Continue reading "Conclusions about the 2008 election campaign" »
Continue reading "Conclusions about the 2008 election campaign" »
Continue reading "The professionalisation of party campaigning" »
06 October 2009 in 2008 election, Books, NZ Political Parties, party membership, political finance | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: Angelo Panebianco, Anthony Downs, electoral-professional party, Kirchheimer, party professionalisation, political campaigning, political marketing
The Maori Party had three related objectives for the 2008 campaign: to win all seven Maori electorates, gain greater recognition as the ‘Treaty partner’ in Parliament, and have a role in the next government. Thus the party sought to project itself as the independent kingmaker of the election, hoping to take up the same strategic position that New Zealand First had held as an important player in past coalition negotiations, able to leverage disproportionate policy gains from the major parties. In order to gain this position, the Maori Party had to carefully construct an image of political neutrality between Labour and National. These are the issues that I focus on in the section on the Maori Party within my chapter entitled ‘Party Strategy and the 2008 Election’ which is part of the recently published book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig). This blog post is the 12th of a series of explorations of the chapters from the new book, and it constitutes the original draft section about the Maori Party that I wrote for my chapter. Subsequently this draft was substantially reworked, edited, and condensed for the final book, so please see the published book for the final and ‘authoritative’ version. [Read more below]
28 September 2009 in 2008 election, Books, elections, Maori Party | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: 2008 general election, Maori Party, Tariana Turia
24 September 2009 in 2008 election, Act party, Books | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: 2008 general election, Act, Act Party, political campaigning, Rodney Hide, Roger Douglas
17 September 2009 in 2008 election, electoral law, political finance | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: EFA, Electoral Finance Act, electoral law, political finance
In 2008 the Green Party was set to become the third largest party in Parliament. To get there the party attempted to take a qualitatively different approach to the past – adopting a highly professsionalised and market-oriented strategy. Taking the ‘Americanisation’ of politics towards its logical conclusion the Green also embraced a very celebrity-focused method of campaigning, while still relying on some traditional minor party media stunts. The party also attempted to break out of its ‘left ghetto’ but with mixed success. These are some of the issues that I focus on in the section on the Green Party within my chapter entitled ‘Party Strategy and the 2008 Election’ which is part of the recently published book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig). This blog post is the ninth of a series of explorations of the chapters from the new book, and it constitutes the original draft section about the Greens that I wrote for my chapter. Subsequently this draft was substantially reworked, edited, and condensed for the final book, so please see the published book for the final and ‘authoritative’ version. [Read more below]
Continue reading "Leaders debates and interviews in the 2008 NZ election" »
Continue reading "Political advertising in the 2008 NZ election" »
29 July 2009 in 2008 election, Books, elections, ePolitics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: epolitics, internet campaigning, New Zealand politics, online politics
Continue reading "The Maori Party and newspaper coverage in the 2008 NZ election" »
Continue reading "Newspaper coverage of the 2008 NZ election" »
Continue reading "Television coverage of the 2008 NZ election" »
The Labour Party received nearly $500,000 in donations of more than $10,000 in 2008 – significantly more than National, which declared a total of about $207,000. This is according to the figures just made public by the Electoral Comission (available here), and dealt with by an article in the Herald today (see: Artists feature in Labour's $500,000 list of election donations). It seems therefore that despite the common myth of the Labour Party being financially poor and the National Party being the party of big wealth, Labour is still just as much a big money party as National. After all Labour has been the biggest spending party for the last few general elections. And if you add up all the declared donations made to the Electoral Commission since it was made mandatory in 2006, you’ll find that Labour and National have received virtually the same amounts. My quick calculations (which I’ll check and update at some stage) show that over the 1996 to 2008 period, Labour has declared donations of about $5,321,000 and National has declared about 5,484,000.
Every year the European Journal of Political Research publishes a political date yearbook which gives a review of politics in a number of western countries. I contribute the section on New Zealand to the journal – last year’s publication on New Zealand politics in 2007 can be read here. Below is the first draft of my review of New Zealand politics in 2008. It still requires a bit of abridging and editing, and as always I’m interested in feedback and suggestions, which you can leave in the comments section or email me (edwards.bryceATgmail.com). [Read more below]
27 April 2009 in 2008 election, Act party, economy, elections, electoral law, environment, Green Party, Labour Party, Maori Party, National Party, NZ First, NZ Political Parties, political communications, political finance | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: 2008, 2008 general election, Act Party, EFA, Electoral Finance Act, European Journal of Political Research, Green Party, Labour Party, National Party, New Zealand First, political finance
Electorate candidates in 2008 spent a combined total of $2.26m trying to get elected. They also declared receiving donations totaling $1.26m. Winning candidates spent on average $12,836 to get elected. But expenditure varied greatly: Russell Fairbrother spent $19,704 failing to win Napier, while Maurice Williamson won Pakuranga by apparently only spending $1,591. There
appears to be quite a discrepancy between what some of these candidates
have declared in donations and what they have official spent - for example, Pita Sharples received $35,000 in donations but only
spent $8,473, and Allan Peachy received $46,250 but only spent $15,102. This blog post analyses these figures and tries to highlight some of interesting details from them. [Read more below]
03 April 2009 in 2008 election, political finance | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: 2008 general election, EFA, Electoral Finance Act, political finance
The Green Party spent a record $1,706,633 fighting the 2008 election, which amounts to $10.83 per vote! Put another way, it cost the Greens $189,626 for each of their nine seats in Parliament. The official party election expenses are out today, and they show that the party that was once a humble grassroots, resource-poor party is now heavily professionalized and is the third highest spending party – once again outspending the Act Party. Its expenditure of $1,706,633 in 2008 was made up of $1,457,744 in private expenditure and $248,889 in state broadcast funding. Compared to previous elections, the Greens’ spending has skyrocketed:
It seems that regardless of the amount the party spends on its campaign – virtually nothing in 1990, or close to two million in 2008 – the party always gets around 6% of the vote. What is interesting is that in 1999 the Greens were receiving a respectable cost per vote of $2.62, but because they have dramatically increased their wealth without increasing their support, in 2008 their cost per vote was $10.83 (which is based on the fact the party received 157,613 party votes). Therefore the Green Party’s 2008 billboard and television advertising campaign – which was one of the most vacuous and professional we’ve seen in New Zealand politics – actually didn’t do the party much good. As I’ve pointed out in previous posts, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between how much a political party spends on advertising and how many votes they obtain.
Note: Somewhat disingenuously the Green Party has included a tiny portion ($187,000) of their Parliamentary Service funding in their declaration. While this is explicit admission of their continued use of parliamentary funding for party political electioneering and therefore probably needs to be repaid to Parliamentary Service, it fudges the fact that most of the Green Party’s parliamentary funding is probably spent on party political activity. Just one part of Green annual parliamentary funding, ‘Party & Members Support’ budget is about $864,000.
For more on all these issues, see:
Does political advertising work?
The finances of the Green Party
Have the Greens sold their soul?
05 March 2009 in 2008 election, Green Party, political finance | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: 2008 election, Green Party, greens, NZ politics, professionalisation
Prof Jack Vowles used to be New Zealand’s preeminent political sociologist, but has recently left the University of Auckland for the UK’s University of Exeter. He’s still analyzing New Zealand politics, however, and has written a review of ‘The 2008 General Election in New Zealand’ (to be published in an upcoming edition of Electoral Studies). You can download a PDF of the paper from his website. Vowles’ paper is a good solid descriptive account of last year’s election, but it also contains the following more analytical points. [Read more below].
Does political advertising work? Governments and political parties spend millions of dollars on paid advertising, but the results are often of dubious effect. As I’ve pointed out in previous posts, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between how much a political party spends on advertising and how many votes they obtain (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here). The 2008 mega-professional and expensive Green Party campaign was yet another example of this in action. The party’s taxpayer-funded Buy Kiwi Made advertising campaign has also been a significant failure. [Read more below]
There’s been very little insightful or interesting analysis of the New Zealand general election results from the left of the political spectrum. This is partly because much of the left is so strongly tied to either the Labour Party or the Greens – both losers in the election. However, John Braddock’s socialist analysis is fairly solid. Writing on the World Socialist Website, Braddock’s article Labour government dumped in New Zealand elections is a hard-hitting explanation of Labour’s loss, which he explains as a clear ‘clear repudiation of Labour and its pro-business orientation by significant layers of the working class’. [Read more below]
02 December 2008 in 2008 election, class in NZ, Labour Party, Maori Party, National Party, NZ Left, voting behaviour | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: 2008 general election, Labour Party, Maori Party, National Party, NZ politics
The minor parliamentary parties are killing support for MMP - that’s the impression I came away with after watching the TVNZ minor party leaders debate on Monday night. They’re killing us with boredom, consensus and sameness. Yet this should be the general election whereby the minor parties in Parliament get to shine by showing how different they are to the incredibly centrist and ‘me-too’ Labour and National parties. Surely there are millions of disaffected and unimpressed voters that are turned off the claustrophobic centrist new political consensus set up by Labour and National? But the tragedy is that all the minor parliamentary parties are infected by the same disease – they are falling over themselves to agree with one another and show how cooperative and clean they are. This isn’t useful in an election where the New Zealand public need a real choice between different political programmes rather than mere tinkering with the status quo. Part of the problem is that the current minor parties are atrophied leftovers from the 1990s. We therefore need a shake up of the New Zealand party system and the introduction of some parties that offer real change. [Read more below]
29 October 2008 in 2008 election, Green Party, NZ Political Parties | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
The television election advertising for the political parties have just started screening. Once again, the inequality of the system is made obvious, with those parties that least need the exposure being given the vast bulk of public money to advertise what the public already knows, and those parties that are struggling to get their message heard are marginalised by the Electoral Commission. By choosing to reward Labour and National with a million dollars each and plenty of broadcast time, but only giving a few crumbs to the parties outside Parliament, the Electoral Commission has once again shown why they are part of the problem rather than the solution to issues of political finance and today’s uneven electoral playing field. A truly democratic and fair system would have seen the advertising monies and broadcast time divided up evenly, as it happens in many other countries. Instead our election campaign continues to operate under a cartel model of political finance designed by Labour and National. [Read more below]
Continue reading "[political finance] The inequitable allocation of TV advertising" »
The campaigns of New Zealand’s political parties are increasing run by PR and consultancy companies, and this reflects their increasingly similarities and electoral-professional nature. Related to this, David Fisher asks in the latest Listener: ‘Which New Zealand political party has undeclared links to a foreign-based political strategy firm that has been accused of underhand tactics?’ The answer isn’t National and Crosby Textor, but Labour and the ‘Washington-based strategy and technology experts Blue State Digital’. [Read more below]
Continue reading "Labour’s foreign professional campaign links" »
06 October 2008 in 2008 election, ePolitics, Labour Party, political communications | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: ePolitics, Labour Party, political communications, professionalisation
The business community has lost confidence in the Labour Government, yet isn’t convinced that the National Party will carry out the necessary changes that they support. That’s the message from the Independent Financial Review’s triennial pre-election business survey. In many ways it mirrors the Independent’s pre-election business survey that preceded Clark’s Labour Party coming to power in 1999. That survey of employers reported that they believed the National government should be voted out and that the Labour Party was then the preferred choice of business. [Read more below]
Continue reading "Business says to Labour: “go” but is indifferent towards National" »
14 August 2008 in 2008 election, business, Labour Party, National Party | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: 2008 election, Labour Party, National Party
One of the main observations and complaints made about the Opposition National Party in recent months has been that it is not releasing policy and is incredibly vague about what it will do if it comes into government this year. These are fair questions and challenges to National, but... [Read more below]
Continue reading "National’s policy vagueness – learnt from Labour" »
18 July 2008 in 2008 election, Labour Party, National Party | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Technorati Tags: 2008 election, Labour Party, National Party
