TL;DR: The Opportunities Party’s (TOP) Leader Raf Manji has raised the party’s hopes very late in the campaign that he can win the Ilam electorate and TOP can be an alternative kingmaker for Labour or National in place of NZ First.
Manji told 1News yesterday National and Labour weren’t trying to win the electorate, which had cleared the way for TOP to get an electorate foothold in Parliament that could pull in one or two more MPs on his coat-tails, and ensure TOP party votes elsewhere aren’t wasted. National and Labour rejected any suggestion out of hand that they had done ‘cup of tea’ deals with TOP.
Elsewhere in the news this morning:
Labour Leader Chris Hipkins threw everything he had at National Leader Christopher Luxon in last night’s final leaders debate on 1News, bringing up Luxon’s decision to retain Sam Uffindell as a National MP despite Uffindell’s boarding school assault on a fellow pupil with a bed leg;
Luxon stumbled in the debate when he said his weekly grocery shop on a Sunday in Wellington cost $60, which Hipkins and the studio audience laughed at 1News; and,
CTU economist Craig Renney says in an analysis that younger voters would have their pensions delayed under National, which meant a 43-year-old couple would have to save an extra $200 a fortnight to retire with the same as today’s 65-year-olds — wiping out the benefits of tax cuts for them of ‘up to’ $252/fortnight.
Paying subscribers can see more detail below the paywall fold and hear more of my analysis in the podcast above.
Now you tell us…
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