2017: Scorecard for the year in politics
On January 1, 2017, Jacinda Ardern was a Labour list MP with a handful of small portfolios and an insistence she didn’t have any leadership ambitions. Now she’s Prime Minister.
Nobody could have predicted the political year New Zealand just had - but we gave it a go anyway, as we have for years.
How did we score? We passed, but not well, with 107 points out of a possible 200. That’s slightly higher than our worst ever result, 104.6 in 2015, and far below our high score: 140 in 2014. That’s what we get for predicting a Labour government led by Andrew Little.
As in years past and in the spirit of full transparency, our marking has been audited by a political journalist not employed by
John Key will feature in the Queen’s Birthday honours list, but as befits the man who reinstated knights and dames he will be dubbed ‘‘Sir John’’:
10/10
2. Shane Jones will join NZ First:
10/10 Raymond Huo will enter Parliament before election and be given a winnable place: 10/10
ACT will fail to increase MP count, will get Epsom lifeline:
10/10 Marama Fox will exit Parliament:
10/10
Barack Obama will visit New Zealand in 2017:
0/10 National will move tax thresholds in the budget but only bring in tax cuts in full if re-elected:
8/10 Gareth Morgan’s TOP will fail to crack three per cent or enter Parliament:
8/10
The Greens will do little better - and little worse - than their 2014 result: Wrong. The Green Party’s support dropped four and a half points on their 2014 result, losing them six seats in Parliament. 0/10
10. Judith Collins and Steven Joyce will clash over the party’s economic direction, and Joyce will prevail:
0/10
11. Chris Finlayson, Peter Dunne and Annette King will call it a day:
6/10
12.One National and one Labour MP in electorate seats will leave within six months before the general election, under an unspoken deal that will maintain the voting balance
in the House:
10/10
13. The Greens will be given a free run in some electorates, under a deal with Labour, but will still fail to win any constituency seats:
0/10
14. Louise Upston and David Bennett will prove the weakest links in the English ministry:
0/10
15. Jonathan Coleman will take over the foreign affairs portfolio from May, but only after an internal tussle with at least two other ministers for the plum job:
4/10
16. Winston Peters will not be prime minister, nor be in line to be, under any deal he does to support the next Government: He’s deputy, but only ‘‘in line’’ to be acting prime minister every now and then. If Ardern resigned, the new Labour leader would become PM. 7/10
17. Economic growth will top
4 per cent during 2017:
0/10
18. Auckland house prices will be lower in real terms by Christmas than they were at the start of 2017: Despite all this talk of ‘‘flat to falling’’ prices, the median house price in Auckland has still risen $85,000 from January to November to $890,000, according to REINZ. Inflation is a long way off accounting for that.
0/10
19. There will be one more political bombshell in 2017 that will change the course of the election and install Andrew Little as prime minister: So close but so far. There was a bombshell or five, but any bombshell in relation to Andrew Little carried the opposite effect of what was predicted so points off. 4/10
20. At least two party leaders will be heading for the door by Christmas:
10/10
TOTAL SCORE: 107/200 Watch out for our predictions for 2018 tomorrow.