New Zealand General Election 2017
Sept 15, 2017 1:03:11 GMT
Pete Whitehead, Devil Wincarnate, and 9 more like this
Post by uhurasmazda on Sept 15, 2017 1:03:11 GMT
I thought I'd do some write-ups of the electorates. I'll start at the top of the country and keep going until I get bored.
Northland
This electorate, which stretches from Cape Reinga in the North to the Kaipara Inlet in the South, minus a chunk of land surrounding Whangarei, is predominantly rural and has one of NZ's largest populations of 50-64 year olds. It also has a huge Maori population, but a lot of these are enrolled in the Maori electorate of Te Tai Tokerau. Northland and the Far North especially are where a lot of NZ's early history took place, and was the focus of most Maori settlement: Hongi Hika and Hone Heke were from the Bay of Islands, to which they attracted early missionaries such as Samuel Marsden and Bishop Pompallier, which resulted in the now-tiny town of Russell becoming the first capital of the colony. It was described at the time as the "Hell-hole of the Pacific", although it has improved since then, becoming a bit of a tourist spot.
From this picture, you would imagine that Northland was a blue-ribbon National redoubt, but while it is indeed full to the brim with dairy farmers, Northland is a rebellious place. The preceding electorate of Hobson voted for the Country Party in the 1930s (an agrarian ally of Labour with ideas inspired by C.H. Douglas, of Social Credit fame) and the Social Credit Political League had a sequence of very good results back in the day, peaking with Vernon Cracknell winning the seat in 1966.
More recently, in the 2015 by-election, NZ First's Leader, Winston Peters, came from nowhere to take the electorate with 54% of the vote (his party had 13% of the party vote here in 2014) with the promise of building or expanding a series of bridges across the rugged countryside of the area. However, most of these projects have since been delayed or scrapped for various reasons, and it seems that Peters has failed to dig into the electorate. He is bullishly fighting for a fuck-off rail link between Auckland and Whangarei, along with a massive new port in the latter, but it doesn't seem to be gaining a huge amount of traction.
National HOLD/REGAIN
Whangarei
This electorate takes in the eponymous city and a swathe of the surrounding countryside, including the beautiful Whangarei Heads, which are all the better for being slightly too far away from Auckland to attract any but the keenest surfers. The city itself is fairly deprived, again with a high Maori population, but the electorate hasn't gone Labour since 1972. There is very little chance of this changing this time, although the Labour candidate, Tony Savage, has been frantic about the risk that he might have to leave his job to go to Wellington for three years.
With the current polling situation, it might well have gone Labour this time, but two third-party candidates are running electorate campaigns which will eat into Labour's vote. One is the frequent Democrats for Social Credit candidates Chris Leitch, who might get 5% if he's lucky, but the other is former Labour MP Shane Jones. A former Cabinet minister and leadership contender, Jones joined NZ First earlier this year and was rewarded with a safe (but lower than he'd have liked) List position and a chance to have a crack at Whangarei on the coat-tails of Winston's by-election win in neighbouring Northland. He was polled at 24% of the candidate vote in a poll in August. He almost certainly won't win, he'll just split the anti-National vote.
National HOLD
Rodney
Rodney is essentially a southern continuation of Northland, except it comes under the Auckland super-city. A rural electorate, running from the Maungawhau Heads to Whangaparoa, it is brimming with the holiday homes of Aucklanders, who are drawn up here by the hippyish art communes around Leigh, the hot-water swimming pools of Waiwera, the historic town of Puhoi (with excellent cheese and cream teas) and the fact that there is a decent-sized supermarket in Warkworth. In fact, what with house prices in Auckland at the moment, it is not uncommon to buy a home in Warkworth and make the two-hour commute to Auckland every day.
At the bottom of the electorate is Orewa, famous in political circles for Don Brash's Orewa speech over a decade ago. The speech was essentially a sustained attack on Maori talking points from the then-National leader, who saw a great improvement in the polls from that day onwards. Fortunately for internal peace in the country, he went on to lose the 2005 election, and now makes a nuisance of himself as a spokesperson for Hobson's Choice, a group which thinks that respecting the Treaty of Waitangi is somehow an attack on White rights. For what it's worth, Rodney is susceptible to such views, which is part of the reason why (ultra-Christian) Colin Craig got 21% of the vote here in 2011.
However, it is an extremely safe National electorate.
National HOLD
Helensville
This is the last electorate before we get into Auckland proper, and I think I'll leave this post here.
John Key's former constituency is mostly rural, taking in the almost-empty Kaipara Head (not to mention the home township of long-dead conservative PM Gordon Coates) and running down the West coast of the North Island, featuring such beaches as Bethell's, Piha and Muriwai, all of which are splashed across the news from time to time because some tourist has done something bloody stupid.
Fans of pop music will note that Taylor Swift shot her 'Out of the Woods' music video on the black volcanic sand of Piha beach.
Further inland, Helensville includes the northernmost sprawl of Auckland, in places like Dairy Flat and the top of Albany, and then the RNZAF's Whenuapai Airbase, some new housing developments out West, and then the hippy-filled wilderness of the Waitakere Ranges. These hippies are the main reason why the Greens took second place here in 2014, with 4,433 votes to Labour's candidate's 4425. And John Key's 22,720. This time, the battle for second place will be very interesting: Labour have selected the League coach and charming business bruiser Kurt Taogaga, who looks set to woo the old ladies of Helensville, while the Greens have gone with *deep breath* snowboarder, ballroom dancer, occasional boxer and frequent reality TV star Hayley Holt. Both will, naturally, lose to National's rather boring Chris Penk.
National HOLD
Northland
This electorate, which stretches from Cape Reinga in the North to the Kaipara Inlet in the South, minus a chunk of land surrounding Whangarei, is predominantly rural and has one of NZ's largest populations of 50-64 year olds. It also has a huge Maori population, but a lot of these are enrolled in the Maori electorate of Te Tai Tokerau. Northland and the Far North especially are where a lot of NZ's early history took place, and was the focus of most Maori settlement: Hongi Hika and Hone Heke were from the Bay of Islands, to which they attracted early missionaries such as Samuel Marsden and Bishop Pompallier, which resulted in the now-tiny town of Russell becoming the first capital of the colony. It was described at the time as the "Hell-hole of the Pacific", although it has improved since then, becoming a bit of a tourist spot.
From this picture, you would imagine that Northland was a blue-ribbon National redoubt, but while it is indeed full to the brim with dairy farmers, Northland is a rebellious place. The preceding electorate of Hobson voted for the Country Party in the 1930s (an agrarian ally of Labour with ideas inspired by C.H. Douglas, of Social Credit fame) and the Social Credit Political League had a sequence of very good results back in the day, peaking with Vernon Cracknell winning the seat in 1966.
More recently, in the 2015 by-election, NZ First's Leader, Winston Peters, came from nowhere to take the electorate with 54% of the vote (his party had 13% of the party vote here in 2014) with the promise of building or expanding a series of bridges across the rugged countryside of the area. However, most of these projects have since been delayed or scrapped for various reasons, and it seems that Peters has failed to dig into the electorate. He is bullishly fighting for a fuck-off rail link between Auckland and Whangarei, along with a massive new port in the latter, but it doesn't seem to be gaining a huge amount of traction.
National HOLD/REGAIN
Whangarei
This electorate takes in the eponymous city and a swathe of the surrounding countryside, including the beautiful Whangarei Heads, which are all the better for being slightly too far away from Auckland to attract any but the keenest surfers. The city itself is fairly deprived, again with a high Maori population, but the electorate hasn't gone Labour since 1972. There is very little chance of this changing this time, although the Labour candidate, Tony Savage, has been frantic about the risk that he might have to leave his job to go to Wellington for three years.
With the current polling situation, it might well have gone Labour this time, but two third-party candidates are running electorate campaigns which will eat into Labour's vote. One is the frequent Democrats for Social Credit candidates Chris Leitch, who might get 5% if he's lucky, but the other is former Labour MP Shane Jones. A former Cabinet minister and leadership contender, Jones joined NZ First earlier this year and was rewarded with a safe (but lower than he'd have liked) List position and a chance to have a crack at Whangarei on the coat-tails of Winston's by-election win in neighbouring Northland. He was polled at 24% of the candidate vote in a poll in August. He almost certainly won't win, he'll just split the anti-National vote.
National HOLD
Rodney
Rodney is essentially a southern continuation of Northland, except it comes under the Auckland super-city. A rural electorate, running from the Maungawhau Heads to Whangaparoa, it is brimming with the holiday homes of Aucklanders, who are drawn up here by the hippyish art communes around Leigh, the hot-water swimming pools of Waiwera, the historic town of Puhoi (with excellent cheese and cream teas) and the fact that there is a decent-sized supermarket in Warkworth. In fact, what with house prices in Auckland at the moment, it is not uncommon to buy a home in Warkworth and make the two-hour commute to Auckland every day.
At the bottom of the electorate is Orewa, famous in political circles for Don Brash's Orewa speech over a decade ago. The speech was essentially a sustained attack on Maori talking points from the then-National leader, who saw a great improvement in the polls from that day onwards. Fortunately for internal peace in the country, he went on to lose the 2005 election, and now makes a nuisance of himself as a spokesperson for Hobson's Choice, a group which thinks that respecting the Treaty of Waitangi is somehow an attack on White rights. For what it's worth, Rodney is susceptible to such views, which is part of the reason why (ultra-Christian) Colin Craig got 21% of the vote here in 2011.
However, it is an extremely safe National electorate.
National HOLD
Helensville
This is the last electorate before we get into Auckland proper, and I think I'll leave this post here.
John Key's former constituency is mostly rural, taking in the almost-empty Kaipara Head (not to mention the home township of long-dead conservative PM Gordon Coates) and running down the West coast of the North Island, featuring such beaches as Bethell's, Piha and Muriwai, all of which are splashed across the news from time to time because some tourist has done something bloody stupid.
Fans of pop music will note that Taylor Swift shot her 'Out of the Woods' music video on the black volcanic sand of Piha beach.
Further inland, Helensville includes the northernmost sprawl of Auckland, in places like Dairy Flat and the top of Albany, and then the RNZAF's Whenuapai Airbase, some new housing developments out West, and then the hippy-filled wilderness of the Waitakere Ranges. These hippies are the main reason why the Greens took second place here in 2014, with 4,433 votes to Labour's candidate's 4425. And John Key's 22,720. This time, the battle for second place will be very interesting: Labour have selected the League coach and charming business bruiser Kurt Taogaga, who looks set to woo the old ladies of Helensville, while the Greens have gone with *deep breath* snowboarder, ballroom dancer, occasional boxer and frequent reality TV star Hayley Holt. Both will, naturally, lose to National's rather boring Chris Penk.
National HOLD
