AucklandSeptember 14, 2016

New mayoral poll: Goff maintains big lead but here comes the Chloenator

Editor-at-large

Phil Goff remains well out in front in the contest for the big job in Auckland but young pretender Chloe Swarbrick has built support against the odds.

A new poll published today by the Spinoff shows Phil Goff on course to succeed Len Brown as mayor of Auckland, maintaining a comfortable lead over his closest challenger, Vic Crone. The most noteworthy result in the poll by Horizon Digital for the Aera Foundation may, however, be the emergence of the youngest candidate in the field, whose campaign is being run on a shoestring, Chloe Swarbrick.

The Labour MP for Mt Roskill registered 38% in the online poll, well ahead of Vic Crone on 11% and her nearest rival on the right, John Palino, on 6%. Their corresponding results in last month’s poll for the Spinoff (conducted using similar methodology by a different polling company, SSI), the only other published poll in the Auckland mayoralty campaign, placed Goff on 31%, Crone 8% and Palino 4%.

All voters. Horizon poll for the Aera Foundation — All voters. Horizon Digital poll for the Aera Foundation

The standout result, however, is that for Chloe Swarbrick, the impressive and precocious 22-year-old, who finished fourth in the poll, outranking the sort-of-withdrawn-from-the-race Mark Thomas, on 4% (twice his result in the last survey).

While her 5% result does not yet augur a Mayor Swarbrick, it adds weight to her argument that she should have been included in more mayoral debates as well the Spinoff/SSI poll, which did not proffer her name to respondents.

“I think the poll shows that the game has changed,” said Swarbrick last night.

“I have next to no funding, next to no resources behind my campaign, but have managed to reach large numbers of Aucklanders who are tired of the old way of doing things.”

Swarbrick said that while it was disappointing that the poll came just a few days before postal voting opens on Friday, the result should nevertheless send a message that “the status quo approach and media coverage is just not the best way of doing things … More than anything my campaign has been not about dictating, but about listening – I think that’s the way politics needs to be moving.”

The undecided/don’t-know level, at 23%, is down considerably from the 44% level recorded in last month’s poll.

When recalculated to include only those who selected a candidate, the Horizon Digital poll puts Goff on 52% ahead of Crone on 15%, followed by Palino on 8% and Swarbrick on 7%.

Decided voters. Horizon Digital poll for the Aera Foundation.

Notwithstanding some unforeseen catastrophe, however, the mayoral chains look all but Goff’s. He led across all age and income groups, Horizon reports, with his highest level of support, 55%, coming from those earning more than $200,000 a year.

The online survey, conducted by Horizon Research, was commissioned by the Aera Foundation, a charitable trust founded by entrepreneur Derek Handley.

Explaining the Aera Foundation’s motivation for commissioning the poll, Handley said the mayoral election is taking place “at an incredibly critical time given the early maturation of the ‘Super City’ and the housing crisis the city is most definitely in. The mayor is arguably the second most influential public role in New Zealand and is at the head of a collective of organisations directing billions of dollars of assets and revenue, touching Aucklanders every single day.”

In a blog post, he wrote: “Polls can often trigger more people talking about the election, wanting to learn more and enquire as to what the possibilities indicate and what they as an individual can or should do to see the change they seek … Aera is a charitable trust in New Zealand that invests in campaigns and causes addressing social issues and empowering people to make their voices heard and participate in important decisions that will affect our collective future, is one such issue. The future of our city is a key driver for the wellbeing and success of New Zealand and all New Zealanders and one that we should all be concerned and engaged with.”

The foundation, he added, is “a completely non-partisan organisation, simply trying to encourage voter engagement”.

The results come from an online survey of 748 members of Horizon Research’s specialist adult research panels residing in Auckland City. The survey was conducted between September 8 and 12, and measured respondents’ intended support for the 19 Mayoral candidates. The sample was weighted on age, gender, personal income and sub-city to provide a representative sample of the 18+population in Auckland City at the 2013 census. At a 95% confidence level, the survey has a maximum margin of error of ±3.6% overall.

Full details of the poll can be found here.

Keep going!

AucklandSeptember 13, 2016

Mark Thomas, the most tragic man in NZ politics, just became more tragic

Toby Manhire

Editor-at-large

The most upbeat runner in the Auckland mayoral race has felt obliged to perform a weird half-withdrawal. And not for the first time, writes Toby Manhire

Nudges and winks to the electorate have become a familiar part of MMP politics in New Zealand, with messages beamed to loyal supporters about how to vote strategically.

This is most famously encapsulated in ceremonial cups of tea, an approach that worked neatly until it didn’t any more.

John Key and John Banks at the Urban Cafe. Photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images — Did the Johns Banks and Key discuss Mark Thomas at the Urban Cafe? Tragically, no. Photo: Hannah Peters/Getty

In the case of the nudgiest, winkiest seat of them all, Epsom, Paul Goldsmith has gurned his way awkwardly through successive campaigns as the “Vote National, I’m National, don’t vote for me, vote for the other guy” candidate.

His insouciant too-cool-to-want-to-be-elected styles spawned, inevitably perhaps, the #Hipsters4Goldsmith movement.

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=3708944358 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]

But spare a thought for Mark Thomas. Hard-working, impassioned and full of smiles, relentlessly upbeat and a properly nice guy, yet cruelly cursed with terrible luck and the political instincts of a newt, Thomas has announced this morning that he is no longer in the race for the mayoralty, after concerted lobbying from Concerned People that he should stand aside. Scratch that: he is in the race for the mayoralty but he is kind of no longer, you know, really, well, in the race for the mayoralty because Phil Goff is going to win, and so he’s going to focus his efforts on explaining to everyone why Phil Goff is bad.

Only the hardest of hearts couldn’t feel some sympathy for Mark T, who is left fluttering in the breeze like a plastic shopping bag stuck on a power line, making semi-coherent noises about his still-standing-not-really-standing status.

The most brutal thing of all is that the ghosts of 1996 have hikoied all the way up State Highway 1 from Te Aro to Aotea Square. Mark Thomas, as documented in the brilliant film Campaign, was the National candidate for Wellington Central who got cut off at the knees just a few days before the general election, with party leader Jim Bolger determining that the way should be cleared for ACT top-Rottweiler Richard Prebble.

As Tim Murphy put it in his account for the Spinoff earlier this year, the shots of Thomas taking the call from Bolger, just a few days shy of two decades ago, are something else:

It is one of the saddest sights in New Zealand politics. Sadder, possibly, than those images years later of Bill English being heckled as he walked home alone and desolate across parliament’s forecourt after being deposed as National Party leader.

In Tony Sutorius’s documentary, Thomas let off one F-bomb on camera (“Fucking Prick”), as he took calls while driving, eating a pie and changing gears on his manual car simultaneously. Remarkably, he re-gathered himself, behaving for the rest of the film with more decorum than any dead man walking could be expected to exhibit.

And today, Thomas has pretty much acknowledged that his kneecaps have been smashed into pieces again.

Since just about the start of the mayoral battle, senior National Party aligned figures in Auckland have been dismissive, or worse, about Thomas, urging him to let Vic Crone have a clear run. Thomas has refused today to go so far as to endorse Crone, but he’s still been hobbled, thrown on to the burning National party pyre for a second time, 20 years after the first cruel sacrifice, and so confirmed his status as the most tragic figure in New Zealand politics – a battered mortal in an unforgiving and actually pretty mean cosmos.

What next then for The Most Tragic Figure In New Zealand Politics? It is time – surely, Mark, surely – to chuck it in. Focus on the consultancy game. Open a market stall selling delicious single-origin chutneys. Or, fuck it all, tell them you’re not going to take it any more and stand as an independent in Epsom.