New Zealand election with 100 percent of the polling places counted

A summary of all party votes, electorate votes and advance votes are available on www.electionresults.govt.nz.

These votes will be recounted on Sunday, along with about 218,000 special votes.

Based on these results, there will be 122 seats in the new parliament:

Labor 50 (a center-left party) Nationals 49 (a center-right party) NZ First 7 (a conservative party) Greens 6 (a radical-left party) Maori 4 (an aboriginal party) United 3 (a Christian centrist party) ACT 2 (a libertarian party) Progressives 1 (a left-wing party)

While Labor (barely) got the most seats, National may have the inside track. This is because National and NZ First appear to have cooperated with Maori, United and ACT in the election.

With respect to United, they gained seats because they finished first in at least one district (actually, in exactly one district). This is the district in which the leader of the United Party was running, where it is clear that a lot of Nationals pulled his lever down with their "first vote." I say this because in the "second vote," for party list, the district went overwhelming National.

The same thing happened in the one district in which an ACT candidate was directly elected; i.e., a lot of Nationals voted for the ACT candidate.

(This is also the same thing that happened in the district where the one progressive candidate was elected, being supported by Labor.)

With respect to the Maori Party, their candidates were elected in four of the six special districts in which only aboriginals can vote. In all six districts, the race was between Labor and the Maori Party. Neither National or NZ First contested these districts.

Not only didn't National or NZ First run against the Maori Paty candidate, a significant number of voters who cast their first vote for the candidate of the Maori Party, cast their second vote for either National or NZ First.

It is possible, then, that the next government will be organized from the following five parties:

National (49) + NZ First (7) + Maori (4) + United (3) + ACT (2) = 65 seats

with the opposition being composed of

Labor (50) + Greens (6) + Progressives (1) = 57 seats

"Might be" is the operative word. We will see if the non-left parties can actually be joined together into a fuctional majority coalition. There are several rough edges to this. One of these is the potential conflict between the Maori Party, which wants special concessions, and some or all of the other parties.

NZ First actually embraces the idea of some special concessions for the aboriginal people of their country.

The United Future Party is a Christian centrist party. They want a decent society in which there is a safety net for the poor and disadvantaged.

ACT may look at this pragmatically: It's better to have some special concessions for a relatively small fraction of the population if this means that you can cut spending and taxes for the majority (even though not by as much if you didn't have to make any special concessions).

National, being a center-right party, and incorporating all the sentiments I just described, would be happy with any deal to which NZ First, United and ACT agree.

Plus, the Maori people really are badly off. Maybe one-half of them are in jail. Unemployment and dependency abound. They suffer the way people suffer in some of our worst inner cities and Indian reservations. If conservatives were to structure the special programs for them, as opposed to the liberals being in charge, maybe things could be better.

There's a few things to note on the Maori people before comparing them to American Indians living on reservations. Firstly is that New Zealand is an integrated society and has been for generations. There are no full-blooded Maori people.

You might also want to do some research before saying half a population is in jail. 7000 prisioners total (as of April)
[source http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3263458a11,00.html]

There's a reference elsewhere which said 70% of the prision population have Maori ethnicity, so about 5,000 total.

NZ 2001 Census results
http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/E717D06C-0687-4BC7-BD05-D8AEF8D39E3A/0/Table1.xls
600000 people of Maori descent total.

So rouchly 0.83% of Maori are in prison. Higher than those without any Maori ethnicity, but MUCH less than the 50% you quote.

Unfortunately this doesn't work.

The Maori party will never side with National - National campaigned on limiting future claims under the treaty of Waitangi (which guaranteed the Maori certain rights, and is now used to reclaim land sold/taken in the 1700s-1860s, and get exclusice rights to fisheries etc). They also promised to abolish the Maori electoral seats (i.e. so there are no racially-based votes). That would kill the Maori party.

This means Labour can naturally pull 61 seats - Labour, Maori, Progressive and Green - effectively reforming the current government + additional Maori special interests.

National can count on ACT for support. United Future promised to talk first to the party with the most votes, but also would not go into government with the Greens, so they're National. New Zealand First promised not to go into coalition with anyone, but support the party with the most votes on supply and confidence issues. That means Labour can form their coalition with more votes. Also if they appoint a National member as Speaker of the House, that person only gets a tie-breaking vote, so Labour's coalition would have 61/121 votes.

I simply can't see us winning this one, unless the special votes still to be counted (from overseas etc) do something unexpected - these normally swing left though.

With regard to trends of people categorized by the government as Maori, their socio-economic trends are detailed in the following report. I will summarize these trends much as it is summarized by the report, that there has been a lot of convergence between people categorized as Maori and people categorized as European. But, and this is the point I would emphasize, in the past generation, there has been retrogression.

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/workingpapers/2001/twp01-30.pdf

These trends are not disimilar to those in the United States. People categorized as African American made marked progress relative to people categorized as European (or however the demographers referred to pale faces), from the time of emancipation to the 1960s. But, in the past generation or so, there has been retrogression. Why have African Americans retrogressed since the Civil Rights movement? Doesn't this sound incongruent?

Conservatives in the U.S. are starting to focus on the negative relative trends. Why are disadvantaged people who have been targetted for special concessions no longer progressing? Indeed, why did they formerly make progress, and now no longer? We think it is because the "tough love" policies of the past actually worked pretty well. And, we think that the break-down of the family has had a terrible impact of the children of the poor and disadvantaged.

Over in Germany, we can suspect the same thing is true for what now looks to be permanent problems of unemployment and dependency among east Germans. In Germany, there is some talk of "Southern" Germans (meaning Bavarians), "Northern" Germans (meaning north-west Germans) and "Eastern" Germans, but I don't think many people are buying into the argument that geography is the reason. Because we are only talking about ethnic Germans, the dysfunctional culture of socialism is clearly the cause.

Part of the problem is implicit in your correction of my use of the word Maori, since most people designated as Maori are mixed race. Similarly, in the U.S., almost all people designated as African American are mixed race, as are almost all people designated as Native American. Indeed, a large minority of people designated as Euro-Americans are also mixed race. But, when the government starts giving some people special rights based on the racial designations, then a decision has to be made. Legal designations of race are much different than cultural self-idenfication and (mere) statistical designations. The latter two things can be good, but the first is destructive.

Now, with regard to how many people are in jail, it is way too many (although I do not defend the figure I stated). I will admit that once we got the number of people in jail up to about 1 percent of the U.S. population, the crime rate fell by about half. This is very, very good. But, jailing so many people should not be the long-run response to increasing lawlessness among those whose lives are characterized by unemployment and dependency. Our long-run response should be to change the culture of the poor by restoring economic incentives, bringing standards to schools, and enforcing the law.

From here, the Governor General has to assess who is in a better position to form a government. Clark can get to 61 votes with Maori, Progressives and Greens. National can get to 54 with ACT and United Future. New Zealand First has stated it will not be in a coalition, and will support the party with the most votes on confidence and supply issues.

So, if the Governor General believes Labour is in the best position to form a government, Helen's PM. As the governing party, they appoint the Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the past when it has been this close the governing coalition appoints a member of the oposition to be Speaker of the House. The Speaker does not vote, unless there is a tie. With a National Party Speaker, the votes are 61 Labour/Green/Coalition/Progressive and 60 everyone else.

Even if there is a tie in electing a party to government (say National, NZF, ACT and United Future do ally in a coalition, meaning Winston Peters breaks his election promises), I believe the Governor General is supposed to appoint the government to the coalition including the party which got the most votes, which is Labour.

I'd be very surprised if the specials swing it away from Labour, The only possible swing would be the Maori party siding with National, which is unlikely given National ran on abolishing the Maori seats and imposing a cut-off date for Treaty of Waitangi claims.

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