Labour leader Chris Hipkins and National leader Christopher Luxon will be happy to see the back of each other after a final Stuff Leaders’ debate that was so argumentative barely anything enlightening had a chance to cut through.
A sharp exchange came over a possible deal with the Opportunity Party, with Hipkins predicting Luxon’s own colleagues would dump him the day after the election, and Luxon hitting back that the public said goodbye to Hipkins in 2023 “and he’s still here.”
Climate risk and taxing big tech also drew clashes, with host Paddy Gower also covering rough sleepers, the healthcare system and digital technology, and The Post associate editor Luke Malpass probing debt and foreign affairs.
The debate followed two polls on Tuesday - the latest 1News Verian Poll had National pushing itself out of the 20s and up to 32% support, surpassing Labour's 27% (taken via mobile/online between October 15-19), which followed the Post-Freshwater Poll, funded by Infrastructure NZ (online between October 9-19) which had Labour on 28.7% and National on 27.6%. Both polls had the Opportunity Party over the 5% MMP threshold and in a potential kingmaker role.
Asked if the level of tax big international technology companies pay was morally acceptable, Hipkins said no, and Luxon said New Zealand needed to act “in concert with like minded friends” to be able to implement any changes.
Luxon said while he wanted companies to pay their fair share of tax, there was no appetite for international change.
Opportunity cost
Luxon stuck to his position that he would not work with Opportunity, but he would not go as far as to commit to resign as leader over having ruled out talking to Opportunity Party leader Qiulae Wong. “That's a ridiculous question. It's a hypothetical question…”
Hipkins agreed he did not think Luxon would talk to Opportunity, instead he thought Luxon's "colleagues will remove him the day after the election, and whoever replaces him will talk to them, they tried to remove him three times in the last year, they won't hesitate.”
Luxon responded saying the public said “goodbye Chris Hipkins in 2023 and he’s still here.”
Quickfire
In Gower’s quickfire round, both said they would buy a Chinese EV and both considered exploiting an MMP overhang in Parliament was cheating.
Asked if there needed to be a law to define a man and a woman, Hipkins said no and Luxon said it had “some merit” in exploring the “complex issue.” Hipkins wanted to ban gambling ads in sports, while Luxon did agree but said it was a balance due to the gambling funds that went into grassroots sports.
Both were open to a four year parliamentary term referendum - which was originally supposed to be rolled out this term - but Luxon said it was not his number one priority, and Hipkins was open to a sinking lid on vape stores and Luxon said while he was not sure he was open to looking at it.
Insurance and climate change
Malpass asked the pair about the 219,000 homes worth $180 billion in New Zealand that are at risk of either coastal or inland flooding.
"There will be communities where people can't get insurance or a mortgage in the future. How are you going to deal with this?” he asked.
Luxon said there was "information asymmetry going on".
"Insurers, the banks, others actually have data and information about the risk around New Zealand's key communities that are going to be deeply impacted. We need to make sure that that data is all out there on the table, that it's democratised and available to all, because between local government, central government, landowners, banks, and insurers, we're going to have to work out how we do the burden sharing and actually over time how we mitigate the risk that we've got with climate change events and adapt to that. That's the first phase: is to get the data on the table."
Hipkins said there needed to be a nationwide approach to managed retreat.
"We're not talking about something that's going to happen in 10 years. We're talking about something that's going to happen over 30, 40, 50 years. We need to bring all the relevant communities together, central government, local government, the insurance sector-they've got skin in this game, and they should be involved in this discussion. Okay, so we need, but we need a consistent plan across the country to do that," he said.
Roading emissions
On the plan to move the country's vehicle fleet from petrol and diesel to electric, Hipkins said: "Climate change is one of the greatest threats that humanity faces, but for New Zealand, it's also one of the great opportunities."
"We can be a renewable energy powerhouse in the world. We have an abundance of renewable energy now. There's already a big shift happening. The move to electric vehicles. A lot of that's being driven by the high price of petrol at the moment. The good news for that is, the more people buying new electric vehicles now, the cheaper the second-hand market's going to be in a few years' time. We had one of the highest uptakes in the world under our government. This government managed to tank that."
In response, Luxon said in the last couple of quarters New Zealand had "record renewable electricity generation, about 96% of all electricity."
"This economy in the last quarter actually produced the lowest level of emissions it has since records began in 2010. So we start from a good starting point. The good news is consumers are choosing EVs themselves. The cars are getting better; they're very desirable. The range is getting longer. We can do things a bit like we did with the ultra fast broadband and actually get a charging network out across the country. There's more work to do, but that's the work that's in place..."
What's the first thing that happens if China were to invade Taiwan?
Luxon said it would be catastrophic for the world, have a huge hit on GDP globally and would have massive implications.
"The the bigger question is, rather than indulging in hypotheticals, is actually to make sure that the US and China continue to have a strategic dialogue and conversation with each other.... a miscalculation that leads to an event like that, that is going to have huge impact on our region and instability, is a disaster for the world. So we've got to do everything we can to make sure there's no miscalculation."
Hipkins said it was "not something we should speculate on idly."
"It would be catastrophic for the world. I totally agree with Christopher on that. We should continue, as New Zealand has been doing for the last 20 or 30 years, to encourage China to seek diplomatic resolution to any conflict in the Taiwan Strait."
"A military conflict there is in nobody's interests. But we should also be very clear that we are an independent nation. We don't align with either side in any conflict between the US and China, and that has been New Zealand's long-standing position. And we should reassert that."
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