The two Chris’s, or as one self describes Christopher, have met for their first debate.
The result was pretty conclusive. I joked with some friends that somenone should call the police, I had just witnessed the Prime Minister being beaten up live on TV.
The panel thought so as well. Twice as many thought Hipkins was better than Luxon.
Then we started to move through the expert panels.
The first commentator was National’s own Ben Thomas who has strong National links. He thought that Luxon had won, just. I laughed at that and wondered which debate he had been watching.
I waited for the Labour equivalent to be interviewed. There were none. It is disturbing how National voices have infiltrated the commentary and at the complete dearth of Labour equivalent voices.
In show of petulance after the debate Luxon said that he frankly did not care, obviously realising that he had not done well.
And it was noticeable that even the Herald’s commentators thought that Hipkins had beaten Luxon with Thomas Coughlan stating that National was on track to lose and Christopher Luxon’s debate performance didn’t help.
Paul the other one provided the country with very good service and counted lies that leaders said. He thought that Hipkins told one that he immediatelu corrected. But Luxon told 31 that he did not correct.
This was reinforced by McNaulty subsequently telling Simeon Brown that he should stop telling lies.
And in typical fashion Luxon spoke for a lot more than Hipkins, and uttered 50% more words than Hipkins.
But this did not help. He looked uncomfortable and his language did not have the cut through the Hipkins achieved.
Luxon also looked tired. Those poll results that have National consistently mired in the 20s must be taking their toll.
It will be interesting to see if there are any further debates. Luxon has already declined to attend a second TVNZ debate although there are reports that there will be a debate on Three next Wednesday and on Stuff the following Tuesday.
But bring them on. Luxon was tired and listless. And he had no counter when Hipkins held his feet to the fire, particularly on health.
While Hipkins did better than Luxon, the true winner of the debate was the minor parties and it's not appropriate to have major party leader debates when both Labour and National are looking at receiving 1 in 4 votes each, we don't have major parties anymore.
I really think we need to have ALL party debates so we can see them all debate on TV especially with the greens at 16% and act and NZf on 9-11%, I don't think the "major" parties should have a choice in refusing all party debates, they don't have the public support to refuse or rule out policies from minor parties for that matter.
There's a good chance neither of those men are prime minister after the election, coalition negotiations with weak parties means everything is on the table.
Regardless Hipkins won but 75% of the debate was "I agree" or "I was going to say the same thing" there's no daylight between these parties
In a country desperate for change we have two identical parties who disagree around the edges but both agree on brutal austerity and both are promising even more brutal austerity, lab/nats agreeing to keeping govt spending to an insanely low 30% of gdp means a further collapsing healthcare system, further dangerously degrading our infrastructure, underfunded education and deepening the housing and poverty crisises in NZ.
If you're on the left vote green, if you're on Maori roll electorate vote Maori party vote green, if you're on the right vote NZf or act, if you're in the middle vote top.
Labour and National have passed their used by date and by 2038 I genuinely believe they'll merge like the united/reform party merged to make national, why wouldn't they, they already act like different factions of the same party