In 2008, National enjoyed 44.9% of the party vote. To increase that to 47.3% this election should be a more than satisfactory result for the National Party. Leading up to the election, National were consistently polling over 50%, but a drop-off was expected as media scrutiny naturally increased throughout the election period.

For their campaign, National led a simple 5-point "brighter future" plan, which included policy around rebuilding Christchurch, and had John Key at the fore of their advertising. Their policy to sell down assets was hotly debated across the Country, opposition parties attempted to gain traction on the back of the Rena grounding, and Labour's Phil Goff put up a reasonable challenge to Key in the televised debates. But ultimately, Key and the National Party ended the campaign on top, earning the right to re-from the Government for another term.

So let's take a look at where their support came from, in terms of party vote by Electorate. Note that the following analysis is based 2008 data and preliminary results from the 2011 election.

Biggest Party Vote by Electorate

The top ten electorates by party vote shows that National well and truly maintains its support through the affluent Auckland electorates. The only two electorates not in the Auckland region are deputy-leader Bill English's Clutha-Southland and Amy Adams' Selwyn electorates. Adams did well, helping to bring Selwyn up six rankings. More...

Labour's party vote sunk to 27.48% in this election, which is well down on last year's 33.99%. The reason's for their demise can be summed up under the headings of leadership, negative campaigning, the party list, and de-branding.

Phil Goff's leadership leading into and throughout the campaign was poor. His memory and his honesty were constantly called into question and he attacked his opponents in areas which left him open for accusations of hypocrisy.

Instead of concentrating on selling their own campaign, Labour spent the bulk of their time, and advertising money, negatively campaigning on National's policy. There's no doubt that Labour's 'No Asset Sales' campaign stirred up some support, but as often happens with negative campaigning, that support didn't go to the party which was negatively campaigning; instead it went to the Greens and NZ First.

Labour's party list was contentious, even within the ranks of Labour itself. The list presented a party that had not learned from their prior election loss. As a result it saw some sitting MP's who could see their only chance of getting back in  via their electoral seat, drop campaigning for the party vote altogether.

So let's take a look at Labour's party vote support by electorate. Note that the following analysis is based 2008 data and preliminary results from the 2011 election.

Biggest Party Vote by Electorate

Sua William Sio had an outstanding result in Mangere, picking up 71.2% of the party vote, up 9.6% from 2008. Although this rise can be ascribed to the demise of Taito Phillip Field and his Pacific Party (which gained 10.7% of the party vote in 2008).

Labour's traditional powerhouse seats in South Auckland and the Maori seats feature in the top ten. Two notable improvers include Labour Party Leader Phil Goff and Te Atatu's Phil Twyford. More...

The 2011 General Election has seen the return to Parliament of New Zealand First and their charming yet enigmatic leader, Winston Peters. This followed a disappointing 2008 election where the party failed to gain the 5% threshold, coming in with 4.07%, and Peters being hammered in Tauranga by Simon Bridges, who enjoyed a 11,742 vote majority over Peters.

With Peters standing as a List only candidate for this election, arguably the party's next highest profile candidate, former TVNZ weather presenter Brendan Horan was given the nod to stand in Tauranga. This enabled Peters to concentrate on the party vote, which was realistically the only way they would make Parliament.

Peters has always had a nous for seizing an opportunity, and when Prime Minister John Key and Act's Epsom Candidate made an absolute shambles of their cup-of-tea media stunt, Peters pounced on the opportunity to make hay. It proved a good harvest for Peters, who maintained media coverage throughout the penultimate week of the campaign. Never mind that Peters initially decried the taping as an illegal "News of the World" type stunt, once he allegedly had his hands on a transcript of the taping, there was no stopping him and his Party's progress to Parliament.

On election night they ended with 6.81% of the party vote, entitling them to 8 seats in the house.

So let's take a look at where New Zealand First's resurgent support came from. Note that the following analysis is based 2008 data and preliminary results from the 2011 election.

Biggest Party Vote by Electorate

Little has changed in NZ First's support base from 2008, with Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty region showing strong support for Peters. The other point to note, is even though Peters refuses to stand candidates in the Maori seats, the party still maintains strong support from them.

No South Island seats feature in NZ First's top 10. More...

The Greens had a fantastic election, improving on last election's 6.72% and nine seats in the house to breaking the ten precent barrier this election with 10.62%, giving them 13 MP's in the house.

There are really two factors at play with the Greens success, the strengthening of the Green brand and the diabolical performance of the Labour Party. In terms of branding, the Greens have managed to maintain their clean, green and principled guise by rigorously staying on message.

The Greens have realised that they can fly under the radar of scrutiny if they keep to a simple idealistic message. The soft vote doesn't care about scrutiny and the media won't push for answers, if the Greens stay on message; kind of like the defence mechanism of a schooling fish. But in saying that, they have to be commended for how they managed to get their message out, again their advertising and other promotional stunts worked very well.

Along with New Zealand First, the Greens were the big winners on the night. So let's take a look at the numbers. Note that the following analysis is based 2008 data and preliminary results from the 2011 election.

Biggest Party Vote by Electorate

The first observation is that the Greens have maintained support in their last election's best performing electorates, their urban powerhouses. Wellington Central generally had a very low voter turnout (around 64%), but with the help of James Shaw, they increased the party vote from 20.62% when Sue Kedgley stood in 2008 to 26.47% this election.

Another notable standout is Dora Langsbury in the Maori seat of Te Tai Tonga, moving up 13 places with 15.51% of the party vote. More...

It all went wrong for the Act Party earlier in the year when the leader at the time, Rodney Hide, lost the confidence of his caucus. Don Brash, sniffing an opportunity, successfully executed an extraordinary leadership coup from outside of the party.

With Act's initial resurgence in the polls on the wane, Brash gave a key speech in which he outlined his preference for the decriminalisation of cannabis. It was at odds with Act's policy and in stark contrast with the views of his key Epsom candidate, John Banks.

With Banks on the ropes, Prime Minister John Key joined him for the infamous cup of tea, to give National supporters in Epsom the message to vote for Banks. It may have got Banks over the line, but I'd suggest it further damaged Act's brand. Nationally Act went from 3.65% of the party vote and five seats in Parliament following the 2008 election, to just 1.07% and only the one seat in Parliament following the current election.

Many commentators see this as the end of the road for Act, but I'm not convinced. For a small party they have a relatively strong structure and with Brash departing there's certainly a chance of a rebuild.

Note that the following analysis is based 2008 data and preliminary results from the 2011 election.

Biggest Party Vote by Electorate

Banks' efforts returned Act's highest party vote in Epsom, although it's a marked reduction from the 6.22% that Rodney Hide achieved in 2008. Other notable performances include Clutha-Southland, Whangarei and Northland. More...

It was a tough election for United Future. Peter Dunne did well to retain his Ohariu seat but the party failed to gain momentum leading into the election. I'd suggest that the two main causes of this were the lack mainstream media coverage (the teapot saga didn't help here) along with polling showing Dunne was going to struggle to retain his seat.

In 2008, United Future gained around 20,000 party votes, which was around 0.9% of the party votes cast. This slumped to around 12,000, or 0.6% in this election.

Note that the following analysis is based 2008 data and preliminary results from the 2011 election.

Biggest Party Vote by Electorate

Not surprising to see Ohariu at the top once more, and the West Coast vote rose on the back of a spirited anti-1080 campaign. Victoria Rogers and Alan Simmons did well in their electorates, helping their electorates move up 36 and 32 places respectively. More...

Voter turnout for the 2011 General Election was well down on the 2008 turnout. In 2008 around 78% of registered electors voted, whereas this year the figure is around 67%.

I've put together the following analysis of the changes in voter turnout using the preliminary results along with the 2008 data. Note that 2008 figures have been used for the elected voter numbers, which may misrepresent the analysis for electorates where migration has since occurred (i.e. Christchurch Central).

Biggest Turnout By Electorate

In terms of voter turnout, the Rodney electorate moved up four spots to number one. This is likely due to the newly formed Conservative Party standing their leader, Colin Craig in this electorate; making a three-way race between the Conservatives, National and Labour. In the end, National's Mark Mitchell had a comfortable win with Colin Craig picking up a credible second place. More...

In this 45 minute YouTube video, Peter Saunders takes a look at the statistics and claims of the book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.

Peter is an Emeritus Professor (Sociology) at the University of Sussex and a Honorary Senior Fellow with the Centre for Independent Studies. In his critique he doesn't actually tackle the question of what role inequality plays in society. Instead he looks at the scientific claims in the book and in doing so he demonstrates that the book has both fundamental flaws in its scientific analysis and the linking of its claims to the core arguments in the book.

If you haven't read The Spirit Level yet then save yourself some time and watch this video instead. Once you've seen this, you'll realise that there's no point in reading the book.

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Ken Ring (aka the Moon Man) cast himself into the media spotlight at the end of 2011 with his claims that he could predict the occurrence of earthquakes based on the phases of the moon. Reading through his web site, it becomes very clear that Ring is neither a scientist nor capable of constraining himself to a rational argument.

But never the less, at the start of the year he posted his predictions entitled "Earthquake Timings 2011", and being more than halfway through the year, I thought it an opportune time to see how his predictions are stacking up. More...

Last year I went to see Timaru's premier of the The Social Network at Movie Max 5. Leaving the theatre I was left inspired by what a small group of effectively college drop-outs had managed to achieve. As portrayed in the movie, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg first raised to notoriety when he created a created a web site which let users compare the "hotness" of Harvard University students.

Of course, due to privacy issues and copyright laws his initial venture was fundamentally flawed. But it did get him thinking about the phenomenal potential for social databases and the rest is history..

Inspired by Zuckerberg's feats, that night I set about building a simple tool to download all of the profiles on New Zealand's premier dating site: NZ Dating. I crawled the site over a couple of nights back in November and put the following analysis together. More...