Rightwing spin | The Jackal

28 Nov 2011

Rightwing spin

Today, Bloomberg reported; Key Assembles Coalition After Biggest New Zealand Poll Victory in 60 Years
National won 48 percent of votes, the most it has taken since 1951, compared with 27 percent for the main opposition , Labour Party, according to the Electoral Commission. In his second term, the 50-year-old multimillionaire and former foreign exchange head at Merrill Lynch & Co. must steer New Zealand’s recovery from its worst natural disaster in 80 years amid global economic turmoil.

What a load of rubbish! In 2008 National got 1,053,398 votes while in the 2011 election they gained only 957,769. That's 95,629 less votes this year for National, so how can Chris Bourke and Tracy Withers claim that this is a victory?

The only reason National won is because voter turnout was only 73.83%. They certainly don't let the facts get in the way of their story telling.

He has pledged to sell part of the government’s stake in four energy companies and the national airline to help erase a NZ$18.4 billion ($13.6 billion) budget deficit.

Accounting for non voter's, only 35.4% of eligible voters went for National. Internal polling showed less than half of their supporters want asset sales. This is clearly not a mandate to sell assets. Couple this with a negative market, there really is no good reason to sell.