Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins went head to head in the first Leader's Debate. Photo / File
Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins went head to head in the first Leader's Debate. Photo / File
If the first leader's debate between Labour's Jacinda Ardern and National's Judith Collins proved one thing, it's that nothing in politics should be taken for granted.
Ardern was strangely out-of-sorts, and Collins the strongest she's been in a while and clearly the winner – at least, so superficial impressions led one to believe.
But the danger with such one-on-one media-hosted confrontations is they're more about style than substance, and the starkness of an empty studio can see the result tipped one way or another by extraneous factors.
Technically, in both the set-up and the broadcast, the debate was heavily slanted toward Collins. She was shot in good light front-on, while Ardern was shadowed and shot from a slight angle, so she was always in profile rather then direct-to-camera.
During the debate Collins was allowed to interrupt Ardern twice as much as vice versa (26 to 11); John Campbell interrupted Ardern twice as much as Collins (21 to 10); and Collins got 30 close-ups while Ardern was speaking, as opposed to 21 the other way round.
Very strange, considering TV1 is after all the state broadcaster; you would think it would favour the Prime Minister – though it should not favour anyone.
Campbell's disjointed monologues didn't help, and the set looked scruffy and cheap. Overall, a poor show.
This is not excusing Ardern's relatively subdued performance, though if you analyse the substance without the presentation, she made far more robust points than Collins, who seemed to think repeating the mantra "we have a plan" was sufficient.
Well, if a major party didn't have a plan, they'd be unelectable, eh? It's the detail that matters – and we rarely got glimpses of that.
Bruce Bisset
My point is that if you're going to have these helter-skelter presidential-style "debates", then at least ensure the playing field is level – and kept levelled.
But it raises the question: why have them at all? Or, if you're going to have them, then become a republic and have a genuine tussle for president.
Because surely – or so I'd hope! - what people want to hear to sway their vote on which party becomes government is the detail of those party plans, and some robust analysis of how one set stacks up against the other.
Or perhaps it's that we no longer trust what parties promise before an election, so are more interested in judging the honesty and integrity of the leadership to try to get a handle on whether they'll govern well.
Apparently, seeing is believing.
Regardless, National will be buoyed by the debate "win", and given Act's remarkable rise due to David Seymour's sunny-side-up remodelling, a week out from the start of voting Labour stalwarts should be just a little bit worried.
In particular, that their relentless undeserved dissing of the Greens may see that party out, as well as NZ First, leaving Labour with no "natural" ally.
And what those same stalwarts still fail to grasp is that under MMP, when you crunch the numbers that scenario translates to a National/Act government – even with Labour winning half the vote.
Moreover Act's pledge to repeal the Carbon Zero Act and effectively deny climate change is something National may be only too happy to embrace – to dire consequence for us all.
Gosh, so maybe a party vote Green does matter. If you want a Labour-led government, that is.
