Chapter 1: Who is predicted to win the upcoming election?
Thomas, who is going to win this election?
Wow, man, you're just declaring war, aren't you?
A war is what it is. Not the kind that chokes fuel supplies and sends the economy into a spin. The kind involving words. So many words. Just over six months to go till Election Day, November 7th, and the starter's gun has well and truly gone off.
Are you plotting to overthrow the National Party leader? No, absolutely not.
The Prime Minister's leadership is under more pressure after a one-use variant poll last night showed the left block ahead and Christopher Larkson's preferred Prime Minister rating down to 16%.
That's why you've heard me say I don't comment on polls. A lot of political parties sometimes have to remind themselves about unity and discipline and we'll do that. Are you sick of this? Which part?
The speculative bullshit and the endless myopic nonsense that's coming out from the backbench of your party. This is going to be a one-term government. I'm determined to make that happen. The mood for change is clearly growing.
Hello, I'm Alexia Russell, and in today's episode of The Detail, I'm checking in with The Herald's political editor, Thomas Coghlan, and RNZ's midday report host, Guyon Espiner. I asked Guyon the same question I asked Thomas. Who is going to win this election?
Well, I obviously don't know the answer to that either, but there's a bit of an old joke that says that in New Zealand, in elections, people do their democratic duty. Politicians give their speeches and the media scrutinises it and the public looks on and go out and vote on election day. And then we ask Winston Peters, who governs.
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Chapter 2: What challenges is the National Party facing currently?
In 96, the first MMP election, people thought he was going to go with National to the extent that the Sunday Star Times on that night of the election had a headline saying that Helen Clark had broken the glass ceiling and was going to become the first prime minister. What did he do? He went with National on that occasion.
He said he was going to go on the crossbenches in 2005 and ended up going with Helen Clark. And then in 2017, while Bill English got 44%, I think it was, with National, he went with Labour, who only had 37%. That's despite him saying that there was a constitutional convention that the largest party should get the right to start forming the government.
So bottom line is, be pretty careful about assuming what Winston Peters is going to do.
Okay, but he has been adamant that he will not go with Labour.
We don't win this election. This country's heading off to a much, much, much, much more desperate place than we are at the moment. And we could be, and we must be doing better than we're doing now, and we've got to turn our mind to that. But the alternative is horrifying.
Yes, he has. And people can ascribe the amount of weight to that that they feel is appropriate, given history. So you don't believe him? I'm not going to say that. I'm going to say what I said. Words matter, as a great politician once said. Yes, I think there are possible linguistic contortions that one might find oneself wound up in where he may be able to wriggle out of that.
I did give the 96 and 05 examples. Yeah, I would say that to assume definitely that he would go with the centre-right is a mistake.
Thomas Coghlan, not so sure this time. Could he go back on his word and go with Labour?
That's the big question that's being asked at the moment. One of the issues for the National Party is that one of the reasons why they're polling so badly is not because people are fleeing National for Labour, which would be very bad for the coalition. Some people clearly are fleeing National for Labour.
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Chapter 3: How is Winston Peters influencing the political landscape?
I don't see that going anywhere.
Neither does Thomas.
The National Party was formed to keep Labour out of power, and that is their driving ambition. And so I think I would find that these parties exist partly to oppose each other. One thing I suppose that's interesting about our parliament is we're an MMP system.
But we still have a kind of first-past-the-post mentality, and you're seeing that in this election, where actually, you know, you can vote for any number of parties, but ultimately, all New Zealanders are going to go to the polls, most New Zealanders are going to go to the polls this election, voting for the left team or the right team.
Now, in January, I spoke to Thomas about how election year might play out. Things have changed.
We were sort of saying when the election date was set that it seemed smart to set a late election date because the economy was looking like it was going to recover. That would probably mean a more benign environment to fight an election if you're the incumbent government who is in charge of the economy.
And given that most polls at the beginning of the year gave the incumbent government just a slight edge over the opposition, A slight edge plus an improving economy probably translated into a victory for the coalition. Now that's, you know, who really knows who's going to win an election. But that was just sort of baseline scenario.
And I think if you'd argue that point, people would say, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
But that was when we were surviving till 25.
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Chapter 4: What role does economic performance play in election outcomes?
I think also, though, for Labour, it's not only going to be policy, it's going to be path to victory. How can they show people that there is a path to victory for Labour and how willing are they to embrace it as Te Paati Māori and Green as their partners? Now, rightly or wrongly, Te Pāti Māori and Greens, to some extent, do worry some New Zealanders in terms of their policies.
And some of those mythical centrist New Zealand voters, will they frighten them off? So I think Labour needs to work that out. Is it going to deal with New Zealand first, despite those comments from Winston Peters? Are they going to entertain that? And what is their strategy with the Opportunities Party, or TOP, as they were known?
because I think the little sort of dark horse blipping out on the radar there, polls are showing them close to 3%. Kool-Aid Wong is the candidate in Mount Albert, which, if they won that seat, would mean they wouldn't have to breach the 5% threshold. Whose interests is that in? Maybe Labour's.
If Winston Peters is absolutely definitive about not going with Labour, is it possible that Labour would do what's called an electoral accommodation, which we saw in Epsom for many years when National let David Seymour win because... Act was going to support the centre-right. Would they pull Helen White, who's the Labour candidate there, and let top in? Who knows?
If they did, then that becomes not a wasted vote, does it? Even if they're sitting at 3%. If you win the electorate vote, obviously you get, what, five MPs or whatever the maths is. So that's the trigger to get you into Parliament. So that's the other little thing for people to watch out for. Will they have a serious crack at...
And do they have a serious chance to win an electorate seat, which means they wouldn't have to get, what, about 120,000 votes to get 5%? As you say, it's pretty difficult.
Well, especially in Mount Albert. I mean, I know it's been red for a while, but it's not a given that it's a safe red seat. It's not like Epsom that is always going to be blue.
Well, that's true. And my guess would be that Labour won't be brave enough to do it. But, you know, I think it's an interesting consideration and also would reduce New Zealand First's leverage, wouldn't it? Because if you had another kingmaker in there, then suddenly the leverage that New Zealand First has would be dramatically reduced.
So, yeah, I bet there'll be a lot of people turning their minds to that equation at the moment.
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