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Speaker 1: The winner of the week has absolutely got to be

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Speaker 1: New Zealand First, doesn't it third biggest party now overtaking

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Speaker 1: Act in the Greens in the latest Taxpayers Union Curier poll.

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Speaker 1: If you've been watching the polls lately, that is not

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Speaker 1: a surprise. This has been coming for a while. The

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Speaker 1: Nats have been up and down. Act has actually been

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Speaker 1: pretty flat. New Zealand First has just been heading up

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Speaker 1: for most of this year now. There are a bunch

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Speaker 1: of reasons for that. Winston is very statesman like. He

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Speaker 1: manages to disagree with his coalition partners without being quite

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Speaker 1: as bratty as David Seymour can sometimes come off as.

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Speaker 1: New Zealand First are choosing their battles quite well. They

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Speaker 1: stayed out of the pay equity kerfuffle so they didn't

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Speaker 1: cop the blowback like the others did. But mainly I

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Speaker 1: think what's going on here is they are being blunt

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Speaker 1: and refreshingly blunted. That Shane Jones does not care if

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Speaker 1: the lizard lovers get upset that he wants to dig

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Speaker 1: a mine where the lizards are. He just says it.

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Speaker 1: Winston doesn't care if Grayland and Aravali are offended, that

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Speaker 1: he wants trans women kept out of women's sport. He

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Speaker 1: just says it. He doesn't care if woll carpets and

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Speaker 1: if forcing wool carpets into state houses is probably a

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Speaker 1: bad financial decision. He just got it done. This party

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Speaker 1: is unashamedly, I think, appealing to a group of voters

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Speaker 1: that no one else is, which is working class New Zealand,

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Speaker 1: people who I think see things quite simply and often

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Speaker 1: more correctly than elites would care to imagine. It is

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Speaker 1: the same thing that is playing out in the UK

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Speaker 1: with the rise of reform. It is the same thing

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Speaker 1: that has put Trump back in the White House again.

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Speaker 1: Of the three coalition parties, New Zealand First is the

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Speaker 1: only one hitting the same vein of voters, and I

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Speaker 1: would say the same rich vein of voters. Now we're

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Speaker 1: still only talking about ten percent, and ten percent doesn't

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Speaker 1: a major party make, but it has only been headed

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Speaker 1: in one direction lately for New Zealand First, and that

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Speaker 1: is up. And I think that tells you something. For

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Speaker 1: more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news

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Speaker 1: talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the

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Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.