Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand geopolitical analyst & Arabic/Russian learner

geoffreymiller.info

Politics

Two, three, four or five?

No doubt many ACT supporters will have a spring in their step as they walk through Newmarket this morning, with the party reaching an impressive 4.0% in the final Fairfax poll out this morning. (For all poll details see Curiablog‘s summary). But the other polls all show different results, with ACT winning two, three or four seats. Taking the average, I think this gets ACT a highly likely three seats, with a 50% chance of winning a fourth seat. The two or five seat options would remain outliers. So Douglas becomes a backbencher. In October, we had two Roy Morgan...

Politics

Oops…

This just in from the Herald: Act leader Rodney Hide’s indignation at the Electoral Finance Act is nothing but a jacket jack-up.The complaint to the Electoral Commission about Mr Hide’s canary-yellow jacket was made by an Act supporter.It has been revealed the complainant is 21-year-old Andy Moore, a University of Canterbury commerce student and “strong Act supporter”….Mr Hide today said he was embarrassed and pissed off at Mr Moore. Was “pissed off” a direct quote?

Politics

From the front line

An Auckland-based contact e-mailed me the following thoughts on ACT: On the ground, the feel for ACT is quite strange at the moment… ACT clearly gave the impression they are bigger than they are and are polling reasonably (well, around 3% was the ball park figure often given). What’s amazing is how many ACT billboards there are around Auckland, particularly in Epsom. What’s mental is that outside of Epsom, I think ACT has replaced every single former billboard they had a few weeks ago with new ones focusing on crime, etc….They’ve also been HEAVILY direct mailing and leafletting Epsom. This...

Politics

Botany campaign

Dene Mackenzie has a background piece for the ODT online on the Botany electorate, in which ACT candidate Kenneth Wang is hoping to win the seat. This follows an earlier piece in the New Zealand Herald. Both articles highlight some apparently racist traits of non-Asian voters in the electorate. From the Herald: [A voter], who wanted to be known only as Sandy, 24, said: “It’s ridiculous that I receive flyers in my mailbox from the candidates in Chinese or whatever, and I am made to feel like I’m a foreigner in my homeland’s election.” She said she was “really sick”...

Politics

ACT out of cash and out of time?

ACT has a reputation for being a party of the rich, a reputation which the party has often denied. There is some evidence for this, as I found out in my dissertation: ACT’s declared election spending decreased by over forty per cent over the elections from 1996 to 2005, although the decline was not uniform. In 1999, the figure dropped by sixty percent compared with 1996, to $657,889.14. Donations recovered to allow spending of $1,625,558.79 in 2002, but slumped again in 2005, when the party spent only $966,614.72 (Electoral Commission 2003). Furthermore, [then party president Catherine] Judd (2006) cited lack...

Politics

Why crime no longer pays

I watched last week’s TVNZ’s small party leaders’ debate and a Rodney Hide interview with John Campbell and came away with some developed thoughts on ACT’s hardline stance on crime. I had planned to do a blog post on it last week but it slipped my mind until I heard an account of a Dunedin North local candidates meeting. Let me elaborate: In his interview with Campbell, Hide admitted that ACT had had problems with the economy in election campaigns in the past, with people “jogging past” economy-related billboards. Hide said that this had changed this election, but I doubt...

Politics

Strategic voting and ACT

It’s the final week of a fairly lacklustre election campaign by all parties concerned. But if ACT does manage to gain an extra MP or two, it may well be due to “strategic voting” taking place. I take strategic voting to mean voting for a party for a reason other than, or in healthy addition to, agreement with its policy. I’ve previously argued that ACT should give up trying to convince voters to become neo-liberals and gain supporters for pure tactical reasons. Earlier in the campaign, we saw ACT reintroduce the tired, but sometimes profitable tough-on-crime stance. Perhaps precisely because...

Politics

ACT media site

Party enthusiasts have launched a new website for the presentation of ACT videos from the campaign trail. It has a refreshing home-crafted look! ACT has never been short of text policy and PDFs online, but a central repository for video clips (some have been drifting on YouTube and the main ACT website for a couple of years already) are a welcome addition. I hope the future will see videos, rather than just transcripts, of all party speeches being placed online. Well done to the site creators.

Politics

Ansell’s new ad

I’ve been alerted to the return of John Ansell to ACT’s campaign, with a new ad promoting strategic voting and favouring ACT over National. To be honest I’m a little surprised that Ansell is behind the advertisement, which is classic ACT: far too many words per square centimetre. However, the overall thrust of the advertisement is sound and the slogan “Strengthen the Nats. Party vote ACT” is something the party has long needed. The only question is why ACT did not switch to strategic campaigning months ago, when it found its efforts to convince voters to vote ACT based on...

Politics

Emissions Trading Scheme

One of ACT’s centrepiece policies of this election pledges to repeal the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). As I understand it, the ETS will require businesses to purchase “credits” for carbon they wish to emit from other companies which have a surplus (e.g. foresters). There is an official diagram which explains this further. The ETS enjoys support from both Labour and National. But ACT opposes it. My concern here is not so much the workings of the ETS, but the way ACT has promoted its opposition to it. There is no question that the party sees it as a key policy...

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