I Like My Australian Passport

[Update 2:] Radio New Zealand reports on the cultural diversity of New Zealand's 49th Parliament including Melissa Lee. Mp3 here (4'09").

[Update:] Amongst the new members of Parliament brought in by yesterday's election is New Zealand's first Koean born MP Melissa Lee, number 37 of National's party list.

The final results are in.

The National Party got 45.5% of the vote, securing 59 seats in parliament. In addition the ACT party gained 3 seats to take them to 5, while parliament's one man band, Peter Dunne, again gained the electorate seat of Ohuria, giving the centre-right a 65 seat majority in the House of Representatives.

National Leader John Key, seeking to establish a "long-term" government will also seek the support of the Maori Party and their 5 seats to have a 70 vote majority on matters of confidence and supply.

Notwithstanding Mr Dunne, and the other local favourite in Christchurch Jim Anderton (Leader and Major Domo of Jim Anderton's Progressive Party - honestly who puts their own name in a political party name?), the only minor party to cross the 5% threshold was the Green Party who got 6.4% of the vote taking their number of seats from 6 to 8.

The Greens will be looking to flex their new found muscle in the new parliament.

Of great personal loss, Winston Peters' long political career is on hold, if not over, with him failing to take the seat of Tauranga and his party, New Zealand First, failed to get 5% of the party vote. (Though they got close at 4.2% - honestly they needed only 20000 more people to vote them.)

As a result of all this, Helen Clark stood down on Saturday as leader of The Labour Party as did her deputy and Finance Minister, Michael Cullen.

The possibilities for Clark are almost endless, I doubt she will remain in Parliament despite winning (my old electorate) Mt Albert. (Indeed, once upon a time I literally lived next door to the Prime Minister) She will no doubt enter the lecture circuit before probably taking up a post on the International Stage. Something at the UN is the most probable, when does Ban Ki Moon finish up there?

By contrast Cullen would make an excellent, sarcastic, bitter backbench MP and will remain a constant thorn in the new government's side. In the same vein he would make an excellent Speaker of the House (Especially after the last Speaker Margaret Wilson), now that the afore mentioned Dunne has ruled himself out of the position.

As a sign of the times the Wikipedia page on this year's election (less than 24 hours old at the time of writing) is excellent and gives a good breakdown of the results. The coloured map is particularly distressing, with Labour holding only the urban seats. Look at all that blue!

The results were pretty close to what I expected, and the prospect of a right wing government is not inciting my return home any time soon. Just watch them turn the screws on people like me, overseas and with a significant student loan. There's no real safe haven in Australia to be honest (stooooopid information sharing), but it looks like I'm in Korea for at least another 3 years. (Shit!)

Comments

[Sam]

Bugger! Not much more one can say really..