Matt McCarten: Labour's love lost to Green
5:30 AM Sunday Nov 27, 2011
Phil Goff performed well. He deserved more. Photo / Dean Purcell
It was never in doubt that John Key would be Prime Minister today.
In every election the voters collectively have two questions in their subconscious: Has the Government been so bad that we should toss them out? And is the Opposition good enough to form an alternative government?
And now we know.
There is no way to spin it. Labour's defeat was massive. At worse we thought they'd go under 30 per cent. Their worst result was in 1996 with 28 per cent. At my deadline, this was worse. That's because their vote went to the Greens and to NZ First and they weren't giving it back.
Phil Goff performed well. However, his supporters' phone was off the hook when they called. Goff deserved more. Unless Labour cleans house from top to bottom they won't recover from this defeat. Waiting for their turn to rule isn't going to happen under MMP.
Act and United Future proved they are now bad jokes. They are there only at the whim of Key. And they'll do what they are told and slide into oblivion at some future date.
The Maori Party appears to be in a strong position in any discussions with National but if they go with National they are finished next election. And they won't be able to help themselves and they'll sign up. Both of their co-leaders are retiring before the next vote and they won't survive it.
Hone Harawira won his seat and given Mana has won or come second in three of the Maori seats, his job will be to use his three years to build a movement to displace the Maori Party.
But the two real winners were the Greens and NZ First.
The great Houdini himself returns. All political careers ultimately end in failure but few get the chance for redemption. Only the gods could have dreamt up such a fitting punishment for John Key's cynical tea party with the assassins of Rodney Hide.
The Greens have come of age. Their success has come at Labour's expense and that party will want their vote back next election. The Greens will have to learn to sup with long handled spoons with their Labour mates on the opposition benches.
But let's call last night what it was. A rout.
The good news is MMP. With this sort of drama who'd want to give it up.
Labour on the other hand ran a dark, grim and fearful series of advertisements full of messages of doom and gloom which were basically a huge turnoff for everyone.
My impression is that labour invested far more of their campaign budget on TV advertising than National especially during One News. It's possible that not only did they sink their own waka but that they have had some influence on the low turnout as well.
For years I wondered if the Greens understood what a turnoff those two were.
On Nationals side of the ledger - Act seems to be in a very difficult position to resurrect, and the Conservatives maybe the new kids on the block, plus I guess there are a few NZ First people who swung away from National.
Though unless the specials change things its hard to see what NZ First or Mana have to do in the next 3 years as noone wants to work with them and they won't work with each other - they might as well just take their pay and go on holiday for 3 years.
The Greens will now be looking to move forward and need to start winning constituency seats, Their success is still ideological and they need non-leader winners to move forward and they need these in constituencies as a lot of people do the 2 ticks for the same party.