Monday 31 May 2010

Rural party?

Homepaddock reports on murmurings about the formation of a rural interest party, splitting from National over National's support for the emissions trading scheme. She thinks this would make things worse for rural folks.

I'm not so sure given that we're running MMP. So long as all those Rural Party folks voted National on the list, Rural on the electorate, MMP would give them a nice overhang, and National + Rural would have more seats than National would have had.

In other news, the much hoped for (among ACT folks) shift of National voters over to ACT with Key targeting centre...well, it might happen sometime, but not yet.
National's popularity has taken a dip, a new poll shows.

The One News Colmar Brunton poll, the first major one since the May 20 Budget, showed support for the National Party had dropped five percentage points to 49%, but remained well clear of Labour, which was stagnant on 33% support.

The poll showed the Greens had climbed to 7% support and the Maori Party to nearly 4%. ACT remained less than 2%.

In the preferred prime minister stakes, Labour leader Phil Goff had only 6% of the vote, 40 percentage points behind National leader and Prime Minister John Key.

20 comments:

  1. Hi Eric. Please check your voice mail and email.

    Regards

    Chris D
    Deakin Uni

    ReplyDelete
  2. I would imagine that such widespread overhang abuse would quickly lead to a popular movement to reform the system, and in the interim motivate the formation a similar decoy list on the left.

    That being said, Ruralpaddock appears to think the only purpose of a party is to expand the size of a coalition. However, she contradicts herself by claiming that the formation of a new party could lead to "At worst a Labour led [government] which would include a strong Green element." If the Green Party could have influence supporting a Labour government, why couldn't a rural party have influence supporting a National government?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Presumably, both the Greens and the hypothetical rural party would largely take votes from the two major parties. That ignores the bargaining power they may derive from being separate.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Location isn't enough to unite people and form a strong enough foundation for a viable party.

    A rural party could probably muster the 500 people needed to form a party but it wouldn't get the numbers to pass the 5% threashold or win a seat. Therefore it would have taken votes for National without getting into parliament where it could have some influence.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "So long as all those Rural Party folks voted National on the list, Rural on the electorate, MMP would give them a nice overhang"
    True, assuming voters have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the way MMP works, or that a proposed Rural Party would be able to effectively get the message across and get rural voters to change their voting habits. It worked for the Maori Party at the last election, and you could argue that they have had a few wins in their arrangement with National. Assuming they are organised enough I can see no reason why a Rural Party couldn't be just as successful.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Eric,

    Technically you're right, but as Homepaddock pointed out above it's highly unlikely the party would win an electorate seat. Even after 5 MMP elections many are still reluctant to cast a cross-vote, so with many casting a double-Rural Party protest vote National would be worse off.

    Lats,

    They could be successful like the Green Party if they had a broad enough base to win 5% of the vote, or they had nicely Gerrymandered electorates to work with like the Maori Party, but as Homepaddock pointed out that won't happen.

    ReplyDelete
  7. @Chris: Done; was out of office over weekend and Monday.
    @Henry: So long as the other party really were a separate entity with different policies, I don't think it would lead to backlash killing MMP. They'd do well to campaign only for electorate votes though.
    @Homepaddock: I was in Canada through the rise of the Reform Party - rural protest against the federal Conservatives - and of the Bloc Quebecois. Could be that rural electorates here aren't cohesive enough for it; I really couldn't say. It would depend a whole lot on the strength of rural opposition to the ETS and whether that would be maintained through 2011; again, I'm clueless on that topic.

    @Lats: Voters in Epsom understood the split ticket when it was explained to them; and, Maori voters in Maori electorates seem to get it too - Labour's party vote remains decent in those electorates despite the Maori Party winning the seat...
    @KiwiPollGuy: If folks screw up the split ticket, you're definitely right. Would they, though, if their candidates specifically said "give us only the electorate vote?"

    I'm not sure there's a great case for a rural party; I'm just not sure the downside is as bad as folks might fear given MMP. For folks who don't like the ETS, the threat of a challenge to electorate seats on that basis could move National's position a bit. There are a few South Island electorates that look pretty rural: Clutha-Southland, Waitaki, Rangitata...

    It would be ridiculous for them to run a list campaign: the only possible shot would be targeting a few rural districts that are really annoyed at Key's targeting suburban women rather than National Party base. But I really don't know whether there's enough annoyance there to form the basis for a party.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Further, I'm not sure what would be gained by having an explicit rural party over just having ACT seriously contest a few of those districts.

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Kiwipollguy Not sure I agree regarding the Maori electorates. They are huge tracts of land with very diverse populations, the Maori Party has been very effective at branding themselves and targetting Maori concerns. I'd argue that rural electorates probably have a less diverse population base. Lets not forget that the Maori seats were always strongly Labour until the Maori Party came along, and as Eric pointed out still attract a large Labour list vote. The MP formed pretty much on the back of a single issue (Foreshore and Seabed) so if ETS is a big enough concern for farmers, and if a Rural Party is able to engage farmers effectively, then they should do well enough to get a member or two in the house. What impact they would have, well, that is another question entirely.

    ReplyDelete
  10. @Lats,

    You disagree that the Maori electorates are Gerrymandered? Roughly 20% of the NZ electoral roll has Maori ancestry, but in Maori electorates 100% of the electoral roll has Maori ancestry. This is obviously a Gerrymander.

    The analogy to "rural" electorates doesn't apply because even the most "rural" NZ electorate (Clutha-Southland, Taranaki-King Country, etc.) isn't 100% rural. It will instead contain small towns, sections of provincial cities that were carved off from the electorate containing the rest of the city, and yuppies on lifestyle blocks who commute to work.

    Whilst the Maori Electorates are 100% Maori, the "rural" electorates are probably only about 50% rural.

    ReplyDelete
  11. @Lats, KiwiPoll: The Maori districts are a really strong gerrymander. But whether they're a gerrymander that results in better results for Maori is somewhat up for grabs: a fairly standard gerrymander is packing your opponent's supporters into a couple of unwinnable (for you) districts so that they only affect a few seats rather than affecting the median seat.

    ReplyDelete
  12. @Kiwipollguy Sorry, didn't make myself clear. Sure, having Maori heritage is a prerequisite for enrolling in a Maori electorate, but just because one is Maori doesn't guarantee voting for the Maori Party. My point was the party still had to do the groundwork and gain the support of a group of voters who were traditionally strongly Labour voters. In the rural electorates, which are currently strongly National, a Rural Party would face a similar struggle to gain an electorate seat. I was trying to draw a parallel between the two. Of course there are towns & small cities in the "rural" electorates, but many small town folk still vote National because many of these towns rely on the rural sector for their livelihood. What I'm saying is I don't think the makeup of the electorate will be the main barrier to a RP winning a seat. As I said, they would need to engage their target market, and run a smart campaign to gain electorate votes rather than party list votes. If the feelings against ETS are as passionate as they claim, then they stand a chance. If not, then they will go the way of Outdoor Recreation.

    ReplyDelete
  13. @Lats: First imagine a "rural party". Then imagine that voters could decide whether to enroll on the "rural roll" or the standard roll. The "rural party" would stand a better chance under this arrangement as folks most likely to be sympathetic to "rural interests" would declare themselves to be "rural voters". That's the gerrymander.

    ReplyDelete
  14. @Eric Yeah, I get that, but the Maori electorates are still just electorates, with both rural and urban constituents, nobody is forcing them to vote Maori Party or Labour. Perhaps I'm a bit thick, but I don't see the difference. They certainly weren't created in order to favour the Maori Party, the electorates existed well before the formation of the Maori Party.

    ReplyDelete
  15. ". There are a few South Island electorates that look pretty rural: Clutha-Southland, Waitaki, Rangitata..."

    As Lats said these seats aren't all rural - Waitaki for instance has Oamaru, Wanaka, Cromwell, Alexandra, Geralidine, Waimate . . . CLutha Southland has Queenstown, Gore, Balclutha, Milton . . .

    You wouldn't get all the rural people agreeing and even if you did they'd be outvoted by the towns.

    ReplyDelete
  16. @Eric - My confusion has stemmed from my (mis?)understanding of gerrymandering. The term to me has always meant a deliberate manipulation of electorate boundaries and the like to the benefit of ones party, or to the detriment of ones political adversaries. To suggest that the Maori Party has engaged in gerrymandering doesn't fit with my understanding of the term since the Maori Party had no influence in the creation of the Maori electorates. At worst they have been opportunistic, at best shrewd political operators. Perhaps my definition is a little strict for some, but this is why I don't see the MP as gerrymanderers.

    @Homepaddock - actually I think in a few electorates a rural party would stand a reasonable, if minority, chance of gaining representation. But only so long as said party could effectively woo voters in the blue electorates away from the Nats. Personally I think this will be the bigger struggle, not being outvoted by red areas in each electorate.

    ReplyDelete
  17. @Homepaddock: I'm probably making mistakes then in extrapolating from Canada: the small ag service towns in rural Canada almost always voted with the farmers. I can buy that Queenstown would have very different voting patterns from standard ag areas, but I'd have thought Cromwell and such would have followed general rural trends. But I've never looked at polling level data for here and have absolutely no clue whether level of rural annoyance at ETS is sufficient to switch parties.

    @Lats: Oh, I never said that the Maori party engaged in gerrymandering; rather, their existence depends on that a prior gerrymander was undertaken.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Elections NZ's data shows that Queenstown voted 50% for National, while Clutha-Southland overall voted 60%. Scanning through the polling places in the electorate, I can only see one of reasonable size where Labour outperformed National. Not sure what that means for "Rural Party" support though.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Lats: Oh, I never said that the Maori party engaged in gerrymandering; rather, their existence depends on that a prior gerrymander was undertaken.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Homepaddock - actually I think in a few electorates a rural party would stand a reasonable, if minority, chance of gaining representation. But only so long as said party could effectively woo voters in the blue electorates away from the Nats. Personally I think this will be the bigger struggle, not being outvoted by red areas in each electorate.

    ReplyDelete