On Mon 11/11/96 Tom Round posted on three topics related to the NZ election: 1) the votes 2) complaints re coalition bargaining process 3) position of parties on left-right spectrum I would like to address a number of inaccuracies in his posting. 1__BEST SOURCE OF ELECTION DATA___ The Electoral Commission's homepage __http://www.election.govt.nz__ has full details of all parties' votes nationwide and by electorate. ___Number of Seats__ There are 120 seats 60 general electorates 5 Maori electorates 55 list MPs ___Runners UP___ The Christian Coalition which received around 90,000 votes (approx 4.7%) just short of the threshold is totally ignored by Tom's account. 2____PROBLEMS PEOPLE HAVE WITH THE OUTCOME The delay in the formation of the government is due to NZ First conducting parallel confidential negotiations with both Labour and National. It has announced that the possible outcomes of the process are: Coalition: Labour-NZF or National-NZF, Minority Single party Govt: Labour or National. People have reacted against this for 4 reasons. First is due to the time factor described by Tom. Secondly the fact that NZF has power disproportionate to its number of votes Thirdly the fact that the 3 parties signed confidentiality agreements and thus we know __nothing__ about what is going on - there is no way of knowing how much longer this will go on. This is particularly annoying to the journalists. There is simply nothing to report. They are left trying to read news into the most trivial comments by the negotiation participation. It is also particularly annoying to Act and the Alliance who have been left out of the process and those members of Labour, NZF & National who do not know what their leaders are bargaining away. This has led a number of National backbenchers to ask National to withdraw from the process. Finally it appeared throughout the campaign that NZ First was fundamentally anti-National. During the campaign he said that he would not be a member of any government that included Jim Bolger (National leader), Bill Birch (National finance minister) or in which Jenny Shipley (National Health minister) held a social policy ministry. Deputy leader of NZ First, Tau Henare, claimed he would not be part of any National government. During the campaign it appeared that NZ was heading towards a competing blocs model of multiparty competition. On the left we had the '3-headed monster' (Labour. Alliance and NZ First) and the 'Toxic Trio' (National, Act & Christian Coalition). National billboards read 'Vote Right or you'll get three from the Left'. They had adds of three shovels marked Labour. Alliance and NZ First pilling soil on a check marked tax cuts. When the election night results showed that Labour + Alliance + NZ First had a majority there was widespread belief that we would have a Labour + NZ First government supported by the Alliance. When Peters made it clear that he would no longer rule out a government with National and that the day after the election he had turned off his cellphone and went sailing (A4 photo of smiling Peters on a yacht on front page of the Herald) this was met by outrage. More info is available on Mark Proffitt's NZ Election '96 mailing list. To join the NZ Election 96 mailing list send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a one line message 'subscribe NZ Election 96'. 3____PARTIES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT Left = 1, Right = 6 1. The Alliance. NewLabour, Mana Motuhake, Liberals, Democrats (changed there name from SocCred over 10 years ago), Green Party. NB Tom describes the Liberals as a long-lived third party. I find this discription strange given that they were established AFTER the 1990 election by two dissident leftish-Nationals. 6 years isn't long lived. Of course this is not the first incarnation of a 'Liberal' party in NZ. One existed in the 30 but they are totally unrelated. 2. Labour 3. NZ First. While they are more protectionist than Labour they are also less willing to spend than labour. The mainstream of political observers and the mass media in NZ place the party in the centre of the spectrum. This is based on a perception of economic redistribution v small gt is a better indicator of left-right competition than globalisation v protectionism. 4. United. United was formed last year by centrist MPs from Labour and National. I am utterly bemused by Tom's linking of United to the Christian Right. If this is the case it certainly has not been picked up here. I have personally interviewed their spokesperson on social policy in the course of my research and there was no mention of religion what so ever. I would be most interested in seeing some evidence of this huge jump to the right by United. 5. National 6. Act NZ: Was Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, then ACT now simply Act NZ. Hope this is of some use. Marcus Ganley Dept of Pol Studies University of Auckland, NZ.
