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Northland's MP believes National's plan to introduce drug testing for beneficiaries is a smart move.  It's proposing ten thousand random drug tests next year – ramping up over the years.  It also wants to reduce payments from April 2028 for people who've collected it for two of the previous three years, with a smaller cut for those with children.  Grant McCallum told Kerre Woodham there are employers who have casual work or things like fruit picking available, but can't get workers because they can't pass a drug test.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everyone on board vessels up to six metres in length must wear a lifejacket, starting from today.  Maritime NZ says the nationwide rule means all people heading out on the water have a better chance of coming home.   On average, 17 people die in recreational boating accidents each year, with two thirds not wearing properly-fitted jackets.  Maritime NZ's Matt Wood told Kerre Woodham the rule change not only lifts the minimum standard nationally, but removes the regional differences, which makes the overall messaging clearer.   He says they believe it will make a tangible difference, as when this rule was introduced in Tasmania in 2001, fatal boating numbers halved straight away and have stayed that way since.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anybody who is taking money from the rest of us because they can't find a job should be ready, willing, and able to work when work is there to get. There should be an unwritten contract, and I think there is amongst most of us, that we as New Zealanders look after our fellow New Zealanders when they need a hand up until they can get back on their feet and get back into providing for themselves and providing for others who might suffer misfortune. And if people are simply using the money the rest of us are giving them to sit around at home and do drugs or skip off to the beach with their barbecue or wander through the wheat fields whistling, then sure, of course there should be penalties.   But why didn't National introduce the "get tough on druggy beneficiaries" when they were running the government, when they introduced traffic light rules around beneficiaries in the welfare system? If they believed in it so strongly, why didn't they do it then? To do it now, to say, "oh well, vote for us and this'll happen", when they're languishing in the polls looks desperate and cynical and plays into the hands of their opponents. "Oh, we're not polling well. I know, let's bash druggy beneficiaries because the punters will love that." And indeed the punters will.   But unemployment is at an 11 year high. The economy is not booming despite the promises National made last election. Drug use is rampant and while that I do not believe is something the Government can fix, the need for more detox centres and public rehab clinics is acute. Total government-funded mental health and addiction beds tracked by Health New Zealand increased from 1,317 to 1,368 over the past 12 months. An extra 51 beds is great, but that's like sticking your finger in the dyke, the need is so great. Perhaps 5,100 beds would be more meaningful and make more of an impact. What do you do if you live in Kaitaia or Moerewa or Ohakune where sawmills are closing and factories are shutting down? No, if you're not going to sit around and take drugs, you're going to move to Australia. That's what you're going to do.   I do not think it is unreasonable to expect people to be ready for work when they're taking money from you and me, but I do think we need to be slightly more aware that for some young people and definitely for some older people, finding a job in a recession that's been engineered and that hasn't recovered as quickly as the Government promised might be a bit tough. And that addiction services might need more funding to try and get people off their drugs and more ready for work. Had National announced a one two yesterday, drug testing for beneficiaries and more funding for rehab, I might believe the assertions that it's all about the young people. As it is, I think yesterday's announcement was more about helping their list MPs claw their way back into Parliament.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This election is highlighting yet another war being fought on the ideological battleground that is education. Charter schools, as they operate now, are in the sights of Labour because they're doing something different. To be fair, Labour's never liked the idea of schools operating under their own curriculum. Nothing new there. As Chris Hipkins told Mike Hosking this morning, they're all for new ideas in education, so long as the schools follow the party line.  CH: I believe that when you're spending public money on education, there needs to be good, strong accountability. Schools, there should be a level playing field. There are gaps in our education system. Some of those charter schools are doing interesting things. They can do that within the public education system.  MH: Interesting or good?  CH: Well, some of them are good. And but we demonstrated last time, I think of the charter of the schools that were set up as charter schools last time, most of them are still operating. They're still operating within the public education system and they're operating successfully.  Yes, but under the party line, aren't they? Not doing their own thing. Partnership schools, as they were once known, opened in 2014 born out of frustration from parents who could see the state school system was failing their children. They were closed by the Labour Government in 2018 and either shut their doors or became state integrated or special character schools. The charter school model was brought back following the 2023 election. David Seymour, the Associate Education Minister and champion of charter schools, says families are choosing charter schools precisely because they offer something different.   You can see by attendance whether they're working for parents or not. Seymour cites Northwest College. That grew from 22 students in March 2025 to 150 by July of this year. Five of the first seven charter schools, he says, exceeded their attendance targets in the first year. Five exceeded their achievement targets. At Tipene, initial assessments on February 25th found more than half of students were below expected level in maths, reading, and writing. By the end of the year, 81% were achieving at or above the expected level in maths, 79% in reading, 80% in writing.  Parents are choosing to take their children to these different schools. Schools that are run differently, that operate differently, because their kids run and operate differently on different programs. You know, a state school education works pretty well for most kids. The quality of it, well, we can debate that, but for most kids, they fit in. The school suits them, they suit the school. But for other kids, it doesn't. It doesn't work at all. And until the charter schools came along, there was really very little you could do. You just had to try and mash a square peg into a round hole. And it wasn't comfortable for either the school or the student or the family.  If you've got a school that opens with 22 students in March 2025 and then just over a year later the school rolls grow to 150, doesn't that indicate that the school is working? And it's working because parents are telling each other about it, they're sharing the results they're getting with their children. They're saying we don't have to come and pick up the child from school because they simply cannot be there. They're saying our child is willing to get up and go to school. That is a win for a lot of families. Forget about what happens when they get there. The fact they walk through the school gates is a win for a lot of families.  And there's got to be flexibility. I just cannot understand why everybody has to march to Labour's drumbeat. You know, what about what happened to interpretive dance off on the side somewhere? You know, some people are more interpretive dancers than they are rigidly marching in formation. And if the schools are working, if there's accountability, if the teachers are accredited, if you're ticking boxes and teachers and principals and families have the freedom to find the best way to educate a certain cohort of children, then everybody wins. The poor little square pegs who are trying to be mashed into the round hole aren't disrupting the rest of the class. The teachers aren't expected to do specialist teaching when they're generalists. They're not feeling frustrated and cross because they can't give that one child everything that one child needs and they know they're not giving the other 32 the time and attention they deserve.   I just don't understand why, so long as you've got quality control, and surely the parents would dictate that, if you've ticked off all the quality control boxes, why can't Labour let people educate their own children the best way they see fit?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hopes new rules will stop people stripping our beaches of kaimoana.  From November 1st there will be a ban on collecting and recreational gathering of shellfish and mussels from Auckland and Coromandel's rockpools and intertidal zones.  There will also be daily limits on crabs, octopus, prawns, sea cucumbers, and squid.  Protect Whangaparaoa Rockpools founder Mark Lenton told Kerre Woodham a local ban on Whangaparaoa, which started in March, has done wonders.   He says there's been a natural regeneration of life.   However, Lenton says guarding the coastlines can be a dangerous job as the law can be tough to enforce.   He says fisheries officers wear stab-proof vests and he's been threatened while patrolling.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well last night I took my mum to the Q Theatre to see a performance of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, which was fantastic. Last couple of days, I really recommend you get along and see it – I think there's a few tickets left. It was fantastic. And then I had to come home and watch the leaders' debate on demand, and I know what I'd rather have been watching, that's for sure. I agree with Mike, the format of these "debates", in inverted commas, because they're not debates. A debate as I remember it from our cup winning Sacred Heart debating team, was where each speaker got the chance to make a speech around a certain premise or topic, why I would be the best Prime Minister for New Zealand, and then the second speaker got a chance to argue against it and rebut and finesse some of the points that were made by the first speaker. It was a proper speech, debate, argument, considered, reasoned. This is not a debate. I'd say it's a television performance. And I was listening to Mike this morning and he said that he was arguing against the format in 1997, and I couldn't agree more. Oh no, 2017 but he was probably arguing about it in 1997 as well. It's outmoded, past its use by date.  I thought Jack Tame did as good a job as he could given the format. He was very even handed, but he's trying to cover so many topics. I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. But then I have to remember that I'm in a privileged position where I talk the news every single day. I'm reading, absorbing, digesting the news, party political statements, press releases every single day, and most people have the luxury of not having to do that. So I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. And the single word yes or no answers, again it comes back to the fact that's not a debate, it's a performance. It's not elucidating, it's not insightful – all you got to see was who was better on the telly than the other. And on that, within the limitations of the format, I thought Chris Hipkins was very good. He came across well, he acknowledged work that National had done, recognised where he believed he could have done better when he was Prime Minister. I thought he came across well. And Christopher Luxon was way better than I thought he was going to be. I thought Chris Hipkins would wipe the floor with him, but he coped well in that environment.  Ultimately did we learn anything though? That's what I keep coming back to. I get far more from the hour that I get to have with each leader where they can sit down and have the time to properly talk, they can articulate policy, you get to hear a bit about the person. And while I accept that my questioning is more gentle nibbling from a toothless chihuahua than a kind of mauling from an attack dog, Jack didn't really get the opportunity in that format to do the good hard attacking journo questions either. You get far more of that on Q&A, where you can see again that Jack's really done his homework and puts them to the sword when he gets the party/political leaders in. I think we'd have learned more having reruns of Q&A on in that time slot than that debate. More of the long form, less of last night really.   The only thing that really came back when I was, and again I didn't watch it all including the ads, I was skimming through it, but you'd have to wonder why anyone under 50 would vote for Labour when they won't even look at options around the Super. There were some truly dumb questions in there, and I'd have to ask why Christopher Luxon just will not work with Opportunity. Like flat out. I mean he might not want to, but could he not be a little bit more accommodating perhaps in his language? Anyway, love to hear your thoughts on this if you were good citizens and endured and watched, I'd love to hear your feedback. But seriously, there's some really good pieces in the Listener where Danyl McLauchlan has gone through and is looking at policy and each party's response to it and the experts are giving their opinions on whether it's good, bad or ugly policy. There are hour long debates with the different spokespeople on their portfolios. I've got the hours with the party leaders. I'm not sure I'll watch another debate. I just don't get enough out of it to make me invest that time.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Finally, after much hinting and promising and ooh, winking and teasing, Labour's revealed how it will fund the core pay equity policy it has been promising for the past three years. Except that they didn't. "In terms of being able to pay for pay equity, you'll see there's plenty of headroom within the fiscal plan that we've released today. We have a $10 billion unallocated amount of headroom. We've got multi billion dollars for health cost pressures and many of the pay equity claims are within the health system. So we're confident we will be able to meet the costs of pay equity within the flexibility that we've built into the plan." That was Chris Hipkins at the launch yesterday. So under a Labour coalition Government from the 1st of January 2027, care and support workers, who are the ones who kicked off the whole pay equity drive and who are the first to have had their claim settled, would receive an immediate pay rise of $4 an hour. That's $2.5 billion right there. But there is no mention of how the 33 other settlements waiting in the wings will be settled. There was an allusion to the fact that the midwives and those associated with the health sector who have their pay equity claims waiting to be settled, that might be accounted for within the health budget, but not really because further along in the fiscal plan, Labour stayed pretty close to the National Government's party line.  So the surplus is going to arrive in the exact same year as National promised it would. Core crown spending would continue to drop relative to the rest of the economy. It would be slightly higher than National spending, but not much. And when it comes to health, cost pressures in health are forecast to be the same under both National and Labour and the narrow budget operating allowance is exactly the same. When he says that they're going to be able to settle the healthcare workers' equity claims and he said, oh well and that will come in under health, well not really because if they're saying that they think that the cost pressures will be the same, that's if you don't take the pay equity claims into account. That really is become an albatross around their necks. They have been promising this for three years. They excoriated the coalition Government for not settling the claims. But I still can't see it myself. I mean, you might be able to. Chris Hipkins said, look, we've got $10 billion to play with and that came from PREFU and that's what the coalition Government said is around. But that will be it. If you lead a Labour led coalition, there might just be the ability to settle equity claims, but there'll be nothing else. No money for anything else at all. And that includes anything that the coalition partners might want to spend on. All very well and good to say - we're Labour and this is what we're going to spend every spare cent on. We're going to die on this hill. And that's fine. That's Labour's choice and that's the people who vote for them, that's their choice and that's great. But what about the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and possibly the Opportunity party? I mean, the Opportunity party's not asking for much, just get us into Parliament please, anything. But the Greens have got a shopping list and I can't imagine savvy political operators like Chlöe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson saying, oh yeah okay, no you settle those claims, that's absolutely fine. Barbara Edmonds, Labour's finance spokesperson, says just because Treasury has costed pay equity claims at around $13 billion and rising, it doesn't mean that's what the bill will be. She says it's all about negotiation and Labour's fiscal plan is credible because as she told Mike Hosking this morning on the Mike Hosking Breakfast, she knows her stuff. "I'm absolutely credible. You've asked me a whole bunch of questions and I've answered them every single one. I'm absolutely credible. This is not my first rodeo, as another politician would say. This is my 17th budget I've had to analyse. I've been in tax for over 10 years. I know my stuff and this is why our fiscal plan is credible." Well yeah, I mean she has got a great track record, but she can't sit there spinning and weaving and making gold out of straw, can she?   If you've been taking an interest in politics, you'll have heard Labour's announcement over the weekend. Do you think it adds up? Nicola Willis doesn't, in a stunning revelation. She says the release of the plan over the weekend was an opportunity for Chris Hipkins and Barbara Edmonds to make Labour's numbers add up and they've failed. She says far worse than anyone could have expected. She says Labour says the rest of the money to fully restore the previous pay equity scheme will come from cost pressure funding.  If that's true, she says, that would mean taking almost every dollar of unallocated funding for the next four budgets, which will mean nothing for schools, police, prisons, defence and other frontline social services. So who do you believe? Labour says they won't be putting up any taxes other than the ones they've already stated. Where's the money going to come from? I'm sure Barbara Edmonds is a very savvy negotiator. I'm not entirely sure she can negotiate $13 billion and rising down to three or four billion. And even then it's still not much to come and go on. If you are big on pay equity, do you believe in it sufficiently to have every last spare cent that the Government has spent on it? Is that how important it is to you? LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The topic of New Zealand-owned banks is arising again, with NZ First pitching to buy back BNZ to bolster competition.  Kiwibank is already New Zealand-owned, but only holds a little over 6% of the lending market, raising the question – how much do Kiwis actually care about backing a Kiwi bank?  Kiwibank CEO Steve Jurkovich told Kerre Woodham that they've been in operation for much less time than some of those bigger banks —around 25 years compared to over 150— so they've had less time and capital to grow.  Jurkovich told Woodham they could always be bigger and have more impact, but over the last few years they've been growing pretty strongly.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I talked about accountability this time last month, specifically about MBIE boss Nick Blakely. You'll remember that the Privileges Committee found Blakely and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald deliberately misled —what you and I know as lying— Parliament. The Privileges Committee said their conduct was an insult to the public service, and yet who's the current head of MBIE? Nick Blakely. Doesn't seem to have bothered him. Sure Alison McDonald's gone on to a nice board somewhere. She won't be locked up at home, covered in sackcloth and ashes, rueing and repenting.  Now we have the Greater Wellington Regional Council filing charges against the Wellington City Council and Wellington Water for the catastrophic failure of the Moa Point wastewater plant, with the Wellington City Council and Wellington Water facing $100 million fines if the prosecutions are successful. And in the same week, we have the CEO of Tauranga City Council, Marty Grenfell, resigning after the deadly landslide at Mount Maunganui. A report found that the council had been warned repeatedly over many years that there was a risk of landslides to those staying at the Mount Maunganui Holiday Park at the base of the mount, and yet the reports were shelved, never read, didn't go to the right people, whatever.  Right up until a matter of months ago, there were reports warning of the dangers. Systemic failure at the council, and the guy in charge, Marty Grenfell, initially says he's staying, he's not resigning. Hell no. No, the buck does not stop with the top guy. No, he's staying because it wasn't his fault and he's the best person to fix the systemic failures at the council. Then all of a sudden, after a closed door meeting earlier this week, he's resigned and his last day's today.  Now you cannot tell me that that man had an epiphany and a sudden attack of moral conscience. "Oh no, hang on a minute, the reason I get the big bucks is because the buck does stop with me. I was in charge when the latest reports came out warning of the failures. Maybe I should resign." No. He would have been persuaded to go and part of that persuasion would have been a golden handshake. Now I don't know if that's true, nobody's talking. Feel free to ring up and prove me wrong and say, "No, Kerre, incorrect. He did not get a golden handshake and a payout." But I reckon he would.  You and I know, this is the thing about getting old, you're supposed to know stuff, but the older I get, the more confused I seem to be becoming. Because you and I know that when we stuff up, if our careless actions or our lack of due diligence, even just a moment's inattention, results in death or damage or environmental disaster, by crikey we're held accountable. Our names become public, we're dragged through the courts, we're financially ruined, in the worst cases we go to jail.  But these guys, they keep their jobs, Nick Blakely, or they're paid a fortune to leave, I strongly suspect Marty Grenfell. And if we want to see any organisation taken to court, as you would, say, a big private company that was spilling waste into the river or the sea, then they would be prosecuted. The taxpayer would prosecute them and they, as the private company, would have to pay monumental fines. But in this case, if we want to see people who've made the most appalling errors that have resulted in a loss of life degradation of the environment on a massive scale, we have to not only fix the damage they've caused as ratepayers and taxpayers where we can, we then have to pay to prosecute them through the courts and if we're successful, we end up paying the fine.  How does that work? There has got to be a system somewhere on this silly spinning rock that we call planet Earth, there has got to be somewhere where there is a structure by which public servants can be held personally liable. If you can have the CEO of the Ports of Auckland held personally responsible for the deaths of those on his watch, can we not have individuals who get paid the big money because they are responsible for these big organisations? Can they not be held personally responsible too? That only seems fair. How is it that as ratepayers, taxpayers, private individuals, we're held accountable, we've got our heels held to the fire, these guys either stay in their job, Nick Blakely, walk away with wads of cash, pick a CEO any CEO after systemic failure of the organisations they've run, or you've got something like Moa Point and we pay and we pay and we pay and they never do.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How big is his hole? Nicola Willis was asking Grant Robertson back in 2023, where are you going to find the money to fill that Government's financial fiscal hole? And now yesterday, she says that Labour has another fiscal hole to fill and it's a beauty. She told us yesterday when she was a guest in studio that there is no way Labour can afford to fund their pay equity promises, far less many of the other promises they're making to voters. Labour in response has said, well just taihoa, all will be revealed when our fiscal plan is produced sometime soon.   Now some of this is electioneering and there's a surprise given we're in the middle of an election campaign. For example, National says that Labour's promise to fund public transport for many parts of the country, up to a certain point, will come out of the Crown balance sheet. Labour says absolutely not, they'll take the money from the Land Transport Fund. They won't pay for something that's been promised out of the Land Transport Fund. They won't pay for that, they'll pay for their public transport fares. It's called reprioritisation – the money does exist for the public transport fares, they just won't pay for something else. Some of the funding though is a mystery. I have no idea where they think they're going to get 11, 13, 14 and counting billion dollars for pay equity. Chris Hipkins, opposition leader, is adamant the money can be found within the budget as he told Mike Hosking yesterday.  CH: We're going to set out in our plan, you know, we're going to demonstrate in our fiscal plan, you know, when we set out our breakdown of numbers that we have room there to pay for pay equity. What I said yesterday, and you know, there's a bit of divining tea leaves has been going on here, is that we're not going to have a specific line item, but the, our fiscal plan will clearly demonstrate that there is money in there to be able to meet the cost of pay equity.  MH: So why isn't it a line item?  CH: Because you don't basically, when you're going through a bargaining process, you don't tell the other side what's in the envelope. And you know, we wouldn't do that with any other process of bargaining. We've never done that with pay equity. The Crown has never put a line item in the budget that said here's how much we're setting aside for pay equity, but it has been there. And our fiscal plan will be the same.  MH: It'll be about $12 or $13 billion. Is that fair though? Within that ballpark, that's what we're dealing with.  CH: We certainly expect it to be a big number.  Yeah, so it's going to be a big number. If it's coming from the budget, that's 13, 14, 15, whatever billion —billion, not million— that won't be spent on something else. And I don't know that there's that much wiggle room. The free doctors visits aren't going to be funded by a capital gains tax, I think surely even Labour's accepted that, given that Treasury forecasts house prices not going up anytime soon. Something else will have to be cut to fund those. Nicola Willis has accused Labour of fiscal fraud, but until Labour finally comes up with their fiscal plan, it's a bit like waiting for Keri Hulme to come up with a sequel to The Bone People. You should, I suppose, give them the benefit of the doubt. But do you believe it is in any way possible for any party to find —let's be generous— $10 billion from the budget without ripping the guts out of the essentials and without undoing the hard work that we have endured over the past three years? Where the hell do you imagine it's going to come from?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I really like the idea of David Seymour's to turn the old teachers' training college in Epsom into a new co-ed public school. I like even more the idea that it not be zoned. In David Seymour's ideal world, the lovely old 37 acre site that is owned by the University of Auckland and currently lies empty would be jointly operated by two of the top state schools in the country, Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls Grammar. They're both bursting at the seams with the number of students wanting entry through their gates. If the land that the teachers' training college is on right now was sold and used for more housing, there'd be even more pupils knocking on the door looking for entry at Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls Grammar. If it was retained for educational purposes, in this case a school, not a teachers' training college, it would also mean there's a bit of green grass in a highly intensified area.   I love the idea of it being available to any student across Auckland, no zoning, which begs the question around zoning full stop. Why should your child have to go to the state school nearest you? Why should you not be able to shop around and decide for yourself which school aligns with your child's educational abilities, your child's educational needs, and with your family's values? Is zoning archaic? Being told you have to go there, you don't have a choice. School zones don't just affect education, they also affect property prices too. Zones drive up housing and rental prices in sought after areas, sometimes adding massive premiums to homes near top performing schools, and buying into the area, even if you might have gone to that school and you'd quite like your children to go there, but you can't afford to get there, your family connections count for nothing.   Is your child going to the school you want them to go to, or are they having to go to the one that's in your zone? And if you have been resigned to the fact that they have to go to the one that's in zone, are you happy with it, or given the choice, would you send them somewhere else that you think delivers more on your aspirations, your belief about what education should look like? Should families be able to decide for themselves where their children receive their education? Is it time to put an end to zoning full stop and just let parents decide? Are you for or against the idea and the reality of zoning? If you could, would you send your child to another school, or are you perfectly happy with the one you've got now? And for those who are living in the leafy suburb of Epsom, what's the ideal use of the vacant teachers' training college? A school? Sold for more housing? I think I know what you'd prefer.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The idea of a new co-ed school in the Auckland suburb of Epsom came from the schools involved – Epsom Girls and Auckland Grammar.  ACT Leader and Epsom MP David Seymour says the idea is to ease pressure on the existing single-sex schools.  He'll campaign on acquiring Auckland University's $150 million site, formerly used for teacher training and which currently sits empty.  Seymour told Kerre Woodham the heads of EGGS and Grammar have had this idea in the works for months.  He says Brenda McNaughton and Tim O'Connor approached him, have the backing of their boards, and are very serious.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Finance Minister says tough choices aren't just made for the sake of it with the Crown books now opened for pre-election scrutiny.  It shows we're on track for a good surplus in the 2028/29 financial year, with a much smaller current deficit than expected.  But it’s not entirely rosy, with predictions slashed on house price growth, more money needed for health, and concerns over Super costs  Nicola Willis told Kerre Woodham she's pushed to re-prioritise spending for a reason.  She says she's reduced back-office costs and stopped programmes that weren't working, so she could find the money to invest in things Kiwis really want.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The centre-right bloc is at odds over voting strategies.  Christopher Luxon and former leader John Key implored voters at National's campaign launch to simply party vote National and ignore any call for strategic voting.  The strategy is aimed at creating an overhang and maximising the number of aligned MPs in Parliament.  Key told Kerre Woodham for the Coalition, it would result in a lot more ACT and NZ First ministers, trading talented National ministers like Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop, or Paul Goldsmith for people voters have potentially never heard of and don't want.  He says if you broadly want a National Government, then vote for what you want instead of potentially ending up with buyer's remorse.  LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's an old saying, "you're so sharp you could cut yourself". Similar to "you're too clever for your own good", meaning sometimes a person tries to be too tricky or clever, which leads them to make a simple task messy or fail completely. And that is the warning being given by the main parties to voters who are trying to rig the system.   To be fair, Te Pāti Māori started it this election with the message to their voters in the Māori electorates to give the party their candidate vote, while leaving the party vote entirely up to the individual voter. The understanding being, of course, that anyone voting for a Te Pāti Māori candidate in the Māori seats will be voting for a party from the left block. That strategy could lead to the creation of an overhang where there are more seats in Parliament, and following the message from Te Pāti Māori, more seats in Parliament for a left block. Now supporters of the Coalition Government are asking their voters to do the same thing, split their votes in order to get an overhang. An overhang happens when a party wins more electorate seats than its share of the party vote should entitle it to. This grows the size of Parliament and skews its proportionality. It means the shape of Parliament does not reflect the overall party vote. Don Brash was the first to call for National voters to give their electorate vote to National and party vote ACT or New Zealand First.   Harry Mowbray, father of the rich listers, is trying to get a campaign going to do the same thing. If you heard him on Heather du Plessis Allan last night, you'd have heard him explaining how it works. The maths wasn't mathsing for me when I listened to Harry. My brain was trying to crunch the numbers, and the cogs weren't working when I was listening, but my young boss said, well just look at Te Pāti Māori, there's the overhang. The party vote does not entitle them to any seats in Parliament, but they have six electorate seats. When it comes to National, basically it means that if National's going to, according to Harry's calculations, get all of its electorate seats, the party vote would just entitle it to those same electorate seats, whereas if you party vote for New Zealand First or ACT, it will give them more seats that they couldn't get through an electorate.   Henry Cooke in the Post has a piece outlining Harry Mowbray's attempt to game the political system. And I like Henry's writing, but the editorial starts, "there's an attempt, a very nascent one, from a very rich right wing man to fundamentally skew the New Zealand election." Well yes, but there's nothing in there about Te Pāti Māori, who, without resorting to seven-year-old playground tactics, started it. Where's the mention about Te Pāti Māori's call to its party faithful? Come on Henry, be fair. There's also a call, a very nascent one, from very left leaning Te Pāti Māori politicians to fundamentally skew the New Zealand election. You could have started the column just like that. So they're both doing it. The fact that we have a political system that allows this is just a nonsense. It just shows the flaws of MMP. It also, and that was something Willie Jackson pointed out and it's something that New Zealand First Winston Peters pointed out, puts the Māori seats at risk. If you're going to play silly buggers was their message, you'll lose the seats.   It's all too complicated for me really. I get where voters are annoyed with National. They might think that National hasn't gone far enough, and that's what happened to Labour. Labour had the opportunity to bring in sweeping reformist change with their absolute majority. They chose not to, they chose to squander that, so their supporters were really grumpy and flounced off to the minor parties. If you're a bit cross, but you like your electorate MP who happens to be National, you vote National and then say, oh, I'm going to give my party vote to ACT, that'll toughen them up, that'll teach them a lesson. But doing that sometimes, as Sir John Key warned, can give you unintended consequences and can mean that you are being so sharp you'll cut yourself, and then you'll be sorry. Is anybody thinking that they're being clever, or is it just pure emotion? You're grumpy with the way your party's performed, be it Labour or National, so you're going to give your party vote to the minor parties like the Greens, like ACT, to give them a bit more grunt in coalition talks, or you're trying to be clever and play the system.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.