Although it won’t be official for a few weeks, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party has won enough votes to govern NZ alone for the next three years. The opposition National party didn’t have a credible alternative policy, and its leadership was beset by internal and personal problems. Jacinda’s coalition partner NZ First (finally) self-destructed. The Greens, the Māori party and Libertarian ACT all did ok, but not enough to have a guaranteed role in shaping policy.

The most interesting parts of the election are the least certain till all the votes are counted: referendums on legalizing recreational marijuana and euthanasia. In my circles, sentiment seems to be leaning in favor of both, but let’s see.

Even with a pandemic delay, the campaign was blissfully short and substantive. NZ faces a lot of problems, as does the whole world. It’s not clear how this or any government will solve them… but by a lot of measures this government has in fact outperformed the entire world recently.

So congrats Jacinda and Let’s Keep Moving!!

For as much noise as they’ve caused, it’s a little surprising that I haven’t written more about the Lime scooter invasion.

Lime scooters are awesome electric scooters. You unlock them with an app on your phone and whiz along at up to about 16 mph. Totally fun. And they do solve the last mile problem for a lot of trips.

But Auckland seems to have been completely overwhelmed by Lime’s famously aggressive rollout team. Nobody figured out the details of how they have been introduced, where you can and can’t ride them (sidewalks, bike lanes, etc), who pays for the (many!) injury claims, who is responsible for maintenance lapses, and so on.

Or rather, Lime figured out all those details and Auckland failed to disagree. So the money goes to the VCs, and the costs stay here. The situation is particularly troubling in NZ, because of the national, tax-funded, no-fault insurance policy we all enjoy. When a private company introduces a dangerous product, their liability is mostly absorbed by the citizenry. That can be balanced by good product regulation, but government missed the mark on this one.

The City Council did take the scooters off the streets last week over safety concerns, but now they’re back. Still fun, but for me the bloom is off the rose, and I’ll be much less enthusiastic about Lime than I was at first.

And a tiny little bit of representation. 

Neither of the two big parties won a majority in Saturday’s election, so now the wheeling and dealing is underway to form a coalition government. 

The election campaign is in full swing here, reaching what passes for a fever pitch in New Zealand. That means that there are signs like this one… It is not the same level of fever pitch that I am familiar with from the States.

But there has been some excitement… The woman in this photograph, who has been the co-leader of the Green party, had to resign this week from her post after she revealed dodgy welfare benefits she received many years ago. On the one hand, fairly minor offenses, but on the other, as leader of her Party she was held to a very high standard. We will never know whether that standard was even higher due to her being female and of Maori descent. But probably yes. 

Everyone gets two votes, one for their local member of Parliament, and another for their political party of choice. There is a system of proportional representation, and so if a party gets more votes than its individual candidates, they are awarded some party seats to make up the difference. Awesome in my opinion.