As well as asking about candidate vote intentions (see update below), respondents in a new poll of the Christchurch seat of Ilam, conducted by Curia for the Taxpayers’ Union ahead of a debate this evening, were surveyed on how they would cast their party vote.

Excluding undecideds, 39% chose National, 10 points higher than the party’s 2020 result of 29%. Labour was 21%, a big fall from 45% in 2020. Act was 12% (9% in 2020) and the Greens 15% (11%). Top was on 6% (2%), Te Pāti Māori 5% (<1%) and NZ First 4% (2%).

On right versus wrong direction, 35% said New Zealand was heading in the right direction and 48% the wrong direction. Housing, cost of living  and law & order were the issues that mattered most to people, closely followed by public transport and health.

Averaging beneath 2% in national polling, the Opportunities Party’s hopes of making it to parliament for the first time rest heavily on leader Raf Manji and his attempt to win the seat of Ilam. A poll by Curia for the Taxpayers’ Union suggests the former Christchurch councillor has a very steep task ahead of him.

National candidate Hamish Campbell leads the field by some margin with 33% support, ahead of incumbent Labour MP Sarah Pallett, who defeated Gerry Brownlee in 2020, on 15%, with Manji third on 14%. Almost a quarter of respondents, 23%, were undecided or refused to answer. Neither Campbell nor Pallett is in a winnable position on their party lists.

With undecideds removed, Campbell scored 43%, Pallett 20% and Manji 18%. The poll, published ahead of a Taxpayers’ Union debate in the electorate tonight, was conducted last week and surveyed 400 potential Ilam voters. It has a 4.5% margin of error at the 95% confidence level.

Speaker of the house Adrian Rurawhe has opted not to refer Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi to the privileges committee after he made comments addressing a matter he said was suppressed by the courts last week.

Rurawhe said he would not be taking the matter to the privileges committee, but that “it is a contempt of this house to knowingly make reference to matter suppressed by an order of the court” without first notifying the speaker. Waititi did not notify the speaker last week before making his remarks.

In order to not potentially compound the actions of Waititi in breaching suppression orders from the court, Rurawhe said he would instead ask the privileges committee to advise on how the House should best approach such breaches in future.

However he said parliament’s relationship with the courts is of utmost constitutional importance and that Waititi’s conduct was “grossly disordered”. A vote was held for Waititi to be suspended from the House for one day, which passed.

Waititi himself is not present in the House today.

National’s finance spokesperson has hinted at how National plans to pay for its soon-to-be-announced tax policy. National has already stated it will reduce taxes for the “squeezed middle” but has not specified how it will raise the money to fund those cuts.

This morning on Morning Report, Willis told Corin Dann that National plans to implement “new revenue measures” to “responsibly fund” reduced income taxes, including targeting some “areas of unfairness in the existing tax system”.

When Dann asked if the taxes would be targeted towards pensioners, Willis gave a resounding no.

But when asked if the target for a new tax would be charities, Willis deferred, saying she wouldn’t announce the plan on Morning Report. And reiterated National’s promise not to introduce any form of wealth, inheritance or capital gains tax.

Dann pressed on the charities line and Willis circled around an answer. She did, however, say that, “when we announce them, I think the view most New Zealanders will have is ‘gosh, why weren’t those taxes already in place’.”

Currently, charities in New Zealand are exempt from paying tax on revenue. Churches are technically charities, which means Sanitarium – owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church – pays no tax. National is expected to release its full tax plan later this week.

As reported in The Bulletin this morning, climate change minister James Shaw didn’t get a heads-up about $226m in cuts to climate initiatives as part of yesterday’s cost-cutting announcement. Newsroom’s Marc Daalder reported that this morning. Daalder also notes that when asked about the climate impact of the cuts, finance minister Grant Robertson said he couldn’t remember whether cabinet had looked at them when the calls were made.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also released its latest report card for New Zealand this morning. As Tom Pullar-Strecker reports, the IMF says New Zealand remains significantly off track to meet the promise it made to the United Nations to reduce its net carbon emissions to half of its 2005 gross emissions by 2030. A doubling the real price of carbon credits by 2030, while “politically difficult”, could largely close the gap, it said.

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After being dramatically heckled from over a fence by a Freedoms NZ candidate during his media stand up on Monday, National leader Christopher Luxon was forced to move his scenic set-up inside, where he confirmed that National would be campaigning for two ticks in Epsom this election, saying goodbye to the longstanding deal with Act that’s seen Paul Goldsmith happily lose to David Seymour since 2014.

Seymour has a stronghold on Epsom, winning the seat in 2020 with a 9,000 vote majority. And thanks to the National-Act deal, Goldsmith has given minimal effort to campaigning for his own vote. He certainly didn’t sound confident when asked by Newshub about Luxon’s promise to contest the seat. “We’re not necessarily putting it up as something that we’re automatically going to win.”

Some campaign promises are harder to keep than others.