Mike Hosking: Election 2023 predictions - don’t believe the polls and Act, Māori Party to be big stories of the night

OPINION

Under 100 days to go until voting day, it’s never too early for a prediction.

I might end up making a couple of these, but in my last column I started by suggesting the Māori Party should do well.

By well, I mean better than they are currently with two seats.

My estimate at this time is they will win three, but with the possibility of more, based on the idea Māori can vote as a block.

They won’t get all seven, but they may well be a story of the night.

As I also mentioned last time it won’t matter, outside of their own personal satisfaction, given they will not be in government because the Government will have changed.

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The party will be a big story of election night, writes Mike Hosking. Photo / Marty Melville

At the National Party conference a couple of weeks back Chris Luxon said the target was 45 per cent. Nothing wrong with a target, but the bad news for him is at this stage they won’t make it.

My predictions, by the way, are predicated on the idea that the polls as they currently stand are not particularly accurate.

Too many of them operate with an “opt in” aspect these days. They are not a random selection of people. Some of them have volunteered through marketing platforms and this has never struck me as a truly representative sample.

National leader Christopher Luxon, flanked by Police spokesman Mark Mitchell, left, and Justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith. National isn't on track to make its 45 per cent of the vote target this election, writes Mike Hosking. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Further, the reason this approach has come about is because people are harder and harder to get hold of and less likely to want to participate.

The most critical aspect as to why I don’t personally place much weight on polls is because of the margin of error; it is not mentioned nearly as much as it should be.

Current polling has Labour on 35 per cent, but with a margin of error of plus or minus a bit over 3 per cent so it could be 38 or it could be 32. That is, for election night purposes, a massive difference, and as such it serves no real purpose other than to indicate we have a couple of large parties who are within shouting distance of each other.

We also need to factor in the wasted vote, of which there could be quite a bit.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Don't believe the polls, the current Government is gone after the election, Mike Hosking predicts. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The TOP party for example won’t get 5 per cent. I also don’t believe Raf Manji will win Ilam, but say they get 1 per cent, it will end up in the MMP bin.

The so-called “radical right” collection of minor players won’t get anywhere either but they may collectively get between 1 per cent and 2 per cent …. more votes in the bin.

New Zealand First (here is the first part of the overall prediction) won’t make the threshold but may get about 3 per cent ... so you can see as much as 5 per cent of the vote will be wasted.

But back to National. The main reason they won’t get 45 per cent is because Act will be the other talking point of the night. They will do very well; my prediction is 12 per cent, if not more.

Act Party leader David Seymour. Act will be the other big talking point of election night, writes Mike Hosking. Photo / Alex Burton

At least a chunk of that has come from National, remembering broadly this election is about the centre left vs the centre right, also a simple “vote the Government out” agenda is at play.

Given you only, on my numbers, need about 47 per cent to win government, and Act get 12, that means National need 35 or 36.

If they get more by October - and I think they will - you are getting closer to it being a very clear result and a very obvious change of government.

As for the left, the Greens are safe in the 5 per cent-plus zone, but not by a lot. They have failed abysmally as a “coalition” partner, they have had internal scrapping, so this will be one of their lower votes, my guess is 6-7 per cent.

Labour is a bit of an open question between now and election day given so much seems to be a shambles both internally and economically.

The simple equation is this: they look worn out and chaotic, we are in recession, crime is appalling and there is a dangerous malaise and growing anger around the running of the country.

But large parties bottom out in the 20s, so it’ll be a bad night but not necessarily catastrophic.

So, my call is: National 38-42 per cent; Act 12-15 per cent, an easy election-night victory; Labour 29-32 per cent; Greens 6-7 per cent.

The rider is, if something cataclysmic happens to any of them we need to readjust.

But I’m pretty confident that come election time there will be a change in government, no matter what the polls are telling you.

Mike Hosking hosts Newstalk ZB’s breakfast programme and is New Zealand’s number one talk host.