Tuesday 28 July 2015

“Something Very, Very Different”: Why Rumours Of Labour’s Internal Poll Numbers Are Giving The Nats The Heebie-Jeebies.

Reasons To Smile: For some in Labour’s Caucus, the experience of taking fire (especially from people they considered friends and allies) has been a painful one. But the fact that they have remained at their posts, and returned fire, has not been lost on Labour’s traditional constituency. There have been no leaks, no private briefings, no wayward press releases. The Labour Caucus has – touch wood – rediscovered the power of collective commitment and responsibility. In the process, it has reclaimed a good measure of much-needed credibility.
 
CAMERON SLATER is appealing directly to members of Labour’s caucus on his Whaleoil blog. Why? Because he’s just got wind of Labour’s internal poll numbers. According to Cameron: “Their internal polls show something very, very different from the publicly available polls. Apparently the gap between Labour & National is about 6 or 7 percent when the public polls have it at 15%.”
 
This can only mean that, in the usually highly accurate UMR poll, Labour is positioned somewhere between 34-36 percent and the National Party somewhere between 40 and 42 percent. At that level of support, it’s ‘Game Over!’ for John Key’s government. No wonder Cameron is doing everything he can to sow doubt in the minds of Andrew Little’s colleagues.
 
Clearly, these results have brought on an attack of the heebie-jeebies in National’s ranks. How else to explain the usually very crafty Mr Slater’s tactical lapse? Calling people’s attention to what he’s heard about Labour’s internal polling – when it’s this good – has given a major boost to the Left’s morale. It’s also boosted the credibility of the other big rumour doing the rounds about UMR’s polling: the one that puts the combined Labour-Green vote at 49 percent.
 
Cameron’s post may also serve to confirm the rumours about National’s own internal polling. According to these, Labour’s much criticised ‘China Play’ almost immediately began shaking erstwhile Labour voters loose from National’s tree in large numbers.
 
That would certainly explain the way National suddenly went dark on the whole issue. As Matthew Hooton explained in his NBR column of 17/7/15: “Wedge politics are straightforward: You find a genuine problem, associate it with an unpopular minority, raise it with inflammatory language, or in a provocative context, and wait for your opponents to defend the minority. Then you stand with the majority against them.” With advisers as skilled in the dark arts of wedge politics as Mark Textor and Lynton Crosby, the Prime Minister was almost certainly warned against expressing too much solidarity with the targets of Labour’s campaign.
 
That job was left to TV3’s Patrick Gower, who has been waging a virtual one-man-war against what he insists are Labour’s “cooked-up” statistics. How disappointed poor Paddy must have been when his week-long assault upon Labour for “playing the race card” was rewarded with a marginal increase in Labour’s support (from 30.4 to 31.1 percent) in the TV3/Reid Research Poll. To rub salt in his wounds, the poll also showed the ‘Opposition Bloc’ of parties (Labour, Greens, NZ First) registering 50.9 percent to the ‘Government Bloc’s’ (National, Act, Maori Party, United Future) 48.2 percent. Completing Mr Gower’s discombobulation must have been Reid Research’s finding that 61 percent of New Zealanders support a ban on foreign investors buying-up residential property.
 
So, let us assume, purely for the sake of argument, that all the rumours are true and all the numbers are correct. It would mean that National has shed 6-7 percentage points directly to Labour. Interestingly, this is exactly what the Roy Morgan Poll of 17 July indicated. It had National down 6.5 points to 43 percent, Labour up 6 points to 32 percent, and the combined Labour-Green vote on 45 percent. Admittedly, the Roy Morgan survey only caught the first day of Labour’s China Play, but, by the same token, it escaped the effects of ‘Paddy’s Play’ entirely.
 
From the beginning of the year, Labour’s clear objective, and Andrew Little’s laser-like focus, has been to re-capture the roughly 10 percent of former Labour voters who have, ever since Helen Clark’s departure, taken to voting National with their Party Vote. Crucial to recovering that lost support are the two “Cs” – Connection and Credibility.
 
Labour's Caucus - Sticking To Their Guns.
 
Labour and Little must first connect with, and then remain at the side of, their electoral base. They must whistle their tune – and keep on whistling it – until their supporters start whistling it back to them. In lifting Labour’s vote towards that magical 40 percent mark, nothing is more important than saying what you mean, meaning what you say, and sticking to your guns.
 
For some in Labour’s Caucus, the experience of taking fire (especially from people they considered friends and allies) has been a painful one. But the fact that they have remained at their posts, and returned fire, has not been lost on Labour’s traditional constituency. There have been no leaks, no private briefings, no wayward press releases. The Labour Caucus has – touch wood – rediscovered the power of collective commitment and responsibility. In the process, it has reclaimed a good measure of much-needed credibility.
 
And if Cameron Slater’s right about the results of the latest UMR poll, they now have their reward.
 
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Monday, 27 July 2015.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well anything that Cameron Slater says about anything is suspect, in his blog today he is arguing that if authorities ban rodeos, then they should cat and dog because they are just as cruel!, the guy has a loose screw. I hope your prognosis is correct but I would need to see several polls that show what you say is true. Internal polls of all political parties favour their own parties though I agree with general comment at the moment that National have taken a hit about the overseas buying of Auckland homes. I will await the next non political, unbiased poll before I start believing.

jh said...

Winston Peters explains you would get a percentage of superannuation, depending on how long you've been in the country contributing.

"You would not get the same amount as someone who has paid taxes for 45 years in this country and who sees someone come into this country and get the same benefit."

However, it doesn't look as if the Bill will go far. It's already been found to be in breach of the Bill of Rights.


http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/nz-firsts-superannuation-bill-already-facing-problems/
...
The Bill of Rights would be Labour under Helen Clark? People support Labour for different reasons but two main groups are mutually exclusive of the other. Potential voters will be watching to see if labour is off the bottle?

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Didn't the poll of polls pretty much confirm this this morning?

Anonymous said...

If labour is to rise in the polls it will have to appeal to the voter who would get bumped from Public Address and The Standard?

pat said...

its "still' the economy.....

jh said...

Here's what's happening

Odakyu-sen (1,650 comments) says:
July 28th, 2015 at 10:43 am
I feel so wealthy in Auckland.
In Japan, I drove a car for many years. There were no parking spaces at my apartment, so I had to rent a parking space 800 meters down the road in a vacant lot for 5,000 yen a month. (Normal for the suburbs.)
Now in Auckland, I drive up my driveway, pull out my garage remote control, and open the door to my internal garage. Every time I do this (and I have owned my place for over 10 years) I am reminded of how wealthy I am.
In Japan there were only two men I knew who could do this. One was a partner in a Tokyo law firm; the other was a dentist who owned a chain of clinics. Yes sir, I feel affluent with my remote controlled door and my internal garage. Affluent indeed!


and then another comment
Boris Piscina (412 comments) says:

“Random T Person (52 comments) says:


As an ex-Safa, proud to call this place home. Consistently at or near the top of all the right measures.”

The only shame about that – and it is a great shame – is that there aren’t 100,000 more just like you, over and above those many thousands of you who are already adding to our nation.


http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2015/07/nz_has_third_highest_material_living_standard.html#comments

Boris Piscina has been a harsh critic of labour's "racism". My point is that it is the labour voter who is being thrown under the bus: Gareth Morgan doesn't care, the writers of the Auckland Transport Blog don't care and generally high income people on the left don't care.

Anonymous said...

internal polls should be more accurate than public ones.

this is because of basic methodology.

public polls start by asking the only question that will get them paid - how you will vote, and then ask you to think about issues affecting that vote, so they get a less considered response to the actual party vote question first.

internal polls tend to ask about the issues you are thinking about first - what messages are needed to be refined for the electorate, and then conclude with which party you think will get your vote - a more considered response, and more able to get a better reflection of your actual decision.


for example, British labour polls in the last two weeks of the campaign clearly showed that fear of the SNP in government, and fear of more debt resonated far more than with those still considering voting for labour. but the public polls didn't pick that up because they got the first thought - don't like the Tories that much.

so I would trust this internal polling to be much more accurate than the public polls, especially when this appears to be the first time in a decade that the opposition isn't behaving like a bunch of idiots.

A O said...

Labour's stance on the TPP is giving me more than the heebie jeebies!!

Davo Stevens said...

The only truly accurate poll is the General Election.

Jigsaw said...

Labours' polls.....dream on!