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
"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." That is not my recollection of the debate. In fact I was amazed at the few times that they did agree as I recall.
With regard to your point in the final paragraph, with MMP we saw the splitting up of the two broad parties into smaller units that fitted more closely with voter's point of view. I believe that National will yet split over its rural conservative/socially liberal urban amalgamation which is basically what the United /Reform Thirties coalition was founded on. Now we have parties that are based on economic, social, environment, nationalist, racial divides.
The test in all this is for political leaders and parties to be able to form worthwhile and coherent coalitions from these five POVs. with at least ten differing starting points. What is not negotiable, what is tolerable. what is desirable?
MMP is not yet fully defined in our political culture.
I genuinely didn't think Luxon was terrible, although that may be because he has been delivering free gaffe-gifts for 3 years and my expectations of him are so low that getting through a debate without shouting "Edmund Hillary was a wanker!" counts as a good day. He survived.
Hipkins was Hipkins. There's no point hoping that he has the sharpness of a Michael Cullen, he is a competent plodder who doesn't do many zingers or howlers. He did his job and that was enough to win.
But the bigger picture is that most people don't watch (certainly not all of it) and so it's the headlines afterwards that cut through. Luxon saying "Frankly I don't care" (which was the subsequent headline in many media) is so typically Luxon it's as if it was scripted by his opponents. "Take the worst public impressions of you and reinforce them". He is oblivious and that never changes, and certainly won't in the next 4 weeks.