As election day nears, Q+A spoke to the leaders of the Green Party, ACT and the Māori Party, who are vying to be part of the next Government.
NZ First declined to appear on the show.
Green Party
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said if Labour ended up in a position of needing a coalition partner after the election, her party should be in the next Government.
“Labour need the Greens to go further and faster on climate, inequality and protecting our environment,” Davidson told TVNZ1’s Q+A this morning.
She and co-leader James Shaw both said Labour’s climate change policy didn’t go far enough. Davidson said Labour alone couldn’t be trusted to deliver on strong climate change policy.
“For example, they [Labour] want to end [the] new installation of dirty burners in industry. Well, James Shaw has been ripping the old dirty ones out already,” Davidson said.
“They want to put money into research into agricultural emissions. Well, we actually want to bring them down.”
With the Greens polling at 6% in the latest 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll , just above the 5% threshold to return to Parliament, Davidson said the party would feel less nervous with a few more percentage points.
But, when asked by host Jack Tame why the Greens weren’t doing electorate seat deals with Labour to guarantee their return, Davidson said the party didn’t believe in “power at any cost” and rejected the idea of a deal.
Shaw added: “We don’t think that we need it … we want to win on our own merits.”
He said the Greens’ policy platform around housing, income support, sustainable farming, clean energy, transport, oceans would be discussed in negotiations with Labour to form a potential coalition.
Shaw said negotiations would be more “relational” rather than “transactional”, because most of what the Greens had achieved in this term of Government were not part of its confidence and supply agreement with Labour.
Negotiations could look at asking for certain legislation to be passed, or certain funding to be attached to different areas in the Budget, he said.
ACT
Leader David Seymour said he was trying to get "as many seats as possible for ACT" - while his party is polling at 8% - giving it 11 seats, in the latest 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton Pol l.
"What people seem to respond to... is that we need to be consistent," Seymour said.
"What people seem to respond to ... is that we need to be consistent, we need to be constructive, we need to show that we can adapt to this virus that isn't going anywhere, and also get on top of the debt," he said.
"That's what ACT's offering, I don't know if National offered that they'd be doing better, but people can give their party vote to ACT and not only and help get not only a change of Government, but a change of direction."
He said a better approach to the Covid response, the review of Pharmac and mental health would be issues he would bring up if he found himself in coalition negotiations.
Seymour said the country needed to be "smarter" in the Covid response to avoid future lockdowns, adding that masks should be worn under Alert Level 1.
When asked by Tame why he wasn't wearing a mask at Level 1, Seymour said, "what I'm saying is that one person doing it probably isn't going to make the change".
"OK, you got me, so I'm not leading the world in mask wearing but neither is New Zealand. We need policies where we're all in it together."
Māori Party
The Māori Party is going for the electorate vote and is now pledging to only work with Labour, as opposed to previous statements to work with either of the major parties.
He told Q+A National's policies "makes it very difficult to do any business with them".
Co-leader John Tamihere said the change in stance was due to Covid-19.
"Then there was just this red tsunami coming for everybody... so you've got to change up and change out your strategy, our strategy then had to shift to get a liberated Māori voice voting the Māori candidates into our electorates."
"The undecideds rule the day, bar one," Tamihere said of the Māori roll electorate seats.
He said National's change of leader to Judith Collins, alongside ACT leader David Seymour "makes it very difficult to do any business with them" because of their policies.
Tamihere said his supporters wanted a Labour-Māori Party coalition.
Policies at the top of his list if he were to find himself in negotiations with Labour would include earlier cancer screening.
He said he thought NZ First were in "real trouble".
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