On these numbers, the party must now hit the 5% party vote threshold to make it into parliament. 

Despite talk of the Opportunity Party shaking up the election, its leader, Qiulae Wong, is streets behind the bigger parties in Auckland’s Mt Albert, according to a new poll for The Spinoff.

The Curia poll of 400 voters shows 10% would have given their candidate vote to Wong if an election was held the day before polling.

She trails well behind Labour’s Helen White and National’s Melissa Lee, who are lining up for another neck-and-neck finish to replicate the 2023 race, which saw White retain the traditional Labour seat by only 18 votes.

The poll has White on 33% and Lee on 32%. At numbers 37 and 30 respectively on their party lists, both will know they need to win the seat to remain in parliament.

It is the first time the hotly contested electorate has been polled in 2026, and the results come as The Spinoff kicks off The Great Mt Albert Debate (watch the livestream now).

The Greens’ Ricardo Menéndez March is on 14%, which is down from the 2023 election result where he took 23.7% of the candidate vote. Of those who said they had voted for Menéndez March in the last election but will make a different decision this time, votes were roughly shared between Wong, Lee and White.  

NZ First’s Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri sits on 5% and Act’s Alex Price is on 3%. Of the total sample, 6% said they were undecided. 

Opportunity is gunning for the party vote, trying to reach the 5% threshold that would see the party make it into parliament for the first time. If it fails to hit that mark, its next best shot is for Wong to win Mt Albert. 

That backstop position now looks a daunting hill to climb, but there is still more than five weeks of campaigning to go, including televised debates, and the party may take solace in the result from another poll question. Asked if they would like to see Opportunity in parliament, 51% of voters said they would, 29% said they wouldn’t and 20% were unsure. 

Although Wong has quickly built a profile and pushed the party’s polling to new heights since taking the Opportunity leadership in November 2025, she still doesn’t have the level of name recognition enjoyed by White and Lee. Asked if they could name Opportunity’s Mt Albert candidate, 31% of voters could do so correctly, while 60% could name White, 59% could name Lee and 44% could name Menéndez March.

The poll shows the party vote in Mt Albert is looking similar to national polls for National and Labour, who are both on 32%, and the Greens, who are on 19%. Opportunity is above the threshold at 6%, NZ First also sits at 6%, and Act is on 3%. 

The electorate, which is home to four train stations on the east-west line, is all about the City Rail Link’s opening, with 76% of voters saying they were positive or very positive about the impact it would have on their lives, while 17% thought it would have no impact. 

Housing intensification in the area (a development at the site of the former Carrington hospital is expected to add homes for 12,000 people), which has sparked some concern about pressure on schools, doesn’t seem to be weighing on the majority of the electorate, with 47% supportive or strongly supportive of intensification and 23% neutral. Of those surveyed, 25% opposed or strongly opposed intensification, while 5% were unsure. 

Asked what issue would most affect their vote, the cost of living topped concerns, at 34%, the economy was next, at 12%, and health came in third at 11%. Employment was the next most important issue, at 7%, and the environment was at 6%.

Mt Albert has been the seat of two Labour prime ministers – Jacinda Ardern and Helen Clark – and in 1954 was contested by National’s Robert Muldoon, who would go on to become prime minister in 1975. David Shearer, a former Labour leader, has also been the MP for Mt Albert. 

Polling was conducted from September 21-28 and the margin of error is 4.9%.

A note: The Spinoff really wanted to poll Mt Albert. We reckon it’s a key seat to watch this election, and as residents in the electorate, we’re super interested in how it’s going. Some months ago, we spoke to a range of polling companies about what we wanted and when and it was Curia who could deliver all the elements. Curia has proven an accurate polling company over many years, it follows the ESOMAR/ICC Code of Practice and the NZ Political Polling Code, and polls for a number of organisations, including National, and most recently, Whakaata Māori. There is no Taxpayers’ Union involvement in this poll. 

Catch up on who said what with the full debate video and Hayden Donnell’s rolling updates.

It’s our home electorate, and Mt Albert is shaping up to be one of the spiciest contests of the election. That’s why we held a debate putting Labour incumbent Helen White head to head with National’s Melissa Lee, the Greens’ Ricardo Menéndez March, Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong, Act’s Alex Price and NZ First’s Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri, with The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire moderating.

‘Mostly I’m finding: Self absorbed, anti-immigrant, uncultured.’

Want to be part of Dating Files? Fill out the questionnaire here.

Age: 60ish

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Hetero

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Religion: None

Occupation: Business owner

My living location is: Auckland central

The apps I’m on: None any more

I’m looking for: Don’t get me started. Kind, funny, intelligent and not afraid to leave the island. Passport essential.

Mostly I’m finding: Self absorbed, anti-immigrant, uncultured.

My last serious relationship was: 10 years ago. Different values caused widening rift.

The worst date I ever had: A man who kept ranting about the volume of Chinese people in Auckland.

The best date I ever had: In the US with an architect who was perfect.

The most regrettable thing I ever did on a date: Trip on a step which made me appear drunk.

The best thing a date ever did for me: Told me I was beautiful which stopped me being nervous and made my night.

The biggest red flag I’ve seen on a date: A man who spent the whole evening talking about his ex.

On a date I usually wear: Well-fitting clothes in subdued tones.

I have sex when: There is chemistry and I am confident there will be no violence.

I wish dating was: Not such a crap shoot.

This is what I think about who pays on dates: It doesn’t matter to me.

Three words that describe my dream date: Handsome, cultured, funny.

My dating advice is: Be confident but preserve the mystique. 

Want to be part of Dating in NZ? Fill out the questionnaire here.

Whakaata Māori held its first Māori electorate debate last night and no one held back.

The four candidates for the country’s largest electorate, Te Tai Tonga, gathered at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington last night. Co-moderated by Julian Wilcox and Maiki Sherman, the debate was the first of seven being hosted by Whakaata Māori across the Māori electorates.

A poll released by Whakaata Māori earlier in the day showed the incumbent electorate MP Tākuta Ferris was trailing his fellow candidates, with Labour’s Mananui Ramsden commanding a healthy 15% lead over his nearest rival Lisa Marie Murch, representing Ferris’s former party, Te Pāti Māori. Also contesting the seat is Lisa Te Morenga for the Green Party.

With none of the candidates likely to make it in on their respective party lists, the electorate is their sole path to parliament. So, last night’s debate was a prime opportunity for the candidates to put their best foot forward and convince the electorate they were the right choice. But what ensued was a shitshow, complete with interruptions, side-eyes, and personal attacks not often seen in Māori electorate debates. Here are some of the wildest moments.

Tākuta Ferris criticises the validity of the Whakaata Māori-Curia poll

 It took less than two minutes for incumbent Tākuta Ferris to highlight one of the elephants in the room – Curia, the company responsible for carrying out the poll placing him last. When pressed on his concern about not being placed higher in the poll result, Ferris responded: “Well, given where the poll came from, we’re not too worried about it.”

The comments refer to the recent controversy surrounding Curia founder David Farrar and accusations made in Dirty Work, the new book by investigative journalist Nicky Hager. In the book, Hager outlines Farrar’s close relationship with prominent right-wing lobby group the Taxpayers’ Union.

Sherman was quick to defend the validity of the polls: “We have had the polls independently checked whānau and the research methodology is sound.” But that didn’t stop the laughs and applause from the crowd in response to Ferris’s comments.

Mananui Ramsden promises Labour’s SolarSaver policy will be implemented the day after the election

Though not quite as bad as Christopher Luxon’s on-the-fly commitment to hold a referendum on the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system if re-elected, Ramsden’s party leader Chris Hipkins would’ve turned a Labour billboard shade of pink at his candidate’s comments about the party’s SolarSaver policy being ready to launch on 8 November, the day after the election.

“So you’re saying it’s going to happen on November 8?” asked Wilcox. Ramsden was quick to respond, “let’s do it Julian, let’s do it. What’s holding us back? Aim big, hit big, eh?” he replied.

“Does your leader know you’re making promises to deliver on November 8?” Sherman quickly asked, drawing some laughs from the crowd.

The crowd interjects

 Allowing the crowd to ask questions is nothing new in a political debate. But when that crowd is filled with impassioned Māori voters from the electorate, there is a risk they will make their voices heard, even when not being asked to do so.

The first question from the crowd related to the proposed disestablishment of the Waitangi Tribunal and Ramsden was quick to defend his party’s stance on the tribunal. Green candidate Te Morenga stated her party would seek to make the tribunal’s recommendations binding, which prompted a member of the crowd to ask if Ramsden had anything to say to that.

Although the interjection was quickly shut down by the co-moderators, it only fed into the narrative of Māori within the Labour Party being restricted by the party’s moderate leadership and machinery.

Ferris says he’d work with a National-Act-New Zealand First coalition

 When pressed by the co-moderators on whether he’d be willing to work with the current government coalition after the next election, Ferris responded that if there was no change to the government but he had the chance to “go in there and do something about it, I’d go in there”. Green candidate Te Morenga was quick to interject, saying “I wouldn’t sell my soul”. Ferris responded by saying he wouldn’t sell his soul either, but he also wouldn’t leave his people “to be hung out to dry for three years either”.

Te Morenga borrows the “unapologetically Māori” stance from Te Pāti Māori, only for it to backfire horrendously

In one of the stranger turns of the debate, Greens candidate Te Morenga criticised Labour’s leadership, stating the party’s position is “summed up by their billboards, where everyone is standing behind the white man who leads their party”.

“Is there something wrong with being a white man?” Sherman asked Te Morenga, who questioned who the politicians in Labour were answering to.

Sherman later raised Te Morenga’s criticism with Ramsden, who said: “Come on guys, it’s 2026. I’m a colour-free Māori that was raised in Ōtautahi.”

Te Morenga reiterated that she was criticising the fact Māori MPs in Labour have to “stand behind the Pākehās running the party”. Embarrassingly for Te Morenga, Sherman highlighted that the Greens were led by a Pākehā co-leader in Chlöe Swarbrick. “They don’t run our party, our membership runs our party”, replied Te Morenga. Sherman said the same could be argued for Labour.

The dirty laundry between Ferris and Te Pāti Māori gets aired out

 “Te Tai Tonga never left the party, the party left Te Tai Tonga,” Ferris said when asked by Wilcox if the people of the electorate could trust him following his very public falling out with Te Pāti Māori.

While Sherman was asking Te Pāti Maōri candidate Marie Murch about Ferris’s expulsion, he could audibly be heard saying “she doesn’t need to answer that”, appearing to stand up for his replacement in the party. However, Ferris could be seen on screen trying to keep a straight face as Marie Murch attempted to reconcile the party’s differences with Ferris.

However, Marie Murch then criticised Ferris, saying she hasn’t done wrong and “wasn’t asked to apologise for my behaviour online when I was doing racist rants”. The comments quickly drew some gasps from the crowd and revealed that there is seemingly no love lost between Te Pāti Māori and Ferris.

She came all the way back to Aotearoa to appear on Taskmaster NZ – only to end up being chased by a maniacal mob of sheep.

Rose Matafeo was trudging through some long green grass on the edge of the Taskmaster NZ property when suddenly, her life was in danger. The award-winning comedian, writer and actor had spent the last 30 minutes in a fruitless and bewildering search for the correct red flag, and she’d had enough. She’d already found plenty of red flags – maybe 10, maybe 10,000 – but according to the Taskmaster’s assistant Paul Williams, none of those red flags were the correct red flag. 

Then, Matafeo saw it – one last, lonely red flag, blowing in the breeze on the far side of the lake. As they made the long walk towards the flag, Williams realised they weren’t alone. There are sheep nearby, Williams told Matafeo, but his warning came too late. The sheep had already spied Matafeo, and started to trot towards her, picking up pace with each sheepy step. Turns out, sheep are surprisingly quick. “Stop, stop, stop!” Matafeo cried, and began to run for her life. 

What happened next was one of the most New Zealand things in the history of Taskmaster NZ, or perhaps even the history of the world. Matafeo pulled off a world-first earlier this month by becoming the first person in the world to appear on three different versions of the comedy panel series that celebrates spontaneity and silliness. She hoped to put her significant Taskmaster experience to good use in Aotearoa by remembering to read each task carefully, and taking a moment to consider all her options. Now, she has broken another record, by becoming the first person to be chased by sheep on Taskmaster. 

Episode six of Taskmaster NZ season seven began like any other, with a wacky prize task that saw the contestants bring in “the best spiky thing”. So far, so Taskmaster, but things then took a turn when Williams bought out the biggest task we’ve ever seen – a giant piece of folded paper that the contestants had to read from afar using binoculars. “Paul! That’s comically large!” Matafeo shouted from the balcony. “You look like Mike Teavee!” 

Like all great Taskmaster tasks, there was a trick to it. While the contestants read the task instructions and scoured the property in search of “the correct red flag”, they’d overlooked the small print – ‘red’ was actually written as ‘bread’. 

All the contestants had to do was wave the baguette and toast flag next to them, and the task would be over in seconds. But Matafeo didn’t do that. Instead, she committed to the cause, risking her life to find the correct red flag. She found red flags on the grass, by the trees, down the drive, and waved them all. She even tried waving two flags at once, but every time, Williams gave her the bad news. “I’ve not stopped the clock,” he said, over and over again. “Shit,” Matafeo replied. 

Then, Matafeo saw that fateful red flag on the other side of the lake. It stood against a bucolic backdrop of water, bush and blue sky, with no hint of the horrors that lay ahead. Williams offered to accompany Matafeo, just in case “one of the sheep chases you”. He knew. “Be alert of sheep,” he warned again, as Matafeo climbed a fence and began to walk through the grass. “I can’t stress that enough.”

Do sheep like red? Do sheep like bread? Would they, could they, eat the Taskmaster’s head? Perhaps they were lured towards Matafeo by the scent of the two sauce bottles she brought to every task, or maybe sheep just really like flags. Either way, those fluffy little feckers were on the prowl. “They’ve seen us, Rose,” Williams shouted, as Matafeo began to run towards the red flag. At least five sheep began their chase. She must have felt their breath. I’m sure I heard them laugh.

But even that red flag still wasn’t the correct flag, and the sheep knew it. They continued their maniacal pursuit, not giving a single woolly shit about what Williams was up to, their rectangular pupils transfixed only on Matafeo. They gained so much ground that Matafeo ditched the flag in terror and made a sprint for it. “They’re running after you,” Williams said helpfully. Moments later, Matafeo reached the safety of the road, that famous no-sheep-allowed zone. “I was fighting for my life,” she cried. 

New Zealand television and cinema has always appreciated the power of sheep. Shrek the Sheep was shorn live on the Holmes show, A Dog’s Show featured farmers putting different sheep in different pens, and we’ve even made horror films about them. Taskmaster NZ has now joined this fine sheepy tradition. This was another classic Taskmaster NZ moment that provided an outburst of unexpected joy in a world of chaos and calamity, a moment of TV magic – and those sheep don’t even know it. After Matafeo crossed into safe territory, the sheep stood and calmly sniffed that red flag, right where she dropped it. Their work was done. Perhaps it had been the correct red flag all along. 

Taskmaster NZ streams on TVNZ+ and screens on Mondays and Tuesdays on TVNZ2 at 7.30pm. 

Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers, and guests. This week: author of The Valley of Unlikely Acquaintances, Terri Te Tau.

The book I wish I’d written

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. It’s a dystopian novel written in 1993 but is set between 2024–2027. The story is told through the journal entries of Lauren, who lives with a condition called hyper-empathy where she feels the physical pain and pleasure of the people around her. It has a debilitating effect on her, especially when people on a drug called Pyro destroy her community, and violence becomes an everyday occurrence. The story balances this brutally graphic world with complex characters and a poetic philosophy that pulls everyone together. I also love Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy, which is an epic story of evolution, human nature, racism, sovereignty, whānau, alien erotica, agency and consent. 

The book everyone should read

The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay because it’s clever and hilarious and a good reminder that us humans aren’t the centre of everything. The story follows Jean, who is working at a wildlife centre when a pandemic that enables humans to understand animals spreads across Australia. Jean is on a mission to find her granddaughter and is accompanied by Sue the dingo as they navigate the chaos together. I miss Jean and Sue and wish I could have coffee and a ciggie on the front porch with them. 

The book I want to be buried with

Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime by Sean Carroll. But just before I die, I’ll open the Universe Splitter – a quantum-induced universe bifurcation app that Sean Carroll mentions in the book. In one field I’ll type “die as usual” and in the other field I’ll write “continue living as usual.” Then the app will choose which universe I continue in, and my other newly emerged self will continue in the other reality (that’s how you cheat death, Māui).

The first book I remember reading by myself

Here Comes Puffing Billy by Esta de Fossard. It’s a story about the restoration of a wee train that used to go past our house in Belgrave just outside of Melbourne. After a landslide the train was abandoned in a tunnel for years until the townspeople got together and lifted the stones by hand from the track, washed off his cobwebs and gave Puffing Billy a brand-new coat of red paint. 

The book I pretend I’ve read

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I read the first couple of chapters when my kids were babies so I could try again now that I’m not so sleep deprived. Also, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I have read some of it so can tell you that one of the characters (the main POV character?) is called Anaander Miana-ai, which is possibly the loveliest and most satisfying name to say out loud.  

Utopia or dystopia

Dystopia. I just re-watched the entire Walking Dead series while finishing an art project that required hundreds of thousands of hours weaving into the night. And I don’t regret it, apart from seasons seven and eight, which are a bummer, but season nine sets things back on track. I like seeing how people pull their shit together and get super resourceful. Sometimes people love their friends so much they risk getting their faces eaten off by zombies and that’s beautiful.

Fiction or non-fiction

Fiction because that’s when we get to try out the non-fiction stuff in different situations and contexts to see how it might work.   

It’s a crime against language to… 

…think that the version of the language we personally speak is better or more correct than someone else’s. Katherine D. Kinzler’s book, How you say it: Why you talk the way you do, and what that says about you, made me aware of how much racial prejudice is connected to language. She argues that linguistic discrimination needs to be talked about because it leads to the marginalisation of people based on how we speak, which gets filtered against cultural stereotypes and other racial bias. 

The book that haunts me

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. I found it in the bookshelf and read it when I was 11 or 12. I was so disturbed by the psychological fuckery that the dad pulled on his kids, and how they went on to harm others because of the lies he told them. I was intrigued by the story and how it was written though; it would be interesting to read it again to see how my adult understanding of it aligns with what I remember. 

The book that made me cry

The story ‘Stag Dance’ by Torrey Peters. It’s part of a short story collection by the same name. It follows a gang of lumberjacks illegally felling timber high in the mountains somewhere near Yellowstone. The foreman promises them a dance, and those who wish to are invited to wear a triangle piece of fabric over their crotch to signify that they will attend as women and can expect to be courted by the other woodsmen leading up to the dance. It’s told in the poetic lumberjack vernacular of Babe Bunyan, a very burly and highly skilled woodsman who would like nothing more than to don his very own triangular ‘skooch.’ This story is so brilliant in its tender and brutal moments that made me laugh as well as cry.  

The book that made me laugh

I recently read kluge by pip adam and loved the voice of the AI narrator, whose perspective on the world is so perfectly placed for deadpan delivery. Also, Hera Lindsay Bird by Hera Lindsay Bird and other writing by this writer makes me laugh a lot.

If I could only read three books for the rest of my life they would be

• The Māori Dictionary (whichever one Tīmoti Kāretu thinks is the best)
• The Forager’s Treasury by Johanna Knox
• The Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel (some reasons given below)

The book character I identify with most

I get really easily influenced by book characters. When I read Keri Hulme’s The Bone People I started Aikido lessons to get tough like Kerewin. I also found The Clan of the Cave Bear series in the bookshelf as a kid and wanted to be like Ayla in her Valley of Horses era – she invented horse riding and has a pet lion. When Jondalar comes along, she gets to show off how she invented fire making with flint and then he shows her his flint knife knapping and love making skills. Today Ayla would take out every survival program, she’s not going to sit around starving it out.

Encounter with an author

The first author I remember meeting (apart from the authors who attended the 1991 Masterton International Storytelling Festival) was David Hill when I was at intermediate in 1993. He took a bunch of us from different schools out to Castlepoint for a couple of days on a writer’s camp. David had recently written See Ya, Simon and I remember being really captivated by the story and learning about what led him to write it. We did a bunch of writing sessions with David then ran around on the beach making up silly songs. I remember so feeling free to be as bonkers and imaginative as we wanted. I loved that trip. 

The Valley of Unlikely Acquaintances by Terri Te Tau ($38, Spoor Books) is available to purchase from Unity Books.

The Te Pāti Māori co-leader leads her Labour challenger by 11 points, while Labour remains ahead in the party vote and nearly one in five voters are still undecided.

This story was originally published by Te Ao Māori News.

Te Tai Hauāuru voters have put Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer in the lead in a new poll.

Ngarewa-Packer led the Whakaata Māori-Curia poll at 38%, with Labour’s Te Pūoho Kātene at 27% and National’s Coral Raukawa at 10%.

However, a large group – 18% of voters – has yet to decide, and 6% chose “other” as their preferred candidate.

The poll was commissioned by Whakaata Māori as part of its Whakatau 2026 election coverage series. Curia Market Research conducted the survey from September 14 to September 24; it also polled for the National Party and the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

The poll surveyed 500 Māori voters aged 18 and older in Te Tai Hauāuru, including 420 by phone and 80 through an online panel. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5% with a 95% confidence level.

Nominations for election candidates won’t close until October 8, with some parties still deciding whether to stand candidates.

If the undecided are removed from the poll count, support for Ngarewa-Packer would rise to 46%, Katene to 34%, and Raukawa to 13%, while “other” would rise to 30%.

Labour leads party vote although drop in support

Asked for their party preferences, Te Pāti Māori was in third place at 18%, while Labour led with 30%, followed by the Greens on 22% when excluding undecided voters.

Although Labour continues to lead, it and Te Pāti Māori have seen a significant drop in party support since the 2023 elections, while the Green Party has more than doubled its support in the electorate.

Te Tai Hauāuru is the only Māori electorate which doesn’t have a Green Party candidate.

Key issues

Asked about the most important local issue affecting their vote, Te Tai Hauāuru voters identified the cost of living as their top concern at 36%, followed by hauora and the environment at 9% each, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi and housing at 8% each.

Given the controversial mining plan for the Taranaki seabed, voters were asked whether economic development or environmental protection was more important: 43% said both were equally important, 22% were unsure, 20% favoured protecting the environment, and 15% chose economic development.

A majority of 59% said there were not enough employment opportunities where they lived.

Asked what the next government’s highest priority for improving outcomes for Māori should be, voters chose honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi at 29%, followed by reducing poverty and homelessness at 26%, and improving health and education outcomes at 21%.

Te Tai Hauāuru is a Māori electorate covering the western North Island, encompassing southern Waikato, Taranaki, Manawatū, and the north of the Wellington region.

Who are the Te Tai Hauāuru Candidates?

Ngarewa-Packer, the former chief executive of the Ngāti Ruanui iwi, is known for health and environmental advocacy, and led opposition to plans for offshore seabed mining off the Taranaki coast.

She affiliates with the Ngāti Ruahine, Ngāruahine, and Ngā Rauru iwi.

She first entered Parliament in 2020 on her party’s list, having failed to topple Labour MP Adrian Rurawhe despite a close vote. However, in 2023, Rurawhe chose to stand only on his party’s list, and Ngarewa-Packer trounced her new Labour opponent Soraya Peke-Mason by 9,162 votes.

Most voters rated the two-term MP’s performance as good, at 37%, or average, at 41%. Just 13% rated it poor, giving her a net positive rating of 24 percentage points.

This time, Ngarewa-Packer faces new Labour candidate Te Pūoho Kātene, a Stanford University graduate and Fulbright scholar, who is the Tapuwae Roa chief executive (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Tama) and holds several governance roles.

Meanwhile, Rangitīkei District councillor Coral Raukawa has been selected as the National candidate in Te Tai Hauāuru. Raukawa (Ngā Wairiki Ngāti Apa, Ngāti Tamakopiri, Tamaupoko, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, and Ngāti Kahungunu) has worked across Whanganui, Taranaki, Rangitīkei, and Palmerston North, focusing on placing rangatahi into education, training, or employment.

The candidates will go head-to-head in a live debate on Whakaata Māori and MĀORI+ tonight at 7pm, co-moderated by Maiki Sherman and Julian Wilcox.

Where those vying for your vote stand on disability support and funding, accessibility standards, benefits and more.

Myriad issues will influence how people vote on November 7, but one area that concerns a growing number of New Zealanders is disability policy. As many disabled people know, it can be a struggle to find specific policies that will impact our community, and to know which party truly has our best interests at heart. With that in mind, here’s a round-up of the bigger parties’ policies on disability, as well as their track records on disability issues to date.

Labour 

Labour’s most significant policy related to disability this election is its promise to repeal the Disability Support Services Act, which was passed in September with the aim of setting up a formal framework for disability funding. There was widespread opposition from the disability community as the bill made its way through parliament, and while changes were made following the select committee process, concerns remained. 

“Instead of working alongside disabled people and carers to build a system that supports independence and self-determination, National has rushed through laws that give ministers greater powers to determine who gets support and on what terms,” said Labour disability spokesperson Priyanca Radhakrishnan when the law was passed. “Labour will repeal this flawed legislation and replace it with rights-based legislation that is drafted alongside disability communities.”

National 

National has no specific disability policies for this election, but its approach to disability in government has focused on making support more consistent, and financially stabilising disability support services (DSS). Earlier this year, disability issues minister Louise Upston announced that more choice and control over funding support would be given to disabled people, after significant backlash over changes made to disability support in 2024. In 2024 National also announced a five-year commitment to provide $1.1 billion to disability support services funded by Whaikaha. 

Greens

The Green Party has promised to introduce a disability rights law based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, with enforceable accessibility standards, and provide easily accessible and timely income support to meet all disability-related living and medical costs, regardless of relationship status and cause of disability.

The party says it will also work towards all disabled people being able to live in safe, accessible, affordable housing in the community of their choice, including by setting robust universal design standards for public and private housing. Earlier this year, Kāinga Ora was reported to have cut its target of having 15% of new public housing builds be accessible. 

The Green Party’s disability policy also addresses transport, a major concern of the disabled community. The Greens have promised to reintroduce the 75% subsidy for the Total Mobility taxi scheme after it was cut to 65% this year, making it easier to use and increasing the number of mobility vehicles to meet demand.

Te Pāti Māori 

Te Pāti Māori has promised to support Māori-led disability services and decision-making, and make it easier and less degrading to access support, as well as funding support “that fits whānau realities, not bureaucratic categories”. Te Pāti Māori says disabled Māori “deserve support that honours their mana, their whānau, and their right to live fully”.

Act

Act’s disability policy centres around the tightening of New Zealand’s benefit system to “restore fairness, personal responsibility, and the value of work”. The policy includes tightening medical certification for health-related benefits, with all health and disability benefits being independently issued by an MSD-approved pool of designated doctors. This has already been established as an option by the current government, but Act plans to make it mandatory. A person’s usual GP or specialist will still be able to provide medical history, clinical notes, and supporting evidence. Act will also allow for long-term arrangements for those with a genuine, enduring disability or health condition so support stays in place for those who truly need it. 

New Zealand First 

New Zealand First has no obvious disability-focused policies this election, but in parliament this term the party introduced a member’s bill on accessibility standards. It was not selected from the ballot so did not get a reading, but the Accessibility Standards Bill would build accessibility into new schools, transport hubs, and public buildings rather than adding modifications later on. It’s not clear if NZ First will reintroduce the bill to the members’ ballot next term.

Opportunity

One of the Opportunity Party’s key policies is a universal basic income, or citizen’s income, of up to $370 a week, or $19,400 a year. This would apply to all New Zealanders over the age of 18 and would replace current benefits, such as the Supported Living Payment. This would be paired with a specific universal disability allowance, which is projected to provide around $6,000 a year in additional support. The party would also allow for needs-based top-ups. The party says this universal citizen’s income would not replace specific disability funding for transport or assistive technology. 

The government’s books are improving faster than expected with Treasury now forecasting a $4bn surplus a year earlier than predicted, but much of the improvement comes from inflation and bracket creep rather than a stronger economy, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

Finance minister Nicola Willis hailed “healthy economic growth and a distinct improvement in the government’s books” as Treasury released its pre-election economic and fiscal update (Prefu) on Tuesday, RNZ’s Craig McCulloch reports.

The attention-grabbing number is a forecast surplus of around $4bn, up from the $2.5bn projected in May’s Budget and landing a year earlier than expected. The Government now intends to borrow $15bn less over the next four years.

Where the money comes from

So, good news, right? Well, yes. But also, no. The Post’s Tom Pullar-Strecker explains the mechanics: Core crown expenses are forecast to fall from 32.1% of GDP to 29.5% by June 2031, an outcome of cost cutting across most government agencies. At the same time, tax as a share of GDP is projected to rise from 27.6% to 29.1%.

This is where things get tricky. Treasury lists three drivers: inflation creating more “fiscal drag” (ie tax bracket creep, where rising incomes push people into higher tax brackets); businesses’ taxable income growing faster than the economy because things are so expensive which boosts company tax; and extra revenue from fuel excise duty and road user charges because petrol is so expensive. Together, an annual operating deficit of $10.bn is forecast to become an $8.9bn surplus.

So, as Pullar-Strecker puts it, “the improvement in the Government’s books owes little to a stronger real economy. Higher prices and incomes are doing much of the work, while spending is being held down as a share of GDP.”

The caveats

Treasury now expects slightly slower growth than it did in May (though 2.6% annually); unemployment and inflation are both forecast higher than previously predicted; and house price growth has been revised down to 11% from 18% by June 2030. ANZ senior economist Miles Workman described the forecasts as “on the rosy side,” The Post reports. Independent economist Cameron Bagrie was harsher, suggesting they counted the benefits but not the costs of inflation.

Treasury secretary Iain Rennie acknowledged that negative developments in the Middle East since the forecasts were finalised on August 21, along with the assumption oil prices will drop next year, meant growth was more likely to undershoot than exceed expectations. If that happened, he said, there would be flow-on effects for the fiscal forecasts.

Surplus before tax cuts

Speaking to the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan, Willis said fiscal consolidation – reliable surpluses and a falling debt curve – would come before any adjustments to income tax. “We cannot leave New Zealand vulnerable to the world with an extraordinary debt position,” she said. Once a surplus was achieved, “choices open up.” She said rewarding hard work through adjustments to tax thresholds was among the “values” behind her thinking, but delivering on National’s budget responsibility rules was the priority.

The balls!

On The Spinoff’s At Large with Toby Manhire, Bernard Hickey pointed to the irony at the heart of the Prefu: much of the improvement came from inflation, “the demon of everyone, including the government and voters.”

He took issue with Christopher Luxon’s framing on Newstalk ZB (“not many countries have got the balls to get their books back in order”) saying that “having the balls” also meant not building houses and leaving people treated in emergency department hallways.

Hickey also backed calls for an independent policy costing office to act as what he called a “video assistant referee in the political game,” pointing to the risk of another 2017-style “fiscal hole” fight.

On RNZ this morning, Jo Moir notes the Prefu landed after another tough poll for National, sitting at 28% alongside Labour. That gives National hard evidence for its economic pitch — but with the numbers this tight, and minor parties less able to assume the majors will tidy up their costings later, it’s unclear whose version of the books voters are really choosing. “There’s so little in it,” Moir writes, “it’s hard to know who would be leading what in any post-election chats.”

Tonight at the Spinoff debate, the rivals meet in what promises to be a thriller contest.

Every election throws up a handful of seat-edge battles. This time, in a field with some tasty prospects – Te Tai Tokerau, for example, or Wellington North – there’s a good case for Mt Albert as the buzziest, most bells-and-whistles electorate race of the lot. 

Why? Let us count the ways. 

The cutting edge of Auckland

Before we get to the mathematical battle and ballyhoo, the place.

The Mt Albert electorate covers a bunch of inner-west suburbs in New Zealand’s biggest city with a mix of vibrant communities from Sandringham to Pt Chevalier, from Owairaka to Kingsland. New Zealand’s biggest stadium, Eden Park, is just inside the border. The newest temple of outdoor music, the Western Springs Bowl, is just outside, thanks to boundary changes, but spiritually it’s part of the electorate, just ask the swans.

A surge in intensified housing is just around the corner, centred on the Carrington development, alongside the famous hospital structure campaigners are fighting to save. Slated to add homes for 12,000 people, the development poses opportunities and challenges for schools, health providers, businesses and infrastructure. 

Home to one mouth of the Waterview tunnel and the on-ramp to the glittering new City Rail Link, this is the vivid, fast-changing frontier of city-fringe Tāmaki Makaurau.

A nail-biter in 2023

In 2023, the battle was as fierce and the gap as close as rival noodle bars on New North Road. 

It took a full month to confirm the winner. Labour’s Helen White was ahead of National’s Melissa Lee by 106 votes on election night. After specials came in, that shrunk to just 20. Lee sought a judicial recount, and the court ultimately declared White the winner by 18 votes. Eighteen votes!

The top three from 2023, for the record:

Helen White, Labour: 13,238

Melissa Lee, National: 13,220

Ricardo Menéndez March, Green: 9,296

In the party vote, National came top, with 12,706 votes, ahead of Labour on 10,341 and the Greens within touching distance on 10,023. Down the field, Act won 2,681; Opportunities (as they were) 1,318; and NZ First 1,219.

A box-office battle in 2026

White won Mt Albert but three candidates won seats, with Lee and Menéndez March heading to parliament as list MPs. To those three sitting members in the race today you can add someone who has been more visible in the campaign than any: Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong. 

That heralds what’s being called a “four-horse race”. If it were a straight fight with Labour, Lee might reasonably have chucked it in by now, given how National has fared in the polls. But given Menéndez March’s performance last time, and the emergence of Wong, she can reasonably calculate that she could yet break the long red rule – more on that in a moment – and take the seat. After all, under New Zealand’s system you don’t need to win a majority of the votes cast, you just need to win more than anyone else. 

Permutations, oh the permutations

Wong is a Mt Albert resident and has been for some years, but there’s no doubt that one of the reasons she and the Opportunity Party are targeting the electorate is with a view to obviating the need to hit the 5% threshold in the party vote. The party has lately been passing that mark in almost all polls – making it comfortably its best period since Gareth Morgan founded TOP a decade ago. If you’ve got a string chart on your wall, you could argue this is good news for Wong’s electorate opponents.

White is 38th on Labour’s list, which puts her in the liminal zone – the party would need to boost its current polling by a few points to get her back in parliament that way.

Lee, meanwhile, is 33rd on the National ranking and, given the strength of the party across electorates, looks unlikely to get in on the list. By some projections, National could win just a handful of list seats, if any at all – a scenario that has been seized upon by some as an invitation to rort the system. 

And given the growing appetite from the leaders of the Act and NZ First parties for the “overhang strategy”, do their candidates in Mt Albert, Alex Price and Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri, actually want you to vote for them? We’ll ask them tonight.

A history of prime ministers

Since its creation in 1946, Mt Albert has been won by a Labour candidate every time. 

Across the last 16 Mt Albert elections (including byelections), 12 have been won by future or current prime ministers Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern. If you include Auckland West, a constituency covering roughly the same territory that pre-dates Mt Albert, you can add Michael Joseph Savage to the list. He won it seven times. 

That’s quite a legacy, especially if you’re representing Labour. Does it mean you get to be prime minister one day if you become MP for Mt Albert? Of course it doesn’t. But it can’t hurt.

The $9 million already spent on council amalgamation proposals is just the start.

If there’s one message our government has hammered more than the importance of local control, it’s that councils suck shit. Politicians from the prime minister on down have repeatedly taken aim at local authorities. They’ve criticised them for following the government’s instructions on parking. They’ve condemned them for having the temerity to build things other than roads. Most of all, they’ve taken aim at them for wasting your hard-earned money. Christopher Luxon in particular has long been haunted by an expensive twinkly toilet in Wellington and a cycleway on Molesworth Street that left him permanently marooned roughly 20 metres away from parliament.

You can debate the value of those projects, though it’s worth noting the toilets in particular have been a game-changer for Wellington’s disabled community. What’s not in question is that the bill for them is infinitesimally small compared to the gargantuan amount of cash the government has forced councils to flush down their rotten pipes and into the sea off Moa Point. 

The sums put $2.3 million twinkly toilets to shame. Start with the recent botched attempt at council amalgamation. In May, local government minister Simon Watts and RMA reform minister Chris Bishop told our local authorities they had three months to come up with plans for their own executions. If they didn’t do it themselves, they threatened, the government would do it for them. 

Psych. Many councils dutifully spent three months working overtime to develop merger proposals, only for Watts to tell them last week that nothing is going ahead until after the election at the earliest, though some suspect the amalgamations may never happen at all. Documents obtained by 1News show the estimated cost of the work so far is roughly $9 million.

When mayors complained about having to throw $9m into the bin, Watts told them to stop playing politics. Even that’s chump change compared to the costs the government has imposed on Auckland Council with its series of flip-flops, backtracks and U-turns on housing.

So far this term, it’s lowered the mandatory minimum housing capacity the council has to implement from two million, to 1.6 million, to 1.4 million. Each time, the council has scrapped much of its old work and spent time developing a new plan. The vacillating was estimated to have cost about $15m in July, though according to council sources that figure has grown.

Painful, but still not as ruinous as the potential bill Auckland Council will have to shoulder thanks to the government’s fast-track legislation. It’s currently estimating that the “unanticipated developments” that are either planned or already approved under that system will incur roughly $5 billion in ongoing infrastructure costs, including $2bn it won’t be able to charge back to developers at all.

This month, the government responded to council lobbying by changing legislation to allow them to pass on the full cost of greenfields development. But it won’t help Auckland when it comes to the 3,400-house Sunfield development near Papakura or the 1,200-house Delmore development near Orewa. Both already have consent under the fast-track scheme. Thanks to the vagaries of the planning system, the council doesn’t believe it will be able to make developers pay in full for the roads, pipes, powerlines and other amenities those precincts will need, let alone the strain the new residents will place on our transport network. Its development committee chair Richard Hills says ratepayers will likely be on the hook for around $500m in infrastructure and maintenance.

That’s to say nothing of the $7m five councils spent increasing speed limits around schools thanks to an edict from former transport minister Simeon Brown, or the estimated “tens of millions” they had to pay to hold government-mandated referendums on Māori wards that were already in place. All up, the bills foisted on councils by the government could buy them at least 200 light-up toilets with money left over. If they were the government, they could just chuck those extra costs on the credit card. Unfortunately for them, they’re held to higher standards of fiscal rectitude, with the Local Government Act 2002 requiring them to run balanced budgets. 

Back in 2024, Luxon issued a speech scolding local authorities for what he saw as their profligacy. He urged them to start setting “clear delivery targets and expectations” and “prioritising what to do and what not to do”. “My challenge to all of you is to rein in the fantasies and to get back to delivering the basics brilliantly,” he said. That message remains pertinent. Luxon was right to warn about the huge and growing costs that come with unclear planning and poorly thought out priorities. Only it turns out the target was slightly askew. If Luxon wants to find the real culprit when it comes to council waste, he should just look at his own cabinet table.

Bernard Hickey on the Prefu numbers announced today – and the case for a ‘video assistant referee in the political game’.

The finance minister, Nicola Willis, today hailed the “healthy economic growth and a distinct improvement in the government’s books” as the pre-election fiscal update landed ahead of the final sprint in the  2026 campaign. 

Since the budget in May, forecasts have brightened, meaning the deficit in the year to July 2026 saw a deficit $3.4bn lower than forecast. The year to July 2027 is now projected to see a $6.8bn deficit, down from the previously forecast $11.4bn.

The unfortunate irony, however, cautioned Bernard Hickey, on a new episode of At Large with Toby Manhire, was that much of this came as a result of inflation, which has tipped many people into a higher tax bracket. 

“It may not feel like it because prices have gone up more than wages,” said Hickey, who writes the Kākā newsletter, “but because people’s nominal wages have gone up, they’ve gone into the next tax rate category. They’ve gone over the threshold, and ‘fiscal drag’ has dragged them to having to pay more taxes.” The inadvertent motor here was “inflation, the demon of everyone, including the government and voters”.

Speaking on Newstalk ZB this week, Christopher Luxon trumpeted a focus in the years to come on reducing deficits and moving into surplus. “Not many countries have got the balls to get their books back in order. And this is what we have been doing differently from everybody else,” he told Mike Hosking. “We are zigging while the rest of the world is zagging.”

Hickey took issue with the fiscal conservatism. 

“There are choices being made here to repay debt early, to zig while others are zagging, to have ‘the balls’ to get our books in order. But it also means having the balls to not build houses for people to live in, having the balls to make sure that people are being treated in emergency department hallways. That’s what that means when he says having the balls to cut spending and cut spending growth.”

The Prefu and fiscal holes

After taking office in 1990 and immediately getting a fright, the Bolger-Richardson government instituted the pre-election setpiece, and the Prefu has landed ahead of every election since 1993.

“It’s the once-every-three-years presentation of the books to the politicians before they make their promises,” said Hickey. “The idea was that you have all the information, and everyone has a level playing field… and, in theory, voters can look at the promises versus the baseline of the books, and then there’s no complaints afterwards.”

Not that it will stop the fiscal squabbling, mind you. There was “absolutely” a case for introducing an independent policy costing office ahead of elections, said Hickey. 

“There’s a risk we’re going to have a 2017 style budget black hole,” he said, nodding to the “$11.7 billion fiscal hole” that Steven Joyce alleged as Bill English and Jacinda Ardern were preparing for their first big debate. “That was a doozy, and forced very unqualified and under-resourced people like me and Vernon Small and Pattrick Smellie to effectively become the arbiters of whether it is a hole or not. Now we should still do that work, but it would be quite nice to have some professional Treasury types who have the time and the spreadsheets to do a proper analysis of these claims.”

Adding such an office, in line with examples in the US and the UK, would help the public consider the arguments. “Experts who understand how these things work can be the referee,” said Hickey, “or the video assistant referee in the political game”.

For more episodes of At Large with Toby Manhire,  follow here for Spotify, or here for Apple. For YouTube, subscribe to the Spinoff here and find the full set here.

While Australia is fronting up to large tech companies, New Zealand keeps dragging the chain. 

Across the ditch, Anthony Albanese’s Labor government has made a point of tackling the emerging powers of big technology firms, social media platforms and artificial intelligence. When announcing a ban on social media for children under 16 in December, Albanese said it was “a day in which my pride to be prime minister of Australia has never been greater. This is world-leading. This is Australia showing enough is enough.”

In New Zealand, the government’s attitude has been less ambitious. Ministers have repeatedly said they want to be “fast followers” or “smart adopters”, opting for Australia or other comparable jurisdictions to move first before deciding how to respond.

Here are a few examples:

Social media for under-16s

Australia’s minimum age law for social media took effect in December 2025. It was the first country to take such an action, blocking underage children from platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. Australian communications minister Anika Wells reported that nearly five million accounts were removed by large platforms within a week. However, a study by Australia’s internet regulator found that more than 80% of underage teens were still finding their way onto the apps.

The New Zealand government introduced a bill in August this year that would establish the same age restrictions. However, coalition partners Act and NZ First pulled their support, meaning National would have to rely on tentative support from Labour to pass the bill.

Online safety

Australia introduced an eSafety Commissioner in 2015 as the world’s first government agency dedicated to keeping citizens safe online. In 2021, a law change gave the commissioner greater powers to take action against online harassment and cyberbullying, and ordering digital platforms to remove abusive content.

New Zealand’s Harmful Digital Communications Act, also introduced in 2015, provides some recourse for abusive online behaviour. Victims can complain to Netsafe or the District Court, but it’s done on a case-by-case basis and there is no active regulator. In 2023 the Department of Internal Affairs developed plans for a regulator with the ability to fine platforms, but the proposal was scrapped by minister Brooke van Velden.

Online scams 

Last year, Australia passed the Scams Prevention Framework Act, which requires banks, telcos and digital platforms to take a series of actions to crack down on scam messages and advertising, with fines up to AU$50 million per breach applying from March 2027.

New Zealand’s Online Scams Code, by comparison, is far weaker. It’s a voluntary industry code, introduced by Tech New Zealand and based on a similar Australian code. Companies that signed up to it, including Google, Meta and TikTok, committed to take actions against scammers but there is no regulator enforcing it or fines for breaching it.

Smart glasses

Australian agencies have been quick to consider how to handle the arrival of camera-enabled smart glasses – which, due to their covert nature, have been widely dubbed “pervert glasses”. 

In August, Australian attorney-general Michelle Rowland told the Australian privacy commissioner to undertake an urgent review into the privacy risks of smart glasses. And the eSafety agency issued guidance urging manufacturers to auto-blur faces, delay livestreams and show clear lights or sounds indicating that the camera is recording. The City of Sydney council, and several other local government authorities, have already passed bylaws banning the glasses in some public places such as swimming pools and childcare centres.

New Zealand’s privacy commissioner Michael Webster warned in August that the current settings under the Privacy Act needed to be looked at to account for the new technology. However, the government has not taken any steps to advance this. Minister Paul Goldsmith said regulations may be considered next term.

Sexual deepfakes

In 2024, Australia made it illegal to share non-consensual sexual deepfakes with a penalty of up to six years in prison – or seven years for the person who created them. According to the eSafety Commission, several commonly used “nudify” apps have gone dark in Australia since the law change.

In New Zealand, the issue has been most prominently championed by Act’s Laura McClure, who introduced a members’ bill which expands the criminal definition of “intimate visual recording” to include AI or otherwise digitally altered images. It would be broader than Australia’s law, though with a lighter penalty of up to three years in prison.

The members’ bill passed its first reading in May. It is currently at the select committee stage but will not become law until next term at the earliest.

Digital news bargaining 

Australia introduced the requirement for large tech platforms (primarily Meta and Google) to bargain with local news media sites in 2020. Facebook temporarily cut off all news content from Australian feeds, though backed down after negotiations with the Australian government. The latest addition, the News Bargaining Incentive, introduced in 2024, closed the loophole that allowed platforms to withdraw news. Instead, if large platforms opted out of making deals with news businesses, a fee would be paid into a fund, which would then be fed back into the local media industry.

New Zealand’s equivalent, the Fair News Digital Bargaining Bill, was introduced to parliament in 2023 during the final weeks of the previous Labour government. It sat in purgatory for a while after the election of the National-led coalition before being officially put on hold by minister Paul Goldsmith in December 2024. 

AI governance

In November 2025, the Australian government established an AI Safety Institute, with $30m funding over four years. Albanese set up an Office of AI within the department of prime minister and cabinet and committed to legislating standards for AI regulations, including copyright protections. 

Until July 2025, New Zealand was the only country in the OECD without an official AI Strategy. When the government finally introduced a strategy, it opted for a “light-touch approach”, according to minister for science, innovation and technology Shane Reti. The government adopted the OECD’s AI principles and created an expert panel to advise on AI use in the public service, but hasn’t passed any specific laws or created new offices of AI. Labour has proposed copying Australia’s homework by creating an equivalent office of AI, establishing clearer copyright laws and creating a more powerful online regulator.

Taking a “fast follower” approach towards rapidly evolving tech is a defensible strategy for a small country such as New Zealand, especially when a larger country right next door is funding policy research in the same area. But that only works if the government actually follows. Right now, New Zealand is sitting in the corner and watching.

A new season of Eat Well For Less NZ began this week on TVNZ – but can the show make a real difference in a world of rising grocery prices?

Exciting news, mates: the price of food is still batshit expensive. Household living costs have increased a jazzy 3.2% in the past 12 months, the price of butter rose 152% over the past decade, and even the weekly fish and chip parcel is 78% more expensive than it was in 2016. With the cost of our daily bread continuing to skyrocket while supermarkets make million-dollar profits and politicians bicker about what to do about it, it seems there’s no better time for Eat Well For Less NZ to come back to our screens.

Last night, chef Michael Van de Elzen and food educator Ganesh Raj returned to lurk in the supermarket aisles under the guise of helping New Zealand families make better nutritional choices and save some coin while doing it. The first episode of season six saw Van de Elzen and Raj help Auckland’s Anise and Dan, who are parents to three sport-loving teenagers. Food plays an important role in fuelling their active children, and their kitchen cupboards continually need to be restocked, much of it with gluten-free options. 

This means that Anise and Dan spend over half their weekly income on kai. Van de Elzen and Raj – the latter resplendent in an impressive fluorescent yellow puffer vest – watch as Anise and Dan tally up $698 on their weekly Pak’nSave shop. It’s great to see a lower-cost supermarket finally feature on Eat Well For Less NZ, but Van de Elzen and Raj also reveal that the family spends an additional $400 on eating out, food subscriptions and Uber grocery delivery top-ups. That’s an average of $1,111 on groceries a week – nearly twice the $596 that Van de Elzen and Raj say is the recommended minimum cost for a family of five to meet nutritional requirements. 

It would be great to see Eat Well For Less break that ideal $596 weekly grocery shop down for viewers, but Van de Elzen and Raj have other things on their plate. They’re here to help the family save money by shopping smarter, and, as they do in every episode, the pair encourage the kids to help cook the meals and suggest practical ways of reducing the grocery bill. Anise and Dan buy a lot of collagen supplements and protein-added foods, and Van de Elzen and Raj reckon they can save heaps by instead opting for wholefoods and more natural sources of protein. 

But despite Eat Well For Less NZ’s admirable efforts to change the way we eat and shop, the show continues to trip itself up. Mike suggests the family make a carrot cake to help fill the lunchboxes, but the recipe includes a whopping seven eggs, four-and-a-half cups of ground almonds, and two cups of walnuts. Looks delicious, but cost per (quite small) slice? $2.27. Mike also provides a recipe for a lamb shoulder roast in the slow cooker. The average shopper can buy a 2.4kg lamb shoulder roast for about $48 at the supermarket, but this meal breaks down to $7.35 a plate, or nearly $37 for one family-of-five meal. 

The economy has changed significantly since Eat Well For Less NZ began in 2020, but the series itself remains the same as it ever was. That’s a bit of a problem, particularly for viewers desperate for new ways to get more bang for their grocery buck. Still, there aren’t many shows where you can watch a panel of armour-wearing knights rank supermarket wraps. This episode’s taste test featured five medieval enthusiasts who munched on a variety of dry triangles of plain floppy flatbread, and their chosen winner (Farrah’s Premium) just happened to be the most expensive one of the lot. 

Does this all mean that it’s now impossible to eat well for less? As always, Ganesh and Mike manage to save the whānau some cash by showing them how to ditch pre-packaged products for homemade, but it’s their suggestion that the family halves their top-up Uber grocery deliveries – ie, spend less money – that means they’ll save the big bucks. Saving money by not spending it? Incredible. Eat Well For Less NZ certainly means well and always offers a useful tip or two, but can this show really make a difference for the average shopper in 2026? When so many New Zealanders are already struggling to afford the basics, Eat Well For Less NZ may well need to meet the market a little more.  

Eat Well For Less streams on TVNZ+ and screens on TVNZ1 on Mondays at 7.30pm. 

The historic Labour stronghold may swing back as Māori voters prioritise te tiriti and poverty action.

This story was originally published by Te Ao Māori News.

Incumbent MP Tākuta Ferris could lose his electorate seat of Te Tai Tonga, with a new Whakaata Māori-Curia poll showing him trailing behind every other candidate in the country’s largest electorate at 15% support, including Labour’s Mananui Ramsden with 30%, Te Pāti Māori candidate Lisa Marie Murch with 17%, and Green Party candidate Lisa Te Morenga with 16%.

The exclusive poll results were commissioned by Whakaata Māori as part of its Whakatau 2026 election coverage series.

The survey was conducted from September 14 to September 24 by Curia Market Research, which also polls for the National Party and the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

The poll surveyed 500 Māori voters aged 18 and older in Te Tai Tonga, including 420 by phone and 80 through an online panel. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5% with a 95% confidence level.

Returned support for Labour as Ferris struggles

The poll indicates that Te Tai Tonga could swing back to Labour if voters deliver a November 7 election result close to their preferences recorded during the survey period.

In modern times, the Māori electorate, covering Te Waipounamu, Rakiura, Wharekauri, and parts of Te Ika-a-Māui – including Te Whanganui-a-Tara – has most often been held by Labour MPs from the Tirikatene dynasty for 72 years, with only brief periods of representation by New Zealand First and Te Pāti Māori MPs.

However, Tākuta Ferris, who defeated long-serving MP Rino Tirikatene in the 2023 election, is running as an independent following a dispute within Te Pāti Māori that led to his departure from the party.

Candidate support and approval

The poll produced mixed views on Ferris:

• Approval ratings: Despite low voting preference, Ferris received positive net approval: 29% said he had done a good job and 11% said he had done a poor job, giving a net rating of +18 percentage points.
• Demographics: Voters aged 18–39 were significantly more likely to rate Ferris as good (37%) compared with those aged 60 and older (15%). Conversely, voters over 60 were more likely to rate him as poor (24%) compared with younger demographics (8%).
• Gender and age splits: Wāhine were more likely than tāne to support Green candidate Lisa Te Morenga (21% vs 10%). Her support was highest among those aged 18–39 (24%) compared with older age brackets.

When asked how important it is for an electorate MP to stand up to their party, 3% rated it very important, 43% somewhat important, 14% not that important, and 3% not at all important.

Party vote preferences

The poll showed Labour leading party vote preferences at 28%, followed by the Greens (14%), Te Pāti Māori (11%), New Zealand First (6%), National (6%), Opportunity (4%), and Free Palestine (4%), with 10% of voters remaining undecided.

The data also highlights a generational divide, showing that Labour support was lower among 18-39-year-olds (16%) than among 40-59-year-olds (42%) and those aged 60 and older (37%).

Honouring te tiriti Te Tai Tonga’s top priority

Te Tai Tonga voters were asked to rate their highest priorities for improving Māori outcomes.

Honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi ranked highest at 30%, followed by reducing poverty and homelessness (24%), improving health and education outcomes (20%), mental health and addiction support (13%), and addressing Māori unemployment (10%).

All four candidates will go head-to-head in a live debate tonight at 7pm on the Te Ao Māori News Facebook page, Te Ao Māori News YouTube page, Whakaata Māori, and MĀORI+, moderated by Julian Wilcox and Maiki Sherman.

As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a small town SESTA driver explains how they manage their money.

Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.

Gender: Male

Age: 56

Ethnicity: Euro/NZ

Role: Part time SESTA (Specialised School Transport Assistance) driver who cares for his mum.

Salary/income/assets: $23,280 before tax from 40 part time weeks per year. Plus we have mum’s state pension. $2o,000 in KiwiSaver, another $225,000 invested. We own a four-bed home between us.

My living location is: Small town

Rent/mortgage per week: $0 because we own the home.

Student loan or other debt payments per week: $0

Typical weekly food costs

Groceries: About $125, including non-grocery household items.

Eating out: $0, actively avoid it.

Takeaways: $16 on fish and chips every couple of months. I fake-away everything else we like.

Workday lunches: $0, I’m home between school pick ups and drop offs, so cook for us both.

Cafe coffees/snacks: $0, strict home brewer only.

Savings: $100 a week drops into an investment account just to have the habit. 4% KiwiSaver from my wages.

I worry about money: Always.

Three words to describe my financial situation: Eroding security, fortunate.

My biggest edible indulgence would be: Whittaker’s chocolate pods, mum’s favourite bought on birthdays and Christmas.

In a typical week my alcohol expenditure would be: $0, rarely drink these days.

In a typical week my transport expenditure would be: $75. I make a $300 tank of petrol last at least a month. This is manageable because I don’t have to commute for work.

I estimate in the past year the ballpark amount I spent on my personal clothing (including sleepwear and underwear) was: $150 in a once a year buy up of T-shirts and undies from Kmart.

My most expensive clothing in the past year was: A heavy weight black T-shirt at $14.

My last pair of shoes cost: $240, replacement Birkenstock sandals… still unworn as I’m murdering the old pair over winter. Usually last about 3-4 years.

My grooming/beauty expenditure in a year is about: $400: 4x$40 haircuts, blades and Palmolive shaving soap for my old school single-blade razor, decent deodorant stick and whatever aftershave The Warehouse has on special.

My exercise expenditure in a year is about: $0, Shanks’ pony is free.

My last Friday night cost: $0, I have become a stay-at-home hermetic misanthrope.

Most regrettable purchase in the last 12 months was: $90 on black trainers for work… they don’t quite fit right.

Most indulgent purchase (that I don’t regret) in the last 12 months was: Four tires, bought on special the day after the Iran war started and living in my garage until they need fitting.

One area where I’m a bit of a tightwad is: The supermarket. We are being robbed and I am doing my best not to go near the bandits who are robbing us. The local butcher (basically a farm shop) has mince $5 per kilo cheaper than the supermarkets. The local grocer/Indian specialty place is superb and always cheaper on seasonal produce. And The Warehouse has household basics like baking paper, tissues, bleach and soaps etc.

Five words to describe my financial personality would be… Trying hard not to spend.

I grew up in a house where money was: Available in limited quantities. We had what we needed, but I was in my 20s before my parents could afford a reliable car. And my 30s before I had an international holiday.

The last time my Eftpos card was declined was: Never.

In five years, in financial terms, I see myself: Downsizing. I’d do it now, but moving would be too much of a strain on my mum. Will try to return to full time work when the time comes, but my age makes it unrealistic.

I would love to have more money for: Security and free time.

Describe your financial low: Now. Lowest income I’ve had since the mid-90s. Returned to NZ in 2018 and frequently regret it. Reserves steadily depleting. I would once have described us as comfortable, but incessant cost increases are eroding security, while wages decline in real terms.

I give money away to: Cambridge Community House and Waikato Hospice, usually in March, claim your rebates people….

Both major parties are tied on 28% in the latest 1News-Verian poll, while the Greens have hit a record 16%. The left bloc could form a government, but only if National sticks to its refusal to work with Opportunity, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

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The latest 1News-Verian poll has the Greens at 16%, up four points and their best-ever result on that poll, beating their previous high of 15% in July 2017. 1News reports that would give them 19 seats.

Labour and National are tied on 28%, with Labour down two and National down one. ACT is on 11%, up two; NZ First on 9%, up one; Opportunity on 6%, down two; and Te Pāti Māori on 1%, steady. 13% of voters did not know or refused to say.

The poll modelled two scenarios based on how many electorates Te Pāti Māori wins – either four Māori seats plus one for Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s Te Tai Tokerau party, or just one electorate seat for Te Pāti Māori. In both, Opportunity holds the balance of power. If Christopher Luxon stuck to his ruling out of working with Opportunity, the left bloc would be expected to form a government.

‘Pretty cool, isn’t it?’

“Pretty cool, isn’t it?” Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick told 1News. “But look, I say the same thing whether the polls are up or down, which is that we shouldn’t just watch the polls, but realise that New Zealanders have agency.”

She said the party was taking nothing for granted, and that the party has room to grow further. “In order to do that, we are going to need to have portfolios the likes of finance, energy, state-owned enterprises, climate change, and so on.” Asked directly whether she wanted those roles, she said she had made clear the party needed to focus on “the levers that will actually change things.”

Swarbrick also rose two points to 8% in the preferred prime minister rankings, putting her third behind Luxon on 19% and Chris Hipkins on 14%.

Opportunity in the middle

Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong described 6% as a “solid base of support” and pitched her party as the vote for stability. “If people really want to see a stable next government, then they need to party vote Opportunity,” she told 1News. She said the result showed “real discontent for the major parties, a lack of ideas about how we tackle our big issues.”

On working with the Greens, Swarbrick told RNZ there was values alignment in some areas but “maybe a little bit of divergence when it comes to the willingness to allow corporations to kind of write the rules.”

David Seymour was similarly coy about Opportunity. “We don’t mind who we need to work with, notwithstanding there’s a few that are non-starters,” he said, before saying it was “very hard to know what you’re getting with them” and calling the party “a bit naive.”

Poll of Polls: change more likely than not

The Herald-Motu Research Poll of Polls, updated yesterday, points the same direction. Thomas Coughlan and Chris Knox report that a coalition of Labour, the Greens, Opportunity and Te Pāti Māori now has a 43.2% chance of being able to form a government, narrowly ahead of National, Act and NZ First on 42%.

The model assumes no overhangs, which could prove consequential as Te Pāti Māori and some government coalition supporters are deliberately trying to cause one by splitting their vote.

On this run of the machine, National sits at 29.4% and Labour has fallen to 26.9%. The Greens are on 12.1%, NZ First on 11.8%, Opportunity on 8.5%, Act on 8.3% and Te Pāti Māori on 2%.

But, if Luxon ruled Opportunity back in, the four parties would have a 99% chance of forming a government. His refusal is currently the difference between a comfortable majority and a coin toss.

‘The polls are trash’

Luxon, whose preferred prime minister rating rose two points, was unmoved by the party numbers. “The only poll that matters now is November the 7th,” he told 1News. He framed the choice as “Labour and their radical mates with six leaders and nine new taxes up against National with no new taxes and a long-term plan.”

Hipkins said he would not discuss deals before election day. “I’m not having conversations with any other parties about policy concessions or policy agreements until after everybody’s had their chance to have their say,” he said, adding that “only Labour can lead a change of government.”

Peters, whose NZ First rose a point according to the 1News poll, was as blunt as ever: “The polls are trash.”

Politicians and public servants have been trying to skirt or subvert the Official Information Act for about as long as it’s existed.

John Campbell sounded a little incredulous in his interview with education secretary Ellen MacGregor-Reid. She was talking to the Morning Report co-host about a leaked video showing Catherine Law, a school principal seconded to work on the government’s curriculum refresh, urging staff to circumvent the Official Information Act (OIA) by telling them not to put information shared with the office of education minister Erica Stanford into writing. Stanford had insisted that Law’s actions weren’t representative of a broader culture of circumventing the OIA. “Are you inferring this was unilateral and an individual aberration?” Campbell asked MacGregor-Reid.

She told him the comments were wrong and that she was eagerly awaiting an ombudsman report into the situation. “What Dr Law said in that video wasn’t OK. Dr Law is not a senior official. Dr Law is not a seasoned public servant… I cannot explain what Dr Law was thinking.” 

Journalists hearing those assurances may have sharted out their cornflakes. Trying to get politicians and their officials to release material under the OIA is one of this cursed profession’s most Sisyphean tasks. The horror stories are as numerous as the characterisations Nicola Willis has rejected. At a minimum, OIA responses are delayed to the full extent of the legal 20-working-day deadline. More often than not, they go past it. They’re almost always heavily redacted. Reporters regularly complain to the ombudsman for what should be easily accessible information. 

The issue isn’t confined to the education sector. Health NZ was censured recently by chief ombudsman Peter Boshier for repeatedly failing to comply with the OIA. “They are breaking the law by not releasing when they should, and at times, when they’ve said to me alright, we will release, they don’t do it. It’s making me very, very cross at the breach of the law,” he told RNZ.

Despite having a reputation for favouring adherence to the law, NZ Police has historically been one of the worst offenders when it comes to breaching the act. Earlier this year, it told our own Joel MacManus that one of its officers had never raised complaints with mayor Andrew Little over the actions of his councillor Ray Chung during the Wellington floods. As it turned out, the officer had. The police comms team had even drafted a response admitting as much before yoinking it and sending out a denial instead.

Meanwhile, the office of the prime minister and associate health minister Casey Costello have both been criticised by the ombudsman for their opaque handling of missives from lobbyists. In the case of the former, a staff member received advice from Fonterra and Z Energy on his personal email account. It then wasn’t disclosed to journalists who requested documents under the OIA.

The issue extends beyond the current government. In 2019, Stuff ran Redacted, an investigative series by Andrea Vance and Nikki Macdonald on the ways the OIA is abused, which revealed how government ministers meddled to delay responses to journalists. Public servants anonymously admitted they were instructed to interpret OIA requests as narrowly as possible in order to divulge as little information as they feasibly could. One agency deliberately misinterpreted a sitting MP’s OIA request in order to stymie their efforts. At the time, Boshier told Stuff the public service needed to buck up its ideas. “[It should be] encouraging agencies to answer the question ‘Why shouldn’t I release this information?’, as opposed to asking ‘Why should I release this information?’” he said.

Despite that, Vance, now national affairs editor at The Post, says not much has changed in the seven years since. In fact, it may be getting worse, as messaging apps, disappearing messages and increasingly fragmented communications make it easier than ever for people to avoid information getting on the official record. “What concerns me more is the direction of travel,” she says. “At a time when technology should make government records easier to search, store and disclose, we are instead seeing arguments about the cost of finding information being used to restrict access.”

Vance says she now regularly encounters agencies refusing OIA requests after they carry out basic keyword searches, see thousands of results and then tell her there’s too much material to review. She suspects public service cuts may be a factor in the increasing opaqueness, with organisations now too understaffed and strained to comply with their obligations. “And this is happening at precisely the wrong time. Public trust in institutions is under pressure. Technology should mean the government can be more transparent, not less,” she says.

If she was made the information tsar, we’d do things differently. Transparency would be built into policy-making from the beginning rather than being treated as an administrative cost afterward. As things are now though, we’re operating backwards. Policy decisions are being made in the dark, then journalists are tasked with reconstructing them through an increasingly ineffective freedom of information system that officials and politicians are finding easier and easier to evade. It’s almost enough to make you suspect that Catherine Law’s crime wasn’t that she said something particularly wrong or out-of-the-ordinary. It’s that she said it on video.

Which combination of typography, photography and colour won our hearts and minds in the all-important aesthetic election?

Now that National and Labour have officially launched their campaigns, there’s no denying it – it’s election season. And election season means it’s also hoardings season. You’ve seen them everywhere for the last few weeks. You may have even risked prosecution drawing on them. But no matter which party you think is offering the best balance of taxation and public services, of individualism and collectivism, of LNG and solar panels, you have to admit that some hoardings are just better designed than others. 

Now, we know it’s not an easy design assignment. A hoarding has to do multiple things at once – it needs to be eye-catching, easy to read, provide a snapshot of the candidate and party and, hopefully, compel some of those looking at it to vote for who’s on it. 

So, to help navigate the political marketing jungle of our berms and fences, The Spinoff has ranked and reviewed a selection of the hoardings of the biggest seven parties running in this election. We have scored them according to design, colour, photography, eye-catchiness, brand and political effectiveness. Review panellists have been anonymised in case of political reprisal (ie to give them the freedom to say something mean without looking like a mean person). 

Notes: 

• We have included only the seven parties that recent polling gives a realistic shot of entering parliament, because their hoardings are the most prominent. Sorry to all the small parties and independent candidates. We appreciate you, but we don’t often see your hoardings. 
• We’ve also leaned more heavily into electorate-specific hoardings as they tend to have more going on (you’ll notice a predominance of Mt Albert hoardings due to it being The Spinoff’s home base – tune in tomorrow night for the big debate). The exception to this is Act, both because it doesn’t have any candidates on my commute and because its party vote hoardings share a sensibility with electorate hoardings due to the prominent inclusion of deputy leader Nicole McKee, who I’m assuming internal polling suggests appeals to some people to whom David Seymour does not.

Anyway, on to the rankings, starting from the bottom…

7) NZ First

4.7/10

New Zealand First commits the dual sins of both doing too much and not enough. The party is lucky enough to basically have a monopoly on black and white (the colour combo most obviously associated with our country), yet has gone all in on dark blue as a nod to the New Zealand flag, which hints at a different type of patriotism than the black and white.

“It’s giving Barfoot & Thompson real estate,” one panellist said. “Resembles the very skippable inside cover for an annual report sent out to shareholders,” said another.

Another marked it down for its attempt at clever typography. “I’ve been staring at the yellow ERS in NEW ZEALANDERS for some time, trying to figure out the hidden meaning, but I’m stumped. Maybe that’s the point?”

On a more positive note, more than one panellist appreciated the portrait photography. “Gets an extra point or two for a nice photo of Winnie,” one said. “He’s nailed the almost perfect level of smile. Happy but not overbearing. I feel reassured.”

6) National

4.9/10

This one had us looking deep into the text for subliminal messaging. “On account of spending much of my life sitting in traffic, I’ve given a weird amount of thought to National’s approach of separating candidate and leader on its hoardings,” one of us said. “Is the chasm between candidate and leader a metaphor? But I have come to the conclusion that it’s actually quite good because it avoids the ghastly inauthenticity of obviously separate clear-cut photos of candidate and leader plonked next to each other as if they’re posing together.” 

Another panellist read almost as deeply into subject placement. “Melissa is separated from her leader by a wall of text, subliminally indicating her distant and forlorn list ranking.”

The positive? “Very blue. Clear messaging. Good eye contact.”

5) Opportunity

5.3/10

You might think that with its tech startup money and tech startup board members, not to mention the fact it underwent a literal rebrand recently, Opportunity would have done more with its branding. The party is likely to poll highly with content/branding/advertising/marketing agency types. But… “something about the Opportunity hoardings feels a bit cheap to me”, one of the panel said. “All that teal, or is it turquoise, just looks so… flat. Add some shading! Some texture! Some nuance!”

“Canva-core,” said another. “Marked up for nice photo of Qiulae, marked down for not explicitly saying candidate vote Qiulae. Do you want to win Mt Albert or not?”

“Expect better?” said yet another. “Do better with your election hoarding.”

“A bit boring, but also works well,” a more sympathetic voice said. “Lovely shot of Q, skin looks radiant.”

4) Labour

5.8/10

Labour didn’t fare much better. The faces are too small and the pink is off-brand and distracting. “Looks like an ad for a drive-time radio show.”

The good: “A classic of the genre … with enough that it’s not a total snoozefest,” one panellist said. “Helen in the white is so angelic heavenly vibes. Descend from the clouds and save us from this wretched Earth… I also like the straightforwardness of the two ticks aspect, which is either clunky or completely missing in other parties’.”

The bad: “Very real estate power couple”, “BORING”.

3) Act

6.4/10

Probably the best brand refresh in recent New Zealand political history. The pink, with yellow as the secondary, was a smart move to not just own its own sections of the colour wheel but to relegate the blue that always felt a little like National’s little sibling. I also like the font switch-up and the non-boring, lively photography.

“It’s an offensive shade of pink, really, but goddammit it works for them,” said one panellist. “Act’s hoardings stand out in a sea of corflute and you can’t blame Labour for trying to get in on some of that magenta magic this year. It’s not what you’d call subtle or chic but the Act-curious probably don’t want that woke sort of carry-on anyway.”

Another simply noted: “This Barbie is campaigning!”

2) Greens

7.1/10

The Green Party has taken a big swing this election cycle and, for the most part, the panel was impressed. “Sits beautifully in situ,” said one panellist. “Lovely.” “Inspiring! Makes me wanna do democracy!” said another. 

Multiple panellists noted the choice of shirt being too close to the sky – “he’s at risk of being camouflaged”, said one.

But it wasn’t all positive. “I don’t like Ricardo staring off into the distance. Yoohoo! Ricardo! Over here!”

1) Te Pāti Māori 

8.1/10

The party that polling suggests will get the lowest party vote percentage of those in competition here came out decisive in victory in our aesthetic election. The font is strong, the candidate front and centre (“no pesky leader in there”, one reviewer noted), the cut between the first and second names is confident. “Mana for daaaaaays,” said one panellist. 

“Fuck yeah this is what I’m talkin’ about,” said another, who gave this one a 9/10, the highest mark of the day. “Great photo. Compelling design. Simple message. No ticks littering the joint. ‘Get on board suckers, we’re engineering an overhang.’”

Slight criticisms included the lack of tick (cf above) and the “blending of the background colours could’ve been ever so slightly better”. 

Still. A clear winner. Ka pai!

The Q+A host talks about the struggle to get the PM to appear – and how he is preparing to host the first big leaders’ debate. 

December 2024. It was the month the Fast-Track Approvals Bill passed into law. Liam Lawson was named a member of the Red Bull Racing team. And it was the last time Christopher Luxon appeared on Q+A.

Since then, he’s declined every invitation to appear on the weekly TVNZ1 current affairs programme. “We have an open invitation,” Jack Tame told The Spinoff for an episode of At Large with Toby Manhire. “If he or his team are listening right now, we would be delighted to have the prime minister on. We can do any time that suits you. We’ll make it work”

The relationship with the prime minister’s office was “very cordial and respectful”, Tame said. “When we ask if he’s available, I think we’re usually told something along the lines of, ‘We’re sorry, the prime minister is not available.’”

Why does Tame reckon he won’t appear? “I don’t know. I mean, I can appreciate a couple of things. First of all, politicians and especially prime ministers have astronomical demands on their time and attention. I also think there is a material difference in coming on a political interview show where you might be interviewed for 25 or 30 minutes. Sometimes it can be quite a confrontational environment, and the level of preparation that might be required to come on a show like that far outweighs the level of preparation that might be required for weekly news hits.”

Luxon can hardly be accused of avoiding questions. He might have quit his weekly engagement on TVNZ Breakfast and ghosted Q+A, but he faces the media most Mondays for a post-cabinet press conference, keeps weekly appointments on RNZ and Newstalk ZB, and speaks to reporters on the parliamentary tiles and at standups around the country. 

“The prime minister does make himself regularly available for interviews with other shows,” said Tame. “I would argue that there is a distinct difference between being in a situation where you are taking a sustained line of questions from one interviewer relative to those other environments, so when you’ve got the press gallery all shouting questions, absolutely that’s scrutiny. There is, I would argue, more depth when an interviewer is able to kind of meticulously prosecute a case or follow a whole line of questions that perhaps isn’t realised in a group setting.”

As for the weekly sit-downs, “every politician, especially ones who reach cabinet or the ninth floor, is just just so embarrassingly media trained that they are very very capable of spinning and twisting and talking for seven or eight minutes or nine minutes, however long they need in order to soak up the time and get out.”

That marked out the “really strong communicators” from the more ordinary, he suggested. “It’s the difference between answering a question and not answering a question. Some politicians, I think, have got to a point where they are so media trained that they default to message and they default to not answering a question and trying to pivot onto a point they want to make, rather than simply engaging and acknowledging the trade-offs that are inherent in policymaking.”

Luxon is not alone in snubbing Q+A. “There are some cabinet ministers whom we requested many times who didn’t come on, or haven’t been on in some time. We’ve requested Louise Upston many times recently – many many times – and her team say they’ve tried to make things work with her schedule, but they haven’t been able to make it work. I recall we requested Casey Costello many times. Winston Peters hasn’t been on this term, so he hasn’t been on for three years now.”

Next week, Tame will host the first leader debate of the campaign, for TVNZ1. He’s moderated multi-party debates before, but this is his first with the top dogs. How is he approaching the task? 

“My sense is that the best debates have a little bit of surprise and delight,” said Tame. 

“So you cover off the kind of key policy stuff, especially when you’re producing a debate for a broad audience.” But in the cause of steering the leaders “away from their cue cards and all of the rehearsals that they’ve done, away from their media minders”, he said, “I always think getting them to talk about values is good… getting them to talk about the things that matter to them in a way that they haven’t rehearsed, and so that’s what I’m kind of thinking about at the moment. Not a grilling, necessarily, but an opportunity to compare and contrast their values.”

As to whether he would take a leaf out of the book of Patrick Gower, he said: “Paddy’s a master… Paddy seemed to have a habit of demanding that they commit to significant policies on the spot. So maybe we’ll try and do a bit of that.”

For more episodes of At Large with Toby Manhire,  follow here for Spotify, or here for Apple. For YouTube, subscribe to the Spinoff here and find the full set here.