Bob Jones: The political polls

It staggers me that journalists take political polls seriously and call the forthcoming election a close-run thing. That’s rubbish. Labour will be swept out in a landslide, as I’ve been writing for the past two years. Putting aside the indisputable fact of the government’s astonishing ineptitude on so many fronts, there’s a simple reason for the coming debacle, namely the outrageous and seemingly endless maori favoritism announcements.

There was a time when political polls were accurate. That was in the highly politicised decade of the 1970s. Back then the vast majority of voters were either National or Labour and most Kiwis actually belonged to one of those two parties.

Muldoon used to boast that on a per capita percentage basis National was the largest political Party in the world. On face value that was correct, but again, buying a raffle ticket was often represented as membership.

Nevertheless, most electorates had a central elected committee and many suburban sub-committees within the electorate. To be chosen as an electorate delegate for the annual national conference carried social prestige. Despite only two television channels, one was given across to total coverage of the conference over Friday, Saturday and Sunday and commanded large audiences.

The highlight on Sunday, usually in the late afternoon, was the leader arriving with his wife to a standing 5 minute rousing accolade from the 1200 delegates. Over that 5 minutes the leader and his spouse slowly made their way to the stage, constantly stopping to shake hands or wave at the various delegates they recognised. Eventually the uproar diminished and the leader rendered his 30 minute speech which when over, resulted in another 5 minute standing ovation.

If people were unhappy with their Party, they never switched sides but instead cast a protest vote for the Social Credit nutters.

In those circumstances political polls were accurate as it was possible to select accurate cross-section samples of voters.

Rogernomics destroyed that political order. Understandably a large section of Labour voters saw this as a betrayal. Conversely, numerous traditional National voters viewed Labour as the second coming, evidenced in 1984 when Labour again won Ohariu in a straight race without my 1984 intervention splitting the result three ways, this then Wellington’s richest electorate. And it almost won Remuera and Fendalton, hitherto National’s most blue-chip strongholds.

That turmoil ended widespread public membership of political parties thus today Labour and National now have relatively miniscule memberships and depend on donations and taxpayer funded advertising at election time. Additionally, Labour and National Party conferences now struggle for delegates to attend while the media barely report them.

In short, it’s now impossible to create a meaningful poll with supposed cross-section Party samplings as by a country mile the largest voting sector today are floating voters in the middle of the remaining National and Labour diehards section.

The last election illustrated this new situation when convinced that the Prime Minister and her lock-down had saved us all from dying, the nation lost its collective head in the Jacindamania hysteria and delivered an overwhelming Labour victory. It took about 18 months for the public to wake from this mass delusion and for Jacinda to become the most disliked New Zealand politician since Muldoon in his latter days.

All of this is further testimony to Enoch Powell’s famous adage that all political careers end in failure.

Now to the crux of the matter. Last week the Invercargill mayor spoke up for democracy saying he believed in one vote for every voter. Unsurprisingly Stuff led the charge of branding him a racist bastard with ludicrous stories of weeping woman on hearing this abominable hate speech racism.

The government has flogged so-called co-government, that is a system where 2% of the population, namely those with a minimum half maori ancestry, should as a block, have equal government power with the other 98% of the population. They want to nationalise water services to be administered on the same 2%-98% race basis.

Maoris and Islanders are to receive priority by the hard-pressed medical services for operations and so it goes with numerous other outrageously racist and grossly undemocratic examples.

The public are understandably seething over this insanity. I don’t get about much in New Zealand but I know plenty of people who do and all report the anger at this disgraceful racist bias, but stay silent for fear of being branded racist.

Periodically the media report the public’s concerns as a result of polling are say, first the cost of living, then perhaps inflation or crime (this incidentally disproportionately a maori factor). The reason the polling produces such results is those polled are asked, what concerns you most out of a supplied list of inflation, crime, the cost of living and so on. Try a poll including co-government and maori favouritism and I have no doubt those would top the list. Thus, aside from gross mismanagement it will be this outrageously undemocratic racism that will see the government decimated in October.

A final comment on polls. For the reasons I’ve explained, they simply don’t work anymore, specifically the vast majority of people now being open-minded floating voters. This was illustrated by the recent Australian Federal election when on election eve we were told the polls had it 50/50. The next day’s vote produced a landslide to Labour.

So too in Britain with the Brexit vote with the pollsters claiming it was 50/50 but the actual vote produced a vastly different story. Or in America in 2016 when on election eve Huffington claimed their independent pollster had Trump’s chances at 2%. But the next day, admittedly without a majority over Clinton, he became President, and so it goes.

For the record, I’m not a National Party supporter and last voted for them in 1981.

Labour governments have shaped New Zealand since 1935, albeit by necessity in their first two terms whereupon, the Clark government excepted, they go power mad. I vividly remember every election since 1949 and unhesitantly say the current government is the most incompetent and damaging in the country’s history. In a little over 3 months time they will be wiped out, to such an extent they may never recover.

Sir Bob Jones is a renowned author, columnist , property investor, and former politician, who blogs at No Punches Pulled HERE.