Kate Hawkesby: It really got to the point of crazy

Well what a weekend.

From the nail biter of a fantastic AB’s game, which, for the record, I was never in any doubt of. For those of you who were still listening to our election night coverage at midnight Saturday night you would have heard me say I picked the AB’s to win – so you know, never in any doubt from me, just saying. Just so happy for Fozzie to be honest. I feel like he deserved that.

Likewise I thought the Nats deserved to win Saturday night like they did. You can’t take away from Luxon what he was up against... from a shambolic leaking party at the start, to some in house scandals, to an unsympathetic media, to constant grilling about how unliked and unpopular he was, to a gruelling and nasty campaign against him from Labour and their Union mates at the CTU.

He had it all thrown at him, and he just kept going. Slow and steady wins the race. On reflection, personally, if we made one mistake it was getting sucked in by the polls, we started to believe them. I did anyway. I think questions need to be asked now about how pollsters are conducting these in this post-landline age. They seemed ropey at the beginning, but then as they stacked up and up and up – and we sure weren’t short of polls— they seemed to all be telling a similar story.

Turns out, they were wrong. Worst culprits were obviously Newshub, where an excited Jenna Lynch breathlessly announced just a couple of days out from election day that ‘the Nats had crashed’.

It really got to the point of crazy at the end there. Maybe we all just went nuts because it was such a long campaign, we were all delirious by then. But I don’t think we as voters were well served by the so called non-biased press gallery reporting, and by sideshows like whether Chris Luxon believed in dinosaurs.

I think what the wipe out for Labour very clearly points to is a rejection of Jacinda – particularly in Auckland where National did so well. I mean Chloe won the electorate seat of Auckland Central, but Auckland had a massive blue wave. And I actually put Chloe’s win down to name recognition and just being a face of Auckland for so long. Mahesh came dangerously close there and I think he'll be a force to be reckoned with next time – he just needs more time and more name recognition.

But Hipkins got a hospital pass from Jacinda of the very worst kind, I felt bad for him in the end. Voters rejected lockdowns and her sneering treatment of them and the fact her very own Mt Albert electorate is so close to flipping blue for the first time in history, speaks volumes about how toxic the Jacinda brand had become. International coverage leapt on it, one headline calling it a ‘devastating verdict on Jacinda Ardern as New Zealand votes out Labour party in 'bloodbath'.

CNN said: "New Zealand shifts right as voters punish ruling party". And I do think it was the party getting punished —and Jacinda— more so than Chris Hipkins himself.

So look it’s all on for Luxon now. After an exhausting campaign it now seems the nitty gritty of the hard work really starts for him: how he cobbles together his government, who gets what, does he need Winston after specials are counted or not, and how the heck does he make it all work.

All I can say at this point is thank god the All Blacks won, thank goodness the election campaign is over, now all we need is for the sun to keep shining.

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