UDSKRIFT 🔗
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Speaker 1: To the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald from Newstalk ZB. I've got a question for you. All right, I've got a question. With election day tomorrow, how would you rate the campaign? How would you rate it? It feels to me like we've been in campaign mode for the whole year. In fact, we probably have. In fact, I couldn't even bring myself to watch the people's debate last night all the way through to the end. It's just... Oh! And the people's debate, what that was all about was questions from voters. And Jack Tame was obviously keeping it real with the people and there was no suit, casual shirt and jeans. Or maybe the wardrobe department at TVNZ is like the rest of us. They're over it too and just didn't have it in them to get Jack all dressed up. I also think that elections are never an overly positive affair, but I reckon this campaign has been pretty awful. So much so that I reckon, well, you tell me, but I reckon a lot of people will have forgotten a lot of the policies that have been trotted out. You know, there's just been so much scrapping going on. If you haven't voted yet and you go into the polling booth tomorrow, will you remember any of the policies? And I'm not the only one thinking it's been a bit of a cluster. Some of the political leaders don't think it's been all that great either. Labour leader Chris Hipkins, let's start with him. He says National has run the most negative campaign of any first-term government. And I tell you what, the results of a new study would suggest that he's right on that. The Internet, Social Media and Politics Research Lab at Victoria University have done some analysis and found out that 65% of National's Facebook posts have been negative. Now, a lot of that would have come from the relentless online attacks the party has made on Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick, eh? I mean, it's been so relentless that Swarbrick herself has said that she's effectively being cyber-bullied by National. I mean, I agree with her. Bearing in mind, too, how rich is this, that it was only a few weeks ago, it was about five weeks ago, when one of National's own female MPs went public with some of the online bullying she's been dealing with. This is Selwood MP Nicola Grigg. Since then, though, National has continued having a go at Chloe online, using unflattering photos, all of that. I mean, just really, really nasty stuff. And as Heather de Plessis-Allen wrote in the New Zealand Herald, I'll quote you. She said, the Nats have very much crossed the line from playing the ball into a barrage of targeted attacks that no one involved in that campaign should feel proud of. End of quote. And that's what Heather had to say about it. I'm with her too. Not that Labour has been squeaky clean either, because that same study, which found that 65% of National's Facebook posts have been negative, also found that just over 50% of Labour's posts have been negative too. So Chris Hipkins, he may be right when he says it's been the most negative campaign ever by a first-term government, but it's a bit of the old pot calling kettle black, isn't there? Then we get to how Winston Peters feels the campaign has gone. I want to find out how you feel about it, but let's check in with how Winston feels. He's not holding back. He thinks it's the worst one he's ever seen. And he's seen a few. He's done 18 campaigns, in fact. He's describing this one as a circus. Now, you might recall when the rollickin' gelato guys were in last week, remember? With all the flavours they've dedicated to the leaders of the different political parties. You might recall them saying that Winston hadn't accepted their invitation to drop in and try some. That's because, we now know why, he's using the rollican thing as one of the reasons why he thinks the campaign has been a circus. He says, quote, it's just astonishing what's happened here. It's turned into a circus, sadly. This idea of having an ice cream pole and every leader dutifully turning up, subservient as it is, to such an unscientific, unprofessional thing is beyond me. Maybe he's lost a sense of humour. He goes on, and then you've got people petting dogs. I love dogs, but you know, Going around petting dogs can be very dangerous at times. You've had the wrong dog. He said they're talking about a cost of living crisis and they're flipping hamburgers. He's talking there about Christopher Luxon and David Seymour who have both been filmed in the past week making burgers. Now, I don't get too upset about that kind of thing. It's just politicians being politicians. But I tell you what, I do think that it is a campaign we will all be pleased to see the end of. For me, here's how I sum it up. For me, it's been too long. There have been too many debates, and it's been way too negative.