Episode Details

Now it's just over three months till the election. It is a really important election. New Zealand is struggling to get back on its feet economically. A lot of Kiwis are hurting, and they've been hurting for a long, long time. And they have to decide between a party that gives them stuff, “Oh look, we've got free stuff for you," or a party that is promised to fix things, “Hey, we're in charge here," but is still in the process of fixing things and hasn't fixed a great deal yet, “Oh, it takes time.” Or even whether they should give their vote to a shiny new party, “Hi, we're from TOP," utterly unproven, has some interesting takes on taxing the rich, but hey, at least it's not National or Labour, stuff National or Labour. I'll go with that nice girl in that shiny party that may well end up taking your land off you, but hey ho, there we go, at least it's not National or Labour.  

There is a lot to think about. There's a lot to consider, there's a lot to discuss, there are policies to pick apart, but instead we've spent a week of the 12 weeks we have left until the election fixated on stupid, crass, dumb stuff that politicians and would be politicians say. Should be a new media segment: Dumb Stuff Politicians Say. The media and the public are to blame equally. The media gets clicks on the website and eyes on social media and calls on talkback. Makes it easy, don't even have to work for them. The public can have a knee jerk reaction, “Oh, that's shocking," and an immediate opinion, “What a terrible person," without having to do the hard work of reading through policies and analysis of policies. And as expected, it didn't take Paul Henry long to be at the centre of a row when he was the guest of Radio Hauraki yesterday morning. 

JEREMY WELLS: Quick game of shoot, shag, marry. Chris Luxon, Chris Hipkins, and Winston Peters. Who are you shooting? Who are you shagging? Who are you marrying? 

PAUL HENRY: I mean, you know, you've got to shoot Hipkins, haven't you? 

WELLS: Okay, so Hipkins is no more.  

MANAIA STEWART: There's your headline. 

HENRY: Yeah, I'm shagging Winston. 

WELLS: And you're marrying Luxon. 

AYESHA VERRALL: That is absolutely inappropriate and these things do have to be called out because we can't just let death threats go in our political conversation. There are nutters out there who feed off these sorts of things and one day, you know, we can be in the situation which the UK is in where members of Parliament lose their lives. 

Oh, Ayesha Verrall, cool your jets. That was Ayesha on with my colleague Nick Mills in Wellington when she'd learned that Paul Henry had played shoot, shag, marry on Radio Hauraki. Death threats. The righteous indignation from Labour seems a bit OTT given Chris Hipkins participated in a similar game on The Project some years ago, except then as it was called kick, kiss, or marry. In 2023 Chris Hipkins said he would kick David Seymour, kiss Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to get it over and done with quickly, and marry Te Pāti Māori co leader Rawiri Waititi. Kick David Seymour! He's advocating violence! He wants people to hurt the ACT Leader! No, he doesn't. And nor does Paul Henry want to kill Chris Hipkins. They all just participated in a dumb media game and after Albanese got caught up in the shag, marry, date, and Kylie Minogue and all the trouble he got into with that, I'm sure we'll see cross party support from politicians of every hue and every party that they never play that stupid, stupid game in the medi