Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 31 October 2026

Election 2026: Pick a poll, any poll

The polls are arriving almost daily and depending which you prefer National is either out in front or doing worse than we were when I worked for Judith Collins as leader (they were challenging times). On Tuesday 1News-Verian had National on 29% and Labour on 27%, but on Thursday RNZ-Reid Research had National on 24.8% and Labour on 30.6%. Two very different pictures. There wasn’t quite such a dramatic difference for the smaller parties with the Greens getting 15% and 14.5% respectively, ACT 12% and 10.1%, New Zealand First 10% and 9.9%, and Opportunity 6% and 7.2%. And let’s just round Te Pāti Māori down to zero.

Richard Prebble: TOP’s Circus Act

For TOP to be kingmaker, the party must persuade at least one voter in twenty to vote for it. Not easy.

I identify four very different TOP voters.

First, the protest voter. I have been a scrutineer. Some people go to the trouble of voting only to cross out every candidate. There were 16,252 informal party votes in 2023. TOP offers another way to register a protest.

Kerre Woodham: What do you do when your lifesaving treatment isn't funded?

What would you do? I've been thinking about this ever since Paul's phone call yesterday. You might have been listening when he rang in. We were talking about the cost of living and how you can make economies and you can get an extra job and you can do all this and all that and try and get through, unless life throws you a curveball.

Matt Ridley: Can we make photosynthesis more efficient?

We human beings could succeed where nature has failed

An economy is also an ecology. Society is fuelled mostly by hydrocarbons, which are derived from carbohydrates synthesised by plants and turned into coal, oil and gas. A typical coal seam a metre thick was formed by 2,000 summers of plant photosynthesis 300 million years ago.

Bob Edlin: No, Luxon can’t boast a Budget surplus – not yet.....

....but NZ First’s fiscal plan is murkier

An email from Sir John Key, which landed in the PoO in-tray this morning, obviously aims to whip up votes for a National Party which desperately needs support if Christopher Luxon is to remain Prime Minister.

The latest poll shows support for the Nats at a parlous level while businessman Harry Mowbray is encouraging vote-splitting, to discredit MMP and “show people how bad it is”.

David Farrar: Verrall vs Hipkins

Radio NZ reports:

Labour has confirmed it will keep the coalition government’s health targets if elected, while admitting some of its “three free GP visits” could be with a nurse practitioner rather than a GP. …

Verrall confirmed Labour’s approach to the targets while discussing its plan for emergency departments, released on Tuesday.

David Farrar: TPM rorting charities again

The Herald reports:

MP Takutai Kemp was under investigation at the time of her death last year for funnelling thousands of dollars of charity money into Te Pāti Māori electoral campaigns, official documents show.

Details of the investigation by the Department of Internal Affairs into support provided in 2023 to Te Pāti Māori (TPM) by registered charity Manurewa Marae, for which Kemp served as chief executive at the time, were obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act.

Rodney Hide: The Future

Somewhere this week a team of consultants are finishing a business case for Council for a car park building. It will rest on careful traffic modelling and solid historical data. And in fifteen years it will be empty while the cars that should have filled it are out working.

That's the problem with all government. It drives by the rear-vision mirror.

Mike's Minute: One week to go, and the winner is...

So, the winner in week... what is it, five or six?

The winner in week five of the election campaign was the polls. Not the pollsters. The polls.

They were far from winners. The spread, the margin of error in some, is now so absurd they're writing articles about it.

 Saturday October 31, 2026 

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