Te Pāti Māori allegations get fiery

• Bryce Edwards writes –

The Te Pati Māori scandal is becoming much fiercer and more serious. Ever since the allegations emerged on Sunday, the party has uncharacteristically gone very silent. The MP in question, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, has gone to ground, and no other Te Pati Māori MPs are commenting.

And then the AI election round up …

Modern journalists (like students) will cautiously admit that they occasionally use ChatGPT and other Artificial Intelligence bots … “mainly for cross-checking, of course”.

UK weekly election round up

It was a less-than-inspiring week in Britain’s general election campaign, with highlights (perhaps lowlights) including:

• a formulaic leaders debate between PM Rishi Sunak and challenger Keir Starmer, enlivened only by Sunak repeatedly accusing Starmer of plotting a huge tax rise, and Starmer taking an age (in political terms) to repudiate;
• Sunak’s dodging out early from D-Day commemorations to give a political interview.  Bad enough as a blunder, but it’s suggested that he or his team might actually have thought this was a good idea; and  
• debate over the possibility of the newish Reform party displacing the Conservative party on the right of the political spectrum (see here for example).

This last would certainly be significant.

Public inquiry needed on the Manurewa Marae allegations

• Bryce Wilkinson writes –

Last weekend, deeply disturbing allegations emerged that the privacy of New Zealanders’ census data was grossly violated in the lead-up to the 2023 general election.

Media reports include allegations that confidential personal information collected during the 2023 census on behalf of Statistics New Zealand was illicitly copied for private benefit.

Modern elections are supposed to be choreographed and disciplined – but not in Britain

British PM Rishi Sunak seems to have surprised everyone with last week’s announcement of a snap poll.  Perhaps even himself, to judge by his surprisingly upbeat mood.

Labour leader Keir Starmer’s troubles have probably cheered him up a bit, with the spotlight coming onto Starmer’s efforts to purge some of Labour’s harder-left MPs.  He will also be hoping more voters twig to the mathematical implausibility of the Labour party’s plans to deliver net-zero targets and also save consumers £93 billion (the magic ingredient is more state ownership – who would have thought of that?). 

But Rishi has also had his moments.  

UK election a foregone conclusion? That’s why it’s interesting

With a crushing 20-plus point lead in the opinion polls, all the signs are that Labour leader Keir Starmer will be the PM after the general election on 4 July, called by Conservative incumbent Rishi Sunak yesterday.

The stars are aligned for Starmer.  Rival progressives are in abeyance: the Liberal-Democrat party has lost the all-things-to-all-people shine that its name implies, while the Scottish Nationalists have coalesced into a residue of bitter personal opportunism.

He has only one problem.  The Conservatives have thoroughly tested his policies.  And they’re not working too well.

Getting to No

Politics is about compromise, right?  And framing it so the voters see your compromise as the better one. 

John Key was a skilful exponent of this approach (as was Keith Holyoake in an earlier age), and Chris Luxon isn’t too bad either.

But in politics, the process whereby an old consensus is replaced doesn’t look like a compromise.  Nor is it reached by negotiation.

Reasonable people can disagree on policy (as can unreasonable people)

In the wake of National and ACT’s success in the general election, what could be more enjoyable than to speculate on the policy implications.

And don’t underestimate the benefits of simply stopping bad policies of the former government.

But a tougher question is whether any new government is going to break decisively with the last twenty years of managed drift.

US elections: when in doubt, do nothing

America’s Democrats sighed with relief after Tuesday’s mid-term elections, even though they look likely to narrowly lose control of the House of Representatives, and perhaps even the Senate.

Because notwithstanding high levels of voter dissatisfaction, the widely-anticipated Republican wave petered out.

We should be impressed with the ability of diverse voters and voting regimes over a sprawling continent to deliver such finely nuanced results (including decisive victories for Trump Republican rivals such as Brian Kemp in Georgia and Ron DeSantis in Florida).

Hamilton West – a raft of issues will be aired during the byelection Ardern did not want

Nominations for Labour and National for the Hamilton West byelection close tomorrow  and – while the  rest  of  New Zealand was slumbering,  politically, over Labour  weekend – hopeful new members of Parliament were busy sounding out  their  prospects  to  win   their  party’s  nomination.

National will be breathing a sigh of relief that this time round there is more diversity in the lineup than for Tauranga.

If  someone  tries  to  tell you  there  won’t be  much   interest   because  of  Labour’s  majority of  over  6000  at  the  last  election, don’t  believe it.  As many  as  seven people may be putting their names in the ring for National, while Labour seems to have  lower interest to run in the byelection forced by the resignation of Gaurav Sharma after his expulsion from the Labour Party.

Adding  spice  to  the  political  speculation is  a  rumour  that  Jacinda  Ardern  may  cast  her  role  aside  and  escape   back  into  the  big  smoke  of  Auckland.  This  has  been  given  legs  by   no  less  an  authority  than Dr  Bryce  Edwards (see here ) although the  NZ  Herald ‘s redoubtable political  editor   Clare  Trevett has  dismissed it.