RODNEY HIDE: Shifting positions
David Farrar spent the campaign fighting the overhang. He is National's pollster. He wrote against it. He warned against it at around 40 to 50 public talks. He went on Reality Check Radio, which was campaigning for it, to make the case against it.
On Friday, on Kiwiblog, he went back through those arguments. Most of them, he now says, no longer apply. People, he writes, have not fully realised how much the 2026 result will shape 2029.
He had five. National would have no list MPs. It would lose its best candidates, and could not recruit through the list. A government formed by a deliberate overhang would face a public backlash. Every party would then try to manipulate the system. And it would treat National, ACT and New Zealand First as interchangeable.
Four of those, he admits, have already happened, or no longer hurt National. The party has no list MPs left. Anyone expecting to be a National list MP in 2029, he says, should buy a Lotto ticket. National now is an electorate only party. It does not hurt National if ACT and New Zealand First pick up more list seats. The official result is due on 27 November, but the specials will not put National's list back together.
The only argument he still holds is the backlash. National did not tell its supporters to withhold the party vote, and he says it never will. But in 2026 most of its supporters listened, and did not swap. That will not be true in 2029, because the overhang is now "a reality, not a mathematical possibility."
Supporters, he says, "won't need an advertising campaign to convince them."
Reality Check Radio's pamphlets and ads told National voters to split their vote. Farrar expects far more to do it next time, without being asked.
In 2029, he says, ACT and New Zealand First could each win about 15 per cent of the party vote. If National holds on to at least 32 of its 42 electorates, the right would almost be guaranteed re-election. He is not advocating that. He is describing what 2026 has done to 2029.
The strategy's sharpest critic has looked at 2029 and found the rational course is the one he spent the year opposing.
The 2026 election result will resonate through future elections and will affect every party and every election. The one thing that I can’t figure out is what Labour can do. I can’t see how they can counter the strategy centre right voters have figured out with the help of RCR.
Rodney Hide is a former Minister and ACT Party leader
The shared mutual benefits of Liberal Democracy can only be restored by the abolition of divisive MMP and restriction of the power of the minority of most influential people in the political parties, who choose the electorate candidates we vote for and appoint MP's we did not vote for. There is probably more to learn from the results of this election than strategic vote splitting.
MMP was bound to encourage vote splitting. It gave people two votes instead of only one, for a member of their local community they respected and trusted.
Liberal Democracy was based on residents of communities voting for one of their members to represent the majority in government. Local residents elected an individual they respected and trusted. That system encouraged…
National needs to restructure into two parties. One for electorates and one for the party. The whip would not apply to the electorate MPs.
We were given two votes.why would this have been done of it was expected voters should use both votes for one party. Is that not FPP?
If the centrist parties (i.e., ACT and NZ First) had received 700,000 of the Party votes that were wasted on National, they'd have between them procured 49.6% of the Party votes, entitling them to 59 parliamentary seats. Add National's 42 electoral seats, and you have 101 seats in a Parliament of 131 seats.
Seems like a strategy to secure the future for common sense Parties.
Labor will increase propaganda through media. Attack National with lies and cheat.