NZ Politics Daily: 1 July (liberation)

There’s plenty of interesting New Zealand politics stories and analysis to read today – even if no one strong theme dominates. The most interesting thing in politics by the end of the week is still Hone Harawira – with numerous analyses of the by-election victory, where the Mana Party is going and what it means for the general election. John Moore writes a guest blog post on liberation about the ideological divisions within the Mana Party, and suggests that Harawira is still very much the Maori nationalist rather than the ‘born again socialist’ that the left are getting excited about – see: The Mana Party and its identity problems.

The latest Herald opinion poll finally has Mana registering on the landscape, but only at 0.5% of the vote. Notably, all minor parties continue to struggle – the latest poll shows that the two major parties are collectively hoovering up the support of 87% of the public. And Labour, despite being a distant second in the poll, is still in the running for November, being on 36%, which puts the party in definite striking distance of putting together a coalition. In this regard, Chris Trotter’s National’s Nightmare Scenario is instructive – he projects a situation with the following final votes: Labour 32%, Greens 10%, NZF 5%, and Mana 3.5%, giving a Labour-led coalition a majority.

The ‘future of Labour’ is also dealt with quite well in a profile feature in this week’s Listener magazine of candidate Andrew Little – see: Diana Wichtel’s Into the bear pit (full text not online until 18 July). Wichtel attempts to work out if Little really is ‘a pinko unionist who is too close to employers and a hard-mouthed, ruthlessly ambitious intellectual’. She seems to conclude that he’s really another version of Helen Clark, albeit more serious and dour. And David Farrar usefully unpacks a recent opinion poll that shows Little is unlikely to win his New Plymouth contest – see his Stuff column, Some light for Andrew Little? Farrar also has a must-read Herald column on The might of Mana Maori.

Also detailed below are some important upcoming political science events: The New Zealand Political Rhetoric Conference, 18-19 August, the 2011 NZ Political Studies Association Conference, 1-2 December, and the Victoria University of Wellington Post-Election Conference, mid-Feb 2012. And of course, next week, I’ll be presenting a public lecture entitled ‘A Hollow Democracy? Why New Zealand elections are increasingly meaningless to voters’ in Wellington on Wednesday, 6pm at the James Cook Hotel and on Thursday, 6pm, at 385 Queen St. [Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

Below are the internet links to all the NZ politics material from the last 24 hours that are either informative, insightful, interesting or influential. This list and the links are taken from a fuller document, NZ Politics Daily, which is emailed out, Monday to Friday, to various researchers, academics, journalists, MPs and so forth. The document is purely for research purposes only, and if you would like to be on the subscription list, please email: bryce.edwards@otago.ac.nz

Opinion polls

Audrey Young (NZH): Poll: Labour gains, but Nats would still govern alone

NZPA: Labour closes gap with National in poll

Kiwipollguy: Polling Update, 25 June