Fiscal hole in one for English
Michelle Duff looks back on the wild rollercoaster ride that was the 2017 election campaign.
It was a fiscal hole in one for Bill English, Winston Peters may no be longer King of the North and it is ka kite ano to the Ma¯ori party.
After the most electrifying campaign in recent memory, English could last night almost taste the spaghetti pizza of success - just like the one delivered to him by Pullman Hotel staff early in the evening.
Just two short months ago, this election looked to be a snooze-fest. Labour’s polling was lacklustre, and the thought of watching Little and English go head to head had the country facedown in their Weetbix.
But Ardern’s ascension to the top spot on August 1 was like a shot of Coco Pops straight to the jugular.
Before the polls even opened on Saturday, 1,240,740 people had already voted - 40 per cent of the country’s 3.252 million registered voters, and well over the 716,000 people who voted early in the 2014 election.
And it was a nail-biting election evening. A political chameleon could have had themselves a carbon neutral party-crawl, with Labour, National and the Greens carving out their territories within 500 metres of each other in Auckland’s CBD.
At the SkyCity Convention Centre Steven Joyce worked the room early, fending off allegations he had fed the electorate misinformation as his supporters washed down their canapes with red wine. Nearby, a gaggle of sharp-suited Young Nats crowded close to Mike McRoberts. ‘‘We don’t want to grow up in a country that’s burdened with debt and high taxes,’’ said president Stefan Sunde.
Ten minutes into the count, Winston Peters was already bristling at a reporter. ’’You don’t take anything for granted, either here or around the country,’’ he said, as early results suggested the Northland seat might not be his. He spoke from NZ First’s party at the Duke of Marlborough in Russell, where he had arrived ahead of time to mingle with those of his supporters who would need an early night.
Over at the Aotea Centre’s NZI Room, Phil Twyford was confident. ‘‘I’m lovin’ this. This is showtime,’’ he said, expectant special votes would be in Labour’s favour.
Earlier in the evening, media paced outside Ardern’s Mt Albert home, providing enthralling updates like ‘‘cars are driving past’’. At 7.45pm, they were rewarded when Ardern’s partner Clarke Gayford emerged with a teatowel slung over his shoulder, passing out Hellers sausages and a panko crumbed bass he had caught himself.
Ardern was writing three speeches, he recounted, and reading them out loud to their cat, Paddles. Soon after, she thanked her fans on Facebook Live for voting.
At the Pullman Hotel, Bill English posed for a shot with a with a truly disgusting looking spaghetti pizza. ‘‘Starting off election night with a fine dinner...’’ he tweeted, with no obvious sign of irony.
Earlier in the day, in a continuation of the UK’s election trend, social media was awash with pics of pets and the hashtag #dogsatpollingstations was trending on Twitter. But come 7pm, election humour struck. ‘‘It’s a Green Party party! In a church! I pray to god it’s not a funeral!’’ Guy Williams tweeted.
By the end of the night the Greens could let out their breath, though it was a sad end for former co-leader Metiria Turei. As it became clear she would lose Te Tai Tonga to Labour’s Rino Tirikatene, Green Party stalwart Jeanette Fitzsimmons had to visibly gather herself together. Turei had been treated very unfairly, and the debate about it had bought out one of the ‘‘nastiest streaks’’in New Zealand, she said.
And for Gareth Morgan’s TOP party, things weren’t looking rosy. ‘‘It is what it is,’’ growled Morgan from Wellington’s Meow bar, taking pot shots at the nation as his party trailed behind with 2 per cent of the vote. ’’Self-interest rules, and looking after the other person is now pretty low on the country’s priority. I’m pretty disappointed in New Zealand, actually .... they’re screwing the younger generation and people in poverty.’’
Despite ACT dipping down to 0.5 per cent of the vote, leader David Seymour grinned as he addressed supporters at the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron in Westhaven. ‘‘We’re still in the fight,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, at Wellington’s packed Queen of Jackson pub in Petone, the crowd chanted an imaginative ‘‘Chris, Chris, Chris!’’ as National’s Chris Bishop streaked out ahead of Labour’s Ginny Andersen, whom he had been neck and neck with all night. ’’We’ve just been really hard to turn this around,’’ he said.The feeling in the room was, in general, not one of surprise - a fourth term was inevitable, many supporters said.
And in the finish, all there was left for non-Nat voters to do was find a silver lining - like Kiwi Allanah Faherty, tweeting from Berlin. ‘‘The advantage of watching the NZ election from Europe is that you have the entire day ahead of you to drown your sorrows.’’