PoliticsSeptember 20, 2023

Live: The Spinoff Election 2023 Megapod

Staff writers

One podcast, one livestream, 12 hours. Watch now:

There are 24 days until election day, and just 12 days until the orange signs start springing up on the streets of Aotearoa, signalling the start of advance voting. To mark this moment, we’re embarking today on a very special, endurance-level episode of Gone By Lunchtime.

The Spinoff Election 2023 Megapod will be livestreaming on YouTube (and will be available to view right here in this post) for 12 hours from 9am, with a smorgasbord of politicians, pundits and the good people of The Spinoff.

Along the way we’re going to be investigating the state of the country’s mojo, discussing political TV, guessing turnout, and time willing we’ll get into the state of the campaign and the alternatives being offered to the New Zealand public.

We’ve got a killer lineup for the day.

9am: I’ll be joined by Gone By Lunchtime heartthrobs Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas – we’ll be talking mostly about the first TV leader debate, maybe a bit about Angry Fence Man and the Act campaign launch.

10am: Mad Chapman, Duncan Greive and Anna Rawhiti-Connell jump into the studio for more post-debate chat – the view from the room, what the commentators said, all that.

10.30am: Michael Wood, MP for Mt Roskill, and until recently a senior Labour minister, is in the studio to discuss the campaign, the challenges faced by Tāmaki Makaurau and Labour’s prospects.

11am: Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-leader of Te Pāti Māori, talks Aotearoa Hou and the party’s priorities.

11.30am: An Auckland Central debate with Chlöe Swarbrick of the Greens, National’s Mahesh Muralidhar and Labour candidate Oscar Sims.

Noon: Greens co-leader James Shaw is in the studio to talk elections and climate change.

12.30pm: The insightful and excellent political commentator Lara Greaves.

1pm: National high-flyer and education spokesperson Erica Stanford.

1.30pm: Robert Patman on the election and the foreign policy questions we should be addressing.

2pm: A whistle-stop tour of some of the box-office electorate seats in election 2023 – with my colleagues Shanti Mathias, Stewart Sowman-Lund, Charlotte Muru-Lanning and Joel MacManus.

3pm: Deputy leader of the Act Party Brooke Van Velden is in the studio.

3.30pm: Ben McKay, the dashing Australian reporter in the press gallery on the campaign and the other vote on October 14 in Australia, the Voice referendum.

4pm: Andrew Geddis on how to put a coalition together.

4.30pm: Grant Robertson, Labour money man, will join us.

4.50pm: Raf Manji of TOP.

5pm: Youth Wings revisited: I’ll be joined by Aryana Nafissi and Felix Poole from series one of The Spinoff show to find out what happened since.

5.30pm: Policy.nz’s Ollie Neas on how the tool works and what the way people use it can tell us.

6pm: A dive deep into the psyche and philosophy of one of New Zealand’s smartest and most interesting people, Bernard Hickey.

7pm: We’ll start loosening the nuts on the wheels for an hour of Gone By Lunchtime versus Real Pod, talking reality TV and politicians, memes, zodiacs and political telly from back in the day, with Jane Yee, Duncan Greive and Madeleine Chapman.

8pm: Gong! Annabelle and Ben are back in the studio. God knows what we’ll talk about. Please send your questions for the three of us to toby@thespinoff.co.nz to help us crawl over the finish line. Send us questions, in fact, for any of our guests and we’ll do our best.

Stewart will keep us up to pace with news as it happens across the day, and who knows who else might spring a cameo along the way. Godspeed.

The Megapod will also be released in digestible hour-long episodes on the Gone By Lunchtime feed. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

‘If you value The Spinoff and the perspectives we share, support our work by donating today.’

Anna Rawhiti-Connell
— Senior writer

Keep going!

Photo: Stewart Sowman-Lund, design Tina Tiller

PoliticsSeptember 20, 2023

Luxon takes search for missing mojo to Auckland goat farm

Stewart Sowman-Lund

The Bulletin editor

Photo: Stewart Sowman-Lund, design Tina Tiller

He knows how to milk an answer, but today Christopher Luxon attempted to milk something else: a herd of goats. Stewart Sowman-Lund was there.

Christopher Luxon has made it his campaign mission to find New Zealand’s missing mojo.

“I think New Zealand is a country of endless potential, it’s the best country on planet Earth, we’ve got amazing people, we’re in an exciting part of the world in the Asia-Pacific region,” he told RNZ In June. But New Zealand, he added, has got to “get its mojo back”.

This Austin Powers-style search for New Zealand’s missing mojo is taking him to some unusual places this election campaign. After surviving last night’s TVNZ leaders’ debate, a debate that many pundits labelled as a win for the National leader, Luxon today headed out to Oete Goat Farm near Pukekohe.

Chris Luxon pats a goat (Photo: Stewart Sowman-Lund)

It soon turned into a hands-on event as Luxon, despite wearing a blindingly white shirt, decided to muck in and try his hand at milking some goats. Oete is the country’s largest goat farm, home to around 2,100 goats, and Luxon got to grips with the udders of about a dozen of them. Considering he scooped eight gelatos in a minute during a recent stop in Christchurch, his milking abilities weren’t half bad.

At first, Luxon struggled to achieve suction and was almost pulled along by the rotating goat carousel. He pushed through the surrounding media pack, the milk merry-go-round dragging him as he struggled to maintain hand to udder contact. “Why isn’t it going on?” he asked at one point, brandishing a pair of milking attachments. He was a man on a mission. He got so involved that a staffer confirmed Luxon did have a spare white shirt in the car ready to go – if necessary.

Chris Luxon’s white shirt dangerously close to a muddy hoof (Photo: Stewart Sowman-Lund)

Locked into campaign mode, and finally locking onto the goats’ udders, Luxon peppered the farm hands with a series of classic barbecue questions: “Do the goats herd well?” And “Is it like cows, that there’s a social hierarchy?” He wanted to know how they were milked, where they were typically exported to and whether there was a leader to “decide it’s milking time”.

A National staffer offered me a free pun: “He’s udderly committed to getting New Zealand back on track”.

Was there some sort of political metaphor to be milked from all this? Luxon was too transfixed by the goats to say. “It’s interesting to see how they herd, I had a view of a goat being recalcitrant and doing their own thing,” he mused. But, he added with a laugh: “We’ve got a clear hierarchy in caucus.”

Where do I put these? (Photo: Stewart Sowman-Lund)

Asked whether it was harder to milk a goat or debate Chris Hipkins, the National leader deflected by claiming last night’s debate was a lot of fun. “I didn’t quite know what to expect. The time went really fast, and I enjoyed being able to have a platform to say ‘I think there is a strong difference between us and our parties’,” he said.

It wasn’t necessary for the debate to “reinvigorate” him, he said, because he’s always invigorated out on the trail. “I bounce out of bed early and ready to go each day. I love any chance to get out and meet with New Zealanders doing a range of things. You come away really inspired going through a campaign process like this.”

He may have criticised New Zealand for its lack of mojo, but Luxon said his personal mojo stocks were high ahead of election day. “I’m loving it,” he said. “I get up at 4.30am every morning, seven days a week.”

And with that, Luxon headed off to his waiting car, en route to the bottom of the South Island. The search for New Zealand’s mojo continues.

‘Like a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, each member is vital to the whole picture. Join today.’

Calum Henderson
— Production editor