We missed the big one
How good were our 2020 political predictions? Well,
We weren’t quite prescient enough to predict a global pandemic, but here’s what we did guess right and wrong about the past year in politics.
Itwas always going to be a big political year for New Zealand, with an election and two referendums on the cards. These things dominated our 20 annual political predictions for 2020, which we released on January 1 – the same day the World Health Organisation set up an incident team to deal with a cluster of cases of apparent pneumonia in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Unfortunately, wewere not prescient enough to predict a pandemic would upend politics in New Zealand and the world over.
But just because we missed the big story of the year, it doesn’t mean we don’t have to hold ourselves to account for all the predictions we did make.
Here are our 20 predictions for the past year, with scores from 0 to 10 on accuracy. These scores have been independently audited by another press gallery reporter who doesn’t work for Stuff.
We’ll be back tomorrow with our 20 predictions for 2021.
Prediction: The election is held in the latter half of September.
Outcome:
Well . . . that’s when the prime minister scheduled it for early in the year. But, in the end, the second Covid-19 community outbreak saw the election delayed until October. We’re going to give ourselves a measly three points for at least getting the initial date right. 3/10
Prediction: Simon Bridges rules out working withWinston Peters early in the year. Outcome:
This is exactly what happened. But by the time election was over neither of themwas in a position to negotiate anything anyway. 10/10
Prediction: Personal cannabis use is not legalised after an effective ‘‘no’’ campaign faces off against a slightly confused ‘‘yes’’ campaign, narrowly winning the vote. Outcome:
No won by 50.7 per cent to 48.4 per cent – fairly tight! Fullmarks. 10/10
Prediction: Euthanasia legalisation wins the referendum. Outcome:
Not the hardest prediction (the polls were looking good) butwe’ll take the points anyway, thanks. 10/10
Prediction: ACT wins enough of the party vote to bring in another MP. Outcome:
Nine newMPs, in fact. We will take a point off since we didn’t predict just how big thewave would be. 9/10
Prediction: Banking becomes a big election issue, particularly the capital changes the Reserve Bank is making. NZ First pushes for amarket study into banks but the Commerce Commission ends up looking into supermarkets or building materials.
Outcome:
The Reserve Bank capital charges were suspended, although Covid-19 had a lot to do with that. Supermarkets will be the topic of the new market study, although we have seen no evidence NZ First pushed for banks to be put under the spotlight instead. 5/10
Prediction: Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford do not get married over the summer or in the election year. Outcome:
There’s still a tiny bit of time to go, but for now we’re giving ourselves full grades. 10/10
Prediction: Judith Collins’ memoir is released, featuring criticism of Nicky Hager and John Key, and a bit of a pitch for the leadership. Outcome:
The book certainly featured all these things – and Collins is currently the leader of the National Party. 8/10
Prediction: The Botany race gets ugly as Jami-Lee Ross fights to keep his career alive by any means necessary, but Chris Luxon wins easily.
Outcome:
Luxon did win easily, and Jami-Lee Ross’ political career certainly found its way to a new low – but he ended up not running in Botany at all, so that specific race wasn’t too ugly. 7/10
Prediction: Labour controls all seven Ma¯ori seats, although this could change if John Tamihere gets involved. Outcome:
We gave ourselves an out with Tamihere, but it’s not like he won Ta¯maki Makaurau or anything – the Ma¯ori Party instead won Waiariki, denying Labour another clean sweep. The out doesn’t give us enough to really go higher than 3/10
Prediction: Joe Biden is the US Democratic nominee for president after Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders split the left vote in the Democratic primary.
Outcome:
We’ll take full marks for this one, thank you. 10/10
Prediction: Facebook is a big talking point ahead of the election, there are miniscandals around inaccuracies in ads, and National refuses to sign up for the Facebook Ad Library Report.
Outcome:
Facebook was a big talking point and there weremini-scandals, but National did sign up to the tool, before it was mademandatory. 6/10
Prediction: Labour changes the tax brackets in a way that delivers a tax cut for lower earners, but not much of one for richer people. National offers a larger tax cut.
Outcome:
Well, National did offer a larger tax cut – but Labour didn’t offer one at all. 1/10.
Prediction: The predicted deficit will evaporate as the Government will find it hard to spend all the money it wants to spend.
Outcome:
This was looking all right pre-Covid19, but the Government found it extremely easy to spend a lot of money through the wage subsidy, ballooning out the deficit. 2/10
Prediction: The Green Party will stop campaigning for a capital gains tax and instead push very hard on a tough wealth tax. This will cause issues for Labour.
Outcome:
The Green Party did indeed campaign on a tough wealth tax, which did cause tough questions for the Labour Party. 10/10
Prediction: Labour will reannounce some of National’s Roads of National Significance and NZTA will come under pressure.
Outcome:
Several projects in theNZ Upgrade programme were indeed once Roads of National Significance. NZTA has not escaped the year unscathed. 10/10
Prediction: Dental care will be a big election-year issue, but neither National nor Labour will offer free adult care.
Outcome:
Covid-19 pushed everything out a little, but dental care did feature as a pretty major election issue – and neither party offered that big kahuna policy. 8/10
Prediction: NZ First kills off Andrew Little’s attempt to beef up hate speech laws.
Outcome:
Winston Peters said the law never actually got drafted, because Little couldn’t produce a legalmodel that protected freedom of speech. 10/10.
Prediction: The Government will get more hawkish on China, but the trade relationship will not be harmed. Outcome:
New Zealand has joined several collective statements critical of China this year. In just the last month another spat has broken out. But the trade relationship remains strong. 8/10
Prediction: Winston Peters will again hold the balance of power in 2020.
Outcome:
Can’t win them all, predictions or elections. Peters didn’t make it back to Parliament and, if he had, he wouldn’t have had the balance of power. 0/10
Final score: 140/200
Despite the big miss on the pandemic, thiswas actually tied with our best score yet, in 2014. Not too shabby!
See you tomorrow for our predictions for 2021.