Mt Albert by-election official result: Nats under a thousand ahead of Greens

Official results now in for the Mt Albert by-election:
47.8% turnout indicates that in a safe Labour seat and with Melissa Lee destroying her own campaign both Labour and National voters did not see the outcome as in doubt. I had an occasion to chat to Shearer since the by-election and he is an impressive character - although whether he will be cut out for the boorish and ruthless parliamentary scene remains untested until he gets sworn in... next week it must be.
DPF has the rankings of the candidates:Note that Russel pulls to within a thousand of Lee and that the stoner candidate beat the "Kiwi Party" conservative Christian candidate (albeit by one vote). That's the limit of their public support. How's that for a smack?

Mt Albert by-election: Tumeke! projection: SHEARER TO WIN - landslide. Results updated

8:32PM. Three-way action between the stoners, the Christians and the United Future pro-bouffant lady for sixth place:
GREEN, Dakta ALCP 80
TURNER, Judy UFNZ 80
DYER, Simonne KIWI 80

8:23PM: Only 2 booths left to count: Shearer 62%, Lee 18%, Norman 13%, Boscawen 5%.
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8:07PM: Tumeke! projection: SHEARER TO WIN - landslide.

Top candidates:
@12,752 counted/22 out of 30 booths reporting:

SHEARER, David LAB 7,685
LEE, Melissa NAT 2,329
NORMAN, Russel GP 1,727
BOSCAWEN, John ACT 613
BOYCE, Ben B&B 96
DYER, Simonne KIWI 59
TURNER, Judy UFNZ 56
GREEN, Dakta ALCP 56
informals 57

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8:03PM: In early results the stoner is ahead of the Christians and United Future.

@5,999 counted:
SHEARER, David LAB 3,645
LEE, Melissa NAT 1,149
NORMAN, Russel GP 757
BOSCAWEN, John ACT 264
BOYCE, Ben B&B 42
GREEN, Dakta ALCP 22
TURNER, Judy UFNZ 21
DYER, Simonne KIWI 20


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From the General Election when Helen won:

How it all began...


More soon.

Mt Albert by-election: cone of silence

[UPDATE-- Saturday 4:30PM : Beautiful weather today, no rain that I saw. No climatic-related reason not to vote today. Voters trickled in as they always do - there were scrutineers aplenty at the polling booth where I voted.]

The odd lull begins.The cone of silence must descend now on all Mt Albert by-election related rantage on this blog as the voters (of which I am one) carry out their democratic duty tomorrow. At 7pm when the polls close it will be open season again. The TV coverage will be somewhat later in the night and a result is due by 10pm.

The Left candidates will be hoping the miserable rainy weather of the last 24 hours clears and there is a big turnout.
Personally I will be glad to enjoy not having John bloody Boscawen driving up and down past my place every half hour (it seems) imploring the citizenry - through a piercing PA system in his clipped, racing commentator, anally-retentive, uptight white guy voice - to vote for him. There's probably a good many householders on main streets looking forward to the peace after the storm.

Polling locations

Election results

Unite's candidates' debate [+pictures]

I finally got to have a chat with David Shearer at the Mt Albert community hall - what a nice chap. Finally got to have a brief chat before the meeting with Melissa Lee...She is... awful really.

It was an amicable meeting, the audience of hard-core unionists were very well behaved and at this late stage in the campaign the candidates have formed a type of camaraderie on the hustings.
She's barely keeping her head above the red tide.

So I want to say something positive, but she gave us nothing. The backdrop was Unite's $15/hr minimum wage referendum campaign and Lee responded to a question about income with an idiotic remark that she only gets paid $2 an hour. Flippant and dumb - the same sort of thing that got her pinged about South Aucklanders at one of her first meetings.

This is not a naturally friendly or even neutral territory - this is Matt McCarten's Unite Union - the most militant union representing the poorest paid workers starting their minimum wage campaign - and the last thing you say as an MP on a six figure - a list bloody MP - on a six figure income is: I only get paid $2 an hour. After the initial shocked reaction she tried to explain herself - but it was too late.

And the sad thing was she actually had a very good hard-luck story of surviving on minimum wage as a solo mum - but that came out much later and the damage was done.

She is a very slow learner. She's so bad in these situations I feel a bit sorry for Dr Jonathan Coleman (who she described to me as being kind of like her campaign manager - which begged the question: don't you have one?) who is handling her. He's a Cabinet Minister, so you'd think he must have better things to do than attempt a rescue operation on this terminal patient. She needs - she needed, let's use the past tense and write her off now - some sort of media training. Ironic, given her media background; so one may speculate that she's not taking things onboard because she thinks she knows it all. She'll find out the hard way on Saturday that she does not.I think she deserves to come third or fourth from what I have seen of all the main candidates.

And the other candidates are left on the outer in these debates. Like the Backbenchers TV debate last night the Libz and the ALCP guys were not at the table. However they did at least get a minute to say something at the end (unlike Backbenchers) and Dakta Green (who had been heckling intermittently from the side of the hall) got the biggest round of applause, although Russel Norman won on the hand vote that was taken at the conclusion.

The National and Act candidates refused to sign the petition. The Green and Labour candidates did and now they need about another 300,000 or so people to do the same.It's not a proper union until you have protest folk songs played on a banjo.

Slap National's face with a Green vote

Shearer 62%, Lee 21%, Norman 13%, Boscawen 4%.

750 people done up until last night says Duncan Garner. The TV3 poll puts Shearer light years ahead of everyone. Another earlier one (not TV3 - can't recall) had similar figures. One Nat guy was saying at this Backbenchers candidates debate tonight that was of decided voters only. Well? Shearer himself in the same report says the main concern now is to get "our people" out to vote. But the sense - the consensus - is Shearer will secure a very creditable majority. So we turn to who will come second. Lee wants to come - aspires to be - second, but she has taken that slot for granted (notoriously).

People may be voting for Russel Norman for many reasons, but the real vein of votes to be mined in the electoral quartz in a by-election is ultimately the protest vote - in this case a vote against National, specifically to punish National's arrogance. That alone is a worth several thousand. You can't punish National's arrogance by voting for Helen's replacement in a safe Labour electorate. That's not an effective message because it continues the status quo.

You slap National's face with a Green vote. The only way to get National into the awful situation of running third is to vote for Norman.

And if - if - Norman was running ahead of Lee and within striking distance of Shearer in any opinion poll result (so far: no) then that may even trigger National voters to vote Norman too to 'punish' Labour by electing the Green - at that point the fact National came third would not be as damaging as what fate befalls Phil Goff and the morale of the Labour Party. The worst thing that could happen is he gets elected and another Green MP gets in - not exactly the end of the Earth for the majority in this electorate - Lefties. But it looks a bit late in the day for a significant poll result change to turn the minds of the voters to casting a tactical vote.

The Nats don't seem that alarmed from what I gather - they've picked up their campaign presence and regained a semblance of control. But for every Wellington goon on their squad - be it Farrar, or outside MPs - Labour is matching and bettering them in terms of external assistance. There were many non-Auckland Labour MPs at this candidate's debate. As for Shearer himself- he seems better at the presentation side from when he began only a few weeks ago (it can't all be due to John Pagani's micro-management of late can it?) and from what limited things I've observed he is a warm character. That's almost impossible to beat in this electorate.

It's Labour home turf anyway and its very tough for them in Mt Albert despite what the close party vote was at the general election. Everyone knows this. It was either going to be Ravi or some Head Office/PM appointment making it through the selection process. Unfortunately Melissa Lee is the Prime Ministerial shoulder tap that turned into a hospital pass for the party. She could well come third.

Greens on crucial 15% in Mt Albert - Lee toast

TVNZ reporting an opinion poll they commissioned for Saturday's Mt Albert by-election has:
David Shearer (Labour) 59%
Melissa Lee (National) 21%
Russel Norman (Green) 15%
John Boscawen (Act) 3%

I've posted several times before - at the very beginning - that 15% is the magical number a third party must get to to be a viable candidate. With momentum off this Dr Norman should be able to displace the woeful National candidate to come in second. But could he do better?

At 15% he's in the game. It may be a week too late, but if another poll comes out in the next few days at anything more than 15% and Shearer anything less than 50% he becomes a contender.

At this point the National team have to ask themselves whether they can salvage anything from this debacle. If they think that getting Melissa Lee into second spot with maybe 20-25% of the vote is the best they can do to rescue their self-esteem they may be wrong and ought to consider pursuing a more radical idea.

They may find that directing National voters to vote Green will be more demoralising to Labour than a 3rd placing will be to them. As I've said before if the Greens win next week it will make it easier for National to win this electorate (with the right candidate FFS!) at the general election scheduled for 2011 - off the back of a split Green-Labour vote. Clearly they can't win on the split now so being brutally rational they should completely abandon Lee - give the nod to Norman and hope he wins. At least the Nat's could then claim some sort of a victory (over Labour) as authors of that result rather than victims of their own presumptuous candidate selection. A loss for Labour would be devastating and for Goff, perhaps politically fatal, whereas if Lee comes in at 15-20%... so what.

And watching Dr Norman's heckling of the Act candidate on Q+A this morning he may be up to a more aggressive style of traditional campaigning that the Greens have hitherto rejected. For the Greens co-leader "to win this damn thing" (to use Lee's words) is now possible - however unlikely it was before - it is now just possible because of this poll. But he'll need a good chunk of those who voted for National's Ravi Musuku last time and maybe 10-15% off Labour to do it. Labour voters can now vote Green without risking a Tory win - this is an important consideration.

It is up to Russel to now announce that it is a Shearer v. Norman race and everything he says and does must be directed towards Shearer - which I'm sure it will be. The party operatives can send the other tactical messages that the candidates themselves cannot.

Act on behalf of Asians

Lincoln Tan's report raises so many issues. What the Act candidate complains of seems to have some substance, but - just like the Onehunga antics in the infamous recount/challenge of 1993 that National took against Labour - these things primarily stem from partisan paranoia and are difficult to prove even if a fraction of what they suspect is actually true.

Labour have always driven people to polling stations and there must be electorates where National does the same thing. But given the very high numbers of recent immigrants who are not conversant in English - many from fascist countries - there is a legitimate concern that their ignorance of the NZ system could be used to dupe them out of a free choice. Note the reply:

"I said I wanted to wait until June 13, but he told me that it is safer to vote now, because I will be breaking the law if I missed voting on polling day. I agreed, because I didn't want to become a criminal," said Mr Li in Mandarin.

He's wrong. The fact the article doesn't mention this is disturbing. If you are not enrolled it is an offence - but voting is not compulsory. It's compulsory in some countries like Belgium and Australia for example, but not here. Telling fibs to mislead people into voting is a totally unacceptable campaign practice. Then again he may be confused - and because the reporter does not correct Li's mistaken impression it leads me to believe that Lincoln Tan is also confused - and his English is just fine.

The background issues that aren't discussed in the mainstream media remain: why is it that foreigners can vote after only two years residency? It is possible to vote in NZ without having ever experienced or been in the country for a NZ election. It's compulsory for them to be on the electoral roll, but it isn't compulsory for them to be able to understand or communicate in an official language. No wonder some voters are confused.

Why is it that a foreigner, a non-citizen, who does not understand a word of either English or Maori, can after a period of time shorter than a single term of parliament be entitled to vote - having the same voting rights as citizens? Now there is not a single urban electorate in Auckland that has less than one third of its population born overseas. Mt Albert is over 40%. Some electorates over half.

There seems to be little done in the way of encouraging foreigners who live here to communicate in our official languages. But there does seem to be more done in the way of encouraging foreigners who live here to not bother about ever having to communicate or understand anything other than their own language. The government and local authorities are helping as much as they can with this. Went down to the local library and the Chinese language book section was bigger than the Maori subject (English and Te Reo) section.

The Act Party itself - I'm assuming - still has an Asian Chapter. They were the first party that I've seen put Chinese language on their campaign billboards - that was in 2002 I believe. I guess they raised a bit of money, but the top Asian candidate Kenneth Wang (the very thickly accented Chinese man who briefly took over as MP 2004-5 when Donna Awatere-Huata imploded under the weight of her own intestinal realignment) spat the dummy at the last election over his list placing and missed out altogether. Wang was the front man for the Asian Chapter - at least back then.

Act, via the Asian Chapter, once had a petition that called on the government to lower the English language requirements for residency. This petition was in two formats - Korean language and Chinese. It was signed by thousands - many just in Korean or Chinese. Immigrants in the country not long enough to understand English, petitioning the government to change the immigration rules so they don't have to learn English - communicated to parliament in a manner that no-one in parliament (beyond Pansy Wong - at the time) could understand who they were or what they wanted. Was it ever presented, or was it just another cynical (albeit effective) campaign gimmick?

So if Boscawen wants to reflect on any use, misuse and manipulation of Asian voters he should remember his party's own interesting history.

Norman v Shearer: Melissa Lee concedes defeat on RNZ (3 weeks before election)

What a fascinating campaign National's great Mt Albert hope is running: shoot your mouth off talking crazy shit, avoid the media, be unavailable for public meetings and now - breaking the second rule of the Melissa Lee campaign book - she's gone on National Radio and admitted she can't win the by-election. FFS. This is beyond a meltdown, beyond an implosion. Expect to come second? Love, expect to come third.

It is now between the grey men: Dr Russel Norman and David Shearer.

Can the Nat's stomach voting for a Green just to upset Labour? A Green victory on the 13th of June would give the Nats a better chance of winning the electorate with local stalwart and bilked candidate, Ravi Musuku, in 2011 on a split vote between Shearer and Norman). Norman has actually positioned himself very well to capture Nat votes. He's co-operating (minimally through a memo of understanding) with the Nats over home insulation, his comments about the form of the super city were similar to the governement's positions - although nebulous - on having a capped local rate to be administered by the local board. But most handily his billboards paint him in a boring, safe, conservative National - friendly

RNZ reporting

Green Party candidate Russel Norman says Ms Lee has thrown in the towel.

ACT Party candidate John Boscawen says Ms Lee is being realistic about her chances.

Boscawen is relishing this. He was in good heart at the candidate's meeting I attended earlier in the week, but he can't win what is still a very working class seat. He would be happy now to pull an additional 5% of disgruntled Tory voters and say end up somewhere under 10%.

Shearer's main problem is his waffle, as Duncan Garner kindly put it, when he ought to be speaking clearly and on topic. Norman has more experience in these matters. Even though his stint was short after he was rotated in as a replacement list MP when Nandor lost the co-leadership bid to him, he has been toughened up in the parliamentary bear pit the way it looks like Shearer has not. I've seen Norman deliver a speech with Winston Peters sitting directly across the isle and shouting and haranguing him at every sentence - that sort of political baptism (rather than his background as an academic and a campaign manager) is Norman's head start.

Norman has Mt Albert's 11% Green Party vote at last year's general election at this point. That is his base. Lee's self-immolation on RNZ this morning means he now has momentum regardless of any bullshit poll that the Nat's will try to cook up to save Lee's arse. He now needs a 5% chunk of former Helen voters and to lure across the majority of those (now alienated) National voters who voted Musuku last time. This is a tricky task. Pandering to one will open up an exposed flank to the other.

He will inevitably have to attack Shearer head on - this will cause a bite back from Labour and the lads at the Standard which has only been hinted at when this campaign begun.
Image: Not PC.

Mt Albert - Melissa Lee no show leaves candidates grey

With the nominations declared the field is going to look rather grey following Brent[sorry - it's Duncan] Garner's slaughter of Melissa Lee on tonight's TV3 news. People at the candidate's meeting tonight at the Owairaka Primary School didn't get to see her - she had other business. She's had a lot of that recently. Her campaign consists of avoiding the media - and now avoiding public meetings too. Garner was merciless. But not quite enough for anyone to feel sorry for her - considering it has all been self inflicted.

The meeting was as grey as the candidates. All the colour was from the audience of the usual mob. There were more than a few familiar faces. There were a small contingent of Greens and a larger but vocal bloc of Labour supporters in the hall as well as media. Te Atatu MP Chris Carter was hovering as Shearer's minder, and I think Meg Bates was there too and probably some anon from the Standard.

No candidate shone, none stood out. They were solid on policy, but unexciting.

The community board had convened the meeting, but no one had any real fixed views on exactly what the future mix of Council should be. Russel Norman might not have known it at the time but he basically recited all the lines that Rodney himself has been using in describing what the local-council split might look like. It's because Russel doesn't know what his preferred option is either. No-one did. Shearer went on about the Royal Commission, but as John Boscawen tried to point out through the interjections the commission's report would have kept the councils as super-community boards with up to half a million - the antithesis of community.

I wasn't there at the start of the meeting so maybe I missed the talk about the Waterview connection decision. I got more about the motorway chatting to a community board member who - it transpires - used to own the house I'm in. Talk about local.

The chairman, a community board member, said he had huge problems with the appointment of "Mr fix it" Grant Kirby being appointed to the Local Govt. Commission. Kirby was a pro-super city lobbyist. I heard him on RNZ this afternoon pleading his professionalism and saying he is in favour of a mixed at-large and ward system.

Choke point

This is the Waterview link at the moment. The houses on the left (Blockhouse Bay Rd) are in the Mt Albert electorate and will be bulldozed under the current scheme for a part of the surface motorway between the two tunnels.
The new stretch opened at the weekend feels like it takes 10 minutes off the journey according to people who have traveled it. But the down side is the added congestion through the west to meet the advancing head of the South-Western SH20 motorway from New Lynn and beyond. And we will probably see traffic getting off at PtChev/Waterview interchange on the NW and going down the straights, to Blockhouse Bay Rd (intersection in image at top) and down New North to get to Richardson Rd and the start of the motorway. And in the other direction. These roads are busy enough now between the rush hours. And the intersection at New North and Blockhouse Bay Rds is at capacity already. It can only get worse.

The rat-runners will find ways through the maze of local streets to get between the two motorways. Until the SH16-20 link - in whatever form it takes - is complete the traffic situation through the 'burbs in the middle will become ever more intolerable.

I live along one section of Great North Rd before Waterview that is officially zoned as a no-parking "Clearway" in the rush hours; but no-one parks there at any time because if they did it would become a single lane in that direction and there would be queues back across the Whau and back into New Lynn into the afternoon, and on the other side queues back down the Waterview straights until about 7pm. It is through the understanding of the local residents that this does not occur. It is their good will only preventing a choke.

The Clearway fiction is delusional traffic planning - the road needs to be four lanes the whole way, with bus stop bays, but that would admit the chronic situation. So everyone who makes decisions pretends the endless stream of traffic - including heavy vehicles does not exist. It is these local elements that will need remedying in advance of any link that may otherwise exacerbate the problem.

No-one wants their community to be sacrificed.

Meanwhile the NZ Herald seems to have come around to my way of thinking on where the thing should be heading. However some form of Waterview/Pt Chev interchange link to the tunnel should be made to get the inevitable traffic off the local streets.

Apex

Russel Norman's awful grey billboard has appeared around where I live in the West of the electorate - and it smudges into the background, blurs into the clouds and it washes away in the sky. Compare that to Shearer's Labour red.
Russ the puss. Dr Norman, you look equally at home in either Canberra or Wellington, since you asked.

Oh, look at him. He was never a party to anything. If he had the police insist on a 200 metre exclusion order to prevent him going anywhere near the office then maybe he can pose there like it means something. (We argued it down to 50m so I could get in to the Eden Park entry point on the other side of the street - the judge agreed, cricket and rugby are forms of human rights in this country).

With Russ playing a muss and Melissa Lee slipping into a spiral of crippling political bamboozlement, the Labour man is cruising to a solid majority - at this point. A bleak budget and a Hikoi against the über city all occur before the by-election - everything is going their way.

Sacrificed Auckland issues spokesman - the man who Phil Goff has doubled down on with the Tizard tarot card of death - Phil Twyford, can even spin a "bring back Ravi" jibe and it isn't a stupid an idea as half the crap Lee has been babbling.

Lee - nasty and stupid

[UPDATE-- 5:30PM: Forced to issue an apology this afternoon.--UPDATE ENDS]

Posted yesterday about Melissa Lee's greatest threat to her campaign to take Mt Albert being the public impression that she is nasty (rather than unethical and unprofessional, as was the standard Labour line). Today it is NASTY. Nasty and stupid.

Lee implodes over at the Standard (see one of their Tory commenters below).

Not PC:

Either National's Steven Joyce hadn't bothered to brief his party's by-election candidate about the motorway that's about to bisect her would-be electorate, or (being both a pretty girl and a former journalist) Melissa Lee simply hadn't bothered to find out the facts and thought a nice smile would be enough instead. Either way, it was apparent even to people in the room holding up National Party signs that when Melissa Lee says "I don't know" or "I can't remember" that on this much at least she's probably telling the truth.

I don't say that like it's a good thing. Clearly, details are not Ms Lee's thing. (And if she really was "there to listen," then why the hell was it so hard getting her to shut up when other people were talking?)
[...]
Asked to explain how the new motorway would most help the good people of Mt Albert, she explained that it would stop the bad people of South Auckland driving to Mt Albert to burgle people's homes. Asked to clarify by a questioner, she repeated the claim. Showing she's truly not one to stop digging when she creates a big hole for herself -- a hole as big as the number of open mouths in the room -- she insisted that the local police commander had told her this very morning that the biggest issue with which he has to deal is the number of South Aucklanders driving to Mt Albert to burgle people's homes.
[...]
It was as incongruous and frankly ludicrous as Jenny Shipley's comment in Parliament several years ago (apropos of nothing relevant) that Polynesians tend "to climb in the windows of other New Zealanders at night." And it deserves to be treated with equal contempt.

UPDATE: Let me clarify something here. Steven Joyce and several commentators around the traps have suggested Melissa's South Auckland comment was made "in the heat of the meeting," "in the face of a hostile audience" and so forth.

That's not the case, and those commentators weren't at the meeting, which was hardly "hostile" in any sense. More bemused. Posting at Hard News, commenter Stephen Horsley is spot on:

- I was at the meeting, and I would have to disagree [that this was a rushed response to a hostile audience]. It wasn't something that she just blurted out, in fact she seemed very pleased with herself for having thought of it. When asked to clarify the comment, she went into a fair amount of detail justifying herself. . . it appeared to be a view that she genuinely subscribed too.

That's exactly as I saw it too.

Here's another one:
That was the gasping in horror, I take it, that non-reaction.
If what she says - by all accounts - doesn't make any sense (even to their own supporters) then what she said was stupid. Say what you like about the electoral chances of Ravi Musuku, but he wouldn't have been nasty or stupid.

The big issue facing the electorate is obviously not law and order - that is discharged after last stabbing or bashing victim is discharged from hospital - but the motorway will be there forever. The Nats are driving the wrong way down the highway, with the wrong candidate at the wheel. The Nat supporters are more fixated on campaigning for the Green candidate than saving her. Lee is the one at risk of having her vote collapse for a stronger opposition candidate to Shearer. She's going to have to go on a charm offensive, or perhaps a rohypnol offensive, to win over the electorate at this point to remain the unassailable No.2 contender.

Trench politics

A trench will be dug all the way down the Waterview straits. Reminiscent of the lava tunnels that stem from the volcanoes they are chopping through.

So it's partly a tunnel. If I stand outside the front gate I can see a part of what the motorway will affect. It is zoned as a surface stretch. There will be a lot of people in that situation - tens of thousands. The alternative of leaving the motorway where it is (as the Greens would have us do) imposes traffic disruption through the suburban streets too - so the costs will have to be paid by the community even if nothing is done.

Everyone along Hendon Ave - and the other side - the New Windsor side - of that surface stretch will also have rail down it too in the future. Nasty. But it isn't the most brutal possibility. Oakley Creek gorge and its waterfall is saved under the option presented.

Transit agency website for the connection. Now at least the National candidate will know what to campaign on. It's reasonable given Michael Cullen had big surpluses in mind when he gave the green light for the tunnel version that spared the rail corridor. A lead-lined, rather than gold-plated scenario.