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Friday, September 16, 2005

ELECTION BOOK: Herald digipoll: Labour 44.6%, National 37.4%

----------LATEST NEWS-----------
@1:47am 16 Sept.
Herald Digipoll:
PARTY VOTE:
LAB 44.6%, NAT 37.4%, GRN 4.6%, NZF 4.5%, UNF 2.6%, MAO 2.3%, ACT 1.3%, PRG 1.1%, DST 0.9%, CHP 0.2%, ALL 0.1%, ALC 0.1%
PREFERRED PM:
HC 55.1%, DB 33.9%

----------COMMENTARY-----------
@8:32pm 16 Sept.
Will be checking in on the off-shore markets before closing off betting at midnight. I just watched a trotting race from Cambridge where I mis-heard a horse as "Flying Clark" (it was actually Flying Class) it was sitting at the back until half way and a horse called "That Guy" took the lead. Track conditions were worsening and the rain was hosing down. Class came up and sat just outside of Guy down the back straight and made her play coming into the turn, drawing level at about the 200 - looking like it had something in the tank - and by the time they were into the home straight she had nudged ahead of Guy and he faded. Class winning by a length or two. Similarly I draw the conclusion that Labour will end up ahead on party votes tomorrow because they have more "in the tank". Not much, but enough. It is unusual for one bookie to be out of step with the rest like this but I believe their odds reflect confident partisan National money tipping it to favour National. I believe the incumbency advantage may be the only factor left for Labour - but that is just sufficient. I could be wrong. The other (real) bookies are statistically almost always correct, and I am the one taking a punt on my on-the-ground local "feeling" to call it. That feeling says people aren't entirely happy with Labour and they deserve a short, sharp, corrective smack, but National haven't earned quite enough trust, or displayed enough competence, to replace them as our leaders. I therefore reduce my odds for Labour and correspondingly tighten them for National to display the expected close result and, as it turns out, back to exactly what it originally started at when the book opened on the 25th of July.

@3:20pm 16 Sept.
Bookies now all in favour of National right now - but, not me. I think they reflect confident National punters more than reflect the real picture at this point. We'll see where we are after the TV news and current affairs shows tonight. If you had backed the Nats a week ago (when they were at $2.40-$3.25) you could now back Labour at $2.10 and make money either way.

@12:14pm 16 Sept.
Well the NBR doesn't have a poll after all. Centrebet closing on Nats but other bookies are coming in to Labour during this morning. I'm still unchanged at this point. Unsure how last minute news will sway voters. Taito Philip Field's overstayer-Samoan palace fiasco, Tamihere's dirty, kupapa-to-the-last, paying kids money to deface hoadings scandal, Student loans projections, Brash's nuke referendum, Peters' testicular muck-racking... will it matter tomorrow when the punter's are in the booth? Labour is opportunistic - not visionary or even principled beyond catering to it's own PC cliques, but has a general economic competence. National is openly divisive and fixated on tax cuts, but despite having credible business fire-power is shifty and represents a risk. Who has earned your vote, given both parties have credibility deficits?

@9:52am 16 Sept.
Centrebet weakening on Nats, Betfair back to Labour. Since no-one else has reported the NBR poll, I'll do it myself. Be back soon.

@1:47am 16 Sept.
NBR poll also due out today! I'm sticking with my odds. NZF on 4.5%! Winston waits on specials in Tauranga?! Balance of government decided at Supreme Court? Maori Party higher in this poll than others because it is more accurate? Greens probably higher, surely? Is National really this low? Herald poll was most accurate of them last time from memory.

See the TV3 debate? The first thing Brash mentions when asked about who is "mainstream" is that it isn't Maori. Thanks for clearing that up, Don. Hypocrite Prime Minister waffling on about inclusivesness after telling us that she passed the foreshore and seabed Act so "our people" wouldn't be "excluded." That's interesting. Maori aren't "our people", thanks for clearing that up, Helen. Or does "our people" mean the public and all farmland will become public access? She protects the rights of Pakeha to exclude Maori but not the other way around. Maori have not sought to exclude anyone. My own proposal that they refused to hear at the select committee was exactly that - a public right of access over all property, including freehold property in the tidal zone- that would be fair - but no. That's not good enough. "Our people" have a right to exclude the other people? Why is it that only Maori property is "public" but Pakeha never is? Why are Pakeha being treated differently, as if their views or "feelings" on what someone else owns has superior merit and must be enforced without discussion? Why does she treat the local, native, land-owners as the enemy? Yet she and Don agree on continuing to freehold Crown leases to white farmers in the South Island with no qualms whatsoever - not even an issue? Why? At least Don Brash is open (and after hearing last night's debate, even proud) about his bigotry.

Didn't Brash look shifty.

All the off-shore bookies must have received large bets for National yesterday I should think. And still more, the odds on National have tightened significantly. Brash supporters will assume he won the debate because he mentioned tax cuts several times... and will bet accordingly, but it was the calibre of what he said that was dissappointing to swing voters. When given a chance to reach out to people and act like a statesman and a consensus-builder he, instead, began to list all the sorts of people he doesn't like, starting with Maori. How many people really think that is appropriate leadership material? "Derrr, but I'll still get my 20 bucks though, right!?"

-----2005 New Zealand General Election-----

----------CURRENT ODDS: TUMEKE!-----------
@8:32pm 16 Sept.
HEAD TO HEAD
Option 2: National-Labour head-to-head largest party vote.
$1.85 Labour
$1.90 National

@00:30am 15 Sept. (UNCHANGED @1:50am&12:14pm&3:20pm 16 Sept.)
Option 2: National-Labour head-to-head largest party vote.
$1.70 Labour
$2.05 National


----------CURRENT ODDS: OFF-SHORE-----------
@12:14pm 16 Sept.
PARTY TO PROVIDE NEXT PM
Centrebet: LAB $2.10 NAT $1.65
Sportingbet: LAB $2.00 NAT $1.72
Betfair: LAB £1.65 NAT £1.85 LAB £1.94 NAT £1.65 @3:20pm 16 Sept.

@9:52am 16 Sept.
Centrebet: LAB $2.00 NAT $1.70
Sportingbet: LAB $2.05 NAT $1.67
Betfair: LAB £1.75 NAT £1.80


@1:50am 16 Sept.
Centrebet: LAB $2.10 NAT $1.65
Sportingbet: LAB $2.05 NAT $1.67
Betfair: LAB £2.02 NAT £1.80

4 Comments:

At 16/9/05 2:57 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The only thing I don't like about those numbers is the shrunk Green vote... looks like an irrational "the country is in danger" reflex to rally around Labour... hopefully people will think about it and shift back (outside chance of numbers of Labour voters switching to Green to make sure... over-correction... Greens at 10% heh heh)

Because those numbers taken at face value give us a virtual two-party parliament, and an absolute majority to Labour... sure I don't want that... probably a lot of Labour supporters don't either, if they think about it.

 
At 16/9/05 10:04 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Brash feels he has to answer every question he gets asked. That one facet alone exposes his political inexperience. I can't imagine Winston directly answering the "Who is mainstream?" question. I agreed with the comment later during the Performance Review that Brash seems like a 'non-politician'; many may warm to that regular schmoe persona, being regular schmoes themselves. BTW, didn't you mean "Derr, but i still get my 20 bucks back?" It was mine to start with.

 
At 16/9/05 1:08 pm, Blogger Bomber said...

Well yes "back" is correct of course. Brash was highly evasive and deceptive - just like a politician - a bad, bumbling politician. Take the Nuke issue - I thought he had settled it - No change - and that Clark was unfair to keep going on about it - but lucky she did, because Brash then admitted that for a free trade deal he would give the US a referendum on it. Then we recall the whole cult group thing that he mislead people about and doubts arise as to his credibility. And maybe the average dumb schmoe won't pick up on any of these things and only the general impressions he is giving, the basic stuff he takes a stand on, like when he responded to a question by saying (approx.) "the whole... Maori thing" like he didn't know what it was but that he's against it ie. Maori. And the tax cuts, similarly, the general message is that workers will get a tax cut by way of moving the thresholds upwards but he'll have to borrow and cut spending somewhere - dependent on trusting him that he won't create $20 costs that nullify the tax cuts to that lower level.

Clark too, though is doing pretty much the same thing by having a general impression that if you have a loan or kids then you'll be better off and won't have to borrow, but this is all predicated on trusting them that what they say now is a promise, even though they said only a few months ago in the budget that there was absolutely no room for it! Clark was willing to play the race card at the drop of Don's hat and match National's policies - so she has no cred there.

Add to all of this NZF, United Future and the Maori Party with their own sets of bottom lines and what policy both leaders are preaching are really credible?

 
At 16/9/05 2:19 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree entirely.

 

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