Election 2023: Chris Hipkins v Christopher Luxon in second leaders’ debate; new poll shows Nats need Winston Peters
Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon have both pledged to keep the number of police higher than the number of gang members.
They also promised to lift 80,000 more children out of poverty by 2028, though Hipkins said Luxon’s plan to peg benefit levels to inflation rather than wages would increase poverty.
They each promised to lower the age for bowel cancer screening from 60 to 50, the same as in Australia, and 45 for some people.
And they promise to pay all nurses the same.
The leaders of National and Labour both made the pledges during the second leaders’ debate tonight, moderated by Newshub’s Patrick Gower in front of an audience of 200 undecided voters.
The debate traversed a range of topics including the cost of living, law and order, the under-resourced health sector, falling education attainment, and how to breathe life into an economy with little wriggle room in coming years.
It followed a 1News Verian poll showing National and Act would need NZ First to form a government, the second poll this week to do so.
Both parties have already released most of their major policies, and with overseas voting starting and advanced voting beginning on Monday, the pressure was on Hipkins to shake things up and find some way to resonate with voters.
Hipkins came out firing, and the debate was immediately a much more fiery affair than the first one.
Who won Newshub leaders’ debate? The verdicts on Hipkins and Luxon
Royce
Our political writers give their verdicts on tonight's performances.
Read more here:
Steve Braunias: Luxon bores himself to sleep at debate
Royce
OPINION:
Reader, it happened again. Last week I was the man who fell asleepon live television in the studio of the leaders’ debate filmed at TVNZ; and during Wednesday night’s debate, another man dozed off in front of a watching nation. His name was Christopher Luxon.
I fell asleep last week because the debate was boring. Luxon bored himself to sleep at the Newshub debate. The body, dressed in a really badly tailored pair of suit pants, was upright. But the mind had switched off. He was political leader as somnambulist, gabbling nonsense like a man talking in his sleep, saying random and senseless things.
Read more here:
James Wheeler
James Wheeler
Chris Hipkins said he was a 9 out of 10 in tonight's debate. We'll have our experts' verdicts shortly to see if they agreed.
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That's a wrap for the media standups with the leaders. Stay tuned for further updates, commentary and analysis on nzherald.co.nz.
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Luxon said he debate was "good fun" and ended up giving himself a rating of 7/10.
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Luxon didn't give himself a rating for his debate performance, saying it was up to the New Zealand people.
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Luxon called it a "robust" and "free willing" debate.
He said Hipkins "came out pretty aggressive".
"At the end of the day, it was a great debate, it was good fun."
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"We're very confident in our numbers," Luxon says.
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Now it's Luxon's turn to take questions from the media.
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"Are you the king of the zinger?," ZB's Jason Walls asks.
"I'm the king of the gingers," Hipkins replies.
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"Election campaigns are a marathon, not a sprint, but you do get a sprint at the end." - Hipkins
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Hipkins said he makes sure his numbers add up. "Christopher Luxon can't make the same commitment."
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"I'm determined to turn this around."
"It's going to be a slightly different campaign in the next couple of weeks," Hipkins said.
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"I'm not sure what Christopher Luxon's position was by the end of the debate because he had multiple positions throughout the debate." - Hipkins
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"Winston Peters' decision making is erratic. He's an unstable force of chaos," Hipkins reiterated.
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Asked what his target is, Hipkins said "my target is to win".
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"NZ First are absolutely playing the race card in this campaign," Hipkins said.
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"I've been enjoying the campaign all the way through but I particularly enjoyed tonight," Hipkins said.
He said he will not be holding back now.
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"This is the level of energy you're going to see from me in the next two and a half weeks," Hipkins said.
"I'm fully enjoying myself now."
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Hipkins gives himself a 9/10 rating for today's debate.
FACT CHECK
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Christopher Luxon said the All Blacks have never lost a World Cup under the last National Government. He was right.
The All Blacks did win in both John Key's terms of 2011 and 2015 - but had not won in the National Government prior to that.
The All Blacks finished third in in the Rugby World Cup in 1991 and also lost the in 1995 - both during a National government (the Bolger–Shipley government).
The All Blacks also lost two games in the 1999 World Cup in the final days of the government led by National's Jenny Shipley.
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We will back shortly with the post-debate media standups with the Chrises.
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Paddy Gower thanks "the red Chris" and "the blue Chris" and ends the debate.
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The Chrisses don't really push the boat out with their favourite prime ministers.
Hipkins chose Labour's Michael Joseph Savage and Luxon chose National's Keith Holyoake.
Really pushing the boat out there Chrisses.
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Luxon also promises a knighthood for Ian Foster "if he wins the World Cup."
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Luxon says second harbour crossing should be tolled.
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Both said cats should be in predator free 2050.
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Asked who New Zealand's greatest PM is, Luxon says to Hipkins "are you going to say Chris Hipkins?"
Hipkins: "Are you?"
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Luxon claims he caught a bus from the Waiheke terminal. Hipkins with his kids in the last year.
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"Winston Peters will never be Prime Minister, do not worry about that." - Chris Luxon
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Neither could easily say when they last caught a public bus.
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Both said they were open to churches paying taxes.
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"it's not a great endorsement of Judith," Hipkins says when Luxon prevaricates over the question.
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On foreign affairs portfolio and if it should be Judith Collins or Winston Peters, Luxon said "I haven't thought about it".
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Hipkins said conditions didn't work last time: "it's cruel."
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Hipkins said no to live animal exports, Luxon said with conditions.
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Gower bit of sledge on how much a tax on AI would raise, says to Luxon "you could work it out."
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Luxon said NZ should embarce GE while Hipkins said it could be done carefully.
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Luxon said he wants to bring Defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP, a target used for members of the Northern Hemisphere’s NATO alliance, although he said he would not get there immediately (he said there are other priorities).
This is a tough number to calculate. Defence spending is pretty lumpy because a large component of it involves buying expensive machinery, which occurs infrequently.
Two per cent of GDP would be $8.3b a year.
An OECD metric says we spend 1.5 per cent of GDP on Defence, leaving a gap of about $2b a year.
Treasury’s Prefu figures put spending at $3.2b, about 0.7 per cent of GDP.
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Both said they would look into menopause leave.
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Asked what is more harmful out of alcohol and cannabis, both said alcohol.
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Time for the quick fire questions.
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Neither would ban TikTok.
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On AUKUS and joining pillar 2, Luxon said it was undefined and would need to look into it.
Hipkins said they would cooperate with those partners, but would not commit to joining.
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Both said NZ should not get drones that kill people.
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Both leaders avoided saying if NZ needed to be prepared for conflict, saying everything needed to done to avoiding it. Luxon said it was good there was bipartisanship on this.
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"Do you ever answer a question straight?" Hipkins to Luxon
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On defence spending, Luxon said he wanted to get to 2 per cent of GDP but there were other pressing priorities.
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If the Greens and Te Pāti Māori made a wealth tax a bottom line, Hipkins said he did not think it would come to that. He said they had worked constructively together before. Luxon said he didn't think Labour would have the leverage to make that decision.
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Asked if Peters was good or bad for the country, Hipkins immediately said "bad." Luxon repeatedly said "I don't know him. That's a decision for the voters of New Zealand."
Which incidentally is Peters' usual quote too.
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The Chrises have just wandered into a very complicated issue, what’s the best way to lower emissions: the Emissions Trading Scheme, or individual policies like the Clean Car Discount.
It boils down to this. Investments in policies like the NZ Steel deal and the Clean Car Discount reduce emissions from those particular polluters. This keeps the ETS price down, but does not necessarily lower the country’s overall net emissions.
Labour argues that National getting rid of these policies and relying on the ETS to reduce emissions would require the price to rise dramatically, putting up the price of fuel by 40 cents a litre.
They have a point there - the ETS is going to need to rise, and quite a lot. National’s counter argument is Labour’s policies do not actually reduce net emissions. For the county.
We covered this issue in detail in the piece below:
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On his plan to manage Peters and David Seymour given their hostility to each other, Luxon again avoided answering the question.
He said it was not his preference and it would be better than a "five ring circus" if Hipkins got in with the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
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Hipkins was very quick to answer that Peters is bad for the country.
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Asked if Winston Peters was good or bad, Luxon avoided answering and said he didn't know him.
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"You can't even keep a consistent position during a debate." - Hipkins to Luxon
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Hipkins then pointed out Luxon had earlier said he thought drugs should be treated as a health issue.
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On decriminalising cannabis, Hipkins said he would not rule out further changes but wanted to seek a bipartisan approach. Luxon said his party was not supportive of that.
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"We all have our views about pro-life, or pro-choice views. I've been very clear those laws are settled."
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"You haven't answered the question," said Hipkins. He pointed out there were people in National's caucus that celebrated abortion laws being overturned in the US.
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Luxon answers the question about abortion in the only way he really can, repeating his promise not to change abortion laws.
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Asked if Luxon regretted saying abortion was "tantamount to murder", Luxon avoided answering the question and said if abortion laws changed he would resign.
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Neither said they would abandon their principles for politics.
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Time for another break. When they come back, they'll be talking about coalitions.
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Asked if they had stole a road cone, Luxon said he hadn't.
Hipkins said they did have one in a student flat he lived in.
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On potholes, Hipkins said they were spending more fixing them that any Government in history.
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On speed limits, Hipkins said on new roads where it was safe it was appropriate to raise them, but not on dangerous roads.
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Luxon says it's "corporate welfare." "You should not be giving taxpayers' money to companies making $2.1 billion of profit."
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Luxon said instead Labour was subsidising corporates making billions in profits.
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Hipkins argues that the big corporates won't take emissions reductions measures themselves. "They won't."
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On subsidising corporates to reduce their emissions, Hipkins said they were good investments as they reduced the country's emissions overall.
Luxon said they would do that themselves if the Emissions Trading Scheme was working properly. Hipkins said if that occurred petrol would go up immediately 40c a litre.
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On the clean car discount, Hipkins said it had seen among the fastest uptake in EVs and hybrids in the world. Luxon said the discount wasn't needed, and instead the focus needed to be on increasing chargers to make them mor attracetive to consumers.
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Hipkins said not harvesting the trees was not a good option as they could still pose a danger. He agreed harvesters could lose their licenses to operate.
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That could include shutting down the forests.
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Luxon said there simply needed to be greater penalties for breaches.
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Hipkins said it was not as simple as shutting down forests. It was about doing it responsibly.
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Both said forestry companies had to take responsibility for forestry slash.
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Both leaders said they agreed to a bipartisan approach to how to shift communities impacted by climate change.
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Hipkins he wanted to be a progressive leader on climate change, pointing emissions had reduced three years in a row now.
Luxon said he too wanted to take a lead on the issue.
He rattled off National's known climate policies.
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Now onto climate change.
How much would it cost?
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Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon both committed to reducing the bowel cancer screening age Australia’s level, of 50 or 45 if a test is requested.
How much would it cost?
We can put together a rough estimate from currently available figures.
In Budget 2022, the Government extended free bowel cancer screening to Māori and Pacific people to people aged between 50 and 60 (it is currently 60-75 for non-Māori and Pacific).
It cost $36m over four years ($9m a year) and was said to give 60,000 people a test a year - $150 a test.
Stats population data says there are 653,940 people in the 50-60 age bracket - 593,940 if you exclude the Māori and Pacific already funded.
That’s about $98m for each one of those people to get an annual test, half if they are only tested once every two years (as is the case under the current policy).
$392m over four year forecast period or $196m over the period for a test every two years.
FACT CHECK
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Luxon claimed "I’m not tolerating an education system where 40 per cent of kids don’t show up at school regularly" and Hipkins said "that's not true."
Education stats show in Term 1, 59.5 per cent of children attended school 90 per cent of more of the time.
A further 23.3 per cent attended 80-90 per cent of time, and 17 per cent attended less than 80 per cent of the time.
So probably a win for Hipkins on that one.
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Going back to Luxon's claims regarding school attendance rates, it is worth resharing this insightful column by Herald senior writer Simon Wilson:
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Hipkins called out Luxon on that, saying the rainbow community was not all about mental health issues.
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Luxon said he would help the rainbow community and high suicide rates by having a mental health commissioner.
“You haven’t said one thing you’d do differently,” Hipkins said as Luxon went through the boot camps for young offenders plan that the previous National Government did, with 80-odd per cent going on to reoffend.
“What you’re doing doesn’t work. There’s no evidence that will work ... you’re repeating the same mistake over and over again,” Hipkins said.
Luxon, who said his boot camps would be better, retorted at one point: “It’s not going to make great TV if we’re talking over each other. Calm down ... You like to say things but that doesn’t make it so.”
At one point Luxon said Hipkins needed a hug because of all his negativity.
“You don’t like to be challenged. If you answered questions I wouldn’t need to challenge you,” Hipkins replied.
When the debate turned to gangs, Luxon said told Hipkins: “I appreciate you’re coming out and having a bit of a fight.”
He said the gang members are voting for Labour, to which Hipkins said, “that’s nonsense”.
There are currently about 9000 gang members and 10,700 police, and they both said they promised to have more police than gang members.
Both parties have released a policy to increase the number of police by 300 over the next four years.
Luxon said he would ban gang patches in public places but wouldn’t say if expected police to go up to gang members and rip the patches off them.
Hipkins asked him how police would identify gang members if they were patch-less.
On a scenario of a gang funeral, Luxon said he expected police to go after them while Hipkins said that would be dangerous and they should go after them following the end of the funeral.
Luxon said he didn’t think a teenager taking MDMA at a festival was a criminal, before back-tracking and saying they were a criminal.
Hipkins said it was a health issue and though they were a criminal under the law, he was open to reviewing drug laws.
Luxon had a go at Hipkins over the increase in government spending, but Hipkins said hundreds of millions of dollars had gone to superannuitants, health and education.
“You’re saying those things are wasteful spending. That’s not wasteful spending.”
They also clashed on health targets.
“Your targets meant people missed out on health care,” Hipkins said, reading a letter revealing people were taken off waitlists so targets weren’t missed.
“Our targets saved lives,” Luxon replied.
Neither of them said the country was racist but Hipkins said Luxon wanted to work with people who are “race-baiting”.
He read out a statement from a NZ First candidate that both agreed was racist.
“Christopher, you’re willing to work with these people,” Hipkins said.
Luxon said it was last resort to work with NZ First and its leader Winston Peters to change the government if necessary, but he wanted a National-Act coalition.
“You worked for him for three years,” Luxon said, to which Hipkins said: “And I’d never do it again.”
On tax, Luxon wouldn’t say if he would resign if he couldn’t raise the expected revenue from his foreign buyers tax.
Luxon said he was committed to delivering tax relief while Hipkins interjected: “You’re not answering the question.”
Neither committed to cutting fuel taxes though National wouldn’t add any further taxes this coming term.
Hipkins said National’s Emissions Trading System would push petrol prices up, which Luxon rejected.
Hipkins also claimed that Luxon’s public service cuts would see thousands of public servants out of work by Christmas.
Luxon said certain public service chief executives would be asked to find 6.5 per cent in savings, but couldn’t give a number on how many jobs would be cut.
“Show us your numbers. You’ve got no numbers,” Hipkins said.
Luxon said he agreed with Labour’s policy to restrict vape stores around the country to 600 stores.
“That’s my policy, are you adopting it?” Hipkins asked Luxon.
The first leaders’ debate was widely seen as dull and lacking in new information, with Luxon winning by default given he had more to lose and didn’t make any mistakes.
Labour has been roughly 10 percentage points behind National in recent polls, which has shifted more attention towards whether National and Act might need NZ First to have the numbers to change the government.
Earlier this week Luxon said he would pick up the phone to Peters if he needed NZ First to change the government.
Poll shows National needs Winston Peters to govern
A 1News Verian poll shows National has slipped further to 36 per cent - down 1 per cent - and would need NZ First to form a government.
NZ First was on 6 per cent, Labour was on 26 (down 1), the Greens were up one to 13, Act was steady on 12 per cent and Te Pāti Māori was on 2 per cent (down 1).
Luxon told 1News that he did not want people to think the election was a foregone conclusion. He said it was clear the majority of the country wanted change and they’d have to vote to achieve it.
Hipkins told 1News he didn’t think Luxon had the political skills to get Act leader David Seymour and Peters to agree on anything.
Peters said “they need experience, they need accountability”.
National and Act would get 60 seats in Parliament on the poll’s results: one short of the 61 needed for a majority. The left bloc of Labour-Greens-Te Pāti Māori would be well short of a majority with 52 seats between them.
Hipkins and Luxon were still level pegging as preferred prime minister on 23 per cent.
It is Labour’s worst result in six years as it has continued to drop. However, Hipkins noted National was also now starting to drop back: “They’ve peaked.”
There were 11 per cent undecided or refused to say in the poll of 1002 eligible voters taken from September 23 to 26.
In the last 1News Verian poll a week ago, National and Act would have been able to form a government with 61 seats.
National was on 37 per cent (down 2 points) and Act was at 12 per cent (up 2). NZ First had hit the 5 per cent mark.
Labour was on 27 (down 1), and the Green Party on 12 (up 2). Te Pāti Māori was on 3 per cent.
A Newshub Reid-Research poll earlier this week also had National and Act with 61 seats between them - and NZ First bumping over the 5 per cent threshold. That poll went to air hours after Luxon said he would pick up the phone to talk to Peters if he had to on election night: the first time he specifically ruled NZ First in as a potential governing option.
The second leaders’ debate between the two men vying to be the next prime minister kicks off at 7pm today.
Hipkins and Luxon have spent the afternoon away from the hustings and brushing up on their numbers ahead of the Newshub debate, which is being moderated by Patrick Gower.
Both parties have already released most of their major policies, and with overseas voting starting today and advanced voting starting on Monday, the pressure will be on Hipkins to shake things up and find some way to resonate with voters.
The Herald will be providing live updates including from the post-debate interviews with each party leader.
The first leaders’ debate was widely seen as dull and lacking in new information, with Luxon winning by default given he had more to lose and didn’t make any mistakes.
Labour has been roughly 10 percentage points behind National in recent polls, which has shifted more attention towards whether National and Act might need NZ First to have the numbers to change the government.
Potential governing partnerships are sure to be raised in the debate, along with the issues that have worried voters the most including the cost of living, law and order, the under-resourced health sector, falling education attainment, house prices, inequality, climate change, and how to breathe life into an economy that has very little wriggle room in the coming years.
There will also be allegations of fiscal holes and lack of economic credibility, which Labour has sought to address with the release of its fiscal plan earlier today.
Hipkins will be seeking to tap into the 53.8 per cent of voters who, according to the latest Newshub Reid Research poll, said they didn’t think National could pay for its tax cuts. National has refused to release the assumptions behind the numbers in its tax package, which has been described by economists as plausible, optimistic, and even “bullshit”.
It’s a line Hipkins has been running since National released its tax package, though whether it has been working in Labour’s favour is questionable.
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.