NZ General Election 2014

Midnight very soon and the election blackout begins. Please observe.  Good luck to our peeps.  Get out and vote!

Cabinet said no?

Election Day -5

Listening Greenwald on RNZ now saying the NSA(US) used GSCB(NZ) supplied bulk data.  Says Snowden was processing metadata - via xkeyscore - sent from NZ to the US.  Was this data of NZers trawled by GCSB? Ryan:  "On NZ citizens?" Greenwald: "correct."  That is going to be game MFing over for JK - he staked his reputation on it and said he would resign or something didn't he?  NZers have never been spied on in mass surveillance supposedly.  It might be ex-Key score all right.

The extraordinary last 48 hours - with the PM declassifying and releasing secret spy documents to pre-empt a "moment of truth" to expose him and his National government's collusion with the US and in Minister's roles in using the immigration department to capture Kim Dotcom for Hollywood producers - be cray.  It all be cray cray.  The moment is at 7pm tonight at the Auckland Town Hall, with Greenwald in attendance and perhaps Assange live from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.  Unprecedented.

Key was saying yesterday that yes there was a plan to have mass surveillance, but because it would cost about $8b, he personally put a stop to what the GCSB was proposing.  Key was also saying much the same thing many months ago too from my recollection, but most missed that the figure proved it had been mapped out and that it had been proposed.  

But I also heard him say that 'cabinet said no'.  It was cabinet that put a stop to it - not him exactly.  Was Key even at that cabinet meeting that said no?  Did he mean a cabinet committee, or the whole cabinet?  At what stage was this plan advanced?  To cabinet level - from what Key has said.  So HE didn't stop it.  This guy is all over the place and cannot give a straight answer on any of these spy cases.

Waiariki: Marae digi poll has Flavell losing support, Sykes up.

The Marae digi poll on the Waiariki electorate came out yesterday - for what it's worth. They are notoriously unreliable.  The landline polls are increasingly picking up older householders and skewing to the middle class establishment that still maintain a landline - missing out working class and youth populations.  It isn't worth that much - the large differences in these polls and the election results proves that.  So I'm not that surprised to find the Waiariki polling this time round out of whack:

Waiariki Electorate Vote 2014

• Maori 50%
• Mana 21%
• Labour 17%

This looks definitive, decisive... until you consider the 2011 poll: 

Waiariki Electorate Vote 2011

• Maori 59.3%
• Mana 18.7%
• Labour 8.8% [18.8%?]

In the election of 2011 the Maori Party's Te Ururoa Flavell only had an 1800 vote majority over Mana's Annette Sykes, with the Labour candidate a distant third.

If an 1800 vote majority equates to 59%/19% then what does 50%/21% work out to? is it even a majority any more to him?

Comparing the 2011 poll with this one it shows a fall - a big fall - in Flavell's support and a rise in Sykes' support.  It shows that Mana is in a better position now than it was in 2011. It shows that Mana may have picked up some of Te Ururoa's collapsing vote.  The fourth candidate may only pick up a few votes in the West of the electorate, maybe 2-3% max so should not have a major impact.  

All up this is quite a favourable poll result for Annette Sykes.  It should be a big worry for Flavell, but so long as people like Slater and Farrar and the rest of the media keep misreading it then all the better for an upset based on that underestimation.  And if the door-knocking in my area is anything to go by and the extent of the negative reactions from Pakeha men to the National Party over the Dirty Politics saga is reflected across the country on polling day then there could be a major upset possible.