Winnie Laban

Jami-Lee Ross has clearly won the Botany By-Election.

To avoid the Left trying to claim the result any other way, I have done a comparison of the candidate vote for the Botany By-Election compared to the candidate vote from the 2008 General election. This way we are comparing apples with apples. The candidates name and percentage of the Candidates vote that they got shown. The previous candidate for their respective parties in brackets next to them with their percentage of the candidate votes shown as well. It only shows the 3 parties that re-stood candidates in this by election.

National Party: Jami-Lee Ross – 54.65% (Pansy Wong – 56.22%)
Labour Party: Michael Wood – 27.85% (Koro Tawa 21.06%)
Act Party: Lyn Murphy – 4.5% (Kenneth Wang 15.26%)

So clearly, on the preliminary results, Jami-Lee has basically held the candidate vote percentage where it was under Pansy Wong. Michael Wood has seen an increase to Labours candidate vote of 6.79%. labour’s increase is to be expected Michael Wood actually campaigned whereas Koro Tawa barely turned up last election. On the other hand ACT has seen their candidate vote drop by almost 11%.

I do wonder how many votes the New Citizen Party candidate (which got 10.5% of the candidate vote) took from each Parties candidate.

All in all, this shows that National has held its vote in the electorate. So a good result for National.

Compare this with the Mana By-Election Ccandidate vote which showed:

Labour Party: Kris Fa’afoi  - 47.2% (Winnie Laban – 53.06%)
National Party: Hekia Parata – 41.1% (Hekia Parata – 34.99%)

In that by-election National increased its candidate vote by 6.1% and Labour Decreased its vote by 6.0%

This must worry Labour, not only is National holding its vote in its safe seats, it is gaining in what were Labour safe seats. Can’t wait to see the spin that they bring out of this latest result. Clearly though, the numbers speak for themselves…Labour is in trouble.

Had the Greens actually got themselves organised in time the results might have been even worse for Labour. The paid lap-bloggers are claiming a pyrrhic victory, yet a basic analysis of the stats shows that they didn’t claim any of National’s vote, that the New Citizens Party claimed a large chunk of the personal vote for Kenneth Wang at the last elections and the Greens rolled up into Labour.

Well of course they will. Their proxy mouthpiece in the NZ Herald, Bernard Orsman took 5 days to write about exactly that in his attempt to smear Jami-lee Ross.

The Botany by election could well end up with a subsequent by election for Auckland Council if Cr Jami-Lee Ross is selected for National and wins the by election.

As a friendly warning to the Labour Party, if some of your more small minded or stupid supporters start attacking Cr Ross, this blog will be forced to remember all the recent incidences of Labour MPs or councillors forcing by elections. Just to give you a small sample:
2010 – Mana – Winnie Laban got out of politics a year early forcing a by-election
2009 – Mt Albert  - Helen Clark lost an election and refused to continue serving the ungrateful wretches who so cruelly rejected her at the ballot box.
2008 – Su’a William Sio – Manukau City Council  (Efu Koka won), Resigned his council position mid-term after being elected to parliament forcing a by-election
2006 – James Papali’i (Sylvia Taylor won) – Manukau City Council  - he was no longer able to serve due to issues with the law
2003 – John Kerr  (Alf Filipaina won) – Manukau City Council  - no reason given but readers are willing to use the tip line if they know

Unlike Jim Anderton, Su’a William Sio, Alf Filipaina and numerous other labour candidates and elected officials at least Jami-lee Ross has signalled that he won’t be a double dipper.

Meanwhile it looks like Len Brown’s sensible spin weasel, Conor Roberts, has convinced Len Brown to make a nice statement rathe than risk  a rehash of Len’s credit card issues.

Mayor Len Brown, who has a history of clashes with Mr Ross going back to their days at Manukau, said he would prefer not to lose a councillor so soon after the inauguration of the Auckland Council on November 1.

“However, after having worked with Jami-Lee for a number of years, I know he will continue to be a strong advocate for his community, whether it is here or in Wellington,” Mr Brown said.

I hope Conor gets a good secret Santa at the ratepayer funded Christmas lunch Len Brown is throwing all his staff today.

Matthew Hooton wrote in the NBR today (I had to creep up to the dairy at Bucklands Beach and bag a copy of NBR since my impoverishment at the hand of Fidelity Life) about the possibility of no less than six by-elections but he missed out Christchurch East, where it is widely thought that “Patsy” Dalziel is off overseas shortly.

Mana MP Winnie Laban’s Labour colleagues owe her a big bouquet of teuila, heilala and tagimoucia – first to congratulate her for being appointed assistant vice-chancellor (Pasifika) at Victoria University but second because of the opportunity she’s created to take the fight to National on strong Labour ground.

Labour’s top strategists understand that byelections on home turf can only help improve the party’s odds of success for 2011, which have slowly been creeping upward since Phil Goff finally manned up to deal to Chris Carter.

Yes, byelections can be unpredictable – but if you’re an opposition, struggling against a popular incumbent, unpredictability is a godsend.

Nothing else gives an opposition such profile to highlight a government’s faults, discover a few more, and urge voters to send a message to Wellington – all without anyone worrying their votes might actually change the government.

Right now Matthew Hooton is spot on. Multiple by-elections give Phil Goff the much needed bolster with which to secure a breach in the government’s defences and at the same time strengthen caucus into a true Phil Goff led labour Party rather than him having to put up with the cast offs of Helen Clark.

Ironically Phil Goff paved the way with his inspired rigging of the selection in Mt Albert and parachuting in David Shearer. It worked then and it should work now as Labour looks to expend $500k per by-election of public monies in order to rejuvenate caucus before the election.

Matthew Hooton’s suggested by-elections now include Manukau East where good mate of George Hawkins is past his use-by date.

Labour has an even broader opportunity. In Andrew Little – also boss of the powerful Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, the country’s largest – Labour has as its president The Great Negotiator.

If Mr Little puts Labour’s 2011 effort ahead of his own post-election leadership ambitions, it is not beyond him to engineer at least three other byelections, all in safe Labour seats, for the same day as Mana.

It’s an opportunity for national publicity – all on Labour themes – that it simply can’t afford to forgo.

In West Auckland, Mr Little could arrange for Mr Carter’s disciplinary action to be dropped in exchange for him resigning as MP for Te Atatu.

In Christchurch, Jim Anderton could be asked to step aside from Wigram, ahead of his election as mayor of Christchurch.

Likewise, in South Auckland, George Hawkins could leave early from Manurewa to concentrate on local politics.

Ditto perhaps Ross Robertson in Manukau East.

Or Pete Hodgson in Dunedin North.

Pete Hodgson is way past sensible to stay on, he is still suffering from Key Derangement Syndrome and has taken to posting outrageous lies on Red Alert or silly polls. He clearly is no longer the great and trusted strategist and he has also stated that he won’t be returning next election. Phil Goff may as well ask the old duffer to shuffle off too.

Coincidentally today I banged in to old Labour stalwart and historian Dr. Michael Bassett and so I took the opportunity to grab his take on the Labour Party today. He provided me with an insight that I had previously not noticed, that of the influence of the “Ex-Presidents Club”that loyally got Helen Clark to the position she held. The “Ex-Presidents Club” is still largely intact, now only missing Margaret Wilson. Jim Anderton, Maryan Street and Ruth Dyson are all in parliament and all in the past were heavily involved in stacking LECs and floor votes in favour of Clarkists. It was Bassett’s contention that little has changed amongst this group especially Street and Dyson, indeed there are very strong ru8mour that Street and Dyson see them selves as the “dream team” leadership option within Labour and that they are sitting there actively tripping up Phil Goff as he seeks to distance his party from the apparatchiks of the Clark years. Dyson was involved in a failed attempt to get Chris Carter selected when the vote was 4 v 3 against selecting him. It was Michael Bassett that nixed her schemes to amend the Labour Party constitution in order to get Carter in earlier.

Phil Goff must grasp the nettle and use this opportunity to remake the Labour Party and to refresh caucus and take the fight to National in ways that they have not even contemplated in the master plan of trying to secure a second term.

It is game on for next year for sure.

I’ve thought a bit more about The Labour Party Chicken Run. It seems too that other commentators have also and been reading this blog. The MSM is yet to catch onto to these thoughts. Matthew Hooton thinks Phil Goff and Andrew Little need to do a bit of backroom manipulation to orchestrate not three but FOUR by-elections and by winning all four easily there by strengthen Goff’s leadership and stave off the now apparent challenge from David Cunliffe.

I say apparent leadership challenge because firstly Chris Carter alluded to it and now Labour’s own tame churnalist Chris Trotter is endorsing openly the aspirations of David Cunliffe. Let’s put Chris Trotter’s endorsement of David Cunliffe aside for a moment and look at a SWAT analysis if you like of having four contemporaneous by-elections.

Ok the four by-elections should be:

Manurewa - predicated on George Hawkins winning his Local board election. This should happen easily. George Hawkins is well liked in Manurewa.

Te Atatu – Chris Carter needs to go. He needs to go for Phil’s sake and he needs to go for Labour’s sake. Andrew Little and Phil Goff need to agree to drop the disciplinary charges, and beg Helen to find him a cosy little Aids Ambassador’s trough or similar for him to continue his troughing ways. He has said he isn’t go to stand at the next election anyway so best if he moves along.

Mana – Winnie Laban has done the right thing, found a better trough to roll in, and one created specially for her.

Wigram – yes, I mention Wigram, because even though Jim Anderton is nearly dead his continued troughing with four jobs will only hurt Labour. Again Andrew Little’s superior negotiation skills should be able to encourage Jim Anderton to shuffle off so Labour can have their 4 by-elections.

So why do I say Labour should go for four contemporaneous by-elections, well because they are broke, behind in the polls and need a lift. They can win all of those four electorates easily. So winning or potentially losing shouldn’t enter their thought processes. Money is an issue and Labour is in desperate need of it. On the face of it they can’t really afford to fight four by-elections but then as an astute reader pointed out yesterday, by-elections actually raise money for the party. Mt Albert turned a profit and a capable new MP for Labour. Lastly Phil Goff and Labour need some wins on the board. Everything they have done so far has only enabled John Key’s government to extend their lead in the polls.  Nothing looks like winning more than winning. Having four by-elections and winning all four easily would make Phil Goff and Labour look like winners and make next years general election anyone’s for the taking. It would also crush Cunliffe’s dream like tank rolling over a tulip.

This is very important as Cunliffe rolls out his tame churnalists to support him. He is Labour’s Kevin Rudd. No one likes him, he is pompous and an arse. Phil Goff can put him down like a lame dog by grasping the nettle and pushing for four by-elections. Let’s hear no more talk of miracles from Labour along the lines of the Kevin Rudd implosion. That simply isn’t believable of John Key. This plan as outlined above however is reasonable, real, and achievable with only a little bit backroom negotiation and subterfuge.

Having the four by-elections contemporaneously even on the same days just make logistics even easier.

Labour's Chicken Run

Labour’s Chicken Run is in full swing with MPs looking for bolt-holes elsewhere rather than put up with more time in opposition with Phil Goff leading them.

Chris Carter set off the chain of events, and the longer time goes on the more it looks like that he was right. Labour MPs have quietly said to me that though they don’t want Phil to lead Labour, they also don’t want anyone else.

George Hawkins looks set to go should he get elected to the Manurewa Community Board and will force a by-election there, and now Winnie Laban has chucked it in.

For the last couple of days as well the tipline has been running hot with whispers out of Christchurch about Lianne “Patsy” Dalziell is about to chuck it in too. The rumour mill down south is flat out suggesting that Patsy is going to resign to take a job overseas.

Right now, I just bet Andrew “Three Hats” Little is kicking his own arse by declaring his born and bred Taranaki-ness when endless opportunities to get into parliament before the next election and spiking Phil Goff are presenting themselves as his broken-arsed party implodes.

He will have a devil of a job though fighting off three by-elections. I say three by-elections because if I was Chris Carter scheduling my bi-election the same days as Mana’s would be a sure-fire way of splitting Labour’s concentration in the electorate. The people want him to resign and test his support, Chris should welcome that and have the bi-election in Te Atatu on the same days as Mana.

As to possible candidates for Mana, names being bandied about by political commentators in the know are Maryan Street, moving north because she is so hopeless she can’t even beat a mental man, Phil Twyford moving south because he has used up every possible chance of getting selected in Auckland, so he may as well have a crack where standards aren’t so high down south, and finally Andrew Little declaring his long distant cousin was from Mana and so he calls it home too.

Notwithstanding all of that the EPMU Labour’s financiers must surely now be worried sick about having any money in the kitty to even fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

Chris Trotter isn’t happy with the selection of Repul­sion Camel.

UNBELIEVABLE! The Labour Party has just offered the NZ electorate further proof (if any more was needed) of its accelerating political infirmity.It has just selected Carmel Sepuloni as it Waitakere candidate.

In making this decision it has not only chosen wrongly, but it has also dealt what may prove to be a fatal blow to the career of one of its more talented MPs, Phil Twyford. “Waitakere Man/Woman” is the key to Labour’s recovery.

The truly sad aspect of today’s selection is what it tells us about the paucity of talent in Labour’s ranks.
For God’s sake! Two of the four candidates standing were sitting MPs! And dear old Hamish McCracken is a bloody political studies lecturer – just the sort of bloke Waitakere Man and his missus are desperate to sit down and have a drink with at the pub.

The clear goal facing Labour in Waitakere was to choose a candidate who can beat Paula Bennett. That candidate needed to be: female, have a solid working-class background (to which, at some point, she had added a tertiary qualification) be either Pakeha or Maori (or, ideally, a mixture of both) and, most importantly, be capable of “talking shit” with the same cheeky facility as the incumbent. Think Outrageous Fortune meets Erin Brocovitch.

A healthy Labour Party would have women like that lining up for the Waitakere seat. That it has ended up selecting a candidate who would, quite frankly, have been much more usefully matched against National’s Sam Lotu-liga in Maungakiekie (where I also happen to think Labour has made a wrong choice) speaks volumes.

And none of those volumes contain very much in the way of good news.

Trotter can see it, and he is right, Labour’s talent pool is as deep as a carpark puddle. basically Trotter is saying Labour is rooted, just in a far more eloquent manner.

The interesting thing about Repul­sion Camel is no-one really knows who she is. In a meeting with some of the senior Pasefika community leaders in Auckland they were saying “we don’t know her. It isn’t a surprise that she isn’t known in the Pasefika community, which is largely Auckland based, because she was born and raised in Taranaki and from went into the union movment. She is about as Pasefika as I am because I was born in Fiji.

Someone (repeaters) should ask where she is from, what her Pasefika credentials really are, or is she just playing on the funny name and the brown skin. If she is she picked the wrong electorate to play the race card.

Back to the Pasefika community, basically if you raise a name with these folk that person will be someone’s cousin/aunty/uncle  pretty much every time. Repul­sion Camel isnt, and the community leaders just don’t get why Labour are promoting her because she has no standing in the Pasefika community.

“Luimachuwum­bama” Win­nie Laban & Su’a William “So-so” Sio do have standing, they are known, they have credentials and while the Pasefika community leaders  don’t really rate “So-so” he has a chiefly title and has some respect. there is a reason Repul­sion Camel doesn’t have a title, the face doesn’t fit, she is a carpet-bagger from Taranaki for Waitakere and a carpet-bagger trading on her brown skin in the Pasefika community.

If the Greens selected Robyn Malcolm then they may come second pushing Repul­sion Camel to third place.