that fat German prick tying the PM in knots, or Queen Hekia being dead set useless, or Big Gerry getting caught out being tactless and lazy in Christchurch. He may try to pull a rabbit out of a hat and do a deal with Winston, but I am hearing privately that caucus members are talking up a campaign to stop National doing a dodgy deal with Winston.

National Party members should ask Steven Joyce why the hell he didn’t do what the tories did around the AV referendum.

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  • http://truebluenz.com/ Redbaiter

    In my humble opinion, Key and national only have themselves to blame for the backlash over Dotcom’s arrest.

    It was extremely badly managed and should never have happened in a civilised country operating under a traditional British justice system underpinned by the maxim “innocent until proven guilty.”

    Sure the left have picked it up and run with it and beat National over the head with it, but they were gifted the means to do this by National’s (and the security agencies’) incompetence.

    • Guest2

      Actually there is something the left haven’t factored in yet…they have to battle the Green vote in the next election…Green know they can get easy labour votes

    • 2ndAmendment

      Dotcom’s arrest. It was extremely badly managed

      Yep you’re right – but only that far. You completely miss the direction it was mishandled. British justice knows how to get tough on crims & terrorists – think Loughall; think Gibraltar. GIve the job to the Paras and both would have been done properly – with no need for expensive court cases, lawyers, or stories on the evening news for years afterwards.

      Fuck even Osama bin Kenya doesn’t make that mistake.

      • Contractor

        Umm like Bloody Sunday? No expensive court cases,lawyers or stories on the evening news still ongoing 40 years later there…

  • Apolonia

    You are ignoring the Conservative party, who are currently outpolling 4 of the parties in parliament. They were 5th highest in the latest Roy Morgan poll.
    In the latest Colmar Brunton tv1 poll the Conservatives were higher than NZ First.
    http://colmarbrunton.co.nz/index.php/polls-and-surveys/one-news-colmar-brunton/one-news-colmar-brunton-poll

    • Vlad

      Conservatives are a cause with potential, but they are run by a guy with lots of money (good) but the instincts and political nous of good ole Don Brash (bad). Any votes his supporters garner and his money buys will be blown by some dumb-ass statements in the campaign.

      • justin

        As opposed to JK and the other Nat pollies which are muffing their way to the opposition benches?
        For a fresh political approach they are doing good 2% seems to be their core support – with the profile of an election campaign they will get accross the finish line (could be 4% by then).

        • 2ndAmendment

          Would be 3% if National had half the nous Whale would like them to have!

    • http://www.whaleoil.co.nz Whaleoil

      The Conservatives are a personality cult with no real party infrastructure.

      • justin

        Again Cam you need to try to engage the issues and not default attack the Conservatives. They will be the key to a right wing coalition forming the next government.

      • Get a grip

        Yep just like Wiinnie and NZ First. But remind me how many governments did he “create”……..Dont dis the cult parties. They serve a purpose :-) ) Its the end game that counts.

      • Sir Cullen’s Sidekick

        Whaleoil – while I agree with your views on Conservatives, for the sake of keeping the lunatics out of power, some sort of compromise is needed and may be you should use your connections to work out a coalition between Conservatives, ACT and UF so that a combined 7-8% vote with Epsom and Ohairu-Belmont could bring in 8-9 MPs….

  • CoNZervative

    Apolonia, Cam has already called the US election for Obama (who is in free fall), ditto thinks Conservatives are irrelevant. Politics minus101. We need Nat+NZF+Consv+Maori just to break even. Wake up National.

    • justin

      2% for conservatives and absolutely zero media profile (and sabotage by various National aligned blogs). Colin Craig is the key to the next PM not being Shearer or Robertson.
      WO you need to read the wind and stop the stone walling of the Conservatives. How about you give them a guest post spot and hen engage with the issues?

      • 2ndAmendment

        In a word: yep. Whale being wrong for a while about Rmoney is incidental.
        Whale not being wrong about Craig is crucial.

  • Vlad

    A rare, but not unique, moment of agreement with RedBaiter. If there is one issue that gets my blood pressure up more than the unexamined failures of the Greens, it is the wretched incompetence of elements of the Nats, who are squandering good & popular leadership & some good policies with poor execution, dumb strategy and weak PR.

  • Sir Cullen’s Sidekick

    Whale Oil & Tories – This is what I have been saying for so long. I just cannot believe a clever guy like Emperor cannot manage his useless cronies and his department. When you have a lame duck like Sheep as the Leader of Opposition, you should be cruising now. Instead Emperor and his cronies are digging their own grave. The egg head Joyce is after all not a clever guy as I anticipated….

  • Lindsay

    Well I would say this given my area of interest but it’s possible National is getting hurt by all of the inequality/child poverty clamour. As Farrar notes, they are not dealing with it effectively and they could. Nothing like stirring middle class guilt to make voters start looking favourably at those claiming to be the saviours of the ‘poor’.

  • Jmac

    The Conservatives are not conservative. Nothing to see there unless the threshold is lowered. They’d be as comfortable with Labour as with National.

    Anyone want to offer an opinion on the Nats splitting off a BlueGreens party (Kaye, Barry et al) to offer a ‘green’ option sans communism?

    • 2ndAmendment

      God & Guns & Good behavior. Church & Children & Cakes.

      sounds pretty conservative to me.

      • Jmac

        Binding referenda, increasing tax on alcohol, anti-asset sales, waste even more money on trying to enforce collective morality, no clear policy on abortion… with the chance for any policy to be overruled by binding referenda. Not very conservative if you ask me.
        Besides, I’ve never understood Christian excitement for them, when the leader won’t belong to a Christian church.

        • 2ndAmendment

          increasing tax on alcohol, anti-asset sales, … collective morality

          are certainly conservative ideas, although not to the taste of atheist libertarians.

          And the leader wants to be elected: a good reason in NZ not to belong to a Church.

        • justin

          Your last point – Craig has not been painted into a denomination corner for division in Christianity.
          The religious right are hungry for a voice in parliament. Think about it who represents the christian voice? There are votes to be picked up. The threshold has made voters nervous (why waste a vote for a party that doesn’t make the threshold) – but remember these polls are still with the 5% minimum when this is reduced (as recommended by the electoral commission).
          When the momentum is there then the voters will come across to the Conservatives.

          • 2ndAmendment

            What I’ve been saying since the day after the last election when the Conservatives Party Vote was three times as much as ACT.

            ACT are dead. The Conservatives are the current right-of-centre party.

            This is not supposition or wishful thinking: this is fact.

          • justin

            Did you see that the Conservatives are the 4th largest party in the September colmarbrunton poll? I’m sure that they will get past the threshold. http://colmarbrunton.co.nz/index.php/polls-and-surveys/one-news-colmar-brunton/one-news-colmar-brunton-poll

    • justin

      Jmac – seriously this comment is far off the mark. They aren’t going red – read their policies they are available on line.
      But they will hold up Nationals social engineering tendencies. They would have halted the asset sales, they will have raised the drinking age (and tighted up on the drink driving).

    • phronesis

      A blue green option would be interesting. Even a single issue environmental party that was based in reality and not greenpeace ideology would be a start. It would pull the focus on environmental issues away from the green party and leave them defending their bizarre policies on everything else. They would have to admit to being watermelons.

  • 2ndAmendment

    Yep National fucked the chance to get back to FPP (or SM I guess) for a generation. Unfortunately by the time we have the chance again, no doubt I’ll be dead, but years of fucked leftist government will hopefully result in a restored franchise as it was originally designed by NZ’s founding fathers – notably property and educational qualifications to vote.

    But what to do now Whale? Ranting at the Minister for Everything (John Key’s Phil Goff – given so many jobs to keep him too busy to undermine the Leader?) doesn’t get you very far.

    First of all it’s clear that any government excluding the largest party will widely be seen as illegitimate. This is the single most important point about MMP. No NZ MMP government has ever been a coalition of the losers – has excluded the largest party. Such a government will not have the moral authority to govern.

    Second it is absolutely clear that the largest party will have be the first asked to form a coalition. GIve the illegitimacy of a government without National, even on 41% National actually has many options, starting with a straightforward minority government. A Labour/Green/NZF coalition will be rent by infighting between the Greens and Winston. National would be able to govern with Greens to one side, and NZF+Cons on the other, Maori helping one as needed. GIve Winnie Foreign Affairs, Norman Environment, Turei Doc (or, Education & Hellth :-) and they’ll all be happy.

    There are also the numbers for a straightforward coalition with the Mensheviks (Greens) – as in the UK coalition – Cameron is managing to cut hard in spite of his coalition – although nowhere near deep and hard enough – but far harder than Key. There is real scope here, with both Key and Norman/Turei having excellent reasons to shaft Labour. Key has already given the Mensheviks far more than Hellen ever did!

    Or, if you like, go the other way: National + NZF + Cons. have a governing majority without Maori, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. I can’t help it if you hate Winnie & especially Colin Craig, but again this must not prevent establishing the governing arrangements required to ensure the continuity of the NZ economy.

    So what’s your last option – give up like the liberals were saying Mitt should until Wednesday last week? Roll over and play dead to a morally and constitutionally illegitimate coalition of the losers.

    Or fight! Accept the Conservatives as the allies they are – clearly polling at 2%, will certainly make 4% at the next election. With that and 42-44% National + Conservative will easily establish strong, stable, government. To get there, we need to work hard to wipe out Labour and the Unions. It’s still not to late to take down the EMPU, cut off Labour’s funding, repeal the ECA & legal protections for unions. Then we can sit back and watch Labour and the Greens rip each other apart.

    • Guest2

      Seriously 4 parties governing won’t even last one term. Let’s be real here. If greens get any where over 10% of the vote they will be DEMANDING a third of the front bench. NZ First would want at least 3 seats and the Maoris a couple. That leaves the unions wanting their guys in the front seat.
      It will be SO bad that the labour government will be dysfunctional within months. It will lead to a snap election. The right would stroll back in. Also there is a real chance of a hung parliament which would be good! The re-election will be a straight national VS labour vote and middle NZ will go blue.

      • 2ndAmendment

        My point exactly: at 41%, much more than any other party, National has vastly many options. What you’ve laid out would be great motivation for the Greens in particular to do a UK style coalition with National, for example.

        But the path to avoiding all this stress is also a simple one: Drop the Threshold to 4% – (3% would be better), and stop bashing the Conservatives.

  • Goldie

    Chill. National has suffered a series of embarassing fuckups – DotCom and the ineptitude of the security agencies, Parata’s utterly disastrous running of the education portfolio (Parata is making the shrill and extreme teachers’ unions look good FFS), and Key’s gutlessness in not cutting Banks loose. But come election time, all that will matter is the economy. And middle NZ voters will take one look at Labour-Greens nutcase policies and run screaming back to National.

  • Magoo

    Perhaps it’s because the National Party aren’t behaving too differently to the previous Labour Party. If they got rid of the emissions trading scheme they might pick up a few votes, and if they told certain members of society to ram their water/wind/solar powered taniwha’s where the sun don’t shine they might pick up a few more votes.

  • Mediaan

    The mid-period between elections is a traditional winner-diminishes-in-popularity time. This is probably because of the need to get some work done. Look at the line-up and there is still nobody else to vote for. NZ First got in on a chance swing, and are looking useless. Greens are quite extreme and full of contradictions. Labour is deeply stupid, acts deeply stupid, and is forgetting its core constituency: the hard working bloke with his elbows on the bar on Friday night.

    Noticed how neither Labour nor Greasy Green paid the slightest attention to the desperate hardworking Spring Creek miners? They were too busy chasing political points and fluffy scandals in the sky.

    There were the tough, tired miners, sacked abruptly by a rather inept Solid Energy (that situation didn’t happen overnight), standing on the grass in front of parliament. Not a reddo Labour MP or Greasy Green to be found.

    Tough, hardworking, tired working men, taxpaying good guys, family types, with a real issue.

    Where were the left?

  • botti

    Could care less about Dotcom, more concerning has been pressing ahead with partial asset sales despite Treasury data showing it’s more profitable to retain current ownership levels?
    Also, allowing Crafer farms to be sold to the Chinese seemed unpatriotic.

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