If Labour was relying on the first televised leaders debate to turn the tide of public opinion this election, they will need to go back to the drawing board.
National’s Christopher Luxon was comfortable, well-prepared, and wasn’t rattled by pressure from Labour’s Chris Hipkins.
It is for voters at home to choose a winner, not media commentators, but there wasn’t a standout moment that would obviously decide it one way or another.
The first debate is the big one, almost a million people tune in, but the understanding among political strategists is that debates don’t decide elections.
Evidence from the US is clear, and a cursory analysis of the past four elections suggests it isn’t a game-changer in New Zealand either — none appear to have impacted the polls.
However, there are few opportunities to change public sentiment this late in the game and the televised debates can be used as a platform to make a splash in front of a million eyes.
The most notable example was Peter Dunne’s United Future climbing from less than 1% in the polls to 6.7% on election night, after a strong showing in a leaders’ debate.
David Lange was thought to have won a televised leaders’ debate during the 1984 campaign, an election he went onto win.
And commentators often point to John Key’s famous “show me the money” line from the 2011 election as being decisive, although it didn't noticeably shift support between the two parties.
Luxon un-Chipped
Hipkins did go on the offensive, calling into question Luxon’s honesty and asking tough questions about the implications of some National party policies.
But none of these attempts really stuck, and Luxon was able to get out responses sufficient to defuse the attacks.
The National Party leader only needed a draw to win and seemingly got one. He played the part of ‘statesman with solutions’ well enough to not lose any votes.
Both leaders appeared taken aback by an early question about how they would respond to a hypothetical scenario in which China invaded Taiwan.
Here, Chris Hipkins’ experience in the job allowed him to give a strong answer.
For a minute, we weren’t at a debate but instead listening to the Prime Minister of New Zealand defusing a question that came with authentic geopolitical risk.
Chinese diplomats in New Zealand will be noting the question and its responses in reports back to Beijing. Luxon answered second and parroted Hipkin’s answer, it’d have been interesting if he had to answer first…
Economic health crimes
Luxon opened his remarks by arguing that this election was “about the economy” but didn’t talk about it much. His biggest wins were on health and crime policy.
Labour’s goal to reduce prisoners by 30% would’ve been great, he said, if only it had come with a 30% reduction in the number of crimes committed as well.
But he was embarrassed by the moderator telling the audience the previous National Party boot camp policy had an 83% failure rate.
Hipkins took the opportunity to say Labour’s rehabilitation programme had an 80% success rate — one point to the red team.
Luxon correctly diagnosed that a shortage in doctors, nurses, and dentists was the biggest challenge for the hospital system, while Hipkins was stuck on the defensive.
“The best time to build a new medical training school was six years ago, but the next best time is tomorrow,” the National leader said. One point to the blue team.
A nation of homeowners
TVNZ’s Jessica Mutch-McKay opened a segment on housing with this introduction:
“1-in-3 kiwi households are renters. It's a sobering statistic for a country whose national identity has historically been tied with home ownership,” she said.
Hipkins and Luxon revealed they were just 24 years old when they bought their first homes; something that would be near-impossible for most people in their early twenties today.
Both men agreed that building more houses was the only way to bring down house prices.
Hipkins was asked whether it was “okay” that so many people were renters...
“No. We need to be a nation of homeowners, not a nation of renters,” he answered.
“We are seeing an accumulation of landlords, we are getting more and more mega-landlords now. Christopher Luxon and the National Party’s priority is to give them tax breaks”.
Here Hipkins does manage to score a direct hit. He turned and asked Luxon directly if he could guarantee that landlords would pass on the benefits of the tax cut.
Luxon: “What I guarantee is that you won’t see a…”
Hipkins: “It's a pretty simple question.”
Luxon: “You’re not putting any downward pressure on…”
Hipkins: “I think that’s a no”.
That’s a wrap
Perhaps the most memorable element will be the similarity (and banality) of some of their answers. Both leaders had almost identical questions to yes/no the quickfire questions.
When asked what they admire about each other, both said they respected the other's family values and willingness to take on a tough job.
When asked to name their favourite book, Luxon picked a self-help book about tennis and Hipkins said he didn’t read anymore... Inspiring stuff.
115 Comments
Luxon has the luxury of uncosted unreleased policy whereas Hipkins parroted the existing policy plan. The trouble is that many kiwis are feeling the pinch and whatever current plan in place is inevitably to blame. Both had their successes and failures, Luxon clearly done some homework on crime though fundamentally disagree with boot camps. I feel as though this was his strongest section. Hipkins took the W on housing in my opinion, otherwise fairly level.
Ultimately underwhelming for everyday kiwis, the majority of which are begging for tax reform and not a few dollars for fruit or ben & jerrys.
I cannot see how more of Labour will see house prices fall unless you are hoping for total economic mismanagement and collapse?
Their out of control borrowing will push interest rates higher and NZD lower, inflation will stay well above band and hosuing will continue to be unaffordable.
Interest rates are adjusted to control the quantity of money which the commercial banks create and lend into the economy and have nothing to do with the governments spending. The vast majority of our broad money supply is created by bank lending, over $600 billion in fact.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creati…
Yes, you’re right. Trouble is you can’t talk about it, but the silent majority will vote. We haven’t seen much of Mahuta in recent times, which may speak volumes. Trouble with go covernance at anything but a local level, where it works in certain instances, is that it isn’t co governance by Maori, but rather a small number of the Maori elite who have failed their people dismally as leaders. Look at the number of conflicts of interest controversies surrounding many Labour ministers, or the many issues with Tamihere. Then there’s Willy Jackson and the Roastbusters thing…
Might not be the main issue for some, but what was of more concern was the covert attempt to enshrine the Three Waters legislation. That was a calculated & deliberate act that not only defied the PM & cabinet, but undermined accepted parliamentary protocol, if not democracy itself, and alarmingly so. That in itself is an indication as to what extremes the advocates of co-governance are prepared to undertake.
Yvil as a private individual paid for his property under the current rule of law. I'd challenge you to prove that a private owner had land stolen from them by the Crown. And that prior landowner may have forcefully taken that land from another in inter-tribal conflicts.
Your analogy is more akin to France returning Alsace and Lorraine back to Germany.
Ain't going to happen. Get over it. You'll understand persecution if you were Jewish or Palestinian. But you're not.
In terms of perception the critical point is that Labour has six years of performance on record. The electorate can judge that and in particular for instance, the internal disunity and an agenda that was not entirely disclosed in 2020. Whatever those recognised negatives might be they are stark, they are on record. National is not carrying the same baggage and can only be criticised for policy or elements that are yet to happen. By nature, the former scenario heavily outweighs the latter.
I thought the questions were very poor. Who cares what they thought of each other , what book they had read , or wether they had been to church . The dental expert took forever to get his sugar tax question out ( good question though). not quite sure what the young mum was asking.
Questions represented common concerns (and some stupid questions too), but housing, crime, health, cost of living all known massive failures of this government….then with co governance thrown in on top, probably the most disliked policy of labour. To a certain extent Chippy was thrown under the bus here, he can’t and couldn’t explain his way out of these disasters and he himself even highlighted that he was actually Minister in charge of these various portfolios thereby implicating himself. His excuses were that ie was too hard, it had been a tough few years, kiwibuild was an idiotic idea, but Luxon is a liar. Explaining is losing, and is this case he lost badly.
Hipkins just needs to get brave enough to say house prices need to come down.
He's in a really strong personal comparison position - Hipkins has no skin in the game if they do (owns only owner-occupier homes), whereas Luxon has multiple non-owner-occupier, residential rentals.
7 house Luxon.
It's such an easy point to make.
I can't stress how important it would be for Hipkins to just say, house prices need to come down - rent prices need to come down. This is after all the biggest cost-of-living issue in NZ. Our nuclear-free moment :-)!
If you noticed, Luxon wasn't given the opportunity to finish his point. He was saying his plan is not to reduce rent, his plan was not let rent rising, at least not too fast, and reason for that is the landlords are at a breaking point.
if you think rent is high now, it'll be worse if it's even higher.
I don't fully agree with him but this is also a shit analogy. There is a fixed supply of land and houses compared to a flexible supply of fish.
And it would be more like if there was a fish shortage, one guy went to the supermarket, bought all the fish so there was no fish left for anyone else, then set up rules that made it harder and more expensive to catch any more fish which inflated the value of his own fish.
There is a fundamentally limited amount of land in NZ, we cannot physically create more, if you want more of it available to build on, bring in Japanese zoning if you want to open up more land for construction but it still wouldn't create more land.
And is that what we really want, to cram 100 million people into NZ?
I'd add to my above point about fish that there is a flexible amount of demand for fish, if it becomes too expensive people will choose other options. This isn't the case for housing where there is an inelastic demand, people straight up need housing and there is no real alternative so you're forced to pay exorbitant rents whether you like it or not.
I think you've missed my point. We have to ask the question, Is your neibour owning 7 houses the reason you don't own a house? if your neibour owns no houses, as Kate implies, does it mean you will have one?
as for land supply, all we can agree on, A, land is not free, housing is not free, it comes with a prices. B, We don't have to create any land, NZ has more land to support 5 million people, we should do better housing our population.
Some cheap parties kept feeding the idea of "I don't have fish because you have fish" to people, it's fundamentally and morally wrong. the real solution is to house the people who don't have, it's not to make the haves becoming have-nots.
From the debate both Christophers bought their first house at the same age, which was 24. There seems to be severe Tall Poppy syndrome in this country where apparently you all have to own nothing. Makes me pretty sick to be honest, some people are more driven and become more successful, Labourites need to get over it.
@Kate, why would chippie like lower rent? Tax take is 39% on every dollar on rent paid after 2025 (cant offset interest) further more and under current brightline if you sell your rental before 10 years he takes 39% of the Capital Gains? It is much more in labours favour to hike rents and rental houses to go up in price. More tax. So he will keep preaching lower rent and lower house prices however less landlords will enter market and if they do they will ask for more rent to cover expenses. That means more tax take. He preach sympathy however takes maximum tax. its very clever if you ask me
My problem is he's not preaching lower house prices and lower rents.
The fact that Labour have made being a landlord less profitable suggests your more tax theory is incorrect.
Hence, he just needs to be bold. Win votes. A third of the country are renters and there's not likely to be one amongst them that are happy about the amount of rent they pay, unless they're on a high income and are prepared to live in a dump.
What on earth was that? Just when you think debates can't get any worse we get questions like "What is your favourite beach" and "what book are you reading". TVNZ should be embarrassed.
The only potentially good thing out of this debate was that both leaders were so bland and uninspiring I can only hope that both parties take a plunge in the polls.
Luxon won that one by miles.
That hopeless panel were disappointed it was not a mongrel scrap. Which only illustrated their ineptness.
It was not a mongrel scrap, which pleased me. But Hopkins was uninteresting, but he was was stuck with Labours disaster record. Luxon impressed with clarity and firmness.
Luxon presented as if he was speaking directly to majority shareholders at a board meeting, and that speaks to some NZers clearly. Though in that scenario he would’ve gotten absolutely grilled over timings and costing and would have brought the budget with him. Without a clear plan that we can all read through, the waffle falls flat.
I find it concerning how much National seem to be committing to extra spend, haven’t closed their own tax loop, and yet they are campaigning on cutting spending without any indication of how any of that will actually happen.
If we were coming in fresh, new government both sides, I think voters would pick Hipkins based on last night. Was able to at least back up his claims with policy that was either planned or currently in place, costs and outcomes. Luxon too focussed on outcomes and letting businesses “run the risk of having a bad business model” in order to fix climate change. Smoke and mirrors.
"...…...Luxon presented as if he was speaking directly to majority shareholders at a board meeting, and that speaks to some NZers clearly. Though in that scenario he would’ve gotten absolutely grilled over timings and costing ..."
Yes indeed, and a million NZers would have evaluated him via tv as I did. He did remarkably well.
I wanted to know what their favourite cheese was or whether they preferred jam or marmalade. We only got to know the beach and the book. Who the heck came up with those questions? We did learn that Luxon supports universal free school dinners whereas Hipkins would means test, and Luxon would use tax payers money for EV charging stations but Hipkins would let the markets decide. Did they get their answers mixed up on the auto cue?
The debate was highly scripted, both Chris weren't allowed to stay on any questions for too long & there was next to no free flowing debate. The moderator was screaming for most it, almost trying too hard to shine.
The panel afterwards was terrible, the constant sports analogies was completely cringe. Henerae awkwardly saying it was a complete bore fest was the only real talk all night.
Word is that the Taxpayers Union panel at the Backbencher pub afterwards was much better.
Streaming starts at 9am. Probably NSFW.
https://www.youtube.com/live/AYqqfR2tg8I?si=dAqZPPDJGXU7nE_m
Luxon did better than I expected, Hipkins maybe a little worse but honestly can't see much in there that would swing many people's votes.
The big issue is that entire event was a stupid waste of time. The moderation was rubbish, the questions were rubbish, this trend of journalists making themselves the centre of the story must be stopped for the health of the nation ... and what about that weird post-match analysis (I think Tau Henare might have been drunk).
So frustrating. I detest mainstream journalists more and more every day because of their obsession with making the story/topic revolve around them, this is just another example.
Why do we even need a host? Just get a text to voice AI tool to read out a question, candidate A gets 1 minute to respond, candidate B gets 1 minute to respond to their response, then flip it around the other way.
I didn't tune in to have the moderator constantly interrupt.
First leaders debate I have ever watched in my 51 years and my thoughts, my god we are in trouble. Very underwhelming, bland vanilla questioning many of which were totally irrelevant and both Chris's basically just 'going through the motions'. Plenty of misleading information and blatant lies.
I am very worried for our future.
- Who cares what their favourite beach is
- Who cares what their favourite book is
Jessica Mutch McKay was a disgrace as a moderator. I've always enjoyed debates during election year but this time I surprised even myself when I turned off the TV after 15 minutes.
No substance in the questions, no digging into the responses, and frankly Jessica had no idea.
Like it or not bring back Hosking.
Watched the full 90 minutes and the post "Match" analysis. Luxon was the clear winner for me, he had all the answers and had bullet point steps and actions while all Chippy could do was try and tell everyone how bad National was 6 years ago or more as a diversion from how much they have stuffed everything up under his watch.
I just stole this from stuff comments, because it think it sums things up quite well, mostly the last line.
We need more investment in public transport and redundancy in our road network ASAP. Unfortunately no political party seems to be offering this. The Greens say building more roads magically makes more cars appear, while the right-wingers don't give two hoots about public transport and are even going to stop the very successful rebate scheme for EVs, pushing petrol prices and CO2 levels higher.
And it's not just transport in which they're hopeless. This election really is an Alien vs Predator election - whoever wins, we lose.
I've been watching Tame for the last few weeks. He's another over opinionated so-called tv personality. They're there to ask questions which they do very poorly [often the question is longer than the answer] & then they cut back in when the answer is getting answered with another banal question, again longer than the answer is allowed. The comments above re the poor quality of journalism on show is valid. The real loser is tvnz. They really are bad these days.
Simple way to bring down house and rental prices is for the government and councils to build low cost rentals never to be purchased just for rent at low cost this would stop overcrowded house people living in cars, crime would go down younger couple would have a hope of owning, to pay for this a sales fee of 1% on all house purchases and a cap on rent charges of $3 per square metre based on houses living area so 200 square metre would be max $600. It is time for greed to be taking out of housing everyone should be able the live in a house at a reasonable cost.
We need a party who can bring people together give people hope, many people work full time and just cannot to live after paying living expenses for family and then are struggling to buy food. If you are a couple on average wages you have no chance of owning a property from scratch this has never been the case in modern history anyone over 50 could of purchase a house at 3 x couples wages, both main party’s are just more of the same crap from labour wanting to control everything and happy splitting up families with mandatory jabs causing people to lose jobs and businesses, then national who thinks selling land and housing to rest of the world is a good idea so we become a nation who rent from people overseas.
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