Talk:2005 New Zealand general election/Archive 1

Election date
Okay, I'm going to start doing newsposts about specifically election-based news stories. The first is going to be about the possibility of an early election --Exmachinz 00:22, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The last date for elections is apparently 25 Sep 2005 and not Aug 2005 as noted in article. I am unable to unearth official confirmation as yet. Alan Liefting 01:36, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * You could well be right &mdash; I don't remember where I found the August date. -- Vardion 04:52, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Now that I think about it, the answer might depend more on phrasing than I previously thought. There is, I suppose a difference between calling elections and holding them &mdash; you would have to give a certain amount of notice for elections, even for snap elections, I would think. Perhaps September is indeed the time by which an election must be held, but you'd have to actually call it earlier - such as in August. I could be completely wrong, but it might explain the discrepancy. -- Vardion 12:25, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Yes you're right (hence why I changed the word from 'call' to 'held' after the date was changed from August to Septmeber), cheers - Drstuey 01:24, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Party vote

 * The Alliance have announced that they will not contest the party vote in the 2005 general election (reflecting, perhaps, the impossible task of reaching the 5% threshold). Instead they advised their supporters to vote for the Green Party or the Maori Party. The Alliance will contest electorate seats however.

I assume "electorate seats" are the voting districts, so the Alliance will be standing in some districts. But what is meant by "party vote" in the above context? Does it mean top-up lists?


 * I think so &mdash; that term isn't used here, that I know of, but the basic system being used is Mixed Member Proportional. Parties are awarded extra seats, drawn off a party list, in order to give them a total number which is proportional to their share of the vote. (In actuality, the passage you quoted isn't actually definite anymore &mdash; the Alliance has been having internal problems. Whether it contests the party vote probably depends on whether it retains the 500 members needed for official registration, and there are conflicting claims as to whether this is possible.) -- Vardion 18:24, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * The Alliance is broadly sympathetic to both the Green Party and to the Maori Party, but it would be likely to get less party votes than either of those. Since there's a 5% threshold of party votes needed by any party to get into Parliament (unless they win an electoral seat), and the Greens don't currently have an electoral seat, the Alliance is urging its supporters to vote for one of the other two rather than split the left-wing vote. As Vardion says above, the Alliance may no longer be capable of registering for the party vote anyway. I hadn't heard that the Alliance was planning on standing a few electorate candidates, but this would make sense in the areas where they are strongest as it would give them a focus to campaign around and try to win new members.-gadfium 18:42, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Article title
Just noticed that this article (and, indeed, all NZ election pages) are titled without a comma between the word "election" and the year in question, which makes them an exception to the naming convention in place for election articles elsewhere on the 'pedia. In the grander scheme of things its a minor nit and correcting it here and elsewhere ought to spawn no shortage of redirects, but is there any good reason for it being the way it is? -The Tom 20:16, 25 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I imagine it is just the way it was created. James F has a bot which can do all the redirects; I will ask him to correct it so it fits in with other similar articles. Talrias (t | e | c) 20:23, 25 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I suspect that the first red link (if not the first article) was created before any policy consensus emerged, and the rest just followed the same pattern. I would have no objection to moving the articles, provided all the links pointing to them can be changed as well. -- Vardion 20:41, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Polls
I've been maintaining the poll section for the last week or so, and started to add my analysis of likely outcomes for the election to it. I know that Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, so is such an analysis appropriate?

I'm also listing only the party results, not the leader rankings. I've always thought that the "Most popular leader" is irrelevant to the outcome, as the current Prime Minister always seems to lead the poll. Should we add such a section?

Would the results of the polls be better presented as a table? I think they almost certainly would, and I'll reformat that paragraph to include a table unless I hear objections in the next couple of days.

I also see that a couple of anons have added poll data to the Don Brash article a couple of times; I reverted the first attempt because the data didn't seem to match the polls I'd seen, and changed the second attempt to reflect an average of several polls rather than one poll, but should we have a policy that (nationwide) polls are only included in this election page and not on the pages of individual candidates/party leaders/parties? Obviously the polls in the Tauranga electorate might be relevant to put on Winston Peters or the New Zealand First pages, since that party's representation in Parliament may depend on Peters winning Tauranga (and there's a real chance he won't).

Finally, I understand that there's an informal consensus that no poll results appear on the main Current events page, and therefore should not appear on Current events in Australia and New Zealand or Portal:New Zealand's In the News section.-gadfium 23:35, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Polling history
I found an interesting document here: Onco_p53 00:05, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Exclusive Brethren
Is it worth mentioning the Exclusive Brethren? I am a candidate so I do not want to edit the page and gat accused of pushing a POV!. Alan Liefting 04:50, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Minimal updates on the night?
I'd like to suggest that people do minimal updates on the actual night. The Wikinews site is probably best for thsi or the electionresults site. Trying to madly edit stuff as it happens is going to be bad. Perhaps we could move pointers to the above two sites to the top of the page for the evening. One thing I would like to suggest people to is perhaps prepare a general timeline of things that happen on the night. eg stuff liek "9pm: tauranga results indicate winston peters in", "11:13pm such-and-such conceeds" or whatever. Stuff that will be useful for the final article. - SimonLyall 05:53, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Is Labour out?
An Australian asks at 6.36pm AEST - Is Labour out? Adam 08:34, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * At the moment it looks like they may well be out. --2mcmGespräch 09:47, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Too close to call but it looks like Labour will get more votes than Nats. Nurg 09:58, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

List candidates
Can someone direct me to a list of list candidates? I can't find it at the Elections NZ website. Adam 12:51, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Candidates_in_the_New_Zealand_general_election_2005_by_party Candidates_in_the_New_Zealand_general_election_2005_by_electorate --2mcmGespräch 22:45, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Usage of term "the vote"
It's stated "94 percent of the vote": how is the term intended to be used in the article before 100% of "the vote" has been counted? 100% of "the vote" would presumably include all special votes, advance votes, and overseas votes, but where does this figure 94% come from? If you subtract the votes which have not been counted yet it whould be closer to 90% shouldn't it? I'm overseas now so I'm only going by what's available at the election results website.

The government elections website actually said "94% of polling places counted," which I took to be roughly equivalent to 94% of the vote. I agree that is not strictly true. It is up to 100% now, but as you say there are still non-polling-place votes to be counted. I will change the wording. Adam 14:16, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Centrists vs Greens in Coalition
The page says that out of New Zealand First and United Future, UF won't support a Labour-Green coalition, but if I recall correctly only Winston Peters (NZF) has actually said that, and Peter Dunne (UF) has only done a lot of Green-bashing, but nothing actually saying that he won't support a Red-Green government. Can someone double-check if UF's actually on the record on this? I know NZF is so I've changed the blurb to say NZF, not UF.

Kelvinc 16:43, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * On live TV Peter Dunne ( UF ) said that they had no reason to change their status of refusing to be in a coalition that involved th Greens. --2mcmGespräch 22:44, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * http://www.nzherald.co.nz/event/story.cfm?c_id=1500891&objectid=10346236

Helen Clark
Even though she's won, you have to wonder how long the old troll will last. PMA 22:46, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Hey that isnt very nice ! But very true. --2mcmGespräch 23:33, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Depends how long she wants to really. This was in many respects the closest you can get to a US presidential election in a unicarmel parliamentary constitutional-monarchy which is a democracy. - Greaser 00:51, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Image completed
I have the source Gimp file --2mcmGespräch 23:33, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

It would be much better to have the party vote by electorate as well--210.86.70.47 02:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

New Zealand First didn't win any electorate seats. --203.109.252.196
 * Yeah, that is on my todo list. --2mcmGespräch 21:29, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Done --2mcmGespräch 21:04, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Full Results
I have set up a page for full in depth results New Zealand general election, 2005, full results

Note: I Have renamed the page to New Zealand general election, 2005: in depth results Brian New Zealand 05:03, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to note where a sitting member was defeated, and if so, who it was? Ambi 12:22, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Ridings?
One of the first paragraphs in this article refers to ridings. Referring to electoral districts as "ridings" is extremely commonplace in Canada, but I was under the impression that this usage was a unique Canadianism. Is it a common term in New Zealand English? --thirty-seven 18:05, 18 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I've not heard of it, so have changed to 'electorate'. Thanks. Barefootguru 19:09, 18 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Ridings existed in rural NZ until the popularisation of the automobile with the improvement of roads. Then (c. 1950s) the riding were merged into larger County Councils, which in the 1990s were merged into Regional Councils. In towns the equivalent administrative unit was called a Borough.
 * This all happened in unison with urban drift, which is a civilised version of the lowland and then highland clearances that populated Canada with the Scots.
 * ⊄ Sumburgh 06:32, 2 October 2005 (UTC) ⊅

Moral victory
The article describes the election as a 'moral victory' for National. That is clearly P.O.V. in my opinion. Should it go?--210.86.70.47 07:56, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I have amended it. Was it an 'immoral defeat' for labour?!!!! Sheesh Moriori 08:26, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Clean-up
I agree with whoever posted the Clean-Up tag that this article needed a pruning. Like most election articles, it was full of speculation about possible results and trivial incidents. Now the election is over this can be removed, and I have done so. I have also fixed tenses and grammar. Political parties are singular, so please write "National is" not "National are." Adam 06:45, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the 'issues' section should probably be removed, that would help heaps--210.86.70.47 02:42, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Can other editors look at this please
I removed the following statement, "The Māori Party, whose supporters overwhelmingly backed Labour in the party vote, has also indicated that it will support Labour" and gave as a reference, http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/09/30/nz.elections.ap/index.html  That link does not state that the Maori Party has indicated support, but that the Labour party will approach the Maori Party for support. They are two vastly different statements IMMHO, but User:Blueboy96 has taken me to task over this, reverting my deletion. I want Wikipedia to be accurate, but I am not entering into an edit war. Could other editors give opinions here please? Cheers. Moriori 02:01, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The Maori Party has repeatedly said it will support whichever party their members indicate they should after a series of national hui, which have yet to start. This is confirmed on their own web site. The Maori Party has NOT - repeat, NOT - indicated that it will support Labour. Grutness...  wha?  06:00, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Having had a look at the results, Maori split their tickets, with most people who gave their electorate vote to the Maori Party giving their electorate vote to Labour. From that you can pretty much tell that they will tell the Maori Party to go with Labour, anything else is silly.  But you are right that the CNN article does not provide proper referencing.  So, what is needed is a different reference which says that.  Probably best to have a search around different news sources, maybe Scoop might be a good bet?  --210.86.70.47 07:05, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Tks for your input. "Proper referencing" can not be found anywhere, because the Maori Party has NOT announced its intentions. It will begin a series of hui October 5 to decide who to support. See web site which Grutness mentions above. I have edited the article accordingly. Cheers. Moriori 07:32, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


 * It seems that the Maori Party may well not be supporting either National or Labour. Neither side seems to be likely to give them what they want, and at the least, they will not be part of a formal coalition. It's quite likely, in order to stop their cause being diluted, that they would rather stay out of any agreement. 203.96.148.222 05:53, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Right. And that's the reason why a week ago I deleted "The Māori Party, whose supporters overwhelmingly backed Labour in the party vote, has also indicated that it will support Labour"". It hadn't. Moriori 11:09, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Final shape of Government
We should get to editing this article, and all other relevant pages (ie NZFirst) to reflect the new Government formed. Nichlemn 07:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd been really hoping someone would have a list detailing who was defeated and who replaced them to help with this, but like most Wikipedia election articles, it seems to be the one rather useful fact that gets skipped over. Ambi 08:04, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Outside the cabinet?
Quoth the article:


 * New Zealand First leader Winston Peters and United Future leader Peter Dunne will become ministers of the Crown, though outside Cabinet. Peters will become Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Can someone explain to a curious non-Kiwi how a minister -- particularly the head of an important ministry like that of Foreign Affairs -- can be "outside cabinet"? --Jfruh 21:22, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
 * hey hey it came as a surprise to New Zealand as well I can tell you. It is a precedent, and there has been much speculation about why the centre-right parties insisted on it, how it will work, and what other countries will think of it. - 203.118.140.162 09:09, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
 * So by "outside cabinet", do you just mean "not a member of the governing party/coalition"? If so, then this should be explained in the article.  If it really does literally mean not a member of the cabinet, then that does boggle the mind, since I would think by definition the Minister of Foreign Affairs would be a part of the cabinet.  If so, then there should be a bit more explanation or at least a link to an outside source/article that discusses this in greater detail.  --thirty-seven 18:53, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Expense of Minor Parties?
"At the expense of minor parties". While this is hard to tell, it may also need to be mentioned that Labour's stability was also at the expense of minor parties. The Greens lost three seats, the Progressives one, and the centrist parties also most likely had a fair share going back to Labour. Nichlemn 06:01, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Polls
Some of those polls have been obviously rounded to give no decimal places, when others have been rounded to point one decimal place. I know thats what they are officially, but mathematically it's a bit silly and they should probably all be rounded to the full percentages. I think the best thing to do would be to round the Herald Digipoll results, and leave a little explanitory note at the bottom that they've been rounded. What do you think would be the best solution would be? --Mahogany h00r 08:08, 8 November 2005 (UTC)