On that projection National has 41 electorates. Those party votes entitle it to 34 seats. The extra seven come from the electorates, not from the party vote. Christopher Luxon could have stacked another hundred thousand party votes on the pile and he would not have gained a single MP.
He wrote the suicide note himself. Split voting, he said, was "an insanely stupid idea." There was "no value giving it to ACT, no value giving it to New Zealand First, you're not helping me." In Havelock North, four days out: "Do not do any of this split voting or strategic voting malarkey." Just a straight party vote for National. Two ticks blue.
He could not have been more wrong.
Here is what that advice cost.
The ordinary count already has the centre-right over the line. Specials are still to come — about a fifth of the final vote — and they usually lean left. Allow for them and the centre-right is short of a majority. National sits on 41 seats, all of them electorates, with ACT on 12 and NZ First on 11. That is 64 in a House of 131. They need 66.
About 82,000 to 91,000 of those National party votes, given instead to ACT or NZ First, would have done it. National would still have its 41 electorates. The allies would have picked up the extra seats. The centre-right would have 68 in a House of 135 — a majority.
Nine hundred thousand wasted party votes. One in ten of them shifting, exactly as Don Brash and RCR were explaining, and Christopher Luxon would be forming a government.
He told them not to. They listened. And now he gets to explain why two ticks blue was the clever thing to do.
He could not have been more wrong.
Here is what that advice cost.
The ordinary count already has the centre-right over the line. Specials are still to come — about a fifth of the final vote — and they usually lean left. Allow for them and the centre-right is short of a majority. National sits on 41 seats, all of them electorates, with ACT on 12 and NZ First on 11. That is 64 in a House of 131. They need 66.
About 82,000 to 91,000 of those National party votes, given instead to ACT or NZ First, would have done it. National would still have its 41 electorates. The allies would have picked up the extra seats. The centre-right would have 68 in a House of 135 — a majority.
Nine hundred thousand wasted party votes. One in ten of them shifting, exactly as Don Brash and RCR were explaining, and Christopher Luxon would be forming a government.
He told them not to. They listened. And now he gets to explain why two ticks blue was the clever thing to do.
Rodney Hide is former ACT Party leader, and Minister in the National-ACT Government from 2008 to 2011. This article was first published HERE
15 comments:
Christopher Luxon will go down in history as a shing example of the wrong man for the job at nearly every level.
Did he not once consider why various MP's wanted him gone in the litany of leadership challenges he had? Like even a little bit?
From start to finish, this turkey had absolutely no idea how politics works or why and we could all see it. And when it came down to very accurate polling by Curia, the National Party leader still had absolutely no idea how the system worked. It is absolutely unforgivable!
To him PM is a title to add to his CV and really, for this non ideological individual that's really all that mattered.
Should they survive, he needs to be gone as soon as possible. Like yesterday because he remains the oppositions number one of asset.
If it were not for people and groups like Don Brash, Harry Mowbray, RCR and others campaigning for National voters to split their votes we could have lost last night.
Luxon is referred to as the Rt. Honourable. He should do the honourable thing and resign before he is rolled.
What does Hyde have against proportional representation? It is the most libertarian, pure democracy approach. Strange article. Didn’t Hyde represent ACT principles at one stage?
I could not have said it any better than Pete’s description of “Luxon the Stupid.”
The centre right has 67 seats and can govern Rodney. Sure two of those seats could be flipped on the specials however Opportunity stand a good chance of getting a lower percentage on the specials as these usually favour the Greens.The overhang will mean National won't lose a seat from the specials this time. I have been saying on this forum for 3 years that Luxon hasn't any political nous .National deserved to lose more.
Now we enter 3 wasted years of rudderless mush 'governance'.
"We wuz robbed!" cries the left. No you weren't. The Maori Party instigated the split-vote strategy. They were aided by The Mainstream Media, The National Party and National voters. Let's get real here. The Greens succeeded because of vote-splitting. In addition, the Maori Party have a number of "given" seats. Many of us already used the vote splitting strategy(all perfectly legal).
One left wing commentator had the audacity to say "The right-wing government should temper its policies if they are elected!". Newsflash: they already have.
Luxon has demonstrated that his focus is the National Party, not a centre-right government.
He was concerned about the split between National, ACT and NZ First — not so much the split between the centre-right and the left.
Vote-splitting worked, sufficient to put the centre-right back in by the narrowest of margins.
If voters had ignored Luxon and John Key, those 900,000 party votes could have gone to ACT and NZ First, and the centre-right would be in power by a very healthy margin.
On the other hand, if all centre-right voters had listened to Luxon and Key’s “two-ticks blue” advice, Luxon would now be Opposition Leader.
That might yet happen if special votes lean left, as they usually do.
Luxon would then have to swallow his pride and talk to Opportunity.
Or Opportunity, lured by Labour’s liking for yet another tax and an offer to consider a UBI, could opt to support the left.
It wouldn’t be the first time a Labour leader has been “appointed” PM by minor party support!
Got the numbers off the Electoral website... OK specials will modify a bit, but... Nats42,Act13,NZF12=67 seats... Lab 36,Grns16, Maoripardy5 = 57. So add on 7 to the Oppertuniddy lot, they are still short on numbers. LUXON needs dumping before his next breath. Thats another opportunity for a better candidate in Botany.... Bishop, Penk, ? Stanford will be PM.... wait n see!
Yes , it is unbelievable that people like Sir John Key could influence Luxon and many other National stalwarts throughout the country to not split your vote .
I voted outside my electorate but had always intended to split my vote, giving the party vote to the support party that could use it best - in this election l gave to NZ First.
It will be interesting to see if it helped to increase their party vote and by so doing, gain another seat.
If it doesn’t, and we get a left wing outfit as a result of this crazy policy recommendation, then Luxon needs to resign allowing Chris Bishop to take over as leader.
Not Stanford - Erica has revealed herself as a labour-lite wokester who is happy for people to be treated differently based on their ancestry. So much so that she was openly scathing of NZers who dared to express opinions contrary to her own. Careful what you wish for.
And another factor that might have saved us from ourselves - research shows that voter turnout, particularly in low decile communities can be significantly negatively influenced by adverse weather conditions such as the storms that hit Auckland yesterday.
I’ll be interested to see if the Left wing vote was down in the suburbs that usually rely heavily on fine weather.
Conspiracy theory but i think Luxon wanted to shore up Nat position while not splitting vote in order to lose . Dealing with the radical Maori potential violence down the line is not where Luxon especially and Nat are at. They want to be on the sideline tut tutting but not involved . Bit like the Brexit vote rant sketches ...we were not meant to win. Just come close
.
To Clive. Well done, you are one of the sensible ones who might have influenced the election. Here in the BOP voters did pretty well. I think ACT got around 15% and NZF 13% party vote.
Still, National received almost 38% party vote, totally wasted.
A sobering thought: 7 political parties were involved in the election. 4 + the leader of National are pro- ethnocracy = 5 in total.
Only 2 are pro-democracy.
How will tribal rule be prevented?
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