Gone By Lunchtime

Who says politicians don't change? Christopher Luxon revealed his evolving approach this week by breaking his habit and commenting on a poll. A poll that delivered a horror result for the National Party.Ben Thomas, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Toby Manhire gather in the final, stir-crazy phase to unpack the latest exchanges and growing indications that the result could hinge on two variables: the fate of Opportunity and the double overhang dynamic.Plus: which of the small party leaders are shining and who starred in the kaupapa Māori debate? Cast your vote for Gone By Lunchtime in the Listeners' Choice category in this year's NZ Podcast Awards: https://www.nzpodcastawards.com/nominate Watch Toby interview the party leaders on At Large with Toby Manhire: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-xxT3W4uRNYaMSygz5MlwdL122PYMZTg&si=jhlmZ5Vey2NYsurV Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like a self-consuming serpent, the 2026 election has begun to feed on itself. With just a few days till advance voting begins, Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas gather to feast upon a lively final pair of leader debates and look at what comes next. Plus: we take a handful of questions from the smartest listeners in the podcast universe. How much do we miss printed manifestos? Is there a bias baked into different social media platforms? What is happening in Te Tai Tonga? And why have the farther excesses of rightwing populism not taken grip in New Zealand as they have elsewhere? Cast your vote for Gone By Lunchtime in the Listeners' Choice category in this year's NZ Podcast Awards: https://www.nzpodcastawards.com/nominate Watch Toby's interview with Qiulae Wong here: https://youtu.be/VX8ZOfycCa8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three weeks to go and Chris Hipkins has put his finger on it: this campaign does have some of the post-apocalyptic survival energy of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas gather for some group therapy, to assess the performances in the TVNZ multi-party debate and the NZME leaders' debate, the controversy over pics of Green and Te Pati Māori MPs hanging out with the Mongrel Mob, and the re-emergence of the bitter fight between Winston Peters and Christopher Luxon over the New Zealand position on the war in Iran. Cast your vote for Gone By Lunchtime in the Listeners' Choice category in this year's NZ Podcast Awards:https://www.nzpodcastawards.com/nominate Watch Toby's interview with Winston Peters here:https://youtu.be/gseBfePQzMM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Round one of the Chris v Chris debate season played out last night on TVNZ. Ben Thomas was in the pundit capsule. Toby Manhire was in the studio. Annabelle Lee-Mather was in bed. The morning after, they assemble in the Spinoff pod studio to share their assessments, and at times they seem to have been watching very different events.Did Hipkins out-debate Luxon on the cost of living and the economy? Where were they on the morality of the billionaire? Who fared better on education, on health, on te tiriti? Were the real winners the parties that weren't in the room? And how about Jack Tame's wall?Plus: the scene was set for the encounter by two polls that tell a striking story: Labour and National are both going to struggle to hit 30%. Is that locked in, or can they claw their way back? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Kingmakers’ Debate is the highest-profile of a burst of events in the first full-throttle week of the 2026 campaign. How did the party leaders do in the Press-Post thing, and what happened to the worm? Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas gather at the roundtable to exchange their piping  takes. Plus: What does new polling tell us about the way Māori are planning to vote? Now that John Key has knocked it down, is Harry Mowbray’s overhang campaign a serious thing? Who are the breakout stars of the election to date? And a word on Adrian Rurawhe.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s a taste of our new podcast, At Large with Toby Manhire: this week Jack Tame came in to talk about how he’s preparing to host the first leaders’ debate in 2026, how the campaign is taking form, and the struggle to get the prime minister (and others) to talk to him on Q+A. Watch the Mt Albert debate in full here: https://youtu.be/LZO7gu6rhQg Watch the debate debrief with Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Hayden Donnell here: https://youtu.be/1KewN5ilXtc Watch the full interview with Jack Tame here: https://youtu.be/RYOI7d16ApQ Follow At Large with Toby Manhire now on ⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts,⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you get your pods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Parliament has disgorged its politicians ahead of a Super Sunday of campaign launches, with just a month and a day until advance voting begins. Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas leaf through the brand new Ipsos Issues Monitor, which reveals which issues matter most to New Zealanders in election season, which parties they consider best equipped to tackle those concerns, and where people rank out of 10 the government’s performance. Have the competing parties successfully shaped their campaigns to meet a mood in which voters are very exercised about cost of living and increasingly worried about the health system?Plus: Nicky Hager has published Dirty Work, the third in a trilogy – what does the book tell us? And how alarmed should we be about a flagrant subversion of the Official Information Act in the curriculum overhaul project at the Ministry of Education? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just when you thought the two main parties were fixed on a do-little election, the National Party bursts out the triangulator and gazumps its Labour rivals with a pledge to pursue a breakup of the Foodstuffs group of Pak’nSave, New World and Four Square. Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire race their trolleys to the studio to ask: will Nicola Willis’s bold call cut through the blancmange like a Smeg blade through an Ooshie? Will the popular appeal outweigh the pushback from local businesses? Are the KiwiMart Greens, NZ First and their "copycat" pals National now natural partners? Where does it all leave Labour? And does Annabelle deserve more respect for her "menage-opoly" bit?Plus: The report on the four-year ordeal for the Phillips children has been released and it's a horror show. What are the lessons for agencies including Oranga Tamariki and the Police, and is New Zealand suffering from an “accountability sink”?And what to make of the moves to wind down the Waitangi Tribunal? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This just in: we have nine more weeks of this. Can National's indefatigable campaign manager Simeon Brown sustain the unremitting tax focus all the way to election day, can Labour move the discussion to somewhere that suits it better, and with politicians across the board shrugging off requests for factual corrections and apologies have we waded into a post-truth, alternative-fact mire? Ben Thomas, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Toby Manhire convene to tackle these question. Plus: Is Chris Hipkins hugging National close or spooning them? Is Te Pāti Māori's policy to entrench te tiriti as radical as some have suggested and how did Willie Jackson do in outling his own party's Māori campaign? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christopher Luxon sailed into NZ politics six years ago as a champion of localism. Since becoming prime minister, his government has fallen deeply out of love with devolution. Changes including a rates cap and National’s ruling out of a bed tax have especially irked Wayne Brown, mayor of Auckland and the most powerful local politician in New Zealand. He’s gone from denial to anger to … what exactly? Joel MacManus and Hayden Donnell – fresh from interviewing Brown – join Toby to tell the story. Follow At Large with Toby Manhire now on ⁠Spotify⁠, ⁠Apple Podcasts,⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠, or wherever you get your pods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the nine days since he stared down his second caucus uprising within just a few months, Christopher Luxon has really bounced back. Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas assess that rebound and the rapidfire tax attack lines against Labour. Plus: thoughts on Te Pāti Māori's overhang strategy and the Opportunity Party has its feet held to the fire.But wait: here's a special guest. It's only Chris Penk, the MP for Kaipara ki Mahurangi. He joins the pod to discuss what he's been up to since Christopher Luxon sacked him for caucus insurrection, as he enters the baby-yak phase of his career. And he addresses, of course, the "elephant in the room". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christopher Luxon has survived a showdown vote in caucus, a lot like he survived a showdown vote in caucus in April. Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas convene in the cause of making some sense of the failed coup (if that's what it was), where it fell apart, whether Luxon outsmarted the plotters, and where it leaves his leadership and the state of the election. (Note: this podcast was recorded before Chris Penk was sacked from cabinet by Christopher Luxon.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It should have been a good day for the National Party. Instead, it was derailed by the latest bit of riffing by Christopher Luxon, in declaring, prompted by a listener's text on Newstalk ZB, that he'd like a referendum next term on MMP. A big day for the CRL, for education and for decrying Labour saying it would nix Investment Boost, got lost in the debris. Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire discuss the latest unforced error from the prime minister, which follows hot on the heels of a regrettable appearance before the Rotorua Business Chamber, questions around use of NZDF transport for excursions including National Party fundraisers, and yet another public display of coalition dysfunction, following Winston Peters' attack in parliament on Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan. Those comments, described by almost everyone as racist, prompted a diplomatic incident and international headlines, yet the PM felt he couldn't take any action beyond condemnation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The resurrection of former Labour minister Stuart Nash has come to an end, much like Icarus, with Winston Peters accepting his resignation as a NZ First candidate. Ben Thomas, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Toby Manhire examine Nash's political ashes to assess how this will impact intra-coalition relations as salvos fly back and forth and Shane Jones accuses the prime minister of using "kneepads" to greet the Indian prime minister. And does it burst the bubble of nostalgia that has defined so much of the election year?Plus: Is the exhumed celebrity of Paul Henry, now an Act candidate, different to the rest? And why is the removal of Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements from the replacement bills for the RMA important? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Opportunity Party has shot up to the threshold fun zone, with Qiulae Wong at the helm and running a line as an alternative to NZ First. Will the distaste for the establishment parties and the salvos from across the board mean an unprecedented fully new arrival in parliament soon? Will it be Q, anon? Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire discuss the fourth attempt by Opportunity (nee TOP) to cross the line. Christopher Luxon is about to welcome Narendra Modi in Auckland, to celebrate the signing of the free-trade deal. The Indian prime minister's visit will mark the biggest political leader on our soils for more than a decade and Luxon has seized on the moment to pledge as National leader a catalogue of new bilateral deals. But does the FTA stance of his foreign minister (Winston Peters, curiously, is overseas during Modi's visit) risk pissing in the PM's punch? Headlines around homelessness, rough sleeping and emergency housing have surged into the foreground with revelations around MSD KPIs, move-on orders and the prime minister's admission he didn't know Auckland city has no night shelter. Plus: the New Zealand First redemption train continues, with Michael Laws added to an increasingly bulging carriage of survivors from decades past. Is it like Cocoon? Is it like the Thriller video? Or more like a scene from the Book of Revelations? We answer (or at least address) all these questions and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fresh from the bright lights and bitter recriminations of the National, Labour and Act party bashes, Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Joel MacManus join Toby to reveal all, in this excerpt from the Spinoff’s new podcast, At Large with Toby Manhire. Follow At Large with Toby Manhire now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your pods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The gun for election 2026 was fired with great fury and much shrapnel on Sunday, with National campaign manager Simeon Brown sparing almost no one. Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire huddle together to revisit those dramatic scenes and seek to understand why Brown thought it was a good idea to say that Winston Peters and David Seymour are his squabbling children and to declare NZ First irredeemably untrustworthy. A KiwiSaver policy staked out territory for the months to come, while the Greens were also in bold policy mode, laying out their plans on tax. And the dam has burst on the policy front for Labour, too. Did the public transport cap hit the mark?Plus: Erica Stanford turns the scrutiny spotlight squarely on MBIE officials over their questionable persistence on a multimillion-dollar biometric tech project. And is Tama Potaka just tweaking Conservation policy for the sale of "bits and bobs" or does the new act entail something more troubling? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Keir Starmer has walked out from Downing Street and said it’s all over, meaning Andy Burnham is almost certain to be the next UK PM, the seventh since 2016. Why did Starmer fail, who is Burnham, and is this all really about Nigel Farage and Reform? Toby talks to UK-based NZ journalist Richard Adams about the latest drama, and asks whether Christopher Luxon could learn anything. Plus: In How Good, Lyric Waiwiri-Smith reveals what she has learned about British romance from two powerful texts: Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Love Island UK. Follow At Large with Toby Manhire now on ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of Mike Smith's climate court action, the parliamentary response, and hard-copy briefings from lobbyists that went mysteriously missing has officially reached "saga" mode. Ben Thomas, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Toby Manhire dive into the mire and debate whether there are dots to join. Elsewhere in this GBL buffet episode, they offer their budget verdicts, assess the latest bout of entitleditis besieging our MPs, search valiantly for Labour Party policy, revisit a busy weekend for Chris Penk in Singapore navigating "freerider" chat and radioactive conversations. Plus: a celebration of the new king of Twitter, MP Joseph Mooney. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bernard dashes out of the lockup to patch in to the studio and talk through with Toby the top lines from today's budget, the rosy economic forecasts on which it is built, and the battle lines it draws for the campaign ahead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices