October 18, 2023
Special votes expected to lean left
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones expects special votes will strengthen the Opposition and give National more reasons to talk to his party after November 3.
He says all eight New Zealand First MPs will meet for the first time today to discuss some of the steps needed to reestablish the party within the parliamentary complex and prepare for the next three years.
There is still 20 percent of the vote to be counted, and he expects a lot will be from tangata whenua, Pasifika and young people who enrolled late.
“I know we enrolled a lot of voters very late from Tai Tokerau from major industry sites and they were just our young people who had never been encouraged to vote and they were quite excited by the prospect someone was going to help them, take them down, organise transport and some of the firms did that. It’s highly unlikely those people were going to turn out and vote for the ACT Party. I would say the beneficiaries will be Labour, possibly the Maori Party, obviously the Green Party,” Mr Jones says.
He says Te Pati Maori benefited from a generational shift in Maori voters who responded to its loud and proud strategy.