What will happen to National now?

To post in this sub-forum you must have made 100 posts or have Trust status or have completed our ID Verification

Forums › Politics › What will happen to National now?

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | ... | 111

885 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2590295 22-Oct-2020 16:04

sen8or:

Yes, labour only got elected on the strength of their past performances, with such stellar successes like Kiwibuild, Light Rail, child poverty, oh and the billion trees......

You are conveniently neglecting to mention Labour's performance to date on the single biggest issue of the year, the Parliamentary term, the decade and possibly an entire generation. Covid.

Kiwibuild etc. are a total irrelevance to the swing voter in 2020. National was shouting themselves hoarse about this "failure to deliver" until election night and even now are yet to figure out that their own already loyal voters were the only ones who cared in the first place. Labour got a lot of votes because when it came to the one thing that really mattered this year, they delivered.

Handle9

11267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2590346 22-Oct-2020 18:34

sen8or:

Yes, labour only got elected on the strength of their past performances, with such stellar successes like Kiwibuild, Light Rail, child poverty, oh and the billion trees......

But yes, National Party leadership and party vote got pretty much what they deserved. And quite scarily, you are probably right, they are the best of National right now

A negative campaign on Labours failures only works if there is a credible alternative. National was a circus and no one could credibly claim they were more competent than Labour.

The Labour government has been mediocre on a number of issues but hardly a disaster. The economy was largely fine prior to COVID, there had been no real changes from the Clark/Key policy platform. It's a third moderate third way government in a row.

tdgeek

29642 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2590347 22-Oct-2020 18:37

allio:

sen8or:

Yes, labour only got elected on the strength of their past performances, with such stellar successes like Kiwibuild, Light Rail, child poverty, oh and the billion trees......

You are conveniently neglecting to mention Labour's performance to date on the single biggest issue of the year, the Parliamentary term, the decade and possibly an entire generation. Covid.

Kiwibuild etc. are a total irrelevance to the swing voter in 2020. National was shouting themselves hoarse about this "failure to deliver" until election night and even now are yet to figure out that their own already loyal voters were the only ones who cared in the first place. Labour got a lot of votes because when it came to the one thing that really mattered this year, they delivered.

If the issue is failure to deliver then there are two opposing forces. One had policies that failed to deliver. The other had no policies so delivered nothing. Note that Labour passed 190 odd legislatives in their term. National was about 1/3 of that in three terms. Forget left and right, forget Labour and National, its Progressive vs Conservative. Do stuff or sit on hands. In todays world, doing nothing and spouting about surpluses doesn't cut it, when you leave behind underfunding to fund the surpluses.

Both parties need to live in todays world

tdgeek

29642 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2590350 22-Oct-2020 18:43

Handle9:

A negative campaign on Labours failures only works if there is a credible alternative. National was a circus and no one could credibly claim they were more competent than Labour.

The Labour government has been mediocre on a number of issues but hardly a disaster. The economy was largely fine prior to COVID, there had been no real changes from the Clark/Key policy platform. It's a third moderate third way government in a row.

I agree with mediocre. Hamstrung by NZF on some issues, inexperienced. With that behind them, they need to deliver, no excuses this time.

allio

885 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2590615 23-Oct-2020 09:58

tdgeek:

I agree with mediocre. Hamstrung by NZF on some issues, inexperienced. With that behind them, they need to deliver, no excuses this time.

Left voter and I agree. This term will define the Ardern government.

Technofreak

6527 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2591047 23-Oct-2020 22:37

What will happen to National? As in the past for either of the two major parties they will work their way through to present a credible option in the future.

No matter how long Jacinda Ardern stays on as the Labour leader, Labour will be voted out in no more than three terms based on what’s happened in the past. The electorate gets tired of the same party in power after 9 or so years. Parties are normally voted out rather than being voted in.

What are the relative chances of either party being elected to govern New Zealand in 2023?

From my perspective Labour achieved absolutely nothing to have deserved a second term, yet they have been handsomely elected.

They never expected the first term. If you recall, Jacinda Arderns body language the night of the 2017 election said very clearly the election was lost. Labour didn’t realistically expect to hold the reigns of power and they were in no way prepared to do so. Hence all the working parties as soon as they took over. Unfortunately for them they were lured into the Lion’s (Winston’s) Den and ended up holding the Lion by the tail.

Right up until Covid struck they were staring down defeat at election time. They had not delivered on any of their flagship policies, plus there had been several ministerial embarrassments along the way, Claire Curran (Radio NZ), Ian Lees-Galloway (immigration issues and the Kick Boxer), Phil Twyford (Kiwibuild) with David Clarke to follow during Covid with his cycling escapades. Governments do not normally survive these sorts of issues.

In my opinion Covid was barely adequately managed and along with a healthy dose of good luck we did fare better than most countries. There are many areas we were plain lucky or could have and should have done much better.

However the message was managed very well. (We went early and we went hard, we’re doing better than other countries etc, etc). The message stuck.

The government looked like a rabbit in the headlights to start with, it took several businessmen to take stock of the situation put their own money up to ensure we as a country got PPE supplies.

We didn’t go early, certainly not as early as we could have or as early as some countries in stopping travellers from countries with high infection rates. The border testing was very substandard to start with, despite assurances otherwise. The latest community transmission has shown up more potential leaks at the border.

Nurses were working in managed isolation and then within a day or so were back working in a hospital (how was that ever a good idea). PPE supplies were not where needed despite assurances to the contrary. The Covid app delivery was botched.

A lot of our success is due to our isolation and low population density and not due to that fact our government was any better than any other government in managing Covid. Am I saying National would have done better? No I’m not. I’m just saying our government’s Covid response was not as fantastic as some people think.

Labour now has three years to prove they can do the job without having to contend with the Lion. If they can do that then they will probably get re-elected no matter how good National is as an opposition otherwise National won’t have to be all that good to have a better than even chance of forming the government in 2023.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

Handle9

11267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2591941 25-Oct-2020 22:51

A thread about National gets a wall of words about Labour.

Interesting.

Sharesies kids

Free kids accounts - trade shares and funds (NZ, US) with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Varkk

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2592284 27-Oct-2020 09:30

Technofreak:

Right up until Covid struck they were staring down defeat at election time. They had not delivered on any of their flagship policies, plus there had been several ministerial embarrassments along the way, Claire Curran (Radio NZ), Ian Lees-Galloway (immigration issues and the Kick Boxer), Phil Twyford (Kiwibuild) with David Clarke to follow during Covid with his cycling escapades. Governments do not normally survive these sorts of issues.

It was not a lock in even then. National and Labour were polling fairly evenly. It would have once again come down to who Winston would have picked. Simon Bridges was still not featuring in the preferred PM stakes which wouldn't have helped them. As for the Ministerial gaffes, National had more and worse than that in 2008-2011 and it didn't hurt them in the 2011 election at all. Most of Labour's failure to deliver policy was either explicitly blocked by NZ First and they were happy to let people think that NZ First had blocked action on the others. While this may have helped them during the campaign, I doubt it would have helped much during the negotiations after the election.

MikeAqua

7769 posts

Uber Geek

#2592413 27-Oct-2020 13:38

Varkk:

It was not a lock in even then. National and Labour were polling fairly evenly. It would have once again come down to who Winston would have picked.

Prior to covid, indications suggested we were heading into a recession. That would have been bad for the govt's popularity.

We are definitely in one now, but it's being masked by govt handouts. I'm not debating the merits of those handouts, but they do tend to function like bog over rust. They hide the problem (for a while) rather than treat it.

If you believe economists featured on TV (many wouldn't believe them). The current recessions is expected to dive deeper still, followed by a dead cat bounce and then a recovery.

Exports are still down in many sectors (wine is apparently doing quite well still). The wheels are coming off big time in Europe.

It's very difficult to even guess what will happen in the next 6 months.

I know the national party will rebuild and I'm certain they will bounce back. The question for me is where will the socially conservative vote go? It's pretty clear NZrs prefer centrist govts. National really needs to ditch the socially conservative elements. I've never been that comfortable with it personally, but tolerated it as I find the social conservatism politics of the right less unpalatable (slighty) than the identity politics obsession of the left.

Linda Clarke made an astute observation: She suggested we may miss Peters as he was a safe pair of hands for conservative voters. With the death of NZF where will those conservative voters go? It's possible that TNC or similar may get over the line next election.

Mike

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#2593028 29-Oct-2020 09:05

MikeAqua:

Exports are still down in many sectors (wine is apparently doing quite well still). The wheels are coming off big time in Europe.

It's very difficult to even guess what will happen in the next 6 months.

You can replace "months" with minutes, hours, days, weeks, years - and it's still true.

Anyway, there's some (historical) data here:

https://www.stats.govt.nz/experimental/covid-19-data-portal?

(Most components of the economy have "bounced back" - most exports are doing well. I think wine is doing particularly well, I'd just be guessing that a factor in that is "top of the mind" preference of overseas buyers to buy NZ wine because NZ has had a high / positive profile in global media).

Eat, drink, and be merry...

Technofreak

6527 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2593706 29-Oct-2020 22:44

Fred99:

Eat, drink, and be merry...

For tomorrow there will be a giant economic hangover.

The Covid money that the government has dumped into the economy is a bit like a sugar rush or an over indulgence in alcohol. Things are revved up at the moment and seem really good but it's quite likely to come to a crashing halt. I really hope it doesn't crash because it's going to hurt a lot of people, but things seem to be too good to be true right now.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

sen8or

1778 posts

Uber Geek

#2593787 30-Oct-2020 08:27

fake it till you make it?

I think they are trying to embed some sort of confidence in the business community, look how much activity there is, people are still spending money, don't stop investing in business seems to be the message they are trying to peddle and by and large, its difficult to argue against the message.

Look at the $ being poured into real estate at the moment because banks aren't offering returns for investors and property is "safe" whereas business isn't seen as a safe investment even with likely higher returns.

As for National - history has shown that they will be back, be it 2023 or 2026 will largely depend on the next 12-24 months. If they settle in behind a leader that has broad appeal and develop their own positive plan for all NZers, they have a chance, if they don't then they don't.

MikeAqua

7769 posts

Uber Geek

#2593945 30-Oct-2020 13:46

Fred99:

You can replace "months" with minutes, hours, days, weeks, years - and it's still true.

Anyway, there's some (historical) data here:

https://www.stats.govt.nz/experimental/covid-19-data-portal?

(Most components of the economy have "bounced back" - most exports are doing well. I think wine is doing particularly well, I'd just be guessing that a factor in that is "top of the mind" preference of overseas buyers to buy NZ wine because NZ has had a high / positive profile in global media).

Eat, drink, and be merry...

Yeah I agree, the future is unpredictable. Time is almost irrelevant. It's fecking hard to plan medium term.

Those stats are pretty horrific for seafood (I already knew that 😭) and forestry appears to have lost close to $1B. There is also lot of product that has been produced but not sold. I've seen some analysis that estimates there is up to 6 months normal production in cold-stores for several sectors. I know for a fact that cold-store space is at a premium and hotly contested right now. To me that indicates people are producing but not selling.

Container capacity is down. Even if demand recovers dramatically, it will take some time to build freight capacity and move product.

The good news is that domestic spending seems to be up.

Mike

MikeAqua

7769 posts

Uber Geek

#2593946 30-Oct-2020 13:49

sen8or:

If they settle in behind a leader that has broad appeal and develop their own positive plan for all NZers, they have a chance, if they don't then they don't.

Something I dislike about politics in NZ - it has become all about the leader. The other would-be ministers are almost invisible during campaign.

I'm not sure if this is something parties are doing or the media. Either way it isn't very helpful.

Mike

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#2596117 2-Nov-2020 09:14

MikeAqua:

Those stats are pretty horrific for seafood (I already knew that 😭) and forestry appears to have lost close to $1B.

I guess the main problem with seafood exports is inability to get foreign crew for deep sea vessels?

The retail price of fish in NZ is hardly indicative of over-supply on the local market (if that would be the result of a glut on export markets). Retail prices seem at least 25% higher than 12 months ago.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | ... | 111