Robertson v Franks Tonight

For those in town and looking for some insider information, as it were, on our Wellington Central contracts, it might be worth coming down to hear three candidates for Wellington Central share their thoughts:

The Victoria University Debating Society Election Debate 2008

The motion: That we need a centre-right government

Affirmative:

Stephen Franks - National candidate for Wellington Central
Christopher Finlayson MP - National List MP and Rongotai candidate
Stephen Whittington - champion Victoria student debater

Negative:

Grant Robertson - Labour candidate for Wellington Central
Sue Kedgley MP - Green candidate for Wellington Central
Polly Higbee - champion Victoria student debater

The chair is Sean Plunket.

Monday 6 October, 6.30pm - 8pm

Lecture Theatre One, Rutherford House, Victoria University of Wellington. Gold coin entry. Questions after the debate, then tea and coffee.

Don't forget your laptop and wireless card!

Electorate Boundaries on Google Maps

This is cool. Electorate boundaries superimposed on Google Maps.

Two surprises for me. One, MMP electorates are big.

Two, many electorates are all at at sea. Check out Wellington Central to see what I mean. Going by the proportion of that electorate that is on land and the proportion at sea, whoever wins WC is going to be spending about 80% of their time administering Cook Strait.

Check it out.

Wellington Central contracts launch

Wellington Central is a marquee electorate, and this election it is being contested by four high-profile candidates: Grant Robertson for Labour, Stephen Franks for National, Sue Kedgley for the Green Party, and Heather Roy for ACT.

Three contracts launched today on iPredict asking who will win Wellington Central: WC.FRANKS, WC.ROBERTSON, and WC.OTHER.

The timing of this launch was influenced by the appearance of these candidates tonight on TVNZ7's live show "Back Benches". It will be interesting to see contract price movements during and immediately after the show's airing at 9:10pm tonight. A real-time poll, if you like, of the candidate's performance on the night.