Source: Radio New Zealand
National’s Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis speak to media after Luxon’s State of the Nation address. RNZ / Calvin Samuel
Politicians sharpen their knives and their tongues as we bump our way to 7 November
Election day is 7 November, but 28 May is the date when the fur is predicted to start flying among the coalition partners.
That’s Budget Day, and political convention dictates that after that, the gloves are off and the minor parties can start doing their utmost to distinguish themselves from the coalition leader.
“You pass your last budget as a government in election year, then you kind of – wink wink, nudge nudge – kind of fall apart a little bit,” says the Herald’s political editor Thomas Coughlan.
“You allow yourselves to differentiate a little bit more, just so that by the time you get on to the hustings, onto the campaign trail, once you do that … the parties of the government have their own unique identity and they’re not subsumed into this bigger idea of the National-led coalition.
“So ACT and New Zealand First will be, after Budget Day I think, wanting to spread their wings and take flight and step out from underneath the shadow of National.”
Coughlan says it’s interesting though that this coalition has been more, shall we say ‘boisterous’, than coalitions past – and the three members have been arguing since they were sworn in.
“That seems to have been a strategy on behalf of all three parties, but particularly those two minor ones … to keep their own separate identities in the coalition. And to be fair to those two parties, it has worked, to a certain extent. Both parties are polling above 5 percent, New Zealand First for the first time since it entered Parliament. It’s the third largest party in Parliament.”
The Detail also talks to Newsroom’s political editor Laura Walters about the lead-up to the election.
She and Coughlan agree that the economy is top of the agenda, and National will be either helped or hindered depending on how people are feeling about their personal circumstances.
“It’s the economy, but it’s also that cost of living thing as well,” Walters says.
“It’s not just whether the economy is getting better – we’ve already seen some of those economic indicators tell us that things are getting better, that recovery is on the horizon. It’s not just about that, it’s going to be, do people feel like things are getting better? Are their grocery bills more affordable, are their power bills more affordable? Do they feel like they can get ahead? Maybe they can buy that first home, they can actually put some savings away.
“It’s about the economy, it’s about the cost of living, but it’s not just about the data and the theoretical – it’s about really how people feel.”
For more on the big issues this election, including possible leadership changes, listen to the full podcast.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
