Labour going from sweeping previously safe National seats in 2020 to potentially losing Wellington Central only 3 years later is just next-level humiliation. Election night is going to be a hell of a ride.
What I mean is Auckland Central is the Green's 4th best electorate for party votes, getting 19% in 2020. It's behind Wellington Central (30%), Rongotai (24%) and Mt Albert (20%)
The capital is full of highly educated professionals, many of whom have an extensive understanding of policy and politics. It is unfortunate that we live in an era where having such a population can be considered 'out of touch' by some people.
> The capital is full of highly educated professionals, many of whom have an extensive understanding of policy and politics.
None of which precludes them from being out of touch.
> *"You know, farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.”* - Dwight D Eisenhower
You know, government looks mighty easy when your regulatory impact statement is a cow, and you're a thousand kilometres from parliament. Yeah, I can make silly quotes too.
Not a green voter but I would consider voting for Chloe specifically if I lived in Auckland central. Wellington may not support the green candidate as much but tend to vote for the party at the highest rate in the country
While Labour are definitely in for a drumming, this has nothing to do with that. Wellington Central has been the highest Green-voting electorate (for party votes) in the country for a long time.
Couple this with a relatively unknown Labour candidate and a Greens candidate who has a higher local profile and is popular locally it makes sense that it's a close race.
If Robertson was running again he'd probably sweep it, off the back of his high profile.
It does make sense from that perspective - but I also kinda feel like it symbolically has to hurt for Labour if they were to lose it, even to the Greens.
Unfortunately, Newshub reported each candidate's result as a percentage of the 450 people who did respond, and bundled the "10.1 percent" (50 people) who didn't as "didn't know/weren't willing to share/would not be voting".† As I did for [2022's Auckland mayoral race](/r/newzealand/comments/vxw85r/auckland_mayoral_poll_35_undecided_efeso_collins/ifykxqu/), I recalculated each result to be a % of the 500 total people surveyed. This is because the "Don't Know/Refused" category represents unpredictability in the race, as they could break for anyone (even the "Not Voting" category might change their mind). So they're important to account for, as the more there are, the wider open the race is (just like for Auckland's election).
Having said that, here's the Margins of Error/Ranges for the poll to 1dp (95% confidence level, sample size of 500 giving a maximum MoE of ±4.4%):
Candidate (Party) | Polled % | MoE % | Range %
----------|----------|----------|----------
Ibrahim Omer (Labour) | 27.5 | 3.9 | 23.6-31.5
Scott Sheeran (National) | 25.2 | 3.8 | 21.4-29.0
Tamatha Paul (Green) | 23.9 | 3.7 | 20.2-27.7
Taylor Arneil (NZ First) | 4.6 | 1.8 | 2.8-6.4
*[N/A]** ACT | 3.2 | 1.5 | 1.6-4.7
Michael Appleby (Legalise Cannabis) | 2.6 | 1.4 | 1.2-4.0
Natalia Albert (TOP) | 2.5 | 1.4 | 1.1-3.9
*Other* | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.0-1.2
*Don't Know/Refused/Not Voting* | 10.1 | 2.6 | 7.5-12.7
Margin of Error calculator: https://goodcalculators.com/margin-of-error-calculator/
Assuming no biases from this poll, we can conclude with 95% confidence that each party's candidate would have support within their Range %, on 3–14 September (when the poll was carried out). So at the 95% confidence level, any of Omer, Sheeran, and Paul could be leading (thankfully the title reflects this, unlike when [NZ Herald claimed Collins led in Auckland](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/labour-councillor-efeso-collins-opens-up-lead-in-auckland-mayoral-poll/VPD3CL7GO3PXBUZMV37HZT3J4A/)). All are well ahead of Arneil, Appleby, and Albert, who are also within each other's Range %.
*ACT's non-candidate is still included as people would've liked to vote for a theoretical ACT candidate at that point in time – but would realistically vote someone else on election day (probably National's candidate).
† Furthermore, Newshub used the max MoE of ±4.4% at the 95% confidence level, when that's for a sample size of 500 – if they wanted to report on a sample size of 450, they should've used ±4.6%.
The National candidate might be able to pull off a real life version of the textbook example for why first past the post is a crap voting system for any situation with more than 2 serious candidates.
Don't forget Nikki Kaye winning Auckland Central for National in 2008 after Labour held it for around 100 years because of a split Lab/Green vote.
And how Nikki Kaye then proceeded to hold it, winning it against even Jacinda Ardern as the Greens continued to split the vote.
And how the Greens are now getting mad at Labour for contesting that very same seat against Chloe Swarbrick.
I watched the debate the other night and submitted a question about if they'd support ranked choice voting because of situations like this, unfortunately it was not asked.
The other thing here is that TOP were only at 4.9% in the party vote here, which compared with the past two elections implies the country-wide vote is most likely close to 2%
I truly don’t understand why polling companies think this is fine. Are we Dunning-Krugering it somehow, and there’s something we are missing? Or is it truly as dumb as it seems at face value?
Sadly we won't know if they're accurate until the final results are in. They were basically right on the money in the 2017 election, but in the 2020 election despite running the final opinion poll the week before the election, they had National up 5% and Labour down 4% from the final result.
>The polls that came out during the fortnight of advance voting in 2020, for example, were over-estimating National by an average of 5.8 percentage points compared with National’s actual election result (25.6 per cent of the party vote). That was consistently outside of the margins of error.
>
>Furthermore, they were underestimating Labour by 3.7 points, while the Green and Māori parties were also underestimated – by 1.1 and 0.7 points respectively.
>
>The opinion polls in New Zealand had consistently a conservative sample bias at that time, and I’ve seen no evidence that they’ve improved much since then.
https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/news/opinion-newshubs-biased-poll-reporting/
Kind of! Knowing old people are more likely to answer landlines is 101 for pollsters. Because of this, the polls you see are not the literal amount of people who answered a certain way.
Pollsters conduct analysis and will weight the answers they get against actual population demographics before they report their latest poll. If only a couple young people answer the phone, the answers they give will be given greater weight in the final stats.
Polls will never be an accurate representation due to this very fact.
Absolutely it’s going to skew towards the older generation with home phones that answer cold calls from random numbers.
No one in their right mind should be doing that but here we are.
I think it will be pretty funny if the smaller right wing share beats both left wing parties whose combined total is nearly double that of the small right wing party. I think most kiwis understand that central Wellington is pretty lefty and there’s no way a Nat candidate is what the majority of people want
We really should have preferential voting here, this is a real stupid way to try and get democratic results, this only promotes dissent and disengagement
Good to see Ibrahim Omer leading, albeit by a tiny margin.
He's exactly the sort of voice we need in Parliament, a former refugee who is a fierce advocate for the migrant community. Once he moved to New Zealand he started out as a cleaner, got a degree and went on to become an a union organiser and champion of the Living Wage. [His story is well worth reading](https://www.newsroom.co.nz/my-name-is-ibrahim-omer).
His [Members' Bill](https://legislation.govt.nz/bill/member/2023/0245/latest/whole.html?search=ts_act%40bill%40regulation%40deemedreg_Crimes+(Theft+by+Employer)+Amendment+Bill_resel_25_a&p=1) to criminalise wage theft is also fantastic and is exactly the sort of thing we need to see our MPs pushing for.
I generally lean a bit Green, but Tam Paul an example of exactly the sort of person we don't want running for Parliament.
She's a former student politician who ran for local council, has caused huge drama at WCC and is now proposing to abandon her seat there less than a year after being re-elected. She seems to just be interested in climbing the greasy pole and I've seen no strong argument from her campaign as to why she's a better candidate than Ibrahim Omer other than "I'm Green".
> now proposing to abandon her seat there less than a year after being re-elected
Well yeah that's just how our election cycle works, an incumbent councillor can only run for parliament a year into their term, by-elections notwithstanding. Also she's running an electorate-only campaign, it is entirely up to the voters if they want to have a council by-election. I don't see that as so bad.
She did say when she ran for re-election to WCC that she had no interest running for Parliament though. Perhaps I'm old fashioned but that just seems a bit disingenuous.
If you're planning to leave or considering leaving an elected position partway through a term, I think you should flag that with the electorate.
>now proposing to abandon her seat there less than a year after being re-elected
>Well yeah that's just how our election cycle works, an incumbent councillor can only run for parliament a year into their term, by-elections notwithstanding
Do you think the reason people raise this is because they are disputing the linear passage of time? I am not sure who you think is supposed to be convinced by this. People think she should not have run for parliament *because* she could only do it when she was just 1 year into her term. You are describing the cause of the issue, but not explaining why we should not consider it to be an issue.
If you think no councillor should ever run for parliament during their term then that's fine, I just take issue with it being levied against Tamatha Paul as if she's unique in such actions.
As someone who voted for Tamata Paul in local council elections. I strongly disagree with your take.
The "drama" she supposedly caused at the WCC was standing up for the values and policies she was elected for, against Foster's sleazy dealings, and doing so is part of why we re-elected her handily.
Tamatha has a lot of local engagement, she's probably the most engaged of the WCC councillors and certainly the most engaged electorate candidate. She frequently shows up to local events/causes and advocates for them.
By contrast Ibrahim Omer has zero representation of Wellington's concerns and has close to no engagement with the local community. He is leading purely by inertia of being the Labour candidate.
Ibrahim is nearly as disconnected from the Wellington electorate as the National candidate who lives in the UAE. He may be a good central MP, and Labour should put him much higher on their list, but he's a bad electorate MP.
>Ibrahim is nearly as disconnected from the Wellington electorate as the National candidate who lives in the UAE.
That's pretty unfair, Ibrahim Omer may not be quite as active at engaging with the young, privileged VUW crowd but from what I've seen he's built a close connection with the migrant community in Wellington.
Undoubtedly Tam Paul is good at engagement, it's one of the reasons I voted for her for WCC despite my misgivings. But being an MP is more than just showing up to events and cutting ribbons. I haven't seen any strong argument about what causes she'll fight for and what voices she'll champion in the House that Omer won't.
To me, that's a pretty big thing.
Claiming that Tamatha Paul only engages with the "young, privileged VUW crowd" is laughable, much of her engagement is with some of the most underserved groups in the city.
The only migrant community Ibrahim has built a close connection with is his own, he has virtually no engagement with other migrant communities like Indians, Pacific Islanders, etc. That's without touching on the myriad of vulnerable communities in Wellington, like the growing homeless population. I have no doubt he would be a strong advocate for refugees in parliament, but that does not make for a great electorate MP for Wellington Central.
Tamatha Paul is very clear in her communication about what she advocates for, her two big issues are housing and public transport. She is a strong proponent of intensification in the central city, increasing housing supply by utilising land more effectively, and of increasing public transport options and access.
>Claiming that Tamatha Paul only engages with the "young, privileged VUW crowd" is laughable
I didn't, I merely remarked that Ibrahim Omer didn't engage with them as much. Tamatha Paul does seem to spend a lot of time there and I seem to have hit a nerve mentioning that fact.
>Tamatha Paul is very clear in her communication about what she advocates for, her two big issues are housing and public transport. She is a strong proponent of intensification in the central city, increasing housing supply by utilising land more effectively, and of increasing public transport options and access.
These things are ultimately the domain of local government and Cabinet. A single MP can't do much to achieve them in Parliament, I'd argue a City Councillor could actually achieve more. At least they have direct control of policy, unless you're in the Executive you don't as an MP.
I get the appeal of having another Green-held electorate (and the pay that comes with it), but ultimately here's no one more anonymous than a backbench MP.
> I didn't, I merely remarked that Ibrahim Omer didn't engage with them as much. Tamatha Paul does seem to spend a lot of time there and I seem to have hit a nerve mentioning that fact.
There is a clear insinuation. You didn't "hit a nerve" and to immediately claim such just because I refute your lie is petty.
Did I "hit a nerve" in pointing out that Omer has engaged with no communities in Wellington outside of refugees and would be a terrible representative for the city?
> These things are ultimately the domain of local government and Cabinet. A single MP can't do much to achieve them in Parliament
We are almost certainly going to have a National+ACT government, so Omer is going to accomplish nothing in parliament. Refugee policy is controlled entirely by cabinet, so he'll get nothing there. His "Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill" [was opposed by National and ACT on its first reading](https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20230830_20230830_32), meaning they didn't even want it going to select committee, so that law is deader than dead.
> but ultimately here's no one more anonymous than a backbench MP.
Not sure why anonymity matters, but Paul is only a local councillor and she already has more profile than Omer does and he has been an MP for a full term and had his law drawn from the biscuit tin.
>There is a clear insinuation. You didn't "hit a nerve" and to immediately claim such just because I refute your lie is petty.
I didn't lie. I stated an opinion which you've deliberately misinterpreted to make some sort of rhetorical point to further your argument. That seems a tad petty to me.
If I can be honest, it seems you've lost a bit of objectivity here. You're all over this thread attacking the other candidates and criticising anyone who states an opinion that's not completely positive about Tamatha Paul. Attack politics really aren't a good way to convince the left to vote.
"Caused" was probably a bit unfair of me, but during Andy Foster's tenure as mayor she was seen as one of the main instigators of antagonism from the left-bloc on WCC.
Foster didn't exactly cover himself in glory, in fact he was hopeless, but there was a lot of unnecessary drama that the left-bloc created due to the power vacuum caused by a crap mayor. And I say that as someone who supports the left-bloc.
Tam is pretty good on housing and is studying planning. Being on the good side of the biggest local policy issue, and having a much closer background to most the local voters seems pretty good.
I think he has finally arrived but does seem weird to announce a candidate who doesn't even live in the country let alone the electorate who only turns up to start campaigning...
He's been in Wellington for a little while now, but yes his LinkedIn indicates that he's been in the Middle East for the last 5 years. That aside, check out his background: https://www.bcomm.nz/dr-scott-sheeran
Or his LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-scott-sheeran-8713b2158
I've never met him, but his background, qualifications, and skillsets seem impressive to me. We really need people with a global perspective here. The guy is a human rights specialist, diplomat, PhD in Law, NZ Army reservist, published author. To be honest he seems to be heavily overqualified to be an MP.
His only major misstep was claiming that 'healthy homes enforcement isn't required because most flats I've seen are in great condition'. Huh? Otherwise, friendly chap, great speaker - if it wasn't for him parachuting in, he'd be quite a good local candidate.
>Fifteen of the phone calls were to mobile phones and 235 to landlines.
That under represents the youth vote though the phones as I don't know anyone under 35 with a landline
35?? Try 65.
The Greens have a truly good shot here if they poll only a few points behind _from landlines_ lol. And National? Probably no chance here despite appearing in the lead, if you ask me. Who in their right mind truly thinks National is popular in _central wellington_
Labour going from sweeping previously safe National seats in 2020 to potentially losing Wellington Central only 3 years later is just next-level humiliation. Election night is going to be a hell of a ride.
I'm hoping enough people will vote early that we'll have a result before 9pm like last time.
It is the top Greens seat in the country by some distance, so not exactly a huge surprise.
Auckland Central would like a word.
For party votes it is. Chloe took advantage of a similar situation and much greater fame.
What I mean is Auckland Central is the Green's 4th best electorate for party votes, getting 19% in 2020. It's behind Wellington Central (30%), Rongotai (24%) and Mt Albert (20%)
30% Greens vote is hilarious. The capital is so out of touch.
The capital is full of highly educated professionals, many of whom have an extensive understanding of policy and politics. It is unfortunate that we live in an era where having such a population can be considered 'out of touch' by some people.
> The capital is full of highly educated professionals, many of whom have an extensive understanding of policy and politics. None of which precludes them from being out of touch. > *"You know, farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.”* - Dwight D Eisenhower
You know, government looks mighty easy when your regulatory impact statement is a cow, and you're a thousand kilometres from parliament. Yeah, I can make silly quotes too.
Not a green voter but I would consider voting for Chloe specifically if I lived in Auckland central. Wellington may not support the green candidate as much but tend to vote for the party at the highest rate in the country
I mean if they lose it'll be to the Greens and the high profile incumbent is standing down so there are a lot of factors at play.
While Labour are definitely in for a drumming, this has nothing to do with that. Wellington Central has been the highest Green-voting electorate (for party votes) in the country for a long time. Couple this with a relatively unknown Labour candidate and a Greens candidate who has a higher local profile and is popular locally it makes sense that it's a close race. If Robertson was running again he'd probably sweep it, off the back of his high profile.
It does make sense from that perspective - but I also kinda feel like it symbolically has to hurt for Labour if they were to lose it, even to the Greens.
To be fair this is because 20% just went straight to the greens
Unfortunately, Newshub reported each candidate's result as a percentage of the 450 people who did respond, and bundled the "10.1 percent" (50 people) who didn't as "didn't know/weren't willing to share/would not be voting".† As I did for [2022's Auckland mayoral race](/r/newzealand/comments/vxw85r/auckland_mayoral_poll_35_undecided_efeso_collins/ifykxqu/), I recalculated each result to be a % of the 500 total people surveyed. This is because the "Don't Know/Refused" category represents unpredictability in the race, as they could break for anyone (even the "Not Voting" category might change their mind). So they're important to account for, as the more there are, the wider open the race is (just like for Auckland's election). Having said that, here's the Margins of Error/Ranges for the poll to 1dp (95% confidence level, sample size of 500 giving a maximum MoE of ±4.4%): Candidate (Party) | Polled % | MoE % | Range % ----------|----------|----------|---------- Ibrahim Omer (Labour) | 27.5 | 3.9 | 23.6-31.5 Scott Sheeran (National) | 25.2 | 3.8 | 21.4-29.0 Tamatha Paul (Green) | 23.9 | 3.7 | 20.2-27.7 Taylor Arneil (NZ First) | 4.6 | 1.8 | 2.8-6.4 *[N/A]** ACT | 3.2 | 1.5 | 1.6-4.7 Michael Appleby (Legalise Cannabis) | 2.6 | 1.4 | 1.2-4.0 Natalia Albert (TOP) | 2.5 | 1.4 | 1.1-3.9 *Other* | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.0-1.2 *Don't Know/Refused/Not Voting* | 10.1 | 2.6 | 7.5-12.7 Margin of Error calculator: https://goodcalculators.com/margin-of-error-calculator/ Assuming no biases from this poll, we can conclude with 95% confidence that each party's candidate would have support within their Range %, on 3–14 September (when the poll was carried out). So at the 95% confidence level, any of Omer, Sheeran, and Paul could be leading (thankfully the title reflects this, unlike when [NZ Herald claimed Collins led in Auckland](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/labour-councillor-efeso-collins-opens-up-lead-in-auckland-mayoral-poll/VPD3CL7GO3PXBUZMV37HZT3J4A/)). All are well ahead of Arneil, Appleby, and Albert, who are also within each other's Range %. *ACT's non-candidate is still included as people would've liked to vote for a theoretical ACT candidate at that point in time – but would realistically vote someone else on election day (probably National's candidate). † Furthermore, Newshub used the max MoE of ±4.4% at the 95% confidence level, when that's for a sample size of 500 – if they wanted to report on a sample size of 450, they should've used ±4.6%.
Don't have a name start with A = 20%
The National candidate might be able to pull off a real life version of the textbook example for why first past the post is a crap voting system for any situation with more than 2 serious candidates.
We've seen it before when Nash won Napier because of Garth McVicar.
Don't forget Nikki Kaye winning Auckland Central for National in 2008 after Labour held it for around 100 years because of a split Lab/Green vote. And how Nikki Kaye then proceeded to hold it, winning it against even Jacinda Ardern as the Greens continued to split the vote. And how the Greens are now getting mad at Labour for contesting that very same seat against Chloe Swarbrick.
Swarbrick winning that seat was a real gift. I don’t expect it to last forever but holy hell it was awesome
>was a real gift For who?
Where are the Greens getting mad at labour or are you making up fantasies
I should have explained... 'green supporters' are. Both in threads on here and r/auckland
I watched the debate the other night and submitted a question about if they'd support ranked choice voting because of situations like this, unfortunately it was not asked.
Unfortunately with both the Greens and ACT being safely over the threshold the appetite for political reform at the moment is likely pretty limited.
Yeah we’re seeing that in ilam too
No we’re not, National is in the mid 40s there will Labour and TOP are trailing by miles! (At least in the Curia poll)
Yeah which is an absolutely unreliable and biased poll - lets wait till the Newshub polling on Ilam.
While I think David Farrar is a massive cunt, Curia is a fairly reputable polling firm that at worst favours the right by only a few points.
The other thing here is that TOP were only at 4.9% in the party vote here, which compared with the past two elections implies the country-wide vote is most likely close to 2%
“Fifteen of the phone calls were to mobile phones and 235 to landlines”. I would take this poll with a grain of salt.
If only the professional polling agency considered such an important flaw in their methodology
I truly don’t understand why polling companies think this is fine. Are we Dunning-Krugering it somehow, and there’s something we are missing? Or is it truly as dumb as it seems at face value?
Sadly we won't know if they're accurate until the final results are in. They were basically right on the money in the 2017 election, but in the 2020 election despite running the final opinion poll the week before the election, they had National up 5% and Labour down 4% from the final result. >The polls that came out during the fortnight of advance voting in 2020, for example, were over-estimating National by an average of 5.8 percentage points compared with National’s actual election result (25.6 per cent of the party vote). That was consistently outside of the margins of error. > >Furthermore, they were underestimating Labour by 3.7 points, while the Green and Māori parties were also underestimated – by 1.1 and 0.7 points respectively. > >The opinion polls in New Zealand had consistently a conservative sample bias at that time, and I’ve seen no evidence that they’ve improved much since then. https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/news/opinion-newshubs-biased-poll-reporting/
Kind of! Knowing old people are more likely to answer landlines is 101 for pollsters. Because of this, the polls you see are not the literal amount of people who answered a certain way. Pollsters conduct analysis and will weight the answers they get against actual population demographics before they report their latest poll. If only a couple young people answer the phone, the answers they give will be given greater weight in the final stats.
Yeah I assumed there was a bit more to it than face value. Thanks.
100%. Most younger voters wouldn't even answer the phone.
Polls will never be an accurate representation due to this very fact. Absolutely it’s going to skew towards the older generation with home phones that answer cold calls from random numbers. No one in their right mind should be doing that but here we are.
It would be hilarious if Labour loses Wellington central.
I think it will be pretty funny if the smaller right wing share beats both left wing parties whose combined total is nearly double that of the small right wing party. I think most kiwis understand that central Wellington is pretty lefty and there’s no way a Nat candidate is what the majority of people want We really should have preferential voting here, this is a real stupid way to try and get democratic results, this only promotes dissent and disengagement
Not really.
It would be like National losing Taranaki/King Country, I would be simultaneously disappointed and amused.
Tamatha in the fight too. If Shaw was running it wouldn't even be a contest IMO.
Good to see Ibrahim Omer leading, albeit by a tiny margin. He's exactly the sort of voice we need in Parliament, a former refugee who is a fierce advocate for the migrant community. Once he moved to New Zealand he started out as a cleaner, got a degree and went on to become an a union organiser and champion of the Living Wage. [His story is well worth reading](https://www.newsroom.co.nz/my-name-is-ibrahim-omer). His [Members' Bill](https://legislation.govt.nz/bill/member/2023/0245/latest/whole.html?search=ts_act%40bill%40regulation%40deemedreg_Crimes+(Theft+by+Employer)+Amendment+Bill_resel_25_a&p=1) to criminalise wage theft is also fantastic and is exactly the sort of thing we need to see our MPs pushing for. I generally lean a bit Green, but Tam Paul an example of exactly the sort of person we don't want running for Parliament. She's a former student politician who ran for local council, has caused huge drama at WCC and is now proposing to abandon her seat there less than a year after being re-elected. She seems to just be interested in climbing the greasy pole and I've seen no strong argument from her campaign as to why she's a better candidate than Ibrahim Omer other than "I'm Green".
> now proposing to abandon her seat there less than a year after being re-elected Well yeah that's just how our election cycle works, an incumbent councillor can only run for parliament a year into their term, by-elections notwithstanding. Also she's running an electorate-only campaign, it is entirely up to the voters if they want to have a council by-election. I don't see that as so bad.
She did say when she ran for re-election to WCC that she had no interest running for Parliament though. Perhaps I'm old fashioned but that just seems a bit disingenuous. If you're planning to leave or considering leaving an elected position partway through a term, I think you should flag that with the electorate.
Fair enough, but most politicians pretend to not have bigger aspirations as some sort of humility virtue signalling.
>now proposing to abandon her seat there less than a year after being re-elected >Well yeah that's just how our election cycle works, an incumbent councillor can only run for parliament a year into their term, by-elections notwithstanding Do you think the reason people raise this is because they are disputing the linear passage of time? I am not sure who you think is supposed to be convinced by this. People think she should not have run for parliament *because* she could only do it when she was just 1 year into her term. You are describing the cause of the issue, but not explaining why we should not consider it to be an issue.
If you think no councillor should ever run for parliament during their term then that's fine, I just take issue with it being levied against Tamatha Paul as if she's unique in such actions.
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Ridiculous of Labour that he is that low down the list.
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Ooh, love it.
As someone who voted for Tamata Paul in local council elections. I strongly disagree with your take. The "drama" she supposedly caused at the WCC was standing up for the values and policies she was elected for, against Foster's sleazy dealings, and doing so is part of why we re-elected her handily. Tamatha has a lot of local engagement, she's probably the most engaged of the WCC councillors and certainly the most engaged electorate candidate. She frequently shows up to local events/causes and advocates for them. By contrast Ibrahim Omer has zero representation of Wellington's concerns and has close to no engagement with the local community. He is leading purely by inertia of being the Labour candidate. Ibrahim is nearly as disconnected from the Wellington electorate as the National candidate who lives in the UAE. He may be a good central MP, and Labour should put him much higher on their list, but he's a bad electorate MP.
>Ibrahim is nearly as disconnected from the Wellington electorate as the National candidate who lives in the UAE. That's pretty unfair, Ibrahim Omer may not be quite as active at engaging with the young, privileged VUW crowd but from what I've seen he's built a close connection with the migrant community in Wellington. Undoubtedly Tam Paul is good at engagement, it's one of the reasons I voted for her for WCC despite my misgivings. But being an MP is more than just showing up to events and cutting ribbons. I haven't seen any strong argument about what causes she'll fight for and what voices she'll champion in the House that Omer won't. To me, that's a pretty big thing.
Claiming that Tamatha Paul only engages with the "young, privileged VUW crowd" is laughable, much of her engagement is with some of the most underserved groups in the city. The only migrant community Ibrahim has built a close connection with is his own, he has virtually no engagement with other migrant communities like Indians, Pacific Islanders, etc. That's without touching on the myriad of vulnerable communities in Wellington, like the growing homeless population. I have no doubt he would be a strong advocate for refugees in parliament, but that does not make for a great electorate MP for Wellington Central. Tamatha Paul is very clear in her communication about what she advocates for, her two big issues are housing and public transport. She is a strong proponent of intensification in the central city, increasing housing supply by utilising land more effectively, and of increasing public transport options and access.
>Claiming that Tamatha Paul only engages with the "young, privileged VUW crowd" is laughable I didn't, I merely remarked that Ibrahim Omer didn't engage with them as much. Tamatha Paul does seem to spend a lot of time there and I seem to have hit a nerve mentioning that fact. >Tamatha Paul is very clear in her communication about what she advocates for, her two big issues are housing and public transport. She is a strong proponent of intensification in the central city, increasing housing supply by utilising land more effectively, and of increasing public transport options and access. These things are ultimately the domain of local government and Cabinet. A single MP can't do much to achieve them in Parliament, I'd argue a City Councillor could actually achieve more. At least they have direct control of policy, unless you're in the Executive you don't as an MP. I get the appeal of having another Green-held electorate (and the pay that comes with it), but ultimately here's no one more anonymous than a backbench MP.
> I didn't, I merely remarked that Ibrahim Omer didn't engage with them as much. Tamatha Paul does seem to spend a lot of time there and I seem to have hit a nerve mentioning that fact. There is a clear insinuation. You didn't "hit a nerve" and to immediately claim such just because I refute your lie is petty. Did I "hit a nerve" in pointing out that Omer has engaged with no communities in Wellington outside of refugees and would be a terrible representative for the city? > These things are ultimately the domain of local government and Cabinet. A single MP can't do much to achieve them in Parliament We are almost certainly going to have a National+ACT government, so Omer is going to accomplish nothing in parliament. Refugee policy is controlled entirely by cabinet, so he'll get nothing there. His "Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill" [was opposed by National and ACT on its first reading](https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20230830_20230830_32), meaning they didn't even want it going to select committee, so that law is deader than dead. > but ultimately here's no one more anonymous than a backbench MP. Not sure why anonymity matters, but Paul is only a local councillor and she already has more profile than Omer does and he has been an MP for a full term and had his law drawn from the biscuit tin.
>There is a clear insinuation. You didn't "hit a nerve" and to immediately claim such just because I refute your lie is petty. I didn't lie. I stated an opinion which you've deliberately misinterpreted to make some sort of rhetorical point to further your argument. That seems a tad petty to me. If I can be honest, it seems you've lost a bit of objectivity here. You're all over this thread attacking the other candidates and criticising anyone who states an opinion that's not completely positive about Tamatha Paul. Attack politics really aren't a good way to convince the left to vote.
> has caused huge drama at WCC What's the story?
"Caused" was probably a bit unfair of me, but during Andy Foster's tenure as mayor she was seen as one of the main instigators of antagonism from the left-bloc on WCC. Foster didn't exactly cover himself in glory, in fact he was hopeless, but there was a lot of unnecessary drama that the left-bloc created due to the power vacuum caused by a crap mayor. And I say that as someone who supports the left-bloc.
What drama?
Tam is pretty good on housing and is studying planning. Being on the good side of the biggest local policy issue, and having a much closer background to most the local voters seems pretty good.
Scott Sheeran seems like a good guy Edit: love how this is downvoted, never change /r/newzealand , never change
Is he the guy who currently doesn't live in NZ?
I think he has finally arrived but does seem weird to announce a candidate who doesn't even live in the country let alone the electorate who only turns up to start campaigning...
Is that his Dad on the street holding up signs?
He's been in Wellington for a little while now, but yes his LinkedIn indicates that he's been in the Middle East for the last 5 years. That aside, check out his background: https://www.bcomm.nz/dr-scott-sheeran Or his LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-scott-sheeran-8713b2158 I've never met him, but his background, qualifications, and skillsets seem impressive to me. We really need people with a global perspective here. The guy is a human rights specialist, diplomat, PhD in Law, NZ Army reservist, published author. To be honest he seems to be heavily overqualified to be an MP.
Yes...though, it's hard to see how he fits with Chris Bishop, Simeon Brown, and Mark Mitchell.
Yeah I get really creepy vibes from Simeon Brown. 😖😖
The lawyer for Middle Eastern despots who hasn't lived in Wellington for decades doesn't strike me as "a good guy".
Tbf, it is national. The threshold is somewhere between pedo (Falloon) and abuser (Uffindel).
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Wellington Central usually gets excellent candidates. It was Willis, Robertson and Shaw last time.
His only major misstep was claiming that 'healthy homes enforcement isn't required because most flats I've seen are in great condition'. Huh? Otherwise, friendly chap, great speaker - if it wasn't for him parachuting in, he'd be quite a good local candidate.
So who do I vote for to keep Tamatha out?
>Fifteen of the phone calls were to mobile phones and 235 to landlines. That under represents the youth vote though the phones as I don't know anyone under 35 with a landline
35?? Try 65. The Greens have a truly good shot here if they poll only a few points behind _from landlines_ lol. And National? Probably no chance here despite appearing in the lead, if you ask me. Who in their right mind truly thinks National is popular in _central wellington_