Election 2026 Campaign Diary: Green Party leaders draw high-level endorsement
Welcome to the latest edition of the daily Campaign Diary, with just under four weeks to go until the election.
Endorsement from high places
Green Party co-leaders Chlöe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson have received high-level endorsement on the party’s $6 billion innovation policy from AUT Chancellor Rob Campbell.
Campbell was invited to introduce the pair at the announcement in Auckland on Tuesday morning.
“I think ‘social innovation’ is the key to our future. Not protection of the vested interests of the past. We have to be brave,” he said in his remarks, which were also posted on his Substack.
Then he quoted from Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure.
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
“That’s what we need to do in our economy today and these two are about as good as you’ll get in leading us in that direction: Marama and Chlöe.”
Campbell is a top-shelf director but lost his job chairing Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora under the last Labour Government after airing personal opinions on Three Waters, his action being deemed to have breached neutrality requirements.
National targets Labour brain-box candidate
Just when you thought the tax wars had died down, National campaign manager Simeon Brown targeted prominent Labour activist and Tāmaki candidate Max Harris, suggesting he would press for more taxes if elected.
In a press statement, Brown quoted from an old Spinoff article Harris wrote in 2018: “If tax is love then New Zealand needs to show a lot more affection.”
Harris, a lawyer, author and former Rhodes Scholar with a PhD from Oxford University, responded: “This is just desperation. The people here are focusing on the cost of living. That’s what we heard today. That’s what we should be focusing on.”
Meanwhile, Labour campaign chairman Kieran McAnulty has claimed National policies over the past three years have led to Kiwi households being $6000 a year worse off, although the figure does not account for income rises, from tax cuts for example, or lower interest rates. Labour dismissed suggestions of adopting National’s tactics.
New Zealand’s interest or NZ First’s interest?
Foreign Minister and NZ First leader Winston Peters has been slammed for requiring New Zealand to join a tiny minority of countries abstaining on a UN vote on pandemic preparedness.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins called it embarrassing, showing cowardice and an example of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon embracing conspiracy theories as New Zealand Government positions.
Luxon, no doubt mindful of coalition cracks, washed his hands of it, insisting it was the prerogative of the Foreign Minister alone. Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan suggested in a press conference it was a weak position for a Prime Minister to take.
Campaign quiz
Name the four MPs standing in the Epsom electorate.
Looking ahead
Wednesday: Luxon and Hipkins will be campaigning in Auckland ahead of theNZ Herald Leaders’ Debate hosted by Ryan Bridge at 7pm on the Heraldwebsite, Three and Three Now.
Thursday: Shane Jones has public meetings in Queenstown in the morning and Gore in the afternoon. David Seymour will be campaigning in Queenstown, Cromwell and Wānaka.
Quiz Answer: Act’sDavid Seymour, National’s Paul Goldsmith, Labour’s Camilla Belich and the Greens’ Lawrence Xu-Nan.
Don’t miss these stories
If you’d like to know more about National’s fiscal plan released on Monday, read this smart analysisby political editor Thomas Coughlan. And if you’d like to know how Hipkins answered the question “Is David Seymour an arrogant prick”, you can read all about it here from Adam Pearse, who spent a day campaigning with Hipkins in Manawatū.