Speaker 1: Kielda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. The
Speaker 1: latest Taxpayers Union Courier poll and one News Varian poll
Speaker 1: show the coalition government is losing ground. Both show the
Speaker 1: left block of Labor, the Greens and to Boti Maldi,
Speaker 1: would have enough support to form the next government.
Speaker 2: It's all.
Speaker 1: While Prime Minister Christopher Luxen's first post cab of the
Speaker 1: year was marred by questions about ax David Seymour, the
Speaker 1: man set to become Deputy PM in May. Opposition leader
Speaker 1: Chris Hipkins has gone as far to call for Seymour
Speaker 1: to be removed as a minister over what he's calling
Speaker 1: a pattern of behavior. So is this the start of
Speaker 1: a fracture that can't be healed and does the public
Speaker 1: have good cause to be concerned about where we're headed today?
Speaker 1: On the front page, Newstalg z B political editor Jason
Speaker 1: Wols is with us to discuss the state of politics.
Speaker 1: First off, Jason, what do you make of the latest
Speaker 1: polling numbers?
Speaker 3: Well, we've got polls coming out of our ears. We
Speaker 3: had a long period where we didn't really hear anything
Speaker 3: from any polster. And then earlier this week, in the
Speaker 3: space of two hours, we got two pretty significant polls,
Speaker 3: and listen, they're both quite similar. But the part that
Speaker 3: I would say that is worth focusing on is the
Speaker 3: fact in both the taxpayers Union funded Caurier poll and
Speaker 3: the One News variant poll, it both showed that if
Speaker 3: there was an election the day after the poll was done,
Speaker 3: that there would be a change in government. It showed
Speaker 3: that the left block had overtaken the right block in
Speaker 3: both of them, which is a considerable develop It's not
Speaker 3: just one rogue poll showing this. Considering they happen so
Speaker 3: close together of a similar period of time, it does
Speaker 3: give a lot of palls for thought in terms of
Speaker 3: what Kiwis are thinking about the government right now. So
Speaker 3: I would say, if there's any main takeaway from this,
Speaker 3: it's not about the personal popularity of the prime ministers.
Speaker 3: Try saying that four times in a row. It's not
Speaker 3: about the really the intricate movements of the parties. It's
Speaker 3: about that left block versus that right block. And both
Speaker 3: of these polls show that we've had a change.
Speaker 1: What Americans leading to that change?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's the economy, stupid and that's not me calling
Speaker 3: you stupid. That is the age old phrase that has
Speaker 3: been etched in the memory of every politician from around
Speaker 3: the world because it is the economy. I mean, you
Speaker 3: just have to look at the right track wrong track.
Speaker 3: In both of these polls, which were pretty much remarkably similar,
Speaker 3: showing that about fifty percent of people in both polls
Speaker 3: thought that we were going in the wrong direction as
Speaker 3: a country, and about thirty three or thirty seven percent
Speaker 3: in between, the two of them show that we're on
Speaker 3: the right track. And now, if you're a government, those
Speaker 3: are terrible numbers for you because you don't win elections
Speaker 3: when people think that your country is going in the
Speaker 3: wrong direction and you're in charge of turning that metric around.
Speaker 3: So I think that that is the one thing that
Speaker 3: has been driving all of these polls. It does have
Speaker 3: a bit of a silver lining for the coalition government
Speaker 3: because we have yet to see the full impact of
Speaker 3: the interest rates from the Reserve Bank coming down being
Speaker 3: fully felt by New Zealanders. It takes anywhere between six
Speaker 3: to twelve, sometimes even eighteen months for that to fully
Speaker 3: filter through when those mortgage rates come down, and that
Speaker 3: leads to people having more money in their back pockets.
Speaker 3: But now, yes, it looks grim for the government, but
Speaker 3: the Prime Minister and he has been arguing that things
Speaker 3: will turn around.
Speaker 1: What do you think the general public actually thinks a
Speaker 1: right direction is Because you mentioned inflation, it's down, cost
Speaker 1: of living is easy, and interest rates are falling and
Speaker 1: the seeds of the government's latest push for economic growth
Speaker 1: are yet to be sown.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, well exactly, And I think the right track
Speaker 3: wrong track. It's really sort of like a gut instinct,
Speaker 3: you know. Somebody asked you whether we are on the
Speaker 3: right or the wrong track, and you just kind of
Speaker 3: think about it for a couple of seconds. You say,
Speaker 3: I think we're on the wrong track. I think we're
Speaker 3: on the right track. And there's a number of things
Speaker 3: that feed into that, but I would say that the
Speaker 3: main one is essentially the economy. People are just feeling poorer,
Speaker 3: you know, if you're a if you're a homeowner at
Speaker 3: the moment, like I am in Wellington, you're getting hammered
Speaker 3: by higher interest rates because mine haven't filtered through yet,
Speaker 3: and there's still a few quite a few other people
Speaker 3: in that position as well as well as rates, you know,
Speaker 3: so they're both coming at you and you're feeling poorer,
Speaker 3: and if you're feeling poorer, you're much likely to say
Speaker 3: that we're on the wrong track.
Speaker 4: Yep, why not?
Speaker 5: Why not?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 3: What's the problem The Speaker has said, no, the spegacy.
Speaker 5: Yes, I didn't know that. Yeah, all right, there we go,
Speaker 5: turned out the vegacyd we couldn't do it. Oh well,
Speaker 5: bureocracy is alive and well in New Zealand. But sometimes
Speaker 5: things are worth doing for a good course, they probably
Speaker 5: should not provable, do you think I think? Well, I
Speaker 5: thought we had it to be hones. Of surprise, we
Speaker 5: weren't allowed to.
Speaker 1: What trouble is David Seymour causing Luxon at the moment.
Speaker 3: Oh it's a big old headache for the Prime Minister.
Speaker 3: And listen, I say right off the back, this isn't
Speaker 3: a coalition destroying spat that Seymour and Luxon are having. Yes,
Speaker 3: it looks a little bit silly, Yes, it looks like
Speaker 3: they're on different pages on things, but it's not going
Speaker 3: to bring down the government. David Seymour was extremely bold
Speaker 3: when he told arn Z that the Prime Minister he
Speaker 3: was the one that was ill informed. You'll remember that
Speaker 3: it was the Prime Minister saying that David Seymour writing
Speaker 3: in defense of Pulkinghorn when he was an electra MP
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two and before the trial had even
Speaker 3: started or anything along that area had even kicked off.
Speaker 3: The Prime Minister said that was ill advised, and David
Speaker 3: Seymour went on oran z ed and say that the
Speaker 3: Prime Minister saying that he was ill advised was ill advised.
Speaker 2: He's aware of my views on that, but as you
Speaker 2: all know, he wasn't the keviinet minister at the time.
Speaker 2: But there's been no breach to the Cabinet manual. He
Speaker 2: didn't do this as a minister. I just think seiy
Speaker 2: Leader was ill a. That's my personal view on it.
Speaker 2: But ultimately our question's man.
Speaker 1: Do you regret writing that letter?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: And my response to that is what sill advised is
Speaker 6: commenting when you don't know all the facts and criticizing
Speaker 6: a local em pay for doing their work, which is
Speaker 6: standing up for their constituent.
Speaker 3: You just don't see those sorts of things. And one
Speaker 3: of the most wisest people in all of politics is
Speaker 3: somebody called Richard Harmon, who's been around since the eighties
Speaker 3: or even before reporting on politics. He's seen it all,
Speaker 3: and he said in his blog, and not since nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty eight when Richard Prebble openly criticized David LONGI have
Speaker 3: we seen such a challenge to a prime minister as
Speaker 3: that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxen So and he's
Speaker 3: got a point. You just simply do not see ministers
Speaker 3: undermining their prime minister like this. Sort of the saving
Speaker 3: grace that Seymour has here is that he is from
Speaker 3: another party and so the Prime Minister can't just dismiss
Speaker 3: them from cabinet without there being some serious repri cushions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you surprised how they're talking about each other
Speaker 1: in public? I guess it's unusual for a prime minister
Speaker 1: and deputy relationship. I'm thinking Peter's in the same boat
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it is quite unusual. And up till
Speaker 3: this point, I've been very supportive of the Prime Minister
Speaker 3: the way that he's ran the coalition government because he's
Speaker 3: not just looking at this term, he's looking beyond into
Speaker 3: the term after and potentially the term after that as well.
Speaker 3: And to get there, we're in a modern MMP environment.
Speaker 3: You need friends, you need support partners. So it's not
Speaker 3: just about them toying the line this time around, but
Speaker 3: it's also about getting them on board next time. And
Speaker 3: part of that is allowing these smaller parties to not
Speaker 3: lose their identity, which means it's fine when Winston mouths
Speaker 3: off about something, gets fine when David Seymour gets really
Speaker 3: into the weeds about some national policy issue that he
Speaker 3: doesn't like, that is all absolutely fine. In fact, it's
Speaker 3: encouraged because it means the base still sees that these
Speaker 3: parties have not lost their identity. But this is a
Speaker 3: whole nother level. I mean, it's just frankly, it's about
Speaker 3: respect and David Seymour is not showing the Prime Minister respect.
Speaker 3: We do know that on Monday nights, after both of
Speaker 3: the respective leaders made their comments about each other, they
Speaker 3: did have a meeting. Can you describe the tenor of
Speaker 3: your meeting with him last night?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I was very good, very constructive, for obviously talking about
Speaker 5: how is the government going to open up to overseas investment,
Speaker 5: which I'm responsible for, how are we going to do
Speaker 5: a deregulation program, how are we going to get through
Speaker 5: this budget? And save New Zealand just money by reducing
Speaker 5: data literalist payments.
Speaker 6: Steak.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I've ever heard a single time
Speaker 3: in my almost ten years in Parliament when I've heard
Speaker 3: someone say something constructive that they didn't actually mean that
Speaker 3: it was a bit of a biffer.
Speaker 1: Is the problem here that Seymour, who's never been actually
Speaker 1: in charge before, is still kind of in an opposition mode.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is he's still doing
Speaker 1: the stunts. He's driving a land Rover up on Parliament steps,
Speaker 1: for example, and he's still got the soundbitees, he's still
Speaker 1: got the quips. Does he need to rain that in
Speaker 1: a bit? No?
Speaker 3: I don't think he does. And I still side with
Speaker 3: the Prime Minister's thinking on this is that you need
Speaker 3: the smaller parties to retain their identity. Act's identity is
Speaker 3: inextricably linked to that of David Seymour. I mean, you've
Speaker 3: got to remember that David Seymour brought this party from
Speaker 3: zero point five percent in the polls to now it
Speaker 3: was a nine or ten percent in the polls. He
Speaker 3: brought a plethora of new MPs to the table to
Speaker 3: the point where he's now sitting around the cabinet table
Speaker 3: to the point where in a couple of months he
Speaker 3: is going to be the deputy prime minister. He needs
Speaker 3: to be able to do what he has been doing
Speaker 3: in so far as that he needs to be able
Speaker 3: to galvanize that support and let his supporters know how
Speaker 3: he is fighting for them in parliament.
Speaker 1: Will he become a bit of a headache though? Was
Speaker 1: deputy pm?
Speaker 3: The standard shifts when you're the deputy prime minister, and
Speaker 3: in so far as the fact that when the Prime
Speaker 3: Minister is away, it's the deputy prime Minister who's in charge,
Speaker 3: and that means doing post cabinet press conferences, that means
Speaker 3: stepping in for the Prime minister in the house. That's
Speaker 3: a lot harder to do. When you have to act
Speaker 3: on behalf of the Prime minister. You cannot have your
Speaker 3: own identity. Then you need to be talking as the
Speaker 3: prime minister. You need to be a statesman, not a studman.
Speaker 1: Do you think that having Winston Peters first then Seymour
Speaker 1: second when it comes to that deputy prime minister role
Speaker 1: was strategic. I'm thinking who would you prefer to have
Speaker 1: reined in and buy your side on the election trail.
Speaker 3: I can tell you already know the answer to that question,
Speaker 3: but I do think that it is strategic. I think
Speaker 3: that probably Winston Peters fought quite hard to be the
Speaker 3: man that was doing it first rather than second. Now
Speaker 3: there's two lines of thinking here. The first is, you
Speaker 3: know there's a recency bias, so that would favor the
Speaker 3: person that has been a deputy Prime minister closer to
Speaker 3: the election time because still fresh in people's memories. But
Speaker 3: you have to remember Winston Peters usually and historically has
Speaker 3: seen his vote rise closer to election time, where he's
Speaker 3: been able to be a little bit more Winston and
Speaker 3: a little bit more cavalier about things. And he would
Speaker 3: have had that in mind in the coalition talks when
Speaker 3: National and Act and New Zealand First were around that
Speaker 3: table to say, well, if I want to be my
Speaker 3: best political self, if you will closer to the election time,
Speaker 3: I need the space to be able to do that.
Speaker 3: You can't be a statesman when you're also kicking off
Speaker 3: about what most people, all the Prime Minister has perceived
Speaker 3: to be side shows.
Speaker 1: Now we've got these salvation Armies State of the Nation
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five out this morning and it makes for
Speaker 1: some grim reading. Actually, we've got rising unemployment, with more
Speaker 1: than four hundred thousand people needing welfare support in December
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, the highest number by the way since
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties. And food insecurity among families with children
Speaker 1: has also risen sharply, with half of all fit children
Speaker 1: reported as going without food often or sometimes. Figures like
Speaker 1: this do kind of make you realize perhaps why people
Speaker 1: are discontent with the government and think why the country's
Speaker 1: moving on in the wrong direction.
Speaker 3: Hey, well, yeah, absolutely, And now all of these sort
Speaker 3: of reports will give sort of credence to the cause
Speaker 3: from the left that the government need to be doing
Speaker 3: more in a lot of places in terms of their
Speaker 3: economic priorities. And I mean you can almost script the
Speaker 3: response from the Prime Minister on this issue before he
Speaker 3: even makes his comments later today, which is that he'll
Speaker 3: say the best way to get people out of poverty
Speaker 3: is to grow the pie, to grow the economy, and
Speaker 3: that's why he'll write off a bunch of things that
Speaker 3: the government's been doing. I'm not saying he's wrong, in
Speaker 3: fact that it is economically speaking, that is one of
Speaker 3: the ways to do it. But it really leaves them
Speaker 3: quite vulnerable to attack from the opposition, And HARKing back
Speaker 3: to the polls, when you see there is so little
Speaker 3: between the left and the right, reports like this really
Speaker 3: do go to feed the narrative that the government is
Speaker 3: not helping as much it needs to be.
Speaker 4: I think the people can see that the country's going
Speaker 4: in the wrong direction. Actually, Labor has been going up
Speaker 4: and all of the recent poles that have been released
Speaker 4: since Christmas. I'm encouraged by that. But we know we've
Speaker 4: got a lot of work to do. You know, we've
Speaker 4: still got a year and a half to go. So
Speaker 4: polls at this point, you know, are interesting and it's
Speaker 4: nice to be doing well in them, but you know,
Speaker 4: I think we've still got a fair amount of water
Speaker 4: to flow under the bridge.
Speaker 1: Just yet. When we talk about the polls, Labor jumped
Speaker 1: four points to thirty three percent. Can you think of
Speaker 1: anything the party's done to deserve that jump? I mean,
Speaker 1: have they been a good opposition thus far? Is it
Speaker 1: just a case of the government underperforming so they look
Speaker 1: better in comparison?
Speaker 3: Oh, listen, the best thing that the Labor Party have
Speaker 3: done is not do anything. They've let the government kind
Speaker 3: of almost fall over themselves. And that's not the sense
Speaker 3: that the government has technically done anything that would warrant
Speaker 3: the fact that they're in They fell into the twenties.
Speaker 3: It's again, it comes down to the economy. There's nothing
Speaker 3: that the opposition can do about that in opposition apart
Speaker 3: from taking cracks at the government and saying things that
Speaker 3: aren't good enough. And that's because of you. But eventually
Speaker 3: the Labor Party is going to have to start introducing
Speaker 3: some policies. They are going to have to start talking
Speaker 3: in a very tangible way about what they would do
Speaker 3: to make things better. Now. I know it's still early days,
Speaker 3: it's still about a year and a half till the election,
Speaker 3: but those conversations need to start happening because voters need
Speaker 3: to have some alternatives to the barracking.
Speaker 1: And while we're talking about the left block as well,
Speaker 1: Tabati Mali is down three points on five percent. Is
Speaker 1: this surprising because I thought the party had gained some
Speaker 1: serious momentum there for a second, No, it's.
Speaker 3: Not surprising at all. The last poll that was taken
Speaker 3: from TV and Z was December ninth, and that incorporated
Speaker 3: the HIKOI, that incorporated Hannah Rachdi Mighty Klark's viral Harker.
Speaker 3: They had a lot, a lot of momentum, and between
Speaker 3: then and now we really haven't heard all that much
Speaker 3: from Tiparty Mardi. They were up at win Tonguey, Yes
Speaker 3: they were in the news for that, but there was
Speaker 3: nothing further to add in the respect of their momentum
Speaker 3: than than what we saw in December. And it goes
Speaker 3: to show, you know, Tiparty Mary are at their best
Speaker 3: poland wise when they're really really able to get in
Speaker 3: front of a camera and mobilize that support. So I
Speaker 3: wouldn't be surprised to see more of that sort of
Speaker 3: action closer to election time to be able to bolster
Speaker 3: their support.
Speaker 1: And what about the Greens. They're steady on ten percent
Speaker 1: after a pretty dramatic year last year, to say the least,
Speaker 1: do you reckon things will only continue to improve for
Speaker 1: them with Mortimer Davidson's return.
Speaker 3: It's hard to say. I mean, the Greens do also
Speaker 3: suffer from the same problem as Labor is that people
Speaker 3: do get a little bit annoyed and a little bit
Speaker 3: tired of the repetitive criticism from the opposition, which puts
Speaker 3: them in a really hard place. Because if you are
Speaker 3: the opposition, your job is to oppose and where you know,
Speaker 3: press gallery journalists don't do soft news on parties just
Speaker 3: trying to get the good word out there. It's not
Speaker 3: how we fold political parties to account. So the best
Speaker 3: way that you can get in the news is with
Speaker 3: ideas or with you know, frankly quite witty and clever
Speaker 3: criticisms of the government. So you know, Chloe Sawbrick is
Speaker 3: good in that respect. However, you know she has the
Speaker 3: tendency to sometimes sound a little bit like a university professor,
Speaker 3: and it's quite hard to put that into a sound bite.
Speaker 3: That's not to say what she's saying isn't good, it
Speaker 3: just sometimes can get a little bit long winded. So
Speaker 3: I reckon they've got the same problem as labor. They're
Speaker 3: going to have to start proposing for something soon. And
Speaker 3: I know that they have been, but we need a
Speaker 3: bit more of a green wave for people to start
Speaker 3: taking some more notice. But we still got time.
Speaker 1: And what do you reckon the coalition needs to do
Speaker 1: to improve their numbers within the next What are we
Speaker 1: a year and a half out?
Speaker 3: I reckon they just need to wait it out. I mean,
Speaker 3: you need the business of governing. You need to create
Speaker 3: strong message that you're creating growth, that you're trying to
Speaker 3: create jobs, that you're bringing inflation down. Nikola Willis it's
Speaker 3: all she talks about, and quite rightly, she's the finance minister.
Speaker 3: They just need to wait for the economic prospects in
Speaker 3: this country to turn around, when those interest rate cuts
Speaker 3: start flowing through, and then their fortunes will turn around.
Speaker 3: Then they can change the narrative slightly. But until that happens,
Speaker 3: it's going to be very very hard for them to
Speaker 3: turn that right track wrong track measure around.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Jason, No problem at all. That's
Speaker 1: it for this episode of The Front Page. You can
Speaker 1: read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at
Speaker 1: enzdherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is produced
Speaker 1: by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our
Speaker 1: sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page
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Speaker 1: in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.