Explain Why Labour Win The 2008 Election

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After Labour fell in a convincing win to National in the 2008 election after 9 years in parliament, many questioned how the National party had done it. Many different elements impacted the 2008 election such as policy, rivalry, a fresh face, and many different elements shaped the voting population of the last 3 elections. With National taking out all three elections with a large winning margin, which only seemed to increase over each election, but why did they win and how did they do it?

Why did National win 2008?
The 2008 election campaign put on by the National party was widely slammed by commentators as well as political analysts for being uninspiring and boring, but this did not deter voters. In this campaign, there were several main …show more content…

Instead, trying for a different angle by talking about his family life, and even going as far as sending the Labour party president over to Australia to look for damaging documents on the national leader – making the party look desperate, especially when it backfired, of course this resulted in a lack of trust for the labour party, and a shift in votes from labour to national. In terms of policy importance, then the economy came out on top in a study of the 2008 election, followed by law in order, and then by tax, but the most influential one, was the issues of coalition and the role of MMP in our elections, all of these proving to be the most salient issues of the 2008 election. ‘The key to National’s victory – and Labour’s defeat – was John Key himself, who gave many voters the feeling that it was safe to vote for what they wanted – a change of …show more content…

National played to this stronghold and this pattern by reiterating a strong stable government for their second term if re-elected. After the resignation of the long standing Labour leader Helen Clarke, the Labour party was in crumbles, even more so behind the scenes, and this was evident throughout Nationals first term in government. It was also evident, that New Zealanders did not like the new leader, Phil Goff, this showed during the election by labour losing between 165,000- 255,000 more votes than in the 2008 election. During the 2011 election and the lead up to it, one of the hot topics to be talking about was the gamble that national took of wanting to privatise shares, by giving the everyday, kiwi family investors the chance to invest in New Zealand businesses. Labour made the statement that they were clearly against this, but they seemed to of forgotten that they themselves, privatised profits in NZ Rail, Air New Zealand, and BNZ. During the election, around one third of the adult population of New Zealand chose to give their party vote to national. However, in a turn of events and political sides, Labour is arguably more based on the ‘worker’ and the middle class