FOUR ELECTIONS IN A ROW the centre-left romped home with the Auckland mayoralty. Four elections of postal voting. Four elections in which the logistical management of the ballot was contracted out to the private sector. Four elections won by white, male politicians over the age of 55 years. Four elections of entirely satisfactory results – at least from the perspective of the centre-left.
One defeat, however, is all that it has taken for the centre-left (and its more combustible fellow-travellers) to denounce the entire electoral process as a rort, and to strongly insinuate that the victorious mayoral candidate, Wayne Brown, is lacking in democratic legitimacy. If this is not a case of sour grapes on the part of the losers, then it is difficult to imagine what a case of sour grapes might look like!
Let us begin with the most reputable of the losers’ complaints: the difficulty of keeping track of electors whose socio-economic status entails frequent changes of address. This is a perennial problem for the Electoral Commission (yes, that’s right, enrolment is the responsibility of the Electoral Commission, not private election services providers) letters arriving at addresses where the elector (or potential elector) is no longer in residence. Short of introducing a decidedly intrusive system of comprehensive citizen surveillance, however, it is difficult to see how this problem might be overcome.
Let us not forget that enrolling to vote (as opposed to actually casting a vote) is compulsory in New Zealand. It is the duty of every citizen to ensure that he or she is on the Electoral Roll. Fortunately, registering to vote in this country (unlike the USA) is extraordinarily easy. It can be done in a few minutes online, or at any Post Office. The only obstacle confronting those who move houses frequently from updating their details prior to the postal ballots being sent out is their own indifference to the electoral process.
As many commentators, confronted with the losers’ accusations of a “rigged” 2022 local government election, have noted, there’s not a lot that citizens, sufficiently motivated, cannot get. Music fans will jump online in an instant to secure tickets to the concerts of their favourite artists. Bargain hunters will queue for hours to get first crack at a big-box retailer’s discounted stock. Far less effort is required to enrol and vote in an election. All that’s required is the will.
The other loud complaint of the losers is that there were far too few ballot-boxes made available for those tardy electors seeking to deposit their ballot-papers. Given that upwards of 64,000 votes were successfully cast between sunrise and noon on Saturday, 8 October, this complaint lacks credibility. Further undermining the charge, is the fact that during the fortnight-long voting period for local elections, there are ballot-boxes located every few hundred metres for the convenience of electors. They’re called post-boxes. Making it easier to vote was, precisely, why Postal Voting was introduced in 1989.
Yes, yes, yes! Younger voters don’t use post-boxes, don’t even know what they look like, and certainly wouldn’t know where to find one. Even so, sufficiently motivated young voters, ready and eager to participate in the democratic process, could always overcome their ignorance by summoning-up the courage to ask one of those hideous human-beings aged over 65 where the nearest post-box is located. Chances are they’d discover there’s one opposite the neighbourhood dairy, or located conveniently right outside their favourite café. But, that would require them to act as if they were members of a community made up of multiple ethnicities and generations – wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, no one’s yet managed to transform the volksgemeinschaft into an app instantly downloadable to the 18-25-year-old citizen’s smartphone.
The least acceptable argument put forward by the Centre-left losers of the 2022 local government elections is that, somehow, the results represent ‘The Revenge of the Baby Boomers’. The claim, here, is that, somehow, everyone over the age of 55 in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, telepathically received the instruction to dash the hopes of their children and grandchildren by voting for Wayne Brown, Phil Mauger, and Jules Radich, instead of Efeso Collins, David Meates and Aaron Hawkins.
Secure in their obscenely overpriced homes, these Boomers experienced no difficulties in getting their voting papers. Indeed, some of them received more than one set. Some were – shock! horror! – multiple voters.
That’s right. If you own a rated (i.e. a taxed) property in any region, district or city, you are indeed entitled to vote for the body that struck the rate (i.e. imposed the tax). The principle upon which this entitlement is based is as old as democracy itself. It underpins every Westminster-style parliament. It even provided the key slogan of the American Revolution of 1776. “No taxation without representation!”
What is not correct, however, is that any elector in New Zealand is permitted to vote more than once in the same contest. A wealthy Boomer may own six houses in Auckland, but he is not entitled to six votes. His representation on the body taxing his properties is secured by a single vote – in exactly the same way as the young renter’s representation. The Boomer’s holiday-home in Coromandel, being taxed, does entitle him to vote – once – in Coromandel. But only for the candidates standing in that locality. The notion that Auckland’s Boomer landlords were casting fistfuls of votes for Wayne Brown is risible. Proof only of how sorely needed civics classes are in our schools.
A powerful sense of entitlement does, however, lie at the heart of the 2022 losers’ sour grapes. Not the entitlement derived from democratic principle, but the sense of entitlement ingrained in political activists who believe themselves to be on the right (that is to say left) side of history. This certainty concerning their own ideological rectitude exists in inverse proportion to their knowledge of the actual nuts-and-bolts of historical and political agency.
Wayne, Phil and Jules didn’t win because they are jointly in control of some sort of bizarre Boomer hive-mind; they won because they had a more accurate fix than Efeso, David and Aaron on what the citizens of Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, who were most likely to vote, wanted (and did not want) from their respective mayors and councils. The brutal fact of the matter is that the centre-left mayoral candidates in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin ran campaigns plagued by a conspicuous lack of one, or more, of the “Three Ms” – Money, Message, Machine. (Hat-tip to Mike Hutcheson.)
The proof of this contention is that Tory Whanau, the “Green” candidate for the Wellington mayoralty had the skills and the support to lay her hands on all three of the “Ms” – and she won the election hands-down. Tory found out what the over-55s wanted; but she also found out what the 18-25s, and all the other demographics, wanted; and then she offered it to them in a well-organised, positive, and successful campaign.
Democracy isn’t cheap, and it isn’t easy – but it is simple. Don’t insist that the voters be given what they don’t want. Build your footpaths where the people walk. Never, ever, be a sore loser. And, always remember: vox Populi, vox Dei.
The voice of the people, is the voice of God.
Thank you Mr Trotter…..This is such a very interesting and informative article.
Martin & Chris go toe to toe…
just what I was thinking
This is such a good article. Thank you.
The losers have taken on the characteristics of Donald Trump supporters by claiming the election was rigged! How fuckn hilarious is that!
The centre left/right neo fascist muddle-class ‘Trump Humpers!’
Imagine if you could use some sort of handheld device to find your closest post box…
https://postboxmap.com/en
The idea that all boomers are politically right is so wrong. However left wing boomers with decades of experience just heard Collins being a mouth peice for council bureacrats and judged he couldnt manage those bureaucrats. Meanwhile mellenials and gen rent dont vote because their wallet feels no direct financial effect. I am sure they would vote if their was a referendum on a local body poll tax!
Excellent, sane analysis. Thanks, Chris.
The idea that the elections were somehow “stolen” by the over-55s is risible.
As Guyon Espiner put it on Morning Report: “The world is run by those who turn up.”
“there are ballot-boxes located every few hundred metres for the convenience of electors. They’re called post-boxes.”
I’m absolutely livid at this ignorant statement, where the fuck do you live that this is true?? It isn’t 1989 anymore.
Most post boxes are gone, you have to travel to a post shop. Worse, the NZ Post map that the private election company links to doesn’t show boxes at all – nor is it a map.
As for someones suggestion to use an unofficial post box map – what about fake boxes? Interest is low – in elections and postal mail – so these could go undiscovered a while.
No, I don’t care about the results, rarely do I vote for anyone who comes even second anyway. But refusing STV and forcing FPP, deleting all the mailboxes, and a lackluster election with outdated non-maps of where to cast a ballot – all of this is absolutely disgusting.
You are so right. The post Office is a dead duck.
Check out the link provided by Richard Slade above, TWGBTM, as I have just done.
There you will find the precise location of every post-box in Auckland – there are thousands of them!
As Richard notes, you can download this interactive map to your phone.
Cheers,
Chris Trotter.
Oh wow! Falling over the darn things. Not.
Chris, the existance of a third party map in no way absolves NZ Post and ElectioNZ of their responsibilities.
Ballot might as well have been by smoke signals during a fire ban.
I’d love to see the numbers on lost and delayed ballots, especially given 3 weeks to vote and a typical NZ Post delay of 2 weeks (in my experience, I’m not pretending to have hard numbers.)
I’m not sure how accurate the post-box finder actually is. The letter box marked as closest to my house in Narrow Neck (18 Old Lake Rd) was removed at least three years ago.
Realistically if your intelligence & awareness of your local community is so low that you lack the knowledge & skills to find your closet post box, then perhaps you shouldn’t actually be allowed to vote in your local body elections.
Still Tubby Hansen got a reasonable number of votes, so I suspect there is a different reason why voter turn out is so low, that isn’t connected with being able to finding a post box.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/05-10-2022/an-interview-with-tubby-hansen-whos-run-in-every-christchurch-election-since-1969
I wonder if there isn’t an element of “why bother” thanks to the government’s direct, dictatorial and antidemocratic interference in the local authorities themselves. To say nothing of the excessive power of the managerial executive.
Butt out Mahuta & Co and legislate to protect the authority of our elected representative and the value of our vote. Please.
Change the record on the boomer envy. Some boomers have money because you were allowed to earn it before neoliberalism and capitalism and wokeism destroyed the middle class.
Note I am not a boomer, and voted Effeso. I was still worried about Effeso because he is part of the semi-woke generation that doesn’t have practical knowledge of what used to work with housing and water and everything else. However the free public transport won me over.
Wayne Brown to my mind is doing a better job than expected (and as mentioned I didn’t vote for him). The reason I say that is that he understands that the COO structure is not working for Auckland and essentially robbing the ratepayers of money and service. I applaud Wayne for going after Panakau, who like AT have failed miserably for people of Auckland while lining their own pockets in a non transparent way, with the ‘third way’ lefties and woke like Goff (who also bought in student fees) cheering them on.
As for Wayne taking time off for weekends and so forth, good on him. At least he takes the time to enjoy Piha and thus will bother to know what is going on with our declining recreational, parks and facilities, which is the only thing that many people can enjoy now – with the cost of everything else in Auckland.
Like Biden in the US, maybe it is not such a bad thing, that people who are older and remember the days before neoliberalism can actually understand that what is happening now to public assets and services is wrong. They hopefully have nothing to lose, to try and make the world and their community better and create a legacy not based on feathering a political career as critics points out, they are too old to have one.
Likewise Mike Lee back, who I also voted for. Another older person who knows that is happening in the councils is wrong. You need to start with people who at least know right, from wrong. (Or left from right for that matter).
The reason I think the woke and Effeso are going to be ineffectual on housing, is because they cancelled a large part of the cheaper housing stock for not meeting their exacting gold star healthy home requirements and then wonder why there are empty houses everywhere and want to cancel that too! Doh!
Try to get a builder to work of an older house and find a piece of Gib during Covid!!! BTW the housing crisis is over with plenty of empty new housing stocks and lower prices of many apartments in Auckland CBD than the cost to build new ones.
But you still need income to rent them, and thus with NZ’s lower and lower wages, we still have a crisis because our wages are third world and we sold off all our raw materials like forests and underpaid our NZ trained builders who have now left NZ.
Apparently 50% of construction in Auckland is Chinese construction and if the Labour inspectorate bothered to check, quite a few will be paid cash, under minimum wages and not qualified. But they will keep building these empty houses because they are making a killing from immigration and for political reasons, outside selling them.
“The notion that Auckland’s Boomer landlords were casting fistfuls of votes for Wayne Brown is risible. ”
Not sure that was the meaning of the criticism. The argument is the propertied class leverage their political power by ability to vote in multiple districts.
Watching Brown’s blitzkrieg on AT and Panuku on front page of NZ Herald makes great breakfast entertainment. Faces being put to CEOs and director boards – they are PMC GenXers taking over the top level managerial reigns from the rapidly retiring Boomers, with plenty of diversity hire quota stuffing too.
Great commentary Chris!
Just tell me one thing – who gave you that red pill? 🙂
Someone with a social conscience, obviously no one from the right of politics.
You may wish to google what red pill I’m referring to 😉
Thank you, Chris. Not registering as voter is dereliction of duty by individual responsible. Indifference to democracy or just plain laziness is not a valid excuse.
Low voter turnout is the actual problem. It quantifies obvious lack of trust in any of the candidates…or worse.
Problem is not in “how?”
Problem is in “why?”
Great article Chris. Agree 100%.
One of the reasons I love this site so much is the diversity of views (ie real diversity, not tick a box tokenism)