Election 2023: On the Campaign, September 13 - What you missed on the election campaign today

National Party leader Christopher Luxon on the election 2023 campaign trail at the Cemix Factory in Ōnehunga. Photo / Alex Burton

The country is less than a week away from the first televised leaders’ debate of Election 2023 - and both leaders are hedging their bets on who could win.

Writing in the Herald today, former Act leader Richard Prebble said that the TVNZ1 debate on Tuesday night will be the “most-watched campaign event”, with both leaders needing to prove their worth.

“Since the first US presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon, leaders’ debates have shown they can be decisive. Jacinda Ardern beat Bill English in their first debate. His victory in the second was too late.”

Labour’s campaign manager Megan Woods told Newstalk ZB that while debates aren’t always important - noting that National’s former leader Judith Collins won the first leaders’ debate of 2020, before Labour went on to a landslide victory - she believes the debates this time around will be more important due to the number of undecided voters.

Asked by media today, Luxon said he was excited but played down his chances - while placing a lot of expectation on his opponent to deliver.

“Chris Hipkins is a 20-year career politician, he’s a champion debater, he’s the best debater in Parliament, probably in New Zealand. I haven’t even done a debate before.”

Hipkins took a more measured approach, noting that Luxon has been leader longer than he has, so is expecting it to be “roughly even terms”.

Elsewhere today, Labour announced a new policy targeting improving our health workforce, while Act announced a detailed law and order policy.

Listen to the full episode of On The Campaign for the full rundown of today’s big election stories.

On the Tiles is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available evenings every weekday.