Election 2023: Mike Hosking - the only question is whether the next government is made up of two or three parties

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OPINION

So the campaign of 2023 is almost over, thank the good lord.

It has been too long. It has been too bitter. It has been way too negative.

Worst of all, it hasn’t really even been a contest.

There is little if any question as to what will happen this Saturday with regard to the government.

The old one will lose and we will have a new one.

The only question is whether it will be made up of two or three parties.

Part of the frustration I’ve picked up on might have come from the fact there are a large number of voters who knew what they were going to do — and have done — for the better part of the past three years.

So the idea of a series of debates and policy releases and endless days of dumb stunts for TV wasn’t going to change a thing - they just want it over.

A potential irony, if New Zealand First manages to get across the line, is we will be back to MMP, with its various machinations and frustrations.

If ever you wanted an example of why we got rid of first past the post, these past three years have been it.

A Government that had an unprecedented opportunity to take a country with it, unencumbered by any other political operator, completely failed to do so and reverted to the Muldoon-type tactics we so despised all those years ago.

Arrogance and a steamrolling mentality that they knew best and we didn’t.

That’s why we voted MMP in: a checks and balances type affair in which things slow, accountability is more transparent and you actually have to work for legislative gain.

The downside is most of it came with a bloke called Winston, who in too many respects made MMP as unpalatable as first-past-the-post.

I remember so clearly the late Rod Donald of the Greens, when we were debating the option of MMP, promising the tail would never wag the dog. And yet how wrong did he turn out to be?

With regard to Winston, I don’t know whether to admire him or be repulsed.

If he turns out to 1) get across the line, and 2) be required to form a government, what an astonishing (yet disturbing) achievement that will be.

For 30 years, the same tired old rhetoric (anti-something or somebody), a similar collection of inexperienced half-baked nobodies dragged in through the list, and a set of demands that far outweigh the level of support they ever gained.

National's deputy leader Nicola Willis and party leader Christopher Luxon on the campaign trail. Photo / Mark Mitchell

And yet despite that, despite the falling-outs, the eventual electoral rejection, he dusts himself off and returns each time looking for that 5 or 6 per cent of angry people who still believe that we would be better off if only he were there “holding everyone to account”.

For the record, I very clearly stated and told Christopher Luxon at the start to rule him out. I maintain that, if he had, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.

Chris Hipkins’ smartest move this campaign was to rule Peters out, despite the fact it actually meant nothing, given Peters had already made the first move, but what it did was set the cat among the pigeons of the right, and they have been hampered and haunted by it ever since.

In that respect, if Luxon is Prime Minister and Peters ends up Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister or Treasurer, Luxon has no one to blame but himself.

So, to the predictions.

A couple of months back, I suggested New Zealand First wouldn’t make it.

That is much less of a possibility now, but I still don’t rule out the fact they won’t get 5 per cent.

I suggested Labour would get 28 to 31 per cent… it will now be closer to the lower number and possibly not even 28, which will lead to a lot of soul-searching and presumably, in time, a new leader.

National I said would be 38-41 per cent. I think that still holds.

Act could still be 12 per cent, as I forecast. They are bullish internally about that and have campaigned well. The New Zealand First impact - or lack of it - will determine how high that number is.

But if you do the math, National at 39-40 per cent, Act at 11-12 per cent… that is your new government.

And that I think will be how it unfolds.

A two-party centre-right government.

Bets, anyone?