Jono sums it up and thus my thoughts up in a nutshell on what went right for National and what went oh so wrong for the Left Wing.
At the end of the day it all fell over for the Left last Monday with a certain Moment of Truth.

Well it was a Moment of Truth with National now on a very solid foundation for a fourth term as Key will stick with Centrist policies with some dabbling to the Left and Right along the way.

So National is looking for her Fourth Term and the Left are busy blaming everyone else and eating themselves. It also shows Twitter is a rather loud cold echo chamber to a large but not all extent as well.
For example my Tweeting services at a Council Committee is highly utilised as people and even the MSM follow it.

I will put a second post up on what this all means for Auckland Council shortly. However, eyes now turn to the 2016 Local Elections.

Interesting perspective from Local Board member Vernon.
This situation basically comes down to the National led Government passing through an amendment to the Local Government Act that restricts what development contributions can be used for. That is it can not be used as widely to help provide social/community infrastructure as prior to the amendment.

Rates, Road, Rubbish. The catch cry of the National conservatives and its conservative supporters who in all honesty do lack fundamental understanding on how a City works and evolves. It is more than just the physical infrastructure they constantly bang on about. You have the social infrastructure as well which is just as important for a City to function.
While alternatives for funding can be sorted for Greenfield areas (see: https://voakl.net/2014/09/19/what-if-we-go-full-throttle/ ) Brownfield areas (take note Orakei) will face either steeper general rate increases or even Targeted Rates levied (I wonder how Orakei Local Board would find being levied with a Targeted Rate for their Meadowbank Community Centre they are trying to bring forward on the funding table) . So National and its supporters might have just shot themselves in the foot.

Second to last poll of polls from the Occasionally Erudite blog site (one more coming up later today). Weighing this alongside Kiwi Blog’s average weighting system (http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2014/09/the_2014_election_polls.html ) we can see a settling down with the final polls. Although that said National are continuing to slip with NZ First continuing to gain. This gives the possible situation that either NZF or the Maori Party will hold the balance of power and we could very well see either a Centre Right or Left Government all things depending.

My vote was cast on Tuesday and the recent events from then would have not changed my voting stance. Needless to say watching my home electorate of Papakura will be interesting to see how much damage Judith Collins has received in the end. We shall all know Sunday morning.

MEANWHILE GET OUT AND VOTE