TL;DR: There are four days to go and the election debates are starting to sound like ‘squeaky bum time’1, with the ever-growing prospects of an uncertain or accidental result.
Election rules mean the death on Sunday of ACT’s candidate in the safe National electorate of Port Waikato, Neil Christensen, will force a by-election that effectively adds an MP to the 120 MP Parliament after this weekend’s general election. It is essentially and accidentally a ‘free’ MP for National, which could prove the difference in a hung result that means National-ACT doesn’t need NZ First’s support to govern.
Meanwhile, ACT Leader David Seymour was reported by Politik-$$$’s Richard Harman this morning as telling a meeting of supporters in Hastings on Saturday night that a binding referendum on a new Treaty of Waitangi Act was a bottom line for ACT and National’s refusal to agree to it would leave ACT sitting on the cross benches voting on legislation vote by vote.
Labour leapt on the prospects of uncertainty, painting the collective Opposition as a ‘coalition of chaos’.
Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa’s political economy this morning:
Labour said National’s tax-cutting plan would force $3 billion of spending cuts each year, requiring 6,000 job losses. National rejected the claim.
A $500 million rebuild of New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica is on hold.
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