The second leaders’ debate: ‘No fresh ideas and very little fresh information’

Luxon v Hipkins round two had little to offer other than a telling Luxon error, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

The NZ Herald leaders’ debate, moderated by Ryan Bridge, opened with both Chrises insisting, hand on heart, they had never lied in politics. As RNZ’s Craig McCulloch notes, it was “about as convincing as the next 90 minutes.”

Both parties sit on 28% and both leaders on 20% as preferred prime minister – so three out of every five voters prefer someone else. Bridge went for an early kill: “Why are you guys doing so poorly?” Neither looked inward. Hipkins blamed voter disillusionment; Luxon pointed to a "global political problem" where mainstream parties had “failed to deliver” – but not his, he clarified.

A turning point?

Luxon was holding his own through the first segment, as recounted by the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan, his “sunny disposition” contrasting with Hipkins’ frown. Then Bridge asked both to commit to lifting the minimum wage at the rate of inflation. Luxon said yes – adding it was “more or less what we've been doing.”

It wasn’t. The coalition has had three chances to lift the minimum wage and three times has increased it below inflation. As Coughlan notes, in 2024 alone the gap between the coalition’s 2% rise and an inflation-matching 4% was nearly $950 a year for a full-time worker – more than that worker saved in tax cuts. Hipkins quickly seized the opportunity. And Luxon never really regained his footing.

Hipkins on defence

Hipkins’ sharpest moment came on law and order. Following a story yesterday in which Green and Te Pāti Māori candidates posed for photos with Mongrel Mob members, he ruled out either party holding the police or corrections portfolios in any government he led – and said he didn't condone the visit. Today on The Spinoff, Veronica Schmidt calls it indicative of Hipkins at his (relative) best: “On defence, Hipkins’ shortest answers were the most effective.”

RNZ, however, questions the substance. At 28%, Hipkins “is hardly in a position of such strength to be dictating terms to his potential partners” – and the Greens would have a claim on a sizeable share of Cabinet on current polling. 

Hipkins was strongest on jobs and pay, noting 48,000 more people are unemployed than when Luxon took office. “You celebrate cutting jobs,” he said. “I want to create them.” On pay equity, he told Luxon: “[National] think women should settle for being paid less than men. I don’t.”

Luxon’s pitch

The Post’s Henry Cooke noted that Luxon finally got his primetime moment to deliver National’s core attack, looking down the camera to warn that Labour’s capital gains tax was “just the start” and Hipkins had an “unfunded set of policies.” “Mark my words, you are going to pay New Zealand. You are going to pay,” Luxon said.

He also deployed his best line of the campaign when challenged on the economy: “It’s really easy to burn a house down. Takes time to rebuild it.”

Hipkins called the CGT claim a lie – “This is why people don’t trust what you say” – and accused National of spending “hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell lies about the Labour Party.”

If no one wins, are we the losers?

When it came to verdicts, the Herald’s panel leaned towards Hipkins as a narrow winner, though only because most thought Luxon lost rather than Hipkins taking a win. “If anyone needed an illustration of why New Zealanders are disillusioned with our major political parties,” wrote Coughlan, “you only needed to watch tonight’s debate.”

Cooke wrote that it was hard to give it to either on points, though Luxon likely left having achieved what he wanted — uninterrupted airtime for his tax warning. “The real question for both Hipkins and Luxon going forward is whether anyone will be listening at all.”

Schmidt was blunter: “There was a lot of arguing but no fresh ideas and very little fresh information.” And then, blunter still: “Please don’t make us watch another one next week.”