Election 2023 - On The Beat: Get voting because there will be 'no re-runs'

With one week to go before polling closes, much of the talk for the final days will be around Winston Peters - and what sort of concessions he may demand if Christopher Luxon wants to form a government with him after 14 October.

Given the awkward position this may put National in, many commentators have blamed Luxon for not ruling out a coalition with NZ First in the first place. However the real mistake was probably by David Seymour, who’s polling has steadily declined since he suggested he would like an unusual confidence-only deal as a way to leverage more policy wins for his party.

While Labour’s numbers haven’t shown much upward movement, the recent uncertainty about what a National/ACT/ NZ First coalition looks like, could result in a belated surge for the centre-left. And with advance voting lagging behind previous elections, this could mean voters make up their minds late in the campaign, switching back to Labour and its friends.

This really highlights the importance of voter turnout, as this will be an incredibly tight election, most likely decided by how many party votes get spread between the minor parties.

And if last year’s Australian general election is anything to go by, an increase in votes for minor parties is to be expected. Across the ditch, Labour’s Anthony Albanese is now the prime minister not because his party soundly beat Scott Morrison and his Liberal Party, but because Albanese was able to cobble together a grand coalition of centre-left independents and the Australian Greens.

Another similarity to our Australian counterparts is how Covid is still reverberating through politics.

Many blamed Morrison’s election loss on how his government managed Covid, particularly later in the pandemic. And despite New Zealand’s ability to keep our death toll low, criticisms about mandates and border restrictions dogged Labour well into this year, particularly in areas outside of Auckland where there were less Covid cases.

One telling sign that may have been missed at the time, was that the first polls where Labour fell behind National came at the same time as the Parliament occupation in early 2021. To many politicians on both the left and right, these protestors were just seen as annoyance, but not to Peters, who was canny enough to be the only mainstream party leader to visit the site of the protest. Fast forward two years and it's clear his ability to be a champion of the disaffected has helped revive his political fortunes and once again has him in that crucial position of king-maker.

The revolution will not be televised by Gil Scott-Heron

For those still unsure who to vote for, or even whether they should take part at all, I thought I’d end my series of political columns with this pre-hip hop track, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which is a spoken-word performance put to music by Gil Scott-Heron.

This record is actually considered by some as an early precursor to rap given the way his poetic lyrics are musically spoken “over a hypnotic, funk-indebted bassline”. And the track deals with many of the political issues that still dominate the genre today.

Why I thought it was relevant for undecided voters however, is that for many of us, our phone screens dominate how we consume information but also how we interact with politics.

But as we overload ourselves with thousands of bit-sized clips and info-slides with reasons to be worried or angry or just to not care, it’s important to realise doing something outside the virtual world of social media is the best way to create change.

Liking posts, commenting or even making your own content are all valid ways to influence peers and the wider world, but as the song says, change occurs when we're unplugged from our devices. And voting is one particular way you can do this.

I read somewhere recently that polling booths are one of the only places a rich person and a poor person have the same power.

So don't miss your opportunity to have your say this coming weekend, because as the song says, there will be “no re-runs”.