Kingmakers III.
Who on earth invited Ian Taylor?
Ian Taylor is an insufferable, moaning, bore. Why the hell did Stuff have him on as a commentator?
Seriously, it was bizarre. He essentially gave a party political broadcast on behalf of himself. He ranted and raved about everything that was wrong, and that none of the candidates were any good, and basically ignored the debate.
I really wondered, why was he there? He isn’t a political expert he runs a successful IT company, he was on Spot On when I was a kid, and what most Kiwis will know him for was being one of the biggest moaners the country, nay the world, has ever seen, during Covid restrictions.
While the rest of us got on and did our bit he shrieked that it was all about him and it was completely unacceptable that he be so inconvenienced. Look, it’s an impressive CV but I don’t see anything on it that suggests he’d be a good candidate for the role of political panellist, and so it proved - he wasn’t.
Here we see Ian explaining the GDP of Ireland to his co-hosts in the 1970s. Those really were the colours back then, blue was in short supply.
But back to the beginning of the debate, which you can watch here.
Last night it was last chance saloon for the minor parties to make their pitch, and hopefully find a partner before the last dance ended.
As you may recall the Press debate was originally supposed to be a head-to-head between the two major party leaders to be held last Tuesday. Unfortunately Chippy tested positive for Covid and had to go into isolation.
There were attempts put forward to provide a stand-in so the debate could proceed, or to reschedule it. At that point Christopher Luxon donned his chicken outfit and squawked that he was far too busy to be talking to the nation and that focus group feedback said people had gotten to know him a little too much, and further exposure might be detrimental to his brand.
He didn’t say the last bit explicitly, but the message was clear - they just don’t need to get to know me anymore, there’ll be time for that after the votes are counted.
So instead last night we had what must have been an unprecedented third debate between the third parties, a subset of whom will determine the shape and priorities of the next government.
This time there were Green’s co-leader Marama Davidson, New Zealand First (NZF) leader Winston Peters, ACT leader David Seymour and Te Pāti Māori (TPM) candidate for Te Tai Tonga Tākuta Ferris.
A return for Marama after James had a strong outing in the previous debate, and a new candidate for TPM. Of course the same old same old from NZF and ACT, it’s not like David would put Brooke up against Winston and the latter would be best avoiding putting his deputy Shane Jones up on the basis that he seems to have gone a bit troppo up North.
As for the prospect of either party putting up a third candidate - could anyone actually name the next people, the third ranked candidates, for those parties? In case you’re wondering for ACT it’s Nicole McKee, the gun lady, and for New Zealand First, it’s Casey Costello. No, me either - I rest my case.
The opening saw a very excited Tova O’Brien, “I screamed when I walked in here”, she said, wildly enthusing on her return to the spotlight. Alongside her was Luke Malpass, one of Stuff’s stable of neoliberal opinion writers. This one isn’t a convicted fraudster but he does come from the NZ Institute, I’m not sure which is less honourable.
The contestants were called to the stage as if combatants arriving for a boxing match, to pumping music. Tova was seriously amped up, even for Tova. Marama seemed to get the biggest cheer.
I do like the Press debate. With a proper audience of the public who are passionate and noisey, not a bored looking group of journalists that we get on Newshub or TVNZ. The debates can be a bit looser too. Perhaps because they’re not on TV so it’s more like an old-style town hall meeting and the candidates become a bit less polished. I recall one such debate with John Key where he was slurring so badly I’m sure he wasn’t drinking water.
We begin as always with the opening remarks. I’m going to keep some of this quite brief as after covering the first two minor party debates it’s hard to imagine the parties have too much new to say at this stage. Let’s be honest we’re all here for the Winston vs Seymour car crash, or maybe they’ve decided to be friends?
Winston pointed out in his opening remarks that the two other leaders should be there, we’ve had 30 years of MMP and this not a FPTP election. Couldn’t help agreeing with that, it’s been ridiculous that the major and minor party leaders have been kept entirely separate in these debates.
Marama was next explaining to people that they have the power, implicitly - bugger the polls and commentators suggesting it’s all decided. She said “the choice could not be clearer, a National/ACT/NZF government for the wealthy few, or an Aotearoa that works for everyone, that future is up to us.”
She wasn’t wrong about the wealthy few, with details of who actually benefits, and how much, from National’s plans finally being reported. #spoileralert - it’s not the squeezed middle.
In the same article it mentions Christopher Luxon’s failure to answer a question about whether dinosaurs exist. I’m going to cut Luxon some slack here and assume he thought Guy Williams, who asked the question, was referring to Winston and he decided to ignore it, like all the other questions about coalitions.
Tākuta was up next, he spoke clearly and passionately and got a good response from the crowd. Then finally it was David Seymour, fresh from his encounter with a couple of locals earlier in the day.
You might've seen it on the news. Two young protestors berating David Seymour over climate change and racism. Once they'd had their say he asked if he could carry on, so the two young women went and stood behind him holding their signs while he did the interview.
But what I find interesting from this photo is that I had no idea Seymour had a kid!
There was a question from a lady who worked in a food bank, talking about the increase in numbers they were seeing, and that it wasn’t just those on benefits, but many who were the working poor. The candidates were asked if they could relate to the cost of living issues that people are experiencing.
Seymour told us of people putting things back on the shelf because they couldn’t afford it, no one he’d met mind, but he heard tale of them. It was like listening to Nicola Willis quoting one of the fictional personas she uses in parliament. I’m not questioning for a moment that people are in hardship, but it was clearly not something that Seymour had come into contact with. His example was of people having to reconsider swimming lessons or ballet lessons. Those are things a parent doesn't want to do, but I’m not sure it was a great example of people doing it hard. Perhaps by ACT standards?
Marama passionately explained that she knew what people were going through and had been through it herself. She said the Greens would would give almost everybody in NZ a tax cut, to be fully paid for by a Wealth Tax. I’ve got to say it warms this old socialist’s heart to hear someone put it so simply, that by taking a small amount of wealth from those who have so much everyone can have enough. Some no doubt will call that communism, I call it sharing. Isn’t that what we learn as kids - to share?
Winston said he wanted to look at how the supermarket duopoly, and the Aussie banks are rorting the NZ public. Hmm good idea, but I can’t see that flying with National or ACT. For goodness sake National have even been rolling out John Key from the ANZ to save them from Winston, do you really think banking regulation will be a priority under a Luxon government? I imagine Christopher will do exactly what he’s told by people like John Key.
There was a typically banal Tova question asking what the leaders themselves had cut back on. Seymour said coffee, Tākuta said petrol. Marama said “what the heck, why are elite politicians being asked what we are cutting back on? That’s not important, what’s more important is what we will do to make sure real people have lesser costs.” Winston rather oddly said carbohydrates.
Tākuta said “what I do know is this, as long as the rich in this country are allowed to get away with hiding their money, building their wealth, accumulating it individually while the vast majority of this country slip lower and lower in living standards we will get nowhere fast. And if we think we’re gotten it at this point imagine what the next three years will look like.”
If Luxon or anyone was harbouring hope of a National deal with TPM, to avoid one with Winston, I think you can forget about that! Meanwhile Winston declared that Pharmac needed to be gotten rid of, which was a bit odd, although most things Winston said last night were decidedly odd, especially his ongoing claims that apparently only he knew what real Māori wanted.
Marama was getting pretty passionate at this point telling Seymout that the reality is someone gave him a plane to use for campaigning and they’re going to want something for it, and it’s not his friendship. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and it’s a good heart.
