Editorial: Our extensive coverage of election will continue

Andrew Austin, Editor of Hawke's Bay Today

The election rollercoaster keeps on going and even the most astute political commentator would be guessing if they predicted the outcome.

Whatever happens, it is going to be tight and you can most certainly take these late polls with a grain of salt.

All will be revealed on September 23 and then the fun and games of the negotiations will begin in earnest.

At a local level, Hawke's Bay Today will continue with its extensive coverage of the election. We have another two page Insight spread in today's paper looking back at the history of our four electorates. Don't be surprised if at least one of our seats plays a pivotal role in deciding which party governs our country for the next term.

We are already planning our election weekend coverage and you can rest assured it will be comprehensive. We will have a team working on Saturday to bring you the local results as they come in. So go to our website, www.hbtoday.co.nz, and our Facebook page on Saturday for all the latest news, videos and photos. We will keep going into the evening until all the results are in.

We are also planning a bumper election special on Monday, September 23 with all the results, analysis and interviews you need.

This all comes on the back of three very successful debates between the candidates for Tukituki, Napier and Ikaroa-Rawhiti respectively. We had more than 750 people at the three events, but even more impressively, our live-streaming videos on the three nights reached nearly 500,000 people. It just shows how much interest there is out there in our local electorates.

I moderated all the debates and found them all to be very good. There is certainly a passionate bunch of people who want to represent us.The great thing is that they were all very positive occasions with the candidates wanting to say why their policies were better rather than pulling down the other candidates.

The debate on Thursday between Labour's Meka Whaitiri, Marama Fox of the Maori Party and Green Party candidate Dr Elizabeth Kerekere was probably one of the best debates I have moderated. As you would expect, all three held fairly similar views and often agreed with each other. But, rather than detracting from the debate, this merely served to highlight the differences that were there and contributed to the evening.

Across the board Hawke's Bay could end up with quite a large number of representatives in Parliament. But to get them there, you need to get out and vote.