New Zealand election 2023 results reviewed and William Shakespeare
By Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson
You may wonder what William Shakespeare has to do with the election but bear with me.
Anyway the outcome of the election (including a postponed election held on the 25th November) was as follows:
National 49
Labour 34
Green 15
ACT 11
NZ First 8
Te Pāti Māori 6
By GlowstoneUnknown – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=140019332
From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_New_Zealand_general_election
I see that Chlöe Swarbrick is back with an increased majority.
Grant Robertson also remains but he only there because he is a list candidate, not because the voters wanted him.
Christopher Luxon, leader of the National Party, will be the Prime Minister and govern in a coalition with ACT and NZ First parties.
The latter will have their leaders, Winston Peters and David Seymour as deputy P.M’s.
Regarding the campaign I noted this from the Wikipedia link.
Adverstisement campaign
In early September 2023, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) launched an adverstisement campaign attacking National Party leader Christopher Luxon.
Wikipedia spelled ‘advertisement’ incorrectly. Easily done of course.
and
Chris Hipkins defended the NZCTU’s advertisements, stating that the union had published advertisements in previous elections.
Which makes it ok in his mind I guess.
He also accused the National Party and its alleged surrogates including the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, Groundswell NZ, and Hobson’s Pledge of publishing attack advertisements against him and the Labour Government.
Still I think that these groups are looking for values for money from the government which certainly they did not have during lockdowns when public servant office workers did what exactly. Anybody know?
The NZCTU’s largest group is the Public Service Association so they would not be too keen on supporting a party which wanted to cut back on public services, even if many didn’t do anything useful in lockdowns.
It would be like turkeys voting for Christmas.
In fact I wonder how many of the sub groups are paid for by taxpayers. I see that
The NZCTU is closely associated with the Labour Party. While there is no formal link between the two, some unions are formally affiliated to the Labour Party, and the President of the NZCTU speaks at the party’s annual conference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Council_of_Trade_Unions
I found these anagrams of New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. They may be significant.
– We a satanic lord NoDoz UN influence – NoDoz is a brand of caffeine pills
– We are dodo lunatics influenza Conn
– Wants a UN Leo Nazi Lucifer condoned
Or even
– Lucifer Lou Satan new Nazi condoned
Continuing.
Electoral billboards
The widespread defacement of electoral billboards has caused concern. A billboard featuring Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who is defending Maungakiekie for Labour, was vandalised with misogynistic language.
Although one can’t make it out according to the footnote link
Someone wrote “useless bitch” in big black letters over her name.
Further
Several billboards featuring Māori politicians have been defaced with racial slurs, including coon and on one occasion nigger, and the word “Māori” repeatedly cut out.
National Party billboards were also vandalised but not in overtly racist or misogynistic ways.
Which in Wikipedia’s editors mind seem to make things better.
In this instance I think you can work out what was intended. Possibly it shows more imaginative thinking. All thoughts welcome.
Mind you perhaps someone was bored and was just trying to be funny.
Still whoever defaced the Labour billboard missed a trick as the following anagrams come from Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s name.
– An anarchy Hipkins radar
– Dark hair pain canny rash
– Arachnid narky piranhas
– Yah Anna pricks harridan
– Anarchy apr Indian shark
– A cry in shark and piranha
Looks like there were warnings in her name then. Anyway Priyanca lost to Greg Fleming so that’s a relief.
She was not born in New Zealand yet she became a politician responsible in government. She could have been a wolf in sheep’s clothing for all you knew.
I see Golriz Ghahraman, a Green party list candidate is an MP. She was born in Iran, brought up in NZ from the age of 9.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golriz_Ghahraman
The same takes place in the UK. No wonder we have problems.
ACT party
I see the ACT lost some sensible candidates.
On 21 August, ACT candidate Elaine Naidu Franz resigned after 1 News uncovered a LinkedIn post likening COVID-19 vaccine mandates to concentration camps. ACT leader David Seymour described her comments as “unacceptable” and welcomed her decision to resign as an ACT candidate.
A second ACT candidate Darren Gilchrist of Waikato apologised for a Telegram post claiming that COVID-19 vaccines contributed to a surge in drowning in 2021.
It is rumoured that the post should have said ‘Dr. owning’. What they own it didn’t say. More than most people own is my guess.
A third ACT candidate Anto Coates also resigned after describing COVID-19 as a mass hysteria and writing a parody song suggesting that former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had thought about sending people to gulags.
Seymour defended ACT’s candidate vetting process while Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer accused the party of courting conspiracy theorists and being secretive respectively.
As opposed to the Labour party courting chaos and being incompetent respectively.
National party
The National party seems to very foolishly support fluoridation and vaccination. I note this.
On 18 September, Radio New Zealand reported that National’s Hamilton East candidate Ryan Hamilton, a serving Hamilton City Councillor, had for two decades espoused anti-fluoridation and vaccine hesitancy views at odds with the National Party’s positions on fluoridation and vaccination.
Hamilton had also posted social media posts opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates and alleging that the number of COVID-19 deaths had been inflated. In response to media coverage, National claimed that Hamilton had since changed his views on fluoridation.
There is a foot note link.
It says
In 2021, National MPs voted strongly in favour of a bill giving the Director-General of Health powers to enforce fluoridation of water. The party’s local government spokesman at the time was Christopher Luxon who stated in Parliament he shared concerns about “rampant misinformation” on the topic.
“The National Party is backing the science of fluoridation – no doubt about it,” Luxon said.
“We have 60 years of history, we have a Royal Society of New Zealand report on it, we have our Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor’s advice on it, and I want the public to know that it’s incredibly safe. It’s completely safe and reasonable that we are doing this.”
Where have we heard that before I wonder? Hmm, ‘safe and effective vaccines’ I think. That hasn’t worked too well.
As for the Chief Science Advisor’s advice, a further sub link to a pdf says at the end:
The New Zealand study reported that CWF was most cost-effective in “communities with high proportions of children, Māori, or people of low socio-economic status”.
For which read poison the upcoming generations and keep fertility and thus population growth down. And especially the people of low socio-economic status, i.e. the poor.
Why Ryan Hamilton has changed his mind I don’t know. Somebody ought to point out he should have stuck to his guns.
And Christopher Luxon you are a cretin on these issues at best. But then he worked for Unilever and became CEO and president of Unilever Canada in 2008 according to his Wikipedia entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Luxon
Still he has some sensible positions on other matters.
Finally
Anyway, I’m very glad Labour has gone with its destructive government so here is the Shakespeare connection.
Baldmichael can say with all sincerity that he ‘Loves Labour’s Lost’!
P.S. Whether the new coalition government will be any better remains to be seen. That will be up to the people to decide.
For my articles relevant to New Zealand and matters referenced, there are these for any interested and who haven’t yet seen.
Thanks, I now needn’t read the New Zealand Herald to try to understand who is who
and what is what. Their political situation is always diverse. Some say the governmental
structure is more similar to Germany than UK and Australia. In 1996 New Zealand adopted
the MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) system which they think gives the people more
opportunities to participate in decision making, providing greater freedom for all.
In September, 1893 New Zealand became the first self-governing nation in the world
where women had won the right to vote.