The Specials

[Update: I posted this on Election Night. Since then, the Electoral Commission's estimated number of Special Votes has increased. And, on top of that, it's become clear that they were not including the estimated 38,500 Overseas Votes in their Specials Total. All of which means: Turnout is even higher than the 76.4% figure I originally calculated. It now stands at 77%.  The general point, though, still stands - 2014 turnout is higher than 2011, lower than 2008. The greater number of Specials also means I'll need to update my estimates (below) of the raw number of votes that various Parties gained or lost.]


Based on the way the Special Votes fell in recent Elections, we might expect:

- the Nats' Final Result to be about 0.5-0.7 points down, so perhaps around 47.5% or thereabouts

- Labour to be up about 0.4 points, so around 25%

- The Greens up 0.2-0.4 points, so 10.3% or 10.4%

- NZF very slightly down 0.1 or 0.2 - to 8.7%

- Others: slight lift in Maori Party vote, but ACT, UF and IMP should receive pretty much the same percentage as Election Night.

That assumes, of course, that the Specials will fall the same way as they did in the last 3 elections.







National's Election Night Result

2011 47.99%

2014 48.06%








National's Final Vote should comprise:

 - Around 36% of Enrolled Voters 

 - Around 33% of Eligible Voters 








TVNZ

I think TVNZ's Election Night Special got turnout wrong. They suggested:
- 2014: 67.7
- 2011: 74
- 2008: 79
And argued that this was a terrible figure.

But I suspect they were forgetting about the Specials. By my calculations, Turnout is about 76.4% - so half-way between 2008 and 2011.







A Few Quick Calculations:

Suggest that, if my guesses on the Final Vote are correct, then:

- National would have gained around 65,000 more votes than in 2011

- Labour would have lost around 25,000

- The Greens would have lost around 3,000

- NZ First would have gained around 58,000







While I'm no fan of Colin Craig's Conservatives:

I have to say that, once again, we're dealing with an absurdity that the current
Government should have resolved...

Cons:  86,616 votes (Election Night) (probably close to 95,000 in Final Result)
= No Seats

Maori Party:  27,074 = Represented in Parliament

ACT:  14,510 = Represented in Parliament

UF:  4,533 = Represented in Parliament



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WhhSBgd3KI

The Giant Strolls Out to Gaze Upon His Handiwork

A little historical perspective on the eve of the Election for your mild amusement.....

The Evening Post's immediate post-Election coverage in 1908:

"All the long day that giant called "the people" worked his will upon the candidates, and in the evening he strolled out to gaze upon his handiwork, and he was surprised at some of the things which he had done by throwing white and green papers at men and institutions. In 1905 the giant gave the Seddonian Liberal Administration a push forward, and yesterday he pulled it down a few pegs. In 1905 he decided to close a few hotels, and yesterday he resolved to shut up some more. All these things the giant did in warm blood, according to the approvers, and in cold blood, according to the smitten, and then he went home to bed, more or less well pleased with his labours.

In Wellington, the candidates - the survivors and the "slain" - congratulated one another last night about their gentlemanliness towards one another during the canvassing and speechifying campaign. Some other districts in the North and South Islands had their coats off, and many were wild-eyed and dishevelled, but a comparatively prunes-and-prism respectability characterised Wellington. This region had on a top hat, a frock coat, and spats, and kid gloves, by contrast with others, and maintained the hat, the coat, the spats, and the kid gloves in fairly decent condition right up to the last."




[I originally posted this on Brian Edwards Media in the run-up to the 2011 Election]

All Over Bar the Shouting ?: My Predictions for the 2014 New Zealand General Election

So it's come to this, has it ?

Having made extravagant promises in previous posts about completing a detailed Two-Parter analysing Poll support for each party in the 18-month run-up to the last two Elections and then, building on that analysis, providing an overview of polling trends over the last 18 months and applying the lessons from 2008 and 2011 in order to get to grips with where we are now, I suddenly find that the Election is upon us. All too late.

So instead: here are my predictions and a brief analysis comparing 2014/2011/2008 monthly and weekly poll averages. 

First, in Table 1, I've calculated the monthly poll averages for each Party/Bloc for 2014. I've then calculated the difference between these 2014 Monthly averages and the Monthly averages for the same point out from the 2011 Election. (The 2011 Election was held in late November, so the April 2014 average is compared with the June 2011 average. The May 2014 average is compared with the July 2011 average and so on.....) That, in turn, allows me to calculate what percentage each Party/Bloc would have received had (1) an Election been held in that particular Month (of 2014) and (2) the disparity between the Monthly Poll Average and the actual Election result been the same as in 2011.

You can see from Table 1 that, if we assume the polls this year are out by the same margin as they were in 2011, then in 2014 the Opposition Bloc  has consistently been well ahead of the (1)Right Bloc (ie the Right excluding Colin Craig's Conservatives). And from April through to August, the Opposition Bloc has always either been leading the (2)Right Bloc ( ie including the Cons) or has been level. In other words, if the polls this year diverge from the 2014 election result to precisely the same degree that they did in the run-up to the last Election, then the Opposition Bloc (assuming Peters decided to join the Left) has been dominant throughout this year. Despite all the hyperbolic MSM rhetoric suggesting Labour is Dog Tucker and it's All over Bar the Shouting, the Opposition Bloc has, in fact, been the more likely to win this year - if you take into account / control for the consistent over-stating of National and Right Bloc support in 2011.

Table 2 provides similar data for the weeks immediately preceding the Election. Once again, you can see that the Opposition Bloc has, over the last few weeks,  remained well ahead of the Right Bloc (excluding the Conservatives) if we assume the same poll-election result disparities that occurred in 2011.

Tables 3 and 4 do the same thing, but based on the assumption that the poll-election result disparities are the same as those at the 2008 Election. You can see that, under this scenario, the Opposition Bloc has been trailing the Right Bloc (whether including or excluding Colin Craig's Conservatives) for most of the year.

Laundry Time: Dirty Politics Update

Back in Mid-August, Colmar Brunton carried out a Snap Poll to gauge the public's immediate reaction to Nicky Hager's revelations in Dirty Politics. Conducted over the two days immediately following Hager's eagerly-awaited book launch, this Snap Poll of 500 respondents would have been disappointing to anyone on the Left hoping for immediate fallout in the polls.   More than two-thirds of National supporters refused to believe the allegations, a whopping 91% said it made little difference to how they viewed their Party, while just 2% of Nats (representing a mere 1% of the entire electorate) agreed that the scandal had negatively influenced their perception of the Party.

Still, it was obviously early days. As various commentators pointed out at the time, the poll was carried out before voters had really had much time to fully digest the details and come to terms with the arguably quite profound implications.The issue was always likely to be a bit of a slow-burner as the media momentum built over subsequent weeks (not unlike Corngate - one of Hager's other campaign interventions - in 2002). And there were at least some early signs from the Snap Poll of the potential for a somewhat broader disaffection among National's constituency - 10% of Nat voters, according to the poll, said they believed Hager's allegations of smear campaigns organised at the highest levels of the National Party, a further 23% weren't sure and - joining the 2% of Nats who viewed National more negatively - a further 3% were unsure precisely how they now felt about the Party. These small, overlapping minorities of National voters were the ones who might just conceivably budge over following weeks as the scandal reached a crescendo.

The finer detail of Colmar Brunton's snap poll also raised the intriguing possibility that the most important electoral consequence of the affair might not be so much a direct swing from Nat-to-Lab or Right-to-Left but rather in motivating a sizeable section of both Undecideds and erstwhile Labour-leaning Non-Voters  to turn out on Election Day. A significant 19% of Labour supporters said they were more likely to get out and vote as a result of the scandal, while 23% of Undecideds believed Hager's allegations, with almost a quarter of this group feeling more negative about the National Party as a result. What's more,if the pattern of 2002 is anything to go by, then there is also potential for a swathe of erstwhile National supporters to stage a silent protest by simply failing to turn up at the polling booth on Election Day. A protest that may well go undetected in the pre-Election polls (It's interesting in this respect that National suffered a 4 point hit in the latest Early-Sept One News Colmar Brunton and that the Undecideds increased significantly).


 Colmar Brunton have now released their (Late August) follow-up poll on the scandal, allowing us to explore the fallout over a somewhat longer period.

Question 1 of the Late August Colmar Brunton (in the tables below, I refer to this as the Regular Poll) is essentially the same as Question 2 of the Mid August Snap poll. Similarly, Q2 of the Regular poll is the same as Q3 of the Snap poll. 



   Colmar Brunton    - August 2014   Dirty Politics Poll  (Comparative)   
     Mid-August Snap Poll (509 respondents)                                  
     compared to                                                                            
     Late-August  Regular Poll (1000 respondents)                                
  Q1 (Regular Poll) / Q2 (Snap Poll): "The recently released book,  Dirty  Politics, suggests smear campaigns and leaks were organised at the          highest levels of the National Party including the  Prime Minister's         
 Office. Do you believe these suggestions ?"                                              
  Entire Sample               Yes              No            Don't Know         
  Snap Poll                      28                43                  29                
  Regular Poll                  41                35                  24                
  Diff                              + 13               - 8                  - 5                
  National Supporters      Yes               No           Don't Know          
  Snap Poll                      10                 68                  23               
  Regular Poll                  22                 56                 22                
  Diff                              + 12               - 12                 - 1               
  High  Yes                                                                                     
  Snap Poll       - Christchurch Residents 45        - Labour and   Green Supporters 43                                                                    
  Regular Poll   - NZ First Supporters 76     - Green Supporters   75     - Maori 60     - Labour Supporters 55     - 35-54 age-group  48                                                                                                 
  High  No                                                                                      
  Snap Poll           - National Supporters  68                                
  Regular Poll      - National Supporters  56                                 
  Above Average Increase in Yes - between the two Polls                
            - Undecided Voters 23 (Snap) to 41 (Reg) = + 18 points  
            - Labour and Green Supporters  43 (Snap) to  61 (Reg) = + 18 points                                                                                

  Q2 (Regular Poll) / Q3 (Snap Poll): "Have these allegations positively or negatively influenced your view of the National Party or have they not       made much difference ?"                                                                              
  Entire Sample      Positively     Negatively     Not Much Diff     DK 
  Snap Poll                4                      9                    82               5  
  Regular Poll           5                     18                    75                3 
  Diff                         + 1                   + 9                   - 7             - 2 
 National Voters     Positively      Negatively     Not Much Diff    DK  
  Snap Poll                  5                     2                    91              3  
  Regular Poll          No Data             6                    87      No Data
  Diff                              -                  + 4                  - 4               -  
  High  Negatively                                                                           
  Snap Poll           - Labour and Green Supporters 19                 
  Regular Poll    -  Green Supporters 39   - NZF Supporters 30   
                          - Labour Supporters 25   - 35-54 age-group 24  
  High  Not Much Diff                                                                      
  Snap Poll           - National Supporters 91                                 
  Regular Poll       - National Supporters 87                                 
  Above Average Increase in Negative - between the two Polls        
        - Undecided Voters 5 (Snap) to 23 (Reg)  = + 18  points     
        - Labour and Green Voters 19 (Snap) to 29 (Reg) = + 10     

The Late August (Regular) Colmar Brunton poll certainly suggests the Dirty Politics scandal had gained momentum over those final two weeks of August as the National Party hierarchy increasingly lost control of the campaign agenda. The corollary: a steady corrosive effect on attitudes towards both John Key and the National Party.

General acceptance of the idea that smear campaigns were organised at the highest levels of the National Party, including the Prime Minister's Office, increased 13 points to 41% of all respondents (with a further 24% Unsure).

Naturally, belief in Hager's thesis was especially strong among Labour, Green and Opposition voters. But notice, too, the unusually large increase among that crucial segment of the electorate - those who are Undecided on the Party-Vote (up 18 points) - and the fact that acceptance of the allegations among National supporters had more than doubled (from 10 to 22% - with a further 22% of Nats Unsure).

Click on Read more for rest of analysis

Can't See the Wood for the Trees

Right, so let me get this straight.

The latest Colmar Brunton has National plunging 4 percentage points, with the Right Bloc (excluding Colin Craig's Conservatives) down by 2.

At the same time, while Labour is mildly down (1 point), the Left Bloc as a whole has risen 2 points and the broader Opposition Bloc (Left+Winston) are up by 1.

All of which means the chances of a Labour-led Government according this latest Colmar Brunton are significantly higher than they were a week ago when the previous poll was taken. The 4 point gap that existed between the Right and Opposition Blocs during the first week of September has now been slashed to just a single percentage point. Knife-edge stuff.

What's more, in the broader context of recent poll trends, this latest Colmar Brunton seems to herald the end of National's post-Collins-resignation bounce. As with the latest Reid Research, the Left are now hitting the early 40s (rather than late 30s), the Opposition Bloc's up in the late 40s (rather than early-mid 40s), National are down to their self-identified 'Danger Zone' (46-47% rather than their early-mid 50s ratings in the immediate wake of Collins' demise) and the Right Bloc (sans the Conservatives) are down on 48% (rather than 50-55).

So, how did the MSM frame what is essentially good news for Labour and the Left and Opposition Blocs - news that makes the election of a Labour-led government in a week's time rather more likely ?

"The latest One News Colmar Brunton poll brings more bad news for Labour" - that was the RNZ newsreader on Thursday night, introducing the main items to be covered on Radio New Zealand's 10pm Late Edition news. A few minutes later, in the item itself, the newsreader (presumably reading a script written by an RNZ sub-editor) is forced to come across as some kind of partisan apologist, immediately explaining away National's conspicuous fall in support in the most grudging and dismissive terms - as if  to say 'Nothing to see here, this is the very least important aspect of the poll and best we all just forget about it'. Yes, yes, OK, National may have fallen 4 points in the latest Colmar Brunton but we can absolutely assure you that (i) they remain "well ahead of Labour" and (ii) Labour have fallen 1 point to 25% which is their worst Colmar Brunton performance in the last couple of years. Cue: more rhetoric about Labour's poll woes.

This, unfortunately, proved to be RNZ's exclusive framing of the Colmar Brunton results over the following two days: Introducing an item on Checkpoint, for instance, Jim Mora suggested that: "a day after the 3 News Reid Research poll showed the National Party continued to retain strong public support", the latest Colmar Brunton suggests National has "continued its strong showing" (or, as another RNZ report had it, the poll points to "on-going strong support for the National Party").

Forget, then, the little fact that both Reid Research and Colmar Brunton  had the Nats down in their acknowledged Danger Zone of 46-47%. Forget the apparently minor piece of trivia that a Labour-Green-NZ First Coalition might possibly, just possibly, now be on the cusp of power (in a way that they weren't just a week ago). No, this poll, according to the State broadcaster, was apparently all about (i) National being well ahead of Labour and (ii) Labour sinking ever deeper into the mire -  dropping that all-important one percentage point (in what, given the margin-of-error, could quite conceivably have been nothing more than statistical noise).

First-Past-the-Post: 1, MMP: 0

A day later, Dominion Post political editor Tracey Watkins argued that, while the Greens' rise to 14 points in this latest Colmar Brunton would normally be cause for jubilation, "the hard reality facing the Greens is that as long as Labour remains in the doldrums, they may as well be on 5 per cent."  The Greens, she went on to suggest, ".....are marooned by their refusal to contemplate any deal supporting National in government."

And yet later, in the self-same article, Watkins - seemingly unaware of the inherent contradiction - agrees that "...on last night's poll (ie the Colmar Brunton), NZ First would be kingmaker."  Riiiight. So, Watkins' line of reasoning is that NZ First will hold the balance of power according to this poll, National will be unable to govern with its current little helpers, everything will essentially come down to Winston's choice of Coalition partner, to Winston's basic proclivities - and yet, apparently,  it's all over bar the shouting, the chances of a Labour-led government: beyond hopeless !!!

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the odds are necessarily in Labour's favour or that Winston is more likely to choose a Left-leaning Coalition over a Right-leaning one.

What I am saying is: vague, meaningless, waffly FPP-style rhetoric about National remaining well ahead of Labour or sweeping assertions to the effect that this Election is done and dusted - just won't cut the mustard. Voters are entitled to know precisely how likely various Coalition scenarios are, based on the latest poll results. If polls start suggesting that the Right-Left or Right-Opposition support-gap is narrowing, so much so that a potential Labour-Green-NZ First Coalition has become at least a realistic possibility (even if not necessarily a probability) then that's exactly what well-paid Political Editors like Watkins should be telling readers.

How Fair Dinkum was my Valley ?: The latest 3 News Reid Research Foreign Ownership Poll in Comparative Perspective

In reverse chronological order, you understand, Cobber.


        3 News Reid Research Poll      -  Foreign Ownership                  
                             Early August    2014                                                
 Q1: Do you think there should be stricter controls placed on foreign   ownership of New Zealand land and housing ?                                   
 Entire Sample:      Yes 77%      No 20%      Don't Know 3%            
 National Voters:    Yes 65%      No 31%      Don't Know 4%            
 Q2: Should the Government approve the sale of Lochinver Station to Shanghai  Pengxin ?                                                                               
 Entire Sample:      Yes 25%      No 68%       Don't Know 7%           
 National Voters:    Yes 38%      No 53%       Don't Know 9%           




                Herald-DigiPoll           - Farm Sales to Foreigners                  
                                         August    2014                                                 
  EEntire Sample                                                                           
     Ban Altogether           "Nearly a Third"                                     
     Approve only when it brings a significant advantage over a    
New Zealand Buyer (such as jobs)        "a majority of voters"      
     No Restrictions                   13%                                               




                    Fairfax-Ipsos Poll               August 2014                           
   Q1: Should the Government make it harder for foreign investors     
 to buy large amounts of productive farmland ?"                                  
  Entire Sample:    Yes 74%       No 24%       Don't Know 2%     
   Q2: Has too much productive farmland already been sold      
 into foreign ownership ?"                                                            
  Entire Sample:     Yes 53%       No 41%       Don't Know 7%     
   Q3: Do you think New Zealand's economy  benefits from        
more foreign investment ?"                                                          
  Entire Sample:    Yes 64%       No 31%       Don't Know 5%      



 
                    Colmar Brunton               Mid May 2014                            
                   Immigration / Housing / Foreign Ownership                       
  Q1: Do you think the Government should place more controls on      
 Immigration to reduce pressure on the housing market ?                      
  Entire Sample:       Yes 57%       No 33%       Don't Know 11%  
  High Yes:       Household Annual Income Under 70k 64%         
  Maori 75%                                                                                  
  High No:      Household Annual Income Over 70k 40%             
                      Non-New Zealand Europeans 50%                        
   Q2: Do you think New Zealand should have a register             
of foreign ownership on property ?                                               
  Entire Sample:       Yes 68%       No 22%       Don't Know 10%  
             No statistically significant sub-group differences             




                    Herald-DigiPoll         December 2013                        
  Private Member's Bill from Labour MP and Former Leader Phil  Goff to Limit Rural Land Sales to Foreigners                                
  The Bill is Sound and should be supported    55%                     


For Earlier Tables, Click on Read More