Molesworth & Featherston (Weekend) – 10 Sept. 2005

ECONOMY

Treasury warns oil price hikes could see inflatiom over-shoot the Reserve Bank’s 3% limit.

MEDIA TATTLE

TVNZ tells staff the rumours about Judy Bailey are wrong, and disses a reporter on the rival network.

WEBSITE

We’ve had a few web problems this past week (a few? Sheesh!). So we’re off to a new, boring old .co.nz address. Look for us at

molesworthandfeatherston.co.nz

Election

The last week

Last week we called the election for a Labour-led Government, (“put a fork in it, it's done”) only to be jabbed up the backside by a run of polls showing National comfortably ahead. A five point gap to Labour had evaporated over a week, but since Tuesday Labour has started to sneak ahead again. Polls over the coming weekend will be interesting but will largely pre-date the Exclusive Brethren pamphlet train wreck which Don Brash engineered for himself.

There will be a run of polls through the next week of course, culminating in NBR's Friday poll and probably polls from Fairfax, the NZ Herald and the television stations late in the week, which will give a much better steer - and not just because they are close to the election but because such an important issue on the campaign trail will be fully reflected by week's end. All through the campaign it has been evident it takes a little over a week - e.g. the tax cuts, Labour's student loans policy etc - for news to filter into voter intentions. Our early indications from party polling are that National has taken a serious hit from the ‘now I remember’ comments from Dr Brash, but we will see.

This week we give you progress results through the week in our rolling poll of polls so you can better see the trend. Currently the numbers are (assuming leaders hold their seats):

Oh so close between the two biggies, but that's 59 seats for a Labour-Progressive-Green Government needing the support of either the Maori Party , with a likely overhang of at least one seat on current polling, although that's not reflected i our numbers above.

On United Future and NZ First's current position; to open talks with the biggest party (illogical as that is ... shouldn't it be the biggest bloc?) they would be elbowing each other aside to talk.

On the other side of the spectrum, National cannot do it even with both NZ First and United Future - even if their first talks with Labour fail. We wonder if that will make National think again over Act and Epsom, but it is getting very late and is a perilous strategy now.

Of course if National sneaks ahead of Labour by a seat and NZ First and United open talks with them first it could all change again - which highlights the fragility of their logic since they would be negotiating to form a National Government even if more people have declared through their vote that they want a Labour-led one.

Surely if they are genuinely "on the fence" over which party is better and want to reflect what most voters want they should start talks with the bigger bloc, because voters for Act, the Greens and the Progressives - and for that matter the Maori Party - know where their parties stand and which sort of a Government they want.

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