Election eve: One last poll and one last debate

The final poll before election day predicts an extremely close election with Opportunity dangerously close to the threshold and The final debate had a few telling clashes, Henry Oliver writes in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin..

With one sleep to go, The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll puts Labour on 30.7%, up two points since late October, breaking a months-long stalemate in the high twenties. National has slumped to 26.4%, down 1.2 points in a fortnight and 12 points since the 2023 election – hovering dangerously close to its 2020 collapse of 25.6%.

Opportunity is sitting perilously close to the edge at 5.1%, which would give it six MPs and a decisive position in forming the next government. The Greens sit on 13.0%, NZ First 12.0%, ACT 9.8% and Te Pāti Māori 2.0%.

Labour’s late momentum is being driven by women and young voters, Andrea Vance reports. Hipkins leads among women by 11.7 points, 37.9% to 26.2%. Under-35s have consolidated behind the left – Labour 40.7% and the Greens 22.8% together take almost two-thirds of the youth vote, leaving National on 17.9%. National’s only demographic lead is among the over-55s on 32.0%, where NZ First (15.5%) and Act (14.3%) also poll strongest.

Four polls, tiny margins

This was the last of four polls published in the campaign’s final days, and The Spinoff's Toby Manhire notes they tell a consistent story when read together. The Post’s result echoes RNZ/Reid, which had Labour on 30.6% and National on 24.8%. Verian, Curia and Freshwater were all in the field over roughly the same period, and the bloc totals are strikingly uniform.

The critical variable is Opportunity’s 5.1%. “Should their result end up at, say, 4.9%, the existing coalition would be set to return to power,” Manhire writes. “The difference between 5.1% and 4.9% is about 6,000 votes.”

Then there are the electorates. Overhangs generated by Te Pāti Māori and National winning more seats than their party vote entitles them to “could end up decisive in a close race … and those electorates, as we've seen before, can sometimes come down to a handful of ballots.”

The last debate

The Q+A People’s Debate put seven candidates on stage together: National’s Nicola Willis, Labour’s Kieran McAnulty, Act’s David Seymour, NZ First’s Shane Jones, the Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick, Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong and Te Pāti Māori’s Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke.

On The Spinoff today, Joel MacManus writes that the most significant moment came from a question by physics professor Nicola Gaston about underfunded science. Willis cited investment in geothermal research and agritech but argued for fiscal restraint. Wong fired back: “Nicola, you’ve focused this term of government on cuts, not on investing to grow.” 

Willis asked to respond, turned to face Wong, and, according to MacManus, “at a volume that made Wong laugh uncomfortably”, asked: “Would you have preferred I didn't spend $600m on cancer drugs?”

“I would have preferred you didn't give $200m to oil and gas exploration,” Wong replied.

Willis pressed on – special needs education, new hospitals, tax relief. Each time Wong returned to the same answer: “The oil and gas industry.” Then: “I’ve just told you Nicola, you can take it away from the oil and gas explorations.”

The Spinoff's Joel MacManus called it “a bizarre moment to see the sitting finance minister ranting at the leader of a party that has never sent anyone to parliament. Rather than projecting confidence, Willis looked panicked and desperate, while Wong looked calm and in control.”

A summary of the election as a whole?

The other moments

1News’s Justin Hu picked out four more exchanges worth noting. Asked by a New Zealander who’s lived in Australia for 15 years what would bring New Zealanders home, Willis cited higher Australian inflation and interest rates; Jones offered “dig, baby, dig” and accused the left of wanting “to sing kumbaya and stroke papatūānuku”; Swarbrick noted mining employs 5,000 against 124,000 in arts and culture; Seymour said voters faced “a false choice” and that Australians had “an attitude of confidence, and hey, what’s next?”; Maipi-Clarke said the 170,000 Māori in Australia were “homesick to come back” but left for financial reasons.

There were unlikely agreements. No candidate would index tax brackets to inflation, McAnulty and Seymour converged on restricting fireworks sales, and Seymour and Swarbrick found themselves aligned on an under-16 social media ban – “overlapping views while maintaining our distinct identity,” Seymour said, to laughter.

McAnulty’s most memorable answer concerned vaping: “The only reason I got off the smokes was the vapes. And now I'm off the vapes, I'm on the nicotine tablet... I had one in my mouth until the very second that we went live.”

And one online questioner asked what parties would do about “state media bias”, adding: “I bet you won't ask this.” Jones said “one of those two is biased against me and my leader,” calling for broadcasters to serve New Zealanders “not small special-interest groups”. Maipi-Clarke said Te Pāti Māori relied on its own channels “because often, we're not a good favourite on mainstream media.”