Show Notes
As Auckland struggles through a "tricky" extended lockdown, who are the political winners & losers? We debate covid fatigue, who's won from the wage subsidies (hint: not women) and two up-for-grabs electorates - Ōhāriu and Whanganui.
By Tim Watkin It's been a tricky week for the country, especially the third of all New Zealanders living under lockdown level 3 in Auckland. And it's turned politics on its head. National and ACT trying to outspend Labour. The left-leaning government being criticised for not doing enough for women and its poorest citizens. Listen hard enough and you might even have heard that rarest of things, sympathy for Aucklanders from those who live south of the Bombays. In Caucus this week, the team aren't convinced Aucklanders deserve too much credit, given the traffic on the road, the minimal mask use and stories of people leaving their neighbourhoods to go hither and yon. The mood in Auckland this week has felt more like despair than resilience, more clinging on than rallying together. And these signs of fatigue will be sure to have been noticed by Cabinet, as it tries to walk the tricky line between public health and the public will. Jacinda Ardern has been using the word "tricky" a lot this week, as Guyon Espiner says, presumably because it's worked on focus groups. Time again she has described the virus as "tricky", as if it was a person, an opponent. ACT leader David Seymour called out the Prime Minister for blaming the outbreak on the Covid-19 coronavirus, rather than taking responsibility for border failures. National's Health spokesperson Dr Shane Reti in parliament forced Health Minister Chris Hipkins to admit that not everyone in isolation are getting the day three tests, as had been widely believed. While Hipkins argued from a public health point of view that it's the day twelve test that matters and no-one is released without a negative test, Lisa Owen pointed out it's a performance measure. Politically, it's another fail and one that reminds voters of the tests not carried out at the border. For now, Labour's political immunity to Covid-19 seems to be holding, however. The public are fed up, but the Caucus crew don't see it costing many votes yet. Just as at the 2011 election John Key could point to Wall St and American mortgages as the cause of the Global Financial Crisis and say we are better off than most, Ardern is saying the virus is not the fault of her government and it is handling it better than most… Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
More from Caucus
Are the polls starting to move? Has Christopher Luxon painted himself into a corner or does he still have an opportunity with Opportunity? Who picks up the phone to whom on November 8? And win or lose, who's left from National's front bench? Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
The debates this week told us a heap about the state of the nation and the vibe of the campaign. We discuss how Opportunity took its chance, why New Zealand First feels boxed in, and where National and Labour are getting it wrong... and what they're doing right. ANALYSIS By Tim Watkin The Election 2026 campaign so far has failed to catch fire. It’s been a series of promises failing to capture the moment. A flurry of hand grenades that have failed to detonate. An October with no surprise. A trail with no destination. But maybe there’s a reason to celebrate all the same. On this week’s Caucus podcast, RNZ’s deputy political editor Craig McCulloch said he was relieved he wasn’t in the studio for the NZ Herald Leaders’ Debate because he “might have lost the will to live”. The rehearsed attacks, recycled arguments, and lack of vision arguably sums up the “rinse and repeat” campaign we’ve seen so far. “Primarily it’s the curse of the economic and global climate. But it’s also a curse of leadership.” Watching Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon debate the state of the nation, it’s hard not to see two men who lack the political imagination to move the dial. The commentary on their two debates thus far has been pretty scathing. But, as the Caucus team discuss in this week’s episode, there’s another way to look at these two major party leaders, stuck on 20% approval ratings and leading parties with a combined vote of 56-58 percent, the lowest in the MMP era. Uninspiring, sure. Losing ground to the other parties, undoubtedly. But how about – responsible? Take a step back and view this election from, say, 2050, and you might have a very different take on these supposedly boring, stale parties sitting in the centre of our political spectrum. Maybe the 2050 voter might be grateful to those who took on the thankless task of holding the centre during this turbulent time in politics. This is by no means an endorsement of them or a dismissal of the minor parties as radical or extreme. But there’s no doubt we are living in polarising times when democratic norms are fracturing. There are some good reasons for that, including the failure of mainstream parties like National and Labour failing to deliver on their promises. And there are some nutty and conspiratorial reasons… Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
Major parties try new policies to reconnect with their bases, National re-writes its risk pitch, fiscal frustrations, & what stuck from the first leaders debate. ANALYSIS By Tim Watkin What’s a right-leaning voter to do? The past few weeks have seen debates about strategic voting as polls have consistently placed National below 30 percent and a centre-left bloc, Opportunity permitting, more likely to form a government. It means voters wanting to give the existing coalition the best chance of remaining in power are wracking their brains on where to cast their ballot. Stick, twist, or return? And, in turn, that means the strategists in National, New Zealand First, and ACT, are trying to figure out not just how to win the “soft centre” but how to steal from each other. [wk_audio]a6dfa00f-eb36-49ba-8f7d-02a109828beb As deputy political editor Craig McCulloch says in this week’s Caucus episode, National wants to be fishing for voters who will add to the overall centre-right bloc, especially the undecideds (approximately 11% in the TVNZ-Verian poll and 6% in the RNZ-Reid Research poll) and those who are dallying with Opportunity. They are the most useful and consequential votes to be won. But with Labour polling as badly as National and New Zealand First and ACT both polling well by their own standards, the party in blue is in a bind. The soft centre will be hard to crack. And at 25.9 percent in the RNZ poll, National is nearing its humiliating 2020 result of 25.6 percent, just without the leadership changes and pandemic. So, does it behave like a leader of the pack or does it grab the nearest life-raft and go after traditional National voters who have drifted – or strategically shifted – to its coalition partners? ACT, for example, is on nine percent in both the TVNZ and RNZ polls. For a party that got 0.5 percent in 2017 and had its best-ever result of 8.6 percent in 2023, it’s a strong number. But eight weeks out from the last election ACT was on 12 percent. National won back roughly three percent from ACT late in that campaign and has to be wondering how it can do that again. And can it also go after Team Winston? Its medicines policy, released this week, did just that. It boldly stomped into ACT and New Zealand First territory. Or as Political Editor Jo Moir says in the podcast, “National is, in an election campaign, trying to pull back the narrative”… Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
The campaigns are launching and it's time to lock into politics New Zealand. Caucus returns to set the scene for Election 2026, discussing why incumbency sucks, strategic voting is controversial, and the minor parties are major players. ANALYSIS By Tim Watkin Polls leading into the campaign proper, which kicked off this week with Parliament rising and the two major parties holding their campaign launches, have been filled with headlines about “kingmakers”. Initially, New Zealand First was given the title, as it has been so many times before. But more recently polls have showed the new kid, Opportunity, holding the balance of power. But if we take the parties at face value, “kingmaker” is a word that no longer makes sense in 2026. The fluidity of previous election campaigns, when parties would often refuse to say who they might work with until the people had spoken, has been replaced with coalition calcification. New Zealand First has ruled out a coalition with Labour and Labour has ruled out a coalition with New Zealand First. And they’ve done it with vehemence. Winston Peters has posted his party “won’t do a deal with Labour” because “the left are full of woke self-confessed communists”, while Chris Hipkins has said Labour won’t work with New Zealand First because of its “overt racism”. Clearly, there’s no way back into government for Peters and co without National. The question is whether that changes the way they campaign. As for Opportunity, they are pitching themselves as “kingmakers” and say they’re happy to work with National or Labour. They’ll talk to the biggest party first, if they make it into parliament after November 7. But the current ‘king’ – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon – isn’t having a bar of it. In July he called them a party with an extreme tax policy. “We don’t want to work with them… they’re as centrist as I am an All Black”. And in case that left any doubt, he has said since “A vote for the Opportunity Party is a vote to put Chris Hipkins, Te Pati Māori, and the Greens into government… we were right to rule them out”. So, at face value, we don’t have any kingmakers in 2026. The lines have been drawn. Everyone has chosen a side. For the first time under MMP we have two blocs – the current coalition or some combination of Labour, the Greens, Opportunity, and Te Pati Māori. Is this then the most transparent election in MMP history in terms of knowing the shape of the next government? Except… In the Caucus podcast, which began its run through the 2026 election campaign today, RNZ Political Editor Jo Moir says Luxon’s line is “just nonsense”… Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
A mood for change swept National & friends into power, so this season's final Caucus breaks down the numbers, unpacks the swing in Auckland, & looks at the coalition niceties. And the team opens their envelopes to check their predictions. Election 2023 By Tim Watkin Watch the video version of the episode here Analysis - Election 2023 is done but certainly not dusted. Our 54th parliament has been chosen and National will lead a coalition government into the new term. But what has the result told us about the state of New Zealand's politics and the strengths and weaknesses of our political parties? The Caucus team meets for one last time for this election to make sense of last weekend's results. What really happened in Auckland as it swung blue? Why is Labour on the verge of losing some bastion seats? And just who is Dan Rosewarne anyway? Julian Wilcox, Tim Watkin, Guyon Espiner and Lisa Owen talk through the big trends of the 2023 elections and what they teach us. They discuss the impact of Covid and where Labour went wrong. How much responsibility lies at Jacinda Ardern's feet and can Chris Hipkins survive this shellacking? They also look at National's rise and how it pales in comparison to Labour's fall. How will Christopher Luxon the Chief Executive handle the move to Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister and where does New Zealand First fit in? Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details