Heather du Plessis-Allan: Of course Luxon's chickening out of the debate

Is Chris Luxon chickening out of the press debate tonight? Of course he is chickening out.

Sure, his campaign diary will be full and it’ll be a pain in the butt to rearrange things to fit in an afternoon and evening in Christchurch, because it is a several hours long operation to get ready for a debate and then do the debate.

But if he really wanted to do it, he would. He just doesn’t.

Mike Hosking: It's time to mix up the election debate format

Based on the premise that you learn from your mistakes and the general idea that you want to improve, the conclusion I have reached this week as another seven days in the campaign ends is we need to have a good long think about the debates.

I am not alone. Several pieces I have now read say essentially the same thing.

Kate Hawkesby: Are the Chrises ready to face the heat?

David Seymour said yesterday that the media can’t be trusted to fairly carry ACT’s message. 

Based on the texts we got yesterday from people who attended the ACT launch rally, there may be some truth in that. In general, I don’t think we’re being well served by election coverage at the moment... but from all sides. The annoying disruptors, the shadow boxing politicians, the agenda driven clickbait media who proclaim not to have any agenda at all. Give it up, we can see your agenda, it’s plain as day. When you start insinuating someone is racist because someone else disrupted their campaign launch when that same person is a serial disruptor at multiple political party events, then you’ve lost the plot.