Why this election could come down to the smaller parties

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1. 0:06Speaker 1: Kia ora, I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is The Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Parliament
2. 0:17Speaker 1: is officially over and now the gloves are coming off.
3. 0:20Speaker 1: New Zealanders go to the polls on November 7 and between now and then we're going to see parties making their pitches, ramping up their attacks and fighting for every
4. 0:29Speaker 1: last vote. The next 44 days will be filled with policy announcements, political debates, carefully choreographed photo ops, an endless
5. 0:38Speaker 1: stream of memes and inevitably drama. So as the buzz of the beehive fades into silence and the campaign proper
6. 0:47Speaker 1: takes centre stage, what issues are likely to dominate and who has the most to gain and perhaps the most to lose? Today on the front page, NZ Herald political
7. 0:59Speaker 1: editor Thomas Coghlan is with us to break it all down.
8. 1:05Speaker 1: So Thomas, Parliament has had its final sitting before the election.
9. 1:10Speaker 1: What changes from here?
10. 1:12Speaker 2: Well, from here, the current Parliament ends. The MPs don't come back to take their seats in the House. They go off onto the hustings and campaign for your vote.
11. 1:22Speaker 2: Over the weekend, Labour and National, they will have their campaign launches. And what that means is that... They formally begin their campaigns. Now, obviously, they've actually been campaigning for
12. 1:34Speaker 2: most of the year, really. They've been out and about every non-sitting week and every weekend, more or less, trying to get you a vote. But their official campaign launch
13. 1:44Speaker 2: is beginning this weekend or Sunday for both of them.
14. 1:47Speaker 2: You'll probably notice this, like all of the hoardings have gone up. You'll see a lot of hoardings on people's fences and in certain public places that are allowed for hoardings.
15. 1:58Speaker 2: But you're going to see a lot more ads on TV, ads in your newspaper, ads everywhere for the next few weeks until November the 7th when it all has to stop. Yeah, I was going to say that.
16. 2:08Speaker 1: So we have seen some parties pepper out some policy over the last few weeks or a little while now.
17. 2:14Speaker 1: So it'll just start ramping up quite significantly from here.
18. 2:17Speaker 2: Yeah, we're probably over the halfway point for policy. Because New Zealanders are quite fond of early voting, this has sort of changed the way that campaigns work. So before,
19. 2:28Speaker 2: you probably want to peak roughly around election day and
20. 2:34Speaker 2: for that momentum to build for your campaign, where it sort of crescendos at polling day. Now you want to get a lot of your attention campaign material, a lot of your policy out well before polling day. So you
21. 2:45Speaker 2: actually want to have your proposition to voters basically sorted out and quite explicit by the time you launch your campaign.
22. 2:53Speaker 2: So if you're Labour or National, that's this weekend. You want to have your main policies. Now, State of Labour Party, for example, their main policy is this capital gains tax, the three free GP visits. and some of the other
23. 3:05Speaker 2: free health policies that have been announced for some time now.
24. 3:08Speaker 2: And it's really about kind of driving those policies home into people's minds because they want the voters' view of
25. 3:16Speaker 2: them to be kind of crystallised well before people actually start voting. So you're allowed to vote a few days, but two weeks basically before the actual polling day starts.
26. 3:28Speaker 2: So you really want your campaign to peak, all of your policy to be out at that time so that all of those early votes go to you or as many of them as possible. And then obviously on the
27. 3:38Speaker 2: actual election day itself, you get as many as possible.
28. 3:41Speaker 1: What kind of campaign season do you think it's going to be?
29. 3:45Speaker 2: Well, it's a pretty tight election. So every vote counts.
30. 3:51Speaker 2: which is obviously the case in every election, but especially so this time around when it could just be a marginal vote here or there. We're in a time where the government doesn't have a lot of money, and even if you... Well, you'd have to put quite a lot
31. 4:02Speaker 2: of tax onto the economy if you wanted to fund the government a bit better, with obviously all this massive deficit and quite a large amount of debt. So it's not a very spendy campaign. It's quite... The parties are
32. 4:13Speaker 2: quite restrained in what they can promise people. They can't promise people big spending. They can't promise people... big big tax cuts um so for the two main parties that
33. 4:22Speaker 2: are really locked in in this titanic battle over very little things because neither of them can can afford to do something massive um the minor parties to sort of
34. 4:33Speaker 2: distinguish themselves are promising quite big things um but obviously there are questions about the credibility of those things so
35. 4:40Speaker 2: Labour is struggling to offer big increases in public spending and new public services because there just isn't the money on the current system. And so the Greens, in order to be able to offer that thing that Labour is
36. 4:52Speaker 2: not offering, for example, they are promising massive tax increases, a very large amount of tax, which is accompanied by
37. 5:01Speaker 2: a large amount of redistribution and public spending. In previous elections, things have been benign enough that you could offer public
38. 5:09Speaker 2: quite bold things without necessarily having to make ugly trade-offs to pay for it that's really hard at the moment just because of the fiscal situation so in order to
39. 5:18Speaker 2: offer something quite bold you have to offer something that is equally bold but in a more painful way a bold tax increase which is what you're getting from some of the left parties. On the right, we haven't seen
40. 5:29Speaker 2: the mirror of that yet. David Seymour and the ACT Party haven't announced their fiscal plan. But you can bet that they're going to go in the other direction, that in order to offer sort of quite bold reform of
41. 5:41Speaker 2: public finances, they would have to offer quite bold spending cuts.
42. 5:45Speaker 2: So that sort of balances out on the green opportunity balance.
43. 5:50Speaker 2: very left-wing side of that political spectrum, those big bold tax increases for bold public spending change. And I think on the right, you're going to see big bold public
44. 5:59Speaker 2: spending cuts to fund bold public sector change. So it's...
45. 6:03Speaker 2: you know, it is a very constrained time, which is causing very constrained and ugly trade-offs.
46. 6:10Speaker 1: How would you differentiate genuine policy during this time versus kind of that campaign theatre stuff? You know, like, because
47. 6:20Speaker 1: when we think of these big, bold promises made by especially the minor parties, in the back of your mind, you go, well, that's never going to happen. You know,
48. 6:30Speaker 1: there's no way that Labour's going to trade off this and that.
49. 6:32Speaker 2: So.
50. 6:33Speaker 1: Is that where we kind of have to look in and narrow in on what are the party's bottom lines?
51. 6:39Speaker 2: Yes, that's the real challenge with MMP, which is that every party has to campaign earnestly to win your vote on every different policy. The great hypocrisy of the MMP system is that only National and Labour really have to
52. 6:50Speaker 2: defend all of their policies because only National and Labour are ever going to be in a position to implement all of their policies. The minor parties, New Zealand First,
53. 6:59Speaker 2: the Greens Act, they are not going to be in a position to implement all of their policies. And therefore, as a voter, you know when one of them promises something.
54. 7:10Speaker 2: I mean, again, to use the example of the Green Party's wealth tax, they're campaigning on it, they earnestly believe in it. But as a voter, you know, well, the chances of them actually doing that are very, very slim
55. 7:21Speaker 2: because Labour's pretty emphatically ruled it out and Labour is going to, you know, on... it would it's unthinkable that the greens would have enough vote share to actually um
56. 7:32Speaker 2: to actually force labor to do that so yeah there's this sort of strange thing about mmp that you know that some promises that are being offered to you are more concrete and realistic than other ones um but as
57. 7:44Speaker 2: a voter you sort of have to be wise and and and and work that out and politicians will try to signal that to you through their bottom lines um but party maori for instance um you know, the Maori
58. 7:54Speaker 2: seats would not be in Parliament even. They do not clear the 5% threshold. They never come close to winning a general seat. They do win Maori seats, but their
59. 8:06Speaker 2: vote share in the party vote and in the Maori seats is not over 5%. They would not be in Parliament were it not for this sort of quirk. And yet they're describing a lot of their policies as bottom lines.
60. 8:18Speaker 2: And for those to be bottom lines, you know, they would need a mandate which would be much greater than the one they're even seeking. That's very complicated because, for instance, if parts of the tax policy are bottom lines, well,
61. 8:29Speaker 2: it's very difficult to say that you deserve to have this as a bottom line when you're not even asking for people's party vote. It's very complex, and I think
62. 8:37Speaker 2: it is a massive flaw with the MMP system, which is that everyone has to pretend that all the parties are equal and that all their promises are equal, and we all know that they're not.
63. 8:47Speaker 1: When it comes to the smaller parties involved, How important are they going to be this campaign season? Because I suppose from my view, everybody's saying, well, it's just another
64. 8:58Speaker 1: Chris versus Chris, right? And it's like, well, no, because over the last couple of elections, especially, smaller parties have had a larger voice, especially in the lead up to
65. 9:08Speaker 1: an election. And we've seen a three-way coalition last term.
66. 9:12Speaker 1: How important are they going to be?
67. 9:14Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, quite important. Opportunity, for instance, a minor party are very important because they are hoovering up a lot of the disaffected vote. They look like they're a clear 5%. And if they do clear 5%, it
68. 9:26Speaker 2: is very difficult to see a way for the coalition on current polling to get back into Parliament. So the polls we've seen, I think all but one of the polls that have had opportunity over five have also shown
69. 9:36Speaker 2: a change of government. So that's a sort of kingmaker position.
70. 9:40Speaker 2: The Māori Party are trying to encourage people to split their votes to trigger an overhang, which is quite politically
71. 9:48Speaker 2: dangerous because it could lead to a movement to abolish the Māori seats completely. But if the Māori party successfully creates an overhang, then they will have more seats than
72. 9:59Speaker 2: their party vote. entitles them to. So if you're a Maori voter in those seats, you'll be able to multiply the power of your vote in a way that is
73. 10:09Speaker 2: much more difficult than a general seat. So if that's the case, then that too would potentially lead to a change of government because if the Maori party does trigger an overhang, In a tight election, it's very difficult to
74. 10:20Speaker 2: see a way for the coalition to win. There has been discussion amongst supporters of the right-wing parties about trying a similar tactic, but it hasn't really gone anywhere. So
75. 10:31Speaker 2: that will be very important. And it looks like for the first time ever, it is possible that both parties, both of the major parties, will poll under 30% on
76. 10:42Speaker 2: election night. That's not guaranteed. There's a chance that both of them might scrape over 30%. But certainly it's looking like this could be a record bad performance for National
77. 10:53Speaker 2: and Labour.
78. 11:01Speaker 3: The latest Ipsos New Zealand issues survey is out and not surprisingly we are most worried about the cost of living.
79. 11:08Speaker 3: The top five issues are inflation, 59%, healthcare, the economy, housing and lastly crime. Other key issues highlighted by the
80. 11:20Speaker 3: survey included unemployment, poverty, and climate change. When it comes to who we trust to manage these things, National and
81. 11:29Speaker 3: Labour scored equally on the economy, National also claiming law and order, while Labour picked up the rest, housing, healthcare, and inflation.
82. 11:40Speaker 1: Do you think during the election campaign, National will be more scathing of its coalition partners than it has been over the last three years? Or will it kind of continue to be that peacemaker, I suppose?
83. 11:51Speaker 2: That's a good question. I think people are sick of the infighting with the coalition. So I think National will not want to spend too much time talking about its
84. 12:02Speaker 2: partners and will probably want to talk about itself and why you should vote for National. That's probably what they're going to want to talk about. In the past, it
85. 12:11Speaker 2: hasn't tended to play well with criticising your partners on the campaign trail. Labour and the Greens tried to stay away from it. And it worked quite well during the
86. 12:22Speaker 2: last Labour-led government. New Zealand First tends to be pretty aggressive towards its partners. And actually, after a stint in government, that hasn't played well for New Zealand First. They started
87. 12:33Speaker 2: out of Parliament in the 2008 election after that government, and obviously 2017 to 2022, when they were in coalition with Labour in 2020, they really turned on Labour, really,
88. 12:44Speaker 2: really turned on Labour in 2020. And that was a disaster for New Zealand First, among other things. They lost their election for a number of reasons. So it will
89. 12:53Speaker 2: be interesting to see how much National wants to push it. Obviously, there are some policies of New Zealand First's nationalising the BNZ.
90. 13:00Speaker 2: I mean, that falls into that category of promises that you were talking about earlier, which are just fanciful and will never happen. You know, I could leave my words there, but I find it very difficult to believe we're ever going to do that. And, you know, some of their
91. 13:11Speaker 2: other policies, their big multi-billion dollar future fund, for example, very difficult to see that happening in the current fiscal environment.
92. 13:17Speaker 2: So I can imagine someone like Nicola Willis going out on the campaign trail and saying, you know, that those ideas are a wee bit crazy. But I can't imagine them trying to go too much further than that.
93. 13:29Speaker 1: When it comes to the main parties, you've got Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins. What do you think on this
94. 13:37Speaker 1: campaign trail are going to be their greatest downfalls or challenges?
95. 13:44Speaker 2: I wrote about this after the last election. They're both very different. They're very different Chris's. For Chris Hipkins, he's a very good performer in the media and a stand-up.
96. 13:54Speaker 2: His political instincts are quite good. He knows everything. He knows where to position his party, and when a given issue comes out, he knows where to orient himself. So
97. 14:03Speaker 2: he's quite lethal as a campaigner in that regard, and he doesn't get himself into trouble in stand-ups and during his interactions with the broadcast media. And he comes across
98. 14:13Speaker 2: okay in debates as well. He's quite a strong debater, doesn't let a lot through and doesn't make mistakes. He's not a big one for unforced errors in politics and
99. 14:22Speaker 2: unforced errors. where you put your foot in your mouth are a big problem in politics. And we'll discuss that when we get on to the other Chris. So I think those are his real strengths. Where he's quite flawed
100. 14:33Speaker 2: is that he's a bit of an introvert. And at the last election, this is possibly a function of the fact that in 2023, it was very, very difficult to be the leader of the Labour Party because it seemed
101. 14:42Speaker 2: like wherever you went, half the country wanted to sort of yell at you.
102. 14:47Speaker 1: Yeah.
103. 14:47Speaker 2: So I think there's a bit of a function of this, but he is a bit of an introvert and doesn't actually enjoy– I should say doesn't appear to enjoy the kind of getting out, kissing babies style of campaigning, which
104. 14:59Speaker 2: is a really big part of New Zealand campaigns. And in a small country, if you get out to a lot of malls, for instance, Auckland malls, Wellington malls, Christchurch malls,
105. 15:07Speaker 2: those big strip malls, people really like to– interact with the politicians, see them in the flesh, shake their hands,
106. 15:17Speaker 2: have a quick chat. You know, you come up to people in the food court and just sort of like say hello. Chris Ipkins is, to me at least, when
107. 15:26Speaker 2: I did walkabouts with him, he seemed quite introverted and is not naturally comfortable in those situations. And you can sort of see that on TV. The pictures don't look that great. He sort of offers in the background, doesn't
108. 15:37Speaker 2: sort of insert himself at the centre of the story. Now, Christopher Luxon is quite funny. They're the opposite of that.
109. 15:44Speaker 2: Christopher Luxner is famously very, very bad with broadcast interviews.
110. 15:48Speaker 2: He frequently puts his foot in his mouth. He says things he doesn't mean. It was only six weeks ago, I think, that he made that MMP commitment on radio
111. 15:57Speaker 2: to hold a referendum on MMP. He regularly says things that are a bit tin-eared. There's the famous I'm entitled to the entitlement remark. That came from a stand-up, I think.
112. 16:08Speaker 2: He's very not so good there. But he's an extrovert, a massive extrovert. He loves meeting people. He's quite, in politics,
113. 16:20Speaker 2: they talk about the art of the 30-second conversation. And you've got to be really good at meeting someone, having a good chat with them in 30 seconds, really making them feel heard, making them feel empathised with, making them
114. 16:31Speaker 2: feel special before moving on to the next person and doing the same thing again. You know, you can have a lot of 30-second conversations in, you know, however long you walk through a mall.
115. 16:41Speaker 1: Yeah.
116. 16:42Speaker 2: You can meet hundreds of people and have hundreds of really powerful interactions. You know, and you think if you go to a mall and, you know, you're there for
117. 16:51Speaker 2: an hour, so you have 120 60-second conversations. Well, if you're the Prime Minister and all those people you had a 30-second conversation with, well, if they tell 10 people,
118. 17:02Speaker 2: which they probably will, that they had a chat with the Prime Minister, well, that's 1,200 people. You know, they might tell 20 people. And that's double that again. So it's...
119. 17:12Speaker 2: You can really, the numbers really work for you if you're really good with people. And Christopher Luxon is quite good at that. And for all of his floors, which you have seen a lot of in the last term
120. 17:23Speaker 2: of government, he is actually quite a good natural campaigner and is quite good with people. So I think you'll probably see that. I think people will be, obviously, he's a bit on the ropes because he's had two leadership issues.
121. 17:34Speaker 2: What was this year? So he's going into the campaign definitely bruised. And his polling is quite bad. But I think he probably will be surprised on the upside when
122. 17:45Speaker 2: they see him campaigning because he is quite good at that.
123. 17:48Speaker 2: And the final thing to your question is the debates.
124. 17:50Speaker 2: The debates do really matter in New Zealand because we actually have a culture where a lot of people still watch TV debates. It's not the same in other countries where people aren't tuning into the TV news so much.
125. 18:00Speaker 2: But New Zealanders, we really do. We're quite old-fashioned like that.
126. 18:04Speaker 2: We love a TV debate. So a lot of people watch them, which means that they do matter. and then they get clipped up on social media where even more people see them. Now, in these debates, they're very different.
127. 18:14Speaker 2: Chris Ipkins is arguably a more natural debater, but people thought during the last election that he's so ruthless about And so, you know, he can be quite a negative
128. 18:24Speaker 2: debater where he gets into people's flaws. And people didn't really respond to that very well at the last election.
129. 18:30Speaker 2: They didn't like how negative he could be. They didn't like the sort of needling away at Christopher Lux. So despite the fact that I personally thought that Chris Hipkins won most of the last election debates, although he debated
130. 18:40Speaker 2: really well, there was the suggestion from the polls at the time and some sort of public commentary that actually
131. 18:49Speaker 2: his negativities didn't come across so well. Now, on the other side, Christopher Luxon, there is a real risk for
132. 18:59Speaker 2: the National Party that when he's in a room debating with Chris Hipkins face-to-face for an hour and 90 minutes, that he puts his foot in his mouth a lot.
133. 19:09Speaker 2: He says a lot of really embarrassing things. That's a massive, massive risk. And Chris Hipkins is going to be trying to get him to do that. On the other side of things, one of the strengths that the Prime Minister does have is that he's a massive optimist, sometimes to
134. 19:20Speaker 2: a fault. He sees silver linings when other people only see clouds. And that can play quite well with a TV audience where you are, you know, summarily optimistic. Of course,
135. 19:32Speaker 2: when the mood of the country is really negative, the mood of the country is incredibly negative at the moment. People, the polling shows that people feel the country's on the wrong track when the economy is in the toilet. How's that?
136. 19:43Speaker 2: How's Christopher Luxon's optimism going to play with people if he's the only one in the country who's feeling good about the economy? He's telling you to feel good about the economy and you you know you're telling pulses that you actually feel really bad about things how's that going
137. 19:54Speaker 2: to play no one knows it'll be interesting to watch thanks.
138. 19:56Speaker 1: For joining us thomas no worries that's it for this episode of the front page You can read more about
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