She's baaaack – the anticipated return of Jacinda Ardern to the campaign trail means a good day for some, a bad day for others...
Christopher Luxon's day started well – but it was all downhill from there. "This is the best thing I have done all day, he proclaimed at one campaign engagement in Nelson, "other than wake up and have breakfast". As he and his entourage arrived at Forrest Wines near Blenheim to announce his policy to help double trade exports, the Marlborough winery's founder John Forrest was distracted. He shouted at someone he thought was defacing a National Party billboard. It was actually one of Luxon’s team, adding a vivid orange “Change the Govt” banner. While it would be presumptious of us to speculate on who Forrest and his team are supporting this election, they did present the National leader with a bottle of wine with the label changed to the party slogan: "Get NZ back on track".
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A good day for Labour leader Jacinda Ardern, rejoining the campaign from overseas. Eh what? She's not leader anymore? Yes, Labour looks to be distracted from its own leader after Chris Hipkins confirmed yesterday that we'd be seeing Ardern on the trail. She has already cast her vote in New York: "Flash flooding in New York wasn’t going to stop us getting our vote in for the New Zealand election today." Despite nine months spent distancing the party from her handling of Covid mandates and Three Waters and more, some Labour candidates will be wishing she still was leader – and will welcome her stardust.
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Ahead of last night’s minor leaders debate in Christchurch, the Act Party's David Seymour was momentarily distracted by two young climate activists, aged 16 and 17, interrupting his interview with the TV cameras to challenge Seymour about his willingness to reopen the country to oil and gas exploration, holding up a sign: "D. Seymour = F***ing idiot." (Credit to them for using asterisks so we didn't have to add them!) Unfazed, Seymour let them have their say for a minute, said it was good to hear "healthy disagreement" as well – but criticised them for using expletives. That's a bit rich from a leader whose TV highlights reel includes proclaiming that "the French love the cock", and "I'd shag Steven Joyce just to see his silly grin bobbing up and down."
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The Winston Peters bingo card was quickly filled up in last night’s debate. He said he’d offer experience to the next Cabinet, told moderator Tova O’Brien to “behave”, made reference to Sir Āpirana Ngata and the Māori Battalion, and noted: “I was brought up in a very, poor, poor Māori settlement.” But here's what jerked us out of complacency: Peters was quick to state that more immigration was the quickest way to augment the staff-starved health service. You heard it right.
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Greens co-leader Marama Davidson says she didn’t hear the voice of a man who yelled obscenities (and was quickly ejected) while she was speaking at last night’s debate, saying afterwards that she had a job to get the Greens' values and solutions out and that’s what she was focused on doing. But there was one voice that did distract her: “There was a little baby mokopuna just behind me, I think, and I kept hearing their voice throughout the whole night, and it just kept reminding me of whose voices are the most important.”
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Freedoms NZ party leader Brian Tamaki faced the biggest distraction of all last night: World War III. His words, not ours. At the same time others were at the leaders' debate, Bishop Brian delivered a livestream address about the Gaza War, warning that this was the start of a global war of religion, secretly backed by globalists who believed the planet Earth is overpopulated and is going to run out of capacity and want to overturn western liberal democracies. When he said “I think Kiwi may be a dying breed,” we don’t think he was campaigning for the endangered native bird….
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