Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was.
Politicians don’t dance in public unless they’re truly desperate, and usually they’re only truly desperate during the three-month regulated election campaign period. According to my calculations, the 2026 election campaign should start no earlier than June of next year, so why am I already seeing campaign activity out in the wild?
The events of the past week, taken in isolation, would have any reasonable voter believing we’re about to head to the polls.
Here’s an incomplete list of election campaign behaviour a full year out from an election.
Party leaders dancing
The prime minister dancing on camera should only happen when either Topham or Guerin is standing just out of frame with a taser. It’s the kind of soft selling reserved for campaign season when all bets are off and people are willing to accept all manner of behaviour from politicians.
And yet last weekend, both Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins willingly danced at an Auckland event celebrating Indian Independence Day. It’s the sort of move you pull on a September week-long road trip visiting every possible ethnic centre and religious institution in the country.
An MP ‘announcing’ a party policy
It happens every election. An enthusiastic candidate will promise something in a random community meeting or debate and then, when it’s duly reported, will retract it and apologise after being publicly chastised by their party leader.
This time, though, Labour’s Tāmaki Makaurau byelection candidate Peeni Henare has stood by his promise to repeal the gang batch ban if in Labour got into government despite Labour already stating publicly that it wouldn’t do that. Deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said Henare was “mistaken” to make such a claim, but he insists he was speaking personally, rather than for the party.
Debates about what is and isn’t a Labour Party policy in August 2025? I’m exhausted.
A minister going rogue (sort of)
On Friday, Chris Bishop told RNZ’s Morning Report unequivocally that areas like Mt Eden and Kingsland with major train stations should allow for high density housing, as high as 15 storeys. Bishop, as housing minister, has always been pro density but he’s a National minister saying some strong statements that would shock many of his colleagues, his party’s supporters and even outdoes Labour on pro-housing sentiment.
A strong move from Bishop and actually a relief, if not surprising, to hear it outside of an election campaign.
Sudden increase in party attacks
Labour has upped the ante on its press releases in the past month with broad subject headings like “[insert political issue] worse under National” and other taglines fit for an election campaign. On the other side, the National Party has been increasing its party releases (as opposed to government releases) and ministers have made a point of referencing the upcoming – by which I mean more than a year away – election. After Henare’s “mistake”, justice minister Paul Goldsmith sent out a press release in his capacity as “National Party spokesperson for justice” labelling Labour as soft on crime and accusing them of being “out of touch” with “everyday Kiwis”.
Two days earlier, finance minister Nicola Willis proudly spoke to reporters about New Zealand maintaining its AA++ credit rating and in the process, painted a scary post-election picture. “Every New Zealander will pay the price if a Labour-Greens government puts our fiscal reputation at risk,” she said.
If this is what we’re getting in a random week in 2025, it doesn’t bear thinking about what the actual 2026 election campaign will offer up.
The stories Spinoff readers spent the most time with this week
- Hayden Donnell argues there’s no such thing as “too many houses”
- Hayden Donnell again, stridently agreeing with David Seymour on compulsory helmet laws
- A deep investigation from Alex Casey into why a 2007 NZ emo anthem is missing from streaming platforms
- A tired teacher lays out why they went on strike on Wednesday
- The prime minister we almost had: Grant Robertson’s memoir, reviewed by Henry Cooke
Feedback of the week
“Impossible to dance freely in a formal suit jacket. The armhole is too tight, so you get those weird, strangled arm movements. Imagine what could have been if the jackets were removed?”
“Cursed addition to the karaoke playlist”
“I’ve seen both movies, and loved them – also their two Kiwi stars, of course. There is a ‘crossover’ though: a few years back they toured together as the Shayne and Don show, and more recently Don McGlashan’s touring band The Others includes Shayne Carter, plus he plays on Don’s new album.
I remember seeing Blam Blam Blam at UC Orientation and Christchurch Town Hall (with Hip Singles); and Double Happies as part of Doug Hood’s Looney Tours tour with Children’s Hour, TKP and Expendables – in Timaru. I also went to see Straitjacket Fits support Galaxie 500 in London… I am old.”
