Policy boffin and dad
Wellington, NZ
Joined February 2009
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Good to see a senior and well-respected (albeit outgoing) MP calling for reform on RNZ this morning.
We can’t put this is in the too-hard basket.
Chris Bishop going hard at the overhang campaign on RNZ. Says TPM and Harry Mowbray “have a lot to answer for”. He says MPs always go hard in electorates but it was a huge distraction.
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A take on the state of things re electoral rules from the thoughtful end of the right-wing perspective.
This quoted post is unavailable.
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Another truthbomb from someone who knows what he is talking about and can cut thru the reckons.
By law, Parliament must sit within 6 weeks of the return of the writ, which works out at 14 January
In practice that will mean Parliament has to sit before Christmas. If no government has been formed by then, Luxon will still be caretaker & will face an immediate confidence vote
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I’m not as ready as him to dismiss the learned @Overhang_AoNZ but interesting that Chris Bishop:
* is keen to deny symbolic significance to his likely (but not guaranteed, strategic voters!) loss of Hutt South to Ginny Andersen, and
* has time to argue with nerds on the internet!
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This outdoes (then-Nat leader) Don Brash ‘walking the plank’ as a campaign metaphor!
Scholarly truthbomb.
This means 1 of 3 conditions for Labour’s path to power will likely be met.
The 2nd is for non-Coalition voters to use electorate votes strategically so Lab takes overhang seats off Nat (cf. all my other tweets).
The 3rd is which way Opportunity goes …
A lot of people still say “Opportunity won’t make it”. For many on the right, this has become an article of faith.
Well, time for a reality check: we are two days out and Opportunity is averaging 6%.
In 30 years of MMP, no party polling that high in the final week has missed out.
The Christian Coalition (1996) and Colin Craig’s Conservative Party (2014) never consistently polled above 5%. NZ First was polling well under the threshold in 2020 and 2008.
Opportunity is going to make it - and I now think they will outperform the polls.
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We now have the bizarre situation that an undemocratic strategy that no party in Parliament will claim association with could decide the next Government
Now David Seymour on the wireless saying ACT doesn't support the overhang strategy while literally supporting far-right campaigns pushing the overhang strategy
If the overhang strategy gets up there is a good chance he will disavow it, or maybe try to blame it on the Greens
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This is not a drill. We’ve heard ‘no list MPs’ before, but this time it - & the threat of overhang hijacking the election - are real.
Party vote your values but esp in these 12 battleground seats cast yr electorate vote for the Labour candidate to deny Nats these overhang seats.
I’m really focussed on the NZ election, but developments in Israel _might_ be more consequential for the whole world, possibly even moreso than the US midterms.
Eisenkot is clearly leaving the door open to form a government with support from Arab-led parties. He puts four conditions that Raam has already accepted and he also says he wants to form a Zionist Mamlakhtit government (Mamlakhtit is really hard to translate but it means something like non-sectarian and in a way could mean a government for citizens of all backgrounds)
I've written a bit more about strategic voting that might thwart the undemocratic overhang strategy, this time focusing on Wairarapa and East Cape, which could turn out to be crucial to the outcome of the election.
linkedin.com/pulse/why-green…
ACT is rallying to vote strategically; Labour and other non-Coalition supporters should, too.
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The gap looks larger than average for New Zealand …
Why do younger teachers often work in the most challenging classrooms?
For example, teachers aged under 30 are much more likely to report that over 10% of their students have disruptive behaviour.
Read more:
bit.ly/46UFRCS
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I was originally a (large party) overhang sceptic.
After years of being told that list MPs going back to David Caygill would miss out cos their party would ‘get no list MPs’, I was like ‘yeah right’.
Rustie at @Overhang_AoNZ helped me realise that THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT!
May the spirit of Jean-Luc Picard prevail in the world in these last months of 2026!
For many space scientists, Patrick Stewart *was* Capt. Picard—a pacifistic, stoic diplomat who hated megalomaniacs.
For @nytimes, I wrote about how he, and Star Trek, inspired everyone from astronomers and astronauts to planetary defenders. nytimes.com/2026/10/30/scien…
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