Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Phil Goff: Former Labour Leader unpacks the election campaign to date

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Phil Goff: Former Labour Leader unpacks the election campaign to date · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Only a week of campaigning to go. No new taxes.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Better starts now. Polls are all over the place. Phil Goff,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: former Labour leader, with us this morning to wrap the week. Phil,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: good morning.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good morning, Ryan.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Do you have a final prediction? Are you game enough
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to make one at this point?
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  Speaker 2: My prediction is it's too close to call, and my
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: prediction is that... Come election night, by midnight, we may
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: well not know who is going to govern New Zealand.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: And that may take a couple of weeks after that,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: probably up to the edge of Christmas. But look, you know,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: there are elections that you and I can both remember, 2023, 2020,
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  Speaker 2: the last two elections, where you could say with absolute
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: confidence before the election, this is going to be the
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: result and this is going to be the government result.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: You can't do that on this occasion. And there's, I think,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: four reasons for that. One is the question of overhang.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: And I see in the Herald poll of polls saying
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: that National may well get seven seats because they're winning
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: electorate seats beyond their proportion of the vote. So a
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: huge overhang that would obviously give some advantage to the
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: coalition if that were to happen. But we don't know
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: whether that's going to happen, whether the campaign to you know,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: cast your candidate vote for national and your party vote
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: for somebody else is actually working or whether it may
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: happen even without an orchestrated effort. The second thing is turnout.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I think we're going to get a better turnout this time.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: The early voting certainly shows that. And there are a
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: lot of people, last time, when Labour loses, it loses
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: because people not generally change their votes, but they just
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: don't bother turning out to vote. I think the turnout
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: will be up this time. But, of course, the enrolment
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: is down, and there may be 100,000 people that have
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: been disenfranchised by the Government's Act to stop enrolment up
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: to Election Day. You sound like Trump. Yeah, third thing is,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: it's a very Trumpist move, unfortunately.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: No, pre-empting a loss by complaining about electoral fraud is
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: very Trumpian, isn't it?
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. The Trumpian thing is what Trump does,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: which is to try to do everything he can to
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: put obstacles in the way of people voting that won't
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: vote for him. You know, in a democracy, regardless of
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: how people vote, that's up to them. I agree with you.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: But we should be encouraging them, not discouraging them.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I agree with you on that point. Hey, so I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: think you're right. It's very too close to call. But
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: what are your political– what are your waters telling you?
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: What does your gut tell you? Yeah.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: If the Opportunity Party, on average, will get in, on
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  Speaker 2: the average of the polls, and Kuele Wong has started
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: to say in recent days that she'd find it very
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: difficult to work with New Zealand First. They are polar opposites.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: If Opportunity Party gets in, then there is, I think,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: a chance that there'll be a change of government. If
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: they don't get in, that makes it much harder for
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: the left of centre coalition.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I completely agree with you. Phil Goff, former Labor leader,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: with us live this morning.