Election 2026 Campaign Diary: The winners and losers of bad publicity
The old maxim that all publicity is good publicity is sometimes true when it comes to politics, but not for New Zealand First in the vital last week of the election campaign.
The women of New Zealand are talking about New Zealand First and candidate Michael Laws title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2026-live-updates-winston-peters-says-michael-laws-future-with-nz-first-still-to-be-decided/4WR4TD7KJ5BA7NKZBCIFWOK5ZE/">for all the wrong reasons, and that includes the women of New Zealand First who are “brassed off to beat the band”, leader Winston Peters says.
Laws’ transgression was in speculating about what an Opportunity Party candidate would look like after sex (he also noted in an apparent criticism that she wore hardly any makeup) and, as Ethan Manera reports, it wasn’t his first controversy.
Former New Zealand First MP and Invercargill city councillor Ria Bond described Laws’ comments as “deeply degrading, misogynistic and disgraceful” on RNZ and said the party was “more toxic” now than when she was involved on the board as an MP.
Those brassed-off women in Peters’ own party clearly helped to upgrade his limp response on Wednesday from a “telling off” to a pledge on Thursday to have the matter addressed by the party board after the election. In the meantime, Laws has upgraded his own apology from a highly caveated one, “if offended”, to a more fitting unequivocal personal apology to the Opportunity candidate concerned.
But you would have thought that Peters could have adjusted his final message sent to voters on Thursday in light of the Laws saga.
In the middle of his plea for party vote support, he says: “I could go on about our other work like ... standing up for women’s rights when some in Parliament don’t even know what one is.”
It is clear that in the circumstances, Laws could not become a minister in a re-elected coalition.
Whether he is pressured by the party to resign after the election might depend on the damage he is assessed to have done in Saturday’s vote.
By the way, a correction: Laws was a previous National MP for Hawke’s Bay, not Napier, as stated in yesterday’s diary.
The only upside for Hipkins
Labour is the only party to have experienced a campaign crisis of similar proportions, when video emerged of candidate Kerrin Leoni campaigning with gang members at a whānau event – forcing her resignation as Tāmaki Makaurau candidate.
The only upside for Hipkins was that it happened two weeks ago and not two days before the election. But it gives Hipkins a little more moral authority to criticise Peters over keeping Laws aboard and Christopher Luxon for not ruling out New Zealand First.
“Racism, sexism and misogyny are all part of New Zealand First’s DNA,” he said.
The one party that has benefited from “bad” publicity this campaign has been Chlöe Swarbrick and the Green Party. National’s loop-play attack ads on Swarbrick as “Finance Minister” from Luxon, Nicola Willis and Simeon Brown have been worn like a badge of honour, increased her credibility on the left and served as a wedge between Labour and the Greens. Smart politics from National.
Good news on the money front
The improvement in the monthly update of the Government’s accounts,compared with Treasury’s Prefu forecasts on September 29, has given National finance spokeswoman Willis something to crow about. She says it is evidence that National’s plan is working.
Labour’s Barbara Edmonds says that there are 51,000 more New Zealanders unemployed since National took office. “That is not a win.”
In a highly unorthodox move so close to an election, a large Government announcement of $258 million extra funding over four years for Hato Hone St John was made on Thursday by New Zealand First minister Casey Costello and National minister Scott Simpson.
Costello’s office assures me that she was notified about the Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora decision only on November 2 and it wasn’t a decision made earlier and held back. It is expected to fund, among other things, more than 220 additional ambulance officers, call handlers, dispatchers and clinicians, with the first 22 paramedics and technicians on the road by June 2027.
They said it
“A woman’s dignity is not a punchline and a body is not a political battlefield.” Former NZ First MP Ria Bond, RNZ.
Campaign quiz
Who is the current MP for Invercargill and who was the last Labour MP?
Looking ahead
Friday: Most leaders are campaigning in Auckland, although Chris Hipkins will be in Wellington.
Saturday: More than 2300 voting places will be open from 9am to 7pm, and you can find a place to vote here.
Quiz answer: National MP Penny Simmonds, and Liz Craig.
ICYMI
In case you missed it yesterday, my Campaign Diary was about whether New Zealand First has a women problem.
Political editor Thomas Coughlan, who is travelling with Christopher Luxon on the National Party bus, reports here on how the National leader has been campaigning against New Zealand First in Hawke’s Bay. Herald contributor Deborah Coddington gives her take on the furore about the gangs during the campaign.
RNZ’s Giles Dexter looks at the power of the Opportunity Party board in any decision over governing arrangements, and Wellington business editor Jenée Tibshraeny looks at how the markets could be spookedby Saturday’s results.